“See you, Granpap.” They exchanged a final hug and handclasp, and Peters boarded and took his seat. He lifted the dli straight up, and his last view of Granpap was cut off by a bank of lowering clouds.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Spring rain lashed the windows, and the wind tossed the branches in Lafayette Square across the street. The trees were starting to bud out, and everybody had told him to look forward to cherry-blossom season, but if the rain and wind didn’t let up soon there wouldn’t be any blossoms to look at.
A disappointing cherry-blossom season made a perfect metaphor for how things were going otherwise. Despite nearly two months of crash course he still had no idea how these people reasoned, if they did. He’d always known about concepts like “sovereignty” somewhere in the mishmash of irrelevancies he’d learned in his lifetime, but the people he’d been dealing with had them so thoroughly ingrained in their thought processes that explaining to them that the Grallt, and the rest of the kree, not only didn’t use them, but didn’t approve of them, was blank-look material. The typical reaction seemed to be a brief stunned expression, a shake of the head, and a return to the original line of thought, as if he’d described a direction as “yellow”: Does Not Compute. It didn’t help that it was an election year, and his interlocutors were walking on eggs, fearful of doing or saying something that might disturb the uneasy balance of power between the Democratic-Progressives and the Democratic-Conservatives, thereby bringing the awful wrath of both factions down on their heads.
“Good morning, John,” said Ander as she emerged from the bedroom.
“Hello, lovely lady,” he told her, and took her in his arms for the first time in at least fifteen minutes, being careful not to push painfully on her swelling belly.
“I don’t feel lovely,” she grumped. “I feel swollen and gross, and everything hurts.”
“You are a lovely lady,” he said firmly. “Your depa’olze says so, and the depa’olze‘s word is law.”
That wasn’t at all how things were managed in the Peters pa’ol, but it was enough to make her smile and offer a kiss. He took the kiss, returned it, and gave her another squeeze. “How’s Alper feelin’?”
“As well as can be expected. She’ll be out in a few moments.” Ander looked down at herself, expression rueful. “I hate this part. I truly do believe that the reason for it is to make the woman look forward to the pain so it can be over with.”
“You’re probably right,” Alper agreed as she came out of the bedroom. She snuggled against Peters, and for a moment they stood in their three-way embrace, as best they could with swelling bellies in the way. The blonde woman was taller and seemed less distended in proportion, but the best calculation they had of the due dates amounted to “any time now”. Peters had secretly hoped that at least one of the children would share his birthday, but the twelfth had come and gone with no such event. The women had seen doctors, both aboard Llapaaloapalla and, reluctantly, here in Washington, and their pregnancies seemed to be progressing normally, but they were extremely uncomfortable and anxious for the process to be over with.
Dzheenis came in, trailed by his new mate, and greeted the group. The blonde Grallt was as tall as Alper but not as slender. She didn’t speak much English yet, but had a dry, deadpan wit in the Trade that had already—more than once, in fact—caused Peters to look up half an hour or so after she’d said something and realize he’d been zinged. Khurs entered only moments later, and Peters wished that Granpap could have been there. His pa’ol was assembled, everyone he could call a close relation bar the old man, and he would have liked to eliminate the exception.
“Attention, everyone,” he said. “The sessions will begin at ten o’clock, so we have a little less than a llor to prepare. No doubt they will be as futile and fruitless as they have been to now, but we must continue to approach them in good faith. Dzheenis, do you have the figures on zifthkakik availability that Assistant Secretary Horowitz asked for?”
“Yes. I’m afraid they’re tentative, but they are the best I can—”
The door flew open with enough force to bang against the entry wall, and a man in head-to-toe bulletproofs with helmet and face shield stepped through and levelled an ugly-looking weapon. “Everybody freeze!” he said sharply. Everyone did, more out of shock than eager compliance, and a slighter figure, a woman by the hair and makeup, also in bulletproofs but without a helmet, stepped up behind him. “Laura Cade, Internal Revenue Service, Enforcement Division,” she said, and flashed something shiny in a black folder. “Which of you is John Howland Peters, Taxpayer Identification Number 1457-96-2307?”
“I’m John Peters.” He released the women and stepped forward. “What’s this all about?”
“John Howland Peters, you are under arrest,” the woman said, and smiled, a rictus that only emphasized her hostility. “Regulations require me to inform you that any resistance will be met by force, up to and including deadly force. You are advised to cooperate fully.” Peters was too stunned to respond immediately; Laura Cade said over her shoulder, “All right, boys, round ‘em up.” She stood aside, and men dressed like the first but armed with handweapons started to push into the suite.
“Stop where you are!” Dzheenis shouted, and the invaders spun to face the big Grallt. He had his hands in the air, palms forward, and the armed man in the lead let out an audible sigh. “I am obliged to inform you that this room is an embassy outside the territory and jurisdiction of the United States of America. If you leave now this regrettable incident can be excused.” His phraseology was a little stilted, as if he were delivering the speech from memory; what Peters didn’t know was where and why he’d memorized it.
“I told you, we’re Internal Revenue Service,” Cade snapped. “Embassy status doesn’t matter to us when we’re in pursuit of a fugitive.”
“I am obliged to inform you,” Dzheenis said, still reciting, “that the laws and regulations of this jurisdiction do not recognize differences in status among those brandishing weapons. You are threatening us with deadly force, and nice definitional distinctions are irrelevant. I repeat: if you leave now, this regrettable incident can be excused. If you persist, we will be compelled to recognize this act of war as such.”
“Act of war? This is a civil arrest!”
“You have invaded our territory under arms and threatened to carry away our people and sequester our possessions under threat of deadly force; I heard you utter that very phrase yourself,” Dzheenis said, sounding as if he were now speaking ex tempore, indeed with the tiniest hint of amusement. “By our definitions that’s what a war is. We don’t care what your definitions are, nor do we observe artificial restrictions on the means of self defense.”
“But—”
The room darkened as a large object obscured the windows. Glass sprayed inward, and heavy blows smashed window frames and walls to form an aperture about the size of a standard double door. Bür in dull green kathir suits began filing through the opening at a lope, cloaks swinging, each armed with a weapon that looked like a carpenter’s level bent slightly in the middle. “The one without a hat is the leader,” Dzheenis said, and the bür in the lead nodded.
Adding six bür to the population of the room made it distinctly crowded. “I am obliged to inform you,” Dzheenis said, reciting again, “that you have committed an act of war. We are reserving our reprisal. We have further determined that the following conditions apply: if you discharge a weapon, none of you will survive; if one of us is injured, this building will be destroyed; if one of us is killed, the bür will evacuate the survivors and destroy Washington with meteor strikes. Is this clear to you, or should I repeat it?”