The salarian desert game, p.4
The Salarian Desert Game, page 4
That explains why I only have to be a few shades lighter. “And the other things on my list?”
“We will agree to all except number two.”
Right. The O.U.B. does not intervene when a choice has been freely made. No need for another repetition.
An Adept does not bluff. It’s the best deal I’m going to get, and much as I hate to admit it, their plan is my best shot to get to Salaria. I’ll find Oghogho myself, while I’m there. On the other hand, they’re going to a lot of trouble and expense to get me there. That alone makes me suspicious.
“What do you expect me to do on Salaria?” Alright, I know I already asked this. But we’re negotiating now, everything’s on the table, including information.
“That is not yet clear,” he says coolly. “We may never know. Our task is to get you there, along with the Select.”
“There wouldn’t have been a vision if Salaria wasn’t facing a major turning point in their history, a crisis which could put universal benevolence at risk on their planet.”
“That is true.” He’s reevaluating me, whether or not it shows on his face. And he’s still underestimating, because I know something more than what I’ve just told him. “We cannot tell you more without a commitment. It may change your mind. If so, you must agree to a memory swipe.”
That, I wasn’t expecting. No way in this lifetime, I think. Then, remembering the Adept’s persuasiveness, I say for the record, “I, Kia Ugiagbe do not give my consent to have any portion of my memories erased for any reason, at any time, by the Order of Universal Benevolence or by any person they delegate to do it.” I look at the Adept. His expression is a little more expressionless than usual. I add, “No statement following this in which I retract my refusal to have a mind swipe may be taken as freely given.”
We sit across the table looking at each other for some time. He’s probably thinking I’m a complete heathen, beyond redemption, to insult an Adept this way. I’m thinking, have I missed anything?
Alright, I’m also thinking, if my mother were alive she’d disown me for showing such disrespect to a leader of her faith. Our faith.
The Adept is watching me. Waiting. I feel guilty, and it’s my own feeling, not one he’s imposed on me. I don’t hate the O.U.B. I even agree with their goals. Who doesn’t want a universe operated on truth, equality, and benevolence? It’s the faith part that’s difficult.
“I’m supposed to trust you to get me to Salaria, to create an identity they won’t dispute, to reverse the disguise when I get back. You want me to interpret for the Select, but you won’t tell me why we’re even going? I swear on my honor as a Universal Interpreter in training (I can’t wait till I don’t have to add ‘in training’) that I won’t tell anyone what you’re about to tell me.” That will have to satisfy him.
“I do not distrust you, child. I distrust your ability to resist questioning.”
Questioning? Just how dangerous is the situation? This time I’m not rude. I don’t repeat my refusal. But I don’t say, ‘Oh, in that case, sure, of course, go ahead and mess with my memories,’ either. I just quietly sit there looking back at him.
Thinking: questioning?
“I’ll tell you what I know,” I say, ready to break our stalemate. “There are two distinct races on Salaria. The ones we know, those we call Salarians, the majority culture; and the desert people, a minority culture that keeps to itself. They live in the desert. Obviously.”
I wait. His turn. Only he doesn’t seem to get the ‘taking turns’ part.
“They have nothing to do with each other,” I prompt him. I know all this from my language culture class when I was studying Salarian. There’s something else I found in the Traders’ library, an interesting note for traders that I might or might not bring up.
“The desert people live below ground, barely surviving, while the Salarians have more wealth than anyone needs.”
The Adept listens, expressionless, even to this, which I know must offend him. The O.U.B. does not interfere in planetary issues like class systems or indentured servitude. I can almost hear him thinking it — no, waiting for me to think it. He knows I already know their answer. And I know why they don’t interfere. I’ve studied Old Earth history. It’s a required subject on every planet. One major aspect of that history is the way the old religions thought they had the right to force their beliefs on other cultures, and kill those who disagreed with them. All that fighting over who owns God. The O.U.B. combines the most altruistic, universal tenets of all the old religions and invites people, by example not by force, to embrace those tenets of their own will.
