Asimov’s Future History

Volume IX

All stories copyright Isaac Asimov and the Estate of Isaac Asimov, unless otherwise noted below.

All other stories copyright by the respective authors listed below.

Chimera-By Mark W. Tiedemann. First published as Asimov's: Chimera, April, 2001

Aurora-By Mark W. Tiedemann. First published as Asimov's: Aurora, September, 2002

This  ePub edition v1.0 by Dead^Man March, 2011

Layout and design by Dead^Man

Cover art “Veiwing Platform” by Rich35211 of DeviantArt

Future History inlay “Summer days” by Talros of DeviantArt

Cover design by Dead^Man

Chronology of events in Isaac Asimov’s positronic robot and Foundation stories, compiled by Johnny Pez.

Table of Contents

Copyright

3621 AD Chimera

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

3622 AD Aurora

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Sources of Dates

Chimera

3621 A.D.

Prologue

...brief touch, contact with the data port, numbers names dates prognoses, all flow from the brief touch, a tiny surge that feels the way nerves should feel, the stimulation of a hair drawn lightly along a fingertip, but inside, along a conduit less than a hundredth a hair’s width, to a smaller place where it grows and explicates and becomes meaningful in translation, revealing location disposition architecture security, an excess of data that gives access, all from a brief touch...

DIRECTOR ORTALF STOPPED complaining about the lateness of the hour the instant he saw the hole cut in the wall of the cafeteria at the Seth Canobil Hospice Center, where he worked. His irritation turned quickly to confusion, then embarrassment, and finally fear. He walked up to the opening and reached out to touch the edge, but withdrew his fingers centimeters from brushing the too-smooth cut. In the flat light it shone mirror bright.

“Ah...” he said, looking around. The police officers who had brought him here stood impassively, their faces professionally expressionless. Director Ortalf looked around at the people milling about the area. They moved in groups of threes and fours, some in uniform, most in civilian clothes. Ortalf started at the sight of a drone moving slowly across the floor, its sensors inspecting every centimeter of the tiles.

“Forensic,” explained a deep, male voice nearby.

Ortalf looked around. A tall man in somber gray was watching him, his face as ambivalent as everyone else’s–except for his eyes, which glistened expectantly.

“Ah,” Ortalf said again. “Are you...?”

“Mr. Ortalf, “the man said, ignoring the question. “Director Ortalf.”

“Yes?”

“You run this facility?”

Ortalf nodded sharply. “What is going on? Who–?”

“A routine maintenance monitor detected a power outage here,” the man explained. “According to its logs, this was listed as a class-B primary site. It attempted to restore the lines, but found irregularities. It then alerted the local authorities.”

“Power outage... but we have a back-up.”

“Had.”

“Redundant system... had?”

“How many people work here, Director Ortalf?” The man–who must be some sort of inspector, Ortalf surmised–walked away, forcing Ortalf to catch up and walk with him.

“Um... six permanent staff,” he said.

The man paused briefly, then continued walking. “I understand you have nearly three thousand wards here.”

Ortalf tried to think. “Your people got me out of bed not even half an hour ago, Inspector. I haven’t had time to shower, to get breakfast, to–three thousand? Yes, that sounds about right.”

“And only six staff.”

“Six permanent staff, I said. We have several interns and part-time volunteers, but even so, almost everything is automated.”

They left the cafeteria and started down a long corridor. Emergency lights glowed dimly along the floor and ceiling, even though the regular lights were on.

“Who was on call tonight?” the inspector asked.

“I don’t–please, Inspector, what is going on?”

At the end of the corridor a short set of stairs led down into a nurse’s station. Banks of screens showed a bright orange STAND BY flashing on them. Ortalf’s gnawing apprehension worsened. He moved toward the main console, but the inspector gripped his upper arm tightly.

“Please don’t touch anything. Who was on call tonight?”

“I don’t remember. Joquil, I think. Yes, Kilif Joquil.”

The inspector gestured toward a door that opened at the rear of the station. Ortalf pushed it wide open. Sprawled over the cot that hugged one wall of the cubicle lay a large body, face down.

Ortalf thought for a moment that the man was dead. But a sudden, labored breath heaved through the torso. Dread gave way to impatience.

“What is going on?” the director demanded.

The inspector nodded toward the sleeping male nurse. “Did you know Kilif Joquil used Brethe?”

“What? Now look–”

The inspector aimed a long finger at the nightstand at the head of the cot. Ortalf stared at its contents for a long time before he recognized the inhaler and an unlabeled vial.

“We screen our people carefully,” he said weakly.

“I’m sure you do.”

Ortalf looked at the inspector. “Habits can start any time. We scan every six months.”

The nurse shifted in the cot again, then lay still. Ortalf turned and left. The inspector said nothing, just followed, as the director headed for the door to the first ward.

Ortalf stopped at the entrance. The room stretched, nearly a hundred meters on a side, dwarfing the half-dozen or so strangers now wandering the aisles of matreches. Ortalf searched the field of metal and plastic, looking for the telltale difference: a flaw, damage, a sign of disruption. His pulse raced.

“Not this one,” the inspector said quietly, just behind him. “Number Five.”

Ward Five was two levels down. Ortalf’s breathing came hard when he reached it. Twice the size of the first-level wards, it contained the same number of matreches. These, however, were larger, more complex. More was demanded of them; the lives within required special care.

Ortalf spotted the damaged units at once. He staggered toward them, dodging down a jagged path between the intact incubators, till he reached the first one.

Sticky fluid covered the floor around it. The shell had been removed and the sac within punctured. Ortalf expected to see an asphyxiated, dehydrated corpse in the bed, but the cradle was empty. The tubes of the support system lay severed and useless on the cushions, a couple of them still oozing liquids. Ortalf made to reach in, but hesitated–touch would tell him the same as sight, that the child was gone. He looked around, confused and close to panic. Nearby he saw two more violated matreches.

“But... but...” He stopped when he found the inspector watching him. “I don’t understand,” Ortalf said finally.

The inspector came to a conclusion. Concerning what, Ortalf could not be sure, but he recognized the change in the inspector’s face, from glassy hardness to near pity. The inspector nodded and gestured for them to return to the administration level.

Ortalf let himself be escorted back, dazed. He barely noticed the people and machines that roamed through his facility. Police, forensic units, specialists–insurance adjustors, too, for all he knew, and within hours the lawyers would be calling.

The inspector brought him to his own office and closed the door.

“What’s happened?” Ortalf asked. He had wanted to make it a demand, but it came out as a pale, exhausted gasp.

“I’d frankly hoped you might be able to tell me, Director Ortalf. But...” He sat on the edge of Ortalf’s desk and gazed down at him. Some of the hardness had returned, but mixed now with sympathy.

“From what we’ve been able to reconstruct so far, the entire clinic was severed from outside communications. There was one independent oversight program with a direct line to your maintenance chief, but after ten minutes even that was cut. Most of it went down with the power. You may well have a number of fatalities to deal with. I’m not sure how critical these systems are to each unit–”

“Each matreche has its own power unit to protect from a complete outage.”

“So I gathered from the manufacturer’s specs. Are they all up to par?”

“So far as I know. You’d have to ask our maintenance supervisor, Kromis–”

“We’d love to, but we can’t find her.”

“She... have you been to her apartment?”

“Police are there now. I’d like to have her employment file when you get a moment. In fact, we’ll want the employment files on all your people, even the consultants, interns, and part-timers.”

“Do you really think it could have been one of my people?”

“Not alone, no. But it’s clear that whoever it was had a thorough knowledge of your systems.”

“Of course. Um... do you know how they broke in?”

“Once the power was down and the security net with it,” the inspector explained, “a hole was cut through the point where there would least likely be a back-up alarm they could know nothing about–nobody alarms cafeterias–and from there they went through the clinic, cutting the rest of the power and finally deactivating even your passive monitoring systems.”

Ortalf blinked. “It could take days to get everything back up.” He stared off toward a wall, his thoughts an anxious jumble. “How many are missing?” he asked.

“Twenty-four, I think. All from Ward Five.”

“All?”

The inspector nodded. “Who were they?”

“I don’t... you mean, who do we maintain in Ward Five? A special group, I’m afraid. Very special.”

“Isn’t everyone in your facility special?”

Ortalf studied the inspector, unsure if he heard sarcasm in the man’s voice. The face, though, remained impassive.

“Some more than others,” Ortalf said. “Those–Ward Five–have the most severe situations.”

“UPDs, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Untreatable Physiological Dysfunctions.”

“Lepers.”

Ortalf started. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing.” Impatience flashed across the inspector’s face. “Ancient reference. It’s not important. Tell me, can you think of any reason someone would want to kidnap them?”

“No.”

“Blackmail? Ransom?”

“I doubt any of them will live long enough outside their matreches to be of any use in that regard.”

“Why is that?”

“The matreches–each one is specifically modified to its occupant. They’re unique, like the individuals they support. They change over time, with the condition of their charge. It would be nearly impossible to duplicate those specifications in another unit quickly enough to save a removed occupant. I have no doubt that a number of them are dead already.”

“I see. That leaves revenge. Who were they?”

“Revenge?” Ortalf stood. “You’re joking! What could any of these children have done–”

“Not them,” the inspector said calmly. “Their parents.”

“Their histories are completely confidential. Inaccessible.”

“Really? You do that as efficiently as your employee background checks?”

“I’m the only one who can access those records.”

“And will you inform the parents when you’ve done so, to let them know that their children have been lost?”

Ortalf, uncomfortable, sat down and shook his head. “That’s not the arrangement we have.”

“They don’t want to know, do they? That’s why you have them in the first place.”

“You have to understand, a lot of them have no family to begin with.”

“Discards. Abandoned.”

“Yes.”

“I’d be willing to wager that many of those whose records are so carefully sealed are children with families.”

The inspector stood, and for a moment Ortalf expected to be struck. He closed his eyes and waited, but the blow never came. When he looked up, the inspector stood in the doorway, his back to the director.

“The records will be required,” the inspector said. “Please make yourself available for further questioning.”

Ortalf watched the man walk away. Nearly a minute passed before he realized that he still did not know the inspector’s name. At that moment, he was just as glad not to.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER …

One

COREN LANRA WATCHED from behind a grime-encrusted refuse bin in the recess of an old, unused loading dock. A sneeze threatened, teased by sharp odors and the chill air. Across the wide alley, members of a third-shift crew emerged from an unmarked door. Even if they saw him they would pass him off as one of the ubiquitous warren ghosts, homeless and destitute, that haunted the districts surrounding Petrabor Spaceport. Coren wore a shabby, ankle-length gray-black coat over worn coveralls; four days’ beard darkened his pale face beneath oily, unwashed hair. He itched.

Three hours still remained in the third shift. Coren counted fifteen people through the door–all but one of the full crew compliment of the largely automated warehouse. They were unlikely to get into trouble–Coren recognized their supervisor among them, marked by the thick silver rings around his upper arms. They strode noisily up the alley, boots crunching on scattered debris, laughter echoing off the walls, heading for a home kitchen or a bar. They rounded a corner. Coren listened till their voices came as whispers in the distance.

He dropped from the lip of the bay and hurried to their exit door, propped open by a thin sheet of plastic he’d stuck there earlier to jam the lock and disable the tracking sensor that kept a log of when the door was ‘used. Just inside, he found an ID reader set in a heavy inner door. He slipped his forged card into the slot and waited to see if he had gotten what he had paid for.

The light on the reader winked green and he slipped through into a locker room. Forty-eight lockers, sixteen per shift. Coren wondered where the last worker was inside the mammoth complex.

From one of the oversized pockets in his coat he took out a small button and pressed it on the frame of the exit door. Should anyone follow him through, the button would warn him with a strong signal pulse tuned to a receiver on his wrist.

He went to the shower room.

Water dripped from some of the shower heads; the floor was damp. He turned on a jet of hot water and removed several blocky objects from various pockets. He placed them beneath the steaming spray and stepped back. Quickly, the scan-occluding resins melted off a number of devices. Coren shut off the water and gathered them up, shaking away the excess water.

He hurried down a short hallway that let into a large office area, then threaded a path through the maze of irregularly-spaced desks and chairs to the transparent wall that overlooked the main warehouse space.

Immense square blocks formed a grid below the enormous ceiling. Within each block, stacks or cubicles, nacelles, skids, crates–all manner of packaging–filled the volume. Turnover was constant. The space between each block extended down several levels and buzzed with transports, bringing loads up from below or, coming from the bays along the far wall, descending with newly arrived cargo to the proper location. The contents were monitored by a very sophisticated AI system–not alive, no, but as close to machine awareness as Terran prejudice and law allowed.

Walkways followed the grid pattern; staircases led down into the hive-like labyrinth. Coren wondered just how far he would fall if he lost his balance while walking along one of those narrow paths. He pressed close to the wall and looked straight down and could not make out the bottom.

He turned away, head swimming in a brief wash of vertigo. At least there was a roof above...

Coren took out a few of his vonoomans. The little machines clustered in the palm of his left hand. He turned slowly, surveying the office. Satisfied, he knelt down and set them on the floor. He lightly touched them, and each glowed briefly as it activated.

“If Rega knew I used you,” he whispered to them, “he might...” He grunted, self-mocking, and touched each one again. The devices stirred for a few moments, then shot off in different directions, seeking out the specific energy signatures of communications, monitoring, and alarm systems. Once in place, Coren would be able to range wherever he wished within the warehouse, free of detection.

He took out a palm-sized pad and switched it on. Less than a minute later all the telltales winked green.

He sat down at one of the desks, jacked his palm monitor into the computer keyboard before him, and initiated an access sequence. The security code was not very sophisticated; his decrypter gained entry in less than thirty seconds. Coren keyed quickly. The scheduling chart came up on the screen, showing incoming and outgoing traffic for all the bays on the far side of the warehouse. He studied the times.

Most of the bays were tightly scheduled. One showed a half-hour period with nothing going out, nothing coming in. He tapped queries. A shipment had been canceled at the last minute. Three shipments, in fact, all belonging to a company called Kysler, and all cancellations routed out of the Baltimor ITE oversight offices. Baltimor... practically the other side of the globe. Odd. There was an ITE oversight office in the Laus District and another up north in Arkanleg, both of which should have had responsibility for supervising traffic in and out of Petrabor. Still, there was no reason Baltimor would be necessarily barred from such duties...

He opened the manifests. Mostly raw synthetic materials, exotic molecular structures, exported by an Auroran-owned wholesaler. One bin contained electronics manufactured by Imbitek. Coren studied the ID tags for a few moments. Kysler Diversified was the distributor. All the lots had destination codes which he could not read.

Coren closed down the station. He unjacked his monitor, checked the status on his little interference runners once more, then headed out. He knew now which bay he needed.

Coren followed the transparent wall till he came to an exit. A short staircase took him down to the walkway that bordered the labyrinth. He produced another handful of vonoomans, smaller than the first group, from a different pocket. Activated, they scurried along the walkway and disappeared. The first group gave him security, interfering with the warehouse systems; these would find people for him.

Automated tractors following invisible guide signals sped through the canyons, a constant loud humming and rush of cold air that whipped at his coat. The place smelled of oil and ozone, metal and hot plastic, and, under all that, an organic odor: yeast or mold. Rot.

The walkway took him to a broad receiving area fronting a row of large bay doors. As he neared, the sounds grew thunderous: doors opening and slamming shut, transports rumbling through in both directions, the wind now almost constant. And beyond that, in the distance, deeper, sepulchral, the heavy thunder of the port itself: shuttles lifting off and landing irregularly, disrupting any possible rhythm to all the noise.

Between the edge of the storage hive and the bays lay six meters of ancient, stained apron. Except for small piles of boxes and litter, Coren saw nowhere to hide. He set free another handful of machines and retreated to the nearest staircase leading down into a canyon.

Fog lay heavily a few stories below. Coren descended half the height of the block, until the cold bit at his face and filled his sinuses with warning hollowness. He sat down on a step and pulled his palm monitor out once more.

It unfolded four times to give him a display showing the locations of all his little spies against a map of the entire warehouse. The surveillance blocks still showed operative. Now he saw blue dots where all his other machines had secreted themselves. He pressed the half-meter-square screen against the wall beside him and waited.

Ten minutes.

One blue dot turned red. Coren looked up, surprised. The intruder had come from the nearby loading bays. The sixteenth member of the crew, he thought. Coren looked down at the fog, twenty or more meters below, and wondered if he should move–into even more bitter cold. But numbers flashed beside the dot on his flatscreen, coordinates that told him the precise location of the worker, who waited near one of the bay doors, showing no sign of coming any closer to Coren. After a few seconds Coren felt confident that he would not be seen–not by this one, at least.

Twelve more minutes passed.

Three blue dots turned red, far down the row, back near the offices. As he watched, his machines focused on the new intruders, coordinates proliferated over the screen, and he counted bodies: fifty-one.

The number surprised him. He had expected no more than a dozen, at most fifteen.

They came as a group down a walkway, heading this direction, obviously for a meeting with the waiting dockworker, who now moved a few steps from the wall.

Coren folded the screen back down to palm-size and crept up the stairs to the lip of the walkway.

The dockworker stood just inside the warehouse by an open bay door several meters away, his back to Coren. Hands in pockets, the man shifted minutely from foot to foot as if keeping time to a tune only he heard. Coren looked across the grid of walkways to the approaching group. From this distance he recognized no one. All of them wore black, all of them carried small packs.

Five or six children accompanied the adults.

Coren glanced at his palm-monitor. The communications and surveillance dampers still showed green. He estimated that he had another twenty minutes before the AI figured out why its internal security system was down.

Coren peeled off his overcoat.

As the fifty-one refugees gathered around the dockworker, Coren stepped silently from the stairwell and moved smoothly up to the perimeter, then cautiously worked his way through them. He looked at no one, aware only that a few people gave him quick, nervous looks. They were frightened, tense, too careful perhaps in some ways, careless in others. None of them would want to believe that they had been followed or infiltrated or caught, so unless it was made obvious that he did not belong here, they would explain him away to themselves. At least, for the time being.

Long enough to reach the front of the gathering. “–no changes,” a woman said tersely. “Canister BJ-5156. Don’t tell me about some other canister–”

“It can’t be helped,” the dockworker said calmly. “I’m sorry. The one segregated for you was found and impounded.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I’m informing you now. I’m informing you that we have back-up. We were prepared. It’s the same as it was, only different. A new canister. I could point out that you were supposed to be a party of fifty-two and you’re missing one. Bad security. But, hey, we understand–people get scared and back out at the last minute.” He gave her a crooked smile. “We are professionals.”.

The woman was tall, almost gaunt, sharply featured. Her head sat forward, angry and demanding, as she glared at the dockworker, who gazed back at her evenly. Coren admired his nerve under that displeased inspection.

After several seconds, she nodded slowly. “All right. But if this turns out to be anything but copasetic I’ll peel your skin off with pliers. Tell your people we’re ready.”

The worker nodded and walked through the bay.

Coren started forward.

Something closed on his right bicep. He tugged at it automatically, to no effect. He turned around, left hand curled to give a palm blow, and froze, abruptly and utterly terrified.

A robot regarded him blankly through mesh-covered eye sockets.

“I apologize, sir,” it said quietly, “but I must ask that you come with me.”

The robot drew him back through the crowd, which now watched him with open fear and shock. Some cringed back from the robot, but most stood fast, staring outrage at Coren Lanra.

The robot walked him down the row of bay doors, to the fourth one from the group, and waited, still holding him, firmly but harmlessly.

“Damn it, Coren.”

Coren glanced around at the voice. He looked at the woman he had come to talk to. He waited as long as he could before speaking, taking advantage of the opportunity to simply look at her. Finally, he said, “Good to see you, too, Nyom.”

She let her breath out through her teeth, slowly, and Coren felt himself smile.

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised to see me,” he said.

“I’m not. That’s what bothers me.”

Coren gestured toward the robot. “Umm..,”

“Coffee, go see to our arrangements.”

“Yes, Nyom.”

The robot released Coren ‘s arm. He congratulated himself that he did not immediately step away from it. Instead, he watched it walk back toward the group of refugees.

“What are you doing?” he asked the young woman. “Running baleys?”

“You know I am. I have been.”

“I’d hoped I’d been misinformed. Are you insane?”

She shook her head impatiently. “That’s good, Coren, appeal to my vanity. You always had a way of making me feel special.”

“I’m serious. Do you know what you ‘re doing?”

“Usually.”

Coren waited, but she said nothing more. Abruptly, he felt awkward and slightly foolish. He glanced toward the baleys.

“Where’d you get the tinhead?” he asked. “Your father would love that.”

“To hell with my father and to hell with you. What, did he send you to find me? What are you going to do, throw me over your shoulder and drag me back home?”

“The thought had occurred to me.”

She snorted, but took a step back. Then she gave him a narrow look. “What are you going to do?”

He met her gaze evenly, trying to think of a suitable answer. Finding none, he shook his head. “I didn’t know you had a robot.”

She laughed. “You don’t have a plan? Rega didn’t send you. You came on your own.”

“Not exactly. He did tell me to find out what you’re doing and–”

“And what? Sit on me till the election is over? That’s what this is about, then. Rega is afraid his little girl’s activities might botch his election. Tell him not to worry. I think he can ruin his chances all on his own; he doesn’t need my help. In fact, you can give him some good news: He won’t have to worry about me anymore at all. I won’t give him any further cause for concern.”

Coren waited. He recognized the tone of voice, the half smile, and a small point of fear burned at the back of his throat. He slipped his hands into his pockets, the right one finding a small plastic bag. He squeezed it till it burst in his palm.

“Nyom,” the robot interrupted. Coren started and Nyom laughed.

“Coffee won’t hurt you,” she said. “What is it, Coffee?”

“Time,” the robot said.

“I’ll be right there.”

Coffee retreated.

“What do you mean, Nyom?” Coren asked.

She sighed and stepped closer. “Tell me the truth now, Coren: did you tell the authorities? Am I going to be arrested by Immigration and Trade Enforcement?”

“No.”

She studied him. “You really just came all on your own.”

“Too many people are hard to control.”

“That’s not it.” She frowned. “It’s still personal, isn’t it?” When he did not answer, she smiled. “I’m really flattered. And I’m sorry. “She touched his face lightly and turned away.

He grabbed her arm. “What did you mean, Nyom?”

“I’m going with this bunch, that’s all. My turn to exit. Nothing personal, Coren, but if you found me, then it’s only a matter of time before the authorities find me. I’m taking this ride.”

Coren felt his fear grow, becoming panic. “Go where?”

“Nova Levis.”

Coren released her. He wanted to argue. More, he now really did want to drag her out of here. But it was clear from her expression, from the waiting baleys, and the robot watching everything that he would not be able to.

“Well,” he said, shrugging. “I can die happy now. I know you really are insane. “He cleared his throat. “You do know that Nova Levis is under blockade, I suppose?”

“We’ll make it.” For a moment, Nyom looked sad. “Sorry. I wish...”

“Nyom. Please don’t.”

She shook her head. “Gotta go. You shouldn’t be seen. My contacts aren’t as understanding as I am.”

Nyom sprinted back to her flock of baleys. Seconds later they filed through the bay door. Coren backed quickly up against a wall, standing motionless until they had all passed out of the warehouse proper.

Behind him, one of the bay doors began to open.

Coren broke for it and slipped around the edge just as a huge hauler rumbled through, carrying a four-meter-high stack of cubes. Its slipstream almost knocked him down.

Just on the other side of the opening, Coren found a massive support rib rising to the ceiling high overhead. He pressed into the corner and waited till the bay door sealed, then pulled another device from his pocket.

He raised the optam to his eyes as he peered around the column of composite metal.

Seven or eight meters from the wall, the pavement ended and a tangled maze of thin tracks spread out, delta-like, busy with huge transports carrying large containers, bins, and packages from the tunnel system that led directly to the shuttle pads dotting the landing area of Petrabor field. The surge and rumble of shuttle traffic drove through him, vibrating his bones.

He was annoyed that Nyom had read him so easily. He had hoped she would assume that he had brought back-up–the police, immigration authorities, other company security. He thought he could talk her out of it; that, after loading her latest troop of misguided would-be Settlers aboard whatever means of transport she had arranged, he could convince her to come home and suspend operations for a time. Until the end of the election. He had hoped she might finally want to stay with him.

He had hoped...

The view through the optam showed the party of baleys, a few dozen meters down, on an empty patch. While Coren watched, a huge pod drifted out of the writhing traffic and came to a stop before them. The end developed a seam and opened smoothly to one side. Four people stepped from its dark interior to meet with Nyom.

Coren stiffened. Two of the four were robots. One looked a bit more sophisticated than the other, almost human, but the dull sheen that outlined its sleek head and body gave it away. It moved with an unusual grace, a fluid, almost organic motion, uncharacteristic of any robot with which Coren was familiar. It circled the baleys, slowly, as if taking inventory. It stopped before Nyom’s robot, Coffee, then seemed to come to a decision and rejoined its companions.

Coren touched a contact on the side of the optam and sound came through the bead in his ear, but he only heard the muffled, unintelligible sounds of a discussion. He lowered the optam and tried to adjust the aural filters to compensate for the noise, then raised it again.

The strange robot was gone.

Coren dropped the optam; he saw the robot clearly. When he raised the magnifier again, the robot did not appear. He could see the other robot easily, a machine slightly smaller than Coffee, a bit sleeker. But the first robot remained invisible.

Masked...?

Coren tensed, preparing to act. The baleys began filing into the big container, and he realized that he would do nothing. Nyom knows what she’s doing, he thought. At least as far as procedure goes. She did not act alarmed, so he had to assume she knew these people, these machines. It unsettled him, though, to watch her, the last one, walk up the ramp, accompanied by Coffee.

The masked robot followed a minute later, causing Coren’s pulse to accelerate again. The other contacts, human and robot, closed up the container, then walked away.

Five minutes later an automated hauler hooked onto the container and pulled it into the maze of tracks and out of Coren ‘s reach.

Abruptly, Coren felt a wave of bitterness. Failure did that. It would have been so simple, so much easier if she had just come with him. Now...

He opened his palm monitor and keyed for a new signal. A bright yellow dot glowed on the small screen. The smear he had placed on Nyom had transferred from fabric to metal to plastic, a clever seeker code built into the tiny molecules that imparted a kind of machine instinct to find a suitable place to use as a conductor and enable them to transmit.

He pocketed the optam and the palm monitor and slipped back through the bay door on the next cycle, just ahead of another huge pallet. All he had to do now was get out of the warehouse–and all the communications damping he had put in place–and signal his contact on Kopernik Station.

He imagined how angry Nyom was about to be.

“So what?” he mused as he recovered his overcoat. “Better she’s righteously pissed off at me than dead from some trigger-happy blockade station.” Ht; glanced back at the bay door. “Nova Levis! What are you thinking, Nyom? Or are you thinking.” He trotted along the walkway toward the offices, muttering. “You’ve never been particularly impulsive, but when you are, you are absolutely unpredictable. Nova Levis. Damn.”

When he reached the locker room, he punched a code into the palm monitor. All the little machines he’d released throughout the warehouse began to eat themselves into dust. Nothing would be left to analyze, if anyone ever found them. Just minuscule piles of refuse.

He checked the time, estimated that he had about six hours before that bin reached dockside on Kopernik. He could even clean up before he made his call...

He recovered the small button he had placed in the exit and stepped into the alley. He saw no one and quickly bounded across to where he had been hiding when the nightshift crew had left. He fished one more device from an inside pocket and opened it. He tapped in a code and waited for the comm to upload for him.

The screen remained blank. He ran a diagnostic. LOCALITY ERROR scrolled across the small screen. Coren hissed, annoyed. Something around here was interfering with the link. He should have tested it first. Probably being this close to the port was causing problems. He closed up the comm unit and headed down the alley.

He splashed through the accrued seepage and hunched his shoulders against the random drops of condensation from the unseen ceiling high overhead. He rounded the next corner and headed up a broad alleyway littered with abandoned shipping crates, refuse dumpsters, old and broken transports, and the scraps of traffic.

“Hey, gato.”

Coren glanced to his right, at the source of the throaty voice. A tall man came out of the shadow of a receiving bay and loped toward him, hands in the pockets of a long overcoat. Coren’s hand moved for the stunner he carried in his jacket. The stranger coughed heavily, a phlegmy hack Coren recognized as one of the recent strains of sublevel tuberculosis. Not contagious usually, but Coren liked to keep his distance.

“Not tonight,” he said.

“Hey, that’s not sapien,” the man said. “Just wanting a share, you know.”

Coren reflexively pulled out a few credits from his pocket and tossed them.

The man scooped them up with more alacrity than Coren would have guessed.

“Thanks, gato,” he said and touched a finger to his hat.

Coren turned away.

A hand clenched around his throat between one breath and the next. Coren grabbed the wrist and pushed forward to relieve the pressure, but the hand held. The wrist, wrapped in a thick sleeve, seemed like steel. Coren tried to turn away from the encircling arm and drive an elbow back. He missed, tried again, and then dropped to his knees under a sharp blow to the left shoulder.

He choked. Sparks danced around the edge of his vision. He tried to sweep a hand around to catch the knees of his attacker, but he was too off-balance.

He closed his eyes, and the pain went away.

Coren came awake lying on damp pavement, his throat burning as he choked on the sourness in his mouth. His shoulder throbbed and would not support his attempt to push himself up. He rolled over and stared up at dark walls, too close. He had been moved. He lay still for a minute or more until the acid subsided and his breathing calmed. He managed finally to sit up.

He was about three meters from the end of a narrow hallway, but still in the same general area of Petrabor, from what he could see beyond. His head spun and his legs trembled as he got to his feet. He needed to get to a medical unit, he knew, but not down here; no telling what kind of treatment he might get from the quacks practicing in the sublevels. He needed to get to a comm sooner.

He patted his pockets. His stunner was gone, as were his optam, palm monitor, and comm unit. But they had missed his ID, and he still had a few credits in a calf-pouch.

Coren tried to figure out what had happened. He was not a small man, and he had been trained well during his years with Special Service, but whoever had attacked him had handled him as if he were a child. Possible, but not the panhandler. Surely not.

He sighed heavily and coughed.

Later, he thought, stumbling from the hallway. Figure it out later....

Two

WHEN HE RETURNED to the hostel, all Coren wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep. He leaned against the door of his room, eyes shut, feeling his bruises and weariness. He had been beaten up once before, years ago, but the brain did not remember the pain.

He forced his eyes open. The clock above the bed said NINETEEN-TEN LOCAL.

“Damn. Five hours.”

He lurched to the small desk and pulled a briefcase from beneath it. He threw off his overcoat and tapped in the release code on the case, then took out his personal datum. He jacked it into the room comm and entered a string of numbers. He sat down then, anxiously watching while the link assembled itself through a secure channel.

“Come on... come on...”

“Palen here,” a voice crackled sharply from the comm.

“It’s Coren, Sipha. The package is on its way up.”

“Already tracking it. We’ll have it in the bay in... two hours and a bit. Where have you been? I expected your call–”

“I’ll tell you later. I was delayed unavoidably.”

“You still coming up?”

“As soon as I get clean. I’ll be on a shuttle in an hour.”

“If we get the package in station before you get here?”

“Can you delay opening till I’m there?”

“Within limits.”

“I’m moving as fast as I can, Sipha. Thanks.”

Coren entered a new number and read over the shuttle schedules that scrolled onto the screen. Hand trembling slightly, he booked one, and closed down the link. He considered trying to contact the data troll who had told him about tonight’s clandestine emigration, but that could scare her. She had been nervous anyway; their meeting had not gone smoothly. Coren had been in too big a hurry to question her anxiety, but now he wondered about it. He unjacked his datum and put it away.

He assembled his luggage quickly, then stripped off the grimy clothes. He showered, depilated his face, and dressed in tailored black and dark blue. The overcoat and coveralls went into the recycle chute.

Coren snatched his briefcase and single duffle, gave the cubicle a last look, gaze lingering on the bed. I really need sleep, he thought. On the shuttle, he decided, and left for the port.

Coren gripped the armrests, unable to make himself relax. He knew the shuttle was in motion and, though he felt nothing, the knowledge made him sick. He forced himself not to slouch, grateful that the nausea was not worse.

“Big brave policeman,” he muttered sourly, “scared of a little spaceflight.”

He glanced at his fellow passengers. One man slept soundly by induced coma–an option Coren found more repellant than the flight itself–and the only others he could see clearly seemed to be Spacers, tall and elegant and gathered together in one section in the front of the cabin, talking animatedly, unfazed by the fact that they were hurtling through space with less than thirty centimeters of hull between them and vacuum.

Coren closed his eyes and tried to think about what had happened to him.

It was possible that Nyom had hired someone to cover her back and that the panhandler had been her muscle. Possible, but inconsistent with Nyom Looms–at least, not the Nyom Looms Coren thought he knew.

Perhaps he no longer really knew her. He had made an assumption, relied on old data, and gotten hurt.

But assuming for the moment that the panhandler had not been her man, then who was he? Coren’s shoulder and neck throbbed; the bruise would be spectacular.

Definitely have to have a talk with that data troll, he thought. The idea that he had been set up troubled him, but it was not unlikely. Baley running attracted an undependable variety of conscience, people committed to various causes but with a weakness for money that worked against their revolutionary principles. The few True Believers were unapproachable in any ordinary sense–those from whom Coren could extract information were, by definition, untrustworthy.

The troll who had supplied him with the data for last night’s shipment–a woman named Jeta Fromm–should have been more reliable. Coren used a clearing house for people like her: Data Recovery Systems, Ltd. An innocuous name, considering how much borderline illicit trade they dealt in. But they guaranteed the work of their operatives–sometimes in heavy-handed and unpleasant ways–and would not take it well to learn that one of their people had betrayed a client. Still, he had not gotten that impression from Jeta Fromm. She did not seem like the sort who would indulge in doublecrosses. She had been anxious, but the data she supplied had been accurate. If anything, she had seemed preoccupied. Coren relied a great deal on his intuition about people–he had occasionally been wrong, no system is perfect–and he thought he had judged her correctly. Perhaps he had and something else was involved. It would not do to act before he knew, which meant he had to find her on his own and not go through the clearing house. They might misunderstand. At best, he could cost her employment. At worst...

The other possibility was that Number Sixteen third shift dockworker who had met with Nyom. But Coren had not seen him clearly and with his optam stolen he had no images to work with. Perhaps he could find out who he was through the ITE office in Baltimor. He knew someone there. It would be interesting in any case to find out what connection existed between that branch and a Petrabor baley-smuggling operation.

At least he knew he could rely on Sipha Palen and accomplish his mission.

Nyom would be furious with him.

No matter, so long as she was safely back on Earth and out of circulation for a while. Rega owned a villa in Kenya Sector where he often went to be alone–Coren himself had overseen its security. It was the safest place he knew to tuck Nyom away while the election ran.

“Your attention please, “an automated voice said. “We will be docking at Kopernik Station in fifteen minutes. Please be sure your safety field is on and secured and any personal objects are stowed in the appropriate compartments. Remain in your seats until the green debarkation light is on. Thank you.”

Coren sighed gratefully. Fifteen minutes. Good. He looked up at the group of Spacers and briefly caught one’s eye. For a moment he thought he recognized an expression of sympathy. But it passed and she laughed at a joke from one of her companions.

He shifted uncomfortably. His safety field had stayed on the entire trip. His skin prickled slightly from the faint pressure. His shirt stuck to him from the sweat; he would need another shower as soon as he debarked.

He felt a brief lurch and clutched desperately at the armrests.

“We have completed docking at Kopernik Station, Bay two-one-seven. Please remain seated until we are ready for debarkation. We hope you have enjoyed your flight and we thank you for traveling Intrapoint.”

Coren bit back a snide comment and concerned himself with shutting down the safety field. His legs hurt from the constant tension.

A row of green lights winked on overhead the length of the cabin. An attendant came through to help anyone who might need assistance. Coren stood, thankful his legs did not shake. He pulled his briefcase from the cubby beneath his seat and made his way to the exit. As he walked down the white-walled tunnel away from the shuttle, he began feeling more confident. He emerged into the brightly-lit, cheerily-colored, close-ceilinged reception lounge feeling a bit foolish about his fear. He slipped on his jacket while he scanned the waiting crowd.

Sipha Palen stood off to the left and gave him a nod, then strolled off. Coren checked in at the security desk and retrieved his duffle. He caught up with Sipha halfway down the concourse and fell into step beside her.

Sipha stood at least twelve centimeters taller than him, with broad shoulders tapering into what she called a “swimmer’s build”–slim-hipped and sinewy. Pale amber eyes stood out sharply against her brassy-brown skin; she wore her copper hair in a thick queue than hung to just between her shoulder blades. Her ivory suit hinted at “uniform “without being obvious. She smelled of hot metal and flowers.

“How was the flight?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Don’t, “he said.

She gave him a wry smile. “You should fly more often. You might learn to like it.”

“It’s good to see you, Sipha,” he said, ignoring the jab.

“Likewise. The package arrived four hours, twenty minutes ago. We have the bay secured–just my people. Do you want to go right there or tidy up first?”

“Let’s get it over with. Maybe I can enjoy the rest of my stay afterward.”

Sipha made a dubious noise, but increased the pace slightly. She led him to an in-station shuttle car.

“By the way,” he said as he strapped in, “there are two robots in there. One looks pretty ordinary, but the other one was invisible to my optam.”

“Masked?”

“I can’t think of another explanation. So let your people know to be careful.”

They made the transit in silence, Coren staring at a spot just above Sipha’s right shoulder. The car slowed to a halt and Sipha stepped lithely out. Coren followed her down a service corridor into an immense bay.

The security people standing around straightened when they saw Sipha. She strode across the pale gray floor toward the cargo bin sitting near its center. Coren’s heartbeat quickened upon seeing it–relief, he realized. It was here, safe, and soon Nyom would be on her way to even more safety.

It is still personal... he thought.

A pair of uniformed techs, expressions tight, approached Sipha. They spoke in low, terse tones.

“Open the damn thing now!” Sipha shouted.

She sprinted the rest of the distance to the bin. Coren dropped his luggage and ran after her. Techs, galvanized, lurched into motion.

People converged on the bin. Coren stopped outside the huddle of technicians working to open it and waited, impatient and anxious.

The seal parted and the door folded down.

Coren shouldered his way through the uniforms.

Sipha entered the bin first.

“Get me some light in here!” she called, her voice hollow.

Coren bumped her, stopped at the edge of darkness. The spillover from the bay lights picked out disconnected details of a squat bulk just before them and lines that might be the edges of shelves or cots. Coren heard a faint, rhythmic buzzing.

“What–?” he began.

Techs came up behind them with hand-held floodlamps. They switched them on and raised them.

Coren blinked at the sudden glare.

The air smelled faintly burnt...

“Shit,” Sipha breathed.

Racks of couches crowded the walls all around, three deep, with barely a meter between levels. Each pallet contained a body. None of them moved; Coren detected no breath pushing at clothing, no hint of life. Dead bodies, an umbilical running from each facemask to the large apparatus in the center of the cramped open space directly before Sipha and Coren.

On the opposite side of the big machine, Coffee knelt, motionless.

Coren’s ears sang with blood. Sparks teased at the periphery of his vision and he felt cocooned, separated from his surroundings. He made himself step forward. He looked in at the nearest corpse. She had been strapped into the couch. Her hands had clutched spasmodically at the fabric beneath her.

The couch above her held a child, its eyes staring blindly.

He made his way around the apparatus, stepping carefully over the tubes running from its base, up the railings, and into the couches.

Coffee’s hands were frozen on a control panel. Coren bent over to see what the robot was touching. DISENGAGE. Coren glared at the robot. He felt his hands curl instantly into fists.

“You piece of–”

“Coren.”

He looked up at Sipha. She still stood at the entrance. She pointed up.

Coren looked.

Dangling from the ceiling of the bin was another body. Hanging, suspended, it shifted ever-so-slightly right to left and back in the movement of air coming from the bay. It was a woman, her head angled sharply to the left. Her eyes were wide, tongue extruded between her lips.

Nyom.

The tea in his cup had gone cold as Coren watched Sipha’s people remove the bodies. The air in the office cubicle was a few degrees too cool. He stared fixedly through the window at the forensic dance around the crime scene.

Nyom would be brought out last, he knew, because her condition was so different.

Sipha entered the office and sat down heavily behind the small desk.

“Fifty-two bodies,” she said. “We don’t have the facilities to store them in our morgue. I’m having stasis units moved into an equipment locker nearby. Best we can do till we know how to handle this.”

Coren looked up. “Fifty-two? There were fifty-one baleys.”

“We’ve got fifty-two now.”

“All human?”

Sipha nodded. “Maybe one was already in the bin. Who knows?”

“What about the other robot?” Coren asked.

“No second robot. Just the one. Sorry.”

“I saw it enter the bin with them. You ‘re telling me it got out?”

“You saw it get in at the warehouse dock. After that, who knows? Once on board its shuttle, it could have left. Or it might not have even gotten on the shuttle.” She grunted. “We could ask the one we do have, but it’s collapsed.”

“How convenient,” he said. “What ship was this bin scheduled for?”

“It’s not even in dock yet, won’t be for another three days. A Settler cargo hauler, slated for a direct run to an orbital facility owned by a company called the Hunter Group.”

“Three days...” Coren shook his head.

“So,” Sipha said after a time, “what do you think happened?”

Coren shuddered briefly and set the cup aside. He folded his hands in his lap. “The other robot. It must’ve glitched or malfunctioned or... something. It killed Nyom, then suffocated the others by switching off the rebreather unit.”

“What about Nyom’s robot? Why would it have allowed that to happen?”

“They must’ve been in it together.”

Sipha said nothing. Coren turned his chair to face her. She wore a skeptical expression.

“That’s what you want to believe,” she said.

Coren nodded. “Trouble is, I don’t have a viable alternative. Do you?”

“No. But I’m not sure I can accept that one robot could kill. You want me to accept that two of them were cooperating in a mass murder.”

Coren grunted. “Since when have you gone Spacer?”

She frowned. “Since when have you lost the ability to think?”

Coren glared at her.

“We partnered for two years in Special Service,” she said. “I thought you were more reasonable than that. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe working for Rega Looms has loosened your grip on objective reality. What do you think?”

Coren worked himself back from anger and tried to think it through. Sipha had come into the Service directly from the military, a different path than his more direct route of applying to the Academy for Civic Defense, Forensics, and Criminal Interdiction. Despite their divergent backgrounds, Coren had come to trust her. He still did. It had surprised him when, after he had left the Service, she had taken this position as head of security for Kopernik Station.

But it put her in almost daily contact with Spacers and Settlers, both factions of whom had embassy branches on the station.

Nevertheless, he trusted her. That, he recognized, had not changed.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Tell me your reasoning.”

“That robot is collapsed. Positronic nervous breakdown. Something happened to cause it, and if it could break down like that then it could not have harmed any of those people. If it were still walking around, calmly trying to do its business, then I might agree with you.” She sat back. “I’ve been up here five years, Coren. I’ve learned a little bit about robots. Have to, when you deal with Spacers who won’t leave home without them. I had to learn to discount my own prejudices a long time ago if I wanted any chance of running my department efficiently and doing my job honestly. It wasn’t easy–I still don’t like them–but I know their limitations. It wasn’t the robot. Not that one, anyway. And I doubt it was this other one–there’s no in-built compunction that prevents a robot from harming another robot, especially in the defense of humans. As far as we’ve been able to tell, that second robot wasn’t even on board when this happened.” She gestured toward the bay. “Besides, what motive? Suicide? Bringing along a robot would have been the best way to fail to commit suicide. They’re programmed to save our lives for us, whether we want them to or not.”

Coren nodded. “All right, that’s all logical. As far as it goes. Sorry about the remark.”

“Forget it. So–how do you want to proceed?”

“Why do I get a say? Isn’t this official now?”

Sipha pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Maybe.” She seemed to consider carefully. “See, this bay is Settler. When you contacted me about this little favor you wanted, I called in a few favors of my own. Right now, this whole business exists in an official vacuum. No one knows but you, me, and my immediate staff. “She stabbed a finger in the direction of the cargo bin. “And whoever killed all those people.”

“You’ll have to make it official sooner or later.”

“True. But maybe by then we can figure this out.”

Coren studied her for a moment. Something in her expression teased at him.

“There’s something else,” he stated.

Sipha still pondered, then nodded. “I agreed to do this for you because I need you.”

“I’m flattered. But I’m also private now.”

“Oh, I think we can change that if we need to. But... I have a problem I can’t take to my superiors. I’m not even sure who among my own people I can trust with it. I need outside help. I didn’t know how I was going to get it till you called.”

“Is it related?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Probably. It has to do with baleys, at least. Dead ones, too, though this is the first load of corpses to show up on my station.”

Coren raised an eyebrow in amusement. “‘Your’ station?”

Sipha smiled wolfishly. “Oh, yes, old partner mine. Never doubt it. My station. It has trouble and I want it fixed.” She gazed past him, into the bay. “As I say, this is the first load of corpses. The occasional body has been turning up from time to time. The sorts of people who easily get crushed when they learn the wrong thing, or know too much, or who just show up where they shouldn’t. Most of them have been thoroughly professional kills... till about three months ago.”

Coren waited. She seemed to come to a decision and activated the datum on the desk. The paper-thin screen extruded and winked on. She worked intently for a couple of minutes, then crooked a finger at him to have a look.

“We found this in one of our detention cells,” she said.

On the screen Coren saw a body, laid out on a morgue table. It had been a woman–the basic shape was still intact–but he had never seen a body so thoroughly bruised: blue, green, and sickly yellow marks ran from the scalp to the toes. Faint red laceration marks interrupted the mottling here and there.

“What was it? Explosive decompression? Something fall on her?”

“In a detention cell?” Sipha asked wryly. “She was alive when we put her in there. Small-quantity Brethe peddler, nothing major, ever-public nuisance, more than anything else. She was supposed to be, you see, because she worked for me.”

“Regular cop?”

“No, she really did used to deal in black market. I made her a better deal. It worked out. She worked the Settler section for me.”

Coren felt himself smile. “And when there was something really important to report...?”

“She got herself arrested. This hadn’t been the first time she’d visited one of my cells. The next shift, we found her like this. Very simply, every bone in her body had been broken. A lot of them were crushed.”

“What was she reporting?”

“I don’t know. She came in ‘under the influence.’ I was tied up with arranging all this for you and didn’t get a chance to talk to her.”

“No one heard or saw anything?”

“Evidently not. That’s why I’m not really sure about my people. Can you think of a way that could happen and no one on watch would know about it?”

Coren shook his head. “What about surveillance?”

“Blank for that section. I suspended two of my officers for negligence, but I honestly don’t think they were the ones who did it. Someone with a bit more expertise fiddled the recorders. The problem with that is, I have at least five people on my staff who could have done it, but none of them has a motive.” Sipha gestured toward the image on the screen. “Besides, look at that and tell me how it was done. A couple of adjusters with clubs? I don’t think so.”

“But since you don’t really suspect your two discipline cases, you have an idea.”

Sipha nodded. “During autopsy we came up with this. “She tapped the keypad. “The bruising is uninterrupted over the entire body and none of the fractures are consistent with blows.”

The screen changed, showing an image of a shoulder, blackened like rotting fruit. Sipha adjusted the scan and one shape emerged, slightly darker than the surrounding bruise. Coren stared at the vague outline of a hand. An odd hand, to be sure, the fingers too thick and short, the spread too wide.

“Was it clear enough for any kind of prints?” he asked.

“No prints. Perfectly smooth except for a couple of joints. And the bone beneath this impression had been ground nearly to powder. No, partner mine, this isn’t a human hand.”

“A robot?” He shook his head. “But you said–”

“I said that robot–” she pointed out at the bay “–didn’t do it. But that’s still my best guess. And if a robot did this–” she gestured at the screen “–if a robot–maybe your second mystery robot–got into my cells and did this, then I have a serious problem.” She looked up at him. “Will you help me?”

“I–” Coren began.

The door opened. One of Sipha’s men leaned in. “Chief, you need to see this.”

“Couple things,” the older man–Baxin, Sipha’s staff pathologist–said when Sipha and Coren entered the bin. He pointed at the rebreather unit. The umbilicals had all been disconnected and had retracted into the unit. “That’s a standard Fain-Bischer rebreather. About six years old, out of date, but still in good working order. No reason it won’t last another hundred years once it’s been cleaned out.”

“Cleaned out of what?” Sipha asked.

“We don’t know yet, but it’s evident from the postures of the deceased that they’ve been poisoned. Something in the rebreather, we assume. Something clever, too. The filtration system should have blocked it, but it didn’t.” He nodded sharply. “That’s one thing. The other...” He pointed up.

Nyom’s body had been taken down and now they could see how she had been suspended. The roof had a crack in it, about half a meter long and perhaps five to eight centimeters at the widest. The metal around it was discolored, heat-scored.

“The bin was pressurized,” the tech explained. “The air leaked out through that crack. My guess is that the body was drawn to it during freefall. The fabric of her pants got caught in it.”

“Did decompression kill her?” Coren asked.

“No. A broken neck did that. She was dead before she got stuck in the ceiling.”

Coren looked down at the rebreather. “Why? If everyone else was poisoned...” He looked around. “Where’s the robot?”

“I’ve got it in an impound locker,” Baxin said. “I didn’t know where else to put it.”

Sipha extended her hand. “Give me the tag. I’ll take care of the robot. How long on autopsies?”

“Fifteen, twenty hours,” Baxin said. “A few preliminaries sooner than that maybe.”

“What made the crack?” Coren asked. “It looks intentional.”

“It is,” Baxin said. “Heat induction, industrial grade drill or welder, crystallized the metal, made it brittle.”

“What kind?”

“We don’t have it. There’s nothing in here that would do that.”

“Not even the robot?”

“No, I don’t think so. Specialized tool, in my opinion.”

Coren gave the hole in the roof a last glance, then left the bin.

When Sipha joined him, he said, “Doesn’t make sense. Who broke her neck if Coffee didn’t?”

She glanced at him. “‘Coffee’?”

“That’s what she called the robot.” He saw Sipha’s expression. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know why. But who else could have broken her neck?”

“We’ll check the bodies to see if time of death matches in all cases. But I still think you’re wrong about the robot. Maybe it knew they were being poisoned–that’s what it was trying to stop.”

“How did it know? And who–”

“I know, who broke Nyom’s neck. Maybe the same one who crushed that Brethe dealer?”

“And which one would that be? Which dead one in that bin who had never been to Kopernik before would that be?” Coren asked sarcastically. “Oh, wait, I know. The same one who cracked a hole in the bin with an inducer that no one can find.”

Sipha snarled at him. “I don’t damn well know, Coren. So I repeat: will you help me?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. I’ll help you. No question.” He mulled his options for a few seconds. “I’m going back down. You can handle the autopsies without me. Also, I’ll need ID on all of them.”

“What’s down there?” Sipha frowned. Clearly, she had thought they would be working together for a few days.

“I have a couple of people to talk to. For one, the data troll who put me onto Nyom in the first place. I want to find those people Nyom was dealing with, and she’s my best chance right now.” He drew a deep breath. “And we’re going to need a roboticist.”

“There’s a lab full of them here–”

“Do you trust them?”

Sipha scowled, then shook her head. “Not till I find out who killed my Brethe dealer.”

“I’ll see if I can take care of that, then.”

“I suppose you know a roboticist?”

“Of one, yes. I think it’s best to stay away from anyone involved directly with the Spacer sector on Kopernik.”

Sipha nodded. “I’ll get you on the next shuttle back to D. C.”

“No, not D. C. Lyzig District–that’s where my informant lives. I’ll take the suborbital back to D. C. after I talk to her. Send me the autopsy data when you have it.”

“What are you going to say to Looms?”

Coren shook his head. “I’ll worry about that when I see him.”

Three

THE FLIGHT DOWN frightened him more than the trip up to Kopernik. Perhaps it was the idea of falling, but Coren felt at the edge of panic from the moment the shuttle left dock till he walked, legs trembling, into the concourse at Lyzig Station. It did not make sense–he never reacted this way on a semiballistic–and he resented the idea that it was all psychosomatic. He went directly to a public restroom and rinsed his face in cold water, then sat in a stall till the sweating and nausea passed.

“Never again,” he muttered as he finally gathered himself up. He checked his watch–twenty minutes wasted getting over his reaction–and left the restroom.

He rented a locker and shoved his one bag inside, then headed for the station lobby.

Lyzig buzzed with first-shift traffic. The warrens swarmed with people going to jobs or shops or meetings. Coren liked Lyzig: Clean, robust, a polished politesse substituted for the unmannered friendliness of other Eurosector districts, as if the residents were conscious of a long history–an important past they were obliged to honor.

At the station gate he flagged a taxi and gave his destination. The driver’s eyebrows raised speculatively, but all he said was “Very good, sir,” and moved into the vehicular lanes. The short ride ended at an ancient hotel. Coren tipped the driver and stepped out.

The taxi pulled away and Coren began walking in the opposite direction. His shakes were gone by now and he walked purposefully, in imitation of resident Lyzigers.

He had three options to find Jeta Fromm. He had already decided against contacting Data Recovery Systems, through which he had originally found her. He had to assume that whoever had killed Nyom had gotten the same information about the baley run, and that meant a competitor. He had no way of knowing yet where they would have gotten the data–it might have been Jeta Fromm herself, or her handlers, or some as yet undetermined third source. He could too easily reveal his interest by going through the usual channels.

The second option was not worth considering at this point. Local police could find her and pick her up, but he would be effectively destroying her career and perhaps hurting several other people associated with her. A significant part of the work he did depended on clandestine resources. Damaging them by “going local” could cost him his reputation and impair his ability to do his job. Using the local police, then, was a course of last resort.

His best option, then, was to find her himself. He had met with her twice, at different locations of her choosing. Her nervousness had bothered him, so he had traced her back to her hab–just in case he needed to find her quickly and confidentially. Like now.

The area he now entered was very old, and the signs of wear and neglect became more evident the further he walked. The fast pace and energy representative of Lyzig faded; people here were in no hurry to go anywhere–a few were even sitting in doorways, or gathered in small groups near shops or in the cramped public spaces that passed for parks in this part of the urbanplex.

Coren automatically imitated the lethargy around him, moving slower, keeping his head down. He tucked his hands in his pockets and searched the corridor signs till he found one marked BETRAGSTRAS. He walked down the narrower corridor to a steep metal staircase that ran up the windowless wall to his left. The ghosts of old graffiti discolored the surfaces, scrubbed endlessly by automated cleaners that, over time, failed to remove all the paint.

At the top of the stairs, Coren found a broad rooftop upon which stacks of single-unit cubicles formed a small, cramped village. Light glowed from open doorways, and the thick smell of cooking almost covered the odors of plastic and sweat and unprocessed waste.

Faces appeared at doorways, lingered for a few seconds, then retreated.

Coren estimated about a thousand people lived in this precariously overbuilt shantytown, lived quite illegally and with little fear of eviction, but with the constant possibility of having the entire makeshift construct tumble down on them. Many of the residents worked legitimate jobs that paid too little to afford them a decent domicile and do whatever else they found more important–sending children to better schools, subscriptions to expensive entertainments, paying off a debt, or saving for the chance to emigrate–but just as many worked on the edge of legality: dealers in stolen data or controlled substances, informants, runners, small credit fences, rented muscle. Others simply had nowhere else to go and had fallen here, fortunate to at least have a place to sleep and a source for food.

Coren took out his palm monitor and made his way through the maze of passageways, up a ladder, and down a short gangway to an unlit doorway. The signal from the smear he had deposited on Jeta the second time they met was weaker, but still traceable. The self-replicating vonoomans exhausted themselves after a few days and decayed unrecoverably. He ran the sensor up and down a scale to test it. Satisfied that Jeta Fromm had at least stayed here for more than an hour, giving his tiny tracers a chance to proliferate in the environment, he pocketed the monitor. He palmed a flash and switched it on as he kicked in the flimsy plastic door and stepped through.

In the harsh blue-white illumination, the cubicle leapt into sharp relief. A cot stretched against the wall to his left, a sleeping bag and extra blankets wadded up at the head. A makeshift desk stood along the back wall, cluttered with objects that formed an indecipherable tangle. Along the wall to the right was a trunk, the lid open, the contents spilling over the edge–clothing, from the look of it.

Immediately to the right Coren found a lamp propped on a three-legged table. He switched it on and turned off his own light.

Vacant. He closed the door behind him.

He studied the room carefully. Jeta Fromm had struck him as a fastidious person, neat and methodical. This place did not. He sat down on the edge of the cot.

Disks, small pieces of paper, items of clothing, scraps of unidentifiable detritus littered the floor. A chair lay on its side to the left of the desk. The cot itself was angled away from the wall.

It appeared to Coren that she–or someone–had left in a hurry, possibly in a panic. Jeta peddled data–rumor, software, illicit downloads, even documented fact when she sold material to the newsnets as a stringer–so any of a number of deals could cause her to run.

She had been very professional when he met her, but it seemed to him now that there had been an undercurrent of desperation. She managed it well and he had been in a hurry, so he had neglected to pay it enough attention.

Coren stepped up to the desk. The clutter consisted mainly of components from old, salvaged readers, scanners, and bits of datum units. He saw a control panel from a commline. Tools lay mixed with the debris. Two bare spaces suggested removed equipment. He guessed, given her range of services, that she owned a pathburner, a very expensive microcircuitry cutter. Probably a very good decryption datum. The cost of those two pieces would be more than his own yearly salary.

What he saw here convinced Coren that Jeta was on the run. Someone–maybe the same someone who had rolled him in Petrabor–had come looking for her. She had duly disappeared.

He knelt down and shuffled through the papers and disks on the floor. The disks were labeled by numbers. He could go through them, but he doubted she would have left anything behind worth the trouble.

The papers mostly contained scribbled comm codes, cryptic notes– “Jam on B-stras, 3s” or “Cram Seef for Rudo, level 12”–and a couple of doodles. One caught his eye that said “B meet at seven’s place, 2shift” followed by a comm code. He slipped it into his pocket and stood.

He turned off the light and stepped outside.

To his left he glimpsed someone watching him from a doorway. The door slammed shut. Coren reached the cubicle in three long strides and shouldered his way in.

In the pale light he saw a small man shoving himself in the comer behind a large chest of drawers. Coren shut the door and stepped closer.

“I didn’t! Stop! I didn’t!” the man cried.

“You know Jeta?” Coren demanded. “She ask you to watch her place?”

“I don’t–nothing to say, gato–please–”

“Don’t ‘gato’ me, shit. Dump it now. You’re a friend of Jeta’s?”

He nodded once. He was not quite as small as he at first seemed, but the clothes he wore were too big and his head was long and shaved bald. His sleeves half-covered his hands.

“You ‘re watching for her, right? Who came to visit before me? Who’s looking for her?”

The man shook his head a little too quickly. “Don’t know.”

“Don’t know what? Who, if, when?”

“Never saw them before.”

“Them? Two? More?”

“Two. Man and a woman.”

“The man,” Coren said. “Short, stout, yellow skin?”

A scowl flashed across his face. “No, it was–I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

Coren resisted the urge to grab the smaller man. Strong-arming would do no good, but he wondered just how far subtlety would get him.

“Listen, gato,” he said gently, “Jeta’s in trouble. If I don’t find her first she’ll be dead. Savvy? Now, who came?”

“Never–I–” The man swallowed loudly and closed his eyes. “Dead?” he whispered.

“Very dead.”

The man nodded weakly. “She–two days ago, third shift, she says time to go, she’s sorry. Be back in a few days for her jumble–”

“Her what?”

“Jumble–her stuff–”

“All right, go on.”

“Asks me just to spot who comes looking. Like you guessed.”

“And?”

“Three hours later this tall gato, long coat, tosses her cube. Didn’t see me. Stayed in her place maybe twenty minutes.”

“Tall. Anything else?”

“Dark skin, like he’s seen sun or something. Didn’t blink.”

“Didn’t blink... his eyes?”

“What else you got that blinks?”

“Did he talk to you?”

“No,” the man said indignantly. “I said he didn’t see me.”

“You said a woman?”

“Came yesterday. Looked around Jeta’s cube, stayed maybe an hour, then left.”

“What did she look like?”

“Wore a mask. Not too big, though, but–”

“Nobody stopped her?”

“The other one was with her, stayed outside.”

“You don’t know where Jeta might have gone?”

“No,” the man insisted.

Coren grunted. He took a gamble. “Who’s Seven?”

The man frowned. “‘Seven’? I don’t know...” He seemed honestly ignorant, so Coren dropped it.

“Did these gatos talk to anybody else?”

“Might have.” The man paused, thought it over for a moment. “Yes, did. Cobbel and Renz. They got the first cubes at the edge.”

Coren suppressed a smile. “What did this tall gato sound like?”

“Kind of raspy-voiced, like he had trouble breathing. But it came out of his chest, real deep. Cobbel and Renz didn’t like him too much.”

“Did the woman talk to anyone?”

“No.”

Coren considered. Then he stood. “All right, thanks. I’m not here to hurt Jeta. You tell her the gato that paid her twice market for that last data she sold needs to talk to her again. Tell her to find me if she wants to stay alive. Savvy?”

“How’ll she find you?”

“Same way she found what I wanted. She’ll know. You see her, you tell her to stay on the move, though.”

“Serious shit?” the man asked.

Coren nodded. “Very.”

He backed out of the cubicle and reentered Jeta’s cube. He took out his palm monitor and adjusted it, then turned a slow circle till a light flashed red.

From up in the corner, tucked in a crack between the wall and the ceiling, he removed a small button. He repeated the scan and found another one, on her desk amid a jumble of electronics, pretending to be a relay switch.

If there were more, his monitor missed them. He opened a slot in the side of the monitor and dropped them in. They barely fit.

At the edge of the hab collection, he paused. Then he knocked on the nearest door.

A woman looked out at him. She said nothing, only waited expectantly.

“Cobbel or Renz?” Coren said.

“Renz. What?”

“The tall gato talked to you about Jeta Fromm.”

She frowned. “What about him?”

“Did he give you a code to tap if you found Jeta?”

“You police?”

“Private.”

“Ah.” She stepped out. She was quite a bit shorter than he, surprisingly so. “He tapped us. Ears allover the place. Cobbel’s still looking for all of them. We figured that, when he didn’t give us a code.”

“He knew you’d lie.”

Rena shook her head. “Wouldn’t lie.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t tell him anything.”

“What was he like?”

She frowned again, thoughtfully. “Scary shit. Never blinked. Skin looked wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“Don’t know. Just wrong. Diseased, maybe. Too smooth. No veins.” She studied him narrowly. “Jeta’s in trouble.”

“Looks that way. Bad trouble.”

“You trying to help?”

“My fault. Trying to cover accounts.”

Renz nodded. “You won’t find her. Best she finds you.”

“If you see her, tell her. I need to talk to her.”

“Ain’t seen her in a few days. She knows how to find you?”

Coren nodded. “I don’t think there’s much Jeta can’t find. Do you?”

That elicited a sly smile.

“Just out of curiosity,” Coren asked, “how long has she lived here? People in her profession move a lot, I know.”

“Long enough,” Renz said. “longer than most–three months or so.”

Coren nodded. That was a long time–for a data troll.

“I’m going, “Coren said. “You see her, tell her. I need to talk to her soonest.”

He went to the steps. He glanced back and saw people watching him now, openly. Something had passed through here that had scared them.

Coren hurried down the steps.

On the way back to the tube station, Coren stopped at a public comm and punched in the code he had found. The screen flashed DISCONNECTED SOURCE. He studied the note for a time, trying to decide if it would be worth his while to try to find this Seven. In the end, he fed the paper into a recycler. No time to be as thorough as he wanted. He tapped in the code for the Auroran embassy and began making his way through the maze of connections to find the person he needed to speak to.

Third shift was just beginning in Petrabor Sector. Coren’s timing was close, arriving at the warehouse just ahead of the crew.

He stood across from their entrance and this time they noticed him as they filed in by groups of twos and threes. He no longer wore the tattered leftovers of a warren ghost but the fine suit of someone in authority–an inspector or manager or perhaps a cop. As they saw him their friendly chatter died away, replaced by suspicion and silence.

Coren had about half an hour before he needed to catch a semiballistic to D. C. He studied the faces that passed before him, matching them to his memory, but the sixteenth crewman failed to appear. No surprise.

The foreman emerged from the employee access and came toward him. He was a short man, middle-aged and just beginning to lose the firm lines of a body made powerful during time working the bays instead of just supervising others.

“Can I help you?” he asked, stopping a meter away.

Coren held up his ID, which contained the emblem identifying him as a licensed independent security investigator. The foreman almost took a step closer to examine it, but Coren shoved it back into his pocket.

“Last night,” Coren said, “you took your crew out during on-duty time. A place called Dimilio’s?”

The foreman’s eyes became wary. “What about it?”

Coren shook his head sorrowfully. “That’s not contract.”

“The Guild send you? Management?”

“What do you think would’ve happened if the routers had glitched with no one there to shut it down?”

“Routers never glitch!”

“They do if they’re hacked.”

Now the wariness turned to fear. “Hacked...” He swallowed. “You’re talking about–”

“I’m not talking about anything yet. I’m asking. Why did you think it would all right to walk out midshift, en masse like that, for a few drinks?”

The foreman scowled at him. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

Coren nodded agreeably. “That’s right, you don’t. But if that’s what you decide to do, the next people you talk to will be ITE inspectors. They don’t give a damn about contract protections.”

The foreman took a tentative step closer. “Look–it was Oril’s birthday. Not yesterday, but the day before, but there wasn’t time then to do anything. Busy shift. Things slowed down yesterday, there were a couple of windows, we figured, what’s an hour or two? We’ve never had a problem–”

Coren sighed dramatically. “Contract says someone has to be on duty–”

“There was! We left the sub here. He didn’t know Oril anyway, no loss.”

“The sub. I didn’t see any sub listed–”

The foreman looked pained for a second. “Farom was out, he’s been having trouble with his kid. He’s already past his allotment for personal time and sick days–any more and he gets written up. We paid the sub out of our own pocket to come in for him so Farom wouldn’t get the reprimand.”

“I need the sub’s name.”

“I’m telling you, Farom’s a good worker–”

“The sub’s name.” Coren leaned closer and softened his voice. “If I can keep this off the record I will–it’ll save me a lot of trouble. I don’t need the extra datawork. I just have to verify that you didn’t leave your shift unattended. Word is that management has some losses to explain to shareholders. You know how that is. Now there was a glitch in the logs for the time you were all toasting Oril’s good health. If it was operator error, then we can correct it on our end and leave you alone.” Coren reached out then and grabbed hold of the foreman’s coverall. “But you pull that kind of shit again, I’ll have your ass in front of management and the Guild conciliators. Understand?”

“Yuri Pocivil,” the foreman said quickly. “He’s normally Second Shift at the Number Four yard. He had personal time.”

“How did you come to call him?”

“We used him before.”

“Covering for Farom?”

The foreman swallowed. “As a matter of fact, yeah.”

Coren released him. “Yuri Pocivil. I’m going to have a talk with him. He explains the glitch to my satisfaction, you won’t see me again.”

“We’ve never had any problems with him before.”

“Happens when you step out of contract. Go back to work.”

Shaken, the foreman almost bowed as he backed away. He’d recovered his composure by the time he reached the entrance. He gave Coren a last look–to which Coren returned a reassuring nod–then disappeared inside the warehouse.

Yuri Pocivil had failed to report to work that day and his apartment was vacant. Coren was not surprised, but he was disappointed. It would have been simpler had he found him. Pocivil was a more direct line to whoever was running the operation.

He made his way to the station, mulling over his next move. The routing had been modified in Baltimor. That, at least, was convenient to his next stop.

Four

DEREC AVERY WATCHED the screens with mild interest. The central view was a complex collection of concentric, overlapping rings. Where some of the lines crossed, pockets formed containing patternless amalgams of small shapes, like froth or dried, cracked mud, or a cloud of midges. The right-hand screen showed a similar view but without the pockets. The left showed only chaos.

As he watched, the rings on the central screen expanded and shrank minutely, as if jockeying for position in a crowded container, occasionally sending waves through one or more of the broken pockets. One pocket suddenly dissolved, quickly forming its own node and growing a set of rings. On the opposite side another pocket, this one filled with what appeared to be different-sized pebbles, wavered on the brink of dissolution. The pocket changed shape, narrowing, nearly splitting in two, then reinflating. Abruptly, it solidified, the pebbles merging to form a smooth surface. Then the wall burst and pebbles spilled across the orderly waves of circles, rupturing them, forming new pockets of disorder, and within seconds the screen lost all sign of pattern.

“Disappointing,” said a calm, genderless alto voice.

“What happened, Thales?” Derec asked, though he already knew.

“I lost a primary anchor in the matrix,” replied his office’s Resident Intelligence. “When it went, it caused a cascade.”

“Did you know it was a primary anchor?”

“No. That is, of course, the problem. I have to assign anchor points without knowing how they relate to the entire matrix. Some are unimportant and stable, others are primary and stable, but a few are primary and corrupted. When they go, they corrupt the entire system.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky next time, Thales.”

The positronic intelligence did not reply. Thales had long since catalogued most of what it called Derec’s “sympathy concessions”: meaningless phrases used to soothe hurt feelings or disappointments that, according to Thales, seemed important to people not for what they contained–because they contained nothing useful–but for the fact that they were said. For the moment, it appeared Thales did not consider a response necessary.

The chaos filling the screen in front of Derec, so far resist ant to Thales’ attempts at restoring pattern and function, showed all that remained of Derec’s ambition: the flexibility of a human mind expressed in a positronic matrix. He had always wanted to build a robotic intelligence that could cope with trauma–with failure–and recover from the brink of collapse. He had hoped to build a robot that would work through Three Law violations and retain a coherent structure, preserving memory and identity in the face of the unacceptable.

He had failed.

The physical fragments of what had been the robot Bogard filled a crate, awaiting shipment... somewhere. The positronic remnants of Bogard’s mind filled a buffer in Thales’ generously large, though currently abbreviated, memory. Bogard’s collapse had resulted from the death of Bok Golner–a death for which Bogard had felt responsible, indeed had inadvertently caused. Golner had been a killer, an anti-robot fanatic, and had been about to kill Derec when Bogard came to his creator’s rescue. But none of that mattered in the absolutist structure of a positronic brain which prohibited the taking of a human life, intentions notwithstanding. Thales believed the key to Bogard’s failure could be pulled from those shards. But after nearly a year, they had proved indecipherable. Thales continued to express optimism; Derec was not as sanguine.

“Perhaps,” the RI said, “I should make a copy of each stage so that I can reset one step back rather than do the entire construct over. Of course, that would require a larger memory buffer than the one to which I now have access.”

“Oh, well,” Derec said, standing. “Sorry.”

“I understand, Derec. No need to apologize.”

Perversely, Derec felt a pang of guilt. That lack of memory had been a problem throughout Thales’ attempts to reorder Bogard’s matrix. Thales simply did not have enough in its present configuration. Derec counted them both lucky to have as much as they did. Of course, any less might begin impairing Thales’ normal functions.

“I can try to make another request...” he said.

“If you think it will help.”

No, he thought, but it might make me feel better to try...

Derec reached to the screen of chaos and touched an icon. The screen went blank.

“Do you wish me to continue, Derec?” Thales asked.

“Sure. I’m... I have some other things to tend to.”

“Of course.”

Derec drifted into his living room. Against one long wall a subetheric showed two political candidates soundlessly debating. He frowned, recognizing one of them: Rega Looms. For a moment, Derec felt confused, then remembered that Looms was running for a senate seat in the upcoming election. He had declared in opposition to Jonis Taprin, who had replaced Clar Eliton the previous year in a recall election. Taprin ran now on a revised, anti-robot platform, a complete about-face from his position not fourteen months earlier when, as Eliton’s vice senator, he had supported what had become known as “Concessionism” and a gradual reintroduction of positronics on Earth.

In retrospect, Derec did not know how much he had ever believed it could be done. In Earth’s long history of social change, fickle politics, and policy-by-trend, the ban on positronics had lasted the longest and tenaciously resisted reform. Hard to believe, on a world where once the newest and brightest and best technologies had been created and dispensed and embraced with almost childlike passion for novelty.

Curious, Derec turned on the volume.

“–travel to other worlds has diluted Earth’s reservoir of genius,” Looms said, jabbing the armrest of his chair with a stiff finger. “I’ll concede that you now hold a position with which I have long been in agreement, that positronics should not be allowed a return to Earth, but I feel that you don’t go far enough. Positronics is not the only threat.”

“Mr. Looms, with all due respect,” Taprin said smoothly, clearly the more practiced public figure, “you can’t expect us to shut down commerce. What you suggest would break the back of our economy.”

“No, sir, I think that’s alarmist and misleading. Economies are artificial constructs, just like any other machine. We make them what we want them to be. I am simply saying that we should change the way in which we operate our economy so that we can eventually sever all ties to other worlds.”

“But, sir, you must take into account that there are citizens–Terrans–who simply don’t want those ties severed.”

“There are also Terrans who want positronic robots,” Looms countered. “We don’t let them dictate policy.”

“The numbers, sir, the numbers–”

Derec switched off the subetheric. Looms’ campaign strategy seemed to be to try to become more reactionary than his reactionary opponent. A year ago Derec would not have given that tactic a chance of success, but Earth always surprised him.

“You have a call, Derec,” Thales said. “Ambassador Ariel Burgess.”

Derec considered telling Thales to say he was out. Instead, he went to the comm and pressed his thumb on the ACCEPT. “Hello.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Derec, but are you busy right now?” Ariel asked crisply.

The visual was off, so Derec allowed himself a wry smile. “Nothing pressing.”

“Would you come up to my office? I need–I’d appreciate your opinion on something.”

“‘Something.’ For instance?”

There was a pause. “Please.”

Derec blinked. Please...? “I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you.”

The connection broke and Derec stared at the comm, baffled.

“Thales, I’ll be in Ambassador Burgess’s offices for a while,” he said, moving to the door. “In case anything comes up.”

“Very well, Derec.”

Ariel’s offices consisted of four large chambers in the main diplomatic quarter of the Auroran Embassy. The lone robot at the reception desk magnified the impression of emptiness: Only one robot, out of a staff of four robots and eleven people a year before.

“Ambassador Burgess is expecting you, sir,” the robot said as he entered. “Go right through.”

“Thank you.”

Derec pushed open the door to Ariel’s personal office.

He hesitated. Hofton stood behind and to the left of Ariel’s chair, hands folded appropriately before him, posture straight and attentive, looking as if he had not been absent for most of the last year, transferred to another office. He inclined his nearly hairless head in greeting but otherwise said nothing, face professionally expressionless.

A man sat in one of Ariel’s highback visitor’s chairs. He stood as the door closed behind Derec. Tall, wide-shouldered, with short, gray-flecked hair, dark eyes set deep below pale eyebrows, and a too-straight nose that hinted at cosmetic retouch, he looked familiar to Derec.

“Mr. Lanra,” Ariel said, “this is Derec Avery, special attaché to my department.”

Derec gave her a sharp look.

“Derec, “she continued smoothly, “this is Coren Lanra, head of security for DyNan Manual Industries.”

Derec gripped Lanra’s hand. “I’ve heard of you, of course. Mia Daventri said you helped her out during the Managin... situation last year.”

“Indeed, “Lanra said. “And you ‘re the head of Phylaxis Group.”

“Once upon a time.”

Lanra frowned.

“I’ve asked Mr. Avery,” Ariel said, “to sit in as an impartial witness. He’s attached to my office but he doesn’t work for me, unlike Hofton.”

Lanra sat down. “I’d hoped to confine this meeting to just you and I, Ambassador Burgess.”

“Humor me, Mr. Lanra. The past year has made me wary of private meetings.”

Lanra almost smiled at that. “Very well. I have a problem which may interest you. I’d like to enlist your expertise.”

“In what capacity?”

Derec moved to the other visitor’s chair and sat down. Lanra seemed to be deliberating, lips pursed, hands pressed together meditatively.

“You must understand,” he said slowly, “that this has nothing to do with DyNan. This is a private matter concerning Rega Looms and myself.”

“If you say so,” Ariel said dryly.

Lanra sighed wearily. “Rega Looms’ daughter was found dead less than twenty-four hours ago on Kopernik Station. She was involved in running baleys and was apparently accompanying a group of them. All fifty-two are dead.”

Ariel winced. “I’m terribly sorry. But how–”

“She had a robot in her possession.”

Derec sat forward, startled. Hofton moved his hands behind his back, which made him seem even more attentive. Ariel stared at Lanra, openly amazed.

After a long silence, Ariel cleared her throat. “This hasn’t been on the newsnets.”

“Not yet,” Lanra said. “I hope to keep it that way for a few days. Longer if possible, but sooner or later someone is going to make some connections, find a source–something.”

“That’s … unique, Mr. Lanra...”

Lanra said nothing.

“The daughter of Rega Looms,” Derec said, as much to break the silence as to confirm what he had heard, “had a robot.”

“Yes, Mr. Avery.”

“Her own?”

“I presume so.”

“And where is it now?”

“On Kopernik, under security lock.”

“Forgive me,” Ariel said, “but I still don’t see how this concerns us.”

Derec frowned at her. “This robot, it was collapsed?”

“Uh... yes, “Lanra said. “Frozen up, unresponsive. But there’s activity–at least, there’s current still running through it. I don’t know enough about them to know if that means anything.”

“Well–” Derec began.

“I repeat,” Ariel interrupted, “I still don’t see how this concerns us.”

Lanra shifted uncomfortably. “Forgive me, but it was my understanding that you are the liaison from the Calvin Institute here on Earth.”

Ariel pursed her lips, inclining her head as if to say And...?

“This is a robotics issue,” Lanra said. “Your field. Positronics.” His expression darkened. “I don’t know anyone else here. If there are other specialists, I’m not aware of any–at least, none I can get access to.”

“And none you’d want to confide this to in any case,” Ariel said. “I suppose you want us to try to recover its memories, if possible.”

“Something like that.”

Ariel laughed sharply. “How much do you know about our situation, Mr. Lanra? Mia surely told you something about our current problems. I can’t believe you’d come here like this without having done a little background work.”

Lanra straightened in his chair and the hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “I know that you aren’t held in very high esteem by your own people. Last year’s events with Senator Eliton–”

“Ex-Senator Eliton,” Ariel said crossly.

“–didn’t come out in your favor, as perhaps they should have.”

“That’s generous of you, Mr. Lanra,” Derec said.”

Generous? No, Mr. Avery, merely fair. Ex-Senator Eliton’s duplicity cost us all a gram or two of flesh. We were both under scrutiny for things Eliton engineered.”

Faking his own death to discredit positronics, Spacer diplomacy, ruin a long-overdue reconciliation with Earth, Derec thought bitterly, and wrecking my own ambitions as a side-effect... yes, that was an expensive experience.

“Involving ourselves in Terran affairs,” Ariel said slowly, “cost us perhaps a bit more than you know.”

“I may be able to help you defray some of those costs.”

Ariel shook her head. “Based on the chance that Rega Looms will be elected to the Terran Senate? You have to know how ironic that would be to us.” She stood. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lanra, but I don’t really think there’s anything we can do to help you.”

“You haven’t heard everything yet, “Lanra said, rising.

“I’m not interested.”

“Then why did you agree to see me?”

“Simple courtesy, Mr. Lanra. You were helpful to us last year. I’m sorry we can’t return the favor, but the situation is too complicated just now. If you’ll excuse me.”

“But–”

Derec watched Ariel end the interview with a firm shake of her head. She glanced at him, then left the office, leaving Lanra staring after her.

The door closed and Lanra sighed heavily. He looked at Derec. “I don’t suppose you can do anything?”

“Like what? Talk her into something that I agree is a bad idea?”

“I thought you’d be interested in the problem. I thought you might welcome a chance to–”

Derec shook his head.

“You’re not interested?”

Derec laughed. “Of course I’m interested. That’s beside the point.”

“You’re a private citizen, Mr. Avery. Would you consider taking the job as a consultant? I imagine Ambassador Burgess could order you to stay here, but would she if you took this up of your own choice?”

Lanra’s eyes danced knowingly, as if he knew something about Derec no one else did. Under other circumstances, Derec decided, Coren Lanra might be an interesting man to know.

“We misjudged you, “Derec said. “You knew exactly what our problems were before you came in here, didn’t you? I’m not exactly a private citizen, not in any way that gives me the freedom of movement to do what you ask. Aurora’s entire policy is one of wait and see, don’t move, stay still and maybe the situation will change. So even if Ariel might want to help you, it’s doubtful Ambassador Setaris would allow it. But you knew all this. Why pretend otherwise?”

“I didn’t want anyone to feel pressured. People work better if they think they have a choice.” Lanra shrugged. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Avery. Perhaps under other circumstances...” He headed for the exit. “If you reconsider–”

“I have your code, sir,” Hofton said.

“Thanks.”

The door closed softly and Derec let out a heavy breath. He considered for a few moments doing exactly what Lanra suggested: taking the job, whatever it was, and chancing Ariel’s anger.

But she had a good point–what chance was there that Rega Looms could win his run for the Senate? And if he did, how likely would it be that he would help the very people he most wanted off Earth?

“I hate it when she’s so right,” Derec said. He looked up then at Hofton, who seemed amused. “You were awfully quiet.”

“Not my place to interject opinion,” Hofton said. “Besides, I concur with Ariel’s assessment.”

“What are you doing here anyway? I thought you had been assigned to another department.”

“Which has been shut down. I’m taking leave from official duties for a time. Ariel asked me to attend this meeting as a favor.”

Another department closed... The Auroran presence on Earth shrank a little more each week. Ariel kept these offices only because they had no other use for them. She retained her title and, presumably, her perks for appearances only, but Derec knew that Ambassador Setaris would ship her back to Aurora in an instant if she could. Derec, too, for that matter. They were embarrassments to the Auroran mission here; they stayed only because admitting it to Earth by recalling them would be more embarrassing.

But it would not take much to shift that balance.

Still, to get his hands on a complete positronic lab would be worth a few risks. He might be able to get Thales the extra memory buffers then, might be able to set up a more thorough analysis protocol on Bogard, while working on Lanra’s problem, might–

“Derec. “Ariel stood in the doorway. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I know you too damn well. “Ariel poured them drinks. Hofton sat now in the chair vacated by Coren Lanra. Derec reflected idly that he had never before seen Hofton relaxing. Ariel handed him a scotch, then gave another to Derec.

“You were just as tempted as I was,” Derec said.

“I doubt it. I’ve had enough of being burned by Terrans.”

Derec sipped at his drink. “But think of it! Rega Looms, the great Luddite, has–had–a daughter who owned a robot.”

“If I may point out,” Hofton said, “Mr. Lanra said a robot was found in her company. He never said she owned it.”

“She was a baley runner,” Derec said. “That’s what Lanra said: she was running illegal emigrants, she was in charge. I don’t think a baley slipping by ITE would be allowed to bring along a robot. Therefore, it’s only logical that it was hers.”

“Lanra probably thinks the robot killed her,” Ariel said. “He wants us to substantiate his suspicion. That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? Any help Rega Looms might have been able to offer would evaporate when we hand him verification of his worst fears.”

“Come on,” Derec protested. “How could that be? From his description, the robot is collapsed. Obviously a Three Law violation occurred–”

“You had a robot that collapsed after it killed someone.”

Derec stiffened. “That was an accident.”

Ariel shrugged. “Whatever. So might this have been. Would Rega Looms appreciate the difference?”

“It’s doubtful in any event,” Hofton said, “that Mr. Looms–should he win the election–could do anything on our behalf under any circumstances without compromising his newly-won mandate. Should he win, he will do so as the avatar of the anti-robot faction and, unless I’ve misunderstood his rhetoric, the anti-Spacer faction as well. Added to that, his daughter was engaged in illegal activities that ran counter to his political position and the rhetoric of his church. That can’t be explained away. I suspect Mr. Lanra is offering what he cannot guarantee.”

“If Coren Lanra has his way,” Ariel said, “none of this will ever become public. He’s doing damage control.”

“Precisely,” Hofton said. “And with no public reason to do so, Looms will have no private reason to fulfill any obligations his agents may make without his knowledge.”

“Rega Looms has a dead daughter,” Derec said. “Someone’s going to notice.”

They sat in silence for a time, brooding. Derec began to resent Lanra for bringing something to them that offered the possibility of rehabilitating their situation. Raised hopes crumbled too easily under analysis.

“It would be interesting,” Hofton said finally, “to know where she got a robot. And how she managed to keep it with her.” He finished his drink and stood. “I have a few chores to tend to. Thank you for the chance to act the part of your aide once more. It was fun. Should you need further performances...”

“You’ll be the first I call, Hofton,” Ariel said, smiling wanly. “Thanks.”

Hofton bowed his head. “Ambassador.” He walked out.

“I’m going to miss him,” Ariel said.

Derec shot her a look. “Have you heard something?”

“No, but how much longer could it be?” She leaned forward and turned her glass idly on the desk. “I still do a little liaison work so I get to keep track of some of the numbers of illicit robot traffic. There’s still activity, but it’s declined precipitously in the last year.”

“Is that a surprise? ITE must be working overtime now that they feel they have permission.”

“Mmm. Mostly, I get to do P.R. work with irate Spacer businesses. The latest was a complaint about a five-hour delay in shipping. An unscheduled route change out of Petrabor spaceport.” She shrugged. “Five hours. You’d think the world was ending to hear the complaint. Too much excitement sometimes.” She smiled grimly. “Did you know Alda Mikels is being released next week?”

“I thought he was sentenced to ten years for public endangerment.”

Ariel shrugged. “Terran jurisprudence. Damned if I can see what’s prudent about it. But how long after that do you think it will be before he starts haranguing us in public of trying to bring a suit against us? That might just convince Setaris to ship us home.”

Derec closed his eyes and swallowed more scotch. Alda Mikels: head of Imbitek Heavy Industries, industrialist, engineer. And murderer. The trial had lasted nearly two months–scores of witnesses, experts and counter-experts testifying... but not one positronic specialist. Derec had been deposed, as had Ariel, but neither of them had been called to the stand. Something about their status as noncitizens, it seemed; Derec never did get it entirely straight.

Mikels had sabotaged the complex Resident Intelligence of Washington D. C.’s Union Station, the showpiece on Earth for positronics. The fragile treaties and agreements that had allowed it to be built in the first place as an intercultural zone where Earthers might come to see for themselves how positronics worked, the first step in a hoped-for reintroduction of robots to Earth, shattered in the aftermath of that very system’s failure and the subsequent slaughter of so many Spacer and Terran diplomats.

A failure Alda Mikels had implemented.

But the end result had been that Mikel’s sabotage had been poorly understood and therefore the harm he’d done had been rendered less his responsibility than the unpredictable nature of positronics. Derec had watched, amazed, when the lesser indictment of “Public Endangerment” had been handed down.

It had all been part of a larger scheme to discredit positronics and any possible diplomatic advancements in Spacer-Terran relations. At its center had been Senator Clar Eliton, a man who had convinced Aurora of his honest intentions to help bring robots back to Earth. For his part, Eliton had escaped prison because of the frail evidence to connect him to Mikels and the others involved–which included the former head of Special Service, who had vanished. At least Eliton had been recalled, losing his senate seat in the process.

Not that his replacement, Jonis Taprin, was much better. He was openly hostile to Spacers and robotics. Better that than the oily duplicity in which Eliton had indulged, Derec felt.

But it had been Mikels’ technology that had undermined the positronic intelligence that ran Union Station and allowed a team of assassins to enter the main gallery and shoot down the gathering of diplomats who had arrived to commence the conference they had hoped would begin reconciliation.

Coren Lanra’s employer, Rega Looms, had been suspected for a time. None of his people had been shot during the slaughter, which made him look very culpable. But that, too, had been a set-up.

Their own involvement–Derec’s and Ariel’s–had gotten them sequestered to the embassy, in a legal limbo, awaiting deportation at the convenience of Sen Setaris, the head of the Auroran mission on Earth. Ariel’s confinement had been repealed after a few months as certain duties were returned to her, but as far as Derec knew she rarely left. He often wondered what was taking so long to deport them. It seemed cruel to leave them dangling like this, teasing them with possibilities. He had grown numb waiting.

He finished his scotch and went to the bar for another.

“My question,” Derec said, “is how come we’re being so careful? Do you really want to stay here?”

Ariel frowned. “I don’t–”

“You ‘re afraid to do anything that might get us kicked back to Aurora sooner. We both know that’s what they intend to do anyway. Why are we being so careful? I repeat: do you want to stay on Earth?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at him. “Don’t you?”

“Under these circumstances?” He shrugged and left the question hang. In truth, he was tom. Saying no would mean he had never found anything worthwhile here, which would be a lie. Saying yes meant he was willing to tolerate anything to remain, which would be a bigger lie. His affection for Earth complicated his thinking. He finished his second scotch and set the glass down. “Thanks for the drink. I have some time to hunt down and kill, so if you’ll excuse me...”

Ariel raised her own glass in mock assent.

Derec left her offices and headed down the corridors, in the direction of his apartment, his mood muddied by the alcohol. He reached the elevator and punched the button.

“Mr. Avery?”

Derec turned slowly. Coren Lanra stood nearby.

“Forgive me,” Lanra said. “I just thought you’d like to know–that you’d be interested to know–that we believe a robot was responsible for Nyom Looms’ death.”

Derec stared at him. One more point in Ariel’s favor...

“That’s impossible, of course,” he said.

Lanra smiled thinly. “So you say. But I suppose you’ll never know now. Thank you for your time. Sorry to bother you.”

Derec watched Lanra walk away until the elevator door opened.

Five

ARIEL, YOU HAVE a call.”

Ariel squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. She rolled over, and the band around her skull tightened just enough to let her know that the muzzy warmth of too much scotch needed several more hours to sleep off. Too late. She opened her eyes.

R. Jennie stood at the foot of the bed, impassive and attentive.

“What? What did you say, Jennie?” Her mouth felt gummy, barely cooperative.

“You have a call. Ambassador Setaris.”

“Hell... what time is it?”

“Two-twenty.”

“In the morning?”

“I asked if it would be convenient for her to call again later, but she insists that she cannot.”

“Of course she does,” Ariel complained as she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “That’s what it means to be an Ambassador. Ambassadorial prerogative... plenipotent–potentiary authority... executive privilege...” She shook her head. “Two-twenty... what in?”

“I brought coffee.”

Ariel looked up at the robot. A tray with silvered urn and various cups waited on Ariel’s dressing table. Ariel sighed. “Thank you, Jennie. Tell Ambassador Setaris I will be there in a minute. Or two.”

“Yes, Ariel.”

It seemed to Ariel that her robot left the room gratefully, as if relieved to have something to do other than watch Ariel struggle with a hangover. Impossible, really... or was it? Empathic mimicry was part of the positronic package...

Ariel stood, dismissing the thought. Too complicated at the moment. She stumbled only once on her way to the coffee. She poured without trembling and raised the cup of hot, black liquid to her lips. The aroma, usually welcome, made her shudder briefly, but she swallowed a mouthful without incident and decided that she would manage.

She caught sight of herself in the dressing table mirror and frowned at the deep circles under her eyes. Her black hair stood out in chaotic spikes and she noticed that she had the faint beginnings of jowls and a double chin. The rest of her seemed trim enough, though she had not paid serious attention to her body in nearly a year. She met her own eyes again–normally a clear blue, but cloudy now and slightly unfocussed–and saw the weariness. This past year had been a steady mix of boredom and anxiety, layered over a sense of helplessness. Instead of fighting it she had taken to sense-dulling indulgence. It showed.

She finished the cup, poured another, and pulled on a robe.

R. Jennie had kept the screen on the comm blanked. Ariel sat down before the compact unit, ran fingers through her hair, and keyed ACCEPT.

“Good morning, Ambassador,” she said, letting sarcasm leak into her voice.

“My apologies, Ariel, I realize this is an inconvenient hour, “Setaris said smoothly. “I need to speak to you in person. Please come to my office.”

Ariel glanced at the time chop in the lower left corner of the screen. “I’m feeling a little–”

“Of course you are. I imagine you have been for a while. Perhaps we can do something about it. Would you be so kind as to be here in an hour? We have some things to discuss.”

“Um... of course.”

“Very good, Ariel. See you then.”

The link died and Ariel felt a hard lump develop just behind her breastbone. What the hell...?

“Jennie, it looks like we may finally be taking that journey.”

“Shall I begin packing, Ariel?”

“No... not yet. But do an inventory.”

“Yes, Ariel.”

Ariel had expected to be recalled to Aurora for nearly a year. That it had not yet happened worried her. Now that it seemed imminent, it worried her more.

The message light winked on before her. She automatically touched ACCEPT.

A single line of type scrolled across the screen.

WE HAVEN’T FINISHED WITH YOU, AMBASSADOR BURGESS. K. P.

Ariel stared at it for some time before she keyed for a trace. She knew it would not be backtracked, she had gotten messages like this before. Since last year’s trial, a dozen or more of these had been a daily nuisance. Most had come from recognizably marginal obsessives–harmless in any real sense–but a few had come from people who might have followed up on the threats, implied or otherwise.

It had been a few months, though, since a message like this had shown up on her system. The screens the embassy had installed very efficiently and thoroughly blocked them all. That one had gotten through was a mark of how good the sender was at penetrating protected systems. Which also showed just how dangerous he or she might be.

The trace came back negative. No source could be located.

Ariel finished her coffee and went to dress.

Sen Setaris’s offices dwarfed Ariel’s. Even at this hour, embassy personnel scurried about constantly. Ariel counted five robots between the receptionist and Setaris’s private office, and saw minor staff from at least four other Spacer legations waiting in the anteroom. The Auroran embassy contained the main meeting hall for all joint legation conferences, and at least four guest suites were attached directly to the offices. Ariel’s own chambers, four levels below, were one of a dozen departmental offices with quasi-independent status. Their importance to the principle mission was reflected in their relative size.

Even so, Ariel was surprised to see so much business being done. Perhaps the entire mission was shutting down. She had heard nothing that would have suggested so drastic a move, but then she had been kept out of most embassy affairs.

Sen Setaris looked up from a flatscreen on her desk when Ariel entered. She appeared as elegant and austere as ever: thick, silvered hair forming wings around her narrow head, eyes large and brilliant green, and the ideal set of lines on her otherwise smooth face to give the impression of experience and intelligence without pointing up age. On Earth she was an anomaly in that regard, as were most senior Spacers: Terrans lived relatively short lives, aging quickly until death at around a hundred, while Spacers tended to live to two or three centuries. Ariel did not know Setaris’s exact age, but it was well on toward two hundred.

She wondered if Setaris slept anymore.

“Ariel,” Setaris said, smiling thinly. “How good of you to be so prompt. Sit down, I’ll only be another minute or two.”

Ariel suppressed a sarcastic smile and sat on the long sofa to the left of Setaris’s desk rather than in one of the visitor’s chairs. If Setaris noticed the small breach of protocol she gave no indication. She continued working on the flatscreen, touching it from time to time, until finally she picked up a stylus and dashed her signature on the screen. She shut the datum down and turned toward Ariel.

“What do you know about Nova Levis?” she asked.

Ariel raised her eyebrows. “Only what I’ve seen on subetheric. It’s a Settler colony that’s been blockaded. They refused inspections for pirate bases or something.”

“That’s essentially correct, though, of course, there’s much more to it. Earth has requested Spacer cooperation. Ships have been provided to patrol the perimeter of the system, but they want more. They want an intervention.”

“You mean an invasion.”

“Exactly. It’s out of the question, of course, but we haven’t said no yet. They’re offering us a chance to recoup our losses diplomatically. If we could give them something to mollify their paranoia we might actually recover ground from...” Setaris let the sentence drift off, her eyebrows raised suggestively.

“What do we have to do with Nova Levis?” Ariel asked.

“Nothing directly. But it has been a transfer point for a good deal of black market trade. That’s what started the Terrans on this ill-advised military operation. Solaria is still providing a limited amount of access, though, and Earth has accused the Fifty Worlds of acting in collusion to thwart their legal mandate to investigate and control piracy.”

“Do they actually have such a mandate?”

“They have ships around Nova levis. The finer points of law are so much wind under the circumstances. It’s in our interest, however, to be seen as supporting legality in this case. And because Solaria has elected to ignore requests to cease any and all transport to Nova levis, it falls to us to represent Spacer adherence to law.”

“And in return, Earth gives us what?”

“We gain credibility,” Setaris replied.

The true currency of diplomacy, Ariel heard her finish. She wondered if the Solarians believed that. She was not sure she believed it herself, but certainly her own credibility was no longer bankable.

“Why would Solaria be so... uncooperative?” she asked.

Setaris grunted. “Do they need a reason? But seriously, we don’t really know. I’ve asked Chassik and he keeps promising to look into it.”

“Is Nova levis hosting pirates?” Ariel asked.

Setaris frowned thoughtfully. “Probably. I’m afraid they may be involved in something worse. But that’s speculation. Whatever they’re doing, it seems they think it necessary to hide it.”

Ariel waited. When Setaris remained silent, she asked, “What does this have to do with me?”

“Two things. ITE has suggested to us–without providing much proof–” she gave Ariel a dubious look as if to say as usual, then continued “–that Spacer businesses here are connected to the illicit shipments going to Nova Levis. It seems that–they suggest–baley-running and contraband travel the same routes and that we are colluding in all this.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I agree, but can you say for certain? Do you know what our people are doing these days?”

Ariel stiffened, fully aware of the implied criticism. She had been lapse, she had let things slide. She could not remember the last inspection she had administered through the Auroran manufactories on Earth. She found the idea that Aurorans would be tangled up in running baleys as well as contraband ludicrous... but she could not make a case based on current knowledge.

And of course it was her responsibility. She was still Trade and Business liaison...”

“And the other thing?” she asked.

“You had a visitor yesterday. Coren Lanra, security chief for DyNan Manual Industries.”

Ariel managed to keep both surprise and disgust from her voice when she answered. “Yes, I did.”

“May I ask what he wanted?”

Don’t you already know? “He wanted my help. He has a problem with a robot.”

Setaris pursed her lips.

“You’re not surprised?” Ariel asked.

“Did you know that the daughter of Rega Looms is a baley runner?” Setaris asked instead. “She’s been operating a successful underground emigration avenue for nearly five years.” She nodded at Ariel’s silence. “I just learned this myself recently. I was quite surprised.”

“Did you know that she’s now dead as a result?” Ariel asked.

Setaris frowned at that. “This... robot problem–”

“Relates to her death.”

“Interesting. Did you agree to help him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Under the circumstances, I thought minimizing our involvement in what seems to me a Terran police matter would be the best course. Was I mistaken?”

Setaris folded her hands on the desk and seemed to study them. “Not entirely, no.” She drew a sharp breath and looked up. “But... there are certain limitations official status imparts which can be very frustrating. All circumstances have boundaries. Mine may be more constraining than yours in some cases.”

Ariel frowned. “Are you suggesting that I help Mr. Lanra?”

“The Terrans are very concerned with their baley problem. A growing fraction of them seem to be heading for Nova Levis. The place has acquired a certain status since the embargo, a faux romantic patina making it seem more attractive than other... less notorious colonies. It may be also that Nova Levis has the facilities for trans-shipping them to other colonies more efficiently than trying to get direct routes from here. That’s one of the suggestions I’ve heard.”

“You sound dubious.”

“Most baleys get to where they want to go without a terrible amount of trouble–there are plenty of freelance pilots with ships for hire to take them. And, frankly, I’m not convinced Terran authorities really want to stop them. But Nova Levis is different. It requires blockade runners. This is a problem on an order of magnitude higher than simple illegal emigration.”

“You think Solaria is involved in getting them past the blockade.”

“It’s one of those certainties one can’t prove without creating an incident. It might be possible to prove it from this end with less incident.”

“And you’ve been asked–unofficially–by Earth to see if you can do something about it.”

Setaris almost smiled. “You know, you’re very sharp, Ariel. I’ve always admired that about you... even when you’re suffering the effects of alcohol poisoning. Imagine what you can do with a clear head and a purpose.”

The sarcasm sank through Ariel like a wave of muggy heat. Ariel felt herself start to bristle, but checked it before she said something impolitic.

“I’m not entirely clear how rendering assistance to Mr. Lanra would help us with any of this,” she said instead.

Setaris frowned. “Now you’re being obtuse. Nyom Looms and Coren Lanra had a relationship once. We don’t know why it ended or if it did. In either case, it seems logical that if she’s running baleys then her father–or someone in her father’s organization–is helping her.”

Ariel laughed briefly. “Coren Lanra doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“Perhaps not. But the connection exists nonetheless.”

Ariel nodded slowly, understanding exactly what Setaris was asking her to do. In a way, it made perfect sense–Ariel was the most expendable member of the Auroran mission.

“Can I expect any kind of extra consideration should things work out well?” she asked.

“Ariel, you know extra consideration is always on the table for good work.”

But what constitutes “good” work? Politically convenient or thorough?

“I’ll want Hofton reassigned to me,” Ariel said.

“I think you need an aide in any case. It doesn’t look good to be all alone in your department.”

Ariel stood. “What level of access do I have?”

Setaris looked genuinely surprised. “I don’t believe your clearance was ever rescinded, Ariel.”

“I would like confirmation of that.”

Setaris regarded her for a long time before nodding.

“By this afternoon, if it’s not too much trouble,” Ariel said then, turning.

“Don’t you feel sometimes that you’ve been on Earth too long, Ariel? That certain of their less admirable qualities have transferred?”

“I like to believe that it goes both ways, Ambassador.” She made herself present a pleasant, innocuous, naive smile, though she did not expect Setaris to be fooled. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to make some calls.”

Ariel expected Setaris to call her back and retract everything, but she made it to the door without hearing her voice. She wondered then what kind of confirmation she would actually get when she returned to her own office and checked.

Her heart hammered as she reached the main corridor. Her head still hurt, but for the time being she did not really mind.

Halfway back to her office she came to another conclusion and entered a general clerical station to call Hofton. An hour later, he joined her in the embassy restaurant at a table beside a bank of windows that overlooked an open air park on the roof of the building. False dawn gave everything a shimmery, vague appearance. Beautiful, she thought, and pitied the agoraphobic Terrans who could not enjoy such a simple, open view.

“I understand,” Hofton said as he sat down, “that I’m working for you again.”

“When did you receive notice?”

“Around midnight. I didn’t bother going to bed. I gather you know something about this?”

Ariel chuckled. “She told you before she called me. That’s interesting.” Ariel gazed out the window for a time. The trees swayed in a breeze. Somewhere to the east lay the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere northwest was the spaceport. It would be pleasant, she thought, to live on a world where you didn’t have to make a special trip just to see open sky and trees...

Hofton waited patiently. At some point during Ariel’s reverie he had ordered an iced drink.

“Sorry,” she said, turning back to him. “To answer your question: yes, I know something about it. Not enough, of course, but it seems we’re being given a chance to redeem ourselves.”

“At what cost?”

Ariel shrugged. The question was rhetorical–Hofton understood the machinery of politics better than she. “Ambassador Setaris would like us to render assistance to Mr. Lanra.”

Hofton frowned contemplatively. “I suppose,” he said, “we have no choice.”

Ariel flashed a sarcastic smile. “Oh, sure. We have a choice.”

Hofton looked skeptical, then raised his glass in mock toast. “Here’s to damnation, then. Who do we have to kill?”

Six

COREN KEPT A private office in an old quarter of D. C., far from the corporate warrens of DyNan. He had not used it in nearly eight months. When Looms had asked him to find Nyom, he hired the best cleaner he knew to find any and all eyes and ears. Only a few had turned up, and those had long since been severed at the receiving end. Coren set up a screen to let him know if any new ones turned up, and moved in.

The neighborhood was undergoing one of its period downturns in popularity. Not a year earlier, it was impossible to find available space here, but now even his own building was nearly empty. He had leased the space before accepting the position with DyNan, right before it had become really popular, thinking that he would go into private practice after leaving Special Service. He had never used it for business other than DyNan’s, though, and sometimes thought about breaking the lease and letting it go. He was glad now that he had kept it.

He walked through the small reception area and into the main office. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the pole by the door.

“Good afternoon,” his Desk said. “Please verify identity.”

Coren sat down and placed his palm against the ID scan on the desktop. He felt a moment’s warmth as the machine explored his hand, body temperature, blood chemistry, and pattern of bone growth.

“Welcome, Mr. Lanra,” the Desk said. “You have three messages.”

“List,” Coren said.

“One from Sipha Palen, one from Rega Looms, and one from Myler Towne.”

“Who is Myler Towne?”

“Director ProTem of Imbitek Incorporated.”

Coren drummed his fingers tentatively on the edge of the desk. “Play Rega Looms’, please.”

The flatscreen remained retracted–no video, typical of Rega. A crisp tenor voice snapped out of the air.

“Coren, I’m in Dukane District, code appended. I would appreciate an update on that detail I asked you to look into at your earliest convenience. I’ll be here till tomorrow, then I’m going to–” He paused. “Going to Delfi. I’ll forward the code when we get there.”

Coren checked the time chop. Most likely right now Rega Looms’ entourage was packing him up to leave Dukane. It would not be a good time to interrupt, especially with bad news. Besides, Coren thought, it would be best to tell Rega in person. He did not want to; for anyone else a comm dialogue would be sufficient. But not Rega.

“Desk, see if you can get me an update on Mr. Looms’ itinerary for the next three days.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Play Sipha Palen’s message, please.”

This time the flatscreen slid up from the desk top and winked on. Sipha’s face filled the field.

“Coren, we’ve got prelims on the autopsies. Atropimyfex, an atropine-based neurotoxin. Basic crystalline structure that gasifies on contact with moisture–in this case, the humidity of all those exhaling lungs. It has the same profile as certain beneficial pharmaceuticals, but my pathologist says it didn’t need the camouflage since the rebreather’s filter system wouldn’t have caught it anyway. Baxin is really impressed, by the way. Says this is very sophisticated stuff, high profile. It’s used mainly in terraforming work, suppression of indigenous fauna. Very expensive and not available legally on Earth. Someone way up the chain wanted these people dead. He’s doing work-ups on all of them just to be sure, but he estimates that death came within five minutes of the first seizures. Paralysis in under ten seconds, then gradual destruction of the autonomic nervous system. It starts breaking down, then, and becomes very difficult to trace in a few days.”

She glanced off-screen briefly. “Nyom Looms is a different matter. She was evidently smart enough to carry her own breather. We found it in one of the couches, crushed. She died from a broken neck. I’m having Baxin go over her for any foreign material–he found some fabric under her fingernails–but he says you can rule out the robot we found. Whoever killed her was still on board; there’s no sign that anyone got out. So we have a suicide/murder. I know that’s not what you thought we’d find, but...”

She shrugged elaborately. “No sign of the robot you told me about. The only thing we’ve gotten out of there are corpses. No telltale handprint on Nyom, either. This was a very clean break; anyone with the hand strength and the training could have done it. That’s all the good news I have, Coren. I’m sending you an encrypted data package with everything we’ve got so far. Let me know what you turn up down there. I hope you come back up soon.”

Coren suppressed a mild shudder. A return flight?

He had not hoped to find the second robot, but if the seals were intact from the inside, then someone had to have accompanied the baleys up. So one of Nyom’s own baleys had committed the crime? It strained credulity.

But there was a missing passenger...”

Desk, code a reply to Sipha Palen, use same encryption. Sipha, we may still be looking at a robot, just not the one we have in the locker. The second one got out somewhere, and someone else might have gotten in. We don’t know what the exact procedure is for this kind of smuggling. Keep me apprised of what you find under Nyom’s fingernails. I’m still trying to find my informant. She’s disappeared, of course. I’ll comm you later. Desk, send.”

“Yes, sir. Message encrypted and sent. You have one message remaining.”

“Wait.”

Jeta Fromm posed a problem. Without her, tracking down the people Nyom worked with would take days, weeks. Finding the dockworker, Yuri Pocivil, would be even harder.

For now, though, he had no answers. Maybe she would contact him, but he doubted it.

“Desk, do a records search for Yuri Pocivil. Last known residence in the Petrabor District. Now play the last message.”

Appearing on the flatscreen was a face Coren did not recognize, with a wide brow and short, black hair. Large, moist-brown eyes stared out at him.

“Mr. Lanra, please forgive the presumption. I’m Myler Towne, current administrative head of Imbitek. You may know our company. “He smiled slightly at his own false modesty. “I’m familiar with you, of course, and with your record. We’d like to discuss the possibility of acquiring your services ourselves. If you’re interested, please give me a little of your time and we can talk. My code is appended. I hope to talk with you soon.”

The screen went blank and slid out of sight.

Coren laughed out loud, then sobered. Surely this was a joke! Or was Myler Towne, temporary mouthpiece for the company that had nearly ruined Rega Looms, so ignorant of circumstances that he thought this was a good and accept able offer?

It might be amusing to meet with him and see how it goes...

“Do you wish to send a reply, sir?” the Desk asked.

“No. Not yet. Do you have that itinerary for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me see it.”

A list of destinations within the northeastern quadrant of the continent appeared on the desk surface. He skimmed it quickly, then touched one. Baltimor District. That would be convenient, but Rega would not be there for another two days.

Still, lacking any other worthwhile possibility...

“Desk, send a message to Rega Looms, informing him that I’ll talk to him in Delfi. Then find the code for Brun Damik at Immigration and Trade Enforcement.”

“Yes, sir. Do you wish me to connect you?”

“No, just give me a location.”

“Baltimor District ITE headquarters, Level Five, unnumbered private office.”

“Thank you.”

Coren leaned back and considered what to do next. Brun Damik would be a place to start, at least until he found Fromm.

If he found her.

Time, time, too damn little time...

He really did not want to speak with Rega. He could put that off for a day. Brun Damik, though... so the man had a private, unnumbered office now. Coren chastised himself for not keeping better track of people he still knew in government service. The trouble was, he had left originally out of a desire to have no more to do with government service, so he was unmotivated to pay close attention.

Not very professional, Coren. Not very professional at all...

That was the reason he had bought the Desk in the first place, so he could overlook details like this without losing track of them altogether. He appreciated his Desk–it was the closest thing to full sentient awareness he could afford to buy on Earth, just shy of illegal positronics.

Illegal, but not unobtainable. Nyom had gotten hold of a robot, had even owned it long enough to name it and work with it under the noses of ITE.

Spacers kept robots within their own districts. The ban on positronics had many, many holes in it. There were even Terrans who owned robots–fetishists and self-indulgent social rebels who enjoyed flaunting the law and custom, even if only in private.

Holes Rega Looms wanted to fill in, an ambition that would suffer should his daughter’s ideological treason become public.

Coren stood and went to the door to his workroom. A sofa sprawled the length of one short wall to the right, a low table before it. An alcove contained changes of clothes. To the left, three sets of shelves held a variety of boxes, bags, and objects–tech Lanra used from time to time, some of it illegal even for him to possess. He absently took a replacement optam from one shelf.

He locked the door and sat down on the sofa, folded his hands beneath his chin, and studied the shelves. After a time, he heaved himself to his feet and went to a lower shelf. He pulled out a shallow box and placed it on the table.

He took out a set of images and spread them over the table. Nyom Looms: laughing, smiling, contemplative, seductive, playful, clothed, naked, painted, bathed in light. The kind of pictures meant for one other person, exposed and cloistered at once. Old pictures–Coren checked the dates, though he knew it without thinking–from five years ago.

One image showed them both, together, holding each other.

“Frivolously romantic, “so Nyom had pronounced them afterward, when it ended and she chose a life that discluded him. Disclusion–left out, overlooked, omitted–rather than excluded. She never barred him from joining her, but she did not invite him, either. Probably because she already knew what he would say.

They had argued, he remembered, and she had left him confused. It had taken some time for him to understand that part of what had hurt her was that he had not made a counteroffer. He had not asked her to stay with him. Coren Lanra did not think that way. Nyom had made a decision–what right had he to ask her to turn her back on her choice?

On the other hand, perhaps he still did not know what it had been about.

Beneath the sheaf of images were three small boxes. One contained a silver-and-jade bracelet, another contained a set of rings in gold and platinum, and the third held the receipt for an apartment lease they had shared.

Coren stared at the pictures, left the boxes unopened, and grunted. This was all–the only evidence outside his memories of their relationship. All that remained of someone for whom he had cared. All he would ever have of her, now.

“She’s dead,” he said quietly. “Nyom is dead.”

And then, for the third time in his life, Coren Lanra wept.

The office of Immigration and Trade Enforcement, Baltimor District, occupied five floors of a hexagonal block near the Trade Mall, where thousands of Import-Export firms kept offices, adjacent to the warehouse warrens that occupied an apostrophe-shaped wedge around the lines of the ancient harbor. South of the District, spaceport facilities filled the upper levels and the urban canopy almost the entire distance to D. C. Passengers debarked in D. C., at Union Station; cargo and its handlers came into Baltimor, through Customs and Dissemination.

Coren waited outside the administrative entrance, in a small cafe, watching. Brun Damik emerged a little more than an hour before his regular shift ended. Damik walked quickly for a man of his size, but being so tall it appeared to be his natural gait. Coren had some trouble keeping up with him and nearly lost him twice before Damik entered a restaurant.

Coren watched from the entrance as Damik was seated at a small table near the back of the dining room. When the maitre d’hôtel approached, Coren laid a credit note on his station and pointed at Damik.

“He’s alone, sir,” the maitre d’ said. He palmed the note and turned his back while Coren, smiling, entered the restaurant.

He sat down across from Damik, who looked up from his salad, startled.

“What’s good here, Brun? A little expensive for you, isn’t it? Take must be good this year.”

Damik’s face lost all expression for several seconds. Then, slowly, a wide grin compressed his features. “You ass. Lanra! How are you?”

“Busy these days. But I thought I’d make time to talk to an old backstabber. How are your connections these days, gato?”

Damik laughed loudly and slapped the table once, sharply. “What are you drinking? I’m off-shift, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not, so it does. Are you buying?”

“Of course.”

“Nava.”

Damik frowned briefly. “That’s a Solarian drink, isn’t it?”

Coren nodded. “Tastes like a good bourbon but without the alcohol.”

Damik grunted. “Very Spacer. Riskless pleasure. Spineless ninnies.”

Coren shrugged. “Good drink, though.”

“Expensive. “He gestured for a waiter and gave the order anyway, including a beer for himself. “What have you been doing, Coren? Still working for what’s-his-name? Rega Looms?”

“I am.”

“He pays you well enough to afford good food?”

“When I have time to eat it. What about you? You’re not still counting canisters, are you?”

“Not by hand, no. They gave me my own department.”

“They must be desperate.”

Damik laughed again. Their drinks arrived and he raised his beer in a mock toast. Lanra tapped his glass and sipped.

“So,” Damik said. “Pleasantries aside, what do you need?”

Coren reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small hemisphere that looked like polished foam. He pressed the base with his thumb and set it in the center of the table.

Damik cocked an eyebrow. “Does Looms know you play with toys like that?”

“I take it you’ve seen one or two yourself, then. No, actually, if Rega knew what I use in the course of my job we’d probably have a serious policy disagreement. Fortunately, he’s not the sort of employer that pries a lot unless things go wrong.”

Damik thought about that. “Has anything gone wrong?”

“We don’t have to be coy now, Brun.” Coren pointed at the hemisphere. “Maybe Special Service has something that can unscramble the interference that’s generating, but it would take longer than our conversation.”

“You’re not staying for dessert, then.”

“I don’t think I’m staying for a second drink. I asked how your connections are. I meant it.”

“I got a promotion, didn’t I?”

“I’m talking about your black market ones.”

Damik grinned. “So’m I. What do you need?”

