Changing Fate by Jansen Patty

Author:Jansen, Patty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Ambassador series, Earth-gamra series, Patty Jansen
Publisher: Capricornica Publications
Published: 2015-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

* * *

“THAT WAS A very bold move,” Veyada said.

“I would have called it crazy myself,” Thayu said. “Where does she assume the right to talk to you like that?”

“Do you really think she’s been using this data to blackmail people?” Veyada asked.

I met his eyes. “I think so. Within a day, we’ve had almost every party in this negotiation be the subject of an attack. Federza was shot at—and he was genuinely scared. He of course knew about his part, that they had this communication from the ship and had kept it secret. If we catch up with him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been trying to discreetly give the information to the assembly without getting killed by his kinsfolk. It would be fine if Delegate Ayanu had planned on using it in the assembly, but she would have called a sitting if that was the case.”

“And get accused in the assembly of using the information to support her case,” Thayu said. “Is it that easy?”

“It should have been easy, because if she had integrity, she would have called a sitting regardless of the possible accusations levelled at her.”

Veyada nodded. “I agree. The fact that she kept this hidden for days doesn’t speak well of her intentions.”

I agreed. “It speaks well of no one’s intentions, including Federza’s”

“What is this morality clause?” Thayu asked.

Veyada said, “That you can claim, and this may be upheld in court, that you acted in the interest of society, even if you were caught performing an illegal act in order to get the proof you needed. It’s mostly applied retroactively.”

“I suppose we could use it to get out of any court action if anyone decides to charge Reida. I didn’t know he was so smart.”

“He’s a fool,” Thayu said. “Nicha is a fool for selecting him.”

“I don’t think he is. He acts like a lout, and his loyalties are messed up, but he’s smart. I’ll show you what he wrote about the meeting. For someone who came from a disadvantaged part of town—a downright poor part of town—he’s very smart.”

She frowned at me. “I’m not convinced that he actually comes from the Outer Circle. I know he’s from the Ramadi clan, but not all of them live in the lower circles.”

“Whatever he is, he’s not dumb. If we can secure his loyalty and train him better, then he will be an asset to us.”

“I agree with him,” Veyada said. “Then again, money and family connections and upbringing do not guarantee intelligence. Hierarchies hold, even within the Outer Circle. They have their own microcosm of networks no different from ours. Maybe their networks are made even stronger by hardship, necessity and the desire to improve their lives. The only thing that worries me is that I’m not sure who has his main loyalty. He’s been acting strangely, probably had conflicting orders.”

“We should check on him that he’s all right.”

And, as usual, there was far too much going on, and I was dropping stitches.

The little voice inside me said, That’s why you have all these people, because you can’t do it all alone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.