Code Of Conduct (The Jani Kilian Chronicles - Book I)

356 Pages·2020·0.81 MB·english

by  Kristine Smith

Copyright © 1999 by Kristine C. Smith
ISBN: 0-380-80783-1
CODE OF CONDUCT
Kristine Smith
Acknowledgments
A first book is usually the most difficult to write, firstly, because you're still trying to
find your sea legs, and secondly, because you've no assurance whatsoever that what
you've spent years producing will go anywhere other than a box in the cellar.
I've been lucky enough to have had help from many people in assisting me through
the difficulties. In particular, I'd like to thank Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, who helped
keep me on track, and my parents, Gordon and Charlotte Smith, whose love and
support helped keep me going.
The visible aspects of the condition, it is believed, first
manifested themselves during a stressful period in the
patient's life. Therefore, the mild agitation that
commonly precedes the acute phase, although evident,
was easily ascribable to the patient's augmentation or
other, more mundane, causes.
—Internal Communication, Neoclona/Seattle,
Shroud, J., Parini, V., concerning Patient S-l
CHAPTER 1
The frigid morning dampness seeped through Jani's weatherall as she hurried out of
the charge lot.
She jammed the notes from her crack-of-dawn meeting into the side pocket of her
duffel; as she did,
she quickly surveyed the scene behind her. Rain-slick skimmers hovered beside
boxy charge stations. Trickle-charge lights glimmered like distant stars. A single
streetlight bathed everything in a cold blue sheen. No movement in the ice-light. No
sound.
Jani took a step. Stopped. She could feel eyes follow her, could sense their probing
like a skin-crawl across her shoulders. She turned.
A few meters away, a feral cat regarded her from its perch atop a discarded shipping
crate. It stared
at her for a few moments, then poured to the ground and vanished into an alley.
Seconds later, Jani
heard the scatter of garbage, followed by a strangled squeak.
Sounds familiar. The poor mouse. It probably never knew what hit it. Jani could
sympathize. Her
meeting had gone much the same way.
It's like everyone's forgotten Whalen's Planet exists, girly. Commercial traffic at the
docks is down
sixty percent in the last two weeks. That's six-oh.
She trotted down a side street that led to the main thoroughfare. Her right knee
locked as she turned
the corner, and she stumbled against a pair of mutually supportive inebriates who
had emerged from
one of NorthPort's many bars.
One of the drunks shouted as Jani disentangled herself and hurried away. Something
about how her
limp made her ass wiggle. She looked over her shoulder, caught glimpses of brightly
colored ship
patches and a slack-jawed leer. She felt the heat creep up her neck and kept moving.
She entered the lobby of a hostel that catered to merchant-fleet officers, tossing a
wave to the desk
clerk as she hurried to the holoVee alcove. Several employees already sat on the
floor in front of the display screen, their positions carefully gauged to allow them a
clear view of the front desk.
On the lookout for the manager. Jani kept quiet until she entered within range of the
holoVee's soundshielding. She knew an unauthorized break when she saw one. "Is
this it?"
One of the cleaners nodded. "Hi, Cory," she said without looking up. "It's the
CapNet broadcast.
It's just getting started."
Jani did a quick mental roll call of the small group, counting faces, uniforms. She
didn't know their names—she tried to avoid the complication of names whenever
possible. "Where's the garage guy?"
"He's still out sick," the cleaner said. "Should be back tomorrow. He'll be mad he
missed this." The
young woman grinned. "I'll tell him you asked about him. He thinks you jam."
Jani responded with her "Cory" smile. Quiet. Closed. A smile whose owner would
blush and keep walking. She leaned against a planter and surveyed with satisfaction
the lack of fuss that greeted her arrival. Yes, Cory Sato, documents technician, had
settled quite nicely in NorthPort over the last six months. Jani Kilian had never
seemed farther away.
Until her morning meeting.
Business has dropped over the side these past two weeks, girly. NUVA-SCAN
annex won't answer
our calls. Even the Hadrin are complaining. But you wouldn't know anything
about that, would you?
An overwrought voice interrupted Jani's troubled meditation. "A great honor is being
paid the Commonwealth," the CapNet reporter gushed, "opening a new and exciting
chapter in human-idomeni relations!"
Spoken like someone who has no idea what she's talking about, Jani thought as she
watched members
of the Commonwealth Cabinet walk out onto the sheltered stage that had been
erected in front of the Prime Minister's palatial Main House. Steam puffed from their
mouths. A few of the coatless ministers shivered in their formal, color-coded
uniforms. Chicago in winter looked even less hospitable than NorthPort, if that was
possible.