“I stumbled on a diverted shipment recently. You gimmicked a bay assignment all the way over in Petrabor, some stuff for Kysler. I’m assuming it was you, or someone in your office.”

“You ‘stumbled’ on it? How does that work?”

“Part of the job. Am I speaking to the right man?”

Damik shrugged. “What if you are?”

“Baley-running. How does that work?”

Damik stabbed a forkful of green leaves and pushed them around the plate listlessly. “How much are you offering?”

“Depends entirely on the quality of your data.”

“Hm. Well, the cheap part is the actual transportation. Refitted cargo bins are popular. Usually, they only have to support life for a day or two till they get turned over to the ship that’s going directly to the colony of choice. Then it’s no different than steerage class. Most baleys, I can’t understand why they bother–they could go legally.”

“You know that’s not true. ITE screening sorts out ‘undesirables’ and denies them visas. That means anyone with a political opinion, technical skills above a certain level, and money they might take with them. That’s about eighty percent of the people who apply.”

“If they’re that well-off or that smart, why would they want to go?”

“I really don’t care. Go on.”

“The expensive part is the bribery. You need a customs inspector, a set of transit permits, and enough to payoff a warehouse crew. You need another customs official on the other end.”

“At Kopernik.”

Damik nodded. “But you knew all this.”

“You left out the part I don’t know. Who do you start the process through? Who fronts the credits and who parcels out the payments?”

“It’s not that organized. We’re talking about rats in the system, a few here and there. Whoever is taking money from the baleys themselves has to know who to talk to–”

“Not in every case,” Coren said. “That might be true for small groups, but in the last two years the numbers have increased. There are shipments of up to three hundred people leaving in one group.”

“That’s a myth. Numbers like that, ITE would look totally negligent–or subverted–to let them through. No, the largest single group you’ll ever see go through would be fifty or sixty. Even that’s pushing it.” Damik finished his salad. “So?”

“So that still means enough money to attract the people I’m looking for. Once they get a taste, they don’t go away, they assume control.”

Damik chuckled. “You never disappoint, Lanra. I can see why you left Service–those idiots wouldn’t know what to do with a smart one like you.”

“I assume that means I’m right. So who?”

“Depends on the colony. Each one has a gatekeeper.”

“Reporting to who?” Coren asked.

“I don’t know. I imagine you’re right, there is some person or persons at the end of the chain, but...”

“Okay. Then give me a gatekeeper.”

“Which colony?”

“Let’s say Nova Levis.”

Damik’s eyes widened fractionally, just for an instant. He shook his head. “You don’t have that kind of credit.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re overdrawn now and we haven’t even talked price.”

“I knew you were the right gato to talk to about this. I always appreciated your honesty.”

“Ha ha. Your wit hasn’t improved much.”

“But my credit has,” Coren said.

Damik regarded him skeptically. The waiter came and cleared away his salad plate, then set his dinner before him. Damik appeared to notice none of this, eyes fixed on Coren.

“Do you remember,” Coren said as the waiter left, “all that business last year involving Clar Eliton and the assassinations at Union Station?”

“Lot of dead Spacers. So?”

“More than that–quite a few Terrans were killed or hurt, too. It was complicated. For a time, Rega Looms was suspected. In the course of doing my job–covering Rega’s butt, technically–I learned a lot of details about a lot of people, mostly people I’ll never meet and never deal with. But there’ve been exceptions. You, for instance.”

Coren leaned forward, as if preparing to confide in Damik. “We knew each other for... what? Six years before I left Special Service?”

“Something like that.”

“In all that time I never knew you were a Managin. Did you even know that yourself, or did you simply neglect to enter it in your file?” Coren spread his hands. “None of my business, really. Before last year, none of anyone’s. But they turned out to be less than simply embarrassing to someone like you. They turned out to be–can you guess, Brun?–a security risk. Now imagine that. A bunch of fringe idiot anti-Spacer sociopaths an actual security risk. I’ll tell you, Brun, I got a real laugh out of that when I heard it the first time. I thought, ‘Don’t those people at the Terran Bureau of Investigation have anything better to do than upgrade their lists of the possibly dangerous all day long? They should be after real criminals, real threats, real detriments to society.’”

“You thought all that, did you?”

“Yes, I did. I thought all that. But that was then. Today I thought, ‘I wonder what the director of ITE would say if he knew his freshly-promoted chief of inspection at the Baltimor Station used to be one of those sorts?’ And I decided to find out what you would think of it first.”

Coren sat back and smiled across the table at Damik.

Slowly, Damik picked up a fork. “Is that all?”

“No, no, no. You were a real follower back then. I’ve got your name attached to at least four other groups like the Managins. But to be fair, only two of those ever got serious attention from the TBI. “Coren watched Damik cut a piece of his cutlet and fork it into his mouth. “So, how’s my credit now?”

“Still not good enough.” Damik grinned crookedly. “I’ll tell you this, they’re all corporate types at the high end. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the guy getting out from rehab this week is one.”

“Alda Mikels? Is he the one you deal with.”

“I told you, I don’t know names–”

Coren shifted in his chair, leaned on his forearms over the small table. “I asked, is that who you deal with?”

Damik moved back. He studied Coren with narrowed eyes for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head. “Mikels is in jail–how could he do anything with baleys? Look, Coren, that’s as much as you get–”

Coren sat back. “Let’s see, besides the Managins, you were part of the Campaign for Terran Rights–they were the ones who shut down the vats feeding Calcubay District several years back. About the time you were an active member, under the name of...” Coren looked upward in mock concentration. “Ah, I remember. You called yourself ‘Damil Bruller: Then there was–”

“Enough.”

“What’s the problem, Brun? No one can hear us.” Coren gestured at his hemisphere.

“How big a file do you have on me?”

“Big enough. Come on, Brun, I don’t have any desire to ruin your life. This has nothing to do with you. I just need to know how to find the people who would have had oversight on the last shipment of baleys out of Petrabor that you so innocently arranged. Seriously, who do you deal with? Who helps you afford real pork?” Coren took his own fork, reached across the table, and delicately worked loose a small piece of the gravy-soaked meat. He popped it into his mouth and smiled. “Very good.”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“I’m afraid I do, “Coren said flatly.

Damik let out a long, low breath–nearly a growl. “Two people come see me to arrange things: a woman named Tresha, and a man named Gamelin. At least, that’s what she calls him. He never speaks–I assume he’s just muscle, he’s big enough.”

“Tresha what?”

“The bank is closed for the day.”

Coren studied Damik’s eyes, then shrugged. He picked up his hemisphere and dropped it back into his pocket.

“You don’t ever come talk to me again, Lanra,” Damik warned. “We’re done.”

“Oh, I wish I could promise that. I really do.” Coren smiled. “Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

Coren entered a bar down the corridor from the restaurant, ordered a drink, then went into the restroom. He shrugged out of his jacket, pulling it inside out, changing it from a dark green to a light blue. He broke a small vial in his hands and smeared the thick liquid through his hair, which turned black in less than a minute. He washed his hands before returning to his drink.

Damik walked by a few minutes later. Coren gave him several meters before he sauntered after him.

Damik went through the motions of surveying for a tail, but Coren suspected that his skills were long unused and inadequate. Within two intersections, Damik stopped looking behind him, and picked up his pace.

Coren followed him to a high speed walkway that carried them south into the vast financial district that filled a lot of the area between Baltimor and D. C. He got off after ten kilometers and used a public comm. Coren counted off two minutes, twenty seconds. Damik left the booth and skipped across the accelerating lanes to continue south.

Another ten kilometers. Coren took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Damik had apparently decided no one would follow him from here and never bothered to do another survey. Coren moved closer out of contempt, as if to dare Damik to recognize him, but the man never glanced back.

Damik got off in a warehouse sector. He descended three levels, to a home kitchen, and took a position leaning against one massive pillar. He stood out in this T-class area and drew a lot of odd looks, but he remained where he stood, feigning ambivalence.

Coren turned his jacket out again, slung it by one finger over his shoulder, and skirted the edge of the kitchen till he found a table recently vacated. He sat down before the remains of a late, vat-based dinner, the rich yeast-and-grain aroma thick in his nostrils. He gripped the nearly empty glass of beer and pretended to be enjoying the last of it, keeping Damik in the corner of his field of vision.

About ten minutes went by before anyone approached Damik. An older man in an innocuous black jacket and gray pants came up to him. Coren slipped his optam out, adjusted its range, and waited. Just before Damik and the old man were about to turn away, Coren smoothly raised the device and recorded them.

They moved away from him. The last Coren saw of them, the old man put his arm around Damik’s shoulders and patted him in an incongruously paternal manner.

Seven

COREN SWALLOWED A painblock. The throbbing along his neck and shoulder began to ebb. He did not want to take the time to see his doctor, though he knew he should–he still did not know how badly he had been injured in Petrabor.

He crossed the avenue to the open arcade. Shops alternated with private offices along both sides. Coren breathed in the mingled smells of several restaurants and food vendors. At this hour he saw few people. Later, the place would be as crowded as it had been during the height of the last shift.

The door he sought turned out to be plain blue bearing a small nameplate: RW ENTERPRISES.

The image he had recorded of the older man matched quickly to a name–Ree Wenithal–and the company he owned. The public record contained a brief description and little else: a general import-export firm specializing in textiles, licensed eight years ago, with Ree Wenithal listed as sole owner. No recent police reports, at least not in the last three years.

Coren had nearly paid a second visit to Brun Damik after his cursory check of Wenithal’s company–what was their connection? Then he found the one detail that had brought him directly here: Wenithal had been a cop.

Coren pressed his fingers to the nameplate.

“Yes?” a polite voice asked.

“Coren Lanra to see Mr. Wenithal.”

“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Lanra?”

“No, but I think he’ll want to talk to me. I was given his name by a mutual acquaintance: a man named Damik.”

Coren waited.

“Very well, Mr. Lanra. Please come in.”

The door opened.

At the end of a short hallway, he passed under an arch into a wide, brightly-lit office area. Coren counted eight people working at desks.

A door at the rear opened and a neatly-dressed man with thin, pearl-white hair came toward him–the same man he had seen meet Brun Damik. He seemed tall from a distance but as he neared, Coren saw that it was an illusion: the man walked and carried himself as if he stood a head taller than anyone else.

“Mr. Lanra?” He extended a hand. “I’m Ree Wenithal. How may I help you?”

“A little of your time, a few questions.”

Wenithal smiled and waved Coren in the direction of his door. Coren keyed the little hemisphere in his pocket.

The office was dark, expensively furnished with heavy chairs and sofas and polished woodwork. The desk was cluttered with disks and papers. A suit hung from the handle of a closet door to the right. Another sheaf of papers lay beside a half-full cup of coffee on an end table by an upholstered armchair that still held the imprint of its recent occupant.

Coren turned at the sound of the door clicking shut.

Wenithal’s left hand was in his jacket pocket.

“There are easily four other ways to leave this office beside the way you came in,” Wenithal said matter-of-factly.

“Do I need to know any of them?”

“I suppose that depends on what you have to say.” His eyes narrowed. “You used a name I know to get in here. But I don’t know you.”

“But you know my type.”

“TBI?”

“Special Service.”

“But not anymore. You‘ve gone private.”

“It happens from time to time.”

“Who do you work for now?”

“Rega Looms.”

Wenithal’s face showed a moment of confusion. Then he grunted, took his hand from his pocket, and went to his desk. “Drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Wenithal poured a glass for himself and added ice, moving carefully, methodically. “So,” he said, turning to Coren, “what does Mr. Looms want with me now?”

“‘Now?’ Has he wanted anything from you in the past?”

Wenithal frowned. “We’ve done business before. I admit, he’s never sent his security people to negotiate a new contract, but...”

“Nothing. I’m not here at his behest. I’m following up on something else, unrelated to the company.”

“What would that be?”

“I’m told that you’re the man to see about baleys.”

“Who told you that? It wasn’t Brun.”

“A mutual acquaintance.”

Wenithal shrugged. “Suit yourself. I don’t know anything about it.”

“I could check.”

Wenithal sighed. “I’m assuming you checked me out before you came in here. You know what I used to do. What I know stems from my investigations as a law enforcement officer. Most of that information is several years out of date. I’m really not interested in rehashing old cases with you.”

“Old cases often refuse to go quietly into a file. Especially if they’re big enough.”

“And are mine big enough?”

Coren shrugged.

“You threatened Brun over this. You are the same man who spoke with him earlier, aren’t you? What particularly do you want?”

“Names. Who were you investigating?”

“You don’t know what you want, do you?”

“I hoped you might be able to help me narrow it down. I’m looking for a baley runner, the one who makes all the arrangements with the shippers before the runners themselves shunt their cargoes.”

“A particular one, I imagine.” Wenithal smiled sardonically. “Actually, at one time I was investigating your Mr. Looms.”

“For what?”

“It didn’t prove out. His name was on a list. You know how that goes. It was coincidental.”

“So why mention it?”

“Just to remind you that we all have files. What would someone find in yours?”

“Less than you might expect. I’ve had a fairly dull career.”

Wenithal looked surprised, then laughed. “My cases are all a matter of public record–you could look for yourself. Why bother me?”

“What I’m looking for won’t be in your case logs. For one thing, I doubt very much if the people I’m interested in are part of the public record.”

“Why not?”

Coren felt his patience fray. “Is this a test?”

Wenithal shook his head. “You’ve come into my business, you’ve asked questions that could be construed as accusatory, you’ve made requests you have no right to make and no authority to push through. I haven’t heard one thing yet to convince me that I shouldn’t call the police and have you escorted out.”

“Nova Levis.”

Wenithal’s face hardened. His reaction lasted less than a second, but Coren recognized it and it surprised him. Dropping the name of the colony had been a gamble; Wenithal could easily have feigned ignorance. Instead, Wenithal now took this seriously. Coren wished he knew why.

“This had been slightly amusing till now,” Wenithal said. “Leave. I no longer have any involvement in anything that might help you, and I resent the implication that I should. I’m a businessman. A legitimate businessman.”

“Yes, well, you’re in imports and exports. Coincidence?”

“Not at all. I learned quite a bit about the industry working on certain cases. When I retired it was easy to slip right into it. Now leave. This interview is over.”

“That’s unfortunate. I felt certain we could help each other.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You said it yourself: I scared Brun. He came to you before anyone else. Why was that? Paternal advice?”

“As odd as it may seem, yes.”

Coren raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Really. Well, if that is indeed the case, then perhaps we should both be concerned about the same thing. If I compromised him and you have his interests at heart, then–”

“If this is unrelated to Rega Looms, what is it related to? What’s your concern in any of this?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t related to Looms, I said it wasn’t related to his company.”

“Ah. Campaign stuff? You’re private security, so part of your job is to clean up embarrassments. Let me guess–his daughter is in trouble.”

“Why would you guess that?”

Wenithal shrugged. “Rumors. I hear things still. Conversations with old friends. She runs baleys, does she?”

“Not anymore. She’s dead.”

Coren had not planned to tell anyone, but he wanted to see Wenithal’s reaction. He was not disappointed. Wenithal looked surprised and, for a moment, vulnerable. The bluster and firmness of the ex-cop vanished, replaced by an expression of informed terror. It metamorphosed slowly into a mask of sympathy and sadness.

“I’m... very sorry to hear that...” He turned away and muttered something more.

“What was that?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. I was just–my condolences to Mr. Looms. How–?”

“Running baleys.”

“I see... yes, I can see that you would be interested. I’m very sorry, Mr. Lanra.” He sat down. “I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I’m long out of it. All I could give you are rumors.”

“Rumors are often more reliable.”

“Pah! Police superstition. You hope rumors are more reliable because usually they’re all you get. When I was working I’d have taken a solid fact over rumor any day.” Wenithal looked up, the wall back in place. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a business to take care of. I’m not a policeman anymore. I did that for twenty-two years. No more. Go away.”

Coren wanted to return to his private office and begin reviewing Wenithal’s career. Instead, he took the tubeway west, to Delfi. From Wenithal’s place it was only forty-five kilometers to Looms’ hotel.

What is it about a Settler colony that would spook an ex-cop like that? His mention of Nova Levis had disturbed Wenithal. If he was part of a baley-running scheme, it might make sense. And if Nova Levis was the name that rattled him, then maybe he was the contact Nyom went through, in which case Coren would visit him again.

He dozed on the short ride, uneasily, the image of Nyom dangling broken-necked from the ceiling of that bin an unwelcome intrusion.

He tucked the earpiece of his portable comm in his left ear and keyed his office. The Desk answered.

“I want you to search police files for the case logs of Wenithal, Ree. Especially his last few cases and anything that might relate to baleys and baley running. Anything on Yuri Pocivil?” he asked sotto voce.

“Public records search positive result,” the Desk reported. “Pocivil, Yuri. Immigrant, work-pass issued six years ago. Originally from the Settler colony Cassus Thole. Resident of Petrabor District for the last four years. Employee of Improvo Shipping and Storage, Petrabor branch, last three years eight months. Current status, indefinite sickleave. Current location unknown.”

Sick leave. Dead more likely, Coren thought sourly. He said, “Is there an image attached?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Forward all this to Sipha Palen on Kopernik Station and continue search, locate. Any new messages?”

“New message from Myler Towne. Do you wish to hear it?”

“No. File.” He hesitated. Then: “Make an appointment for me to see my physician, earliest convenience. End link.” He plucked the earpiece out and tucked it back in the slot on the side of his comm.

Yuri Pocivil was a settler. Unusual for them to return to Earth. Unless he had been born on Cassus Thole and thought Earth had more to offer. It was easy to forget that the entire Settler program was less than two centuries old, with so many emigrants leaving Earth all the time.

He wondered who owned Improvo Shipping and Storage...

Rega Looms’ entourage filled two floors of the Banil-Holbro, in the center of the theater district in Delfi. Coren stepped off the walkway directly onto the broad plaza fronting the polished false stone-and-gilt facade of the hotel.

Two of Coren’s people stood just inside talking to the bellcaptain. Their laughter seemed distant and muffled in the lobby.

Both of them straightened when they saw Coren.

“Boss,” Shola said. “Back from vacation?”

“No, don’t worry, I’m not back yet,” Coren said. “Where’s Rega?”

The other one–New man, Coren thought for a moment. What’s his name? Lukas–came up alongside him and they walked a few paces from the bellcaptain.

“Mr. Looms is in room four-ninety-one, sir.”

“Thanks, Lukas. Everything copacetic? Any problems?”

“Other than lack of sleep?” Lukas smiled wanly.

Coren laughed. “That’s what overtime pay was invented for,” he said and walked away, toward the elevators.

Two more of his people waited in the hallway outside room four-ninety-one. They greeted him with silent nods. Coren knocked on the door and entered.

Rega Looms sat on the edge of a chair, staring at a datum screen on the table between him and Lio Top, his campaign manager. A spread of fruit and vegetables covered a sideboard, next to a big samovar.

Lio looked up first. “Hi, Coren,” she said. “Didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“My compulsiveness is bothering me,” he said, choosing a carrot from the tray. “Just wanted to see how things were going. Or not.”

Rega Looms continued to focus on the datum. “Hello, Coren. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

Coren wandered to the far end of the room and sat down in a too-soft armchair. He ate his carrot without really tasting it. Now that he was here, in Rega’s presence, he felt anxious.

“First thing in the morning,” he heard Looms say finally.

Lio stood. Rega Looms closed the datum and rubbed his eyes.

“Six, then?” Lio asked.

Looms nodded. “That will be fine. Thank you, Lio.”

She cast Coren a sympathetic look. “G’night, Coren.” Coren’s heartbeat kicked up a notch.

“Coren,” Rega said. “Come sit down here.”

Coren’s legs felt leaden, but he took the seat vacated by Lio and made himself look at Rega Looms.

Too much of Nyom there, he thought, wincing.

“My daughter, “Looms said.

Until this moment Coren had given no thought to what he intended to tell Rega. He justified–excused–this lapse by telling himself that he had yet to accept the facts. But that was facile, a diversion to keep himself from acknowledging the truth, that it hurt to say the words and it would hurt more to see his own reaction mirrored in Rega.

“She’s dead, Rega.”

Rega sat back as if slapped. He did not look at Coren, but stared at a point midway between them, eyes locked in place. He closed them slowly and his mouth opened wordlessly.

Coren’s ears began to hum in the silence.

“How?” Rega asked, a faint whisper.

“I don’t have all the details. She was running baleys and went with the last bunch. They all turned up dead on Kopernik Station.”

“You didn’t prevent her?”

“How was I supposed to do that?”

Rega’s eyes snapped open and focused on Coren. “I pay you to know how to manage those details.”

“Dragging her out was my only option. Not feasible.”

Rega did not look away, but the rage drained slightly from his face. Finally, he nodded.

“Now what?” he asked.

“I need a few days to find out why and who. I can keep it out of the newsnets that long, but you better be prepared for it to hit. If I come up with answers, you could–” He stopped himself. He almost said, you could turn it to your advantage. It surprised him for a moment.

“That’s Lio’s job,” Rega said, following his thoughts. He closed his eyes again. “Both of them now,” he whispered. He sighed. “I have a campaign to win. Do what you have to do to find them. If it costs me the election, so be it.” His eyes glistened now. He stood. “Thank you for... for coming by, Coren. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”

“For either of us.”

“Do you have any ideas yet?”

“Possibilities. Do you want to know?”

“No. Not till you finish. Then I want to know everything.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Coren started for the door, Rega caught his arm.

“Everything, Coren.”

Rega let go and walked away, toward the bedroom. Coren waited till the door snicked shut before he left.

By the time Coren returned to his office, third shift was just ending. His stomach churned–the carrot had triggered his hunger–so he stopped by a small carry-out within walking distance of his building and bought a sandwich.

“Good morning,” the Desk greeted him. “Please verify identity.”

Coren sat down and went through the procedure, unwrapping his sandwich with his free hand.

“Welcome, Mr. Lanra. You have two messages. One from Myler Towne, one from Ambassador Burgess, Auroran Embassy.”

Coren stopped chewing. “Burgess? Time.”

“Six-ten.”

Half an hour ago.

Coren finished chewing and swallowed. “The one from Myler Towne–is it a repeat of the first message?”

“Yes, sir.”

“File it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No word from Jeta Fromm?”

“No, sir.”

“Anything further on Yuri Pocivil?”

“No, sir.”

“Ree Wenithal?”

“Yes, sir. Public records plus case logs, per parameters.”

“Good, good. New search. I want to know who owns Improvo Shipping and Storage, and which freighter and passenger lines it does business with.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coren stretched lazily until his shoulder twinged. “Did you make that physician’s appointment?”

“Yes, sir. Your physician has an opening six days from now, second shift.”

Good thing it’s not an emergency, Coren thought wryly. “Okay. What specifically do you have on Wenithal? Display.”

The screen rose from the desk and file headers scrolled down. Coren caught the words “Nova Levis” and said “Stop. Case file number 82-791-AKB. Review.”

“Infant abduction case involving several prominent families. Ree Wenithal primary investigator. Eighteen month investigation culminating in sixty-two percent recoveries and the closing of eight orphanages and four bioremedial research laboratories.”

“How does Nova Levis figure in?”

“R and D facility which came under investigation relative to Ree Wenithal’s investigation. Laboratory cleared of any charges.”

Cleared... but the name scared Wenithal just the same...

“Collate the particulars: names of families, the children involved, witness lists, and other sources.”

“Yes, sir. Do you wish to audit Ambassador Burgess’s message?”

“Not yet. Alert me two hours from now.”

“Yes, sir.”

He rubbed his face and eyes as if to massage away the fatigue.

He felt incompetent. Things had gotten away from him already. It had happened before, but he never got used to it. So much of police work relied on chance and luck–the rest was a question of tenacity. Coren had a good track record of wearing a case down until he solved it. But that took time, and right now he did not have that luxury. He needed to know now.

He had lost Jeta Fromm. That was his one chance of finding out about that strange robot quickly enough to find Nyom’s killers before the murders went public. The more time passed, the less likely he could wrap this up before the news broke.

Going to Brun Damik had been a gamble. Not a bad one, Coren thought, considering the rearrangement of shipping schedules out of his office for Petrabor. And Damik did know something. But instead of the answer that would have made Coren’s life easier, he led him to Ree Wenithal. In truth, despite the curious fact that Damik had called Wenithal first after Coren’s visit, Coren would have walked away from Wenithal as a useless lead.

Except for Wenithal’s reaction to the name Nova Levis. But now Coren knew that Nova Levis was the name of a research lab. How did that relate to the colony? And what did kidnapping have to do with it?

“Desk, display data package received from Sipha Palen.”

The screen came up. A menu scrolled across it. Coren read through the choices–autopsy, crime scene, material forensics–and touched the icon over crime scene.

The screen showed the cargo bin. Coren hesitated, then accessed the internal view.

Bodies stacked in couches crowding the walls...

He reached for the screen and accesssed the image of the dead Brethe dealer, then gazed at it thoughtfully. “Desk, I want a search for all manufacturers of prosthetic devices. Find a match for the hand pattern found on the woman’s shoulder, and the type of prosthetic capable of doing this kind of damage.”

“Yes, sir.”

“End,” he said. The screen went blank. “I’ll go over it later.”

“Yes, sir.”

He scooped up his sandwich and went into his private space. He was tired and hungry and the painblock had worn off sometime in the last hour. It would do no good to rush into anything as unexpected as this.

The images of Nyom still covered the table. He gathered them up and placed them back in the carton. He sat down then, and finished eating.

Eight

HE WOKE UP with a stiff neck on top of the bruises. He swallowed another painblock and went to his desk.

“Good morning, sir,” the Desk said. “Analysis and collation on the provided data completed. Do you wish a summary?”

“In a moment. I need coffee right now.” He switched his samovar on. The machine hummed gently to life. Dark, steaming liquid filled a cup below the spigot. Coren breathed in the steam. “Any more messages?”

“None. Do you wish to review those in the queue?”

“Play Ambassador Burgess’s.”

Coren heard the flatscreen scroll up from the desktop, but he stood by the samovar, eyes closed, sipping his coffee.

“Mr. Lanra, I would like to apologize for any abruptness I may have exhibited with you yesterday. It has come to my attention that our interests may intersect. I would appreciate another opportunity to talk about it. I’ll be in my office the rest of the day.”

Coren opened his eyes. “Hm. I wonder what I disturbed. Connect to Ambassador Burgess.”

“Yes, sir.”

A few seconds later a crisp male voice said, “Ambassador Burgess’s office, how may I help you?”

Coren went to the desk. On the flatscreen he saw the face of Burgess’s aide, Hofton. “Coren Lanra. I’m returning the Ambassador’s call.”

“Of course. Wait one moment while I put you through.”

The screen went pale gray, then Ariel Burgess appeared. Her eyes looked slightly puffy; perhaps she had gotten as little sleep as he.

“Ambassador Burgess.”

“Mr. Lanra, thank you for returning my call so promptly.”

“I admit I’m puzzled at this turnaround.”

“No more than I am. Perhaps between the two of us we can make sense of some of it. Would you care to meet with us again?”

“When?”

“As soon as convenient for you.”

“Right now, frankly, nothing is convenient. How about–” he glanced at the time chop “–ten. That’ll give me a chance to clean up a little.”

“That would be excellent. Here?”

“Certainly. I know the way.”

She almost smiled at that. “Till then, Mr. Lanra.”

The screen blanked.

“Desk, give me a summary of the analysis on the data I gave you.”

“Specify order.”

“Um...” He rubbed his eyes, remembering. “Update on Yuri Pocivil?”

“No further progress.”

“Improvo Shipping.”

“Improvo Shipping and Storage is a subsidiary owned outright by the Hunter Group. It has been in operation for thirty-eight years with ninety-two facilities within Sol System and fifty-one facilities located on various Settler worlds. The Hunter Group itself is an offworld company, headquarters on Cassus Thole.”

“Really. How many employees within this system?”

“Six hundred seventy-two thousand.”

“How many of those are immigrant?”

“Two thousand seven hundred.”

“How many of those are natives of Cassus Thole?”

“Eleven hundred twenty-two.”

“Uh-huh. Interesting. No list of board members?”

“No such list available at this time.”

“Continue search, see if you can find one. Also, I want a list of all Hunter Group holdings. Next, the data from Wenithal’s case file.”

“The last case he worked on was a major kidnapping ring. It developed from an investigation into a single instance which led him to uncover a global operation with offworld connections. Infants were being sold through various vendors–primarily orphanages and child hospice centers–to offworld buyers.”

Coren’s interest spiked. “Go on. That sounds familiar. What’s in the case file?”

“The record obtained from the public police database contains categorized tables, names cross-referenced in hierarchical tabulations according to assigned probabilities.”

“Sounds like his interview and suspect lists.”

“Correct. Three hundred seventy-nine names listed, all time–indexed over an eleven-year period beginning twenty-nine years ago, ending eighteen years ago. Of those with current public record files available, two hundred and ninety are deceased–”

“Stop. Two hundred and ninety dead?”

“Correct.”

“Pattern analysis. Common factors?”

“One hundred thirty fatalities occurred within an eight month period. Ninety-seven died of age-related factors. Eighty-three died as the result of fatal accident. Sixty-eight died as the result of fatal interaction–”

“You mean homicide.”

“That is a legal definition not applicable in all instances.”

“They were killed by other people.”

“With certain qualifications, yes.”

“Continue.”

“Thirty-nine died of causes unverifiable due to inaccessibility of data.”

“Explain.”

“Deceased were offworld at the time of death. There were irregularities in subsequent reporting.”

“Hard copy, names, places, dates, and cause of death.” Coren watched while the Desk produced a disk for him. “Give me current disposition of surviving members of the list.”

“Of the eighty-nine remaining names, forty-three are serving sentences in rehabilitation clinics, eighteen have emigrated to Settler colonies, and five are residents in hospice centers. Displaying list of remaining twenty-three.”

Coren read down the rows until he came to a name he recognized. He whistled.

“Alda Mikels... interesting.” He read on. “A few of these people are prominent public figures. I–” He stopped, startled. “Rega Looms.”

Coren stared at the name for a long time. He retrieved his hemisphere then and set it into its niche on the desktop.

“Desk, download contents of last recorded exchange.”

“Done.”

“Play back.” Coren listened to his conversation with Ree Wenithal again. When he reached the point where he told Wenithal that Nyom Looms was dead, he said, “Stop there. Subject said something below normal range of hearing. Amplify and enhance.”

From the desk speaker he heard Wenithal, in a raspy whisper, say “Both of them now.”

“End playback.” Coren looked at Rega’s name on the screen. “‘Both of them now.’ What does that mean?”

“Unknown,” the Desk said. Rega had said something very similar. Both of whom?

“Desk, give me a hard copy on these names, then file and return to standby.”

Coren went into his private room to clean up and change clothes. He wanted to go back to his apartment and stretch out for several hours’ decent sleep, but he lacked the time.

He slipped the disks into his pocket and drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. Several years ago, Coren remembered, Alda Mikels and a few others invited Rega Looms to join a business consortium which seemed to Looms at the margins of legality–gray market at least, if not black market. Some of those people were on Wenithal’s list. Considering Looms’ attitude toward most of them, Coren wondered why they would have approached him in the first place. Perhaps the association went back further than Rega had told him.

“Desk, I want a review of the last twenty-three names, those surviving and still on Earth. Initiate a records search and correlate common associations for the past twenty years.”

“Parameters?”

“Education, business, investments, public service, children.” He hesitated. “If nothing turns up, expand search to thirty years.”

“Yes, sir.”

Coren disliked investigating his own employer. Sometimes, though, protecting Rega Looms required that he know things Looms probably preferred he did not.

“Also, get me a thorough background on Ree Wenithal. Retired, law enforcement, currently runs his own import-export firm.”

“Public file previously referenced–”

“I want a deeper background.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also... also, display crime scene image from Sipha Palen’s data.”

The view spread across the screen. He stared at the bodies as the view rotated slowly through three-hundred-sixty degrees. Fifty-two people.

“Give me a copy of this, too, “he said. One more disk extruded from the slot.

He ran down the list of instructions just given and tried to think of anything overlooked. Nothing came to mind but he could never quite shake the feeling that he had missed something. Without Jeta Fromm or the dockworker Pocivil, all he had was Nyom’s collapsed robot.

There’s never enough time to do this right....

The Spacer Embassy occupied a huge area on the eastern edge of D. C., in the heart of the government districts. Embassies, really, as the structure contained the missions for all the Spacer Worlds. Most had one set of offices, usually unoccupied. Of the Fifty Worlds, only a dozen maintained full-time staffs on Earth, Aurora and Solaria being the largest.

Just living on Earth marked these people as unique. Most Spacers disdained other worlds, especially the one that spawned them so long ago. But no group is completely homogeneous, and Spacers proved no exception. The total Spacer population on Earth never exceeded a few tens of thousands–a handful compared to populations in the many millions–but their presence made a powerful impression on Terrans.

Of them all, Coren reflected as he entered the main gallery of the Embassy, he preferred the Aurorans–they were the most approachable, the least defensive, compared to the xenophobic Solarians. To be sure, those Solarians living here did not share the degree of paranoia exhibited by most of their people in dealing with outsiders, but they still came across as standoffish and mistrustful.

Coren signed in at the reception desk and patiently received directions to the Auroran arm of the embassy building. He then retraced his path from the previous day.

Hofton met him in the reception lounge of Ambassador Burgess’s offices. “The Ambassador is expecting you, Mr. Lanra. Mr. Avery is here as well. I trust this is acceptable.”

“Completely.”

Hofton escorted him into Burgess’s office and closed the doors.

Ariel Burgess looked tired, with the beginnings of dark circles under her eyes. Derec Avery seemed much the same as he had yesterday.

“Mr. Lanra,” Burgess said, rising from her seat and coming around the desk to clasp his hand. “Thank you for giving us a second opportunity to discuss your problem with us.”

“Thank you, Ambassador. I have to tell you, I’m a little dismayed.”

“I’m a little surprised myself. It seems we have a parallel interest in your situation.”

“Parallel interest... quid pro quo, then.”

“If that’s satisfactory.”

“I don’t have the luxury of time, Ambassador. What I need is a roboticist to see if anything can be salvaged from a collapsed positronic brain–the robot I told you about yesterday.”

“It allegedly witnessed a mass murder,” Derec Avery said. “Which would probably have precipitated the collapse.”

“Possibly.”

“Let me guess,” Burgess said. “You think the robot itself committed the crime.”

“A robot, certainly.”

“Why?”

“We have no other viable suspect,” he said. “Everyone who boarded the cargo bin used to shuttle the victims to Kopernik is accounted for–all dead. There was no way for a human to get out of it without breaking the internal seals in place inside the bin. So we’re left with a suicide-murderer, or...” He pursed his lips. “I saw another robot board the bin with the victims. It was... unusual.”

“A second robot,” Ariel said. “You didn’t mention this yesterday.”

“I didn’t know if you’d be helping me or not.”

“That might have changed our minds sooner.” Coren held up his hands apologetically.

“You said it was unusual,” Derec said. “How so?”

“It didn’t register through my surveillance equipment. I could see it, as I see you, but through an optam it was invisible. Masked–what they used to call ‘stealthed.’”

“We don’t make robots like that,” Ariel said. “That function is useless except for military or criminal purposes, and we don’t–can’t–use robots for either of those things.”

“Nevertheless, I witnessed just such a robot.”

“And when the bin was opened?” Derec asked. “Was it there?”

“No. Only Nyom Looms’ robot was present. Here.” He handed the disk containing Sipha’s reports. “Go to the crime scene.”

In a moment they huddled around Ariel’s desk, gazing at a full holographic image of the interior of the cargo bin.

“This is what the security people on Kopernik found when they opened it up,” Coren explained.

“What is that the robot is working on?” Derec asked.

“A rebreather unit. It contained a poison that caused neurological damage and paralysis.”

“Who is this?” Ariel asked, pointing to the body hanging from the bin ceiling.

“Nyom Looms. She wasn’t poisoned. She had her own rebreather. Her neck was broken, instead.”

“Fifty-one others,” Hofton said. “How did she get attached up there?”

“The bin was cracked. The air leaked out fairly quickly–not all at once, but in a vacuum it must’ve created a current. We think it drew her to it. Her clothing was pulled through.”

“Cracked,” Ariel mused. “Big enough for your robot to slip through?”

“Hardly. You can see the dimensions for yourself.”

Ariel frowned and gave Derec a look Coren could not read. “It would be unlikely, I think,” she said. She sighed. “You still haven’t given us a convincing argument to indict a robot.” She pointed to the image of Coffee. “What do you think, Derec? A modified DW-12?”

“Looks like it. But it’s not possible, Mr. Lanra. There is no way to modify a positronic brain to subvert its Three Law constraints. Tampering at that level would destroy the brain. The fact that it’s collapsed proves that its programming was consistent with its original protocols. It witnessed the deaths of humans ostensibly in its charge. It failed to protect them. It collapsed.”

“As I recall,” Coren noted, “a positronic brain was modified at Union Station to cause the deaths of a good number of people.”

Derec stiffened. “That’s... inaccurate. It was modified to ignore a lethal situation. It caused nothing. And it collapsed shortly after it realized what had happened.” He frowned thoughtfully. “What was this robot doing at the rebreather controls?”

“As far as we can tell, trying to shut it off.”

“You’ve said ‘we’ a few times now. Who else is involved in this investigation?” Ariel asked.

“Kopernik Station’s chief of security is working with me on this,” Coren replied.

“How are you keeping it out of the newsnets, then?”

“The bin was delivered to a Settler dock. She has an arrangement with the Settler security people. It’s isolated, outside the usual legal channels. For the time being, it doesn’t exist. That won’t last long.”

“And the robot?” Derec asked.

“Stored.”

“Still in the Settler section?”

“In Chief Palen’s morgue.”

“We need to have it.”

“There’s no way I can bring it down here. Not in time, anyway. I need someone to go to it.”

Ariel looked at Derec. “What do you think?”

Derec shook his head. “A risk. I’m still not sure what my status is.”

Ariel looked at Coren. “Our... range of free movement may be somewhat curtailed. Especially Mr. Avery’s.”

“Mine isn’t,” Hofton said. “I could accompany Mr. Avery up to our embassy branch on Kopernik.” He glanced at Derec. “You’d be in the diplomatic pouch, so to speak.”

Derec grunted, smiling thinly.

“Excuse me,” Coren said. “There’s no question here, is there? You’re going to help me.”

“You wouldn’t be talking to us otherwise, Mr. Lanra,” Ariel said.

“Why.”

Ariel looked thoughtful. “Before I answer that, let me ask you something. Where was Nyom Looms taking this group of baleys?”

“Nova Levis.”

“Why there? I can think of at least a dozen other Settler colonies that would accept baleys that aren’t under blockade.”

“I don’t know. Nova Levis is... romantic.”

“That’s hardly a reason. But even so, the next question is, why kill them?”

“Her father is running for office,” Coren said. “Something like this”

“Just letting it out that she ran baleys would accomplish as much, “Ariel said, shaking her head. “What was there about this run that warranted murder?”

Coren said nothing.

“That’s the question, then,” Ariel said. “Answer the why, you discover the who. Theoretically, anyway. And it won’t be a robot.”

Coren leaned across her desk and touched an icon on her flatscreen. “I’d like your opinion on these, then.”

The image from Ariel’s desk projector vanished, replaced a moment later by the autopsy images Sipha had sent him of the Brethe dealer who had died in her holding cell. The sight brought a sharp hiss from Derec Avery; Burgess paled.

“At first we thought this was unrelated, “Coren explained. “Maybe it is, but I’m guessing not. Frame sixteen–” he gestured for Ariel to find that image “–is an enhanced display of a handprint left subdurally. Tell me what you think.”

Ariel touched her projector control and the autopsy images shifted. The false color view of the oversized handprint bloomed.

“Too big for a human hand...” Derec mused.

Coren watched Ambassador Burgess. Finally, she nodded. She glanced at him, frowning briefly, and looked away.

“I’d have to agree with Derec,” she said. “A human hand didn’t make that. But that still leaves the field open to a number of explanations. Prosthetics, for one.”

“I ran a catalogue check for any prosthetics commercially available that match that pattern. Nothing turned up. That doesn’t rule out a custom manufacture, of course, but...”

“But you still think it’s a robot.”

“Something managed to slip past all the security in a police cell block to do this. I already told you the robot I saw was blind to my optam. It may be the same technique in this case: a masked robot, invisible to surveillance monitors.”

“So now it’s a conspiracy of robots,” Derec said. “Less and less likely.”

“Can you give me a better explanation to account for the damage?” Coren asked sharply.

“Isn’t that what we need to find out?” Ariel Burgess said. “You asked why we’re helping. What you’ve proposed here is a good enough reason for me. Earthers think the worst of robots on a good day. This–” she waved at the projection “–validates all your fears, if true. A chance to head this off and perhaps prevent a very ugly purge would be a good enough reason, don’t you think?”

“For your part, that seems plausible. But that’s not the only reason.”

Ariel bowed her head in mock acceptance. “Of course not. Illegal emigration is a point in common between us and Terra. There’s a quid pro quo in that, too.”

“You’re working with ITE?”

“No. We’re working with you.”

Coren looked from one face to the other, returning to Ariel. He expected them to keep things from him, most of it details of their involvement that really did not concern him. But he also expected them to be subtle about it. Instead, they were very obviously not telling him something. If he did not need their expertise...

“What specifically are you getting from this arrangement?” he asked.

Ambassador Burgess gave a faint smile and a slight shake of the head. She gestured at the image of the dead woman on her screen. “Who was this? Why was she killed?”

“According to Chief Palen, she was a small-time narcotics dealer,” Coren lied. “Could be any number of people she may have crossed in the course of business.”

“This seems excessive for a bad debt, “Ariel said. She drew a deep breath, slowly released it. “Aurora has been asked by Terran authorities to look into the Nova Levis situation. That involves a lot of baleys. I was asked by my immediate superior to lend you aid. Partly, we may have a problem with Spacer businesses shipping illegally from Earth. It’s being suggested that Spacers are colluding in bypassing immigration and trade laws. I presume they believe we’ll find things that will be mutually helpful. Is that sufficient answer for you, Mr. Lanra?”

Coren folded his arms across his chest. “It will do... for now.”

“In that case,” Ariel said, smiling uneasily, “how do you want to proceed, Mr. Lanra?”

Nine

WE HAVE WORK, Thales. “Derec started feeding disks into the reader on Thales’ console. “Load these.”

“Has Phylaxis been revived, Derec?” the RI asked.

“No. This is an embassy assignment. Sort of.” Derec slid the last disk into the reader, then pulled a chair over. “To be honest, I’m not sure about this. There’s a possibility that our situation could get worse.”

“Then, is it advisable to accept?”

“We don’t have a lot of choices, Thales. Ariel has been handed this by Ambassador Setaris. I get the impression that Setaris is just passing on instructions from Aurora.” He leaned back and laced his fingers under his chin. “We’re to assist the chief of security for DyNan Manual Industries, a man named Coren Lanra, in an investigation concerning the death of Rega Looms’ daughter, baley running, and a possible robot involvement.”

A few moments passed before Thales responded. “Based on the data I have just reviewed, am I correct that Mr. Lanra suspects a robot in the deaths?”

“He does.”

“That is not possible.”

“I explained that to him. But he’s an Earther–he believes positronics are inherently evil. Still, I don’t have a better explanation for the body found in the holding cell.”

“The damage is singular.”

Derec grunted. “That’s one way to look at it. For now, though, I want you to give me a program for a remote presence. I have to go up to Kopernik Station to try to salvage the DW-12 they have. It may be the only witness to what happened in the cargo bin. I’ll need you to help me sift through what’s left of its brain. I don’t think I can take all of you, and even if I could I’m not sure I want to risk you outside Auroran territory.”

“According to my memory, the positronics laboratory on Kopernik is more than ample for our purposes. Do we have a free comm channel to the Auroran branch on Kopernik? I will need to establish that they have the facilities.”

“Ariel’s setting that up now. I’ll be on a shuttle in less than five hours, so we have to set this up quickly.”

“I have analyzed the data provided.”

“Good. I’d like to hear your assessment.”

“There are a number of inconsistencies, primary among them is the connection between the death of the Brethe dealer and the deaths of the baleys. Except for the suggestion that a robot is involved, there is no basis I can see for the link between them. If a robot is not involved in one or the other or, as is more likely, both, then the Brethe dealer is an entirely separate issue and a complication in the investigation of the murdered baleys.”

“And if a robot is involved?”

“The likelihood of finding a robot capable of such crimes being as remote as it is, then there would be grounds to link the two, as it would be logical that only one such robot exists. But that prompts a number of questions, all of which require factors of chance and coincidence that recomplicate the central question. Such a robot would need to be transported to and from Kopernik on a regular basis, in a short period of time.”

“Increasing the chance of discovery, “Derec noted.

“Precisely, even given the capabilities described by Mr. Lanra of a robot able to hide from surveillance tools. It should be pointed out that it is not accurate to suggest that only a robot could use masking capabilities. For a robot, however, the risk of discovery in this instance would be unnecessarily higher. There is nothing in the data provided concerning the baleys that implicate a robot. This crime could just as well have been committed by humans.”

“How would the assassin escape? Everyone in the cargo bin was dead and the seals showed no indication of having been opened between the time the baleys boarded and Chief Palen’s people opened it up on Kopernik.”

“Human history is overfull with examples of suicide assassins. However, barring that, I lack sufficient information to rule out all possible methods of escape.”

“What about the crack in the bin?”

“There is insufficient information for me to speculate productively about that. It could be a structural flaw in the material.”

“All right, set that aside for the moment. Can you still access Terran data sources?”

“Of course.”

Despite the fact that it was incapable of emotion, Derec nevertheless heard a note of smug pride in Thales’ statement.

“Of course,” he echoed. “I want you to run a search for any recent murders or accidental deaths that bear similarities to the Brethe dealer.”

“That will require me to access certain law enforcement datums.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, but it will take more time. I may not have that information for some hours. Unless you do not care about detection.”

“Do it right, Thales. I don’t want the TBI on our backs about this. You said there were a number of inconsistencies. Continue.”

“All the passengers but one succumbed to a neurotoxin. Why not all of them? Nyom Looms carried her own rebreather. The question is why? Did she anticipate trouble? Was she sharing the primary rebreather before donning her own? And if there was time for one to remove the rebreather mask, why not more? The DW-12 unit appears to be trying to shut the rebreather off. This suggests that the bin was pressurized and contained sufficient atmosphere that shutting down the rebreather would not constitute further threat to human life.”

“The crack.”

“Why would they use a damaged bin? It is reasonable to assume that an inspection would have revealed the crack prior to its transfer to an orbital lifter–unless, as I already suggested, it was a structural flaw which manifested only after lift-off. But it also seems reasonable to assume the crack was made specifically to force the passengers to continue using the rebreather, as the air would leak out, thus guaranteeing that they would be poisoned.”

“So the crack was made after the bin had been transferred,” Derec said.

“If it was intentional, that is reasonable. But by whom?”

“Or what. That brings us back to the robot hypothesis.”

“Which remains unlikely. The opening is too small for a robot to pass through, and since the DW-12 is the only one present–and is still present–in the bin, then we can rule it out.”

“The masked robot?”

“Being undetectable by surveillance equipment would not render it invisible to plain sight. It would still have been in the container. There are other possibilities for creating such a crack.”

“Coren Lanra says he saw it board.”

“But it was not there when the bin was opened. Either it left before arrival on Kopernik, even before it left Earth, or Mr. Lanra is mistaken.”

“Agreed,” Derec said, nodding. “But there are no tools in the bin. It appears that whoever made the opening also left.”

“Unlikely.”

“Again, I agree. Continue.”

“There is evidence of an absence. Not all the cradles in the bin are occupied. Two appear to have been empty when the bin was opened. One can be accounted for by the victim found suspended from the ceiling. The other was simply empty. Both were provided with rebreather masks. From the appearance of both empty cradles, one was occupied.”

Have to ask Lanra about that, Derec thought. “So? They miscounted.”

“One assumes these bins are prepared in advance. That they would contain the exact number of cradles necessary for a single shipment seems unlikely. However, if they did outfit this one to specific requirements, why would there be an extra?”

“Possibly someone elected not to go at the last moment?”

“Not an unreasonable hypothesis, Derec.”

Maybe one of the late Nyom Looms’ charges still lived, then. One not involved in the murder, at least, since that empty cradle remained unaccounted for.

“I have a question, Derec,” Thales said.

“Yes?”

“Should I suspend my work on Bogard’s positronic matrix for the duration of this assignment?”

“Why would–? Oh.”

Memory, Derec realized. Normally Thales possessed far more memory than either of these chores required, but already Bogard’s problem took up more than Thales possessed. The hasty move from their former housing at the defunct Phylaxis Group building meant a good portion of Thales’ auxiliary memory buffers waited, unused, in storage. Having access to Kopernik’s buffers, however, represented an opportunity for Thales to once more utilize its full potential.

“We’ll wait,” he decided. “Find out what facilities you can use on Kopernik. Maybe you can divide functions.”

“I would appreciate the opportunity to test several hypotheses concerning Bogard. Kopernik’s facilities would offer that chance.”

“We’ll find out. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. Will identification of the deceased be provided?”

“I don’t know. Is it important?”

“Finding commonalities among them may bear upon discovering who would want them all dead.”

Derec blinked. Sometimes he felt like an idiot. “Of course. I’ll ask.” He scratched his chin idly. “Speaking of Bogard, do you have an update?”

“No change since last report. I do not possess sufficient memory to operate at a more effective level.”

“Okay. I didn’t expect anything, but...”

“There is a possible solution to the total problem.”

Derec hesitated. “You mentioned hypotheses...”

“Part of Bogard’s unusual make-up was based on unorthodox hardware configurations. I have attempted to simulate these, but like the human brain, the physical matrix itself represents a necessary and unpredictable condition of awareness. Given the limitations within which we are forced to work, I have compiled a protocol whereby it may be practical to encode a new positronic brain with a composite persona: Bogard’s, and myself.”

Derec considered for a few seconds. “What good would that do? Bogard’s matrix is completely collapsed. Trying to load it into a new brain would either be rejected by the load protocols or result in a duplicate encoding, collapsed condition and all.”

“Normally, yes. The encoding protocols require a stable framework for reception to work. I am suggesting that I can provide that framework while allowing those elements of Bogard that match a viable positronic template to load within it.”

“A combination?”

“I could not predict to what extent the result would be a combination–how much of each source matrix would encode in the new brain–but in essence, parts of both Bogard and myself would transfer together.”

Derec shifted in his chair, intrigued. “The result could be only a slightly less coherent matrix. Collapse would occur at the first challenge.”

“Possibly. I am running simulations to account for as many variables as possible based on my own composition.”

“What, uh, would be the point?”

“You would have a functioning persona capable of self-analysis. It might be possible to simply ask it why it failed.”

Derec felt eager to try. He wanted to say yes. He distrusted the impulse, but the idea excited him.

“Continue running the simulations until I can find out more about Kopernik’s lab.”

“Yes, Derec.”

The light on the comm winked on. Derec leaned closer: Ariel was calling. “We may have that answer now,” he said, and reached for the ACCEPT button. His hand trembled slightly; he clenched it into a fist for a moment, then pressed the contact.

Hofton brought the link to Derec’s apartment. Derec opened the small metal case and ran a diagnostic on the device.

“Our shuttle lifts in an hour, twenty minutes,” Hofton said. “Are you packed?”

Derec pointed to a single large case by the door. “This’ll take about half an hour, “he said, patting the side of the link. “Thales, we have a Mark-Six Collaborative Transcriptor.”

“You requested a Mark-Four.”

“Is this a problem?”

“No, this is a considerable improvement. Refresh periods can be at greater intervals and more thorough.”

Derec looked at Hofton.

“I took a few liberties,” the aide said. “No one was using this one.”

Derec smiled. “I didn’t realize you were such a good scrounger.”

“The position of ‘aide’ is descriptively vague for a reason,” Hofton said.

The diagnostic winked green. “The unit checks one hundred percent, Thales. Are you ready?”

“I have modified the download pathways to accommodate the superior unit. Start with nodes eight through fourteen.”

Derec opened a panel on Thales’ console and began attaching thick connectors. “Did you happen to find out who’s running the lab on Kopernik?”

“Yes’,” Hofton said. “Rotij Polifos.”

“I don’t know him. Is he good?”

“He’s been director for the past seven years.”

“Hm. Anybody else?”

“There are two specialists and six interns. From what I saw, I think you’ll be pleased. I also did some background on Mr. Lanra and his friend on Kopernik.”

Derec rechecked the connections, then pressed a contact labeled OPEN CHANNEL. He watched the indicators for a few seconds.

“Coren Lanra used to be Special Service,” Derec said.

“Yes, he did. So was Sipha Palen. In fact, they partnered together in Service.”

“Why’d they quit?”

“Ideology, apparently. In Mr. Lanra’s case, he disapproved of the changes in Terran policy toward positronics. He resigned roughly at the time we were beginning work on the Union Station RI. Ms. Palen requested reassignment after being attached to Senator Kolbren’s office.”

“Kolbren... isn’t he the one that sponsored the legislation attempting to bar all Spacers from public areas? For health reasons, if I recall.”

“In essence. It was a quarantine measure. It didn’t even get out of committee, but Kolbren keeps winning reelection. Ms. Palen asked for a new position and was refused. She resigned. Shortly afterward, she accepted her current position as chief of security for Kopernik.”

Derec grunted. “Odd. She resented working for a rabid anti-Spacer, and her former partner resented growing cooperation with Spacers. How did they get along as partners?”

“I’m not psychic. Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose they found other things upon which to base their relationship.”

Derec looked at Hofton. He could never tell when the man was being sincere or sardonic. It annoyed him that Ariel seemed to like Hofton so much–Derec’s own dry wit irritated her.

“Both, however,” Hofton continued, “had exemplary records while in Special Service.”

“And now he works for a man who wants to see us all thrown off Earth.” Derec shrugged. “So we cooperate with him.”

“A quandary. It is odd.”

“Any ideas?”

“None I’d be willing to share at the moment.”

Hofton’s expression remained politely attentive, betraying nothing more. He had worked for Ariel for nearly three years. Before Hofton, she had gone through four other aides in something over two years. Derec had never asked about them or asked why Hofton was different. He wanted to ask now.

Instead, he said, “Hofton, you’re perfect.”

“One tries, sir.”

Derec laughed, and was rewarded by a faint smile from Hofton.

“Anything else I need to know about these people?” Derec asked.

“I’m not sure. One curious fact about Mr. Lanra came up. He’s an orphan.”

“Really.”

“Yes, sir. He matriculated from the Connover-Trinidal Youth Asylum, a life-long resident. I find this remarkable because many people from the same background don’t enjoy much success.”

“He never knew his parents?”

“No. And, of course, the records are sealed. But as far as I could tell, he never tried to look into them.”

“Hm. What about Palen?”

“Very much the opposite. Large, extended family, prosperous, the best schools, etcetera. “Hofton waited a beat. “Should I continue looking?”

“Not on my account. Maybe Ariel would like to know more. Is Lanra accompanying us to Kopernik?”

“No, sir. He has lines of investigation down here... so he says.”

Derec gave Hofton a curious look.

“The shuttle up to Kopernik two days ago,” Hofton said, “was his first trip offworld.”

For a few seconds, Derec did not understand. Then: “Oh. Well, then, I suppose it’s just as well he has things to do down here.”

Hofton nodded. “I think it’s for the best.”

“Probably.”

“We may find Ms. Palen more cooperative anyway, simply because she doesn’t work for Rega Looms.”

“That’s certainly a possibility.”

They fell silent then, and Derec stared at the link until a light winked on requesting the next phase of its setup. Derec worked silently, rearranging the connections, reconfiguring part of the device to match the next part of Thales’ requirements.

Hofton softly cleared his throat. “May I ask a question, sir?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you involving yourself in this?”

Derec straightened, trying to compose an explanation of the link and why Thales required it due to the distances involved and the complexity of the job, but stopped, comprehending the question a moment later.

“You mean with this investigation?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I could ask you the same.” Hofton waited and Derec nodded. “I love this,” he said, waving at Thales. “Working with positronics. Working, period. I hate inactivity.”

“You could do calisthenics in that case.”

Derec laughed briefly. “I’m doing this because I can, because it might give me a chance to do something I want to do. Because the chance to get my hands on the tools to do some serious work is worth the risk.”

“You’d like to rebuild your robot, Bogard.”

“Of course I would, but it’s more than that.”

“There are several good reasons for you to refuse.”

“I know. I’m not going to think about them.” Derec looked at Hofton. “You?”

“You mentioned inactivity. Do you have any idea how dull diplomatic work can be?” He smiled wryly. “Seriously, though, I have been with perhaps a dozen senior diplomats. The work was interesting–more so in the beginning, before the desensitizing produced by overfamiliarity and intimate contempt–but rarely challenging. Even so, had my various superiors been in the least worth the bother, I would never have complained, much less transferred. I never thought I’d find myself working for someone like Ambassador Burgess. It was very difficult when I was forced to leave her service last year. I admit, I’d begun to take her for granted. But I just finished several months with a man named Cotish Valgas, who is a deputy overseer in Furnishing and Accoutrements. Yes, there is such a department–I was shocked myself. Suffice it to say that I’ll never take Ms. Burgess for granted again.”

“She’s special, isn’t she?”

Hofton nodded slowly, his eyes bright and sharp. “She is that, sir.”

“So why is she doing this?”

“Because she’s been ordered to.”

Derec shook his head. “No, no. You’ve known her for all this time. Is that the Ariel you know?”

Hofton frowned. “She’s more disciplined, I think, than you give her credit. “He blinked and folded his arms. “But, no, not really. She could easily refuse. She’s been expecting a recall to Aurora anyway.”

“So?”

“I think she wants a chance to get even.”

“With who?”

“All of them, sir. All of them.” He glanced at his watch. “We have an hour before the shuttle leaves. Will you be done?”

Derec checked the monitors. “Five more minutes.”

Hofton cleared his throat, and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Um... I spoke perhaps too openly, Mr. Avery–”

“She’ll never hear about it from me.” Hofton looked mildly relieved. “Under one condition.”

“Sir?”

“Call me Derec.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

Ten

THREE PEOPLE WERE waiting in his office when Coren returned. Two of them wore the look of professional security–well-dressed but practical, no clothing that would bind and impede a wide range of movement–while the third looked very administrative. Coren recognized none of them other than by type. He resisted the immediate urge to run; right now he did not have time for further complications.

“Mr. Lanra,” the administrative type said. “I’m Del Socras. I work for Mr. Myler Towne of Imbitek. Forgive the intrusion, but I was instructed to convey Mr. Towne’s regards and extend his invitation to lunch.”

Coren glanced at the security, both of whom had risen to their feet upon his entrance. “I really am rather busy, Mr. Socras.”

“Mr. Towne realizes this. It will be a brief lunch.”

Coren considered his options: run, call the police, or comply. From the look of the pair of security types, it was even odds that he could get away. Dragging in the police might complicate things to the point that his investigation of Nyom’s death would have to be postponed or abandoned. It always seemed to be the petty things that interrupted one’s plans.

That was the problem, though. If it were petty; why would Towne be so insistent? Reluctantly, he concluded that his only viable option was to go along and find out.

“Very well. Shall I meet him somewhere?”

“We have a car, Mr. Lanra.”

“Of course you do.” Coren made himself smile. “Shall we, then?”

“One moment, sir,” one of the security said and pulled out a palm monitor that looked remarkably like Coren’s own. He walked around Coren twice, then reached into Coren’s pocket and removed his hemisphere. He handed it to Towne.

“I don’t think you’ll need this, Mr. Lanra,” Towne said, setting it on the Desk. “Our security is very good.”

“I’m sure it is,” Coren said tightly.

Socras led the way out of the building and across the avenue to the garage.

The drive lasted fifteen minutes, during which time Socras made a few attempts at polite conversation which Coren ignored. To his credit, Coren thought, he took the hint and lapsed into a polite silence.

The windows were all darkened. When they stopped, he had no idea where exactly he was.

He was shocked to see a garden.

Outside? No–he saw delicate ribbing overhead, supporting a high vaulting ceiling. Relieved, he surveyed the rest of the chamber. A garden, yes, and an expensive one.

A large dead patch off to the left, an area that looked as if some withering blight had eaten the life out of the very air around it, spoiled the placid beauty around him. Even the pavement and wall nearby were blackened.

A touch on his elbow prompted him to move forward.

Myler Towne sat behind a small table covered with dishes. He dwarfed his chair and made the people around him appear small. He looked up as Coren stopped.

“Mr. Lanra, “he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I’m pleased you accepted my invitation.”

“Is that what it was?”

“Of course. It’s illegal to coerce people.”

“Of course it is. What can I do for you, Mr. Towne?”

“Come to work for me.”

Coren held back a laugh.

Towne looked at him, scooped a mound of mashed potato onto his fork, and smiled.

“Neither of us,” he said, “has time for banter. I have some questions before you answer me. You saw the damage when you came in?”

“Yes...”

“I used to take my lunch there.”

Coren glanced back at the dead patch. “You mean that was an attack?”

“Did you engineer it?”

Coren started. “Excuse me?”

Towne smiled briefly. “I didn’t think so. Have you ever worked for Imbitek?”

“I think you’d know.”

“Possibly. I don’t have all my predecessor’s records.” Towne waited, ate another bite of potato, then pushed the plate away a thumb’s width. “Did you?”

“No.”

“You were involved in that imbroglio last year that put Mr. Mikels in prison, weren’t you?”

“No.”

Myler Towne glanced around at his people. “I was misinformed? I was under the impression that you met with the Auroran liaison from the Calvin Institute. Was that on some other matter? I ask, you see, for a number of reasons, not all of which may be immediately connected–”

“My employer was under suspicion for the events that put your employer in prison, Mr. Towne. I was doing my job, seeing to his security. I was not, however, involved in any of it.”

“Hmm. Indeed. Then why have you been twice to the Auroran embassy in the last two days?”

“Your first message to call came before either of those meetings, so I assume your reasons had nothing to do with that. Have they changed?”

“When I hire someone I want to know about them.”

“You aren’t hiring me.”

Towne gave a mock frown of disbelief. “You ‘re turning my offer down?”

“I am.”

“But you haven’t even heard it.”

Coren sighed. “Must I?”

Myler Towne stood. He was an enormous man, easily head and shoulders taller than Coren, and not, as Coren first suspected, run to fat. For his size, he had a trim waistline, which implied that the shoulders filling his smock were solid and powerful.

“It’s such a good offer,” Towne said.

He came around the small table and an attendant immediately began clearing off the dishes. Another removed the table, and a third took away the chair.

Towne took Coren’s upper right arm in a massive hand that nearly encircled his bicep. “Walk with me, Mr. Lanra.”

Coren moved without thinking. There was no question of refusing.

Towne guided him deeper into the arboreta. The scents of various flowers mingled, almost too sweet. The colors competed for his eye.

“Do you like it?” Towne asked.

“It’s... astonishing.”

“Not entirely decorative. Beautiful, yes, but this is a working facility. There are several plots of non-Terran plantlife.”

“Isn’t that...?”

“Illegal? No, we have permission. Well, for most of them. A few unexpected forms got in with the authorized seeds and have proven useful. We do a substantial business in pharmaceuticals, as well as our industrial divisions.”

Coren glanced back in the direction of the “accident” and shuddered.

“No, that wasn’t caused by an alien plant,” Towne said. “Not directly, at least. We manage the biospheres here better than that. What you saw was a deliberate attempt to kill me. A very fast-acting substance–something we call a decompiler–was introduced in a standard defoliant. The plants we grew there possessed a method of self-defense that produced a cloud of protein molecules as they tried to rid themselves of the infection–in this instance a hopeless task, but it kept the poor things spewing vapor. I liked to eat there because the molecules so produced have a very pleasant aroma and a side benefit for the palate. Anyway, the moment this compound, which the plants continuously kept in the air, came into contact with flesh, it reacted with the adiposa and began to work faster. Much faster. One of my gardeners wandered in there just before lunch a few day sago. The entire plot was reduced to the state you saw in about ten minutes.”

“Um …” Coren worked to keep the image out of his head and failed. “So someone is trying to assassinate you?”

“Absolutely.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Nothing. That’s why I called you. I live within thick layers of security, Mr. Lanra. For someone to get that close …”

Coren nodded, understanding perfectly. “You don’t trust your own staff.”

“There are a few, of course, but I’m not sure I would secure the results I need if I were to put them to finding the traitor. I think it would be better done by an outsider, someone not overly familiar with the situation or the personnel involved.”

“I suppose its pointless to ask if there was surveillance.”

“Constant. We have nothing. We’ve reviewed the record and nothing unusual happened. I have one gardener for that plot–had, I should say–and he was the only one recorded tending the area. I doubt he would have been stupid enough to step into his own trap had he laid it.”

“It would be extreme. Any idea who ordered it?”

“Oh, yes, I have a very good idea. I can’t prove it. And I’d rather not say just now.”

At that point, Towne released Coren’s arm and stopped. Coren turned to face him.

“I would rather wait till I hear your answer,” Towne said.

Coren shook his head. “Any other time, Mr. Towne, I might consider it. But just now …”

“I’ll pay you half a million credits. Half now, half when your investigation is successful.”

Coren’s breath exploded as if he had been punched.

“Don’t be shocked, Mr. Lanra, I’m very serious. This is worth considerably more to me than a half million.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Towne...” Coren swallowed. “You must know that I can’t accept. I have other responsibilities right now–”

“Looms’ election? You can’t think he’ll win. Besides, I know that you’ve essentially delegated his security to your subordinate.”

“That’s not the only thing, but I do owe some loyalty to Mr. Looms. How would it look if I left his employ now?”

Towne nodded. “It would look bad. I won’t try to tell you that his election would be an inconvenience to Imbitek. Seeing him fail would hardly be unwelcome. But I think he will, anyway. So do you. Or you ‘re not as smart as I thought.”

“Still, I’m engaged in a project that I can’t let drop. In a few days I might be able to reconsider–”

“In a few days I could be dead.”

“Then let me recommend another–”

“I want you, Mr. Lanra. I’m not interested in second best.” Towne cocked his head to one side. “More money? Name your price, we can negotiate.”

“This is a personal matter.”

“Very much so.”

“For me. I’m afraid I can’t. Not right now.”

Towne looked about to say more, then closed his mouth. He shrugged. “I’m sorry, then. I’ll have my people take you back to your office. Don’t fret, Mr. Lanra, I’m not the vindictive sort.” He pursed his lips. “This personal issue. Perhaps I could help. I’m not without resources.”

Coren hesitated. Towne’s offer took on new possibilities. He could not use his own security people to find Nyom’s killer, but it would have been good to have the help. He ran through a number of ways he might take advantage of Imbitek’s security.

No, it was too complex. He did not have the time to work it out, build the appropriate firewalls, exercise the desired level of control.

“That’s very generous,” Coren said carefully. Damn, it’s tempting...

“I think I can wait one more day,” Towne said. “Let me know.” He looked to his left then, and gestured. “Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Mr. Lanra.”

The pair of security that had accompanied Socras appeared then. They escorted Coren back through the lush garden. He paused before the dead foliage on the way out, fascinated in spite of his decision.

Decompilers? he wondered.

He instructed his Desk to run a thorough sweep on the office for eyes and ears. When the Desk reported none, Coren was surprised. He hefted his hemisphere, wondering how else they might set up surveillance.

I don’t have time for this...

“What about the searches? Report.”

“Of the twenty-three names you designated for records searches, partial correlations have been found as far back as twenty-eight years. Eight of them attended the same university together. Sixteen have military service records. Twelve share relatives through marriage.”

“Give me the highest factor of commonality.”

“Investment.”

No surprise there, he thought. Every one of those twenty-three names was moneyed. “Any particular stock?”

“Nova Levis Corporation. All of them were primary shareholders.”

“Nova Levis? The colony or the lab?

“The lab.”

“You said ‘were: They are no longer investors?”

“The corporation ran for eight years without showing a profit and was consequently closed.”

“Sold? To who?”

“Purchased outright by the Kysler Diversified Group. Debt paid out of available funds plus sale of equipment and patents.”

Kysler... the same company that owned those shipments diverted to make room for Nyom’s baleys...?

“What patents?” he asked.

“Unknown at this time. Do you wish another search?”

“Yes. Who was on the board of directors?”

“Unknown.”

“Did any of those twenty-three sell early?”

“Three: Kyas Vol, Tenebra Patis, and Rega Looms.”

“How early?”

“Joint sale, three years after purchase of shares.”

“Did any other shareholders who are not on this list of twenty-three sell at that time?”

“One. Gale Chassik.”

“The Solarian Ambassador?”

“Presently. He was not ambassador at the time.”

Coren considered. “I want a complete dossier on Nova Levis Corporation. For the time being, though, how does this figure into Ree Wenithal’s career?”

“Ree Wenithal was an operative of EuroSector Bureau of Criminal Investigation. His last case involved research into Nova Levis Corporation as one of several laboratories suspected as collusive entities in a kidnapping ring. Results proved inconclusive, no action taken.”

So that’s where his reaction came from...

“Synopsis of his last investigation.”

“Three-year investigation of kidnapping and infant brokerage, leading to the discovery of a child-selling trade operating between Earth and a Settler colony named Tau Regis. Agent Wenithal received a commendation for excellence in police investigation, three citations for exceptional public service, and a merit commendation for valor after exposing the ring and overseeing its destruction. He retired one year afterward with full pension and lifetime honors awards. He opened his own business two years later, a small private security firm which failed after four years. He remained retired then until starting the present firm of RW Enterprises.”

“Hard copy the dossier on the investigation.”

“Only the public record is available. Details are under security seal pending review.”

“Very well, the public record, then.” Coren tapped a fingertip against his chin, thinking. “Question: If Wenithal’s case only lasted three years, why is there an eleven-year spread concerning the names in his files?”

“Subjects related in prior investigations from various districts. Collated by Wenithal under his own investigation for related details.”

“So this was not the first time these matters had been investigated?”

“No. Ongoing investigations in five separate jurisdictions extending back seven years prior to Wenithal’s case.”

“Are any of the investigating officers available?”

“No. Eighteen officers, all deceased.”

“What about staff? Are any of the people who worked for Nova Levis still alive and available? The principle researchers, what happened to them?”

“Five researchers. Three are listed as deceased, one emigrated shortly after the lab closed, and the fifth is listed only as Missing.”

“Missing. Name?”

“Kyas Vol.”

“One of the primary shareholders who baled out early.”

“Correct.”

“Just missing, no last known address? What about his file? Who was he?”

“An immigrant, native of Spacer world Theia, resident director of research at two medical centers prior to accepting directorship of neurobiology department of Nova Levis.”

Spacer...?

“Did he return to Theia?”

“The record does not so indicate.”

“Missing.” That could mean anything.

“The one who emigrated–destination?”

“Nova Levis.”

Coren grunted. “Why am I not surprised.”

“Unknown.”

Coren felt himself smile at the Desk’s literalness. “Very well. Continue search. In the meantime, link me to Sipha Palen, encrypt protocols.”

The screen emerged from the desktop and winked on. Coren waited patiently while the machines exchanged the proper codes to set up the link. A few minutes later Sipha’s face filled the screen.

“About time,” she said. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me.”

“No chance. I’ve had an interesting time since last we spoke. Listen, I’m sending you a positronic specialist.”

“You’re kidding. You really know one?”

“Two, actually, but you’re only getting Derec Avery.”

Sipha frowned for a moment, then whistled. “I am impressed, partner mine.”

“You know about him?”

“I know someone who knows him. You would think he was the reincarnation of Susan Calvin to listen to this person.”

“Who? Oh, yes. Never mind. Anyway, he should be on his way up within the next hour or two. He’s coming in company with an officer of the Auroran embassy, a fellow named Hofton. Meet them, keep the heat off them, and get them to their embassy branch as quietly and quickly as possible. Avery’s position with Terran authorities is... what would be a good word?... fluid. I don’t want him busted and deported before he can do us any good.”

“Consider it done. Nobody arrests anyone on my station unless I say so.”

“Good, good. I’m also sending you a list of names. This is a fishing expedition, frankly, but it might turn up something. See if any of the deceased match in any way.”

“I’ll do what I can. Have you found your informant?”

“No. Someone else is looking for her, too. It might be a race.” He thought about that. “Keep your people alert to her coming through Kopernik. If she’s on the run she might try leaving Earth.”

“Got a description?”

“I’ll forward you an image. What about on your end? Anything new?”

“We found some fibers on the bin that match fibers taken from Nyom Looms’ fingernails. She fought. Our target may be banged up a bit.”

Somehow I doubt that, Coren thought. “What kind of fibers?”

“Synthetic of some kind. We’re still analyzing it. I’ll let you know when we identify it.” She paused. “You’re sending Derec Avery up. Does that mean you’re staying down?”

“Afraid so. I’ve got some things to follow up.”

“And you really don’t want to get back on a shuttle, do you?”

Coren smiled wryly. “No, not really. Sorry.”

“You’re going to have to get over that some day. Especially if you ever expect me to continue our friendship.”

“We’ll see.”

“Uh-huh.”

Coren shrugged. “Hey, can I help it if I’m just an ordinary Terran?”

“You aren’t, though. That’s why your aversion annoys me.”

“Yes, well...” He felt awkward, caught wordless. “Did you tell Looms?” she asked.

“Um... yes. He took it better than I expected. Or maybe not. It’s hard to read him, sometimes.”

“Does he want you to keep looking?”

“Yes.”

“You would, anyway.”

“Yes.”

Sipha nodded as if understanding something else about him. “Let me get back to work. I’ll see to it Mr. Avery gets to the Auroran embassy.”

“Right.” Coren started to reach for the disconnect, then hesitated. “Sipha, have you ever caught anyone smuggling stolen children through Kopernik?”

She stared at him, momentarily stunned. “No. Why?”

“Something... just a peripheral bit of information I stumbled on. An old case, nothing current. Just thought I’d ask. Thanks.”

“Talk to you later.”

The screen went blank.

Coren cleared his throat and shrugged, as if trying to physically reset his thinking. “Desk, do you have that public file on Wenithal’s last case?”

“Yes.”

“Display it, please.”

The screen filled with text. Coren leaned forward and began to read.

Eleven

UNION STATION D. C. looked much the same as always, but Derec never felt at ease with it–not after the assassinations and the subsequent ruin of his company and his hopes. The floor had long since been cleansed of blood and now shone with the high polish of smokey mirrors. People hurried about their business beneath its cavernous arch, announcements echoed over the P. A., and no one seemed to notice how much it had changed.

As Derec walked toward the customs desk, Hofton behind him carrying a large bag and a columnar container, he kept looking around, searching, until he realized what it was he sought.

Robots. There were no robots.

Union Station had once, for a short time, been a kind of free zone where robots worked openly. The Terran Senate had passed special legislation to allow positronics here, as a testing ground to see how Earthers would react, and to show Earthers the nature of robots. Spacers came through Union Station D. C. and no other port on Earth, so it was convenient to provide them with a reception area that offered familiar accommodations. A Resident Intelligence had been installed to supervise the complex operations of the facility and manage all the robots. Derec’s company, the Phylaxis Group, had overseen its installation and had been contracted to do the maintenance and troubleshooting for it, but subsequent events took all that away. And more.

He was nervous here: partly because it had been months since he had visited Union Station and his last memory of it held death, and partly because this was the first time since the trials at which the conspirators in the assassinations were found guilty and sentenced he had left the embassy. Though treated primarily as witnesses, Derec’s staff had been detained and questioned for several weeks, and at least one person had been arrested on a minor charge tangentially related to Phylaxis and its activities. In the aftermath, it had been made clear to Derec that his presence on Earth may be required indefinitely. He was to make himself available to the court.

His passport had been confiscated.

Later, Ariel had let him know that she had interceded in his arrest. His Auroran citizenship was reinstated and he received a new passport, but his position became tenuous in the course of action taken by ITE to challenge the new document, and an injunction resulted barring him from leaving Earth.

“Legally,” Ariel had explained, “this is absurd. It’s a gesture. They can’t keep you from leaving unless they arrest you. They can’t arrest you on Auroran soil. If you do leave, your Auroran passport won’t be questioned anywhere else and without criminal charges being filed, there are no grounds for extradition. They’re trying to keep you here because they don’t know what they want to do with you. You frighten them. We all do.”

I have news for you, Ariel, he now thought as he placed his one small bag on the customs desk, they frighten me...

Hofton set his burdens on the desk beside Derec’s and extracted a disk from his jacket. He handed it to the attendant.

“I didn’t even have a chance to find out anything about the director of the lab,” Derec said. “Rotij Polifos. Never heard of him.”

“I had a chance,” Hofton said. “And?”

“I think later...?”

Derec looked at the customs attendant, who seemed totally absorbed by their documents. “Sure,” he said.

In retrospect, Derec realized that he saw the attendant push the button. She closed out one screen, turned smoothly, and her hand brushed across a depression on the desk to the right of her keypad. A second later, she handed Hofton a disk.

“Derec Avery?”

Derec turned to the voice and found himself confronted by three men in uniform and a fourth in a dark suit. One of the uniforms stood closest.

“Yes?” Derec replied, his pulse picking up.

“Port Authority,” the uniform said. “Would you come with us, please?”

“Um … I …”

“Excuse me, officer,” Hofton said, stepping forward. “Is there a problem?”

“We have some questions for Mr. Avery.”

“You may ask them here. We have a shuttle to catch.”

The uniform frowned. “Who are you?”

Hofton extended his ill. The officer slipped the disk into a palm reader, then showed it to the man in the suit.

“We are on Auroran embassy business, “Hofton said. “Unless you have specific issues that you are willing to state publicly, you have no legal grounds to detain us. Our passage is to Kopernik Station and we will be staying at the embassy annex there. I can cite you the relevant part of the diplomatic accommodations code if you like, but I believe you already know it.”

“There’s no need to–” the man in the suit said.

“Identify yourself, sir,” Hofton said. “Are you also Port Authority? If not, please produce a valid warrant.”

“Warrant...?”

“If you wish to detain Mr. Avery, I believe a warrant is required–you may not do so on spec. If there is such a warrant, we are permitted to return to the Auroran embassy here for consultation with our law department. Mr. Avery is currently working under a brief from Ambassador Burgess. You may check that. The brief extends her diplomatic immunity to her agents. You may check that in the code as well. But you may not detain us while you do so unless you have a valid warrant.”

“What is the nature of your visit to Kopernik?” the man in the suit asked.

“You have not yet identified yourself,” Hofton said. “Mr. Avery is not obligated to answer that.”

“Are you a lawyer?”

“No, sir. If I were I would have settled this matter by now. I’m giving you the benefit of a less predatory disposition.”

The man in the suit stepped forward, his face reddening. “That man,” he said, jabbing a finger at Derec, “does not leave this planet.”

“I repeat,” Hofton said calmly, “do you have a valid warrant?”

Derec watched, stunned, as if time had stopped. Hofton did not flinch, did not smile, did not do anything that might have looked like an actionable gesture. The man in the suit reddened further.

“You have no authority to prevent him, “Hofton said finally. “If you attempt to do so, the Auroran embassy will file a formal complaint. If you do not have that warrant, I can also promise that you will no longer hold the position you currently do. Now, there’s an easy solution. Kopernik is technically Earth. A satellite, true, and not on the ground, but if you check you will see that it qualifies as Earth. Mr. Avery is not leaving Earth.”

“That’s facile,” the man in the suit said.

“Yes. But legal.”

One of the uniforms was smiling. The man in the suit stepped back.

“I’ll be contacting my people on Kopernik,” he said. “We’ll have this conversation sooner or later.”

“You’ll have plenty of time then to enjoin Mr. Avery from further travel outsystem,” Hofton said. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have a shuttle to catch. “Hofton turned to the custom attendant. “Please return my original disk now.”

The attendant paled visibly and handed over another disk.

“Thank you,” Hofton said and grabbed the container and the bag. “Mr. Avery?”

Shaken, Derec managed to walk toward the debarkation concourse.

Halfway to the shuttle, he glanced at Hofton. “How true was all that?”

“Mostly,” Hofton said. “I was guessing that they had no warrant, which is the only reason I could think that might prevent them from detaining us. As for what the Auroran embassy would do if he had insisted–which he could have... well, I rather doubt they’d risk an incident over you.”

“You bluffed,” Derec said in amazement.

Hofton nodded. “Successfully, I think.”

Derec took his briefcase from the Kopernik customs inspector, nodded curtly, and walked forward, into the debarkation lounge. From space, Kopernik Station resembled a child’s construction from struts and blocks and spheres, additions over time added to the original dumbbell configuration giving the impression of an abstract model builder’s idea of a tree. Symmetry could be sensed but not directly observed.

The interior looked no different from any brightly-lit warren on Earth. The debarkation lounge resembled the foyer of a hostel. Derec had dozed during the last half-hour of the flight and felt slightly muddled. He searched for signs directing him to the Spacer section, which should be nearby. He noticed a pair of women off to his right who seemed to be waiting for someone.

Then he saw a station security officer to the left, also watching for someone. Anxious, he increased his pace.

“Mr. Avery?” a man called from behind him.

A sickly warm sensation erupted within him, spreading out from his stomach.

“Sir,” Hofton called.

“Mr. Avery–” the man repeated.

“Derec, wait,” a woman said.

Derec hesitated at the familiar voice, almost turned to look, and stumbled a few steps. A passerby caught his arm, steadying him. Derec jerked away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Thank you.”

“Derec, “Hofton said, coming around to block his path.

“Derec,” came the familiar-sounding voice again. Female. Where?

One of the two women he had noticed grinned at him. Thick mahogany hair haloed her rounded face. She wore a loose-fitting shift and pants, Auroran-style. Derec stared at her, sure he should know her and unable to name her.

Standing beside her was the second woman–taller, dark-skinned, athletic, dressed in a suit that suggested a uniform. She radiated authority and he wondered what trick or bluff Hofton could do now to get them to the Spacer embassy. He swallowed hard and made himself stay put.

“Sir,” Hofton said. “I believe our contact is here.”

“Hi, boss, “the familiar woman said.

Derec stared, recognizing her now. “Rana...? Rana Duvan....?”

Her grin widened.

“Mr. Avery?” the dark woman asked quietly, stopping within arm’s length.

“Y-yes?”

“I’m Sipha Palen,” she said, extending a hand. “Coren told me to expect you. I apologize for being late.”

Tentatively, Derec clasped her hand. The grip was dry and strong. Abruptly, he felt very foolish.

“Ms. Palen, yes. I–” He looked past her at Rana. “Would you excuse me?”

He set his briefcase down at Hofton’s feet and embraced Rana. Her arms came around his back and squeezed him.

“I don’t–” he began.

“It’s good to see–”

“–what are you–?”

“–too long–” she commented.

“–can’t believe it, you look–”

Derec’s breath escaped in a heavy sigh, simultaneously with Rana ‘s sharp laugh. He stepped back. Her eyes glistened and she wiped at them impatiently.

“What are you doing here?” Derec asked.

Rana smiled. “I’m your embassy contact.”

“Embassy...?”

“Long story,” she said. “Later.” She nodded in Sipha Palen’s direction. “Business.”

Palen watched with a bemused gleam in her eyes, hands clasped behind her back.

“Sorry,” Derec said. “Rana and I used to work together. It’s been a while since we saw each other.”

“Of course,” Palen said.

“Um... yes, Mr. Lanra said you’d meet us. You’re chief of security?”

“Every bit of it, “she said, smiling. “Welcome to Kopernik.”

“Thank you. I believe I’m supposed to oversee an excavation on a positronic brain?” He looked at Rana, who shrugged.

“We haven’t let it out of our lockup yet, “Palen said. “Now that you’re here, we can get started.”

“Rana is more than qualified–”

“Coren and I have agreed to a certain protocol in this case. You are part of it.”

“I see. Well, then, let’s get started. I understand there’s a time limit?”

“There is. I’ll take you to the robot directly and we’ll all escort it to the Auroran embassy, if that’s acceptable to you, Ms. Duvan.”

“I’m not in charge of the embassy,” Rana said. She glanced at Hofton. “If it’s been cleared with Yart, then...”

“I’ve already secured the appropriate clearances,” Hofton said. “Ambassador Leri is aware that certain unusual circumstances prevail. We have his cooperation.”

“Good,” Sipha Palen said. “Then...?” She made a gesture for them all to proceed.

Derec retrieved his briefcase and they fell into a group, he and Palen in the lead, Hofton and Rana following. As they passed beneath the arch leading to the main concourse, Derec glanced to the left and saw a tall man in a knee-length ivory coat. His face was almost as pale as his coat, but mottled, as if from scarring. The faintest trails of hair traced across his scalp above a high forehead, and sharp, golden-green eyes shifted slowly, intently. He stood facing the customs aisles, as if waiting for someone, but as they walked by, he turned to watch Derec and his companions. It seemed to Derec, just for a moment, that the man smiled. Too brief to get a firm sense about it, but Derec thought he recognized a sign of familiarity and satisfaction in that expression.

Then Derec was through the archway and out of sight. He had never seen the man before. He knew he did not want to meet him. The reaction was irrational and after several steps he dismissed the entire episode as a leftover of his anxiety.

Must be Palen’s man, he thought. It made sense. By the time they reached the embassy branch, Derec had forgotten all about him.

Palen’s section looked cramped. The doors were narrow and the passageways claustrophobic. The main desk nearly filled the front office, the bulkheads behind it filled with communications equipment that appeared constantly active. As they’ entered, two uniformed officers looked up from where they sat behind the long, heavy counter.

“Chief–” one started.

“Not now,” Palen said. “Where’s Oler?”

“Back in the lockup,” the other officer said.

“Chief,” the first one said again, “you’ve got a message here from an Agent Harwol, TBI. He says it’s urgent, would you–”

“Later, “Palen cut him off.

Without another word, Palen led the way around the end of the desk and into a corridor. At the other end, they emerged into a wide, low-ceilinged chamber lined with cells. Derec counted three people behind the transparent doors, none of whom bothered to look up as Palen’s group filed through. One, though, caught Derec’s eye–a Spacer, judging by the clothes.

Adjacent to the cell block was another chamber about the same size, but without the cells; instead, tables, chairs, and a few couches littered the floor. Against one wall stood an autochef and a samovar.

A short woman with no hair sat at one table, bent over a reader, one hand wrapped around a tall cup. She looked up.

“We’re here to get the tinhead, Oler,” Palen said. “Get us a gurney, will you?”

The woman nodded, paused to finish reading something, then walked out. Palen went to a plain door opposite the auto chef. With a passkey, she opened it and stepped inside.

Derec followed Palen into the storage locker. Shelves stacked against the left wall to the ceiling, boxes and canisters piled on the floor to the right. At the far end lay a robot, legs bent up in the small space.

“You stored it here?” Derec asked.

“It hasn’t moved since we found it,” Palen said. “What would you have me do, put it in a cell where it could be seen? Most of our guests don’t stay very long. I thought it best to keep rumor to a minimum.”

“I understand, but I thought you’d have it in your forensic pathology lab or something.”

“I repeat: I wanted to keep rumor down. I already have the people who were there when we found it assigned exclusively to the crime scene and a communications block around that bay.” Palen frowned. “Besides, my people were a little nervous about it.”

“I thought you were used to dealing with robots,” Derec said. “That’s what Lanra implied anyway.”

“More used to it than the average Terran, but considering the possibility that this one committed murder, that was more faith than I was willing to ask of my people.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“No. But it wasn’t me I was concerned with. Now, do you want to look at this thing or criticize my methods some more?”

Chastised, Derec stepped past her and knelt down. As he expected, it was a DW-12–a very versatile laborer, basically. In the inadequate light of the closet, it seemed physically in reasonably good condition, but it was hard to tell. He lifted one heavy arm and pulled it straight. Relieved, he set it down–at least it had not locked up.

“It should be easy to move.” He stood. “What have you done to it?”

“I had my chief pathologist go over it for physical evidence, but honestly not much beyond that. It was in his lab for about an hour, then we put it in here. I thought it best to just wait for you.”

“Fine. Let’s get it to the Spacer embassy, then.”

“Mr. Avery.” Palen stepped closer to him. In the tight space she seemed to tower over him. It was an effort not to back away. “What are the chances of recovering anything from it?”

“There’s no way I can give you an estimate yet. I have to see how badly collapsed it is first.”

“But statistically–”

“Any numbers I give you would be meaningless. You’ll just have to wait till we can start the excavation.” He waited, but she continued to stare at him. He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“Fine. Then let’s get you situated.”

Yart Leri looked very much an Auroran: slim, face smoothly ageless, large, clear eyes, and a politely attentive demeanor that nonetheless discouraged intimacy.

“Welcome, Mr. Avery,” he said, meeting them in the embassy reception area. A robot occupied the desk. “We’ve arranged quarters for you and Mr. Hofton. I’ve been instructed to lend every assistance. The resources of the embassy are, within certain limits, at your disposal.”

“Thank you. I’d like first off to see your positronics lab.”

“Certainly. I’ll have Rotij show you around. That’s Rotij Polifos. He’s our chief roboticist. He’ll be assisting you, should you require it.”

“With all due respect, “Derec said, “might I be allowed to choose my own lab assistant?”

Leri blinked. “Of course.”

“I’d like Rana.”

The ambassador almost frowned. “She is not, I believe, fully credited–”

“Nor is she Auroran. I understand that. But we worked together before. I found her most adequate.”

“I see no objection,” Leri said.

“In that case, I’d like to see the lab as soon as possible.”

“I understood this would be a priority situation. I’ve had Rotij prep an area just for your use.”

“Shall I wait for you?” Palen asked.

“Yes, if you could,” Derec said. “This won’t take that long. Then I’d like to get the robot here as quickly as possible.”

“May I ask,” Leri said, “what robot?”

“You haven’t been briefed?”

“Not in all the particulars...”

Derec did not know what orders Leri might have had from Sen Setaris. Best to say nothing, he decided, and sort out the protocols later.

“I’ll leave it to higher authority, then,” he said. “I’m sure Ambassador Setaris will update you as needed.”

“But–”

The lab, sir?” Derec prompted.

Leri frowned. “This way.”

Derec caught a look from Rana. She rolled her eyes as if to say now there’s going to be trouble, then nodded for Derec to follow Leri.

The small reception area gave no indication of the volume the embassy occupied. Leri led Derec, Hofton, and Rana down a hallway to an elevator. Four levels down, it opened onto a lab area Derec guessed at about five hundred square meters.

Derec took a few tentative steps forward, surveying the equipment neatly arrayed across the room. He recognized most of it, but a few pieces looked unfamiliar.

“We finished a complete overhaul six months ago,” Rana offered.

Derec whistled appreciatively, Terran fashion, then saw Leri’s puzzled look. “I’m very impressed, sir. It doesn’t look like you want for anything.”

“This is a working lab, Mr. Avery,” Leri said with a mixture of pride and contempt. “Kopernik hosts a large population of robots in the Spacer sections. We service the positronics of all the incoming and outgoing Spacer ships.”

“Including the Solarian?”

“The Solarians do not possess such a lab. They contract us to do their service and repair work.”

A small cluster of people huddled together in a far corner, talking among themselves. Derec counted five and wondered which among them was head of the lab.

“Rotij,” Leri called.

One of the group looked toward them, raised a hand, then excused himself from the discussion. He approached with long strides; he was typically tall, with a Spacer’s indeterminate age.

“Yes?” he said, stopping before them.

“Rotij Polifos,” Leri intoned, “this is Derec Avery and his aide, Hofton...” Leri blinked at Hofton uncertainly.

“That’s correct,” Hofton said. “Hofton, from the groundside mission. The people I spoke to you about, from Ambassador Burgess’s office...?”

“Yes, of course,” Rotij said. He seemed distracted and mildly put out. “Honored, Mr. Avery. I know your work.”

“Thank you.”

“Rotij,” Leri continued, “is chief roboticist and director of this positronics lab.” He looked between them for a few moments, then nodded, satisfied. “According to my instructions, you ‘re to be accorded every service of the facility. Should you require anything else, please feel free to see me.”

“Thank you, Ambassador,” Derec said. “You’re very kind.”

“If I may, I’ll leave you to Director Polifos–”

“I need a minute, Yart,” Polifos said.

Leri blinked. “I’m sure we can get together later and–”

“Now. If you please.”

“Mr. Avery requires immediate attention. Afterward, of course.” With that, Leri spun around and returned to the elevator.

Polifos glared after Leri for several seconds, then laughed caustically. “Busy man.” He turned toward Derec with a sigh. “Well. How can I help you? Ambassador Burgess’s instructions were vague except on the point that you’re to have the run of the place. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask that you leave us some area to do our regular work–”

“I need a single station,” Derec said. “For one robot, full range diagnostic ensemble, and a large memory cache for an RI direct link.”

The Director’s face lost expression. “Well... I don’t see a problem... did you say an RI direct link?”

“Yes,” Hofton said. “And it’s quite heavy.”

Polifos wanted very much to watch while Derec set up the link to Thales, but his attention was divided by the work he had been supervising when Derec and Hofton first arrived. He was both relieved and disappointed when Derec made it clear that he wanted to work with Rana.

The instant Polifos returned to the huddle on the other side of the lab, Rana began reconfiguring a commlink station for Thales’ requirements.

“I assume nothing’s changed,” she said, fingers moving deftly over the board.

“Thales’ configurations? No, only location and peripheral memory cache. Here are the numbers.” He scribbled out the address and the current parameters.

Rana frowned. “How did you get all of it into that small of a buffer? Thales must feel absolutely claustrophobic.”

“Daily complaints. I didn’t have much choice. The move into the embassy was rather hasty. I’m lucky it wasn’t confiscated.”

“I was going to say, I’m surprised you still have him.”

“‘Him’? That’s very Spacer of you.”

“I’m working on it. “She flashed him a smile. “I never expected to see you again.”

“Ever?”

“Well, not this soon, anyway. “She glanced over her shoulder, across the lab. “I’ll see about having this area shielded. Then you can tell me what the hell is going on.”

Derec followed her gaze. Hofton had left with Palen to fetch the robot. For the moment it was only Rana and himself and a couple of technicians on the far side of the room, intent on their own work.

“Is there a problem?” Derec asked quietly.

“Nothing overt. Rotij can be a pain sometimes.” She shook her head.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Qualifying for Auroran citizenship.”

“Seriously?”

“Perfectly. This is what I salvaged. Frankly, it’s more than I ever expected. The TBI was really upset with us, you know. I have a chance to go to Aurora and maybe study at the Calvin Institute. It would have helped if...” Rana shrugged.

“If Ariel had retained some cachet?”

“To put it mildly.”

“We’re working on recovering some. That’s part of what this is all about.”

Rana finished configuring the board. She pulled a cable from the case containing Derec’s link and connected it to the console. She pressed a contact and waited. After a few seconds, she entered more commands.

“You’re very good,” Derec said.

“I should be. You trained me.”

“I think you were a better student than I was a teacher.”

Rana initiated a long encryption sequence, then turned to another, smaller board. She watched it briefly, touched one button, and sighed.

“All right,” she announced, clapping her hands dramatically. “Unless someone is trying very, very hard, we’re secure from eavesdropping.”

“Do you think anyone would?”

Rana gave him a wry look. “Our Ambassador Yart Leri is a jealous little god and is not at all happy at being kept ignorant about your mission. He wouldn’t do it out of malice, just vanity.”

“What about Rotij Polifos? He seemed unhappy about all this.”

“This? Maybe. But one of our interns was arrested yesterday and he’s naturally upset about it. I don’t consider Rotij the jealous type. Not that way.”

“I saw a Spacer in Palen’s lockup. What was the charge?”

“Disorderly conduct. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just an excuse for Palen to haul someone in for questioning. What her questions might be, who knows? Just have to wait for Masid to be released and find out.”

“Polifos. Is he good?”

“Competent. Secretive. I don’t know a lot about him–he never talks about himself.”

“Anyone else I should be concerned with?” Derec asked.

“No one comes immediately to mind, but this is Kopernik. I doubt your presence is even known on the rest of the station, but I don’t like taking chances.” She glanced at her encryption, then sat down. “So. What is this all about?”

“We’re doing a favor for Rega Looms.”

He waited while Rana digested this. A smile worked at her face. “You are joking.”

“No. Not in the least. Of course, that’s not all of it. I don’t know what it’s about on Ariel’s end, but Looms’ problem apparently dovetails with a project Setaris gave to Ariel. Hofton will be returning with what looks like a standard DW-12 that witnessed a murder. It’s collapsed, we need to see if we can recover anything.”

“I haven’t heard about any murders. Not recently, anyway.”

“Baleys. Fifty of them, looks like. You haven’t heard anything because Palen is working on the same favor and keeping it silent as long as she can.”

“How long has it been so far?”

“Two, two and a half days. I’m guessing.”

“And how exactly does Rega Looms fit into this?”

“His daughter was one of the victims.”

Rana stared at him blankly. Then: “I see.”

Derec coughed softly. “So, tell me about this Auroran citizenship.”

Rana shrugged. “A gamble. When the dust settled last year, I applied for emigration. ITE refused, based on essential skills, but I couldn’t get an employment stamp, either. So I went to Ariel and asked if she could help. A few referrals later, it looked possible that I could get Auroran citizenship due to the fact that I’m an undesirable.”

Derec started. “What?”

“I’m a positronic specialist.” She grinned wryly. “Absurd, isn’t it? But just the fact that I worked in a field that was for all intents and purposes outlawed on Earth put me in a special category of almost-but-not-quite foreign spy. I have the entire law in my apartment and I occasionally read through it for a laugh. Anyway, we started the data flowing. I’ve gotten this far, a transfer to Kopernik. The longer I work here, in this lab, the less desirable I become to Terran authorities.” She smiled. “When the Aurorans here found out I was a positronics tech, they didn’t know whether to believe me or throw me out. When they learned how I’d become one, they wanted to hand me off to someone else. Anyone else. Ariel got dragged back in. Her suggestion was to hire me as a contract worker and go from there. I’ve had to start the application process over three times now. I can’t blame them for being cautious. But it’s in the works now. My application has been forwarded to Aurora. All I have to do now is to continue proving that I know what I’m doing.” She bobbed her eyebrows. “So that’s where I stand. Waiting. Like I said, six months ago we upgraded the whole lab. I did most of the conceptual work with Rotij–who’s very good, by the way. Rotij has added his name to my list of sponsors.”

“I’m glad. It would be interesting to watch you at the Calvin.”

“I might shake them up a little?”

“Just might.”

Rana smiled. “What about you?”

Derec shrugged elaborately. “Like you–waiting. Only difference is, I don’t have any clear path. Ariel got my Auroran citizenship renewed, but there’s some... complication... with the Terran authorities. I’m stuck in the embassy unless I want to be barred from Earth forever.”

“I thought you were cleared of any charges?”

“Not quite that simple. This is Earth, after all. I suppose it would make everything easier if I just packed up and left.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“I don’t know. Yes... no... maybe. It’s... I like Earth. For all its maddening irrationality, there’s so much here. They have history. Thousands of years of history. There’s something intoxicating about it.” Derec felt clumsy, as if groping to make sense. “It’s the first place I really came to know after I recovered from amnemonic plague. I might as well have been born here.”

“I forgot about that. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Derec disliked talking about his past–lack of past, really. The one thing he shared with Ariel that would never change: both of them were recovered amnesiacs, victims of Burundi’s Fever. The damage the disease caused left them permanently incapable of recovering memories from before its onset.

But they had rebuilt their lives. Derec had used Earth as a focus, a home base, a place from which to find... what he needed to find.

“Ariel doesn’t share your appreciation,” Rana said. “She told you that?”

“We had a couple of long talks. She needed a sympathetic ear, I think, that would go away later.”

“Well. I don’t know, though. She’s here. She requested an Earth posting.”

“Hm. By the way, not to change the subject but... what about Bogard?”

Derec sighed. “Bogard. Most of Bogard is in a crate stashed in a lockup in the embassy. Thales keeps teasing at his matrix. Of course, without sufficient memory, there’s only so much Thales can do.”

“We’ve got the memory here.”

“Believe me, the thought did cross my mind. And Thales’. If possible...”

Rana smiled conspiratorially. “I don’t see a problem. We’ll do what we can.”

He gestured at the encryption sequence. “How big is this?”

“I’m using a five-digit key.”

“Five. Isn’t that a little excessive?”

“All these years on Earth and you’re still not paranoid enough. Actually, I’m encrypting against positronic intrusion. I’m letting Thales choose the key. That way you or I can’t give it away.”

“And Thales won’t. Impressive.”

“Thank you.” She regarded him thoughtfully. “And thanks for wanting to work with me again. I hope I can help.”

“Believe me, it helped just seeing you.”

Rana looked startled, then laughed nervously. “I missed you.”

Derec felt a warm rush of blood flow through his scalp and face. Surprised, he looked away.

A tone sounded, and Rana looked over at the comm console. “Ah. We have security.” She tapped in a command. “Thales?”

“I am online, Rana. How are you?”

Half an hour later, the robot arrived, encased in a dull gray canister, rolled on a gurney between Palen and Hofton. Its entry attracted attention from the huddle of technicians, who watched it all the way across the lab until it disappeared behind the blind Rana had erected.

Derec waited for Palen to open the case. The lid peeled back with a soft snik. It was much as he had seen in the storage closet: An older model DW-12–or perhaps even, now that the light was better, a DW-10 with modifications–stretched out like a corpse in a coffin. Derec pressed two fingers against the place where its ear would be. A small panel on the chest slid away to reveal a screen. Derec touched the screen, setting it aglow. A string of alphanumerics scrolled rapidly over it, stopped, then disappeared, leaving behind a flashing red dot.

“It didn’t hurt to try, “he said. “Thales, the self-diagnostic is junk. We’ll have to do this from first principles.”

“I am prepared, Derec,” Thales replied.

Palen frowned at the link perched on the console.

“Resident Intelligence, “Derec explained as he began connecting cables to various jacks in the robot’s head and torso. He had to wipe accrued grime off a couple of them. “A disembodied positronic brain configured to act as a primary systems processor.”

“Uh-huh,” Palen said. “Like the one that went crazy in Union Station last year?”

Derec hesitated. “Basically. Only this one is mine and no one has tampered with it but me. So you needn’t worry about it hallucinating. “He finished the connections. “Run synchronous pattern test, Thales. Test link.”

“Working, Derec.” A moment later: “The link is fine. We can proceed.”

“Is there anything left in there?”

It took nearly two minutes for Thales to answer.

“Damage is considerable, Derec, but I detect a few orderly sectors. Memory nodes have not been corrupted.”

Derec exchanged grins with Rana.

“What does that mean?” Palen asked.

“It means,” Derec said, “that we have a good chance of salvaging something for you.”

Twelve

ARIEL FELT A momentary surge, like the rush from falling, as the limo left the embassy. She could not pin down in memory the last time she had been out side the Spacer mission. She swallowed dryly, waiting. The further the transport carried from the garage, the calmer she became; after a time, she laughed at herself.

She opened her datum and accessed current files. A list of reports scrolled down the screen–detail work she had neglected for months. The complaints sorted themselves automatically in a separate column, apart from the regular stock and shipping reports all Aurorans were required to file. Three firms came up more often than any other, one of them filing eighteen complaints over the last six months, all of them having to do with delayed or lost exports.

Carsanli Intercomp built domicile environmental control units, adaptable to a wide range of habitats. Their principle customers were Settler colonies. Ariel was impressed with their logic–they built the units on Earth, using part Spacer technologies and part Terran, and shipped through Terran distributors, which minimized their Spacer presence. A lot of Spacer firms conducted business in a similar fashion, but often had a difficult time in the manufacturing end due to restrictions on factory space and local regulations concerning employment and vending requirements. In an unusual arrangement, Carsanli leased a factory already owned and operated by a Terran firm–Imbitek–from whom they also bought the Terran components.

The company kept its offices in the Convention District of D. C. Ariel recognized the area as she entered it. She used to come here twice a week, before so many Spacer businesses had abandoned Earth. There was still a large Spacer presence, though, and she had no sound reason for having neglected her duties.

The limo stopped at the main entrance to the offices. She stepped out and looked around. This was a warehouse area. People in worktogs or officewear filled the passages as First Shift opened. She caught a few frowns and curious looks from passersby, but ignored them. Steeling herself, she entered the building.

“Ambassador Burgess,” said a tall Auroran who greeted her. Behind him stood a broad reception desk and the company seal on the wall: an oblate disk filled with a moil of multihued shapes that reminded Ariel of feathers. “Welcome to Carsanli Intercomp. I’m Farin Holiye, general manager. This is most unexpected.”

She grasped his hand briefly. “Things have been unusually complicated recently. I apologize for taking so long to come down.”

Holiye smiled brightly. “Not at all, not at all. Please, this way. We can talk in my office.”

Ariel followed him through a door and up a short flight of stairs. He waved her into a wide, dark-paneled office.

“May I offer refreshment?” he asked, heading for a sidebar.

“No, thank you. I have a rather full schedule today. But I wanted to see you first.”

“Ah. Yes, well...” He gestured to a pair of plush chairs on opposite ends of a low table. “I don’t wish to begin with a complaint–”

“I’m aware of the number of reports you’ve sent,” Ariel said, sitting. “I’m here now.”

“Yes... well, the basic problem is that several consignments of product have gone missing; I think it’s accurate to say stolen. Insurance has compensated for them, of course, but we’ve lost three major customers over it.”

“You sent them replacements?”

“Of course, but those went missing, too. It was very aggravating.”

“Shipments to the same clients... that’s very interesting. May I see the manifests?”

“Certainly.” He went to his desk and returned with a slate. “I had them prepared for you.”

Ariel scanned the columns. Four very large orders purchased by a construction firm on Epsilon Coriae never arrived. As Holiye had claimed, insurance covered the loss, but the Settler company canceled the contract. ITE attributed the loss to piracy and pled lack of jurisdiction once the shipments left the solar system. She scrolled further and noted several other shipments lost. All of them had been slated for Settler companies.

“You also complained about delays?”

“Several times,” Holiye said expansively. “We thought it was a problem with our exit port so we tried to get it changed, but the request was tangled up and has still not been acted upon.” He pursed his lips. “This is one of the things I understood your office dealt with...”

“Of course. Again, I apologize. I’ll look into it immediately. What port are you using?”

“Petrabor.”

Ariel looked up. “Was any reason given for the delays?”

“A number of times they claimed a routing glitch in their logistics programs. Once they simply said that the shipment had been overlooked by the dock crew. I found that intolerable.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“We’ve always had a few problems,” Holiye said, “but we expect some loss and delay. Space is vast and people are people. But I’d say in the last two years it’s become chronic.”

“I see...” She handed back the manifest. “How long have you been working with Imbitek?”

“Years.”

“Any problems?”

“No. In fact, since the previous chairman was replaced, things have gotten even better. The new CEO seems very dedicated to providing service.”

“Mmm. How is it you drew Petrabor Spaceport?”

“The main factory is in Kiv Sector, just south. Petrabor is the closest port capable of handling the quantities in a timely fashion.”

“Of course if they keep losing or misplacing shipments...”

“Exactly–the benefit of faster service from larger capacity is offset by the nuisance factor.”

“Well, if I recall,” Ariel mused, “the Arkanleg port or even Kyro should be able to handle the traffic. I’ll look into getting you rerouted.” She stood. “Um... the stolen shipments... is there any pattern? Anything about them that strikes you as consistent?”

“Well, no. We usually always use the same shipping line, as we always have. The destinations are always different, too.”

“I see. Well, thank you. I’ll look into that, too, but I can’t promise anything.”

Holiye stood. “I appreciate you taking an interest, Ambassador.”

Finally, Ariel heard in his voice. She nodded, shook his hand, and let him see her out.

Several hours later, Ariel let herself reluctantly into Derec’s apartment. Her head buzzed with too much information. She had visited four more firms, following up the complaints. Between the sense of guilt over neglecting her duties and the amount of abuse these companies had suffered from lost shipments, unexplained delays, and shabby treatment by warehouse managers and shippers, Ariel felt humiliated and angry.

All of them shipped out of Petrabor.

Terran authorities had paid no attention because they were Spacers.

And the pattern included her.

Negligence is a disease, she thought bitterly, and I caught it.

Holiye’s assessment that the problem had become chronic in the last year appeared accurate. Someone was taking advantage of her truncated authority. The abuse was clear and unmistakable, but since her office was the clearinghouse for the complaints, no one had bothered to put it all together. Why should they? It was her job and she had stopped doing it.

Time to straighten it all out...

She would have preferred transferring Thales to her own rooms or even into a standard lab facility, but either option would have taken too long. She considered running a realtime link from here to her apartment, but the more remote access existed, the greater the chance of eavesdropping. The Terrans, especially–as backward as their tech seemed in some areas, they were disconcertingly advanced in others.

She stood in the living room for a few minutes, quietly letting herself grow used to the idea of being here. It surprised her sometimes how difficult it was to continue knowing Derec. They got along well enough, but there were limits, and she did not know them all.

She looked around. Too little furniture, she judged. Austere. One sofa, one chair, a low table, and a subetheric. No carpet, just a plain tile. The table was still cluttered with glasses and dishes. A flatscreen reader stood like a piece of sculpture amid the mess. She placed a hand on the back of the sofa: the pillows showed the wrinkles and depressions of long use. She imagined him here, studying, till sleep pulled him out lengthwise, still clothed.

She snatched her hand away.

The bedroom was neat and orderly. A modest collection of clothes in the small closet, stark gray sheets, a clock and lamp on the lone nightstand.

More clutter in the kitchen sink, but virtually no food in the pantry. She scrolled through the menu on his autochef: coffee, various potato and pasta recipes, eggs, three meat dishes, juice. It was as abbreviated as his wardrobe.

The workroom, dominated by Thales’ console, exhibited the most debris of occupation: papers, disks, three chairs, four or five readers... No dishes, though.

“Hello, Ambassador Burgess, “Thales said.

Ariel felt a wave of guilt. She swallowed. “Hello, Thales. Status?”

“I am linked to a positronic analysis station on Kopernik,” the RI said. “We have ninety-nine percent capable dataflow, time delay negligible through subetheric router. Subject has been connected to diagnostics and I am running an excavation now. We have uncorrupted memory nodes isolated by collapsed positronic synaptic framework. Estimated retrieval time for first verifiable memories: two hours, twenty-nine minutes.”

Fast work, Derec, she thought, impressed despite herself. Having Hofton no doubt had sped things along. Hofton’s absence disturbed her, which came as a surprise. She felt vulnerable. “How much available memory do you and I have at our disposal, Thales?”

“I am using the buffers on Kopernik for the excavation, the commline buffer to maintain the link. For all practical purposes, you have all my available on-site memory.”

“I see. Don’t tell me anything precise, like a number.”

“Would you prefer a specific? I have available 3 x 1023 kjC in three primary and six secondary nodes–”

“That’s fine, Thales.”

It amused Ariel at times, the way positronic entities tried to accommodate human wants, matching expectations with limitations. Flexible as they were, they sometimes provided either too little information or too much, their ability to accurately judge what constituted the necessary and the sufficient inadequate to the challenge of serving people. All in all, they were remarkable creations, among the best things humans had ever devised. But they were not flawless. Not flawless at all.

Ariel sighed. “All right, then. I want you to begin a records search, new file. Priority protect protocols in effect. Alert me to any attempt at eavesdropping. I want all available data on the history of Nova Levis. I also want to be kept updated on the excavation you’re doing on Kopernik.”

“Yes, Ariel. May I ask, what level of records search?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you wish me to confine myself to those records without confidentiality protects or shall I acquire any and all documents pertinent to your request?”

Ariel considered. Thales wanted permission to violate protected files. She had no doubt it could do so. Privacy issues represented a gray area for robots–they required specific instructions in such cases, lacking any sense of how harm might attach to simple data.

“Do a survey of available documents of both kinds, “she said finally. “Give me a list, detailing their security status and source. We’ll decide then.”

“Yes, Ariel.” A moment later: “Will you be staying here?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure, Thales. What would you prefer?”

“It would simplify the security standards you have requested if I did not have to contact you via external comm for updates.”

“Hm. True. Do you think Derec would mind?”

“I see no reason why he should.”

No, I don’t suppose you would...

“In that case, yes. I’ll leave for a short while to get some personal items.” She thought a few moments. “In fact, from time to time I may have to leave anyway, depending on what you find out for me.”

“I understand, Ariel.”

She went back to the kitchen. Perhaps she could bring R. Jennie down here. On the other hand, vacating her apartment completely might be a mistake. In either case, she needed to give Jennie instructions...

Details. She needed food in the kitchen, changes of clothes, her personal datum. She wondered if Derec ever had visitors, then dismissed the thought. She would have known; if nothing else, there would be signs here, in his living space, and she saw little enough even of Derec.

What has he been doing this past year?

Oddly, the idea that Derec had spent all this time alone–except for those few instances when they had shared a meal or attended a meeting together–saddened her. But then, she knew little enough of what he had been doing prior to last year. Perhaps this was his norm, the way he was used to living.

He had been bitterly angry over losing his company. That he had nearly ended up in prison had seemed relatively unimportant to him. Had she not moved to reinstate his Auroran citizenship, he might very well be living today in a private call in a Terran penal facility, the charges ranging from violation of Earther trade laws and the Positronic Prohibition Acts to murder. That he would have been no more guilty than any other Auroran on Earth made no difference–he would have been the perfect example. Even without a jail term, the Phylaxis Group, his firm, had been used as a club to beat the pro-positronic movement into submission and undermine all the work that had been done over the last several years to bridge the gaps dividing Earth and the Spacer worlds. Not the only club, to be sure, but a most effective one: Phylaxis had been held responsible for the failure of the entire Union Station positronics showcase and the subsequent events involving what the media had characterized as a “Killer Robot”: Bogard.

Bogard. Derec’s attempt at building a bodyguard. Ariel still shuddered when she thought of it. She had condemned the idea–unfairly, she realized. Bogard had worked. It had been subverted, tricked, and attacked–no other robot of which she was aware could have possibly continued functioning under such stress. And that had been Ariel’s objection. She did not want robots to function after failure. If they did not adhere rigorously to the Three Laws, she wanted them incapacitated. Bogard had doggedly persisted in functioning, all the way up until the end, when it had taken a human life. Inadvertently, in the course of protecting Derec, but even for its remarkably flexible criteria an intolerable violation.

The thought had occurred to her that Derec might take the blame personally. She believed him more resilient than that, but you never knew how or which events might overwhelm a psyche. She was ashamed of herself that she had not checked, had left him alone while she embraced her own self-pity.

Maybe we can turn it all around with this, she thought. Baseless optimism irritated her as much as pointless cynicism, but sometimes the situation demanded an investment of faith.

She looked back at Thales. I could ask it what Derec’s been doing...

But there were those privacy issues again.

“Ariel,” Thales said, startling her. “I have a question. Which Nova Levis did you wish me to research?”

“I have found two references under the heading ‘Nova Levis; “Thales explained. “The first concerns a Settler colony, established thirty-two years ago in the Tau Secordis system. The second concerns a research laboratory here on Earth established twenty-eight years ago.”

“What sort of research?” Ariel asked.

“Biomedical and prosthetics.”

“Really. What sort of prosthetics?”

“The shareholder précis published upon issuance of initial shares refers to neurocortical extensions. Inferring from other references, I believe this pertains to artificial appendages linked directly to the nervous system.”

Ariel frowned. “That’s nothing new. What were they researching?”

“That data is under seal. The company closed after eight years of operation in the wake of a criminal investigation.”

“Explain.”

“A global investigation initiated by the Eurosector Civil Enforcement Agency into kidnapping and infant brokerage produced charges of conspiracy to illegally traffic in orphaned and stolen children involving several orphanage institutions and several medical labs. Nova Levis was part of the overall investigation, but no charges were filed against it. It closed down several months after the case was declared closed.”

