What Can Be Gained Should We More Often Interrogate Our Interests
Dirant took that as his cue. “Eizesl Kair, what is it that suggests to you an assassination is intended?” He did not add in, “given that you claim not to have seen Essar, a man the size of a hamlet if that is the same person, strangle Poiskops Bodan-Tin a few yards away from you, which I believe because you let even me follow you.” For one thing, what an ugly sentence that would have been.
“Sure. There's some intuition in there and judgmentalization about all the permutizations, but . . .”
“Sajaitin Rikelta is from Greater Enloffenkir,” Loigwin reminded him.
“I can see that. Classy vest, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Yet you didn't think to try to make your statement understandable for anyone outside your crude set,” Weisaf chided.
“Oh, sorry, sure. I am saying that there are many ideas you can get in your mind when you think about things that happened today . . .”
Dirant pointed upwards. “Please do not restrain yourself to that degree.”
“In between, huh? Exemplary. Chatting moderately, I won't claim this is the one real takeaway, but when a poolfoot goes through a gate and heads straight for the biggest man's hearth under a crime cloud, you can't say there's nothing to ponder and be a truth-teller, right? Straight for it. I've seen monsters act like that before, and they were all slathered with onsio first.”
“And what is onsio?” Dirant put it that way. Loigwin and Takki employed their own distinct phrasings like a choir when it breaks into several parts, a more challenging arrangement designed to please a sophisticated audience. Assuming the main part, Dirant continued. “Is it merely some substance which resembles sio in certain ways?” His question owed its existence to his Adabanness, which caused him to interpret on as “like, as if, characteristic of” when he heard it, regardless of the native language of the person who said it.
“That's what it is,” Gretlin affirmed in a victory for Adabans everywhere. “The big Eizeur's got all these brains tremendous working on novel substances based on the stuff the Dogai-Breins are sending up north through us. It's legal everywhere, too.” That last bit was not exactly true, as the big Eizeur or any other lawyer might have told him upon payment of a fee. Regulations in most countries extended to items which did not yet exist, let alone unpublicized discoveries, and ones related to monsters in particular. Still, a man might be forgiven for exaggerating the legal situation during a threatening investigation unless the investigators found out about it. “Guessing, but he probably wants it to be just the same as sio, but it isn't. So with sio, you feed it to monsters or inject them or whatever, and then no more do they aught but dream, right? But with onsio, it's more like they're concentrating real hard and forget everything else.”
Takki handled the next question. “What is being sent north by the Dogai-Breins? As much detail as you can give would be fine.”
The glances Gretlin had been giving Weisaf had not yet resulted in any cautions, and so he continued answering free of dissimulation or restraint. “I'd need subtle thinkers to tell me so I could tell you. They're these weird chunks, sort of blue, like the blue mostly drained out but there's a little left, and they're kind of twisty like a picture of a fire. They drip, too. We wear gloves when we handle them.”
“Eizesl Dogai-Brein believes them to be segments of something he calls 'monster stations.'” Weisaf Kair's clarification disturbed Gretlin, but she allayed his concern. “That Eizesl came to us for help with his study because he knew we don't seek a councilor's vain seat. The logic holds for our guests as well. Do you think we signed a contract specifying we remain silent about his theories, tadpole?”
That one came closer to affectionate. Furthermore, Weisaf likely heard her grandson mutter, “Maybe you don't,” when she talked about the lofty seat but nevertheless let it go. The Kairs were growing closer as a family. What a sentimental scene.
“Another question,” Dirant warned. “What are the effects of onsio on humans?”
Gretlin, a human himself, answered. “The lone and happy fact I know is that it's legal. You'd have to ask the big Eizeur about anything else.”
That satisfied Dirant but left Loigwin with doubts. “Is your stance moral, would you say?”
“Yes,” both Kairs said at once like a choir which preferred to keep its performances simple and broadly enjoyable.
A Nein-Cadops-Bain normally encountered more hawing and a good bit more hemming, since the typical person was disinclined to give a firm opinion without first hearing his. Loigwin however had been through enough encounters with confident armigers and more confident drunks not to be distressed by firm conviction. “Every ship hoists its own sails, after all. Leaving that, anyone would acknowledge the clouds in a year give less rain than the aid you've given in this one day. This private information, however, may be wanted in the public sphere to resolve onerous doubts.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Weisaf said, “I don't think much of 'may' save for when it turns to 'is.' When it does, our Gretlin will be amenable.”
“Certainly. Information, however true, stated at the wrong time is a frivolous distraction.” Loigwin looked at his fellows. “What else do we wish to know?”
“Did your orders describe the Tand? Did you know him from before, when you worked with Mr. Helsodenk?” Takki asked.
Gretlin rubbed his whiskered cheeks. “Do I really look that old?” He sounded more hopeful than the typical asker of the question.
