Rollo and Livvo seemed equally wrong-footed by this, but the Hanni were a competitive species amongst their own kind. Kris had seen business deals concluded over wrestling matches, impenetrable puzzles and even dance-offs. The Hanni didn’t wage war, funnelling all their disagreements into a myriad of contests.
That left the three humans to make small talk for an hour, as the Hanni became more and more absorbed in their tournament. Kris kept casting a worried eye over, in case Kit was wagering anything they couldn’t do without. But his screens were cagily blank as he placed his tiles with rapid assurance.
Livvo dropped more than one hint that Kris could leave the spacer life for a while. Perhaps come and do business with him – or partner up in other ways . . . He was in a stable relationship with two other men and a woman, with three children between them, but there was always room for more. It was the sort of communal arrangement that had become common After Earth, when families had been shattered and people clung to and nurtured whoever they could find. To her surprise, Kris found the idea of settling down not quite the anathema she’d have thought. But she wasn’t ready to quit spacefaring just yet.
‘You’ve got a good thing going on here, Liv,’ she said, surprised at the envy in her voice.
‘There’s always a better thing.’ And he rested two fingers on her hand, just lightly.
Rollo coughed loudly and Kris shot him a testy look. Thankfully, at that point the game broke up. Kit’s screens showed a cascade of bright colours and images that looked triumphant. Kris glanced worriedly at Shreem, in case Kittering had caused offence. The minister seemed entirely satisfied by the clash.
‘A price has been agreed,’ Shreem’s old man voice announced, and Kris assumed Kit’s Landstep prowess had earned a discount. ‘Captain Rostand, given your urgency, is it convenient for contact to be made with the Harvest’s factor immediately?’
Rollo nodded vigorously.
‘You must understand that there are many layers of hierarchy within the Harvest, as with the Essiel,’ Shreem went on pedantically. ‘Navigation through lower ranks will be required before meeting some mid-grade overseer. Who might or might not have sufficient authority to make a contract. You may find the process aggravatingly drawn out.’ All said with grinding slowness and no apparent irony.
‘All the more reason to get started,’ Rollo replied through clenched teeth.
Kris checked in with the others while she waited, and Rollo started to pace.
Then Minister Shreem made a surprised sound, like a string section thrown into disarray, and scuttled in a backwards circle. It was a display of discombobulation she’d never seen in a Hanni before.
‘Hold on,’ she told Idris over the comms. ‘Something’s happened.’
‘Well?’ Rollo demanded of the minister. ‘What, then? Some flunky will see us at his own damn leisure?’
‘The matter has developed in an entirely different direction.’ Shreem’s artificial voice sounded calm but his limbs were flurrying with agitation. ‘Invitation is made to the court of Aklu himself – Aklu being the title of the Harvest’s undisputed ruler. You are going straight to the top.’
12.
Kris
This is not going to get weird.
The word from Aklu’s minions was that Rollo should bring someone to speak for him. The Hegemony firmly believed that leaders had menials to do the talking for them. Kris volunteered for the honour. It was, after all, her job. Kit handled the money, she handled the people.
There is no reason this has to be weird.
She’d sat with urbane killers in tailored shirts with ruffled fronts, who had sipped from tiny glasses and talked theatre and ballet engagements while ordering the deaths of faithless minions and minor civic functionaries. They’d liked her, overall. She knew the line they wanted women to tread.
She’d gone before a broken-nosed man whose huge frame was fifty per cent augmented artificial muscle. He’d conducted business at an arena, so he could watch his stable of gladiators tearing apart robots and sometimes each other. That had gone okay too. She knew a thing or two about the fighters’ form, and that had endeared her to the man.
She’d been granted an audience by a Castigar don, Warrior caste – a segmented worm five metres long, each ring of its annular body bristling with spines. Its tentacled head had been painted with jagged symbols, suggesting violence to human eyes as eloquently as to its own kind. Each squirming arm of its crown had been capped with a chattering set of mechanized blades, mounted below the reddish bead of the eye. She had faced up to that horrifying cutlery drawer and outlined the drop-off the Vulture God wanted to make. She’d offered a cut of their pay cheque, and they’d made a deal. There was always a deal. Some criminals were sadists or psychopaths, but most weren’t. Even the ones who were generally preferred Largesse to killing potential contacts. And she’d never caught any of them on a bad enough day. It had never turned weird. Yet.