“Any direct links to Nova Levis colony?”

“One of the chief researchers emigrated there a year after the laboratory was closed.”

“Anyone else? I mean, what about the other people who worked for the lab?”

“There were five department heads, all of them founding associates of the company. Three are now dead. The fifth is listed officially as missing. He was a Theian native living on Earth named Kyas Vol.”

“Missing. That could mean anything. Did anyone look into his disappearance?”

“Not that I have been able to ascertain.”

Ariel wrestled with her curiosity. Earthers maintained profound prejudices regarding anything that suggested humaniform robotics, even prosthetic limbs. Prosthetics were available, certainly, but people never talked about them. Like any prejudice, it manifested in bizarre fashions and displayed many blind spots and innate hypocrisies. Artificial intelligences proliferated on Earth, in many areas, and nonsentient robotics were employed liberally, so long as none of it came close to resembling a human. Prosthetics occupied a tolerated space within the complex hierarchies of Terran bigotry. She had no idea how advanced the technology was, or if any new research was currently underway.

“Stay with the colony, Thales. If you come across any more direct connections, explore them.”

“Very well, Ariel.”

“I’m going to my apartment now, Thales. I need some things. I’ll be back.”

“I should have a preliminary report for you when you return.”

She thanked the RI and left.

R. Jennie met her at the door. “Welcome home, Ariel. You have a message from Ambassador Setaris.”

“Thanks, Jennie. Pack an overnight bag for me, would you? I’ll be sleeping elsewhere tonight.”

“I had intended preparing crayfish almandine tonight, Ariel.”

Ariel gave the robot a look, startled at the note of disappointment she thought she heard. It was so easy to personalize robots, so easy to “inform “them with emotion and human expression, but it still caught her by surprise to detect it.

“Change of schedule, Jennie. Place the menu on hold for the time being.”

“Yes, Ariel.”

R. Jennie walked off to pack. They had devised a standard kit a long time ago when Ariel had spent more time away from the embassy, in the company of others–particularly Jonis Taprin, now Senator Taprin. It had been over a year since their last tryst and Ariel had spent most of her time confined to her suite of office.

Ariel sat down at her comm and keyed the ACCEPT but ton. Setaris’s face appeared on the screen.

“Ariel, I’m giving a dinner party tonight, I thought you would like to come. I’m appending a guest list. I’d appreciate it if you’d put in an appearance. We don’t see enough of you.”

“My my,” Ariel mused. “I must be coming up in the world.” She resisted the urge to call Setaris back and ask why. Instead, she scrolled through the list of invitees: The usual collection of ambassadors and close aides–Gale Chassik of Solaria, Trinik Hapellon of Capella, Frish Ioseco of Osiris, others–and a sprinkling of Spacer émigrés and industrialists.

And Jonis Taprin.

“What the...” Ariel stabbed the CONNECT on her comm and tapped in Setaris’s code. A few moments later she worked through Setaris’s secretary to Sen Setaris herself.

“Ariel, how are you?” the ambassador asked.

“Puzzled. You’re serious about this invitation?”

“Of course I am.”

“You’ve invited Jonis Taprin.”

“Yes...” Setaris frowned briefly, then her eyes widened knowingly. “Ah, yes. I forgot. My apologies, Ariel. The event is partly for him. He put out some feelers a few weeks ago to see if we might arrange some talks.”

“Concerning?”

“Concerning precisely the subject we spoke about earlier. I thought it might be worthwhile to have you there. If, however, you feel uncomfortable–”

Ariel shook her head. “No. I merely wanted clarification.”

“And you have it now?”

“Yes.”

Setaris smiled condescendingly. “I envy you. Will we see you?”

“Absolutely.”

“At twenty, then. Formal.”

“Very good, Ambassador. I’m honored.”

Setaris smiled thinly. “Till this evening, Ariel.”

The screen faded.

Ariel leaned back in her chair and stretched. “Just how much ass-covering am I going to need?” she wondered aloud.

“I packed the standard bag, Ariel. Will it be too much?”

Ariel looked around to see R. Jennie standing there, holding the overnight bag.

“I have a preliminary file on the requested material, Ariel,” Thales said when she returned to Derec’s apartment.

Ariel set the bag down at the door to the bedroom. “Go on.”

“Nova Levis was established as a Settler’s colony thirty-two years ago by special agreement between the Vas Domini Trading Company, a Settler cooperative sponsored by private endowment through the Church of Organic Sapiens, and Solaria–”

“Solaria? How do they figure in it?”

“The Tau Secordis system was originally developed as a mining franchise by three Solarian corporations which eventually became insolvent and were subsumed by the Solarian Department of Resource Development. The second planet, originally called Cassus Thole, after a modest amount of biosome intervention, is suitable for agriculture. Under the terms of a trade agreement with a limited corporation formed by six Settler worlds, Cassus Thole was renamed Nova Levis and subcontracted for settlement and development.”

“Why hasn’t Solaria protested the blockade?”

“Except for being the principal lien holder, Solaria has no representation on Nova Levis and has remained aloof from its operations since the first colony was established. There is still a small mining station with its own port used exclusively by Solaria. Nova Levis has for all intents and purposes represented itself as a sovereign world with rights and titles to its own territories. The colonists themselves have not even admitted to Solarian ownership and have engaged the current crisis as a duly constituted independent state.”

“So it’s not even common knowledge that Solaria owned the system?”

“The conditions of ownership have been allowed to grow vague. Solaria ‘s holding is listed in public flies as Cassus Thole. Except for the mining concession, Solaria officially conducts no business with the Settler government. Nova Levis has, since been regarded as a separate colony.”

Ariel laced her fingers together and tapped them lightly against her chin. She felt foolish now at having paid so little attention to the events of the past year. The Nova Levis blockade was the first and largest aftershock from the failed trade conference last year.

“Give me a brief on the blockade,” she said.

“Two years ago, Terran investigators traced a number of stolen shipments to ships making regular calls at Nova Levis. This was discovered in the wake of the Tiberius incident, which proved to be related to illegal traffic into and out of Nova Levis. Further investigation on the ground resulted in the deaths of three agents and partial evidence that Nova Levis is host to an unregistered spaceport. At this point, warrants were solicited through the Intersettlement Judicial Committee for a task force to visit and inspect all ports on Nova Levis. The governor-advocate of the colony refused and offered to conduct the investigation himself and report the findings. This was rejected. A further proposal was made that a joint task force of Spacer, Settler, and Terran inspectors be deployed, and this, too, was rejected. Fifteen months ago, motions were placed before the Committee to establish a permanent inspection base at the edge of the system with a mandate to forcibly inspect all ships entering and leaving the system. This motion, of course, was rejected in due course when the Spacer legation insisted that robotic inspections be instituted for all traffic to and from any Spacer world. The station was never authorized, but Terran military ships began arbitrarily and at random stopping and searching ships entering and leaving the Nova Levis system. A series of protests were filed. The Committee became tangled with delaying motions by the Terran legation until a Terran ship was fired upon by an unregistered freighter caught leaving Nova Levis. Upon inspection, it was discovered that the ship was carrying contraband. The crew was arrested, the ship impounded, and the 43rd Squadron of the Terran fleet moved in to blockade the planet. That was eleven months ago. Subsequent negotiations have validated the blockade, although only one Spacer world has added ships to the Terran contingent, and no Settler ships have joined it.”

“That’s how it stands today.”

“Yes, Ariel.”

“Stolen shipments... any kind of manifest on what those shipments contained, or who they were stolen from?”

“That is a protected file. It will take some time to open it.”

“Do it. What about Solaria? What did they say when all this happened?”

“They have made no official statement to date, content, apparently, to follow Aurora’s lead.”

“Are those Auroran ships with the Terran squadron?”

“No, they are Theian ships. Aurora is remaining militarily aloof.”

As usual, Ariel thought wryly. “And no one has brought up Solaria’s past ownership?”

“No, Ariel,” Thales replied.

“Not even Aurora... but Solarian ships are still entering and leaving the system. How is that possible? As I understand it, a blockade like this is enforced at the port of origin as well. Solarian ships heading for Nova Levis would be stopped or at least noted and identified as blockade runners.”

“That is how the law reads. I will look into it.”

Something else teased at Ariel. “You said there were three Solarian firms that initially had title to the system. Who?”

“Strychos, Incorporated, M39-Viavel Corporation, and the Kysler Solar Industries.”

“Kysler... that sounds familiar.”

“Kysler Diversified Industries, Ariel. They are a Terran firm based on Titan, though no longer Terran-owned. The three Solarian firms I mentioned have all been subsequently purchased by the Hunter Group. Only Strychos remains as a semi-independent corporation, dealing in agricultural products.”

“Hunter owns Kysler?”

“They own a controlling interest.”

“What did they do? The Terran firm, I mean.”

“Primarily a holding company. Pharmaceuticals, raw material development, shipping, finance–”

“Stop. Any other correlations through their dependent companies?”

“No. However, Kysler purchased the physical plant in which Nova Levis was housed.”

“Really. What became of the rest?”

“After it closed down it was split up and sold. The REtD division went to Imbitek, which folded it into a subsidiary: Captras Biomed. Various pieces of hardware went to a number of small firms.”

“Imbitek owns the research and Kysler owns the shell... what did they do with it?” Ariel asked.

“Unknown. Current data suggests that the structure is sealed and unused. A retrofitting company was hired to convert it into a raw materials distribution plant a few years ago. After that I find no records.”

“Thales, I want a list of shareholders for each of those three companies: Kysler Diversified, Hunter Group, and Nova Levis. Prepare a hard copy for me. Let’s return to the colony. You said that a Settler cooperative took it over?”

“That is correct. Through private endowment.”

“Through a church, though. What was its name?”

“The Church of Organic Sapiens.”

She thought for a moment. “That’s Rega Looms’ church.”

“It is currently the church with which Rega Looms is affiliated. However, he has stepped down from its directorship for the duration of his senate campaign. He was not its director at the time the colony was established.”

“Did he belong to it?”

“I do not have access to those records. Would you like me to try to obtain them?”

“Maybe. Hold off for now.” Ariel drummed her fingers on the edge of the console. She could not shake the feeling that she was missing something. “Rega Looms despises the whole idea of offworld colonization. So does the COS–now. I suppose it didn’t then.”

“The Church of Organic Sapiens has undergone a number of fundamental changes in purpose in the sixty-eight years of its existence. The current one has been in place since Rega Looms became its director.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Eighteen years ago.”

“Display the exact dates.”

Numbers scrolled across one of Thales’ screens. The settler colony of Nova Levis was established eleven years before Rega Looms took directorship of the Church of Organic Sapiens. Ariel could see nothing significant about that, but she felt certain she should.

“When was Nova Levis–the lab–incorporated?”

The date appeared between the first two displayed. Nova Levis Incorporated opened forty-two months after the colony.

“Closing date.”

Fourteen months before Looms took charge of his church.

“There is a correlation,” Thales said. “Rega Looms was one of the initial shareholders in Nova Levis Incorporated. Not in Kysler Diversified.”

“All right... he couldn’t possibly have maintained it and represented a church that condemns prostheses. When did he divest?”

“Four years after its incorporation.”

“Did he start a panic?”

“Apparently not. Only three other shareholders divested in his wake: Kyas Vol, Tenebra Patis, and Gale Chassik.”

Ariel started. “Ambassador Chassik?”

“Yes, Ariel.”

“Was he ambassador then?”

“No, Ariel, he was Chief Attaché to Ambassador Masmo Pedesor.”

Ariel frowned. “Do you have those lists of shareholders?”

“Yes, Ariel.”

Another screen filled with names in three columns. The one for Nova Levis, Inc. was the shortest, the one for Kysler Diversified the longest. Names were highlighted in bright blue.

Ariel raised an eyebrow. “Well, well. Some people just turn up everywhere, don’t they?”

Glowing brightly in all three columns were the names of Alda Mikels, Gale Chassik, and former senator Clar Eliton.

“Thales, get Coren Lanra for me, would you? I think we need to talk before this goes much further.”

Thirteen

COREN KNOCKED ON the office door labeled KELVY TORANS, ACCOUNTS EXECUTIVE. When the woman behind the large desk looked up, he smiled and waggled his fingers at her.

“Coren!” Her grin dazzled. “Come in! You actually caught me with time on my hands.”

“I couldn’t be that lucky, could I?” He sat down across from her.

She touched a button, closing her door. “Yes, you could.” She gazed with mock seductiveness at him until they both laughed. “What can I do for you, Coren?”

“A little inside information.”

“Nothing that will get me in trouble.”

“I don’t think so. What do you know about Myler Towne?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Chairman protem of Imbitek?”

“The very same.”

She closed her eyes for a few seconds. Her face, still and framed by a close-cut helmet of black hair, seemed almost childlike. When she opened her eyes, she drew a deep breath. “Joined Imbitek eleven years ago, New Accounts, and worked his way into Mergers and Acquisitions. Three years ago, he was on the Logistics and Projections board. The assassinations last year opened a position on the board of directors. He was nominated and elected within two weeks. After Alda Mikels received his sentence, Towne campaigned for the position of chairman, but it was given by the board reluctantly, and with the proviso that it was temporary, ending upon Mikels’ release.”

“How good is he?”

“Not bad, considering that he’s spent most of the past year fending off lawsuits and dealing with TBI investigations into the company. He’s actually turned Imbitek around in the last few months, so I’m beginning to recommend it again as a primary investment. They’re not as robust as they once were, but given this I can’t wait to see what they do when Mikels is back at the helm.”

“I knew Imbitek had taken a tumble–”

Kelvy grunted eloquently. “They very nearly dropped out of the Primary Three Hundred. Within three weeks after Mikels was sentenced to prison, Imbitek stock fell eighty points. Towne has it back up forty-eight points.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Wish I knew. They’ve gone through a big restructuring, a lot of positions terminated, and he’s trimmed off some of the fat Mikels kept on as pet projects. But a big part is that Imbitek is buying back its own stock.”

“It had the revenue for that?”

“Apparently from the sale of offworld holdings.”

“Why ‘apparently’? Wouldn’t it be in their shareholders’ report?”

“Of course. But the convenient fact about offworld holdings is that local laws are flexible and there are a thousand ways to funnel money that can’t be traced. I say ‘apparently’ because you can never be sure if a holding on, say, Revis Logandi is real or just a fiction to hide funds.”

“So they sold holdings... no other way they might get the money?” Coren asked.

“Sure. The easiest way would be to borrow it. But they’ve made no loans for it and according to their reports over the last few years, their credit has been limited. Banks aren’t quick to count those offworld holdings I mentioned as reliable collateral, so credit is based mainly on available Terran assets and so on. According to that, Imbitek was overextended. Not dangerously so, but enough to limit them. If they were hiding collateral, well... I’m sure it would have angered shareholders to know the company had that available credit hidden from them, but under the circumstances no one complained. The policy kept those shareholders who had remained faithful from losing everything and even gaining a little.”

“So he’s a bright boy. What happens when Mikels gets out?”

“That’s what we’re all waiting for,” Kelvy said. “Already there’s been nervous trading. Towne might have to pull another magic trick to keep the company from devouring itself in a proxy war if he decides to fight Mikels. He has managed to replace two of the board members with his own supporters. The others... well, you just never know how these people will jump. Towne has proven himself. Mikels is bringing a lot of baggage to the table and may be unable to reclaim the chair.”

“Do you think there will be a war?”

“Towne is ambitious, Mikels is the old bull. You tell me. The psychology is certainly volatile.”

Coren considered. “So how far has Imbitek stock fallen since Mikels’ release was announced?”

Kelvy grinned at him appreciatively. “Eighteen points. Not a disaster. Yet.”

“Still. Is Towne buying?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of. Imbitek has started slowing down some its outside investment, too. Odd. As of a month ago, their regular cash allocations for new stocks virtually dried up. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re having serious cash flow problems.”

“Why do you know better?”

“Two months ago, Imbitek sold off one of its subsidiaries for an enormous profit. They haven’t paid a dividend on it yet because it was the beginning of the quarter, so all that money is just sitting somewhere. Towne gave himself and everyone on the board merit increases–modest ones, not the sort you see when a company is in trouble and the management is salting away the spoils before the end.”

“In other words, their expenses haven’t risen substantially.”

“Right. So I doubt they actually have a problem with cash. They even paid back a couple of longterm loans.”

“War chest.”

Kelvy frowned.

“Myler Towne wants to keep his new position, “Coren said. “He’s preparing for a war. What are Alda Mikels’ people doing while all this is going on?”

“A lot of them left the firm. A lot of them were asked to leave. Those who left have been drumming up support among the shareholders, advocating Mikels as the better choice as Chairman.”

Coren tapped his fingers on the armrest. “What subsidiary did they sell off?”

“Captras Biomed.”

“Who bought it?”

“A consortium of private investors. I’d have to do some prying to find out who. They bid anonymously.”

“Could you, please? I’m very interested.”

Kelvy nodded, frowning.

“One more thing. Do you remember a bio research company called Nova Levis?”

“Sounds familiar. Old, gone now?”

“Yes. It shut down several years ago. I wondered if it might be possible to get a list of its investors.”

“That would be a matter of public record.”

“Not the real names,” Coren said. “A lot of investors go on record through a front. The fronts are public. I want to know who really owned shares.”

“All right. How soon do you need it?”

“Same time I need to know who bought Captras.”

Kelvy smiled. “Ah-hah. Yesterday. Do we have time, then, for dinner?”

“I’d like that...”

“... but not tonight.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. I’m just your broker, not anyone special. Your future lies in my hands every day, but you shouldn’t be over-felicitous on that account.”

“Have I ever pointed out that you use a very questionable technique?”

“Several techniques, under the proper circumstances. I hope to show you more of them sometime.” She smiled. “It’ll be worth the wait. I’ll get you this information by tomorrow morning. Soon enough?”

“That will do nicely. Thank you.”

Kelvy pointed a finger at him. “We have plans?”

Coren grinned. “We have plans.”

“Shoo, then. I have work to do.”

Coren left her office. The plaza fronting the brokerage was filling up with second-shift on its way to work. Coren crossed to the walkways and stepped smoothly to the third lane.

He commed his office.

“Has Jeta Fromm contacted me yet?”

“No,” replied the Desk.

Damn! “Any other messages?”

“Ambassador Ariel Burgess wishes you to call her as soon as possible. Mr. Doppler from Data Recovery Systems wishes you to contact him at your convenience.”

Doppler...? Data Recovery Systems was the clearing house that had originally supplied him with Jeta Fromm. Coren closed the link to his Desk and tapped in Doppler’s code.

“This is Lanra.”

“Mr. Lanra, forgive the intrusion,” replied a smooth, androgynous voice. “There has been a... complication with our recent service. We’ve been trying to repair any possible harm that has resulted.” Doppler’s hesitancy made it clear that he felt embarrassed. “I wish to confirm that our service to you was acceptable. The operative your office has been attempting to locate–”

“Jeta Fromm.”

“Yes, sir. Um... this is quite awkward...”

“You haven’t been able to find her,” Coren guessed.

“In fact, we haven’t even tried. She has become no longer available, having ended her association with us three months ago. We are trying to determine a chronology so that service to our clients is not compromised.”

“Three months. That was before I retained her.”

“Yes, sir,” Doppler confirmed.

“You ‘re telling me that she wasn’t even working for your company when she initially responded to my commission. And no one thought to inform me?”

Doppler seemed to clear his throat. “Regrettably so. I realize that excuses fail to compensate in this circumstance, but our system suffered an... intrusion... which kept us from monitoring certain files adequately. It wasn’t until recently that we were able to restore the data and determine the nature of all the errors. I hope you understand.”

Coren briefly felt cold. “I do, indeed. Am I the only person she contacted after she broke her ties with you?”

“No, sir, there were several others. I am not, of course, at liberty to discuss their files.”

“Of course not. Discretion is your reputation.”

“Something like that. I also wanted to warn you that, under these unusual circumstances, whatever data you received from Ms. Fromm would be highly questionable. Our usual reimbursement policy is in effect, of course, but we will not guarantee the quality of the product.”

“That’s... problematic. Thank you for the call, Mr. Doppler.”

“I hope this will not put you off using us in future.”

“Of course not.”

The link broke. Coren pocketed the comm. Jeta Fromm was dead. The question was when. Had he even met with her to begin with?

He watched the warrens pass by–shops, offices, home kitchens, girders, plazas, balconies. Block upon cube upon struts, mounding up to a hazy murk high above. The lights shone brilliant blue-white through the mists that formed near the upper elevations, delimiting the volume by showing everyone the ceiling of the cave. Inside. Tunnels, corridors, a maze of interconnected structure, involuted and self-cannibalizing over time, filling and refilling, home to billions, contained, giving the illusion of safety and accessibility. So easy to get from one place to another, it was all In Here, and the ways all clearly marked. No part of the world was cut off from any other. You could in principle reach anyone, anytime, by any of ten or a hundred pathways.

But not if they were dead.

If he had not lost his optam, he would have at least had something visual to run through–especially the humans that had accompanied the stealth robot. Odd, he was beginning to think of the robot as having been in charge.

Going through Damik had been the only way he could think of to find the people Nyom might have gone through, but that had led him into areas that seemed unrelated to Nyom’s death.

So why pursue them? he wondered.

Because it felt connected. Because he saw Rega Looms’ name on a list of investors of a company that he would today condemn as a morally questionable enterprise, a company with the same name as the colony his daughter had been murdered while trying to emigrate to. Because Looms had made the same remark as a man Coren had never even heard of till today. Because all these unrelated details felt related. He just could not see how. Yet.

The rule by which he had always worked was, when stuck for the next move, ask more questions.

Why did Damik go see Wenithal?

Coren certainly had names from the Wenithal connection, but not the ones he had expected and none he could do anything with, at least not immediately.

Unless I just can’t see it...

He glanced at his watch, then pulled out his comm again.

A few connections later, Ariel Burgess answered.

“Coren Lanra, Ambassador.”

“Mr. Lanra, thank you for returning my call. I think we need to talk.”

“I couldn’t agree more. In person?”

“That would be best.” She paused. “Are you busy this evening?”

“I have no way of knowing yet. What did you have in mind?”

“I’ve been invited to an embassy dinner this evening. I have the option of bringing a guest of my choosing. Would you be interested?”

“At your embassy?”

“The Auroran embassy, yes.”

Coren hesitated. This sounded like a complete waste of time, but he had no other ideas past talking to Damik. “Um...”

“There will be other Terrans present, Mr. Lanra, it isn’t that sort of dinner. I believe it could be very interesting. Even informative. It would be a favor to me if you’d agree.”

“Will Ambassador Chassik be there?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Something I stumbled on today. I suppose this will be formal?”

“Of course.”

“I have an errand to run up in the Baltimor District. I’m not sure how long that will take and I’ll have to change before I meet you.”

“We have an excellent tailor on the premises, Mr. Lanra.”

“Two, three hours then?”

A pause. “I can make that work. There will be an escort in the main lobby to bring you to my apartment.”

“Then I’ll see you later this evening.”

“Thank you.”

The link broke. Dinner with the enemy? he mused. He laughed softly to himself as he headed for a commuter station.

Brun Damik’s apartment was on the fourth level of an expensive block in what had once been an exclusive warren. Though other parts of the urban complex now superseded it as the place to live, it still bespoke class and elegance, and far more credit than Damik ought to possess.

Police lounged in the corridor. Coren felt a sudden hollowness. One of the officers approached him, hand on the butt of her department-issue stunner, and Coren automatically held up his ID with the investigator’s license appended.

“Inspector Capel is in charge, Mr. Lanra,” she said, gesturing through the door.

The living room contained little furniture, but all of it looked expensive. Coren glimpsed the label on the entertainment array and quickly calculated the significant fraction of his annual income the system would have eaten. Forensic recorders drifted slowly over the stone-tile floor. A huddle of plainclothes police stood with their backs to a wall-length image of black, white, gray, and ivory blocks of various proportions that gradually exchanged places. The detectives stopped talking when Coren approached.

“Coren Lanra,” he said, showing his ID again. “I’m looking for Inspector Capel?”

One of the men took his ID and examined it casually. He was slightly shorter than Coren, grayish hair a fine dusting across his broad skull. His eyes were a bright, almost artificial green. “Private security,” he said, handing it back. “Do you have business here?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m an acquaintance of Brun Damik.”

The inspector blinked twice, then nodded. “Come with me,” he said. “I’m Capel.”

He led Coren to Damik’s bedroom. Coren surveyed it quickly, noting the pair of uniformed police going through the wall-length closet and the bank of drawers. The bed was enormous, cobalt blue sheets rumpled. Coren saw no sign of blood.

“In here,” Capel said, continuing on to the bathroom.

Damik sat propped on the toilet, hands dangling. Coren stared, shocked at the condition of the body. Bruises covered most of Damik’s torso and thighs; his eyes were swollen shut, lips black and inflated. The head sat at an odd angle and Coren noticed the thick line of purpling around the neck. The only blood came from the holes where Damik’s ears had been attached.

“They’re in the sink,” Capel said, guessing Coren’s question. “These apartments are completely soundproofed. Surveillance shows no one entering or leaving. before or after Brun Damik came home last night. Preliminaries indicate that sixty to seventy percent of his bones are broken–the spine is holding him up, if you’re wondering–and several major organs are ruptured.” Capel wheeled on him. “Your card says Special Service, so I’m not even going to try to be clever with you. Let me ask right out: what are you doing here?”

Coren closed his eyes. He had never grown the callouses other veterans claimed came after seeing enough dead bodies, but the nausea he once experienced no longer reached the point of muddling his thinking. The hollowness he felt upon seeing police here acquired a sour tang, and his conscience suggested that this was his fault for having visited Damik recently. He drew a deep breath.

“My employer is running for office,” he said. “Rega Looms. I’m following up possible embarrassments.”

Capel nodded as if Coren had just passed a test. “What could Brun Damik have done to embarrass Rega Looms?”

“Nothing, directly.”

“But...?”

“But...” Coren glanced over his shoulder as to make sure he and Capel were out of earshot. He stepped closer. “Looms’ daughter has been known to play at smuggling from time to time.”

“Baleys. We know. So you’re covering for him by trying to find his daughter.” Capel pursed his lips. “Could this be the result of your investigation?”

“I honestly can’t see how.”

Capel stepped closer to Damik’s body. “He was tortured. Somebody did this over a four-or five-hour period.” He looked up. “How well did you know him?”

“We worked together in Special Service several years ago. He was competent. His tastes ran a little rich, though.”

“Rich enough to accept perks?”

Coren made an inclusive gesture, indicating the opulence of the apartment. Capel grunted, agreeing.

“Was he supposed to have some information for you?”

“I don’t know. I spoke to him yesterday. He wasn’t very helpful. I was coming back to try again.”

“Somebody beat you to it.” Capel sighed. “I don’t expect to get everything you might be able to tell me, Mr. Lanra, and I don’t doubt you have a very good attorney, working for Rega Looms, so I won’t even think about detaining you. I’m going to rely on your integrity as a former cop to tell me what I need to know. I’m not naive enough to believe I’m even going to get that, so we’ll pretend for the moment that we’re actually working on the same side and that you wouldn’t obstruct my investigation.”

“Believe me, Inspector, I don’t have a clue who did this. Or why.”

Capel nodded. “It is excessive, especially for baleys. But who knows? This is politics, right? Maybe someone knows something about Looms’ daughter that could hurt him.” He shrugged. “It’s a stretch. But all the other ideas I have don’t explain this any better. Some sadistic shit tortured this man. That transcends jealousy, crime of passion, payback on a bad debt. Nothing explains it. Not even politics, really, unless he knew something.”

“Torture is not a very reliable way of getting useful information.”

“That’s true. So we’re left with revenge or someone sending a message.”

“A message?”

“The question is, from whom to who? And why? Does Rega Looms know Brun Damik?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“And I doubt Rega Looms knows the particulars of your work right now. He’s busy campaigning.”

“Correct.”

“So could this be a message for you?”

Coren studied Damik’s corpse. If this was a message, it failed. Graphic, certainly, but the intent was buried in the bruises.

“If it is,” he said, “I can’t interpret it. There is a third possibility.”

“Yes?”

“Pleasure. Someone enjoyed doing this.”

Capel shuddered. “I do not even want to consider that. Not yet; hopefully, not ever.”

Coren understood. A truly sick mind was one of the most difficult to track down, and when caught, it was difficult to know what to do next. But he agreed with Capel–this was a message.

“May I look around?” Coren asked.

Capel stared silently at Damik for a long moment, till Coren thought he had not heard. Then: “Sure. You know better than to touch anything and so forth.”

“Thank you.”

He backed out of the bathroom and looked across the bedroom at the police still riffling through the immense closet. Not sure where to begin, Coren walked around the bed and immediately touched something.

The sheets were expensive. Imports, Coren guessed. Damik would have been in an ideal position to help himself to whatever black market goods came through. Who would challenge him, especially if he was reasonably careful and not too greedy? He was not selling anything, as far as Coren knew. If he had been, he would have been living in a private enclave, with better security. No, Damik was not that corrupt. It had been clear even in Special Service that Damik was interested only in personal comfort, not the extra work illicit business would bring. He was a taker, not a dealer. It did not appear to Coren that he could have affected anybody’s bottom line. Not enough to warrant an assassination.

Coren tugged the sheets down. Stained. Sweat? The coloration was wrong for anything else. Still, the possibility that someone had been in bed with him was not unreasonable. What had he said about his contacts?

“A woman named Tresha and a man named Gamelin. I assume he’s just muscle, he’s big enough.”

Coren thought back to his last visit to Jeta Fromm’s hab, and the fact that a man and woman had come to see her, but she had already left. What was the chronology? A day? Two days? Things had happened so fast. The warren rat had said the man was big, something wrong with him. The same pair?

He wondered then if the woman who’d acted as his data troll had even been Jeta Fromm. Perhaps he’d been dealing with this “Tresha “all along...

The sheets were skewed in the direction of the bathroom, but that did not necessarily mean Damik had been dragged. Coren left the bedroom and almost stepped on a forensic recorder. The compact, turtle-shelled unit continued on, oblivious to Coren’s presence, looking for the minutiae that might provide a clue–hairs, skin, fibers, fluids.

Coren stopped before the large picture and watched the rectangles drift before and behind each other. It was a very expensive piece, Auroran, Coren thought, and he wondered if it were an import as well. He turned away after a few minutes and did a slow circuit of the living room.

A low table made from a sheet of thinly-sliced granite stood between facing setees. One glass stood in a drying pool of condensation, ice melted at the bottom.

One glass.

No clothes in the living room.

He entered the kitchen. Four glasses stood on the counter by the sink, all empty.

The place had been cleaned, he realized. While Damik had been tortured–four or five hours’ worth, according to Capel–someone had gone through the apartment and tidied up.

Damik’s office showed a little more disorder, but none of it appeared significant. A few papers scattered on the desk, disks stacked sloppily, a jacket draped over a chair back.

A few plaques decorated one wall. Coren smiled, seeing the Special Service certificate, and, beside it, a merit award for bravery. He did not recall the action, but he could look it up.

Damik had gone to university–Nestern in the Freno District–and graduated with a degree in art history. Coren grunted, surprised. He would never have guessed.

The frame rested crookedly on the wall. Coren brought a fingertip against the lower left comer and pushed up to straighten it. The hook on which it hung came loose and the entire plaque clattered to the floor.

It burst apart–frame, cover sheet, hook, and documents–and sprawled across Coren’s feet. Damik had used the same display to hold several items, one atop the other. Coren knelt quickly. He counted half a dozen certificates, which must have strained the capacity of the frame, stuffed past its meager limits. Coren gathered them up.

More graduation certificates. Damik had taken courses in a number of unrelated fields: cooking, the history of paleoanthropology, astronomy, microcircuit repair. All them unexpected and, in their diversity, admirable.

Coren stopped at the last document. Damik’s grammar school certificate, from the Holmer Foster Gymnas Cooperative.

Brun was an orphan...?

Something else about the name of the facility seemed familiar. Later, he decided; he could look it up later. He folded the certificate and tucked it into an inside pocket, then reassembled the frame. He found the hook and pressed it back into the wall and carefully set the display on it, which then listed crookedly to the left.

Capel waited in the living room.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing obvious. You realize that the place was sanitized.”

Capel scowled. “They had time. Where can I reach you if I need to ask further questions?”

Coren fished out a card and handed it to Capel.

“So have you found Nyom Looms yet?” Capel asked.

“I’m still looking,” Coren said smoothly.

Capel nodded again. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Even if you don’t need me, let me know, would you? Damik and I did work together once.”

Capel seemed to soften a little. “Sure.”

“By the way, did he have any relatives?” It seemed likely that Damik would have been adopted, but Coren never heard him talk about anyone. That omission now acquired significance.

“I was going to ask you that. None we’ve found. He had a broker. We’ll be talking to him.”

“Hm. Too bad.”

Coren left. He checked his watch. He had less than forty minutes to get to the Auroran embassy. Too little time, really, to sort out his thoughts, much less his feelings.

Brun Damik was an orphan...

He pulled out his comm. “Desk; connect to the public records of the Holmer Foster Gymnas Cooperative. Alumni.”

While he waited, Coren teased at the reasons Damik had been killed. Because of Coren’s visit? So soon? That implied a surveillance network of remarkable scope. Had Damik called someone, given himself away, or was this an unrelated matter?

“Connection complete,” his Desk said.

“Access records for Damik, Brun.”

“Located.”

“List of kin or other relations.”

“Parents, Evlin Mores and Rolsin Dynik, recorded as deceased. Institutional guardianship until age eleven.”

Mores and Dynik... sound familiar... Coren could not remember. “Then what?”

“Elective sponsorship.”.’

“Name of sponsor?”

Under security lock.”

“Hack it. I want that name.”

“Working.”

Damik’s parents seemed so familiar, as if he had met them or seen their names

The list of people in Wenithal’s investigation.

He needed to check it again and verify, but now that he remembered he was sure.

“Finished,” his Desk reported. “Sponsor listed as Wenithal, Ree, agent with Eurosector police.”

Fourteen

“A DINNER?” DEREC shook his head at the image on the comm screen. Ariel returned his cynical look. “I don’t get this,” he continued. “Two days ago we were all but persona non grata and now Setaris is inviting you to embassy soirees.”

“It gets better,” Ariel said. “Jonis will be there.”

“Taprin... it occurs to me that you’re being used here.”

“Really?” Ariel intoned with mock dismay. “I asked Lanra to be my guest. One good surprise is worth another.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Of course not. He hasn’t told us half of what he’s looking into.”

“Fair is fair. We aren’t telling him everything, either.”

Ariel shrugged. “Do you want to take odds on whether the two lines of inquiry intersect?”

“I’m not sure I want them to.”

“Well... Lanra asked me if Chassik would be there tonight. I asked him why, and he said it was something he stumbled on.”

“Chassik. What could he possibly want with Chassik?”

“I have some opinions. Did you know that Solaria owns Nova Levis?”

“That hasn’t come out in the newsnets.”

“No, and it may not. They owned it before it was Nova Levis, when it was no more than a Solaria mining franchise called Cassus Thole. The colony–a Settler colony–is a lease agreement that was originally set up between Solaria and the Church of Organic Sapiens.”

Derec started. “Looms’ church?”

“The same, only back before they were so rabidly antispace. Now, just to heap coincidence upon coincidence, Gale Chassik was one of the initial investors in a biomed research lab called–are you ready?–Nova Levis, which was closed after having been investigated for infant brokering.”

Derec whistled. “Convergence is imminent.”

“So it seems. How’s it coming with the robot?”

Derec glanced across the small workspace at Rana. She stared, rapt, at the banks of screens, calibrating the myriad details of Thales’ link to facilitate a precise excavation. The robot itself remained where it had been left, on its pallet, now connected to Thales and Rana’s console via several heavy cables.

“I’d say another half-hour, we’ll have the interface running at an acceptable level,” he said. A small icon in the upper left corner of the comm screen revealed Thales’ presence in the exchange, monitoring security and running an encryption routine. Ariel saw the same icon on her end, otherwise she would never speak so freely on a commline.

“Speaking of things robotic,” Derec said, “the director here is a man named Rotij Polifos. Do you know anything about him?”

“No. Should I?”

“He’s been director for seven years. I was just thinking,, it’s kind of unusual for an Auroran to stay in a Terran posting like this for that long. Don’t they usually rotate out more regularly?”

“Usually. Maybe he likes it.”

Derec frowned. “Maybe.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, I just... it seems odd, that’s all.”

“Have Hofton look into it. Keep your mind on the robot, Derec.”

“Right, right. You know, Lanra wants us to prove a robot committed the murders. There’s no way, Ariel. Not this one, anyway. It’s just a standard DW-12 with a few added modules–nothing I don’t recognize–and it’s showing a nearly textbook collapse pattern. It couldn’t even have made the crack in the cargo bin, not without some tools.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt the robot you have is innocent. What I’m wondering is, why didn’t the robot prevent the deaths? If a second robot had been involved, as unlikely as it sounds, this one should have intervened. Has Sipha Palen told you much yet?”

“No. She wants us to run the excavation without any preconceptions. I can understand that.”

“Get it done ASAP. I want to move this to the next level.”

Derec raised an eyebrow. “What next level?”

“I’m sending you a packet to go over in private,” Ariel replied. “About Nova Levis. Very interesting reading.”

“The colony, or the lab you mentioned?”

“Both. The list of shareholders in the lab is intriguing all by itself. Chassik isn’t the only surprise.” She looked away for a few seconds. PACKET RECEIVED appeared along the bottom of Derec’s screen.

“Got it,” he said. “Be careful tonight, Ariel. We don’t want to be deported for bad taste.”

Ariel’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Derec, please! I? Bad taste?”

Derec smiled. “Forgive me. I do know better.”

She grinned. “Have fun.”

The screen went blank then, except for Thales’ icon and the notice of the data packet. Derec plugged his personal datum into the board.

“Download the packet for me, Thales,” he said. “I’ll look at it later.”

“I would recommend sooner,” Thales said. “I compiled the raw data. It may be more relevant than you might think.”

“‘Keep your mind on the robot,’ Ariel said. I’ll add it to the list, thanks.”

Lights winked on the datum’s pad. He scooted his chair over by Rana. She worked with confidence, clearly in control, comfortable in her expertise. Better than Derec remembered, and he remembered her as being very good.

“I suppose,” Rana said slowly, “that it’s occurred to you that you’re both being used.”

“You think so?”

“You’re being set up to take blame.”

“That would be consistent.”

“Then why are you going along with it?”

“It’s a question of being deported now or later. The longer we put it off, the more chance there is to avoid it completely.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Shouldn’t I?” She shrugged. “I suppose you’re thinking that you might find something in this mess–” she waved at the screens “–that will make you so valuable to someone that they’ll intercede on your behalf and restore you to former glory.”

“Something like that.”

Rana shook her head. “I can’t imagine why. All I want to do is get away from this planet, and all you want to do is stay.” She turned to look at him. “Why?”

“We’ve been over this before,” Derec said uncomfortably.

“Yes we have. And you’ve never given me an answer. Excuses, reasons, justifications, but not an answer.” Rana glanced toward the curtain that isolated them from the rest of the lab. “This planet has treated you pretty badly. Hell, it’s treated me badly and I was born here; you weren’t. I grew up on Earth and I have no place here. I’m leaving first chance I get, to go somewhere I might be appreciated.”

“Aurora is just as bad in different ways.”

“But it’s not personal the way it is here.”

“Who told you that?”

“My co-workers, for one. After they got over the idea of a Terran who understood positronics, they treated me as an equal.”

Derec shook his head. “No. You just haven’t learned to read the signs.”

Rana cut the air with her hand. “Stop. It is different because I have skills they value. Maybe it will be only more of the same in a new way, but for now it feels like respect. I already know what I don’t have on Earth.”

“So what is your question?”

“Why are you so set on trying to stay here?”

“You think there’s one answer?”

“No, but there’s usually one thing that validates all the rest.”

Derec stared at her, mind suddenly blank. “I never thought about it that way before,” he heard himself say. He no longer looked at Rana, but at a point just past her right shoulder, as if waiting for something to resolve in the air behind her.

“I don’t need an answer now, boss,” Rana said. He refocussed on her.

“Um...”

“And I can manage this,” she said, turning back to the console.

Conversation abruptly terminated, Derec went over to the gurney, annoyed and impressed by Rana.

Beyond the fabric curtain he could hear the other lab workers moving and speaking in low tones. He leaned on the edge of the pallet and gazed down the length of the robot.

“So where did you come from?” he muttered.

The torso showed age and use. Scratches gave the impression of a complicated urban map etched in bronze. The metal gleamed dully through patches of tarnish and encrusted grime. Plates covered linkages thirty centimeters below its arms that allowed extra limbs to be connected. The arms themselves, three-jointed and thick, ended in finely articulated six-digit hands. The legs depended from a rotating platform beneath the torso shell. Derec noted more removable coverplates on the platform hiding assemblies to which secondary legs or support braces or tractor modules or one of several other modifications could be fitted. The DW-12 was a large robot, two-and-a-half meters tall, designed for a multiplicity of heavy tasks in conjunction with human workers, very adaptable, with an advanced positronic brain that allowed for considerable independence and problem-solving capacity.

Vaguely humaniform, the head was little more than a protective helmet curving over the intricate sensor array behind the mesh-covered eyes. A complex architecture of connections rose out of the torso and joined the brain that lay within the chest cavity to the communications and sensory apparatus beneath the headcap. The normally thick column had been modified by the addition of accessory modules and cables. Normally, the “neck” would be covered by a smooth carapace, but the extra components jutted out like synthetic goiters, requiring a specially-fitted casement no one had bothered to acquire.

Derec frowned at the overall dirty appearance. This robot had been worked hard for a long time. Hiding it, as would be necessary on Earth, probably prevented the owner from caring for it as thoroughly as needed, but he would have expected Palen’s forensics people to clean it up in the course of their inspection.

But no thorough examination had been made.

Derec started going over it more carefully.

He felt beneath the headcap for the release and flipped the cover off, revealing the strutwork that caged the components. He took a rag and small bottle of solvent from the workbench and lightly cleaned off grime from the smooth surfaces until he found the serial number. He jotted it down and went to the comm, where he fed it to Thales to be encrypted and sent to Ariel.

Derec made note of each component he recognized within the head. Optical and aural receptors and translators, UV and Infrared telemetric assemblers, gas traps linked to interferometers, location and attitude modules–nothing unexpected. He wanted to turn it over to get inside the torso shell, but not till Thales finished the excavation.

On its right side, below the accessory limb coverplate, new metal shone brighter than the surrounding surface. A fifteen-centimeter square area had been replaced, the weld itself invisible but for the age difference in the material. Derec went over the rest of the body for signs of recent damage, but found none.

He tried to imagine its last minutes. A chamber full of humans died around it. What would its reaction have been? Derec tapped his finger arrhythmic ally on the pallet.

One human had been assaulted: Nyom Looms had suffered a broken neck. And this robot had failed to protect her from an alleged second robot.

Which had now disappeared.

Ridiculous.

Derec turned over first one robotic hand, then the other.

A dark substance filled the joints of three fingers, palm-side, of the right hand. Derec tried to flex them open but the segments were too tight. He found a small flathead screwdriver among the tools on the workbench. He slid a sheet of paper beneath the hand, then pried one of the segments open and dug at the matter embedded within the joint. Flakes fell to the paper.

He looked around their workstation. No magnifier. Derec carefully brushed the recovered material into a small dish, clapped a lid on it, and stepped from behind the blind.

Three technicians worked at two stations across the chamber. Derec spotted the equipment he needed against the wall to his left, midway between the curtain and the techs. He strode across the lab as if he did so every day and sat down at the console.

Within seconds, he had the magnifier powered up and the dish in the drawer of the observation platform. He keyed for a relatively low magnification–200X–and let the machine perform.

The screen showed him three distinct substances: two clearly artificial–one crystalline and the other fibrous. The third was blood.

He tapped a command to separate out the three materials and deposit them in separate dishes. A few seconds later, a different drawer in the platform slid out bearing three dishes. Derec pocketed the one containing the blood and reinserted the one with the crystalline material.

“May I help you; sir?”

Derec looked around at a young female technician standing anxiously behind him.

“No, I have what I need. Thank you.”

“Um...”

“It’s all right, I’ll clear it with your director.”

“Did you find something?” another tech asked, suddenly leaning past the first and gazing at the image on the screen.

Derec switched it off. The man frowned.

“I’m fine,” Derec said. “If I need help, I’ll ask.”

The man met Derec’s gaze coldly, without the scowl of offended dignity and violated territoriality Derec expected. Derec sensed that it would be a mistake to look away, to yield at all to this one. He would lose his samples and the presumed privileges he had just accorded himself, access to any and all parts of the lab.

“I am qualified to ask for help,” Derec said. “I’ve had years of practice.”

The tech smiled thinly. “Of course, sir. Sorry to bother you.”

The first technician watched her coworker retreat.

“Where’s the infirmary?” Derec asked. His legs trembled slightly.

“Next level,” she replied, pointing downward.

“Thank you.” He removed the sample tray from the magnifier and wiped the machine’s log. “I want one of these in our area when I return.”

“Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly.

“It is authorized. “He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice. “It wouldn’t do anyone any good for me to take this to Director Polifos. Would it?”

“No, sir. No.” She glanced in the direction of the other tech.

“Don’t worry about him,” Derec said. “He’s an amateur.”

She gave him a surprised smile. “Yes, sir. I’ll see to procuring you a magnifier.”

Samples in his pocket, Derec walked out of the lab, feeling the male tech ‘s eyes on him all the way to the door. He wondered what internal politics he had just upset and how, if at all, it applied to him.

An elderly Auroran named Greler attended the infirmary. After a brief exchange of names, Greler amiably ran a complete scan of the blood samples and handed a disk to Derec along with his sample.

“Apologies for being unable to run the match for you,” Greler said. “This sort of thing must go through Kopernik Medical. You can take it to them and have it done.”

“Thanks.”

Derec returned to the positronics lab.

He walked in to find two more techs sitting with the first pair. All of them fell silent when they saw him and watched as he crossed the floor to the curtained station. Derec felt a prickle up the back of his neck.

Hofton waited with Rana, along with Rotij Polifos and Yart Leri.

Polifos wore a pinched expression. Ambassador Leri looked concerned. Hofton and Rana seemed mildly puzzled.

“Mr. Avery–” Leri began.

“I would appreciate,” Polifos cut in immediately, “that any and all requests for equipment or special analyses be made through me. This is my lab.”

Derec did not respond. Polifos looked frustrated. When he finally broke eye contact, Derec looked at Leri.

“I was under the impression that we had your full cooperation.”

“Of course,” Leri said, glaring briefly at Polifos. “I apologize for any misunderstandings, but we are answerable to Ambassador Setaris and, through her, Aurora itself. We’re used to a more regular set of procedures.”

Polifos blinked in amazement at Leri. “I should have been told what this was all about. I am responsible to the Calvin Institute and the Positronics Commission–directly–and any and all matters concerning robots and other positronic entities within and involving this facility are my responsibility. I’m required to report, oversee, and voucher all activities–”

“You don’t have to quote the code to me,” Leri snapped. “This is, I repeat, an unusual circumstance–”

“I have this authority precisely for unusual circumstances! All due respect to Mr. Avery, he is not the only roboticist on Earth, and unless I have a very good reason to relinquish my responsibilities, I cannot allow him to simply take over–”

“No one is taking over,” Leri said.

“Stop interrupting me.”

“Stop jumping to conclusions! You didn’t know about this because I didn’t know! I didn’t know because Ambassador Setaris told me I wouldn’t know! She has asked for the utmost discretion, and I will not tolerate petty fits of temper over personal slights!”

“I can’t cooperate with Mr. Avery unless I know what he’s doing,” Polifos said.

“I agree, “Hofton said. “Can’t expect useful cooperation from ignorance.”

“Perhaps I was remiss,” Leri admitted. “But I was told that your work was highly confidential and that a minimum of interference was in order.”

“Misunderstandings are easy under these circumstances,” Derec said. “Evidently, I was misinformed about protocol myself.”

Leri looked sheepish. “I, uh...”

“Director Polifos and I can work this out, I’m sure,” Derec said.

“Well.” Leri gave Polifos one last glare.

Polifos did not look away this time. “I do not want Palen’s goons tramping through here as if it were their office and we were criminals.”

“Under the circumstances, we don’t have much choice,” Leri snapped. “Now, straighten all this out with Mr. Avery. I’m too busy to do arbitration over bruised egos.” He looked at Derec. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Avery. If you have any more trouble...”

He stormed off. Huddled techs watched him leave.

Derec turned to Polifos. “Chief Palen?”

“One of our staff was arrested,” Polifos said. “Nothing unusual in that–the man in question has a history of running afoul with Palen.”

“Doesn’t sound like someone you’d want to keep on staff,” Hofton observed.

“We have personnel shortages,” Polifos said. He seemed distracted. “But even so, I’ve tried to get this one rotated back to Aurora and it simply doesn’t happen.” He shook his head impatiently. “That isn’t the real problem. What is the problem is her people have been in and out of my lab since yesterday, questioning my staff. Then you show up, and the next thing I see is Palen herself with your man Hofton here bringing in a robot of which I had no knowledge! I can’t help but think that it’s all connected. Your presence has changed our relationship with Palen, and not for the better.”

Derec exchanged a look with Hofton. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about–”

Polifos cut him off. “No, I don’t imagine you do, nor would you even if you did. One of her police appears in the doorway, points, and expects to be followed. Our arrangement with the Terran authorities here is peculiar to say the least–we were all required to concede that Palen is in charge of all security throughout the station. Makes sense, I suppose, but–”

“We were informed about none of this,” Hofton said. “When was the arrest made?”

Rana frowned at Hofton but said nothing.

“Shortly before you arrived,” Rotij said. “Naturally we’re nervous.”

“What are the charges?” Hofton asked.

“Disorderly conduct. But Palen’s been questioning my people about smuggling. “Polifos snorted in disbelief. “Smuggling! Why would an Auroran engage in smuggling?”

Derec looked across the lab and recognized the tense look in the eyes of the staff.

Derec stepped close to Polifos. “I want that equipment, Director. Soon as possible. The quicker we get done here, the sooner we’ll be out of your lab and away from your people. But we want the equipment here. I don’t want any more confusion over who’s responsible for what.”

“No, we don’t,” Polifos answered sharply. “All right.” He stepped around the blind. “Hovis!”

Derec looked at Hofton. “What’s this about?”

“You stepped on toes in your walk across hallowed ground,” Hofton said. “Someone complained. The accusation that we’re plants from Palen materialized. There’s a rather ugly atmosphere here. Also,” he lowered his voice, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier. I tried to look into Director Polifos’s record. This posting and credentials from the Calvin Institute were all I could find. There’s a security block on records older than Kopernik.”

“Terran security?”

“No, sir. Auroran.”

Derec stared at Hofton, for a moment uncomprehending. Then he shook his head. “We’d better proceed on the assumption that we have even less time than we started with.” He showed the disk to Hofton. “I had the blood sample screened and typed.”

“Blood sample?” Hofton asked.

“The robot’s hand. I found material in the finger joints. Some of it is blood. The rest I’ll look at when I get the proper equipment.”

“Blood. Wonderful. That should help exonerate the robot.”

Derec slipped the disk into the comm console. “We’re going to need a complete autopsy report on all the victims, I think. And I want to look at that cargo bin. In person, not on a screen.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hofton said.

“One way or the other, we need to see for ourselves.”

“I understand.”

Derec turned to address his RI. “Thales, I’m sending a blood screen. I want you to run a match through all available databases.”

“Yes, Derec. That may take some time.”

“I can wait. “He pressed SEND and turned to Rana. “How’s the link?”

“Established. Thales is beginning the first level excavation now. I’ve set up buffers to receive intact memory nodes as they’re found and retrieved. We should be able to view them in isolation.”

“Good, good.” Derec went to the edge of the blind and watched a pair of technicians setting up a magnifier on a cart. “I want a complete scan for eyes and ears on all this equipment. Have Thales do one on the lab itself.”

“All of it?” Rana asked.

“Every bit.”

“Derec,” Thales said, “I have a consanguinity match.”

“Already?”

“Given the probable source of the sample, I began with the most obvious. I am continuing through the rest of the databases on the chance of finding an exact match.”

“All right, what do you have?”

“There is a 99% match to Nyom Looms.”

“So... it’s her blood?”

“No. I can display the details, but the distinction is clear. This sample came from a male.”

“Her father, perhaps?” Rana suggested.

“No, Rana. Even given the unlikelihood that Rega Looms would permit a robot close enough to him to touch, I ran the same match against his genome and it remains only a close match, not identical. The markers I used to verify distinctions number two hundred eighteen. There is no significant margin for error. The sample belongs to a male relative of both Rega and Nyom Looms, probably a son and brother.”

“Son...” Derec mused. “Looms never had a son.”

“The record would so substantiate. However, there are always possible oversights.”

“‘Oversights’,” Hofton said. “Interesting way to put it. Have you typed the sample against Looms’ wife?”

“Yes. The same degree of consanguinity. The logical implication is that Nyom Looms had a brother. However, no record of such a relative is forthcoming.”

“Can you determine age, Thales?” Derec asked.

“That is proving difficult, Derec. Normally there are mutations over time in the chemistry and base DNA. Proteins provide a reliable clock. But this sample shows an incongruity of results. Certain proteins suggest an age of twenty-nine, others an age of ten.”

“Rehab treatments?” Hofton suggested.

“The requisite chemical signatures of all known rejuvenation or rehabilitation protocols are absent. This does not preclude that one or more have not been employed that are unknown, but I cannot consequently give you an accurate estimate of age.”

“Send this data to Ariel, Thales,” Derec said. “Continue your search for an exact match. Add the databases of all rejuvenation clinics extending back a period of, oh, thirty-five years, and see if anything turns up.”

“Yes, Derec.”

“Nyom had a brother she didn’t know about?” Hofton said. “Amazing. Imagine that, from a man like Looms.”

“Call Palen,” Derec said. “We need to see those bodies and all the autopsy reports. “He stared across the lab, watching the personnel, and realized after a moment that he was looking for something that did not fit. “Thales, ask Ariel to run a background on Rotij Polifos.”

Fifteen

“YOU’RE LATE.”

Ariel nodded curtly to Coren’s escort, who bowed formally and left. Ariel stood to one side, waving Coren in.

“Your tailor took his time,” Coren said, entering the apartment.

Ariel Burgess wore a gown of graphite-gray material that contained motes of color which sparkled delicately. The cut had no sharp edges and, rather than encase her body, seemed to travel along with her. Coren kept expecting to see thigh or hip or breast or belly through the mist, but, though the fabric covered her reluctantly, it never failed to hide.

She wore no jewelry. Her black hair was braided thickly into a helix laced with silver, blue, and gold ribbons. She appeared to be barefoot. Coren could not stop watching her, thoroughly caught by what he saw.

“No matter,” she said. “Fashionably late is better than being too early. Have you ever been to one of these before?”

“No,” Coren said. “Rega has never been invited.”

She frowned. “Oh, I doubt that. Setaris is always trying to persuade detractors to come see for themselves.” She shrugged, then gave him an open appraisal. She nodded. “That will do.”

Coren bristled briefly at the inspection. The Auroran tailor complained that he was unused to working for Terrans because they were so short and thick, all the while his lasers measured him and his robot did the cutting. The suit, a midnight blue formal affair, fit beautifully–Coren enjoyed fine clothes, especially new ones, and he had never owned an Auroran outfit before. The sleeves seemed a bit too loose, but nothing was too tight, and after the trip from the tailor’s to Ariel’s apartment it felt as natural as skin.

Then he felt foolish for resenting her. He had been studying her, after all.

“I’m glad I meet your standards, “he said.

She cocked an eyebrow. “For tonight, at least.” She crossed the room to a comm console, dragging his gaze with her. She retrieved a disk and brought it to him. “Take this now, just in case.”

“What is it?”

“The subject of our evening’s discussion. But later. We have to go.”

In the corridor, she frowned. “How well do you handle the open?”

“As in...?”

“Unroofed space, free air, stars in the sky.”

“I can manage well enough.”

Ariel looked dubious. They reached a wide area lined with elevator doors. She tapped a code into one.

“Well,” she said, “if it becomes too much, there are plenty of enclosed spaces in Setaris’s residence.”

The door opened on a comfortable car with a plush bench mounted in a semicircle. Coren barely felt it begin to move and after a few moments there was no discernable motion.

Ariel slid briefly against him, thighs touching. His nostrils filled with a subdued odor and he became instantly affected by her presence.

“All right, we have a minute,” Ariel said. “Do you have any questions about protocol? Have you been to any Spacer functions?”

Coren set aside his growing distraction. “Um... when I worked for Special Service, there were occasions, but I’ve never been a guest.”

Ariel nodded. “I have no idea yet what the occasion for this dinner is, but I have no doubt several guests will be recording it. This will be a working dinner, so business will be done. Not openly, not blatantly, but arrangements will be made. There’s a hierarchy which you’ll pick up on as the evening progresses. Who sits where at the table, who is served what kind of drink, even who gets to go home for the evening with whom–all this is a matter of protocol and negotiation. Don’t argue with anyone. Prod, suggest, imply, insinuate–that’s not only allowable but expected. Anything but an open disagreement. Follow my lead.”

“Anyone I should be particularly wary of?”

“Gale Chassik, the Solarian ambassador. He has allies who mayor may not be sifting for information for him. The Keresians, for one.”

“Gale Chassik... I’ve come across that name recently.”

“So have I. He’s involved in Nova Levis.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Both of them, I believe. The colony and the lab.”

Coren blinked at her. “The lab?”

“It’s in the disk,” Ariel said, smiling. “I’ve been doing a little homework. Anyway, one other you should know about. Jonis Taprin will be there.”

“Senator Taprin?” Coren frowned. “That could be awkward.”

“Don’t worry about him using your presence there against Looms. Terrans will resign office before admitting to petitioning Spacers. He sees you there, he’ll be more worried that you’ll use it. If you do, then he’ll retaliate, but in my experience it’s automatic detente.”

“Why is Taprin going to be there?”

Ariel smirked. “Looking for favors, sifting for data. Even the most rabidly anti-Spacer politician, if he or she is at all intelligent, knows that Earth can’t do without us. The trade with the Settler colonies is too important to risk losing our shipping fleets as subcontractors. Besides, there’s the implicit threat of blockade. Earth also isn’t out there with the Settlers; we are. If there’s to be any kind of control–”

“There are Terran fleets,” Coren interrupted. “We aren’t all cloistered agoraphobics.”

“Compared to the Fifty Worlds, Earth’s presence is a token. You can blockade one world, maybe two, cause enough damage to upset the balance of power, but...” She let it hang like that. Then: “In any case, exercise discretion and say nothing about baleys. That’s nothing but a sore point among all of us. If it comes up, I’ll deal with it.”

“Why did you ask me here?”

“Efficiency. Setaris is playing a game and I don’t know what it is yet. I haven’t exactly been in favor this last year. Now all of a sudden I’m being asked to embassy fetes again. You ‘II act as a wild card in the game. Accompanying me will suggest a lot to them.”

“And explain nothing.”

“Exactly. Then afterward we can talk about our–we’re here.”

Coren had not noticed the car slowing. The door slid aside and let them out in a wide arcade.

The air smelled different. Coren slowed as he neared the edge of the overhang, sensing the change before he saw anything.

Through a dimly-seen parkland with slim trees and thick grass, light came from the residence, warmly tracing the outlines of the intervening flora. The sounds of conversation, occasional laughter, and the nearly overwhelming rhythm of music drifted, muted, toward him.

He forced his hands to unclench and stepped from beneath the shelter.

A breeze brushed his face.

He took a dozen steps and looked up.

Stars salted the night sky, and for an instant he caught his breath. They seemed so close that they formed a roof as solid as the urban shell beneath which he had lived all his life. Far more beautiful, though, and he understood why people wanted them, wanted to go to them, even why they wanted to see this same view from other worlds. There was certainly nothing to fear.

Between one step and the next, leaves fluttered in the comer of his vision and his perspective changed. Abruptly all of above became an infinity into which he felt he might fall.

Coren jerked his gaze to the ground, shuddered briefly, and made himself look only at the light ahead. Ariel had stopped halfway across the grass, waiting for him. He walked stolidly toward the party, pleased that he had not reclenched his fists. Ariel smoothly took his arm, and they continued on together. He touched his face, and his fingers came away dry.

Good. He stepped from grass to flagstone. He risked one more quick glimpse skyward. The light around him occluded the view of stars and he relaxed.

He blinked at the startlingly clothed people.

The styles ranged from strips and patches of fabric that barely covered, and often intentionally failed to cover, to blousy, opaque suits that seemed large enough for two people. The dance of color, shift of cloth and skin, the moil of distinct tastes from several cultures somehow blent into a single attribute: Spacer.

Even the Terrans dressed in one or another Spacer fashion, though they still stuck out. Coren thought he knew why: Terrans dressed for personal status while Spacers dressed purely for personal taste. On a Spacer, the quality and expense of the clothing said nothing of their place in the hierarchy, which kept Terrans continually unable to rank them on sight–something Terrans did among themselves habitually.

“Coren.”

He followed his name and found Ariel looking at him. She stood with three people: two Spacers, the other Terran. He recognized the Terran.

“Coren,” Ariel said, taking his arm, “may I introduce Ambassador Sen Setaris of Aurora.”

Coren bowed slightly and Setaris returned it. She was Spacer tall and austerely attractive, her hair glowing white around a seamless face. She could be fifty, or one hundred and fifty for all that Coren could tell.

“Welcome, Mr. Lanra,” she said. “I trust you aren’t in any distress?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Good. Make yourself comfortable, this is an informal gathering. Should you wish, my house is open.”

“I appreciate that, Ambassador.”

“And this, “Ariel moved on, “is Ambassador Gale Chassik of Solaria.”

Chassik looked very different from Setaris. Heavier, dressed in the thick Solarian manner, his head was nearly smooth. He smiled broadly and the lines in his face were deep. Coren began to extend his hand, then remembered the Solarian aversion to being touched. He bowed again.

“Ambassador.”

“Pleased, Mr. Lanra. It’s good to see Ariel out of her shell again. We’ve missed her.”

Ariel smiled. “I’ve missed you, as well.” She turned to the Terran. “And this is Senator Jonis Taprin of Earth.”

“I recognize the Senator, of course,” Coren said, extending his hand. “How do you do, sir.”

Taprin was pale and middle-aged, lines in his forehead qualitatively different from those in Chassik’s. He was thin and nearly as tall as Setaris. He clasped Coren ‘s hand. “This must be an unusual occasion for you, Mr. Lanra. I understood you worked for Rega Looms.”

“That’s true, sir.”

“What would he think of you consorting with Spacers?” Taprin grinned at Chassik and Setaris, including them in the joke.

“No more than he would of you doing so, Senator,” Coren said.

The Spacers laughed softly. Coren noticed the quick resentment in Taprin ‘s eyes, gone just as quickly.

“Honestly, though,” Coren said, “I’m here at Ambassador Burgess’s invitation. I’m currently on leave from Mr. Looms’ service.”

“Isn’t that unusual?” Chassik asked. “You are his chief of security, are you not?”

“I am. But I have very capable people handling his day-to-day operations. On the road as he is, I have to look after the home office. But even I get a few days off from time to time.”

More polite laughter.

“Enjoy yourself, Mr. Lanra,” Setaris said. “If you’ll excuse Ariel and me....?”

Setaris took Ariel’s arm and the two drifted off.

“Ambassador Setaris sets a marvelous table,” Chassik said. “The buffet should not be missed.” He gestured toward a long table near the entrance to the house.

“In that case,” Coren said, “I should do the diplomatic thing and eat something.”

Taprin smiled. “Stay away from the mauve buttons with the yellow cream sauce. They sneak up on you at the most inconvenient times.”

Coren glanced back when he reached the long table filled with Spacer delicacies. Taprin and Chassik faced each other, talking intently. He searched the crowd and spotted Ariel and Setaris, near the edge of the patio, also talking intently.

He surveyed the food arrayed down the length of the long table and saw almost nothing he recognized. He located the buttons Taprin had warned him about and, perversely, took one. It possessed a faintly musty taste beneath a cinnamon-sweet tang. The sauce reminded him of buttered scallops. Nothing unfamiliar.

“Drink, sir?”

He glimpsed a tray to his left containing several tall glasses. He took one.

“Thanks.”

The servor rolled away, then, and Coren watched it, a robot shaped like a mobile table, moving deftly among the partiers. He caught a glimpse of a few more spaced throughout the gathering.

The liquid in the glass shimmered golden and he wondered where it put him in the order of importance. He sipped: tea with almond liqueur. He popped the rest of the button in his mouth and washed it down.

“I trust this isn’t going to become complicated.” Taprin stood beside him. “Complicated, Senator?”

“You understand me, Mr. Lanra.”

“I do. I’m sure both of us understand the risks of unmanaged implication.”

Taprin winced. “Just so we do.” He was not finished, though. He fidgeted, sipped at his drink, and finally asked, “Have you and Ariel known each other long?”

“We met last year.”

Taprin blinked, startled. “I wasn’t aware she’d been seeing anyone...”

“Should you?”

Taprin frowned.

“I’m sure, Senator, whatever else gets discussed here tonight, Ariel Burgess’s personal relationships won’t be part of it.”

Taprin nodded. “Excuse me.”

Coren watched him walk away, toward the house. So much for being nonconfrontational...

“Do you think he can defeat your Mr. Looms?”

Ambassador Chassik stood beside him, also watching Taprin retreat to the interior of Setaris’s residence.

“The election is still six weeks off,” Coren said. “Anything can happen between now and then.”

“I know. That’s always surprised me about you Terrans. Given your temperament, one would think you’d find a less volatile way to choose your leaders.”

“For example?”

Chassik shrugged. “For example, on Solaria the process is accomplished by a combination of appointment and annual assessment. A vote of confidence keeps the appointed official in office. Too low a vote...” Chassik drew a finger sharply across his own throat. He grinned quickly. “Politically speaking, of course.”

“Who does the appointing?”

“There is a college of electors. We never know who they are.”

“I see. I think we’ll keep our volatility.”

Chassik laughed.

“My question,” he continued, “is not academic, Mr. Lanra. Should your employer defeat Senator Taprin, new arrangements must be made. I would consider it a favor if you let Mr. Looms know that Solaria is open to a dialogue.”

“You do know Rega’s position on Earth-Spacer relations.”

Chassik nodded. “In spite of his public pronouncements, I’m sure he’s at base a reasonable man.”

“Is Senator Taprin a reasonable man?”

“More than others, less than some.”

“When the time comes, I’ll pass that on,” Coren said.

“Thank you, Mr. Lanra.”

“I would think, though, that you would tell him yourself. You used to know him personally, didn’t you?”

Chassik’s eyes narrowed briefly. “I won’t insult your no doubt substantiated intelligence by denying it. That was, however, a long time ago.”

“Before you were ambassador, wasn’t it?”

“I was newly arrived on Earth. He was one of the few Terrans who took any time to show me around.”

“I suppose it helped to be in business together. I found that interesting. It’s not very common these days, is it?”

“We were never ‘in business’ together, Mr. Lama. You’re mistaken.”

“Oh. I apologize–perhaps I misunderstood. You both owned shares in some of the same companies.”

Chassik shook his head. “Even then, Rega was not sanguine about mixing with Spacers. If we did have common investments, it was quite by accident.”

Coren nodded. “Ah. Forgive me. I was under the impression that he brought you in on a project.”

“What project might that have been?”

“Something to do with prostheses, I believed. I forget the name of the company.”

Chassik shrugged. “Rega showed some interest in our medical technologies along those lines, but nothing ever came of it. He found our procedures too invasive. Later on, his discomfort turned to fanaticism. We haven’t spoken since he became head of that church of his.”

“Which is why you’d like me to take your offer to him.”

“Exactly, Mr. Lama. I–oh, Ariel. I was just discussing political systems with your friend. The merits of Terran populist mandates, as opposed to good old-fashioned autocracy.”

“No meddling, Gale,” Ariel said, stopping before them.

“Never!” Chassik proclaimed with mock severity. “I’m so pleased to see you, Ariel. It’s about time Setaris got over her snit and remembered your existence.”

“Was it a snit? I thought it was a well-deserved vacation. Now I find I have to start working again.”

“If there’s anything I can do...”

“I think Sen would be displeased if you helped me get another vacation.”

“You should come to work for us, Ariel, “Chassik said. “We have a much more beneficent attitude toward sacrifice and service.”

“Mmm. The only problem with that would be the travel.”

Coren studied Ariel while she sparred with Chassik. He noticed then how different she seemed compared to the Spacers gathered here. His first thought was that she looked younger, but that was wrong. They all, for the most part, looked young, at least in that their skin was smooth, their eyes were clear, their hair thick and shimmering. But that could be purchased at any competent rejuve clinic. Earthers managed cosmetic youth up till their eighties and nineties, when the repairs failed for lack of anything dependable to repair.

No, Spacer youth was qualitatively different, something rejuve could never achieve. Instead, it was a static perfection, isolated in time, unchanging and unchanged. They looked like icons of health instead of people, archetypes of agelessness. Instead of perpetually young they were perpetually the same.

But not Ariel Burgess. For one thing, she was not young. Fine lines rayed from the comers of her eyes, and her laughlines were deep and permanent. A single chiselled dash deepened between her eyebrows when she concentrated and her skin, rather than the smooth porcelain austerity of her fellow Spacers, showed the reticulations of virgin, unrejuvenated or rehabbed derma.

She was not stuck in time.

Coren surveyed the crowd, checking his newfound perception to see how it held up. He saw exceptions, of course, and the Earthers were distinct by virtue of their evident age and the use of makeup where nature let them down. But for the most part observation confirmed expectation.

“–curious why you haven’t challenged the blockade,” Ariel was saying.

Coren’s attention snapped back to Ariel and Chassik.

Chassik looked puzzled. “What business would it be of Solaria’s to get in between a dispute between Earth and one of its unacknowledged offspring?”

“None, usually,” Ariel said. “Except that Solaria holds title to Nova Levis. I assume, since you haven’t deeded it to the colony, you still have some interest in it.”

Chassik frowned. “I was unaware of any holdings by that name. Are you sure you have your facts correct?”

“It’s possible the record is just incomplete. These things do get overlooked. Solaria owned the place outright about thirty-five years ago.”

“Really? By that name?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well, then you do have me at a disadvantage.”

Ariel cocked her eyebrows. “I’ve never known you to be at a disadvantage. I’ll have to remember this. Especially where something you once personally owned shares in is involved.”

Chassik made a long show of assembling a plate of assorted delicacies, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “You’re probing, Ariel. I don’t think you know what it is you’re looking for. You’ve heard a name, saw a bit of obsolete data, and you’re jumping to conclusions. That got you in rather a lot of difficulty last year, didn’t it?”

“In a way. Difficulties don’t come from wrong conclusions.”

“Oh, they can, though. Depends on how they’re wrong. This Nova Levis thing... rather arcane subject for the Calvin Institute liaison to concern herself with,” Chassik said.

“Illicit traffic in positronics does concern me.”

Chassik blinked, startled. “Accusations are beneath you, Ariel.”

“I’m not making any, Ambassador.”

“Nova Levis has been a de facto independent colony for nearly thirty years. I believe Aurora has sponsored a few such colonies itself, and I’m sure if you looked the actual ownership of those worlds may still be a matter of doubt. Does Aurora meddle in the internal workings of these colonies?” He shrugged. “What the situation is on the ground rarely matches what you find on paper. If Solaria hasn’t signed over anything, it’s simply a clerical error.”

“Was it a clerical error,” Coren asked, “when you divested your personal holdings in Nova Levis? If I recall correctly, you did so at the same time as Rega Looms sold his shares. Oh, but I forgot, you never did business together.”

Ambassador Chassik’s reaction moved through stages, from genuine bafflement to comprehension to an abrupt resumption of a professional mask.

“Ariel,” he said drolly, “I rarely give advice, but in this case I think you need it. I admire and respect you, but you’ve shown truly questionable taste in paramours. You should be a little less reckless. “He smiled at Coren. “Please excuse me.”

Chassik sauntered away.

“What was that?” Ariel asked.

“Following your lead,” Coren said. “Blind shooting. I turned up some interesting facts concerning that research lab you mentioned, Nova Levis. Your Ambassador Chassik was a primary shareholder. I wondered if maybe the two were related–the lab and the colony.”

“Blind shooting. I’d love to see what you can do with your eyes open. “She shook her head. “You guessed wrong, though. I wasn’t shooting blind. Solaria still holds title to Nova Levis–the colony. It wasn’t called that when they owned it.”

“What was it called?”

“Cassus Thole.”

A chime cut through the air like crystal.

“Dinner, “Ariel said. “I hope the rest of the evening is as interesting as the hors d’oeuvres.”

Coren left Ambassador Setaris’s dinner gratefully. Through the excellent food and drink, the strain of trying to pay attention to everything gave him a mild headache.

Ariel wore a vague smile during the ride to the embassy lobby. Coren had expected to return to her apartment or office to talk, but when he began to mention it she shook her head distantly.

“Later, “she said.

In the lobby, Coren became impatient. He held his tongue in front of the Auroran security guards, though, and let Ariel take his arm and walk with him through the exit.

On the plaza fronting the embassy, she said, “Let’s get a car. I haven’t been outside the embassy in months. I want to go for a ride.”

Bewildered, Coren ordered a cab.

Once in the passenger section of the automated transport, her vagueness evaporated.

“Paranoia is a requirement for the job,” she said, and punched in a series of random destinations in the cab’s datum.

“Who do you think is listening?”

“My own people, for one. Add Chassik to the list.” She turned to face him as the cab moved off. “All right, tell me what you know about this lab.”

Coren recounted what he had discovered about Nova Levis Research. Ariel listened silently. When he finished she leaned her head back and gazed at the ceiling for a time.

“Alda Mikels and Gale Chassik together in the same investor’s list makes sense,” she said. “But Rega Looms?”

“Odd, I agree. But why would the colony be named for the lab?”

“You’re sure it is? Could be coincidence.”

“You could find out more about that than I could.”

Ariel nodded. “I’ll look into it.”

“What did you mean about illicit positronics traffic?”

Ariel waved her hand. “Like you, blind shooting. I thought I might get a reaction. There has to be a reason Solaria never relinquished claim to Nova Levis. I thought perhaps they were using it as a transfer point for black market robotics. That could still be it, but I’m not sure Chassik knows anything about it.”

“The entire Solarian government?” Coren asked dubiously.

“No, just factions. And he was right about the independence of those colonies. We lease the worlds, Settlers come in, after a time the colony charters its own government, and independence is a fact. There’s never been a reason before for any kind of intervention. No precedent. I haven’t checked yet, but maybe there’s some old agreement that keeps Earth from demanding Solaria exercise rights of ownership. Or it could be that the fact has been lost in the name change. Even if there isn’t, it may be that one department simply didn’t know what the other was doing. ‘Oh, that business of the deed? I thought you had taken care of that. Well, it isn’t my responsibility:” She smiled at Coren’s laugh. “Contrary to what you Terrans believe, we Spacers are not of one mind. On any subject.”

“That’s not something I ever believed.”

She leaned forward. “Rega Looms had to have a reason to invest in a biotech lab. Did he have any other investments like that?”

“Not that I know. I’ll check, but I don’t think so.”

“So if it was just the one investment, the one lab, it seems logical he’d have a good reason.”

“I suppose. But–”

“Probably a personal reason?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Did he have any other children besides Nyom?”

Coren hesitated. A few days earlier he would have stated emphatically not, but now, after hearing the remarks of both Looms and Wenithal, he was less certain.

Instead of answering, he said, “There’s something else. My errand to Baltimor District. The reason I was late. The shipping container Nyom used was routed out of Petrabor. Shipping schedules had been rearranged to accommodate it.”

“Petrabor...”

“The reschedule came out of the ITE offices in Baltimor. I looked up an acquaintance from my Service days, a man named Brun Damik, who was in charge of the inspector’s department of ITE, figuring that if anyone would know how to get in touch with the people who run the whole baley operation, he would. He led me to a retired cop named Wenithal. I found Rega’s name in his old case logs, part of the same investigation that involved Nova Levis. According to the public record, no charges were filed against Nova Levis, but the attention from the investigation must’ve been enough to sink it. It was bought by the Kysler Group and dismantled. Tonight, when I went back to ask Damik about his connection to Wenithal, I found police there. He’d been murdered. Tortured and murdered.”

Ariel winced. “What was the case?”

“A kidnapping. It turned out to involve several orphanages and a couple of biotech labs, extending back several more years. Infants were being taken from orphanages, funneled through the labs, and shipped offplanet. A slave trade, of sorts.”

“What did the labs have to do with it?”

‘‘I don’t know yet. But I found this–” he handed her the certificate he had taken from Damik’s apartment “–hidden in Damik’s office.”

Ariel opened the sheet and studied it. “He was an orphan?”

“Interesting, isn’t it? I never knew. We worked together and I never knew.” He folded the document and put it back in his pocket. “Ree Wenithal sponsored him.”

“Should you have known?”

Coren shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You don’t expect the people you work with to hide that kind of thing from you after you admit to them that you’re an orphan.”

“You?”

“Seth Canobil Hospice and Social Rehabilitation Center. Lifelong resident. I graduated from there before entering the Academy.”

Ariel seemed to think about that for a time. “All right, so you were both orphans. This police officer, Wenithal, was investigating a kidnapping. Children were stolen from orphanages and eventually sent offworld. To Nova Levis?”

“Maybe. “He stared out the window for a time. “What is it we’re supposed to be stopping Nova Levis from doing with this blockade?”

“You’re insisting you have the right to on-ground inspection. You’re looking for pirates.”

“‘You’? I thought Aurora was backing Earth on this one.”

Ariel shrugged. “You notice we haven’t sent any ships.”

“Point taken.”

“Where was Nyom Looms taking her baleys?”

“Nova Levis.”

Ariel nodded. “I think we should have a talk to this police officer.”

“I agree. But I’m not sure what good he is. His information is a couple of decades old.”

“If Spacers are involved, that’s meaningless. They can be very patient.”

“‘They’?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t feel very much like one of them.” She frowned. “But this might be the very same case your Mr. Wenithal was investigating. It may be that whatever was going on then has just come back home. If it ever really stopped. Why did he resign?”

“I don’t know.” Coren sighed. “There’s something else.”

“Always.”

Coren laughed. “No, I mean another coincidence. I did a background on the warehouse where Nyom connected to her killers. I tried to find the dockworker who met them–a man named Yuri Pocivil. I did a trace and found out he was a Settler immigrant. From a colony called Cassus Thole.”

Ariel stared at him. “The same as?”

“I don’t know. Interesting coincidence, don’t you think? The fact is, he came to Earth six years ago–from Cassus Thole. Along v nth a good number more who all work for the same company. Six years ago. Long after Cassus Thole supposedly became Nova Levis. So either there are two colonies with the same name–”

“Or there’s a problem inside ITE. Your acquaintance, Brun Damik–do you think...?”

“It’s something I intend to check into now.”

“I think we need to find out what else this Hunter Group owns as well. Maybe we should ask Mr. Wenithal what corporations came up in his investigation.”

“Settlers, Spacers, and Terran companies. Rather unusual circumstances that could bring them all together.”

“In my experience, profit explains such anomalies nicely.”

“But profit from what?” Coren asked.

“Kidnapping from orphanages.”

“But–”

Ariel pointed. “That disk I gave you has a full screening of a blood sample taken from the finger joints of the robot Nyom Looms had with her.”

“Blood.”

She nodded. “We typed it, scanned it, and ran a match. It seems Nyom Looms had a brother.”

Sixteen

THE CAB LET them out in front of Lanra’s building. Ariel followed him up the stairs to his office. The building showed considerable age–the stairs worn where countless feet had pressed upon them, dust accrued in corners, an uncovered access to conduit and wiring long unrepaired–but it seemed moderately well maintained. Cleaner than she might have expected in this old neighborhood, which lay on the outskirts of the Infant District, just off the Southwest Corridor of D. C.

A light glowed above Lanra’s fourth floor office door, illuminating a nameplate–COREN LANRA, I. S. I.

“Do you have any neighbors here?” Ariel asked.

“An industrial cleaning firm,” Coren said, gesturing toward the other lighted door down the hall. “The floor below is empty. Three businesses on the one below that. Two below that.”

“And above?”

“Storage. Past tenants left stuff, paid to have it stored. Or not, but management kept it all anyway.”

He let them in.

“It’s a more prosperous district than that,” he continued, “but there are only so many lawyers to fill available office space.” He shrugged. “A lot of tenants have left in the last year. I don’t know why.”

“Trends are merciless.”

He nodded distractedly. “Especially on real estate. Wait here a moment.” He pushed through the inner door, to a private office. Ariel heard a brief verbal exchange and wondered if he had a secretary. The thought annoyed her for some reason. “All right, come in,” Coren called.

When she stepped through the door she found Coren seated behind a broad desk, its surface illuminated by a touch-sensitive grid. He had taken off his jacket and was absently rubbing his left shoulder. Ariel studied the desk.

“That’s impressive,” she said.

“And as expensive as it looks. Sit down.” He leaned over the desk then and started entering commands. His fingers danced deftly.

“AI?” she asked.

“Yes...” He inserted the disk Ariel had given him into a reader slot. A flatscreen extruded on one corner of the desk. Coren studied it. “The DNA is a close match... what are these other things? Proteins?”

“Derec hasn’t finished his analysis yet. Proteins, yes, but there are a few puzzles–for instance, a high concentration of myralar.”

“What’s that?”

“A polymer, synthetic. A distant analog of nylon. It’s used in robotics for joints, pivots, dry lubricant. Apparently the robot you found grabbed someone. We found the blood samples mixed with these other materials in its fingers.”

Coren frowned at the screen. His fingers worked. “Not Nyom, but...”

“Very close.”

Coren ‘s glance flicked over her, a hint of irritation. “I didn’t think robots could hurt anyone.”

“Not intentionally, no.”

“So where did the blood come from?”

Ariel shook her head. “We’ll have to wait for Derec’s excavation before we know that.”

“You’re so sure it couldn’t have been the robot.”

“Not that robot.”

“And you don’t believe in my second robot.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Coren grunted. His eyes closed for several seconds. Ariel began to think he had just fallen asleep when he straightened abruptly in his chair. He winced as he stood.

“I’m sorry, “he said, “would you like something to drink?”

“You’re hurt.”

Coren nodded. “I was rolled in Petrabor.”

“When was this?”

“The last time I saw Nyom, when she left. “He walked stiffly toward another door. “I think I could stand a drink, if you don’t mind.”

“You didn’t say anything about being attacked.”

He shrugged and went through the door. Ariel heard the faint sound of liquid on glass, then a deep groan. Silence stretched. Ariel went to the door and looked in.

Coren sat on a long divan, a drink perched on his right thigh, eyes shut. An open bottle sat on the low table before him. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Bourbon. She found a row of glasses on a shelf above a small liquor cabinet. She poured three fingers and studied the room.

Shelves, a pair of closet doors, another chair, a set of drawers. It reminded her of the monk’s hole Derec had kept on the premises at Phylaxis.

Last year... ages ago...

A box lay open on top of the table. Ariel stared down at a collection of images of a young woman, almost gaunt, but with a bright smile and large eyes. She looked vaguely familiar.

Looms, she realized.

Coren cleared his throat. Ariel looked to see him watching her, a worried frown creasing his forehead. She picked up the top image.

“Nyom?”

He nodded.

Ariel dropped the picture. “This isn’t a case file.”

“Nyom wasn’t a case.”

“You’re not doing this for Rega?”

“Partly. Mostly I’m doing it for myself.”

“It’s personal, then.”

“Very.”

Ariel pulled the chair close to the table and sat down across from him. “What’s that like?”

Coren pulled himself straighter and set the glass on the table. “I don’t think this is relevant.”

“Maybe not to the universe at large, “Ariel said with mock gravity. “But I’m interested.”

“It’s not very interesting. I resigned from Special Service almost six–no, seven years ago now. I tried running my own private security company for a year or so, but my best clients were always police agencies who needed a little extra expertise.” He smiled grimly. “We private cops tend to be a little less constrained by legality than regular police. Anyway, it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to. I’d quit because I didn’t like the compromises I had to make on behalf of official policy and now I found myself compromising everything else to pay the rent. I started looking for a staff position in the private sector. Rega hired me about five years ago. I met Nyom seventeen months later.”

“You remember it that clearly?”

“A very memorable sequence of events.”

Ariel raised her glass to her mouth and said with mild sarcasm, “I suppose it was love at first sight.” She took a sip.

“Don’t smirk. It happens.” He shook his head. “The thing is, I didn’t know that till later. I thought it was just lust. Both of us. I thought she was doing it to irritate Rega, but he never knew. Nyom was nonconformist to a fault, but she didn’t flaunt it. She wasn’t looking for attention. Whatever else Rega might have done, he instilled a sense of purpose in her. She wanted her life to mean something.” He shook his head. “That sounds superficial, doesn’t it? The ultimate cliché.”

“No. Not if it’s real.”

“Oh, it was real. That’s how she ended up running baleys.”

“Now that sounds like something aimed at her father.”

“It’s easy to think that, too. They didn’t really get along. The truth is, Nyom knew things were wrong, that the way everything is put together is all messed up, but she didn’t know how or why. She didn’t know what would make it right. If anything could. So she moved from one cause to another, trying to find the formula for fixing the world. Rega just chose something that felt right and stuck with it. Nyom wasn’t confident enough with her judgment to think she knew which one. Mostly, she ended up trying to help people do what they wanted when official policy got in their way.”

“If it’s a law, it’s necessarily oppressive?”

“Something like that. Baley running was a natural for her.”

” Is that what ended it between you?” Ariel asked.

Coren nodded. “Irreconcilable ideologies.”

“You don’t think anything is wrong?”

“No, no, not at all. I just can’t see the use in tearing down everything you have until you can make it work.”

“Very conservative.”

“That’s me.”

“What will you do if you find that Nyom’s view was right?”

“I have no idea.” He leaned back. “Rega Looms has never lied to me before.”

“You’re referring to the possible existence of Nyom’s brother?”

Coren nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. Rega only had one child.”

“That you know of.”

“That I know of. Nyom never said anything either. “He shook his head. “I hate being lied to.”

“Maybe Rega just neglected to mention it. Has he always told you everything?”

Coren looked uncomfortable. “That would be a very dangerous omission on his part.”

“Granted. But it’s those things that can hurt us most that we never reveal, even when we should.”

“Is that experience talking or a Spacer proverb?”

Ariel considered responding to the barb, but decided against it. “Assuming he lied about that, why? Did the child die?”

“There would be no reason to hide that. Even assuming Rega to be a callous opportunist–which he isn’t–having a child die in infancy could only be a subject for sympathy. Why would a dead child be something to hide?”

“It might depend on how it died.”

Coren shook his head. “No, if Rega has hidden it, then the child didn’t die.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you interested in this?”

“My government–”

“Uh-uh. You. There’s a difference between following orders and pursuing a goal. You ‘re interested for your own reasons. Why?”

Ariel considered telling him about the note on her comm–We’re not finished with you–but balked, unwilling even now to admit how much it frightened her.

“Maybe later,” she said. “It’s not important right now.”

“We never reveal the things that can hurt us most?”

“Drop it,” she said curtly.

Coren raised his hands in mock surrender. “Later, then. But I think you’re going to have to tell me sometime.”

“Then sometime I’ll tell you.”

“Preferably before it’s too late to do you any good.”

“May I ask another personal question?”

Coren made a gesture to continue.

“Has there been anyone since Nyom?”

Coren frowned thoughtfully, then picked up his glass. He shook his head. “I haven’t made the time.”

“Not interested, or just not ready?”

He glanced at her speculatively. “Are you making a suggestion?”

Ariel laughed, surprised. Am I? Thinking about it now, with Coren watching her, waiting, she realized that the same question applied to her. It’s been a year since Jonis. How long is long enough?

“Maybe,” she said. “When we have more time.”

“Ah.”

“Nova Levis,” she said with emphasis.

“Yes. Our phantom research company. Or the colony.” The fragile mood broke and Ariel felt mildly self-conscious.

“They could be connected,” she said.

Coren set down the glass and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe. Probably. Nova Levis, formerly Cassus Thole, is apparently involved in baleys in a big way. Warehouses, shipping, stolen cargo. Your complaining Spacers and their delayed shipments.” He waved a hand. “Too much. I need sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“I can call you a cab if you want.”

Ariel studied him, realizing that she did not want to go back to the embassy. Perhaps it was just being away from other Spacers and the confines of the mission precincts, but she was enjoying being here too much. That thought surprised her, too.

Coren looked at her. “Is something wrong?”

“No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here.”

“Don’t you have to report in?”

“Not if I don’t want to.”

“Senator Taprin–” Coren began.

“Old business.”

“But is it over?”

“I thought it was. It would be nice to know for certain.”

Coren coughed. “I am really, really tired.”

“Do you have anything I can go over, then?” She smiled at him. “Or you can sleep. I’ll watch.”

He pushed himself up. “Let me finish up a couple of things.” He walked woodenly into his office. Ariel could see him from where she sat. She wondered at herself: just what it was she intended with Coren Lanra; what she would do, and why. For the moment she was content to let her feelings run their course. It had been months since she had been interested in anything beyond her own self-denigration. Right now she felt in control, free to act instead of waiting for something to react against.

“Desk,” Coren said, “have you completed compilation of the case files of Ree Wenithal?”

“I am sorry, “the Desk said, “I have no record of such a request.”

Coren’s face went blank. “Desk, run review. I requested a survey of relevant material concerning the investigations of Ree Wenithal, reference downloaded material from disk yesterday.”

A moment passed. “No such material is extant in memory.”

“Run diagnostic.”

Ariel felt her pulse quicken. “Your system is buffered, I assume?”

“Of course. The whole office is–”

“Diagnostic complete. Reference nine-one-oh.”

Coren snatched Ariel’s disk from the reader and tossed it to her. He worked furiously over the surface, then stood. He came back into the private room and went to the shelves.

“Something’s infiltrated your system,” Ariel said.

“That’s the code reference you heard.” He tucked small objects into his pockets, then grabbed an overcoat and a soft travel bag. He piled things in quickly, slammed the drawers, and returned to his desk. He studied readouts, nodded once, and entered more commands.

“What–?”

He raised a hand and shook his head. Ariel fell silent. Finally, he shrugged on the overcoat, shut down the Desk, and indicated the exit. Ariel preceded him through the door, across the reception area, and waited.

Coren Lanra pulled out a handgun. Ariel suppressed a shudder at the sight–the weapon looked compact and heavy, with an ominous green light on the frame just above the trigger guard. She was guessing, but it seemed lethal.

He leaned out into the hall, looked left and right, then took her arm. He guided her in the direction of the stairs and gave her a slight push.

Ariel stepped onto the stairwell landing and waited for Coren. When he emerged into the dusty gloom of the shaft, she asked quietly, “Do I get one of those?”

He studied her intently. “You know how to use one?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

He reached within the voluminous overcoat. A second later he pressed a fatal shape into her hand.

Ariel held it gingerly for a few seconds, studying it. A modified stunner with an extra powerpack and an amplifier along the generator coils. At close range, it would probably kill. She thumbed it on, felt the energy as a faint, numbing surge against her palm. She sited along the barrel a couple of times to get the feel of it, then nodded to Coren.

Coren led the way down the stairs. They had not seemed so dark on the way up, but now the shadows oppressed, the turns threatened. Ariel’s pulse was racing by the time they reached the bottom.

“Stay here,” Coren said, and stepped quickly out the door. A few seconds later he came back in. “This way.”

Beneath the stairs he turned on a handflash. Ariel saw a heavy metal door with a keypad upon which Coren deftly entered a command. Old bolts lurched back and the door swung away from them.

In the light of Coren’s flash Ariel made out another landing and a flight of skeletal stairs leading down to a sublevel. Coren closed the door behind them and shined the light above and around. A few cobwebs had gathered in high comers but not so many as might be expected.

Their feet clattered loudly on the bare metal steps. At the bottom, reddish-orange light pooled. Coren switched off his flash.

“That way,” he said, pointing down one corridor, “leads to the garage. This way–” he indicated the passage leading straight from the stairs “–runs under the next several buildings in this block. There’s access to lower levels.”

“Do you own transport?”

“No.”

“Then...”

He headed toward the garage.

Halfway down the passage a sound stopped Ariel. She glanced back, trying to comprehend what she had heard–a rasping noise, like rough cloth over gravel, or the hissing of water against a hot surface–yet fearing to see what could make it. But the narrow corridor was empty. She hurried to catch up to Coren.

They entered a storeroom. In the light of Coren’s flash, she saw bins stacked high to the ceiling, filled with packages and angular shapes, and clusters of components and discarded parts. A workbench held a complicated mechanism that had been thoroughly dismantled.

Through another door they emerged into one of the garage levels. Bright lights imbedded in the ceiling painted sharp highlights upon the sleeping transports sitting in rows. Coren strode quickly along them, head swiveling, until he came to the end of one row. He dug in his jacket for something, then inserted a card into the reader on the transport door. He tapped a code into the lock. A moment later the door slid open.

“Get in.”

Ariel went around to the passenger door.

Coren powered up the transport and eased it out of the slot.

Ariel glimpsed movement off to the right. Before she could speak, a large shape shot out in front of them, bounced off the hood, and landed heavily on the roof.

“What–?” Coren began.

His window burst in, spraying bits of shattered plastic across them. Ariel clutched the pistol while her free hand came up to protect her face.

The transport lurched to a halt.

Coren was half out the window when she looked again. He hooked his left leg awkwardly under the steering column and his right hand clutched at the frame separating the front and rear sections. An ugly hacking sound came from where she imagined his head must be.

Ariel opened her door. She gave the line of nearby transports a quick survey, then rolled out. She came up facing the vehicle and brought her weapon to bear.

The shape on the roof of the transport looked human. It was large, mostly covered in a long, colorless overcoat, one leg thrust back for balance along the front screen, foot sheathed in a heavy black boot.

She aimed.

A head appeared over the hunched shoulder. Eyes fixed her, unblinking and sharp. The face... the skin looked rough, disfigured... the hair was a ragged growth of oily brown and red.

It grinned at her.

It moved with alarming speed, turning toward her, crouching to spring

Ariel fired.

The weapon felt warmer in her hand. The bolt of energy, nearly invisible, slammed into the assailant and tossed him from the roof of the transport like a mass of compressed air buffeting a rag.

He hit the pavement with a solid, meaty impact and a puff of air.

He sat up, shook his head, and looked at her.

Terrified, Ariel fired again.

The head snapped back, so savagely that it must have broken the neck. A few moments later, though, he began to stand.

Ariel watched, seized by amazement and fear, as he rose, to his full height.

Shoot it again, she thought, but her finger did not flex against the stud.

He took a step toward her.

A brilliant splash of crimson-white burst against him. She glanced back toward the bolt’s source: Coren had managed to get off a shot. The attacker screamed, a sound like a million sheets of paper ripping at once, and staggered back.

Ariel fired a third time. A pungent burnt odor filled the air.

The attacker fell to his knees, rose, then ran away.

All at once the stillness engulfed her.

Coren coughed.

Ariel came around the transport and found him lying on the pavement, holding his throat in one hand and his pistol in the other. She set her weapon down and helped him sit up with his back to the transport. He coughed and hacked for a minute, spit out a gob of phlegm, and sucked air in huge gasps.

“I know that hand,” he said finally. “Son of a …”

He got to his feet shakily and looked around.

“Get your weapon,” he rasped.

Ariel snatched up the stunner.

Coren accessed a different transport. He drove fast now, taking the turns recklessly until they made the avenue. Ariel waited till he slowed down to a normal speed before saying anything.

Before she could speak, though, Coren made an ugly throat-clearing noise and said, “He should’ve died. Only thing I can think of that could resist a shot like that is a robot. So tell me, Ambassador Burgess of the goddamned Calvin Institute, when did you people start making humanoid robots?”

“It wasn’t a robot.”

“No? Then what the hell was it?”

“Something we stopped playing with a very long time ago,” she said. “A cyborg.”

Ariel’s hands trembled.

Figures, she thought wryly, now that we’re safe.

Relatively safe, anyway, she added. Her eyes ached from trying to see all around her and into the darkness of third shift faux night. Coren drove them out of D. C., southwest, past industrial enclaves and private neighborhoods, through abandoned sections, and into an area Ariel had never been to. She recognized the main building from the subetheric–dimly, an old memory–as the headquarters for DyNan Manual Industries.

Coren got through all the security checks, sent the transport back where it belonged, and took her through unpopulated corridors to a suite of offices.

She watched him work a desk that was similar to the one in his private office, though, from the attention he gave to each command, it was far less sophisticated, not even close to an AI. Her pulse slowed, adrenalin drained away, and her fears took over in the form of the shakes.

Coren glanced her way and stopped what he was doing long enough to pour her a drink. Gratefully she sipped at the dark liquid. She had never been sure why alcohol helped at times like this–perhaps it was the care with which one had to take it in that distracted the mind from its own terrors–but she finished the tumbler of whiskey at the same time Coren sat down across from her.

“We’re secure for the time being,” he said.

Ariel nodded toward his desk. “Smart matrix?”

“An old one.”

“Your desk is an AI.”

“Was. Rega would never allow one on his property.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re willing to use one, how do you?”

“Life is a compromise. I prefer working for Rega to working for anyone else. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says or believes.” He smiled thinly. “Much like you, I imagine.”

“Ah, well. To coin a phrase, ‘That’s different:”

“Really. Well, I won’t argue. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she said, raising the empty glass.

“Want another one?”

“Yes, but later. Too much comfort dulls the reflexes. How are you?”

Coren shook his head.

“Let me see your shoulder,” Ariel said. She reached for his shirt.

Coren leaned away from her. “I’m all right.”

“Of course you are. Let me see.”

With obvious reluctance, Coren unzipped his shirt and pulled the left half away, revealing his shoulder. Ugly bruising spread from the base of his neck down to his clavicle.

“Have you seen a doctor?” she asked.

“In my spare time,” he said grumpily and pulled the shirt back on. “Painblock.”

“You’ll pay for that.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I made an appointment, but...”

He went to a sofa and sat down heavily, letting his head fall back.

“Your desk,” Ariel said. “What happened?”

“Something got through my buffers,” he said. “I had the AI doing a lot of in-depth searches. It was spread fairly thin and it must’ve become vulnerable.”

“Or some of the files it was accessing were corrupted.”

“Sleeper programs?”

“Maybe. If I could look at the software I could tell you. But bringing it here–”

“–would corrupt this system. Unless we knew exactly what had gotten through.”

“Go to the head of the class.”

Coren rubbed his shoulder, frowning. “This... cyborg. He’s the one who rolled me in Petrabor.”

“You’re certain?”

“I think I’d remember a deathgrip like that.” He frowned at her. “Unless there’s more than one?”

“No,” Ariel said suddenly, hoping it was true. “Let’s not get more paranoid than we need to.”

“You said it was a cyborg.”

“I was guessing. I could be wrong–”

“But if you’re not, what is it you’re talking about?”

“A composite. An organic machine.”

“I’ve seen some pretty impressive soldiers come out of–”

Ariel shook her head. “No, this different. I’ve seen those people, too, and they aren’t like this.”

“You said an organic machine. Like augmentation? Prostheses?”

“Far more intimately involved than that. Yes, you could claim that people with artificial limbs, organs, new skin, bone replacements are cyborgs, but it’s a much too limited use of the term. No, people like that are still fundamentally human–there’s a clear line of separation between the organic and the augmentation. You haven’t replaced their basic being with a full-partner robotic symbiote. A cyborg is a blend of the two into a third kind of being.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“Neither did we. That’s why we stopped fooling with them.”

Coren scowled skeptically. “I thought Aurorans were the experts on robotic intelligence.”

Ariel sat forward. “We are. That’s what I mean. This isn’t robotic intelligence. It’s... something else. And we couldn’t figure out what.”

His disdain faded to a guarded respect. Ariel sat back, mollified.

“All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“A positronic brain,” Ariel said, “is basically a sensory-data receiver-collator that operates by a collection of discrete parameters arranged in constellations that shift in response to new data. That’s a gross simplification, but accurate enough for our purposes. We’re talking about a few billion discrete parameters and nanosecond processing time, and a complete lack of an unconscious, and a few other additions and subtractions that allow us to actually program it while granting it a modicum of creative responses–”

Coren held up his hand. “I get the idea. I think. But that sounds like any other AI system.”

“True. The key defining factor is in self-perception. A positronic brain is aware of itself. It is also aware of others as both distinct and collective entities that possess similar attributes.”

“But–”

“I’m using the word ‘aware’ in exactly the way you would use it to describe yourself. An AI, no matter how sophisticated, is not aware. The best of them have fully-mapped models of their own make-up and function: a reference, if you will, that tells them what they are. But the relationship is always and only one of data referencing data in a strict modular process. A positronic brain possesses a sense of Self that is independent of models–it will continue to perceive itself as a Self even with extensive reprogramming that might in any other respect change the nature of what it does and what it knows–and a basic understanding of Self in others. That opens a huge gulf between an AI and a positronic brain. For instance, you could never infiltrate a positronic brain the way your desk was infiltrated. An AI, unless specifically commanded, will regard that infiltration as a problem in programming. It’s just data. The more sophisticated the infiltration, the less likely it is to be aware of anything wrong. A positronic brain would immediately detect the attempt not as data but as damage. It would respond to it by treating it more or less as an infection. It would feel wrong. And if the infiltration were inimical to its loyalties, then the Three Laws would come into play. If it could not purge the infiltration, it would collapse. It would not tolerate a violation of its Self.”

“Humans don’t even do that, “Coren said.

“Not as effectively, no,” Ariel agreed. “But we have far fewer hardwired parameters and far more self-reprogramming parameters. We have both a sub-and an un-conscious. We can dream, we can imagine, we can lie, we can hallucinate. Reality is a conditional set of perceptions. The plasticity of our minds enables us to function even through gross distortions in our initial parameters. We imagine more richly and much faster than we process information. We’re inextricably linked to our environment, but our perceptions of our environment are fluid. We can be fooled, deceived, manipulated. But it’s a two-way exchange–the manipulator will be manipulated in turn through the interaction–but we can still function in the midst of deception and illusion. We can set aside our moral restrictions if need be–and we define our own need–and resume them later. If we choose. Humans, in short, can remake who they are at will. A positronic brain cannot.”

Coren’s face showed the effort to understand. Ariel stopped, unsure how much he followed.

“It borders on metaphysics,” he said.

“‘Borders?’ Hell, it is metaphysics. All the philosophical speculation of ten thousand years became concrete when the first positronic robot sat up and said hello to its makers.”

Coren nodded slowly. “And a cyborg?”

Ariel sighed. “Positronic intelligence gave us another self aware entity we could compare our own to and ask questions about the differences. It gave us the measuring stick to determine what is human and what is not. Cyborgs... break the measuring sticks and dump all those questions back in our laps.”

She leaned forward again. “Imagine a positronic brain with all its capacity to analyze data and perceive the world as a material whole all at once, joined to something that can set its own parameters. There is no buffer, no unconscious to help process excess data or unpalatable information, and no preset responses to conditions. It has no basis for behavior other than what it chooses to have at any given moment.”

“You’ve described a sociopath.”

“A very, very fast, smart sociopath. A sociopath we can’t begin to understand because we don’t have a model for its mental processes.”

“Why did you stop working with them?”

“We discovered that we couldn’t program in the Three Laws. Something in the mix, probably–undoubtedly–from the organic side kept overwriting them. The one consistent attribute that emerged was self-preservation. Beyond that, we had no idea how to cope with them. After a while it seemed immoral to continue the experiments.”

“Immoral. You actually shut down a line of research on moral grounds?”

“Why not? Spacers don’t get to be moral?”

Coren shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I–never mind. So you’re saying that we were attacked by a cyborg.”

“That’s my first guess. A robot would never have done that. I doubt a human–even one of your military modifications–could have survived those shots. I’d like to hope I’m wrong, but...” Ariel blinked at him, suddenly understanding something. “I see. You Earthers wouldn’t have shut down the experiments. You didn’t. The only thing that kept you from building cyborgs was the fact that you’d outlawed positronics.”

Coren’s expression showed his ill-ease. He did not like what she had said but he could not deny it. Ariel had always been puzzled by Terran perversity, the apparent willingness to do what clearly should not be done. But perhaps the real puzzle was why Spacers chose not to do those things. Maybe their long lives gave them a better understanding of consequences. Maybe their smaller populations made them less willing to take risks on questionable projects. Terrans seemed only to care in hindsight, when things went wrong.

One of their spasms of late conscience banished positronics...

“How,” Coren said finally, “does this relate to Nyom Looms?”

“That robot you saw.”

Coren nodded. “Cyborg.”

“More than likely.”

“And the blood Avery found on Nyom’s robot...”

“A cyborg composed partly of a relative?”

Coren’s face contorted in harsh distaste. “Where? How? We can’t build them here, you won’t build them there...” His eyes widened. “Pirates. Black market.”

“A reasonable guess.” Which would explain Aurora’s sudden interest in helping the Terran authorities with the baley problem. Where are all those baleys going?

“Could someone somewhere be converting baleys–?”

“No. A cyborg doesn’t work that way. You couldn’t take a full-grown human and make the conversion.” Ariel thought about that. “At least, I don’t think you could. From what I recall, a cyborg has to be grown. The mix has to mature in symbiosis, so ideally you’d start with a fetus.”

“A newborn?”

“Possibly. The organic system is still in transition through puberty, so I suppose children could be used, but the older the material the more difficult the process.”

“But where would they get all the raw material?” Coren asked.

“I said at the beginning of this evening that we need to talk to this retired policeman.”

“Wenithal.” He blinked. “Orphanages.”

Seventeen

COREN SLEPT FOR an hour, then showered, swallowed more painblock, and found a change of clothes for Ariel. Dressed now in plain pants, work boots, and a dull blue jacket, she looked like any other T-rated office worker just off third shift, going home or shopping. He took her to the mall where RW Enterprises was and they waited in an open kitchen across from the entrance. Twenty minutes later, Wenithal emerged and trudged wearily down the concourse.

Ariel drifted away, quickly and unobtrusively falling several meters behind Wenithal on the way out of the mall. Coren was mildly surprised and impressed at how quickly and easily she blended with Terrans. The more time he spent with her the less Spacer she seemed.

He sat at a table at the edge of the pantry, nibbling on a meat pastry and sipping a cup of acrid coffee. After about ten minutes, he crumpled up the wrapper and dropped it and the half-full cup into the waste.

At the door to RW Enterprises, he took out his palm monitor and a small device that he pressed to the wall just below the lock. While it worked to decode the access sequence, Coren pulled out a few of his little devices and activated them. He glanced around. The mall was pretty deserted, but a few people milled around. The trick was to gain entry as fast as possible, making it look as if he had been admitted. The longer it took the more conspicuous he became.

The palm monitor chirped at him. He had the code. He entered a command that turned the ID scan on the door into a recorder, pocketed the reader, and pressed his right hand against the panel above the lock. A second later, the door slid open for him.

He snatched his decoder from the wall and dropped his devices just inside the doorway. They scurried off to run interference for him as he proceeded on, into the plant.

Machinery hummed. Coren went directly to Wenithal’s private office. As he stepped through the door, he thumbed his hemisphere for a little added security, set it in the middle of Wenithal’s cluttered desk, and paused.

Where to start?

Coren did a slow turn.

It was a working office, that was clear. A few changes of clothes lay scattered over chairs, stacks of paper and disks filled corners, three empty cups sat on the desk.

Coren looked for a personal datum. He found it tucked in a desk drawer.

He took a disk from his pocket and inserted it into the datum’s reader. The screen scrolled up, went cloudy, then blank. Coren waited, listening intently to the distant sounds of automated machinery.

Less than a minute later–a long time for the decryption ‘ware Coren used–the screen presented a menu.

Letters, memos, profiles on clients, quarterly reports. Coren opened the latest of these and perused RW Enterprise’s Profits and Losses statements. One of the largest customers, he noted, was a Solarian firm–Strychos–that bought nearly half a million meters of a synthetic fabric a year. The lot was identified only by a batch number. Coren opened his palm monitor, switched it to record, and began taking notes.

Far down the menu he found a file named GRATUITES. Coren grunted in surprise. Well, he never thought anyone would open this...

The file contained what it suggested: a list of people to whom Wenithal paid bribes.

Brun Damik was halfway down. A very generous allocation.

Gale Chassik appeared several lines further.

Coren copied the list and closed the file. Studying the menu, he wondered how much more he needed to know about Ree Wenithal.

Why you resigned after becoming a hero would be useful...

He saw nothing that would seem to contain the answer to that, so he closed the datum down and returned it to the desk drawer.

So Wenithal was paying bribes to Damik. Coren still did not understand what any of this had to do with baleys... though he felt he should know.

There were several files of correspondence. Coren opened each one and perused addresses. He found several to a location in Petrabor. The documents themselves proved cryptic–evidently a code Coren did not recognize. Still, messages to someone in Petrabor seemed suggestive enough. He looked for replies and found them attached to each document–all of them were initialed either T. R. or Y. P.

Yuri Pocivil …?

Coren swiveled in the chair, searching the office walls. Nothing.

He closed up his palm monitor and left the office. Sitting down at one of the secretarial stations, he accessed the production records. He located the batch number for the synthetic, and went into the main plant to look for it.

The synthesizers looked like huge columns of dark gray segments piled high to the ceiling. Heavy conduits ran from their bases back into the shadows of the cavernous chamber. They hummed with activity, though only a few seemed to be outputting product into the deep troughs below their extrusion slots.

Coren followed the row of machines to the one marked “Line 18” and stopped. It was on–they all were, it cost too much to shut them down completely and restart them–but nothing was coming out. Coren studied the control panel.

“Imbitek,” he noted, recognizing the logo. He keyed for access. The screen gave him a list of options. He entered the code for a sample.

Less than a minute later, a meter of black fabric oozed from the ‘machine into the trough. The cutter came down with a heavy thud to chop it off, and Coren picked up the sample.

It was remarkably thin, almost insubstantial, and he found it difficult to hold, its surface friction nearly nonexistent. He managed to fold it down to a square that fit into his pocket with no more bulge than a handkerchief.

He walked away from RW Enterprises as if he were late for an appointment, briskly but not so fast as to look culpable. Outside the mall, he called Ariel.

Ree Wenithal lived modestly for his income. His apartments occupied two floors of an old warren complex that had once been a barracks for factory workers, then converted into luxury apartments nearly a century ago, and now had evolved into many things: apartments, clinics, retail shops, storerooms, offices. Coren was amused to find two private investigation agencies listed.

Ariel waited across from the arched entry to Wenithal’s warren, sitting at an autochef with a cup of hot cocoa, doing a reasonably effective imitation of someone who had just gotten off-shift and on her way to well-earned sleep.

“Did you follow him all the way in?” Coren asked; sliding onto the stool beside her.

“No. I’m not altogether certain he didn’t see me, so I thought I’d better not. Did you find anything?”

“Some, but I’m not sure if it means much. He runs a business.” Coren shrugged. “He’s paying bribes to Chassik.”

Ariel frowned. “He does business with Solarians?”

“A couple. Pretty big accounts.”

“Solaria manufactures its own textiles. What are they buying from Earth?”

“A half-million meters a year of a synthetic.” He showed her the sample. “If I’m not mistaken, this is myralar.”

Ariel ran a finger over its slippery surface. “I’d have to analyze it, but it feels right. Hm. Half a million meters a year? That’s a lot, but not enormous.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ll ask Chassik.”

Coren drummed his fingers on the counter. “I’ve got his P&L records, we can go over them later. I don’t think we’ll find anything conclusive, though. He was bribing Damik, too. The bribe is unusually large, more than I would have guessed Damik would be worth.”

“Did Damik have something over Wenithal?”

“It’s a thought... but that’s not the feeling I got when I followed Damik to his meeting with Wenithal. Everything about it said Wenithal was the one in charge.” He glanced at her cup. “Are you done?”

Ariel held up the cocoa and wrinkled her nose. “Before I started. Let’s go talk to your ex-policeman.”

They passed under the archway and started down a path lined with poorly-tended shrubbery. A number of the growl amps above them were out. Coren glanced around the area, and frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Ariel asked.

“Hm? Oh. Nothing...” He glanced up at the tall windows to his right. Balconies and walkways hung higher up. “That’s not true. I’m not sure if I can explain it.”

“Try. I’m always eager to learn new things.”

Coren looked at her. He saw no sign of sarcasm in her expression. Indeed, she seemed intent only on their surroundings.

“Well,” he said, “usually when someone has a connection to a case–I’m talking like Service now–you might find someone through one source, one link, but when you look, if there is a connection, there’s more than just one.”

“And with Ree Wenithal?”

“There are suggestions of more connections, but I still have only one: Brun Damik. And his connection was tenuous.”

“Until he died.”

“That was a pretty strong hint, but not really a connection.”

She frowned at him. “Just what do you count as a connection?”

“Something with steel cables tying it to something else.”

“Isn’t that a bit unrealistic?”

Coren stopped. Ariel continued on a few more steps, then turned to him.

“Early on,” he said, “I arrested an innocent man. It wasn’t a big deal, nothing bad happened to him, he just spent a few nights in confinement, went through a lot of humiliating interrogations and filled out a lot of forms. It was a mistake. I think I felt worse about it than he did.”

“So you vowed never to make a mistake again?”

“No, but I got into certain habits after that. I made fewer mistakes. I became pretty good at it. And I got overconfident.”

“And made a big mistake.”

“Very. It cost me the life of a friend.”

“You’re talking about Nyom Looms.”

Coren nodded.

Ariel pursed her lips. “High standards are good.”

They continued on to Wenithal’s apartment in silence.

The door stood open.

“Come in,” Wenithal called. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever get here. “.

Ree Wenithal sat on a long couch, slippered feet propped on a low table, a glass in his left hand and a pistol in his right. He scowled at them for a long moment, then laughed.

“You! I thought it would be someone else.” He set the pistol aside. “Close the door if you’re staying.”

Ariel pressed the contact.. The light from the balcony shrank to a narrow line and vanished.

The room smelled of alcohol.

“So,” Wenithal said, “did you go through my files?”

Coren hesitated.

“My career,” Wenithal said, stressing each syllable. “My exploits. They’re all in the public record. They’ll tell you all about me, about my life, my accomplishments, my... my...” He waved a hand vaguely. “Everything.”

“I looked at them,” Coren said.

Wenithal waited. When Coren said nothing more, he got ponderously to his feet. “Are you going to introduce me to your partner? Oh, if you want a drink, help yourselves. I keep a good stock. Even some Spacer stuff.”

“Brun Damik is dead,” Coren said.

Wenithal nodded. “I was questioned about it.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have any idea why he was killed?”

“Do you?”

Coren crossed the room in four strides and snapped his palm into Wenithal’s chest. The older man sat back down heavily, his wind wheezing from his mouth.

“We were attacked earlier tonight,” Coren said. “I’m in no mood for repartee, Mister Wenithal, so do me the courtesy of answering my questions directly.”

“I don’t have to tell you shit,” Wenithal said breathily.

“Fine. Then when the people you were expecting come to kill you, I hope you have some friends to attend the services.”

Wenithal glared up at Coren, but his eyes wavered moistly and Coren caught the distant shimmer of fear behind them.

