Ambassador 6: The Enemy Within

Chapter 2-2

Veyada said, “We do, but we’ll distribute briefs a bit later. I’m still waiting on some information from Amarru.” Amarru at the Exchange in Athens. Her information would be very useful, because it would include the latest intelligence.

Veyada then explained about the situation with the interpreter. My association were all Coldi, and so his version of events, that came down to, We don’t trust this man, but we’re hiring him anyway to provide a vital piece that determines the success of our expedition, was met with appreciative nods. They understood this action better than I ever could. We should have pulled Jasper in closer a lot earlier, I guessed.

“He doesn’t like it,” Sheydu said, looking at me.

“Never mind me. I’ll trust your judgement.” More like: I trusted that they had it all under control. I just provided the money.

Most of the people in my association had received official spy training in Asto’s Inner Circle and this tactic—engaging your enemies—was probably a classic intelligence-gathering procedure. My team probably also considered this trip low-risk since it did not involve any of our regular enemies, and from their point of view, they were probably right. What did I know? Shut up, Mr. Wilson.

The discussion turned to more harmless things such as the weather. Reida wanted to know if it was going to be as cold as last time. It had been February then, so I said not. It was May, so it would be quite nice.

He asked if it rained, and I said it did, and that rain would be nothing like on Asto but more like in Barresh. He didn’t seem convinced. Coldi did not like rain.

Then there was a commotion in the hall, accompanied by Pengali voices, followed by thunks and thumps and clangs and then Eirani said, “But I’m sure Muri does not like you leaving all these things here.”

What things?

I rose from the couch and met Eirani at the door, coming in with the food trolley full of cups. “Tea will be ready very soon. Don’t go too far away.”

“Just seeing what’s going on.”

The front door was open and something was being delivered to the hall.

“Oh, Muri, these people will be the death of me.” She shook her head and continued into the room.

The Pengali had indeed returned. Ynggi and Kita were carrying in a giant eel-hide covered drum. Idda sat on Ynggi’s shoulder waving her tail in his face. The front door was still open and through it I spotted the building’s concierge with a trolley carrying the hollowed-out tree branches of an instrument called an irrka which was the vital component of a betanka orchestra. The concierge’s face carried a bemused expression, like he wanted to say, Having a wild party in here?

I’d been to a betanka party a few times, because if you lived in Barresh, you could simply not get away without going at least once, but those were the sanitised tourist versions of it. They were orchestrated, staged shows where one paid to see the orchestra and they each had arranged parts of drumming, playing pipes or singing, and none of the songs contained any rude words or gestures.

There were also the keihu-influenced city versions, where Pengali played in seedy, airless cellar bars and keihu men gambled and got extremely drunk and would embarrass themselves trying to sing or dance to the music.

Betanka proper was a community performance, where the leader played the five-beat rhythm on the irrka, tuned drum, and people improvised their parts.

This irrka drum was a huge thing, made up of a central barrel constructed from a huge hollowed-out tree trunk covered on one side with eel-hide leather. There were holes in the bottom half of the drum, for slotting in hollow branches of different diameters so that the whole thing looked like a giant spider. The betanka leader would sit near the top of the barrel perched on two platforms on the side of the drum for his feet, hitting the branches with a set of drumsticks with a rubbery resin head. The different pipes produced different notes.

The instrument came apart for transport, because Pengali measured their possessions by how easy it was to transport an item in a boat.

“They’re not wanting to take that thing, are they?” Sheydu asked next to me.

“I think they are.”

Sheydu hadn’t spoken quietly, and now Abri turned to Sheydu, and, as a Thousand Island Pengali, she understood and spoke Coldi. “How else can we solve disagreements? We sing. We play betanka.”

Veyada’s eyes met mine. I could see he was thinking the same as I was: And we thought we had it all sorted out?

Sheydu scoffed. “You can’t expect us to take this much luggage. Besides, these people we’re visiting don’t sing their disagreements. You’re asked to give a testimony and answer questions by a bench of formal people. It has to do with their laws, not yours.”

Abri was not as easily put off by Sheydu’s curt tone as most other people. “It does have to do with our laws. Hairy face killed tribespeople. We are going to put in an official protest about that. We will do that properly by putting it in a betanka.”

Put like that, it made perfect sense. The Earth lawyers had been waiting for a formal claim in writing, but while the Pengali had understood very well what they wanted, they responded in their manner. These people never disappointed with their last-moment surprises.

Ynggi and Kita proceeded to stack the irrka tubes next to the pile of luggage in the hall.

“There,” Abri said when the door shut and the building’s concierge had left with his trolley. “Now we have luggage.”

They did, indeed.

But still no clothes.

Thayu, Veyada and I travelled into town the next morning to meet our interpreter. We were leaving in the afternoon, but most of the remaining work would need to be done by the staff: Eirani and Devlin—who were both coming—and Sheydu with Deyu and Reida, who were looking after the “hardware”, meaning guns, explosives and spy equipment, however they thought to smuggle those through customs.

