As soon as Nuncle Lak signed off, Ingray and Taucris left the lodging via a service entrance, in an attempt to avoid the news service mechs, and took a series of crowded lifts and trams to the elevator shuttle. GECK DELEGATION DEPARTING DAY AFTER TOMORROW, one of the news services said in Ingray’s vision as she stood next to Taucris on the first tram ride. Garal got only a brief mention, far, far into the article, and Tic wasn’t mentioned at all, let alone his spider mechs. FIGHTING AT THE ENTHEN GATE said another news service announcement. FEDERACY SHIP CAPTURED; THREE FLED. She glanced closer, to discover that Commander Hatqueban was still in the custody of Hwae System Defense. Excellency Chenns wasn’t mentioned at all. Prolocutor Dicat, along with the rest of the First Assembly, had met with ambassadors from Tyr and Byeit. The younger Prolocutor Dicat. “We don’t want a war,” he’d told the news services. “But we’ll be happy to oblige the Federacy if they’re determined to have one.” The Omkem Chancery had not responded to the news services’ requests for a statement.
News services based in Third Assembly districts were already speculating on the chances of Ethiat Budrakim resigning, or even facing litigation. Neither he nor his daughter were answering questions.
Ingray blinked the news away. Pulled up a draft of a message she was thinking of sending to the younger Ethiat Budrakim. Garal had seemed to trust eir sister somewhat, and Ingray was fairly sure she’d had nothing to do with either what had happened to Garal or the events of the last week. Likely her political career was over, at least for the foreseeable future, but that wasn’t her fault, and Ingray thought she might be sympathetic to an attempt to rethink Compassionate Removal.
In the seat next to her on the second tram, Taucris said, “Danach’s awake. I’ve just had a message from him.”
“I have, too,” Ingray admitted. “I don’t think I want to answer him right now.”
They got off at the shuttle dock. Detoured to get a change of clothes—all Ingray had was what she’d been wearing ever since she’d gotten on the elevator, days and days ago it seemed like. It had been all right while she was still in the rooms Netano had taken, and she could make the trip from the station to Arsamol with just the clothes she was wearing—she’d done it just a week or two ago. But this time she didn’t have to. She grabbed a set of clothes in a soft, comfortable synthetic, blue and orange, and then, thinking of the hairpins she’d never gotten back, she added a blue scarf for her hair; she knew any pins she got would likely be gone before she set foot on Hwae, and her hair wouldn’t stay in braids any better than it would hold hairpins.
Walking into the shuttle lobby, she felt as though the last week or so had never happened, or worse, that she was about to repeat it. The whole thing was so familiar—even down to the children in crèche uniforms waiting for the shuttle. And high on the walls, the shifting images from the history of Hwae. As Ingray watched, the picture changed to the archprolocutor making the last payment on the debt to Tyr, the Rejection of Obligations ready to be unrolled behind him. That image, one every Hwaean had seen at one time or another, felt different now. Was it because she’d seen the Rejection rolled up, torn, folded over to be shoved into the compartment of a mech, as though it were any piece of cloth, instead of awesome and untouchable in its case? Or was it because she knew, now, that the Rejection this image depicted wasn’t genuine? Or maybe it was just that she’d been through so much in one week that she still had to sort through that she didn’t have the emotional energy to spend contemplating this image, which was even now shifting to another one?
“Danach is here,” said Taucris.
He was. Walking toward them from the middle of the lobby. “Ingray,” he said, voice accusing. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Though she wasn’t, not really. “I wanted to catch the shuttle to the elevator.” Taucris, standing beside her, said nothing.
“I don’t understand,” said Danach. Still sounding aggrieved. “You said no. I know you did, I asked, because I was sure Mama was going to give it to you. Then I thought Nuncle Lak must have named you eir heir, but e hasn’t.”
“You don’t want me as Lak Aughskold,” Ingray said.
“No,” Danach said. “I don’t. But I’m going to need someone as Lak, someone I can trust.” He looked for a moment at the images on the wall, and then back at Ingray. “E said if you won’t be Lak, it’s my fault and I’ll just have to deal with that. I don’t think e’s being fair. E always favored you.”
“Maybe e has.” Ingray had begun to realize that Danach was probably right about that. “But it doesn’t matter. Mama offered me her name, and I told her I didn’t want it. Because I don’t. I don’t want to be an Assembly representative. I don’t want to be a prolocutor.” But maybe she wanted Danach to remember that she could have been. If she’d wanted it. “And I don’t want to be the chief of staff for a representative or a prolocutor. I just want to be Ingray Aughskold.” He stared at her, plainly disbelieving.
“They’re boarding the shuttle,” said Taucris, as uniformed children began filing by.
“Here, wait,” said Ingray. Walked over to a kiosk and got an A Visit to Hwae Station card. Walked back to where Danach stood, Taucris watching him warily. “Do you have a brush?” He produced one from somewhere in his jacket. Ingray’s arm was still in its corrective, so Taucris held the card steady as Ingray wrote, Congratulations to the new Netano, from your sister Ingray, and the date. She handed the brush back to Danach, and then the card. “There. I could have had it, but I turned it down. So now you know for certain that I don’t want it, and I’m no threat to you.”
“Ascended saints, Ingray, I’m not here to start a fight!”
“Then why are you here, Danach?” asked Taucris.
“Because …” He stopped. Frowned even more intently than he already was. “What are you going to demand in return?”
Taucris gave an incredulous hah. But Ingray said, “No, it’s a good question. And the answer is, I don’t want anything. But if it makes you feel better, if you get to be prolocutor, I want you to investigate conditions in Compassionate Removal.”
“That won’t be very popular,” Danach pointed out. “They’re criminals.”
“Suit yourself,” said Ingray, and turned to go.