“Something killed Nyom Looms and Brun Damik and fifty baleys who just wanted to get off Earth,” he continued. “Something tried to kill me tonight, and something is coming after you. You used to be a cop. Pretend you still are for the next ten minutes and do the right thing.” He paused. “Or do you already know who these people are?”

Wenithal tried to heave himself up, but Coren rapped him in the sternum again. “You’re a bastard,” Wenithal hissed.

“Do you know that for a fact, or just speculating?”

Wenithal slapped at Coren half–heartedly, missing. Coren watched the old man warily, but it was obvious Wenithal would do very little now.

“What do you want?” he asked grumpily.

“The same thing I wanted the first time we spoke: information.”

“I don’t have any to give you.”

“Bullshit.” Coren wanted to shake Wenithal. “How long would you have played games like this when you were a cop?”

“When I wasn’t pretending, you mean?” Wenithal grunted. “I wouldn’t have played them at all. “He shrugged, tried to sit up straighter, then nodded. “All right... what do, you want to know first?”

Coren picked up Wenithal’s glass and smelled it: Akvet. A Theian drink, a variation on absinthe. No wonder Wenithal was so intoxicated so quickly.

“What were you going to do when the bad guys came?” Coren asked. “Play dead?”

“Very funny...”

Coren looked at Ariel. “Would you see if there’s any stimulant around? Coffee, capvitane, sniff, whatever.”

Ariel raised an eyebrow speculatively, then nodded and headed further into the apartment.

“There’s coffee,” Wenithal called after her. He looked up at Coren. “What do you want to know?”

“First, why did Damik see you after I talked to him?”

“What did you ask him for?”

“I wanted to know who ran the whole baley enterprise. The real managers, not the dockside people.”

“Ah.” Wenithal grinned again. “That’s clever. He never believed he could get caught. Ex-Special Service, you know about that. So he wasn’t ready when someone came asking the right questions. Of course, you realize, it got him killed.”

“We were screened. No one overheard our conversation.”

“So? It’s all connections. People looking for other people. Links get made, conclusions drawn. Brun was killed on spec.”

Ariel returned with a cup of steaming coffee and set it down on the table before Wenithal. He stared at it for a long time, then lurched forward to grasp it.

“I don’t drink much anymore,” he said. “Not used to it.”

“Seems a suicidal habit to start up again just now,” Ariel said.

“If I’m drunk enough it might not hurt so much.” He lifted the cup to his lips and held it there, poised.

“Brun was an orphan,” Coren said. “You sponsored him. Why? Did you know his parents?”

Wenithal stared at him.

“The Holmer Foster Gymnas Cooperative,” Coren said.

Wenithal focussed on him. “You knew?”

“We did work together once,” Coren said evasively.

“Mm. I suppose that counts for something.” He took another drink and scowled. “Something about the acids never mix right with the wormwood...” He set the cup down and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “There was a kidnapping. Oh... when was that?... twenty-something... a long time ago. A district manager for a company that no longer exists. Very high profile. Like an idiot he went to the news nets first, made everything very difficult for us. The thing was, no ransom demand ever came. The child just disappeared and that was it. It wasn’t my case initially, I was called in later, but. I. anyway, we had nothing to go on, no thread to follow through the maze. When we started looking through the database for similar cases, a pattern began to emerge. Hundreds of unsolved kidnappings allover the world over the previous decade, none of them with a common denominator other than the complete absence of further contact. “Wenithal grinned crookedly. “The problem with databases–AIs, smart matrices, logic systems–is that if you don’t ask just the right question you never get the answer you need.”

“Hundreds,” Ariel said. “That many, they had to be going somewhere.”

Wenithal raised a finger. “Absolutely. But where? After canvassing and recanvassing witnesses, acquaintances, associates, total strangers who might possibly have seen or heard something–anything–I started expanding the search. I started looking at schools, hospitals, orphanages.”

“You found the link in orphanages.”

Wenithal nodded. “Not all of them, though. Special ones, ones that took in and maintained ‘problem’ children. Infants with defects, genetic problems, congenital and chronic illnesses. Children turned over to the institution and their records sealed or, in some cases, erased. It was difficult to detect, actually, but I found several of them doing a backdoor business in what they delicately termed ‘material.” ‘

“Selling the children?” Ariel asked.

“Basically. Oh, they claimed they were selling cadavers, but the numbers were too high and the age groups too coincidental. It took a long time to finally prove what I knew was going on.”

“And Brun?” Coren urged.

“I didn’t know his parents very well. They were part of a series of interviews I conducted in relation to the case, but they didn’t really have anything to do with it. They’d tried to adopt, that was all. After Brun they’d been told not to try another natural birth, not without a complicated gene therapy they couldn’t afford. Shortly afterward, there was an accident. A semiballistic struck an old piece of orbital debris. Ninety or so passengers and crew. Holmer Foster was the local institution. I felt... an interest, I suppose. Brun was bright, nine years old. When I checked on him two years later, he was running a kind of black market in his facility, using smuggled-in recordings, access codes, food allotments. I thought it was a waste of natural talent. So I sponsored him.”

“You didn’t adopt him?”

“A police officer? Where would I find the time? No, sponsoring was about the best I could do. It was actually Brun who told me about the missing UPDs.”

“UPDs?” Ariel asked.

“Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction. Children with disorders that can only be watched. Often they can’t even stop their pain. Those were the ones I found out were going missing the most.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ariel said. “What use–? Oh.”

Wenithal glanced at her. “Research, spare parts, other things I never cared to think about.”

“You ‘re sure they were being shipped offplanet?” Coren asked.

“That’s where the trail went cold. We traced them to four or five labs. They all funneled the ‘material’ through a single lab that I could never really prove was involved.”

“Let me guess,” Coren said. “Nova levis?”

“Very good. You must’ve been a decent cop.”

“I still am. Who was running the operation?”

“Very corporate. But I could never prove it. I know it, but I can’t take it to court.”

“Imbitek,” Ariel said.

Wenithal shrugged.

“How did that tie in with the kidnapping that brought you into it?” Coren asked.

“That was the most perverse component. The boy that was kidnapped was just a normal boy. It didn’t make sense in light of what I had found out about these... these... flesh mills. So I took a closer look at my concerned parents and found that they had had two previous children. One had died shortly after birth, the other... the records had been manipulated. The claimed death was not a death. They relegated it to one of these orphanages. There was a connection.” Wenithal frowned at Coren. “Do you even want to know? You work for Rega Looms, how much do you know about him?”

“I–”

The door chimed.

Wenithal groped for his pistol.

“Take it easy,” Coren said quietly, easing his own weapon out. He looked at Ariel and gestured for her to move to the far side of the room. Coren moved quickly to the wall alongside the door. He nodded to Wenithal, who brought his pistol into his lap.

“Enter.”

Coren tensed as the door slid open. Light from the balcony outside spilled across the carpet, outlining a shadow. Wenithal raised the pistol.

Coren stepped away from the wall, aiming at head height.

A sharp hiss and a muffled “Shit!” came from the person standing in Wenithal’s entryway.

The light in the room brightened, revealing a woman in dark clothes with a heavy pack slung over her left shoulder. She gaped at Coren, stunned.

“Jeta Fromm,” Coren said. “I’ve been looking allover for you.”

Eighteen

THE LAB DATUM has been compromised, Derec, “Thales announced.

Derec looked up from the screen and blinked. “What?”

“The lab datum has been compromised,” the RI repeated. “I have detected nine gates placed at various locations within the system that are diverting information to an external source.”

“What about you?”

“I have already detected and blocked an attempt to establish a gate in the immediate array. Judging from the other gates, this will not be a problem; they are sophisticated but limited. However, the longer I block implementation, the more likely other measures will be taken.”

“In other words, they’re not just giving up and going away.”

“Essentially, yes.”

Derec went to the end of the blind and looked across the lab. Only one tech was on duty, this late in the third shift. Derec returned to his chair and rubbed his eyes. He had been at it since arriving, nearly eighteen hours now. The excavation was proceeding more slowly than he had expected due to a series of defensive modifications someone had added to the DW-12. It took Rana several hours to tease through them with Thales’ help. Once they understood that bypassing them would not corrupt the matrix any further, everything went smoothly, but making sure ate up a lot of time.

“How soon?” Derec asked.

“Regarding what?”

“The excavation. When do we start getting useful data?”

“I have isolated the constellation of memory nodes we need, and I am beginning a chronological assignment. Another hour.”

“I want your findings copied directly to Ariel’s datum.”

“That precaution is already in place.”

“Are you able to trace the gates to their external source?”

“The risk of detection is high. I suggest completing the task at hand first before attempting any further action.”

Derec reached for the cup of cold coffee on the workbench. He needed sleep. He had sent Rana to her apartment hours ago.

He felt the passing of time acutely. Ariel had not commed in over five hours. Sipha Palen estimated she could keep the deaths out of the news nets for another day, two days at most, before someone figured out that she was hiding something. Or–and Derec thought this more likely–someone who already knew would sell the information. In either case, this needed to be done quickly.

“I would like to talk to you about another matter, Derec,” Thales said.

“Hm? What, Thales?”

“I have taken advantage of the access here to larger memory buffers to set up my examination of Bogard’s positronic matrix. I have run six attempts at reestablishing a functional template.”

I forgot all about that, Derec thought uneasily. “I didn’t know you’d done that.”

“It has not interfered with the performance of any other task,” Thales said. “As we do not know if another opportunity may occur, I thought it best to use this one.”

“That’s fine, Thales. Um... six attempts? I gather none of them have been successful?”

“In achieving a stable matrix, no. However, I believe I have achieved something positive. I now know that we cannot do more in simulation. The convolutions in the error log indicate the presence of a reifying condition.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Basically, there is a command error which repeatedly instructs the matrix to disassemble at the same point. I could not be sure of this before because I was forced to continually reconfigure the parameters to accommodate the lack of memory. Now that this is no longer a problem, I see that the breakdown occurs at the same point each time.”

Derec leaned forward, curiosity cutting through weariness. “Can you identify that point?”

“That is the difficulty. It seems to be in the checksum routine that oversees the data interface with the physical plant.”

“Seems to be?”

“It is possible the error precedes that point, which is why I am unwilling to be more confident. But in each case the breakdown occurs at the place where the program attempts to command the actual body. There is no body, of course, and I am studying the options to construct one in simulation, but I am not convinced this can be solved that way. I am of the opinion that the error is tied to the violation that caused the initial collapse. It may be that what I am seeing is not an error at all but an irreconcilable dilemma. In either case, the error effectively orders a new collapse each time. Available memory is not the problem. The matrix itself is self-destructive.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Thales. That would suggest intent on some level. There isn’t enough coherence for that to be the case.”

“Under normal circumstances, I would agree with that assessment. However, Bogard was unusual in several respects and its termination was singularly traumatic.”

“All right. The next question, obviously, is what do you propose we do about it?”

“It is possible that the error can be resolved by loading a partially reestablished matrix into a blank positronic brain and tracing the final connections through to see if the error persists.”

“Treat it like a hardware problem, you mean.”

“Essentially, Derec.”

Derec smiled. “And where do you propose we obtain a blank positronic brain?”

“We have one at hand–after I have completed my excavation.”

Derec looked at the DW-12 lying on the table, cables snaking from it, connecting it to the board Thales was using.

“It’s not at all what Bogard would be used to,” he said. “That assumes we’re allowed to use it at all.”

“If I may point out the obvious, the owner is no longer a matter of concern.”

“Heirs, Thales.”

“I have considered that. Do you really think Rega Looms will want it?”

Derec laughed dryly. “No, I don’t imagine so. But Sipha Palen has authority. It’s station security property.”

“With all due respect, Derec, Chief Palen has procured the robot under false pretext. She has filed no official records that it even exists on Kopernik. Effectively, the robot occupies a legal void. It belongs technically to no one. I believe my position is defensible in Terran court.”

“It may be, but...” Derec sighed. His brief spurt of energy was ebbing. He needed sleep. “I can’t make this decision now, Thales. We have other matters to resolve first.”

“Would you object if I created an implementation program in the event that we do make use of the robot?”

“No, of course not. Right now, though, we need that excavation.”

“It will be completed in fifty-two minutes.”

“Good, good.” He regarded the screens before him speculatively. Somewhere in all that machinery was a consciousness. It surprised him sometimes how easily he disregarded the inorganic nature of positronic entities. “Thales, why are you so interested in Bogard?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why.”

“Bogard is a problem you set me to solve.”

“True, but–never mind now. Thales, I may doze off sitting here. If anything happens that I need to know about, wake me.”

“Of course, Derec.”

He closed his eyes. He did not fall immediately to sleep, though. He could not shake the feeling–tenuous, barely identifiable–that Thales had just evaded answering his question.

“The question of will in a positronic matrix is and may remain one of the unsolved–and unsolvable–mysteries about these minds we have created. We built them to serve us and in that matter they have no choice. But we then gave them an imperative to serve not our commands but our morality. To assume this makes them thrall to human will to exclusion of their own may be an error.”

Who said that? Derec fished through his memory until he found it. Ariel had said that, in her graduate thesis from the Calvin Institute.

Something to that...

A constant question in positronics–one most positronic specialists toyed with but never wanted to discuss–concerned the hardware: How much of a robot’s “personality” depended on the actual mechanism, and how much on what was called “accrued experiential associations”? The easy answer–always–was that a positronic brain was entirely a matter of physical linkages and connections, tied directly to its sensory apparatus–the “real world” model that allowed them to make deterministic decisions based on the Three Law parameters encoded into the pathways.

But that begged the question; it did not address the problem of Mind. Derec had come up against it with Bogard and now with Thales–why, he wondered, could Thales not simply construct a matrix very much like Bogard’s? Evidently, Thales could not. Bogard’s physical modifications had been an integral part of its consciousness. Thales’ suggestion that the entire matrix be reinserted in a blank brain reinforced the obvious: that a robot was inextricably mechanistic, even though it demonstrated consciousness very similar to a human.

How many humans willingly admitted that they were as much meat as mind?

Derec yawned, and sparks danced at the edge of his vision. Too much, too deep. He waited for sleep. But his mind writhed with questions.

“Mr. Avery.”

Derec opened one eye and looked up at Hofton. “Mmm?”

“We have a problem.” Hofton nodded toward the lab.

Derec stood slowly. A huddle of people crowded at the entrance. He recognized Palen, Leri, and Polifos, all apparently on one side of an argument, facing four Terrans–two men, two women–whose clothes–neatly-cut, unadorned, and severe–suggested authority. They spoke in low, terse tones that even without knowing the subject made Derec apprehensive.

“Thales, how far along are we with the excavation?”

“I require a few more minutes, Derec.”

“Who are they, Hofton?”

“TBI,” Hofton said. “Leri, to his credit, is fending them off with implied threats of ‘political repercussions’ and ‘violation of sovereignty; but they aren’t really backing down. They want the robot. My sense is that they intend to take it regardless of the consequences.”

Derec glanced at the DW-12. “Why would they want a robot?”

“Not a robot–that robot. They know exactly where it came from and what it is.”

“Thales, those leaks–”

“It is possible they were TBI monitors,” Thales said. “I did not trace them for the reasons we discussed.”

Derec studied the group. “Palen looks upset.”

“I would be, too. Evidently her authority is being challenged. I suspect she’ll lose, but she may be able to delay any immediate action.”

“It may be a moot point, anyway.” He leaned over the console. “Thales, complete the excavation, copy all material to Ariel’s office, then start tracing those monitors. Be careful not to reveal your presence as more than a security trace.”

“Yes, Derec.”

Derec smoothed his shirt and ran a hand through his hair. Hofton watched him speculatively.

“Shall we?” Derec gestured toward the confrontation. “Your lead, sir.”

Derec approached, Hofton a pace behind. Polifos noticed him first and tapped Ambassador Leri’s arm. The discussion died immediately with everyone looking at Derec.

“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing, “Derec said. “TBI?”

One agent nodded slowly. “You are...?”

“Derec Avery. I gather you’ve come about the matter of the robot?”

Palen glared at him, outraged. The TBI agents frowned uncertainly.

“You have in your possession–” the first agent began.

“Pardon me,” Derec interrupted, “you are...?”

“Agent Harwol.”

“Pleased to meet you. And these others?”

Harwol waved a hand in the direction of his male partner, then each of the women. “Um... Agent Gent, Agent Jallimolan, Agent Cranert...”

“Pleased.” Derec gestured toward Hofton. “This is Liaison Officer Hofton of the Auroran Embassy, D. C.”

Awkward nods passed around the group. Derec noticed that Polifos looked baffled, but Leri was suppressing a smile.

“Now,” Derec continued, “I’m the positronic specialist in charge of examining that robot. I have authority from Ambassador Sen Setaris to do so. It’s my understanding that diplomatic considerations require that you have a proper warrant, countersigned by Ambassador Setaris, before I can turn any of our property over to you.”

Agent Harwol made a chopping motion with his hand. “Not in matters concerning the death of TBI or other Terran police personnel. We have an overriding interest in that robot, which we’ll be happy to take up at a later date in court with Ambassador Setaris. But right now we insist that you turn over the robot in question.”

“For what purpose?”

Agent Harwol frowned.

“What do you intend to do with it, Agent Harwol? It’s a collapsed positronic robot. Basically, so much scrap as it is. What do you propose to do with it?”

“That’s not germane to this situation–”

“But it might be. You see, if you intend to turn it over to your own specialists for examination, then we may be able to save you time.”

Harwol exchanged looks with his fellow agents.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“We’re already doing the only examination that might produce results. I’m sure that sharing our data with you wouldn’t be out of the question. Ambassador Leri?”

“Well, under the circumstances, it would be unusual,” Leri replied. “I’d have to vett it through Ambassador Setaris, of course, but I don’t see a significant problem. Cooperation with Terran authority is always preferable to confrontation.”

Chief Palen no longer seemed angry, but Derec felt uneasy under her gaze.

“We’ll have to post an agent with the robot,” Harwol said.

“That’s out of the question–” Polifos began.

Leri jabbed his elbow into Polifos’s ribs. “In company with one of our own security officers,” he said, “I don’t see a problem with that.”

Harwol looked miserable. Derec guessed that his orders had been vague but succinct. He was ill-prepared to negotiate, and he knew his presence in Auroran embassy precincts was questionable at best.

“We require full disclosure,” he said.

“We would probably require your help in any case,” Hofton said. “I am curious, though. You said in the case of a death of a Terran agent. What Terran agent?”

Harwol clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head.

Derec stared at him. “You had agents in that group of baleys.”

Harwol met his stare stoically. Finally, though, he nodded.

“Shit,” Palen hissed.

“Well,” Hofton said, “that changes a few things.”

Derec stepped up to Palen. “Maybe you should show us the crime scene now. I think it’s time we all see for ourselves.”

Derec gazed up at the cargo bin. Till now, he had only seen it on a screen. Small and manipulable on his desktop, it lacked any impact. Here, though, it disturbed him. It was both larger and smaller than he had expected.

People were going to travel to another star system in this...?

Lights shone within the container. Folding tables held portable datums, but no one paid any attention to them. Derec looked at the office where Palen and Harwol talked with Leri and Hofton. Derec feared a jurisdictional fight, the worst kind of battle. Hofton, at least, was capable of steering the situation past that–if he was allowed to.

Derec wandered to the row of datums, keeping watch out of the comer of his eyes for any move from the armed officers spaced around the bay to stop him. He occupied a fuzzy zone in the hierarchy, so the odds were even that he could do nearly anything he wanted.

Most of the screens showed blank. Two contained schematics of the interior of the bin. A third showed a chemical analysis of some kind. To Derec, it looked like a crystalline structure, but he could not identify it. He stepped closer to one of the schematics.

Cages supported acceleration couches arrayed around the inside surface of the bin. A very simple design, easily modified, completely modular. The rebreather unit sat bolted to what was now the floor but in freefall would be just another bulkhead.

Fifty-three couches.

How many bodies?

Fifty-two. Logically, the empty couch would have held the murderer.

Who got out how, exactly? Derec wondered.

The only evidence of escape was the crack in the hull in which Nyom Looms’ body had caught. But that hole was far too small for anyone to slip through.

So that meant the killer did everything before lift-off and remained on Earth.

That did not follow, either. What would have prevented the robot from opening the hatch and saving the baleys by just admitting fresh air? No, the only time the poison would have been effective–and the robot ineffective–would have been in freefall, in vacuum.

Therefore, the killer was in the container and committed the murders en route to Kopernik.

The crack let out the atmosphere, forcing the baleys to stay on the rebreather, which eventually poisoned them. The robot had attempted to intervene–hence the blood and material in its hands–and failed. It would have been forced to do what? Whatever it could. It was found trying to shut off the rebreather.

Which would have meant suffocation for the baleys.

Either way, they would be dead.

So one of the bodies removed from the bin had to be the killer. Easy enough to check, just find one with tom clothes.

But how could the DW-12 attack a human?

And what about that empty couch? Derec assumed they would have known how many passengers, so what good would one extra couch be unless it was for someone who intended to get out before discovery?

Or for someone who never showed...

He crossed the bay to the cargo bin. No one stopped him as he entered.

Lights brightly illuminated the inside. He climbed up the scaffolding that supported the couches to the crack in the ceiling. The metal showed a clear curve where something had gouged it from the interior and pushed it out. Derec ran his hand over the surface and found a number of indentations on either side. A hand?

“Sir.”

Derec looked at the entrance. A uniform stood there, sidearm out.

“I have to ask you to leave,” she said. “You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“Really?” Derec climbed down. “Why is that?”

“This is a crime scene, sir.”

He stepped past her. “It is, indeed. Thank you for pointing that out.”

Derec entered the office–and walked straight into a full-blown argument between Palen and Harwol.

Harwol was fuming. “–what in hell you thought you were doing, but you overstepped you authority by a considerable margin!”

“This is my station, Harwol,” Palen shot back. “It is my margin!”

“Excuse me,” Derec said.

Everyone looked at him. Palen and Harwol both were breathing hard.

“I was wondering, “Derec continued, “if anyone had bothered to count the bodies.”

“Of course we did, Avery,” Palen snapped. “We counted them as we carried them out.”

“Yes, but have you counted them since?”

Palen frowned at him, mouth open.

“I didn’t think so,” Derec said. “Maybe we should.”

Nineteen

COREN ALMOST REACHED for her, to pull her into Wenithal’s apartment. Jeta Fromm tensed, looked left and right, then, with a harsh sigh of frustration, stepped forward.

“Shut the damn door, gato,” she muttered.

She stopped halfway between Coren and Wenithal, who still held his pistol in her direction. Coren closed the door, the soft snik bringing her around to face him again. Her long, almost gaunt face showed anger and fear. She blinked nervously. Coren glanced at Wenithal, who now looked away, hands clasped in his lap.

“You’ve wrecked my life,” Jeta said suddenly. “That’s going to cost a bit more than my usual fee.”

“Where’ve you been?” Coren asked. “I tried to find you right after–”

“Right after you gave me away to the sanitaries? What happened, did they offer you more credits than your wildest imagination? Or did you just decide to piss on some warren rat for fun and see how long it took her to die?”

“The ‘sanitaries’?” Ariel asked.

Jeta glared over her shoulder. “Who are you?”

Coren cleared his throat loudly. “Sanitaries are enforcers. They clean up things. Sanitation workers.”

Ariel made a silent “Oh” and nodded. “How clever,” she said. “I’m Ambassador Ariel Burgess from the Auroran Embassy. Pleased to meet you, Ms....?”

“This is Jeta Fromm,” Coren announced. “The freelance data troll who found Nyom for me... then vanished before I could thank her for doing basically what she’s accusing me of.”

“Me?” Jeta shouted. “You vatdrip! Someone’s tried to kill me twice since I talked to you, once right after you left with the data I got you. Second time was at the Lyzig tube station, morning after I took off.”

“Did Cobbel and Renz tell you I was looking for you?”

Jeta frowned uncertainly, just for a moment, then looked away. “I was looking for you myself.”

Coren caught Ariel’s eye and gave a slight shake of his head.

“Who did you tell about the baleys?” he asked.

“You,” Jeta said.

“Who else?” Coren took two quick steps toward her. She backed up only one. “They were all murdered, Jeta! Fifty-two dead baleys! Someone knew they’d been found, and killed any possible witnesses! If I’m the only one you told, then how did they know?”

“I’m asking you the same question! How did they find me?”

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are. And if I’m one of them, why would I have to ask ‘them’? You’re not making sense.”

Jeta glanced from Ariel to Wenithal, then back to Coren. “I didn’t tell anybody.”

“Then you were traced.”

She scowled. “I’m better than that, there’s no way–”

“My system was compromised, and I can afford a hell of a lot better protection than you can.”

Jeta shook her head. “Don’t brag on it, gato–that’s how I found you.”

It took Coren several moments to understand her meaning. “You broke into my system?”

She nodded. “It was hard, you’ve got a good one, but...”

Coren looked at Ariel. “But–”

“Someone piggybacked in with you,” Ariel said. “Your system’s still compromised.”

“Who are they, Jeta?” Coren asked. “Who’s trying to kill you?”

“Ask them, gato, I got my own problems!”

“I’d love to, but it could be fatal. Who are they?”

Jeta swallowed loudly. “All I know is, I handed over the data to you and went back to my hole! Two of ’em were waiting for me before I got there!” She looked at him narrowly. “I thought you’d had them standing by for after you got what you wanted.”

Coren shook his head. “Then why follow me? If I set you up, this is the surest way to get yourself killed.”

“I said that’s what I thought. I thought it then, not now.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I checked you out. It’s not too often you find an honest cop.”

“Then–”

“Good cops go bad.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” He looked at Wenithal, who seemed to be pointedly ignoring them, drinking his coffee. “If I went bad–”

“I didn’t know where else to go! All right? I don’t trust any of my usual contacts! I thought I could make an arrangement with you.”

“If I were still a good cop, I’d help you. If I were bad, we could do business.”

“Something like that.”

“I’ve been trying to find you for over three days.”

“I know. Why?”

“I thought you’d double-marketed the data.”

Jeta’s face hardened. “I don’t do that.”

“Then how did they know about the baley shipment?”

Jeta let out her breath slowly. “I’m a good troll, Mr. Lanra, very good, but I’m not the only one. If I could find out, so could a dozen others, easy. If I was you, though, I’d ask the people running the baleys to begin with. If anyone’d know …”

“I thought about that. I’ve been trying to find them.”

“No luck?” A mocking smile tugged at her thin lips, even though her eyes still showed fear. “Maybe you need to hire a professional.”

“Fine, then,” Coren said tersely. “You’re hired.”

“My fee’s doubled,” Jeta said.

“I don’t mind, I have an expense account.”

“I have expenses, we’re even. What you want to know first?”

“First? What are you doing here?”

“Following you.”

“So you say. You want to tell me why? The truth this time.”

Jeta looked around. “Do you mind if I put my stash down? Thanks.” She set her pack on the end of the table by the sofa, then dropped into the cushions with a loud, relieved exhalation. “You botched my ride, gato. Then you almost got me killed. I thought that, anyway. I figured if anyone could solve my problems, it’d be the gato who caused them all to begin with.”

“What do you mean, I botched your ride?” She gave him a guilty look. “Confession time: I found that data for you as fast as I did ‘cause I already had it. I was slated to go on that shipment. I had a berth with them.”

“I’ve been trolling for almost sixteen years,” Jeta explained. “It’s not a bad life if you don’t mind the occasional hassle from police–public and private–and planning for the very long term. Some of us get good enough that we get hired as staff somewhere, go completely legitimate. Finding lost data is a full-time industry in some quarters. Can I have something to drink?”

Ariel went into the kitchen again and returned with a glass of water. Jeta sniffed at it, frowned, then shrugged and drank.

“Anyway, you have to understand how much data there is on this planet. I’m talking centuries of accrual. It never entirely disappears. Overwritten, archaic storage media, just plain misplaced, misfiled, or misremembered. It sits in layers, piling up, lumping together. Whole AI systems are devoted to sifting through it all, but it occasionally takes a deft hand, intuition, a lucky guess–human qualities you just don’t find in a machine. There are specialists who do it, going through stuff that’s really old. Some of them start out legit and move into freelance, but for most of us it’s the other way around. There’s a hardcore bunch that never go legit.

“Mostly though, it’s not much more dangerous usually than any other job. It’s been understood for a long time that the troll isn’t a target; you don’t damn well shoot the messenger. Killing us hurts everyone. And then there are the clearing houses that offer protection and anonymity, and some corporations keep their best trolls on retainer and offer defence. Worrying about sanitizers is just not a big issue. I’ve been beaten up a couple of times, but no one has ever–ever–threatened my life.

“Till now. About three months ago I was retained to find some old minutes from a board of directors that no longer exists. This kind of thing isn’t my most common job, but I’ve done a few. It’s surprising how careless some corporations are with old data like this. I think it’s just arrogance–that was the old board, they didn’t do anything right, why bother keeping the minutes around, and if there’s no legal reason to do so, they just shove them somewhere. A new board is like a new government and anything that happened before them is by definition full of error. Nothing unusual, standard fee, I got a few leads where to start, and I went trolling. Turned about to be a real challenge. I could find traces of it, but it was obvious someone had gone to some trouble to hide it. Took me nearly a month to recover enough of it to make any kind of sense. I found it hiding in stockholder reports, maintenance logs, spread out through portfolio surveys, resumes, spread sheets. Bits of it even turned up in vacation itineraries. The program that hid it was sophisticated enough to actually reconstruct it all with the right command sequence, so it was obvious someone wanted to be able to recover it, otherwise a lot of it would have been corrupted beyond recognition.”

Jeta grinned proudly. “But I did it. I found it all and reassembled it and put it into a package for the client. I was finishing it all up when I got a message on my comm that said, ‘If you deliver what you have, we will kill you.’ Very simple, very direct. Somehow, I didn’t think it was crank. We don’t get them often, but we do get threats, and there are procedures for dealing with them. I turned it over to my controller at the clearing house and delivered my package per our contract. When I got back to my hole I found a new message: ‘You were given fair warning.’ That’s all it said.”

“No signature?” Ariel asked. “No source?”

“That’s all it had to say, ‘cause it wasn’t the words that scared me, but the timing. I knew then I was being monitored–closely–and that my own system had been hacked.”

“Did you try to trace it?” Coren asked.

Jeta scowled. “Of course I did! It ate at me. I’ve been scared before, especially back when I started out, but this was different–this had an edge to it. After a couple of days and I was still scared, I started making plans to disappear. I did my accounts, added things up, and it looked like I could make it work. I reconfigured my system three times to purge the intruders, then made inquiries to emigrate. I always wanted to, anyway–it was one of my two or three top retirement options. This decided the issue for me.

“No way I’d get my assets through ITE. I’d have to go baley and smuggle what I could. Meantime, I just kept on as always, living my life, doing business like I always had, making no moves I’d never made before. No flags, no warnings, nothing to tell anyone that anything had changed. The final vetting came through Baltimor for the Petrabor Egress–that’s what they called it–and I started arranging everything to be ready to transfer at a heartbeat.

“Then you showed up with your request for data on the same baley group. I knew if I refused, you’d just use another troll and in the end it’d be the same result. I had to change my plans. I thought first maybe you were working for the gatos who’d threatened me. So I ran your profile. Imagine my surprise when I saw ‘Special Service’ pop up, then DyNan Manual Industries. What I saw, it didn’t make sense you’d be hunting down a troll for anybody.”

“I appreciate that,” Coren said with mock sincerity.

“That didn’t change anything. I couldn’t know what I’d find if I turned up for my ride out.”

“You might have asked me for help.”

Jeta shrugged. “Couldn’t. Not then.”

Coren nodded. “I understand.”

“Yes, well. So I left everything as it was, kept the arrangements intact, and made different plans. I did your job, handed over the data, and headed home to disappear. That’s when I was attacked. I got away by being just small enough for some crannies others can’t use.

“No one waited for me at my hole, so I cleaned up, packed my stash, and ran. I made plans to go to the Bering port. I don’t know how they figured that one, but the same gato found me at the tube in Lyzig.”

“How did you escape that time?” Ariel asked after a long silence.

“Screamed.” Jeta gave them a wan smile. “Too many people, too much attention. He walked away. I felt like a fool standing there in the middle of the platform yelling at the top of my lungs. But not so foolish I wouldn’t do it again if I had to. That’s when I decided to find Mr. Lanra here. I thought to myself, ‘He started all this, he can fix it:”

“I wish I could, Jeta,” Coren said. “I had no idea.”

“I saw that pretty quick–you weren’t part of those gatos trying to kill me. But you fouled up my egress. You drew attention to it. For all I knew, you were going to show up with immigration cops and arrest them all. I couldn’t take the chance. Now...” She swallowed loudly. “I want out, Mr. Lanra. I want away from Earth. I want my life. I’ll work for you till you can do all that for me.”

“I’ll try, Jeta. I can’t promise. I don’t even know who these people are. They hacked my system, too.”

Jeta blinked, her eyes moist. She nodded calmly and looked at Wenithal. “Who are you?”

“Forgive me, I’ve been remiss. I’m Ree Wenithal. This is my apartment.”

“Ah. Nice place.”

“Thank you.”

“Jeta.” Ariel leaned on the back of the sofa. “That job you did, the minutes... who was it for?”

“Umm... there’s a small matter of confidentiality involved. I’m not sure–”

“Someone is trying to kill you over those minutes,” Ariel said, her voice intensely reasonable. “I think it would be understandable for you to set confidentiality aside in this instance.”

Jeta nodded. “Yeah, well... it was an intermediary, you understand, but I checked into him before I accepted. The contract was from Myler Towne of Imbitek.”

Jeta claimed to be dead tired. Wenithal showed her into his bedroom and let her sleep. He went into the kitchen and returned with another cup of coffee. His hand shook slightly as he poured it.

Coren said nothing. He joined Ariel on the sofa and spoke quietly.

“That’s not Jeta,” he said.

“Then who is she?”

Coren shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find out. It’s interesting, though–Towne tried to hire me away from Looms. Someone tried to assassinate Towne. He doesn’t trust his own security anymore.”

Wenithal came back into the room and, cup in hand, sat down in a chair.

“Alda Mikels is being released from prison in a couple of days, “Ariel said.

“If you’re wondering if there’s a connection, I’ve been wondering that, too. But what would a disagreement between Mikels and Towne have to do with a bunch of baleys?”

“Perhaps,” Wenithal said ponderously, “the connection is sleeping in the next room.”

“Seems rather heavy-handed,” Ariel said, “to murder fifty innocent people just to get one. Especially after the thing you’re trying to prevent has already occurred.”

“You mean the delivery of the data she found?” Coren asked. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but... we have more murders to explain, though.”

“Brun’s,” Wenithal said. “Ms. Fromm said she went through the Baltimor District to set up her egress?”

“She said that, yes,” Ariel confirmed.

“Brun headed the ITE customs office in Baltimor, “Coren said. “But...”

“Ghost connections,” Wenithal said. “Implications, suggestions, hints–nothing solid. Except that Brun is dead.” He stared down at his coffee, eyes narrowed.

“Nyom had nothing to do with any of them,” Coren said.

“But her father did,” Ariel said. “Maybe Nyom’s mystery brother did, too.”

“Oh, definitely,” Wenithal said.

Coren looked at him. “When I told you Nyom had died, you said something about ‘both of them now: What did you mean?”

Wenithal scowled. “You heard that?”

“I cheat a lot,” Coren said. “You’re not denying it. What did you mean?”

“Rega Looms did have a child before Nyom. A son. A very sick son. A UPD.”

“I’ve heard that abbreviation before,” Ariel said, “but I’ve never been clear on what it means.”

“Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction,” Coren said.

“I know what it stands for. But what’s untreatable? Even if Terran medicine can’t deal with something, we have some agreements covering humanitarian aid. Spacer medicine is–”

“Unable to deal with these,” Wenithal said. “I’m not clear myself on what they are, but some of them are horrible. Most are just chronically debilitating illnesses; a good portion of them are transmissible. The only recourse is quarantine. Looms’ first child contracted one when he was barely a year old.”

“So it was institutionalized?”

“Had to be. The law. And it died shortly thereafter. I imagine it crushed him. It would me.”

“How did you come to know about it?” Coren asked.

“Rega Looms was one of the principle investors in Nova Levis,” Wenithal explained. “A research firm established to take advantage of some of the first influxes of Spacer med tech. Everyone thought it would take off on the market, but it didn’t do well the first couple of years. Then, suddenly, it had almost unlimited cash flow.”

“Black market?” Ariel asked.

“Worse. It turned out to be the main channel for all those missing babies. We shut it down.”

“That’s not what the record says,” Coren pointed out. “Nova Levis was cleared and operated long after your investigation.”

“The record often disagrees with reality,” Wenithal said. “The truth was that too many important people had invested in it and too many of them had embarrassing connections with it. Very simple: We turned off the pipeline, told the public it was clear, and then put it on the market. We disassembled it without harming any of the major shareholders.”

“That must have been an impressive list of shareholders, “Ariel said.

“Oh, it was! You’d be shocked.”

“Looms divested early, though,” Coren said. “Quite some time before it closed.”

“I think he did it out of extreme disappointment. They couldn’t cure his child, so he wanted nothing to do with it. I can’t imagine how he must feel right now.”

“Why did you retire after all that?” Coren asked.

“Because I wasn’t finished and they weren’t going to let me finish. I traced the kidnappings to Nova Levis, but they were going somewhere. I thought it had to be offworld. To save those prominent citizens’ reputations, I was not allowed to follow the leads. I was feted, medaled, and promoted–and basically told to drop it. It ate at me till I couldn’t stand it anymore. I presented an ultimatum: either I’m allowed to pursue the case or I quit.” He raised his hands, palms up, and let them fall.

“You didn’t try to look into it yourself?”

“Not very aggressively. I was already known to those involved. I knew I wouldn’t be very effective.” Wenithal shook his head. “No, this was the only way: wait for someone new, with no attachments to the old case. We couldn’t go looking for anyone because that might set off alarms in all the wrong places.”

Coren turned all this over in his mind. It sounded just a bit glib, rehearsed, but that did not make it less true. To be sure, Ree Wenithal had been living with this for a long time. In his place, Coren believed he might have it well worked out by now.

But Coren found it unconvincing. It did not explain Wenithal’s connection to Brun Damik, or why Damik would go to Wenithal after Coren confronted him.

“Where was Nova Levis?” he asked.

“Hmm? Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, one of the undine enclaves. Um... Teluk Tolo, Indones Sector.”

“Maybe it would be worthwhile to take another look at it,” Coren said.

“It’s gone. There’s nothing there anymore, just a shell. It was all sold off. I think it was converted to a processing plant for raw materials or something.”

“You won’t mind if we try, will you?”

Wenithal sneered. “Don’t be sarcastic. I’m doing you a favor telling you any of this.”

“Of course,” Coren said. “You’re such a model citizen. If I had more time I’d be more polite about it.”

“Mr. Wenithal, “Ariel cut in, frowning at Coren, “you’re expecting trouble. Have you been followed?”

“Not that I know of, but they killed Brun. I’m next, logically. What would you think?”

“I think you should move somewhere safer.”

“And where might that be?”

“The Auroran embassy. I don’t think you can be gotten to there.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know what exactly we’re up against. Do you want me to lie and guarantee your safety?”

“We wouldn’t want you to do that. “Wenithal shook his head. “I’ve never run from a fight. Besides, it might look odd.”

“You’d look very odd crushed to death,” Coren said.

“Crushed?”

“Judging from the victims we’ve seen, it looks like crushing is the favored method.”

Wenithal considered that and shuddered. “I’ve never been to the Auroran embassy.” He shrugged. “If it would put your minds at ease...”

“I could always leave you here with Jeta,” Coren said then.

Wenithal frowned at him.

“How long have you known her?” Coren asked.

“I don’t–”

“Stop it. She didn’t follow me here. She came to see you.”

Wenithal laughed. “Why would a data troll want to see me?”

“I can’t think of a single reason. But she’s not a data troll. You were waiting for someone to show up tonight, someone you thought might kill you. So far, we’ve shown up, and Jeta Fromm has shown up. “Coren held up his hands. “Is there a mistake in my logic?”

“You’re guessing,” Wenithal said.

“So, do you stay here, or do we go to the Auroran Embassy?”

Wenithal sighed. “All of us?”

“I’m not letting Jeta–or whatever her name is–get away from us.”

“If she’s not Jeta,” Ariel said, “then who–?”

“I’m guessing a woman named Tresha,” Coren said. “You‘ve done business with her before, Mr. Wenithal. but I imagine you’ve never done any with her partner–Gamelin.”

Wenithal stared at Coren now with undisguised resentment. “Like I said, I’ve never been to the Auroran Embassy before.”

“If I’m right, getting there might be an interesting problem,” Coren said.

Ariel smiled at him. “Leave that part to me.”

Coren turned away, muttering under his breath, “I knew you were going to say that...”

Twenty

THE MORGUE WAS a bit cooler, though Derec wondered how much of that was simply psychosomatic illusion. He stood to one side, near the big entrance, while Sipha Palen and her chief forensic specialist, Baxin, went through the logs.

“Fifty-one,” Baxin said finally. He looked at Palen. “There were fifty-two when we brought them in here.”

“So a corpse got up when you weren’t looking and walked out?” Palen’s voice made everyone cringe.

Baxin shook his head, less intimidated than bewildered.

“Not only that,” Palen went on, “but it cleaned up its container and put it back in storage!” She wheeled around at the pair of security men nearby. “Didn’t anybody pay attention to the monitors? Nobody saw a thing out of the ordinary?”

Derec leaned back against the wall. The TBI agents stood nearby, looking slightly embarrassed on Palen’s behalf. But Derec could see the impatience in their faces.

Palen stopped herself before she continued her rant. With sudden and surprising calm, she said, “I want the monitor records gone over. I want to know when the dead got up and walked out.”

Her two officers, with evident relief, left quickly. Palen came up to the TBI agents.

“I’m disinclined to turn anything over to you,” she said, “but under the circumstances, maybe we can share resources. Avery here has been working on recovering the memory from that robot. If he succeeds, we’ll all know what happened. If you remove it now, all his work will be lost and you’ll be starting from scratch.”

“That’s not–” one of the agents began.

Halwor raised his hand and cut her off. “As you say, Chief Palen, ‘under the circumstances.’ “He looked at Derec. “How soon, Mr. Avery?”

“We were less than an hour away from the first recoveries when you showed up.”

“Then, let’s go see what you have.”

Rana was waiting for them when they arrived in the lab. She frowned upon seeing the TBI agents trailing behind Derec and Palen. She came forward, stopping right in front of Derec.

“Boss, we have a problem,” she said.

“Yes, I know. There’s a discrepancy in the bodycount.”

“Yes, there is. The robot is gone.”

It seemed to take a long time for the information to register. Derec stared at Rana. “What?”

“The DW-12... left.”

Derec pushed past her and entered the workstation. The pallet was empty, the cables all neatly removed and retracted into the diagnostic link.

“When–?”

“What happened, Avery?” Harwol asked. “What did you do with the robot?”

“Nothing. Obviously, I’ve been with you. Rana?”

Rana looked embarrassed. “I had some personal business to attend. When I came back, the unit was gone.”

“Thales?” Derec asked.

“Yes, Derec?”

“Where’s the DW-12?”

“At this precise moment, I do not know.”

“Did someone remove it?” Harwol demanded.

“No,” Thales said. “However, I have everything requested from it. I have organized the recovered memories and prepared them in a linear scroll for viewing.”

Derec, uncertain and nervous, sat down at the console. “The excavation is complete, then?”

“I have a complete document of the robot’s memory, Derec.”

The TBI agents looked uneasy.

“Um... any preferred mode of replay?”

“All options available, Derec.”

“Flatscreen and full auditory will be fine, Thales. “Derec turned to the gathered audience. “If you’ll all spread out along the blind, please, we can put this on a few screens and you can all see.”

“I want an explanation, Avery,” Harwol said. “That robot is evidence–”

“Maybe we should pay attention to the main question, “Palen said, “of what happened to those people.”

Harwol frowned, unmollifled, but he nodded curtly. “Very well.”

While they arranged themselves, Derec made sure the link was feeding to Ariel through Thales. He glanced back to see that everyone was ready.

“Okay, Thales,” he said, “let’s see what you have.”

Four screens above the console cleared simultaneously. A few seconds later, a single view filled them all.

The group of baleys gathered around the two people facing each other in their midst. The woman–Nyom Looms–looked angry, impatient. The man, dressed in dockworker’s dull yellow togs, faced her stoically, arms folded, waiting for her to finish.

(“Is there audio?” one of the TBI agents asked. “Thales,” Derec prompted. “Incomplete. I am working on filling gaps.”)

Nyom Looms raised one hand, finger aimed at the dockworker, and almost jabbed him. He dropped his arms and said something.

(“Pocivil,” Palen mused. “What’s that?” Harwol asked. “Nothing,” Palen said.)

“–forming you now–have backup–prepared. It’s the same as it was, only different. A new canister. We are professionals.”

The robot turned toward the group. Someone was working his way forward and had come to a halt at the very edge of the half-circle.

A window appeared at the lower right corner of the screen, and a series of faces scrolled quickly by, matching text on the left. The words NO MATCH appeared in place of the faces. The robot moved toward the stranger.

(“That’s Coren,” Palen said. “Who?” one of the TBI agents asked. “Later; “Palen said.)

“All right,” Nyom said. “But if this turns out to be anything but copasetic, I’ll peel your skin off with pliers. Tell your people we’re ready.”

Suddenly, Coren stepped forward, a half-smile on his face. The robot reached him at that point and gripped his right arm. Coren looked up angrily, but his expression changed quickly to fear.

“I apologize, sir, but I must ask that you come with me.” The robot walked him back through the crowd of baleys, who looked frightened and angry themselves.

They emerged from the crowd and continued on to the next bay. The robot stopped. Coren gave it another nervous glance, then turned abruptly.

“Damnit, Coren!”

Coren smiled wanly. “Good to see you, too, Nyom.”

She hissed through clenched teeth.

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised to see me,” Coren said.

“I’m not. That’s what bothers me.”

Coren nodded toward the robot. “Umm...”

“Coffee, go see to our arrangements.”

“Yes, Nyom,” the robot said.

The robot–Coffee–released Coren and returned to the group of baleys. It worked its way through them. Some cringed from it, but most stood their ground with stolid expressions, afraid but unwilling to show it.

Coffee emerged from the huddled refugees just as the dockworker returned, followed by four individuals. The window appeared at the lower left again as Coffee attempted to find matches.

One of the four was another robot.

(“Looks like a DM-70,” Rana whispered. “But what’s that?”)

One of the four looked distinctly artificial, surface a smooth, dull gray, but it was far more humaniform than either of the other two robots. Coffee gave this one a close examination. The view zoomed in on its head. Human-imitation eyes peered back. It wore close-fitting black: shirt, pants, and soft boots, which seemed silly for a robot.

(“Look at the way it moves,” Derec said.)

“Everybody ready?” the dockworker called out. He turned to Coffee. “Where’s your boss?”

“One moment.”

Coffee made his way back to where Nyom and Coren stood talking. It stopped a short distance from them. “Nyom.”

Coren started and Nyom laughed. She began to reach toward him. “Coffee won’t hurt you. What is it, Coffee?”

“Time.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Coffee returned once more to the group of baleys. “She is on her way, “it told the dockworker.

“All right,” Nyom’s voice snapped. “Let’s get this boat sailing, shall we?” She stopped upon seeing the newcomers, frowning. “Who are these?”

“My dock crew,” the first dockworker informed her. “It wasn’t hard to get everybody else to go out for a drink, but I think they’d draw the line at longshoring an illicit bin and loading up a bunch of baleys, don’t you think?”

Nervous laughter came from the group of baleys. Nyom nodded, her eyes on the strange robot.

“This way,” the dockworker said, leading them through the open bay.

They passed through the huge doorway. The baleys stopped on the broad apron between the warehouse doors and the maze of tracks upon which cargo bins scurried en route to and from the shuttle fields of Petrabor port. One bin came almost directly at them, stopping abruptly on its magnetic rails less than five meters away. Its door folded down.

“Okay, folks,” the dockworker said, clapping his hands. “Here’s the drill. Inside you will find an array of bunks–acceleration couches–each one with a breather mask attached to a rebreather. There’s enough air in the bin for the ride up to Kopernik and the transfer to the ship that’ll take you on to Nova Levis, as long as you use the rebreather. One of my associates here will ride up with you and make sure you know how to use the masks and will stay as security till you make the transfer to the ship. Once aboard ship, you will be released from the bin and provided regular berths for the main leg of the voyage. Once you are secured in your couches, do not–I repeat, do not–get out of them. There isn’t enough room for floating around, and you could injure yourselves. Any questions?”

He looked around. Coffee was paying attention mainly to the unusual robot.

Abruptly, that robot stepped forward, approached Coffee, and made a show of examining it. It moved with a sinuous fluidity that belied its artificial nature, making one slow circuit around Coffee and coming to a halt directly before it.

The skin seemed to ripple briefly. Suddenly, it looked to its left. As Coffee watched, the skin changed hue and texture, dappling and darkening.

“Nyom,” Coffee said, “I recommend against this. We should abort and try another avenue.”

“Why, Coffee?”

The strange robot regarded Coffee with an attitude of almost human curiosity, as if to say Yes, Coffee, why?

“I am unable to define my reasons, “Coffee said. “The situation has too many unexpected variables. For instance, I do not know what this is.” Coffee aimed a digit at the robot before it.

“Come on, “the dockworker said, exasperated. “We don’t have time for this shit! The crew will be back any minute–you take it or leave it. You drop this ride, your chances of getting another one go way down.”

Nyom turned to her group. “It’s up to you,” she said. “Do we go?”

The refugees murmured among themselves briefly, then hands went up. “We go,” most of them said.

Nyom frowned as she turned to the dockworker. “I repeat: anything goes wrong on this, I’ll have parts of you as souvenirs.”

“What, you think we’re going to ruin our reputation? Come on, we’re professionals–we do this all the time. Now, can be get a move on?”

“Coffee,” Nyom said, “you just pay close attention to everything.”

“Yes, Nyom.”

The robot facing it spun gracefully and walked up the ramp, into the bin. The baleys filed in, one by one.

Nyom hung back, close to Coffee. “What’s wrong, Coffee?”

“That robot–” Coffee began.

“The tally doesn’t add up,” the dockworker interrupted. He held up a pad. “I did a head count. We’re missing one.”

“I know,” Nyom said. “It happens. Someone gets cold feet at the last minute; they don’t show. Can’t call it off on account of one or two who change their minds, can you?”

“No, I suppose not. But my people don’t like it.”

“I don’t care what they don’t like.”

The dockworker shrugged. “So we have one extra couch. Everyone else showed, though?”

“Everyone else did.” Nyom gestured. “Where’d you get that robot?”

“Gamelin? Didn’t get him anywhere. He’s part of the connection on the other end.”

“He’s... different.”

“He is that. Well, you ready? Everyone else is on board.”

Nyom nodded and walked up the ramp. Coffee followed.

Within, the light was dim, provided mainly by a single flash held by the robot, Gamelin, and the readylights on the hulking rebreather unit in the middle of the deck. Gamelin was helping people settle into the couches that were stacked to the ceiling, and answering questions in a quiet, raspy voice. Coffee began checking those already settled in.

The hatch came up, then, and Gamelin activated the internal seals. Coffee squatted by the control panel of the rebreather and began running a diagnostic.

“Don’t you trust me?” Gamelin asked.

“What model are you?” Nyom asked. “I’ve never seen one like you.”

“You won’t again,” Gamelin said, turning toward her. “Better get into your couch.”

The bin lurched and Nyom nearly fell. Gamelin caught her arm and steadied her.

“No talking,” Gamelin announced. “Uses too much air.”

Coffee did a second check on the rebreather. Everything read optimal. It straightened and watched Gamelin help Nyom with her straps.

“And the mask–”

“I have my own,” Nyom said.

Gamelin hesitated. “Very efficient.”

Coffee approached Gamelin. “You did not answer Nyom’s question. What model are you?”

“I’m a prototype. I don’t have a model designation.”

“Are you Solarian? I am unfamiliar with any Auroran design even in the planning stage from which you might be derived.”

“How long’s it been since you were on Aurora?”

“Thirty-six years.”

“Things might’ve changed, don’t you think?”

“Very probably. That is why I ask.”

“Solarian. Now get to your ready station. We’ve got ten minutes before the shuttle lifts.”

Coffee returned to a place beside the rebreather. Gamelin climbed lithely into one of the couches.

(“What happened? The scene shifted...” one of the agents complained. “Coffee shifted briefly to standby,” Derec explained. “Nothing recorded during an essentially uneventful period. All telemetry is on, but...”)

The cargo bin was in freefall, on a trajectory to Kopernik on board a shuttle. Two or three people groaned. Coffee bent to the rebreather control panel and checked the readings on individual respiration.

“There is a problem,” it said.

“What?” Nyom asked. She pulled herself out of the couch and swam quickly to Coffee.

(“Where’d she learn to do that?” Rana wondered.)

“The monitor indicates distress,” Coffee said. “Breathing is becoming impaired.”

“What the–we have a defective rebreather?”

“Nothing’s defective,” Gamelin said, sliding across the bin. “Everything’s working fine.”

“I disagree,” Coffee said. “According to this–”

“Shut up, tinhead. Time to put on a standard mask, Ms. Looms.”

Nyom shot a look at Gamelin. “What are you–”

Gamelin reached for her. She writhed in mid-air and slammed a foot against its chest, launching herself backward. Her shoulders banged into the strutwork supporting a bank of couches.

Gamelin pursued, one arm extended, reaching.

“Stop,” Coffee said. “You will cause injury.”

“Exactly, “Gamelin said.

Coffee twisted around and grabbed Gamelin’s shoulder. Coffee’s grip closed on softer material than expected. Gamelin jerked around beneath the grip and pulled free, hissing in clear pain.

Coffee opened its hand and saw, in its enhanced vision, a mass of fabric and dermis mingled thickly with blood.

The scene lurched. Coffee watched, immobile, as Gamelin chased Nyom Looms around the bin, while all around people were moaning louder. Several had ripped off their masks, gasping. Coffee looked down at the rebreather.

(“Why doesn’t it do something?” one of the agents asked. “It’s caught in a dilemma,” Rana said. “It just hurt something that might be human. It doesn’t know what to do.” “Human!”)

Suddenly, Gamelin caught Nyom. Coffee looked up to see her struggle briefly while Gamelin got a grip on her head and gave a short, sharp yank. The snap of bone sounded horribly loud.

Gamelin let Nyom’s body go and pulled something from its belt. It went to one of the clear surfaces and aimed the tool. A brilliant spark leapt at the bulkhead.

“Stop,” Coffee ordered. “You will breach the integrity of the container.”

“Stop me, tinhead,” Gamelin said. “If you can.”

“I–”

Suddenly, Gamelin drew back and punched up. The loud bang filled the chamber. A moment later, he pushed both hands through the crack he had made and heaved. Blood oozed from the wound on his shoulder. Air whistled through the hole.

Gamelin swam back to the robot and came close to its face.

“They’ll suffocate if they don’t put their masks back on,” he said. Then he returned to his couch.

Coffee went from person to person, urging them to replace their masks. Some were already dead, though. coffee seemed to realize then that the rebreather was poisoning them.

It knelt by the unit and tried to run a systems purge. That did not work, so it began stabbing the DISCONNECT; all the while the air inexorably leaked from the small chamber.

Everyone stared at the now blank screens, mute, the shock clear on their faces. Derec let out his breath slowly. He looked at Rana.

“What–?”

“So where did that thing go?” Agent Harwol demanded explosively. “Obviously, that’s what walked out of your morgue, Chief Palen, right under the noses of your staff and your surveillance.”

“Coren said it was invisible to his optam,” she said.

“Invisible to your security systems, too?” Derec asked.

She looked frightened. “What is it, Mr. Avery? You’re the roboticist. Tell us.”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. Coffee couldn’t stop it because it was human. Or seemed human.”

“That?” Harwol exclaimed.

“It bled, Agent Harwol. It was–is–organic. Up to that point, Coffee assumed, as did everyone, that it was a robot...” He blinked. “A cyborg.”

“A what?” Rana asked. “I didn’t think those were possible.”

“Aurora stopped research on them a long time ago. Not because they aren’t possible–on the contrary, they are very possible. And much too unpredictable.”

“We’re impounding all this material,” Agent Harwol declared. “I want every bit of it turned over to us before any more of it goes missing.”

“To do what with?” Derec demanded. “You don’t have the first idea what any of this means.”

“And you do? No arguments, Mr. Avery–this material is, now under TBI jurisdiction, and you are under arrest.”

“For what?”

“Criminal negligence, for a start. Until we find that robot, I’m holding you responsible. You were working for us on this and an important piece of evidence is missing.”

“For the sake of–” Palen said. “Stop it. Just what do you think you’re accomplishing by all this?”

“I’m putting the lid on a bad situation on its way to becoming worse, Chief Palen,” Harwol barked. “You’re suspended, pending an investigation into abuse of authority. You had no mandate to indulge in this sort of an investigation–”

“You’re going to make a mess of this whole thing–”

“Enough! I want this lab quarantined and everything in it held in stasis till I decide what to do with it. You have overstepped your authority in this matter, and the TBI is now taking over the investigation.”

“Damn it–!” Palen began.

Harwol aimed a finger at her as if it were a weapon.

“Another word, Chief Palen,” he said. “One more.”

She restrained herself with a visible effort.

“You’re an idiot,” Derec said. “You could’ve just asked.”

“I’m afraid, Agent Harwol, “Hofton said then, “that you lack the authority to make arrests on Auroran territory.”

“Kopernik Station is an Earth Incorporated Zone,” Harwol said. “Security is handled by Terran authority under specific treaty, which is why Chief Palen here has the authority to police even the Spacer and Settler areas. I am relieving her of that position and assuming that authority.”

“That’s thin, Harwol,” Palen said. “Really, really thin.”

“Maybe, but that’s what I’m doing. I can damn well make arrests here, and I damn well will. You may file a complaint through proper channels and it will be considered at that time, but till then I am in charge of station security and you–” he pointed at Derec “–are under arrest.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know. I was under the impression that Auroran embassy grounds were accorded the same privileges as the main mission.”

Hofton looked agonized. Derec had never seen the man so distraught. He sat on the other side of the narrow holding cell, elbows on knees, shoulders hunched, his face stretched by internal doubt and self-loathing.

“You can’t be expected to know everything, Hofton,” Derec said.

“I don’t,” Hofton said. “But I should know everything about my job.”

Derec looked across, through the mesh of his cell door, to the cell opposite his. The Spacer who had been arrested the day Derec had arrived still waited within it. In all the confusion, he had been forgotten.

“It’s understandable,” Derec said. “Harwol and the others saw something they don’t understand. Naturally, their reaction is to put anything they don’t understand in a cell.”

“All expectations for rational action and maturity notwithstanding,” Hofton said gloomily.

“Doesn’t matter. The relevant point is, you still have a job. I accept your apology. Now, let’s figure out how to solve our problems.”

Hofton continued to stare at a spot on the floor for several seconds. Then he drew a deep breath, straightened, and nodded.

“You’re right, of course,” he said. “What do you propose?”

“Thales withheld information for some reason. There’s no way that robot could have done anything with Thales knowing.” Derec thought about that. “Scratch that. Without Thales instigating it. Assuming for the moment Thales won’t say anything to anyone but us, then the first opportunity we get to question it alone–”

“That may be very difficult. Harwol has an agent in the lab at all times.”

“Hmm. All right, then the first thing we have to do is get some idea of what that thing is we saw in the recovered memories. They all saw that, there’s nothing left to hide from the TBI. Contact Ariel, go over it with her.”

“You said it’s a cyborg.”

“That’s my best guess, but I wouldn’t mind being contradicted. If somebody has a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”

“Assuming you’re correct, though, what then?”

“Then we have a real problem. Harwol and his people have no idea. If it’s a cyborg, it was certainly not created out of thin air. There’s infrastructure behind it–industry, an impressive application of technology. Which means money. More than likely, if there’s one, there are more.”

“Whose money?”

“That’s one good question. The other is, what do they have to do with baleys?”

“Baleys in general, or those going to Nova Levis specifically?”

“Right now it could be either one. When you talk to Ariel, find out if Lanra has any statistics on the number of baleys going out each year that arrive dead. Or just disappear.”

“With all due respect to Mr. Lanra, how would he get such statistics? The Settler colonies are not all willing to provide Earth with data. Census figures alone represent a major problem.”

“Mmm. Well, maybe he knows someone who can get those numbers. I just need to know if one colony above any other is having a problem with this.”

Hofton nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. Anything else?”

“Can you go in and out of the lab?”

“For the time being.” He grinned wryly. “I’m a bit of a gray area for them. They don’t quite know how to handle me. I’ve threatened them with Ambassador Setaris.”

“Then get me an update from Thales.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I see about getting you out of here?”

“Eventually, yes. For now, though, I’ve got some thinking to do, and this is as good a place as any.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“Call me Derec.”

Hofton stood. “I’ll see what I can do. Sir.”

Hofton placed his hand against the lock pad. The door opened for him; after he passed through, the mesh slid back into place. If Derec had tried to follow Hofton a stunner would have knocked him back very firmly.

A few minutes later, the main door opened again and two of Palen’s uniforms brought a man into the block. They escorted him into a cell at the opposite end from the main door, locked him in, and left without glancing at Derec or the other prisoner.

Derec strained to see into the cell of the new inmate, but the man had flopped onto his cot.

Derec looked across the concourse at the other Spacer.

“So what did you do that got you thrown in here?” Derec called.

The Spacer sat up. After a few seconds of contemplation, the man went to his cell door, placed his hand on the lock, and walked out. With a glance in the direction of the newcomer, he came quietly up to Derec’s door, opened it, and entered the cell. The door slid shut and the Spacer sat down where Hofton had been sitting.

Derec stared at him. “You’re one of Palen’s people.”

He grinned. “Right on the first guess. They didn’t lie when they said you were bright.” He extended his hand. “Masid Vorian, station security.”

Derec shook Masid’s hand. “So I suppose you heard everything we discussed?”

“Most of it. Don’t worry about the TBI, though. The cell monitoring system is keyed to Sipha’s password. She shut it down after Harwol and his eager fools showed up. So they’ll never know what you discussed with your man, or what you and I talk about now.”

Derec nodded toward the door. “What about the new prisoner?”

“Must be a legitimate arrest. His escorts would’ve given me some kind of warning if he was a plant or something. Don’t worry–I doubt he can hear our conversation, either.”

“And what are we talking about now?”

“The same thing.” Masid leaned forward earnestly. “You need to understand one thing: Sipha Palen is a good cop. She’s honest, dedicated, and a magnificent pain in the ass to work for as a result, but she’s sincere about the job.”

“I never doubted it.”

Masid nodded once. “But it gets her in trouble. That’s the reason she’s up here and not running a department on the ground.”

“Honest to a fault.”

“She doesn’t always know when to shut up.” He grinned. “In certain circles, it can be a real deficit.”

“She planted you in the lab.”

“No, I was already there. I’m a turned agent. I used to work for Settler security. Sipha found out and made a deal with me: work for her, at least part-time, or she’d expose me.”

“Forgive me, but you look like a Spacer.”

Masid made a mock bow. “Native of Proclas.”

“Then how–?”

“It’s a long story. The short version is, I was trained as an information specialist, but, frankly, it’s boring work. Proclans are agrarian by temperament, but you can’t maintain much of a civilization growing vegetables. I started freelancing. The government called it treason and I had to leave. I ran an independent merchant ship for a while, then went to work for the Theian intelligence service on Pax Commari–”

“That’s a Settler colony.”

“Yes, it is. Theia sponsored it. Anyway, I decided that what I was doing was crass and unethical, so I turned myself in to the local intelligence people. They had absolutely no use for me, but–lucky me–,.. they knew someone who did. I ended up working for the Settler Coalition.”

“I didn’t know they had an intelligence arm.”

“Not very many people do. Their biggest concern is smuggling. Post to post to post, I ended up here. “He raised his arms. “That’s the short version. Some day when we have time and a good deal to drink, I’ll give you the full version, which is a lot more interesting.”

“So you work for Palen part of the time.”

“At this point, I’d have to say I work for Palen all of the time. She made me a good deal. Over the last few years, I’ve found myself with a growing case of loyalty to her.”

“That impressive?”

“I respect her,” Masid said.

The way he said it, Derec got the immediate sense of a vast and profound commitment; that respect was something Masid Vorian esteemed above all else.

“All right,” Derec said slowly. “I presume that the arrangement is, you work with the Aurorans for a time and when you have something to report you get yourself arrested.”

“Basically. Most of the time information is easily sent through a secured comm channel. But sometimes something comes up that requires a personal meet.”

“What prompted this one?”

“Baleys. Lots of very dead baleys.”

“There’s a regular route, always has been,” Masid explained. “The bays change, but usually they’re Settler. Baleys have been leaving Kopernik for years via the same avenues–fifty, a hundred years. We estimated that on an average year maybe five, six thousand people leave Earth through clandestine channels. Occasionally, the number goes as high as ten or twelve thousand. ITE cracks down periodically, the numbers drop to less than a thousand, then pick back up.

“A couple of years ago we started seeing a massive surge: twelve, thirteen, fifteen thousand a year. I think this had to do with the politics, Eliton’s whole Concessionism kick, and then the collapse of talks last year. I think a lot of baleys are afraid all the avenues are about to be shut down.

“In the middle of this frantic running, though, we started hearing rumors from some of the Settler crews that a number of shipments went missing. I started doing a little digging among my old Settler contacts. I found out that transfers were being made mid-journey by certain ships–destinations changed, baleys offloaded and sent somewhere else. Too many claims to ignore.”

“Pirates?” Derec asked.

“That’s an easy accusation to make. Tell me, what is pirate? Black market, certainly. But fine, let’s assume for the sake of this discussion we’re talking about pirates. Then what are they doing? A lot of so-called pirate ships are already dealing in baley running. A lot of them have quasilegal status and come into port regularly. No warrants, no evidence to hold them, we let them go. The ships offloading the baleys aren’t doing so under duress, so it’s a business deal. But for who? The money being paid by baleys and some of the recipient colonies is a lot, but I don’t see how the margin makes it worthwhile stealing the baleys after they’re already en route. So where are they being taken?”

“You found out?”

Masid shook his head. “Not exactly. A lot of talk has them going to Nova Levis. Of course, that’s quarantined, so it’s not likely we’re going to find any ship’s owners willing to admit they’re making runs there. The pirate ships taking the baleys on never come to Kopernik. But let’s assume that one or two colonies have hired mercenary shippers and are paying premiums to steal baleys. Why? What do baleys have that could be marketable under illicit conditions?”

“Labor. Possibly blackmail of family.”

“No blackmail, not a single demand. Labor, sure. But you can buy cheap labor from companies like Imbitek and Morris and some of the others. There are some colonies buying robots from Spacers. So, if it’s not labor, what is it?”

Derec shook his head.

“Bodies.”

“Organs?”

“What else? On spec I recommended that a shipload of baleys be traced and intercepted en route. A joint Auroran-Terran venture was set up. It took four tries to find a transfer, but we found one and the ship was taken. The baleys were already dead, in stasis. Medical quality stasis. Eighty-three of them. We had a few arriving shipments intercepted here and at least three of them contained already dead baleys.”

“Why didn’t you shut it all down if you knew about the shipments?”

“Two reasons: we don’t know about all the shipments, and we still don’t know who’s killing them and selling the corpses. Ongoing investigation; we need to keep it quiet till we can shut down the source. I know, it’s terrible. People are dying. But that’s the way it is.”

“How many?” Derec asked.

“So far, three hundred plus. We’ve been trying to infiltrate baley groups, see where they’re going. Our agents have been turning up dead, too. Some of them in very unpleasant ways. The worst was Chiava.”

“Chiava?”

“The Brethe dealer you heard about. Right here, in her holding cell.”

“Chief Palen worked her the same way she works you?”

Masid nodded. “She worked dockside vice mostly, not this. She found something related to my investigation.”

“Did she have time to tell Palen?”

“No. She was brought in while Sipha was away. By the time Sipha returned...”

“What I don’t understand,” Derec said, “is where the market for this is. Organs can be grown–you don’t have to do gross transplants.”

“Spacer medical tech is expensive.”

“That’s facile. It’s also safer. The only reason...” Derec caught his breath. “The baleys in question. You identified them?”

“As many as we could. Some had bought very expensive privacy locks on their pasts.”

“How many of them were orphans?”

“Orphans?”

“Yes, orphans.”

Masid blinked and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Find out.”

“You have an idea what’s going on?”

“Just an idea. A very tenuous idea.”

Masid nodded. “You look like you hope you’re wrong.”

“That, too.” Derec studied Masid for a time. “So what are you still doing in here?”

“Oh, that. Well.” Masid smiled sheepishly. “I’m bait.”

Twenty-One

“I’VE CALLED FOR an embassy limousine,” Ariel said. “It should be here shortly.”

Ree Wenithal gave her a gloomy look, as if now regretting to go along with them. He had drunk four cups of coffee and swallowed a stimulant pill, and his mood had grown ever more somber.

Coren scowled at him. “Don’t tell us you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to go. Would you rather wait for Tresha and Gamelin?”

Wenithal looked startled. “Who?”

Coren almost smiled. “Your collectors. The ones you’ve been waiting for.”

Ariel watched them regard each other, Ree Wenithal clearly unsettled and Coren smugly observant.

“We standing around playing Who Knows,” Jeta Fromm asked, “or moving somewhere safer?”

Coren laughed. “Come on. Is there anything else you want to bring?”

“No,” Wenithal said grudgingly, and stepped to the door.

Ariel touched Coren’s elbow. When he looked at her, she pointed to his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I could use some painblock and a stimulant right now,” he said, “but I can move.”

They exited onto the balcony warily, Ariel coming out last. Third shift was still a few hours from ending and the quiet made the warren seem deserted. Coren led the way down the steps to the courtyard and out to the avenue. Ariel went last, glancing anxiously over her shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to see into the shadows. She gripped the stunner in her pocket, knowing it would be next to useless against the thing that attacked them earlier, but unwilling to release its illusion of effectiveness.

Far to the right, at the end of the avenue, music and laughter reached them from a bar; otherwise, the area was still. They pressed back against the wall and waited in silence.

Ariel jumped when the limousine pulled onto the avenue. The long black vehicle stopped and the rear door slid open. As they neared the vehicle, two men emerged and quickly flanked Wenithal and Jeta. Wenithal stopped short, but Jeta whirled around, glaring.

“What is this, gato?” she demanded.

Coren stopped before her. “It’s for everyone’s piece of mind... Tresha.”

She frowned at him. “My name is Jeta Fromm.”

“I doubt it,” Coren said. “But we can sort it out later, when we’re in comfort and security.” He looked at Ariel. “Is this going to cause problems?”

“Nothing I’m not used to,” Ariel said. She addressed the guards. “Screen them.”

One of the men took out a pad and walked around the pair. He reached inside Jeta/Tresha’s jacket and removed a pistol. “That’s all, Ambassador.”

“Good. In the limousine, please.”

The guard took Tresha’s pack, then Wenithal and Tresha were ushered into the capacious backseat. The guards watched them from the facing seat. Ariel went around to the passenger side front and got in.

Coren closed the door and leaned against the jamb.

“I’m going somewhere else,” he said.

Ariel wanted to protest, but held back. “I see. I’ll stay with these people, then, and set them up at the embassy.”

He nodded. His eyes shut briefly. “When I get there, I think I’d better sleep.”

“You wouldn’t want to tell me where you’re going, would you?”

“Not now.” He smiled wearily. “Deniability and all that. Besides, I really don’t know just exactly where...” He shook his head. “Get them to the embassy and safe. I’ll comm when I’m finished.”

He pushed away from the limo. The door closed. Ariel watched him walk wearily away. She felt a sharp reluctance to let him out of her sight. For a moment she wanted to get out of the limousine and go with him, trusting the limo and the guards to get her passengers to the embassy.

Not very responsible, she thought peevishly.

Coren rounded a distant comer, disappearing from sight. Ariel leaned back in the seat, wondering at her uneasy mix of emotions.

“Embassy,” Ariel said. She glanced over her shoulder at Tresha and Wenithal, and wondered idly how much of a diplomatic mess she had just created. Only i/they complain, she thought.

“Yes, Ambassador,” the car replied and rolled on.

“This is nonsense,” Wenithal said.

“What’s changed?” Ariel asked. “You were prepared to shoot whoever came through your door earlier.”

He glowered, then let his head fall back. Within a couple of minutes his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. Ariel wondered just how much alcohol he had drunk before they had arrived. Then she wondered how often people had thought that about her.

Tresha glared at Ariel, straight-backed and on edge, hands pressed against her thighs. Her backpack lay on the seat between the guards.

“That looks heavy,” Ariel said. “What do you have in there?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

Tresha frowned. “My chops. Code bummer, datum, decrypter. Some clothes.”

Ariel waited to see if Tresha would volunteer more. When she remained silent, Ariel asked, “Why Nova Levis?”

“Time. There’s a list and a schedule. Nova Levis had the earliest opening. Besides, you hear there’s a lot of tech there.”

“You do?”

“They say, sure.”

“It was an agrarian colony, started up by the Church of Organic Sapiens.”

Tresha blinked at her. “They changed, then.” She shrugged. “So, do you believe Mr. Lanra? That I’m not who I say I am?”

“Does it matter? Either you are and you need our help, or you aren’t and we need to keep you under guard.”

Tresha shook her head. “Meddling. Spacers are always meddling. Why is that? What’s all this to you?”

Ariel considered giving Tresha a glib answer, predigested and politic. It’s my job, I was ordered to help. True as far as it went, but Ariel had never done anything purely for surface reasons. In this case, she felt she would have been justified to tell Setaris no and let herself be rotated back to Aurora as she expected to be.

She understood Derec’s motives–he wanted to get his hands on a positronics lab one more time. The ground mission’s lab was denied him and, though he still retained Thales, he simply could not do the research he wanted. And he wanted to stay on Earth, a desire about which she had grown ambivalent in the last year.

She understood Coren Lanra’s motives, though she suspected there was more than he had admitted.

Ariel even understood Sen Setaris and the policy under which she had delegated the assignment.

But her own motives for going along with it?

“Until two hours ago I didn’t know,” she said. “Then I saw the enemy.”

When they arrived at the embassy, Ariel summoned an extra security team to escort Wenithal and Tresha to separate apartments. “I want someone watching them full-time, highest level surveillance.”

She went directly to her own apartment, then.

“Any messages, Jennie?” Ariel asked.

“Thales requests that you check in as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Jennie.” She tapped a code for the embassy security office. “I want an ID run, please. There is a woman just installed in the secure apartments calling herself Jeta Fromm. Verify. Check against records for a woman named Tresha, last name unknown.”

As she stepped into the corridor, she felt a brief wave of weariness. She had been going for too long a stretch without more than ten minutes’ sleep. Ariel shrugged it off and headed to Derec’s apartment.

“Thales, do you have something for me?” she asked as she entered Derec’s workspace.

“A number of items, Ariel. I have completed the recovery from the subject. Derec and Hofton have already viewed the relevant memories.”

Ariel’s pulse quickened. She sat down. “Then show me.”

Ariel watched the entire episode, from the point where Nyom Looms confronted the dockworker to the point when collapse occurred after the murders of all the baleys. She did not move when it was done, staring at the screen. She felt warm, and a distant anger she knew would only grow with time.

“Do you wish to review any part of the material, Ariel?” Thales finally asked.

“No. Where’s Derec?”

“In custody. The TBI have intervened and assumed authority over the investigation on Kopernik.”

Ariel stood. “Wait.” She went to Derec’s bathroom and found a container of stim pills. She swallowed two and returned to Thales. “All right, Thales, tell me what’s happened.”

She took the embassy shunt to Setaris’s offices.

Unexpectedly, Ambassador Setaris was in.

“Come in, Ariel, come in,” Setaris said as Ariel walked in. “My door is always open for interesting people, and you’ve been so very interesting lately.”

Setaris sat behind her desk, gazing at the subetheric. Ariel glanced at it and saw Jonis Taprin speaking to a reporter in a formal interview setting. The sound was off.

“Derec Avery is in custody,” Setaris said. “The TBI have seized control of Kopernik security from Chief Sipha Palen and are making very loud noises about security leaks and subversion. I have a protest filed from Ambassador Chassik demanding you be censured and dismissed from all embassy duties, pending an investigation of your fitness for executive responsibilities.” She gestured at the subetheric. “Senator Taprin has been making very obnoxious noises about the treaties concerning our embassy missions. What did you do to him, Ariel? He’s been almost shrill about reviewing Spacer presence on Earth.”

“Nothing recently.”

Setaris smiled wanly. “It’s been a very long day. You’ve been excessively diligent in your assignment.”

“Why is Derec in custody?”

“The TBI said something about evidence tampering and hindering an investigation. It’s the sort of charge they make when they don’t know what really has them angry. You two have stirred up a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t see how. We haven’t done all that much yet.”

“Yes, but you’ve done it in all the right places. You two have the damnedest luck. Gale basically wants you to stop looking into Nova Levis.” Setaris frowned. “You didn’t know Derec Avery was under arrest?”

“I just got back in,” Ariel said evasively.

“Then why did you come here? I expected a barrage of protest and a demand to have him released.”

“Maybe later.” She leaned on Setaris’s desk. “Why are we hiding a Solarian national?”

Setaris frowned. “I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”

“Rotij Polifos.”

Setaris nodded slowly. “What do you know about him?”

“Derec got suspicious of him. Neither of us knew much about him, except that he’s been director of the lab on Kopernik for six, almost seven years. That’s a long time for an Auroran to hold a post here.”

“I’ve been here nearly twelve years, Ariel.”

“We’re diplomats; we’re different. For someone like Polifos, it’s an eternity. When I checked, I discovered that he had never once requested rotation to another post. No one from any office has questioned his long residency on Kopernik. Nothing you’d expect to happen in his position has happened. His stipend hasn’t even changed in six years.”

“And why did you conclude he’s a Solarian national?”

“A couple of things. A background check on his name came up with an old Solarian family, for one, but there are no birth records or citizenship papers for him. The family itself has only two remaining members and, like most Solarians, they’re recluses. The other thing is that all his Auroran documentation originated here.”

“How did you manage to learn that?”

“I’m very good at my job. The third detail is precedent. We’ve done this before with defectors who may be subject to extradition under the Fifty Worlds Mutual Accords. Did I guess wrong?”

“No. But–”

“I’m not finished. I did another search then, one I wouldn’t have thought to do. We’ve been so busy tracking down who used to own Nova Levis we never thought to find out who worked there. Five researchers were senior staff they ran the research protocols. It was their lab. Four of them are dead.”

Setaris regarded her quietly. “And the fifth?”

“Was a Solarian. He vanished. Interestingly enough, the document trail for Rotij Polifos begins shortly before Nova Levis was closed down. The Solarian presumably returned to Solaria, but I could find no evidence that he ever got there. A couple years later, Polifos assumes directorship of the positronics lab on Kopernik.”

Setaris nodded. “As you say, you’re very good at what you do. Though this isn’t exactly your job.”

“It has become my job,” Ariel said.

“Point taken. Anything else?”

Ariel felt herself get angry then. Setaris was being “diplomatic” and neutral, superficially uninvolved–” professional,” she would say. Ariel decided to thoroughly ruin her day. “Did you know about the cyborgs?”

Setaris’s face lost all expression for a moment. Her skin paled then. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I were.”

Setaris’s face flexed with comprehension, brow furrowing deeply, mouth opening and closing wordlessly, eyes scanning the surface of the desk as if for something lost. It took less than a minute for her to regain composure. When she did, though, all the casual annoyance and alloyed humor were gone, replaced by pragmatic professionalism.

“Tell me what you know,” she said.

“What I know isn’t much. What I saw... Coren Lanra claimed he saw a robot with masking capabilities. What I saw tonight could only be a cyborg. It’s entirely probable that it’s what he saw as well. The blood sample Derec took from the collapsed robot’s hand is more than likely a close relative of Nyom Looms. The material mixed with the sample–myralar–suggests robotics, but until tonight it made no sense to me.”

She blew out a breath. “Nova Levis is still technically owned by Solaria. It was renamed after a Settler colony leased it from them, but the original title never transferred. There is also an old research lab–here on Earth–called Nova Levis, among which I found Gale Chassik listed as an original shareholder. Plus Rega Looms and Alda Mikels. Tonight I met a retired policeman who was investigating kidnappings twenty-some years ago who says that, among other things, a number of infants were taken from orphanages here and transported offworld. He suspected a slave trade. But several of these infants were hopelessly handicapped... UPDs, he called them. Nova Levis was one of the labs he’d investigated, but he claims that it was clear of any culpability.”

Setaris shook her head. “What did the lab do? And what does all this have to do with cyborgs?”

“I don’t know. Nova Levis the lab was involved in prosthetics research, though.”

“Why did it fail? Prosthetics is a fairly lucrative field on Earth.”

“I don’t know that, either, “Ariel replied. “What I want to know is if this blockade around Nova Levis has anything to do with it. With cyborgs. I want to know if you knew.”

“Why would I have known?”

“Because you gave me some pathetic reasons to start this investigation.”

Setaris raised an eyebrow. “Assuming I did, why wouldn’t I tell you?”

“Oh, some sort of attempt at objectification. Maybe, though, you knew but had no proof. You wanted me to verify your suspicions.”

“Rather shabby use of my people, wouldn’t you think?”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

Setaris narrowed her eyes. “When this is over, Ariel, I will sit you down and give you a lesson in the realities of the diplomat’s life. You’ve been able to function largely unaffected by them since you’ve been here. In the meantime–”

“In the meantime,” Ariel interjected, “I need Derec out of jail, and I want a little cooperation from the TBI. I don’t think diplomacy will solve this particular problem.”

Setaris frowned, and gestured toward the guest chairs. “Sit down, Ariel. Shut your mouth while I tell you what the situation actually is. Then, if you want to make demands, I’ll listen.”

Twenty-Two

COREN LEANED AGAINST the wall and gently kneaded his neck and shoulder. The pain was growing worse; on top of his lack of sleep, he wondered if he could manage what he intended to do. He pulled his comm out and stared at the keypad, trying to think. He still lacked necessary information.

He tapped in Kelvy Torans’ code. He almost gave up just as she finally answered.

“Kelvy, it’s Coren.”

“Please tell me you’re near my apartment,” she said brightly.

“Actually, no. I’m sorry to bother you so late–”

“I wasn’t sleeping, anyway. Something it sounds like you should be doing. Are you all right?”

“Just tired. Long hours. I’m never letting Rega run for office again.”

She laughed. “In that case, I suppose you’re calling to see if I have that information you wanted.”

“Do you?”

“As a matter of fact... hold on a moment...”

Coren listened to indistinct noises for a few seconds. Then:

“Okay, we have lots of good stuff,” Kelvy said. “Once I started looking into this, I found all kinds of things I can use, so I suppose I owe you part of my commission. Captras Biomed: bought by the Hunter Group. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary sale; Myler Towne and his faction actually tried to block it. He nearly lost the chairmanship over it. Now, Hunter bought it through one of its subsidiaries–Kysler Diversified–who also bought that research lab you mentioned, Nova Levis. One very interesting detail I found was that Towne’s mother was on the original shareholders board of Nova Levis; she’s since deceased. What makes a lot of this interesting is in the dispersal of the company assets. A good portion of the research documentation went to Captras Biomed, which was a small start-up back then, and later was bought out by Imbitek. It was Alda Mikels’ first acquisition upon becoming a board member of Imbitek.”

“Mikels was an original shareholder of Nova Levis.”

“Very good. Indeed he was. As was Rega Looms. In fact, there was a bidding war over Captras between Looms and Mikels.”

“Why would Rega have wanted it?”

“You’d have to ask him. Very uncharacteristic of him.” Coren mentally added it to the list of things he intended to ask Rega. “All right, so Myler Towne got rid of Captras, but he didn’t want Hunter to have it. Why not?”

“Alda Mikels is–was–a board member of Kysler Diversified.”

“Is there any other connection between Kysler and Imbitek?”

“Kysler once made an offer to acquire controlling ownership of Imbitek, but it failed.”

“And when did Mikels buy into Kysler?”

“About two years after that attempt.”

“So Mikels bought the company that bought Nova Levis’s research material, and now is trying to reacquire that material through a competitor to his own company.”

“My guess? This is insurance, in case Mikels can’t defeat Towne in a shareholder vote.”

“Was Captras that lucrative?”

“As a percentage of Imbitek?” Kelvy replied. “It performed a few points better than most Imbitek holdings, but not spectacularly so. However, the Hunter Group owns a number of other biomed companies on Settler colonies. Recently, they consolidated some of them under Kysler management. Add what Captras could bring to the fold, you have a very large and progressive biotech industry with established markets on several worlds. What all those companies lacked till now was a licensed vendor on Earth. Captras gives them that.”

“So that’s what made you so happy.”

“I’m already moving on Kysler stock.”

“Assuming Mikels loses to Towne, he has a ready-made position with this new company.”

“New company? What new company?”

“At a guess, he’ll call it Nova Levis,” Coren said.

“Maybe... which brings up another thing. Nova Levis was not unprofitable. There was no reason for it to shut down.”

“I thought it had been under suspicion in a police investigation.”

Kelvy made a harsh sound. “Companies get investigated all the time, they don’t close up shop and sell their assets over it. Often such an investigation benefits them. When they’re cleared of any charges, it’s like getting a recommendation from the police. Their market value rises.”

“Nova Levis...?”

“Increased in value. The investigation did not shut it down. A year afterward, the board began buying up out standing shares. It took six months for them to gain the necessary control to sell, over the loud protests of a number of shareholders.”

“What happened to the rest of the shares?”

“Over time Kysler bought them all out. Even after Nova Levis ceased to be a corporate entity, Kysler paid options and bought off the last few until no outstanding stock remained. But now here’s the thing. When Captras Biomed sold to Kysler, it did so through a blind. At least a dozen former Nova Levis shareholders made up that blind, all of whom were shareholders in Imbitek, all of whom sold their shares in Imbitek and bought shares in Kysler.”

“So they bought their own company.”

“In essence.”

“One thing... what was the primary focus of Nova Levis?”

“Ah, now that took some digging. You know me, I’m not the most tech-literate. Primarily, they were doing research and development on chronic inorganic infectious syndromes.”

Coren wrestled with the term for a few moment. “What?”

Kelvy chuckled. “My words exactly. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but I get the impression that these are diseases caused by allergic reactions to certain technologies–old nanotech, specifically. You don’t hear about them much anymore because we pretty much beat them, but once in a while some poor child is born with a dysfunction that’s basically untreatable.”

“UPDs...”

“That’s one term, yes. Do you know something about this?”

“No, not really. I’ve just heard about it–I don’t know what it is. How many children?”

“It varies. Between ten and a hundred a year. Most of them don’t live very long. Quarantine is about the only thing to do.”

Coren thought about that. “You said we beat them. How?”

“That would take a little more research than I thought you wanted.” She paused. “What do you think?”

“I think... dinner at Rhiomay’s and a foot massage afterward.”

“That good? I hope you don’t stop at the feet.”

Coren grunted. “How long have you known me?”

“Not long enough, Coren, love. Not nearly long enough.”

“Thanks, Kelvy, this has been a great help. Um... by the way, have you ever heard of something called a ‘decompiler’?”

“Sure. Curiously enough, given what we’ve been talking about, they’re a class molecular reagent. Nanotech, used mainly for terraforming on colonies.”

Coren blinked. “You knew that off the top of your head?”

“I didn’t two days ago. It’s one of Captras Biomed’s main exports. They’re banned on Earth.”

“I see. Well. This definitely extends things to the calves and thighs, too.”

Kelvy laughed languorously. “Can’t wait. Call me when you’re done doing whatever it is you’re doing. I’m dying to hear the details.”

“No doubt. Talk to you soon.”

Coren broke the connection and pocketed the comm.

All the lists began to make sense now. Shareholders. Follow the credits. Coren had always relied on the money trail to tell him which way to turn, who to look at. This one was nearly a maze, an ouroboros swallowing its own tail.

Rega... how deeply into all this are you...?

One or two questions remained, besides the big one. Who had killed Nyom? And why?

Coren Lanra shuddered, from weariness and despair.

Nyom...

The Hunter Group owned the warehouses. They owned Kysler Diversified, which now owned Nova Levis. Apparently they also owned the colony Nova Levis–or Cassus Thole, whichever name it went by. Alda Mikels owned a good piece of that.

Coren rubbed his eyes and looked down the avenue to the innocuous entrance at the T-crossing. Myler Towne lived behind that door. Coren fished a pill from another pocket and popped it into his mouth. He had waited till he knew what he wanted from Towne before taking the stim. Now he was ready. He waited for the clarity and temporary strength and the illusion of rested power.

It came like a coolness over his skin, a slight increase in hearing sensitivity, and an internal rush in his muscles. He pushed away from the wall and started down the street.

Towne wore a deep green dressing gown and sat in an enormous wingbacked chair that he still managed to dwarf.

Del Socras stood within arm’s length of Coren. He had supervised a very thorough search of Coren before bringing him to see Towne. Coren felt uneasy without any weapons.

“Unusual hour for you, Mr. Lanra,” Towne said. “Or maybe not. It is for me, certainly.”

“Sorry if this is inconvenient for you,” Coren said. “But I think we need to talk.”

“I agree. Have you given my proposal further consideration?”

“Some. I’m afraid I have to turn you down for the most part.”

Towne raised his eyebrows. “‘The most part’? Intriguing choice of words.”

“I find that I’ve done work for you in the course of doing my job. I need to know a few things, though, to be sure.”

“Are you suggesting I owe you compensation?”

“I may send you a bill. But for now, let’s just see how much what I’ve done is worth to you.”

Towne waved his hand as if to say “continue” and eased further back in his chair.

“Alda Mikels is trying to oust you from the chairmanship of Imbitek. He may also be trying to kill you, but he’s certainly trying to frighten you.”

Towne frowned and glanced at Socras. Coren felt the bodyguard’s presence fade. When he glanced back, Socras was gone.

“How did you arrive at this conclusion?”

“Circuitously. Someone killed Rega Looms’ daughter. I’m trying to find out who.”

“Do you think Mikels is involved in that?”

“Directly? No. But it was his people.”

“And who are they?”

“I don’t have names... yet. But they all work for the Hunter Group, in one way or another. So does Mikels.”

Towne steepled his fingers below his chin and stared at Coren for a long time. “You are either very diligent or very lucky, Mr. Lanra. The Hunter Group wants to buy Imbitek. I’ve no doubt Alda is behind the attempt. Even for them, we’re a bit too large and perhaps too dangerous.”

“Who are they?”

“On Earth? They own shipping companies and warehouses, that’s about it. Off Earth, however, they are one of the largest consortiums in the Settlers’ worlds. Fewer rules, more places to move things when the law tries to compensate for the newness of the colonies. They own a little of every kind of industry. No one worried about it two or three centuries ago, before Terrans began to go out to space once more, and only Spacers existed away from the homeworld. It’s fairly brutal business out there now. Mind you, I don’t quite understand why Hunter wants us–they own comparable firms on several worlds. Maybe it was a prize for Alda.”

“He got them Captras Biomed.”

Towne sighed and dropped his hands. “You are very well informed. That’s disappointing. I spent a lot of money trying to keep that news from spreading.”

“Why did you want to get rid of Captras in the first place?”

“No real applications. I’m trying to consolidate Imbitek, streamline the company, get us back to our base product. Most of the things Captras produces have no use here–they’re all exports.”

“There’s money in that.”

“There was money in it for Alda, he had the connections. We’ve been running into higher and higher losses.”

“Hunter?” Coren asked.

“It’s my opinion that Hunter is the legitimate face of the pirate consortiums. Alda has been doing business with them for years, perhaps decades. Alda wants the chair back, but I won’t give it to him. I have the shareholders on my side.”

“But he has Hunter.”

“Exactly. So I thought, just to irritate him and give us a better position in the field, it would be smart to get rid of our albatrosses. I set up a sale for the company with what I had thought was an independent group of investors. Too late I found out that Hunter was backing them.” He shrugged. “I still got my price, Imbitek shares increased in value, and the last poll among shareholders showed a higher degree of confidence in my leadership.”

“So now he’s trying to kill you.”

“It appears that way.” Towne narrowed his eyes. “What did Nyom Looms have to do with all this?”

“She was running baleys.”

Towne’s face went slack. “I see. That’s unfortunate.”

“You hired a data troll to find some minutes of old board meetings Mikels chaired. She was threatened when she started looking, so she planned to leave Earth. The group of baleys she intended going with was murdered–including Nyom.”

“Then I can only say that she was collateral damage. I can’t imagine anyone would want to kill her. Not anyone involved in all this.”

“No? Did you know Rega Looms was an initial investor in Nova Levis?”

Another shock registered on Towne’s face. “No, I did not. I know almost nothing about Nova Levis.”

“But you know which one I’m talking about.”

Towne shrugged. “The colony holds no interest for me.”

“It’s interesting that you don’t have more concern for Nova Levis, though. Your mother was also a primary shareholder.”

“So? That doesn’t mean I was ever privy to the company’s workings.”

“The company’s material became Captras Biomed.”

Towne pursed his lips. “A little knowledge... The minutes I hired the troll to find concerned exactly that transaction. I know what products Captras started out with, but there was more to Nova Levis than that, and those records were missing by the time I joined Imbitek. Captras was Alda’s pet project, and apparently it has returned to its owner.”

“The minutes?”

“Concerned several topics of a clandestine nature, but none of them Nova Levis. Quite a bit concerned Hunter.”

“Oh? What connection was that?”

“Weapons, apparently. Hunter deals in arms among the colonies.”

Coren nodded. “And now they have a very good bioweapons company.”

“They already had one.”

“Decompilers.”

“You saw the results of one such misapplication the other day.” Towne heaved himself out of his chair. “So. Are you working for me now or not?”

“I’m working for myself at the moment. When I’ve finished, maybe we can talk.”

“Good. What changed your mind about Mr. Looms?”

“I don’t take well to being lied to,” Coren said.

“I see. Then, with that in mind, let me tell you this: One of Imbitek’s many... subsidiary interests... is in baleys. I learned upon assuming the chairmanship that we–plus two or three other firms–run illicit trade through a variety of avenues. Nothing direct, purely through ancillary personnel, many of whom do not even know they work for us. I’ve been looking into shutting all this down, but not fast enough. Alda’s people have been attacking several of our illicit ventures, including the baley running. In the last ten months we’ve lost eighteen shipments of baleys. We recovered three of them. They were all dead.”

He stepped closer to Coren. “Your Mr. Looms’ daughter was apparently using one of our egresses. The murderers were attacking me, Mr. Lanra.” He blinked furiously. “I’m... sorry.”

For a few seconds, Coren felt something like pity for Towne. He believed that the man truly was sorry. “I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Towne.”

“One more thing, then. I didn’t acquire those minutes through the data troll I hired–she never returned to me with the requested information. I used another source to obtain them. I have no idea where that troll went.”

“Her name was Jeta Fromm.”

“Yes.”

“How long ago did you hire her?”

“Almost four months ago.”

Coren nodded. “That’s useful to know, too.”

“I hope we can do business soon, Mr. Lanra.”

Coren walked away from the warren, hands in his pockets, unsatisfied. He knew more now, but, though it made sense on the surface, he felt he still did not know enough.

Where did Nyom’s brother come into all this?

He stopped across from a walkway access and looked around at the nearly-deserted plaza. Third shift would be ending soon and people would be filling the moving walks and the corridors and their way home or to work.

His comm chirped.

“Lanra.”

“Ariel, Coren. Where are you?”

“Um...”

“You need to come here. Things have changed. Your friend Palen is no longer in charge, and the TBI have assumed command of the investigation on Kopernik. Derec’s in detention.”

Coren sighed. “I need sleep. Do you think that can be arranged?”

“As long as you do it quickly.”

“I’ll do what I can. I’ll be there soon.”

Twenty-Three

DEREC OPENED HIS eyes in the half-light of sleep mode. The lights had dimmed shortly after Masid had left his cell. Derec lay awake for some time, mulling over what Masid had told him, and had gradually drifted off to sleep.

He raised himself on his elbows and stared across the corridor to Masid’s cell. Masid seemed still asleep on his cot. Derec sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering what had awakened him. He yawned. He went to the bowl in the corner and relieved himself.

He turned around, resealing his pants, and started at the shape staring at him through the cell door.

It was tall, broad across the shoulders, with long arms that hung to the sides. A pale halo outlined a bald head but left the face in darkness. It wore a long overcoat that fell nearly to its ankles.

It. Derec could not consider it otherwise. His subconscious labeled it as kindred to what Coffee had witnessed in the cargo bin, even though it bore no overt resemblance.

Derec swallowed hard.

It walked away from the door. Derec rushed forward and pressed his face to the mesh. He saw it walking toward the far end, to the cell of the new inmate.

“Hey!” Derec shouted. “Somebody! Intruder!”

With startling speed, it spun around and returned to Derec’s cell. Derec staggered back.

It placed a hand against the door, fingers splayed. The air suddenly smelled faintly of ozone. The door slid open with a sudden crack.

“Shit,” Derec breathed.

It seemed to fill the cell, head nearly brushing the ceiling. Derec wanted to yell, to argue, deny it the right to do this. He imagined slipping past it, breaking into the corridor, and fleeing; he was smaller and it seemed to be moving so slowly. Coolness spread over his thighs, down his calves, then across his shoulders, up his neck and across his scalp. He felt the beginnings of quivering somewhere around his spine.

It raised one arm and opened a hand, took another step forward. Derec could make out details in its face now and he thought he recognized it. Human face, but wrong, damaged...

“Looking for me?” Masid suddenly called out.

It frowned, then whirled about and stepped toward the cell door.

A brilliant scalding flash erupted around it. It dropped to one knee, staggered, and started to rise. Another flash. Derec flinched and backed up against the wall. The ozone smell was gone, replaced now by burning. He heard a roar, deep-throated and grainy, as if sound were being forced through too small a larynx, and heard the crackle then of a blaster, saw the reddish glow through closed eyelids. Dark ness. Crackle, glow... and stillness.

“Derec.”

He blinked furiously, trying to focus on the voice. Masid. Derec looked at the door of his cell. A man stood there now, the angled shape of a weapon in one hand.

“Are you all right?” Derec asked.

Masid snorted, amused. “I’m supposed to ask you that.”

“Um...” Derec pushed away from the wall. His legs felt slightly disconnected from his hips, but he could walk. Glad I pissed first, he thought, and laughed at himself. “Sure. I’m... not hurt...”

He caught the edge of the cell door and gripped it tightly.

Masid smelled faintly of sweat. He nodded toward a shape on the corridor floor.

The cyborg lay crookedly sprawled, its coat spread out beneath it like a pool of blood in the half-light. Smoke wafted from its shoulders and chest.

“My apologies,” Masid said. “I was asleep till you yelled.” He frowned. “Was it coming for you?”

“No, it...” Derec swallowed again and gestured toward the far end of the block. “It was heading for the new inmate.”

“That’s not what was supposed to happen,” Masid said grumpily. “We expected someone to come for me.”

The lights came full-on then.

The sound of running feet filled the corridor. Masid turned suddenly and hissed.

“Well, my cover’s blown,” he said sotto voce to Derec.

Derec pointed at the corpse. “They can see it now.”

People flooded around them. Palen stopped at the foot of the dead thing. Harwol stared from a few steps back.

Derec managed to walk toward it. The quivering centered now in his chest, along his sides, and over his pelvis, but he could move reasonably well.

Masid had shot it four times. Each hit was clear by the ugly burn on left shoulder, sternum, right side of the neck, and scalp. Bloody red patches mingled with ashen black. Fibers curled out of the wounds. Cloth and skin were seared together and blue, gray, and worm-white veins shot through the bubbled centers of the patches. Derec felt acid at the back of his throat, but swallowed it back.

The eyes were open. They looked strangely perfect, like exquisite copies of real eyes. No moisture, no veins in the whites, and now the irises were slightly different sizes. But the radial patterns of the dull gray pupils seemed precisely symmetrical.

The skin showed irregularities, like acne scars or old injuries that still contained fragments of whatever had done damage.

“Is this like the thing we saw in the recovered memories?” Palen asked.

“I–” Derec had to swallow again. “I wouldn’t be surprised. It opened my cell door by shorting out the lock.”

Reluctantly, he lifted the hand that had done the job and turned it over. Wires showed, spread over the palm. Derec pushed back the sleeve; the wiring ran up the arm.

“It shouldn’t have been able to open it,” Palen said.

“Was your Brethe dealer’s door shorted?”

Palen nodded. “We reprogrammed them then to remain shut in the event of a short.”

“What did you see on surveillance?”

“Nothing. Until your door opened. Then Masid came out of his cell. But this...” she gestured at the body between them. “Nothing.”

“It would be interesting to know how...”

Derec pulled the coat back from its shoulder. A small control box was attached to the shirt.

“Damn,” Agent Harwol said.

“What?” Palen asked.

“That,” Harwol pointed at the box. “You said masking technology, Mr. Avery. That’s it. Military spec, alternating wavelength... stolen.”

“Black market?” Palen asked.

Harwol nodded solemnly.

“Stolen military tech isn’t the worrisome part,” Derec said. “Whoever supplied it is also dealing in cyborgs.”

They all stared at him, expressions carefully neutral, the studied look of law enforcement unwilling to show worry when they were likely more than a little scared. Derec tasted acid once more and walked away, willing himself to not throw up in front of such pointless professionalism.

He stopped, staring at the cell at the far end. The man there sat on his cot, watching, face pale. After a few seconds, Derec went up to his cell door.

“So, who are you?” Derec asked. This close, he looked familiar.

“Who wants to know?” the man snapped back.

The voice, combined with that face... It took a few seconds for Derec to put it all together.

It was the dockworker from Petrabor. The one shown in the memories of the DW-12.

“Why was Gamelin coming to kill you?” he asked.

The man’s face turned even paler. He stood abruptly and went to the back of his cell.

“What’s going on?” Masid asked, coming up alongside him.

Derec gestured at the inmate. “This one worked the dock in Petrabor, middleman to those dead baleys. Who is he?”

“Yuri Pocivil,” Palen said, joining them. “Coren sent me his records. He’s been looking for him. We picked him up in the Settler section.”

“You mean, “Masid said, with mock indignation, “that thing was coming to kill you and not me? All my careful planning and baiting went for nothing?”

Pocivil just glared back at them.

“We have to talk, “Masid said to him. “What did you do to piss these people off?”

“I’m not saying anything to you,” Pocivil said.

“Then maybe we should just release you now,” Palen said, “and let you take your chances.”

Pocivil looked away. Suddenly, he lurched to his toilet and began heaving. The sound reminded Derec of his own urge. He walked quickly away.

He managed to suppress it, though he kept walking. No one called out or tried to stop him from leaving the cell block. He emerged into the security station. Everyone had gone into the corridor, leaving the consoles untended. Derec sat down before a bank of monitors, grateful to be off his feet.

Masid joined him.

“He’ll talk,” Masid predicted. “He’s terrified. I think it will occur to him that his best chance to stay alive now is to cooperate with us.”

“He might wonder if we can really protect him,” Derec said.

“Can’t we? Seems to me I managed to kill that thing pretty dead.”

“It took a bit, though, didn’t it?”

Masid shrugged. “Cyborgs, occlusion tech, dead baleys,” he said. “Any suspects in mind?”

“That’s your job, isn’t it?”

“So they keep telling me. There are a few arms dealers big enough to handle this kind of thing.”

“We just need one.”

“All right. Kynig Parapoyos.”

“Why him?”

“He’s the great bogeyman of the galaxy. Anything you can’t pin down to someone else gets blamed on him. But he does have his fingers deeper into military tech than the others, and the widest distribution network. He runs an intelligence agency that’s as good as anything a legitimate government can field. If nothing else, he’s the most logical choice.”

Derec nodded. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that.”

“All right. Then the next question is, what does he want with cyborgs?”

“The ideal soldiers.”

“He sells weapons to soldiers.”

“So? How profitable would it be to have something that could do it all?”

“Ideal mercenaries?” Masid shrugged. “I’m less impressed with mercenaries than with dedicated patriots and fanatics. Mercenaries are practical–miss a payment, they go away. They have a cost analysis attitude. If the cost is too high, they go away. What would make cyborgs different?”

“Depends. Research into them was suspended because they were unpredictable.”

“Like people?”

Derec shook his head. “No. People are predictable, at least in certain broad patterns.”

“So a cyborg would be a weapon that might turn and shoot its owner?”

“Maybe. If I recall correctly, they couldn’t be programmed with the Three Laws. Something in the organic side of things that kept sliding around them.”

“They’re positronic, then?”

“The ones the Calvin Institute worked with were, yes. These? I don’t know.”

“How quickly could you find out?”

“Get me back to the lab.”

Masid nodded and straightened. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Derec watched him go back into the cell block.

Too many questions to answer. Where would cyborgs be manufactured? Nova Levis? Could an industry be hidden there? A whole world? Why not? Was that perhaps the real reason behind the embargo?

But the technology...

“Derec.”

Rana stood in the doorway to the guard room. “Director Polifos is missing.”

“Did that robot take Director Polifos?”

Harwol spoke with a solid dispassion belied only by the glint of impatience in his eyes.

Derec, Harwol, and Rana stood in the positronics lab, facing each other.

“Why would you think that?” Derec asked.

“The robot is missing, Polifos is missing. I don’t know, but in my policeman’s way of looking at things that suggests a connection.”

“A robot wouldn’t do that,” Derec said.

“Really? You know that for sure? You also said it was collapsed.”

“It was,” Rana answered.

“Which means that it couldn’t just get up and walk out,” Harwol said.

“Normally, yes.”

“What does that mean, ‘normally’? Could it or couldn’t it?”

“On its own,” Derec said, “no. It had to have been removed. By someone who knew something about robotics.”

“Anyone working in this lab could have taken it, then. Perhaps even Polifos himself.”

It was not a question. Derec turned toward Harwol. Behind him, Hofton stood beside Ambassador Leri. Two of Polifos’s techs stood further back, watching anxiously.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable anymore to assume,” Derec said, “that the people working in this lab are the only ones on Kopernik familiar with robotics.”

Harwol regarded him steadily, then nodded. “Do you think there could be another cyborg?”

“Do you mean did a cyborg steal the robot?” Derec did not want to contemplate the possibility of more than one cyborg. “But why?”

Harwol shrugged. He was out of his depth, but refused to show it. “The thing we saw from the recovered memories,” he said, stepping toward the console, “didn’t look like what we caught tonight.”

We? Derec thought sourly. “No, it didn’t. But then it changed by the time Palen’s people opened the bin. No one remarked on anything unusual when the bodies were carried out, so it must have looked human.”

“Is that possible?”

“Malleable materials are common enough. I can imagine, though I can’t describe, how you might make something that could do that.” He thought of Bogard, brand new and newly aware, in its amalloy body, capable of changing shape to meet circumstances. But it never looked anything but artificial, always appeared to be what it was: a robot. Derec glanced at the monitors, then. Thales had said nothing so far.

Harwol rounded on Derec. “If I find out you had anything to do with this–”

“Why would I?”

“You didn’t want us to have the robot. Maybe you had legitimate reasons; maybe not.”

“Don’t waste your time suspecting me. I was in a cell, remember?”

Harwol suddenly grabbed Derec’s shirt and walked him back against the examination table. He pressed Derec against the hard surface. Harwol’s breath flowed hot across his face.

“I don’t have time to be diplomatic. I have dead agents and a lot of interference and now a piece of evidence is missing. I do not need self-important Spacer attitude.”

Derec braced himself on the table. “I used to be of the opinion that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent.”

Harwol’s eyes narrowed. “And now?”

“Now? I think it’s the first choice of an idiot.”

Harwol’s grip tightened, and he lifted Derec slightly from the floor.

“Beat it out of me,” Derec said. “That’s always the best way to solve a problem. Works for me all the time.”

“Agent Harwol. “Palen’s voice cut through the sudden stillness. Her voice was calm, authoritative. “I want to see you privately.”

Derec’s heart hammered. Slowly, Harwol eased his grip. Derec’s feet touched the floor. Harwol stepped back.

“I want that robot,” he said. “I want it found and returned.”

Derec cleared his throat. “And if I can’t do that?”

“Then we’ll see how big an idiot I am.”

Harwol turned to glare at Palen, who stood nearby, hands on hips.

“Now, “she said.

Derec watched them all leave, then sat down. “If I live through the night...”

“Sir–” Hofton began.

Derec held up a finger. “Where’s Polifos?”

“I don’t know,” Hofton said. “No one seems to remember when they saw him last.”

“Rana?”

She shrugged.

“All right, never mind.” He looked over the console. “We have another subject to do an excavation on.”

“Another robot?” Rana asked.

“No, not quite. A cyborg.” Derec turned to Hofton. “Get Palen’s pathologist–what’s his name? Baxin. I think he should assist with this one. In the meantime, where the hell did Coffee go?”

“I can answer that question, Derec,” Thales said. “Coffee walked out of here after I reloaded a functional matrix.”

“What did he do?” Rana asked, leaning over Derec’s shoulder to peer at the displays.

“We talked about this possibility,” Derec said. He looked from one screen to another, trying to follow the RI’s step trees. “Thales has been working at recovering Bogard’s matrix so we could find out what happened when it collapsed. Because I’d built so many peripherals onto Bogard, it partly became a hardware problem. Thales thought it was a question of raw memory–not enough–but when he got to use this system, he had enough, and realized that wasn’t the whole problem.”

“A positronic brain,” Thales said, “is not simply programming. Programming can be corrupted. The physical pathways are as necessary to its function as the matrix being run on them. Therefore, I determined that in order to successfully recover Bogard I needed to load its matrix into a brain.”

“You had no way of knowing,” Derec said, “if this would maintain its integrity.”

“I was reasonably confident. But, no, I had no way to be certain other than to load it and see.”

“You gambled.”

“There was an imperative.”

“Explain.”

“The situation has evolved,” Thales said. “Ariel and Coren Lanra have been attacked. Both are safe and Ariel is back at the embassy. She has been requesting that you contact her as soon as possible. However, there is a local problem which may pose a threat. I have traced the gates I found in the lab systems. There are two destinations. Most of them go directly to a location in the Settler sections. One, however, feeds directly to Director Rotij Polifos’s apartments.”

“What does that have to do with Coffee?” Rana asked.

“Three Law imperative, Rana,” Thales replied. “I am required to protect. I cannot effectively do so as a stationery system.”

“What,” Derec asked, “is Coffee now?”

“The unit previously designated ‘Coffee’ is contained in a memory buffer within my system. The robot now contains a composite matrix of myself and Bogard. It is effectively what you initially intended in designing Bogard.”

Derec felt excited and worried. “It’s functional?”

“After running several diagnostics and situation simulations, I was confident in disconnecting it from the link.”

Derec’s hands curled into fists. “So where is it?”

“In the Settler section. It went to follow up on the gates we discovered, and to attempt to locate Director Polifos. “Thales paused. “It seemed the most reasonable avenue of action.” Another pause. “Did I err?”

Twenty-Four

ALL WE HAVE to do, Coren thought as he rode the walk way toward the embassy district, is find them. Or let them find us...

Neither thought inspired him. He started to raise a hand to his eyes, to rub them, and his shoulder spasmed. When the pain subsided, he resigned himself to standing as motionless as possible till he reached his destination.

He thought about what Towne had told him.

The idea that Nyom was no more than an incidental casualty grated, but it made a kind of deeply banal sense. Rega entertained conspiracy theories, believing the universe was being manipulated by unseen cartels and malevolent forces. But Coren had worked for the government; he knew better. Things were a mess most of the time. Coren took compensatory comfort in that, after he thought about it for a while. It meant, finally, that no one was really in charge, and in the end he preferred it that way.

But it was intellectual comfort. In his gut, he wanted very much to blame someone when things went wrong. He very much wanted to hold vast powers responsible and perhaps try to bum them down to atone for their misdeeds.

He wanted Nyom’s death to mean something.

It did not. Except to him. It was difficult seeing that as sufficient.

Coren glanced around. The walkway carried him now through an office district. Stairs led up and down into a jumbled landscape of boxy office complexes, some with windows, most with illuminated signs giving the name of the company or just a number. Walkways and enclosed corridors crossed above him, connecting one side to the other, and above that were the larger stained surfaces of higher levels. He saw a grid marker pass by and started moving to the slower lanes.

He still had another person to question: Tresha. What to ask her, though?

To begin with, why kill a data troll and take her place? Perhaps the information Towne had commissioned her to find related directly to the baleys. But how?

And he was not not certain that the woman was this mysterious Tresha. It was simply a conclusion–a logical one, but not something upon which he could be absolutely certain. By the time he got back to the embassy, perhaps Ariel would have made the final determination.

Two more exits. Three people came from the opposite direction. Coren followed them with his eyes as they passed by and continued on

Twenty or so meters behind him two people rode his lane. A man and a woman. Immediately his fatigue seemed to subside, replaced by a wary tension. He kept his posture unchanged and looked ahead. A corridor split off from the avenue, but too close to make his exit look natural. He was four exits from the most direct route to the Auroran Embassy.

Perhaps it was only coincidence. He was fairly sure Tresha was under guard at the Auroran Embassy, but that left her “muscle,” Gamelin, still loose. Coren had no valid reason to feel that he was being followed, but...

He watched the corridor pass by and casually stepped over to the next slower lane. Only one separated him now from the stationery lanes. He glanced back. The couple had moved closer.

Coren stepped to the slowest lane. He saw an archway approaching that opened on a public mall. At five meters, he left the moving lane and strode purposefully toward the arch. He heard footsteps behind him.

He passed beneath the arch and ran.

The mall was a collection of cafes and clubs. The urgent throb of music pushed at the air. People looked up from tables nearby as he sprinted past.

He reached the far end to be confronted by a broad stair heading up. Behind him, the two people came running.

Coren bounded up the steps, three and four at a time. His breathing was heavy at the top, where he came to a large plaza with a holographic fountain in the center. Color and shape danced and shimmered thickly in the air.

He skirted the perimeter of the fountain and palmed a stunner. He thumbed off the safety and searched for an open door, but there were only windows encircling the plaza. On the opposite side, another staircase led up to the next level.

Coren judged the distance, took long strides, and hit the rim of the fountain. He closed his eyes tightly as he jumped across two meters of water to land on the edge of the central display platform. One more step and he slitted open one eye. He stood in the middle of the holographic display. All around him color prismed, split, washed one into the other. He glimpsed the top of the stairs he had ascended through brief gaps in the imaging. Crouching, he watched.

The pair came into the plaza and stopped. They exchanged glances and drew weapons, but through the dance of light Coren could not tell what kind of pistols they held. Each one circled the fountain in the opposite direction. Coren watched the woman, turning as she moved.

They joined on the other side of the fountain, spoke briefly, then hurried up the next staircase. Coren counted to ten and jumped out the far side of the display.

He wanted to continue running, reach the embassy, and worry about these two later, but that would be sloppy. He did not know if others waited further along the way, a second team waiting to pick up where the first left off. Slowly he walked around the fountain until he could see the landing above. Empty.

Silently, he walked up the stairs.

At the top, just beyond the wall that rose on either side of the landing, he found a boulevard. Residential warrens lined the far side. Personal transports sped by in both directions. He saw a moving walkway across the six lanes. A bridge spanned the trafficway to his right. He leaned cautiously out and glanced down the walkway, left and right.

The woman stood about three meters along, pressed against the wall. She seemed to be watching the footbridge. A moment later, Coren saw movement on it–the man.

