“Mir Tatian.” Tendlathe’s voice was cold and very precise.
“Mir Tendlathe,” Tatian answered. “What can I do for you?”
“You can stop playing games,” Tendlathe answered. “I want Warreven, and I have every reason to think you have him. If you give him up, I’m prepared to overlook your part in last night’s fiasco.”
“I don’t have 3im,” Tatian said. He heard a faint noise from the kitchen, suppressed the desire to look, to wave Warreven back out of sight.
“I don’t have time for this,” Tendlathe said. “You helped Warreven get away, you were seen—you were filmed—doing it.”
“Films can be altered,” Tatian said. “They’re hardly evidence.”
“They’re evidence here,” Tendlathe answered. “And if it comes to that, I’ll bring NAPD down with you—I’ll be sure they’re implicated, as well as you, in conspiracy and murder.”
“Anything I did was on my own authority. It has nothing to do with the company,” Tatian said, and Tendlathe gave a thin smile.
“I’m sure, but I can make it look otherwise. And I will, if I have to. I told you, I want Warreven very badly.”
Tatian looked down at the control bar, glyphs flickering at the edge of the screen. He had no doubt that Tendlathe meant exactly what he said—and I should have realized it, he thought, expected it—and he couldn’t risk NAPD’s position on Hara. He had no right to jeopardize not only everything Lolya Masani had worked to build, but Derebought and Mats and Reiss, but at the same time, he couldn’t give Warreven up. Not now, he thought, and not to these people.
“Tendlathe.”
Warreven stepped out of the kitchen doorway, came slowly forward into the camera’s range. Tatian opened his mouth to say something, anything, to wave 3im back, but one look at 3er face silenced him. He stepped back against the window, feeling the heat radiating from the shutters, wondering what Warreven thought 3e could gain from this.
“Warreven,” Tendlathe said, and there was a kind of grim satisfaction on his face. “I knew you’d be there.”
Warreven shrugged. “It doesn’t matter where I am, does it? You and I have a lot to talk about—what’s it like, Ten, being the Most Important Man?”
“It feels good, thank you,” Tendlathe answered. “It feels good to be able to deal with you as you deserve.”
“No matter how you got there?” Warreven asked. “I didn’t want him dead, and you’ll never convince anyone I did, not when it means you taking over. Besides, I saw him die—I saw you shoot him, Ten.”
Tendlathe’s expression didn’t change. “No one’s going to believe your lies—”
“And I can’t be the only one,” Warreven went on.
“The only thing that matters now,” Tendlathe said, “is where and how you surrender to me.”
Warreven managed a sound that was almost a laugh, and Tatian could see the ghost of 3er usual humor in 3er bruised face. “The last thing you want is for me to turn myself in. That would bring everything into the courts, including how and why Temelathe died. Do you really want to open that door?” Ȝe laughed aloud this time, sounding genuinely, incredulously, amused. “God and the spirits, maybe I should. It might be worth it, to see how you explain that.”
“I can make very sure you don’t get a chance to talk,” Tendlathe said.
“That’s not much incentive to surrender,” Warreven answered, and there was a little silence. Tatian looked from one to the other, from Warreven to the bearded face in the screen, but couldn’t read anything in their expressions. Tendlathe’s face was taut, muscles standing out at the corners of his mouth; Warreven was still smiling faintly, hiding behind 3er laughter.
“So what do you want, Raven?” Tendlathe said at last.
Warreven took a deep breath, and Tatian realized that this was what 3e’d been waiting for. “I want this over,” 3e said. “So I’m prepared to make a bargain with you. Let me off-world—I can claim asylum, I know that much about Concord law—and I’ll go, and not cause you any more trouble. You can make whatever deals you want with Dismars, or whoever’s speaking for the Modernists now, and I won’t interfere. But if you don’t let me go, I’ll do my very best to make sure you not only have to fight the whole question of gender law through every step of my trial, but I’ll make very sure that everyone knows you killed your father.”
“No one will believe you,” Tendlathe said. “And you are responsible, Raven. None of this would have happened if you’d kept your mouth shut.”
“I opened a door,” Warreven answered. “You walked through it.”
For the first time, Tendlathe flinched, the merest shiver of taut muscles, but Warreven saw it, and smiled. “Plenty of people will believe me, Ten, you’re not universally loved. I can make your life impossible—even if we can’t fight you, there are enough of us wrangwys to guarantee you won’t have an easy time running things.”
“The Modernists won’t help,” Tendlathe said. “Dismars has already disavowed your actions.”
“I’m not surprised. Issued a bulletin from somewhere safe outside the city, no doubt,” Warreven said bitterly. Then 3e shook 3imself. “Look, I’m offering you a way out, Ten. You can take what you’ve got, pull things together, or you can get revenge. I’m prepared to give you that. Either one.”
There was another little silence, and then Tendlathe smiled faintly. “Opening another door?”
Warreven smiled back. “I suppose, yes. And there is a price.”
“Well?”
“Leave the off-worlders out of this.” Warreven tilted 3er head toward Tatian. “This is our business, yours and mine.”
“Mhyre Tatian was seen helping you,” Tendlathe said.
“So expel him, or have his people recall him,” Warreven said. “If you absolutely have to. But let the company alone.”
There was another pause, longer this time, and then, slowly, Tendlathe nodded. “You have twenty-six hours to get off planet, Warreven. After that, the deal’s off.”
Warreven smiled thinly. “Agreed.” Ȝe looked down then, looking for the remote, and Tatian touched the key that ended the connection. The screen went blank, and Warreven took a deep breath.
“Look, I—I’m sorry to have gotten you into this. Of everything, I wish I could have gotten you out clean. It’s the best I could do—I think it’s the best anyone could do, and the company should be fine, but—” Ȝe broke off again, shaking 3er head. “I’m sorry.”
Tatian set the remote carefully back in its niche, unable quite to believe what had happened. “The—Masani was bound to recall me anyway, after this. And we do a lot of business with a lot of mesnies. We should be all right.”
“But will you?” Warreven tipped 3er head to one side.
Tatian took a deep breath, overwhelmed, suddenly, by the possibilities. Will I be all right? he wanted to say. I’ll be better than all right: I can go home—go back to Kaysa, back to Jericho, hell, I can even get my damned implants fixed, and by technicians that I know will know what they’re doing. Even if Masani fires me—and I know %e won’t—it’ll be worth it. He could already imagine Kaysa’s response, laughter first, at the absurdity of it all, and then the sudden fierce embrace. She would be glad to have him back—that had been clear in their last exchange of mail—but not half as glad as he would be to be back with her….
“You didn’t have to get involved,” Warreven said, “didn’t have to do any of this. I’m sorry.”
Tatian shook his head, responding as much to the pain in the other’s voice as to the words. “No. I—it sounds stupid, but I did have to help you, or try to, anyway.” He shrugged. “It’s what I said last night, you’re right. What you were trying to do is the right thing. I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. Sometimes you have to do something.”