Treasury Minister Abascal, ever-flushed face glowing in lurid contrast to his gold
tunic, trundled to the podium "to say a few words."
"Where's the ambassador?" someone grumbled.
"He doesn't come out till later—you want the poor old bastard to freeze to death?"
"Never get to see him at this rate." One of the day-shift waiters checked his
timepiece. "All fourteen ministers gonna talk—it'll be hours."
"Not all fourteen," said the restaurant hostess. "Van Reuter's not there."
Really? Jani studied the rows of faces, looking for the one she knew. Had known.
Long ago.
"Too bad," she said. "He's the best speaker of the bunch."
"You like him?" The waiter glanced at Jani over his shoulder and sneered. "He's a
Family boy nance."
"He knows the idomeni," Jani replied. "That's more than you can say for the rest of
them."
"You don't see him much since his wife died," the hostess said. "Poor man."
"You hear about him, though," the waiter muttered. "Nance."
On-screen, Abascal finished to scattered applause and gave way to Commerce
Minister al-Muhammed. Jani leaned forward, straining to hear the commentary over
the buzz of multiple conversations. Commerce controlled trade and transport
schedules—maybe something al-Muhammed said would shed light on the slowdown
around Whalen.
"Is al-Muhammed the 'A' in NUVA or the 'A' in SCAN?" someone piped, drowning
out the minister's voice.
Oh blow! Jani shouldered her bag and walked through the middle of the huddle.
"Al-Muhammed's
the 'A' in SCAN," she said, bumping the speaker in the back of his head with her
knee.
"He's another nance," griped the waiter.
"Cory, I thought you wanted to see this," someone called after her. "You'll miss the
ambassador."
"I have to go. I'll catch it somewhere else." Somewhere quieter. She should have
known better than to
try to watch the program with others. Some things needed to be studied in private.
Pondered. Mulled.
We've officially reopened relations with the idomeni. Jani rubbed her stomach,
which had begun to
ache. Wonderful. She walked past buildings of black-and-yellow thermal scan-brick
toward NorthPort's Government Hall. The elegant twelve-story edifice loomed over
all like a stern but forgiving patriarch, offering numerous types of guidance to his
wayward children. Audit assistance from External Revenue Outreach. Documents
counseling from the Commerce and Treasury Ministry annexes. By all appearances,
family relations appeared very close.
Appearances, as the old saying went, could be deceiving.
Why you always hang about with the nances at Guv Hall, girly? What goes on
there so interesting
you need to see it every day?
She increased her pace as she headed out of the business district, monitoring her
stride in shop windows and mirror-glazed brick. She had only become aware of the
hitch in her walk over the past couple of months, and had attributed it to a
combination of the NorthPort weather and a cheap mattress.
Among other things. Jani took a step. Right foot down. Another. Left foot... down.
She had to assume that. She hadn't much sensation in her left leg. Or her left arm.
The lack of feeling sometimes made
quick movement an adventure, but she maneuvered pretty well for a
half-animandroid patch job. And
my ass does not wiggle—she glanced at her reflection—not much, anyway.
Block after block fell behind as she tried to walk off her growing apprehension. She
passed warehouses, long-term skimmer charge lots, then a three-hundred-meter
stretch of sand and scrub before coming to the houses.
The facades of the one- and two-story polystone homes would have appeared
familiar to most humans, but a careful observer would have noticed the subtle
alterations. Smaller, fewer windows. No doors opening out to the street. Blank walls
facing the human side of town. For humanish ways are strange ways, and godly
idomeni avert their eyes.
The low clouds opened. Cold rain splattered down. Jani yanked the hood of her
weatherall up over her head, but not before looking around to see if she was being
observed. She wouldn't be welcomed here. The made-sect Haarin, like their more
disciplined born-sect counterparts, preferred that their humanish neighbors keep their
distance.
Except when it comes to business. The Haarin were nonviolent criminals and other
idomeni social anomalies, their manufactured sect the pit into which the born-sects
dumped their misfits. Even though Jani understood the Haarin better than most, she
still couldn't be sure whether they settled on human worlds because they enjoyed
aggravating their governing Council or because they actually liked the neighborhood.
They definitely enjoyed learning concepts like float-rebound accounting. They liked
dealing, and possessed a disrespect for Commonwealth rules and regs that was
almost colonial in its fervor.