We took Ynggi with us, because I wanted to check the ability of whatever interpreter Jasper was going to produce, and also make sure that this person would not cause friction in our group by virtue of being from the wrong tribe.

Ynggi had visited us before, and out of all the Thousand Island Pengali, he seemed the most approachable. He even knew how to dress appropriately for going into town, even if only to cover his distinctive giraffe-like patterns that would raise ire from the local Pengali.

He was not afraid of trains, either, which was always a bonus.

He sat on the seat opposite me when I explained what we needed to do in town. The situation puzzled him, as it puzzled me.

“But why do they say that they need someone not from the tribe? People from the tribe will be fair because they have to speak the truth or they will lose face. People not from the tribe do not.”

“It is what they ask. Their system works differently and their values are not the same. They say that someone from the tribe is more likely to give an unfairly favourable translation.”

“With my elder watching?” He sounded horrified. “I could never do such a thing.”

“I know, but that is not the way their system works. They need someone independent to judge whether a statement is true.”

“No one is ever independent.”

True also. “I can only try to do as they say. But whoever this person is, you will still come, and I will trust your translation before anyone else’s.”

Trust was a big thing in Pengali tribes.

I thought he looked mildly put out.

“So, this interpreter, do you know who it is?”

“I have no idea.”

He snorted. “I say it is bluff. We can’t have a Washing Stones translator and we know who in town speaks our language. There is no one else. This person will either be no good or from another tribe, like Whitesand Creek.” And those were possibly even less liked than the Washing Stones tribe.

We got off the train at the airport and walked up the hill to the main square.

It was early still, but today promised to be one of those rare virtually cloudless days at the end of the dry season. It would get very hot today.

The message about the employment service run by Jasper Carlson had told us to come to an office in Market Street. It was located above a shop. The building was uncharacteristically new for Barresh, where everything was always just a little bit worn and slightly behind the times. Not this building. It looked fresh, with straight walls instead of ones set at odd angles, as was customary in Barresh. The windows had rectangular frames instead of triangular ones, and it was all very solidly made. Not by a local company, because the building style was too far removed from the local type. On second thoughts, I had heard people on the train talk about this building while it was being built last year. Eirani had called it a monstrosity and had told me how everyone was talking about how ugly it was. In Barresh, the keihu abhorred symmetry and straight lines and I could understand that this building offended their tastes.

It resembled, most of all, an Earth building. It must have been purposely designed by a Damarcian master builder and have cost a fortune to put up. I presumed it belonged to Jasper.

The shop on the ground floor sold security equipment. In most places in gamra worlds, businesses like that would not bother with a shop front anymore because most of the business was done electronically, but Barresh seemed to make a point of being nostalgically behind times. It was a trademark that was honoured by all, including people who had just moved there.

The funny thing was that, no matter how good the electronic displays, people liked shops, and as far as I understood, there were even businesses offering trips to Barresh for that reason: old fashioned markets and shopping. Smell the fish, see the food being cooked and wrapped in front of your eyes, try on clothes, have a live human comb, wash and cut your hair, have a dress made.

We climbed the stairs that led past the ground floor shop to the first floor. The building even had a lift. That was a rare enough thing in Barresh that I wondered if Clovis Keneally with Juanita, in her wheelchair, often came here, and that line of thought went off into unsubstantiated allegations.

The upstairs area was a cooled office with an open plan design. At this early time of day, the desks were mostly empty, but an olive-skinned man crossed the floor, carrying a plank of wood into a side room, where someone was hammering.

I recognised him. “Hello, Puck.”

He stopped and gave me such a blank look that I wasn’t sure I had recognised him. But I thought it was Puck, the Tamerian who had saved my life by donating his blood when I needed it.

“Mister? You know me?”

“You remember me from the hospital?”

He frowned. Like most Tamerians, he had thick bushy eyebrows, and frowning made the dark hair stand up like bristles.

I continued, “You told me that you liked to ski and I said that I prefer to surf, which is like skiing on water.”

The eyebrows lifted. Apparently the concept of surfing had made a bigger impression on him than my appearance.

“Surf,” he said.

“I can still teach you, if you like.”

His eyes met mine and widened, as if he suddenly realised what direction the discussion was taking. He turned away and continued to the side room with his plank of wood without a further word.

Thayu gave me a puzzled look. What was that about? She asked through the feeder.

You do remember him, don’t you?

He’s the one whose blood you got? No, I didn’t remember him from that, but I remember that there was a Tamerian. They all look very much alike.

They did, that was true.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation. In the past year or so, I’d seen the odd Tamerian in the street in Barresh. They no longer started gossip or turned heads when walking in the street. They were still as taciturn and impenetrable as ever but, in the end, they were people and had the right to be treated fairly.