‘Look at your face like thunder,’ Uskaro remarked drily to Idris. ‘You’d think you didn’t want to serve humanity. You don’t want people to take you for a betrayer, do you?’ Idris noted that the word was given a particular spin and he suppressed a shudder. The ‘pro-humanity’ Nativists had a strong foothold on Magda and they talked a great deal about betrayal. By the Parthenon, by aliens, by Intermediaries somehow in league with Architects. Anything to explain why humans didn’t run the universe.
Idris faced up to the man, as much as he could given their difference in heights. ‘Your Elegance, let it be known that – should you make me your navigator – I vow to guide that ship into the deep void where monsters dwell. I will wake everyone aboard, so your people may experience the nightmares of unspace. Once they’ve gone mad, torn out each other’s throats and driven their own thumbs into their eyes, I will paint on the walls with their blood. Salvagers will find these words: “the Boyarin Piter Tchever Uskaro did this, who is no respecter of human freedoms.”’
He felt a wash of catharsis, then immediately knew he’d gone too far. Uskaro’s face had closed like a trap, the fake smile vanishing. A tightening grip on his arms told him that the two Voyenni were going to give him a beating as a matter of honour, and their master would plainly enjoy watching Idris learn his place. But perhaps not before these witnesses. So Uskaro merely nodded tightly and marched towards the exit, the Voyenni pulling Idris along in his wake.
Yet the doors didn’t open, and one of the clerks called from behind them.
‘Kybernet says to hold the Int,’ she explained when faced with Uskaro’s disbelieving stare. ‘Administrative matter.’ When he demanded an explanation, she shrugged. ‘Don’t know, Your Elegance. Doesn’t say. Just routine.’
A movement at floor level caught Idris’s attention as he hung between the Voyenni. Like a rodent, a spider, a hand: a scuttling shape of metal and plastic. He knew it, of course. It was one of Medvig’s remotes, detached from the Hiver’s frame, come over to say hello.
Seeing that it had his attention it carefully balanced on three of its fingers and curled the rest in until it had made a creditable ‘thumbs up’。
Bless you, Medvig. Somehow they’d found him. Now he just had to worry about Rollo . . .
When the outer door opened, it was Kris they all saw, and she already had Rollo free and clear beside her. She must have extracted him from the cells via some other route.
‘What is this?’ Uskaro stared at her. ‘Why is this man free and who is this woman?’ He was briefly too baffled to be angry.
‘Your Elegance, I am Keristina Soolin Almier. Acting as certified advocate to the Hugh Civil Court for my client Idris Telemmier.’
Uskaro made a little spitting noise of utter incredulity. ‘It is not permitted a lawyer. It is under a leash contract.’
‘I am now calling upon the Roshu kybernet to act as arbiter,’ Kris announced grandly. ‘Respond, if you please.’
The voice emanating from the clerk’s console was flat and affectless. ‘Presence confirmed for the stated purpose.’
‘I request the release of my client, imprisoned under false pretences. I have filed a request for damages, plus compensation for emotional trauma and loss of liberty, against the Family Uskaro. This will be dealt with under separate hearing once my client is freed.’
‘He cannot be your client,’ Uskaro hissed at her. Then he protested to the air, as the kybernet had no physical presence, ‘It is property, under a leash contract.’
The clerk, who looked as though she was enjoying herself, threw data up on a wallscreen. Idris’s birth records, from seventy years ago. Idris’s war record. Idris’s work history. Idris, old beyond his face.
Uskaro’s own features went slack, realizing simultaneously the sheer value of what he had seized, and that he wasn’t legally able to keep ‘it’。 One of the original wartime Ints, with all those decades of skill and experience. But, for that self-same reason, out of his reach.
‘But he’s—’
‘Old enough to be your revered grandpa, Boyarin. Real, real old.’ A grin from Kris, and Idris thought, sourly, Thanks for that.
‘I look forward to your depositions regarding compensation, Your Elegance,’ she finished up brightly. ‘Doubtless your lawyers will be in touch.’
She reached forward to take Idris’s wrist and, as simply as that, he was out of the Voyenni’s grasp. Medvig’s artificial spider-hand scurried up to sit on Kris’s shoulder, and Idris guessed the Hiver would have circumvented the office’s privacy screens to transmit events to the rest of the crew.