They're probably all at the gathering hall, waiting for Tsecha's speech. The
reopening of formal diplomatic relations between the Commonwealth and the Shera
worldskein, and the subsequent reevaluation of trade and taxation laws, concerned
them as much as it did Jani's bosses in the
Merchants' Association.
I foresee busy times ahead for documents technicians. Jani squinted as the rain
pelted harder and
thick fog wended around homes and down the empty street. Then a shadowed
movement in the
murky distance caught her eye; her stomach clenched as it always did when she saw
a NorthPort
Haarin. Their born-sect forebears had been Vynsharau and Pathen, and the strains
had remained undiluted. The approaching Haarin was rope-muscled, slender, and
two meters tall. His yellow-orange skin, which screamed jaundice to humans, in
idomeni reality marked the races that originated in
Sherd's desert regions.
It's only Genta. Jani's anxiety subsided. The shuttle dealer walked toward her with
long, loose-limbed strides. His dark green overrobe clung wetly to his matching
belted shirt and trousers, the hem catching
on the fasteners of his knee-high boots. Clothing drenched, fine brown hair plastered
to his scalp, the Haarin appeared completely at ease. With his narrow shoulders,
age-grooved jowls, and wide-spaced yellow eyes, he bore more than a passing
resemblance to a bored cheetah.
"Nia Chaw-ree." Genta crossed an arm over his chest in greeting. His right arm, palm
facing inward.
A sign of regard, if not respect. "You ar-re noth ath a holoVee, watching speeches?
That is wher-re all idomeni ar-re, watching speeches." The English words tumbled
from barely moving lips, all trilled r's
and fuzzed hard consonants. "Insthead, you ar-re her-re in the rain."
"Yes, ni Genta—I don't like speeches," Jani replied as she returned Genta's greeting
gesture. And
I have some nerves to walk off. But a Haarin wouldn't know a nerve if it reared up
and bit him in the
ass, so no use mentioning that. "Why aren't you in the gathering hall? Tsecha's born
Vynsharau—
they've always been friends of Haarin. You might like what he has to say."
Genta held a spindle-fingered hand to his face and brushed water from his hairless
cheeks. His stare pierced Jani. She, of all people, should have been used to it by
now, but the direct gaze of idomeni
eyes, dark irises surrounded by more lightly colored sclera, could still disconcert.
Looking strangers
in the eye was taboo for all born-sect idomeni, but the NorthPort Haarin were
adopting the custom
as a matter of good business. The fact that it rattled the hell out of most humans had
nothing to do
with it. Of course not.
"I did not wait for Vynsharau to tell me to live with humanish," Genta said, "and I do
not need what Vynsharau says now to work with humanish." Like all his fellow
world-men, he became much more intelligible when he had a point to make. "NiRau
Tsecha is not for Haarin. He is not for Vynsharau,
or even for idomeni. He is for something here"— he thumped the middle of his
stomach, where most idomeni believed the soul resided— "and to fight for such
does not extend GateWay rights or alter contract law." With a distraded gesture of
departure, he started back down the street. "It will be bad
for business," he continued, his rumbling voice deadened by the fog. ''Bad, as it was
before. Even now
it starts—where are all the ships these past weeks? No good can come from this. No
good." With that, Genta disappeared into the swallowing mist, leaving Jani alone in
the rain.
* * *
Eventually, she returned to the human side of town. She wandered from storefront to
storefront,
finally joining a small crowd that had gathered in front of a communications shop.
Every holoVee
screen in the window contained the image of Prime Minister Cao.
"And now, fellow ministers, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen," Cao
paused, drawing out the moment, "it is my honor and my privilege to introduce His
Excellency, ambassador of the Shera worldskein, of the Vynsharau and of all
idomeni peoples—"
"Sects," Jani muttered.
"—Egri niRau Tsecha." Cao looked off to the side and extended her arm.
"Excellency!"
Jani sensed the tension around her as, on the screen, a familiar face came into view.
Familiar not
because of the Genta-like skin tone, the same gold eyes and long, straight nose, but
because of
something deeper, something older. She felt wet cold wind brush her face and
imagined it drier,
hotter. Instead of damp mingled with the acid bitterness of skimmer cells, the sweet
odor of lamptree blooms filled the air. The crowd surrounding her towered above
her, wore flowing overrobes, and
spoke in lilting rises and falls.
Eighteen years ago, in the godly capital of Rauta Sheraa, when we both were
known by the names
we'd been born with—
"Dear-rest fr-riends—"
—I almost got you killed, didn't I, niRau?
"—it has been too long."
