Jonathan Strahan: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Volume 10

Somewhere overhead, the sound of a flier engine. Ashiban’s first impulse was to run into the trees. Instead, she said, “Constable, the Sovereign is right. I came here to try to help work out these difficulties. Whoever tried to kill us, they failed, and the sooner we get back to work, the better.”

“We don’t mean you any harm, old woman,” said the constable. “But you’d best get out of our way, because we are coming through here, whether you move or not.”

“To do what?” asked Ashiban. “To kill the people on those farmsteads behind us?”

“We’re not going to kill anybody,” said the constable, plainly angry at the suggestion. “We just want them to know we mean business. If you won’t move, we’ll move you.” And when neither Ashiban nor the Sovereign replied, the constable turned to the people on the back of the vehicle behind her and gestured them forward.

A moment of hesitation, and then one of them jumped off the groundcar, and another few followed.

Beside Ashiban the Sovereign took a shaking breath and cried, “I am the Sovereign of Iss! You will go back to the town.” The advancing people froze, staring at her.

“You’re a little girl in a minor priesthood, who ought to be home minding her studies,” said the constable. “It’s not your fault your grandmother made the mistake of negotiating with the weevils, and it’s not your fault your aunt quit and left you in the middle of this, but don’t be thinking you’ve got any authority here.” The people who had leaped off the groundcar still hesitated.

The Sovereign, visibly shaking now, pointed at the constable with her free hand. “I am the voice of the planet! You can’t tell the planet to get out of your way.”

“Constable!” said one of the people who had come off the groundcar. “A moment.” And went over to say something quiet in the constable’s ear.

The Sovereign said, low enough so only Ashiban could hear it, “ Tell the planet to get out of the way? How could I say something so stupid?”

And then lights came sweeping around the lefthand bend of the road, and seven or eight groundcars came into view, and stopped short of where the constable stood in the road.

A voice called out, “This is Delegate Garas of the Terraforming Council Enforcement Commission.” Ashiban knew that name. Everyone in the system knew that name. Delegate Garas was the highest-ranking agent of the Gidantan Enforcement Commission, and answered directly to the Terraforming Council. “Constable, you have overstepped your authority.” A man stepped out from behind the glare of the lights. “This area is being monitored.” The sound of a flier above, louder. “Anyone who doesn’t turn around and go home this moment will be officially censured.”

The person who had been talking to the constable said, “We were just about to leave, Delegate.”

“Good,” said the delegate. “Don’t delay on my account, please. And, Constable, I’ll meet with you when I get into town this afternoon.”

THE COMMISSION AGENTS settled Ashiban and the Sovereign into the back of a groundcar, and poured them hot barley tea from a flask. The tea hardly had time to cool before Delegate Garas slid into the passenger seat in front and turned to speak to them. “Sovereign. Elder.” With little bows of his head. “I apologize for not arriving sooner.”

“We had everything under control,” said the Sovereign, loftily, cloth still held over her face. Though, sitting close next to her as Ashiban was, she could feel the Sovereign was still shaking.

“Did you now. Well. We only were able to start tracking you when we found the crash site. Which took much longer than it should have. The surveillance in the High Mires and the surrounding areas wasn’t functioning properly.”

“That’s a coincidence,” Ashiban remarked, drily.

“Not a coincidence at all,” the delegate replied. “It was sabotage. An inside job.”

The Sovereign made a small, surprised noise. “It wasn’t the weev... the Raksamat?”

“Oh, they were involved, too.” Delegate Garas found a cup somewhere in the seat beside him, poured himself some barley tea. “There’s a faction of Raksamat – I’m sure this won’t surprise you, Elder – who resent the illegal settlers for grabbing land unauthorized, but who also feel that the Assembly will prefer certain families once Raksamat can legally come down to the planet, and between the two all the best land and opportunities will be gone. There is also – Sovereign, I don’t know if you follow this sort of thing – a faction of Gidanta who believe that the Terraforming Council is, in their turn, arranging things to profit themselves and their friends, and leaving everyone else out. Their accusations may in fact be entirely accurate and just, but that is of course no reason to conspire with aggrieved Raksamat to somehow be rid of both Council and Assembly and divide the spoils between themselves.”

“That’s a big somehow,” Ashiban observed.

“It is,” Delegate Garas acknowledged. “And they appear not to have had much talent for that sort of undertaking. We have most of them under arrest.” The quiet, calm voice of a handheld murmured, too low for Ashiban’s translator clip to pick up. “Ah,” said Delegate Garas. “That’s all of them now. The trials should be interesting. Fortunately, they’re not my department. It’s Judicial’s problem now. So, as I said, we were only able to even begin tracking you sometime yesterday. And we were already in the area looking for you when we got a call from a concerned citizen who had overheard plans for the constable’s little outing, so it was simple enough to show up. We were pleasantly surprised to find you both here, and relatively well.” He took a drink of his tea. “We’ve let the team tracking you know they can go home now. As the both of you can, once we’ve interviewed you so we know what happened to you.”

“Home!” The Sovereign was indignant. “But what about the talks?”

“The talks are suspended, Sovereign. And your interpreter is dead. The Council will have to appoint a new one. And let’s be honest – both of you were involved mainly for appearance’s sake. In fact, I’ve wondered over the last day or two if you weren’t brought into this just so you could die and provide a cause for trouble.”

This did not mollify the Sovereign. “Appearance’s sake! I am the Sovereign of Iss!”

“Yes, yes,” Delegate Garas agreed, “so you told everyone just a short while ago.”

“And it worked, too,” observed Ashiban. Out the window, over the delegate’s shoulder, the sun shone on the once again deserted road. She shivered, remembering the cracked flier windshield, the pilot slumped over the controls.

“You can’t have these talks without me,” the Sovereign insisted. “I’m the voice of the planet.” She looked at Ashiban. “I am going to learn Raksamat. And Ashiban Xidyla can learn Gidantan. We won’t need any expletive interpreter. And we can fix the handheld translators.”

“That might take a while, Sovereign,” Ashiban observed.

The Sovereign lifted the cloth covering her mouth just enough to show her frown to Ashiban. “We already talked about this, Ashiban Xidyla. And I am the Voice of Iss. I will learn quickly.”

“Sovereign,” said Delegate Garas, “those handheld translators are a good thing. Can you imagine what the past hundred years would have been like without them? People can learn Raksamat, or Gidantan, but as Ashiban Xidyla points out, that takes time, and in the meanwhile people still have to talk to each other. Those handheld translators have prevented all sorts of problems.”

“We know, Delegate,” Ashiban said. “We were just talking about it, before the townspeople got here. But they could be better.”