VI. Toward Yuts’ga: The Third Counterargument
Oschous was a clever man, and one bewonted to subtle plays and deep deceptions. But why a Name had intervened to save Epri, he did not fathom. He threw the subject on the table at dinner, the first evening on the crawl.
One of the magpies brought into the dining room a gravity cart piled high with food, for not merely the six magpies off-duty, but also Ravn, Donovan, and the injured Manlius and four of his magpies were gathered around the broad table. The injury to Metataxis had been a serious one—burns to the shoulder and upper arm and induction shock to his nervous system—but the autoclinic was healing him up nicely. His right arm was immobilized and he had to spend two hours a day in the tank. He had a slight tendency to slur his speech. But he would grow more hale as time passed on. Meanwhile, his ship was coupled to Oschous’s own, and he guested in Black Horse.
“Perhaps they have a mission,” Ravn suggested, “one for Epri alone to perform, and his untimely death would have hindered it.”
“I think,” Manlius said, rubbing his shoulder absently, “Those just like that misborn git. Prime’s pet, is what he is.” He stood at the table, his oath as yet undischarged. Oschous had lightened the gravity as a courtesy.
Donovan pursed his lips. “Is deep affection then among Their qualities?”
“Epri is a loyalist,” one of the magpies suggested.
“Where the Names are concerned,” said Donovan, “loyalty runs but one direction.”
“Then Epri’s salvation,” Oschous concluded, “was the means, and not the end. The Name did not intervene to save Epri, but saved Epri to…?”
“… to intervene,” said Donovan. “What was actually accomplished by the deed?”
“I was almost killed,” said Manlius. “If not for Ravn’s timely deed…” He raised a pine-liquor to his savior and drank the implied toast.
But Oschous shook his head. “Had your death been intended, the meal before you would now languish unenjoyed. What Name having taken pains to place a sniper would take no pains to ensure that sniper’s success?”
“Some neutrals were outraged by the foul,” Ravn suggested, “and have joined the rebellion. Some honorable loyalists may have drifted toward neutrality.”
But again, the Fox dismissed the idea. “Beyond those actually present, few will believe Epri’s fell deed. Propaganda, they’ll call it. Faith overcomes all rumors of fact.”
“So,” said Donovan, “what is left but the one sure, concrete result of the act? Your war will go on. There was a danger of peace breaking out; and your Name’s intervention—the very manner of that intervention—ensured that it would not.”
“Yes,” said Manlius, tasting the possibility. “Prime had pledged to bring the rest of the Lion’s Mouth over to the rebellion once I had defeated Epri. The Names could not risk that.”
“Then why not simply ensure your death?” Oschous asked. “Dawshoo was pledged to end the rebellion if you lost.” His brow furrowed at that and for a moment he resembled wolf more than fox. “Instead, matters muddle as before.”
“Those have always liked to ‘stir the pot,’” Donovan said. “Perhaps your twenty-year war amuses them.”
“Ngok!” cried Manlius as a magpie set a platter on the table directly before him. “What are these slops, Oschous Dee!”
“Hmm? Oh, a bit of thaklam rasam,” the Fox told him. “It’s a tomato soup I’m fond of. Those are hoddawgs with zorgrot. And that plate is banana-flower curry.”
Manlius grunted. “Smells Terran to me. Who knew bananas had flowers!” He indicated to his chief magpie that he should dish out the more familiar foods: a stew of snakes, snails, chicken feet, and duck tongues in a ginger sauce, and small plates of taro puffs in spiderweb pastry.
“Oh, the Terrans may be venal and untrustworthy,” Oschous said, “but that doesn’t mean they can’t cook.” He ladled out a bowl of the rasam and, with a cautionary frown, passed it across the table to Donovan, who sniffed it.
“Ha!” said Manlius. “Smell bothers you, too? Don’t blame you.”
The Pedant stirred the scarred man’s memories. What is it, Silky? I’m no good at sensory memories, but there’s something familiar in the stink.
The coriander! the Silky Voice exclaimed.
“Grows no place else but Terra,” the Fudir muttered.
I knew it was familiar. But it grows also atop the Oorah Mesa on Enjrun.
But, the Sleuth added, Oschous has no access to Enjrun. So unless it grows on other Confederal worlds …
“The spice in this soup came from Terra herself.” He sniffed again the aroma, this time more deeply, trying to imagine fields of waving coriander bushes, although he was none too sure if coriander grew on bushes. It was a spice that had grown legendary by its absence among the Terrans of the Diaspora.
<Oschous has a purpose in serving us this,> warned Inner Child.
“Yes,” agreed Donovan. “But what?”
This inner conversation, punctuated by a few comments sotto voce, took no more than moments; but moments were enough to draw Manlius’s attention.
The wounded man regarded Donovan with a profound uncertainty, then cocked his head at Oschous. “So this is the great Geshler Padaborn. His name in the struggle is worth a hundred ordinary shenmats. It will rally a great many waverers to our cause. Or it was supposed to.” He again glanced doubtfully at Donovan, plucked a “phoenix talon” from the stew and sucked the meat off it.
“You know,” he told the table, “I never made it to that final battle. My section got orders to join the forces besieging Padaborn, but the orders came too late, and there were delays assembling … Foot-dragging by our section-leader, some said. Perhaps he favored Padaborn. We never knew, and he disappeared afterward. If we all had had that Circuit thing the Peripherals have nowadays, the word would’ve come in time and … I don’t know. Back then, I thought Padaborn was a black traitor and a disgrace to the Lion’s Mouth. Now … I don’t know. Maybe he was just ‘ahead of the curve.’” He turned once more to Donovan. “If my brothers and I had been there, you’d’ve never escaped.”
Donovan shrugged. “I don’t even know if I was there.”
Manlius sat back in his chair and sucked on his teeth. “I was going to say, Oschous, that Padaborn’s banner would tip the balance. But that was Padaborn-that-was. This ramshackle wreck…” A cock of his head toward the wreck. “You can hear the broken gears grinding against one another. I fear you’ve brought us damaged goods. Does Ekadrina know he’s back? I’m not sure I’d put this thing up against her. His mind is broken.”