“Everyone will please stand down now!”
It is Agran’s voice.
I strain my neck to see her, can’t quite against the weight on my back, hear feet moving, voices muttering, Normspeak and Mdo-sa and the language of the Spindle, then again, louder: “I said stand down!”
There were four Corpsec in the room – they must have been the ones who threw the grenade that so rudely interrupted our confrontation – and now there are five Spindlers. People are shouting, barking accusations – perhaps some weapons are being pointed, it’s hard to see. Valans is gibbering now, gibbering it’s not what it looks like, it’s not what it looks like, I was doing the right thing,I was making it all right!!
“You are on the Spindle, you will abide by Spindle laws –kindly get that fucking thing out of my face thank you!”
Shouting, posturing; from the floor it all feels rather futile.
Come down here, I want to say. It’s a whole other perspective.
Ulannad is smiling at me. There almost seems to be a kind of forgiveness there, which I instinctively resent. I wonder if he knows what I will become. I have a terrible feeling that he knows exactly what I am, and is deliberately trying to think kindly of me, to see in me some glimmer of compassion, humanity that is worth his respect. Maybe he’s about to whisper:You’re a good man, Mawukana na-Vdnaze. I think that will break me, if he does. It will certainly make what must come next far, far harder.
I mouth:Sorry, in Mdo-sa, but don’t think the motion of my lips really communicates it, don’t really have the breath to do much more.I’m sorry.I’m sorry.
“They stole a device – Shine property – they stole it…”
“Put your weapons down now! Put them down! You are on the Spindle now, there will be opportunity to be heard, but you are in violation of every…”
This is how people get killed, I realise. Implacably roaring at each other, unable to imagine being the first to yield.
Maybe if I just lie here quietly, everyone who is standing will kill everyone else. The idea is briefly comforting. Perhaps someone else can be a monster today, so I don’t have to.
Then a voice says, from the direction of the door: “Stand aside.”
Hé speaks Normspeak with a Mdo-sa accent, and as I have never heard hím speak this speech, I cannot immediately place hím. But the people standing over me seem to immediately obey; the weight on my back eases a little, guns lowered, some of the panting, gasping, raging fury of the room diminishes. A gesture; hands lift me, Ulannad, Valans, prop us upright against the altar, and now I see.
The Executor stands in the door, flanked by more security, Riv at hís back. In front of hím, between this new entourage and the plain-clothed Corpsec who moments ago were stomping on my back, is Agran and her team, guns still drawn, though noticeably not pointed towards hím. No one points a gun at Theodosius Rhode.
“This seems to be a terrible misunderstanding,” Theodosius breathes, as hé drifts into the increasingly-cramped, candle-bathed room. “A diplomatic error, indeed.”
“These are yours?” demands Agran, gesturing to the Corpsec leaning over us.
“They are,” replies Theodosius breezily. “Sent to protect me and my delegates – a task your security seems to be failing at.”
“They have attacked and detained civilians,” barks Agran. “They will—”
Theodosius silences her with a raised hand. This should not work; she should just keep issuing her instructions, this is her station, her place. But something of the power of the Executor, of hís expectation – expectations of obedience, immediate and absolute – seems to slam into her, knock the words from her mouth, and so instead, the master of hís universe, Theodosius drifts towards us, taking in Ulannad, Valans, me.
“A Unionist, a scientist and a ghost,” hé muses, nodding one to the other. “A rebel, a fool and… something else.”
“Whatever accusations you may make, Spindle security will handle it. Corpsec has no authority here.”
“What’s your name, Spindler?”
A hesitation, a moment – perhaps if she speaks her name, she will be marked. Hé will find her, hís people will find her – but then again, hé hardly needs her name for that. She was damned the moment hé decided she was. May as well cooperate, in the hope whatever hé has in mind hurts less, no?
“Agran,” she blurts. “Agran Hulathind Daj Kiddanasithwa.”
“An unusual name for a Spindler. No, wait, don’t tell me – Adjumir, no? Hadda. The ‘Daj’ – it was common to the colonies, rather than the mother planet. Something like ‘voyager’ or ‘pioneer’ – Normspeak doesn’t do these equivalents well, does it?”
This should be rhetorical – hé knows the answer – yet hé waits for her to confirm it, smiling patiently, tolerating her sudden dumbness. “Yes,” she mumbles. “Hadda. Yes.”
“And how many of your people are there on the Spindle? Did the natives of this station welcome in you one mothership at a time, saying yes, of course, come in your millions, we are one, we will learn to speak your speech, sing your songs, it is a privilege to be together with you? Or did you come in dribs and drabs, a dozen here, a hundred there, welcomed with a grudging ‘well, if it makes us feel good about ourselves’, second-class citizens told how lucky you were, how grateful you should be for scraps? It was the latter, wasn’t it. The way you deport yourself, trying to take up space, trying to be strong, the big strong chief, because when you were a child other children laughed at you for the way you spoke and the things you ate, and you think you hear them laughing still, no? Well, I have news for you, Agran Hulathind Daj Kiddanasithwa. They’re not laughing now. You grew up, and you were not meek, and that makes you unacceptable.”
Songs of Adjumir that will never again be sung:
