Her sweet deference, a sharp contrast to the power she held over me, grated. I wanted to kick her. But I could think of no reason I should and a multitude of pressing reasons why I should not. So I nodded.
She stood, used a hand to pat down her hair, and gestured toward the stone table.
We sat down, facing each other across a frieze of winged serpents flying en masse over a landscape of snow-capped mountains. The stone of the bench felt cool through my sheer pajamas, in sensuous contrast to the pleasant warmth of the breeze. I don’t like outdoor environments and I still felt energized by this one, in a manner I immediately attributed to an oxygen mix higher than the usual formula on places like New London. Leave it to the Bettelhines. They even gave themselves superior air.
She said, “I know this is difficult. A mind as sharp as yours must have trouble dealing with short-term memory loss. Please understand that the worst has passed, that we don’t expect any further problems with retention, and that everything I now need to explain to you a second time has already been accepted and embraced by you in the recent past.”
Just because I bought her explanations when not in my right mind—and I had only her word for that—was no guarantee that I’d feel the same way when capable of reason. “I refuse to believe that the Porrinyards abandoned me.”
She reached out and touched the back of my hand. “They haven’t. They stayed with you, or nearby, throughout the most difficult stages of your recovery. I was awed by their devotion.”
“Then where are they now?”
“In orbit, staying aboard your personal transport, which is still docked at Layabout. I assured them that they could remain here as personal guests, and they said they didn’t want to pressure you in any of the difficult decisions you’re going to have to make. That was how they put it, at least. Nobody’s keeping you from speaking to them, or even leaving with them if that’s what you want.”
This still felt wrong. Oscin and Skye were my partners. There were no difficult personal decisions I’d keep from them, or any they’d expect me to. I grabbed a lock of my luxurious new hair and said, “What about this? I have trouble accepting that it’s one week’s natural growth.”
She grinned. “What about it? It’s gorgeous.”
“It’s also disturbing. What gave you the right?”
Her smile never wavered. “You did. My father asked to see what you’d look like with shoulder-length hair, you said it was all right with you, so we applied some nanostimulants to your follicles and had one of our stylists sculpt the results. You can cut it short again, if you like. Though I’d consider that a genuine shame.”
I was growing more and more frustrated by this private joke I was failing to get. “I’m not your father’s doll to dress up. What is this? Is he infatuated with me or something?”
Jelaine winced. “Oh, Juje, no.”
“Then what the hell difference would it make to him what my hair looked like? Whether it was long, short, braided, absent, purple, glowing like Colette’s, or replaced with scales?”
The animal I’d spotted sleeping on the swing now leaped up on the table before her, inviting attention. Jelaine scratched the fuzzy head and made it purr. She said, “He just needed to see what you would look like with shoulder-length brown hair. Come on, Andrea. Think. I’ve already seen you astonish my father by anticipating the explanation for all this. I’m sure you can put it all together a second time if you try.”
Now irritated beyond all measure by her teasing ways, I rolled my eyes and this time found myself focusing on the Khaajiir’s staff, still propped up against the planter like any other design element in this fussy little garden.
Why was it here? Had I been using it before?
I remembered Skye’s words: “If I ever withhold anything from you it’s either because, by my considered judgment, it’s none of your business or nothing you need to know at the moment.”
She’d said that on the Royal Carriage, while giving me a tour of the Khaajiir’s database. She’d indicated her intension to leave out issues unrelated to the current problem, issues that I might have to deal with later. It was the only way to keep me on track.
But her briefing had seemed pretty complete anyway. Hadn’t it been?
She’d even allowed me to hold on to the staff myself, providing me direct access to the data she’d judged pertinent as she guided me through everything Oscin had found.
How could she have hidden anything from me then?
I thought back and realized.
No. She hadn’t let me hold the staff throughout that briefing.
Near the end, she’d taken it away before sharing her findings.
She’d done it with such casual skill, such a lack of apology, that I hadn’t seen anything suspicious.
But now I remembered that she’d taken the staff away while covering the only subject she claimed she hadn’t learned everything about. Her answers on that subject had been fragmentary at best, containing no information relevant to me. When that subject proved irrelevant to the identity of the murderer aboard the Royal Carriage, I’d allowed her to put the issue aside.
What issue had she been talking about then?
What was so big it might have hurt my ability to resolve this crisis threatening all our lives?
I found myself thinking of other moments, all the way to the beginning of this whole sorry business.
The AIsource had said, We hope you’ll survive the shock.
Jelaine had told me, “You need to stay.”
She’d also said, “We have more in common that you can possibly know.” Later on, when I’d figured out the true extent of the connection between her and Jason, I’d imagined that she was just talking about cylinking. But that was something she had in common with the Porrinyards, not with me.
She’d spoken to me with affection and looked at me with undisguised love.
They’d both looked at me with undisguised love.
The Bettelhines had made me not a personal guest, but honored guest.
And then there’s what the Dip Corps had done to me, their pet war criminal.
Antrecz Pescziuwicz had seen it right away. “The Dip Corps could have changed your name, maybe your hair color and a couple of other cosmetic things about you, given you a new ID file and a false history, and nobody but your bosses would have known that you were the same kid. Instead, they put you to work as Andrea Cort, child war criminal grown up, and willingly ate all the seven hundred flavors of crap they had to swallow because of the propaganda weapon they handed all the alien governments who want to paint humanity as a bunch of homicidal bastards who let their own get away with murder. Why would they put themselves through that? Why would they put you through that?”
The AIsource had given me part of the answer. Any conspiracies that have been around you since unformed childhood must have had less to do with manipulating you than using you as a tool to manipulate others.
But who could I have been used to manipulate, when still a child?
Jelaine had said, “A changed man can change his family, and what his family stands for. Even, I daresay, how the family sees its obligations toward its own.”
Too many other offhand comments to list, all now making a terrible kind of sense. I could think of a dozen more without even trying hard.
Among them, the AIsource assuring me that the tragedy on Bocai was the last thing any Bettelhine would have wanted.
Wethers, at the end, acting like he recognized me for the first time. Saying, “I’ve…been stupid. Didn’t see what was in front of me. Didn’t see what I should have known.”