Ingray sighed. “Yes. And that actually brings me to the thing I wanted to ask you. Do you think I could talk to em?” She wasn’t sure how that worked, visiting or talking to people Planetary Safety had detained. Well, she knew how it worked in entertainments, but real life was often different. And Pahlad’s situation was, as Taucris had said, complicated.
Taucris frowned. “Probably not—I’m supposed to turn aside any requests to talk to em, actually, but I’m fairly sure the deputy chief meant to keep any news service workers from poking around and happening onto something they shouldn’t just yet. But let me check something.” Her gaze turned inward for a few moments. “All right, the deputy chief says you can, if Pahlad will agree to talk to you, but e wants to make sure you understand that anything you say to Pahlad, or Pahlad says to you, is going to be recorded and examined.”
“All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
8
It turned out that talking to detainees of Planetary Safety was a lot like in entertainments. Taucris ushered Ingray to a small gray-walled room with a two-meter-long backless bench of scratched and dingy white plastic. “Have a seat,” said Taucris. “It’ll just be a few moments.”
Not long after Taucris left, the wall in front of Ingray dissolved from gray to an image of another, identical small room, except there was no bench and Pahlad stood there. E wore gray tunic and trousers, and was barefoot. “Ingray,” e said, with eir tiny barely-a-smile twitching on the corners of eir mouth. “I don’t think you should be here.”
She stood—it felt wrong to sit there while e had no way to sit emself. “I probably shouldn’t.” She had thought about it all night, and all during breakfast. She knew that she should distance herself from Pahlad as quickly as she could. For just a moment she felt that dismaying feeling that she was about to fall. “But I couldn’t just leave you here. Especially when I realized I owed you for stepping on Danach’s foot that one time.”
E smiled—a real smile this time, though still a small one. “I’m fine. I have a room all to myself and they feed me regularly. Nothing like the food at your mother’s house, but still. There’s no need to worry about me.”
“The prolocutor is coming,” said Ingray.
Pahlad seemed entirely unsurprised at that. Though, Ingray realized, e never had been very easy to read. “Yes, of course he is.”
He. There was no reason to assume that Ingray had meant Pahlad’s father, and not eir sister. Unless e already knew. “Did they tell you?”
“No. But I knew he would come, as soon as he heard I was here. I knew he wouldn’t send my sister. He’s going to come here as soon as he arrives and demand to speak to me.”
Ingray wanted to ask why, and then reconsidered. The Budrakim family hadn’t been like the Aughskolds. So far as Ingray knew, there had never been any doubt that Ethiat Budrakim was going to give his name to his eldest biological child, had brought her up himself, rather than fostering her out, and trained her accordingly. Any other of the Budrakim children had known from the start that their futures would be different, and presumably their places in the house didn’t depend on how well they did in some competition for his approval. Maybe he had come straight here despite how it would look to the public because after all, no matter what e might have done, Pahlad was his child.
But then, the prolocutor had done nothing to prevent Pahlad’s being sent to Compassionate Removal, when he almost certainly might have. And she remembered Pahlad telling her she should take Captain Uisine’s advice to get as far away from her own family as she could. Maybe that was based only on knowing something about Danach, and having spent an evening in Netano’s house. But maybe not.
“Will you agree to meet him when he comes?” she asked. Wondered a moment if Pahlad would be allowed to refuse. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be fine until they send me back to Compassionate Removal,” Pahlad said. “Ingray, you’ve already done so much to help me. More than you really should have. I still don’t think you should be here. But since you are, will you do some things for me?” And just as Ingray was opening her mouth to answer, e added, “Don’t say yes until you’ve heard what they are.”
“All right, then, I won’t.”
The corners of eir mouth twitched into that barely perceptible smile, and then it was gone again. “Would you get my things? I know you probably can’t get the knife back. Please tell your cook I’m sorry about that. But the bag, and the other things in it. There are probably fewer nutrient bars in it than you remember. If you could put a few more in I’d appreciate it.”
“I’ll try,” said Ingray. “Do you just want me to keep it?” She almost said keep it until you get out but of course it wasn’t very likely Pahlad would get out, except to go back to Compassionate Removal. Pahlad’s situation, abstract to Ingray except where it might cause herself problems, suddenly seemed all too real. What was going to happen to em? Ingray’s troubles with her brother, her potential trouble with her mother, maybe even the difficulties she would have if anyone discovered her role in bringing Pahlad here, it was all nothing compared to the situation Pahlad was in.
“Yes,” e said. “Just keep it.” Serious and straightforward. “That’s the easy one, actually. Would you also be here when my … when Ethiat Budrakim talks to me? I don’t want to talk to him alone. Ever. I know I technically never am alone, here. But I don’t just want Planetary Safety here. I won’t blame you for saying no. You probably should say no. It would probably be much safer for you.”
But not safer for Pahlad, for some reason Ingray didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure how her presence could make any difference at all. She thought of Pahlad lying to her so smoothly about who e was—and wasn’t—back at Tyr Siilas. “Was it so bad, in Compassionate Removal?” she asked. “I thought the whole point was people could live there and just be away from everyone else.”
E hesitated before e answered, and took a breath. As though thinking very carefully about what e wanted to say. “It might be all right if there were enough food for everyone. There’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to be able to grow our own food, but there are only certain places in Compassionate Removal where you can do that, and people have already laid claim to most of it. If you can get in with some of them, if they’re people you can trust at all, you might be all right, but that’s not easy to do. And growing all your food, without mechs, that’s an awful lot of work. If your timing is right and you’ve got control of one of the places where the occasional supply drops arrive, you can keep everything for yourself and your allies.”