The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 14

14

The man who swept into the room bore a strong family resemblance to the Tajaki sisters. He had the same brown eyes, facial features a bit more like Mai than Jun, the same long black hair hanging loose nearly to his knees. His clothing style was softer than the Months’, nothing leather, all soft fabrics. His loose-fitting black leggings gathered a bit at the ankles, bunching up over his black slipper-like shoes. He wore an ivory-colored tunic with wide sleeves that extended past his knees, although it was slit at both sides up to his hips. As he walked closer, his own phalanx of six tribunal enforcers in formation behind him, Scout could see that the tunic, which had appeared plain from a distance, was actually intricately patterned with a thread the same color as the fabric, a subtle effect she found quite interesting.

His dark eyes glanced her way when he noticed her watching him, and Scout dropped her gaze, focusing on the dogs at her feet. She had a hold of both leashes just in case, but neither of them was having strong feelings about the man walking towards them.

The man was alone save for the tribunal enforcers. There was no sign of the woman in black or anyone else wearing black clothes that fell just short of being a uniform.

“That’s far enough, I should think,” Mai said when Bo was as near to the three girls as the Months were. “You can speak from there.”

“Indeed I can,” Bo said. He had a deep, warm voice that had the barest hint of a lilt, as if he were trying to be serious but was having trouble because he found everything so amusing.

“Just out of curiosity, how long have you been lurking in these parts?” Mai asked. Jun leaned forward in her chair, elbows on knees and hands to her chin, eagerly awaiting his answer.

“About as long as you,” Bo said.

“And you think that is how long?”

“Don’t play. We both know exactly how long it’s been,” Bo said.

Mai sat back in her chair and looked towards her sister, not so much to confer with her as to dismiss Bo from her attention. The smile was gone from her face, though, and Scout would bet anything that whether or not Bo was being honest about always knowing the whereabouts of the Months, the Months had known nothing of his.

Emilie dug her elbow into Scout’s side and, once she had her attention, looked pointedly in the direction of the tribunal enforcers. Scout had been so engrossed by the dialogue between the Months and their cousin she hadn’t been looking at the strange robed figures at all. But they were the ones actually in power here.

None of them had said a word, and yet now that Scout was looking at them, she realized they had been communicating with each other the entire time.

But it was a strange sort of communication. They never took their hands from where they kept them tucked inside their own sleeves, and they scarcely even turned to face each other. And yet, now that she was looking, she could see things passing over their faces: subtle little quirks to the lips and eyebrows, widening or narrowing of the eyes, flaring of the nostrils.

“Can they be talking?” Scout asked Emilie in a low whisper.

“They must be,” Emilie said. “The real question is, can anyone else understand them?”

“I don’t think so,” Scout said after a moment’s thought.

“The Months seem like the sort to play things close to the chest,” Emilie said. “They aren’t going to let you know all they know or all they are capable of.”

“True,” Scout said. “But if they could interpret what these people are saying to each other, I think they’d be watching them carefully, not talking over them.”

Emilie looked up at Mai still looking towards Jun and Jun staring fixedly at Bo. Bo didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. If anything, he was evaluating the room’s decor. He wrinkled his nose, not finding some element of it to his taste.

“They know they’re missing something,” Emilie said, even more quietly than before, close to Scout’s ear. Her eyes were still on the Months. “They don’t like it. Any of them.”

“Agreed,” Scout said. Her cheeks felt hot, and she looked up to find Bo looking her over carefully. Scout fought the urge to try to smooth her chaotic hair down. He could wrinkle his nose at her too, for all she cared.

But her cheeks still felt warm and tingly, and she looked up again. Bo was no longer looking at her, but one of the tribunal enforcers was. The other five behind Bo were actively communicating with each other, as well as with the tribunal enforcers across the room on the Months’ side of the three girls, but this one just looked at Scout.

