Flood Tide by C. J. Cherryh

He couldn't even remember his mother's face. That was funny. Or his father's. He remembered their hands. The shaking, old, gnarly hands with the undernourished nails all ridged and yellowed. They'd been teachers, before the revolution. They'd taught him to respect knowledge and respect his elders and respect all sorts of things that soon became the stuff of treachery and work camps: truths that the Fon government didn't believe in; values that the revolution didn't share.

  But then his parents had learned the new ways, and taught him to love the revolution. His father had said to him, "If you like Karl Fon, you´re going to love Chance Magruder."

  That was so long ago. Nearly a year before he'd come to Merovingen. And this was the first time he'd heard the words with the sarcasm that his father might—must—have intended.

  But you did what you could to keep the family alive. You protected your blood. And you kept in mind that these people down here in this hellhole of superstition and ignorance were willfully ignorant, vicious fundamentalists at odds with each other and the tiniest bit of technology that could make life better for the average sod.

  Half of Merovingen was so afraid that the alien sharrh would come back and raze their planet again that they didn't dare light a candle at night. The next largest majority was sure that you were stuck on a wheel of eternal rebirth like a butterfly glued to paper. And it went on. . . .

  Superstition was the enemy, Karl Fon taught. Intolerance was the enemy. It was the revolution's job to give man back his heritage, or at least a chance at it.

  It shouldn't be illegal to make a flashlight. It shouldn't be immoral to try and clean up the rivers. It shouldn't be a capital offense to say something critical of the government. But all those things were so here.

  He slid his hand under one more pair of undies and there was the flashlight—hard, round, and intact.

  He lit it to make sure. He put the contraband in his back pocket and headed for the door. This place was a pit of fools. And the worst thing about it was that each fool supported the worst things about the government:

  They believed that they lived over and over, so they were willing to suffer now, make some kind of deal with God so that they could live in hightown later. It not only made them tractable, it made them passive. They were sheep.

  The Adventists believed that the statue on Hanging Bridge was going to come alive, draw a foolish wooden sword and"—blam—the new age would begin.

  Whether or not the sharrh were really coming, Michael wasn't sure. He'd been drugged during catechism and dreamed he was a fighter in the defense force when Merovingen had been attacked from the stars. But all the sharrh had done lately was get his wife started prophesying doom.

  Living here was like living in a world where everything was upside down: Ignorance was exalted; the poor people, the uneducated, the martyrs, criminals, and the enduring clods were the venerated ones; the few educated hightowners were the evil that must be tolerated, because without the hightowners, even the pathetic subsistence in Merovingen-below would come to a grinding halt.

  So all your sinners were up on the upper levels, and all your good people below. If you believed. If you could equate ignorance with goodness. If you thought that moral arrogance was the same thing as moral exercise.

  Michael Chamoun shined the flashlight once around the room. He'd been smitten with puppy love for one of his wife's friends, and thought, being from a degenerate technological culture, that when he got here, he'd have a chance to cultivate a relationship with this girl, named Rita.

  But there weren't relationships, here. There were matings. Ritual couplings. Women didn't hold their bodies in any great repute. They made love to everyone. They screwed around like sailors—which, in a way, they all were.

  All Merovingen women were sluts, in Michael's estimation. Even beautiful Rita. And his wife was a drugged-out crazy. She'd killed their child with her drugs.

  In Merovingen they'd say that the child died as retribution on Michael's head for letting himself and his loins be used to make a merger, for making Cassie fall in love with him, for swearing vows he didn't intend to keep and living as his wife's husband under false pretenses.

  But what did they know, in Merovingen, about anything? Technophobes had come to disgust him. He was so tired of lace at his collar and ritual and exaggerated manners that he could scream.

  His wife had killed their baby with her drug-taking and Nev Hettek had foreseen it, sending in a replacement baby just in time. Well, thanks, Dani. Thanks, Chance.

  Dani Lambert had given her own baby to Michael, for the sake of the revolution.

  If it was Revolution or Retribution, Michael would still take Revolution every time: change over superstition. Superstition was the overt sign of an unwillingness to accept change. And what didn't change, died.