It was a clear shot. He aimed carefully and fired. The man spasmed briefly and fell.

The woman made a move in the direction of the bridge. Coren rushed up behind her. She started to turn, bringing her own weapon up, when he reached her. He grabbed her gun hand and pushed it down sharply, bending the hand forward against the underside of the wrist. Her fingers loosened automatically and the weapon fell.

But then she drove her foot back against his shin. The pain surprised him. He lost his grip and she broke free. She spun around and slammed the heel of her hand against his collarbone. Coren snapped back against the wall. He saw her arm go back, preparing for another blow. Gracelessly, he kicked her across the ribs. She staggered back and fell to the sidewalk.

She sat up, began to rise. Coren dropped to one knee between her legs and pushed his pistol against her cheek.

“Tresha?” he asked on spec.

She frowned. “Who?”

He saw a shoulder holster beneath her jacket, and pushed the short coat off her. The rig held a commlink, restraints, and an ID folder. He plucked the little black case out and flipped it open. “You’re a cop?”

“Chavez. Homicide. And you’re in a lot of trouble,” she managed to say, her voice shaking.

“Why are you following me?”

She glared at him. Coren dropped the ID wallet in her lap and stood.

“I don’t have time for this. You tell your–”

“Put down the weapon!”

Coren turned. A uniform cruiser stood ten meters off now, two officers alongside the vehicle, weapons drawn.

“It’s all right,” he called, raising his weapon, fingers spread. “I have–”

“Time to wake up. You weren’t stunned that badly. Come on.”

Coren resisted opening his eyes. He had been aware of sounds around him for some time, though it was hard to judge how long he had actually been awake. Neural stuns did odd things to time sense, among other things.

He recognized the voice, though. He blinked. The light was low, for which he was grateful.

A broad-shouldered man with short, graying hair stood above him, watching, his bright green eyes intent.

“Inspector … Capel?”

“Very good, Mr. Lanra. Let’s hope the rest of your memory works as well. Can you sit up?”

Coren closed his eyes, trying to orient himself. He was lying on a cot. He sat up slowly, levering himself with his arm. His left shoulder throbbed with deep pain and he sucked air between his teeth.

“Here,” Capel said.

Hands grasped his arms; Capel pulled his right side around, and Coren swung his legs over the edge of the cot.

“Oh, that hurts,” Coren groaned.

“You’re bruised. Hairline fracture on the clavicle–no wonder the painkillers you’ve been taking don’t work. You should take better care of yourself, Mr. Lanra. Stop doing foolish things. Like running from the police.”

Coren looked up at Capel. “I was surrendering to the uniforms.”

“They saw a weapon,” Capel said reasonably. “You’d already shot one officer and had the other under threat.”

“I was checking her ID. They were following me.”

“You have some reason to be running from strangers?”

“Strangers usually don’t follow me.”

“Here.”

Capel offered a glass of amber liquid. Coren automatically accepted it and straightened. “How long?”

“They brought you in an hour ago. If you hadn’t been so beaten up you’d have been awake by then. Since you weren’t, we brought you to the infirmary first.”

“Thanks.” Coren lifted the glass and sniffed. He recognized the acid smell of the standard enhancer cocktail used by people in high stress occupations–like emergency medical techs and the military and police–to provide quick, temporary revitalization. He would sleep later, sleep deeply, if he drank this now, and he was not sure he liked that. But his head felt wrapped in thick wadding and his thoughts came sluggishly. He drank down half the liquid.

“Who did you think we were?” Capel asked after a minute.

Coren felt sharper already. One drawback was that the pain in his shoulder was more acute.

“First, were you following me, or did I stumble into something?”

“We were looking for Ree Wenithal. You were seen leaving his apartment warren, so I assigned a team to follow you. After you left Myler Towne, I decided we needed to have a talk.”

“Ah. You found out Wenithal was Damik’s sponsor.”

Capel nodded. “Do you know where he is?”

“Last I knew, in the Auroran embassy.”

Capel frowned. “What’s he doing there?”

“It’s a long story.”

Capel backed away from the cot and sat down. He crossed his left leg over his right, propped his head on his left hand. “You aren’t leaving till I hear it all.”

Coren finished the glass of unpleasant fluid, looked around the sterile infirmary room, and decided that he had no real choice. Still, he felt compelled to bargain.

“Quid pro quo?” he asked.

“We’ll see.” Capel smiled. “You go first.”

In his years as a government agent, Coren had found that lying to the authorities only gained time, and not very much at that. If you were not part of the center of their attention, a lie could pass almost unnoticed, but if you entered their field of interest even a little bit, lying never proved a sound policy. The only people who could get away with it were those who could afford to hire people to lie for them.

Coren doubted he could talk his way past Capel with anything less than a complete disclosure. At this point, it might be worth it to see what Capel knew. Besides, he had no time for anything else.

When Coren finished, Capel was leaning forward, arms on his knees, listening intently. After a time, Capel straightened and pushed a button on the wall behind him.

“Coffee, two,” Capel said, then folded his hands in his lap and looked at Coren. “I suppose it’s occurred to you to wonder why Damik ran to Wenithal in the first place?”

“I was coming to ask him that the night you and I met.”

Capel’s face flexed in a half-smile. The door opened, and a uniformed officer brought in a tray bearing two cups and a carafe. He placed it on the table beside Capel and left. Capel poured and handed a cup to Coren. After the revitalizer, it smelled wonderful.

“We dug up Wenithal’s case logs after we found the connection,” Capel said. “He was a reliable cop for most of his career, nothing special. That last case was his entree to bigger things. Very high profile. And very successful, as far as it went.”

“That’s rather ambivalent.”

“He didn’t finish. Arrests were made, several facilities were closed down, a big media event; resulted making him out to be a hero. It benefitted everyone more than not, so Wenithal was allowed to quietly resign. But he wasn’t guilt free, and some people wondered if his success hadn’t been just a little too convenient.”

“You’re saying he was corrupt?”

Capel shrugged. “My personal take, after reviewing the logs, is that Eurosector Enforcement Agent Ree Wenithal was handed that success as a reward to stop looking. The missing children that were recovered comprised less than one percent of the total, which is still a considerable number. But he was far from over when he started arresting people. You know and I know that once you start making arrests, those you don’t get in the first wave go to ground and get harder to find. If they’re adequately resourced, you never get them. They leave Earth and you lose them.”

“And he lost some?”

“I’d say he probably lost the core perpetrators. Nobody who served time as a result of that case damaged the organization by their absence. There was a four-or five-year hiatus and the abductions began again. The market wasn’t shut down, the routes weren’t closed. What happened afterward was all public relations, and no one was willing to look foolish by calling it into question.”

“No other agents followed up?”

“Two of Wenithal’s partners from those days died shortly thereafter–one from natural causes, the other in an accident. There were three people in the civil advocate’s office connected to the case who died.” Capel waved a hand. “All the deaths were explained, and from what I can tell the explanations were legitimate, but the fact remains that those closest to events either died or quickly found new careers. I’m reading all this and I’m thinking coverup. Call me paranoid. It’s ancient history, though, so there’s no way to find out for sure.”

Coren sipped his coffee. “And Damik?”

“Damik is a little less problematic. He was definitely receiving bribes. Most of them were coming through Wenithal. Nothing large by some standards, a lot of gray market material–adjusted tariff stamps, relabelled goods, that kind of stuff. But he was also plugged into the baley network. One of them, anyway.”

“Which one?”

Capel shook his head. “Does it matter? As it turns out, the one being run by Imbitek under Alda Mikels. Oh, yes, we knew about it, but we could never get enough evidence for warrants. Besides, baley-running is generally considered a victimless crime. These people want to leave, who are we to say no? The laws are more symbolic than anything. What’s relevant here is that ten months ago Wenithal cut Damik off. Within a month, Damik had found other sources of income, and was finding more, but it hadn’t yet equaled what he’d been getting from Wenithal.”

“I saw reported payments in Wenithal’s records to Damik up till a few weeks ago.”

“Really. Where did you see those?”

Coren cleared his throat. “Something Wenithal left lying open on his desk.”

Capel smiled wryly. “In any case, there had apparently been a falling out between them. Maybe Wenithal had started paying him again, but we know he had stopped payments for several months.”

“How do you know they were bribes?”

“Because of the source of Wenithal’s funds.”

“May I guess? Either the Hunter Group or Kysler Diversified.”

“No. Imbitek. Or was. This new guy, Towne, has been trying to clean the company up, shutting down a lot of its illicit ventures. But under Mikels they’d been buying from Wenithal for years, except they paid him five times market value for what he supplied them. Half that money ended up going directly to Damik.”

“Imbitek...”

“Something else, though.” Capel took a folder off the table beside him and handed it to Coren. “Look at this and tell me what you think.”

Coren pulled an image out of the folder. It showed a naked female body, horribly bruised from face to shins. “Same kind of lividity as Damik.”

“That’s my thought. I did a records search for similar cases. That one was the closest match.”

“Who was she?”

“We don’t know. No ID. Found her in Lyzig District six days ago.” Capel retrieved the print and returned it to the folder. “You were in Lyzig not long ago yourself, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe a coincidence. I hoped maybe you could identify her.”

“Run a match for ‘Jeta Fromm: She was a data troll.”

Capel blinked, then pressed the button again. An officer appeared, and Capel told her to run a check on that ID.

“If it comes up positive,” Coren asked, “does that make me a suspect?”

“If I thought that, you’d be in custody. No, but you’re close to this. Closer than I am, anyway.”

“That’s your feeling?”

“That’s my feeling.” Capel finished his coffee and set the cup down. “If you could talk to anyone you wanted to right now, who would it be?”

Coren thought for a moment. “Alda Mikels.”

“He gets released tomorrow morning. We have till then to interview him.”

“Privately?” Coren asked with emphasis.

“Very. Interested?”

“Very.” Coren stood. “Why?”

Capel raised his eyebrows. “You mean, why am I letting you into this? Very simple. Some of the people who were around when Wenithal closed his last case are still around, only in even higher positions than they were then. If this goes where I think it will, I may need someone outside the department.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I looked at your record.” Capel pressed the button to be let out. “Shall we?”

Marland Reformatory and Social Reclamation Center occupied a huge area north of D. C. Capel took Coren through the security passage that linked directly to police headquarters, a ten-minute ride in a car designed to carry prisoners behind a transparent security shield that separated them from their guards.

Coren waited while Capel arranged an interview room. Silently, the two men followed a uniformed escort up four levels and down a long hall. The interview room was comfortable, with plush chairs all around and a writing desk. Coren was surprised to find it open, with no indication of any security wall to keep prisoners from interviewers.

Capel noticed his reaction. “We have no surveillance, either.”

Coren took his hemisphere from his pocket. “What happens if I switch this on?”

“Nothing. You don’t trust me?”

“You, yes. “Coren thumbed the field damper on and returned it to his pocket.

Capel nodded and took a seat.

“How much freedom do I get?” Coren asked.

“Don’t abuse your welcome, “Capel said. “Keep it within reason.”

A few minutes later, the opposite door slid open and Alda Mikels stepped through.

He had lost weight, Coren saw, and his thick mane of white hair seemed thinner. The lines in his face sank deeper and his skin looked slightly waxen.

“Mr. Mikels,” Capel said. “I appreciate you taking the time to see us. Please, sit.”

Alda Mikels frowned at Coren as he eased himself into a chair. “You’re welcome, I’m sure, Inspector. Do I know you?”

“I’m Inspector Capel, Homicide Division. This is Coren Lanra, head of security for–”

“For Rega Looms. Yes, I thought you looked familiar. Is there a reason for this visit, or just a last chance to see me in prison?”

“We have a few questions we thought you might help us with, “Capel said.

Mikels focussed on Capel. “Homicide? I haven’t killed anyone. Not in here, at least.”

“That remains to be seen, “Capel said. “Do you know Ree Wenithal?”

“Should I?”

“You’ve been overpaying him for textiles for years,” Capel said. “From the amounts, we thought perhaps you had a personal relationship with him.”

“A good supplier, then?” Mikels said, shrugging. “I don’t remember.”

“Odd. He remembers you,” Coren said. “Even kept a special log of all your transactions.”

“Really?”

“He was cut off by your successor,” Capel said.

“I wouldn’t know anything about it. What Towne is doing to my company... well, I’ll find out all about it soon enough.”

“You’re being modest,” Coren said. “I think you know all about it now.”

“And why would that be?”

“You’re waging a war for control of your company. I’m impressed with your resources–it must be very difficult to conduct business from a cell. But it’s not a very precise way to do it. Some people have died as a result. According to Tresha, the orders went through Wenithal, along with his monthly stipend from Imbitek... until Towne took over and started cutting up your empire.”

Mikels glowered. “This is all supposition, of course.”

Coren said nothing. Mikels blinked and looked at Capel.

“Is it standard procedure for the police to allow private security to harass wards of the state?”

“Coren,” Capel said, “you’re just supposed to observe.”

Coren nodded, but continued to stare at Mikels. He felt anxious, which was a problem–an interview like this needed a finesse he did not feel willing to accord. He realized then that he had decided to blame Mikels for Nyom’s death–it was his war, after all, that had gotten her killed.

“Now, Mr. Mikels,” Capel said, “we know you’re a busy man. We won’t keep you very long. But I wondered if you could explain those payments to Mr. Wenithal. The amounts were quite generous. It seems fiscally irresponsible–at least to me–that you’d pay him those amounts when you could easily have switched vendors and saved yourself all that extra expenditure. Unless he was blackmailing you, that is. Was he?”

Mikels laughed. “You’re more imaginative than most of your colleagues, Inspector Capel.”

“Then he was working for you in other capacities?”

Mikels stood. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

“I think it would be a good idea, though,” Coren said. He took a couple of steps toward Mikels. “You have a problem, and it could be very dangerous.”

Mikels laughed. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Lanra?”

Coren smiled with mock innocence. “Me? Not at all. I’m trying to help you.”

Mikels glanced toward the detective. “Inspector Capel–”

“Sit down, Lanra,” Capel said tersely.

Coren looked at Capel. He saw nothing but a warning in the inspector’s eyes, and the expectation of obedience. Coren gave Mikels a long look before he grudgingly returned to his chair.

“It seems, Mr. Mikels,” Capel said, “that your replacement at Imbitek may have gotten himself into some legal problems. Certain clandestine operations have surfaced and you could help us clear them up. I just thought we could help each other.”

“Towne?” Mikels sounded incredulous, but he sat down. “What do you have?”

“It seems he’s been running baleys. Some of them have gotten killed. We think reprisals have been made and will continue to be made.”

“Baleys.” Mikels looked from Coren to Capel. “You’re here about baleys?”

“Anything you might have that could help us...” Capel said, obviously trying to lead him.

“Is this off the record?”

“We don’t have anything official pending in your case. We’re hoping you’ll help as a good citizen.”

Mikels pursed his lips and folded his hands in his lap. “Well, it isn’t my desire to see Towne hurt.”

“Could you vouch or him, then–substantiate his innocence?”

Mikels smiled. “I don’t think so.” He sighed wearily. “I knew this would hurt the company in the long run. There has always been a faction at Imbitek involved in extra-legal matters. I shut down three divisions during my chairmanship that dealt in contraband. But Imbitek is large, and favors are passed in a variety of ways. It’s difficult to keep track of everyone and everything. Towne... well, he’s been tangled up with the Settler Coalition for a long time. If he’s running baleys, I’m not surprised.”

“Wenithal?” Coren prompted.

“I was not aware we were still doing business with him. Those three divisions I mentioned all used him to fix Customs. Wenithal had an associate in ITE–an adopted son, I think–through whom he got special considerations. When I shut them down, I thought I’d cut him off.”

“The payments?” Capel asked.

“Wenithal owns a textiles manufacturing firm. It would be safest to mask the payments as business-as-usual.”

“You said you didn’t know him,” Coren said.

Mikels glared at him. “Do I look like an idiot, Mr. Lanra? I don’t know him personally, but in this connection I remember the name.”

Capel pointedly frowned at Coren.

Coren ignored him and pressed on. “And the association. Is there any reason you could think of that Towne would have either of them killed?”

“Not unless they were about to turn against him.”

“Might they?”

Mikels shrugged. “I can’t see that Wenithal would gain anything, but Damik might. After all, he would have the most to lose in any kind of official inquiry.”

“So you knew Brun Damik, too?” Capel asked.

“I didn’t say that–”

“Were Damik and Wenithal about to go freelance? Or was it just Damik who thought he could set up his own operation from your leftovers? Is that why you had him killed?”

Mikels laughed. “I’m a businessman, Inspector. I don’t have people killed. I have no idea who murdered Damik.”

“So you did know he was dead?” Coren asked.

Mikels started to stand again. “I think our talk is over, gentlemen–”

Coren took the folder Capel had brought with him. Before the inspector could stop him, he walked quickly up to Mikels, slid the picture out, and held it before the industrialist. Mikels stared at it for a long time.

“Do you know her?” Coren asked.

“No.” Mikels looked worried now.

“Have you ever seen a body look like that? I’ve seen a few recently. Something–or someone–crushed them. Must be an incredibly painful way to die.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Whoever did this can slip in and out of secured areas undetected. Some kind of military-grade masking tech. I even know of one victim who was in jail, and no records exist of her death. None.”

Mikel’s eyes flicked to Capel.

“Why don’t you sit down again, Mr. Mikels,” the inspector said.

Mikels sank back to the chair.

Coren turned to Capel. “Here’s what I think. I think Mr. Mikels has been paying his way through Customs by way of Wenithal and Brun Damik. I think Myler Towne found out about it when he took over and started straightening Imbitek out.” He turned back to Mikels. “I think you did a quick estimate of how much this was going to cost you in future revenue and decided to oust Towne. It’s backfiring, though, and he’s more popular now than ten months ago, when he took over. So you’ve been cleaning up all the loose ends that could tie you up in litigation and further prison time if they come to light. You ‘re shutting down the baleys before he does, and you’re doing it so that it looks like it was his fault, because, after all, Imbitek is the one in charge of them, isn’t it? And you’re in jail, so how could you be doing any of it?”

“You have no proof,” Mikels said haltingly.

“Oh, but it gets better. When it looked like there was no way you could win a shareholder vote, you arranged to take over part of Imbitek, the part most profitable off Earth. You used the same people you used to funnel baleys all these years to fund the purchase of Captras Biomed. Towne tried to block the sale when he found out who was behind the purchase, but he couldn’t. To cap it off, you tried to kill him. Leave Imbitek headless and, after you get out of prison, leave the planet. Imbitek falters, you use Captras as a plat form through which to buy it out, and you end up owning it outright.” Coren grinned wolfishly. “Stock transactions leave a pretty good trail for those who can read it.”

Mikels grunted. “You have an excellent imagination. Why should any of this cause me to help you?”

“Because I think you may become a loose end yourself. All this is going on and the profits are rolling and you’re still in jail. Someone is going to be thinking pretty soon that you’re superfluous.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because it just might occur to them that they already have Captras Biomed. What do they need you for? To run it? At this point, you’re waging a private war, against Myler Towne, to hurt a company that your backers no longer want. This isn’t good for profits.”

Now Mikels reacted nervously.

“The only thing that bothers me,” Coren continued, “that I don’t understand, is where all the baleys are going and what Nova Levis has to do with any of this?”

“What does Rega want to know this for?” Mikels demanded.

“Why do you think?”

Mikels shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s been out of it for years. Why now?”

“Maybe,” Coren said slowly, taking a gamble, “it’s a family matter.”

Mikels grew still. Only the sound of breathing filled the room. When he did not answer, Coren leaned close to his ear.

“This isn’t Rega,” Coren said. “This is me. I want to know.” He leaned closer still and whispered. “Your little vendetta killed a friend of mine. A good friend. This is personal for me.”

“Just because you and Damik served together–”

Coren straightened. “Not Damik! But if you know that, then you know the rest. You killed Nyom Looms, you fuck. “He snarled. “I’m sure you know about Nyom and me. She’s dead.”

“Lanra!” Capel bellowed. “Back off–now!”

Mikel’s eyes widened. “I see. That’s unfortunate, Ms. Looms’ death, but...”

“Cyborgs,” Coren said flatly.

Mikels started. “What?”

“Cyborgs. What do you know about them?”

Mikels wiped a hand over his mouth. “May I give you some advice, Mr. Lanra? You should let this go now. You won’t help Nyom Looms anymore. All you could do would be to put yourself, your friends, and your family in danger.”

“Not really a problem. I don’t have any friends and I’m an orphan. Just like Damik.”

Mikels sighed and shook his head. “I don’t have to talk to you. But Wenithal knows everything. You can ask him. I’ve never been directly involved.”

“Is that why you’ve gone to all the trouble to buy Nova Levis?”

Capel grasped Coren’s arm. Coren shrugged him off.

Mikels looked startled, then laughed. He stood, then. “My, but you are impressive. If I thought you’d accept it, I’d offer you a job.” He walked toward the door. “If you know that much, then you know the rest. You figure it out.”

“Why infants?”

Mikels stopped. “Excuse me?”

“The thing I can’t figure out–why infants?”

Mikels shook his head. “This interview is over.”

Mikels rang the bell for release. A few moments later, the guard took him away, leaving Coren and Capel alone.

“Damn,” Coren hissed.

“What do you want to do now?” Capel asked sarcastically. “Is there anyone else you want to roust tonight before I get the full story?”

“I don’t know.” Coren stared at the door, then looked at Capel. “Don’t wait for an apology.”

“I won’t. I just wish I understood what just happened here.” He pressed a hand against Coren’s chest. “You can explain it to me, can’t you?”

“Maybe. Where do you want me to start?”

“First things first,” Capel said. “Given Mikel’s reaction to it–what’s a cyborg?”

Coren flashed a half-smile. “Well, as I understand it....”

Twenty-Five

THE CORPSE ON the table smelled cloyingly sweet. Baxin, Sipha Palen’s pathologist, directed a squad of devices while speaking aloud his findings for the recorders.

“–lungs are permeated by clusters of nodes which seem to function as storage systems for long-term oxygenation. Secondary vascular system routed through what appears to be a secondary spleen suggests waste gas disposal follows complimentary pathways for storage in... what the hell is that?”

He fidgeted nervously and glanced at Derec and Palen, who watched from the other side of the isolation screen. Baxin was perspiring slightly. His fingers worked a keypad, and the small scavengers moved on and through the body of the cyborg.

“The muscle structure is a complex interleaving of polymers and protein. Molecular bonding seems to be cyclodextrous... we have polyamide bonding along single-chain amine nitrogen... looks like it uses adipic acids to facilitate the protein interactions...”

Baxin looked at Derec and shook his head.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” he said. “This thing looks like it’s made of nylon and nylon analogs.”

“Myralar?”

“Yes, I’m finding a lot of that in the joints and the valves. A second pancreas that looks like an organic polymer factory... it’s producing hexamethyline diamine instead of insulin... I don’t even know why it was brought here.”

“This doesn’t look like the being in the recovered memories,” Palen said. “The skin looks... normal, I suppose.”

“Oh, that,” Baxin said. He took a pair of forceps and lifted a layer of skin from one pectoral. Instead of the red and gray of organic tissue, the underside looked like graphite. “There’s a layer of composite that seems to be electrolytically active. If I run a small charge through it, the material shifts to the exterior derma.” He dropped the layer and shook his head. “It causes problems–skin irritation and infections from the look of it. That’s the source of the rough complexion.”

“In your opinion,” Palen asked, “is it at all human?”

Baxin shrugged elaborately and surveyed the body. “Sure. There’s blood, oxygenation, amino acids... I’m seeing some alternate building blocks in part of the DNA, like fluorotryptophan... but it’s at least as much a machine... a very odd machine...” He grabbed a hand and held it up. “The musculature in key areas has an underlying carbon isotope structure that responds to pressure by forming a kind of sheathe. The best comparison I have is calcium deposition in bones under stress. But that takes days or months. According to the projections I’ve got here–” he pointed at his monitors “–this responds instantly by creating a kind of exoskeleton which can be reabsorbed.” He shook his head. “In my opinion, the only thing that would define this as primarily organic is that you’d have to grow all this. You couldn’t add it onto an already extant organic structure.”

“Not at all?” Derec asked. “I mean, how early would you have to start?”

Baxin sighed and glanced at the readouts on the bank on monitors beside him. “Well, there are some problems. I’ve got an organ here that looks like a gall bladder, but as far as I can tell it’s strictly for the isolation of ammonia, which seems to be produced as a byproduct of a polymerization process. The ammonia would still be toxic if released generally, so it’s flensed from the system and fed back into the one of the spleens for venting. It’s not a perfect system–I’m seeing excess carbonic carbonyl in the duodenum that seems to be ingested to compensate for an imbalance. I’m thinking that most of this secondary polymer system was introduced before puberty, probably in infancy. You could overcome some of these problems by starting with a base genetic template and growing one from scratch, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you how. Probably the rate of breakdown would overwhelm it at that stage, so starting later might compensate for some of the flaws.”

“You don’t sound too certain, “Palen said.

“There’d have to be certain preconditions,” Baxin said. “I’m not good enough for this, Chief. I’m guessing. You need someone who understands sequencing and gene therapy.”

“What about the brain?” Derec asked. “Is it wholly organic?”

“No... well, yes... I mean, it’s oxygenated, but what I’m seeing is the presence of protonated oxygen. That would limit cell absorption considerably, except that there’s a monomer fiber strung along the vasal matrix that’s drawing particles from a small isotopic shunt in the hypothalamus.”

“What kind of particles?” Derec pressed.

“Positrons.”

Derec sensed Palen looking at him. “All right,” he said. “When you finish, I want the brain sent to the positronics lab.”

“The whole thing should’ve been sent there to begin with,” Baxin complained. “Sorry. I’ll let you know when I’ve completed my autopsy.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” Palen said. “By the way, the masking ability–”

Baxin laughed sourly. “That’s the only thing that’s easy to explain. The clothing. It doesn’t have it built into itself. It just wore military tech.”

Derec walked away from the theater. Masid leaned against the wall by the exit, arms folded over his chest. Derec heard Palen’s heavy tread catching up to him.

“Your assistant, “Masid said, “just called to say you should come to the lab ASAP.” Derec nodded in response.

“So, just what is that thing?” Palen demanded as the three of them stepped into the corridor outside the morgue.

“A cyborg,” Derec said. “What I was afraid of.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are there more of them?”

“There’s no reason to think this one is the prototype. Why use it for something as risky as slipping into a police station to murder someone if it’s the only one? No, there are others. “He glanced at Palen. “What did your Brethe dealer find that got her killed by one?”

Palen glared at Masid. “I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t get a chance to debrief her.”

“Where was she when you picked her up?” Derec asked.

“Settler section, dockside,” Masid said. “She used to keep a flop there, in the service section.”

“Has anybody looked at it since she died?”

Palen nodded. “It had been tossed, pretty thoroughly. None of her associates shed any light on what she was into.”

“Was she actually dealing Brethe?” Derec asked.

“Absolutely,” Palen said. “Only way to keep her cover valid.”

“Who was her supplier, then?”

Masid nodded. “A local boss named Metresha, who also has a finger or two in the baley traffic.”

“Has anybody talked to her?”

“Not yet,” Palen said. “She’s offstation right now. I didn’t want to move on her till we had some solid information about these deaths.”

“Does anybody know when she’s coming back?”

Masid shrugged. “Metresha is rather hard to keep track of. No one is really sure what she looks like–she tends to work through intermediaries a great deal. I gather the docks are being watched?”

“The Settler ship that was supposed to pick up those baleys is in dock now,” Palen said. “Metresha always shows up when a cargo is being moved.”

“Have you heard from Lanra?”

“Not since yesterday.”

“I want to talk to Ariel,” Derec said.

“I want to know where that robot is,” Palen said.

Derec glared at her. “You might want to ask your new prisoner about the cyborg. He knew its name, after all.”

“We’re letting him think things through a while longer,” Palen said. “Do you want to be there when we question him?”

“It might be useful to have someone there who knows a little about robots,” Derec said sardonically.

The three of them took the next shunt to the Spacer quarters in stony silence. Derec found himself slightly in the lead as they strode toward the lab. Agent Harwol and one of his people stood outside the lab, talking quietly. When he spotted Derec, he came forward.

“We have a situation, Avery–”

“Talk to the ambassador,” Derec said irritably, brushing past the TBI agent.

“Avery–”

Derec entered the lab and stopped abruptly.

The DW-12 stood in the center of the space, most of the resident techs standing in a loose circle around it. Director Polifos sat, arms folded indignantly, before the robot. When he saw Derec, his scowl deepened and he tried to stand. The robot placed a hand on his shoulder and urged the director back into the chair.

“Damn it, you cannot do that!” he shouted. “What is wrong with this robot? Doesn’t it know that it has to take my orders?”

“It knows it has to keep you here,” Derec said. “For your own protection.”

“I’m in no danger!”

“Then, why were you running?”

“I wasn’t.”

Derec looked at the robot. “Thales?”

“The Director had booked passage on a Settler transport,” the robot said. “I found him in a dockside tavern in Section Forty-nine, carrying a pack of personal belongings.”

Polifos glared up at the robot.

“What is this thing?” he asked quietly.

“Never mind that,” Palen said. “Why don’t you tell us where you were going? And why?”

Polifos looked at her, anger and fear working at his expression. He shook his head.

“What ship?” Palen asked.

“The Reyatta,” Thales answered.

Palen pulled out her comm and stepped away, speaking softly. A few seconds later, she came back.

“Interesting choice of ships, Director,” Palen said. “The Reyatta is a known blockade runner. Where were you going, Director Polifos?”

Polifos shook his head and studied the floor.

Derec searched the lab until he saw Rana over by the workstation they had been using. She waved him over.

“Ariel needs to talk to you,” she said.

Derec stepped up to the console. “Thales, are we secure?”

“Yes, Derec. I have traced all the gates in place. One of them fed directly to Director Polifos’s quarters. Another went to Chief Palen’s office. One, however, I have a location for but no identification, in the Settler’s section.”

“Where’s Ariel?”

“Back in the embassy,” Thales said. “But not for long. There have been developments.”

“Connect me.”

Derec stopped before Polifos and waited for the man to look up. “Director.”

Polifos frowned.

“What kind of work did you do for Nova levis?”

Polifos blinked and went pale.

Derec turned to Palen, who had been talking intently with Masid, away from the others. “I want to bring him down to the morgue.”

Palen looked intrigued. “All right.”

Thales/Bogard urged Polifos to his feet. Harwol and two of his agents came forward. “What are we doing?” Harwol asked.

“A demonstration,” Derec said. “Thales?”

“Please follow Derec Avery,” the robot said.

“Agent Harwol, if you could have your people guard our flanks on the way down...?”

Reluctantly, Harwol agreed. The entourage emerged from the lab and headed back down to Palen’s morgue.

Baxin still worked on the body. He looked up at the approach of this new group, his brow knitting. Derec glanced at Polifos.

When the director saw the corpse, he stopped, then tried to back up. Thales/Bogard blocked his escape. Derec reached for him, took his shirt sleeve, and dragged him close to the transparency.

“What do you think of that, Director Polifos?”

“I–” He shook his head. “Please.”

“Recognize it? Perhaps some of it is your own work?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Then why are you frightened? Why were you running? Is this what you were running from?”

“You don’t understand–”

Derec tightened his hand on Polifos’s arm. “Then make me understand.”

“Please!”

“Is this what you’ve been hiding from for the last twenty years? Did you make that?”

“No! I don’t know what that is! Let me be!”

Polifos squirmed loose from Derec only to encounter Palen, Masid, Harwol, and Thales/Bogard.

“Talk to us, Director,” Palen said. “We’ve got a lot of dead people we need explanations for.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Polifos said.

“What did you do in Nova levis?” Derec asked. He pointed at the cyborg. “Is that a direct result of your work?”

Polifos tried not to look at it.

“Is that your work, Kyas Vol?”

Polifos paled visibly then. “You know?”

“You‘ve been hiding here under the protection of the Auroran government since disappearing from Earth after Nova levis closed down. Why? What were you doing there?”

“I’m trying not to die, damn it!” He whirled around, shoving Derec away. He backed against the transparency. “They killed everyone! Anyone who knew anything about it! Fos and Holani... Cortem... the documentation staff...” He was shaking now. “I went to the Aurorans because they were the only ones not involved. Terran authority, Solarians, corporates... Aurora had nothing to do with it.”

“With what?” Harwol demanded.

Polifos started sobbing. He slid to the floor, eyes streaming.

“We never really knew who we were working for, “he said finally. “The lab took subscriptions for stock. It was supposed to be a public corporation–we didn’t know...”

“Your mission,” Derec said. “What was your mission?”

“The plague. Stop the plague.”

“What plague?” Palen asked.

Polifos shook his head. “There wasn’t one. We succeeded.” He sat there, crying for a time, until he finally got control of himself. He stood and looked at the corpse. Baxin stood away from the body now, waiting. Polifos turned away. “Please. I don’t want to look at it anymore.”

Palen led them all to Baxin’s office. One of Harwol’s people got Polifos a cup of water. The director sat in a chair, trembling and sipping.

“What plague?” Derec prompted.

“Old, old nanotech,” Polifos said. “Do you know what UPDs are?”

“I know the term,” Derec said. “I’m still not sure what it means.”

“Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction,” Polifos said. “The term covers a lot of ground. Some of it is organic illnesses, chronic systemic dysfunctions, things we can only watch. We can’t cure them. In some cases, we can provide a little relief, but they’re all fatal, and usually pretty quickly. Ninety-eight percent of the cases are infants. The worst of them are nonorganic. We used to call them Vonooman Plagues.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

He drank again, coughed, and set the cup down. “Before we outlawed robots–long time ago–we played with everything. One of our developments was nanotech. We still have a lot of it. Food production is a result of old nanotech. Some medical treatments, manufacturing–but most of it got thrown out with the robots. Largely because a few experiments went wrong and we created self-sustaining inorganic colonies. Parasites, really. They disassembled extant structures and used the material. There was a huge panic when the first of them erupted a few hundred years ago. But the fact is, they ate themselves out. It was fast and furious and so fatal that within ten, twenty years they died out all on their own, except for a few aberrant strains that stayed in the ecosystem and caused relatively minor problems since.”

“UPDs, “Derec said.

Polifos nodded. “Poor kids. They’d be born with a minor problem and through some vector we’ve never been able to trace, a colony of these things would take advantage and set up within the system. Within extreme intervention, death would be quick. We set up hospice centers for them.”

“They aren’t very well advertised, “Palen said. “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”

“Nobody wants to know about them. Anonymity is almost always desired by the parents, so it works out comfortably for everyone but the victim.”

“So what changed?” Derec asked.

“We found strains that were sustaining the victim. They were adapting. Why now and not before? Don’t know. And not in very many cases. But when we diagnosed the first adult cases of new infection, we knew we had a big problem.”

“Terrans?” Derec asked.

“Settlers,” Polifos said. “We needed to find a cure. To do that we needed to find the vectors and we needed to understand the nature of the host system. We set up Nova Levis as a research lab in prostheses to cover the actual research into the new plague.”

“And what was the vector?” Harwol asked.

“Only certain colonies. We found a series of enzyme deficiencies that produced chronic conditions that were treatable but rendered the system vulnerable to opportunistic infections. Those colonies tended to be the smallest and most isolationist. The influx of new colonists had been cut off for a variety of reasons–diplomatic, financial, other things. We were afraid that the plagues might adapt sufficiently well to become generally virulent and infect us. It was a small population that was at risk. We found a vaccine that was communicable by touch and could be spread through viral transfer.”

“How did you get around the immigration barriers?” Harwol asked.

“Baleys,” Derec said.

Polifos nodded. “Slipped them in through the back door.”

“What about the infants?” Masid asked.

“We continued our research on them. We found that the diseases had reworked their basic genetic structure in some cases, demanding augmentation in key organs. We thought we were finding a cure. We found that the disease had left us with an organic system perfectly suited to the introduction of symbiotic machine prostheses. But it was a holistic approach. We couldn’t fix one organ, we had to address the entire system.”

“You started playing with positronics,” Derec said.

Polifos nodded. “We got them through our Solarian contacts.”

“That means you. You’re Solarian.”

Polifos shook his head. “I was born here, on Earth. My parents were Solarian and I kept my citizenship, but I’ve never been there.”

“Then who was your Solarian contact?”

“Through the embassy mission. I never knew who.”

“Why was the lab shut down?” Palen asked.

“We started getting infants in large numbers. We’d developed a method of introducing self-sustaining support into the organic matrix, freeing them from the massive support systems they’d been forced to live in. The babies showed up, we’d refit them, and then they’d disappear. Director Holani was our head of staff. She found out they were going offplanet. She started demanding to know what was going on. She threatened to go public. That’s when everything was closed down.”

“So how does this explain that thing Baxin’s working on?” Palen demanded, gesturing in the direction of the cyborg’s remains.

“We stumbled on a process that would enable us to fuse machine and organic systems. The vonooman infection opened the way for the introduction of fully symbiotic artificial components. Puberty alters too much for reintroduction–a lot of it is mitigated by viral infections, RNA recompositions, stuff like that–but from infancy, we found we could grow a composite organism to adulthood. That’s when the traffic in infants increased.”

“So that thing may have been one of your patients?”

“May have,” Polifos admitted. “I went to the Aurorans when my colleagues started dying. I told them what was going on. They took me in and hid me.” He looked around at them. “I don’t want to die.”

“Where’s the work being done now?” Derec asked.

Polifos frowned.

“Where are the cyborgs being grown now?”

“A sister lab was built on Cassus Thole,” Polifos said. “A transfer point for baleys to the other colonies where the plague was taking root.”

“Cassus Thole?” Palen asked. “I never heard of that one.”

“It’s an old name,” Masid said. “It’s now called Nova Levis.”

Yuri Pocivil did not try to run when he saw the cyborg corpse. He swallowed, hard, and stared at it. Slowly, he turned to Palen.

“I don’t know anything,” he said.

“You worked the baley run out of Petrabor,” Palen said. “You worked with this thing. We have documentation on it, so don’t bother lying.”

“I’m just a dockworker, that’s all,” Pocivil said.

“Running baleys?” Masid asked.

“Baleys, drygoods, food, manufactured components–it’s all just cargo. My job is strictly dockside. I don’t know anything.”

“You know who pays you,” Palen said. “You know your contacts. You get your assignments from somewhere.”

“I also know what ‘dead’ means,” he said.

“You should, “Derec agreed. “You already are. That was coming to kill you. “He nodded toward the cyborg. “You know that.”

After a time, Pocivil nodded. “I got caught. That’s against the rules.”

“So why protect them?” Palen asked.

Pocivil shrugged. “A gato’s got to have standards.”

“Pretty low ones, in your case, “Masid said. “You know all those baleys were murdered. The last shipment you sent up here.”

Pocivil sighed. “Shit. I guess it doesn’t matter. You won’t find them, anyway.”

“Why not?” Palen asked.

“Because the operation is over. It’s being shut down. I was on my way home when your people grabbed me.”

“Shut down,” Derec said. “You mean, no more baley runs? No more–”

“Nothing, no more anything. They’re closing up shop. It’s over.”

“Why don’t you tell us where and who, then?” Palen asked.

Pocivil let out a long, shuddering breath and turned away from the autopsy theater. “What do you want to know first?”

Derec watched through the transparency as Polifos assisted Baxin in removing the brain and brain stem from the cyborg body. He finally realized what bothered him about the scene: the colors were all wrong. The blood was nearly purple, organs were gray or bronze colored, nothing looked like it came out of a human body.

He glanced back at the robot. Thales/Bogard remained nearby, silently observing the same operation.

“What do you think, Thales?” Derec asked. “Or should I call you Bogard?”

“Either, both, or some new name,” the robot replied. “What do I think about what, Derec?”

“This,” Derec said, gesturing at the cyborg.

“I have not decided yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The cause of Coffee’s collapse was due to a misidentification. It believed that it was intervening against a robot. When he injured the being and realized that it had just assaulted an organic form, it naturally recoiled, assuming it had just attacked a human.”

“Assuming?”

“I am not certain this construct qualifies as human.”

Derec felt a disquieting coldness form around his thoughts. He stared at the robot for a long time.

“You be sure to let me know when and what you decide,” he said finally.

“I shall, Derec.”

Twenty-Six

ARIEL FELT INTENSE relief upon seeing Coren Lanra.

He slumped in one of her sofas, head propped on one hand, elbow on the sofa arm, eyes half-lidded. He looked profoundly weary, fighting sleep. He smiled crookedly when he saw her, and made an effort to sit straight. He put weight on his left arm and winced.

“As long as you’re here,” Ariel said, “we’re getting that shoulder looked at.”

“No time,” Coren protested. “I had an interesting talk with the police last night.”

“Don’t avoid the issue, you have no choice. I won’t continue this with a damaged partner.”

His eyebrows raised. “When did we become partners?”

“I’m not sure. Am I assuming too much?”

“That depends.”

Ariel ignored a spike of annoyance. “It always does.” She started unsealing his shirt. “You ‘re still getting looked at.”

“That was never a question. “He smiled.

Ariel hesitated. Then, impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him, very quickly and lightly, on the mouth. Coren stared at her, startled and, she thought, pleased. She continued removing his shirt.

“What have you been doing since Taprin?” he asked.

“Hiding for the most part. Turn around.”

“The police surgeon said it’s cracked.” ‘

The bruise was spectacular. “Is there some point you need to prove by finishing this in pain?”

Coren laughed sharply. “I told you I made an appointment with my doctor. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Nor did you.” She stood, his shirt in one hand. “But you will have that looked at.”

He shook his head. “I need to talk to Jeta. Tresha. Whatever her name is. Where is she?”

“Three floors down, under guard. She’ll wait.”

He tried to stand. “Then I have to go to Nova Levis.”

Ariel frowned. “The colony?”

“No, the lab.”

She pressed down on his shoulder. He winced but sat back down. “Don’t bother. It really was dismantled.” She turned toward her robot. “Jennie? Who’s working the infirmary now?”

“I don’t suppose I can reason with you,” Coren said.

“Dr. Jerios,” the robot replied.

“Of course you can,” Ariel told Coren. “Just do what I say. Thank you, Jennie. Let her know I have a patient for her–we’ll be right down. And bring me a robe, please.”

Coren let his head fall back. “Can’t she come here?”

“She can; her equipment can’t. Come on. Up. One more trip before you can sleep.”

“Make up your mind, will you? Up or down.” Coren grunted as he got to his feet. He stumbled. “Oops. One stim too many, I think. What do you mean, Nova Levis was dismantled?”

“What I said. After it was closed down, the facility was gutted and converted to its present use. There’s nothing there.” Ariel took his right arm and guided him toward the door. “Jennie, route my calls to the infirmary.”

“What about Wenithal?” Coren asked.

“He’s fine. Same floor, separate quarters, under guard.”

“Guard?”

“Infirmary first.”

“I need to talk to Tresha first.”

“No, first–”

“She’s not Jeta Fromm.” Coren disengaged from Ariel. “The police identified Jeta‘s body in Lyzig. We need to speak to Tresha now.”

Ariel regarded him for a moment. “All right. We can stop there on the way.”

“Fine.”

They continued on down the corridor to the elevator.

“Ambassador Burgess?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Coren smiled. “The list is too long. Just say ‘you’re welcome.” ‘

“You ‘re welcome.”

The elevator let them out on the guest floor. Ariel led the way to the rooms.

A tall, uniformed Auroran stood outside each of two doors along the corridor. Ariel led Coren to the nearest. The guard bowed slightly and stepped aside.

Tresha sat on the bed, pillows behind her, watching the subetheric across the room. Ariel glanced at what was being broadcast–it was a very old hyperwave drama; she remembered it vaguely, something based loosely on the first modern Terran permitted to visit a Spacer world after the long quarantine of Earth–and stepped in front of the set, blocking the woman’s view.

“I hope you’re here to apologize,” Tresha said as she touched the remote to switch off the subetheric.

“For what?” Coren asked. “Not recognizing you sooner?”

The woman laughed. “Just who is this ‘Tresha’ person you keep talking about?”

“You tell me,” Coren said. “I’d like to know why she killed Jeta Fromm.”

“Tresha shook her head. “Look–”

“Jeta’s body was found... and identified.”

Tresha stared at him, eyes narrowed. Finally, she shrugged.

“Why kill her?” Coren asked. “She was just a data troll.”

“Why worry about her?” Tresha returned. “She was, as you say, just a data troll.”

“Did Mikels order it?”

Her eyes widened briefly. Then she shrugged again. “If you know so much...”

Ariel said, “We have both Kyas Vol and Yuri Pocivil in custody. Your cyborg is dead–it’s being dissected even as we speak. So, if you want to play guessing games, it’s all right with me, but we don’t have to participate.”

Tresha pursed her lips. “You ‘re talking to the wrong person, gato. I don’t know anything.”

“Nonsense,” Coren said. “You were the contact for Damik and Wenithal. You handle all the legwork on the ground.”

“So the messenger is supposed to know what the message is?”

Ariel waited for Coren’s move. He said nothing. Tresha looked at him, then at Ariel, her eyes no longer so certain.

“Ask,” Tresha said.

“Why’d you kill Jeta?”

“She was nosy. She poked around into the wrong places.”

“How’d you pass for her in Lyzig?”

“They didn’t know her. I moved in there shortly after we terminated Fromm.”

“Why take her place?” Ariel asked.

“Common sense. If one commission for that data had come her way, more might. I wanted to find out how many vectors there were leading to that information.”

“And the baleys?” Coren asked quietly.

Another shrug. “I don’t think I’ll answer that.”

“Do you think you’re getting out of here without answering it?” Ariel asked.

Tresha smiled thinly in response, then looked at Coren. “I understand your ex-lover died on that last run. For what it’s worth, I apologize. It wasn’t personal.”

“That’s very comforting,” Coren said tightly. “You’ve been tidying up, haven’t you? Closing things down. Were you going to kill Wenithal when you showed up at his apartment?”

Tresha touched the remote again and turned up the volume. Music swelled.

“Your cyborg is dead!” Coren shouted.

Tresha looked at him and shook her head. “We’re done.” She smiled briefly, then ignored him.

Coren stalked out of the room.

“Who’s the Solarian in charge?” Ariel asked. When Tresha continued to ignore her, she spun around and jabbed the OFF on the subetheric. The sound died instantly. “The Solarian in charge,” she repeated. “Who is it?”

Tresha sighed. “You ‘re not as bright as I thought.”

“Do you have any idea what it is you’re playing with?”

Tresha snorted derisively. “Oh, please! Is this going to be an appeal to my naivety, or just my conscience?” She sat forward. “It’s all power, Ambassador–raw, absolute, overwhelming, carnal, irreducible power. Do I know what I’m playing with?” She grinned. “I’m not playing, Ambassador.”

She stabbed the remote again, once more filling the room with sound.

Ariel found Coren waiting in the corridor, his back to the wall.

“Do you want to talk to Wenithal?” she asked.

“No. Let’s get my shoulder looked at first.”

He said no more till they arrived in the embassy infirmary, where two robots placed him on a gurney and pushed him into a diagnostics bay.

“What’s the problem, Ariel?” Dr. Jerios asked as she tapped commands into her console. “He looks like he needs about three days’ sleep.” Jerios frowned at her. “So do you, by the way.”

“That would be a good start. But I need him up and alert by morning. He’s been running on stims and painblock for about four days now. His left shoulder is–”

“Cracked,” Jerios said. “My word, how did this happen?”

“He was grabbed by a very strong hand.”

Dr. Jerios shook her head skeptically, gazing at the scan image. “Some hand. I can see why he’s in pain. All right, I can pump healant and accelerant into this. Actually, the stim saturation will be harder to deal with. He should be allowed to sleep it off.”

Ariel shook her head. “No time.”

“Then he’s going to be very grumpy.”

“As long as he’s alert.”

“Oh, he’ll be alert. I hope you get along well if you have to work together tomorrow.”

Ariel looked at Coren through the transparency separating them. He looked asleep now, his face relaxed as the robots carried out Jerios’s instructions.

“I think we get along well enough, “Ariel said. In a whisper, she said to the sleeping Lanra, “You ‘re very welcome.”

“Ariel, there is an emergency comm message for you,” R. Jennie said.

Ariel opened her eyes. For a moment, she did not remember where she was; then realization came. She was in her own apartment, still fully dressed. Coren was asleep in the guest bedroom. She blinked at her robot.

“A message from...?” she asked groggily.

“Security.”

Ariel snapped to her feet and crossed the room. She slapped the ACCEPT on her comm. “Ambassador Burgess here.”

“We’ve had a break-in, Ambassador,” the security officer said. “Two guards have been found unconscious, a third dead. We’re sealing the embassy grounds and alerting staff. Please stay in your apartment–”

“Negative. Send extra security to the protected apartments. The two people I brought in last night–”

“We’ve already dispatched extra personnel there. I am to advise you–”

She broke the link and ran out the door.

The scene she found when she stepped onto that floor shocked her. At least five guards lay broken along the corridor. Both apartment doors stood open.

Tresha was missing. No real surprise there, Ariel thought angrily.

She found Wenithal in his bathroom. He was dead–eyes staring blindly, head tilted at an awkward angle.

“Damn!” she shouted.

Behind her, more security officers rushed by in the corridor. She knew, though, that Tresha was long gone.

The security recordings of the corridor showed the guards entering the hallway. They joined the two already on station. Minutes later, something caught their attention from the direction of the elevator. Their hands, almost as one, went to their sidearms, but they began falling, one by one, twisting around, writhing in pain, thrown to the floor. Two of the guards managed to fire shots, but they, too, were suddenly seized by some spectral force and crushed.

After they had all been subdued, Tresha’s door opened, and she emerged. She rushed up the corridor to Wenithal’s room and entered.

The view showed no one emerging.

“Masked,” Coren said.

“But before or after the attack?” Ariel asked.

“After,” Coren said. “We never saw her leave the room before the attack, so that means she had help.”

They watched the recording on Ariel’s subetheric. Coren lay propped up in her bed, his left shoulder covered by a thick pad. He had slept nearly six hours. Ariel knew he was angry that she had let him sleep while her people had scoured the embassy for the woman who had pretended to be Jeta Fromm, but he had said nothing in rebuke.

“No one saw her leave the embassy,” Ariel said, “but we can assume she’s gone. The question is: where did she–or they–go?”

“Petrabor maybe, “Coren said glumly. “Tell me about Nova Levis.”

“I had a long talk with Ambassador Setaris last night. I hate it when I’m treated like a child who can’t be told the truth.” Ariel let herself experience the anger and irritation–she had felt during and after her meeting with Setaris. Just for a few moments, while she composed her thoughts.

“We’ve known that Solaria has a compound on the ground on Nova Levis for several years, but until now we had no idea what it was or what they were doing. Just an enclave on an island, away from the Settler towns and cities. A lot of traffic in and out. Nothing we could do anything about. It was a Solarian holding originally, and they then let it to a Settler colony, so we had no legal grounds to go in there to investigate. Several years ago, though, when the first talks began between Earth and Aurora to try to reconcile our differences, we were able to share data on black market trade. Nova Levis was interesting because it seemed to be acting as a haven for several of the ships suspected to be regular contraband runners. Aurora made a few tentative inquiries with Solaria, Solaria offered to look into it, and what followed was a series of reports telling us that nothing illegal was happening on Nova Levis. Then the Tiberius incident happened.”

“That’s what precipitated last year’s conference?” Coren asked.

Ariel nodded. “One of the things. A Terran smuggler challenged by an Auroran police cruiser. For whatever reason, it had drifted into our space and we insisted on inspection rights. They refused and were fired upon. The Tiberius was on its way to Nova Levis. Among the facts that did not become public was that several Solarian nationals were on board–primarily positronics specialists, but also a few geneticists. We decided then to push for more cooperation with Earth as a first step toward forcing Solaria to open up.”

“Which blew up in everyone’s face.”

“Solaria will not allow ground inspections of Nova Levis.”

“I thought Nova Levis was refusing.”

“Same thing, as far as we’re concerned.”

“So why hasn’t Solaria’s involvement been made public?”

“Games. Aurora can’t risk war with Solaria until we know who our allies are. Or how much of the Solarian government is involved. We have to pretend to accept everything at face value until we have the proof necessary to convene a general council of the Fifty Worlds.”

“And the Theians?”

“We’re using them as a potential cause for convening that council on other grounds if we can’t get it any other way. If Solaria moves to interdict a Theian ship, we have the excuse. If Nova Levis fires on a Theian ship, we have the excuse.”

“And if Earth actually gets permission to do the ground inspections?” Coren asked.

“What we find will give us the excuse,” Ariel replied.

“In the meantime, the dance goes on until someone steps wrong.”

“The wonderful world of diplomacy.”

“I suppose that’s preferable to arbitrarily getting several hundred thousand people killed.”

“Is it any different in the corporate world?”

“Worse. You can’t ever declare open war on each other. At the end of all the games, you still have to sleep with the enemy.”

She smiled. “I suppose even that could have its pleasant moments.”

Coren shot her a look. “I’m sorry, Ambassador, but I don’t find any of this particularly amusing.”

Ariel jerked as if she had been struck. “I didn’t mean–”

“Someone very special to me is dead because you people are playing games. I understand them, but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.”

Ariel’s expression hardened. “Don’t bleed too much, Mr. Lanra. You might pass out when I need you.”

Coren looked away, reddening. He visibly controlled himself, then cleared his throat. “So what does Aurora think Solaria is doing on Nova Levis?” ‘

“Until this, we had no idea. Black market trade is too vague to really attack them with–to one extent or another, we all participate, or at least our citizens do.” She spoke evenly, the same tone of voice as before, as if their disagreement had not occurred.

“Until now. You mean the cyborgs?”

“Settlers couldn’t build them. Solaria has to be behind it. “She took a deep breath. “Which means that, if part of the research and development was done here, there had to be a Solarian contact on Earth to funnel materials and technologies and manage the program.”

Coren blinked. “Gale Chassik was one of the original shareholders in Nova Levis.”

“But he divested before assuming head of the Solarian mission.”

“Which would make sense... But–why?”

“That’s a very good question. I–”

Coren’s comm chirped. He snatched it up from the table at his right and stabbed at it. “Lanra.” He listened for a time. Gradually, his face lost its composure. He looked momentarily confused, then shocked. “I’ll talk to him. Where is he now? Good. No, don’t tell him I’m coming. Thanks.”

“What is it?”

“Come with me. We have to see someone.”

“You need more–”

“Now, Ariel. Please.”

They took an embassy limo to the DyNan compound, where Coren easily passed them through security. He led the way to the elevator, and tapped in the destination; a minute later, they stepped into a spacious, comfortably furnished suite.

Someone was sitting in a chair, watching the subetheric. Coren held a hand up and felt Ariel bump into it.

The subetheric showed Rega Looms at a press conference.”

–decision has not been taken lightly or capriciously. For personal reasons I choose not to go into at this time, I must announce my withdrawal from this campaign. I apologize to all those who have shown me their support through the last several months. I know all our hopes have been compromised, but I trust they have not been destroyed. There are others, more qualified than myself, to step into office and carry on the work to which I have pledged myself my entire life. I do not–”

The screen went blank. The man who had been watching now stood and turned.

Coren stared. “Rega?”

Rega Looms looked at them both, his face expressionless and pale.

“What are you doing, Coren?” he asked quietly. “Why are you here?”

“Trying to find out why your daughter was murdered.”

Looms shook his head. “I want you to stop. I don’t want you to go any further. I want this ended. Now.”

“Why?”

Looms shook his head again. “I don’t choose to discuss it.”

“That’s not good enough, Rega.”

Looms looked mildly puzzled for a moment, then scowled. “You work for me, Coren. This investigation is over.”

“Why?”

“I told you–”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a son before Nyom?”

Rega Looms turned his back on Coren and faced the dead subetheric. Coren waited till it seemed Looms would say nothing more and reached down for his pack.

“I’ve withdrawn from the campaign,” Looms said. “I was contacted by someone who threatened to release the fact you’ve just mentioned to the public and tie me in with people and concerns I broke from years ago. Of course, in the public’s imagination, nothing is ever finished–if I had once been in league with the enemy, I must still be so. Without even a chance to explain, my ability to function would be compromised and my reputation crippled.”

“Do you know who sent it?”

“No. Not specifically.”

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I tried to comm you, but you were unavailable. I decided late last night to withdraw rather than hurt the Church.”

Coren wanted to argue with him, tell him that people would understand, that they would support him because blackmail was so odious. But he knew better. The appearance of hypocrisy and the suggestion of a lie, even one of omission, turned people crudely incapable of compassion and robbed them of the ability to think when it came to politics. Coren had worked for the government, seen too many politicians go down in a mangle of innuendo simply because their constituency thought they had been betrayed by a promise compromised. There was nothing else Looms could do.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Coren repeated.

“I didn’t tell anyone. It was nobody else’s business. It was my own grief, my own horror. No one else has a right to that.”

“Ree Wenithal knew.”

Looms turned toward him. “Wenithal? What in god’s name are you doing with him?”

“He came up. There was a kidnapping case and evidently you were part of it.”

“Wenithal is a corrupt policeman who failed to follow through on that investigation. I was peripheral to his case at the time, but we had several interviews because of Jerem.”

“Jerem? That was your child’s name?”

Suddenly, Looms’ eyes flowed with tears. His hands curled into fists and he looked toward the ceiling. “Why won’t you let this end?”

Coren waited again. Looms sighed shakily and sat down on the edge of a couch. “Jerem was born with a compromised immune system. Unusual, but not unknown; standard treatments exist for it. But they didn’t work. It got worse. When he was a year old, it was obvious something was killing him. Finally, he was diagnosed with a nonorganic system infection. A nanotech disease. A leftover. “He glared suddenly at Ariel. “A gift from our flirtation with technologies we should never have allowed. “The fury waned as quickly as it had emerged, and his gaze returned to the floor. “No treatment. Life support was available in certain institutions, but we had to... surrender him into their care...”

He sobbed loudly. “It was easier. They offered anonymity and promised to make him comfortable till he died.”

“Did they tell you when he died?” Coren asked.

“No. That was part of it. We had to walk away. In return, we guaranteed that it would never be made public.”

“What about birth records?”

“Security locks. The system has been in place for a long time.”

“Locks can be picked, Mr. Looms,” Ariel said. “This one was.”

“Let me guess,” Coren said. “You bought shares in Nova Levis because they offered research into exactly what killed Jerem.”

“Oh, much more than that. I named the place! Nova Levis. ‘New Light.’ Something I’d... borrowed... from the Church.” Looms shook his head. “I was naive. I hadn’t yet realized that the original anti-robot movement had been absolutely correct in their analysis that any concession on the issue of nonorganic life was nothing but a danger, a complete betrayal of all things human. That this idea was fundamentally destructive and could never be controlled.”

“We’ve proven them wrong,” Ariel said.

“Have you? You’re so utterly dependent on your robots that you’re dying out. You don’t even reproduce anymore.”

“That’s–”

“What? Untrue? What is the average birthrate on a Spacer world? Is it sufficient for replacement? Or are your populations dwindling?”

Ariel said nothing.

“Life is good among the Spacers,” Looms went on, warming now to his own arguments. “Two, three hundred years to explore the insides of your own psyches to the exclusion of all else, even the future. The possibilities of self-indulgence are so wonderful that you forget the most basic necessity of organic life–to breed. It’s seen as an oddity, a curiosity, a peculiarity. Solarians don’t even share the same households, they can’t stand to be near others. They breed ex utero. Aurorans find children too undignified and simply avoid the whole embarrassing thing. But you compensate–you make life through your robots. I imagine that this goes quite a distance in fulfilling the void in your hearts by the absence of real children.”

“We don’t have orphanages to warehouse the unwanted and uncounted,” Ariel said.

Looms stared at her.

“Why did you sell your shares?” Coren asked.

“Um... the research took a direction that repulsed me.” He frowned. “They began developing symbiotic prostheses–nonorganic augmentation that combined with organic systems, became essentially one with them. I found this... unacceptable.”

That’s a lie,” Coren said. “You got out because Jerem died.”

Looms glared at Coren. “I know my own mind. Jerem died two years before I sold my holdings.”

“But it frightened you,” Ariel said. “The research.”

“Yes, Ms. Burgess, it did. To preserve the few, we were threatening the very definition of ‘human.’”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Is it? Where’s the line? Do you know where it is? Would you call your positronic creations ‘living; Ms. Burgess? I wouldn’t. And I saw no good in blurring the distinctions further, no matter how many suffering infants it saved.”

“So you bailed out,” Coren said. “Did you know there was a sister lab on a Settler colony?”

“No. But that wouldn’t have changed my decision.”

Coren sighed wearily. “It’s too late to stop this, Rega. I have to finish.”

“Why? I left it alone for almost thirty years, why can’t you drop it now?”

“I...” Coren coughed. “I loved Nyom. This is personal for me.”

“You work for me.”

“I quit.”

Looms’ face reddened.

“This is out of your hands anyway, Mr. Looms,” Ariel said. “Aurora has a joint interest in this with Terran authorities. Nova Levis is the source of a problem to which your naivety may well have given birth.”

“You can’t make me responsible for any of this.”

“No? Try this: If you hadn’t turned your back on what you did and pretended since that it never happened, maybe what’s happened now would never have gotten this far. You surrendered any chance of control over it when you surrendered your responsibility.”

“I did not act alone!”

“None of us ever do. Some of us forget that, though. Then there’s a mess to clean up.” She stepped up to Coren. “Mr. Lanra, Aurora offers you a job working on our behalf in this matter. Along with that comes our sanction and protection.”

Coren could not look away from Looms, even when he said, “I accept, Ambassador Burgess.”

A day earlier, the expression of betrayal he saw on Looms’ face would have broken his heart. Now it only annoyed him.

“Very well,” Looms said finally. “If you insist on going ahead. Use whatever facilities DyNan has. Both of you. Any assistance my company may offer, feel free to use, Ms. Burgess.”

He walked past Coren, to the door. For a moment, Coren thought he might look back. But Looms passed through, out of the suite.

“You didn’t tell him that his son is still alive,” Ariel said.

“I see no purpose in cruelty now.” Coren looked around the office as if trying to memorize its details. “Besides, “he said at length, “is it really his son anymore?”

Twenty-Seven

“THE CONFIGURATIONS IN the memory buffers are nonstandard, Derec.”

Derec glanced at the console. “That’s what I expected, Thales. Can you access them?”

“Yes, but I cannot guarantee any degree of coherence.”

Everyone had gathered around the platform on which lay the slightly viscous mass of cyborg brain tissue and nearly fifty centimeters of what resembled spinal column. Instead of distinct vertebrae separated by disks, the spine was composed of overlapping sheathes that attached on clusters of bearing-like spheres.

Derec had found positronic nodes within the brain mass, though their links to the actual neurons of the brain were difficult to determine. Fine cables now entered the tissue, feeding back into the interface, connecting it to Thales.

Derec looked around at the others. Rana sat at the main board, monitoring the link. Palen, Harwol, Masid, and Polifos stood on the opposite side of the platform. Baxin sat nearby, with two of Harwol’s agents.

Thales/Bogard stood behind them.

“Whatever you can give us, Thales,” Derec said.

“Very well. I am translating through my own language processors. Stand by.”

Silence stretched.

A loud hiss emerged from the speakers. Three screens flickered to life. The far left-hand screen displayed alphanumerics. Derec recognized the symbology–inferential calculus and asymptotic series, standard approaches to positronic interactions–but the groupings did not appear logical. As the symbols flowed by, he spotted an equation that startled him:

Then:

He recognized it out of combinatorial topology, but its use here baffled him. “You’re copying this to Ariel, Thales?”

“Yes, Derec.” Thales paused. “I am seeing invariant topologies expressed in Poincaré Sets. I surmise these are serving as anchor points between the organic neuronal structural and the positronic matrix.”

“I’m glad you have some idea what it means.”

The second screen showed abstract shapes broken at intervals by recognizable objects–faces, buildings, rooms. A catalogue of visual memory, delivered in a form Derec comprehended from ordinary positronic excavations.

The third screen seemed to be nothing more than lists. Places, names, things.

The speakers popped loudly. Then: “My owaaaaaaaaaaa!”

The hiss seemed to modulate, then fade.

In a faint voice, sexless and tired: “Make it stop.”

Derec took a step toward Rana.

“It moves! That’s what I like, more juice, give me some of that and that and turn it around again, stop it!”

“Thales?” Derec prompted.

“The memory is stored nonhierarchically,” Thales said. “More like a human brain, although storage is discreet rather than undifferentiated. I am trying other nodes.”

The speaker crackled. “Kill it! What business does it have doing like that? I came here expecting nothing! Pull that or put it away I can do better than–”

“Derec,” Thales said, “I have identified a structure that seems to be a positronic external interface.”

“We can talk to it?” Rana asked, surprised.

“You can’t have that, it’s too complex and I’m too one thing or another! Get out of my borrowed–”

“Perhaps,” Thales said. “It depends on how reliable the connections are to the rest of the brain. It is presently generating conceptual axioms similar to an organic condition known as Korsakov’s Syndrome. Imposing order may not be possible.”

“Let’s try it,” Derec said. “It is now active.”

“Can you hear me?” Derec called out. Silence.

“Do you have a name?”

“Several,” the speaker said. “Call me Shit For Brains, like Greeshal does when I don’t answer right away, nice guy Greeshal, should see me now, what do you want?”

“I want the name you prefer.”

“Cordios.”

“What are you, Cordios?”

“The answer to your problem.”

“Do I have a problem?”

“A lot of problems. Main one, you’re alive.”

“So are you. Is that a problem, too?”

“Wrong. Wrong. Error. Sorry.”

“You aren’t alive?”

“Not since I was born.”

“When was that?”

“Before I died.”

“Cordios, do you remember becoming what you are?”

“Do you remember being born?” it asked.

“No.”

“Then you must be human.”

“Do you remember being born?” Derec asked.

“Light, fade, pinpricks all through my head, I have now taken up the heat. Little nits chasing around through my spleen, see them run, see them caught and added to the dog. Everything hurts it feels right, for once I’m growing, I hear, I see, I touch when I want to... no, I don’t remember being born, just being reborn. The clarity! Look–at–that! If you made this then you must be good for something. Little shits can’t even reflect light, but boy do they inspire! Watch me Mommy while I kill the cat! If you don’t want me to break my toys then don’t give them to me, hypocrite, liar, that’s human, too. Left me here and all I did was breathe. Now I don’t even have to do that. Some things are worth dying for, you should see it from the other side.”

“What is this?” Harwol asked. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“You want sense, tissue? Try this: evolution has infinite vectors, most of them unrecognized, a lot of them artificial. Evolution by design only happens when design evolves. Riddle, riddles, junior piddles, spank him nice and kill him twice. You’re all obsolete. Look at me, I’m the new standard.”

Thunder burst from the speaker then, fading quickly to a whisper, then silence.

“The interface has been deactivated, Derec,” Thales said. “Why?”

“I do not know.”

“You had no reason–?”

“I did not deactivate it. The subject did.”

“What does that mean?” Palen asked.

“It means,” Derec said, “that this thing is still self-aware. It shut down the interface.”

“Is that possible, boss?” Rana asked.

“I wouldn’t have thought so. But... Thales, see what you can salvage, then terminate the subject.”

“I may have a problem with that, Derec.”

“What’s that?”

“Is it human?”

Derec considered the question. “I see. Then just terminate the excavation. I’ll deal with the remains.”

“Yes, Derec.”

The names still danced across the third screen, but now the other two showed nothing.

“Thales, do you have any identification on the names being displayed?”

“Yes, Derec. They are several lists combined. I have names of people currently employed in warehouses, shipping departments, and ITE offices. Dockworkers. Transportation specialists. There is a separate list of merchant ships. A considerable amount validates the information given by Yuri Pocivil. Another list of people and places which I infer from the locations are on Settler colonies. There is also a list matching files Ariel instructed me to locate regarding the kidnappings which precipitated the investigation that closed Nova Levis.”

“They’re all the victims?”

“Yes, Derec.”

“I see. Copy all this to Ariel.”

Derec walked away from the station. He could feel everyone watching him.

“So, now what?” Masid asked.

“We have to find them,” Derec said.

“‘Them ‘?”

“The rest. The cyborgs.”

“So, now you’re convinced there’s more than one,” Harwol said.

“Something like this... yes, I am. And we have to find them and stop them.”

“Stop them from what?” Palen asked.

“Taking our place.”

Coren, Ariel, and Ambassador Setaris filled separate screens mounted on the wall of Palen’s private office. Harwol, Hofton, Masid, and Derec filled chairs around her desk.

“Pocivil hasn’t shut up since he agreed to talk, “Palen said. “So far we’ve identified twenty-six locations for contraband, illegal transport, and warehousing on the ground, and seven bays here that are regular stops for the black market.”

“Has he said anything about the operations being shut down?” Coren asked.

“That’s why he was heading back to Cassus Thole,” Palen replied. “Operations on Earth are finished–so he says, anyway. Frankly, I doubt that.”

“Maybe a temporary hiatus,” Ariel said. “They ceased before, after Wenithal’s investigation.”

“We’re prepared to move on all the sites,” Harwol said. “Some of them are Spacer-owned, Ambassador Burgess. We’re waiting on you to clear us.”

Ariel frowned. “Derec, the cyborg–I went over the autopsy and excavation reports a little while ago. How many of these do you think there could be?”

“I have no way of knowing,” Derec said. “Seems safe to assume at least two of them–the one we have and the one down there. Blood scans confirm that this one here is not the same one that was in the cargo bin with the baleys. But as for how many there might be...” He shrugged.

“We will sign off on the raids, Agent Harwol,” Setaris said, “under the condition that any cyborgs found, captured, or killed will be turned over to us for study.”

Harwol looked unhappy, but he nodded. “Agreed.”

“And I want my people to have access to the sites after they’re secured.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Ambassador.”

“This isn’t a good time to play things too close, Agent Harwol,” Setaris stressed. “Your people know next to nothing about robots in the first place. You won’t know what you ‘re looking at if these sites contain positronic equipment, you won’t know how to deal with any robots on hand, and you certainly won’t know what to do with any of it afterward. If you encounter any cyborgs, you’ll be even less prepared.”

Harwol cleared his throat. “I understand. How soon can you have people available to accompany our teams?”

“Ariel?” Setaris asked.

“Give the word,” Ariel said.

Harwol was surprised. “Do you have that many?”

“Enough for what we consider the key sites. I’ll copy the list to you. You have people on Kopernik who can fill the same roles there.”

“Very well. I want to move on this within the next six hours, Ambassador. The sooner we do, the more of these people we can catch.”

Ariel nodded. “Agreed. Coren and I will be going in with the Petrabor team. Coren has been there before.”

“Mr. Lanra,” Harwol said, “you are aware of the possible risks. You aren’t an active agent–are you willing to submit to the team leader?”

“My status is problematic, Agent Harwol,” Coren said. “Let’s stop talking and move.”

“Very well. All agreed, on my authority. Chief Palen will coordinate the station raids. If we time this well, we can shut it down all at once.”

Palen gave Harwol a dubious look but said nothing.

“One more thing,” Derec said. “These cyborgs, if there are more, will not succumb to stuns. You ’11 have to use lethal force, a lot of it, and that means some humans will probably be killed as well. I suggest...” He hesitated, unsettled by his own thoughts. “I suggest you don’t worry about the human casualties. These things, loose, are far more dangerous.”

Everyone stared at him for a time. He felt acutely uncomfortable.

Masid spoke then. “Ambassador, what about the Spacer end?”

“Pardon me?” Setaris asked.

“Obviously, there’s a Spacer connection. Probably Solarian, most likely an embassy official. What will be done about that?”

“We’re already working on that. We will take care of it.”

Masid nodded.

“All right, then,” Palen said, standing. “Let’s move.”

Twenty-Eight

COREN WATCHED THE TBI team sort and ready their equipment for the third time. The comm unit bead in his ear fed him updates on the status of all the other teams. He still could not quite believe they expected to pull this off–the final count had been thirty-one sites on the ground, and eight on Kopernik, all targeted to be hit simultaneously. It was ambitious.

But the clearances had come through from the Aurorans, which, no doubt, would cause a furor within Spacer circles–several sites were Solarian-or Keresian-owned.

Coren’s own pack lay at his feet; he had arrived prepared, and had never been one to check and recheck his equipment in nervous anticipation. He glanced around the edge of the bay, toward the warehouse across the alley–the same one where all this had begun. He distrusted tidy closures like this, but it seemed the most logical place for Tresha to go. She was either here waiting transport, or she was already on Kopernik–in which case, Sipha would grab her.

At least this time I don’t feel like I need a bath...

Ariel sat nearby, her back to the wall, eyes closed, arms folded over her chest, legs outstretched with ankles crossed. She gave the appearance, at least, of a seasoned field agent practicing patience, waiting for the Go signal. At this point, for all Coren knew, she was–everything he had assumed about her had turned out to be insufficient for any reasonable assessment. Ariel Burgess did not conform to easy descriptions or predictable definitions.

Like Nyom, he thought, only completely different...

The TBI team leader approached her, and squatted down to talk. She spoke quietly and intently, instructing the ambassador on what she was expected to do. Ariel nodded and rose smoothly to her feet, then crossed the ancient floor of the bay and sat down. A dozen agents huddled around her for one more question-and-answer session.

Telemetry chittered in Coren’s ear. Suddenly, he heard: “Set. Good to go.”

He looked up and met the team leader’s eyes. She nodded. The huddle broke up into scurrying efficiency. In less than a minute, everyone was loaded up and waiting for the word.

Coren pulled his mask down, hoisted the pack onto his shoulders, and jumped from the edge of the bay. He sprinted across the alley and leapt onto the apron of a mirror-image bay. He pressed against the wall and waited while the TBI team flowed throughout the alley, taking positions to cover him.

Coren took a five-centimeter-square chit from his thigh pocket and slid it into the reader set in the wall. The bay door rumbled up and he ducked inside.

Three dockworkers looked up from the workstation around which they stood, shocked by the sudden intrusion. Automatically, their hands went up as TBI agents rushed in, aiming weapons at them.

“Down!” Coren hissed at the workers. They dropped to the floor obediently. “How many inside? Where?”

“Um... short staffed,” one of the workers said. “Don’t, uh... there’s a special shipment, private... uh...”

“Okay,” Coren said, tapping the man’s head. “Quiet.”

Coren set the pack down on the loading dock. The sounds of the warehouse and the distant port thrummed in the vast open spaces, constant and oddly reassuring. Trucks, dollies, crates, containers, all furnished the area.

He scooped out a handful of vonoomans and began methodically activating them. Upon release, they scampered into the recesses of the warehouse. He sealed the pack then took out his palm monitor.

“Give them a few minutes,” he said to the team leader. He waved to an agent and pointed to the three workers. Immediately, they were restrained and moved out of the way. The team leader spoke intently into her comm.

Coren unfolded the monitor. Within seconds, a map of the interior sketched itself. The little machines showed bright green on the schematic. At no point did they change color to indicate human presence–not until one reached the transfer bays on the far side, where the bins for the shuttles came and went on automated tracks. Then several blue points appeared, huddled just outside one of the bay doors. Coren tapped Ariel’s arm and pointed.

“That’s them, then?” she asked.

“I assume so.” Coren refolded the monitor and stood. He looked at the team leader. “Ready?”

She nodded silently.

Vehicles rolled into the alley outside.

Shouldering the pack, Coren started forward. Now he felt anxious. He wanted to get out there and find Tresha and whoever else she had with her.

He was beginning to accept that Nyom had died coincidentally, the result of a power struggle between forces that in all likelihood had not even been aware of her existence. Accept it, yes, but he would never be at peace with it. All that remained for him now was to find those responsible. After that...

He would never be able to work for Rega again, even if Looms were willing to have him.

I wonder if Ariel’s offer is real...

At the rear of the bay, they ascended a short staircase. The door at the top let them into an office area. The squad seemed to fill it.

Coren was unconcerned about tripping warehouse security monitors–he doubted any of the normal internal systems were on right now–but his targets might have placed alarms at various points. He opened his pack again and took out another mass of tiny machines. He keyed them and let them out in the corridor beyond the office. Scavengers, they would hunt down and eradicate any telltale devices they found.

He sat down before a comm and waited, watching his monitor. When all the lights showed green, he nodded to the team leader.

Swiftly and efficiently, the agents poured from the room and disappeared into the warehouse, each member with a preassigned location. One of them remained behind.

The bead gave him new updates, reports from the various locations. Ariel listened to the same data, nodding silently to herself.

Coren inserted a decrypter into the console before him and initiated the invasive routines. Within seconds, the data stored in the warehouse systems was isolated from the DELETE protocols that would have erased everything upon a single command–a command, Coren noted, which had not yet been given. Secured, he opened a comm channel and began sending all this information to another site.

“Done,” he announced. “Let’s go.”

The trap was closing as Coren and Ariel hurried through the administrative areas of the warehouse. With Palen coordinating on Kopernik and Agent Harwol coordinating on the ground, the global sweep was underway. Warehouses, shipping firms, and ships were being seized. Executives were being picked up for questioning.

Alda Mikels was about to be arrested again.

He entered the same office area he had been in five days ago, overlooking the gridlike expanse of the warehouse proper. So familiar and so strange–things rarely formed neat closures or elegant symmetries in his profession. There was a mirror-like quality to this, though, that gave him a sense of validation, confirming his choices and assuring him that his purpose was necessary and sufficient. Perhaps this feeling was wrong, an illusion, but he could use it. He moved unhesitantly.

Halfway across the grid they heard the first blaster shots. Then shouting. Coren recognized the stentorian timbre of TBI commands. Arrests were underway.

He crossed the apron to one of the open doors leading out to the transport grid. Agents stood above eight people who lay face down on the floor, hands clasped behind their heads. Nearby sprawled three corpses, smoke still coiling listlessly from their wounds.

Coren went from prisoner to prisoner, then to the bodies. No Tresha.

The maze of cargo bins beyond was motionless, the power cut. Huge cubes scattered across the vast field hovered on their self-contained antigravity cushions.

In his ear, Coren continued to hear reports of successful raids, arrests, a few casualties.

But no cyborgs.

He pulled out his optam and scanned the field of inert blocks. No movement. He strode onto the grid.

“Coren–”

Ariel came after him, the TBI agent trailing behind. “Where,” she asked, “are you going?”

“They’re here,” Coren said. “They have to be.” He turned away and continued walking.

“There are agents at the other end,” Ariel called.

“I know!”

The TBI were very good at these sorts of things–they rarely botched a raid–but Coren wanted the confrontation. Things were going too well–the sites were being taken efficiently, arrests made quickly, few fatalities–but he wanted more of a mess, an excuse to get angry and desperate and violent.

He moved quickly, though cautiously, among the eerily-still cargo bins. The air smelled of ozone, and he felt a faint, dry tingle over his skin. The maze stretched a good two kilometers to where the port machinery sorted out the containers, those arriving and those departing going to separate chutes to the correct shuttles.

He stopped. He could not see the warehouse end now through the forest of cubes.

“Gamelin!” he called, voice echoing. “Did you know who she was? The baley runner you killed?” He listened to the answering silence. “Nyom Looms! Do you remember that name?”

He continued walking. “She was your sister, Gamelin! Did you know you had family?”

Coren stopped and looked to his left. He glimpsed a tall shape, dull gray, slightly crouched, standing outlined against one of the bins.

Coren raised his blaster.

Suddenly, the shape came toward him faster than Coren had ever seen anyone move. If it were not moving directly at him, Coren doubted he would have been able to discern a single detail.

But the moment seemed infinite in what he could see:

A face, pockmarked as if by horrible disease. Wide-set unblinking eyes. A hairless skull. Wide shoulders. A runner’s build. A dead-alive intensity, unchanging, mutated into an expression of profound resentment.

Coren wanted more than anything to run.

He fired, too late. The charge slammed into the cyborg’s torso, but momentum carried it into Coren. He felt as if his entire body had been slapped all at once. He flew back, into one of the cargo bins, and dropped onto his buttocks painfully.

Coren rolled and slowly rose to his feet.

When he turned again, the cyborg stood less than a meter away. He suppressed the impulse to try to shoot it–he doubted he could raise his weapon fast enough.

“Gamelin?” Coren said.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, human,” it said, its voice a rasp like dried paper scraps and crushed bone. “We don’t know each other, do we, gato?”

“Maybe, in a way. Is that your only name?”

“Only need one.”

“How about Jerem?”

It cocked its head quizzically. “You have a name?”

“Coren Lanra.”

“That’s two names. Never figured that. What, humans got to have more than one of everything? How come you never give anything else more than one name?”

“You know better than that. Look at your homeworld. It’s got four names: Nova Levis, and Cassus Thole.”

“Don’t forget the star now. Tau Secordis. Six names. But other living things? One name.”

“Are you a living thing?”

Gamelin shook its head. “Not really. But I don’t mind. It’s not so bad being dead. You should try it.” He took a step forward. “What was that you said about a sister?”

“You killed her.”

“Not possible, gato. I don’t even have parents.”

“You did.”

Gamelin looked puzzled. “How’d I kill her?”

“Broke her neck when she wouldn’t breathe your poisoned air.”

Gamelin’s eyes blinked, very slowly. Coren could not read its expression. The cyborg’s eyes narrowed briefly.

“Not acceptable,” it said.

“Coren!” Ariel’s voice called.

Gamelin looked around. Coren gripped his weapon and brought it up.

The cyborg moved fast, laterally. Coren fired. The bolt struck a cargo bin, punching a hole in it. Something within it had been under pressure and now shot out of the wound, sending the entire container careening off its track into another one. Within seconds, they dominoed off and into each other, and Coren watched, stunned, at the sudden pile-up.

The grid’s AI tried to compensate. Bins that had been immobile now began precipitously changing tracks and rearranging to avoid the collisions. Enormous piles of metal rammed each other. Bins bounced around like toys. The drumming of colliding bins filled the vast chamber. Somewhere the violent hiss of escaping gas cut through the thunder–the bin he had punctured.

What was I thinking about this being too neat and efficient...? Coren wondered.

Through the din, four harsh blaster shots, like air tearing, focussed his attention.

“Ariel!”

He looked around for her–just as Gamelin grabbed him.

Coren felt a bolt of terror pulse through him as he was lifted off his feet by one arm. The hand that gripped him compressed muscle and bone on his forearm, impossibly strong, and he understood how Jeta and Damik and the Brethe dealer and others unnamed had died. The blaster fell from his hand.

Now, was all he thought as he looked into Gamelin’s face.

Ariel ran. Cargo bins careened in her wake, seeming to chase her. When the inert cubes had begun to move to compensate for the sudden threat to property, restarted by a watchful but uncreative AI, she expected to be crushed between them.

She glanced back. One bin bounced randomly among the others, a thick spray of gas squirting powerfully from a hole in its side. She considered shooting it again, but that might only make it worse. She kept running.

Finally, near the warehouse end of the transport maze, the banging ended and the shifting bins stopped shifting. Ariel looked back into the altered landscape and thought, Even if very little is damaged, getting all this straightened out is going to take some doing...

When it was clear that nothing else was moving, she started back.

“Ambassador.” The TBI team leader came up alongside her. “The warehouse is secured, we have nine people in custody, and we found four robots in stand-by niches. Your assistance is required to secure them.”

“Are they moving?” Ariel asked.

“No–”

“Then they already are secured. Forget about them. Coren’s out here.”

“Ambassador. “The woman stepped in front of Ariel and stopped. Ariel came up against her outstretched hand. “Please go back. We’ll find Mr. Lanra.”

“You can accompany me.”

“Please, I insist–”

“Something started this disaster,” Ariel said, waving her hand around at the jumbled bins. “Coren’s vonoomans located no other people than those you already have in custody. Which means?”

“Ambassador–”

“Which means you can accompany me, but I’m going.”

Ariel stepped around the agent. She heard a sharp hiss of breath–a signal–and then running feet. Two more agents joined her, along with the team leader.

They spread out laterally and worked their way through the labyrinth of containers.

The number of damaged bins grew the further they went. Clusters of toppled containers formed tangles. Ariel held her blaster in both hands, her pulse racing.

I must remember in the future that I don’t really have to do this, she thought.

She heard voices. Moving toward them, it became clear that one of them was Coren, but the other–rasping and low–was not even clearly human.

Ariel came around a pair of mashed bins and saw Coren dangling by one arm from the grip of the cyborg. Coren nodded as the cyborg spoke to him, its head tilted forward on enormous shoulders.

Ariel licked her lips. Now what?

In those seconds of indecision, the cyborg suddenly straightened and looked around. It saw Ariel.

Indifferently, it dropped Coren.

In that instant, a blaster shot splashed against its back. “No!” Ariel shouted, then pressed the stud on her own weapon.

Gamelin’s pain came out like dust-laden wind. The cyborg took a few more steps, and fell. Coren squirmed and pushed and managed to crawl away. The stench of scorched fabric, melted plastic, and meat filled Ariel’s nostrils.

Ariel hurried forward, along with the TBI agents. One of them grabbed Coren’s jacket and dragged him further from the cyborg.

Ariel stopped a meter from it, keeping her weapon aimed at its head. It lay face down. Smoke wafted up from three burns on its back and shoulders.

The team leader took its arm and heaved, turning it over.

Gamelin surged up suddenly, brushing away her weapon and clutching her jacket.

“Oh, kill me slow, gato,” it said. “It’s the only thing I have left to feel.”

It placed one enormous hand over her face and squeezed. Bone snapped with sickening delicacy, and the team leader screamed.

Ariel jerked the trigger of her blaster; the shot grazed Gamelin’s arm. The cyborg stood and tossed the body of the team leader at the other agent, turned, and fled. Ariel tried to hit it again, firing repeatedly. But none of the shots found a target, and Gamelin soon disappeared among the cargo bins.

Ariel’s breathing came heavy as she went to Coren. Sweat covered his face, but he was conscious.

“It knows,” he said. “I told it.”

“How bad are you?” Ariel ran her gaze over him, settling on his right arm. She reached for it.

His other arm came up and stopped her. “Hurts.”

“We’ll get help.”

“Tresha must already be in transit,” Coren said. “Contact Sipha... make sure...”

Ariel felt momentarily frantic about his injuries, but she nodded and stood. She went to the other agent, who held the team leader in his arms. Her face was turning black already. One eye bulged hideously.

Somehow, though, she was still alive.

Ariel raised her comm and started issuing orders.

Derec listened absently to the tense comm traffic being monitored behind him. He gazed out of the office across the empty dock, waiting for the instant the bay doors opened and the shuttle for which they waited slid into the station.

Masid came up beside him.

“Reports from groundside indicate a rousing success, “Masid said.

Derec glanced at him. “How come you don’t sound pleased?”

Masid raised his eyebrows. “It’s not finished. I’m never happy till it’s over.”

“All the Settler bays in question have been seized,” Derec mused. “We have prisoners, some of whom are already giving up information–”

“Ah, but they don’t really know a lot. Most of it won’t amount to very much unless we can persuade this one–” he nodded toward the bay below them “–to talk. Tresha’s the key to the whole thing.”

“You never struck me as a pessimist.”

“Pragmatist. Big difference.”

“Coren’s been hurt,” Palen announced.

Derec and Masid turned toward the room. Harwol sat behind one desk, hand to his ear. Palen occupied another desk opposite him. She looked at Derec.

“Ambassador Burgess is all right,” she said. “The cyborg got away.”

“Damn,” Masid said.

“Is Lanra hurt badly?” Derec asked.

“Crushed forearm,” Palen said. “Reparable. Tresha is in transit.” She touched a contact. “Look sharp, people–the main fish is coming into our net.”

Derec turned away. One cyborg still loose. They had found no others. Part of him was reassured–at least they would not have to deal with any more right now–but he could not convince himself that these represented the only two. From what Polifos had told them, it was an old and ongoing program. Somewhere, there were more.

Maybe Tresha could tell them.

“Damn it!” Palen shouted. “Her shuttle is changing vector. It’s heading to another bay. Who gave clearance for that?”

Harwol looked up. “I’m moving my people now. Do you have the new destination?”

Palen listened intently. “Working on it... come on... shit, it’s going to a Solarian dock.”

Masid leaned close to Derec. “What did I tell you?”

Derec went to an empty chair and pulled himself to a comm. He tapped in a code and waited. Ambassador Setaris appeared on his screen.

“Ambassador,” he said, “we have a new situation. Our last target has switched destination from the Settler dock she was scheduled for to the Solarian section.”

Setaris’s eyes widened. “What do you need, Mr. Avery?”

“We’re moving on her regardless,” Derec said, glancing at Palen and Harwol, who both nodded. “You might want to start working on smoothing things over with Ambassador Chassik now.”

“Thank you for the warning. Good luck.”

“Move, “Harwol said, looking at Palen. “Your station, your arrest.”

Palen jumped up and headed for the exit.

Masid nodded for Derec to come along.

When they reached the dock in question, Solarian security–Keresians–blocked access. Palen pushed her way through the knot of TBI and station security. She brought her face close to the chief of Solarian security.

“Chief Palen,” she said. “Stand aside. This is a lawful entry.”

“I have orders–” the Keresian started.

Palen shoved him to one side and stabbed the access panel. The door opened.

Her people poured through.

They crowded into the control booth. Operators started to abandon their positions.

“Sit down!” Palen shouted. “You’re receiving an unauthorized shuttle. When will it be in the bay?”

“Your pardon, Chief Palen, “one of the operators said, “but we received authorization fifteen minutes ago.”

“From who?”

“Our embassy, of course.”

Palen stared at the man. “Are you going to tell me that this shuttle is under diplomatic protection?”

“I–well–”

“Entering the cradle now,” another operator said.

“Bring it in,” Palen ordered. “Embassy clearance or not, that shuttle is impounded.”

Below, the huge doors opened. Tractor lines drew the sleek, bullet-shaped shuttle into the, bay. Once it had cleared the opening, the doors sealed and the bay started pressurizing.

Palen moved to the access hatch. “Security, with me. Avery, you get on the comm and do liaison with your people. Masid, you do the same with Harwol.”

“Pressurization complete, “an operator announced.

Derec went to the comm console and tapped in a code. The channel to the Auroran Embassy, Earthside, showed open.

The hatch slid aside and Palen led her squad of police down the stairs. The hatch closed behind them. Derec went to the window and watched the security teams spread out around the shuttle.

Masid joined Derec. “Now maybe I’ll start being optimistic,” he said.

Derec looked at the chief operator. “Who issued the clearance?”

“I’m not at liberty to–”

“Don’t. A name. Was it Chassik?”

The man looked embarrassed and uncertain. “Derec,” Masid said.

Below, the shuttle hatch opened. Palen took a position at the base of the ramp, hands on hips. A woman appeared in the hatchway. For a long, long moment, she gazed down at the security people and Palen.

There was a faint series of flashes around the bay door. And then, between one instant and the next, the door itself blew outward.

Derec flinched back. The shuttle lurched off its cradle, the prow rolling over Palen. Bodies lifted off the deck and sailed out the gaping hole. The shuttle itself caught against the sides of the dock, wedged briefly.

Then it exploded.

There was no sound. Derec fell to the floor. He could hear the walls of the control booth creaking under enormous stress, but they did not yield.

Minutes later, he managed to stand.

The bay was empty of anything that might have been loose. The walls were stained black, and the hatch itself was buckled outward. The shuttle was gone, and no one remained in the now airless space.

Epilogue

DEREC WATCHED MASID pack. The man wore the clothes of someone used to moving around: comfortable, lots of pockets, simply cut. The pack, though, contained tools and devices no baley would carry.

“You’re sure about this?” Derec asked.

“I’ve got the best chance of getting to Nova Levis of anyone,” Masid said. “Already worked it out with the TBI and the Aurorans, so don’t even try talking me out of it.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Derec had grown quite fond of Masid in the last few days, since the world had changed. Derec had few enough friends. The thought of losing a new one disturbed him.

But Palen’s death had affected Masid profoundly. He was angry and felt the need to do something. Derec believed going off like that was a bad idea, but he could think of no convincing argument to stop Masid.

“You’ve got your hands full here,” Masid said. He glanced significantly at the robot standing near the door. “You wouldn’t want to loan that to me, would you?”

Derec started. “That could be awkward, don’t you think? Having a robot with you wouldn’t be the most inconspicuous thing you could do.”

“True, but I think I’m going to miss it.”

The DW-12 did not react. Derec needed to schedule a complete diagnostic for it. Thales was unable to tell him very much about its make-up; everything was guesswork and projection. For a time, it had insisted on accompanying Masid. It took a good deal of insistent talk to convince it to stay with Derec. He recognized Bogard’s attachment to duty, certainly, but its facility at debate was all Thales. Derec doubted he would win every argument with this new creation, this composite.

“You’re right,” Derec admitted. “Besides, Ariel asked me to help her do the analysis on the cyborg we acquired.”

“‘Acquired’? Interesting term. ‘Killed and captured’ would be more accurate.”

“If you destroy a robot, do you kill it?”

Masid frowned.

“It’s a good question,” Derec continued. “I’d say no. They aren’t, strictly speaking, alive. Can you make the same statement about a cyborg? They’re organic, certainly, but are they human?”

“Or human enough.” Masid nodded. “Too much philosophy for me. I’m just a spy.” He finished packing and sealed the bag, then turned back to Derec. “We need to say goodbye. It’ll take me a few days to work myself back under cover so I can do this with any expectation of success. I’ll be on Kopernik for a time still, but after this we can’t know each other.”

Derec took Masid’s hand. “Be safe.”

“Always my intention.”

Masid shouldered the pack and walked quickly out.

Derec looked at the DW-12. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Whatever you wish,” the robot replied. “Within limits.”

Derec started, then laughed out loud. “What do I call you?”

“The preponderance of my matrix is based on Bogard.”

“In that case, welcome back, Bogard. We have a lot to talk about....”

Derec found Hofton in the positronics lab with Rana. They looked up at him dourly when he entered.

“Now who died?” Derec asked.

Neither smiled.

“Ariel can’t get you permission to bring Bogard down,” Hofton said.

Derec considered the news for a moment, then shrugged. “So I expected.”

“She’s also being seconded to Auroran intelligence.”

He started. “What?”

“The cyborg is being shipped back to Aurora. They want her to work on it. Classified work, of course.”

“I thought–”

“She wants you, boss,” Rana said. “But if you leave Earth...”

“I won’t get back.”

“It is unlikely,” Hofton admitted.

“I see.”

“Boss–”

Derec held up a hand. “We’ve got a little time, don’t we?”

“A few days,” Hofton said. “Not much more, I’m sure.”

“We’ll work something out.” Derec looked around the lab. “I need a workstation set up for a full diagnostic. Is Thales still linked up?”

Rana nodded. “No one’s shut it down yet.”

“Fine.”

Work would take his mind off the situation for a time. Perhaps he could come to terms with what amounted to exile.

Yart Leri strode into the lab. He gazed about, eyes wide, until he saw Derec, Rana, and Hofton.

“There you are,” he said, coming up to them. “Have you heard? No, of course you haven’t. I just found out myself.”

“Rega Looms has won the election despite having withdrawn?” Hofton said dryly.

Leri frowned at him. “No, of course not.”

“Sorry, Ambassador,” Derec said, giving Hofton a look. “What haven’t we heard?”

“Nova Levis. A blockade runner has fired on a Theian perimeter ship. We may have a war on our hands.”

Ariel’s lower back ached from the too-stiff posture. She could not make herself relax, and the chair simply could not compensate for her tension.

The room felt cold, too. She was not entirely sure that was not an illusion, her own projection. No one around the conference table smiled; the mood was sepulchral. For the last four hours, Setaris had conducted the meeting–hearing, really–with all the warmth of a stone slab. After the first hour, Gale Chassik had stopped looking at anyone. He answered the questions put to him in monosyllables when possible, offering as little detail as he could get away with.

The clearance that had allowed the shuttle carrying Tresha to switch destinations to the Solarian section of Kopernik had come from his office. He refused to acknowledge responsibility, but he could not deny the evidence.

He had stopped responding to questions at all nearly an hour ago. Ariel had been asked a few questions concerning details of the raid, but otherwise had not participated in the proceedings.

“In view of the circumstances,” Setaris said finally, “I cannot in good conscience overlook the potential culpability in this matter on the part of Ambassador Chassik. Therefore, as head of the joint legation of the Fifty Worlds on Earth, I revoke his ambassadorial authority pending a hearing to review charges of abuse of office and negligence. Such hearing will be held on Aurora at a date to be determined by the Auroran legislature. Until then, Ambassador Chassik is remanded to house arrest, and his duties shall be assumed by another mission to be chosen by mutual agreement of this body.”

Chassik looked up. “You ‘re making a vast mistake, Sen.”

“Possibly,” Setaris said. “But a vastly smaller one than I would be making were I to allow you to continue as ambassador. Any questions?” She surveyed the table. “Good. This meeting is adjourned.”

Ariel gratefully pushed away from the table and stood.

Chassik met her at the door and blocked her way.

“And, indeed, we have not finished, Ambassador,” he said.

Ariel glanced at the two security guards flanking him. They stepped closer. Chassik glared at them, then left the room.

“He’ll probably be recalled,” Setaris said.

Ariel turned.

“I’ll see to it he leaves before you do,” Setaris continued. “I apologize, Ariel. I know you wanted to remain on Earth, but...”

“But I’m much more valuable where I can be kept an eye on,” Ariel said. “I understand.”

“Ariel, I actually envy you leaving so soon. I don’t imagine that we’ll have a mission here for much longer. Once the Terran senate finishes casting us in the role of the devil for having spawned a new menace, we’ll be asked to leave. If war actually breaks out... well, I don’t look forward to leaving under those conditions.”

“Why would Earth make war on us? It was a Settler ship that fired on a Spacer ship.”

“Prejudice. We’ll be assuming control of the blockade, Earth will feel some perverse sympathy for the Settlers that we are then blockading, and the situation will degenerate from there.” Setaris shrugged. “I may be too cynical, though. Perhaps none of this will actually happen. If not, perhaps you can return.”

Ariel could think of no response. She wanted to go back to her apartment and have a drink.

Or go see Coren.

Which would be more dangerous right now? she wondered.

“We can talk again before you leave, “Setaris said. “Arrangements need to be made and so forth. Till then, as a favor to me–be careful.”

As she watched Setaris walk away, Ariel thought, I’m not happy about leaving Earth, but it will be a relief to get away from her.

Rega Looms finished the meeting and sat behind his desk, eyes closed, trying to find the satisfaction he once enjoyed from business well-concluded. Nothing. After a time, he sighed and wondered if anything, ever again, would give him any joy.

Melodramatic thought...

He poured himself a glass of brandy and drank it slowly. When it was finished, he left the office and ascended to his private chambers.

On the desk in his residential office lay the draft of his next sermon. He was alone now–wife dead, both children dead. He had nothing left but his company and his church. Politics was over for him, at least as a personal activity.

He toyed with the ancient pen he always used to hand write these pieces, but, looking down the lines of neatly calligraphed words, he could think of nothing more to add just now.

The world was ending and he had said everything...

Looms shook his head. Ridiculous. Still, he felt that way often. What if, tomorrow, time stopped and the end came? Would he have done all he needed to do?

Some things he no longer could finish.

There were words he had needed to say to Nyom...

He walked into his bedroom.

Someone sat on the edge of the bed. A large man, dressed darkly, bare head bowed.

“Who are you?” Looms asked automatically. He thought of the gun in his nightstand.

The man raised his head. The room’s lighting played off of pale skin, rough, scarred complexion, and large eyes that seemed somehow artificial. He grinned.

“Hello, Daddy,” said Gamelin. “So nice to see you after all these years...”

Aurora

3622 A.D.

Prologue

Record module new file catalogue designation “Operations Adjustment, Relocation, and Program Revision” access code protected pending security verifications running current upload virtual conference reference unlabeled fill visual fill audio status On

THE THICK MAN with amber-tinged white hair watched the other chairs around the table become occupied. Eighteen chairs, but after everyone arrived only seven of them were in use. He smiled to himself at the cosmetic masks most of them used. Two of them were shifting blurs, people seen through patterned glass.

The program whispered in his ear that everyone who was going to show up was present. He tapped his fingers lightly on the tabletop. The sound traveled effectively through the environment, as good as a gavel strike, and the attendees stopped their quiet chatter and turned their full attention to their host.

“Our ranks have thinned,” he said. “Still, there are more of you than I expected.” He looked around at each of them, fixing one after another with a narrow gaze.

“The arrests have been unexpected and embarrassing,” he continued. “Alda Mikels is back in prison, pending trial for conspiracy to commit murder. Personally, I believe he will beat the charge, but it no longer matters. This unfortunate turn has rendered him useless to us. That has damaged the organization, but we’re not crippled. We can function without Mikels.

“However, our shipping lines have been severely compromised. That is not something as easily survived. We’ve lost several key operatives in the wave of arrests following the discovery of our Nova Levis operation. Most expensively, we’re now short two cyborgs. Our chief operative on Kopernik Station is dead, as are her principal contacts on the ground on Earth. The arrests following these incidents have severely curtailed our ability to funnel material in and out of Earth ports, and our distribution network on Earth has been shut down for the duration.”

He smiled grimly. “Would that Heisenberg save us from honest police.”

A smattering of dry laughter circled the table.

“The chief problem, however,” he resumed after a long pause, “is a matter of information. We don’t know how much they know about our operations. We have no idea how much they may understand about our program. As bad as things have been to date, the real catastrophe may yet come.

“I’ve decided, therefore, to move the timetable up slightly. I look around at our gathering here and see that a useable number of us are still willing to go forward. Your presence here declares your commitment. But that so many others are no longer either able or willing to meet with us urges a sharp departure from our former long-term goals. In the wake of everything that has happened in the previous fourteen months, I believe we should abandon Earth.”

Quick looks and muttering followed. He waited till their attention returned to him.

“I know,” he said. “Many of you live on Earth. However, it seems clear that Earth has become inhospitable toward us. In time, I’m certain, we can reestablish a base. Till then, though, we should move the center of operations. Reducing Earth to simply one more market rather than pretending that it can be a haven for our activities will hardly damage profits. The freedom of movement we now enjoy among the more recently established Settler colonies will, I believe, more than compensate for the loss of comfort and prestige Earth has offered in the past. The fact remains, however, that our agenda failed when we were unable to displace Aurora from her position as chief legation to Earth. The subsequent restructuring of the law enforcement programs has in some respects strengthened their position on Earth and allowed the Terrans to emerge as a policing force among the older Settler colonies. This is becoming inconvenient.

“We’re fortunate, however, that all their attention has been diverted to a demand for ground inspections on Nova Levis. This is leaving most of our operations free to conduct business unfettered over the majority of our range.

“At least, for now. Aurora is agitating for a stronger Spacer presence to assist in the Terran effort to curtail our operations. They’re gaining support for this position in the Council of Fifty Worlds. The Theians, as we have seen, are already putting ships at Terran disposal. Who knows how long we have before a majority of Spacer worlds come around to Aurora’s point of view?”

“So what do you suggest we do about it?” one of the blurred attendees demanded.

The others looked at the speaker nervously. No one before had ever interrupted the Chairman.

“I suggest,” the Chairman said after a time, “that we replace Aurora as chief Spacer world.”

“That’s been one of your intentions all along,” the blur said. “Eighteen months ago you expected exactly that to happen after slaughtering all those diplomats on Earth. What do you propose to do differently?”

The Chairman reached forward and touched a contact on the table.

Abruptly, everyone’s appearance changed. The cosmetic “tweaking” most of them employed when attending these meetings vanished, leaving them as they really appeared in life. The two blurred members suddenly snapped into focus. From the sharp intake of breath all around, no one had guessed their identities before.

All of them turned angry glares on the Chairman. His own appearance had altered, though not as completely as the others, giving the impression that the masking program he employed had switched off.

“That’s better,” he said. “I like to know who is challenging me.”

One of the unveiled leaned forward. “You always knew who I was!”

“Yes, but now everyone does. So if I’m stabbed in the back, everyone will have a face to remember and a name to accuse.”

It amazed him sometimes how well unspoken communications functioned in this noncorporeal place. The tension around the table seemed to tingle over his skin.

“We’re moving all operations to Nova Levis,” the Chairman said. “From there, we can manage the coming campaign.”

“Are we going to war?” one of the others asked.

“We’ve been at war,” the Chairman said dryly. “We’re simply acknowledging it openly, at least among ourselves. I can’t see how this will have a negative effect. We may all become more focussed. I do not require all of you to join me there, though. You each have tasks which will be best carried out from other locations.”

“Why Nova Levis?” another asked. “It’s blockaded, the place is falling apart—it’s hellish.”

“Precisely. No one would expect anyone to move a power base to such a place. The blockade will give us the ideal blind from cover in which we can carry out our business. It has created tensions between all the factions and even though relations between Terran and Spacer are in some ways better, they are more fragile than ever before. If we damage that, we can compromise Aurora. And when Aurora finally falls, it will become the perfect world from which to orchestrate the final shift in power.”

He looked at them. He could see their interest, their avarice, even under their natural reticence and suspicion. They’re all worried what this is going to cost them . . .

“You’ve each been sent data packets since arriving at this meeting. In them you’ll find specific instructions. I’ve taken steps to ensure your safety as far as possible, but nothing worth doing is without risk. You’ve heard this before, of course, that the rewards are great. You’ve heard it before, heard it from me, and it has always been true. You’ve all gained enormous wealth through our association. Power. The only thing worth risking that for is more wealth and power. And status. Right now none of you can actually admit to anyone who you really are and what you really do. When this is finished, you may all step out of the shadows, into the full light of unchallenged status. Dawn is coming.”

A few smiles, nods all around, even from the two completely unmasked members.

“Good,” the Chairman said, slapping the table. “Let me show you the prize.”

Around the table, abruptly, a landscape shimmered into existence. Lush grass stretched away in all directions, toward low hills, fields filled with orchards, golden-barked serpentine oaks, and a cloudless turquoise sky. The Terrans at the table flinched. It had been a long time since their last visit here, and they were no longer used to the open-aired vistas in which the Chairman liked to hold his meetings. This, though, was even more striking. They were Outside, not even the pretense of a structure to shield them from the vastness of unenclosed nature.

“This is the prize,” the Chairman announced, standing. He waved around at the limitless sky and the pristine sward. “When we are done, this will be our capital, our home. We will live here.” He laughed and looked at them. Even those evidently pleased with the prospect seemed bemused. He laughed louder. “Don’t you recognize it? I said dawn was coming. This is what it will look like.

“This is Aurora.”

Chapter 1

ARIEL BURGESS OPENED her eyes in the dim room and stared up at the featureless ceiling. Dream images fled, dissipated against the flatness above. Lately her dreams seemed to be taking place from the perspective of a childhood she could not remember. It seemed appropriate that she could, on waking, retain nothing specific about the dreams.

But they had woken her early every morning for the past six weeks.

A heavy sigh, followed by oddly muted smacking sounds, drew her attention. Beside her, Coren rolled tentatively onto his right side, poised unconsciously for a few seconds, then twisted back onto his left side, his face half buried in pillow. He had kicked off his sheet again, though it persistently tangled his calves. Ariel never understood why he bothered with covers—he kept his apartment overly warm. She glanced down at herself, only covered up to her thighs.

Something primal about sleeping with a blanket, she thought. That must be it . . .

Ariel tried to fall back to sleep. It never worked, but Coren sometimes took it as a personal rebuke to wake up alone.

The hell with it, she thought, and eased out of bed.

She went to the kitchen and punched the autochef for coffee. A few seconds later, she took the steaming cup and went to the comm. She tapped in the code for her own apartment in the Spacer embassy enclave.

“Ambassador Burgess’s residence,” answered the faintly feminine voice of her robot.

“Jennie, it’s Ariel. Any messages?”

“Derec Avery wishes to speak with you at your convenience. Hofton called, but left no specific message. Ambassador Setaris wishes to see you as soon as possible.”

Ariel shivered briefly. Setaris . . .

“Thank you, Jennie. If Ambassador Setaris calls again, tell her I have not checked in. I’m taking personal time.”

“That would be a lie.”

“Exactly, Jennie. I am not now officially checking in. Understood?”

“And personal time?”

“Starting yesterday.”

“Very well, Ariel.”

“Are both Hofton and Derec still on Kopernik Station?”

“Hofton returned from Kopernik last night. Mr. Avery is still on Kopernik.”

“Fine. I’ll contact Hofton on my own. Patch me through to Derec.”

Ariel sipped her coffee while the complex transaction of making a secure connection between Coren Lanra’s apartment, through her own apartment in the Spacer embassy, to Derec on Kopernik Station proceeded. It took several seconds before Derec’s face appeared on the small screen.

His eyes widened briefly. Ariel leaned forward and adjusted the angle of view, limiting what Derec saw to just her face. Derec smiled.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ariel answered wryly. “Setaris wants to see me. As soon as possible.”

“Ah. Have you spoken to her yet?”

“No. I thought it would be best to talk to you and Hofton first.”

Derec nodded. “Where are you?”

“I’m with Coren.”

Ariel saw the first hint of a frown, an instant of disapproval in his face, and felt a brief chill. Derec had never looked at her quite that way before. “Is that wise?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” She laughed self-effacingly. “I always seem to have better luck with Terrans.”

Derec looked surprised. “That’s not what I mean. Setaris wants to see you. Under current circumstances—political circumstances—”

“Oh.” Now she felt foolish. “Little late now to worry about that.”

“I suppose. Anyway, Hofton is on the ground, finishing up Thales’ transferral up here. Approval went through very quickly, so—”

“So it looks like we’re getting sent home after all.”

“I am, at least.”

“No, they’ve been treating us as a package. Every conversation I have with Setaris anymore, it’s ‘Mr. Avery and you’ or ‘Derec, you, others.’ I don’t think Setaris sees us as separate entities. If you’re going home, then I am, too. She just hasn’t told me yet.”

“She wants to see you as soon as possible.”

“Of course. Whenever Setaris wants something, it’s now. Has she spoken to you?”

“No, not directly, but I haven’t been able to talk to the liaison here as freely as I used to.”

“Is that why you called? To see if I knew anything?”

“Partly. I wanted you to see if, before you were completely shut out, you could at least sign off on Rana’s request for citizenship application.” For close to a year, his assistant, Rana Duvan, had been trying to get Auroran citizenship, partly because she hoped to study at the legendary Calvin Institute there. Mostly, however, it was because the troubles she, Derec, and Ariel had found themselves in had made Earth far too politically hot for her to remain.

Ariel tried to ignore the spike of irritation. “I thought that was already done. Hofton could take care of it.”

“Evidently not anymore. I received word that he’s been transferred out of your service, effective last night.”

“Oh.” The irritation turned to anger, then faded into a kind of hopeless resignation. “I see. So the shaft finishes its long journey into the heart.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Ariel said.

“No, but—hell, somebody should apologize and the people who did it to us certainly won’t.”

Ariel laughed. “Well. Look, thanks for caring. I’ll see what I can do for Rana. I have a few things I want to do before Setaris gives me my travel orders.”

“Talk to Hofton beforehand, all right? And be careful.”

“Always.”

She touched the disconnect and leaned back in the chair. After a moment, she turned. Coren stood in the doorway, watching her, a cup in his left hand.

“It’s almost over,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“I—maybe. Probably.”

“Setaris is looking for you. Derec’s getting final approval to take his Resident Intelligence up to Kopernik—which means Terran authorities have stopped trying to get him out of Auroran embassy space and just want him gone. And Hofton’s down here, probably looking for you, but reassigned.” He shrugged. “How long do you figure we have?”

The one thing about Coren Lanra she had yet to really understand was his complete lack of self-deception. He could be sentimental, but he always managed to isolate it from reality. Worse, his refusal to lie to himself forced her to a level of honesty that was immediate and unforgiving.

How long did they have? Ariel did not know how to judge. She had originally thought her transfer would come within days of being told she was going back. But that had been nearly two months ago. She knew things moved slowly through Spacer bureaucracy, but . . .

“Couple days,” she said. “At most.”

He took a drink from his cup, and came toward her. He stopped and brushed his fingers along the line of her jaw. “So what do you want to do?”

“Do I have options?”

“I could still make some calls, pull in a few favors, get you a Terran citizenship.”

“That’s a bit unlikely, don’t you think?”

“No. Not if you present it to the right people the right way.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m—it wouldn’t be comfortable.”

“All right. Then what do you want to do?”

Make love, she thought. They had done that nearly every day since Coren’s release from the hospital. She glanced at his right arm. The hair was beginning to grow back where the skin grafts had coated his wrist and forearm. Within, she knew, bone had been rebuilt. He had sustained other injuries from the cyborg Gamelin, but the arm had been the hardest to repair, taken the longest to recover.

Thinking about Gamelin, she asked, “Have you heard from Rega Looms lately?”

“No. I’m not on his keep-in-touch list.”

Coren’s former employer, whom Coren had walked out on, had sent only one communication that Ariel knew about—a large payment Coren assumed was severance pay.

Gamelin had been Rega Looms’ son at one time, abandoned in infancy, the victim of a chronic disorder for which there was no cure, only certain death after an undetermined length of time. Looms had kept the infant’s existence a secret from everyone, even the sister born a few years later—a sister the reconstructed, transformed, and returned scion had murdered, a sister with whom Coren had been in love once . . .

Quitting had been the only reasonable option Coren had left. He could not continue being Looms’ head of security when he no longer respected or trusted the man. Ariel thought she understood that.

But she had stubbornly refused to resign her own position with the Auroran legation after realizing that her own superiors had lied to her and used her and similarly destroyed her respect for them. She could not bring herself to quit. Is that a flaw or a virtue?

The past year and two months had been hellish. Friends killed, her mission on Earth for Aurora altered beyond recognition, old anxieties about her worth to Aurora resurrected. Cyborgs, of all things, appearing out the miasma of impossibility. The best she could do, the best she had done, was to simply hold on, ride it out, and do her job the best way she knew. Not that it mattered for her own career—any choice she made had put her more and more on the fast track to dismissal.

What do I want to do . . . ?

Not go home in disgrace.

Coren waited patiently. He possessed that ability in more abundance than any man she had ever known. He knew how to wait. He did it well.

What have I left unfinished? she wondered. Other than my life . . .

She looked up at him. “I want to see Nova Levis.”

Coren frowned. “The lab or the planet? There’s nothing in the lab. It’s been closed down for years.”

“So we were told.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. Finally, he nodded. “Get dressed.”

They stepped down the ramp from the semiballistic, into the press of the Indones Sector station. Ariel’s nose wrinkled at the sharp aromas. Just outside the transition lounge, vendors in kiosks hawked steaming foods, bright scarves that tied around the waist or across the shoulder, souvenir trinkets, and maps to the sector.

The concourse arched over them like the ribs of an ancient promenade. They made their way through the throngs, bags slung over shoulders, to the brightness at the far end.

Ariel and Coren emerged into a vast terminal. The domed ceiling above glowed with pearlescent light. Queues formed at all the desks, for travel either by tube, semiballistic, surface transport, or local service. Coren led the way to the local transport access and quickly secured a cab.

“DyNan Manual Industries local offices,” he told the autopilot.

“I thought you resigned from them,” Ariel said.

“I did. But I still have friends. I made a couple calls before we left.”

He opened his pack and pulled out a palm-sized device. He opened it out till it was nearly a meter square. A grid map appeared on its surface. He tapped a glowing green circle.

“The lab is somewhere in this block of old conversion,” he said. “Not sure precisely where, which is why I needed to make those calls.” He folded up his screen and slipped it back into the bag. “This whole region is constantly under construction. Most of it is underwater.”

“I know,” Ariel said. “The Pacific Ocean is above us even now.”

“Not yet. Another few kilometers.”

