13'Sao-La
He loped. The easy, long stride pleasured him. Adding to, expanding on, the pleasures of mission
and coming home, as given to him by the Kata-for-Delivery.
Straight lines about him now. Flat-topped buildings marched in rows, crissed by wide paths and
crossed by freighter roads. The pattern yielded breaks that granted clear, clean views in all
directions. Small risk of ambush, wide range of options. He could relax, run. He could escape
from the cloying of the Voiceless and their close-knit houses, shops, parks, and paths. And enjoy
dust-tanged air, no longer clogged with their woe.
He clipped a familiar, gravelled corner. He brushed past a stoic, looming warehouse, like a
limestone cliff walling the tsegi he'd escaped to almost daily as a child. He gandered the Ready
Room. The sight gifted his mind with memory shots and future wish, of his comrades, of yarning and
roughhouse with them, all happy and untaut. 13'Sao-La sprinted.
The Ready Room filled a yellow, slant-roofed building on a block of its own. A single door marked
its entrance room. 13'Sao-La could barely glimpse its sentry through the windows in its solid
frontdoor. Freighter-sized sliding doors filled the other end. Another small door let people in
that way. He eased it open and slipped inside.
No yarning. No roughhouse. Everyone carrelled, quiet in sitting groups staggered down the long
room, like bunches of upright fingertips. He tasted a flatness in the air, bloated with
congregation, unstirred due to obedience, spiked with the sweat of authority anxiety.
13'Sao-La glanced for clues from the sentry right by the door. The olloman stood rigid, eyes
front, hands clapped to his thighs, as did toy guards in some ancient army back on Gë. Who could
watch properly in such an attitude? Why assume it now?
He stepped further into the Ready Room. A few ollomani nearby rolled their eyes in his direction,
then snapped their attention forward again. Hinted, 13'Sao-La threw his gaze to the front — where
Governor Sigma stood as though interrupted in full gesture. 13'Sao-La froze.
"Come in, come in," the Governor called. "You just missed a little pep-talk before I get down to
business. You've been out among the Locals?"
13'Sao-La nodded stiffly.
"Stir up any trouble?"
13'Sao-La lied by holding up one finger. A dissatisfying morning, no doubt now. Not so many
Natives out and about, not enough Aliens on work-break. That's why he'd been late, searching for
another setup for this afternoon's Kata-for-Delivery, having sent his golpe and topador back after
their failure in Caesarea Maritima.
The foot-race track in that neighborhood roared back into his mind. It carried the shame of
failure in each of his views of it. From high in the bleachers. From the striped shadows beneath
those layers of seats. From behind a hedge. From these and other approachs, he and his triad had
thrown out jeers. They had cast about insults and innuendoes. Forbidden from violence by this
mission's objectives, they carried only words as weapons. Weapons that had stimulated scowls and
turned backs and once, a "Peddle your crap someplace else."
"Good, good." The Governor swept a hand forward in invitation. "Take a seat. It's time I got
started anyway. I want to visit the other teams before they get too hungry for lunch."
13'Sao-La sought his assigned seat by darting forward through the carrels. Their curvescreens were
blank, their keyspaces turned off. The team didn't study now, just assembled twice daily, dawn and
noon, for tactical briefings and mission reviews, as the Kata-for-Delivery guided. This equipment
remained as part of their cover story.
"I'll make this brief." The Governor paced. His voice took over the room, like it had at least
daily since his first speech eight days before. His crisp-spice cologne drifted everywhere as
well. "We're doing well. All five teams have successfully accelerated their plans by the seven
days requested by the Governors' Council. Already, we're reaching eighty-seven percent of goal in
incidents while keeping losses somewhat below projections."
13'Sao-La slipped into his chair at the lead carrel. The Rollkeeper, 17'Kuna, sent scolding
attention from the next seat, then turned back to the Governor.
"One-hundred thirty-five ollomani sit in the local jails. Not as many as we expected, but more
than I had hoped. From all appearances, our imprisoned brethren are keeping their silence, staying
with their cover stories." The Governor paused. "As must you all if you should ever fall prey to
the local anshin. The Em-Deh will not betray you; we have ensured that. Just remember your
hometown — what is it for this team?"
"Broken Glass!" they all shouted dutifully. An Unplaced Hell, no worse than his real home.
The Governor gwira'd again, back and forth across the front. "Good, good. Remember that — and
your purported lives of desperation there before coming here as Gastarbeiter — and all will be
well. You just have to hold out till we take over this town.
"And in the meantime, we all have to work harder to make up for our losses, don't we?" He pointed
a long, bony finger at them. "Increased sortie rate — four a day starting today — with improved
effectiveness — at least eighty-five percent. Got that?"
"Yessir!" they all shouted from their seats.