So I know the inequity between the people of Salaria is not why we’re being sent there. That in itself is not a major turning point, a planetary crisis. It’s just normal, nasty human behavior. It might distress the O.U.B., but they would never allow themselves to use it as an excuse for worse aggression on their part.
“Something’s about to happen,” I say again. I think I know what the spark is, that little side note I found in the Trader’s library, but I want him to tell me. I need to know what it means, why it’s important. How bad it could get. But if he doesn’t want me to know, I guess he doesn’t need a reason to think I have any ideas of my own.
What if, whatever the situation is, it’s so terrible if I knew about it, I wouldn’t go?
I think of the last time I saw my sister. “Don’t tell Etin,” she whispered, so low it barely disrupted the awful silence when her die rolled to a stop showing two years of slavery. Don’t tell Etin because he’ll come racing to rescue her and get himself killed. It never occurred to her that I would.
Come to her rescue, that is, not get killed.
And if I don’t, what do I tell my brother when he gets home and there’s no sign of Oghogho? When the days and weeks and months go by and she never reappears, and his search turns up nothing because Salarians are allowed to close the records on those who lose? What do I tell Etin when he comes to ask me if I know anything, anything at all?
“I’ll go,” I tell the Adept, without asking her any more questions, because the answers don’t make any difference. I am going to Salaria.
He raises an eyebrow delicately.
“Freely and without coercion.”
“I am sorry we have to involve you,” he says. His face is expressionless. His shoulders, his hands — no single movement or intonation gives his feelings away, and yet I sense a depth of regret in that single, brief sentence. An unusual sentence for an Adept. They act with such certainty, always. A certainty, an unwavering moral confidence that we count on, all the human worlds, to keep us from straying too far. I am completely unnerved by this brief glimpse of vulnerability.
Just like that all my anger dissolves, because he is as bound to service in his faith as he is binding me. He can’t see the end either, can’t even try to achieve it himself, but has to send others out into that dark place of blind faith to reach beyond what we know, trusting in what we can’t understand. He would so much rather walk into that unknown himself than put me in its path. What he is doing requires more faith than I will ever have.
“You know why I’m going,” I say, because I’m not up to a task like that, to such high expectations, and also to let him off the hook for sending me.
He smiles, a very un-Adept expression. “Thank you.”
“A little more information would be helpful, though.”
“When you need it, I have no doubt you will receive it.”
***
The house assistant returns and leads me to the room I’ll be staying in until I’m ready to go. There’s a table with a notebud sitting on it, a bed, and a closet. I check out the notebud. It has a Salarian-Edoan dictionary and a batch of language lessons, as well as a short beginner’s primer on the culture and history of Salaria. When I look in the closet, there are several blue jumpsuits in my size — which is even less coincidental than the programs on the ’tab, since I’m short and skinny. They’re pretty sure of themselves, the O.U.B.
Sure of God’s plan, Agatha’s voice in my thoughts admonishes me. Right, I tell her. Get out of my mind. And before you go, you should know I don’t think there’s a vision at all. I feel better for saying that, even if it’s all imaginary. It’s going to be tough enough rescuing my sister without worrying about fulfilling some world-changing mission, too.
I take my own clothes out of my spacebag, deflate it, and stuff it at the back of the closet. I don’t think anyone will go through my things, but there’s nowhere to hide my little box of tools that’s better than an empty-looking space-bag, anyway. I’m in trouble if they find it. I’m in worse trouble if it’s found in my things by the Salarians. But most of all I’m in trouble if I find my sister locked up and I don’t have what I need to free her. I lie down on the bed and fall asleep.
I waken to the smell of food and open my eyes to see a girl placing a tray on my desk. The scent of fried eggs, onions and cheese and a steaming Lato gets me off the bed quickly. I didn’t have any creds to buy breakfast, and I’m famished. The girl smiles at me as she leaves, the first friendly expression I’ve seen here.
