Twisp's step took on a spring more youthful than his gray braid as he traversed the deck of this room of makeshift desks, view-screens, stacks of papers, cables across the deck. This was his work of twenty-five years: Operations, the heart and being of the mysterious Shadows worldwide.
"Flattery thinks we're in Victoria," Twisp had told the council at the beginning, "and I want the rest of the world to think so, too. The Shadows will be an illusion, a fiction that we make as we go. The entire world is at stake, perhaps every human life. We must have appropriate patience."
He hoped that they still had appropriate patience.
Twisp cleared some storage units from an old chairdog and indicated to Mose that he should sit. A large plaz shield separated them from the ominous quiet of a roomful of techs. The redhead, Snej, nodded to Twisp and tried a smile.
Snej reminded Twisp a little of Ambassador Kareen Ale, a friend of his who had been one of the first victims of Flattery's death squad.
She saved a lot of lives, he thought. And she was so damned pretty.
Twisp shook off the painful memory and settled himself into his console's couch. The other council members' couches were arranged, like his own, as spokes in a wheel, each with access to a console, viewscreen and a central holo stage.
Twisp discarded his threadbare robe. Underneath, he wore a rust-colored singlesuit of the Hylighter Clan. The clasped-hands insignia at his right breast represented the informal symbol of the Shadows. Like Twisp, each of the other three consuls was accompanied by a civilian witness. One couch remained empty, its viewscreen blank.
The other three witnesses, like Mose, sat in wide-eyed awe at the maps and data spread out before them. Twisp cleared his throat and spoke the simple, awful words that some of the council had waited more than twenty years to hear:
"Brothers and sisters, it is time."
After the ancient blessing of the food they shared the ritual bowl of soup in silence. It was a classic Islander broth, nearly clear with a couple of bright orange muree curled at the bottom of the bowl. Chips of green onion floated the top, their crisp scent wafting the chambers.
The one vacant couch belonged to Dwarf MacIntosh, survivor of the very hybernation tanks that bore the Director, Raja Flattery. MacIntosh had rejected Flattery's greed for the more familiar zenlike philosophies of the Zavatans. He shaved his head, he said, "In grief at the loss of Flattery's soul, and as a reminder to keep my own."
Years ago, MacIntosh and Flattery had disagreed openly, heatedly, on many occasions. Rumor said that Flattery had removed Current Control to the Orbiter so that he could remove MacIntosh to the Orbiter. Mack had recently perfected a console-communication system that used the kelp itself as a carrier. All of the systems in chambers were tied into the kelp. Along with a code, also devised by MacIntosh, each console was capable of direct, immediate contact with Current Control.
I hope we can keep these lines open, Twisp thought. That could be jamming on the conventional channels, or just sun activity. If it's sun, it probably won't take out the kelp channel as well.
He reserved a mental note to remind Snej to check the kelp channel for Rico's film. With luck it could've been picked up and stored there.
After taking food together, Twisp received their affirmations calmly, as they presented them calmly, though what they pronounced could degenerate into a roll call of death worldwide. Every face in the room reflected the heaviness of the matter. They all agreed that it was time. It was just as important that they all agreed on what exactly it was time for.
Venus Brass, the eldest at seventy-five years, had seen her husband and children assassinated at the Director's orders, herself missing death by a fluke. A slow-moving, big-hearted, quickwitted Islander woman, Venus, with her husband, had built a food distribution empire. It was taken over by Flattery and wedded to Merman Mercantile. They transported fish and produce from small suppliers like Twisp to public markets for a percentage of the catch. Flattery did the only distribution now, where and when he chose and at a membership fee too high for a solo operation to afford.
Kaleb Norton-Wang, rightful heir to Merman Mercantile, was the youngest consul at twenty-three. Son of Scudi Wang, herself heiress to Merman Mercantile, and Brett Norton, Twisp's fishing partner, Kaleb had seen his parents killed when their boat mysteriously exploded one night at dockside. That was before anyone had learned to suspect Flattery's hand in such things.
Kaleb had slipped landside that night to play with some of the other children. He was ten years old, and supper conversation for months had been about Flattery, and his takeover maneuvers with Merman Mercantile.
Twisp, wakened from his coracle nearby, had found the boy screaming on the pier watching his family's boat burn. Twisp and Kaleb fled together to the barely habitable high reaches. Like his deceased father, Kaleb could see in the dark. His mother's inner acuity and her personal allegiance to the kelp gave Kaleb a formidable intelligence. He, like his mother, could communicate directly with the kelp by touch. He found it too painful to meet his parents' memories in the kelp, so he seldom explored the kelp-ways of the mind.
He's too bitter, Twisp thought. Bitter pulls you down, gets you to make mistakes that you can't afford.
He hadn't seen much of Kaleb lately. The boy's district was Victoria, Flattery's only solid stronghold upcoast. Twisp feared that Kaleb had met the challenge of that command so that he could wreak a personal vengeance on Flattery and his people. He hoped that he had taught Kaleb well enough that the boy wouldn't respond to Flattery the way Flattery had responded to his parents.
The upcoast inland regions were represented by Mona Flatwing, a red-faced, middle-aged woman who was speaking now.
"We are in a comfortable position," she said.
Her deep brown eyes glittered and her husky voice spoke with a heavy Islander lilt.
"Each of our households has foodstuffs for six months. We have surplus stores enough to handle a major refugee influx through next harvest. Consul from the coast tells me that we are in a similar position with our seafoods."
Venus Brass nodded affirmation.
"Frankly," Mona continued, "our people do not want to come down here to fight. They left here to get away from that, they've made good lives upcoast, they want to be left alone. They will accept anyone of good faith who seeks refuge, as always. The usual preparations have been made for defense, but I must emphasize this point: These people do not want to kill anyone."
Again, a nod from Venus Brass. Her shaky, high-pitched voice contrasted with Mona's.
"It is the same with our people," she said. "They use the freedom of the sea to get away from 'the troubles,' as they call them. They're a brave and hardy lot. Among them they amass quite a fleet and assault force. But like Kaleb's people, they live among Flattery's people when landside, they trade with them, families are intermarried. They do not want to kill anyone, particularly family. You've seen how Flattery has shuffled his troops to accommodate that attitude -"
Bam!
Kaleb's fist on his notestand startled everyone.
Twisp clenched a fist in reflex, then unclenched it slowly on his knee.
"This is Flattery's dream council," Kaleb said. His voice carried the sharp bitterness that Twisp often heard in it lately. "We are talking here of doing nothing to curb this madness, this wholesale murder. Was I the only one who witnessed what happened out there today?"