"Good." The Governor paused at the frontdoor and peeked out at the olloman posted there. "My
next-to-last item." Abruptly, he snapped a glare at them all. "Very early this morning, I roused
all the team Rollkeepers." He flashed attention at 17'Kuna. "I had received word, from sources
close to the anshin, that they had identified several of our ollomani who participated in the
attack on the bluff above town." He strode into an aisle, an arm's reach from 13'Sao-La. His fury
sharpened his cologne's intrusion. "From traces of skin left on the victims," he snarled. "How
could they be so careless?"
Careless? Stupid, rather! 13'Sao-La had used spindlehorn-leather gloves — they rode in his belt
at this moment — since his first mission. Simple answer, as they all were to the really important
questions. He had sought excellence as always. He had avoided the Governor's fury as well.
The Governor shryed at them. "We hustled those retarded incompetents out of town. I transferred
them to the Power Combine. Good riddance! Nothing like this should ever happen again." He shook
his fists at them. "Do you understand?"
13'Sao-La flung himself to his feet, his chair a negligent obstacle, his vision filled with the
Governor's face. Cast out, as those non-canny deserved, out from the First of the New Order, back
into the remains of the League, led by that muddy Governor Nu. That fate clambered inside his
resolve and bulked it. Echoes rushed over him from everywhere as the other ollomani matched his
obedience.
The Governor relaxed. "Good, good. We'll fix the Rendezvous' identity database to thwart the
anshin in case of any future lapses." He swept a hand through his blond hair. "Lastly: over the
next few days, we—"
The frontdoor popped open. The sentry's face poked in. "Governor," she hissed. "Visitors!" She
closed the door.
17'Kuna jumped forward. "Who?"
"The anshin," snapped the Governor. "Who else? Boot up the carrels. Bring up today's lesson. I
will instruct."
"Yessir." 17'Kuna tapped his llevar.
Immediately, the curvescreen on the lead table flooded with color. Underneath it, the bounded
entrance's machinery hissed as it woke up. Behind 13'Sao-La, similar whines rippled through the
room. Ollomani shuffled chairs as they assumed attention to the screens.
The Governor waded out among the carrels. "Now then, just before I let you out for lunch, let's
review. The essence of systems thinking is this: structures we're not aware of hold us prisoner.
Understand those structures and we're not only free of them, but we can master and change them.
We'll work on this—"
The frontdoor opened again, wider this time. Four people marched in. 13'Sao-La's attention leaped
past shoulders to the blue-gray 'stick bringing up the rear. He didn't know this 'stick, so this
'stick wouldn't know him. Still, the constable threatened, with strength and lithe and that
dreamstick hanging off his hip.
One of the League's True Enemies, not the pretend Enemies 13'Sao-La had hatched when life was just
League Play. True Enemies carried potency, skill, menace; they carried threat.
Now the leaders. In front, a rangy woman, in a some-kind-of-gray jumpsuit — an anshin boss, a
Governor even? — red hair, purposeful walk, but little spring or suppleness. Without a
dreamstick, she posed no threat.
Beside her, same kind of jumpsuit, another boss — Rollkeeper? — a squat man, chubby but nimble,
always just a breath away from a combat stance. His left hand regularly brushed his timeworn
dreamstick. Threat.
Behind them, the other side of the 'stick, a tall, heavyset man with thin, tousled, white hair and
wearing a jellaba and sandals. No threat at all. Was he a prisoner?
But that one called out, "Ges Lugar Sailie!" He stepped forward between the anshin bosses;
13'Sao-La saw that they begrudged the move, but allowed it. "I am Director Derkinit."
"Director!" His Governor's jolly cry took 13'Sao-La's attention: so unlike this serious,
benevolent master of their fate. Decoy behavior, as they all adopted these days in their sorties
among the Voiceless. 13'Sao-La heeded his Governor's portrayal.
His Governor strode forward, face perfectly pleased and surprised. "At last we meet can-feel.
What can I do for you?"
The Director — for now, an Authority, but inevitably a Casualty — gave a brief bow over his
hands. "Let me introduce Chief of Anshin, Doyle Phoebe Heejanus."
The woman clasped her hands in formal greeting; his Governor returned it.
13'Sao-La had guessed right. The anshin Governor — called a "Chief." He checked her again: left
side, right side, torso, legs. Even under the fairly tight jumpsuit, he found nothing impressive.
She threatened not, unlike his Governor.
The Director continued, "I'm accompanying the Chief as she investigates that awful attack at The
Bluffs last night. Did you hear about it?"
Memory shots flickered through 13'Sao-La's mind: the dark, the full-bodied, earthy breeze so
unlike the arid canyons of his home, the easy Voiceless prey, the completely successful — till
now? — mission.
