Justin opened his eyes. Ougo and Tzo were gone; the duty troopers behind the security desk were standing at attention, eyes front.
“Gentlemen,” Justin said. “Any messages for me?”
“Inlightened Kokyu is resting in your Quarters below, Prominence,” the older man on the left said. “Advocate Tzo has returned to the Comm Room, and Captain Ougo is overseeing the cart packing and the scouts’ reports about routes to the Temple.”
“Good. And your names are?” Justin said, standing up and stretching. His planning session had been nearly as good as a nap.
“Guardsman Soru, Prominence,” said the older, circling his forehead.
“Guards-guardsman Topi, Prominence,” stuttered the younger, hastily imitating his partner.
“Thank you. It may take me a few days to get everyone’s faces and names memorized, and I’m horribly busy, so I ask for your understanding if I don’t remember you immediately.”
“Yes, Prominence,” they chorused. Justin restrained his sigh. He did feel like less of a fraud about that since his last conversation with Sol, but his dislike of receiving respect he didn’t think he’d earned remained strong.
And it wasn’t precisely a lie that he might take that long to get the rest of the troops set in his head. . .it was just very improbable. Since Ougo and a large number of his current command were likely to change their direct allegiance to Justin from the Ling Fei in the near future, he wasn’t above planting some false low expectations which he’d later outdo in order to help establish his own command mystique among them.
He also hadn’t realized how much he’d missed lawyering these past months until he’d seen Tzo in action.
Hands off the wheel, though, he reminded himself. No backseat advocating. Let Tzo do his job. An advocate who represents himself has a fool for a client.
“If anyone needs me, I’m going to consult with Tzo. Carry on, gentlemen.”
“Yes, Prominence."
Ugghghhghh. . .Justin groaned privately.
# # #
“Enjoying the concert, Advocate?” Justin half-shouted from the doorway. Tzo had cranked the volume so loud that Justin had been able to hear Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts tearing up Bad Dog No Biscuits on their 2001 Souvenir from Tokyo tour from two halls away.
“Yes!” Tzo answered, his voice also raised. Because of course turning it down was out of the question. The poor guardsman and -woman on duty were looking a little frayed around the edges, and wild around the eyes, and gave Justin pleading looks from behind the advocate’s back.
“This music is incredible!” Tzo enthused. “Do you know how to make these instruments? Can it be done, here? I never imagined music could be like this! And there’s far more, correct? Can I – may I - live on board? Please say yes!”
Oh lord, he’s a big-band bop-jazz addict already, Justin thought. Then again, this was Yoko Kanno they were listening to; the woman was a musical genius, and there were worse genres Tzo could have imprinted on.
Much worse genres. Justin imagined Tzo fixating on the the HampsterDance - or anything by Crazy Frog - and controlled a shudder.
Note to self: run a broad-spectrum ‘songs like’ search based on. . .Caramelldansen, to start, and securely partition every result.
“No guarantees on the instruments,” he said, because he wouldn’t put it past the 'Upper Management' to consider that data Uplift-capable, “but yes, there’s more. And many other genres. And, yes, you can have a room here. No; a suite."
“Thank you, Prominence!” Tzo shouted, his face shining.
“Reduce the volume, though, please?” Justin said. “The troops can’t do their duty like this.”
“Volume?” Tzo said. “Ah. Because the sound can fill all the space available. Oh, yes, of course.” He reached out to a plate and slid his finger down as Want It All Back started and Mai Yamane began working the audience.
“Thanks,” Justin said. “Now, if you can tear yourself away from your new love, I’d appreciate your cross-input while I ask Taiko about cooperative Hokyukko who would be willing to advise me.”
“Ah. . .” Tzo said, looking regretfully at the console, then visibly reasserting his self-control, “yes, Prominence. Although I’m not sure who could advise you better than the Kokyu himself.”
“Why?” Justin asked.
