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Of course, Idris hadn’t made a will.
When Kris had first ended up with a berth on the Vulture God, she had occasionally brought up that the human crew should have wills — she didn’t know enough about Hanni jurisprudence to know what arrangements Hanni made if they died before reproducing but had quickly surmised that Kittering knew what he was doing, and Hivers had a complicated relationship with ‘individuality’. While the responses were varied, it always came down to the same thing: the only thing any of them owned was their share of the Vulture God and any Largesse it generated.
Idris had finally… well, not said, but made it clear by what he was not saying — that he expected that if he died, it would be in unspace, and that he would have inadvertently taken the rest of the crew with him unless someone had been far more prompt on rescuing them than anyone could expect. And that anyone who might want any personal effects of his would be on the ship; he’d outlived too many other people.
Kris had accepted that, even as she also accepted that Idris was a terrible judge about whether people actually liked him rather than liking what he could do. But there comes a time when a lawyer learns what she can and can’t expect a client to be willing to do, and so she focused on assembling the legal edifice that would let her act for Idris if some part of Hugh overstepped, and in maintaining his friendship and trust so that Idris would not see it as trading one leash for another. She had a lot of power in theory, but that lay in only using it when necessary.
Now it was. Idris’s body was… not fine, he had been through far too much in his extended lifespan for it to ever be fine, but stable. Not a single member of the Intervention Board could say when or if Idris would wake up, or even if there still was something of Idris that could wake up. Even Solace, who was the last person that Idris had spoken to, couldn’t explain much of what the hell had happened. As a bonafide hero of the human race, Idris’s body had the best medical care available. It would be waiting for him if he needed it again. For a long time, potentially, because as far as Kris knew, he was still not aging.
A long time meant planning. As a student of history, and after the last few years, Keristina Solon Almier wasn’t sure how long she expected goodwill to cover the costs, or keep Idris’s body safe. It meant taking all those documents that she had prepared for one of the few Ints not leashed to a contract, and her own fame and sudden influx of resources, and seeing what she could build to keep the part of her friend that remained safe.
It was a problem that she could solve, rather than think about ‘what next’. But because it was a problem she could solve, it eventually was solved and she had to consider things. The Vulture God was docked (with fees waived because no one wanted to be charging the heroes of humanity rent, even at Berlenhof station) and clearly they couldn’t go back to their old jobs, not without Idris. Solace had departed, with appropriate goodbyes, to sort out the Partheni and whatever internal mess had been left from recent activities. Kit had happily taken down Kris’s recommendations for intellectual property lawyers, and was negotiating mediaotype rights in human space for their story (with the clear reservation of Hanni-language rights). Kris had trained on contract law, so had offered to review deals, but knew better than to represent herself here. And Olli was apparently in the center of a giant diplomatic clusterfuck.
Kris assumed this was why Olli had invited her to visit. She’d managed to get a ship, from a mix of their funds and Berlenhof’s desire that all of the Essiel bullshit become someone else’s problem for a while. Hugh seemed to be hoping that Olli would go collect whatever resources Broken Harvest had, deal with whatever upstart lieutenants saw the organization more as a crime syndicate than the minions of some alien devil-figure, and give them time to come up with some consensus on how she fit in to the new normal and what to do about her. Olli, meanwhile, seemed more interested in cataloging the things on her to-do list to fill the air.
“Most of this are things Jaine is better positioned to help you with than me,” Kris finally broke in.
“Yeah, well,” Olli said. “Jaine made up half the list.” Olli had always moved in whatever device she was piloting like it was her body; seeing the same body language on Essiel technology was a bit more unsettling. Still, Kris knew Olli. She also knew that Olli didn’t like many people, but she clearly liked Jaine, and apparently it was mutual.
“Why did you call me here?” Kris asked, after it was nearly time for her to ask to be taken back to the nearest station to catch her shuttle downwell. “I mean, as a lawyer or as a friend to vent to?”