"Yes, I did," his Governor said. "Awful."
Impatient, the Chief stepped forward. "I have evidence that some people in this room took part in
that attack last night. I'm here to take them into custody."
As she talked, her Rollkeeper surged forward as well. Alert rollicked through 13'Sao-La's body,
but he held still. The anshin just set himself in the open to scan — and control? — the room.
13'Sao-La carefully avoided those sharp eyes and left his arms obviously sprawled on the table.
Deep within himself, he heeded his Allies around him, casual as decoy, rumble-ready inside.
Meanwhile, his Governor gazed around with shocked surprise. He turned back to the Chief. "Do you
have names?"
She thrust out an infoplate. He read it; his open face closed with grimness. "Ah, yes, these
people." He handed back the 'plate. "Buzzards, to the man and woman.
"None of them are here nor in my other seminars. I ejected them, some yesterday, the others over
the last several days. They didn't come here to learn and create. They came to disrupt us, to
play little games of dominance and cruelty on the hope-challenged. I sent them home.
"As seminar leader, I do have that authority, don't I, Director?"
"Yes indeed."
"All of them?" the Chief insisted. "They're all gone?"
"I'm certain, but here —" his Governor slipped the infoplate from the Chief's hand and passed it
to 17'Kuna "— let my proctor compare it with today's sign-in."
The Chief leaned into her next words. "Why is it, Mijnheer Sailie, that all these suspects are
enrolled in one of your seminars?"
His Governor eyebrowed high and yielded hands that were long-suffering. "I targeted rougher, less
educated zhee-tely. Ask the Director. We should only expect a higher number of antisocials from
such a population."
The Chief glared an objection at the Governor. He reached out to her and the Director and drew
them off to the side. He even tugged at the anshin Rollkeeper and the 'stick, pulling them all
with his long fingers into a private conference.
13'Sao-La strained to eavesdrop, studying his Governor's lips and focusing on listening.
"I'm a sociologist by degree and profession," his Governor said in a low voice to these other
Authorities. "I've been studying pockets of atavism around the continent, some pretty rough
places, to be frank. Their zhee-tely are fit, short-tempered, and tough. They prize physical
prowess, not intellectual. They value native wit and empirical education over virtual learning.
"I specialized in five rural direvnya where they normally generate revenue through some sort of
man-against-nature rite. These people here, for instance, come from Broken Glass. They sell uncut
gems stolen from the four-armed, no-legged arboreals of Cape Caciporé."
So, a bogus Hell-home jammed deep in the jungles of the north coast. Any better — or worst? —
than his zhuhndí Hell-home in the Bleak Hills of the south? Better maybe: life billowed,
challenge beckoned, thrill promised.
"Star-emeralds?" the Director said. "I've heard stories."
The Governor cocked his head and replied, "Probably based on my papers.
"This unique custom is allocated to them by codicil to the continental pattern language, and the
people of Broken Glass have never allowed automata to be developed to do the job. You can imagine
what kind of zhee-tel prospers where the only honorable profession in town forces its practitioners
deep into primeval rainforest, stalking fast-moving, carnivorous pseudo-apes and snatching raw
gemstones from the females' birth-pouches.
"Unfortunately, the continent-wide recession slashed the market for star-emeralds, and global
demand didn't compensate. Nearly all the able-bodied zhee-tely in Broken Glass, all proud people,
were forced onto the dole. The same situation applied to my other subjects as well.
"When the Rendezvous was announced, I expected them to flood in here and I expected them to present
a significant challenge to standard approaches. I offered a curriculum to accommodate their
specific backgrounds. The Director graciously allocated five seminar facilities to me, so I could
keep my subjects segregated by direvnya. It's a fine chance to study these people more closely,
and to return to them some of the attention I've gained from my papers about them.
"Alas, a significant percentage of them cannot adapt at all, and they take out their failures on
the people around them. Such is the case with these twenty-one.
"Did they kill anybody?"
"No, but close." The Chief settled back. She postured gloom. The Governor's skilled answers
denied her an escape through dispute. Her voice carried well.
As though grimly sympathetic, the Governor swept a hand out over the room. "Please, feel free to
inspect anyone here, but be careful."
13'Sao-La found nettle in those words. So did the anshin Rollkeeper. He broke from the huddle,
stalked to confront the room. Simmering with threat, the 'stick followed. The Rollkeeper
fluttered a hand. The 'stick veered off to spread their positions.
Shit-colored eyes descended on 13'Sao-La. So did the odors of strong qahwah, sweat, and
huevos-y-chile breath gone sour. He subtly shifted his weight off his chair onto the balls of his
feet. Alert, like a tingling wave, romped through his body again; muscles, skin, senses thrilled
to the challenge. Yet the anshin's skim moved across the carrel and beyond. Alert followed:
ollomani ramped to the challenge, stoicked the reaction. 13'Sao-La fought down a grin of
anticipation.
