Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

Dobbs swallowed her fear. Al Shei hadn’t really heard anything she’d said yet. Her mind was totally focused on her husband’s arrest. Dobbs tried to keep her voice steady, to use her training, to remember everything she knew about this woman in front of her, but all her knowledge seemed to run away like water. “Your grief is not with the Fool’s Guild, Al Shei,” she said as firmly as she could. “Your real grief is with Theodore Curran. We need to try to find him. Let me try to find out where he’s based.”

“And then what?” demanded Al Shei. “You just told me it was the Guild who raised the false charges against Asil. When will they be brought to answer for it?”

Yerusha spread her hands. “He’ll be let go, Al Shei. They’ll have to. There’s nothing to the charges.”

“They’ll let him go with a fraud charge to his name.” Her eyes were thunderous. “He is an accountant. A fraud charge could ruin him, even if it is untrue. The source of the charge must be rooted out. It must be seen to be a conspiracy against my family.”

“Al Shei, I won’t speak against the Guild in court,” Dobbs said softly. “It’ll be the end of my family if I do.”

Al Shei leaned across the table. “Your family is responsible for the damage they have done to mine.” She stabbed the table top with her finger. “I could hold you. I could arrest you right this second on my captain’s authority and tell the whole of Settled Space what you are.”

Dobbs felt the blood in her body drain down to the soles of her feet. “You wouldn’t do that, Al Shei. You know what will happen. We’d be hunted down.”

Slowly, Al Shei sat back. “You talk as if you have told me a small thing, Dobbs. Like this is nothing at all.” She jabbed her finger toward the hatch. “There are two thousand people out there who are not people at all. You are an AI in a bio-vat body. One of thousands. You have presented yourselves to Settled Space under false guise. You have lied to us. To all of Settled Space for two hundred years!” She threw up her hands. “And now, you are asking me to trust you! You ask me to be like a Freer and blindly worship the product of Human technology.” Yerusha jerked herself forward, but Al Shei didn’t give her a chance to interrupt. “You, maybe, maybe, I could, but you are asking me to trust your Masters not to do anything else to me, to my family.” A cold light burned behind her eyes. “You say they did this because they were afraid of me. Well, if this does not slow me down or silence me enough, what will they do next, Dobbs? Can you tell me that?”

Dobbs’ head swam and she could not find an answer. What answer was there? Al Shei was right. There was no knowing what the Guild would do next. They’d been ready to kill her, and she was one of their own kind.

Dobbs stepped around the chair to the side of the table. “I want to try to stop this,” she said, pressing both hands flat against the table top. “I need time to find Curran and prove that some of the Guild Masters have become… corrupt.”

“Then what? You still are what you are. Your masters are still guilty of this act, and I still know what I know. What then, Dobbs?” Her eyes were wide, almost frightened now. “This much has already happened. My crew was endangered and my husband has been arrested. It is too much to ask me to believe that nothing like this will ever be done again. Your people have power Dobbs. They will use it. They have already used it.”

Dobbs felt her own eyes begin to widen. Al Shei wasn’t listening. She wouldn’t see. She was going to…going to…Dobbs throat clenched. She had no idea what Al Shei was going to do, and that filled her with fear.

Al Shei looked away. “I am right now remembering you saved the Farther Kingdom, and that you saved my crew when your masters told you not to. But I may not remember this for long.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “Especially if I cannot find other proof to clear Asil’s reputation. If you cannot help me, help my family, I cannot protect you. You had better get off my ship.”

Dobbs took a step back. She didn’t mean it. She couldn’t mean it. Al Shei’s eyes had turned as hard as granite and she stayed stock still where she was.

Dobbs turned around and ran. She ran down the corridor. She pushed past Odel and nearly careened into Javerri in the airlock. Javerri exclaimed something that Dobbs couldn’t understand and she bolted out into the station, through another hatchway was another set of stairs. Dobbs ran down them as fast as she could place her feet.

Al Shei watched Dobbs retreat from the conference room. Yerusha turned on her heel and followed the Fool a split second later. Al Shei’s heart sank inside her. She wanted to call Dobbs back, but she knew she couldn’t. Dobbs wouldn’t help. Dobbs wouldn’t do anything. Then, out of this was the only safe place for Dobbs to be, before Al Shei’s trust was stretched any thinner, before the Guild was blasted wide open. If Yerusha wanted to get involved, that was her decision. A rental pilot could get the Pasadena back to Earth if she didn’t come back

What, she thought wearily, am I going to tell Lipinski about Dobbs?

She shoved that thought to the background. Lipinski’s reactions would have to take care of themselves. She had other things to worry about of right now.

Using the table top boards, Al Shei opened a line to Port Oberon’s flight schedulers. She requested to speak to Geraldo Taylor.

The view screen beside the intercom lit up to show Taylor’s genial, heavily-moustached face.

“Hello, Al Shei! How are you doing, mi capitan ?”

“Not so well, Taylor,” she admitted. “I’ve got bad news from home, and I’ve got to get back to Earth, fast.”

The smile faded from Taylor’s face. “Al Shei, you know how tight we have to run things here, especially on the Earthbound flights.”

Al Shei leaned forward. “Please, Taylor. My husband is in trouble, and I have got to get home.” She had sent three separate fast-time calls to Bala house in the past five days, all her accounts could stand. Each time she’d gotten Uncle Ahmet. She’d spoken with him and her children, her sister and her grandmother, but never with Asil. Not once. He wasn’t home was all anyone would say to her. There had been no messages from him. None. Why hadn’t there been any messages? Her fear painted him in a Management Union security chamber being questioned again and again about things he knew nothing about.

Taylor ran one finger along his moustache and looked down at his boards. “Let me see if I’ve got any empty Earthbound slots at all…” His shoulders bobbed as he worked his boards. Then, he froze. When he looked up at Al Shei, his face was uneasy.

Al Shei felt her heart plummet. “What is it?”

“It’s major, Al Shei. We’ve got a red flag on your ship.” He glanced down again and read the directive off the screen. “Hold at port until Management Union escort arrives.”

Very aware that Taylor was watching her, Al Shei kept her hands still and her head up. “Does it say what the flag is for?”

Taylor scanned his boards. “Somebody thinks Marcus Tully left some contraband aboard.”

Oh, Merciful Allah! Why is this hitting now? Al Shei set her jaw. “Taylor…”

He held up both hands and shied back. “Do not even start to ask me, Al Shei. You’ve been impounded. I haven’t got the authority to do anything about it, even if I wanted to.”

Al Shei’s resolve gave out. She rested her forehead against her hand.

“Look, Al Shei, nobody’s accusing you of anything.” There was a note of desperate consolation in Taylor’s voice. “I’m sure as hell not. The M.U. ship is only two days out. They’ll come in, pick up Tully and take you back home.”