Vhanu looked at her, his lips twitching, for a long moment. He muttered something in Sandhi, finally, glancing away. She translated the sour words: barbarian whore.
In Sandhi, she said, “Would you prefer to speak your own language, Commander Vhanu? I understand it fairly well.”
He looked back at her; the scattering of pale freckles across his brown face flushed blood-red. He took a deep breath. “I think there is very little left for us to say, in any language, Lady,” he answered, in Tiamatan. He began to turn away.
“I want to see him,” Moon said. “You can’t deny me the right to see him.”
He turned back to her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. He’s no longer here.”
She froze. “What?”
“He’s gone.” Vhanu shrugged. “Back to Kharemough, to face charges before the High Court. If he remained here, there was too much threat of strife, so I had him deported immediately.”
She felt his satisfaction tighten around her throat, as if it were his hands. “You mean,” she forced the words out, “that there was too much risk that he was right; that his voice would be heard, and everyone who heard it would know.”
“Walk softly, Lady,” he repeated, frowning more deeply. He bowed to her again, with perfect grace. He turned away, opening the door; stopped, turning back. “By the way,” he said. “I know now that your fanatical predictions about our decimating the mer population were not only superstitious rubbish but complete lies. My people tell me that the waters are teeming with mers. Their numbers are far from depleted.”
“No!” She started forward. “That isn’t the truth, there are no more mers— Search further, search all the seas; you have the means. The seas will be empty.”
He shook his head, and his eyes pitied her, as if she were beneath contempt. He went out the door without answering.
Moon stood motionless in the center of the room, until her moment of desperate rage passed. She turned back, then, to face Jerusha.
Jerusha sat down again behind her desk, her dark eyes filled with questions, none of them reassuring. She reached into her pocket for a pack of iestas, put a handful into her mouth, chewing them to quiet her nerves.
Moon moved to a seat and dropped heavily into it. “BZ can’t be gone,” she said, studying her hands, which lay in her lap like dying insects. “How can it have happened? It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Jerusha murmured tonelessly.
“This is.” Moon raised her head. “He had to be here. He was meant to be. They both were. … We were all in place. And suddenly, just when we were ready—they’re gone.” She shook her head, feeling as if she had been beaten, as if she were bleeding inside.
Jerusha looked at her, and Moon saw an expression on the other woman’s face that she had not seen in years. “Gods,” Jerusha said. “It’s been speaking to you again, hasn’t it—the sibyl mind? The way it did when you told me you were going to become Queen.”
She nodded, mute.
“Who is the third person?”
“Reede … Reede Kullervo.”
Jerusha’s eyes widened; she looked away, frowning. “He works for the Source.
BZ wanted him picked up … wanted it done unofficially. Kitaro was handling it, before she …” Her gaze came back to Moon. “What happened?”
Moon told her how it had begun, pulling her raveled thoughts back together.
“And what were the three of you supposed to do?” Jerusha asked, when she was finished.
“It—has to do with saving the mers.” Moon shook her head. “But that’s all I can tell you. Except that they’re the key to something. If that merkiller Vhanu—” She broke off. “If he only knew what he’s done, not just to the mers, not just to us, but to himself.…”
Jerusha sighed. “So the Hedge has Gundhalinu hostage, and the Source has Reede—”
“And Ariele.” She forced the words out.
“Ariele?” Jerusha paled. “Why, by all the gods?”
“She was involved with Reede. I didn’t even know… . The Source took them both. Because of … what I know that I can’t tell.” She told the rest of it, numbed by the words as she spoke them, until finally her voice held no emotion at all. “They’re all gone… . And I don’t know if any of them will ever come back.”
Jerusha sat back in her chair and dropped a remote into a box; looked up again, bleak-eyed. “Is there anything at all that we can do, right now?”
“Nothing.” Moon shook her head. “Nothing even makes sense to me, right now.” Her body seemed to have turned to stone as she sat there, until now it was too heavy, too inert, ever to rise from her seat again. “Nothing will make any difference.”
Jerusha leaned forward abruptly, and switched on her comm. “Prawer! In my office. Immediately.”
Inspector Prawer appeared in the doorway bare seconds later. He saluted. “Ma’am?” He made a brief bow in Moon’s direction; she looked away from his glance.
“You’re in charge here, until the Commander names a new Chief Inspector. Have my belongings sent to my …” she glanced at Moon, “to the local constabulary headquarters.” Moon looked up, suddenly feeling something stir inside her that was not another tentacle of despair. “I want my old job back,” Jerusha said.
“It’s yours.” Moon pushed to her feet, glancing at Prawer, and back at Jerusha.
Jerusha came around the corner of her desk, tossing Prawer a packet of keycards. “Here. Tell Commander Vhanu …” She paused, and spat an iesta pod into the trash basket. Moon saw Prawer’s mouth twitch. “Tell him … he’s mekrittu. Like all his ancestors before him, back to the first.”
Prawer looked disbelief at her. “Gods, I can’t say that to the Commander—”
“Quote me,” she said. “That’s a direct order.” She hesitated. “And tell the force that Gundhalinu’s gone.”
“He’s gone?” Prawer repeated, his face going slack. She nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.” He drew himself up and saluted again. “Consider it done.”
She returned his salute; he passed them, heading toward her desk, as she walked with Moon toward the door.
Jerusha took a deep breath as they stood outside Police Headquarters at last. “It feels good to get the stink of that place out of my head.” She looked behind her at the building entrance, at the sign above it in both Tiamatan script and Sandhi hieroglyphics.
“What is mekrittu?” Moon asked finally.
t Jerusha smiled, the line of her mouth sweet-and-sour. “It’s the lowest of the lower classes, on Kharemough. It’s like calling a Summer ‘merkiller,’ raised to the tenth.” Her face hardened again. “The only real mistake Gundhalinu ever made was thinking that tunnel-visioned bigot Vhanu was his equal.” She looked down, spat out another seed pod, and followed Moon, who was already moving on toward the alley’s entrance. “Moon, do you want to know what I think?”
“Yes.” Moon kept her own eyes fixed on the way ahead, knowing that it was her only choice: to keep moving, to keep ahead of the fate that was closing in on her, trying to bring her down. “Tell me. I need a parallax view. Every way out I see is blocked by a wall of fire—” She looked up, remembering Vhanu’s threat, and the fire in the sky that could destroy her world if she pushed the Hegemony too far.
“Then slow down.” Jerusha’s hand fell on her arm, holding her back. “Slow down.” Moon slowed, looking at her. “Wait, until we learn more,” Jerusha said. “BZ has friends—not just here, but also on Kharemough. He could come back to us on his own. …” But her voice doubted it. Moon remembered the levels of Survey, the schisms hidden within its seeming unity. “Or if Sparks comes back with Kullervo and Ariele, Kullervo may be the key … the fire to fight fire with.”