She comes back when I’ve finished my meal to collect the tray, followed by a man wearing a medic’s badge sewn onto his left shoulder. Behind them, his assistant wheels in an IV trolley with a saline bag hanging from it.
“I will be in charge of your treatment,” the medic says. “My name is Murdock.”
“Murdock the medic?” I say.
He doesn’t crack a smile. “No time for pleasantries. We have to get started right away. The treatment has been explained to you?”
“More or less.” I wasn’t expecting it to start so soon, but I take a breath and hold out my arm. “Mostly less.” While the assistant prepares to insert the needle, Murdock explains my treatment. The med they’re inserting through the IV is a combination of monobenzone, which will decrease the number and size of the melanin granules in my skin cells, and another agent that blocks Mc1r, the skin protein necessary for the production of melanin. Melanin, particularly eumelanin, is responsible for darker skin tone.
“It won’t be permanent?” I ask, to make sure that got passed on.
“We’ve added an agent that limits the duration of its effect — prevents it from inhibiting the future production of melanin. Two to three months after your final treatment, your skin will begin reverting to its present color.”
“That slows the lightening process down, though,” he says. “So you’ll also be having cryosurgery — liquid nitrogen applied topically to the visible areas of your skin, to destroy the surface skin cells. They’ll naturally regenerate, but the excess melanin will come to the surface and peel off in a few days. You can expect a little temporary redness, some discomfort, possibly a few blisters. Nothing serious. Questions?”
It sounds serious enough to me, but I was the one who insisted a temporary treatment be used, so I can’t complain now. I shake my head. He leaves me with his assistant.
“You’re a brave girl,” the assistant says, tapping the IV tube to increase the flow of goop into me. I’m trying to decide whether there’s something about this treatment I don’t know, or does she know something about my trip to Salaria, or is she just a patronizing twit, but the moment passes to respond. After that we don’t say anything, just wait in silence watching that drip, drip, drip seep into me with its promise of betrayal.
After the IV has finished, the medic’s assistant leaves, saying she’ll be back at 1500 hours for the first cryosurgery treatment. “Great, can’t wait” I mutter.
I finally have some time alone. I check the notebud, skimming through the lessons on Salarian for any topic I don’t already know. I’m pretty thorough when I study a language, and the University of Translators and Interpreters is thorough, too. I wouldn’t have been interpreting at the Salarian Nightgames if I didn’t know Salarian inside out and backwards, language and culture both. But the O.U.B. might have access to some social issues I should know about that the University isn’t privy to. Maybe I should have agreed to the memory swipe, since I won’t change my mind anyway. I wonder what the Adept would have told me if I had. But once I’ve agreed in theory to one, who knows when they might play that card? Nope, better to go in blind and hope I learn what I need in time, than to leave with a hole in my past. A hole I wouldn’t even know about. The very thought gives me the creeps.
The door to my room beeps. It’s way too early for the Cyrosurg. Agatha, maybe? “Enter.” I say, and the door slides open.
A Select of the O.U.B. is standing in the doorway. She looks to be somewhere in her mid-thirties, but she could be anything from twenty to forty — the Select are pretty good at hiding their age as well as everything else. I sit at the desk staring at her, too stunned to say anything, even to invite her in. The one thing she can’t hide, without altering her appearance as much as I’m being forced to, is that she’s Salarian. Creamy skin with a yellowish cast, like the sun, large, slanting brown eyes, perfect bow-shaped lips and high cheekbones, a frame as small and slight as mine under her blue and white robes. Beautiful. And every feature Salarian.
She raises one elegantly-shaped eyebrow.
“Come in,” I stammer. I still don’t believe what I’m seeing. Salarians don’t emigrate from Salaria. They don’t desert their triad. Ever. It would be akin to familial murder, and certainly not something that would look good on an application to join the O.U.B. It’s all I can do not to ask her, “What are you doing here?” and I don’t mean in my room.