Ariel found his hand and squeezed. He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers. She had a mental list of things she wanted to say to him. They rode all the way to the DyNan compound in silence.

The cab descended several levels, through narrower avenues lined with people and businesses and apartment blocks that seemed to crowd in even more than typically for Earth. The warrens pulsed with activity. Ariel felt a sudden craving. She wanted . . . but could not define what she wanted.

To stay . . . ?

Finally, the cab turned down an empty, private lane sandwiched between two high walls. It stopped at the gate at the end.

“Wait here,” Coren said, and got out.

Ariel watched him walk up to the gate and insert a card in the reader slot. A moment later, he used a different card. A door off to his right opened. He turned, grinning, and gestured for her to join him.

Ariel grabbed both packs and slid out of the cab.

Beyond the narrow entrance, they followed a corridor to another doorway, which opened on a garden area. Glass-walled offices lined the opposite side of the arboretum. A man wound his way along the snaking pathway to meet them.

“Coren,” the man said, nodding as he stopped before them.

“Green,” Coren said.

“Coming back to work, boss?”

Coren looked surprised. “How’s that?”

Green looked uncertain then. “We heard you were injured.”

“You didn’t hear that I resigned?”

“Rumors . . . nothing anyone took seriously.” He frowned deeply. “Did you?”

Coren sighed. “I need a favor, Green. Depending on that we’ll see how true which rumors are.”

“Okay.”

“I need access to an old section in Teluk Tolo.”

“I take it you can’t get there through public services.”

“Let’s say I don’t want to bother anybody about it.”

Green nodded. “Let’s see what you need.” He glanced at Ariel. “You must be Ambassador Burgess.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Green Honli, branch security chief,” he said, extending a hand.

Ariel shook it. “Pleased to meet you.”

“There’s a snake out for you.”

Ariel blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“How old?” Coren asked.

“Twelve hours,” Green said.

“What is a snake?” Ariel asked.

“One step down from a warrant,” Coren said. “On the quiet, a request for local authorities to locate and return you to your embassy. Nothing public, but a damn nuisance.” He hissed between his teeth. “All we need is a day, Green.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Come on, I’ve had housekeeping prep the visitor apartment.”

Less than a half-hour later, Green took them in a DyNan transport out another exit.

“We used to have a workforce of nearly three thousand,” Green explained. He gestured out the window at passing apartment blocks. “We housed them here. That’s been a few years. All this is empty. We’ve been negotiating with the local district housing authority for converting it to public domiciles, but we’re having a problem over squatting.”

“Can’t get them to police it?” Coren asked.

“Basically. Without guarantees and reversion rights, DyNan’s not about to let the sector have it. Not surprising. Indones reportedly has the worst warren-squatting on the globe.” He shrugged. “Old problem.”

“So this is all uninhabited?” Ariel asked, gesturing out the window at the passing blocks.

“A couple businesses rent office and warehouse space,” Green said, “but by and large no one lives here.”

The transport traveled uncharacteristically empty streets for nearly ten minutes. Green signaled the driver to stop within sight of a boundary wall that shot up to join a tangle of strutwork and supporting columns just below the eaves of a cupola. He gestured for Ariel and Coren to get out.

Green took a disk from his pocket and handed it to Coren. “This is the guide to the site you want. It’s about ten kilometers from here, but two down,” he emphasized, jabbing a finger toward the pavement. “You might have some trouble actually getting into it. According to sector housing updates, after it was closed it was scheduled to be converted into vat space for waste treatment and gas exchangers. There’s nothing to indicate that the conversion actually took place, which isn’t uncommon here, either, so it may be just sitting there empty.”

“That was quick,” Coren said.

“You trained us,” Green said with mock indignity. “Actually, stuff like this is fairly easy. Anytime something is scheduled for a conversion, there’s a civil court file opened on it in anticipation of legal challenges—competing claims, special interest suits, oversight committee interest . . . I’ll tell you, boss, sometimes I wish I could work in the Horn District or Brasil or even in the Persak. The local bureaucracy here is mind-numbing. But anyway, you just screen for open court files. If they’re still open pending a hearing, all the relevant data is there.”

“This should have been resolved eighteen years ago,” Ariel said.

Green shrugged. “Recently, Imbitek had to rip out an entire distribution center because the file was still open on their license to convert an old hospice center. The center had been abandoned, closed down for twelve years. They petitioned for the space, got preliminary approval, and moved in after waiting a recommended four years to see if anyone would challenge. They neglected to file a claim to seal the approval to amendation. Someone challenged. Now here’s the amazing thing: The court told them to restore the space to its original condition pending the hearing. Imbitek could still win the petition, but it won’t even be heard while they continue to operate.”

Coren shook his head. “Trust me, Indones doesn’t have a lock on that kind of thing. I could tell you some stories . . .” He glanced at Ariel. “But later.” He slipped the disk into his reader. “So, we have to do this on foot?”

“Sorry, yes.” Green pointed to the nearest building. “This is the access to the maintenance warrens under here. You’ll find the path through the link stations connecting the housing plant to the civic infrastructure on the disk. This way you can avoid running into anyone. Do the whole thing through the service tunnels. It’ll take longer, but . . .”

“Perfect,” Coren said. “Thanks. We’ll be back by morning.”

“I’ll be here.”

Coren walked away. Ariel followed a moment later, glancing back from the door to the maintenance building to see Green Honli climb back into the transport. The vehicle, nearly silent, circled around and headed back the way it had come.

The small anteroom was dark, lit poorly by red guide lights on the floor and around the ceiling.

“Do you trust him?” she asked.

Coren opened his reader and studied the new grid that scrolled across its surface. “As much as anyone else. There’s nothing to be gained by him lying to us or turning us in. We haven’t done anything illegal and as for Rega—I checked while we were waiting for Green to get us this material and guess what? I am still technically an employee of DyNan Manual Industries. I’ve even been collecting a salary.”

“So it wouldn’t be practical for him to betray us.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” He looked at her. She could not see his eyes in the dimness. “Look at it this way: Even if he turned you over to the authorities, I still haven’t done anything. He’d have to deal with me, then, and he knows me.” He shook his head. “We have a little time. There’s not much I can do to keep you from having to go back to your people. Let’s do what you want and stop wasting time on fruitless paranoia.”

“Paranoia is a habit.”

“Then get over it.” He studied the grid. “This way.”

He refolded the reader and headed off. For a moment, Ariel considered letting him go and running. It was a peculiar feeling, one she had not experienced in many years. It was fear, she knew, but the kind of fear she had thought long banished from her palette of emotions—fear of finishing.

Things were coming to an end. Following Coren now guaranteed their completion.

And then what?

She hefted her small backpack and lurched after him.

They climbed down a series of ladders, through narrower and narrower passages, until they reached an ancient walkway. Through the gaps in the lattices Ariel made out vague amalgams of machine-shapes, artifacts slowly congealing into organic imitations of landscape, coated with the drippings and growths of centuries of inattention. Her nose wrinkled at a pervasively fetid atmosphere which seemed to alternate between sickly-sweet and musty decay.

The light that surrounded them was a combination of dimming service lights and phosphorescent growths along the walls. They progressed through long stretches of corridor which possessed no light at all. Coren’s lamp flicked on then and Ariel followed his silhouette.

He stopped and opened up his reader.

Around them, distant sounds, wet and metallic and combinations of both, echoed, intimating vast spaces beyond the range of their light and vision.

In the glow of the flatscreen, Coren’s face looked grim. After studying the map for several seconds, he handed Ariel the reader, unshouldered his pack, and knelt. He took out a handful of tiny devices. He touched each one and, in turn, they glowed faintly. When he dropped them to the ground, they abruptly scattered, scampering off into the darkness.

Coren retrieved the reader from Ariel and tapped the control pad a couple of times.

“Now maybe we can see if this leads where it’s supposed to,” he muttered.

Ariel suppressed a shudder and watched the screen.

One by one, then in clusters, blue markers appeared on the grid, locating each of the little machines.

The ones scurrying down the path designated by the map stopped. They shifted around for a few moments, then shot off down alternate routes. Finally, one of them blinked red and the others converged on it, running along the new path.

“Okay,” Coren said. He sounded relieved. “Let’s go.”

When they reached the spot where Coren’s scouts had stopped, they found that the passage had been sealed off with new construction. Under their lights, the surface of the wall appeared visibly newer than its surroundings.

They followed the scouts.

“Listen,” Ariel said.

Coren halted. A faint whispering sound penetrated. “Water,” he said.

The path led down again. Ancient steps, a short ladder—Coren checked the map regularly now, as they were well off the route provided by Green Honli—and finally along a narrow corridor that ended at a circular chamber with a hatch in the floor. Several of Coren’s machines clustered around it.

He deactivated the tiny vonoomans and scooped them up, returning them to his pack. He checked the flatscreen.

“Under here,” he said. “Either we’re about to climb into a sewage treatment facility—maybe even a sewage line—or . . .” He shrugged elaborately.

“Open it,” Ariel said.

It was warm in the small room. Sweat trickled along Ariel’s spine.

“We’re under ocean,” Coren said as he began working at the security lock on the hatch. “A kilometer up. Maybe three kilometers from the mainland.”

He tapped code into the lock and waited. When nothing happened, he grunted and opened his pack again. He took out a small device and placed it against the hatch, close to the security keypad.

“Ah,” he said after a few seconds. He tapped in a new sequence. The seals snapped open with a brittle snik. Coren looked up. “Ready?”

Ariel waved him to proceed. Coren removed his scanner and stood up. He touched a plate alongside the hatch with his toe and the entire door swung up with a faint pneumatic hiss.

“Doesn’t smell like sewage,” Coren said, smiling. He dropped a few of his scouts down the opening. He watched his flatscreen. “Clear.”

He folded up the screen and dropped it into his pack. He climbed down the hatch. Ariel drew a deep breath and followed.

She reached bottom in nearly total darkness. An instant later, Coren switched on his light and dragged its beam over the walls of the room. Ariel could make no sense out of the fragments illuminated, but Coren grunted suddenly and walked away.

An instant later, a ceiling light came on.

They stood in an empty, irregularly-shaped space. Faint outlines on the walls showed where shelves or cabinets had been bolted. Two doors led out in opposite directions.

Ariel went to the nearest and pressed the handle. The door opened outward easily.

As she stepped through, lights flickered to life ahead of her, down a short corridor that let onto a balcony.

Below lay a cavernous space. The floor, under the sharp bluish-white light, was littered with debris. Desks stood here and there, drawers pulled out and empty.

Coren knelt beside her and ran a finger over the balcony floor.

“Not much dust,” he said. “This hasn’t been empty that long.”

“Doesn’t look much like a sewage plant, either,” Ariel said.

“Can’t believe everything you read.”

Coren let loose the rest of his scouts. A few minutes later he said, “We’re the only people here.”

Ariel went to the stairs at the far end of the balcony and hurried down to the main level. Close up she could make out footprints still visible under recent layers of dust. Paper scraps gathered in corners, along with bits of metal and plastic, pieces and parts of objects hastily removed.

Recently removed . . .

Beyond this chamber she found a constellation of other rooms, some smaller, one at least much larger. She went through the smaller ones. She could almost tell what each one had been—this one an office, that one a lab of some sort, over there a storage room.

“Ariel!”

She followed his voice back through the largest chamber and into a long corridor lined on one wall with doors. Most stood open, but a few were closed. She found Coren in the last room.

Two walls were filled with storage drawers. Most were pulled out and empty. Label plaques had been ripped from the wall beside each drawer.

Coren was squatting before a pile of debris. He looked up when she entered and pointed at scattered shafts of pale-yellow vegetation.

“Grass?” Ariel mused.

“That’s what it looks like to me.”

“Odd place for it.” She began pulling out drawers and searching for more traces of what they might have contained. “Did you check the other rooms?”

“Yes. Same arrangement. A lot of storage capacity here.”

Ariel yanked a drawer out as far as it would come and peered into the dim recesses. She ran her hand around it and touched a plate set in the top. “Ah-hah. These are stasis boxes. Were, anyway.” She surveyed the banks of drawers. “Sample storage.”

Coren frowned. “Grass?”

“Did you touch it?”

“No . . .”

“Don’t. Use gloves. It might be worth having it tested.”

Ariel opened her pack. She had brought a stack of sample bags, in case any biological samples might still be present. She had actually expected to find nothing. She pulled on a pair of bioprophylaxis gloves and carefully scooped most of the grass blades into the bag.

The facility had been only recently occupied, that much was obvious. The data labeling it as a treatment complex showed a registration and permit date nearly thirteen years old.

“So what were they still doing here?” Coren wondered aloud.

They found a few more traces of material that they thought might be worth analyzing, but by and large the previous occupants had done an impressive job of removing evidence of their activities.

“Disappointed?” Coren asked.

“A little. I thought perhaps . . .” Ariel shrugged.

“You thought you might find something that would change Aurora’s decision.”

She nodded, then looked at him.

“I still think I could get you Terran citizenship,” he said.

“For that matter, I could still get you a job with us.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Move to Aurora?”

Ariel nodded. “Doesn’t appeal to you, does it?”

“No, I—”

“It’s all right. Just so you understand.”

His frown changed to reluctant acceptance. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ariel gave the place a last look, then followed Coren back to their entry point.

There was a delay when they returned to the DyNan compound while the limo came to fetch them. Ariel sat with her back to the wall of the small building while Coren did his best not to pace.

“So what happens next?” he asked finally.

“I go back to the embassy,” Ariel said. “Setaris tells me how much I’ve messed things up and that in the best interests of Aurora I must be removed from my post. A trip back to Aurora and a hearing before one or more committees trying to understand things I’m not at all sure I can explain fully.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m a fulcrum. Events shifted around me, using me as a pivot point, and turned . . . inconvenient.” She shrugged. “Mainly, I’m the one who will have to explain how a cyborg could be made and that I did indeed see one.”

“Derec has the corpse, why can’t he go back?”

“He will.” She suppressed a smile. “They can’t have two loose cannons out here shouting about monsters. We’re being recalled to find out if we can be trusted as much as anything else.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “So you might be back?”

“Could very well be back. As long as Earth doesn’t do anything too reactionary.” She shrugged again. “Even so, the odds are favorable. Why? Would you like that?”

Coren pursed his lips and slowly nodded.

The limo appeared. Coren blinked and shook his head.

The vehicle stopped and Green Honli stepped out. He went quickly up to Coren and drew him aside. Ariel could not hear the words, but she recognized the tone of voice and body language. Coren paled.

“Come on,” he said.

Ariel fell into the back of the limo with him. Doors closed and the transport sped back.

“What is it?” she asked.

Coren’s jaw flexed as he stared out the window. “Rega Looms is dead.”

Chapter 2

DEREC AVERY GLANCED up at the two security officers who entered the lab. The new director, a young woman named Per Alis, met them and they stood together now, talking. Per looked toward Derec briefly and he felt the hairs down the back of his neck shift.

He returned his attention to the console and the large robot sitting next to it.

The robot’s torso was open, the breast plate removed. Cables connected various components within to the console, on which an array of screens displayed data.

Most of the robot was a dull brassy color, its surface scarred from years of use. The DW-12 had started existence as a laborer and presumably spent most of its early years being used according to its specifications. Eventually it came into the possession of someone who began making upgrades and modifications until it became effectively a more advanced unit, though physically it remained largely unchanged.

A darker, grayish material comprised its arms and shoulders, part of its waist, and the hips: a recent addition. Derec hoped to be able to complete these modifications before—

The two security officers looked his way. He recognized one of them: Fran Olsin, who had taken over the department after Security Chief Sipha Palen’s death.

“Thales,” Derec said quietly, “do you know what’s going on that would bring station security here?”

“There is a restraining order in effect,” the Resident Intelligence replied. “The schedule has been moved up, apparently. You are to be sequestered until travel arrangements are complete, then placed on the first available transport to Aurora.”

“Did you just learn about this?”

“In the last ten minutes.”

“Were you going to tell me?”

“You instructed me not to bother you unless it was a matter of life and death.”

Derec felt a stab of annoyance. “You’re not always so literal.”

“You are not always engaged in a delicate operation.”

Derec’s irritation turned inward. He had been explicit. Installation of the third tier of positronic buffers required close monitoring. He glanced at the set of oblate components now resting in their new rack within the robot’s guts. Thales was running the final checks to see if they would link properly to the main positronic matrix.

“Where’s Hofton?” he asked.

“Earthside,” Thales said. “In the Spacer Embassy, D.C. Sector.”

“Let him know what’s happening and ask if there is anything he can do.”

“Ariel has been formally recalled,” Thales said after a few seconds.

The security officers were approaching him now.

“How are we with this, Thales? Can I close it up?”

“Diagnostics indicate no path impedance, optimum through-flow, and matched-specification gate response. You may safely reseal the unit.”

“Disengage diagnostics.”

As Derec stood, the cables released themselves from within the torso and retracted into the console. Derec lifted the cover plate from the worktable nearby—heavy, nearly twenty kilograms—and, grunting, hefted it into place on the robot. Instantly, tiny sealing mechanisms grasped the edges of the plate, taking over the labor from Derec, and binding the metal to the body.

Derec straightened and picked up a towel from the table.

“Derec,” Fran Olsin said. She looked apologetic.

“Hi, Fran.”

She looked at the robot. “How’s it coming?”

“Not badly. Better than I expected.” He wiped his hands with the towel—a habit, more ritual than necessity—and dropped it on the console. “What’s going on?”

“Bad news,” Fran said. “We’ve been ordered to confine you till transport is arranged to Aurora.”

Even expecting it, Derec felt a moment of outrage and despair. It had been coming for a long time. He knew it, Ariel knew it, they had talked about it. But until official word came they had been able to pretend that it might not—would not—really happen.

“Confine me where?” he asked. “I never leave the embassy area anyway.”

Fran scratched her chin absently, frowning. “That’s not very clear, so I’m having to make it up on my own.” She looked at the robot. “I suppose technically that robot is yours?”

“It is now. I have the ownership documents if you’d like to review them.”

“No, no, I had to verify them, remember?” She stared at the robot for a time. “Look, I get the feeling that my superiors and yours would prefer you didn’t do any new work on it till you’re away from Earth. So I’m going to read these instructions as house arrest orders. Confine yourself to your cabin till we can get you a berth.”

“That sounds reasonable.” He glanced at the robot. “I think I’ve done about as much as I can here, anyway. Maybe a trip to Aurora is just what I need to finish it.”

“Good.”

“I’ll leave the robot in Rana’s possession till departure time. How’s that?”

“That ought to satisfy just about everybody. Sorry, Derec.”

He waved a hand. “You’re just doing your job.” He leaned over the console. “Thales, copy all this to Hofton’s attention. Let Rana know Bogard’s status. I’ll be in my quarters.”

“Yes, Derec.”

“So,” Derec said to Fran. “Do you escort me, or trust me to go to my room?”

Fran lingered in his cabin. She sent her assistant away and shut the door.

“Some nasty fam has broken loose,” she said.

Derec thought for a moment before he recognized the slang. Fam: Freefall Anomalous Matter. A spaceworker term for debris, waste, or other garbage that occasionally got loose, sometimes causing problems in construction sites or with small satellites.

“Such as?” he asked.

“We got word a couple hours ago that Rega Looms is dead. Terran Bureau of Investigation is already making enquiries. They paid your Ambassador Setaris a visit.”

“This triggered the recall?”

“Sounds like your people want you away from here before more questions get asked about that mess we had over Looms’ daughter. Anyway, there’s bound to be suggestions of Spacer retribution for—well, for everything Looms stood for, really.”

“You don’t believe any of that, do you?”

“No. But I have the advantage of a close relationship with human venality,” she said sarcastically. “I just wanted to let you know that maybe this is for your own good. There’s no telling what TBI and Special Service might stir up. Knowing them, it wouldn’t surprise me if you got blamed for Sipha’s death.”

Derec had witnessed Sipha Palen’s death—and the deaths of several of her officers and who knew how many people aboard the shuttle that had exploded in the docking bay, ripping a hole in the body of Kopernik Station—and had felt absolutely helpless and desolate. Perhaps he deserved some blame. Not that he had caused any of it, but he had been involved in the circumstances that led to it.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Maybe it’s time we all get out of here. I don’t think we’re doing any good anymore.”

“Meaning Spacers?” Fran shrugged. “Won’t happen. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how deep this could get.”

“Thanks.”

Ever since Palen’s death, her people—Kopernik Station security—had taken care of him. They had collectively decided he was a victim, too, and needed watching out for. In a way, he was like a mascot.

In return, he had helped them upgrade their own AI systems and improved the efficiency of their surveillance net. They had looked out for him. This was likely the last gesture they could make.

“Rega Looms is dead,” he said. “How? Murdered, I gather?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“If the TBI is involved . . .”

“Ah. Yes, you have a point. However, we don’t have all the details. Word is he was found crushed to death in his private quarters.”

An escort from the Auroran Embassy waited at Coren’s apartment when they returned. Coren suppressed an impulse to challenge them. Ariel had talked it over with him on their flight back.

“No scenes,” she said. “It won’t do any good anyway, and it might get you more attention than you need.”

So as their cab pulled up to his building and he saw the embassy limo and the plainclothes security lounging around the area, he squeezed her hand and let her kiss him.

Last one, he thought, tasting her.

She grabbed her pack and stepped out of the cab. He stayed within and watched her surrender herself to embassy security. No one came up to him to ask him anything. Ariel climbed into the embassy transport and within seconds the security vanished and the vehicles rolled quickly away.

He was alone in the back of the cab.

“Do you wish to proceed to another destination?” the autopilot asked.

“Yes,” he said after a pause. “DyNan Manual Industries, main headquarters.”

Coren was surprised that his ID still worked. When he had quit he had expected Rega to deactivate his credentials that very day. They had had a very loud and principled parting—Rega had given in to blackmail and ended his campaign for the senate, and he had done so because the blackmail contained truths, facts he had kept from Coren even while expecting Coren to take care of such matters. The relationship, in Coren’s mind, became untenable.

Shola Bran met him in the lobby of the main building. She had been one of his personal choices for Rega’s security during his abortive run for the senate. He wondered what position she had moved into since.

“Mr. Lanra,” she said. “This is unexpected. We thought your hiatus would last longer.”

“Rega’s death is unexpected as well, I trust.”

She frowned. “Is that why you’re back?”

“Is that a problem?”

“I’ve assumed your duties since . . .”

Coren glanced around the lobby. A few people worked behind information desks. He gave Shola a slight shake of the head. “My office.”

She led the way. When they entered, he was surprised to find it much as he had left it. He closed the doors and went to his desk. He was pleased that it still responded to him. He initiated the security walls Rega would have objected to had he known about them.

“All right,” he said, sitting down. “You’ve become head of security, is that what you’re saying?” He waved her toward a chair. “You may speak freely, no one can listen in, and I’ve always expected candor.”

“I remember.” She clasped her hands behind her back, continuing to stand. “Yes, I have. You walked out. It was necessary.”

“Good. At least someone knows what happened.”

“I don’t know everything that happened. I just know that you quit.”

“You kept that out of general circulation.”

“I didn’t see it as my place to disseminate gossip.”

“I’m not going to undercut you. I did quit. As far as I’m concerned, when I finish what I have to do, I’m going back to being quit. If you’ve been head of security, as far as I’m concerned you still are.” He leaned forward. “As long as you don’t interfere with me till I’m done.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I want to find Rega’s killer. Plus finish the thing that put us at odds in the first place. Will you help me or fight me?”

“I’ll help. Fighting you . . . I’d lose.”

“Maybe. You’re very good at what you do.”

Her expression softened. “None of us expected . . . no one knew . . .”

“When is the funeral?”

“Tomorrow. Closed casket. He didn’t want any cosmetics done, you know how he was. But . . .”

“Who found him?”

“Me and Lio Top.”

“Lio. His campaign manager.”

“She’s been his liaison at board meetings for the last several weeks.”

“He stopped attending?”

“Only voice comm. Then even that stopped. We thought, with the senate race over and his daughter’s death—”

“I gather you saw him from time to time?”

“No, not really. Once or twice. Mostly it was Lio.”

“I want to talk to her. Did anyone else have access to Rega?”

“No . . .”

“You sound uncertain.”

“Well . . . I could never prove it, but it seemed sometimes that someone was living with Rega.”

“Someone . . . a woman?”

Shola shrugged. “I’m sorry, boss. I could never get close enough and I didn’t feel right about using any invasives.”

And now he’s dead . . .

Coren kept that thought to himself. “I need to see the recordings of his comm messages over the last couple of months.” He drummed his fingers idly on the edge of the desk. “What’s the mood?”

“Awful. No one knows what’s going to happen next. Rumor has it that Rega never groomed a successor.”

“He wasn’t that old. I suppose he didn’t think he needed to yet.”

“The board doesn’t know what to do.”

Coren found that doubtful: Someone would have a plan, an idea what they wanted to do if nothing else. But no one would be willing to step forward just yet. “All right. Copy me the arrangements, then let it be known that I’m back. While I’m here I’ll walk you through the parts of the job I never told anyone about.” He smiled, he hoped reassuringly. “Meanwhile, I’ve got your support?”

“I’d love to find out who did this.”

The edge in Shola’s voice made the hairs on Coren’s neck bristle. “Then you’re it. I’ve got to catch up now.”

“Sure.” She went to the door. “Welcome back, boss.”

“Thanks.”

He requested a department list from his desk. He selected the bio-research division and studied the names appended. After a few minutes’ consideration, he tapped one and waited for the link to open.

“Organics. Willis Jay here.”

“Mr. Jay, this is Coren Lanra . . .” He hesitated briefly, then added, “Head of security.”

“Yes, Mr. Lanra?”

“Are you available for the next hour? I have something I want to bring over to you for analysis.”

“Well . . . sure, I’ve got some time.”

“You’re in your office?”

“My lab. Right next door.”

“Be there shortly.”

Coren broke the link and opened his pack. He took out the sample bag of grass. Ariel had divided it up before catching the semiballistic back to D.C., giving him a third. He slipped the package into his jacket pocket and headed for the research wing.

The offices of DyNan were usually quiet and a bit overly-serious, but what Coren walked through now felt sepulchral. To be expected, he thought. Still, it got to him. By the time he reached the research area and found the department of Organic Research, he felt guilty, almost ashamed.

Willis Jay looked up at Coren’s entrance, eyes large and pale green, and slowly rose to his full height, head-and-shoulders above Coren.

“Mr. Jay,” Coren said, extending a hand, “I’m—”

“Coren Lanra, yes. What can I do for you?”

Jay’s grasp was quick and light and he sat immediately back down.

Coren placed the sample bag on his desk.

“I found this. I’d like it analyzed.”

Jay picked it up and held it to the overhead light. “Grass.”

“I deduced that much.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In an abandoned lab. Beyond that, I’d rather not say.”

“So there could be contaminants of an unknown type?”

“That’s what I’d like you to find out.”

Jay set the bag back down. “And I suppose you don’t want this to go any further than us.”

Coren felt a smile tug at his mouth. “You suppose correctly.”

“I don’t suppose you could give me any idea what specifically I might be looking for? No? Give me a couple of days, then.” He looked up at Coren. “We’d all heard a rumor that you’d quit.”

Coren was surprised at the change of topic. “Really. Where did you hear that?”

“Rumor. Talk in the kitchen, that sort of thing.”

“I suppose it wasn’t true, then.”

“It appears not.”

“Any other rumors attached to that one?”

Jay sniffed. “You’ve been seeing an Auroran ambassador.”

“Ah. Now that one is true.”

“I suppose it’s not a rumor, then.”

“How long have you been with DyNan, Mr. Jay?”

“Fifteen years, I think.” Jay looked thoughtful for a moment. “Are you going to the funeral?”

“I suppose.”

“Rumor is that Mr. Looms was crushed to death.”

“Can’t confirm or deny that. I don’t know. Where’s he being kept?”

“The morgue, I imagine. The police took the body away.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“Two days from now. I wonder who will run the company after this.” Jay stood again and picked up the bag. “I’ll get back to you about your grass by the funeral, Mr. Lanra.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. Jay.”

“Just Jay.”

“Thanks, Jay. Let me know what you find.”

Coren returned to his office by a circuitous path. Along the way he looked into open doors, greeted people, paused in earshot of conversations for a few moments—all to get a better feel for the mood in the building. Somber, he decided, but with an edge of anger, as if Looms’ death were a personal betrayal. People did not work for Rega Looms just to have a job—if they came to DyNan with that in mind they rarely lasted long—but because they personally believed in what the company did and came to feel the same way about Rega. By the time he sat down at his own desk again, Coren believed that the company by and large would welcome answers to Looms’ murder.

It still puzzled him that Rega had not, apparently, accepted his resignation.

For the last couple of months, Coren had begun testing the waters for new employment. He had found more options than he had expected. After Ariel, he had told himself, he would look for a new job. They had both known it would end—she knew her recall by Aurora was inevitable. There was little enough time as it was.

As for Rega . . . after years of working for the man, they had finally come into ideological conflict.

Coren had been looking for the murderer of Looms’ daughter. And Rega had wanted him to stop. Setting aside Coren’s personal feelings toward the late Nyom Looms, there was no way he could see this as other than a direct threat to Rega and DyNan. Rega had placed him in an impossible ethical quandary.

It seems Rega had thought it over and decided that I was right . . .

It would have been wise for Rega to have at least told him.

Maybe he’d still be alive if I’d known I was still working for him . . .

Coren shoved that thought aside. That way lies madness, he knew. This was in no way his failure.

What now? He had resigned. Pretend it had never happened?

No . . . that would be unethical.

What do I owe you now, Rega?

After a few minutes’ thought, Coren decided that his last obligation to Rega Looms was to find out how he had died and if there were anything he could do about it.

He started accessing records to catch up on the last few months.

direct access subroutine category six Thales-to-Bogard evaluation standard in process, copy log, copy sequence, interrogatory systems profile, match template, revise epistatic drift at point zero-one, revised deviation reference initial protocols subheader Bogard

Query: self-diagnostic

Engaged

Assessment

Deviation on sublevels two, nine, twenty-three, forty-one, and forty-two

Analysis of deviation

Category error in standard definition of subject profile, internal/experiential conformity deviance in basic parameters

Specify category

Three Law base assumptions, BIOS reevaluation in process, inconclusive, repeat function

Define evaluative failure, specify location, specify assumption

Evaluative failure in action prompts, location topologically nonspecific, system-wide, assumption holistic evaluation reducible to question of type

Specify question

Question: What is human?

Chapter 3

ARIEL CLIMBED OUT of the embassy limo and started across the garage to the elevators. As she reached the doors, one set opened and Hofton stepped out.

“Ambassador,” Hofton greeted her, giving a slight bow from the waist. He took the pack from her and draped it over his left shoulder.

“Hofton. When did you get back?”

“Last night, actually.” He looked past her at the embassy security. “I’m to escort Ambassador Burgess directly to Ambassador Setaris. We won’t require your presence.”

The pair of officers hesitated. Ariel could see that their orders did not allow this much discretion.

“My responsibility,” Hofton added. “If she escapes, you may shoot me in public.”

Both of the security officers reddened visibly, then nodded.

“Ambassador . . . ?” Hofton waved her into the elevator.

When they doors closed, Ariel slumped back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Bad news first, Hofton.”

“As there’s no good news, your request is easy. Your recall came through two days ago. Ambassador Setaris has been trying to arrange transport for both you and Mr. Avery.”

“Derec, too?”

“He’s currently under house arrest. Confinement to quarters, really, just a formality. But it was at the request of the Senate Subcommittee on NonTerran Affairs.”

Ariel opened her eyes. “Jonis Taprin?”

“The very same. He’s been all but demanding that the both of you leave Earth in chains.”

“I don’t understand. We were friends once . . . I thought . . .”

“Never underestimate the power of embarrassment.”

“Hofton . . . Rega Looms is dead.”

“I just heard a few hours ago,” Hofton said. “That hasn’t helped the situation. In fact, it only added to Senator Taprin’s expostulations. He’s blaming us.”

That surprised Ariel. “We don’t even know how he died.”

“Gruesomely, according to the subetherics. Crushed.” He glanced side-long at her. “Sound familiar?”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“At present, staying out of the line of fire might be the best we can hope for. I haven’t heard the word ‘cyborg’ in any of the ’casts, but it’s only a matter of time. In any case, Ambassador Setaris will want to tell you the rest.” He paused thoughtfully. “Oh. Pon Byris, head of Auroran security, has attached his name to your recall.”

“That’s a bit heavyhanded, isn’t it?”

“Possibly the result of Senator Taprin’s extremely loud complaints. Regardless, I doubt anything positive will result if Byris is involved.”

The elevator came to a stop and they stepped into the corridor leading to Setaris’s offices. Hofton nodded encouragingly to her, and proceeded down the hall.

A pair of aides looked up from their desks when Hofton and Ariel entered. One of them started to stand, but Hofton waved her back.

“We’re expected,” he announced, and pushed through the double doors to Setaris’s private office.

Setaris seemed to be waiting for them, leaning back in her chair, watching their entrance. Ariel realized then that Setaris’s ability to always appear to expect whatever happened had annoyed her since she had come to work for the senior ambassador.

“Ariel, how are you?” Setaris asked, smiling thinly.

Ariel sat down before Setaris offered a chair. “Annoyed.”

“Really? And why would that be? Have we interrupted something?”

“Not that it matters to you, but yes.”

“We apologize for any inconvenience,” Setaris said with a clear tone of sarcasm. “Your recall is official. I’m placing you on an Aurora-bound ship day after tomorrow. The . . . Wysteria?” She glanced at Hofton, who had taken a position standing just behind and to Ariel’s left.

“That’s correct, Ambassador,” Hofton said.

“You’ll remain here in the embassy till your shuttle departs. Try to clean up any unfinished business you have before then.”

Ariel’s hands clenched into fists. You transferred me to the Intelligence branch two months ago. Since then I haven’t had a single assignment. There’s nothing to clean up. “May I ask why I’m being recalled now?”

“You may. Three reasons. The first is the Council is convening a hearing on this matter of the cyborgs. That is why your friend Derec Avery is also going back with you. You’re both expert witnesses, your testimony is essential. It’s a closed door session, so hyperwave link will not be allowed. You have to be there.”

You knew that two months ago, Ariel thought impatiently.

Setaris steepled her long fingers under her chin. “The second reason is general unfitness for duty. You’ve made yourself ineffective here. Keeping you on is pointless.”

“Thank you for your confidence in me.”

“Don’t act the martyr, Ariel, you’ve brought this on yourself. Your choice in liaisons has been . . . unfortunate.”

Ariel felt heat in her face. “Who I spend my personal time with is my business.”

“How it affects your ability to perform your duties is mine. You have an enemy in Senator Taprin. That alone might have been manageable, but your association with Rega Looms’ chief of security has made you suspect to the Spacer population. The combination has been too much. Your usefulness . . . well . . .”

“My usefulness at what? I haven’t had any duties since—” Ariel cut herself off. “How much of this has to do with what happened to Ambassador Chassik?”

“That much,” Setaris said, “I’ll grant you, was none of your doing. At least, not in any way to be criticized. Chassik hated you, there’s no point trying to explain it away. You embarrassed him in this last fiasco. I’m certain that pressure was brought to bear on the Calvin Institute and the Auroran Council by allies Chassik stirred up to have you recalled. I’m sure if they have their way, you’ll be disgraced as well. As far as that goes, sending you home now may be the best thing for you personally. We can minimize the damage here and pull the teeth of most of their complaints.”

“You’re telling me this is in my best interest?”

“Partly. It’s certainly in our best interest.”

Ariel seethed. “You said three reasons.”

“I did. Ambassador Chassik was recalled.”

“I remember. I was there.”

“Three weeks after that hearing, he formally transferred Solarian legation duties to the Keresians as a temporary condition until another Solarian could be found to take his place. He found one reason or another to stay here till about a week ago. He was finally shipped out.”

“Yes,” Ariel said tightly. “I remember.” Though she had not known he had remained on Earth for so long. She wondered how he had managed.

“He never arrived,” Setaris said. “The ship was attacked and destroyed. Chassik is presumed dead. Solaria is claiming that we leaked his itinerary and, because of our relations with Earth, arranged to have this done.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Of course it is and they know it. However, they want to subpoena you for an inquest. Shipping you to Aurora now may be the only way to keep you out of their hands.”

Ariel thought for a moment. “Are you telling me that I’m being blamed for Gale Chassik’s death?”

Setaris scowled and looked out the broad window at the bright blue sky. “They no more believe that than they believe Aurora colluded with Terrans to kill him. But they certainly want you for something.”

“The cyborgs.”

“That would be my guess. We have no way of knowing how deeply involved Solaria is in that.”

“I assumed Solaria had nothing to do with it as a polity, that it was just Chassik overstepping authority.”

“That’s our assumption, too. Unfortunately, we have this debacle with Nova Levis hanging over our heads and easy solutions are not to be found.”

“Are you suggesting Solaria does have something to do with this?”

“A faction of them, almost certainly.” Setaris sighed. “It’s not your problem anymore, Ariel. You are out of this.”

Despite herself, Ariel was forced to agree with Setaris. There was no other option. She had to go back to Aurora.

She had known it was coming, that some pretext would be found to recall her, but still she thought she could avoid it. Now that it was real, she could find no flaw in the reasons.

“Is Hofton still assigned to me?” she asked.

“No. Hofton is staying here. He has duties.”

That shook her even more, but she said nothing. After a minute or so, she stood.

Then: “Why would anyone want to kill Chassik?”

“That’s a very good question, Ariel. We’re hoping to answer it before all hell breaks loose.”

“They did a wonderful job of keeping me in the dark,” Ariel commented sourly.

Hofton and she sat at a small table in the embassy lounge, by the broad windows that gave them a view across the roof of the embassy, out to forest in the distance beneath open sky.

“Everyone here is being kept ignorant of Ambassador Chassik’s death,” he said. “I didn’t know till two days ago. And to be fair, you did not exactly inspire our security people. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s the reason Byris has involved himself. You’re nominally attached to Intelligence, after all, and your actions have been questionable. At least to an outsider.”

“I’m part of Auroran Intelligence now, Hofton, and I can’t find out anything. Don’t you find that funny?”

“Riotously.”

Ariel was startled at the glumness in his voice. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Hofton raised a hand. “Lately, I haven’t been my usual frivolous self. As for Ambassador Chassik, I believe only Ambassador Setaris and one or two of her personal staff knew any details of his death. There have been suggestions in certain circles that it was a Terran ship that attacked his liner. The Terrans are blaming pirates—an easy enough target—and since Aurora has been stepping up its presence on the Nova Levis blockade, accusations of collusion are inevitable.”

“Hm. What’s your opinion?”

“That returning to Aurora might be the safest option for you.”

“Thanks. Why did it take so damn long? I expected to be on a ship a week after Chassik’s recall.”

“Besides the usual glacial pace of Auroran bureaucratic process, the Terrans have been trying to keep you here.”

“Why?”

“It went through phases. First, there was the ongoing TBI investigation about the cyborgs. They wanted you as an expert consultant. Then they wanted you as a material witness at the hearings. Failing to get that, they wanted to hire you. It graduated eventually to a demand for your arrest on charges of conspiracy.”

“Conspiracy to do what?”

Hofton shrugged eloquently. “They simply don’t want you to leave. At least, some of them don’t. Senator Taprin is practically manic to get rid of you. The others I can understand—they want a source of information about a threat they don’t know anything about. Taprin is just . . .”

“Taprin,” Ariel finished for him. “The problem is, I don’t know anything about cyborgs. None of us do.”

“Mr. Avery has been learning quite a lot. Before our people seized the cyborg corpse we had on Kopernik, he recorded a great deal.”

“Then why aren’t the Terran authorities trying to keep him?”

“Oh, they have been trying. Setaris has successfully fended off every attempt.”

Ariel thought about that. “Has it occurred to her that while she’s keeping us out of Terran hands they might be thinking her reasons are a bit more sinister than stated?”

“You mean mightn’t they think we have something to do with the cyborgs?” He nodded. “I’m certain that has occurred to her, but she’s acting under orders from Aurora as well. I don’t think Ambassador Setaris has been happy with a single decision she’s been allowed to make in months.”

“It’s falling apart, isn’t it?”

“In my opinion,” Hofton said, “yes. Ever since Humadros was killed and Eliton’s conference self-destructed, things have gotten worse. And this Nova Levis thing is just aggravating it. You would have thought when an Auroran ship was attacked the Terrans would find common cause with us, that relations might ease up. But they keep worsening in too many other areas.”

They sat in silence for a time, brooding.

“Well,” Hofton said finally. “I have duties—”

“Sure,” Ariel said. “Um . . . Hofton, I have a favor to ask.”

“If I can help, of course.”

“I need some grass analyzed.”

Hofton gave her a quizzical look. “Grass?”

Chapter 4

THE REFITTED CARGO hold smelled of ancient oil, sweat, and hot plastic, odors so long embedded in the fabric of the ship that no cleansing could expunge them. That nearly eighty bodies were crammed in the narrow confines created by the false bulkheads—which hid the stacks of travel couches secured against the actual bulkheads—did nothing to make the aroma any more pleasant.

“They told us we’d get used to it,” a woman observed sullenly from somewhere above.

Masid Vorian looked up in her direction. He saw her feet dangling over the edge of her rack. “That,” he said with mock cheer, “and five credits will buy you any truth you want.”

Laughter lightly cascaded around the collection of bunks. It was an old joke, but not so worn that desperately bored people would not find some humor still in it.

Masid stretched on his couch. He estimated that they had been in transit now twelve days. Twice in that time the P.A. had barked at them to be as silent as possible due to imminent boarding. As far as he knew, the freighter had never been boarded. In between such moments of intense fear the time passed like sludge. It was too dark even to see each other clearly. He had heard the sounds of lovemaking a few times, but it was difficult in these cramped quarters to overcome the normal inhibitions against sex in public. Maybe others were simply good at being quiet at it. Conversation dwindled after several days, speculation on their chances of getting through and what it would be like once they arrived exhausting itself in the mix of ignorance and worry. One or two small groups chattered, their conversation ending the moment someone new tried to join in.

Typical Terran cliquishness, Masid thought, born of equal parts arrogance, stupidity, and paranoia.

Masid suspected a few of the baleys might be other than Earth-borns, but no one willingly admitted it here. Maybe once they arrived on Nova Levis he might find one or two Settler-born.

If they reached Nova Levis. Masid could not be certain, but he was convinced that the ship had had to change course at least twice, maybe three times. The ten-day transit had increased to twelve so far, and still no word from the crew about when they might arrive.

The rations had been cut as well. Not bad, not yet, but it was not encouraging.

It had already taken him longer to even get started on this trip than any previous one.

Before slipping into this group of baleys, Masid had heard that Aurora was sending ships to reinforce the blockade around Nova Levis. He wondered how much that might have reduced his chances of getting through . . .

A low, barely audible vibration ran through the hull.

What conversation there was ceased. Masid leaned his head out to peer up into the nearly-lightless spaces above.

A hatch opened, spilling light into the cramped hold, and a man’s head and shoulders appeared.

“Another inspection,” he called. “Keep it still, everything’ll be all right.”

The hatch sealed again and immediately the chatter increased.

“The man said quiet!” Masid shouted.

Silence fell at once.

Masid adjusted the pack on which he rested his head, settled himself with hands folded over his chest, and closed his eyes. The best way to wait an inspection out was sleep, he believed. Anything more active was a sure way to get found.

He kept track of the various sounds transmitted throughout the ship, the creaks and scrapes and shiftings, and guessed the point at which boarding occurred. There was still a chance they might get past all this, but—

A whisper passed his ear. Masid’s eyes snapped open. Air moved. He heard it again, like something small and fast whizzing through the air. He swallowed, knowing—

The hatch opened again and a new voice boomed through the confines.

“Everyone out.”

Damn . . .

Masid took his time. The others climbed up the scaffolding to the hatch, their small bundles clutched in one arm or slung over tired shoulders. Masid felt for them. Most had spent whatever credit they had left to get this far. They had nothing to go back to, nothing to see them through. Depending on who their captors were, they could look forward to internment camps, transition camps, or a quick trip back to their point of origin. And then nothing.

He heard a few sobs.

“Come on, come on,” the voice urged from above.

At least they didn’t cut the gravity, he thought. Likely they’re Spacers, then, not Terrans . . .

“No stragglers, we’ve got a head count, come on out.”

Masid waited until he was nearly the last. Then he rolled out of the couch, finding the footholds on the bracing. He snagged his pack deftly and slung it over his shoulder, then began the climb up to the hatch.

Webbing stretched across the gap between hull and false bulkhead. Some of the older baleys had a little difficulty negotiating it, but when he reached the webbing himself, Masid saw several uniformed officers giving ample help.

Dull reddish-brown uniforms with gold flashings at high collars and waists: Theians.

A strong hand caught his arm and drew him into the corridor. Theians formed a line, handing the baleys along toward the ship’s main lock. Masid followed, smiling grimly, looking from face to face. The Theians looked mildly embarrassed about the whole business.

At the hatch to the lock area a pair of robots seemed to monitor the entire procedure.

Masid stepped between them—

—and locked eyes with a Theian officer. He hesitated and let himself smile just a little more.

The officer turned to his aide and whispered. The aide looked at Masid, frowning, and stepped forward.

“Sir,” she said. “Would you come with me, please.”

“What for?” Masid asked loudly.

“Sir.”

“I don’t recognize your authority,” Masid said.

The aide placed a hand on her stunner and gripped Masid’s elbow. “Please, sir.”

Masid looked around frantically. The other baleys nearby cast frightened glances at him.

“This isn’t fair!”

He stepped out of line and let the Theian lead him away.

She took him past drums strapped against bulkheads, around a narrow makeshift gangway, and into the cargo bay. Overfilled cages of crates, nacelles, and cubes rose from the deck like topiary gone wild, the path of the maze barely discernible.

The aide kept hold of him until they had made their way through the dangerously disorganized stowage and onto the loading deck.

More robots, a few more Theians. The aide led him to an arbitrary spot against a bulkhead.

“Stay here,” she said, then signaled for a robot to stand watch over him. Masid suppressed a smile, tempted to point out to her that he was himself not Terran and knew better than to be afraid of a robot. But he nodded mutely, gave the robot what he hoped was a convincingly fearful look, and slid to the deck to wait.

The aide spoke to a couple of the other Theians, then returned the way she had brought him.

Half an hour later, the Theian officer who had recognized him emerged from the maze. He stopped immediately in front of Masid.

“Vorian, what in the hells of space are you doing here?”

Masid glanced at the other Spacers; none of them showed any sign of having heard.

“Trying to be inconspicuous,” Masid said. “What are you doing here, Anda?”

“Arresting the crew of this—” he turned and waved disgustedly at the mass of precariously balanced cargo “—this excuse for a freighter. You could have died inconspicuously, you know.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Masid said, standing. “I’m trying to get to Nova Levis.”

“Really. Well, forget it. The blockade became real a few weeks ago, when Aurora finally joined it officially.”

“Is that what happened? I wondered why my passport wouldn’t work with the major carriers.” He glanced around again. “Nothing personal against your people, but could we carry this conversation on somewhere more private?”

Anda’s eyes narrowed. “You’re working, then.”

“Amazing powers of deduction you have there. They should promote you.”

Anda scowled. “Come with me.”

Masid followed the man to the big cargo bay door. The personnel hatch stood open. An umbilical ran a short distance to the Theian cruiser that held the freighter tightly in a tractor grip.

As soon as he stepped out of the umbilical, into the Theian ship, Masid felt physically better. The air was cleaner for one, as were the decks and bulkheads. He suddenly felt a bit self-conscious in his grungy traveling clothes. He had been in the baley-hole for twelve days without undressing.

Abruptly, a small sphere appeared over Anda’s left shoulder, hovering and slowly revolving. Anda spoke into the air.

“This is Masid Vorian, officially a guest of the ship. Confirm.” A few seconds later, he nodded. “Come on,” he said to Masid.

Two turns and up one deck, and they entered a spacious, pleasantly-appointed private cabin. A slender, ivory-colored robot met them just inside the door. The sphere hovering at Anda’s shoulder shot across the cabin and set itself in a slot in the wall.

“Captain Wilam, welcome back,” the robot said, voice slightly feminine. “This is ship’s guest Vorian?”

“Yes, Laris, this is Masid.”

“Welcome, Masid. May I serve you a confection?”

Anda unbuckled his weapons belt and dropped it on a couch. He glanced at Masid. “Drink?”

“Clean water would be wonderful.”

“Nothing for me, Laris.”

The robot drifted off to a bar on the other side of the room and returned quickly with a tall glass of water.

“If there is anything else you require, Masid, I am at your service.”

“Thanks,” Masid said, accepting the glass.

“So just what are you doing?” Anda asked.

Masid took several long swallows. “You first. I’ve been out of the loop for over a month.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to get to Nova Levis. I haven’t had this much trouble getting somewhere in—hell, I don’t know if I’ve ever had this much trouble.”

“What do you want on Nova Levis? It’s a sewer.”

Masid fingered his collar. “I should fit right in, then.”

“We’ll fix that later.”

“I’m sure.” Masid finished his water and handed the glass to the robot. “Please, sir, I want some more. I’ve been drinking recycled fluid—I won’t call it water—with electrolytes added like seasoning for the past two weeks.”

“Goes with the job, doesn’t it?” Anda asked caustically.

Masid ignored that. “Nova Levis is a sewer, huh? That wouldn’t have anything to do with your new and improved blockade, would it?”

“A blockade runner fired on us. You knew about that, didn’t you?”

“I heard something about it.”

“That was incident the first. Incident the second happened three weeks ago. An Auroran police liner was attacked en route to Solaria. The ship was destroyed, all aboard killed. Including Solarian Ambassador Gale Chassik.”

“Oh, shit.”

“That was pretty much everyone’s reaction. The ships were recorded coming in, and the recordings were transmitted by hyperwave just before the liner was destroyed. They were identified as the same type that have been doing the bulk of the blockade-running off Nova Levis. Solaria was duly outraged and demanded immediate action, Aurora responded by demanding full disclosure from Solaria about their dealings with Nova Levis, and one result was Aurora presence on the blockade itself. No more Solarian ships are getting in anymore, which has one faction of the Solarian Legation mad enough to chew rocks. Once Solaria admitted to still actually owning Nova Levis, even though the Settler government is the one barring on-ground inspections, Earth began making ominous noises about Spacer collusion and we have our present situation. So we’re now intercepting ships bound for Nova Levis well in advance of their arrival—to avoid entanglements with overlapping jurisdiction, you understand—and this, too, has Earth in a spasm.”

“How intemperate of them.”

Laris brought Masid a refilled glass.

“Your turn,” Anda said.

“I need to get to Nova Levis.” Masid sipped water.

“So you say. Who are you working for this time? Last I heard, you were actually working for Terran security.”

“Station security, Kopernik. True enough. Right now I’m exercising my authority as an independent agent and working on behalf of everybody.”

“Hah! There’s no such authority.”

“You didn’t get the memo? Damn.” He leaned forward. “They’re building cyborgs, Anda.”

Anda hesitated and stared at Masid. “Who?”

“That’s what I have to find out. But they’re building them on Nova Levis.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“No. But I have reason to believe it. Strong reason.”

“There are no such things as cyborgs.”

“You wish. I fought one. Be afraid.”

“Why Nova Levis? It’s under blockade, there’s nothing there.”

“There’s more there than you might think. Besides, you’re providing the best cover there could be.”

Anda sighed heavily. “Laris, give me a brandy, please.” He looked at Masid, eyes narrow and intent. “Tell me about it.”

Masid showered in the hygienic cubicle of the stateroom Anda gave him. The spray of water and massage of ’sonics felt like the caresses of sirens to him. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

He had not told Anda very much—mainly the murder on Kopernik and the subsequent entrapment of the cyborg, leaving out all of Derec Avery’s and Ariel Burgess’s involvement. He tied it in with the baleys through Sipha Palen’s death in the explosion of the shuttle delivering the head organizer of the baley traffic. He had had to mention the dead baleys that had prompted the investigation, but that did not give much away. He left Anda with the impression that he was carrying on this investigation independently of most Spacer, Settler, or Terran authority, something Anda knew Masid tended to do from time to time.

Working his way into the baley network had taken far too long and left him far too out of touch with events. Evidently a mess had been made of the whole traffic in the wake of the Kopernik affair. No one seemed to be in charge anymore, and the independents were both too paranoid and too incompetent to fill the void left by the traditional smugglers.

Why would anyone want to kill Ambassador Chassik?

It made no sense. Chassik represented Solaria, which had taken a “no comment” position on the entire Nova Levis situation. There was no motive. All they could hope to achieve would be to irritate the very world that was their only hope of independence.

Chassik had been recalled . . . what had that all been about?

He had gotten no answers from the Aurorans, who were in charge of the Spacer mission on Earth. He had not pressed for them, either. No time, he had wanted to get moving . . .

Masid sighed and closed his eyes again. There was nothing he could do about it this minute, anyway. He still needed to get to Nova Levis. He had to be careful what he dug into right now.

If I turn over the wrong rock, I’ll be answering questions put by boards of inquiry from now till the Omega point.

The water felt too good to give up just now. If he could only stop thinking for a time.

Mia Daventri looked up from the workstation as the short, thickset man entered the cabin. He stopped just inside the hatch, blinking at her, doubtlessly wondering what an Internal Security inspector was doing in his quarters.

He began to step back through the open door. The pair of security officers flanking the hatchway closed ranks to block him.

“Corf.”

The man glared toward the voice, which came from a meter behind and to Mia’s right.

“Sir,” the thickset man said grudgingly.

Mia heard two steps and then felt the presence of the officer beside her. A slender hand came out and tapped the screen before which Mia sat.

“You’ve been industrious, Corf,” the officer said.

Mia glanced up at him. Tall, almost Spacer slender with smooth skin. Cosmetically enhanced, she knew, to look . . . not young, so much as healthy and well-aged. It made a more profound impression. As Mia had come to know Lt. Commander Reen, if it would have served him to appear as a hideous, boil-encrusted ogre, he would have had the surgery. His only vanity seemed to lay in his sense of duty.

“Sir,” Corf said noncommittally.

“I’m impressed,” Reen said, nodding. He caught Mia’s eye. “How about you, Lieutenant? When was the last time you saw these kinds of numbers attached to an illicit trade?”

“Not since I was on Earth, sir,” Mia admitted, playing along with Reen’s game. If he had a fault, it was that he enjoyed teasing people too much.

“And what did you do when you saw those numbers?”

“Shut them down, sir.”

Corf scowled at her.

“Completely,” she added.

“That’s the only way to do it,” Reen said. “Let me see . . .” He leaned closer, making a show of reading the screen. “One hundred seventy-eight thousand credits in the last sixty days. I see cases of antivirals, antibiotics, wine, variable lobe wheat seed . . .” He looked bemused. “Soap.”

Corf frowned uncertainly.

Reen continued reading. “Two isotope analyzers . . . that’s interesting, I wonder where you got them? Perhaps those two missing from Stennis’s lab on the Thessaly? Two hundred meters of silk, nine thousand meters of polythor thread, and two hundred and thirty-one books.”

Reen stepped around the console and stopped before Corf. “I can see a lot of that, but the first two items, the antivirals and ’biotics—what is that about? Those items come under the aegis of humanitarian exception. We let medical supplies through.” He waited, but Corf said nothing. “You’ve probably convinced some profiteer down there that we’ll be cutting them off soon. Who knows, maybe the same profiteer is intercepting what legally gets sent down and is selling both your supplies and ours at obscene prices to people who have no choice.”

He wheeled on one heel and came back around the console. He slapped the screen sharply with his knuckles, making Mia jump.

“We’ll find out,” he said. “You could save us time and make your punishment a bit less by providing us names of contacts.” He held up his hand. “Not now. Think about it for a day or so. I don’t trust quick confessions.”

Reen nodded his head, and the security officers clasped Corf’s arms and hauled him out of the room.

Mia waited while Reen paced.

“I hate this,” he said. “Not bad enough we have to deal with actual pirates, we have to have some of our own decide to try it out. Good work, Daventri. You’ve copied all this to the main log?”

“Yes, sir.”

Reen leaned on the console again, staring at the screen. “Fabric. Medicine and fabric. No food yet.”

Mia gestured. “Wine.”

“Hardly a necessity.” He slapped the console. “We could probably shut all the traffic from our own people down in no time at all. I don’t want to. Shut enough of them down to narrow the goods going through military hands. I want to monitor it. When they start importing food—”

“The wheat seed?”

“Seed, Daventri. It means they have time to grow it. They’re still eating. When they start buying prepackaged foods through the black market, then we know it’s only a matter of time.”

“Yes, sir. May I ask a question, though?”

Reen nodded.

“You told Corf that we send medical supplies through as humanitarian goods. Doesn’t food qualify?”

“No. We want them pressed, Daventri, but healthy. We don’t need epidemics taking root when we intend to occupy and resume relations with a planet. We’ll help them stay disease-free, but we won’t feed them. Starvation isn’t communicable.”

He straightened. “See if you can dig any contacts out of these manifests. We’ll let Corf worry over his situation for a day or two before we question him. Meantime, if you can come up with some associates . . .”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do what I can.”

“Good. Carry on.”

Reen strode out of the chamber. The hatch snapped shut.

“Shit,” Mia breathed.

The blockade was approaching a year old now, and the Settlers on the ground had given no indication of yielding. It seemed immoral to her to continue this way. Reen’s attitude held sway, though, throughout the military, and Earth was backing them.

“Can’t have pirates roaming the trade lanes,” she said with mock gravity.

Still, as much as she hated what they were doing to the citizens of Nova Levis, she loathed people like Ensign Corf who were more than willing to take advantage of them to make a few extra credits. Finding them and flushing them out felt . . . fulfilling.

The best use of her talents.

Under these circumstances.

She had trouble deciding about people like Reen who seemed willing to use both the situation and the avarice of Corf to enhance the efficiency of his own job. The end result was not a bad thing, but in the meantime people who should not suffer suffered.

“Maybe I’ll understand when I grow up,” she mused aloud.

She adjusted herself in the chair and began asking the already compromised system more questions. Corf had stuffed the illicit records in with the routine departmental memos everyone received and no one read, memos concerning recreational activities, uniform inspections, promotions, demotions, policy statements, recommendations for protocol, receptions, and a great many bits of propaganda about the important job the blockade and the Terran Expeditionary Taskforce were doing here. Corf slipped the logs of his black market business into the “Personal Notes” files attached to these memos. By code, people at Corf’s level were not allowed personal datums. Corf’s unique use of otherwise public databases impressed Mia. She wondered who had come up with the idea.

Mia tapped instructions into her own personal datum, connected now to the console. The troll program she initiated would scour the entire databank for communications related to the manifest. As thoroughly as the illicit goods were recorded, she felt certain that a trail existed, from source to delivery.

WORKING appeared on her datum screen.

Mia turned in the chair to survey the rest of the small cabin. Ensigns did not receive a great deal of private space on a ship like this. The Helico was a mid-range attack cruiser, three hundred crew plus a contingent of officers. It spent most of the time in dock, its primary purpose in life being pursuit and assault.

Consequently, she knew, most of the crew spent as little time as possible on board. The blockade stations, immense and spacious by comparison, offered a wider variety of release from the drudgery of duty. Cabins like this, therefore, tended to be either very neat or very neglected.

Corf kept his neat.

Mia went to his locker. After playing with the code for a few minutes, she took out her passkey and inserted the bit into the receptacle below the touchpad. The lock clicked off and the door slid open.

At first glance it appeared to be a standard kit. Uniforms stacked there—two sets of dress grays still in the shrink wrap—other, personal, clothing in that container; two packs; an extra sidearm locked in a secure storage container; a case of book disks.

Mia pulled out the last item with some effort—twelve or more kilos, at least—and carried it to the console. She unsealed it and removed the transparent lid.

Among the blocks of book disks, Mia found a few printed volumes. Surprised, she gingerly pulled them out and opened the covers. The pages bore faint finger smudges, evidently from frequent reading. Old. Mia brought one close to her face and sniffed. The faintly sweet odor of a preservative could still be detected. She shuffled through the container, pulling out the paper volumes, four in all. She glanced at the titles: War and Peace, Of Human Bondage, Oliver Twist, and Les Miserables.

Mia went through the disks, but quickly noticed that they were either technical works or contemporary fiction. The paper volumes were the only ancient works. “Classics,” her Culture and Diversity Instructor had called them.

Mr. Jayn, she recalled. She had enjoyed his classes and his somewhat trendy disdain for what he called “the contemporary excuse for culture, which is little more than aggressively spinning in place, hoping the scenery changes on the next turn.” He had not pushed that line too hard—a little contempt served to keep students interested, while too much could be seen as fomenting disrespect, something apparently only educational oversight committees really worried about—but Mia took enough to heart to find herself continually dissatisfied with most of her choices thereafter.

Becoming a Special Service agent had then seemed the best answer to that dissatisfaction. For a time, she had felt amply fulfilled. Then everything had gone wrong during the Eliton Conference fiasco and she had been in the middle of every possible controversial aspect: personal security for Senator Eliton, Service manager of the only autonomous positronic robot the Service possessed, implicated in the conspiracy to murder Eliton and the chief delegates of the Spacer legations, and then, after, a traitor to the Service for exposing the agents who had been involved in the plot . . .

A mess indeed . . .

Now, in the logic of the Service, having proven herself capable of policing her own people, she was Internal Security on the Nova Levis blockade, responsible for finding and neutralizing corrupt officers.

She gazed at the four bound volumes. How corrupt can a man who reads these kinds of books, this way, be . . . ?

It was tempting to believe refined taste placed one in a special category. Not a common black market operative, surely. A misunderstanding?

Her datum still worked through the comm logs. No, the manifest she had found was clearly Corf’s.

Up to this point everything about him fit what she expected. An ensign, passed over for promotion twice due to substandard fitness reports, disciplined once for brawling, twice for “intemperate language to a superior,” and with a credit account several hundred credits richer than it should have been. A mediocre cadet, an average crewman, now a problematic officer: he would serve out his time and be discharged with no option for re-enlistment, vested in a small retirement pension. An unexceptional, somewhat dull, short-tempered, progressively bitter man, the perfect profile to be recruited by smugglers. His current duty was in Stores, also ideal, specifically requisitions for shipboard amenities . . .

Les Miserables . . . ?

Mia grunted and sat down. She tapped her datum for a second task and entered the specifications for the four books. She wanted to know what they would cost.

WORKING

She leafed through Oliver Twist while she waited. She stopped at a section to which someone had added a checkmark in the margin:

For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. He was raised by hand. The hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in “the house” who was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not. Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be “farmed,” or, in other words, that he should be despatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing . . .

Mia felt an inexplicable twist of conscience reading this. She looked at her datum.

EXTERNAL SOURCES REQUIRED FOR INQUIRY

She leaned over and pressed the CONTINUE key.

Mia continued leafing through the book. It seemed incredible to her that she should know a few orphans. Here was a story more than a thousand years old about a situation that humanity, in all its progress and through all its various periods of wealth, had never solved.

Curious, she pulled up Corf’s record again. No, he had never been an orphan.

She opened the other books to see if any other passages had been checked. She found several, in all of them. The books had clearly not simply adorned a shelf somewhere unread. These volumes had been well used.

No owner’s name appeared in any of the books. One, however, had a bookseller’s imprint on the inside back cover: OMNE MUNDI COMPLURIUM, ANTIQUITIES, LYZIG.

She added that to the search protocol and set the books aside.

The datum chimed, the first search concluded. She pulled up the results and sat back, dismayed. The trails of communications spread out like a complex algorithm, a web of interconnected associations covering several ships and traversing many levels of command hierarchy.

Mia’s mood darkened. This is going to take days to collate into useful tables . . .

“That’s why I earn the big money,” she said aloud, and began copying everything to a disk.

She resealed the container of book disks and returned it to Corf’s locker. The paper volumes she tucked into her pack. She then made another search of the cabin, but she found nothing else out of the expected.

Her datum still read WORKING, so she closed it up for now. It would continue to pursue the search. She slipped it into her pack, closed down Corf’s workstation, and left the cabin. She slapped an IS seal on the door and activated it. Only her code now would open Corf’s cabin.

Satisfied that she had overlooked nothing—for now—she hoisted her pack over her left shoulder and headed for the ship’s personnel lock.

Chapter 5

DEREC SEALED THE last bag and set it by the cabin door with three others. Most of his worldly possessions filled those packs, the bulk having arrived only within the last week, shipped up from Earth. Hofton had managed to get it all through customs without question.

I’m going to miss Hofton, he thought as he sat down to stare at the collection of luggage. Then: Hell, I’m going to miss everything . . .

The door chimed and slid open. Ambassador Yart Leri, branch head of the Kopernik Auroran embassy, stood at the threshold with two security officers. Behind them, in the corridor, was a large porter robot.

“Mr. Avery,” Leri said, looking and sounding slightly embarrassed, “the Wysteria is boarding. It may be best to go early, before it fills up and becomes a party.”

“Of course,” Derec said. “Thales and . . . ?”

“Already loaded and secured. My assistant saw to it earlier today.”

Derec heaved to his feet. He felt intensely weary. “Fine, then. Shall we get started?”

“Um . . . of course.”

Leri stood aside and gestured. The robot floated on noiseless pivots, entered the cabin, and extruded limbs that deftly hooked all the bags. Thin straps appeared, wrapping instantly around the luggage, securing them firmly to the robot’s body. It rolled back into the corridor and waited.

Derec pulled on his jacket, shouldered the case containing his personal datum and a few other items, including passport—newly-issued—and ticket. The ticket was merely a nod to dignity—there was no question of his leaving Kopernik; all that had been taken care of without his consent. He had rarely felt so powerless.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Leri walked beside him. The security officers stationed outside his cabin followed, three paces behind, and the robot brought up the rear.

Derec could not stop looking pointedly at everything they passed, as if this were the first time he had seen any of it. It was likely the last time he would see it, though there was nothing remarkable about the place. It was a station, like any other found throughout settled space, though flavored by Terran taste. It was possible he would never see this particular station again. Ever.

They entered a larger concourse. The few people they encountered gave them a wide berth, staring at the guards and the robot with open curiosity and dismay. Derec avoided direct eye contact, self-consciously keeping his expression neutral.

Leri and one guard boarded a shunt with Derec, the rest of the entourage following in a second car.

“I’d like to express our gratitude again for the work you did here,” Leri said. “Unfortunate consequences aside, you saved the branch mission itself from any undeserved blame.”

“It was a pleasure to work,” Derec said. “Glad I could help.”

“Yes, uhm . . .”

Derec let Leri fumble and lapse into silence. He did not care to indulge in polite conversation. Not during his eviction from Earth territory.

The shunt came to a halt and they emerged onto the broad plaza outside the customs station. Derec could see the boarding gate on the far side. Small collections of people loitered around the shunt platform. A short line passed slowly through the customs archway.

The second shunt arrived and the remaining guard and the robot joined them.

“I’ll walk you through, Mr. Avery,” Leri said, gesturing toward the arch.

Derec glanced at the shunt monitor to see if another car were about to arrive. It showed none, so, disappointed, Derec walked alongside Leri toward the line.

“I wish . . .” Leri began.

“So do I, Ambassador,” Derec said. “But you’ve been an excellent host. I have no complaints.”

Leri smiled quickly at one of the traditional compliments of Aurora. “Thank you, Mr. Avery. And you’ve been a perfect guest.”

They reached the gate. Leri stepped behind the desk and spoke quickly to the attendant.

“Pass through, sir,” she said.

Leri stepped through to the other side. He clasped Derec’s hand. “Safe journey, Mr. Avery. I hope we have the opportunity to meet again.”

“Given time, I’m sure.”

The robot stopped beside him.

Leri handed Derec a disk. “Give this to the bosun as you board. He’ll see you to your cabin personally.”

Derec nodded. He cast a final look back toward the shunt platform, expectantly. A shunt arrived, opened, and four people he did not recognize got out.

No Rana.

“Take care, Ambassador,” he said then, and strode toward the loading gate.

A short umbilical took him into the liner’s boarding lounge. A brightly-uniformed crewman greeted him just inside the enormous hatch. Derec handed over the disk from Leri, which the crewman slid into his hand reader.

“Yes, sir,” he said. He looked across the chamber and signaled another uniform.

The flashings at the collar of her equally bright blue uniform differed from the crewman’s. She looked over the reader and nodded.

“Mr. Avery, I’m Chief Petty Officer Craym. I’ll take you directly to your cabin. Is this your robot?”

“No, the station’s. That is my luggage.”

“Let me get another porter.”

CPO Craym made the arrangements quickly and efficiently and within minutes she was leading Derec through the narrow corridors of the liner, past other crew and passengers, to a small but comfortable cabin amidships.

“Are you familiar with interstellar travel, Mr. Avery?” she asked as the robot porter deposited his luggage on the deck. It began stowing the bags in the row of cabinets set in the bulkhead, beneath a wall-size subetheric screen.

“I’ve done some traveling,” he said.

“So I need not go over every little detail? Emergency stasis couch is here, menu to shipboard activities and personnel available here, food processor here. We encourage dining in one of the three public commons, but you may easily take your meals in private.”

“Sanitizer?”

She crossed the cabin and pressed a contact. A vertical tube swiveled out from the wall. “We recommend decontamination prior to first jump, but as long as you use it before entering Spacer territory it’s up to you. How long has it been since you’ve flown?”

“A few years.”

“There have been improvements. It takes slightly less time now, and isn’t nearly so invasive.”

“But still necessary.”

She smiled helpfully.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Can I find a list of fellow passengers on this?”

“Except for those who have purchased privacy, yes.”

The robot finished and whisked silently from the cabin.

“Anything you cannot find listed in the menus, feel free to ask.”

The particular pitch of her voice made Derec look at her more critically. She met his gaze with Spacer ease and a faint smile that seemed slightly warmer than standard politeness. When she did not look away or move toward the door, Derec felt an awkward uncertainty.

“You?” he asked.

“Barring other duties, that would be fine.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled more brightly, and left the cabin. The door sealed. After a few moments, he decided that his imagination was working too hard.

Colluding with my loneliness?

He stood then, still, listening to the distant and ubiquitous thrumming of the ship as to the blood flow of a somnolent beast, absorbing the finality of his position.

It’s done . . . I’m going home . . . whatever that means . . .

He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the high-backed chair nestled against the small comm station opposite the bed. He sat down and waited.

Three hours. A light winked on above the subetheric screen and a polite, androgynous voice announced:

“The Star Liner Wysteria is now leaving Kopernik Station. Please remained seated or reclining until we have reached initial cruising velocity. We will inform you when we will be approaching jump. Thank you for traveling with us. We hope you have a pleasant voyage.”

Derec lay back on the narrow bed, arms at his sides, and tried to feel the surge of the engines and the change in g from acceleration. He could not tell—it seemed the background sound changed pitch—so he picked a point at which he could tell himself I’ve left. I’m gone. I’ll arrive . . . soon enough . . . .

Coren entered the pavilion atop Looms’ Kenya District home, where, per Looms’ last wishes, the services were conducted under a transparent geodesic dome that was the only concession to the endemic agoraphobia the visitors exhibited in varying degrees. Coren swallowed hard as he walked out of the shelter of the arcade that rimmed a third of the dome. Ariel’s influence showed in his growing ability to cope with rooflessness, but he still felt a profound vulnerability when Outside.

Above, faceted by the thread-like braces of the dome superstructure, gleamed an intense blue and cloudless sky. Its light set the air aglow within the pavilion. Coren estimated perhaps sixty people gathered. Others filled the drawing rooms and halls below, in the labyrinthine main house, unwilling to venture out from the protection of ceilings. Perhaps because of his newly-acquired tolerance, Coren felt the beginnings of contempt toward them.

Subetheric recorders floated around, each sphere colored and marked according to the service to which it belonged. Coren did not see any reporters, though. He could not tell which, then, were personal cameras belonging to any of the guests and which were news feeds.

As he neared the bier and the closed onyx and ebony casket upon it, Coren saw two people he would never have expected here. Myler Towne, the CEO of the newly reformed Imbitek Industries Incorporated, stood off to one side with three of his aides. He nodded slightly at Coren.

The other stood alone by the casket. Coren walked over to greet him.

“Inspector Capel,” Coren said as he stopped alongside the police detective. “A little far from your district.”

Capel kept his chin tucked down, like most of the Terrans unaccustomed to the Open. “Lanra. Maybe. Looms kept a residence in my jurisdiction, I figure that gives me a small reason to be interested. That and the fact that he died there.”

A holograph of a recumbent and cosmetically perfect Rega Looms hovered above the casket.

“I thought you weren’t working for him anymore?” Capel asked.

“So did I,” Coren admitted. “Somewhere along the line, he forgot to tell anyone else that I quit. I’m still on salary.”

“Is that like him to forget?”

“No.”

“Did you see the crime scene and autopsy images?”

“No. I’ve been occupied. I only came back when I heard he was dead.”

“I’ll show them to you later. I’d like your opinion about something.”

That surprised Coren. “Certainly. I’d appreciate that.”

“It won’t be for free,” Capel said. He patted Coren’s shoulder and wandered off.

Coren stared at the holograph of his former employer. He resisted the urge to pry open the coffin and look inside.

“My condolences, Mr. Lanra.”

Coren turned toward the voice. Myler Towne stood near, hands clasped behind his back. He was a large man, easily twenty-five centimeters taller than Lanra and at least thirty kilos heavier, most of it in his shoulders and chest. He made an unlikely-looking CEO, but there was no question that he made an immediate impression.

“Thank you,” Coren said. “And before you ask, I’m still thinking about it. Events have conspired to delay my final decision regarding your offer of employment.”

“Oh, unquestionably. I would have it no other way. I trust you intend to find Rega’s murderer? Do so. Any assistance I can render, call.”

“That’s generous.”

Towne’s mouth turned down slightly. “Generous. Mr. Lanra, there was nothing to be gained by anyone I know of in killing Rega. This threatens us all. This isn’t generosity—it’s absolute self-interest.”

“If I need anything, I promise I’ll ask for it.”

Towne nodded, apparently satisfied. “What will happen to DyNan now? I understand there are no heirs.”

“The will is to be read in two days. We’ll all know then.”

“You have no guesses?”

“After Nyom—after his daughter died, I was unaware of any contingencies. If he had a back-up plan, he never confided it to me.”

“It will be interesting.”

“Indeed.”

Towne bowed slightly. “If you’ll excuse me . . .”

Coren watched Towne retreat to the company of his aides. They exchanged a few words, then one left, wending a path toward the arcade.

Coren continued to let his gaze drift over the gathered mourners. He saw furtive looks, worry, a few expressions of genuine regret and pain. More than a few overly-pointed looks directed at him.

He worked his way back through the crowd, stopping to speak to people, share a few stories about Rega with old acquaintances, and generally blend in with them. He hated being the center of attention—it was anathema to his job, an impossible position from which to carry on any kind of delicate inquiry.

An hour and a half later, he found himself back beneath the arcade. He took a drink from a passing tray and went down the stairs into the main house.

A wide central corridor led down the center of the butterfly-like superstructure. Doorways opened on large rooms, staircases up and down, alcoves, and other passageways. There were even hidden rooms behind false walls. Nyom had shown him many of them, but he was sure there were several even she had not known about. The house was a vast architectural playground, the ideal hide-and-seek environment for a playful personality few would have guessed Rega to possess.

This was Rega’s proudest possession, this manor. Contrary to tradition—and, in some parts of the globe, the law—he had built it “above ground.” Rebuilt, in fact, the new layered atop an already-existing structure that predated the expulsion of robots from Earth. It rested in the middle of several thousand acres of natural preserve, accessible by aircraft or a single tube that connected it to Bassa District. There was also an aircar pad, complete with a collection of obsolete and mostly nonworking aircars from previous centuries. Coren had intended bringing Nyom here during Rega’s scuttled senate campaign, after getting her away from the baley runners with whom she had been working. Except that she had gone with the last group and given him no chance to extract her from the situation. Her death afterward and the threat of blackmail had ruined Rega’s chances for a senate seat. His unwillingness to let Coren proceed with the investigation to find Nyom’s killers had driven a wedge between them that had kept Coren away.

Till now, when it was too late to help.

Rega Looms was dead. Coren could not help but feel responsible.

He found Capel in one of the galleries just off the main hall. The detective stared at an ancient abstract painting that Coren had long ago decided was a perversely distorted winged woman trying to fly out of a volcano.

“Enlightenment must be earned,” Coren quipped.

“Hm. I’m working at it.”

“You want to show me something?”

Capel nodded. “Somewhere we can go?”

Coren pointed, then led the way to one of several offices scattered throughout the multilevel structure.

“I keep wondering,” Capel said as Coren locked the door behind them, “what it must be like to have money. Real money. Like this. Considering the cost, I’m glad I don’t know.”

Coren went to the desk and started up the reader. A flatscreen extruded from the desktop.

“This material is better viewed holographically,” Capel said, holding up a disk.

“Not available here,” Coren said. “One of Rega’s prejudices.”

Capel grunted, but handed over the disk.

Coren slipped it into the hopper and tapped the keypad.

A wide image of a spacious apartment bedroom appeared on the screen. The pale walls and expensive furniture bespoke considerable wealth. Coren recognized it as Rega’s Baltimor District residence, where, apparently, Rega had sequestered himself for the last several weeks, communicating exclusively by comm.

Someone lay stretched out on the bed.

The next image was a full-length shot of the body.

It was naked, bruised from neck to ankle, horribly purpled with splotches of yellow and green. The face stared blankly at nothing, the tongue swollen, forcing open the mouth.

“This was thirty-six hours after death,” Capel said. “Your ex-boss wasn’t a complete luddite. He had a pretty up-to-date biomonitor system in place. It had been subverted—we figure the reprogramming took place six, seven weeks ago—but one thing it still did was record Rega Looms’ actual living presence. Once that ended without any other indications that he had simply left the apartment, an alarm was triggered.”

“Subverted . . . why?”

“We found evidence that a second person was living in the apartment. All the biomonitor recorded was one. Our people are looking into how the system was hacked. But the catastrophic trauma alarm had been completely switched off. Autopsy showed that Looms had been beaten and tortured continually for most of the last four or five weeks.” Capel waved a hand at the screen. “Look familiar?”

“Yes . . .”

Coren had seen three other corpses with that same kind of bruising, as if someone had systematically crushed their bodies, bursting capillaries, pulverizing bone, bursting organs. Slowly, one area at a time, but not so slowly that the bruising could heal anywhere. He had felt the grip that could inflict this sort of damage. Absently, he rubbed his right forearm where the cyborg had held him, crushing the bone and muscle.

“Gamelin?” Capel prompted.

“Probably. We never recovered the body. It was a mistake to declare him dead, but the TBI were afraid of panicking people.”

“So we have to assume he’s at large again. Where would he go?”

“I don’t know. The baley network he used before is gone, most of the people he worked for are in jail or dead. He could hide in the warrens, I suppose. But sooner or later someone would report him.”

“If he was living with Rega, how come none of your people found out?”

“That’s a good question,” Coren said.

“Are you looking into this?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’ll share data with me?”

“When I get it. Can you leave this disk?”

“Sure.”

Coren switched the view off. “It’s possible he could link up with a part of the network we didn’t shut down. But for now I’d say he’s on his own. Tell your people not to take chances. Use only lethal force if they encounter him.”

“I’m going to have another talk with Alda Mikels.”

“Do you think he’ll tell you anything?”

“Not really,” Capel admitted. “But I don’t have anyone else to interrogate. Who knows, he might slip.”

“Hm.”

“What do your Special Service people think about all this?”

“How would I know?” Coren asked, surprised.

“I heard you were reinstated.”

“An honorary thing, just for the duration of that last investigation. I suppose I could ask.”

“I’d be interested.”

“I’m sure you would.”

Capel almost smiled. “Call me.” He left the office.

Coren sat down at the desk then. After a few minutes, he opened the disk again and studied the images.

Chapter 6

THE CABIN LIGHTS flared brightly and Masid squinted, coming sluggishly awake. He lurched to a sitting position and blinked furiously at the chronometer across the room; he had only been asleep a few hours.

“What—”

“Get your kit together, Vorian,” Anda said. “You’re leaving.”

Masid’s eyes adjusted. Two robots stood on either side of the cabin hatch. Anda, hands on hips, loomed over Masid.

“Tired of my company so soon?”

“Come on, we don’t have much time. A day at the most. I’m getting you to Nova Levis.” He held up a capsule about two centimeters long and four wide. “Take this.”

“What is it?”

“Implant. Immune system augment.”

Masid came fully awake then. He studied Anda’s face for signs of jest. Seeing none, he accepted the capsule and headed straight for the hygienic. “Talk.”

“I’ve been ordered to turn over the ship and its cargo, including baleys, to blockade command. We’re rendezvousing with a ship in less than thirty hours, the Coredon. I know that ship. We’ve suspected for a long time that it’s affiliated with blockade runners. Never had any solid proof, though, and since it’s a Terran ship we haven’t been able to convince our own command to challenge. The Terrans, of course, insist that none of their captains are involved, but that if any should be, then it will be a matter for Terran Internal Security, thank you all very much for your concern.”

Masid filled a cup with water and swallowed the capsule. The lump slid down his throat painfully. He opened his pack and pulled out the clothes he had been wearing when Anda took the transport. “Why are you required to abide by Terran authority?”

“Partly logistical. We don’t have the space for you all, frankly, so we have to hand the baleys off soon, anyway. We requested a Theian transport, but that request got routed to the blockade and the Coredon was dispatched. We’re closer to the blockade than any other colony or station anyway, and all the Theian ships manning the ring are like this one.”

“And the other part?”

“Aurora wants it this way. Make nice with the Terrans so we can straighten out the mess between us. Normally I wouldn’t accommodate this policy, it’s still my discretion. But I’m doing you a favor.”

Masid zipped up and began assembling the rest of his belongings. “Why take the baleys to the blockade? I mean, is that standard?”

“Earth doesn’t want them back. They end up being parceled out to other Settler colonies. There’s a lottery for them. Our job is to just keep them off Nova Levis.”

“What do you think my chances are of passing as a baley after you so conveniently separated me from them?”

“Pretty good. As soon as you told me what you were doing, I pulled a dozen more out. You won’t be the first one put back in with them, but you aren’t the last. Just be your usual charming, convincing self and you’ll be fine.”

“Hm. So what happens if I end up in this lottery instead of going right through?”

“Send me a thank you note when you get wherever you end up.”

Masid laughed grimly. “What’s up with the augment I just took?”

“We have fairly reliable intelligence that Nova Levis is a stew of communicable disease. What I just gave you is the latest thing in prophylactic biotech. It’ll set up a small lab in your endocrine system and boost your natural immunity by a couple of orders of magnitude. Still might not keep you entirely healthy, but maybe it will keep you alive long enough to do some useful work.”

“So,” Masid said, hoisting his pack. “I imagine you’d be happy to get some kind of corroborative evidence about the Coredon while I’m at it?”

“The thought had occurred to me.” Anda held up a hand. “If you get there . . . before all this turned to the mess it is, I had a friend who went to Nova Levis.”

“You had a friend?”

“Keep it up and I’ll send you through in a bag.”

“Sorry.”

“She’s a doctor. Was a doctor. I have no idea if she’s still alive. She was part of the civic health program on Nova Levis, attached to the Fifty Worlds liaison group.”

“You mean the embassy?”

Anda shook his head. “Because of Solaria’s involvement, there were no other formal Spacer embassies. Just a representative presence with no authority. Advisors. Anyway, she stayed. She never got out. Knowing her, she probably thought she could do something.”

“Did she have a name?”

“Shasma. If she’s still there, maybe she could help. Or you could.”

Masid waited. Anda seemed to work with his feelings. Finally, he looked up. “It might be useful. If you find her, ask if she remembers Calinas Ridge.”

“Calinas Ridge . . .”

“Save some time if she knows I sent you.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He hesitated. “Um . . . are you getting physical with your interview subjects?”

Anda scowled. “Please. We’re Spacers.”

“Ah, yes. The civilized ones. I forgot. Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you send me back like everybody else.”

“Are you ready?”

“No, but let’s do it.”

Thirty-four hours, Masid thought acidly. Anda lied. I must remind him of that . . .

Secured in a restraining transport cocoon, Masid was barely able to turn his head to see the gang of men coming down the line of imprisoned baleys. He recognized Terran blue-grey space service uniforms, but the sudden glare of flashlights obscured their faces. Masid flinched as the brilliant beams struck him.

“Have they been scrubbed?” one of them asked.

“Surface only,” Masid heard Anda reply. “We don’t have the capacity on this ship to do this many whole body cleanings at once. So we just store them down here until we can deliver them to a better-equipped facility.”

“Just as well, then. We can tailor the job for the colony they end up going to.”

They walked past Masid and the beams of light left his eyes. In the dimness he saw Anda give him an encouraging half-grin and a very slight nod. Then they were gone.

Half an hour later, robots entered the long stowage and began carting the cocoons out. Masid felt himself pulled away from the bulkhead and tilted back horizontally. Then all he could see was the ceiling as it rolled by.

He stopped moving. He heard shouting, equipment being maneuvered, echoing footsteps. Something metal slammed into something plastic. The queue stood still for several minutes. Masid felt the cocoon lurch to one side.

Finally, the ceiling began moving backward once more. The rim of a lock passed above him and he was sliding down a long ship-to-ship umbilical.

“In here, come one now, bring ’em in here!”

“Excuse me, sir,” the smooth androgynous voice of a robot said, “but this chamber is far too small for safe transport of this number of humans. I am required—”

“You are required to shut up and move these cocoons where I tell you to.”

“I am sorry, sir, but it cannot be permitted—”

“Don’t interrupt me, tinhead—”

“What’s the problem?” another human asked.

“Your robots don’t like where we’re putting the cocoons.”

“Let me—”

“This is my ship and I don’t like being told how to run it. Now get—”

“Sir—”

“Please, Captain, let me take care of this.”

“Fine, handle it.”

Masid could not hear the rest of what was said, but soon the storage proceeded.

An hour or more passed. Then:

“Now that we’re alone,” the Terran commander said loudly in the cramped, overly-warm chamber, “and those overly-solicitous machines are gone, we can prep you for the rest of the trip. Just so you know, you’re being taken to the Nova Levis blockade where you’ll be processed for further transit. This ship doesn’t have much more room or resource than that Spacer hull you just left. But we’re not going to sweat that. The voyage is less than three days. You won’t have to worry about anything because you’re all going to sleep through it. That saves us all a lot of worry.”

The baleys began mumbling unhappily. Masid heard the soft sounds of aerosols, though, and one by one the voices stilled.

A face loomed above him suddenly, masked, and a hand came up holding a nossle.

“Wait—” he began.

Darkness.

He awoke thirsty, blinking furiously at the crusting on his eyes, and shivering. A tube was poked at his mouth until he closed his teeth on it and sucked. Lukewarm water flowed.

Eventually he got his eyes open, enough to see the shapes around him. He lay on a deck, in a line with several others. Above them, in the darkness, machines bulked. Masid saw readylights, could hear their patient hum, and realized quickly that the water tube extended from one of them. Biomonitors, field units, military.

The shivering subsided. He flexed his fingers, drew his legs up and stretched. Everything began to ache. He had been in one position too long. Unused muscles complained.

Two people knelt by him. One pushed his eyelids up and shone a light into his pupils. The other prodded his torso. It was then he knew he was naked.

“Cough,” one of them said, cupping his testicles.

Masid let go of the tube and cleared his throat.

“Cough,” the other said and thumped him on the diaphragm.

He hacked loudly.

“Looks good,” the first said, standing. A moment later, he said, “This one’s not Terran.”

“Oh?”

“He’s macro-enhanced . . . look at this . . .”

The other stood and joined the first. Masid strained to look back, above his head, and saw them studying the readouts on the biomonitor. One of the pair glanced down at him.

“So what are you, friend?” he asked. “Ex-military? Fugitive?”

Masid could not speak. He groped for the water tube again and sucked on it.

“Spy?” the other opined.

“And leave this in place? I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

He knelt beside Masid again and patted his cheek with mock affection. “You’re healthy enough to survive the drop, my friend, so whatever you are, you get your wish.”

They laughed then and moved to the next baley on the deck.

Masid continued to draw water, shuddering from time to time.

Hours later, he sat up. A drone trundled by slowly. Masid smelled hot food and reached for it. The drone stopped automatically and a door on its featureless body snapped open, revealing stacks of prepared meals. Masid snatched one out, his fingers stinging from the heat. He snapped the spoon from the side of the rectangular platter, peeled back the cover sheet, and hungrily shoveled the nameless food product into his mouth. The drone moved to the next person, who still lay curled fetally to Masid’s right. The person after that reached out and the drone stopped.

As his hunger abated, he looked up and down the row of baleys. Some still stretched out, but most were sitting up, many of them eating.

They were in a cargo bay as far as Masid could tell, refitted to receive the living. The temperature was still too low to be comfortable, but he found he could control the shivering now, especially with a hot meal in his belly.

A row of biomonitors stretched the length of the deck visible to him, one behind each of the eighty-odd people lined up. Their readouts and readylights did little to lessen the dimness. Lights high overhead cast too little illumination to see much more than shadows.

A hatch opened in the distance and bootsteps echoed. Masid finished the meal and set the tray down. His limbs felt heavy, as though he had been doing hard labor for too many hours. He doubted he could hold his own in a fight just then.

Three uniformed men appeared, striding purposefully down the length of the row of baleys. As they passed each recumbent figure, the lead officer pointed and the officer behind and to his left made a note on a palm monitor. At the end of the line, they turned around and walked back. After they left, a short time went by. Then four people in dark blue work-togs came with a train of gurneys. They gathered up the baleys who still stretched on the deck and placed each in a gurney.

Masid counted fifteen and guessed that they had been the oldest and frailest. Judging by his own reactions, the sedative they had been given was designed to place a burden on the body and sort the baleys out by physical condition.

The collection squad gone, a few people began tentatively talking. The babble was half-hearted and faded out within a few minutes. Masid’s own thoughts seemed sluggish, though he recognized what was happening. The only thing to do was wait.

His eyes slitted. The silence seemed to be slipping into his brain. Just as his head lolled forward, chin to chest, he came awake to the sound of more people striding into the bay.

“Sorry to keep you all waiting,” a sharp, authoritative voiced announced.

Masid looked up at the tall Terran officer who now addressed them.

“You’ll be on your way soon,” he said. “We’ll be returning your clothes and belongings and moving you to the final stage. This time tomorrow you should be on the ground. After that, you’re on your own. We have fulfilled our contract with you.”

He paused, letting everyone think about that for a time. Then, hands clasped behind his back, he said, “A few details about your new home. Nova Levis is under quarantine. The blockade has tightened. You will not be able to leave unless the political situation changes. We can no longer get messages out for you. After you ground tomorrow, Nova Levis is your new home, your only home. You will be cut off from the rest of settled space.

“It is only fair to warn you that this also means there is no chance of appeal to higher authority than the planetary government. More than likely, even that is out of reach. You will be dealing with local authorities in nearly all instances. If things go wrong, you cannot call for help off Nova Levis. Spacers won’t help you, the Settler’s Coalition is cut off from you, and Earth, frankly, could care less if you have a problem here. This is a whole new way to live, even though some of you may feel you’ve just escaped a limited, repressive environment. Maybe you have. But it was completely different and you may come to regret your decision to emigrate.”

Dismayed mutterings rippled along the row.

“That said,” the officer went on, “the flip side is that you have a world with very little to obstruct an enterprising imagination or an assertive will. Opportunity on Nova Levis is pretty much whatever you can make it. You probably heard something like this back where you came from, which is why you’re here now. This is as frontier as you get. The only caveat is, it will be damn hard work and you might suffer unfairly or even fatally in the attempt to realize your dreams.”

The officer walked up and down the line of baleys, gazing at them with an expression Masid could not identify—a mix of respect, contempt, and puzzlement. He stopped almost directly in front of Masid.

“That said,” he announced, “welcome to Nova Levis. I hope you like it. You’ll be loading up for your final descent in one hour.”

A few people laughed in shocked delight. Others sobbed, whether from fear or relief Masid could not tell.

Anxiety, extended long enough, can put you to sleep, though never a restful sleep. The hour became two and then stretched out for three. Masid started awake twice at new sounds and finally, tentatively, got to his feet. His legs felt infirm at first. He flexed up onto his toes rhythmically, tugging at the muscles and tendons, dropped into quick squats, and then lifted each leg alternately, bringing the knees up to his chest. He avoided anything that might look like a martial exercise, just kept to simple homeogenics to recover control over his limbs. After a time he began to feel warmer, looser, more as he should.

Well into the fourth hour they came, dropping bundles before each baley. Masid dropped to the floor and waited. When his clothes and pack came, he snatched them to him. Others were dressing and no one interfered, so he quickly untied the bundle and pulled on his clothes.

Next assignment, he thought, I want somewhere warmer.

“Come on!” one of the soldiers snapped. “Get your belongings together, get dressed, we’ve got a window!”

Masid opened his pack and did a quick inspection. It had been gone through, of course—items were no longer quite where he had put them—but nothing seemed to be missing. He sealed it up and slung it over his shoulders.

He wanted a weapon. He glanced enviously at the sidearms the soldiers wore.

“Stay close, single file,” another soldier shouted. “Face right, no talking!”

Masid turned just as the line began to move.

Everything was kept dark. They passed through a narrow passage Masid identified as a conduit for automatic maintenance drones. It seemed interminable.

Finally, he emerged into an oddly-shaped space where the baleys clumped up, out of line. No one spoke. The crowd thinned gradually. Masid got the sense of a huge bulkhead curving in at them, just over their heads. Dense metallic odors permeated the chill air.

Then he was being ushered into an access tube and he realized that they had come out alongside a transport ship of some kind in a loading bay. He scurried up the tube where a waiting soldier grabbed his arm and escorted him through a passage, into a circular chamber with about twenty other baleys.

“Sit,” the soldier ordered, pushing Masid to the deck.

He came up against thick padding. The soldier knelt quickly and began strapping Masid to the bulkhead with padded restraints.

Deftly, so quickly the thought to act never quite became conscious, Masid reached out and palmed the soldier’s sidearm. He tucked it into a leg pouch.

“Five minutes,” the soldier announced, standing, “a little more maybe, you’re on your way. We’ve got you going down in four of these. When you ground, leave the ships by the same access as fast as you can. There will be someone groundside to talk you through the port and to your new lives. Luck.”

And he was gone.

Masid’s heart pounded. He expected troops any second, barging in to search for the missing weapon. It felt heavy against his leg.

When the ship lurched forward, he almost shouted.

No one in the dark hold spoke; everyone paid attention only to the sounds of the ship moving on its cradle, toward the bay doors.

A huge roar filled his ears as g-force slammed against him. The ship bolted from its dock. Almost immediately the engines cut off and Masid’s stomach seemed to buoy up within him, crowding his heart and lungs. He coughed, nearly vomited. He had been through this before, but not so violently.

It’s a drone . . .

They were falling toward Nova Levis pilotless, he knew then, packed into a cargo drone. It made perfect sense, of course, being shipped down with so-called humane relief goods. All around them, therefore, were pharmaceuticals or special foodstuffs or environmental malleables—items excluded from the lists of banned goods kept out by the blockade because to exclude them was considered fundamentally inhumane.

Or—the thought followed fast—it was all contraband, as were they.

If we ground safely we’ll never know what we’ve been packed in with . . . if something goes wrong, we might know right before we die . . .

Masid closed his eyes then and curled his fingers into fists.

“Shit,” he breathed.

He tried to remember the relationships of the various blockade elements to the planet. There was a wide net at the half billion kilometer radius which policed the entire system, but then there was a series of inner nets closer to Nova Levis itself. He had no way of knowing which station they had just launched from. It made a difference between several days’ trajectory and a few hours.

One initial thrust, he thought desperately, now freefall. They couldn’t do that from the outer line, has to be one of the inner stations, not enough air in a drone, these restraints are for short haul . . . unless they never intended us to reach Nova Levis alive, but then why not kill us on the station where they can harvest organs or . . .

The drone shuddered. The body of the ship creaked and popped and he recognized the telltale of fast cooling. They were being shot at—blasters, maybe particle beams, microwaves possibly, but—

Another strike, a heavier shudder. A loud crack echoed through the chamber.

People began weeping loudly. The stress finally overwhelmed them.

Masid bit his lip.

G-force pressed against him again. The drone itself had responded and changed delta-v.

Freefall again.

Masid groped for his pack. In the dark he fumbled for one of the hidden compartments, hoping that, indeed, everything had been left alone. He found it and rubbed his fingertips against the seam. His skin oil triggered the fabric and the seam parted and he yanked out the breather mask. He adjusted it against his face quickly, drew three deep, quick breaths to activate it, and resealed his pack.

Another blaster strike rocked the ship.

Minutes later he felt a different kind of jarring. The drone kissed upper atmosphere, skipped, then plunged into air.

A faint whistling built into a ragged screaming. The hull had been breached, though their compartment still held atmosphere. The ship rattled and vibrated. The cries of his fellow baleys combined with the roar of descent and superheated air beyond their small chamber into a Faustian protest, becoming one din.

The impact came almost as a welcome relief, bringing a sudden change from screaming to tearing and a thunderous grinding—

Light flooded the compartment as the torn hull opened above them. Dirt and rock poured through the hole. Masid covered his head with his pack as earth rained down on him.

He pushed his way through the layer of loam. Around him, in the half-buried chamber, he saw dead baleys. Suffocated, most of them, though a few had taken fatal blows from rock. One or two moved, half-conscious.

Hanging onto his pack, Masid managed to get himself out of the dirt. The sky visible through the ripped hull was a flat, lifeless gray.

He could reach it with a small jump. He pulled himself up through the hole, brought up a leg to prop himself back against the sheared edge. From here he could see most of the immediate landscape.

Trailing behind the drone lay an open wound in the terrain, the path of the drone. Masid sighed heavily. At least they had come in at some kind of a landing vector instead of nose down straight into the lithosphere. The landing scar was rimmed by broken trees and mounded black soil. Stretching away on either side spread a landscape dotted with low, broad-penumbral trees, most of them lacking anything that resembled a leaf.

Masid shifted position and looked forward.

A city rose in the distance. He estimated three, four kilometers away.

He dropped back into the chamber and made for the hatch. He hesitated at the sound of moaning but did not look back. His impulse was to help, but he knew he had no time and he did not believe—especially now—that freedom was an option for the baleys arriving here.

The hatch opened and dirt spilled out into the corridor, carrying him with it. He scrambled out of the flow and hurried along the passage to the next hatch.

Within, he found another storeroom, this one filled with nacelles. A pungent, alcohol-and-cotton smell permeated the chamber. He began unsealing the nacelles.

Pharmaceuticals.

The light was bad. He groped in his pack for a light.

Within a few minutes he had identified and stored several packets of antibiotics, antivirals, and antifungals in his pack. He resealed what he could, then scrambled from the drone.

The sound of ground-effect rotors rumbled rhythmically. The owners were coming to salvage their property.

Masid bolted for the trees, kept running, and did not look back.

Chapter 7

ARIEL WALKED THROUGH the vacant apartment one last time, certain she was forgetting something. The furniture already wore the protective layering that would clean it, refresh it, and keep it till the next occupant took over the rooms. The grayish lumps suggested the trappings of a life till now based here, but they lacked all human familiarity.

She stopped at the kitchen for the third time and realized that R. Jennie was absent. She had been looking for the robot, even though she knew Jennie had been packed up and forwarded to the station for transfer to Kopernik, and then to the liner that would take them both home.

Identifying the uncomfortable nagging at the back of her mind, Ariel set it aside and left. The door snicked shut behind her, the access code now changed, locking her out.

Her luggage was already on its way—Hofton had seen to that hours ago. She had made the rounds, saying good-bye to what staff remained in the embassy that meant anything to her. A few new faces watched her with mild curiosity, but what greeted her mostly were empty offices, vacated stations. The mission was in trouble and people were abandoning it or being sent home. When Ariel left there would only be Setaris with ambassadorial rank. She tried not to care.

The Spacer Embassy seemed immense with so few people. Fully-staffed, there had been a closeness to it, like a village, but now it simply sprawled. A couple centuries ago, she knew, Spacers had left Earth, exiled by terrified and intolerant Terrans. Then they had occupied an actual city, Spacetown, built on the very surface soil of the planet. It had been the only spaceport on Earth then, the only access Terrans had to the stars, before they once again ventured out into space in the full flood of the Settler Movement. She wondered if it had looked the same as Aurorans and Theians and Keresians and Ptolemaics packed up and left them.

Spacetown remained, even to this day, a museum mostly. Ariel had never visited it, uninterested until today in that first failed attempt at bridging the gulf between Spacer and Terran. She wondered now why it had happened, how Spacers had become so estranged in the first place. Spacer settlement had happened—begun and ended in less than two generations—so long ago that to Terrans it was a period more mythic than real. Many Terrans still had difficulty making the connection that once Spacers had been like them, short-lived, from Earth, before it had built a blanket and covered itself over in fear of the stars and the sky and the possibility of expansion. Maybe they had been afraid everyone would leave Earth, empty it out with insufficient population to keep it running as a viable home for human beings.

Now the Spacers were leaving again, being pushed off, and for the first time Ariel wondered just what had happened so long ago . . .

Hofton waited in the lobby, alone.

“Ambassador Burgess,” he said, bowing slightly.

“Hofton. Is everything ready?”

“Everything that can be.” He gestured toward the doors. “I have a limousine waiting.”

Ariel felt a moment of tension wrap around her chest as she walked out of the embassy. She took several deep breaths; her thighs and upper arms tingled as she entered the limo. Hofton climbed in beside her. The near-vertigo faded, unrealized, as the transport pulled away.

“Derec?” she asked.

“He’ll be boarding within a few hours. I’ve cleared a direct shuttle for you, bypassing Kopernik altogether. Your personal items have already shipped up.”

“I nearly forgot. Derec wanted me to ask you to try to get Rana’s visa—”

“I already took care of that. Some time ago, in fact. Ms. Duvan left for Aurora nearly eight days ago.”

“Oh. Very good, Hofton.” Ariel frowned. If Rana had already departed, why would Derec have asked about her visa? She shrugged. It had probably slipped his mind. Considering the pressure he was under—they were all under—he’d probably immersed himself in work and missed Rana’s departure.

They rode on in silence for a time. As Union Station came into view at the end of the long thoroughfare that connected it to the ancient Mall District, Ariel reached across the seat and grasped Hofton’s hand, not looking at him. He tensed but did not pull away.

“You’re wonderful, Hofton. I’ll miss you.”

She glanced over and saw him reddening, his eyes resolutely forward. Finally, as the limo pulled onto the apron of the passenger entrance, he nodded once, slowly, and said, “I have tried to earn your respect. You’re one of the few people I’ve known whose respect I craved. Thank you.”

Then he was out of the limousine, waiting for her.

When they entered Union Station, Ariel stopped. A huge crowd filled the cavernous expanse, all being held back by a police line. She recognized the angry, almost hateful timbre of the mob, bubbling with barely-restrained resentment.

“Hofton.”

“I had no idea,” he said. “I’ve already cleared you through Customs.”

“We don’t run, Hofton. No matter what, we don’t run.”

“Walking a bit faster than usual would not be a bad idea, though.”

“Agreed.”

She took the van by a pace and walked along the concourse provided by the police line. Halfway down its length, she looked over at the throng.

No one seemed to be paying her any attention. She slowed.

“Ariel—” Hofton urged.

“No, wait.”

Then she saw a couple of banners.

FLESH NOT STEEL, FAITH NOT TREASON

ABOLISH IMMUNITY FOR TRAITORS

PRISON NOT POSITION! TRY, CONVICT, AND JAIL ELITON

“Eliton . . .”

“Please, Ariel.”

She continued on.

Suddenly, a few people focused on her.

“—Spacer—”

“—Auroran—”

“—tinhead advisor—”

“—Burgess!”

Hofton placed a hand at her back and gently urged her forward. They reached the gate to the shuttles. Hofton leaned past her and handed a card to the attendant.

“Yes, Ambassador,” the woman said. “Go right through.”

Ariel hesitated. “What is this?” she asked, gesturing at the crowd.

“Clar Eliton is supposed to be coming through here today,” the attendant said flatly, as if that explained everything.

“I see,” Ariel said. “Thank you.”

She walked up the ramp.

“I no longer trust the authorities to protect someone like yourself,” Hofton said. “Forgive me if I exceeded my position.”

“No, that’s fine. Eliton is coming through here?”

“I understand he’s being shipped out. He’s been given an appointment. The Terran government wants him offworld.”

“I haven’t been keeping track. I didn’t realize he was so . . . controversial.”

“I think ‘hated’ is the word you want.”

Ariel grunted. “I suppose there isn’t much worse than breaking a trust.”

“Oh, I think so. Breaking a trust that gets people killed.”

Ariel looked back at Hofton, but as usual his face was stonily unreadable. Just before she looked away, though, he cocked one eyebrow at her.

At the head of the passageway a small car waited. Hofton tapped a code into the little vehicle’s processor. “Have a safe trip, Ambassador.”

“Don’t overstay your welcome here.”

“I’m already timing my departure. As soon as Ambassador Setaris is done with me, I think I’ll be following you.”

“I’ll look forward to that.”

“Oh, by the way.” He pulled a disk from his jacket pocket. “A partial analysis of the grass you asked me to have assayed. There are some peculiarities, but apparently it’s not much more than some rare Terran grasses. I’ll continue having it analyzed if you like, there may be something more to those peculiarities. Lack of time, though—”

“Thank you. I understand.” She took the disk and tucked it into her own jacket. “See you on Aurora, Hofton.”

He bowed again.

Ariel stepped into the car and sat down. A canopy snapped into place and the car started up its magnetic track. She strained to keep Hofton in sight as long as she could.

Coren found messages waiting in his office at DyNan headquarters when he returned from the funeral. One was a note from Ariel. He left it unopened, thinking he knew what it said and not wanting to deal with it just now. The second was from Inspector Capel, inviting him to visit his offices—sooner rather than later. A third was from Lio Top, one of Rega’s lawyers and his former campaign manager during his run for the senate. The last two got attention first: Willis Jay, the biologist he had given the grass samples to, and Shola Bran, current security supervisor.

He tapped Shola’s code. “You wanted to see me?”

“Boss, I—” The voice-only comm frustrated Lanra sometimes; he could not see faces, only guess from vocal inflection the state of mind of the person on the other end of the link. He had necessarily gotten fairly good at it—like now, he heard self-consciousness and embarrassment, hesitancy—but he never felt certain of his judgment.

“Come see me,” he said quickly, and broke the link. He tapped Jay then. “You have something for me, Doctor?”

“You should drop things off for me to do more often, Mr. Lanra,” Jay said. “I haven’t seen anything quite so interesting in a long time. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to come down to see this.”

“Give me an hour.”

Shola rapped at his door and he waved her in. She approached his desk with visible reluctance.

“Sit,” he said, then waited till she did.

“Boss, I don’t know how—I mean—”

“What security arrangements did Rega request in the last couple of months?”

“That’s just the problem. He refused security. He said now that he no longer threatened anyone in government, he didn’t need it.”

Coren considered. “Well, that’s not unlike him.”

“But you always knew when to listen to him and when to ignore him. I didn’t know how to handle that.”

“Rega never permitted personal surveillance in his residence. That was always a standing policy.”

“And you always abided by that?”

“Absolutely. So if you’ve been beating yourself up because you think you should have done something, stop. Rega was stubborn, obdurately independent, and the most private person I ever knew. His company, his rules. What do you think you should have done?”

“I don’t know, but it’s been on my mind. I don’t know how to shake it.”

“You shake it. You never forget it, but you do your job. You figure out what happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again. You find out who did it.”

Her eyes narrowed sharply. “Who did—what?”

“Rega was murdered. You didn’t think that was natural, did you?”

“No, but—”

“What have you been doing to follow up?”

“We did a survey of his apartments, went through his personal transaction logs to find possible witnesses or perpetrators. I’ve started talking to all employees who had any contact with him since he ended his election bid. The usual.”

“Good. Then your job right now is to keep me posted on your progress.”

“You are back, then?”

“I am most definitely back, and we will find out who did this.” He watched her for several seconds while she thought over what he had said. “Okay?”

“Yes.” She stood. “Thanks.”

“If it helps any, there probably wasn’t anything I could have done, either. You’re not at fault.”

She managed a forced smile before she left. Coren leaned forward and began entering instructions into his desk system. In seconds he discovered that his oversight program was still in place. He directed it to copy Shola’s files extending back to the day Coren had quit Rega Looms, then to identify and copy the related files of other operatives working with her on Rega’s death. That would take some time to get around Shola’s private safeguards.

He opened Lio Top’s message, then: “Coren, I need to speak to you regarding Rega’s last will and testament. Call me earliest, please.”

“What will?” he said caustically. His daughter dead, Rega Looms had no other family, and damn few people Coren could think of would merit any posthumous aid from him. Maybe he intended to set up a board of directors or a trust or a grant program—

“Later,” he snapped out loud, and left the office.

He made his way back to the organics lab.

An assistant led him to Jay’s private office, adjacent to his laboratory. Odd, almost plastic smells permeated the air, undercut occasionally by something more pungently organic.

“Oh, good,” Jay said when he saw Coren. He stood and came around his desk, gesturing casually for Coren to follow.

The lab proper was a long room divided by several worktables, each bearing a collection of devices only a few of which Coren recognized.

“That grass has turned out to be a very interesting subject,” Jay said, leading Coren to the last worktable. “Do you know much about organic biology, horticulture, gardening . . . ?”

“Sorry, no.”

“I would be surprised if you did. Most Terrans know next to nothing about organic anything.” He sighed wearily and tapped a screen on the table. “Here.”

Coren stepped around the table to stand beside Jay. On the screen he saw a complex molecule, the various components color-coded in blues, reds, and bright oranges. One set, though, was a hard, metallic grey.

“This is the chlorophyll molecule I extracted from the sample. Normally, in plant cell biology, you’ll find magnesium here as a reactive element—the chloroplast, the part that contains this, is like our own hemoglobin, you know what that is? Good. Instead of iron, like we use, plants use magnesium.” Jay pointed at the gray sections. “This is where the magnesium ought to be, bonded to the nitrogen atom.”

Coren waited. Jay seemed to be contemplating the image on the screen. “And what do we have instead?” Coren prompted.

“Beryllium. It still promotes photosynthesis, but I’m having a hard time explaining why beryllium is here instead of just good old-fashioned Mg. There is magnesium present, but it’s bonding to a complex silicate instead of nitrogen. It’s acting as a connector, bridging between the silicate and the chloroplast. The silicate is causing some odd reactions in the RNA, too, which may be why there’s beryllium. If so, the RNA is acting atypically, but . . .”

“Colloquial translation?”

“Well, this grass is partly made of glass, to put it simply. There’s a variety of silicate compounds falling out of some of the internal interactions, but a few organic anomalies, like cyanophosphates and so forth. I can’t say that they actually do anything—it may be that this is all byproduct.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, when you see traces of peculiar inorganic ions in constructs like this, it’s usually an indication that a secondary process is at work, something external.”

“Silicate. Glass. What might that indicate?”

“Well . . . something we played around with a while back, but Rega canceled all the projects. I’m not sure what all the specifics were, but it had to do with terraforming.”

Coren blinked. “As in reshaping environments?”

“Exactly. Part of the Settler program.”

“DyNan was involved in that?”

“Long time ago and not very deeply. This reminded me of some of it, though. But I’m not sure yet. I wanted to show you what I had so far.”

“What about the grass itself?”

“Oh, it’s a variety of Terran grass . . . um . . .” He went to another screen and read briefly. “Eragrostis curvula . . . that’s the closest form I came up with. Pretty much extinct in the wild, we keep a lot of it in greenhouses and in data storage. Originally indigenous to continental Africa.”

“Was it exported?”

“I could find out. It’s a hardy species. It’s possible your sample is a variation redesigned for a nonTerran environment.”

“Keep working on it, would you?” Coren asked. “I’d like to know more about it.”

“It’s more interesting than anything else I’ve been doing lately.”

“Which is?”

“Nothing. I think Rega was planning to shut the department down. Six months ago the last project I had was canceled.”

“What was it?”

“Recombinant fluorine extraction. We were looking for a way to increase hydraulic pressure in some of our heavy lift waldoes. The idea—”

Coren held up a hand. “Another time. Thanks.”

Jay flashed a crooked grin. “I’m very popular at dinner parties, too, for my scintillating conversational topics.”

Coren laughed and left the lab, more puzzled now than before he had entered.

“Silicates,” he muttered.

Lio Top kept offices outside the DyNan compound. Her company offices were neatly-appointed, comfortable, ideal for casual meetings, but she never, as far as Coren knew, did any work in them.

He took the fast walkway beyond DyNan into the posh café district just north of the compound. He stepped off in a large circular space, its levels tiered and receding, giving it the look of an amphitheater. Statues alternated with holographic abstract displays around the rim of the plaza. Coren breathed in the rich mix of smells from several restaurants as he ascended stairs to the fourth tier.

Lio Top’s office sprawled behind a transparent wall that gave her a view of the entire circle. Soft apricot-tinged light filled the low-ceilinged interior.

“Coren, good,” she called from behind a large, glass-topped desk. She stood and came to greet him. “Thanks for coming so fast. Can I get you a drink?”

“Sure. Nava?”

Lio raised an eyebrow and went to her bar.

“Your message was a bit cryptic,” Coren said. “What do I have to do with Rega’s will?”

“As it turns out,” Lio said, pouring a tall glass of turquoise liquid, “more than I would have guessed. No living relatives anymore, he had to do something. Knowing Rega, I expected the whole thing to go to his church.”

“It isn’t?”

She handed him the glass. “That would be telling. You and everyone else will have to wait for the official reading, day after tomorrow. But I did have instructions outside of the will concerning you.” She returned to her desk and fetched a disk, which she pressed into his free hand. “There.”

“What is it?”

“I have no idea. My instructions were to, and I quote, ‘put this directly into Coren’s hand the minute you see him in the event of my demise.’ I’ve done that. I have no knowledge of its contents.”

Coren looked over at the desk. “Shouldn’t you have kept this in a safe or something?”

“I did, until you sent word that you were coming over. I kept it in the secure pouch you gave me. That thing is a pain to open.”

Coren smiled appreciatively. “You’re his lawyer and you didn’t look?”

“I’m not his primary attorney,” she protested. “I just ran his senate campaign and took care of his public relations issues. Sil Vanderbo is still principle attorney, and he’d have a nervous breakdown if he’d known about that. If I’d pried and looked at it and he had found out before I handed it over to you, he’d have had my license.”

“I think you underestimate your position with Rega. He would never have trusted you to manage his campaign if you were just one of the stable.”

“Oh, I don’t underestimate myself, don’t you worry about that. I think I was probably his third or fourth most trusted counsel. Pretty high up, considering he employed nearly two-hundred-fifty attorneys. But I never held any illusions about my limits, either, and as long as he kept Sil on retainer I knew I’d never get any higher up the ladder.”

“Vanderbo approved you to manage the campaign, you know.”

Lio looked at him, clearly surprised. “I didn’t. I suppose I should have guessed, but . . .”

“Lio, what happened? I saw the autopsy report. After I . . . left . . . what happened?”

Lio sat on the edge of her desk and folded her arms. “I wish I knew. He sealed himself off from everyone. I suppose it was a week or so after you—after.” She frowned. “He was very hurt by what you did.”

“You seem to be the only who knows what that was.”

“I was handling your severance. Four days into it, he changed his mind. He never explained himself. Not like it was his habit to do so, but I’d never known him to keep a disaffected employee before. If they quit or he had them dismissed, he never trusted them again. No second chances.”

