Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

“Such as?”

He rubbed the corner of his eyes. “Well, some worlds enforce very strict residency limitations on nonhumans; I’ve been expelled from a couple of those. And a few years ago I ran into trouble on another world where I served the local Riirgaan ambassador as liaison to the human locals. When the community found out about my relationship with a local girl, they accused me of rape and her of practicing bestiality. I was expelled. The girl was fined, forced to publicly apologize to the community, and prohibited from ever contacting me again.”

Levine told the story without any noticeable self-pity. Instead, he seemed to feel a peculiar pride in his one poor claim to fame.

I said, “It must be lonely.”

“It’s not as bad as you think, Counselor. In fact, I’m married to a woman who defected to Riirgaan in order to make it legal. There’s a community of about forty of us, based on one of their worlds; mostly political refugees, of one kind or another, all as human as I could ask for. We’re just not recognized as human under Confederate Law.”

“Where’s your wife now?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Back home. I’ll see her again when I’m cycled out in a few months.”

“Do you miss her?”

His smile made his face redden. “Of course.”

“Then, if you don’t mind me asking, what the hell are you doing here?”

That made him laugh without any self-consciousness at all. “Doesn’t make sense, does it? After all, I hate the Dip Corps and the Dip Corps hates me. We shouldn’t have anything to do with one another.”

It hadn’t worked that way, in my case. The Dip Corps and I hated each other, too, but were so integrally connected I’d be wearing its yoke for the rest of my life. But I said, “So?”

“The truth is, I’m here to function as living loophole. The AIsource running One One One only agreed to a small installation of observers, administered by one government and one government alone, required by treaty to share its findings with all the others monitoring the situation here. Humanity got elected. ‘My’ people, the Riirgaans, wanted their own eyes and ears aboard anyway, so they pulled some strings, finagled a separate deal with the Confederacy, and negotiated my presence as independent consultant. The AIsource know my legal status, but either they don’t value citizenship over biology the way the Confederacy does, or they’re not willing to argue the point. So I’m a human without being human.”

“I’m surprised you would want to go along with it. After all, the Corps shafted you twice. You should tell them to go to hell.”

“That’s right in both cases. They did, and I should. And for what it’s worth, they’re not much kinder to me now; some of the careerists, including Mr. Gibb, like to let me know as often as possible what a despicable race-traitor I am. But the Riirgaans gave me a home when I needed one, so I don’t mind taking a little crap for their sake. Besides, my bosses among the Riirgaans say that completing this assignment might give them enough leverage to negotiate a Confederate pardon for me and my friends. Even possible repatriation.”

I decided to give him some free legal advice. “Dual citizenship of some kind would be fine, but it would have to be dual. Confederate and Riirgaan. Don’t ever give up your Riirgaan ties, even for a moment.”

Levine frowned. “I wasn’t planning to, but why?”

“Because it would be just like the Confederacy to return your citizenship in some deal that comes with immunity from prosecution for crimes already charged, welcome you home, and then nail you with another charge they’ve been holding in reserve all along. They’re vindictive bastards, Mr. Levine. I know.”

He saw the conviction in my eyes, thought to question it, then stopped, the awful truth dawning. “Damn. You really think they’d do that?”

I gave him the full force of my certainty. “I’d be astonished if they didn’t.”

“Damn,” he said again, this time rolling the word with special emphasis. He was quiet for a moment, as he weighed the epiphany. Then he looked at me again and said, simply, “Thank you. I appreciate your honesty. Would you be upset with me if I asked you a personal question?”

I didn’t like personal questions in general, but I’d opened the door. And, besides, Levine gave me a feeling I rarely had for my fellow human beings: the sense that he could have been a friend, had I been in the market for friends. “Go ahead.”

“It’s a bad one. I don’t mean any offense.”

“I said go ahead.”

“I’ve known your name for a couple of years now. I know your background, and I know your legal status. It comes up a lot when researching my own. Don’t worry, I haven’t mentioned it to anybody here, but—”

My ears burned. “Just ask your question.”

“I was wondering… if I could defect to get out of a bad legal situation, why can’t you? I mean, I’m not advocating it, or saying that you should. But it’s not like the Dip Corps is an ideal place for you. You’re practically their slave. Haven’t you ever thought of getting some alien government, like mine, to give you sanctuary on its own soil?”

The question’s rudeness was not nearly as breathtaking as its honesty. I decided against going off on him and gave him an answer, even if I could only afford a less than candid one. “I don’t know of any alien governments who wouldn’t hand me over to the Bocaians.”

“Oh,” he said, deflating. “Just a thought.”

And a good one. But his adopted people, the Riirgaans, had been among the loudest raising challenges to my immunity. There were voices among the Tchi who hate me more than you can imagine. The Bursteeni agreed that I was functioning under diminished capacity, but thought that I should establish it once and for all in a Bocaian court, a course of action I considered tantamount to suicide. The K’cenhowten didn’t offer refugees sanctuary. The Cid were downright creepy. That pretty much did it for the major powers. Some of the lesser races regarded me with sympathy, but none had enough clout to buck a concerted interspecies attempt to extradite me. The Confederacy, at least, wouldn’t have forced the Dip Corps to give me up unless I became a much hotter issue than I am now. The Corps might not have loved me, and might have come close to giving me up half a dozen times, but they had invested in my training and could count on results from me. I was an asset, to be hoarded for as long as they had use for me.

And there was another factor I hadn’t mentioned, one that outweighed all the others.

Even if possible, defection amounted to surrender.

I wasn’t crazy about the human race, or the people I worked for, but I’d never been willing to give the bastards the satisfaction.

Cif Negelein lived up to his advance billing.

I didn’t recognize the name of his homeworld, but it was either an eccentric place or one that considered him among its more eccentric sons. Squat, neckless, round-eyed, and top-heavy, he affected an extreme form of Hammocktown’s fashionable near nudity, eschewing any uniform but for a thin strip of black cloth around his waist. His chest and arms were so furry they almost rendered any further clothing superfluous anyway. His face and scalp were as hairless as the plasm human surgeons implant on burn victims on worlds without access to AIsource Medical. This had evidently been arranged to clear space on his skin for a tattooed essay in the blocky alphabet of Hom. Sap Mercantile, delivering a small-print personal manifesto in a spiral that began just over his brow and culminated with an ellipsis at the highest point. Affectation, insanity, or gesture of deep commitment to a religion I didn’t even want to guess at, it made eye contact with him almost impossible. In my first few attempts to maintain a conversation with him, the words snaking along from temple to temple kept coming into focus upside down, often shutting me down in mid-sentence. Short of inserting him into a rotating tube and reading the words as he spun, I had to focus on his mouth to avoid being blindsided by any features above his nose.