“Sit down, Miss Aughskold,” Chenns said again. “I don’t want to have to resort to threats.”
“That’s all right, excellency,” said Ingray, with as false a smile as she’d ever managed in her life. “The commander and her soldiers will be happy to do it for you.” And still smiling she turned away from him, from the Rejection, and walked unhurriedly over to where the two other Hwaeans sat, not to give the impression that she was unafraid and unintimidated, but because if she moved too quickly she’d be unable to stop herself from running in panic. And because the more deliberately she moved, the more she might be able to conceal the fact that she was trembling with fear.
17
Ingray sat down between the Prolocutor of the First Assembly and the senior keeper of post-Tyr vestiges, pretending to ignore the armed four-legged mech standing over them. The young vestige keeper gave her a glance, and then stared straight ahead.
“Well,” said Prolocutor Dicat. “Netano’s well out of it. And she gets to personally deliver the children safely back to their crèches. Though it’s not as if the Omkem weren’t going to let them go at the first opportunity. They cried and sniffled and had to go to the bathroom every few minutes and of course the Omkem couldn’t just let them run around loose. We’re lucky the commander over there wasn’t ruthless enough to just shoot them all, because not one of them had influential families to make up for the trouble of keeping them. But Netano will get to play the hero for the news services, and no doubt if anything happens to you she’ll get some extra sympathy come election time. You can’t possibly be her own offspring, let alone a foster from one of her cousins or prominent supporters. Only a child from a public crèche could be so easily sacrificed. Or so willing to go along with it. They’re the only ones who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
So easily sacrificed. Well, it was true, and Ingray had known as much for most of her life. I won’t forget this, her mother had said. Ingray knew she had meant it. Knew, also, that Netano would wrest whatever political advantage she could out of Ingray being here, whether she survived or not.
She wanted to protest at the no-doubt-intended insult. And the disdainful assessment of the crèche children. But if she opened her mouth to say something indignant, she would probably scream, or start to cry. Instead she said, as sweetly as she could, “It’s so good to meet you, Prolocutor.” And closed her mouth on anything else that might want to come out.
On Ingray’s other side the keeper of post-Tyr vestiges began to weep silently. After a few minutes, Prolocutor Dicat snapped, “Oh, do stop sniveling. You’re as bad as the children and it won’t do anything except get things wet and annoy the rest of us.”
Ingray leaned toward the keeper of post-Tyr vestiges. “I’m Ingray Aughskold. I think we’ve met once or twice before.”
“Nicale Tai,” said the young woman. “And I’m not crying on purpose.”
“I feel like crying, too. Maybe if we all cry hard enough, the room will flood and it will short out the mechs.” Ingray didn’t know where that had come from, the words had just appeared in her mind and come right out of her mouth. Maybe it was knowing she was so close to death. Or maybe it was knowing that Tic was trying to get here, that he might be here even now.
Nicale gave a weak, shaking hah. Wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, though the tears kept falling. “The atmosphere control would probably suck all the moisture out of the air before very much could build up. Humidity is bad for the vestiges.”
“We’ll need another plan, then,” said Ingray. Lightheaded with fear, still not sure how or why she could say any of this. “Maybe we need to cry right onto them.” The mech, gun clutched in one appendage, loomed over them. “Are you waterproof?” Ingray asked it. It said nothing. “I bet it is.”
“It would be kind of foolish to go to war with mechs that weren’t,” agreed Nicale. “You could just fight them off with buckets and hoses.”
“Oh, will you be silent,” snapped Prolocutor Dicat.
Nicale teared up again. Had Prolocutor Dicat been needling her all this time?
Prolocutor Dicat had a reputation—widely admired by eir constituents—for saying things plainly and directly, not dancing around issues, or spending much effort being diplomatic. But Ingray knew that anyone who couldn’t exercise diplomacy effectively would never have made prolocutor. “Are you very uncomfortable, Prolocutor?” Ingray asked. She looked up at the looming military mech. “What are you even thinking,” she demanded, in Yiir, “making this poor, enfeebled, elderly neman …”
“Enfeebled!” interjected Prolocutor Dicat, indignant.
“… making em sit on the floor like this, with no cushion and no back support. You could at least bring em a bench!” The mech did not respond. “Would you treat your own grandparent like this?” Still no answer.
“Young lady,” began Prolocutor Dicat, “I’ll have you know …”
“Oh, be quiet!” cried Nicale. “We’re all three of us going to die, and if you won’t be polite to us, why should we be polite to you?”
“Silence!” The Omkem commander strode toward them. Her voice must have been amplified by something in her armor, because her face was still hidden behind the dark, smooth helmet. Chenns the ethnographer followed close behind her. “You’re as bad as the children.”
“Commander Hatqueban,” Ingray said, “don’t you know the prolocutor has a bad hip?” It was true, e did. Ingray remembered it being an issue at a meeting the prolocutor had attended at the foot of the elevator a few years ago. “And a bad back, too, and e probably has pain medication e hasn’t been able to take, and you’re making em sit on the floor like this with no …”
“Silence!” The commander again, in Yiir, voice deafening. “Or you will be shot.”
Beside Ingray, Nicale hunched down, shoulders suddenly drawn inward. “Not before we open the Rejection’s case for them,” she muttered. “If they set off the alarms the doors will all close and they’ll have to cut their way out.”