The recorded audience exploded into applause as the ambassador raised his right
hand above his head
in a subservient greeting. The red stone in his ring of station flashed reflected
daylight like a small
warning light. As the clapping died, Tsecha bowed his head and continued his
speech in High
Vynsharau.
Jani positioned herself so that the crowd blocked the subtitles. She watched
Tsecha's posture and gestures, the sweep and flourish of the highly choreographed
language, and intuited meaning the way
a musician discerned note, tone, and tempo. It had taken her seven years to develop
the skill; pride
and respect for the language prevented her from playing ignorant and covering it up.
The Haarin had noticed her ability soon after she'd arrived in NorthPort. Whenever
their trade council experienced a communications breakdown with the Whalen's
Planet Merchants' Association, they always contacted Cory Sato to help resolve it, a
fact that only helped worsen her relationship with her bosses.
Jani flinched as the woman next to her pointed to the news-screen. "It's so beautiful!
That language. Those gestures. Like a kind of dancing!"
A man in a dockworker's coverall shook his head firmly. "Don't trust them. None of
them, not even
the ones we got here." He gestured in the direction of the Haarin enclave. "Sneaky
bastards. Don't see none of 'em here, do you? No, they gotta shut themselves away
all private."
"Tsecha's the Pathen Haarin's religious as well as secular leader," the woman said.
"They're required
to gather together in their meeting hall to listen to him. Then afterwards, they'll pray."
Jani nodded in agreement. Genta had, in fact, committed a serious breach of order
by not attending the program. But even the most humanish-behaving idomeni felt that
acting one way while believing another was disorderly; Genta's cultural conditioning
prevented him from hiding his displeasure with his ambassador. Likewise, his
council's action against him would be very public, and very swift. If his delivery
contracts are canceled, the MA will explode. And she would be dragged in to ladle
oil over
the whitecaps, sure as hell—
"Them and their prayers." The dockworker glared at Tsecha's image. "Everything's a
damned prayer. Even their damned meals. Say it's their religion, but whoever heard
of a religion where it's a sin to eat
in public? With friends. Like normal."
The woman frowned at him. "Eating's different for them. They store food very
carefully and keep records of where it comes from. They call their meals sacraments
and their cooks priests. They eat by themselves and pray the whole time. Very
ceremonial. Very precise." She nodded knowingly. "That's how they honor their
gods."
"The Haarin honor money more than gods," another man said. "You can buy some
of their blessed sacrament if you really want it." He grimaced. "Don't know why you
would, though. They season their food like to blow the top of your head off. Even
the sweet stuff."
"Sacraments." The dockworker snorted. "Bunch of creeps. Talk like they got
marbles in their mouths, look at you like you're dirt." He walked away, his
expression stony. "Didn't need any damned ambassadors for almost twenty years.
Why now?"
Interesting question, sir—I've pondered it myself the past few weeks. Jani cast a last
look toward the screen, taking note of the ministers sharing the stage with Tsecha.
Every face wore a broad smile. Well, those expressions would be wiped out soon
enough when they realized what they'd let themselves in for. At least this time she'd
be far enough away to avoid shrapnel. For once in her screwed-up life, she'd
stationed herself, as her mainline Service buddies used to say, well back of the front.
The rain had turned to mist. Time to head back to the Association tracking station
she called home.
Jani hurried in the direction of the lot where her skimmer sat charging, picking up her
pace even though her back had begun to ache. Her bosses would soon be screaming
for the official morning docking numbers. She couldn't afford to piss them off any
more.
A shout sounded from behind. The pound of running feet. Jani's heart raced. Her
breath caught in her throat. Then chill calm washed over her, like an old friend
resting a hand on her shoulder. She reached into the inner pocket of her duffel. Her
hand closed around the grip of her old Service shooter. She turned, only to see the
desk clerk from the hostel racing toward her.
"Jeez, Cory, wake up!" The young man slowed to a gasping halt. "I need—to talk to
you."
Jani withdrew her empty hand from the duffel and tried to smile.
"Boy, you look wrecked." The clerk's voice dropped to a whisper. "You get those
old farts you work
for through that audit ok?"
"As always," Jani replied.
"You know"—he leaned closer—"there's a doe here from SouthPort Consolidated.
Jammin' blonde.
She's looking for doc techs. Pass her exam, she's offering Registry-level jobs."
"So?"
The clerk rolled his eyes. "You, dummy! You're the talk of the Merchants', my
manager says. All the paper you vet is so clean, it squeaks. Six months on the job,
not one observation from Guv Hall. My manager calls it a miracle."
My bosses call it something else. Jani's smile faded. The word "verifier" hadn't been