Adam-Troy Castro - The Third Claw of God

Sometime ten or twenty minutes after it all came back to me, we had returned to the stone table and I was sitting opposite her again, my eyes burning but my mind working at full capacity again. The furry white thing that lived on the balcony had decided that I was its friend, or at least its pleasure slave, and was now curled up on my lap, vibrating with pleasure; my usual impulse would have been to kick it off but I stroked it anyway as I sipped the sweet juice Jelaine had gotten me. “And am I supposed to believe that this is just about family? And nothing else?”

She spread her hands. “It can be about as little or as much as you want it to be.”

“Why didn’t the Family ever reclaim me before?”

“Because that’s never been the way things were done before. Because Bettelhines who leave the corporation or allow themselves to be exiled for cause have historically never been trusted again. Offspring born to exiles are sometimes repatriated, if they have a case, but they’ve never been allowed to become Inner Family in status again, even by marriage. The risks of subversion have always been deemed too great.”

I took another sip of my juice. “So where does that leave me?”

“You?…were a special case. You were notorious. Your loving Corps ”—she filled the word with special contempt—“knew who you were and did everything they could to enhance your notoriety, just so they could hold you over my father and grandfather’s generations.”

“That’s all I was? A blackmail tool?”

“Somewhat short of a doomsday weapon. Our family’s well used to being hated, and could have weathered the scandal had your identity ever been revealed. But threats to reveal your lineage could still sway certain issues of contention a few precious points toward Dip Corps advantage. And that grew even more of a factor once you embarked upon your diplomatic career and became an even more divisive figure among the other major powers. Overall it became easier, for the small number of Inner Family leaders of these past two generations who knew who you were, to let you be and just let smaller issues slide.”

I was still sure I discerned an ulterior motive. “And that’s why you’re trying to get me back now? To neutralize my effectiveness as a political lever?”

“No, Andrea, that’s the way my grandfather might have seen it. Or even my father, once upon a time. But you haven’t been an effective political lever in some time. Most of the new generation coming up now still has no idea who you are. Philip, for one, didn’t know who you were until we were all back on Xana and Jason took him aside to tell him. I wish you could have seen the expression on his face.”

“Don’t tell me you’re just being sentimental.”

“If you think that’s not a factor, you’re wrong. Aunt Lillian was exiled before either of the singles Jason and Jelaine were born, but I have researched her case and believe it a miscarriage of family justice. There was never any need to deprive her of her birthright. Or, by extension, yours.”

Damn it, she seemed sincere. And I could not afford tears again. “But that’s not all of it. That can’t be all of it. I’m not that important.”

“You are, actually, but you’re right. That’s not all of it. I suppose that to understand it all you need to start with Jason’s experiences on Deriflys.”

“What happened?”

The pain of Jason’s early life now showed on his sister’s beautiful face, not as an experience she’d heard about at a remove, but as one she could now remember herself, with a pain capable of burning her. “I’ve already given you an idea how bad it was there. Now multiply your worst perception of that world’s brutality by a factor of ten. Jason lived like an animal. There were times he had to sell himself, times he had to kill or be killed, times he was no better than a slave, and times he had to give up every shred of his dignity just to avoid starving. When the AIsource pulled him out of there—”

I sat up a little straighter. “The AIsource?”

“Yes,” she said, with defiant calm. “They sent a force into Deriflys to pull out somebody else they wanted, a brave, special girl named Harille. They had important plans for her, but Harille wouldn’t go with them unless they also rescued the boy who had loved her and protected her and kept her alive even when it might have made more sense for both of them to just lie down and die.” Jelaine’s eyes turned wistful. “It’s amazing how much love a boy like the single Jason can feel when he’s lost everything and only his ability to feel concern for another person is left, or how much a girl like Harille, who never quite loved him back, can still appreciate all he’s done for her. She gave them no choice.”

I asked, “What happened to her?”

“The last time Jason saw her, aboard the AIsource vessel that pulled them off Deriflys, she was dying. And that, Counselor, is the real reason he was so shattered when he came back to Xana. Harille had kept him sane, and now he couldn’t even know whether she’d survived.”

“And this is why the singlet Jelaine went away with him?”

“Yes. Everybody was told it was a goodwill tour. But in truth none of the other worlds the singles Jason and Jelaine visited during the tour mattered at all. It was all about finding out whether Harille was alive or dead.”

“Was she?”

“Neither. She wasn’t exactly Harille anymore.” There was another flash of sadness, mixed with something else I could not identify—Anger? Amusement? Awe? “Let’s just say that she was beyond Jason’s reach.”

There was a moment of silence. “And all this—”

“All this,” she finished for me, “left the singles Jason and Jelaine at loose ends about what to do next. Jason hadn’t found closure. Jelaine had spent months listening to his stories and had begun to join him in rejecting the Bettelhine system. Both started focusing on Deriflys again, considering how many places like it suffer not because things fall apart but because the Bettelhine Family business provides them with the means to blow themselves apart. The singles realized that they could not return to Xana as happy little aristocrats content to continue profiting from the misery the Bettelhines always left behind.

“They also knew that there was no possibility of bringing about change, not with Jason considered unstable, Jelaine less major corporate force than family princess, and their conservative half brother Philip already being groomed for the top slot. But they couldn’t walk away from Xana and accept exile either, not when the feelings of helplessness were likely to destroy Jason all over again. So they decided to take extreme action. They decided to tool themselves for a silent coup. And so they contacted the AIsource and applied for cylinking.”

This brought up a point that had bothered me since the moment I’d first figured out what they were. “I learned when I hooked up with the Porrinyards that all linked pairs become AIsource agents.”

“I could have too,” she said, “but the agenda I proposed was so audacious that the AIsource were satisfied to just sit back and see how well I did. And as you know, I did very well. Jason returned a new man, mature and focused, ready for any lower corporate position the Family was still willing to provide him. Jelaine returned a more serious girl, eager to dedicate herself to upper management. There were no obvious signs of collusion between them. But in truth, the two supposed individuals were doing everything they could to regain my father’s confidence so they could go to him with the plan and start working together again. That took even less time than I’d budgeted. Within a year my star was rising.”

Flailing, aware that something was terribly wrong but unaware what it could be, I settled for strict chronological order. “How did the Khaajiir enter the picture?”