The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 21

21

Voices echoed through the audience chamber so loudly they could be heard even before the double doors opened. Caleb gave Scout’s arm a reassuring squeeze and then moved across the room to join the Months on their dais.

Their lawyers and Bo’s lawyers were once again in a huddle off to the side of the strip of carpet, arguing furiously. The six tribunal enforcers arrayed before the dais were once more standing with heads bowed and hands tucked inside sleeves, waiting quietly for the moment when they’d be needed.

Bo was near the door with his own ménage of tribunal enforcers and fell into step beside Scout as she followed Geeta and Emilie to the end of the carpet.

“Did you notice?” he asked.

Scout looked up at him, but he looked the same as before. He was wearing the ivory tunic again. She wondered if it had some special meaning for him, that he always wore it when confronting his scarlet-favoring cousins.

Then she noticed his lawyers, his employees, were all dressed in red.

“You changed their color,” she said.

“Indeed. Rona told me you didn’t like the blue. It’s a small gesture, not meant to influence your vote, of course,” he was quick to add.

Scout gave a little nod. Rona either had not understood Scout’s actual problem with the mandatory uniformity or had given it a little spin when she had reported it to her boss. The choice of new color had certainly been hers. So at least one person was happy.

Until Bo changed it again on another whim.

Scout came to a halt next to Geeta, and Emilie dropped to one knee to reassure the dogs, who found all the people shouting, their angry voices echoing through the hall, more than a little disconcerting.

Then she felt eyes on her and looked up to see that same young-looking tribunal enforcer looking at her again. Those eyes were so intense, as if they were speaking volumes at her, but she had no way of understanding a bit of it.

“They are unsettling, aren’t they?” Bo whispered.

“‘Unsettling’—that’s the word everyone keeps using,” Scout said. “They almost look like they’re not quite human.”

“That’s up for debate,” Bo said. “Perhaps Emilie found the details in her research?” He looked to Emilie, who shook her head. “The tribunal enforcers all come from a wet planet called Boueux. Their ancestors settled there in the early days of colonization away from Old Earth. They consider themselves an ancient people, although frankly we all have the same ancestors, so . . .” He trailed off with a shrug.

“Is that why they are so odd?” Emilie asked, interested now.

“No, it’s because of something on that planet,” Bo said. “No one has found exactly what is the cause—it could be many things working together—but over generations of living on that planet, the people developed an entirely different form of communication, not a spoken one or even a written one.”

“It’s all microexpressions. They can read each other’s faces,” Emilie said.

“That’s what it looks like to us,” Bo agreed. “But some claim it’s more. There are scents involved as well, which is why they stand close together for the more involved conversations. Some even claim they have a rudimentary form of telepathy.”

“Do you believe that?” Emilie asked.

Bo shrugged. “It’s an interesting field of study, I’ll say that. And, again, unsettling.”

Scout looked back at the one still gazing at her. Were they trying to communicate with Scout through telepathy? But they must know that wouldn’t work.

Or was she just not trying hard enough? If she concentrated, could she detect thoughts inside her own head that weren’t hers?

That wasn’t a comforting thought.

“He’s standing too close to those who are about to testify,” Mai said, drawing everyone’s attention to Bo standing among the three girls.

“You are quite correct,” Bo said with a bow and backed away. He gave Scout a little smile and closed a fist in a gesture she guessed was meant to lend her strength.

The lawyers argued on for several more minutes before finally breaking apart and drifting back to their respective sides of the room.

Scout had no idea what they could even be arguing about before any of the three of them had even declared their intentions yet. And how much more arguing would there be afterward? They could be standing around on this carpet all night.

Which wouldn’t be the worst thing. It was soothing, standing on such a surface. Soft and yet supportive both at once.

“It’s time,” Mai said when a sustained silence had finally fallen over the hall. “Geeta Malini, we’ll start with you. Do you feel like you’ve been threatened or unduly influenced in any way to make your decision in one side’s favor or the other?”

“No,” Geeta said, her voice carrying strongly through the room.

“And are you satisfied that all of your questions have been answered fully?”

“Yes,” Geeta said.

“And what is your choice?”

Geeta raised her chin. “I will remain here with my sister.”

There was a low murmur from both groups of lawyers. Mai raised a hand to quiet her own, and Bo turned, hands still folded in front of him, and gave his own a quelling look.

“Emilie Tonnelier,” Mai began.

“No, yes, and I’ll stay,” Emilie interrupted.

There was more of an uproar among the lawyers at this series of answers offered even before the questions, and the two principal lawyers once again met in the middle of the room to argue it over.

Emilie strayed from where they were waiting at the end of the carpet to move closer to Bo.

“I do thank you for access to your library,” she said, reaching into her pocket for the access node.

“Keep it,” he said, raising a hand to refuse the shiny black box. “Use it as much as you like. Although I will warn you that as my ship moves away from this one and the distance between that node and my library increases, your requests will take longer to respond to. I imagine somewhere between here and galactic central we’ll be so far apart it will cease to function at all, but my home library also responds to it. Once you reach galactic central, you will have full access again.”