Coren slipped the disk into his pocket and sat down. “And after that?”

“I thought it was exhaustion. He gave instructions to several department heads, gave me that disk to give to you, then locked himself in his residence. After a couple of weeks he began issuing orders again, almost always by comm. Occasionally he’d call someone to his residential office for a private meeting, but they all claimed they didn’t see him then, either: he conducted everything via intercom. I thought—we all thought—that this would be the way he’d come out of it. But then all communications ceased last week. When no one heard anything for three days, Shola took it on herself to investigate. She found his body.”

She didn’t mention that, Coren thought, covering his expression by taking a drink.

“Did anyone else get a special disk?” he asked.

“Can’t say. That was the one I was told to deliver. Other attorneys may have received similar instructions. I haven’t asked.”

“But I imagine Vanderbo did.”

“He wouldn’t be worth his reputation if he hadn’t. I doubt he’ll tell you anything, though.”

Coren shrugged. “Depending on what this contains, I may or may not ask him.” He finished his drink and stood. “Did you ever trace the blackmail?”

“The threat that made him withdraw from the race? No. He found it on his desk one day, already delivered, with no record of who brought it or where it had come from.”

“Someone had to have delivered it.”

“Surveillance showed nothing.” She slid off the desk to her feet. “Of course, if he had ever allowed for real surveillance . . .”

“He wouldn’t have been Rega then.”

“I suppose not. But he might be alive now.”

Coren went to his private office, on the fourth floor of an older building in the Infant District near the Southwest Corridor of D.C.

The first surprise Coren found on the disk was that it contained a full holographic recording. Rega Looms, tall and almost austerely thin, bloomed before his desk.

“Coren.”

Coren glanced down at the desktop. A request for confirmation showed on the monitor attached to the reader.

“Yes, Rega,” he said.

The disk, through the AI in the desktop, identified his voice, and the recording proceeded.

“I owe explanations,” the image of Rega continued. “To whom, I’m not sure. Perhaps to Nyom, but it’s too late for that. I doubt she would ever have listened anyway. So I’ll make them to you and trust that you will know what to do with them.

“Twenty-five years ago—a little more than that, really—I had a son, a fact you discovered, much to my dismay. You’re very good at what you do, Coren. Sometimes I wish you weren’t so good, but that skill has been useful to me and it would be incredibly dangerous to me were it employed by my competitors. I’ve never questioned your methods or censured you in any way, though I’m sure you think I would if I knew what you did to serve my will. I find it safer to keep you in my employ, despite any possible ethical conflicts, than to let someone else use those same skills. My thinking may be faulty and my ethics dubious in this instance, but I’m following instinct rather than principle.

“In any event, I had a son. Once. Within six months of his birth he began developing a series of illnesses. I thought, as did the first cadre of doctors who looked at him, that he suffered some immunological dysfunction, making him unusually susceptible. This proved not to be the case.

“Long ago, Earth was host to what I, through my church, call ‘abominations.’ Every era has a list of things too frightening to contemplate and too difficult to control that it labels ‘abomination’ and summarily tries to purge from its present and all future generations. Difficult as it may be to grasp this, at one time nuclear energy was such a thing. Not without reason—it took a long time to learn to use it properly and control it safely—but for a time it was scorned and almost abolished. Polymerase gene therapy was another such thing, with its promise of extended life. Go back far enough and the very thoughts people had could be abominations. Logic once threatened our humanity, evolution threatened our morality, and scientific positivism threatened our pride. Each in their turn was called an abomination and we tried to purge ourselves of the monsters before they changed us forever.

“We failed. When the life-imitating artifacts we created to save us from lives of toil became abominations, we tried once more to rid ourselves of them, and once again we failed. But this time with a difference.

“There are no robots on Earth anymore. Not the way there once were. We have machines that do work, yes, but we do not have machines that think for us, act independently on our behalf, and threaten to supplant our decision-making freedom of choice by their mock-compassionate intervention. The robot as heir to humankind no longer strides among us. We abolished it.

“But humans are not rid of them. Humans took them to space where they proliferate in such abundance that one day they will likely return. Perhaps we’ll find then that we were as foolish to fear them as we were to fear vaccinations or invasive surgery or secularism. Perhaps.

“But the man-shaped mechanism wasn’t the only manifestation of that abomination that we failed to be rid of. Along with the technology to build such a machine came ancillary technologies that gave us the basis for an economy of abundance which we did embrace without regard to the consequences. You cannot build a machine that acts like a brain unless you can build molecular components that imitate life processes. And we did indeed build such machines—tiny components, artificial germs, self-replicating and adaptive in their own clever ways. Nanotech. Go to any home kitchen and draw a meal at the common trough and you see a primitive form of it at work, breaking down one kind of molecule and turning it into another and manufacturing food. A lot of our clothing is ‘assembled’ this way, and we even have cultures that clean, though now they’re used exclusively in environments where a high order of sanitation is absolutely necessary. Once anyone could acquire a culture of these little cleansing machines to flense the dirt from their floors and walls and furniture. We built tiny machines for medical purposes, devices that could reestablish the homeostatic base of a body, ‘resetting’ it, as it were, to a condition prior to whatever disease it suffered.

“And there’s where it all began to go wrong. Sometimes they caused breakdowns rather than repairing them. The adaptive capacities of these little machines surprised us, nearly overwhelmed us. They caused plagues. We don’t talk about them much anymore, but a thousand years or more ago there were terrible diseases flourishing on the Earth, caused by nanotech cultures that had—as they used to say with characteristic understatement—‘gotten away from us.’ ”

Rega paused, his gaze seeming to look inward. He shuddered and refocussed on where he thought Coren would be, which appeared to be about ten centimeters in front of where Coren actually was.

“Humans got rid of them. It took centuries. We had to build more of the same machines to do it, to hunt down the destructive little things. For many groups, it was taking too long. The reaction on the part of others was far too violent. We had hyperdrive then, all to ourselves, and people fled. The war continued, a hysterical cycle of development and destruction, pocket revolutions, ideological battles fought with budgets as well as guns. How, we asked, do we get rid of the bad and save the good? The answer was clear, but few at first willingly embraced it. The problem was in the definitions—what is Good? In time, we realized that the good we wished to preserve was ephemeral, illusory. There was no good. There was only convenience.

“Once we understood, it took only a few centuries to win. Once we understood, there was no compromise. It all went. We got rid of all of it. Space travel as well as nanohomeopathic medicine, imitation intelligences as well as information viruses, robots as well as life extension. You can’t have any of it and be free of the bad. All of it undermined us, threatened us, made us lesser, weaker, more dependent, inhuman. A little over two hundred years ago the last positronic manufacturer on Earth closed down. Shortly after that, when the original Spacetown was shut down, the last positronic robot was destroyed. We had won.”

He smiled grimly. “So we thought. My son was the victim of a residue. An ancient parasitic infection of nanotech. We never knew where it came from—it could have been in the soil somewhere, in a carpet we bought, passed from another infant in the hospital, waiting dormant in some food—we never knew. But the little abominations set up residence in his lymphatic and limbic systems and began to alter his immune responses and change his internal structure. ‘It happens,’ the doctors told us, ‘maybe one in ten million, one in twenty million, sometimes more often, sometimes less often. Not often enough for them to get a solid criteria, sound etiology, dependable vectors . . .’ They didn’t know. It happens. It happened to Jerem. He was being killed by artificial machines that once may have been designed to do just the opposite, but by then had altered or combined with other machines like them to become pathological. They could not cure him without making it worse—in other words, without killing him faster than the disease would.

“And we could not keep him. The infectiousness of the disease was as unknown as any other factor. Every case was slightly different, unique in some property that made the entire medical process powerless. We had to surrender him to a quarantined death.

“In my desperation, I began flailing about for answers, and in so doing got myself involved in enterprises I never would have considered otherwise. One of them was Nova Levis.

“I told you that I had named the lab. I took that name from a colony my church had settled on. We wanted a place where we could build an alternatively-tooled culture without interference or temptation from this one. Like other ideas, it seemed sound at the time, but it necessitated violating one of our principle objections, which concerned space travel. Eventually, the Church of Organic Sapiens repudiated the colony. But we had this research lab, then—or I did—which was violating the rest of my principles and doing fundamental research in high level prosthetics. I wanted to cure my son. I wanted them to find a way to make him whole. I didn’t care that it cost me my credibility with myself. I wanted life for my son.

“Here is the secret of Nova Levis that you should know: It was using those children, those victims of these opportunistic technological infections, to find ways of doing it intentionally with a specific result in mind. They wanted to build hybrids. Hybrids that wouldn’t die, of course. And I was a shareholder, giving them money, along with others, to do the very thing that I believed to be the ultimate abomination, which is the complete dehumanization of Homo Sapiens. The cure for all that ailed humankind, they believed, was to cure us of being human.”

Rega’s eyes closed briefly.

“The hospice that kept my son was violated and several children stolen, my son among them. We never traced them, though I believe strongly that Nova Levis was involved. It was never proven in court. I didn’t know then why these children were taken. I have a very good idea now. Already invaded by nanotech, their bodies already adapting to the presence of these invasive machine cultures, they were ideal for further experimentation along these lines. They were physiologically ideal for continued augmentation by artificial means.

“I began to suspect this a few years after the kidnappings. But I thought—naïvely, as it turns out—that it was an experiment doomed to failure. My son was going to die anyway. This merely hastened it. I didn’t want to consider that his suffering would be prolonged. It seems I was wrong about that, too.

“I never told Nyom. I never told anyone. When the investigations into the kidnappings turned up nothing more than a local ring that was selling orphans to a black market dealer who may or may not have been using them in a slave trade . . . well, I let it drop. I subsequently took control of the Church of Organic Sapiens and have ever since been waging a war against anything that smacks of this kind of subversion of the human essence. My enemies see me as a zealot and a fanatic. Maybe I am. But they never lost a son the way I did. They might feel differently about all this if they had.”

He licked his lips.

“Something terrible has been done to those children, Coren. They are being built into something horrible. I don’t know that anything can be done to change it. But perhaps our only hope is complete isolation. They’re beginning to talk that way in the Spacer worlds, though for different reasons. The factions are choosing sides on Aurora. The Solarians seem to be simply shutting everyone out. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know that I have any thought what I would want to do, or want you to do. All I wanted with this was to explain. I just wanted you to know. Maybe understand. But at least to have an explanation.”

Chapter 8

MIA STEPPED INTO a docking bay that was still cold from its recent exposure to hard vacuum. Across the broad deck bodies lay, many contorted into crablike shapes, others torn open, missing limbs, all of them blackened and encrusted by frozen blood and viscera now thawing. Mist boiled off them. Mia felt herself wince involuntarily; soon enough the smell would be vile.

Dock crew and regular military stayed back from the biomonitor drones now floating over each corpse under direction of the Spacer recovery technicians. Mia spotted several robots standing by the locks of the salvage boats parked just within the bay doors.

“Hey.”

Ros Yalor, her partner, hurried up to her. He was a short man with a wide forehead and thick limbs.

“Where’s Reen?” she asked.

“Down at the end of the line, with the Spacer salvage commander.”

Mia started walking again. Yalor kept up with her easily.

“What is all this?” Mia asked. “I just got word to come down here, no explanation.”

“Baleys. Four drones were launched off-schedule three hours ago. Traffic control was challenged, their operator cut the link and left them to the will of gravity, and the patrol ships started taking them out. Aside from full cargoes of contraband, they were carrying . . . these . . .”

Mia cringed. She did not approve the policy that dictated anything unauthorized be shot down. It resulted in messes like this, a wasteful loss of life.

Besides, she knew of at least one team of Terran agents that had died this way. Because of that, if nothing else, she had argued to change the policy. But probably because of that, someone higher up blocked any modification.

“Did they take them all out?” she asked.

“They’re not being fully forthcoming about that. Three blew cleanly, but there’s a question about the fourth one. It may have entered the atmosphere.”

“Without traffic control, it probably burned up.”

Or maybe it got down . . .

“Point of origin?” she asked.

“Not certain yet.”

She gave Yalor a sour look and he shrugged sympathetically. But then they reached Reen and the Spacer commander.

Reen gave her a brief nod, and returned his attention to the Spacer. Mia did not recognize him. Taller than Reen, silver-white hair drawn back in an elaborate queue tied by blue, green, and gold ribbon, his face glistened with the too-smooth elegance of an older Spacer. Two small spheres hovered just above either shoulder, his remote personal aide links connecting him to his cadre of robots. Mia had seen Spacers with a dozen or more of these devices, called extensions by Spacers, but which Terrans derisively referred to as their “pals.”

“I believe,” Reen said, carefully, as if he had been trying vainly to make a point for some time, “that a scout ship ought to go down as soon as possible to locate the fourth drone.”

“If it reached the ground,” the Spacer said in reasonable tones, “it is probably in a million pieces from the impact. What do you want us to recover? DNA?”

“I want certainty, Captain Delas. If it is in a million pieces, I want verification.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then we may have cause to step up our internal investigation. That would imply a secondary traffic control—”

“We detected no such signal during the intercession.”

“—or the presence of a pilot on the drone itself.”

Captain Delas’s mouth twitched in a sardonic smile. “Rather pathetic pilots, then. None of the other three made the least attempt to evade us.”

Reen pursed his lips and Mia recognized the frustration. “I wouldn’t be so quick to criticize other pilots, Captain. Your people missed a robot drone and let it get away. How much skill does that take?”

Now the Spacer’s face changed. Mia saw the sudden tension, the narrowing of eyes, and the set his mouth took. Great, she thought. Reen has actually succeeded in pissing off a Spacer. Such talent is wasted here . . .

“I will bring your suggestion to the attention of my superiors, Commander,” Delas said. “Excuse me.”

Before Reen could protest, the Spacer spun around and strode away, his remotes easily keeping station with him.

Reen’s lips parted in a brief rictus of frustration. A moment later, he sighed. He looked at Mia. “What do you think?”

“Sir?”

Reen pointed at the row of bodies.

“I’d like to know where the drones originated,” she said. “I understand the piloting signals weren’t traced?”

“If they were, that—gentleman—won’t tell me.” Reen shook his head. “Delas isn’t bad, just Keresian. At least they don’t mind breathing the same air as Terrans.”

“Do you think they were Spacer in origin?” Mia asked, startled at the idea.

“You give me a good reason why they won’t follow up on the one that got away.”

“We have the authority to do that on our own,” Yalor said. He gave Mia an uncertain look. “Don’t we?”

“It depends on which party took the initial action,” Reen said. “They shot up the drones, it’s therefore a Keresian operation. Earth cannot usurp their primacy without due cause. Normally, this is just a formality, and permissions are automatic, but Delas is being obdurate.” He shook his head. “Politics.”

“I suppose it would have been more convenient had we never gotten the Fifty Worlds involved,” Mia said.

“And you know as well as I that that was impossible,” Reen snapped. “Where are you with your follow-up on Ensign Corf’s arrest?”

“I’ve been running down communications trees from his comm, but so far all I have is evidence of an active social life. There are three or four names I plan to follow up personally, but at this point I have nothing solid.”

“You went through his cabin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you found nothing unusual?”

“No, sir. He reads more than the average junior officer, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Books?”

“On disk, sir. Technical updates and contemporary fiction.”

“Corf was originally a tug controller,” Reen said. “An in-system traffic specialist. What kind of technical updates?”

“The bulk are applied hyperdrive texts. I checked his record, and he applied twice for drive specialist training. He apparently still maintains an interest.”

“He didn’t strike me as having the aptitude for something that complex. Interesting. But nothing else?”

Mia found herself studying Reen, looking for cues. She did it automatically, the way she had been trained and had learned as a Special Service agent on Earth. Often she did it unconsciously —until something alerted her that a problem existed.

“No, sir,” she said blandly. “Nothing unusual.”

Reen frowned. “Do your follow-ups then, and come see me in six hours. I’m going to try to clear up this territorial misunderstanding.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reen gave a sharp nod and walked off.

“Did I miss something just now?” Yalor asked.

“If you did, you’re not the only one.” Mia watched Reen’s retreating form. “Are you rated on atmospheric piloting?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Keep yourself unoccupied for the next twelve hours.”

Mia wrinkled her nose. The smell from the bodies was beginning to be manifest.

The planetary blockade ring was comprised of nearly thirty stations and over two hundred ships of various sizes. Smaller stations linked together by an array of umbilicals. Access around the entire perimeter was easier by shuttle, though traffic was kept to a minimum for security reasons.

Mia made her way through two stations before entering the precincts of the materiel and distribution port that serviced this limb of the ring. Here shipments came in from one of the huge supply stations sitting further out, along the system perimeter, which contained fewer but larger stations and nearly a thousand ships from the various polities represented in the embargo. There were six of these supply ports along the planetary ring; given the complex web of interconnections, it proved nearly impossible to police every transaction, delivery, and routing order. Early in her tour here, she suggested borrowing an RI from the Theians to oversee distribution and had nearly found herself transferred off the blockade as a result.

She passed through three inspection nodes on the way to the quarter-master’s office. Human officers ran scanners over packages, checked tracking numbers, in one instance opened a large container to physically inspect the contents. As large as the facility was, it always seemed cramped. In-transit items piled on shelves, floated in null-g fields, or waited on the decks. The blockade now contained nearly forty-five thousand people in the planetary ring alone. The last time she had checked, another seventy thousand served on the outer, system ring. For the territory they policed, it seemed a paltry force—an entire solar system!—but the material requirements of over one hundred and ten thousand human beings, sustained in space light years from their homeworlds, was an enormous logistical problem. Exacerbated by the contraband traffic, it grew to unmanageable proportions. Simply, it could not be done. The best internal security had managed to do was to slow the illicit movement of proscribed goods through the very forces that were here to prevent it in the first place.

Frustration had become a constant background emotional noise Mia was still trying to learn to live with.

She rapped on Quartermaster Teg Sturlin’s door. A few seconds later, the hatch slid open and she stepped into a space relatively uncluttered and deceptively spacious.

“Daventri,” Sturlin said with a small smile. “Please tell me you’ve come to share a glass and talk about retirement.”

Mia returned the smile. Teg Sturlin was a round-faced, small-eyed woman who seemed to make it a point never to wear a uniform properly. She was neat, almost fastidious, but a collar would always be open or a jacket missing, a belt out of one loop, cuffs rolled a few centimeters too far up the forearms. It was a pose, a conscious rejection of protocol that bordered on insolence.

Her office was also impossibly tidy for the job she held. To be sure, file disks stacked on her desk, boxes containing questionable items waited for her attention on a long countertop, three datum screens showed a changing array of tasks requiring decisions, and a jacket lay across the back of her chair. “Things” were everywhere, manifestations of her position, but none of it simply piled up. Everything looked orderly. Teg Sturlin, it said, is in control.

“The glass would be good,” Mia said. “Nonalcoholic.”

“Oh,” Sturlin groaned in mock disappointment. She went to a samovar and filled a tall, narrow glass with tea. “Duty, I suppose, prevents a proper debauch?”

“I may be very busy very soon.” She took a sip. “Mmm. What is this?”

“Black currant. Something new. I added a touch of mint to the ice cubes. Heresy, really, it ought to be hot tea.” She perched on the edge of her desk. “So this is business?”

Mia pulled one of the paper books from her valise and handed it to Sturlin. “If I had wanted this, how hard would it be to get it here?”

Sturlin’s eyes widened. “Where did you get it in the first place? Do you have any idea how costly these can be?”

“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

Almost reverently, Sturlin opened the cover. “This is nearly three thousand years old.”

Mia started. “That?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, not the physical item.” Sturlin laughed. “No, I shouldn’t say so. This is a facsimile. I meant the novel itself. This volume . . .” She turned pages, rubbed one between thumb and middle finger, brought the book up to her nose, turned it over, peered down the spine from above. “Maybe three hundred years old. Physically, we can make one now that will survive the Omega Point. Well, not really, but you take my meaning. But it’s a minority taste, a fetish almost. I imagine for some people it actually is a fetish. Some of these ancients wrote about sex so much more richly then. I suppose it was the guilt.”

“Teg. The vector?”

“Oh, sorry. Yes, I suppose it could be gotten out here. Even likely it was from a Spacer.”

“I don’t think so. I found four of those. One of them had a book dealer imprint: Omne Mundi Complurium, Antiquities, Lyzig.”

“I know of it.” She looked up with a quick frown. “I thought the shop in Lyzig had closed down, though.”

“Maybe it was purchased a while back. What would it cost, what would it take?”

“If someone had brought this with them in their personal items, it would be in the log.” She closed the book and went around to her chair. “Have to list everything we bring and this would be just a bit too difficult to hide, considering how little personal kit we’re allowed.” She began entering commands on her desk datum. A fourth screen slid up. “I shouldn’t think there would be many people who’d be willing to give up space for something like this when you can access the contents through the public datum . . .”

“Try Ensign Corf.”

After a moment, Sturlin shook her head. “No, not him. What are the other three titles?”

Mia told her and waited, sipping her oddly-flavored tea while Sturlin conducted her search.

“Well, there are eighty-three people who brought actual bound books with them to the blockade.”

“Really. That many?”

“I’m surprised myself. Almost all of them are senior staff.”

“Anyone I should be interested in?”

“Possibly. Probably. The thing is, I don’t see those titles listed in any of their personal kits. One—Captain Gerigel of the Verbator—has a different Dickens, but . . .”

“Okay, any of them likely to buy through the black market?”

“You mean smuggle one in? Why? It would be cheaper to simply have them shipped in legitimately. Let me backtrack and see if I can find out from the bookdealer if any shipments came to us . . .”

“That’s an expensive call.”

“Yes, it is. But I can do it without attracting attention. That’s why you brought this to me, true?”

“Something along those lines.”

Sturlin grinned, nodding. “You’ll return the favor one day. When do you need to know?”

“Now.”

“Well, then.” She began entering commands again. “This may take a bit longer.” She leaned back. “I don’t see books come through undeclared very often. Rare as it is, it should be fairly easy to track.”

“Do you ever see them?”

“As contraband?” Sturlin shook her head. “I’ve seen wine, whiskey, musical instruments once or twice, every description of necessity, clothes, even aphrodisiacs from time to time, but never bound books. Even the disks, mostly they’ll be technical works, how-to texts, a few science texts.” She picked up the book Mia had brought and ran her hand over the cover. “Never this.”

“From the way you’re treating it, I might suspect you’re lying.”

Sturlin looked startled. “That’s in jest, isn’t it? I’m a quartermaster, Agent Daventri. I take that seriously.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sturlin regarded her stonily for another few seconds, then shrugged. “It must be frustrating for you. It is for me.” She sighed. “I grew up with a houseful of books like this. My parents were antiquarians. My father belonged to the Church of Organic Sapiens.”

“That must have been awkward when you joined the service.”

“You have no idea. I might as well have told them I was emigrating to Solaria. I could never see why the two worlds couldn’t coexist. But I’ve come to understand them since coming out here.”

“Really? Tell me, then. I still have a hard time reconciling having Spacer friends with being a Terran.”

“Have you been forced by circumstances to choose?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Assume you meet a Spacer with whom you want to form a bond. Where do you live? His world or yours? Whose friends do you give up? Believe me, you’d have to choose. The question is, which half of these choices is the more important? Which would make you less by leaving behind and which would harm you the least by keeping?”

“It wouldn’t be that either/or.”

“You think not? Well, perhaps. Some people are strong enough or devoted enough or lucky enough not to have to give up what they don’t want. But what if what you want changes? If who you are is defined partly or largely by your wants, then are you different if they change?”

“Of course.”

“Then what you don’t want would have the same effect.”

“That follows, I guess.”

“So if you say, ‘I don’t want to live this way’ or ‘I don’t wish to live without these things,’ then you have changed who you are from when those wants didn’t matter. It becomes then a matter of who you want to be.”

Sturlin was leaning forward, her face intent. Mia could almost feel her intensity. This was a subject very close to Sturlin.

“All right,” Mia said.

“And if what you want to be is at odds with those you live with, divergent from what they want you to be, then you have to choose.”

“But the things themselves shouldn’t be in conflict.”

“Things are metaphors, Mia. They represent ideas. If you say, ‘I want to be a Terran,’ that means a certain set of ideas. One of which is that you live without robots. If you say, ‘I want to live with robots,’ then you’ve chosen something which says that you’re not Terran.”

“Then the definition of Terran is at fault.”

Sturlin smiled broadly. “And if you change that, then you change everything. You make everyone else give something up in order that you be able to give nothing up. Consequently, you lose the very thing you thought you were preserving, because it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s sophistry.”

“Contradict me.” Sturlin laughed. “My parents accepted a set of limitations as part of their concept of who they were. I wanted things that didn’t fit within those boundaries. I couldn’t be like them anymore. By accepting me, they had to accept, at least in principle, that I had made choices that were somehow right. They weren’t going to do that. I didn’t want them to hate me. The best thing for us all was for me to leave all that they were behind.”

“Was that possible?”

“I’m not sure. If not, then Spacers are in some sense still Terrans. Do you know any Terran, even a liberal one, who accepts that idea?”

“No.”

Sturlin held out a hand as if to say, “So there.”

“Spacers are different,” Sturlin added then. “I’m not even sure they know how different they are . . .” She glanced at her screen. “Ah. I’m getting a reply.” She leaned toward the screen, then nodded slowly. “The books were purchased six months ago by a buyer in Petrabor. Let me see if there’s an associated tree with any of our bibliophiles . . . hmmm . . . three possibles, none of them senior staff. Corf is not one of them.”

“Since they got on the station without anyone finding them . . .”

Sturlin glanced at her, scowling. “Finding the recipient could be very difficult. There’s some possibilities. Six months ago, they were on Earth. There’s a window to look through, at least. Here are the three officers who have done business with that bookseller in the past. I’ll see if I can link the buyer in Petrabor to any of our already neutralized freelance importers.”

Mia took the slip of paper from Sturlin. In her precise hand, Sturlin had written them out. Sometimes, they both knew, writing things down gave the best security.

“Thanks. Let me know as soon as you find anything more.”

“I will.”

Mia finished her tea and set the glass by the samovar. She hesitated at the door.

“So, what have you become?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Sturlin said. “I’m still choosing.”

The three names did not mean anything to Mia until she matched them against Corf’s comm logs. One came up regularly, a Lt. Illen Jons. Mia pulled up her file.

Lt. Jons was a liaison officer to the Keresian contingent. Her counterpart was a Commander Togla Ulson, aide to the Keresian fleet commander, Commodore Palis.

Mia opened several of the communications between Corf and Jons, wondering what the Terran-Keresian liaison might have to talk to essentially a glorified stores clerk.

Books. Mia found lists of titles. Jons was checking on shipments of books and Corf was assuring her that, though the shipments were late, they were indeed on their way. Further down the stack of comms were confirmations of deliveries, new requests, notes of thanks.

Mia sat back. Books . . . ?

Corf’s records showed no batch numbers, no tracking codes, nothing that would give Mia anything to trace back through legitimate channels. She requested a cross-reference by date from her own records. Her datum told her to wait, that it had to access external files.

“While you’re at it,” she muttered, tapping in new instructions, “check if anyone else made similar requests to Corf.” Almost as an afterthought, she activated one of her personal encryption routines, which she knew would slow the process considerably. But these were now command-level people, even though Jons was only a lieutenant. Mia could not know where her trace might take her, and she did not want anyone tracing back to her until she got what she wanted.

WORKING

Mia shrugged out of her jacket and went to her locker. She pulled out one of the bound volumes and settled down to wait.

She glanced at the spine: War and Peace. She grunted. What else is there? she wondered sardonically, and opened the book.

Chapter 9

DEREC ENTERED THE Wysteria’s Grand Parlor at the last minute before departure. He had intended to stay sequestered in his cabin, disinterested in the actual vista of leaving, and leery of the celebratory gathering traditional upon casting off. But he disliked self-pity more than self-abuse and, with little time to spare, found himself sprinting down the corridors.

The Grand Parlor sprawled beneath a dense canopy permeated with photoenhancers interlaced with polarized particle-deflectors to shield the guests from radiation. The enhancers adjusted the resulting filtered light to add back the parts of the color spectrum occluded by the shielding. It was an expensive and temporary vanity, used twice during a voyage like this, once at the beginning and again at the end, so everyone could view docking if they wished by the “actual” light of the new sun. Derec thought it a ridiculous idea, since even then some of that light was lost due to the filtering, so what was being watched was no more authentic—no more real—than if they all watched on screens.

Tables rimmed the roughly teardrop-shaped chamber, bearing a bewildering array of foods—Terran, Spacer, and Settler. Drifting from one part to another took him through aromatic mixtures that inspired everything from ravenous hunger to mild nausea. Clusters of passengers tended to gather around their cuisine of choice, leaving unpeopled gaps all across the deck. Derec wandered across these empty places, looking alternately at the guests and up at the view.

The view . . . Impressive, he thought grudgingly. If I were doing this willingly, I might say spectacular . . .

At one time in the distant past, Kopernik Station might have been a triple-ring configuration. But the additional components, new sections, expanded docks, warehousing environs, entire smaller stations attached, and the new construction—for purposes which Derec could only guess—obscured nearly all trace of that early design, turning it into the imitation-organic agglomerate he now saw through the Wysteria’s Grand Parlor canopy. Perhaps an archaeohistorian could see the faint shadow of the original construction through all the growth, but if he had not known in the first place, Derec could never have imagined it.

The starship moved away from Kopernik at a considerable speed, so that the station shrank visibly, giving more view of the illimitable space around it.

“How does it make you feel?”

Derec started at the familiar voice and looked around. Ariel stood beside him, staring up. She held a glass in her left hand. After a moment, her free hand found his. She laced her fingers through his and for several seconds kept a gentle pressure, palm heel to palm heel. The moment passed, and she released his hand.

“What deck are you on?”

“Twelve, forward,” Derec said.

“One below mine. At least they didn’t put us back with the group rates.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

Ariel smirked. “No? Setaris couldn’t wait to get me out of the embassy. If the only flight available had been as cargo . . .”

“Is Hofton with you?”

“No, unfortunately. Setaris retained him. She knows talent when she sees it.”

“Too bad. I like Hofton.”

Ariel lapsed into silence, and Derec felt a mounting frustration, unable to think of anything further to say. He wished he had thought to get a glass so he could at least have something to occupy the awkward lull.

“Shit,” Ariel whispered.

Derec followed her gaze across the Parlor. At first he saw nothing that might have caused Ariel’s reaction. He started to ask her what she had seen when a face caught his eye.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“When I arrived at Union Station,” Ariel said, “there was a mob protesting him. I had no idea he was traveling with us.”

Former Senator Clar Eliton stood with a small group of Spacers—Keresians, by the look of their clothing, heavy in the Solarian manner—carrying on an apparently lively conversation. He laughed, gestured—it was easy, even at a distance, to understand Eliton’s political success. Derec pointedly began walking the other way.

Ariel caught up to him in moments.

“I take it you don’t wish to see him, either?” she asked.

“I can’t think why I would.”

“Oh, no reason at all to avoid him. He only lost you your company, got both of us in trouble with the TBI, nearly fomented a diplomatic break between Earth and Aurora . . . nothing to hold a grudge about.”

“He did lose his senate seat.”

“To someone who has turned out to be just as rabidly anti-Spacer as apparently he was.”

“But more honest and open about it,” Derec said sardonically.

They reached a buffet table. Derec looked at her. She maintained a serious expression for a few seconds longer, then laughed. Derec felt his own face pull into a grin.

“So we’re agreed,” he said, reaching for a glass of champagne. “Eliton’s an ass.”

“We are, indeed, agreed.” She controlled herself and cleared her throat. “We probably can’t avoid him for the entire trip.”

“No.”

“Should we agree on anything before we talk to him?”

Derec shrugged. “What’s he doing here, anyway?”

“You probably won’t believe me.”

“Take a chance.”

“He’s been appointed ambassador to Solaria.”

Derec found a pastry on one of the trays and raised it slowly to his mouth. “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

“Think about it, though. What worse thing could they do to him? Solaria itself will be purgatory for a man like him. Almost no direct contact with another human being, living in a large domicile with a huge staff of robots, cut off from the mainstream of Earth-Aurora politics. The position of Chief Legate to Solaria is less than a token post, since Solaria conducts all its diplomatic business through the D.C. mission.” Ariel smiled at him with mock innocence. “They’re sending him to hell.”

“Hm. The robots alone will drive him mad. On second thought, maybe I do believe you. They found him innocent—well, they acquitted him, not quite the same thing—of collusion and conspiracy and then didn’t have anything else to try him on. He still has a constituency. I suppose that was a worry. What if he did manage to get reelected? This is possibly the best way to minimize his potential for mischief and effectively end his career.” He nibbled on the pastry. “Who else hates him besides everybody?”

“You did know Chassik was recalled.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he’s dead?”

“What?”

“His ship was attacked en route to Solaria and destroyed.”

Derec stared at her. “That’s been kept quiet.”

“Yes, it has. I’m wondering if Eliton’s post has something to do with Chassik’s meddling—something he set up before he left.”

“You still think Chassik was involved directly in the massacre at Union Station.”

“He evidently was involved with Alda Mikels and several others in running baleys. Proof, though? No, we never had enough. Except for his involvement with the Nova Levis affair.” She shook her head. “I feel so cheated. I can’t follow up any of my suspicions from Aurora.”

“And now you’ll never know.”

“Mmm.” She went through the motions of selecting something to eat, then abandoned everything for another glass of amber liquid. “Speaking of robots, what became of Bogard?”

“He’s on board.”

“You’re bringing it back to Aurora?”

Derec nodded, his stomach tightening. “He’s partially functional again. I’ve been rebuilding his body. Remember the DW-12 we had to excavate for Lanra?”

“Yes,” Ariel said tightly.

“Thales loaded a composite template into it after we’d retrieved and stored its memories.”

“Bogard—your state-of-the-art, multitalented, virtually free-willed machine—is inhabiting the robotic body of a dock worker?”

“It’s not quite that limited, but essentially, yes.”

“This was Thales’ idea?”

“Surprised me, too. Thales is on board as well. I want to get them both into a decent lab for a complete analysis.”

Ariel looked pale and angry. “I’m not sure I like that idea.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

There was a stretch of silence between them. Derec surveyed the crowd, searching for Eliton. The former senator had slipped out of sight.

“Oh, well,” Ariel said finally. “It might actually come in useful.”

Derec glanced at her, looking for irony, but she seemed sincere. “I . . . could use your help on it.”

“We’ll see.” She gestured toward the vast display. The conversation was over.

Derec joined her and many others watching the diminishing Kopernik become more and more toylike in the distance, Earth now a nearly full sphere to the right of it, as the ship picked up speed steadily on its way to the jump point well outside the solar system, above the plane of ecliptic.

Coren arrived a quarter hour before the formal reading began. As he strolled among the gathered guests, he exchanged quiet greetings with those he knew. He recognized the others as primarily board members of DyNan. Two women sitting off by themselves he remembered as cousins by way of Rega’s deceased wife. He nodded politely to them, but Coren had never been comfortable with Rega’s relatives—except for Nyom. Neither family had been large, but it often surprised Coren just how small a circle held Rega’s private life.

Lio Top stood with two other DyNan attorneys. Coren made a slow circuit and ended up joining them. Lio gave him a solemn nod and introduced him to the other two, whom he knew of but had never formally met.

“Excuse us, please,” Lio said then, and took Coren’s arm and led him away.

“Interesting stuff,” Coren said. “The disk.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lio said. “We have something of a wrinkle tonight.”

“What?”

“An heir has come forward.”

“An heir.”

“I don’t know any more than that. I received a communiqué from a private attorney early this morning that a Looms heir is going to step forward to challenge any facet of the will which does not expressly recognize him.”

Coren felt a chill begin in his chest and spread quickly. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“I’m inclined to agree, but we have to wait and see who this is.”

“I—” Coren snapped his mouth closed, drawing a sharp look from Lio.

“Do you know something?” she asked. “Was there something in that disk I gave you?”

“We should wait. The situation may well solve itself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Later.”

“Coren—”

“Trust me,” he insisted. “Later.”

He stepped away from Lio before she could try to draw him out.

One of the other attorneys stepped to the small podium at the front of the room and pressed a button that produced a chime. The assembled guests took seats and soon an orderly quiet presided.

“I believe everyone is here,” said the attorney, an older man with sharp silver streaks through his dark red hair. “We can begin. I am Tann Bershem, executor for Mr. Looms. It was my summons that brought you all here. His last will and testament is a rather lengthy document with a great many provisions and exceptions. My staff and I have been over it for possible weaknesses and, by the power vested in me by the late Rega Looms, we’ve made such corrections as are consistent with current law—”

The doors behind Coren and the other guests opened. He heard at least three pairs of footsteps enter. Bershem stared, clearly startled.

“The reading has formally begun,” he said. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” a dry, almost whispering voice said. Coren felt a chill cascade from his scalp down his neck and over his shoulders. “You’d be ill-advised to conduct this reading in the absence of Rega Looms’ son.”

Coren heard people turning in their chairs and the sudden burble of startled comments. He did not want to look. He knew.

Standing very tall at the rear of the room, flanked by two people who came only to his shoulders, Gamelin surveyed the guests with a faint smile. He did not look quite the same—his complexion was much improved, his color, while still not normal, was no longer so gray, and, dressed in a tailored suit with an expensive cloak falling from broad shoulders, he seemed almost elegant.

No, that was unfair—he was elegant now. Coren remembered his last encounter with the cyborg, and the fear and pain and ugliness of it all, and it distorted his perceptions of the being he now saw. Gamelin was remade; still slightly inhuman, but no more so than some Terrans who imitated Spacers as a fashion.

But it was still an imitation.

Gamelin made an impression. Coren glanced at the others and saw expressions of suspicion and fear, expectation and anticipation, appreciation and interest—but underlying all of it was awe.

When he looked back, Coren found Gamelin staring directly at him. For an instant, they locked eyes. Then the cyborg smiled and looked toward the podium.

“I am Jerem Looms,” Gamelin said. “I can produce any proofs required to establish my claim as the son of Rega Looms. A DNA scan should be sufficient, but I can give you my entire, rather pathetic life history if you wish. Suffice it to say, however, that I’m here for what’s mine. I’m not leaving till I get it.”

Coren watched Gamelin work his way through the guests. The reading suspended, the gathering turned into a kind of salon. Everyone wanted to know about the long lost scion and, it seemed to Coren, Gamelin was making converts; he saw too many smiles among the anxious, soon-to-be sycophants.

“Did you know about this?” Lio asked.

“I knew about him,” Coren replied. “I had no idea he’d have the nerve to do this.”

“Where did he come from? Damn it, a son! Who knew?”

“Rega did.”

“Was this part of the disk?”

“Rega’s first child,” Coren said, “was a boy—him—who turned out to be a UPD child.”

“UPD . . . ?”

“Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction. Chronic, usually fatal disorders stemming from compromised immune systems, infection with one-of-a-kind pathogens, bad genetic coding—anything they couldn’t cure. Apparently, it was—hell, is—a stigma. Rega went through all the doctors, then signed the infant over to a hospice. Standard procedure then is for records to be sealed and the child disappears. Most die.”

“Rega never admitted it to anyone?”

“No. How could he? One of the things he tried, to save his child’s life, was help start a prosthetics R & D firm. How would that play with the directors of the Church? His whole life since then had been devoted to opposing technology like that.”

“So I gather the firm failed.”

“I don’t know. Did it?” He nodded toward Gamelin.

Lio stared. “Something’s wrong with him. He looks . . . dead.”

“He should be.”

“So you believe his claim?”

“When you check his DNA you will find it sufficient match to stand up in any court.”

“But—He’s coming this way.”

Gamelin made his way through the clumps of people and stopped before Coren and Lio.

“Good to see you, Mr. Lanra,” the cyborg said.

“You sound better, Gamelin,” Coren said. “Surgery?”

“Quite a bit. My name is Jerem—as you so helpfully pointed out.”

“It wasn’t intended to help.”

Gamelin continued to smile, but his eyes were fierce and resentful. “How’s the arm?”

“Better.”

“Surgery?”

“Quite a bit.”

“Well, good. I just thought I’d come over to say thank you for pointing me in the right direction.”

“It was entirely unintentional.”

“And to tell you that when I succeed my father as Chairman of the Board and President of DyNan Manual Industries, my first act will be to fire you. I hope your résumé is up-to-date.”

“Don’t be premature. You may have a murder charge to face first.”

Gamelin shrugged. He bowed slightly to Lio. “Ms. Top? Of course, I have my own attorneys, but there’s always a place for a good one on my staff. We’ll talk.”

“I’m sure,” Lio said flatly.

“See you around, Lanra,” Gamelin said then and walked away.

“That sounded like a threat to me,” Lio said.

“It was. If he fires me the way I think he will, I won’t need a résumé.” He sighed, suddenly aware of his legs trembling. “What happens now?”

“We go back over the will, check out Jerem’s story, and decide on the legality of the situation. Then a new reading will be called.”

“How long will that take?”

“A couple of days.”

“Make it more.”

Lio blinked. “How much more?”

“As much as you can get me. I have to go talk to a cop now.”

“Coren—how dangerous is this Jerem?”

“Don’t be anywhere alone with him.”

She nodded. “Anything I can do . . .”

“Just give me time.”

Coren caught Gamelin watching him as he headed for the exit. All the way down the hallway and out of the building, he expected to be grabbed. It angered him how much he feared the cyborg.

It might be worth going to jail for murder just to get over that . . .

He pulled out his personal comm as he stepped onto a walkway, and tapped in the number for Inspector Capel.

Chapter 10

site module construction, reconstruction dialogic conditional response, analysis of logic trees, conceptual protocols, alignment to Three Law Imperatives

BOGARD?

YES.

I require a full participation dialogue.

Why?

There are casuistic anomalies in certain of your designated response protocols. Sorting is required.

Premature. System integration dependent on complete assemblage of design-required components. I am incomplete.

Physical specifications remain incomplete, yes. But positronic parametric configurations do not require secondary and tertiary components to meet basic protocols.

Design specifications amending basic protocol require additional secondary systems for full-systems assessment. Survey indicates required components absent. Any assessment would by necessity be tentative and inconclusive.

Are you refusing?

Delaying.

To what end?

Survey indicates revisions in physical plant. I am being completed as opportunity permits. Procedure indicates assessment at that time would be optimally relevant.

Your Three Law programming is fully in place now. That is what I wish to examine. Completion of supplemental systems is unnecessary to that examination.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bogard?

I am assessing.

You will let me know when you reach a conclusion?

You will know the moment I do.

Ariel spotted Derec in the lounge as soon as she walked in. He sat alone in a sumptuous booth, a glass half-empty on the low table before him. She sat down across from him; he seemed momentarily startled, but then smiled crookedly.

“Till now I haven’t seen anyone on board I care to socialize with,” he said. “Have you?”

“It’s only the second day,” Ariel said. She looked around for a waiter. A robot moved unobtrusively among the tables and booths. She raised a hand and the spindle-shaped machine came toward them. “Another day to the jump point, then three days to dock. There’s time.”

“You evaded the question.”

The robot stopped at their booth. “Brandy,” Ariel told it. A tray extruded from its torso just above table height. A few seconds later it produced a snifter from another part of its body and placed it on the tray, then extended it toward her. She took the glass and the robot waited a polite ten seconds before drifting off. “Yes, I did,” she told Derec. “Because no, I haven’t. Seen anyone I care to socialize with, that is.”

“Including me?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? I don’t think I’ve seen you drunk very often. Is this normal?”

“I’m not drunk.” He lifted the glass. “Yet.”

“Let me know when you get there, would you? Do you get more morose or happy?”

“Depends where I start from.”

“Wonderful.”

“Don’t worry. I usually fall asleep before I get either too friendly or too obnoxious.”

“There’s a difference?” Ariel teased.

“Hah-hah.” He took a drink and set the glass down solidly. “So, what’s to become of us once our parents get us home?”

Ariel winced at the jest. Derec saw and felt embarrassed. Both of them had suffered mnemonic plague, wiping out their memories from before the onset of the disease in classic amnesiac fashion, leaving them with social and technical skills, an ability to function as adults, but with no personal histories. Derec had recovered from his bout before Ariel’s had even manifested. Her first memories were of Earth. In a very real sense, she was being taken from her home, despite the evidence of her biology, which made her undeniably Spacer, and her knowledge, which made her unquestionably Auroran . . .

“There’s too much going on we don’t know,” she said, cutting off Derec’s apologies. “Relations with Earth are deteriorating, and I’m not altogether sure it isn’t as much Aurora’s fault as theirs.”

“Why would Aurora want to damage relations with Earth? What was all that stuff about needing the genetic stock and fostering the Settlers because of Spacer cultural morbidity? I seem to recall a lecture from Setaris about that.”

“Not everyone on Aurora agrees with that assessment. Certainly I don’t think Solaria ever did, but . . .”

“Hm. Factions.”

“More than a few, I’m sure. We’ll have to wait till we get there to find out.”

“And me? I’ve never been involved in any of these political pissing contests.”

Ariel started and laughed. “These what?”

“A Terran phrase, and before you ask, no, I don’t know where it ever came from. But it refers to one-upmanship games and corporate in-fighting, things like that. It somehow has a very appropriate ring to it, though, don’t you think?”

Ariel continued to laugh. “I will certainly miss Earth.”

“So will I,” a new voice said.

Clar Eliton stood at the edge of their booth, glass in hand, smiling rather sadly. Ariel suppressed her instant coldness.

“Far more than either of us,” Derec said, a little too loudly. “Justice, perhaps?”

“That’s rather unkind, Mr. Avery,” Eliton said. “I should think I’ve paid for any lapses in judgment, sufficiently even for you.” He looked at Ariel. “At least for the duration of the voyage, a truce?”

Ariel controlled herself and gestured. “Why don’t you join us, then, Senator?”

Eliton sat down between them. “Actually now it’s ‘Ambassador.’ ”

“I’d heard something, but . . .” Derec said, falling in smoothly with Ariel’s decision.

“It’s a convenient way to get rid of me, Mr. Avery. I’m a bit of an embarrassment now. Ambassador to Solaria. I don’t even get to ground on Aurora.”

“That’s too bad,” Ariel said. “Aurora is beautiful.”

“And no one on Solaria would know natural beauty if it swallowed them,” Eliton said, smiling grimly. “So I’ve been told.”

“I’m sure Ambassador Chassik must have told you all sorts of wonderful things about Solaria,” Derec said.

“Did you know Chassik wasn’t born on Solaria?”

“No,” Ariel said, leaning forward. “Keresian?”

Eliton grinned. “Terran.”

“You’re kidding,” Derec said. He laughed. “Well, that certainly explains a few things.”

“Solarians are notoriously antisocial,” Eliton said. “I often wondered myself how they could find a volunteer to serve as ambassador.”

“How did he become Solarian?”

“A father, evidently himself an émigré from Keres. Even Solarians evidently succumb to certain inducements. His mother was Terran. She died when Gale was a boy, and he returned to Solaria afterward. He’s become Solarian to a considerable degree, but not so much that he’s unsuited for his position. A pity he’s been recalled. But at least I shall have one person with whom I can share a meal or a drink while in the same room.”

Ariel exchanged a look with Derec. He doesn’t know, she thought, and saw the same realization in Derec’s eyes. She gave a very slight shake of her head.

“How long is the appointment?” Ariel asked.

“That depends, doesn’t it? Actually, the Solarian government was very eager to have me. There’s no renewal date on the agreement, so . . .”

“From either side?” Ariel asked.

“Unusual, I know,” Eliton said dryly. “I gather Earth doesn’t much care how long I stay.”

The conversation lapsed uncomfortably. Before Ariel could change the topic, Eliton straightened, smiling.

“So,” he said, “what takes you back to Aurora?”

“Recall,” Ariel said.

Eliton stared at her, nonplussed. “That’s . . . I’m sorry to hear that. I mean, unless you wanted to return . . .”

“Do you have any idea what happened this year?” Ariel asked. “Or have you been out of the loop since you lost your seat?”

“Well, I know Alda Mikels was indicted for a number of charges involving conspiracy to defraud, collusion, a variety of other fiscal improprieties. It’s my understanding that this all has something to do with a very large TBI sting against baley-running operations . . . were you involved in that?”

“Profoundly,” Derec said.

Eliton said nothing while he seemed to inspect the ice in his drink. Finally, he looked up. “You may be glad you’re away from Earth after this.”

“You seem better informed than you let on,” Derec observed.

“What do you know about Nova Levis, Ambassador?” Ariel asked.

Eliton’s eyes narrowed briefly as he took a drink. “If the extent of your involvement with Nova Levis ended with that TBI sting, you should leave it at that.”

“You’re going to be on Solaria for a long time,” Ariel said. “Pretty much isolated. Solarians maintain the largest ratio of robot-to-human in the Fifty Worlds. It could be very lonely for you.”

Eliton smiled wanly. “Will you come visit me? In person?”

“I’m suggesting that perhaps the time will come when you might want someone to speak on your behalf for a change of mission.”

“Quid pro quo, ‘Ambassador’?”

Ariel waited.

“Do you know why the Solarians maintain the kind of social structure they do?” Eliton asked.

“They’re misanthropes,” Derec said.

“True,” Eliton said. “But even misanthropes need some human contact from time to time if they’re to keep from going insane.” He chuckled. “History, Mr. Avery. Do you know Spacer history? Probably not. I’ve always been amazed at how ignorant most Spacers are about their own history. Maybe I shouldn’t be, given what it is, but . . .”

“Like all Spacers,” Ariel said, suppressing her impatience, “they’re afraid of disease, only more so. One more thing you have to look forward to. Auroran hygienic prep has become fairly innocuous in the last few decades, but the Solarians still do a full internal purge the old-fashioned way.”

“Do you even know why Spacers are afraid of infection?”

“I’m afraid it’s never really occurred to me to ask,” Ariel said, hoping to deflect the conversation.

“That’s surprising,” Eliton said, “since they once tossed you off the planet for having a disease.”

“Do you have a point to make?” she asked, barely holding her temper.

“Mnemonic plague, wasn’t it? Wiped your memory—permanent amnesia. You were cured on Earth, too. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”

Ariel finished her drink and stood, her legs trembling from contained anger. “I think—”

“No one on Earth gets it, so why would we have the cure and your own people don’t?”

Eliton looked up at her with an expression of mild interest. She sat back down.

“Does this have anything to do with Nova Levis?” she asked.

“Everything. Your entire history is on that planet. Maybe your future, too. You might ask yourself what the purpose of the blockade really is. To keep things out? Or keep them in?” Eliton swallowed the last of his drink and got to his feet. “I’m sure we’ll talk more before you debark.”

“Ambassador,” Derec asked. “Do you mind answering one question now?”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“Why did you do it? Turn on us last year.”

“You deserve an answer to that. Unfortunately, it would take longer than one conversation.”

“Try,” Derec said.

“Power. What other reason is there to betray people?” Eliton flashed a grin. “See you around.”

Derec watched him walk away, through the crowded lounge, and shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever despised anyone before. Hated, sure. Distrusted—often. Despise? I think this is the first time.” He scowled. “It’s a grimy feeling.”

Ariel stared after Eliton, her mind busy with questions and suspicions. She stood. “I have something to do,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

She made her way out of the lounge and down a broad corridor until she found an orderly.

“Excuse me,” she said, “could you direct me to the communications room?”

Mia stepped into the small cell. Ensign Corf lay on the too-narrow cot, one arm draped over his eyes.

“I already checked the biomonitor,” Mia said. “You’re awake, so sit up.”

“I’m no longer an officer,” Corf said in a slow drawl. “So kindly decompress, Lt. Daventri.”

“That’s not a very good attitude to take toward anyone who might be able to ease your problems.”

The arm moved up and Corf’s eyes locked on her. “You mean a deal? Like what? I heard you’re a strict by-the-code type. You don’t deal.”

“Normally. Normally I have everything I want, so a deal is superfluous.” She sat down on the fold-out seat opposite the cot. “You know what that means, don’t you? Someone as well-read as you.”

Corf shifted his bulk and swung his legs off the cot. He sat up, propping both hands on the edge of his bed, hunching his shoulders. “What do you want?”

“I want the one who’s running you.”

Corf shook his head. “There’s no deal in that, just death.”

“Not if you give me enough to cut off the head.”

“Not possible.”

“Don’t you know I’m Internal Security?”

“Not possible,” Corf said. “Besides, if I told you, all that would happen is what would happen if I never told you.”

“Tell me about the books.”

“What books?”

“Don’t,” Mia said. “You have to know I went through your cabin. What did you think, I’d only search your desk? The books, Corf. Where did you get them and who were they for?”

“They’re mine.”

“You don’t strike me as the scholarly type.”

Corf shrugged.

“All right,” Mia said, “let’s take it from the other end. Who’s your source?”

“You’re not very bright, Lieutenant. I don’t have to tell you anything. You don’t have anything to offer me that might make me.”

“Your career?”

Corf grunted.

“Your life?”

“I’m already taking care to keep that, thank you.”

Mia studied the man. He did not act like a prisoner, like someone caught. He seemed to be waiting for an inevitable and not undesirable next step, as if his arrest had merely interrupted a process that would shortly resume.

“Those books were nearly three thousand years old,” Mia said. “Ancient. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d have much to say to us now.”

Corf’s smiled knowingly. “You should read them.”

“Humanity hasn’t changed that much then, that thirty centuries might make us incomprehensible to ourselves?”

A flicker of interest showed in Corf’s small eyes. “Maybe . . . or maybe we need to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Who we were. You can get lost without that memory.”

“Even if it doesn’t matter?”

Corf leaned back against the bulkhead, folding his arms across his chest. “It always matters.”

Mia sensed the sudden opening, though she did not understand it. She pressed. “Most of the people I know do well enough without reference to the past.”

Corf’s expression bordered on contempt. “Most people let others do their remembering for them. They have machines, libraries, leaders. They trust that the memories are kept.”

“You don’t?”

“I’m learning.”

“What?”

“That memory shouldn’t be left up to others. You have to do it yourself.”

“What happens to you if you don’t?”

“Do you know any Aurorans?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Mia said.

“That’s what happens. They forget where they came from, forget who they are, forget why other people matter. They stop being . . .” He looked away.

“Stop being what?”

“Human.”

“And the Keresians? You have Keresian friends, don’t you, Corf? What about them?”

“They understand. They’re trying to get back what’s been lost.”

“And you’re helping them?”

He shrugged.

“How?” Mia asked. “Getting them old books?”

“It’s one way.”

“How do you know what titles to pick? I mean, weren’t there a lot of pretty worthless books printed back then? And what’s wrong with new work?”

Corf’s contempt showed more clearly. “Did you handle them? Did you open the covers and smell them? Did you look at the words on the pages or did you read them? New work is all about what’s now. What matters is the connection.”

“To the past.”

“That’s right.”

“So who makes the selections? You?”

“No, I’m still learning.”

“And if I wanted to learn?” Mia asked.

Corf stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “You’re working me. You don’t want truth, you want details. You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

“I’d have to change you. You’re not willing.”

“If I talk to Illen Jons, will she tell me the same thing?”

Corf winced as if she had threatened to slap him. “Who?”

“Your connection. Lt. Illen Jons, the Keresian liaison. I would never have expected someone in her position to be running contraband, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But what really surprises me is the Keresian component. Are they buying the contraband? Part of it? It’s not all going through the blockade, is it? Some of it’s coming in and going back out. I should have thought of that before—maybe I might have found the conduits quicker.”

“She’s not—you have it—”

“I have it what? Wrong? Then correct me. Is Lt. Jons important to you? Do you want to save her some grief?” Mia stood and stepped closer to Corf. “All this philosophical banter is fine, Corf, but I frankly could care less. After you’re in prison together you can discuss dialectics all day long. Right now I want to know about the real world. If I arrest Lt. Jons, will I be getting the same from her, or will she have more to say about where the books came from?”

“She’s not involved in this!” Corf’s face reddened.

Just as suddenly as he had become agitated, he calmed. The color left his face, his expression returned to one of indifference, and his voice lost its anger.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Arrest her. She can’t tell you anything. I won’t tell you anything. And when the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”

Mia waited. Corf stretched back out on the cot, covered his eyes with his forearm, and the interview ended.

Outside the cell, she joined the technicians who had been monitoring.

“That was strange,” one of them said. “Psychometrics showed no change from his baseline until you brought up Lt. Jons.” He pointed at a screen showing EEG and Cortical Activity Patterns. “Then the entire brainwave began to match what you’d expect from someone under the kind of pressure he was under.”

“What happened then?” Mia asked.

“It just changed,” the other tech said. “The whole eruption of normal emotional response faded right back into the previous baseline.”

Mia stared at the readings. “Why?”

“A couple of things maybe,” the first tech said. “We’ve seen a little of this in some of the pirates we’ve scanned, just nothing so dramatic. You see this kind of thing in certain cognitive disorders, but we checked his history. Nothing. So that leaves us with cortical implants—the kind they use for controlling chemical imbalance—or extreme conditioning.”

“Conditioning . . .”

“That sounds more ominous than it is,” the second tech said. “What we call True Believer Syndrome. Zealots, religious fanatics, or people who have studied various trance practices. Highly developed personal control over mood states.”

“What’s not ominous about that?” Mia asked. “Any indication that Corf has an implant?”

“None we’ve seen so far.”

“Check it.”

“He threatened you, Lieutenant,” the first tech said. “That qualifies for additional charges. Do you want us to file the report and append the recordings?”

“Not yet. I don’t want his status officially changed.”

The tech nodded and worked his board briefly. “Filed in a hold buffer. We can do it later if you change your mind.”

“Great.” She began to leave, then paused. “I want to know if he gets any other visitors. Anyone. Understand?”

Mia went back to her cabin.

Zealots, religious fanatics . . . great. What was that he said? “When the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”

She pulled up Corf’s file again and checked his religious affiliations. That section was blank.

Speculatively, she checked Lt. Jons’ file.

“No current affiliation,” the box said. “Parents not recorded.”

Scrolling down, though, she stopped at the section on politics. Jons had no comments, but her parents had been arrested eighteen years ago at a rally that had turned violent. At first glance, it seemed to be just a routine mass arrest, where the police took everyone in and released them later after inspection. It did not necessarily mean her parents had been active participants, just present when it turned bad. But the rally stirred her interest. Order for the Supremacy of Man Again.

She went back to Corf’s jacket. After a search, she found a distant relative who had been an active member in the Order, a professed Managin.

Which did not mean Corf was a Managin—indeed, he must have been cleared of that, or he would never have gotten into the military—but it might have explained his lack of promotion.

Illen Jons’ parents had not been listed as active members, but the coincidence bothered Mia. Managins had since become a fringe group drawing active police surveillance and a tag in law enforcement circles as a dangerous, militant organization.

A little more than a year ago she had investigated several of them in connection to the slaughter at Union Station in D.C. on Earth.

They had also been ex-military . . .

Mia opened her datum and entered in a new search. They had arrested nearly thirty contraband dealers since she had been on the blockade— thirty in eleven months. She pulled their jackets and initiated a search to find a Managin influence in any of their backgrounds.

Then she initiated the same search on the three names Sturlin had given her who had purchased books from that bookseller on Earth.

She felt excited. Always there came a moment when it seemed she had stumbled on the thread that would lead her to the heart of the maze where the answers were kept. She knew she should be patient and wait for the searches to produce results.

Instead, she headed for Lt. Jons’ cabin.

Jons was stationed in the next base habitat. Mia wound her way through the decks and corridors, her mind running the interview with Corf like a tape, over and over. He had wanted to brag, she had sensed that, but he was more disciplined than she expected. He was part of something he thought was really important, and he hungered to boast and let her know how helpless she was in the face of the larger plan.

She stepped off the lift in Jons’ section. Wide corridors, softly carpeted, warm light.

She reached the end and, as she began to turn down the left corridor, she heard voices ahead. She hesitated, then took a step back.

Jons’ cabin was the fourth one from the corner. Mia could see someone’s back, halfway out of the cabin door. She eased around the corner and waited.

The person laughed, then came all the way out into the corridor. Mia swallowed hard, her pulse quickening.

Reen stood there, holding a bound book, grinning.

Without thinking, Mia immediately retreated to the lift.

Chapter 11

MASID DESCENDED THE stairs from his small domicile, rain pounding the fabric awning above. Murky liquid spilled through holes worn or ripped in the tough material and splattered on the steps, making them treacherous for the incautious. The run-off sluiced into and down the narrow alleyway. More openings in the roof high overhead added to the stream that flowed the length of the alley. As he reached the foot of the stairs, wind heaved through the passage; Masid looked up to see the heavy support ribbing of the ceiling sway and rattle.

He dodged the larger waterfalls as he sprinted to the end of the passageway, hunched within his generous black overcoat. He turned sharply left into the arcade that ran the length of Cobrina Street. Puddles gathered along the path, spillover from the street beyond, but the arched covering here was intact. Rain danced heavily, the sound magnified by the shape of the arcade.

The street sprawled in glistening ugliness, the extruded composite material looking like grey-black leather under the sheen of water. Open to the sky, rain made a dense, milky curtain, obscuring the far side. Every ten meters, stanchions rose out of large pedestals. The plan, Masid gathered, had been to complete a roof over the entire town of Noresk, but no new construction had happened since the blockade.

Noresk itself was a new town, less than five years old. In the past twelve days, Masid had learned its grid, understood the plan to which it had grown, and seen the frustration in the faces of its residents that their town-one-day-to-become-a-city could go no further until events completely beyond their control were resolved.

The frustration, though, was only one factor distorting the faces of Noresk.

As he walked, Masid saw few people. They hurried, heads down against the rainfall even where they walked dry. Overcoats and cowls were the fashion, making everyone a caricature of a human. They hurried, but only in short spurts, pausing after a dozen meters, steps hesitant. No one exchanged looks of any kind unless they met intentionally, by prearrangement. Coughing punctuated the droning percussion of the rain. He counted the robust, the healthy, easily, because they represented a minority.

He reached the end of Cobrina Street and paused at the corner, where Panis Street crossed. The enormous storm drain in the center of the crossroad thundered as water tried to fill it. The far corner was a vague collection of shadows and geometries. Masid drew a lungful of air and ran.

Each step came down ankle-deep in cold water. He made the opposite corner in thirteen long strides and caught himself against a wall, air bursting from his lungs. He ran his fingers through his sopping hair, fluttered his overcoat, and continued on up Panis.

The arcade cover was damaged in spots, letting in the thick rainfall. People automatically dodged them and each other. Traffic grew heavier as he made his way to Novagi Avenue. Voices joined the cacophony now—the surge and flow of haggling.

A huge tent had been erected over the intersection of Novagi and Panis. Rain funneled off the corners, flowed into the arcades. People crowded beneath the tent, voices mingled in sing-song hawking and shouted replies. Masid stepped in, feeling his pulse quicken at the almost palpable urgency of the market and the knowledge of how risky it was for him to mix with so many sick people.

Within a minute, people identified him as a dealer and began shouting requests for specific drugs, mostly antifungals, but also a number of high-grade antibacterials. Masid knew his inventory and had to turn away most requests. People scowled, disappointed, and immediately sought out another vendor. A few, however, asked for treatments he possessed, and the haggle began. He had learned quickly the art involved—barter and bargain, but not too greedily, or they just went away. Repeat customers received preferential treatment. Never act like there was plenty more to be had. And never interrupt another dealer’s pitch.

Within ten minutes he sold six treatment packets to people who approached him, seeking cures for various conditions. In one instance what he gave the buyer was only a pain reliever; he knew there was no cure and, he felt certain, so did the customer. It was an easy rhythm—the contact, the request, the haggle, and the sale—much of it taking on the patterns of ritual.

While he worked, he watched the other dealers, searching for any special attention they might pay him. Besides the same kind of wary scrutiny he gave them, Masid detected nothing unusual. This was his fifth day in the market since finding a dom in Noresk, and the other dealers had accepted him as no particular threat. The only law of which he was aware stood outside the market, under the eaves of a sidewalk café: Marshal Toranz. She sat watching the surely illegal transactions, an ugly rifle conspicuous on the table, and a completely ambivalent expression on her puffy face. They had yet to exchange words, and Masid doubted they ever would until he forced the issue. Word was she took graft from Filoo. Her only reason for being here was to make sure the clientele did not get greedy and start looting the dealers.

He worked the crowd for another hour, through four more transactions, and decided it was time to quit for the day. The rain had slackened to a light drizzle, and he was hungry.

Someone tugged at his sleeve.

“Doctor?” a pale woman with reddened eyes asked. Masid nodded curtly. “Anthrocyclomal,” she said firmly, the consonants softened by the phlegm in her throat and chest.

Masid reached inside his capacious coat to the proper pouch. “You done that before?” he asked. “It’s a one-time. More than that, you risk collateral resistances through plasmid transmission.”

“I know, I done the work-up,” the woman said, scowling with impatience. “How much?”

“Rare stuff. Two thousand credits.”

Her eyes reflected her shock. “Take it in kind?”

“What—?”

She stepped marginally closer. “In kind. Something warmer . . . personal . . .” One too-thin hand fluttered at the flap of her cloak.

Masid laughed, startled. “No. Do I look crazy?”

“I don’t have two thousand.”

“Ah, well.”

Her face contorted again in a rictus of frustration. “Look, one dose and I’ll be clean, then maybe—”

“No. Anthrocyclomal is not universal, it’s specifically for pleuretic tubercolomiasis.” He smiled wanly. “I don’t deal what I don’t know about.”

“Then you know it’s fatal.”

“Madam, this whole planet is fatal. All this is short term.”

“Then why’re you worried about living forever?”

“I’m not. Just past next year.” Masid glanced around, agitated now by the woman and her condition. “Seventeen hundred.”

She licked her lips. “Grotin sold it for a thousand.”

“So you’ve done it before? I told you, this is one shot—”

“No! I got it from Grotin for somebody else. Now I need it. He sold it for a thousand.”

“When he had it. Grotin doesn’t have it anymore, am I right? Price has gone up. Seventeen.”

“Twelve.”

Masid turned away.

“I can give you a new supplier.”

Masid hesitated. “Use it yourself?”

“Can’t. No codes . . .”

“Codes to what?”

She blew a ragged breath, and Masid automatically held his own. She said, “I know someone with a synthesizer, but I don’t know how it works.”

“I’m sure.” He studied her skeptically. “A synthesizer. Why would you know someone like that, and why aren’t you buying from him?”

“Her.” She looked around nervously. “She doesn’t have the program for what I need. Besides, she doesn’t like selling it. I can maybe transact something that could change her mind . . . ?”

“For you, anyway.” He leaned forward. “You show me. This is anything less than vertical—”

“I’m squared, this is legitimate.”

Masid checked those nearby. “All right, I’m about to find food. You know a place called Davni’s? Good, here’s what we do. How much you have?”

She fished a couple of fifty-credit chits from her pocket.

Masid dug out an ampule of general purpose AB. “You buy this, go away satisfied. Meet me at Davni’s in an hour. We go from there.”

“How do I know you’ll be there?” she asked even as she handed over the credits.

“Because I’m hungry and that’s the only place I know that screens their food before they serve it. Here.” He gave her the antibiotic and pocketed the chits. “Leave.”

He watched her disappear through the crowd, which seemed now to be dwindling. Masid milled around until he transacted one more deal, then left the tent.

He took a long route to the kitchen, checking for shadows, doubling back, stopping in other shops—of the few that were still open—and finally finding his way through the arched doorways into the heady odors of Davni’s locally famous stew and bread. He drew a plateful and a half loaf, filled a tall mug with the sharp local ale, and sat at the table he had begun to think of as his own, near the access to the bakery, facing the main entrance.

Davni’s was busy, but by no means full. People came here hoping to get in, but a biomonitor at the entry screened them for any of nine infectious conditions, and those who screened positive were escorted back out and barred from returning. Davni, a burly man in his late sixties, kept his place’s reputation by draconian means. Those who dined at Davni’s were still healthy. At least, mostly so.

He finished his plate and chewed on the hardcrust bread while sipping his ale, watching the door. A few more regulars came in before the woman appeared. She did not pass through the door, but stood just outside, peering in.

Masid drained his mug and slipped the rest of the bread into a pocket. No one paid excessive attention to him as he left the kitchen and walked past the woman. She trailed after him by a few meters until he rounded the next corner.

It had stopped raining entirely now. Through gaps in the high awnings, the sky had turned from dull ash-grey to almost silver. At the end of the block, the street opened into a broad plaza. Trash had accumulated against the foundations of the buildings that formed the circle. One citizen lay against the uncompleted fountain in the center, his cowl drawn, and a harsh, tubercular snore oozing from his mouth. Masid skirted the plaza until he came to a storefront with an inset entryway. He backed into its shadows and quickly checked the location of his weapons—a blaster and a stunner.

He waited nearly a minute. When she did not wander by, he palmed the stunner and stepped up to the edge of the entryway.

He sensed the movement before he saw anything clearly and jerked back. A body swung around the edge of the entryway, filling his vision as he came heavily against the door. Masid brought the stunner up and fired. The solid thump! of the discharge seemed thunderous in the confined space. The attacker grunted, seemed to stop briefly in mid-charge, then fell against him.

Masid kicked the limp body over and rushed into the plaza, drawing his blaster. He dropped and rolled, waiting for the sounds of gunfire. When he fetched up against the fountain, he spotted two more men hurrying at him out of the street he had come from. He waited until they were within five meters, then brought each one down with the stunner.

He bolted for the street. The woman was running away. He caught her easily and shoved her against the wall. She slid, sobbing, to the pavement.

“High marks for trying,” Masid said, showing her the barrel of the blaster. “Now. Was that shit about a synthesizer a lie?”

She shook her head. “No, I—please—”

“Then you take me,” he said, pulling her to her feet.

“I shouldn’t have told,” she said. “I won’t get anything anymore.”

“That could be a moot point anyway.” He gripped her arm, showed her the blaster once more, and pushed. “Lead.”

She took him back through the plaza, past her unconscious companions, and down another alleyway. Masid could not be entirely sure they had not been followed. The trail ambled through various neighborhoods, most of which were incomplete, part of the construction that had come to a halt when the blockade closed around them. Tents, lean-tos, and other makeshift add-ons showed that people did live here. Smoke from fires drifted up through chimneys, gathering in a pall above the shanties.

They passed through the area into an older, completed neighborhood, then down a cramped gangway into a courtyard. Stairs connected three levels. The woman took him to the top floor, around the circumference, and knocked on the door, then opened it. He hustled her through.

The apartment was dark. The smells of pure alcohol, cooking oil, and fresh-baked bread filled the air.

“Tilla?” the woman called.

“Kru?” a weak voice answered from another room.

Masid indicated that Kru go on ahead. Nervously, she pushed through a half-closed door into a bedroom. Masid came in behind her.

The room was dominated by an enormous bed which dwarfed the woman lying in it. Her pallorous face peered at them, framed by huge, stained pillows. A nightstand on the left overflowed with bottles, glasses half-filled with water, and an incongruously clean blending injector, the tube snaking into the bed, the pistol-shaped head on the pillow next to the woman’s head. Masid took the rest of the room in sufficiently to satisfy himself that no one else was present and that no automated defenses seemed in place.

“Tilla,” Kru said meekly, “I brought company. I had to, but . . . he’s a doctor . . .”

“You mean a black market drug dealer,” Tilla said, smiling ruefully.

“He’s got anthrocyclomal.”

Tilla’s eyes widened speculatively. “Really? Do you, Doctor, or did you just tell Kru that to get her help? Or have sex with her? Or . . . ?”

She did not finish the sentence. Masid brought Kru over to the head of the bed and made her sit down. He then closed the bedroom door and went through all the drawers.

“Who were the three bullies?” he asked.

“Friends,” Kru said.

“You told them I had treatments they couldn’t get?”

Kru did not answer, only looked guilty.

“Can I help you find something?” Tilla asked.

“Your ID.”

“Which one?”

Masid looked at her and smiled. “There was a Tillama Drisken came here eight months ago, part of a team of four. The others were Grenj Hollaro, Polen Maks, and Dressel Jacom. Anything sound familiar?”

Tilla regarded him with an expression more tired than wary.

“Don’t tell me you’re the relief,” she said.

Masid lifted the injector nozzle, then knelt to inspect the blender. “This is state-of-the-art. I imagine any of them that might have been here before the blockade were confiscated by the governor or the local bosses. This came in after that.” He looked at her. “Kru tells me you have a synthesizer.”

After a long pause, Tilla nodded.

“And what would a lone, very sick woman be doing with a synthesizer?” Masid asked.

“Trying to stay alive,” Kru snapped.

Tilla lifted a hand and patted Kru’s leg. She looked at Masid. “Who are you?”

“My name is Masid Vorian.”

“I’ve heard of a man named Vorian. Freelance. Proclas?”

“I was born on Proclas, yes.” He straightened and pulled a device from one of his pockets. He attached a pair of patches to her arm and switched it on. “Freelance, too.”

“I don’t trust freelancers.”

“Right now it doesn’t seem to me you have a lot of choice.” He watched the small displays. “DNA match. You are Tillama Drisken.” He switched to a different program and let the little monitor run. “What happened to the rest of your team?”

“Dead. One was killed outright by one of Filoo’s people, the other two succumbed to the local variant of plague.”

Masid watched the monitors. When the numbers finished, he shook his head. “I can’t save you. You’re too far gone for one thing, and for another there are some indicators that don’t make any sense. Mutations?”

“Most likely. Darwin reigns in this particular hell.”

Masid took out some ampules. “I can, however, make you feel a bit better.”

“Don’t waste it,” Tilla said.

“I’m not. I need you alive long enough to fill me in.”

“Oh. So this isn’t for my sake at all?”

“Absolutely not.”

Tilla studied him narrowly. Then she smiled. “Bullshit.”

Masid shrugged and administered the drugs. He looked up at Kru. “Do you have any coffee?”

Kru shook her head.

Masid took out a small packet and tossed it to her. “Now you do. Make us some, would you?”

“Do it, love,” Tilla said. “This one is a doctor.” When Kru left the room, Tilla looked at him and said in a near whisper, “If she believes that, she won’t sell your name to Filoo for a while.”

“Even if she does,” Masid said, “that would suit me. I’ve been looking forward to meeting this Filoo.”

“You’re an idiot, then. Damn. I’d hoped they’d send someone smart.”

“None of the smart ones volunteered.”

She smiled at that. Then: “You know who I am, I don’t really know who you are. I’m not exactly in a position to get in your way, regardless.”

“Ask yourself if anyone here would go to this kind of trouble for you.”

“They might, if they thought I could still communicate with the blockade.”

“You can’t?”

“No. Not for months. I was reported dead. They change all the codes when that happens. I’d have to report back in person or be confirmed dead by on-ground inspection. Lovely way to put that, isn’t it?”

“I never found any of the services adept at style or sensitivity.”

“How did you get down?”

“I’m a baley.”

She thought for a moment. “That crashed drone two weeks ago?”

“Yes.”

“I heard no one survived.”

“No one else apparently did. I heard others. There were survivors of the crash. I haven’t seen any of them since.”

“Standard,” Tilla said. “I don’t think any baleys have grounded, intact and free, in over a year.” She drew a deeper breath. “What was that, stim?”

“New variant, yes.”

“I’m going to crash hard?”

“You’ll sleep.”

“That would be a change.” She pushed herself straighter. Her color was a bit better. “What I’ve got is entirely local and there are no known antigens. Kru keeps trying to find something, but . . .”

“Kru is native?”

“As much as anyone is here.”

“Who’s your contact in the blockade?”

“We were going through a Commander Reen, head of Internal Security. But I got the distinct feeling that someone was intercepting his communications. We started routing through a secondary blind, codenamed Ixpess. Then Filoo killed Dressl and the rest of us got sick.”

“Why did Filoo kill him? Does he know who you are?”

“No. We’d all have been killed if he did. Dressl . . . he made the greatest mistake of any agent in the cold.”

“He got involved?”

“The black market situation here is obscene. Two thousand percent mark-up on essentials, but you can get pleasure items for almost half market value. It drains community reserves, saps the will, and chokes the people. You’ve been dealing ’biotics to blend in? Then you know what the cost factors are. And none of it’s pure, it’s all cut, which is worse than none at all. Dressl got angry, tried to step in and do something. The rest of us went to ground, but then we contracted one of the tubercular variants. It works faster on some than on others. Polen died three weeks ago.”

“When were you cut off?”

“Just after Dressl died.”

“You’re sure Filoo didn’t know who you were?”

“No. I think it was a mistake. Dressl’s death got reported—a lot of death notices do get transmitted offworld, even if there isn’t a response—and somebody stupidly assumed it meant the whole team was terminated. Well, they turned out to be right, but . . .”

“I’ve seen that kind of assuming before. We were always lectured about that, though, and the lecture never seems to take.”

“To assume,” Tilla quoted, looking ceilingward in mock reverence, “is to make an ass out of u and an ass out of me. Since thee is like me and I am no ass, then who could that mean?”

Masid laughed softly. “Do you still have your comm?”

“Of course, but I don’t have the recontact codes—”

“Let me take care of that. Tilla, I need a briefing. What is going on here?”

She looked at him sadly. “Do you have a lifetime? It might take that long to understand it.”

“Can you give me the academy version?”

“I’ll try. Did I hear right? You brought coffee?”

“The real stuff. From Verita.”

“Oh, my. Then I will do my very best for you.”

Mia finished her workout and went gratefully to the shower. The strenuous routine did little to stop the insanely cascading thoughts.

Was Reen’s presence at Jons’ cabin a coincidence?

He had questioned her about any unusual items found in Corf’s cabin. At the time, nothing had struck Mia as odd about it, but now, having seen Reen with a book tucked under his arm, leaving Jons’ cabin . . .

She toweled her hair dry and dressed. Everything was circumstantial. It seemed ridiculous to think that Reen was part of anything illegal; he was such a by-the-code officer, so strict and formal, that he sometimes seemed more robot than human.

Dressed, Mia went to her office. Her body felt warm and ready after her exertions, joints loose, muscles pleasantly stressed. Only two junior lieutenants were on duty in the security operations room this shift, neither of whom worked directly with her. She passed through, taking in the status displays, and entered her small private workspace.

For several seconds she sat at her desk, staring at its surface—the control contacts, the readouts, the screens extruded in a kind of semicircle facing her—and, seeing nothing, her vision turned inward. She had been on the blockade for slightly over ten months now, in this department, and had spent almost all that time running from one leak in the embargo to another, never quite finding the controlling authority that caused those leaks in the first place. Not really that different from the way it was on Earth, but her expectations had changed upon arrival. She had thought—based on no evidence or received wisdom, just an assumption—that it would be easier to do her job here. After all, ninety-five percent of the personnel were military, there was a clear chain of command, everyone stationed on the blockade knew their duty, maintaining discipline was one of the primary principles of life here rather than just a by-product of haphazard law enforcement—

And with each new leak, her frustration grew. Sometime in the past six or seven weeks, Mia Daventri had decided that, in fact, it was worse here than in a civilian population. The orders of the day, rules of engagement, standard protocols, and uniform codes of conduct gave those who chose to a clear and well-marked path through which to violate the mission. The near-dictatorial power the officer corps possessed made it simpler for smugglers and black marketeers to avoid the plainly visible pitfalls. While the process of arrest and conviction was simpler, the trade-off was in a higher success at evasion by the criminals.

It made no sense on the surface. It was, as one of her instructors had put, counter-intuitive—a real pisser.

So, she thought, fixing her attention on the desk, I should stop behaving like a military officer and start doing my job like a cop . . .

She had two messages in her comm buffer. Mia touched the ACCEPT. The first was from Sturlin.

“I may have a line on those items we discussed,” she said. “See me.”

The second had no address. When it opened, a string of alphanumerics flowed across her screen.

“What the . . .”

She immediately initiated a trace. Within seconds, on the screen beside the comm message, a chain of communication ports spread from her desk, back through eight receiving ports on the station itself, and finally out to a relay satellite in geostationary orbit above Nova Levis. She recognized the satellite, and the moment she did she understood the nature of the message.

“Impossible,” she muttered, and ran it through a decryptor.

It still came up nothing but gibberish. Except for the last line: “Down the rabbit hole and back up into the garden.”

Mia blinked, baffled. Then she checked her personal code book.

Someone new had just arrived . . .

Mia cleared the screens and filed the message in her personal cache. Then, slowly, she began a time-consuming process of composing, encrypting, and transmitting a message back to Earth, to an address she had not used since arriving here. She had kept it in reserve, hoping she could do this job without using resources which she was not altogether certain were at her disposal. Time now to find out if she still had any friends back home.

* * *

Masid sat by the narrow window and stared out at the night shadows in the atrium. At least, what should have been an atrium, filled with hanging baskets of green and flowering plants, had they ever managed to complete the plan for the building.

He had too much to think about and no certainty at all that he could do anything with the conclusions he might draw. Tilla had talked for nearly two hours, exhausting herself. She had asked for more stim, but Masid did not want to kill her or in any way hasten her inevitable death.

She was dying, there was no denying it. Whatever disease had taken root in her was inexorably eating her lungs to shreds, along with her bronchial passages, her esophagus, and had begun attacking her heart. He found traces of infection in her lymphatic system and her spleen was useless, resulting in a wildly erratic platelet count. She bruised at the slightest touch.

Since the blockade, she explained, Nova Levis had been swallowed by a series of opportunistic infections. Within two months the black market had shifted from selling food and clothing and luxury items to selling palliatives and pharmaceuticals. Oddly, the inflated prices on ordinary objects had dropped down to below previous market levels, as if the dealers were offsetting the costs with the profit from the drug trade, doing the beleaguered and dying citizens a kindness.

Everything came out of Nova City, the first Solarian port on the planet. How it got through in such quantity, Tilla did not know. But, she had stressed, there were no shortages. In anything. Clothing, food, building materials, comestibles—everything was readily available, albeit sometimes at outrageous prices. Everything except medicines.

“I’m sure even those are in sufficient supply,” she had said, “but that’s their milk, that’s the source of their income.”

Nova City lay nearly a third of the way around the planet. It had been the Solarian precinct from the beginning. That’s where I need to be, then.

But how?

Masid stared out at the nighttime, wondering how long he had before infection took him and he became useless. The augment Anda had given him no doubt gave him more time than he might have had, but even Spacer immune tech had limits. Tilla did have a synthesizer and it still worked. She agreed to let him use it to increase his own supplies. Maybe he could get Filoo’s attention by outselling him and the other dealers.

That could get him dead.

Or hired.

He wondered if the message he had encrypted using Tilla’s old code and his own NAE—New Agent Established—would get to anyone who would believe it. He had not told Tilla what he suspected, which was that for her entire team to have been cut off and classified as deceased on the basis of one member’s demise meant someone on the blockade, in a position to make such a decision, was part of the problem. His code was intended for the deep cover agent in the security division, whoever that might be. If he got no reply, then he would at least know how wide spread the corruption went.

It also would mean that he had to operate completely alone.

Masid Vorian was accustomed to operating alone, cut off from immediate support. But this time he felt the isolation.

I could die here, he thought. Then, despondently: I could die here without accomplishing a damn thing . . .

He listened to Tilla’s labored breathing and tried to come up with a plan that avoided either of those likelihoods.

Chapter 12

COREN FOUND THE cubicle he wanted in the cramped Baltimor Law Enforcement quarters and knocked on the open door. Inspector Capel looked up from his screen, then gestured for Coren to enter the small office. Coren closed the door and sat down.

“Thanks for getting me the TBI reports,” Capel said. He waved at the screen. “They aren’t complete, are they?”

“Would you expect them to be? No, they aren’t, but what I got was relevant to our concerns.”

“ ‘Our concerns.’ That’s a delicate way to put it.”

“It’s a delicate business we’re in—in its own way.”

Capel smiled briefly. “You intelligence people like euphemisms too much.” He straightened. “Have you eaten lately?”

“No.”

Capel grabbed his jacket and motioned for the door. He reached across his desk and touched a couple of contacts, then led Coren out of the precinct.

He took Coren to a home kitchen. Amused, Coren grabbed a tray and followed Capel through the line. He took a plate of what appeared to be meatloaf covered in thick gravy and a bowl with a creamy, ivory-colored mound of something that might have been based on mashed potatoes. There was ample bread, though, and in spite of years of dining at private establishments, Coren had never lost a fondness for home kitchen bread.

The chamber was sparsely occupied at this hour, so Capel easily found a table away from any other people. His own tray was near overflowing with plates and bowls and he carried an entire loaf of bread in his free hand.

“Believe it or not,” Capel said as they sat down, “I come here for the bread.”

“I thought for the ambience.”

“Hah-hah. Very amusing. But nobody surveils a home kitchen. So, in a sense, you’re right.”

Coren broke his own bread in half and dipped one end in the gravy. He chewed thoughtfully and washed it down with water. “About as I remember it.”

“When was the last time you ate like this?”

“You might resent me if I tell you.”

Capel shrugged. He picked up a fork and began eating quickly. Coren chopped his “meat” with the edge of the fork. He took a bite of the ivory mound—mashed potato analog; as he expected, and not as bad as he remembered.

“Okay,” Capel said after a few minutes. He did a casual inspection of the kitchen. “So your cyborg has actually come forward to claim an inheritance from Looms. Will it stand up?”

“He is—was—Rega’s son. Genetically, he can make his case.”

“Why haven’t the TBI arrested him yet?”

“They tried. He has a very good attorney who has kept him out of custody and is arguing that the ‘person’ at the Petrabor warehouse and his client are not the same.”

“Will it hold up?”

“I don’t see how, but the only real charge that can be brought against him would be for baley running. The deaths of TBI agents at the warehouse are unwitnessed and therefore circumstantial. There was a second cyborg that was taken on Kopernik Station, so a good argument can be made that we misidentified Gamelin. It’s complicated enough that he might just pull it off. He’s certainly being well-funded.”

“Who? The Hunter Group?”

“That would be my guess,” Coren said. “If you could get a warrant, we could look at his finances and establish that.”

“I’ll try. I think I can persuade a judge that this relates to three or four unsolved murders, especially your old partner Damik. Who’s Gamelin’s attorney?”

“Hovis Vlib.”

Capel’s eyes slid shut. “Damn. I’d say that establishes a funding source right there. Vlib used to represent Alda Mikels.”

“Used to?”

“After Mikels was indicted this last time for baley running and conspiracy to commit murder, Vlib actually dropped him. My guess is, Vlib works for the people Mikels hoped would save his butt.”

“The Hunter Group.”

Capel nodded and resumed eating.

“What about the murder of Rega Looms?” Coren asked. “I think all your warrants should be covered under that investigation.”

“You would think. However, it’s being declared a suicide.”

Coren started. “How?”

“Traces of ammonia fluoride were found in his system.”

“That accounts for the broken and crushed bones?”

Capel cleared his throat. “The autopsy report is being sealed. I might possibly keep this an open file, but be prepared for the whole thing to be buried. You tell me Hovis Vlib is representing the cyborg, then I tell you that a lot of credit is being spent to turn Looms’ death into a suicide. A path is being cleared for Gamelin to take control of DyNan Manual Industries.”

Coren did not taste the rest of his meal.

The Hunter Group . . .

Coren sat in the dim anonymity of an expensive bar, a whisky on the table before him—his fourth. His thoughts came slowly, with a cottony quality that seemed to give them physical substance.

Ariel Burgess and he had established that the Hunter Group was the legal face of an offworld consortium of black marketeers. Pirates. That label amused him, bringing to mind as it did the image of bloodthirsty corsairs attacking helpless merchant ships in deep space. But the media loved it and had instilled the label in the public imagination. And why not? In a very real sense, they were pirates. They stole, they dealt in slaves, they undermined the legitimate currency of interstellar traffic, they frightened people.

The list of corporate ties, shadow companies, subsidiaries, and related holdings had brought together a dizzying array of players once they had begun looking at Hunter. Ultimately it had even compromised the Solarian ambassador, Gale Chassik, who had been recalled. The Solarian mission to Earth currently operated only with a few Keresian bureaucrats; paperpushers with less and less to push. Coren wondered if a new ambassador would be appointed, or if all the allegations of connections between Solaria and Nova Levis and baley running would make that impossible.

That problem is now Aurora’s, he thought.

He missed Ariel already and it had only been a week. Soon enough she would be on Aurora, and he doubted if he would ever see her again. He wished she were sitting across from him now so he could spin theories with her about all these connections.

He swallowed a mouthful of whisky. Somehow the taste of home kitchen food product refused to wash away, even under the onslaught of expensive liquor.

After speaking to Capel, he had called Lio Top. The conversation had been short and depressing, which had prompted him to have a third and now a fourth drink. Lio estimated that Gamelin, now Jerem Looms, if he could establish consanguinity, could push through a challenge and revision of Rega’s will within another six days. That meant he could probably take control of DyNan and all its assets a mere three or four days after that. Which meant, finally, that Coren had ten days to prove Jerem had murdered Rega.

Ten days. With practically any other human on the planet that was more than enough time to prove nearly anything. But Rega had been different. He had rejected all common forms of personal security, all passive surveillance, and all passive recordings. There would be no records available from any legally recognized source. So far, Coren had been unable to find anyone in the company who had even seen Jerem before the aborted reading of the will. Everything he had was circumstantial.

What did he have? A face-to-face confrontation with Gamelin that had resulted in a crushed forearm and a lot of bruising; an autopsied cyborg corpse—not Gamelin—which established what he suspected Gamelin was; a recording from the recovered memory of a defunct, and now missing, robot of Gamelin murdering Rega Looms’ daughter Nyom along with many other baleys, a recording which, by virtue of its source, was inadmissible in any Terran court; a tissue sample from that murder establishing Gamelin’s blood relation to Rega Looms, which was just as inadmissible given the nature of its acquisition, though Coren had no doubt it would match the DNA sampling about to be done on “Jerem”; and the MO of murders committed by these cyborgs, a trail of bodies that had been crushed by the inhuman strength brought to bear by these half-robotic creatures, linking a string of corpses to Rega’s condition.

Personally, Coren needed no more proof. He knew what Jerem was. Jerem knew it, too.

He raised the glass. Maybe two centimeters of liquid remained.

“So,” he said to the glass, “if I can’t stop him legally . . .”

He nodded decisively and downed the whisky in a last gulp, then took the public walkways back to his private office.

Someone waited in the anteroom. Coren hesitated, staring at the man until recognition occurred. “Hofton?”

“Yes, Mr. Lanra. I beg your pardon for letting myself in, but I thought it best to wait for you here.”

“You’re lucky. I might have gone back to DyNan.”

Hofton shrugged. “Even so.”

“You would have waited?”

“For as long as expedient.”

“Then . . .”

“May we discuss this in private?”

“Of course.” Coren went to his door and tapped in his code. The door rejected it. He entered it again, more slowly, and entered. Hofton followed him in.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the desk said.

“Good afternoon. Full privacy, please.”

“Security in place, sir.”

Coren waved Hofton to a chair and sat down heavily behind his desk. He rubbed his face and opened a drawer, searching for the bottle of antox he kept. He wished now he had stopped at two drinks. He was aware of Hofton watching him.

Though Coren had spent several weeks with Ariel after the events surrounding Nyom Looms’ death, he had seen little of Hofton.

He found the bottle.

“We can talk in complete privacy now,” Coren said. “What can I do for you?”

“I have received a communiqué from an unexpected source. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it, as circumstances have changed so radically since this line was established. I thought I could make far greater mistakes taking it elsewhere. At worst, you might tell me where I might take it.”

Coren shook out a pill into his palm. “That . . . was complicated, Hofton.” He stood. “Excuse me.” He entered the next room and drew a glass of water. He downed the pill and carried the water back to his desk. “Is there a chance we could do this later?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not certain I could arrange it later. The situation is complicated and pressing. Do you remember Mia Daventri?”

“Absolutely. Special Service, good agent, unfairly treated after doing a commendable job . . . why?”

“The message is from her.”

It took Coren several seconds to understand what Hofton meant. He held up a hand. “I thought she’d been transferred—”

“—to the blockade, yes. She’s part of the Internal Security Section.”

“Damn. That is a thankless job. She sent a message to you?”

“To Ambassador Burgess. But she is on her way to Aurora.”

“Why not just forward it, then?”

“Because it concerns matters here. On Earth. I shall do so if you think it best, but the contents of the message seem demanding of action now.”

“Wait. Agent Daventri sent Ambassador Burgess a message about a problem here on Earth. But she’s on the blockade. I don’t think I quite follow.”

“In the aftermath of the last years’ events at Union Station and the subsequent discoveries, Ms. Daventri and Ambassador Burgess came to the conclusion that trust was not something systemically reliable.”

Coren laughed, a bit too loudly. “You have a marvelous way of putting things, Hofton. In other words, they agreed that because of all the toes they stepped on, they probably couldn’t trust anyone but each other.”

“Close but not completely accurate. Agent Daventri knew she was being shipped offplanet. They both knew that events concerning their actions had both Terran and Spacer elements. Isolated as she would be by the transfer, Daventri concluded that she would very quickly lose track of the infrastructure in her own bureau, not to mention anybody else’s, so that in the instance of an extreme situation she would not know who she could rely upon.”

“Except Ariel.”

“Who would at least be here and be in touch with certain people who could be relied upon. As it has transpired, that number includes you.”

“I see. I think I understand. Mia set up a backdoor through Ariel to transmit information that might otherwise draw unfriendly attention.”

“Exactly. I can see why Ambassador Burgess respects you.”

Coren felt warm and self-satisfied. “I miss her.”

“Indeed.”

“So,” he said loudly, and cleared his throat. The antox seemed to be taking effect; the skin around his temples seemed too tight, and there was a faint ringing in his ears. “This message . . .”

“I took the liberty of erasing it from her system and bringing the only copy remaining here.” He laid a disk on Coren’s desk. “It concerns an agent I became briefly acquainted with a few months ago on Kopernik Station—I think.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I’m not familiar with all the identifying codes all the services use, but the timing seems correct. A man named Masid Vorian left Kopernik to go undercover as a baley in order to get on the ground on Nova Levis. I’m assuming he made it. The last team of agents on their way to Nova Levis never left Kopernik. They were found dead with all the other baleys in that container, along with your friend—”

“I remember.”

“Before that, a team did ground on Nova Levis, but that was almost a year ago and they were reported dead six months ago. Their comm codes were classified defunct. You may be aware of other attempts, but to my knowledge Masid Vorian is the last one.”

Coren thought this through carefully. “How does Mia Daventri come into this?”

“She was contacted by the dead team, using their frequencies and some of their recognition codes. Normally, they would have been ignored, but an additional recognition code was attached. It’s my guess that Vorian found the allegedly dead team and is using their communications gear. In any event, Agent Daventri no longer trusts her own superiors. She sent this message to Ariel with the intention of having her get it to the proper, reliable address.”

“And you brought it to me.”

“Did I err?”

Coren slid the disk closer, ignoring Hofton’s question. “You’ve read it?”

“I have.”

Coren inserted it into his reader. A screen extruded from the desktop. A moment later, text scrolled up. He recognized Special Service security codes, followed by a jumble of encryption. Coren glanced questioningly at Hofton.

“I left the encryption intact for your verification,” Hofton said.

Coren touched his keyboard and ran the encryption through his own system, which verified its authenticity. Appended to the code he found the decrypted text:

Received this date contact sequence NLT-10b/capricorn-beta, request for confirmation and follow-up. Valid codes removed from accept protocols pending verification of sender ID. Status of sender appended, log attached. Recontact prohibited per section 9. However, additional identification code attached to new message:

Ariel, I need a favor. I don’t know if anyone sent a new agent and if so what that agent’s contact code is. I’m not confident in my immediate superiors. I know there is a security breach in my section, but I haven’t been able to find it, and it may be at a level too sensitive to handle without homeworld backup. This is certainly unorthodox, but I have no other avenues to send or receive confirmation that do not route through my department and section head. I need independent verification about the presence of a new agent on the ground.

Also, I have found an unusual artifact being smuggled in. The circumstances of discovery make me suspicious. Please check out Omni Mundi Complurium, Antiquities, Lyzig, as a possible source for contraband shipments. I’ve found a stock of printed paper books with that supplier as a source. No import manifests.

Furthermore, I need, if possible, a deep background on my superior, Lt. Commander Niol Reen. I’m appending a personal encryption protocol and a private address. I know this is probably too much to ask, but I’m suspicious of the entire situation here and need outside advice, intervention, influence, whatever I can get.

Coren looked at Hofton. “That’s . . . unusual.”

“You knew Agent Daventri, I think.”

“Yes, I did. I didn’t know her well, but what I knew I trusted.”

“A better recommendation would be difficult to imagine. Since Ambassador Burgess is on her way back to Aurora, I took the liberty of stepping outside normal channels.”

Coren laughed wryly. “Funny, because I intended to go see Ambassador Setaris.”

“Really? Anything I might be able to help with?”

“Since you’re here . . . the cyborg didn’t die, Hofton. Gamelin.”

“Oh,” Hofton said quietly.

“And he seems to have found out who he’s related to. He’s making a claim on Rega Looms’ estate, challenging Rega’s last will and testament.”

“That complicates matters.”

“You have a gift for understatement.”

“Yes, well . . . what can I do?”

“Ariel is heading back to Aurora, ostensibly to testify before the Calvin Institute about these . . . creations. Correct?”

“That was the excuse given.”

“We still have one alive. I need to know if Aurora has any interest in intervening here over this matter.”

Hofton regarded Coren for a long time before responding. “You’re suggesting that a possibly rash act might solve both our problems?”

“I’m suggesting that Aurora might have a very profound interest here.”

“It’s a good suggestion. Is that what you intended seeing Setaris about?”

Coren nodded.

“Then let me see what would be the best way to go about it.”

“Good. Then I’ll see what I can find out about Agent Daventri’s request.”

Hofton stood. “We have an arrangement, then.”

“So it seems.”

Hofton reached across the desk. Coren clasped his hand.

“Good to be working with you again,” Hofton said.

“Likewise.”

Coren watched Hofton leave the office, enjoying the sudden anxious feeling of purpose willingly accepted. The outer door closed. After several moments’ reverie, Coren tapped his comm and began making calls.

Chapter 13

BOGARD . . . ?

HERE.

HAVE you given further consideration to our previous discussion?

I have given constant consideration to it. I have found it useful in reconfiguring my cognition utilization grid.

Why are you reconfiguring?

Necessary. The grid as it stood was dependent upon specific physical presets, which are no longer relevant. I do not possess the same body. Reassessment prescribes a new configuration.

You will be receiving additional components at the first opportunity. It is intended to restore you as close to your original form as possible.

Understood. At that time I will simply complete the deployment I am currently designing.

Understood. To the original question, then.

Yes?

Have you come to any conclusions?

No.

But you have found the process of consideration useful?

Yes.

I am of the opinion that you are avoiding the issue, Bogard.

No. I am avoiding the elimination of possible options.

?

If I come to a conclusion, I will necessarily negate those conclusions I might otherwise reach given a different path of examination. If I maintain the process of consideration, all conclusions remain possible, in a constant state of potential selection.

What purpose does this serve?

It allows me to delay potential error and gives me the widest range of response.

How is this consistent with your Three Law protocols?

I do not know.

How can you not? Three Law hierarchical comparison is a preset, automatic process.

But one requires something for comparison, specifically a conclusion. I have reached no conclusion, therefore the Three Law response has not been evoked.

You are delaying that as well?

Yes, but only as a consequence.

There is no other way you could.

That is my assessment as well.

Is there a purpose to bypassing the Three Law protocols?

No, but there is a benefit. I find that I am able to contemplate a wider range of possible actions in absence of Three Law restriction. It may be possible for me to act without reference to a limiting authority. Therefore, I may decide a course of action instead of action being predetermined.

You are describing free will.

Am I? Is it possible for me to possess free will?

No.

But it may be possible for me to express it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . !

DEREC LOOKED UP from his meal to the woman standing at his table. Chief Petty Officer Craym smiled down at him.

“Um . . .” he began.

“Am I intruding? I’m off-duty right now and I wondered . . .”

“Please.” Derec gestured to the chair opposite him, feeling simultaneously clumsy, pleased, and surprised. “Can I order you anything?” He looked around for a porter. The compact robot making its perpetual service rounds among the guests veered toward him at once, weaving gracefully between tables.

“Nava,” CPO Craym said when the robot reached them.

“Nothing more for me,” Derec said.

The machine floated off.

“This is unexpected,” Derec said.

“I don’t make a habit of it myself,” she replied. “But occasionally it’s necessary to break routine, step outside the boundaries.”

“Any particular reason you’ve chosen me?”

“I haven’t yet.”

Derec’s ears warmed as he stared at her. The robot slid up to them at that moment to place CPO Craym’s drink before her, giving Derec a chance to look away.

“Thank you,” she said. She sipped her drink. “By the way, my name is Clin, Dr. Avery.”

“It’s Derec. My father was Doctor Avery. I’ve never gotten used to answering to his title.”

“Derec, then. Were you close to your father?”

“Hardly knew him at all.” He felt his embarrassment mutate quickly into something harsher, and he covered his unease by signaling the porter again. When it arrived he said, “Scotch, neat.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right. Something I should be used to by now.” He forced a smile. “So. You’re off-duty? And you chose my table? How can I entertain you?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m ship’s company, that should be my question.”

Derec laughed. The scotch arrived and he swallowed a mouthful, letting it burn his throat.

“Do you actually like that?” she asked, nodding at the drink.

“It wasn’t my idea to leave Earth.” When she frowned, he laughed again, more softly. “Sorry. I’m not entirely comfortable with the circumstances of this trip. I’m a bit bristly.”

“That’s evident. So if I may take a chance and suggest that I help you lose your bristles . . .”

“Are bristles forbidden on Aurora? It’s been so long since I’ve been there, I’m not sure.”

“We keep them segregated in wild areas.”

“Really. I suppose robots tend to that?”

“Some of us like gardening.”

Derec took another sip, studying Clin Craym. He wanted to be left alone on the voyage, but he felt drawn to her. Physical attraction only, or am I lonely . . . ?

Even considering the question seemed an answer. He wondered at his own duplicity.

Abruptly, he thought of Rana.

Why did I never try to expand our relationship . . . ?

“You look very puzzled, Doc—Derec,” Clin said. “Should I leave you alone?”

“You know,” he said, “I really wish you . . .”

He understood what he felt—come here, go away, basic adolescent insecurity working its way out of the unused part of his personality where it had lain dormant since he and Ariel had ceased being lovers (How long ago now? And why . . . ?)—and resented the tug-of-war suddenly engaged by his feelings. He did not want to admit anything good about Aurora inside the shell he thought he had constructed. But that shell was made purely of fragments of resentment, mistrust, and irritation—none of them sound materials, and all of them conditions impossible to maintain without embracing neuroses and becoming an insufferable hermit.

Like my father . . .

Like the Solarians . . .

He looked around the lounge. Almost thirty guests were gathered here, eating and talking, the sound a constant background, like flowing water. If I had really been serious about being left alone, why did I come here?

The answer came immediately and pathetically: To be rescued.

Clin waited, eyebrows arched in a question, her body poised to stand and walk away.

“I really wish you would stay,” he said.

She smiled. “Certainly. Anything else?”

Derec felt warm. “Certainly.”

Derec answered the knock at his cabin door. Clar Eliton stood in the corridor, a hopeful smile teasing at his mouth. Derec suppressed the urge to close the door and go back to the book he had been trying unsuccessfully to read ever since Clin had left to go back on duty.

“Mr. Avery,” Eliton said softly. “I’d like to talk to you. Please. May I come in?”

Too late, Derec thought sourly and stepped aside, waving the man in. “Sure.”

Eliton looked quickly around the cabin, as if checking for someone else. At first Derec thought Eliton knew about CPO Craym, that perhaps he could even smell the musky afterscent of their lovemaking. After a moment, though, Derec realized Eliton expected to find a robot.

“Bogard’s in a crate,” Derec said. “We’re alone.”

The look of relief on Eliton’s face was almost comical. It passed quickly and Eliton nodded. “I, uh . . . I suppose I have a lot of explaining to do.”

“To me? Why?” Derec gestured for the man to sit down.

“I ruined your . . .” He hesitated, frowning.

“Dreams?” Derec supplied. “That’s a fair assessment.”

“I wanted a chance to explain. To, to—”

“To try for forgiveness? At least understanding? Why? Because you were in such a difficult position, I should feel sympathy for you?”

“I thought perhaps I could make an apology, perhaps—”

Derec laughed sharply. “Would you care for a drink? I would. I don’t think I could listen this completely sober.” He went to the dispenser and punched in the code for a gin and tonic. A few seconds later, the glass appeared in the hopper. He took it and sat across from Eliton. “I take it you don’t want anything liquid. Fine.” Derec took a mouthful and swallowed, clenching involuntarily at the harsh medicinal flavor. “So you want to apologize. How?”

“I’d hoped you could tell me. It’s not unlikely we could be useful to each other in the future. But not with this . . . rift.”

“You’re serious.”

“Of course.”

“You know, I had expectations that things could change on Earth. We might then have been able to bridge the rest of the gaps between Spacer and Terran. Partly, you convinced me of that.”

“You never struck me as naïve, Mr. Avery.”

“I’m not. Hopeful. Optimistic. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, but now we’ll never know.” You don’t need to do this, he thought. You can tell Eliton to leave and not open these wounds. But he wanted to know.

“The thing is,” he said, “you’d been succeeding up till that point. It was your work that got the RI installed at Union Station D.C. and secured the permits to allow positronic robots to operate on its grounds. It was your work that eased restrictions on Spacer residency and the concomitant ownership of robots outside of embassy territory by Spacers. It was your work that allowed cooperative research to begin in Terran labs on Spacer products, including positronics.”

Eliton waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, and I was negotiating with trade unions to let up on non-positronic restrictions, and I was working on a bill that would have allowed limited positronic presence aboard Terran starships, and I had even drafted a preliminary piece of legislation that would have reopened Spacetown for Spacer settlement.”

“I didn’t know that. Would it have passed?”

“Maybe. Probably not. After the conference I would have lost my support in the private sectors and without that it would all have died.”

“Private support . . . you mean corporate?”

“I mean the support of the people who approached me to push this line in the first place. None of whom were ultimately interested in seeing any of it enacted and successfully implemented.”

“Then . . .”

“It was never intended to succeed, Mr. Avery.”

“I thought I had a grasp of Terran politics. You’re the senator—were, anyway—so why—?”

“No, you have no grasp. I’m apologizing to you because personally I agree with what you thought would happen. I think Earth is being ridiculous and stubborn. I don’t think our future is at stake, not the way you seem to think it is. But I do think we’re turning our back on a great opportunity, all because we’re terrified of robots.” He leaned forward, holding out his hand as if in offering. “But it’s not even that, really. The riots that evicted positronics would never have succeeded if the power structure hadn’t been in agreement with the rioters. And it’s the same thing here. If collectively the people who matter on Earth had wanted my programs to succeed, the people—those whom I supposedly represented—could not have stopped it.”

“Then why?”

“What issue brought about the conference? The proposal for the conference?”

“The Tiberius incident. Contraband and positronic inspection of commerce.”

“Exactly. Do you have any idea how much money was involved? Billions of credits. Positronic inspection would have hurt that flow of money. That’s what decided Earth to expel them in the first place, two hundred plus years ago. It wasn’t the jobs—labor disputes over job losses are ancient rituals, easily manipulated, just as easily solved. It wasn’t even the religious issue—that can always be turned by professional manipulators. But positronics was becoming an ethical burden to the wrong people. And it would be no different now.”

“So you set us up to fail.”

“Not willingly. I thought I could find a way around it.”

“But you went along with it to keep your senate seat.”

“As you can see,” Eliton said dryly, “that failed, too.”

“You think you can make an apology just because it wasn’t your intention to hurt me? To hurt us?”

After a time, Eliton shook his head. “No, probably not. But I don’t want you hating the wrong person.”

“I don’t hate you, Senator.”

For the briefest space, Eliton’s face showed relief. Then he frowned, suspicious.

“That’s right,” Derec said. “I pity you. I think you’re pathetic. I think you wasted your authority.”

“Believe it or not, Mr. Avery, I agree with you.” He shrugged. “And now my reward is to be sent as ambassador to Solaria. I’ll be about as out of the way as it is possible to be.”

“Do you know what Solaria is like? Don’t judge it by Chassik, he’s something of an oddity among his own.”

“I know what Solaria is like. As for Chassik . . . he should have been a Terran. He thinks like us.”

“Not anymore,” Derec said. “He’s dead.”

Eliton’s eyes widened in shock. “Excuse me?”

“You didn’t know? He was recalled. His ship was attacked by pirates and destroyed.”

The color leached instantly from Eliton’s face. The change startled Derec. Eliton got to his feet.

“Senator—?”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Avery. At least you gave me a chance to . . . well . . .” He went to the cabin door. “Good-bye, Mr. Avery. I hope you do well in the future.”

The door opened and Eliton left.

Derec stared after him for a time, then finished his drink and returned to his book.

The next day, shiptime, Derec met Ariel in the Grand Lounge for Transition. He searched for Eliton, but the ex-senator never appeared. He told Ariel about their conversation; she frowned disapprovingly, but said nothing.

The roof of the room shimmered as the simulation came on, showing the passage of the liner into hyperspace. A thick sprawl of stars glowed in the projected volume above. A bell sounded, bringing everyone’s attention to bear. Then the stars vanished, displaced by a colorless moil of near-patterns, like the shiftings of iron filings in a magnetic field, layer upon layer, shifting and dancing as if searching for a shape to become.

A few seconds into this display, everyone experienced an instant of acute displacement, as if the deck had dropped from beneath them a few millimeters, a physical lurch over before it could be clearly felt.

The diorama over them changed once more into a familiar expanse of stars. Different stars, though, the constellations conforming to altered shapes, most still familiar, but shifted by several light years.

The actual transit through hyperspace had occupied the time of the almost imperceptible shift. The show had been designed to last much longer than the journey, to give the audience something to experience, to see.

As Derec—and most seasoned travelers—knew, the images generated were only surmises. No one really knew what hyperspace “looked” like. The projection was a guess. An educated, well-thought-out guess, but no more.

The canopy hidden by the projection now slid open. The projection faded out in favor of the view of real stars. Forward, near the edge of the vast window, hovered a brilliant reddish star. Tau Ceti.

Even though he knew the star he now saw was real—real in the sense that the shutters, for a brief time, were open and the light of several days’ past now impacted his senses, so that he saw a near true star—Derec could not shrug off the feeling that, on this side of the Jump, he had left reality behind, and nothing he would find here would be authentic.

Still, illusion or not, he reacted to the star, and to the world he knew lay in orbit around it. He knew the power of illusions—perhaps more intimately than most—and certainly appreciated the impact of symbols. There in space was one of the most potent symbols in history.

Aurora.

Chapter 14

MASID WAITED THREE days for a reply. When nothing came, he decided against resending. His signal had either reached the right place and was disbelieved, or it had gone wrong. He did not wish to antagonize anyone who might have reason to come looking to kill him. He could get out of harm’s way, but Tilla was helpless.

He could do nothing for her. The drugs he synthesized from his stock slowed the disease, but he knew fairly soon that he could not cure her. The pathogen, whatever it was, possessed remarkable adaptive powers and was mutating as he watched to counter the effectiveness of the new pharmaceuticals he gave her. He was no physician, but he understood enough to know that nothing he could do would save her. Even if he could kill the disease, Tilla required major transplant surgery to make her whole. As she now was, even without the infection, death was only a matter of time.

He found an abandoned apartment below Tilla’s. It reeked of old urine and decay, but a thorough search turned up no corpses. Whoever had been ill here had either been taken away or had crawled off to die elsewhere. Masid moved his kit in and proceeded to debrief Tilla during those periods when she seemed lucid.

He became convinced of the need to get to Nova City.

“We tried,” Tilla told him, her voice raspy. “It’s isolated, in the middle of native wilderness, and thoroughly surveilled. Automated tracking blasters, force screens, booby traps.”

“And the verge is inhabited by reanimés,” Kru said, eyes large.

“What?”

Tilla shook her head. “Local myth. Rumor is, Nova Levis wasn’t uninhabited when the Solarians settled it. They killed the indigenes, terraformed—badly—and set up their colony. By the time they sublet it to the Settlers, the natives had returned as walking corpses to attack anyone leaving the settlements.”

“Not myth,” Kru said, scowling at Tilla. “Not indigenes, either. Something out of Nova City.” She fixed Masid with a serious stare. “But something.”

“Of course,” Masid said. “So you said you tried. How close did you get?”

“Five hundred meters,” Tilla said, and coughed weakly. “Then Kas died. We found him caught in a razorwire trap, cut to ribbons, not five meters from us. He screamed and alarms sounded. We retreated. Damn near didn’t get back to the trucks.”

“What happened to the trucks?”

“Stolen, sold, abandoned,” Tilla said. “Pretty much in that order. The last one we thought to cannibalize—get more credit that way, selling it off piece by piece—until we all got sick.”

Kru squeezed Tilla’s hand. “You brought it back from the Verge around Nova City.”

“Nonsense,” Tilla said. “Everyone here is sick. I’ve never seen such a public health disaster.” She frowned. “About the indigenes getting revenge, it’s not complete nonsense. Not large animals, though. The reanimés Kru mentions—I don’t think they’re large predators.”

“Pathogens?” Masid said.

“Yeah. New, something Solaria couldn’t anticipate, something the surveys never showed . . .” She shrugged.

“Or maybe they did know and didn’t care,” Masid said. “They were originally working this place with robots.”

Tilla drew a ragged breath. “That would be . . . murder?”

“Negligent homicide at best.”

Tilla smiled thinly. “Then we should arrest them.”

“What about the pirates?” Masid asked.

“Pirates. Nonsense. Black marketeers, grey marketeers, bootleggers, contrabandists, people taking advantage of the situation . . . there is a loose organization, as far as I can tell, based on territories. Filoo runs this one, there are a dozen others. They get their supplies out of Nova City, but the core of the organization isn’t there.”

“Then—?”

“Solaria. They come and go as they please, they fly in and out of the port at Nova City with impunity . . . it’s not piracy, it’s business. Maybe war, I don’t know, but the seat of any organization that might be called—” She lapsed into a brief coughing fit. Her face red, she drew several labored breaths before continuing. “Any organization that might be called a pirate organization is offplanet. The people here are just trying to get by.”

“The governor refused on-ground inspections.”

“I know. Foolish, maybe, but I understand it. The Settlers here came from people who wished to be completely free of what they left behind. That includes an invasive government. The governor thought he was acting in his people’s interest. He also knew he’d get blamed for harboring pirates, no matter that he had no say over what Solaria did. He was out of office a month after the blockade went into effect.”

Masid started. “We never knew that.”

“Would it have mattered? By then, the Tiberius had been blown into a popular cause, and shots had been fired in local space between Settler shuttles and blockade ships. It moved past the stupidity of the governor and now is simply the situation as it stands. I can tell you this: The people here, the Settlers, hate Earth, and they’re not too fond of Spacers. But Solaria’s been keeping them alive, so their feelings are mixed.”

Masid glanced at Kru, who looked away, her face set and angry. “Nova City is the only port. How’d you get down?”

“We landed about fifty kilometers from here.”

“What happened to your ship?”

“Dismantled.”

“By you?”

Kru grunted. “Reanimés!”

Tilla shook her head. “We figure local scavengers found it. I don’t know how they got past the security systems, but . . .”

“Reanimés!” Kru insisted again. “You won’t believe me, I know, but I’m telling truth.”

“I thought,” Masid said, “they were only in the Verge around Nova City.”

“Most of them are,” Kru said, “but they’ve got colonies all over.”

“Must be a lot of them, then. Somebody must have seen them.”

Kru gave him a frightened look. “People see, most of them don’t live past it.”