Weisaf, who did look old enough and was, answered that while she could confirm Helsodenk dealt with Tands and knew Tandish as well as anyone, he did not tell the Kairs about his associates over tea. Further questions followed from Dirant, who had wavered before in his anti-Helsodenk convictions but felt more confident with every answer. Of course Poiskops Bodan-Tin had carried on business with him at times, some of it legal. Naturally Poiskops had ratted him out when the Swadvanchdeuans applied pressure.
“And how did our embassy, that is to say the Greater Enloffenkir embassy to Drastlif, respond to these accusations against its legal consultant?” Dirant asked.
“It made them,” Weisaf answered.
“Ah.”
The Kairs cooperated with the investigation down to the most trivial point. By the end of it, the working day had ended for people even as industrious as the Kairs' employees. Weisaf Kair, on behalf of Kargin Kair of course, offered the visitors the full range of comfort from guest houses to free laundry service. Dirant searched his room for secret compartments, found one under the wardrobe, and gave it up for the night.
The next day, the three waited for an escort at Loigwin's recommendation. The inclination of the northerners to leave promptly so as to bother their hosts as little as possible would be taken in quite another spirit, he warned. They passed the time by wondering who it would be. Certainly not Kargin Kair, who had sailed long since.
“Did anyone else think he was speaking dishonestly about being here by accident?” Takki asked. “But he really was.”
Dirant spoke in a tone of reflection. “I admit to it, and I must remind myself of this when I begin to suspect everything that happens is relevant to a single matter which has seized my own attention, and that is a frequent occurrence.”
With Kargin gone and Gretlin an accessory of shame rather than honor, a certain Nolgerin Kair was chosen to attend the visitors. Speculation that the choice came down to who was awake at that hour would have been impolite to express right up until he told them that was the reason. He took them to the gate and handed them over to the cawing birds, the groggy gophers, and the early workers already looking forward to the noon break.
The ride to Koshat Dreivis felt longer by far than that to Steiraf, for at the one end was exciting testimony and at the other a tricky situation which required a careful review of morality.
“Mr. Helsodenk is guilty of attempted assassination and several lesser crimes,” declared Dirant Rikelta. “That is my firm conclusion. It derives from a medley of evidence, supposition, and an unwillingness to betray my earlier ideas. Yet he might enter any court to face these accusations and leave free, and no less so were I the judge through some humorous misunderstanding. That is to say, I am more convinced of his guilt than of anyone else's, which is far from true certainty. Eizesl, is it an exaggeration due to my unfamiliarity with Drastlif's ways to believe Mr. Helsodenk must end up murdered if we accuse him to the Stanops with the evidence we have?”
Loigwin considered the question with such dedication that he permitted his head to roll about in time with his steed's motions, behavior which Dirant had never seen him display before in their brief acquaintance. Perhaps it was simply too early for him and soon would begin to snore, but no. He spoke lucidly. “There is no stanops save perhaps they of the Larstin-Megrafilts and Stit-Vakwaren-Oshorks who does not think of cunning and gain as his measure, and safety is not so prized. It would be no surprise at all if Stanops Bodan-Tin made use of Eizesl Kair's knowledge to coerce Eizeur Nifkleskir so as to get a share of his business or the piloting of it entire. Still, it isn't wrong to expect a death instead, always sudden and sometimes secret.”
“I'm not sure about the attitude toward courts and laws here,” Takki said. “When Drastlifars talk about crime it always sounds as if everyone does what he likes and there's nothing resembling order, but this isn't a lawless country at all. We even met the police once. I don't know what they're called here.”
“They're known as roundups, but I perpetrate a fraud if I don't mention that is a term general and informal. Each has his proper rank such as Able Shoreman or Midshoreman, Seifis.” Loigwin's head lolled some more. “How to explain? Like breathing or walking, it is easily done but to describe, perplexing. There are times when . . . For example, if Eizesl Keiminops Bodan-Tin had been the target, the Stanops would put his lawyers to work, not his guards, and there would be no secrecy about it or especial concern. An attempt in Pikilif or Dubwasef would receive treatment far unlike too, for in those places a stanops's power is no less but the affront would be. Were the Permissive Council sitting though, ah, my ineloquence and unclear thoughts frustrate me. I wonder that I can be borne at times.”
Dirant spoke words of consoling sympathy. “That is a common affliction, Eizesl. Who is an Ottkir and who a Rik is an easy distinction to me, but not to my tongue.”
“I'm really glad to hear that, Ressi,” Takki said. “I thought I might be stupid, but what you two are saying now is that you need instruction in rhetoric.”
“Is that what we said, Eizesl?”
“We may have, Sajaitin. We are indeed far from our childhood lessons.” The suggestion that one displayed a deficiency in so fundamental a human operation as talking might perturb anyone, all the more an educated young gentleman who credited himself with livening up the scene when he chose to show up. Loigwin Nein-Cadops-Bain or Dirant Rikelta, for example.