  As his baby had died. Dani Lambert's kid was either Karl Fon's daughter or Chance Magruder's daughter, so Kenner had told Michael with that wolfish grin.

  "Ain't that a bitch and a laugh on 'em? They've got this real hotsty totsy daughter of the Boregy House, hightown's top of the top, bound to inherit a whole chunk o' this place—wait till she grows up and one o' her daddies comes to see her."

  Kenner was something Michael could never be. He didn't know how or when he'd done it, but he found himself lying on Cassie's bed, shining the flashlight at the muraled ceiling: off, on; off, on; off, on.

  And Kenner finally knocked, and stuck his head in: "What's the matter with you? Blinking that light. Shows under the door."

  Kenner hit the wall switch. Boregy House had lights, when it wanted to use them.

  "Come on, Chamoun. Shape up. Let's get out of here and I'll buy you a drink."

  Kenner thought that all Michael cared about was liquor. Well, it had been, almost, since Cassie's real baby died.

  Kenner moved toward him with a litheness that Michael Chamoun would never possess, all readiness and speed. And aggression. Chamoun told himself, as he rolled off the bed before Kenner could lift him up by the collar, that it was just training. Magruder hadn't given Michael that kind of training because he wasn't supposed to move like a fighter, like a soldier: he was supposed to be a pampered son of Nev Hettek's first-generation merchant-class aristocracy, which existed only in the mind of Magruder and Fon, until they'd made Michael Chamoun into what they needed to get into the pants of Merovingen's hightowners.

  Kenner wrenched the flashlight from Michael's unresisting hands.

  "Right, a drink." He started to get up, but Kenner pushed him back down. "On second thought, fancy pants, you've had enough to drink."

  "You'll never get out—and back in—without me. Chance'll have a fit if you leave me."

  Kenner was squinting in the bright light. He shook his head and said, "Yeah, okay. Come on. But try to look like you're not scared to death, hear? This is your damned house, isn't it?"

  "Not exactly."

  Maybe Chance had taught Kenner something, but not enough about Merovingen. Finally seeing that there was some need for him—that somebody, somewhere, needed him—Michael Chamoun levered himself off his wife's empty bed to escort Kenner out of Boregy House safely.

  Cassie was off with Mikhail, as usual.

  Maybe they could get to Magruder with the flashlight before she got home. Then there was only a little more to to do: making sure his wife missed the gift, and told her father.

  And, of course, told Mikhail.

  The thought of Cassie in the Justiciary's fabled basement ought to have rankled more than it did.

  As he followed Kenner down the stairs to the water-gate, Chamoun admitted that, as far as he was concerned, his wife had murdered his baby.

  So maybe, if things got out of hand the way they often did when Magruder played long shots, and Cassie ended up in the Justiciary, it would prove that the Merovingians were right and he was wrong: then he'd believe in karma, and in Retribution.

  But until then, he was going to stop drinking and start paying attention. It wasn't just the footing on the
stairs down to the water-gate that was treacherous tonight.

  Merovingen wasn't a place you could roam around freely, any longer. Unless you had a Kenner by your side, or unless you were one of Willa Exeter's witch-hunters.

  Since Chamoun was probably one of the people whom Willa Exeter would most like to get into the Justiciary, he needed to watch his step.

  Not just figuratively, either.

  With Cassie fast becoming the apple of Mikhail's eye, one easy way to dispose of an unwanted husband would be through Mikhail's supporter, Cardinal Exeter.

  He hadn't thought it through until they'd reached the landing and the boatman at the garde-porte greeted him with a show of deference and a sniff at Kenner.

  And then, finally, Chamoun understood—or thought he understood—why Magruder had assigned Kenner to stay with him.

  And his eyes nearly filled with tears of gratitude and embarrassment. Chance cared about him. Chance was looking out for him. Chance was doing more for Michael than Michael was doing for himself.

  He really was going to stop drinking. He really did have a stake in things here. Even though the baby was dead, the Revolution was alive and well.

