Ingray started to protest. But realized that no matter what she said, she would only make things worse.
The deputy chief gave a sardonic smile. “It’s usually pretty obvious. And every now and then politics dictates how I handle a case. Not just the planetary chiefs telling me who to arrest or what to say to the news services, not just a litigation committee ordering me to release people I believe should never be released, no, that’s part of the job. They’re my bosses. Maybe my judgment is wrong, and that’s why we have litigation to begin with. But things like this.” E shook eir head. “A cold-blooded, carefully planned murder, and I can’t arrest the murderer, and he’ll almost certainly be allowed to leave. And I won’t be able to say anything about it. And then there’s Ethiat Budrakim and his fake Garseddai vestiges.” E reached over, toward the blue and gold beads in their tray, as though e wanted to pick them up, but pushed the tray a few centimeters away instead. “My own family has names that have been here on Hwae since long before the Budrakims ever came to this system. That’s truth, but what vestiges we Hatli have of our ancestors are either sneered at as trivial or kept in a side hall of the System Lareum, as though we aren’t really Hwaean. Or they’re stolen outright and proudly displayed with some other family’s name on them. But the Budrakims! Latecomers to Hwae, like all the Garseddai here—or the people here who claim to be Garseddai. And the vestiges?” E made a disgusted noise. “Fakes from the start. And him willing to throw his own child into Compassionate Removal to conceal it. And I can say nothing about it, except as it serves the interests of Netano Aughskold.” E looked, it seemed reflexively, at eir desk. Closed one hand and opened it again, as though there were something e wanted to pick up. A cup of serbat e couldn’t have because e was fasting, maybe.
“I know Hevom killed Excellency Zat,” said Ingray. “I don’t think he’s even trying to hide it.”
“He won’t speak to us. It’s probably better that way. The Omkem consul was so aggressively condescending I’m not certain I could take any more of it, from her or from Hevom.”
“I keep thinking about finding Excellency Zat,” said Ingray. “Most of the time I think I’m all right and it won’t bother me anymore and then I’ll be doing something else and just remember it. Remember her there.” Her back against the slender tree trunk, the blood at the corner of her mouth.
“It’s like that,” said Deputy Chief Veret, gruffly but, she thought, with real sympathy.
“I don’t want him to go free, either. But it’s not up to us.”
“I’m aware of that, Miss Aughskold,” e said. “I just wanted to say it. I just needed someone to hear it, and it seems I’m not going to be able to say it outside this office.” E was silent a moment. Looked over at the wall where the slowly brightening plaza in front of Planetary Safety was displayed, the sky above still a deep, dark, early-dawn blue, the glow behind a row of buildings across from where they sat the first traces of sunrise. “I wanted,” e said, turning back to Ingray, “to be sure that it was said. When Pahlad Budrakim went to Compassionate Removal, do you imagine that no one was aware of what e said, yesterday? That outside Hwae the Budrakim vestiges are well known to be fakes? I’ve been thinking about that. I wasn’t there for Mx Budrakim’s conviction, but I cannot believe that not one of the prolocutor’s many opponents didn’t think of using that as a weapon against him. And in the capital there’s an entire Planetary Safety office that investigates forgeries and frauds. And I requested access to the records of Mx Budrakim’s arrest and trial and there is not a trace of anyone having looked into the claim that the Garseddai vestiges were fakes from the start. Even though, by the prolocutor’s own statement, Mx Budrakim initially made that claim in eir own defense.” Deputy Chief Veret gave a sharp, disbelieving hah. “Their jobs are as subject to politics as mine, I don’t doubt. And I can’t blame anyone for staying silent, when their own reputation and livelihood are threatened. But no one protested, no one said anything. Looking back all I can see is the dozens of people who were apparently content to send an innocent neman to Compassionate Removal because of Ethiat Budrakim’s political ambitions. I want someone to know. I want someone to know that I think it was wrong. That it’s wrong to set a murderer free, wrong to shuffle Pahlad Budrakim off to the Geck instead of dealing with the fact that e’s here and not in Compassionate Removal, and dealing with the fact that e was apparently wrongfully convicted from the start. Dealing with it legally, I mean, and not just a few days’ breathless news items that’ll be forgotten the next time one of your lot throws a large enough party or wears a new hairstyle.” E sighed. “And look at me, protesting to you and no one else. Certainly not anyone who’ll actually do anything about it.”
“I’ve been wondering, actually,” said Ingray, “why my mother didn’t do something with it.” She probably could have asked Nuncle Lak. It was possible e wouldn’t have told her. “But really, the next step would be asking what else was fake.” As Pahlad emself had already pointed out. “It’s easy to dismiss things people say outside Hwae. They don’t understand, or they’ve got some reason to insult us or think less of us. But it wouldn’t be like that, would it, if it were our own Magistracy Committee. It wouldn’t be so easy to dismiss.” She raised her cup of serbat to take a sip and then, self-conscious, lowered it again. “In the parkland, just before … just before Excellency Zat went up the hill, Pahlad asked her who she was, if her theories about where the ruin glass came from turned out to be true.” And also asked why it had been worth so much time, money, and effort to find that proof. “And I had never really thought about it that way before. Who are we if our vestiges aren’t real?”
“You never thought of it before,” said the deputy chief, “because nobody has ever really questioned your being who you say you are. No one has ever told you your own vestiges are false, or that they mean you’re not really entirely Hwaean.”
“People have told me I wasn’t really an Aughskold,” Ingray pointed out. Defensive. Feeling insulted for some reason she couldn’t name. “I came from a public crèche.”
The deputy chief said nothing. And Ingray thought of what e’d said before, about people saying e was surprisingly well-educated, or calling eir religious beliefs superstition. Which she’d done herself, just hadn’t said it aloud. She wanted to take back her words, say she was sorry, but she didn’t know what she could say that would make it any better, and besides, she was still stung, and wasn’t sure why.
The office door opened, and Taucris came in. “Excuse me, Deputy Chief. Can I borrow Ingray a moment?”
“Of course,” said Deputy Chief Veret. “We were done here anyway.”