Free The Ordinary by Jim Grimsley Page B

well. A third battle group has been ordered to occupy Narvus. These are cities that will be familiar to the Hormling who work here in our consulate. These are the chief cities of the Anin people and when we have occupied them, within three days, if all goes well, we will then, we suspect, find Malin and her people more tractable in their negotiations with us. Nothing more is planned until we have secured these cities.”
    She sat for a moment as if she were very pleased with herself. That was when Jedda noticed that the silvered stripes had begun to fade from her hair. For some reason, this detail was the one that stayed with Jedda when the assembly was dismissed.
    â€œThe delegates who accompanied me on this harrowing journey to meet with this barbarian woman are to be congratulated on their bravery and their work and are to be treated as guests of the tenth rank while we are here in the consulate. The first of the battle groups has already passed through the Twil Gate without incident, and we believe the rest will follow with equal ease. Our ships will enter the bay at dawn, and our troops should be landing shortly after. At that point I will take charge of the affairs of Evess until a governing board can be appointed with consent of the Ministries.”
    She rose from her seat and walked out of the room with Fimmin in tow. Himmer hung back, and as soon as Tarma cleared the room, he approached Jedda. “You should go to your rooms and wait. Ask one of the protocol people, they’ve been told to assign you to a suite next to mine.”
    This meant he had given her status as his lover, at least for the moment, and, if Jedda guessed right, only as a matter of expedience. Jedda took his advice and found a protocol attaché who was able to find someone with a list of room assignments and who had her conducted there. Lucky that the consulate here was forced to operate, in certain local matters, with manual methods like paper and lists and handwritten journal entries, since without stats any other Hormling institution would have collapsed into chaos.
    Her rooms were very pleasant and she found her luggage had proceeded her. The guest quarters were not in the Hormling building but in one of the older Anin houses, and she found herself relieved, since the rooms in the Hormling facility all seemed to her very close and small and without air or light. As on previous visits to Irion, she found that she liked these qualities of Anin rooms once she made the adjustment. Even without her stat to compensate, she liked the spacious bedroom, the sitting room, the bathroom with its fairly efficient plumbing. She bathed herself in a shower of water. Another kind of luxury, if you thought of it, that the Hormling had abandoned many millennia before, in the face of providing fresh water for the billions of the thirsty and for the raising of food.
    She lay on the Anin-style bed, nicely made, layers of one of the soft Erejhen fabrics, firm and comfortable, her body more tired than she had known. Vitter’s voice in her head spoke about Opit in danger, about Opit permanently linked to the data mass, accessible to anyone who should need him; she had never heard of any possible fate that seemed more horrible to her. An indwelling stat, implanted into some part of his lower brain; criminals were assigned stats like those, and one heard of occasional deaths when someone tried to have an indwelling stat illegally removed; but to have one inside you, and to be linked to anyone who wanted you, for the rest of your life?
    At one time in Hormling history, all stats had been indwelling, and nearly every Faction had eventually rebelled at the practice.
    She drowsed with these notions floating in her head, herself instead of Opit, her mind open to anyone who needed any part of it; but she was tired, too, and fell asleep after a while. She woke to a knocking at the suite door, two rooms distant. She sat up in bed. Hearing the knock, loud and