This one appeared younger than the others, although that was hard to define since they were all hairless with soft features. Their face remained still as a pond on a windless day, but there was something in their eyes. Scout felt like she was supposed to do something or say something, but she had no clue what.

“That one seems to like you,” Emilie said, noticing the silent one herself.

“Yeah,” Scout said. It was unsettling, being trapped under that intense regard.

Then, all at once, the tribunal enforcers all stopped “talking,” dropping their eyes and bowing their heads, even the one who had been watching Scout.

“I guess they’ve sorted it then,” Bo said dryly.

“Give it a minute,” Mai said, her chin on her fist, still not looking at him.

The entrance chimed again, and another group of six people walked in, three men and three women. They were dressed in leggings and tunics like Bo’s, if a bit less elegant. They all wore royal-blue tops and bottoms down to their shoes, and they walked with excessive speed in a squad formation.

Then there was a hiss of another door opening behind the dais, and six more people poured out to approach the sisters. These were the first people Scout had seen aboard the ship who weren’t dressed like pirates, excepting Caleb. They wore long robes like the sisters, but the clothes beneath looked quite a bit more comfortable than the bodices the sisters wore.

Scout didn’t know how it was possible to breathe in those.

The next few minutes were maddening for the three girls in the middle as each side huddled into a tight circle and whispered together while the tribunal enforcers studiously focused on the ground.

Scout didn’t like feeling like her fate was being decided right there in front of her, without anyone conferring with her or even informing her of the details under discussion.

Emilie had dropped to one knee to scratch at the dogs’ ears. Geeta just stood with her arms folded, the dark scowl never leaving her face.

“Permission to advance,” said one of the men on Bo’s side, his voice echoing through the hall.

“To the girls? Dream on,” Mai said.

“I need to confer with my counterpart on your team,” the lawyer said, unperturbed. “Where would you like me to do it?”

“Step over here,” one of the sisters’ lawyers said, waving for the man to follow her to the side of the room. The other lawyers watched them go, a few sharing whispering exchanges but most just waiting in silence.

The two lawyers leaned against the wall of the room and had a furious conversation, still all in whispers.

“Come on,” Scout complained. Bo looked her way and gave her a small smile, just a quirk of one side of his mouth. It reminded her of Gertrude Bauer.

She didn’t want him to remind her of Gertrude Bauer.

The hissing conversation between the two lawyers slowed down to a few parting shots, then the pair of them crossed the room to stand before the three girls.

“Just give us the shortest version,” Emilie said the moment the first one opened their mouth.

“That’s not optimal,” the woman said.

“None of this is optimal,” the man shot back. “Optimal would be a neutral third territory.”

“No,” the woman said.

“You’re being needlessly belligerent,” he snapped.

“Didn’t you finish all this arguing before you walked over here?” Emilie asked.

“The two ships will be joined,” the woman said, shooting a barbed look at the other lawyer to warn him against interrupting her. “Constant maintenance of the airlock between. You will be free to cross from one ship to the other any time you choose. This will be maintained for three days. At the end of the third day, you will have to announce your alliance.”

“What does that mean?” Scout asked.

“The two sides of the Tajaki trade dynasty have been granted equal access to you,” she said.

“Hardly equal since they came here first,” the man grumbled, not remotely under his breath.

“You both violated the barricade,” Emilie said. “How are you not facing sanctions for that?”

“All requisite fines have been paid,” the woman said, and Emilie rolled her eyes.

“What does allegiance mean?” Scout asked.

“The two sides of the Tajaki trade dynasty have for all intents and purposes equal rights to this property,” the woman said. “The planet, the moon, and all orbiting structures.”

“It’s our home,” Scout said darkly. Emilie gave a fierce nod.

The woman summoned up a fake cheery smile. “Of course. That’s why your input is so very valuable. The court will take into account which of the two sides of the family has the support of the employees of the colonization division. What you say in the courtroom could well determine who gains control of this property.”

Scout bristled again at that word. The woman flashed the smile again.