“I am here to tell you about your alias.” There’s the tiniest hesitation before the word “alias”, so small I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t lived with a Select and become attuned to their fleeting tells. The fact that she answered my unspoken question confirms what I see—Salarian or not, she’s a Select.
“Are you here to coach me on Salarian culture? Because—”
“I hope you already know most of what you need to about their culture.”
Just what I was planning to say to her. She knows it, too, I see that in her eyes, the tiniest crinkle at the corners. “Because I’m always willing to learn from anyone,” I say instead, a bit stiffly.
“If Idaro had lived, she would be about your age.”
“A year younger,” I clarify.
“And if she had decided to return to our people—”
“Your people? She was Salarian?” Oh no, I suddenly realize, “She was your—”
Now I know why my size doesn’t matter, but I’m completely tongue-tied. I’m going to be impersonating this woman’s dead daughter? She’s going to teach me how to be the child she lost? I stand up, my mouth open, but nothing comes out.
“It was a long time ago,” she says.
My father died a long time ago. Three years, two months and five days. I remember the way he looked at me, the way he talked and moved, his silences, his smile. My mother died six months and two days ago. I remember her face, her voice, every expression on her face. Death is never a long time ago. Death is yesterday.
“I… I’m sorry.” It’s totally inadequate. I’m sorry she died. I’m sorry they’re using her death this way. I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you, to her memory.
“Don’t be sorry. Make it count,” she says.
I swallow and nod. And I wish I hadn’t so adamantly refused a mind swipe, because I’d like to lose those last three words. How can I ever make my trip to Salaria count enough for stealing the last memory she has of her daughter?
“Let us begin.” Her voice, her whole demeanor, briskly sweeps that entire conversation behind us. “You need to know my history, what I would have told my daughter about her birth, what she could have expected on Salaria if she had turned from my path and returned to our people. What you can expect there.”
It takes me a minute, but now I realize why the Adept wasn’t concerned about my intent to rescue my sister. I won’t even be able to look for her, not until I do what’s expected of me first. They aren’t just giving me an alias to get onto Salaria; they’re giving me a script. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve already agreed. The first skin treatment has been started. I’m already moving, irrevocably, into their plan, without even knowing what I’ve agreed to.
Chapter Four
The Select, Idaro’s mother, takes me with her to her quarters. It’s three buildings down on Prophet’s Avenue, on the second floor. Walking through the door to her unit, I see it faces the street, and I can’t help wondering, when I glance out the front window, if she saw me walking past to Number One and knew what they wanted me to do. Did she hope I’d say no? I turn and sit in a straight-backed chair facing away from the window. The Select is in the kitchen dialing up two Latos for us.
“There are two living units on each level with two bedrooms. I would have had one if Idaro had lived.”
I nod. She can’t see me from the kitchen, but I still don’t know how to deal with this situation. A nod is the best I have right now.
“I’m not sure I would have told Idaro why I left my home planet,” she says, walking into the sitting room and handing me my Lato. I take a sip to cover my awkwardness at hearing her speak so casually about her dead daughter. The Select don’t talk about personal things. They leave all that behind when they take their habit. She seems to be… not quite enjoying this, but something similar. I could be wrong, but maybe it’s a relief to talk about it. The way Etin and I talked about our father last time Etin was home and came to see me, kind of keeping his memory alive.
I glance over the rim of my cup at the Select’s expressionless face. I’m probably wrong.
“But if she decided not to join the Order, to return to Salaria instead, I would have told her certain things. The things I am going to tell you. They are my past. Mine, not yours.”
I nod quickly. Maybe a bit too earnestly.
“My past, not my present.”
“I understand,” I say. “It’s for the mission, not for me.” The word “mission” sticks in my mouth, like someone else’s words on my tongue. It sounds cold, impersonal. This is her daughter, not just a mission. I’m making everything worse. I won’t say anything else. I won’t even nod. It’s not like it isn’t apparent all over my face. She knows how I’m feeling.