  As the water-gate rumbled and Kenner hopped into a waiting boat, Chamoun nearly shook the hand Kenner offered him. Then something happened—he wasn't sure what. Kenner slipped. He slipped. The boat rocked.

  And the flashlight fell.

  It hit the water with a splash and both of them plunged their hands in after it.

  But it was too late, and the Boregy retainer was right there, looking at them.

  Had he seen? If he had, did he know what he'd seen?

  Kenner said, "Never mind, I'll buy the next bottle. Come on, let's go."

  And there was nothing for it but to ready the boat and push off.

  Chance wasn't going to like this. Not at all. That flashlight, if it turned out to have sunk in the mud of the water-gate, could turn out to be a real problem.

  Or not. It depended on what the retainer had seen, Kenner said. "He's good as dead. Trust me. He won't live till morning. As a matter of fact, he might not live another couple hours. All depends on how long it takes us to get back there, say we forgot something, and finish him. After all, the place was supposed to have been burgled. . . ."

  Chamoun closed his eyes.

  He wasn't a killer. He'd found that out the last time he'd gone out at night with Kenner.

  But he knew Kenner was right. The Boregy retainer, who'd seen the flashlight drop, had to die. Or else he might. And, worse, the Revolution might. And if the Revolution died, Merovingen would live on in superstition unending, while women like Cassie chewed deathangel and killed their babies, and men like Mondragon sold their partitioned souls to the highest bidders, and the rest waited to be born rich or fried by the sharrh, whichever came first.

  "Mondragon will talk, freely and inventively, dear sister," said Anastasi to her as they walked together along the bridge to the College. "If he believes there's no hope. No help. He'd even deal with Exeter exactly the way he's dealt with everyone else . . . and no one wants that."

  "So we'll try to make sure," she affirmed the arrangement, "that he talks to no one we'd rather not have him talking to. But it's agreed between us, then: keeping him alive and a threat to all others beats having him dead and losing the, shall we say, constipating effect he has on so many whose secrets he knows."

  "Agreed," said Anastasi Kalugin, nodding his proud head once. Tatiana's brother was beautiful in the moonlight. Or beautiful because he was trying to cut a deal with her and Anastasi had powers of persuasion that were nearly more than mortal. Tatiana reminded herself that his so-called deal would extend only so far as its explicit limits, and no farther.

  They'd use Magruder's plan to make Exeter release Mondragon into their custody, or into Magruder's.

  She shivered. That was the difficult part: One wanted Mondragon under one's personal protection. But Magruder was the most likely person to whom Exeter would release him.

  Were they slitting their own throats in order to keep Mondragon's whole?

  She didn't know. She couldn't say. She was still smarting from her encounter with Magruder.

  "Why so quiet, sister? This is what you wanted, isn't it? What your pet Nev Hetteker proposed?"

  "He's not my pet."

  "Then what is he?" Anastasi stopped, turned, and a wisp of disturbingly pale hair blew across his forehead as he peered at her. "What is he, Tatiana?"

  A spy. A provocateur. An insurrectionist. But she couldn't very well say that.

  "Chance? He's a useful tool. Like Mondragon. Exactly like Mondragon—a blade sharp on every side." Be careful, brother, for all our sakes.

  "So you're not as sure about releasing Mondragon into Magruder's custody as you pretend." Anastasi licked his lips. "That's something, anyhow, dear sister—you're not love-besotted, at least."

  "Ha!" The derisive snort came out of her with too much vehemence. Thus, she had to cover the lapse as Anastasi looked closer: "Let the Nev Hettekers flock together. Let Exeter worry over them, not over eliminating all of Mikhail's enemies by dint of this inquisition. After all, brother, you and I are Mikhail's worst enemies. As the list grows short, our names come closer to the top of it. This way, those old families supporting Exeter's 'clean-up' will think twice: Mikhail and Cassie as a couple in ultimate power is a frightening thought."

  "More frightening than handing into Nev Hetteker hands the man who knows the most dirt on every power worth mentioning in Merovingen?"

  "At least our intelligence will be current, once again." If Mondragon had been free, this meeting, and meetings like this, would never have had to be handled in person. Mondragon could have been sent from one Kalugin to the other. "If you're worried about Mondragon's discretion—don't."

