Grail - Elizabeth Bear [123]
Across a narrow gap, Amanda perched on the violet glass conference table, her feet kicked up and her ankles crossed. “It does if you think not in terms of politics but revolution. The would-be assassin was named Pan Kagan. A review of his posts and conversations for the past month suggests he was heavily involved in the isolationist movement, and he supported Administrator Gain’s attempt at a bloodless coup.”
“We know she’s behind it,” Danilaw said. “So he killed himself because he believed strongly enough in her cause to die for it. To die to protect her. He had to be viewing himself as a hero.”
“He needed to avoid interrogation. To withhold proof of her complicity.” Amanda slid off the edge of the table and began to pace restlessly.
Danilaw’s mouth filled up with bitterness. He had to give it voice to get it off his tongue. “You know, our system of government is predicated on the idea that nobody in their right mind would ever actually want my job.”
Amanda gave him a look under her eyebrows. “We can prove Gain was behind it.”
She seemed very bright, very certain, almost outlined in light. Oh, not now, he thought, and wondered if he should warn her—but the seizure aura didn’t worsen, and he breathed slowly to calm his racing heart.
“What’s your evidence?”
She folded her hands open before her. “Free Legate,” she said. “I was looking at her when the shot went off, and I have her reaction on record. I’m also trained in semiotics and microexpressions. She was the only person in the group not surprised when the shot was fired.”
“She was expecting it.”
Amanda touched the tabletop, summoning up a three-dimensional image of the rain-soaked party as they had looked at the time—from Amanda’s point of view. Danilaw was amused by the way her attention rarely wandered to him, and when it did, brushed quickly away again.
She was conscientious. And from that, he determined that she was consciously deciding not to let his presence dominate her attention.
He hid his smile—then had it quickly wiped away as Gain’s shoulders stiffened, as Perceval jerked with reaction to the bullet, as Tristen and Amanda turned to run after the shooter.
Amanda froze the playback. She circled the frozen, miniaturized tableau, examining it from all directions. “Did you see it?”
“She didn’t just know in advance,” Danilaw said. “She triggered it. She sent a signal.”
When Tristen entered the sickroom, he found a scene substantially unchanged from what he’d seen the last time. Perceval had turned on her side, which he took as a positive sign, and curled around a pillow like a snuggling child. Cynric stood beyond the sickcot, centimeters from the observation bubble, peering into the water beyond as if the shifting shafts of sunlight that pierced it had divinatory uses.
She turned as he entered. Because her hands stayed lost in the folds of her robe, he knew she had already identified him. He squeezed his mouth together until the words filled the space, then let them out, still not quite knowing what they would say.
“They won’t let us stay. Not unless we become like them.”
She smiled before she turned back to the water. The echoes from the curved port carried her voice back to him, full of strange resonances. “I’m staying. I’ve had enough of Cynric the Sorceress.”
“What do you see out there?”
“Friends, perhaps? There’s life in the waters,” the Sorceress said, with a lift of her pointed chin that reminded him suddenly, painfully, of every proud woman their family had ever spawned.
“Generally speaking,” Tristen said, “that’s where one finds it, if one is going to find it anywhere.”
He came up beside her. Beyond the glass, something big and convoluted rested, mottled limbs like textured scrollwork surrounding a central mass big as a lion’s head. As he watched, colors chased one another across its surface, bands of orange-gold, and dappled purple and periwinkle. When