“Kind of both?” Olli stopped walking. “Like… I have Jaine. Solace has the Parthenon, even if it is a fucking mess right now. Even Kit has his Landstep groups and a million Hanni social connections. You had Idris. What do you got now, except us?”
Kris had not expected that angle from Olli of all people. “I didn’t know you cared,” she said, giving herself time to think.
Olli made what Kris realized was a shrug. “I just figured while I probably have lawyers or something, I don’t know them. They don’t know me. While some of Aklu’s people bought into the Essiel bullshit, a lot of them just figure it’s a job.”
“A job, the new boss’s friend just got promoted over them,” Kris added. “I do have offers.” Some of which were actually for her legal talents, not just the status of having a celebrity lawyer on the firm. She also had… an idea of what she wanted to do. Or at least a direction.
“It better not be just sitting by Idris’s bed and fucking waiting,” Olli said.
Kris shook her head. “No. If it was, you have my permission to shove me in a suspension pod and haul me off to be your lawyer.”
Olli grinned. “Holding you to that. What is it?”
“Right now, Ints are still heroes, even if not all of them were able to help with the Architects,” Kris said. “It doesn’t hurt that a lot of the one who did help were volunteers. Sometime soon, people are going to remember that until the Architects came back, most people who entered the Intermediary program were convicts who were leashed.” The powers that be hadn’t forgotten, just deciding to bide their time. With Idris’s body showing zero brain activity and both Hugh and the Parthenon making noise about sharing information about Intermediaries to bring the mortality down — what Idris would have wanted — Idris was still worth more as a hero than a research subject. That meant Kris could think wider.
“Yeah, so?”
“If someone wanted to get protections for Intermediaries into law, the best time to do it would be now,” Kris said. “Andecka Tal Mar is acting as a spokesperson, but she’s not a lawyer.” Tal Mar had accumulated some of the fame that the crew of the Vulture God had. She had been a volunteer at a time when no one had believed the Architects were coming back, and had been present for that last strike. She was the closest thing the Ints had to a spokeswoman, besides Demi Ulo, last of Idris’s class. But Tal Mar wasn’t a lawyer, and all of the Ints Kris had met, perhaps all of the ones Hugh had created, came across as not being unscathed by the process, and the repeated exposure to unspace.
“So, you gonna also fight Hugh on this?” Olli said.
“I am going to kick their asses in a court of law,” Kris confirmed. “I am assembling a plan now.”
“Well, can’t compete with that,” Olli said.
“But… Olli?” Kris said, expecting the other woman would pick up on what she was about to say. “Some Intermediaries might find it advantageous in the current situation to not be in Human space for a while.” ‘Slipping the leash’ was not as easy as some port authorities seemed to think it was when they had mistook Idris for a rogue talent; it didn’t mean it was impossible. “I don’t know what the hell your current legal status is-“
“Nobody does!” Olli said with clear relish. “Except the Essiel, and they don’t care what anyone else thinks unless it affects them.”
“- but if you don’t just decide to leave on a whim, some people might find it useful.” Kris said.
“Say no more,” Olli answered. “I can’t say that I’m doing organized crime shit in front of a lawyer I’m not paying, right?”
“If you like, you can call it political asylum in front of other people,” Kris said. “If you are saying you are independent of Hugh, that means it’s not organized crime, it’s legal government activity.”
“See, this is why I was going to pay you,” Olli said. She paused. “I don’t really like this sappy shit, you know. But take care of yourself, Kris.”
“You too.” Kris paused. “I can draft up some advice if you want it. And some people to look up. I’m not really a revolutionary, though.”
Olli snorted. “You are more than I am. You just actually give a damn about ideals enough to do something about it. I’m making it up as I go along. But… yeah. I’ll take the advice, too. And if you ever need a favor.”
“I’ll wait until it’s a diplomatic favor,” Kris said. “But now I really do need to get out of here or I’ll miss my shuttle.” She’d have some work to do on the trip back to the surface.