  "Because it's never been in doubt? Never is a long, long time."

  "Because," she said, taking a deep breath, "we can afford, once this Exeter matter is concluded, to arrest Mondragon and his Nev Hetteker cohorts on charges of high treason, espionage, and sedition, if we choose. Once there's an overt link between Mondragon and the Nev Hetteker embassy, the advantage is clearly ours." Mondragon would be theirs. Even better. Chance Magruder would be as much their hunting dog as Mondragon. He'd wear the Kalugin collar, or his neck would stretch. She wondered why Chance hadn't thought of that, when he offered to openly claim Mondragon as one of his own. But no one thinks of everything. No one.

  She'd learned that lesson the hard way. If all went well, the question then would be whose creatures the folk of the Nev Hetteker embassy became: hers, or her brother Anastasi's.

  Anastasi had long been looking for a pretext to make open war upon Nev Hettek. Such a war would consolidate his power base at home, since the army was his. He could declare martial law in a situation where a whole nest of Nev Hetteker spies and Sword of God agents was revealed to be working out of the Nev Hetteker embassy.

  And she couldn't have that. So she said, as their bootheels cracked on the College bridge once more, "Look, brother. Don't think I can't envision you using the Nev Hettekers to act prematurely. I can. You mustn't. We must keep this alliance of ours as long as Exeter's in power. She's too dangerous to underestimate."

  There. She'd said it.

  And Anastasi chuckled appreciatively. "You have a bargain, sister—as long as you don't use Nev Hettek openly against me."

  They were, after all, brother and sister. She sighed theatrically, "Done. Now, since neither of us are afraid to turn our back on the other for at least the next few hours, let us concentrate on how we can best approach the cardinal."

  She was in there, was Cardinal Exeter, studying late the art of deception.

  Tatiana had always hated the College. Always known it would unleash their greatest test, their most horrid danger.

  The intellectuals of the College were all up late, it turned out as they entered, scurrying hither and thither with stacks of what she imagined to be incriminating do
cuments in their hands.

  A man dressed like a foyer table led them through the labyrinth to Exeter's study hall.

  The woman was a wizened, sexless thing with hair cut as short as a boy's and enough fat on her that she looked more like a eunuch than a woman.

  Her eyes were sexless, too, cold and tired and traced with lines.

  "I cannot express my honor at your visit," said she in a water-snake's voice.

  "Nor I, our pleasure," said Anastasi, pouring oil on those waters, "that you have granted us this late interview."

  She offered them seats in gilt-framed chairs with fish-carved arms.

  Tatiana saw Exeter staring at her, then realized why: the openly-carried service revolver on Tatiana's hip. "Cardinal," she said as she eased into the chair and crossed her black-booted legs, "it's come to the point where all of us must stop this feuding and work together for the good of Merovingen, I'm sure you'll agree."

  "Oh, I do," said the chief inquisitor of the city with coid amusement. "It does my heart good to see you two together, no matter the reason. It would make your father proud, if he could see it."

  Now to light the oil on the water and burn the snake where she lurked: "He'll see us an hour after we leave here," Tatiana promised in a clearly threatening voice. "We have reason to believe that you'll soon be apprised that Cassiopeia Boregy has been harboring illegal technology among her personal possessions."

  "And since we're concerned for Mikhail's reputation, as we know you are, we think that the matter must be handled with the utmost discretion."

  Exeter didn't blink. She sat back in her chair. And she said, "Where did you get this information?" Very slowly. Very guardly.

  "Through privileged sources. I'm sure you understand that those sources must be protected," Tatiana's brother said.

  "And what is it you want?"

  "We want," Tatiana said, "not to feel compelled to report this ourselves, officially, to you through channels. But since, given the ways of Merovingen justice lately, one must report such things, here we are. Of course, all of us should attend the letter of the law in these matters. Inquiries must be made by your office. Otherwise, we should have to report that, although we personally made sure that you were informed, no such inquiries were made. And that would discredit not only you, personally, but the whole process you represent." Couldn't say "witch-hunt." Too bad.