“It’s worth a try, Hilo-jen,” Anden said.
Shae was sitting in one of the armchairs with her arms crossed, some distance from Hilo. The Pillar and the Weather Man were still on poor terms. She gave Anden a wry smile. “Do you remember how upset you were when we first sent you there? And now you’re asking to return.” She said to Hilo, “Anden should go. Revenue from our Espenian businesses is saving us right now, but it’s an ongoing problem that the two countries don’t trust or understand each other. If there’s anything we can do to change that, even in a single field like healthcare, it may help us.”
Hilo didn’t look entirely convinced, but he said, “All right, cousin. You can go and speak for the family.”
At that moment, Niko shouted, “No!” The boy was standing in the partly open doorway to the study, his small fists clenched by his side. “Espenia is the place where Ma got hurt. Uncle Anden shouldn’t go there. You can’t make him!” The adults stared at Niko in astonishment.
Anden went to the six-year-old and crouched down in front of him, placing his hands on his nephew’s trembling shoulders. “Niko-se, I asked to go,” he reassured him. “It’ll be a short trip, and not for anything dangerous. Of course, there’s always some risk, but families like ours can’t afford to not take risks.”
_______
The Weather Man made phone calls to the dean of the College of Bioenergetic Medicine, impressing upon him the No Peak clan’s interest in the matter, so the trip was arranged with impressive alacrity. Two months later, Anden and three of the best physicians on the college’s faculty, including Dr. Timo, arrived in Adamont Capita. AC was an old city, with narrow cobblestone streets and historic brick buildings. White marble monuments were tucked around every corner behind glass office towers, imposing government institutions, and foreign embassies. Anden had never been to the capital of the Republic of Espenia before, even though it was only three hours away by bus from Port Massy, where he had lived and worked for nearly four years. It hadn’t occurred to Anden to explore other cities, not when Port Massy had already seemed huge and strange and overwhelming to him as a nineteen-year-old.
Now, however, he appreciated the opportunity to act like a tourist. Dr. Martgen and the staff at the Demphey Medical Research Center were welcoming hosts, housing Anden and the three visiting Green Bone doctors in a well-appointed hotel and touring them around the Watersguard University campus and the major city sights when they weren’t busy meeting people and doing demonstrations for intrigued researchers. As a mere student, Anden didn’t lead any of the meetings or presentations, but he assisted on several occasions and acted as the translator for the entire group. At the end of the five-day conference, he felt far wearier from thinking and speaking in two languages, and navigating the opposing customs of both the visiting and hosting parties, than from any exertion of jade abilities.
Dr. Timo and the other doctors flew straight out of Adamont Capita back to Janloon the morning afterward. Anden stayed. He took a taxi from the hotel to the federal Industry Department, which was housed in a fortress-like rectangular building down the block and across the boulevard from the National Assembly. As he waited on a sofa in the elevator lobby, he gazed out at the seat of government—an enormous white structure rising in square tiers to an imposing pyramidal peak, its sides lit with floodlights that changed color at night. Its straight lines and perfect planes seemed stark and forbidding to Anden, closed and inscrutable.
A secretary came out to meet him. She apologized for the wait and escorted Anden to a corner office on the seventh floor. The nameplate on the door read: KELLY DAUK, DEPUTY SECRETARY. Anden went in.
Cory’s eldest sister, Dauk Kelishon, bore resemblance to her father and her brother in the shape of her face and mouth, which was lifted in a polite smile as she stood to shake Anden’s hand. She motioned him into a chair across from her desk. “Mr. Emery, I presume?” The deputy secretary was perhaps forty years old, dressed in a chalk-gray skirt suit, black blouse, and pearl necklace. An immaculate chinlength bob framed her face. In her bright but stiff professional manner, she was wholly unlike her gregarious younger brother.
Anden said, in Kekonese, “Ms. Dauk, thank you for agreeing to see me.”
The woman swiveled her chair sideways, leaning one arm on the desk and crossing her legs as she studied Anden, her polite smile unchanged. “I agreed to this meeting as a favor to my parents. My mother can be extremely insistent,” she said, replying to him in Espenian. “According to them, you’re a representative of one of the Kekonese clans. I’m afraid I’m unclear as to what that has to do with me and the Industry Department.”