“How are we supposed to choose that?” Emilie asked.

“You have three days to travel between the two ships and ask any and all questions you wish.”

“And they have to answer?” Emilie asked, something like hunger in her eyes.

“Well, no. But a lack of answer is often answer enough, don’t you think? By the end of the third day, you will choose whose ship you will remain on, and then we will all cross the barricade together and make our separate ways back to galactic central.”

Scout felt like the woman was carefully holding back a lot of adjectives to describe the place she longed to leave behind—“the property”—and all she thought of it.

“And this is what the tribunal enforcers decided? When they were talking just now?” Scout asked.

The woman’s smile wavered. “We do the best we can to understand their requests,” she said diplomatically.

“You know they should be moved to a neutral territory,” the man said again.

“Stop it,” the woman snapped.

“What’s neutral territory?” Emilie asked. “I mean, I know what it means, but where would it be in this case?”

“That’s the trouble,” the woman said. Her look of concern was no more convincing than her smile. “The only neutral ship in the area would be the tribunal vessel, and that won’t do.”

“Why not?” Scout asked.

“Their ships are . . . unnerving,” the man said.

“They are unnerving,” Emilie said, looking up at the group of tribunal enforcers still looking at the floor. “Do they never speak? I mean out loud? That would drive me mad.”

“That wouldn’t be the first thing to drive you mad,” he said. The female lawyer rolled her eyes. Somehow, she managed to do it loudly. Or perhaps after observing the tribunal enforcers conversing, every gesture suddenly struck Scout as being loud.

“Many people travel on tribunal vessels without going insane,” she said patronizingly.

“Explain,” Emilie said, out of patience.

“The ships are invisible,” the woman said.

“Made of a sort of crystal,” the man corrected.

“Which is invisible,” she said.

“Pellucid.”

“I get it,” Emilie said. “You’re in a ship, but you can’t see the floor or the walls or the ceiling.”

“Nothing but stars,” the woman said.

“With the added thrill of seeing everyone else in the ship with you and everything they are doing at every moment. And they can see you.”

Scout and Emilie traded a glance and a shiver.

“So you can thank me for taking that off the table,” the woman said brightly. “And just to be clear, I represent the Months.”

“She didn’t take it off the table out of kindness to you,” the man said. “The Months had first access to you. They have an unfair advantage. I do hope you’ll take that into account when conducting your interviews.”

“Interviews,” Emilie repeated. “This is starting to sound a lot like homework.”

“They have Seeta,” Scout said, and Geeta finally came out of whatever mental place she had sunk down to and looked up at the lawyers.

“We’re working on that,” the man said. “Their doctor insists it isn’t safe to move her. Second opinions are going to be tough all the way out here, but we’re trying to get one. Clearly, the doctor is biased.”

“Because she’s a Tajaki?” the woman scoffed. “She’s as much related to your client as to mine.”

“Which is to say not at all,” the man agreed. “It’s a common enough name. But she’s a vested employee to your clients. That makes her partial.”

“You accuse her of putting her employers’ monetary interests ahead of her own patient’s health?”

“Please,” Emilie said, putting up both of her hands in surrender. “Clearly, the two of you can argue all day. But we’re anxious to get back to Seeta. May we go?”

“Of course,” the woman said, and this time her smile came scarily close to being genuine. “I do believe that beds have been put in that room for your use. I hope we didn’t assume too much, but it seemed like you would prefer to stay near her?”

“Yes, thank you,” Emilie said after a glance at Geeta showed she had lapsed back to quiet brooding.

“I know you’ve had a very long day,” Bo said, not taking a step closer to them but letting the acoustics of the hall carry his sonorous voice to them. “Rest. You’ve earned it. I will call on you in the morning.”

He bowed to the three of them semiformally, smirked at Mai watching from her chair, then turned and walked out of the room, his ménage of tribunal enforcers and lawyers falling in behind him.