“Thanks,” Emilie said, putting the box back in her pocket.

Scout touched her own pocket, feeling the two crystal eggs contained within. She supposed the evolving AI was really the more useful and important gift, but the memories were more to be cherished.

“We agree her responses are adequate,” the Months’ head lawyer said as she rejoined her team. “But Ms. Shannon, please wait for Ms. Tajaki to read the entire question out before responding. A court of law does call for a bit more formality than you are perhaps used to.”

Scout nodded.

The young tribunal enforcer was still gazing at her. The naked place where their eyebrows should be was drawn far up their forehead. They were trying very urgently to say something, and yet Scout didn’t know what it could possibly be.

Unless . . . was the tribunal enforcer trying to tell her to vote a different way than the others? Each vote to stay with the Months’ had seemed to alarm them further.

Clearly, the tribunal enforcers knew lots of things Scout and the others didn’t.

It could be vital that they weren’t all on the same ship for the journey to galactic central.

And yet why weren’t any of them trying to communicate with Emilie or Geeta? Why only Scout? It couldn’t be because they thought she’d be more likely to understand, or at least Scout hoped that wasn’t the reason. Because she was more confused than ever.

“Scout Shannon,” Mai said, leaning forward in her chair. “Do you feel like you’ve been threatened or unduly influenced in any way to make your decision in one side’s favor or the other?”

“No,” Scout said, then looked to the young tribunal enforcer. Had that been all right?

She couldn’t tell.

“Scout Shannon,” Mai said. “Are you satisfied that all of your questions have been answered fully?”

“Yes,” Scout said. She felt like her voice had wavered there a bit, but no one else seemed to have noticed.

The expression on the young enforcer’s face was more urgent than ever. And just as inscrutable.

“Scout Shannon,” Mai said, and there was no mistaking the triumph in her voice or in her eyes as she glanced over at her sister beside her. “What is your choice?”

Scout swallowed hard. Her hand slipped into her pocket, clutching the two egg-shaped memories within as if asking the ghosts of her parents for strength. She looked back at the young tribunal enforcer, trying to put all the intense confusion she was feeling into her own eyes and facial expression, trying to think at them everything she couldn’t say out loud just in case they really could hear her thoughts, but mainly just the question—what?

“Scout Shannon,” Mai said. Her confidence wasn’t wavering. She seemed amused that Scout was making the moment of their victory over their cousin as dramatic as possible.

“I’m sorry,” Scout said to Geeta and Emilie, not the Months. “I choose to go with Bo Tajaki.”

This time it wasn’t the lawyers in a loud uproar. It was Jun Tajaki herself, bellowing like an animal that had just been viciously attacked. Scout fell several steps back as Jun launched herself to her feet, knocking the heavy chair behind her onto its back on the dais with a loud thoom that echoed painfully through the room.

Then she leaped into the air directly at Scout, hands outstretched before her, fingers curling into talons, and Scout felt like her legs were melting beneath her.

But Jun’s bellow cut off before it quite built to full intensity, ending in a squawk of surprise. The six tribunal enforcers at the base of the dais had all reached up and snatched her out of the air, wrestling her to the ground and pinning her all in the space of a second.

Scout tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.

To think Liam had said calling them “enforcers” had been a misnomer. She understood it now.

Bo’s own ménage of tribunal enforcers closed around Scout, making sure no one else could get at her. The dogs were barking like mad, pulling at their leashes as they tried to join the pile on top of Jun. And somewhere in that pile was the tribunal enforcer who had been trying to communicate with Scout. She wanted to see them again, to see if she had just done what they had been trying to steer her to do.

But someone had a hand on her arm to pull her towards the double doors. The dogs’ barks changed from anger to alarm as they too were quickly hustled towards the double doors.

“Wait!” Scout cried, pulling her arm free. “Geeta! Emilie!”

“It’s not safe here,” Bo said, appearing at her elbow. “We have to get you to my ship at once.”

“But I have to talk to them,” Scout said. “I have to explain. Can’t I at least say goodbye?”

“I’m very sorry, Scout,” Bo said, and once more she believed him.

Was she wrong to keep believing him?

They reached the white hallway that was the airlock, and as soon as they were out of the metallic hallway, a clear pane closed down behind them. With every step they took along the white hallway it retracted behind them, barely more than a step behind the last enforcer’s bare heel.

Then they were in the wood-paneled room, and the white hallway had disappeared from sight. All that remained was a large window.

The ménage of tribunal enforcers melted away, seeming to disappear into the shadows. The lawyers argued their way out of the room and down one of the hallways.

Scout stood against that window, hands pressed to the cold pane, and looked out at the ship that still contained her friends. It was already moving away from them, and they were moving away from it, and the gap between was growing and growing and growing.

Scout blinked back tears. She desperately hoped she hadn’t just made a huge, irrevocable mistake.