The Director folded his arms and frowned. "That won't be necessary, will it, Chief?"
Crave for action drove The Chief as well. 13'Sao-La caught how her lips parted under the pressure
of dispute. Canny also worked within her. She compressed her lips in staunch. 13'Sao-La realized
that discipline, hence its child, threat, might dwell within her after all. She broke the
Director's prickle by shifting her eyes to her men. "Harlan," she called. "Cancel."
Harlan seized his own crave. He threw a quick glance — rebuke? — at his Chief, then sent his
eyes out over the room and shook someone off.
13'Sao-La traced that look. Beyond a field of nearly two-hundred heads braced by alert, another
'stick blocked the back doors. He emitted threat like 'Stick#1. An obvious, but important
tactic.
These Enemies demanded respect, not just for skill, but also guts. 13'Sao-La heeded Harlan again.
He remembered the bullshit the Governor had slung about the ollomani in this room chasing
pseudo-apes through jungles for sport and gain. True in essence, false in details. Yet this
short, chubby man statued in their faces.
17'Kuna ambled from his table. He handed the infoplate back to his Governor. "They're all gone."
He ambled back, paused, then sprawled onto his chair.
Stand down, 13'Sao-La read. He complied, unfulfilled alert a dull ache in his gut. Around him,
creaks and sighs signaled a ripple of obedience.
His Governor spread his hands. "Is there anything else? Director? Chief? I'd like to finish up
here so these people can get to lunch."
The Chief pushed out a finger stiff with dispute. "Send them to lunch now," she ordered and took a
step toward the frontdoor. "Through this door, single file. Cliff, come with me. Harlan, set up
to check identities."
Shamed, the Director hedged the insult with a namaste of salutation. The Governor returned it
grimly. The Director scurried after the Chief. As he moved through the door — 13'Sao-La focused
to listen — he said, "Look, Phoebe, those rejects attacked The Bluffs out of spite, then left your
direvnya. A parting gesture of viciousness. I don't think we have to worry about them anymore."
The Chief roadblocked the Director and vented her dispute. "That may be true, Cliff, but I want to
be very sure about it. I don't care whose feelings I hurt in the process."
"I respect your mission and authority, Chief. Be careful to respect mine."
The Chief cannied again — why? why yield anything to another Authority? — then said, "I will,
Cliff."
"And when you find out that these culprits are not in my bailiwick or yours?"
"I'll define an anshin-level trap within the Em-Deh's trade database. They use an agent-for-trade
anywhere and I'll know it within seconds."
"Does that work?"
The Chief moved on. "It always has in the past." The Director followed her outside.
Rearguard, Harlan bossed his pet 'stick as he removed a portable agent-for-trade from a hip pack.
Bold, slow for show, they checklisted the device, then carried it out through the frontdoor,
leaving it open.
At that cue, 17'Kuna marched to his Governor's side. With a stare and a head twitch, he ordered
the lead carrel up and out the door. The rest of the team would follow and the two Authorities
would bring up the rear.
13'Sao-La ambled into the high sunlight. 'Stick#1 poised on the right, offering the stubby agent
device. On the left, but one step back, Harlan crossed his arms, dreamstick jutting from one hand
up along his neck. He scanned 13'Sao-La from the feet up.
"What happened to your hand?" he said.
13'Sao-La was searching for 'Stick#2. Nowhere. Probably back in the Ready Room, blockading escape
out the other door.
"What happened to your hand?" Harlan repeated.
13'Sao-La glimpsed his own crooked fingers, then gazed down into the anshin's eyes. "Tree-beast
crushed it."
"Med-tek couldn't fix it better than that?"
13'Sao-La shrugged. An Enemy, even a respected one, deserved no more, not even lies.
"That must've been rough."
Dispute roared within 13'Sao-La: rough is cowering while your father beat your mother; physical
pain did not compare — or relieve. Canny prevailed though — with a nod to the Chief's own
discipline. "Thank you," he said.
Harlan pondered, stretching the moment, waiting for dispute to have its way. His breath had
changed: it carried the subtle bite of adrenalin, the taint of rush. He too had known alert, had
primed his body for action and racked it back under orders.
Clamping down on a grin of challenge, 13'Sao-La bent himself to duty and stropped the back of his
pachcab hand along the agent. It burbled pleasantly. He ambled again, away from the Ready Room,
but yielded to one last stare at Harlan. The Enemy returned it steadily.
Next time. 13'Sao-La's jaw thrust. His teeth snapped. He bit at the future and swallowed a hope
for himself. May the rules be different. May the Authorities allow. Next time, when our disputes
meet, may we fight in their honor. Next time.
