Ingray looked up at the flat dark gray of the Omkem commander’s armor. Felt the dizzy freefall of terror—she herself was not a member of the First Assembly, or necessary to open anything here. The business about Zat was, as she herself had pointed out, incidental, even if for some reason it was important enough that they’d kept Netano, and agreed to trade her and the children for Ingray. And if the prolocutor was right, Commander Hatqueban had been looking for a reason to send the children away. If Ingray caused too much trouble the commander might easily decide to be rid of her by the simplest possible method. So why was Ingray taking a breath to say something? She ought to keep silent. And after all, she was just Ingray, nobody special, not beautiful or brilliant or particularly important to anyone.
No. She was Ingray Aughskold, who had freed a wrongly convicted person from inescapable Compassionate Removal. Who had, completely unarmed, faced down Danach threatening her with a huge dirt mover. She’d had some help there, but she was also a person who sometimes had help from mysterious and unnerving aliens. She might have help here now.
“This is unacceptable,” she said to the Omkem commander’s blank helmet, voice flat and disapproving. “You will bring a chair for the prolocutor. One with a back and a cushion.” Commander Hatqueban said nothing. Beside her, Excellency Chenns frowned and opened his mouth to speak. “Do not argue with me about this!” Ingray ordered, astonished with herself. Apparently all she had to do was think of the Geck ambassador and she herself would produce a passable imitation of the alien diplomat. “Bring the chair.”
“Stupid child,” said Prolocutor Dicat. Quiet and vehement. “I have been doing my best not to get us killed.”
“They’re not going to kill you,” Ingray retorted. “Not until they get whatever it is they want you for, anyway. And they might as well let you be comfortable until then.” Though she wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. And she herself had no protective usefulness. Not really.
Excellency Chenns said something too quiet for Ingray’s translation utility to catch.
“Hah!” said the commander. “Chair process you several silent.”
“The commander will have a chair brought,” said Excellency Chenns, “if you will all promise to be quiet.”
“What, even if you ask us something?” Nicale asked. Very quietly.
“I advise you not to push your luck too far,” Chenns said. “The commander is not in a mood for games.”
“You’re not going to do anything to Nicale until after you get her to open that case for you,” Ingray pointed out. “I think we all know that. Or, excuse me, excellency,” she added sweetly. “The commander won’t. You’re not a soldier and you don’t threaten people.”
Chenns only said, calmly, “The chair is on its way.” And he and the commander walked away, toward the Rejection.
After what seemed like an interminable wait, a mech came into the hall with a chair and a cushion and set them beside Prolocutor Dicat. It also dropped three bottled water rations and three paper-wrapped packages onto the ground.
“That’s our supper,” whispered Nicale. “Nutrition blocks. I can’t read the writing but I’m pretty sure they’re dust-flavored.” And then, even more quietly, “I don’t think the prolocutor can get up from the floor by eirself.”
But e could get up with Ingray and Nicale on either side, to support em. E said nothing, no word of criticism or thanks as e settled into the chair, and Ingray and Nicale sat back down on the ground and opened their nutrition blocks.
They had all three eaten, Ingray was trying very hard not to look around and try to see if Tic was anywhere nearby, and Nicale was dozing, leaning against the side of Prolocutor Dicat’s chair, when footsteps echoed in the long room—Commander Hatqueban and Chenns walking toward where they sat. Nicale startled awake. Prolocutor Dicat didn’t even look up at them as they approached, just stared ahead of emself.
“Miss Aughskold,” Chenns said, “the commander has some questions for you.”
“Commander Hatqueban,” acknowledged Ingray, feeling a somehow surprising sting of anger.
“Miss Aughskold,” said the still-armored commander, in Yiir. “Tell me the truth about the death of Excellency Zat.”
“I’ve already told Excellency Chenns,” Ingray said. She wanted to stand up, so that she didn’t feel so small and helpless, so that Commander Hatqueban and the ethnographer Chenns and the large armed mech were not looking down at her from such a height. But neither did she want to give the impression that she cared much what any of them thought. She leaned back against one leg of Prolocutor Dicat’s chair. “I was there. Garal Ket was with me the entire time.”
“Who is Garal Ket?” asked Commander Hatqueban.
“Designation Pahlad Budrakim existing,” murmured Chenns to the commander.
“Excellency Zat was in view the entire time,” Ingray continued. “There was no one on the hilltop with her, and the only mech I saw was her own Uto. You can’t miss it, it’s bright pink.”
“Utos are,” agreed Chenns. “It’s so you can see them easily.”
Ingray gave him the briefest of glances but no other acknowledgment. “I found her. Zat had been stabbed with a marker spike, one that came from Zat’s own store of them, which the Uto held. And then, after she died, she was stabbed with a knife that came from my mother’s kitchen. Planetary Safety found that knife in the Uto’s storage compartment. The Uto itself was at the bottom of the Iogh River, caught between pieces of ruin glass.”
“Pahlad Budrakim might have had that knife from your mother’s kitchen,” Commander Hatqueban pointed out. “Or you.”
“Eir name is Garal Ket now,” Ingray said, coldly. “Have you ever tried to pilot an unfamiliar mech from an entirely different system?”