“Because. . .he used to be one?” Tzo said doubtfully, as if he thought Justin was prodding him to deduce some secret reason to not rely on the Prominence's closest associate, and he was failing. “One of the best?” His eyes cut to the side, towards where Justin had recently curbstomped the woman who likely was the best, for hundreds of miles around.
A handful of little pieces flashed into a working whole in Justin’s mind again, as they sometimes did. “Wait,” he said, stabbing a finger in the same direction, “was that – was that some kind of, of, vicarious grudge match!?”
“You didn’t know?” Tzo said, shocked. “Hokyukko Taisa trained Taiko. He even changed his name to honor her. And then he -” he closed his mouth, his head pulling back.
“I think you’d better tell me,” Justin growled. “I don’t care about the niceties at this point, whether it’s ‘for him to say’ or the like. I want to know. And if you won’t tell me, someone else absolutely will. What happened, Tzo?”
“He – he sinned, Prominence,” Tzo said, backing away.
Justin got a grip on himself again and made his tensed muscles relax. “Go on,” he said.
“He committed one of the most serious violations of the Stars’ code, Prominence,” Tzo continued. “He. . .fell in love with his Demon, Karishalla the Brush. It’s considered one of the great tragic stories of our recent generations. She could no longer be reasoned with because of it, so she was – disjointed, and her parts sent to and sealed in other Shrines. And Taiko was nearly excommunicated and executed, but the Celestial Court directly intervened. Not all – not the Stars, of course – but most. The Dawn took him into His service about. . . .” He paused.
“It was twenty-two years ago last month, Advocate,” the guardswoman supplied.
Approximately two Earth sunspot cycles, Justin thought, the surprise reveal having activated his tactical trial mindset. Which seized on the possible relevance before immediately discarding it.
“Thank you,” Tzo said. “And he’s served Him ever since. Most loyally, I would think. There was tremendous controversy over his promotion to Kokyu short of a decade ago. The High Court were. . .well, it’s an archaic term, but wroth fits best.”
“So he was being thrown away against me,” Justin muttered angrily. He heard the beginning of a loss of control in his own voice, and backed up to the wall before sitting down against it. He pulled his knees up, rested his elbows on them, and buried his face in his hands.
“What a mess,” he said. “What a dissonant – damn - mess.”
And of course Sol hadn’t told him, because he needed Justin to lay the smack down on Taisa, so that Justin could be properly empowered to crack open the seal on this cosmos for him. And - to be fair - possibly also because he couldn’t, constrained in some way from telling Justin too much.
And likewise of course the god had Inlightened Taiko beforehand as well, which had further inflamed matters, ha-ha-ha, and put him at Justin’s side. There were probably dozens of other links in the chain Justin hadn’t noticed yet, and even more he probably never would.
What had he said about Sol earlier, in sarcastically admiring jest? Oh, yes - your god is a devious crafty underhandling schemer.
He’d been far more accurate than he’d known.
And yet. . .he couldn’t stay angry. And not only because Sol was helping Justin get what he wanted more than anything else, including – heh, the risks of invasions by entities beyond his capacity to imagine. Though he had thought twice, thought three times about that.
No, it was because, ‘agnostite’ or not, he still trusted Sol. He trusted the god to have Taiko’s best interests at heart, along with everyone else’s. Because you had to trust people in order to be fully human. Oh, you could rely on other people, even depend upon them, but trust – real trust – went beyond that. It was a matter of faith – a belief in other people that exceeded the reasonable; exceeded the rational.
And, yes, that went for gods too, he supposed.
If you didn’t trust, you weren’t much of a person. Not in the condemning, judgmental sense, but in a sympathetic, compassionate one. You were hollow; empty, in a fundamentally handicapping way. . .lacking some vital and elemental and necessary piece of humanity.
Chloe had taught him that. He wasn’t about to forget it.
Remember our deal, he’d said. You have to stay a person I’ll want to come back to me.
You remember our deal, she’d replied. You have to stay a person I’ll want to return to.
He thumped his head against the wall behind him.
Justin? I can’t. . .see you. I can’t. . .feel your hand. . . .
I’m still right here.
Right here, Chloe.
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