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.He took his leave then, his guards falling in around him.The woman came forward, but she didn’t stop to talk when they passed on the pathway, though it looked like they exchanged a greeting.It seemed oddly formal for a husband and wife, but then, much of what the Majdas did seemed too formal to me.The woman walked through the lattice archway—and I stiffened.It wasn’t Lavinda.The Majda queen had come to see me.Vaj walked to the bench where I stood, imposing in her general’s uniform and long-legged gait.She nodded to me the same way that Paolo had done, but she somehow made it intimidating.“Major,” she said.“My greetings, General.” I was glad for the cool breezes in the mountains, because otherwise I would have been sweating despite that nanomeds in my body that were supposed to moderate such reactions.She motioned at the bench and we both sat down.“Paolo said you accepted the job.”“Yes, I did.”Vaj gazed out over the terraces.I didn’t have the sense she was deliberately remaining silent, but rather that she wanted to think and felt inclined to do it while we were sitting here.After a moment she turned back to me.“We didn’t expect what you discovered about this woman Scorch.”I hadn’t either.“I don’t think she had much interest in smuggling weapons.She only became involved because it gave her a contact among the Traders.”“Yes, that appears to be the case.” Her voice took on a darker quality.“She found psions by addicting them to phorine.She controlled them by limiting the supply of the drug.She planned to sell them to the Traders.”I didn’t miss her phrasing: Planned.Not did.“Then she hadn’t yet?”“From what we’ve determined, she was setting up the first sale when you killed her.” The general’s voice was ice.“Hers would have been the ultimate crime, because we had no idea, none of us, that the people she planned to sell even existed.”Scorch had known, damn her greedy little soul.As much as I might resent that it took this discovery to make the powers in Cries care about us, I hated far more the future Scorch would have created with her greed.I hated Scorch.I didn’t much like myself, either, for the fierce satisfaction I felt in having killed her, but I was glad I had ended her miserable egomaniacal life.At the moment, however, my feelings were irrelevant.I had a greater concern.Cries had taken notice of the undercity, big-time.“What do you plan to do?” I asked.“Now that you know about my people?”She spoke in her perfect Iotic accent with that dusky voice.“I imagine my solutions will be different than what you might suggest.”That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.But I had to deal with this, because if I didn’t, the general would go ahead with her own plans.“What are your solutions?”“For one, we must get those children a better life.” She spoke firmly.“We can build special schools in Cries and board them until they reach their majority.We will rehabilitate the adults to fit into society, to speak and dress properly, and live in normal homes.We can teach them appropriate vocations so they can make a living.” She went on, inexorable.“We’ll offer the psions training so they can use their abilities and learn what they can do for the military and government.”I couldn’t speak, I could only stare at her.No, I couldn’t look.If I stayed another moment, something inside me would explode and I would antagonize the most powerful human being in the Imperialate after the Pharaoh and the Imperator.I got up and walked to the edge of the terrace.I wanted to cross my arms over my abdomen and bend over, a posture I had often taken as a child when I was hurt.I couldn’t do that here, I couldn’t do anything to show weakness.I stared at the mountains and understood why Lavinda liked rooms with windows, because the sight of those peaks with their powerful serenity, enduring for long before we came to this world, was all that kept me calm.Gradually my pulse slowed.I finally turned to the general.She had walked to another part of the terrace, giving me room, her gaze on the mountains.When I moved, she turned to me and I went over to her.She didn’t seem surprised by my reaction.Although she couldn’t have been back on Raylicon for long, I had no doubt she had already talked with Lavinda.I spoke evenly.“If you institute that program for the undercity, my people will fight you with their every breath.The children will run away from your schools and think of it as escaping prison.They will leave again and again no matter how many times you round them up, and if you lock them up, they will do anything to escape, even risk their lives.The adults will use whatever jamming tech they can smuggle, steal, or salvage to take their kin so deep and far below the canals and the Vanished Sea, you will never find them all.You will destroy an irreplaceable community, probably the only of its kind in existence, and multiply an already grueling death rate, all in an attempt to control people who will never agree to live the way you want.”Her gaze never wavered.“We’re offering life,” she said coldly.“Over half those people who came to the Center were undernourished.Some were starving.Others were injured, bones broken and never properly set, birth defects never treated, the mineral levels in their bodies dangerously high.From what my people tell me, yours have no formal education or medical care, and no homes other than caves.Major, many of those people live well below the poverty level.”What, you just noticed? I held back my anger, shielding my mind.General Majda hadn’t created this situation, and I wouldn’t help anyone by losing my temper.I spoke calmly.“My people have struggled with poverty for centuries.Millennia, even.” We had no formal accounts, only oral legends handed down from generation to generation, but some of those stories were ancient, from a time before modern Cries existed.“We need to treat the causes of the problems, not ignore them by wiping out the culture.”“I cannot fathom,” Vaj said, “why anyone would die for the right to live in a slum.Don’t your people want to improve their station?”I gritted my teeth, then made myself stop.“Improve by whose definition? The undercity isn’t a slum.It’s a unique world with its own beauty, just as the beauty of Cries is stark compared to a paradise like Selei City on the world Parthonia.People in Selei City see life here as ‘barbaric,’ but no one would ever suggest retraining the people of Cries so they would act like people in Selei City and work in vocational jobs there.” Let the proud Majda chew on that noisome idea.“The undercity has an ancient history.Our culture, language, way of life—it has value.” I somehow kept my voice even.“That my people are crushed under the weight of poverty is true.It shouldn’t be such a choice—live in poverty or destroy an ancient culture.” I lifted my hands, then let them drop.“The cartels shattered two canals.Your brother-in-law is going to rebuild them with as much care as it takes to remain true to the nature of those ruins.Why would we do any less for the people who live there? The changes need to come from within the undercity, with my people and yours working together.”I stopped then, unable to say more.That was one of the longest speeches I had ever given.I had no idea if I was making headway, but she seemed angry, at least as much as I could read of her guarded expression
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