Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 by Penny Publications Page A

bounce out of his chair, was halfway across the room and headed for the front door before Baldwin could gather his wits. "Come on!"
    "Where are we going?"
    "I'll tell you on the way."
    Tumanzu wrenched the door open and emerged from it like a cuckoo from a clock. He took four more steps, suddenly halted, slumped bonelessly to the ground, twitched, and went slack.
    The kojuma dart was embedded in the hollow of his throat.
    Baldwin got a fleeting glimpse of Usiga as he did a backflip off the guardrail on the seaward side of the terrace. Baldwin had no chance to interfere, was not tempted to try.
    "Your willingness to grant me an audience is sincerely appreciated. If I were a Dokharan citizen, I'd be entitled to a hearing—it would be one of my birthrights—but I'm not and it isn't. I am a Zifran who subsequently became an Izmirite. As such, I have no legal status in this chamber. You could have rejected my request. But you didn't. You have extended remarkable courtesy and indulgence to a stranger. Permit me to express my gratitude."
    A very pretty little speech,
Baldwin was thinking.
Well rehearsed and flawlessly recited. Smooth deliverery. No trace of a rasp or hoarseness.
    The hall where the Genjuko met seemed more like a temple than a council chamber. It seemed that way because that's what it was. It did double-duty as a place of worship and as a seat of government. Directly behind the podium where the genjuki sat was a massive altar. When the Genjuko was not in session, religious rites were conducted here. Baldwin would have been willing to bet that the lawmakers of the council and the priests of the temple were one and the same. He frowned.
One and the same? Make that twenty-two and the same.
At the moment, all twenty-two of them were wearing stern expressions and listening to Luhor with unwavering attention. Their eyes were grave, and Baldwin suspected that no glance of compassion or look of pity had ever issued from them.
    If Baldwin had been the object of their scrutiny, he would have been intimidated, but Luhor's composure remained unruffled. He said: "As Tajok's sole heir, I have an obligation to him. The solemnities marking his passing have become my responsibility. Tajok specified what he wanted done. What will
be
done is for you to decide."
    Luhor's statement suggested that he was a supplicant thankful for any crumbs of consideration that the genjuki could spare, but he didn't really mean it and he wasn't a good enough actor to convince anyone that he did. These were polite insincerities that Nishizuki had put in his mouth. Luhor was obediently regurgitating them, but he spoke his lines without animation or conviction. His face was expressionless. His voice had the lifelessness of a mechanical recording.
    Nishizuki must have warned his client that he would be addressing a unreceptive audience, unlikely to be swayed by honeyed words. Luhor wasted no more time of deferential preliminaries. Getting directly to the point, he said: "Tajok is hated by many—if not all—of his fellow Dokharans. I knew that, and I was prepared for it. I was
not
prepared for the intensity with which he is hated. The antagonism toward him should have died with him—or so I would have supposed—but no: his enemies are determined to deny him makeevasukku, his friends—with one exception—are nonexistent, and the issue wouldn't be in much doubt if you Dokharans weren't such law-abiding people. But you
are.
As such, you find yourselves constrained by an awkward point of law. Tajok was the legitimate owner of the makeeva reserved for him and of the ground in which it is planted. His right to makeevasukku and his property rights are inextricably intermixed."
    Luhor steepled his hands, making a bridge over nothing. "Tajok had no offspring. He was the only surviving member of his family. Now he, too, is gone, and I have inherited all of his worldly goods. His property has become my property."
    Luhor paused, allowing the implications of that