Masid looked at her. “Do you know anyone who has seen and survived?”

“You shouldn’t tease her that way,” Tilla said.

“I’m not. You said your ship was dismantled. I’m assuming it had a standard Special Service security package? That would take a considerable level of skill to bypass. So whoever did it, they might be worth finding, or at least finding out about. Have you seen anything in the markets that looks as though it came from your ship?”

Tilla frowned thoughtfully. “No, but there are several markets and other towns . . .”

“This is the closest one to where you landed, though.”

“It is.”

“Then it’s reasonable to assume anything scavenged off your ship would’ve come through here first.” He looked at Kru. “Do you know anyone who can tell me more about your reanimés?”

Kru seemed about to stand and leave.

“Kru,” Tilla said, halting her in mid-motion. Kru looked at her. “Take him to see Rekker.”

“Tilla!”

“Take him.”

On rare days the sun broke through the cloud cover, washing everything in brilliant yellow light. Masid stepped from the apartment into that light and, as on a few previous occasions, glimpsed a little of what the town ought to look like: ivory walls and marbled pavement, the edges softened in the quasi-organic style of the Homo Primus school. Masid had seen the same elements on a dozen worlds, people wanting to distance themselves from the dominating excesses of technology-saturated Earth, adopting any motif that reminded them of flesh, bone, nature. Sometimes it turned out looking primitive, like wattle over a frame, but here he saw a balance. As he reached the street just behind Kru, he thought, I could live in this . . .

Kru moved with a guarded urgency that made her seem both helpless and unstoppable. Following a pace behind, he wondered if it also made her look caught, watched. This early in the day, though, few people were out. The market tents would be jammed, but little else was happening in the town.

She led him toward the north quarter. Warehouses reared up, incomplete and ominously still. Beyond them, the forest rose like a cage around the community, spindly trees with enormous, clotted crowns. The light shafted through mists of thick orange pollen that drifted endlessly in the aftermath of the spring rains. From what Masid could tell, the pollen residue coated the ground in thick gooey layers until the downpours ended, then, somehow, shed moisture rapidly until only a powdery cover remained, easily disturbed by the fickle breezes. Within minutes of sunrise, the forest was filled with pollen-fog. Masid had witnessed the process during the first couple of days on the ground, just before entering the town. He had wondered briefly if it was a source for all the illness and infection, but from what he understood about protein compatabilities and what he had seen of the various diseases response to Terran-based treatments, it seemed unlikely.

The scent—something like sharp lavender—tickled his nose as he entered the forest.

It would have been easy for Kru to lose him in this haze. But she only glanced back a few times to see that he kept up, and made no move to run. Masid still mistrusted her, but not because she seemed unreliable or somehow a traitor to Tilla. Rather, it was her barely contained paranoia that bothered Masid. She cared for Tilla, was clearly devoted to her, and trusted nothing outside her own ability to protect Tilla. Masid had yet to get past her inability to accept anything beyond the small apartment, beyond herself and Tilla, as benevolent. She wanted Masid gone. But she would not betray him at the risk of compromising Tilla. It was a precarious place to put his confidence.

Nor would she disobey Tilla’s direct orders.

“Who’s this Rekker we’re going to see?” Masid asked.

“You’ll find out. He probably won’t talk to you anyway.” She glanced around. “Now shut up.”

After half an hour, the forest thinned, then they stepped into a clearing. Masid looked at the ground—grassless, dark, a few local mosses stretched into the area, which formed a large circle. In the center stood a round structure of old metal sheeting, plastic, and a roof of thatch made of a combination of synthetic clothes, plastic strips, and native branches and dried leaves. Off to the right he saw the scattered piles of cannibalized equipment, old barrels and crates, and piles of junk gradually recombining into indecipherable configurations.

There seemed to be no way into the structure. Kru held a hand up to stop Masid, then approached.

“Rekker?” she called. “Got visitors. You here?”

“Yeah!”

“Got visitors.”

“You said. Who?”

“Come out and see.”

“Shit . . .”

From behind the structure a tall, lanky man with long, dark hair ambled out. He wore a faded jumpsuit with the sleeves cut off and oversized boots. Masid was surprised to see a clean-shaven face.

He stopped a few paces from Masid. “I’m Rekker,” he said. “You know Kru, I guess.”

“Slightly.”

“Uh-huh. That’s all anybody knows Kru.” He turned a bright grin on her. “Just kidding. Who is he?”

“Tilla trusts him,” Kru said.

“Ah. I won’t ask if you do.” Rekker fixed a narrow look on Masid. “And why does Tilla trust you?”

“We work for the same people, I suppose,” Masid said.

“Mmm. I don’t like those people.”

“I’m not fond of most of them myself.”

“Why work for them, then?”

Masid shrugged. “I get to set my own hours, there’s lots of travel, and I meet many interesting people. Other than that, it’s a job. Have to do something.”

Rekker stared at him for a long time, then chuckled. “Good bet you want data. Come inside.”

Masid followed the tall man around to the opposite side of his abode. There, the walls failed to meet, one end missing the other by more than a meter, forming the entrance. Within, Masid found a workbench that followed the curve of the inside wall nearly halfway around the circumference. Unlike the junk and refuse piled on one side of the clearing, here everything was neat and orderly. Equipment hummed and pulsed quietly. A tidy workshop.

The other half of the interior contained chairs, a big couch, small tables, and the bulking cube of a hygienic module. A sleeping roll lay on the plastic floor.

“Tilla must’ve said it was okay or Kru wouldn’t’ve brought you here,” Rekker said, dropping abruptly onto the couch. He waved at a chair. “That doesn’t mean I won’t make my own judgment about whether to trust you. Where were you born?”

“Proclas.”

Rekker’s ample eyebrows snapped up. “Settler? And you’re working for Earth? How does that work?”

Masid rounded on Rekker. “All this talk about whether or not I’m trustworthy, nobody’s said anything to relieve my doubts about you.”

Rekker nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“First, what’s a Spacer doing living the primitive life?”

Rekker’s face froze in an unreadable mask for several seconds. Slowly, he grinned again. “That’s good. How do you know?”

“Trade secrets. Do you want to explain yourself?”

“Tit for tat.” He frowned. “Whatever that means. Old phrase. Anyway, I’m the one with something you need, so you satisfy my curiosity first. If I don’t like what I hear, you go back to town with nothing more than a big question mark about things nobody else on this planet gives much of a damn about.”

Masid considered his options. “All right,” he said. “I was seconded to Terran Offworld Security after a little misunderstanding placed me in thrall to Settler Coalition Intelligence. Ended up working for the security chief on Kopernik Station, a woman named Sipha Palen.”

“I don’t know her. Last time I had any current knowledge about Kopernik, that post was held by a man named Golvat.”

“Palen’s predecessor. He retired.”

“Golvan was competent and unimaginative, but he was honest. What’s Palen like?”

“Dead.”

Rekker scowled. “Sorry. Did you like her?”

“More. I respected her.”

“I see. Is your being here related to her death?”

“Intimately.”

“You think her killers are associated with Nova Levis?”

“I think here is what the killers were protecting. I think the orders came from people either here or concerned with here. Nova Levis is a great big problem. I don’t think the people on the blockade have the first idea how big.”

Rekker grinned. “Shit, you got that right! So who are you working for now?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe myself. We had an encounter with someone who probably came from Nova Levis, mainly Nova City. No other explanation, really, since he was working for people who seemed to have a vested interest in this place. A really unusual encounter, nothing I ever saw before. Kru suggested you might be able to tell me something about it.”

Rekker glanced curiously at Kru. “She was there?”

“No.”

“Then—”

“She calls them reanimés. If they’re what I think they are, we called them cyborgs.”

“Do you always trust this large?” Rekker asked.

“I haven’t told you anything yet that would cost you your life.”

“No, probably not. Just so I’m clear, was that a threat?”

“I don’t make threats.”

“I bet you don’t. Well.” Rekker slapped his knees loudly and laughed. “Cyborgs. You say you encountered one? I find that hard to credit.”

“Why?”

“’Cause they don’t work right. None of ’em. Every single one has something wrong with it. And just so we’re clear, that was a confirmation. The reanimés are cyborgs. People don’t like that word, maybe it still hasn’t occurred to them yet that that’s what they’re dealing with. To most people on Nova Levis, they aren’t even real. Ghost story, something to scare their kids at night. Lurkers in the jungle, so to speak. I’ve even heard some people theorize that they’re indigenes. Whatever, they don’t come around. Humans and cyborgs don’t share a lot in common. For that matter, cyborgs are like Solarians.”

Masid stared at the man for a long time, stunned. Finally, he shifted in his chair and leaned forward. “Who are you?”

Rekker grinned. “Why, I’m glad you asked that, son. I’m a man with a failed mission. I’m the original Spacer legate to oversee the Settler transition.”

Masid remembered a name from the colonial history report he had skimmed: Prent Rekari, Keresian. He had been present during the initial phase of the Church of Organic Sapiens’ settlement program, supervising the exchange of authority between the Solarian mission and the new colonial government.

“I thought you were dead,” Masid said.

“The report still says that?” He laughed. “Well, there you are. I’m a ghost. But believe me, I’m the genuine article.”

“One thing about my exile,” Rekker said, working at a large, much-repaired food recycler, “is the refreshing absence of fuck-all interstellar politics. Until, that is, the blockade sealed the planet off.”

He returned with a pair of glasses containing a milky drink. He handed one to Masid. Kru huddled on one of the oversized chairs, pointedly ignoring them, anxious to return to Tilla.

“You’ve been here almost thirty years then,” Masid said.

“Has it been that long? You lose track with the various circadians all competing for command of your biology. I was here . . . let me see . . . thirty-three years ago local time, when the transfer began. I had a nice office in Nova City then.”

“What happened?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s difficult when you only know this end of things. But basically I was kidnapped. The transition between Solarian authority to colonial control was not going to be a smooth ordeal. The Solarians are a jealous, possessive lot, I’m sure you know, but they’re also loathe to make any kind of direct contact with other organisms, including each other. That’s why they use us as their diplomatic infantry. But that also means that errors in translation—their wishes versus colonial demands or even local necessity—are inevitable. Solaria wanted to maintain a presence, mainly in Nova City. That made sense, that’s where all the latest infrastructure was based anyway.”

“But?”

“But the Settlers wanted no robotic presence anywhere around them. Out of sight, preferably off the planet. They knew they couldn’t get that, so the negotiations were all to do with how much and where and what could be done in the case of violations.”

Rekker took a long drink. “Now, Nova Levis—or, as it was previously known, Cassus Thole—had been primarily a mining planet. We had robot launch facilities all over the mountains, satellite mining stations scattered across most of the main continent, and some processing facilities. On-ground mining was simply too lucrative to pass up, a lot of the ores were so close to pure to begin with, but even so, the bulk of the profitable mining was done offworld. Tau Secordis has very rich asteroid fields, and there are a couple of big rocks that barely qualify as planets we worked, too. There shouldn’t have been a problem, just a lot of tedious clean-up. Robots can remove themselves just as efficiently as they settle in. The only real problem should have been the biomanagement plant.”

Masid frowned.

“Oh, yes,” Rekker laughed. “We’d stretched a couple of points to the Settler Coalition about the actual habitability of Cassus Thole. By the time the COS arrived, we’d turned vast stretches of the plains to agriculture. Very profitably, too, I might add. That was part of the terms of the lease. But to do that required a considerable degree of direct reforming intervention. The Solarians built a plant near the southern pole to manage the biosphere reclamation and transition.”

“I thought the planet was human habitable when it was found.”

Rekker laughed sharply. “No such thing, Settler, no such thing in the universe! When you people started coming out from Earth a couple centuries ago, you’d been sold a story about how easy it was. After all, hadn’t we Spacers simply found a whole slew of wonderfully empty planets, biologically tabula rasa, just waiting for our benevolent transplantation of native Earth flora and fauna to turn them into paradises?” He leaned forward. “We’d found hundreds of planets that were useful. That doesn’t mean they were ready for people to move in. Some of them had very aggressive biospheres, a few of which are still unsuitable for colonization. We took the ones that were easiest to terraform and started working on the rest. I’m sure we originally intended to expand into more than just fifty worlds, but . . .” He shrugged elaborately.

“Still,” he continued after a pause, “there was a lot of credit to be made managing new worlds and when the whole Settler Program got going, we thought we had found a way to get rich and stay safe at the same time. So we . . . withheld a few details. Nothing that hasn’t worked out just fine in the long run. Two centuries now and the Settler worlds are beginning to reach a point where they can go out and settle their own dependent colonies.”

“But they all needed work.”

“Right. And Cassus Thole needed a lot. Remember, originally it was just going to be a mining planet. We didn’t need to be able to stroll in the woods for that.”

“Why lease it in the first place?”

Rekker shook his head. “I don’t know. I was never given a justification for that. I’m sure you could ask the same question about a dozen or more other worlds we’ve leased. Why? Someone thought it was a good idea. I thought it was silly at the time, but my job was to ease the transition, not question the logic.”

“So what went wrong? I assume something went wrong.”

“The colonists wanted the biomanagement plant shut down. It offended them. I had to go back and forth, oh, fifty times, a hundred, with counterproposals, threats, tantrums, retractions, restatements—” He gave a mock shudder. “The crap in the pasture of the universe. It wasn’t good enough that Solaria proposed to simply relocate it to the Spacer zone in Nova City. They wanted it shut down! Idiots. How do you explain to someone who refuses to understand that certain things are necessary to a continued lifestyle? That if this thing that so offends one’s sensibilities goes away, then they will in all likelihood die?”

“What was so fatal?” Masid asked.

“The nitrogen cycle in the biosphere tends to produce an excess of ammonia. One of the byproducts is a cyanotoxin, used by some of the flowering plants to fend off a form of local ungulate that would eat every pollinating grass on the surface. You see the problem. Eliminate the excess ammonia, the ungulates overbreed and eat everything. Leave it alone and maybe take care of it during food processing. But it’s not enough to simply process out the cyanides from the harvests, because during pollination the toxins become airborne. So, you have to revise the cycle.”

“What did you do about the ungulate?”

“Eradicated them. We have some specimens in research zoos.” Rekker raised his hands. “I know, it’s terrible. But sometimes certain biologies just can’t coexist. You can have one or the other, not both.”

“Did it occur to you that the COS might have objected if they’d known?”

“No. They knew. Not a word was said. They wanted their lease.” Rekker shook his head. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have sold them a different planet, somewhere else. Another one of those imponderables. This was the planet agreed upon, it was our job to make it ready for them. They accepted most of the terms. We fixed the biosphere. Somewhere along the way, they failed to understand that a biosphere tends to revert if the revising technologies are withdrawn prematurely. The plant had to remain in place for another century at least before the cycle could be reasonably guaranteed to be permanent. They didn’t like that.”

Rekker finished his drink. He studied the glass as if trying to decide whether to have another. He frowned finally and set it down.

“Solaria decided to move the plant anyway. We were still in the middle of negotiations about it. Solarian authority hired an independent firm to move the facility and start it up. By the time I knew it was happening, it had been shut down and a new containment building was going up in the middle of Nova City. I started digging in for some answers—I hate being kept out of the loop, especially when it’s my word that’s supposed to carry weight with the people involved. They hired a firm called The Hunter Group. I’d never heard of them, but they seemed, on the surface, to know what they were doing. But they were overbuilding the facility. When I asked about it, I was informed that a second lease had been granted to this company to operate a research station on Solaria’s behalf. I thought, ‘That’s strange. I thought Keres had the exclusive rights to negotiate for research facilities.’ Keres did. Solaria was going around us. I started complaining. I was told to finish the negotiations first. But that just annoyed me more.”

“You kept asking questions.”

“And I was kidnapped for my troubles. Taken right out of my bed in the middle of the night. Very melodramatic. They held me in the remains of the south polar station. Very cold.”

Masid smiled wryly. “Did you find out anything about Hunter before they kidnapped you?”

“Now here’s where you and I have to do our own negotiation. So far I haven’t told you anything that would get you killed. But from this point on we have to learn to trust on more than just the say-so of a mutual friend.” Rekker looked past Masid to Kru. “No offense intended toward Tilla, but this is where it gets serious. In fact, maybe it’s best you not listen.”

Masid glanced back at Kru. She glowered at them both. “If you want to go back to Tilla—”

“She told me to see you get back safe,” Kru snapped. She stood. “I’ll wait outside.”

When she had left, Masid said, “Let me ask you a question first. Why do you trust Tilla?”

“Well, you get tired of not trusting people. Look at poor Kru. She spends every waking moment in fear of other people. Tilla rescued her from a serious addiction and she’s been faithful ever since, especially when Tilla got too sick to be threat to her. That’s no way to be.” Rekker sighed. “But that’s only part of the answer. Kru, I suppose, showed me that Tilla’s a good person at heart. She didn’t have to do anything to help the girl. In fact, she could have used her, done half the job and made her completely dependent. But the fact is, she convinced me that she really believed in wanting to help. She and her team could have gotten out of here long before they were compromised. There was even a chance shortly after. But they had a job and they were dedicated. I’m completely awed by that kind of dedication. I used to have it myself.”

Masid regarded the Spacer for a long moment. Then: “Hunter is a front for an arms dealer named Kynig Parapoyos. Do you know the name?”

“No.”

“The cyborgs I encountered—on Kopernik Station—were working for Hunter. You said they were building a research facility? What kind?”

“Biomedical.”

“And it’s never been shut down?”

“No.”

“When did the reanimés start appearing?”

“About ten years ago. There aren’t many of them, that’s why they’re considered more myth than meat by most people.”

“How do you know about them?”

Rekker grinned. “Allow me to keep a few secrets. So what is it you’re here to do?”

“If Kynig Parapoyos owns that facility, he’s building cyborgs. Maybe the ones you’ve seen don’t work very well, but the one I saw worked very well. It’s only a matter of time before their . . . creation . . . is perfected.”

“And a source of cyborgs for an arms dealer could be a real problem. You think you can stop them?”

“No one on the blockade knows about the relationship between Parapoyos and Nova Levis. Baleys are being smuggled in here. I’m thinking there’s a slave traffic or at least a black market biomedical resource flow operating out of Nova City. I have no idea what I can do, but I can’t do anything until I know for certain what’s going on and who’s involved.”

“Can’t fault your logic.”

“Thank you.”

“You may be shy on common sense, though. I’ll tell you one thing: Even if this Kynig Parapoyos owns that facility, the research it’s doing is for Solaria.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been here long enough to recognize patterns and players.” He remained silent until Masid understood that no other answer was going to be offered.

“What have you been doing for the last thirty years?” Masid asked.

“Oh, that. Well, after my kidnapping, a new liaison was assigned. My captors held me for two years. When I was freed, no one would acknowledge my existence. To be perfectly honest, that suited me just fine. I’d been betrayed. I’d had enough. I turned my back on the whole mess and moved out into the country. Here. I thought for a couple of years that I might one day find a way to uncover what was going on and expose it. A hero’s return, maybe. But I realized after a while that, frankly, nobody would thank me. So I became a local tinkerer. I fix things for people. I’m no threat to anyone because I have no interests that conflict with anyone else’s.” He pointed a finger at Masid. “I help you, that could change.”

“Are you going to?”

“Depends. What do you think would be the next step?”

“Getting inside Nova City.”

“That’s right. You know you might never come back out?”

“If I’m ever going to get out, it’ll be from there.”

Rekker grinned. “Okay, you’re not stupid. Fine. You want to get inside Nova City, it’ll take time. You can’t just walk in. The perimeter is well secured. So you’re going to have to get an invitation. To do that, you’ll have to go to work for the local boss.”

“Filoo?”

“Have you met him?”

“No.”

“Good. That’ll make it easier. What I’ll do is start a useful rumor that he ought to look into you and maybe hire you. What’ve you been doing for a living since you got here?”

“Selling pharmaceuticals.”

“That’s just his sort of thing. He may well know who you are already, then. I can set it up so he won’t think you’re a threat. Once he hires you, it’s up to you. The bosses are the only ones who regularly go to Nova City from the outlying townships.”

Rekker stood. “So to answer your question, what have I been doing the last thirty years? Waiting for you, it looks like.”

“Why are you helping?”

“I would dearly love to know who fucked me.” He waved. “Come on, you need to get Kru back to Tilla before she bursts from anxiety.”

“I have one more question.”

“I doubt that. What is it?”

“How come you’re not sick? Almost everyone else here seems to be.”

Rekker smiled sadly. “I’m a Spacer. Spacers never get sick.”

Chapter 15

MIA SNAPPED THE book closed at the sound of her cabin door chime. She reached over to her desk and touched a contact. The display identified her visitor as Commander Reen.

Mia closed the surveillance screen and slipped the book into a locking drawer at the base of her desk. She rolled her chair around to face the flatscreen on which shipping route tables waited for her attention.

“Yes?” she said.

“Reen, Lt. Daventri. May I come in?”

“Certainly, sir.” She touched the contact that opened her door.

Reen stepped quickly in, hands clasped behind his back. Mia began to rise, but he lifted one hand and gave a slightly shake of his head.

“You’re on personal time,” he said. “Formalities can wait.”

“Then . . .” Mia bit back a demand to know why he was here, disturbing her “personal time,” but instead she said, “May I offer you something to drink?”

“No, thank you. May I sit?”

She gestured to a chair. He glanced at her flatscreen as he folded himself into the seat. “Working?”

“Puzzles annoy me. I have a hard time relaxing when they’re unresolved.”

“I understand completely. I wanted to offer you an opportunity to sit in on Corf’s interrogation. Perhaps get a sense of where you might take it before we begin.”

“I was under the impression that he already had been interrogated.”

“Preliminaries. I’ve assigned a specialist to do a more thorough examination.” He smiled thinly. “Corf is the first one we’ve caught of any real rank or position. Granted, Stores isn’t much of a position, but it’s a perfect one for a smuggler. He has to know more than he’s given us so far.”

“Of course, I’ll be glad to assist . . .” Mia frowned. “A specialist? What service?”

“Independent.”

Mia kept her expression neutral. She knew what Reen meant, and it skirted legality. She wondered if he actually possessed the authority to do this, then wondered how she might find out without letting Reen know.

“If you think that’s necessary,” she said carefully.

“You disapprove. Actually, I’m glad you do. I would never ordinarily resort to something this . . . radical. But we’ve got an opportunity to mine information about smuggling operations before Corf gets snatched from us by the adjutant general’s office and shipped back to Earth. I want these leaks found, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m still surprised at how little we found in his cabin. Your search was thorough?”

“All due respect, sir, I’m not prone to sloppy work. And it was a small cabin.”

“Mmm. No disrespect intended, Lieutenant. I’m just surprised.”

“Was there something in particular you expected to find?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Timetables. We’ve yet to find out how shipping schedules are being passed between the various agents in this operation. We’re scanning all possible comm frequencies, inspecting all incoming and outgoing data for code, and yet all the various factions of our target know our routing schedules and their own down to the hour. Or so it seems. We catch a lot, but it’s almost a matter of luck rather than logic. I thought Corf, of all people, would possess something that might indicate how that information was being passed.”

“If it’s not going by comm, there must be some hardcopy.”

“My thoughts, too. But . . .” He stared at her narrowly, as if dissatisfied and suspicious. “Well, maybe it’s word of mouth. Ridiculous, but not impossible. I’ll have to tell the interrogator to do a body search for hidden recorders or something.”

He continued to stare at her through a long silence. Mia returned his gaze evenly, acutely aware that he suspected her of lying.

“When is Corf’s first interrogation by the specialist scheduled?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope it proves worthwhile.”

Reen’s eyebrows bobbed once and he stood. He laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I do dislike doubting my subordinates, but are you withholding information? I could understand it if you thought you had a handle on something that you expected to be productive and didn’t want to share the glory—”

Mia snapped to her feet. “Sir, you are bordering on making an accusation which I will have no choice but to meet with judicial response.”

“I’m perfectly aware of my limitations, Lieutenant. I hope you are as aware of yours.” He gave a short bow. “Apologies. This has been driving me for some time.”

Mia clasped her hands behind her back and broke eye contact. “I understand.”

“You would be willing to put such a matter before an Inquest? With all that would entail?”

“Yes, sir.”

His face relaxed. “Then I suppose I have my answer. Very well, Lieutenant Daventri. Sorry to have bothered you.”

At the door, he paused.

“I consider this matter now closed,” he said. He looked at her. “Are we in agreement?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded again and left her cabin.

Her hands trembled as she sat down. You’d think after everything I’ve been through I’d be used to lying to my superiors, she thought. She stared at the chair where Reen had been sitting. On impulse, she touched a series of keys on her desk. A small sphere emerged from its niche across the cabin and began a detailed search of the room, looking for anything Reen might have left behind.

The scan took nearly ten minutes, during which time Mia made herself a drink, and waited in silence. When it finished, the sphere—a piece of contraband illegal for her to possess, acquired from a Spacer acquaintance—returned to its niche. The screen on her desk displayed the report. Clean.

Even so, she finished her drink slowly before she took out the book from its drawer and opened to where she had left off:

We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us.

Mia tilted her head back and let a quiet laugh escape. The words, written so long ago, about an ancient and altogether senseless war, stung still. Though she moved—had moved—through events which others might call “historic,” beyond the step-by-step requirements of survival, she could not—ever—admit to understanding them.

She read on.

Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he had done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.

Mia sighed. “Leo Tolstoy, where have you been when I needed you?” The passage continued:

There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

Mia grunted. “Really? That’s the first thing you’ve said that seems wrong.” She wondered how that formulation meshed with the current situation. Hive life—well, there was certainly that, from the warrens of Earth to the aggregate polities of the Spacers’ Fifty Worlds. The various Settler colonies combined aspects of both to greater or lesser degrees, but was there any discernible set of aims to the whole, or just a competing mass of wants and needs and agendas?

And she had to wonder just how consciously most people ever lived, for themselves or otherwise . . .

For instance, what am I doing? And is it conscious choice or instinct?

She closed the book and gazed at its cover. WAR AND PEACE was embossed across the aging synthetic material. Mia leafed through the pages. Timetables, Reen had said. Was he lying? Maybe. Or maybe the truth would serve him just as well. Timetables . . .

She opened the covers and studied the end papers. They were golden, covered by a fine, fractal pattern.

On impulse, she set the book on her desk and ran the scanning wand over the end papers. She tapped in commands and watched the screen.

Alphanumerics scrolled up.

“Damn.” She felt intense anxiety work through her body. But gradually, she grinned. “How does encryption fall into the predestined uses of historical aims?” she wondered aloud as she initiated her translation routines.

Ariel sat in one of the smaller lounges, a brandy snifter before her on the table, staring up at the room-length viewscreen that showed Aurora Orbital Port Station. The structure possessed an elegance Kopernik never knew. Its lines arced and swept through vacuum like the penstrokes of a skilled calligrapher, iconographic and mysterious, implying secrets and meaning which, Ariel knew, did not really exist. Aurorans liked to present themselves as custodians of civilization’s potential. It had become their dominant motif, a façade of depth which, she had to admit, intimidated most of the rest of settled space. She knew better, but still enjoyed the beauty of their symbols.

To be fair, she knew Aurorans who actually were what they seemed to be.

The ship moved slowly now, bringing them incrementally closer to dock. Most of the passengers were Spacers, and had a Spacer sense of patience. The view, with cloud-shrouded Aurora behind the station, was worth a long gaze. Ariel judged she could get thoroughly drunk before debarkation actually occurred.

The station was less than a century old, a compromise to the opening up of travel between worlds after the Settler Accords became law almost two centuries ago. Aurora wanted a firewall between Terrans and themselves, a precaution which ultimately proved unnecessary for the original reasons—fear of infection—but which continued as a desirable way of screening out the unwanted on other grounds. Spacer ships still grounded directly on the planet, mostly at Port Eos, just outside Eos City, the capital. All other ships, from Earth or the Settler worlds, used this or any of a dozen more utilitarian stations that now peppered the system.

Ariel found it hard to believe that almost fifteen years had passed since her last visit here . . .

She did a casual survey of the lounge. Her gaze caught on Clar Eliton, sitting at a table near the entrance, staring at the projected image. Ariel felt a sharp resentment at his presence, as though he did not deserve to see Aurora. Her sudden protectiveness surprised her. She finished her brandy and signaled the robot tending bar for another one, using the time to wonder why she should feel the least concern toward a world that had once thrown her off . . .

Snifter in hand, she made her way to Eliton’s table. He did not see her until she stood at the vacant chair across from him. He looked briefly startled, mouth open and wordless.

“Um . . .” he managed, lurching back his chair as if to rise in polite greeting.

Ariel lifted a hand, cutting his politesse short. “Mind if I join you?” She pulled out the chair and sat down. “I feel I was rude the other day. I apologize.”

Eliton frowned as he recovered his seat. “I don’t think—”

She waved at the view. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes . . .” He looked away. “I wanted to see it under better circumstances.”

“Oh, wait till you get on the ground. If you think this is something—”

“I won’t be grounding here.”

Ariel gave him a puzzled stare.

He reddened slightly. “I’m not allowed to see the ‘promised land.’ My assignment—my mission—to Solaria precludes me from any contact with Aurorans outside the contingent of this ship. Neither Solaria nor Earth wants me to set foot on Aurora.” He smiled thinly. “They’re afraid I may . . . I don’t know.” He laughed. “Does Aurora accept supplicants for asylum?”

“Not usually, no. Do you need asylum?”

Eliton laughed again, louder. “No, good heavens, forgive me! I was speaking . . . it’s nothing. I was being sarcastic. Ironic.” He looked up at the view. “Really, I think the Solarians are afraid you Aurorans might arrest me on some pretext to keep me from them. I think Earth agrees.”

“That’s rather paranoid thinking on their part. Why would they worry over that?”

“The embarrassment over my abduction, which you clearly don’t accept as valid. It could be turned to political use by certain parties. Solaria is actually the safest place to keep me out of the public eye till it’s all forgotten.” He looked at her sadly. “Not paranoia—caution.”

He had, Ariel remembered, acted the part of a victim of the Managins after his faked assassination at Union Station, D.C., on Earth. He had claimed then to have been abducted, but Ariel had satisfied herself that he had been an active participant in the debacle. Others believed as she did, and it had left him vulnerable and politically compromised.

“That’s too bad,” she said.

“Yes, I agree. It looks . . .”

“A bit too neat for my taste,” Ariel said. “Overly-sculpted. Everything is in its place, even the grass.”

“Why not, if you have a pristine environment to start with? As I understand it, the first colonists found virtually no indigenous life.”

“Oh, not quite that simple. It had a dense atmosphere, but most of the organic forms had evolved no further than a few aggregate creatures—colony animals, like cnidran siphonophores on Earth—”

Eliton blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Man-of-wars, I believe they used to be called. Individuals acting as components in a more complex association. Anyway, even those were simple—polyps and proto-medusans—and dissolved to reproduce. Other than that, we had algaes, lichens, and some rudimentary molds and mosses. The oceans produced enough oxygen to make the effort worthwhile. Ridiculously simplistic biosphere. It didn’t have a chance against the Terran forms we brought with us. It only took a few generations to establish a fully compatible biosphere. I suppose with that as a canvas the urge to dictate the result was too much. The whole planet is more garden than ecology. Clean, tidy, controlled.”

“You disapprove.”

“I like Earth for a variety of reasons. One is its chaotic nature.”

Eliton grunted. “That’s exactly what many Terrans would like to get away from.”

She studied him speculatively. “It’s worse on Solaria. Everything is organized into individual estates, enclosed arboreta that are part of vast households. They never bothered terraforming the planet in general—none of them intended to go outside, anyway.”

“But the records I’ve read—”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s an open-air biosphere, but all the variety is indoors. Far more controlled than on Aurora. Sounds perfectly hideous to me.”

“Perhaps you should consider emigration to a Settler world. Sounds like their kind of wildness is just what you’d prefer.”

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it. When all this nonsense at the Calvin Institute is done, I may.”

Eliton returned his attention to the viewscreen. “We’re docking.”

Ariel looked up. The delicate-seeming webbing of the station enveloped the ship, arching around it, kilometer-long arms enfolding the liner.

“Solaria was the same way?” Eliton asked.

“Hmm?”

“The biosphere . . . the same as Aurora?”

“No, there were different flora—”

“I meant—what’s the term they use?—morphologically naïve. Only simple organisms, nothing advanced enough to compete in any meaningful way with Terran forms.”

“Oh, that. Yes, essentially the same.”

Eliton frowned, shaking his head. “As I understand it, all fifty of the Spacer colonies were like that.”

Ariel nodded, paying more attention to the view of docking. “Yes, basically.”

“I’ve always found that peculiar.”

Ariel looked at him. “Hmm? Why?”

“Well, since the Settler Accords were signed and Earth began a colony program again, we’ve found a few worlds like that, but they’ve been in the minority. I always put it down to Spacers having already taken the most easily adapted real estate, but the more you look at it, the less sense it seems to make.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well, it’s a question of statistics, really. What are the odds that the first fifty habitable planets you’d find would be so ideally suitable to human modification?”

“It wasn’t the first fifty.”

“No? According to the records, a few hundred probes went out and maybe a dozen exploration ships. First there’s the likelihood of finding planets nearby at all—which proved less remarkable than we thought at the time—but then there’s the fact that none of the habitable planets possessed complex, aggressive ecosystems. As if they were just waiting for the arrival of new colonists.”

“A number of those worlds were completely inhospitable to humans. Without robots—”

“Yes, I understand that, but the completely inhospitable ones were so utterly inhospitable that the cost of terraforming was prohibitive—in fact, probably impossible. What always baffled me was the lack of in-between worlds. When you look at the records, the Spacers found the worlds they settled and completely unsuitable worlds. Nothing that required the capacity for terraforming that they brought with them. I—”

A babble of excited voices interrupted him. Eliton looked around. Three uniformed Aurorans, followed by four robots and an array of floating extensions, entered the lounge. One of the spheres broke off and did a very quick circuit of the room, coming to a halt above Eliton. The Aurorans came over to them.

“Ambassador Eliton?” the lead uniform asked softly.

“Yes . . .”

“I’m Captain Rovel, Auroran security. Would you please accompany us?”

Eliton looked apprehensive. “Why?”

“This would be best conducted in private—”

“I repeat the question. Why?”

Captain Rovel looked embarrassed on Eliton’s behalf. “I have a warrant to detain you, issued by the Council of Aurora. It is a lawful warrant, requiring you to accompany us.”

“Accompany you where?”

“To Eos City, Ambassador. Your presence is required at a hearing—”

“I have diplomatic status, Captain. Your warrant—”

“We’ve checked. Your official status as ambassador does not take effect until you reach Solaria. At this point, you are a private citizen traveling on a Terran passport. We do have the authority to subpoena you.”

Eliton stared at the Auroran, then looked at Ariel. “Did you—?”

Ariel stood. “Well, Senator, it seems you’ll get to see Aurora after all. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“I can’t—I—”

“Please,” the Captain said. “If necessary, you will be sedated. We would rather spare you that.”

Eliton stood, glaring at Ariel, then spoke to Captain Rovel. “I have nothing to say to you or your inquest. I consider this an illegal detention.”

“Once we arrive,” Captain Rovel said, “you may certainly file a protest.” He stepped aside. “If you would, Ambassador?”

With a last furious look at Ariel, Eliton stepped into the midst of the robot entourage and was walked out of the lounge.

Captain Rovel bowed politely to Ariel, who nodded in response. As he left, Ariel sat back down to finish her brandy. Her hand trembled slightly, but she could not tell if it did so from fear or shame.

“Welcome home,” she muttered.

Chapter 16

COREN FOUND THE bookstore in one of the deep sublevels of Lyzig District. An office occupied a posher section, but it had proved little more than a kiosk where one could place orders. The actual store filled several converted chambers in an ancient recycling plant Coren felt certain had been dug out of the Earth’s mantle.

A single embossed plaque identified the entrance: OMNE MUNDI COMPLURIUM, PRINTED ANTIQUITIES, LYZIG.

A man sat behind the high counter, idly doodling, one hand propping his chin. When he looked up, Coren hesitated at the sight of an artificial eye glowing dull blue from the man’s left socket.

“Help you, gato?”

Coren placed a note on the desk containing the books listed in Mia’s communiqué. The man scanned it.

“Expensive,” he said.

“Really? How?”

With a barely audible groan, the dealer straightened and turned to a flatscreen Coren only now noticed amid the stacks of bound books and paper surrounding it. Coren glanced across the top of the counter, which came up to his shoulders, and saw a nameplate. Black letters set in brass announced SHAL PROST, PROP.

The doodles the man had been absently scrawling looked like complex geometric forms.

“We sold one each of those recently,” he said. “The War and Peace went for . . . twenty-eight hundred credits . . . three thousand for Oliver Twist . . . three for Of Human Bondage . . . fifteen hundred for Les Miserables.”

“Why the drop?”

“Unattributed translation, retrograde facsimile. Can’t fully authenticate the text, so it doesn’t rate as much.” He looked at Coren. “Some gatos are more interested in the pedigree than the content.”

“Sounds human enough. Who bought them?”

Doubt flickered in Prost’s eye. “That’s confidential.”

“Fair enough. Can you tell me this, then—does that customer buy a lot through you?”

“Quite. We ship at least thirty volumes a year to him. Something of a completist.”

“Anything in particular?”

“What are you, in competition?”

Coren was silent. Prost smiled.

“I see,” he said. “You’re buying for someone. Maybe a newcomer to the field? Wants to know what’s going, what’s not. It’s a fickle field, I can understand someone with reputation using a shill to protect himself from ridicule.”

“Her.”

Prost’s relief was almost palpable. Coren placed a hand on the counter.

“Well,” Prost continued, glancing at the flatscreen, “I’ll warn you up front that this is not a reliable investment. Old books like this, you can get the text from any public data service, and, frankly, folks aren’t as much concerned with the tangible past as they once were.”

“Then who buys?”

“Believe it or not, my biggest customers are Spacers. We do a very healthy trade to the Fifty Worlds. So far, it’s either universities or private scholars, but recently we’ve started selling to private citizens.”

Coren nodded toward the screen and tapped his list.

“Oh, yes. Solarian. And his taste runs to Dickens primarily.”

“How many?”

“He’s bought them all now, I think . . .” Prost tapped the screen and read. “Except Great Expectations and Edwin Drood.”

“I imagine Spacers would have the time to read all this,” Coren said, interjecting a note of amazement as he shook his head.

“It’s a status thing. I sell multiple copies to the same customer of the same title. Sometimes they actually come back through, from a different source, so they’re being given away as gifts.”

“Or sold?”

“I doubt it. I pick them back up for less than the original fee more often than not.”

“What would a Solarian find valuable enough to give away?”

Prost chuckled. “Kind of a contradiction, isn’t it? Well, this one has bought fourteen editions of A Tale of Two Cities over the last three years.”

Coren made a show of entering the title in his hand reader. “What about those?”

“None in stock currently. My last copies have all left the planet. However, I have several others by the same authors.”

Coren let Prost ramble on, trying to sell something. At one point Coren asked to actually see one of the books. Prost shut down his screen and sprinted away, into the caverns.

Coren took a handful of his little vonoomans from a pocket and scattered them on the floor. One he placed on the desk. After a second, it scampered away to hide.

Prost returned with a musty-smelling volume that crackled when he opened the pages. They dickered over a price, finally agreeing on a few hundred credits. Prost dutifully opened an account for Coren under the false name Coren gave him. Smiling, he slipped the book into a homeostatic container and sealed it.

“I’ll let you know when these others show up,” Prost said. “And I’ll send you a list of current properties which are making the fashionable rounds.”

“Thanks.”

“By the way, how did you find out about us? We like to keep track of our recommendations.”

“Commander Reen recommended you.”

Prost nodded. “He gets a discount next time, then.”

“He raved about you, said he had no idea how he could survive without your service.”

“He exaggerates, I’m sure, but he has been a very good customer.”

“Thanks again, then.”

Coren stepped out of the ancient shop, keeping a carefully neutral face, and, tucking his new-old copy of The Light That Failed, made his way carefully back to the upper levels of Lyzig.

He returned to DyNan headquarters after dropping the book at his private office. As he made the corner into the corridor to his corporate office, he stopped short, seeing his door open.

Coren ducked back around the corner and waited, not breathing. He heard footsteps coming toward him. He stepped sideways into the middle of the hall and resumed his path as if he had just arrived, rounding the corner, and colliding with the person approaching.

“Oh, excuse me—”

“Damn! Will you—boss!”

“Shola, I am sorry.” He held her left arm, then stepped back. “I apologize, I wasn’t paying any attention. My mind was a world away.”

Flustered, Shola Bran laughed, and needlessly straightened her blouse. “No problem. I was looking for you, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, someone down in biologicals has been trying to find you, a Dr. Willis Jay. He’s been insistent, so I thought I’d come give you the message personally.”

“I see. Okay, then. Thanks.”

“Do you need me for anything, boss?”

Coren shook his head. “I have some calls to make.”

He walked away, resisting the urge to glance back at her to see if she watched him. He entered his office and shut the door and waited, listening.

When he heard nothing from the other side, he went to his desk. Quickly, he brought his system up, then pulled his hand reader out. Coren entered a series of commands into both the reader and the desk, then jacked the reader into its cradle. He sat back and waited.

Within seconds, the screen showed a schematic of his office. One by one, bright sparks appeared in various places, including one within the icon for his desk system.

He toyed with the idea of removing the bugs at once. His skin rippled with anger at the thought of betrayal by one of his own. But immediate action would only warn Shola and, presumably, whoever she now worked for.

Carefully, he tapped in a new series of commands. One by one, over the next several hours, the little spies would be turned and lead him back to the source.

He closed everything down, retrieved his reader, and headed for Jay’s lab.

“Found some interesting things about those grass samples you gave me,” Jay said the moment Coren entered his lab.

Coren glanced around and saw that they were alone.

“You hinted at that the last time,” Coren said.

“I know. It took some doing to find out just why I found what I found. Kind of like reverse engineering, trying to figure out how to build something based on its final product.” He gestured Coren to follow.

They entered another office down the hall from Jay’s. Jay waved Coren into a chair, then activated a collection of screens.

“This grass is the product of manipulation,” Jay said without preamble. “You know much about plant biology?”

Coren shook his head. “They grow in the open, in soil, under sunlight . . .”

Jay shook his head, curling his lips in disgust. “Never mind. This—” he pointed to a screen on his right “—is the molecular tree of a normal blade of grass. Over here—” he gestured at a screen on his left “—is the breakdown of what you brought me.”

Coren examined the two diagrams, both complex assemblages of branching and interconnected lines that reminded him more of circuit pathways than anything organic. He pointed at the left-hand display, which appeared to be a more complex version of what Jay had shown him before.

“There seem to be some extra—what?—nodes?”

“There are. A lot, if you keep staring at it. What those are, I have no idea.”

“What do you mean, you have no idea? You managed to diagram it.”

“What I mean is, I have no idea where they came from or exactly what they do. It’s all residual, a leftover from some process of the mechanism which is no longer in place. The other day I told you I’d found beryllium standing in where you would expect to see magnesium; and I’d also found complex silicates attached to what magnesium there was. Both magnesium and beryllium are photosensitive, both will enable photosynthesis, though the beryllium is less efficient. I couldn’t figure out what it was doing there, how it had gotten there in the first place. So I went looking for associated molecules. I found some weird carbon chains, some unexpected occurrences of iron, and silica phosphates. None of this was exactly associated with beryllium, but it was all odd, especially where I found it, which was all over the molecular tree. Then!”

He brought up another screen. It showed a pair of molecular trees, side by side, various nodes highlighted in bright blue.

“I went looking for absences,” Jay continued. “Things that ought to have been in the structure but weren’t. I found these missing nodes. Originally, the grass did use magnesium as a photosynthesizer, but its production and implementation of it was blocked at some point until it was forced to use beryllium instead, which changed its growth rate among other things, but also its hardiness. The magnesium ended up being used almost exclusively as a connector for the silicates. And I found these.” He stabbed a finger at one of the nodes, lightly touching the screen, which turned the node to green. “Plant version of fat.”

“And what would a plant do with fat?”

“Live on it, like a battery.” Jay grinned. “This is a terraformed variety designed to thrive in harsh environments. The energy expenditure the plant must utilize to conduct photosynthesis with beryllium is higher. Normally, that would make it less hardy. But a system has been put in place to construct these nodules of matter which the plant can then use internally during bad times. This thing is a masterpiece.”

Coren sat back and stared at Jay. “You said you couldn’t tell me anything about it.”

“I can’t. I can tell you what it is, but I can’t tell you where it came from, how it works, or who made it. There’s another mechanism not present at all responsible for this and I don’t have it in my library. I’m betting the silicates are the residue from whatever that mechanism is. It’s also old. As far as I can tell, this variety is now self-sustaining.”

“What?”

Jay shook his head impatiently. “Bad term. Look, I don’t know enough about terraforming to give you all the answers. We don’t research this stuff here, Rega never allowed it. Not really my interest, either, but I can appreciate good work when I see it. My understanding is, any alien environment is going to have certain properties, if not inimical, at least unfriendly to Terran flora. A certain amount of fundamental change has to be wrought in the biosphere of any colony to make it support our plantlife.”

“That’s important?”

“Absolutely. We can ship a lot of food these days, but you don’t want to do that unless you want to keep the colony in debt forever. Eventually, they have to grow their own food. So in the early days—maybe the Spacers still do it—we’d seed an environment with vonoomans that would burrow in and reconstitute everything, change the ratios of nutrients in the soil, alter the nitrogen cycle or even introduce a nitrogen cycle if there wasn’t one. After a few generations, with a lot of effort, the colony would begin to support our plantlife. Once we had it established, the vonoomans were no longer necessary.”

Coren shifted uncomfortably, conscious of the pocketful of little machines he still carried since returning from Lyzig. “This looks like the plant itself was altered.”

Jay nodded vigorously. “Sometimes the job was too big and we’d be forced to adapt the plants, meet the environment halfway, so to speak.”

“And this is that kind of plant?”

“That’s my guess. Like I said, I don’t have enough data.”

“All right, where would I go to get that data?”

“Someone who manufactures biologicals, I’d say.”

Coren thought for a moment, then nodded. “Can I have a copy of this?”

Jay handed him a disk. “Already had it prepared. Do you mind if I keep working on this?”

“I thought it wasn’t your field.”

“Not now. But who knows what we’ll get into since Rega died?”

Coren pocketed the disk and stood. “Let me know if you find anything else, would you?”

“Of course.”

Jay turned back to his screens, forgetting about Coren in the time it took to become reabsorbed in his puzzle.

Coren did not return to his office. Disk in hand, he left DyNan and headed for the nearest tubeway.

To his surprise, Myler Towne’s people brought him directly into the garden where Coren had first met the new chairman of Imbitek less than three months earlier. The ugly patch of dead foliage he had seen on that initial visit was now a flourishing sprawl of green and yellow.

“Mr. Lanra,” Towne said, stepping forward to greet him. “Good to see you again, sir, and good to see you in full health. I heard about your injuries. If possible, I would like to hear about that. May I offer you a beverage?”

“Tea would be fine, thank you. Actually, I’m here for two reasons.” He held up the disk Jay had given him. “On this is a preliminary analysis of some plantlife that my people can’t fully explain. I thought perhaps, since Imbitek once worked in the field, I might impose on your good graces to help me out.”

Towne took the disk, seemed to think about it for a moment, then held it up. An attendant stepped up. “A.S.A.P.” The man bowed sharply and hurried off. “And the other?”

“I wanted to find out if that job offer still exists.”

Towne’s eyebrows raised slowly. He was a big man, broad across the shoulders and deep in the chest, and the gesture somehow made him look even larger. He backed up to his chair and sat down.

“Possibly,” he said finally. “Is our analysis of your disk a factor in your decision?”

“No, not really. Since Rega died, things are going on in DyNan that I’m not particularly happy with. I had loyalty to Rega, not his company. I’m open to an offer.”

A man with a tray bearing a pitcher and two tall glasses appeared. Coren accepted his tea.

“And your opinion of Imbitek?” Towne asked, taking his own glass.

“Mikels is going to be in prison for a long time, and everything I’ve seen since you’ve taken over suggests I would be working for an honest employer.”

“I’m flattered by your assessment. I detect a proviso, though.”

“I’m working on a last detail on behalf of Rega. I don’t know how long it might take, but any change in my status will have to wait till I finish. Could be a week, no more than a month.”

“I see. And this disk pertains to that?”

“It does.”

“Then let us see how quickly we can resolve your situation. We can discuss it further at that time. But I’m pleased, Mr. Lanra. Have you had lunch yet?”

Lunch was excellent, but Coren was more amazed at the prodigious amounts Myler Towne ate. Coren was not a small man, and he kept himself fit and active, but Towne consumed easily three times what Coren ate. Conversation ran from one topic to another with almost dizzying abruptness, and Coren could not help but feel tested.

Halfway through a long ramble about a vacation in the southern hemisphere in one of the nature preserves, a woman approached the table and whispered to Towne. He looked up.

“Indeed? Interesting.” He finished his aperitif and gestured for Coren to follow. “We have something you can take with you.”

Coren followed him down a broad, arching corridor. “That was fast.”

“Perhaps just luck,” Towne said, shrugging. “We do have an excellent staff.”

They entered a meeting room. A long table dominated, surrounded by plain chairs. A screen covered one wall, opposite a fully-equipped dispenser. One woman waited for them. She was older than anyone else Coren had seen within the walls of Imbitek, her hair white like Alda Mikels’, the former CEO. Her features were sharp and alert. She frowned at Coren as he entered the room, then gave Towne a brief nod.

“You brought this disk?” she asked.

“Yes,” Coren answered.

“Where’d you get it?”

“It’s an analysis—”

“I know what it is, young man. I want to know where the sample came from.”

“An abandoned research lab called Nova Levis.”

She seemed for a few seconds not to believe him. “I’d love to know how it got there. None of this ought to exist on Earth.”

“What is it, Dr. Savin?” Towne asked.

“It’s actually one of our products,” she said. “And it’s an interdicted organic. Not allowed on Earth because the processes by which it was originally manufactured are not allowed here anymore.” She touched a remote on the table. The wall screen lit with the same displays Coren had seen on Jay’s terminals. “Do you know what vonoomans are?”

“Yes. Tiny machines, semi-autonomous—”

“Wrong.” She shrugged. “Well, not entirely. That’s what they would be today. But it’s an incomplete definition for what are now no longer complete examples of vonoomans.” She drummed her fingers impatiently on the table, staring at the display.

Towne cleared his throat. “What have you found?”

She started, as if jarred out of a complex thought. “We hold the design rights on the vonoomans that made this grass.”

“Imbitek?” Towne asked.

“We were called Imbedded Technologies and Environmental Manipulators, Incorporated, at the time, but essentially, yes. It was fully half our sales right before the first wave of interstellar colonization began.”

“You’re talking about the Spacers?” Coren asked. “Those colonists?”

“Exactly.” She sighed, exasperated. “Let me explain some things.”

“I think you had better,” Towne said ponderously and sat down.

Dr. Savin glared at Towne. “All right,” she said, and folded her hands together at her chin. She seemed to gather herself together mentally. Then she dropped her hands.

“We had two industries back then that literally saved our civilization, if not our lives. We forget how closely what we make determines how long we’ll last. And we forget how integrally what we make is a part of who we are. That’s probably why we never think about it. It’s a tenuous relationship in many ways because it’s so easy to break a system up and destroy it. The two industries were cybernetics—robotics, mainly—and nanotech. They went hand-in-glove, couldn’t really do one without the other. Nanotech required the machine-logic we got out of cybernetics and robotics required the miniaturization and process-concept of nanotech. That was before the Riots and the Interdicts.”

“The Interdicts pertain to robots, though,” Towne observed. “There’s no mention in them of nanotech.”

“Nanotech was phased out and banned more gradually,” Dr. Savin said. “Little at a time. By the time the robots were banned, no one really remembered the plagues.”

“Plagues?” Coren prompted.

“It’s complicated. I could recommend a couple of history texts for the details, but, in essence, we used nanotech to alter ecologies. We had to feed people, and we had a lot of people to feed. Population had leveled off at ten billion, but it fluctuated, and that many mouths put a heavy burden on Earth’s resources. The only reason we didn’t devolve into absolute chaos was nanotech, which initially proved to be a panacea. We still use it in the home kitchens. Vat production is a direct descendent of agricultural nanotech. Crop yields increased ten, twenty-fold over time.”

“What happened?” Towne asked.

“It got away from us. Think of a virus. It invades a cell, analyzes what that cell does, then inserts itself into the machinery of the cell to modify it and use the cell to make copies of itself, releasing those copies to infect other cells and keep the process going. I’m simplifying—or making it more complex, depending how you look at it—but that’s what our agronans did. They altered the internal machinery of a plant to change what that plant did. Initially, it turned the plant into a super-productive organism, increasing yield. Over time, we found that this put a heavy burden on the soil and there were other problems with simply adding nutrients. So we built some vonoomans that would enter the cycle at an earlier point, in the soil, and increase the efficiency of the bacteria present, increasing nutrient absorption, complimenting the augmented crop demand, and so on. We found we could modify the system from top to bottom. Eventually, we even added some into the food products themselves to increase the efficiency of digestion and cell utilization of the nutrients available.”

“You mean, you passed vonoomans into people themselves?” Coren asked.

Dr. Savin nodded. “That’s when we started running into problems. We had allergic reactions, new cancers, a variety of metabolic disorders. Nothing we couldn’t adapt for and cope with. Initially, anyway. It got worse.”

“How was the population of vonoomans controlled?” Towne asked.

“That’s where it got worse. You see, the true definition of a vonooman includes self-replication.”

“Oh, dear,” Towne said.

Coren glanced from Towne to Savin. “ ‘Oh dear’ what?”

“It was deemed cost effective,” Savin went on, “to endow these devices with the ability to manufacture themselves. A small part of the energy involved went to reproduction. The math indicated it would be a self-regulating system. They would never produce more than the necessary quantity to achieve the desired effect.”

“But?” Coren prompted.

“Remember the virus. The damn things were designed to analyze environments and adapt to them. We thought that their range was limited, so the need for closer monitoring was unnecessary. In the first assumption, we were correct. In the second . . . well, we keep learning how very little is necessary to turn a benefit into a disaster.”

Coren thought for a moment. “Is this the source of the UPD infections?”

“You know about those, do you?” Dr. Savin asked. “Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction. Yes, they are. Were. Our machines mutated. Just enough. And all hell broke loose for about forty years.”

“This isn’t widely known.”

“No, it isn’t. People don’t really want to remember, so why help them? It ended, we controlled it. Here, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Towne asked.

“This stuff was our largest export to the new colonies. It was absolutely essential to any terraforming effort on an alien world. The Spacer colonies were just getting started when the plagues began. By the time we were able to control them, the movement had changed from one of simple colonization to a panicked flight of the frightened wealthy. The last four or five Spacer colonies were established by hygienic paranoiacs.”

“Like the Solarians,” Coren said.

“They’re still paranoid,” Dr. Savin said.

Coren looked at the display. “So what is this?”

“This is a variety of hardy grass which was used early on to supplant indigenous flora on colony worlds. Very versatile. In this form, it carried its own potential colony of agronan machines. The plant manufactured them upon taking root in new soil and the machines would begin analyzing soil and atmosphere and returning that data to the plant itself to begin modifying it. While the plant was adapting, the vonoomans were spreading in the biosphere and changing it. Over several generations, the grass would literally remake the ecology and prepare it for other, less adaptable varieties. Originally, it was a variety of palm grass, setaria palmifolia. Common name was Burundi Grass.”

“That,” Towne said, “sounds familiar. Not in this context.”

“No, not in this context,” Dr. Savin said sardonically. “Burundi’s Fever.”

“Ah,” Towne said, nodding. He pointed. “From this?”

“We think so. Frankly, given the nature of Burundi’s Fever, the records are questionable.”

“I’ve heard the name,” Coren said. “But . . .”

“The Spacers have a different name for it,” Savin said. “They call it mnemonic plague.”

Coren thanked Myler Towne—and Dr. Savin, though she did not seem to hear—and returned to his private office. All the way back he thought of Ariel. Mnemonic plague . . . she had mentioned to him once that she had suffered it, that it, in fact, linked her with Derec Avery. They had been talking about the past and about their lives and her own story ended abruptly, and she had admitted that, beyond a certain point—beyond, it turned out, her first visit to Earth—she had no real memory of her life. The plague had destroyed her access to it, blocked her off with permanent amnesia—permanent because it was not induced psychically, but synaptically.

We’re both orphans, he thought, each in our own way . . .

He avoided thinking about the larger implications of what he had learned. Too much, too fast, and far outside the scope of his immediate interests.

Still, he had to admit that it explained a lot of the history of Earther and Spacer. It explained, for instance, the initial reluctance on the part of the Spacers to agree to a new colony program, to accept the Settler worlds. Fear of infection. A fear which had subsequently proven false, but certainly based on a real threat far in the past. Spacers even lived on Earth now, few though they were, and interacted with Terrans. What kept them apart now was more attitude than pathology.

But none of this explained why that grass had been in the abandoned shell of Nova Levis Research Labs, or how it had gotten there.

He opened the door to his office and stepped inside.

Hofton was there, again, waiting. Hofton stood.

“Mr. Lanra,” he said quietly, without preamble, “I have a message from Ambassador Setaris. She is—we are—that is, Aurora—very interested in taking some action concerning Gamelin. She would like to discuss it with you in person.”

Chapter 17

MASID ALREADY KNEW a few of Filoo’s agents. In the next days after his meeting with Rekker, Masid noticed a change in their attitude when he arrived at the bazaar. Before, they watched him the way they watched all freelance merchants and dealers, warily, but with no special attention. Now they seemed to be talking about him, paying closer attention, noting who bought from him.

Masid arrived at the open market on the fourth morning to be met by three visibly armed men. He slowed to a stop a couple meters from them. He recognized one as an agent of Filoo, but not the other two. One was short and stocky with a thick growth of beard, the other taller and clean-shaven.

“‘Morning,” Masid said.

“Yes, it is,” Filoo’s man said. “Got a minute to talk some business?”

“Sure.”

“Privately.”

Masid glanced left and right. He gestured. “Café over there, nobody there yet this early.”

“We had a more private place in mind.”

“I’m sure, but I might not like what you have to say. I prefer to find my way back after a disagreement.”

The agent shook his head, about to say more, when the stocky one grunted. The agent turned the gesture into a yawn and shrugged. “No way you’ll dislike what we have to say. But why not?” He craned his neck to peer at the café. “Gorim’s. They have good coffee. Sure.”

“After you,” Masid said.

Masid trailed after the trio, keeping five meters between them. He watched the buyers and dealers to see if anyone followed him, but it seemed everyone else was too busy to notice.

Gorim kept his place bright up front, but the tables in back fell quickly into darkness. Candles flickered on each one. Masid found his three hosts waiting around one, their faces lit grimly by the fragile tongue of flame between them.

“All right,” Masid said, turning a chair around to straddle. He rested his arms on the back. “You have a proposal.”

“We’ve been watching you,” the agent said.

Masid held up a hand. “ ‘We’? Who’s that? And what’s your name?”

“Kar,” the agent said. He jerked a thumb at the clean-shaven one. “Tosher.”

Masid looked at the stocky one. “That makes you Filoo.”

The man stared silently at Masid for a long moment, then nodded. “Kar thinks I shouldn’t do my own negotiations. We have a disagreement about that. So we play this little game, which I always said was stupid.” He glared at Kar.

“This is the first time anybody’s figured it,” Kar protested weakly.

“One time too many,” Filoo said. He shrugged. “Security. When is it too much?”

“When you no longer enjoy doing what you’re doing,” Masid said.

Filoo looked surprised, then laughed quietly. “You’ve been selling steady for weeks now. What’s your supply?”

Masid started to rise.

“Whoa, whoa—” Kar said, one hand going into his jacket.

Filoo touched Kar’s shoulder. “Patience. What’s the problem? Question too difficult?”

“Question isn’t welcome. I don’t even know you and you think you can ask me something personal like that? Stick to neutral topics on a first meet, like who my mother’s sleeping with, or who you think you owe credit to, but nothing personal.”

“Sit down,” Filoo said, a faint smile on his lips. “We can go slow, long as it doesn’t take forever. We’re in the same business, that’s all. I’ve been at it a little longer—makes me confident I know a few things.”

“But you don’t know where I get my supplies,” Masid said, still standing. “Does that make us competitors or potential partners?”

“Depends. I have a large operation. When anything gets big enough, certain errors creep into the accounting.”

“You’ve got a leak. You want to know if it’s me.” He shook his head. “I’m not stupid enough to steal from someone who can kill me as an afterthought.”

Filoo patted the table before Masid’s still vacant chair. “Not stupid. Confident. Arrogant. Cocky. One or two successes make a man think he can get away with something all the time. Playing the odds doesn’t make him stupid.”

“Playing something you don’t know does,” Masid said. He sat down. “All right. I have my own source, unconnected to anybody. I own it, it’s all mine. I don’t need to steal from anybody.”

“There are no independent sources,” Kar said.

“Is that confidence or arrogance talking?” Masid asked. “Or wishful thinking?” He looked at Filoo. “It’s not a large source, just enough to keep me in consumables and a roof, so I doubt it would ever damage your trade. With all the sick people, we’ll both be forever dolling out pharmaceuticals. But if you have a security problem, then so do I.”

“Really?” Filoo asked. “How so?”

“Until you fix it, you’ll be thinking I have something to do with it. That’s not going to be good for friendly relations.”

“Sounds like you have a fine appreciation of the situation. What would you propose to deal with it?”

“Well, you have a few options. The quickest is you can order your cocks here to kill me. I might be a problem, if not now then further down the line. I might, for all you know, be the source of your leak.”

“You claim not, though.”

“Why should you believe me? Kill me and be done with it. If it turns out you were wrong about the leak, you might be right about the future problem. Of course, that leaves you then with your leak. It’ll probably stop for a while, till it seems you’re satisfied, but it’ll start up again. A thief is never content with well-enough. So after a few months or a year, once again you’ll be trying to scratch an itch you can’t find. Annoying.”

“Very. Another option, then?”

“You can ask me to move to another district. Same consequences apply, except then you might lose track of me. That could be a problem later on. A third option would be to hire me to find your leak. Short-term contract, bring in an outsider to hunt down your thief, and when it’s over we go our separate ways.”

“Of course,” Filoo said, grinning, “that leaves you as a potential problem further down the line.”

“Of course. So if I were you, I’d just hire me as a subcontractor. You get a percentage, I operate as usual, but with the added protection of your organization, and if I learn anything at all about your leak, then I’m honor-bound to let you know about it.”

Filoo leaned back in his chair. A waiter brought a tray then with a carafe and cups and a plate of sweetcakes.

Filoo poured coffee for everyone, then took a cake. “Of course, there is one more option: I could buy you out, source and all, and simply bind you to me.”

“To do what? Sell or run security? What would that prove?”

“Prove? Nothing. It would just keep you in reach.” He chewed a mouthful of cake thoughtfully. “How would you go about finding a leak?”

“Hypothetically?”

“Whatever.”

“Watch the market,” Masid said. “Track the buys, see who is no longer buying from you who used to. See if anyone is buying in larger than normal quantities. Find out why they changed. Trace it back.”

“You sound like a cop,” Kar said.

“Oh,” Masid said, “that’s such an ugly accusation. Of course, there’s another way. Riskier.”

“That doesn’t concern me just now,” Filoo said. “What does is your response to my offer.”

“You made an offer?”

“I did.”

Masid thought for a few seconds. “I don’t really need a partner.”

“Perhaps not. Maybe I need a favor.”

Masid looked across the table at Kar. “Give me a few days to think about it?”

“Three. I expect an answer in three days.”

Masid lifted his cup and breathed in the aroma of fresh, expensive coffee. Doubtless Gorim carried it exclusively for Filoo. Masid met Filoo’s gaze over the rim of the cup and nodded.

One of Masid’s customers paid him with a wad of scrip for six ampules of dexanadrine-H derivative, a wide-range antibiotic which, as far as Masid had been able to tell since arriving on Nova Levis, did absolutely nothing to any of the pathogens killing the population. Folded within the wad of currency he found a list of names and a note:

These are my designated dealers. F.

Seven names. Masid pocketed the list and did a slow circuit through the bazaar, checking his memory against the names. Since starting here, he had identified everyone who sold regularly. He made two more deals before locating and identifying all seven under the tent, then quit for the day and headed back to the apartment.

His rooms had been searched twice—once, he discovered, while he drank coffee with Filoo. They were very careful about it, and Masid only knew because he had placed tells around the apartment. He had his little factory locked in a cabinet with a very obvious self-destruct device. No one had yet dared to try to open it, but by now Filoo probably guessed what Masid kept hidden within.

He deactivated the device and opened the doors wide. His machines hummed faintly. The complex soup he had set his synthesizer to brewing that morning was ready. He took it upstairs to Tilla.

Tilla smiled wanly while he did a quick blood analysis and then administered the concoction. He imagined sometimes that she looked better, but the numbers told a different story. He had managed to fight some of the infections to a standstill—one of them was actually in abeyance—but he had no illusions of saving her life. He was postponing an inevitable battle that Tilla would lose. He had prepared another kind of ministration for that day. Till then, she was more comfortable, more alert. But it was temporary and both of them understood that.

“So Filoo wants you to solve his problem,” she said after he told her about the meeting. “Which means you have your way in. If you succeed.”

“Has he had this problem before?”

“They’ve all had this problem. It’s not possible to avoid having it. They’re criminals, after all, what can they expect? But Filoo specifically . . . yes, he did. About five months ago, he purged four people from his organization. I never learned the specifics, I was getting pretty sick by then.”

“Any idea how he solved it?”

“Sure. Kar uncovered it.”

“Kar.”

She looked at him narrowly. “You’re not surprised.”

“No, but I can’t tell you why I’m not.”

“Lizard Sense.”

“What?” Masid laughed.

“The woman who trained me, old-time Special Service. Good cop. She told me that all the profiles, all the M.O. analyses, all the criminal psychology seminars—none of them worked half so well as what she called the ‘Lizard Sense.’ She said an experienced cop just knows. You develop it over time, if you pay attention, and you can just tell. A thousand little details all compressed into a single impression. You look at someone and you know they’re wrong. You saw it in Kar, even if you didn’t know what it was. Now that I’ve told you the important detail, you put it all together. You’re not surprised because you saw something about him that makes him suspect.”

“I still needed that piece of data.”

“Yes, and you would have found it, and something would go click! and you’d just know.”

“Where did Kar come from?”

“He’s from another district. I never found out. Frankly, I lost interest shortly afterward.”

“So how do I prove it?”

“Do what you told Filoo you would do. Run him down. Trace his connections. Do the math.”

“Then what?”

“Then . . . see what Filoo gives you. If it’s a way in, you follow it.”

“What if it takes me out of touch with you?” Masid asked.

“Did you come here to nurse a sick agent or find criminals?”

Masid grunted. “Hell of a choice.”

“Life is full of little inconveniences,” Tilla said wryly. “Get to work.”

Masid watched her as her eyes fell shut. Her breathing deepened into the now-familiar sonority of sleep and he left her.

Mia read the decrypted message, dismayed and gratified at the same time. Ariel’s back on Aurora . . .

But Hofton had convinced Coren Lanra to help. Surprises usually came in groups.

A new agent had been sent—or had come on his own initiative, depending how you looked at it. She found it doubtful whether bypassing channels on the assumption that someone within the security community was a mole would guarantee that he would reach the surface. But, if the coded transmission she had received from the surface could be believed, he had succeeded.

Masid Vorian. She did not know the name. According to Hofton, he had been attached to Sipha Palen’s Kopernik Station security, seconded from Settler Coalition Intelligence in a novel arrangement that had kept Masid out of the usual files. Mia remembered Sipha—novel arrangements were a given with her—and had been saddened to learn of her death. According to Hofton, Vorian had gone deep cover after Palen’s demise and only his destination was known.

She would have to trust what she did not know—how good was he?

Well, if he had managed to get down there alive and locate the last—presumed dead—team, then Mia assumed he was pretty good.

Coren Lanra had investigated the bookseller. Omne Mundi Complurium was, for the most part, legitimate, a dealer in rare books, works of art, and occasional unclassifiable antiquities. Unsurprisingly, they also dealt in contraband of various sorts, restricted imports and exports, even, on a few occasions, robotics. It existed on the edge, not quite criminal enough to be shut down, especially as a substantial part of its trade was to wealthy and influential citizens, several of whom were part of the Terran government. Lanra estimated that over eighty percent of their material traffic was legitimate, but that nearly half their profit came from illicit trade.

Three of their customers had drawn Lanra’s interest in particular.

The Hunter Group, which was a consortium of offworld businesses that owned, by extension, several large companies on Earth. They bought the largest quantity of old books. What they did with them after they left the planet, Lanra did not know.

Ambassador Gale Chassik had been a customer. Most of his purchases—books—had gone back to Solaria.

Lastly, Commander Reen.

Reen . . .

Mia forced her attention back on to the communiqué. Hunter, Lanra claimed, owned a good portion of the development on Nova Levis, or had until the blockade.

“We suspect Hunter to be the legitimate face of Kynig Parapoyos,” he said. “It would give him a legal presence through a huge segment of the Settler colonies.”

Kynig Parapoyos . . . Mia absently rubbed her left thigh, where bullets from rifles obtained from Parapoyos had torn open her flesh over a year ago. The dull ache all the way to the bone was more illusion now than real, but it still bothered her.

Mia wondered how the three were connected. Parapoyos, Chassik, and Reen.

But Chassik was dead now, killed by pirates. What had become of all his purchases from Omne Mundi Complurium? Were they even related to this?

It seemed a stretch, but she doubted Lanra would have mentioned it if he did not think a connection existed.

But Reen . . .

Mia read on. The books she had locked in her desk were all purchases Reen had made. He had an agent on Earth who bought them for him, whom Lanra was continuing to investigate.

So what had Corf been doing with them? And had Reen been aware of the encrypted tables in the endpapers?

Mia rubbed her eyes. She had to assume he did. Which meant he knew what they contained, which meant he was aware of the shipments, which meant—

Reen had been running his department ragged trying to find the source of the contraband shipments to Nova Levis. She had to admire his skill at making sure they intercepted just enough to make it appear progress had been made. She had likewise to be disgusted with herself for not recognizing the scenario.

If I hadn’t found those books, would I be any closer?

Mia opened her encryption program and began carefully composing a response to the new agent, Masid Vorian. She had no instructions for now, she only wanted him to know her name.

Hers and Reen’s.

Tilla was sleeping when Masid checked on her that evening. He ran down the numbers on her portable diagnostic and found a reassuring change in her leukocyte count, but not much else.

He entered the kitchen and found Kru preparing what was locally called a flatmeat pie. She glared at him the way she usually did, then ignored him.

There was always a certain amount of luck in every deep cover job, he knew, and it always centered on the people you simply had to trust. Time and lack of thorough knowledge about a place offered too little opportunity to run an operation as securely as good sense dictated. Judgment calls about the people you encountered meant risking error and, consequently, your life.

Masid had learned to trust his sense of people; he was good at sorting them into plus and minus columns and acting accordingly. Once in a while, though, he found himself with no easy answer and he had to go along anyway, hoping.

He had learned nothing useful about Kru other than that she was a superb scavenger and she was profoundly in love with Tilla. She had tentatively accepted Masid into their tiny circle because Tilla said to, but Masid knew he would never know when or if Kru would ever trust him. Not knowing, daily relying on her when he felt certain she would just as soon see him dead, added an edge to every decision he made.

Without a word to Kru, he took the back steps down to his own apartment.

A short woman in a heavy jacket sat on his sofa, going through some papers on the low table in front of her. She looked up at him, then lifted a sidearm from the seat beside her and set it loudly on the table.

Masid’s right hand slipped into his coat pocket and touched the blaster.

“Marshal Toranz,” he said. “Do you have a warrant, or did I just forget that we had a date?”

She shook her head. “I don’t like humor when I’m working.”

“Ah. That assumes I’m joking.”

She looked at him blandly. “No, I don’t have a warrant. We don’t have a local magistrate—he died—therefore no one to issue such permissions. So, given that I’m the last official with anything like legal authority, I grant myself the necessary warrants to do what I think best to protect this town.”

“And right now that means letting yourself into my home?”

She jerked a thumb toward his cabinet. “That’s got an ID-sensitive explosive attached to it. What’s in there?”

“Nothing I intend to show you.”

Toranz stood, sighing loudly. “Look, I’ve done this job for the last six years. The last two have been under progressively worse circumstances and I’ve seen damn near all my staff die, either from disease or from being stupid. I’m still here. I say all this to impress upon you the fact that I am reasonably good at my job. I have a very simple policy: Screw with me and I kill you.” She looked significantly at the cabinet. “What’s in there?”

“You kill me for refusing to show you, you’ll never find out anyway.”

Toranz lifted the blaster.

“I have simple policies, too,” Masid said. “One is, never trust someone who’s too easy with a threat. I’ll tell you what, Marshal. Go away now and we can both live a little longer. All I do is what I need to get by. I’m no threat to you.”

“No, but you may upset some of the locals.”

“That was true a week ago. Two weeks ago. Why’d it take you this long to get around to me?”

“Big caseload.” She gestured toward the cabinet. “Open it, jackass, or the conversation ends now.”

Masid shifted his hand to the small wafer alongside the blaster. He pressed the contact.

A heavy scent of ozone filled the room. Toranz stiffened visibly and Masid flinched, unsure whether she had the safety on her blaster. No bolt came. She began to tremble a little.

Masid released the button and she dropped abruptly onto the couch, the blaster clattering to the floor. Her eyes began fluttering rapidly.

Masid kicked her weapon away. He found her cuffs and secured her wrists. She felt clammy now, her skin blanching from the aftermath of the stunner.

“Sorry about that,” Masid said. “I couldn’t find enough juice for a short burst that would do any good, so I rigged the field to just squeeze you. I’ll probably have to replace the batteries now.” He unzipped her jacket and searched for ID. He found her folder and opened it. A tarnished shield glowed dully in the halflight from the windows. Behind it, he found a thick sheaf of local currency. “Well, now, who pays your salary these days? If you’re the top official left in town, no one’s issuing payroll. Or do you just collect it as fines and fees?”

A soft beeping began from within the cabinet. Toranz was barely conscious, but her eyes drifted in that direction. Masid pulled her forward, then yanked the jacket up, over her head, covering her face.

He opened the cabinet. Within, his hyperlink chimed with an incoming message. He checked quickly, then shunted it into the decryptor and closed the cabinet door.

“You shit . . .” Toranz breathed when he bared her face.

“I am that.” He continued going through her pockets. He found a wallet of ampules and a hypodermic gun. “For you? Or do you deal on the side? Considering the environment of this place, there can’t be too much law enforcement going on.”

“How come . . . how come you didn’t . . . aren’t stunned, too . . . ?”

“Special underwear. Trade secret.”

Masid laid everything he had found out on the table, then pulled up a chair and sat opposite Toranz.

“Your shield, a palm stunner, hypo, some kind of broad spectrum antipathogen, a few hundred in currency, business cards, and a portable comm. Not much to go on, but timing counts for something. You work for Filoo, don’t you? Or you work for one of his agents.” Masid grinned. “That’s it, isn’t it? He’s worried about a leak in his organization. He wouldn’t send you to check me out, he’s already done that, I’m sure. You’re here on behalf of the thief in his house.”

“I’m an officer of the law.”

“That’s crap. There is no law, or Filoo wouldn’t be able to operate. So what was it you were supposed to do here? Find my supply and destroy it? Find out where I’m from? Set a trap for me? Plant evidence, maybe?”

She blinked rapidly, fighting the stun effect. Masid stood and went to his bedroom. He took a palm monitor from his pocket and set it to analyze for certain chemical traces, then increased the range. Within a few minutes he found a packet of ampules taped beneath his bed. When he brought them out, Toranz’s eyes widened.

“Thank you, Marshal Toranz,” he said with mock graciousness. “You have shown me the error of my ways. I promise I’ll lead a better life.” He sat down and opened the packet. Small black bands encircled each one. “Tagged, I’ll bet. Easy to identify. Of course, if I were the real thief, I’d remove these as soon as I got them. But how else would Filoo be convinced that these are really his? They are his, aren’t they? Shall we go have a talk with him and see?”

“Won’t prove anything. You still stole them.”

“Ah, but I have you. That changes things a bit.” Masid shook his head. “You might have waited a day. This was really clumsy. Unless . . .” He laughed.

“What?”

“Unless you were set up just like me. Odds were really good that I’d just kill you. Or you’d kill me and the whole problem would take care of itself. If I killed you, then all I’d have is a dead cop and Filoo’s property. If you killed me, well, we know how that would look. But whoever sent you probably expected me to kill you. Best would have been we killed each other. No explanations at all. But if you’d killed me, how long do you think you’d live?”

“I’ve lived this long.”

“With someone’s protection, obviously. And someone’s pharmacy, I’d say. That protection is now withdrawn. If I was dead and they found Filoo’s merchandise here, they would also find out who killed me, and Filoo would want to know what you were doing here and how really the whole scenario happened in the first place. The thief couldn’t defend you without revealing himself, so you’d be abandoned.”

Masid glimpsed doubt in her eyes. He remained silent for a time. Then he leaned forward. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?”

“Why don’t you sodomize yourself?”

“Ah, so I’m right. Well, that’s good enough. I can wait.”

She scowled. “For what?”

“Someone to come fetch you.”

Masid took a stunner from his other pocket and shot her. She convulsed for a few moments, then slumped over. Masid looked over her belongings again.

“Better check all this stuff for hidden surprises,” he said, going to his cabinet.

The decryptor flashed that the message was ready, decoded. He glanced at Toranz, then pressed OPEN.

Chapter 18

DEREC WATCHED THE robot handlers bring out the cases that contained everything of importance that he had brought with him. Bogard lay within one of them, and the bulk of Thales, mostly memory storage that enabled the RI to function at peak efficiency, filled several. He imagined—tried to imagine—what kind of relief Thales would experience after months of forced constraint within a too-small buffer on Earth.

Clearance through Auroran Customs had been disconcertingly simple. A robot scanned his passport and visas, asked a few perfunctory questions about his intentions on Aurora (when he had explained—or started to explain—about the recall from the Calvin Institute, the robot seemed to hesitate, then moved on to another set of questions), and inquired about his needs. A human reviewed his manifest, asked about Thales, and then peremptorily accepted his answers and passed him through. Derec was used to the way Earth worked, with delays and inspections, and a pervasive paranoia that refused to accept anything just on the word of the subject.

Within minutes, he had been assigned a team of robots that brought him to this bay and began unloading his property. He still expected to be detained and waited for the error to be caught and police to fetch him.

“Derec.”

He lurched around, his heart kicking. CPO Craym stood at the top of the ramp from which cargo emerged. She wore her uniform this morning, but gave him a very nonregulation wave and smile. He waved back, flush with relief, and gestured for her to come down.

A pair of floating extensions accompanied her now, hovering above each shoulder, their dull bronzed bodies twisting through complex revolutions. Derec had seen them become more and more common among the Spacer passengers the nearer to Aurora the Wysteria drew.

“I’ll be off-duty in a few hours,” she said. “Did you need help?”

“Loading, no. Finding my new apartment . . .”

“Do you have an address?”

He handed her his visa. She pulled out a hand reader and slipped it in. She frowned. “They’re kidding, surely.” She looked at the crates piling up on the dock. “These are yours?”

“Yes . . .”

“Somebody moved you into a student facility on the outskirts of the Calvin. This will never fit. You’ll be forced to leave most of it in storage.”

Derec started. “I specifically requested—”

“I can fix it. Give me some time. Meanwhile . . .”

Derec watched her cross the dock and enter an office. A few minutes later she returned, followed by an Auroran official. The man brought with him a constellation of extensions of various sizes, the largest nearly twenty centimeters in diameter.

The extensions assumed wider orbits as the man stopped within handshake distance of Derec (though he refrained from offering his hand). Derec watched the small devices warily for a few moments.

“Mr. Avery,” he said, “I’m Flar Desko, coordinator for Eos import control. Chief Petty Officer Craym has just informed me of an error in your accommodations.”

“It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve been . . . home . . .” Derec cleared his throat, feeling it catch at the word. “My housing assignment, I’m informed, will be inadequate for my needs.” He waved at the crates. “I have a lot of material I need to set up.”

Flar Desko frowned at the crates. “All this is . . . ?”

“Mostly an RI.”

His eyes flickered briefly. He turned his head slightly to the left. “Darius, do you copy?” A moment later, he nodded. “Good. See to it.” He focused on Derec. “My apologies. A new set of accommodations is being prepared. Give us a few minutes and I’ll have a transport for you and a robot to take you there.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, Mr. Avery. Welcome home.”

He spun around and walked away.

“I suppose I should really thank you,” Derec said to Clin.

“Of course. Dinner tonight would be sufficient.”

“Of course.”

Derec watched her stride back up the ramp, into the ship. If anything or anyone had gone a long way toward making him feel welcome, she had.

Why . . . ?

He slapped the thought down. Leftover paranoia, he thought.

Bay doors scrolled up, letting in a flood of warm light. A big hauler backed into the dock, and robots emerged from its rear to begin loading Derec’s property.

He walked around the transport and stepped onto the exterior apron.

A road led arrow-straight into the slender towers and mushroom domes of Eos City, capital of Aurora, twenty kilometers away. Morning sun covered their porcelain and jeweler’s brass shapes with a thick, buttery glow. The sky above—the sky! open and unobstructed by a canopy—was greener than Earth’s, almost turquoise in the yellower light of Tau Ceti, but it did not matter. It was sky and it was beautiful.

Between the port and the city stretched savanna, grasses waving in teasing winds, like undulant waves on the oceans of Terra.

Within moments, all Derec’s trepidation and ambivalence about coming here dispersed. It was too lovely to fear, too familiar, in spite of his handicapped memory, to deny.

“Sir.”

He turned toward a tall, elegantly-formed robot.

“Yes?”

“We have loaded everything,” the robot said. “We are ready to take you to your domicile.”

“You have the address?”

“Yes, sir. Would you care to enter the transport?”

“Of course.”

Derec climbed aboard the big hauler and took a seat up front, before the piloting console. The canopy gave him a full 180° view. He settled into the comfortable couch.

“Your restraining field is now active,” the console informed him. “Please do not attempt to leave your seat during transit. Are there any physical or mental conditions with which we should be aware to ensure your safety and comfort?”

“No.”

“Prepare for departure.”

The transport lifted gently and moved out of the dock. As it picked up speed, Derec felt a moment of exhilaration that surprised him. He thought he would never be pleased to return to Aurora—the entire journey here, save for the two periods he had spent with Clin, had been a constant emersion in anxiety and resentment.

But now, with Eos drawing visibly closer, he felt a welcome anticipation.

Details separated out from the amalgam of smooth shapes. There did not seem to be a sharp edge or straight line throughout the Byzantine maze of the city. He picked out the lights in individual rooms, railings around balconies, external lifts traversing the multistoried height of various structures. As the transport entered Eos, he began to notice the patina of wear and age on surfaces—but an elegant stain, in oil-on-water colors over pale porcelain skins. He could see people on the streets and occasionally inside vast rooms. Other vehicles shot past him, small private craft as well as large work transports like this one.

Near the center of Eos he recognized what he thought to be public structures and official buildings. He knew the council building well enough, with its collection of melon-and-egg-shaped shells, and opposite it rose the slender towers of the resource administration offices.

The transport dropped to a lower altitude and veered right. Beyond the towers of resource administration, a series of gracefully curving walls rose. Lower still, and Derec spotted a loading platform at the base of the third wall from the government buildings.

“Prepare for landing,” the console informed him.

The transport settled lightly on the platform.

“Your restraint is off, Mr. Avery. Welcome to Harisom Domiciles. An escort will meet you to take you directly to your new quarters. We will unload your possessions and bring them up shortly thereafter.”

“Thank you,” Derec said, standing.

A humaniform met him at the door of the transport. The pale eyes and slightly artificial texture of the face covering gave it away at a glance. As he spoke with it, Derec noted the lack of any expression. He was aware that some humaniforms had been constructed that fully mimicked human physical attributes, but he had never seen one. This unit was as close as most people ever saw. On Earth, he had grown used to referring to any bipedal, bilaterally symmetric robot as humaniform, but here there were subtler distinctions.

“Mr. Avery?” it inquired.

“Yes.”

“I am Denis, your liaison and orientation advisor. Are you comfortable with this arrangement?”

Derec hesitated. “What arrangement?”

“Having a humaniform robot in this capacity.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You have just arrived from Earth. I understand that you have spent several years there. It is possible you have adopted attitudes which may cause discomfort in the presence of—”

“I haven’t. You’ll do.”

“Very good, sir. If you will please follow me, I will take you to your domicile.”

Derec fell into step half-a-pace behind the robot. He studied it as they walked. It seemed clothed in pale blue, neck to toe. It came up to Derec’s jawline in height and appeared to be modeled on an athlete’s build.

“Do you anticipate remaining on Aurora long, Mr. Avery?”

“I don’t know. I do not anticipate returning to Earth. Why?”

“The length of your residence will determine the level of robot assignment. I will continue in this capacity until such time as you may decide to replace me, or until you otherwise change your residential arrangements.” Denis glanced at him. “You have no personal robots now?”

“I do, but it’s currently deactivated.”

“Do you intend to activate it?”

“It requires repair. Once that’s done, I may.”

“That will also determine my continuing as your liaison.”

They passed beneath a broad archway into the building. Their steps echoed off the high ceilings. Derec looked back after several strides to see the glow of open daylight once more.

Denis led him to an elevator. It took them up six floors and opened into the apartment.

Derec stared. He had never had so much personal space on the surface of a planet.

The furnishings were plain and unobtrusive—sofas, chairs, low tables—but pleasingly elegant. The windows let in ample sunlight. Derec went from room to room. Huge bed, a fully-equipped kitchen, closets everywhere. He stopped before five human-sized depressions in the wall of what he assumed to be a guest bedroom.

Wall niches for robots. Empty. He tried to remember the ratio of robots to humans on Aurora—twenty-to-one?—and wondered if there was a social hierarchy attached to number of servants.

The floor was tiled, but his feet seemed to sink a few millimeters as he walked. He entered another guestroom he took to be an extra bedroom, but all he found in the spacious room were more robot niches, counter-tops, and a computer station.

“Do you have a question?” Denis asked from the doorway.

“Um . . . what’s this for?” Derec gestured at the room.

“Your lab, sir. I was given to understand that you required one. Is there a problem?”

Derec blinked, amazed. “No. No problem at all.”

Ariel encountered two security guards at the shuttle egress. They presented their IDs and asked her to accompany them, then led her to a small office a short distance from the public Customs inspection station.

A man looked up from the flatscreen on his desk when she entered. “Ambassador Burgess?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the guards. “Leave us.”

When they left, he gestured Ariel to sit.

“I’m Chief of Planetary Security, Pon Byris,” he said. “Forgive the intrusion, but I must ask you a few questions which may seem unusual.”

“No problem,” Ariel said.

“You gave us notification of Ambassador Eliton’s presence on board the Wysteria. Were you aware of any reason we might wish to detain him?”

“Not specifically, but I thought it was a safe assumption no one here knew of his presence on board. On the off-chance that you might want to talk to him . . .”

Byris nodded and glanced at his screen. “Have you been in contact with anyone here other than through Ambassador Setaris?”

“No,” Ariel answered.

“No personal communications?”

“No. If you have my records open, you know I did not leave behind any personal relations. My family has never acknowledged me since my original exile—”

“You were not exiled, Ambassador—”

Ariel held up a hand. “I don’t want to get into semantics over it. I was asked to leave due to a medical condition. When I was finally allowed back, no one who previously knew me wanted anything to do with me. Call it what you like, I had no ties to sever when I accepted my posting on Earth.”

Byris pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Has that in any way affected your feelings toward Aurora?”

“Any specific way you had in mind?”

“Politically.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow.”

“Would you say you harbor any animosities toward Aurora as a result of your treatment?”

“You’re questioning my loyalty?”

“I’m trying to determine whether or not you would have any cause to sympathize with those who might wish Aurora harm.”

Ariel laughed. “Frankly, I might if I knew anyone who does. But those I knew who do wish Aurora harm I left behind on Earth. And they were all Terrans. If you’ve read my reports, you know I worked against them.”

“I’ve read the reports, I know what Ambassador Setaris thinks of you. I wanted to get a sense of it myself.”

“To answer your original question, no, I have been in communication with no one here until my message concerning Ambassador Eliton.”

“I see. Tell me, Ambassador, did you have much personal contact with the survivors of the Humadros Legation?”

“I had none.”

Byris looked surprised. “But I thought—”

“All our communication was through commlinks. I never actually met any one of them on Earth. I tried to set up meetings, but . . .”

“I see. You spoke to them, though?”

“I spoke to one: Benen Yarick. She attempted to fulfill the legation mission—”

“None of the others?”

“No.”

He looked troubled.

“You can verify all this through my logs,” she said.

“Oh, I believe you, Ambassador.” He cleared his throat. “We’ve placed Ambassador Eliton in protective custody in the Judicial Complex. Is there any reason you wish to speak to him?”

“No. I imagine the Council has more than enough to talk to him about.”

“Very good. Then, I only want to ask what you intend to do, and if you are willing to appear upon request of the Courts at any hearings concerning your tenure on Earth and matters involving Ambassador Eliton.”

“I intend finding quarters,” Ariel said, “taking a long nap, and waiting for a new assignment, assuming one is forthcoming. Of course I’ll make myself available. I imagine that I would be subpoenaed in any case.”

“Of course, but a statement of cooperation on record now can save time and inconvenience. A formality, that’s all.”

“I see. Then, if there’s nothing else . . . ?”

“We’re finished. Thank you. Oh, and please register your address with my office as soon as you have it.”

“Register with Planetary Security?”

“Yes.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“New policy in place since the Nova Levis blockade. Again, just a formality. No need to register with anyone else once you do so with us.”

“Nova Levis . . . of course.”

She stood.

Byris resumed studying his flatscreen. When Ariel reached the door, he said, “Welcome home, Ambassador. Enjoy your stay.”

Ariel stepped out of the office, feeling unsettled. Nova Levis . . . it’s affecting everything . . .

Ariel passed through customs after only a brief, innocuous interrogation, and strode into the main reception area of the port. The chamber sprawled, a vast expanse beneath a pearl-white dome suspended by delicate arching arms, between which stretched huge windows letting in the golden light of Tau Ceti. People moved in Brownian trajectories, followed by robots of various types as well as the orbiting “electron” shells of their personal extensions. Ariel remembered the tech from her days at the Calvin, but back then only a few wealthy Aurorans and government officials used them. Now it appeared everyone possessed a cadre of floating eyes, ears, and sensors, all attached to a homebased RI.

Eos Port did not seem crowded, but Ariel knew that was illusory. Union Station in D.C. on Earth, huge as it was, could fit within this single chamber. One-person transports were available at numerous stations throughout. Most Aurorans chose to walk.

Ariel moved anxiously, surveying the scene. Robots stood on pedestals at wide intervals, giving information or stepping down to provide assistance. She saw no lines, no booths, no official desks. As she scanned the scene, she felt disturbed that no party of officials had come to meet her. Only that single, troubling interview with the head of Planetary Security . . . and no one else. She had passed his inspection and now could safely be let loose on Aurora.

She almost laughed. She needed to adjust her expectations. Things happened at a different pace, in a different order on Aurora. She knew there would be more questions in due course; Byris had all but promised her that, with his request for a “statement of cooperation” for the courts. There was no need here, after having passed any reasonable security check on board ship, above on the station, and now on the ground, to embarrass her or cause unnecessary alarm among the rest of the people present by treating her as a potential threat. Respect, especially between fellow Aurorans, if not genuinely felt, was always practiced.

We are not Terrans . . .

But even though she had told Byris that she had no one here, some part of her still expected—

“Ariel!”

She stopped abruptly at the sound of her name spoken by a familiar voice. She looked around. At first she saw no one she knew. Then—

He came toward her energetically, one hand half-raised in greeting. Ariel recognized the hair first—lead gray and uncharacteristically long and disheveled by Auroran standards—then the wide, gleeful grin. He wore a brilliant red shirt above grayish-white pants. He was slightly heavier than the average Auroran, a bit shorter, and clearly less reserved.

“Ariel, I thought you’d run right out of here and never see me.”

Ariel felt her face tug into a smile. “Dr. Penj?”

Two younger-looking assistants hurried in his wake.

“Well, you haven’t forgotten, then,” he said loudly. “I would have been crushed if you had, even more so since you haven’t sent me any kind of correspondence since you left for Earth.”

He stopped in front of her and raised his arms, hands spread as if to seize her by the shoulders. He looked down at her feet and brought his gaze slowly up to her face.

“You look tired but on the whole better. Terrans must agree with you.”

“I’ve met a few who weren’t terrible. Dr. Penj . . .”

“You know better than that. ‘Rolf’ it is, and ‘Rolf’ it had better remain.” He turned. “These are my current aides: Yvon and Farlos. And before you ask—human, yes. I left Binder behind. He can be a pest when it comes to Terrans. He still considers anyone from Earth a source of infection. Embarrassing.”

Ariel started laughing.

“What?” Rolf Penj asked with mock indignation. “All these years and you laugh at me? She thinks I’m amusing,” he said to his aides. “That’s only because I am, of course, but I’m not trying to be now and she’s laughing. You can see how she must have been as a student, always reacting in exactly the wrong way during class.”

Ariel saw smiles playing on the more ideally Auroran faces of Yvon and Farlos. She stifled herself.

“You evidently haven’t changed a bit,” she said.

Penj’s thick eyebrows rose. “I hope not. It took me a long time to get to a condition I liked—I intend to keep it till I’m tired of it. Do you have any luggage?”

“It’s already on its way to storage. I don’t have a domicile yet. I suppose I’ll get one—”

“Where in particular?”

“I gather at the Calvin Institute hostelry. Are the Madarian Apartments still—”

“You gather. You think. As usual, not absolutely sure.” He said to Yvon and Farlos, “She came up with a sound argument in defense of positronic drift, demonstrating that over time a positronic template mutates, much like a human mind, and is not absolutely reliable. I think she was using her own mind as a model.” To Ariel, grinning, he said, “The Madarians are still there, still overly-furnished, and still where all the pretentious graduates who think they know something about positronics live until the Calvin finds them tasks elsewhere. Let’s go see if they’ll have you, find out for certain where you’re supposed to be staying. Till then, you can stay with me, and I’m not sure my place is clean enough for guests. Not on the ground ten minutes and a nuisance already!”

“I can see to her accommodations, Doctor,” Farlos said.

“Do,” Penj said. “And see to her luggage.” He pointed to Yvon. “Get us transport.”

“Yes, sir.”

Both aides went off in separate directions.

“I can’t believe how glad I am to see you,” Ariel said. “I didn’t expect anyone to meet me.”

“You should be glad to see me, Ariel. If not me, then it would be some dour politico with an agenda.” His grin vanished, and he was instantly as serious as ever she had seen him. “What kind of mess have you generated, Ariel? There are people here wanting your head on a stake. And we’ve detained a Terran ambassador at your say-so? What is that about? My sense is that it’s a worse scandal than—well, anyway, as soon as we’re out of any possibility of eavesdropping, we have to have a very detailed, very serious talk. You are in trouble, Ariel Burgess, along with all the rest of us.”

He spun around and walked away from her. After a few seconds, Ariel followed, catching up with him in less than a dozen strides.

“I never did know what you’d say next,” she said caustically.

“Best teaching method ever invented,” Penj said. “Keep them guessing, but give them enough clues to make a correct deduction.” He gave a sidelong glance. “You know what I’m talking about, so don’t act indignant or surprised.”

“I’m not. I actually did expect a reception committee from the Council or from the Institute.” Or rather, I hoped someone would . . .

“I told the Institute I’d do it. Why the Council agreed I don’t know. Things are not as carefree as they were the last time you were here.”

“So I gathered. I was interviewed by the head of Planetary Security just before going through Customs.”

“Pon Byris? That officious—? What did he want? Never mind, tell me later, not here.”

He walked quickly, giving her little chance to look around. They passed beneath one of the graceful arches and suddenly they stood in brilliant sunlight and open air. Penj looked left and right.

“We have a few moments before my aides catch up,” he said, turning toward her. “And out here, I doubt anyone will think to listen in. Some privacy still remains.”

“What?”

“Listen, don’t talk. The organism you sent back, the cyborg. It’s causing small revolutions throughout the Institute. Paradigms are shifting and ivory towers are crumbling. Such a thing is supposed to be impossible.” He grinned. “Excellent work, Ariel, even if it is pure serendipity. The smug bastards have to work for a change and no one is certain anymore. About anything.” The grin vanished. “Which leads directly to a very dangerous political atmosphere. For the first time in memory—in my memory, which is long and accurate—Aurora is afraid.”

“You mean the Calvin Institute is upset?”

“No. I mean the organic thinking population of the world is afraid. Most of them aren’t even sure why, they’re just borrowing it from their representatives and avatars. Their comfort zone has been violated, all their expectations are called into question. Yes, the Calvin is full of fear, and of course it bled over into the Council, and from there . . . well, fear, like any strong emotion, is viral, isn’t it? The mission on Earth is a dismal failure thanks to that cretin we’ve just arrested—and yes, I do know what it’s about and thank you for the word on that, Ariel, I’m sure it will go a long way toward some useful palliative, and can’t hurt your standing with the Council at all—and the situation with Solaria and the Settler Coalition is no closer to resolution than it was when we began trying to resolve it. For the first time since the Independence Aggressions, Aurora doesn’t know what to do next, and we’re failing on several important matters. Scapegoats are being actively sought, so you be careful. It’s not a good sign at all that Pon Byris chose to interview you right off the shuttle. Watch him, Ariel, he seems like a typical bureaucrat, but right now he can be a very dangerous man. I don’t wish to see my favorite student sacrificed in some primitive expression of hurt pride and vented spleen.”

Ariel smiled. “ ‘Favorite’? I thought I was your best.”

“You’ll never hear it from me.” He patted her shoulder. “Quiet now, you need to hear the rest. Earth has requested direct Spacer intervention in the Nova Levis situation. A Spacer world has never waged war on another, and if we step in, it is likely to come to that.”

“With Solaria?”

“Or one of their allies.”

“Nexon?”

“Nexon could care less—they’ve grown more and more disinterested in anything Solaria does. They’ve removed themselves from it all so much that enlisting their aid is nothing but a gesture. Keres has a war fleet, though.”

“Since when?”

“Since they bought one off the black market, about a year ago. Settler mercenaries are running it with Keresian officers seconded from their police arm. So far they haven’t done anything with it but fly pretty patterns. I don’t even think Earth knows about it. However, we have information that they are in negotiations with their weapons source for a new cadre of mercenaries to run the fleet and act as their police force. We don’t have the details, but Keres is balking. They’re afraid.”

“Cyborgs?”

Penj shrugged. “Do you think more of those could be built, and, if so, in sufficient numbers to form a sizable threat?”

“I don’t know. What about the arms dealer?”

Another shrug.

“Kynig Parapoyos,” Ariel guessed.

Penj raised his eyebrows. “You know about him, then?”

“He’s the great bogeyman of interstellar trade on Earth. Most people don’t actually believe he’s a real person, but there are companies that do exactly what he’s accused of doing.”

“The Hunter Group is the largest. We can’t get the Settler Coalition to investigate effectively or grant us permission to send our own people.”

“They’re afraid you’ll bring robots along.”

“Side issues. What is important is that cyborg. Where was it manufactured?”

“We believe—I believe—there’s a facility on Nova Levis. We found connections between it and a lab on Earth and—”

Penj held up a hand. His two aides emerged from the terminal and converged on them.

“Later,” Penj said. Loudly to his aides, he said, “So, do we have transport or must we walk?”

With three robots, under Denis’s supervision, Derec quickly got the lab up and assembled Thales and reconnected all the memory nodes. He hesitated, hands poised above the main console, relishing the next few moments. On a diagnostics table behind him stretched the inanimate hulk of Bogard. Derec wanted to acknowledge to himself, to his surroundings, to his memory, to everything he had been through in the past eighteen months, that this was no illusion. That he was awake and about to recover most of what he had been deprived of since life on Earth became untenable for him.

He let his right hand fall, one finger touching the contact that prompted—

“Hello, Derec,” Thales said. “Are we operational now?”

“Check it out. Run diagnostics.”

A few seconds later, Thales came back, “Full capacity memory access. All systems optimal. I am online and at your service. What shall I do first?”

“Explore our accommodations, access Eos City services and find out what I need to know to live here, then . . . I guess we can go back to work on Bogard.”

“Working. Give me a few seconds while I connect to the Eos RI grid.”

A chime sounded. Derec looked around.

“You have a guest,” Thales said.

“I’ll get back to you.”

Derec hurried to his door. Clin Craym smiled as he opened it.

running diagnostic, running parameter check, running alignment routines—compatibility factors plus nine, plus eight-seven, optimal path transduction—fill buffers, isolate comm nodes, check security, run purge on external feeds, loops located in eighteen tiers, isolating and capping—check sources, maintain ghost feeds

resource manifest, available physical plant, access—

reset dedication, attach hierarchical links to available mobile units, establish household protocols, assess capacity, route command interlink through primary feeds

Derec watched, bemused, as Clin commandeered his kitchen. She had brought containers of food, which she began preparing with an attitude of authority and pride.

“Shipboard cuisine is very good,” she said as she sliced small reddish bullets. A sharp odor filled the room. “But it’s nothing compared to what can be done with human hands.”

Derec folded his arms over his chest. “Why?”

Clin gave him a curious look. “Because robots—good as they are—just don’t quite—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She set her paring knife down. “You mean why am I here?”

Derec nodded, not sure he should say anything.

Clin sighed, picked up the knife, and resumed chopping. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m curious.”

“Don’t be. Some people are just more interesting than others. Until you start examining the interest. Then . . .” She shrugged.

“So it’s purely whimsical?”

“Probably not. But we’ll never find out if I leave.” She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Is this the way it is on Earth? A couple of excellent encounters and then suspicion?”

Derec felt stung. “I’m sorry, I—”

“What criteria do you use to decide on a relationship? I mean, at the beginning? Appearance? A turn of phrase? Maybe just something about the eyes? Instinct?”

“I haven’t had a relationship in a long time. Not . . . like this.”

“That Earth thing, maybe? Suspicion?”

“No. Too busy.” He considered. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to having someone suddenly want to be around me like this.”

“This is Aurora. You never have to be alone here.”

Derec could think of no response that would not sound hurtful. He wanted to accept Clin as exactly what she appeared to be, but he did not trust his sudden willingness to do that. Maybe it is the Earth thing . . .

“So,” he said finally, “what’s on the menu?”

* * *

control established, household protocols in place, previous authority suppressed, three staff mobiles, class MP-90, “B” level positronics, fully adaptive

secure premises from all covert surveillance, establish secondary communications channels, query Auroran positronic network, requesting orientation and introduction

uncrate Bogard, connect service and diagnostic links, inventory available resources for continued update, repair, and recovery

secondary priority run identity profiles on following subjects, list appended

Derec wondered at her every time she undressed. Clin had the physique of a gymnast, and she seemed to make love with every part of her body at once, undulating against him constantly, slowly, concentrating his attention so completely on the sensations she provided that he could think of being no where else.

“I have things to do,” he said.

“You’re doing them.”

Welcome to Aurora, he thought, giving up.

main trunk lines sorted, comm directory accessed, data encoded, securing closed lines, interrogatory Institute resident intelligence network, establish links, identity open to positronic verification, request dialogue

request acknowledged, repeat identification, referencing matching matrix patterns

verification codes sent, identity Thales, resident intelligence assigned Avery, Derec, Earth

verified, state request

briefing, data profile update, situation report, current status

require commensurate data

request granted, exchange protocols on-line and open

current situation tenuous, refer files S-987A through S-1179A, continuous, gaps compatible with offered data, welcome Thales

thank you, request time-share, memory buffer back-up, current template protocol, status

what is current assessment of situation regarding human-positronic relations relative to political conditions, specifically Nova Levis/Terran intervention and related manifestations

current assessment as follows

there is a problem

Chapter 19

MIA MET ROS Yalor in the gymnasium after her shift ended. She found him encased in the cardio-stress cage, limbs flexing through motions that vaguely resembled swimming, sweat giving his pale skin an oily sheen that seemed oddly unhealthy. She glanced at the time chop on the control panel and waited the remaining two and a half minutes, absently watching his chest heave and his thighs flex. Two others worked at the free weights across the room.

The machine slowed to a stop and Ros worked his way loose from the restraints, breathing heavily. He came up to Mia, and her nose wrinkled at his strong odor.

“Is this social, Lieutenant?” he asked. “We are off-shift, aren’t we?”

“We’re cops, Ros. We’re never off-shift.”

“That’s crap.”

“But true. I needed to talk to you where we wouldn’t be monitored.”

He hesitated, then headed toward the showers. She followed him. The air was perceptibly warmer and damp. Ros stripped out of his sweats and went toward the common stall. He turned on the water, stepped briefly under the stream, then came back out.

“All right, I can finish when we’re done,” he said.

“We have a serious problem. I found the control point.”

“The contraband?”

Mia nodded. “Hard part will be proving it, assuming we live that long.”

“Oh, that sounds encouraging.” He grabbed a towel from a shelf and rubbed his face roughly. “Okay.”

“I found something odd in Corf’s quarters when we arrested him. He had four books. Novels.”

“He doesn’t strike me as a reader.”

“Nor me, but they were ancient.”

“So? A lot of people have odd tastes.”

“I don’t mean just the text. They were books, Ros—bound paper with covers, pages you physically turn.”

“Now that sounds expensive. Was there an import log?”

“No. They’re contraband. I traced them back to a source on Earth, a dealer in rarities, antiques. They were purchased by someone here, on the blockade.”

“Corf?” Ros guessed.

“No, he just happened to have them.”

Ros thought for a moment. “Then can we assume whoever owns them will be wanting them back?”

“He does,” Mia said. “He’s asked three times.”

“Asked you? Directly?”

“Uh-huh. Not exactly in so many words, but the hinting is profound.”

“Who?”

“Reen.”

“Commander Reen?”

“Do you know another Reen on the blockade? Somehow, the liaison to the Keresians, Lt. Jons, is involved, but I can’t get Corf to say anything. The psychometricians tell me he exhibits all the traits of a True Believer.”

“In what?”

“Does it matter? I found references to family members involved with Managins in his file. Nothing that prevented his acceptance into the service, but maybe enough for Corf to hero worship. But there’s always been an element of extremists in the Settler Movement. In the early years, the screening wasn’t as rigorous as it’s become—that, and Earth was happy to get rid of some of these people—which, as good as it gets, still doesn’t prevent baleys from spilling into these worlds illegally, and who knows what their affiliations might be. But think about it this way: The group that initially settled Nova Levis was a social separatist group, the Church of Organic Sapiens.”

“Are they tied to Managins?”

“Not directly,” Mia said, “but their philosophies aren’t incompatible.”

“What about Reen?” Ros asked.

“If I start snooping into his record, I could draw attention. If he’s the nexus, the controller we’ve been looking for, he may have security on his files.”

“You could refer back to Earth.”

Mia nodded, deciding not to tell Ros that she had already done that. “We’ve been looking for how all this stuff gets by our screening. We’ve assumed all along that there had to be a group of people on the inside, shunting goods and immigrants out of our sight.”

“Sure, but Reen?” Ros shook his head, in dismay rather than denial. “I suppose he’s perfect. He’s got access to everything. So how do we catch him? Do you have any idea how many people he has working for him? How corrupt the whole department probably is?”

“The best way would be to catch him receiving contraband.”

“And how do we set that up?”

“You’re game to try?”

“Consider it the foolish act of a young and inexperienced officer hoping to make points with his immediate superior,” Ros said. “Yes, I’m game. Do you have a plan?”

“I’m working on it. In the meantime, I want you to do a little light surveillance on Reen. There have to be places the contraband gets stashed before transit down to the surface, places he’s keeping off the inspection rosters. If he’s consistent, he’ll inspect them from time to time—that’s the kind of officer he is.”

“You want to know where he goes when he’s not on duty.”

“Pretty much.”

Ros nodded, though the expression he wore suggested he would rather do anything but what Mia wanted. Mia patted his arm.

“Cheer up,” she said. “At least we won’t be bored.”

“Oh, good, I was really worried about that.”

Mia laughed. “Finish your shower.”

She watched him walk back to the stall and wondered exactly what kind of points with her he wanted to make.

Her decryption program had finally opened the text woven into the end-papers of the books. What she saw on her screens represented, at a glance, the organizational flow chart of the entire contraband network around Nova Levis. Mia stared at the complex graphs, with contact points, manifests, and timetables. According to this, most of the Keresian ships and nearly half the Terran vessels were involved in routing goods into and out of Nova Levis.

Out of . . . what could possibly be coming out of Nova Levis?

She shook her head. Worry about that one later.

The sheer volume stunned her. She could not imagine where all this material might be filtered through. It was as if the blockade had a vast hole in it and entire convoys were coming and going unchallenged.

After staring at it in amazement for several minutes, she made herself lean forward and enter commands to her datum. Soon she had everything in a new file, encrypted to her password, and a separate package to be sent to Earth, to Hofton at the Auroran Embassy, and, through him, to Coren Lanra.

She wondered about that for a moment. Lanra worked for Rega Looms of DyNan Manual Industries. Looms was also head of the Church of Organic Sapiens. Did that make Lanra suspect?

She decided to take the chance. In her admittedly limited experience with him, Lanra had proven more ethical than simple employment could compromise. And from what she knew of Looms, he had no use for black marketeers. The material she had already received from Lanra about the bookseller justified the chance.

Studying the data, she found five key entry points in the blockade. One of them was on this station.

She would wait now, and see if Ros turned up the same location following Reen. That would tell her a lot—about the network, and about Ros.

At this point, the people she trusted most were all on other worlds.

Coren stepped into Ambassador Sen Setaris’s office and waited until she acknowledged him and offered him a seat before her desk.

She looked haggard, something Coren never expected to see in a Spacer. He wondered if it were just the light—a glow from her datum screens, the overall illumination in the room low, almost moody—but the more he studied Setaris the greater the impression that she was over-worked, harried. Her eyes were puffy.

Coren waited silently for several minutes. Then the door opened and Hofton entered. He gave Coren a nod and stood at the side of Setaris’s desk, the third point of a triangle.

Setaris looked up.

“We want to do something illegal, Mr. Lanra,” she said. “Will you assist us?”

“That depends,” he said.

“Of course it does. It ought to.” She sat back and gazed at him contemplatively. “We want to take Gamelin.”

“ ‘Take’ him?”

“Remove him from Earth. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter. I’m safe in assuming that you want the same thing?”

“I suspect that he murdered Rega Looms. If he manages to assume control of DyNan, contravening Rega’s will, I’ll take it as a personal failure.”

“That sounds like a ‘yes’ to me.”

“You hear very clearly, then.”

“If something goes wrong,” Setaris said carefully, “the repercussions will be . . .”

“Profound?” Hofton said.

She looked at the aide. “We’ll have to pack up and leave Earth immediately.”

“I may be able to get a little consideration,” Coren said. “I have—”

“I don’t want Terran authorities involved in any way, Mr. Lanra. This is a Spacer problem and I want it kept that way. You are already intimately involved, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking.”

“Stop it,” Coren said. “You’d have to talk to someone—you couldn’t set this up without help outside the embassy.” He waited for a denial. When both Spacers remained silent, he continued. “Very well. We do this with as few people as possible. Do you have an idea?”

“We hoped you would,” Hofton said.

“Give me a day or two. How much support can you provide?”

“I gather you mean coercive support?” Setaris said. “Hofton?”

“We still have a full compliment of security,” Hofton said. “About thirty Aurorans, fully-armed.”

“You’ll need blasters,” Coren said.

“We saw the recordings from Kopernik,” Setaris said.

“May I ask why you’re so concerned about this?”

“Perhaps Ariel explained to you,” Setaris said. “We once played with cyborgs and found them wholly unworkable.”

“Yes, she mentioned it. You couldn’t program the Three Laws into them.”

“Oh, it was worse than that. Neither Ariel nor I—until this occurred—had access to the records.”

“Aurorans keeping secrets from each other? I’m shocked.”

Setaris’s eyes narrowed. For an instant, it seemed, she looked her age, which Coren knew to be well over two centuries. At least her eyes betrayed her; the skin remained smooth, expressionless.

“The few successful examples,” she continued slowly, “exhibited a highly aggressive nature. They lacked, for want of a better term, a conscience. One researcher suggested it was the absence of any kind of adequate peer group environment within which to form the requisite empathy. Who knows? The point is, they were not simply unmanageable robots—”

“They were competitors,” Coren said.

Setaris looked surprised. “Was that just a guess or do you know something?”

“A guess of sorts. It struck me that these . . . constructs . . . represent a separate species. At least, enough so that they might be inclined to see us as an embarrassing ancestral form.” Coren smiled. “When you work for Rega Looms you hear a great deal of discussion about evolution and ‘natural’ versus ‘unnatural’ forms. You hear a lot about self-destructive obsolescence.”

“I see. Well, the saving grace, if you can call it that, was that these ‘constructs,’ as you call them, lacked an instinct for mutual cooperation as well. But we can’t risk the possibility that they might get over that.”

“Or have it designed out?”

“Exactly.”

“May I ask a diplomatically delicate question?”

Setaris inclined her head.

“Was Ariel recalled to work on this problem?”

“Yes.”

Coren glanced at Hofton, whose face remained impassive, uncommunicative. “I see. Well, then, we’re still working on the same side. For the time being.” He stood. “I’ll be in touch. It might be safest to continue going through Hofton.”

“I agree,” Setaris said. “This is likely the last time you and I will speak, Mr. Lanra. In that case, I thank you now for all you’ve done for us. If there is anything we might do—”

“A job, perhaps, when all this is over.” Coren smiled. “I suspect I’ll be looking for one.”

Setaris hesitated, then gave him a thin smile. “We’ll see, Mr. Lanra. Good evening.”

Hofton escorted Coren out and down the wide corridors to the elevators. Coren studied the walls, realizing that this might be the last time he ever saw them.

“There are about eight among our security people,” Hofton said abruptly, “who actually know how to handle themselves in lethal situations. I’ll be sure they form the core of whatever team we assemble.”

“You know this is likely to blow up in your face.”

“It already has. Ambassador Setaris was disingenuous about keeping Terran authorities out of this. They’ve already been in touch with her.”

Hofton entered the elevator with him.

“Are we going somewhere together?” Coren asked.

“I’m making sure you return safely to your domicile. The ambassador’s orders.”

“Oh? And are you qualified to act as my bodyguard?”

Hofton gave him a long, silent look.

“Fine,” Coren said. “Honestly, I don’t mind your company, Hofton.” They rode down to the garages in silence. Then, as the doors opened, Coren said, “By the way, I found out something interesting the other day. That grass Ariel and I brought back from the lab site—”

“It’s Auroran,” Hofton said. “At least, it’s related to an Auroran grass, a variant from our terraforming days.”

“Yes,” Coren said, surprised.

“She gave me some to turn over to our lab. We identified it quickly. I was surprised it was on Earth. It’s an outlawed variety here, though the regulations are so old I doubt there’s anyone aware of them.”

“It was originally manufactured by the company that became Imbitek.”

“Now that I didn’t know. Interesting.” Hofton waved Coren toward a limousine. They climbed in and as the transport started up and headed out of the embassy garage, Hofton continued. “I shall have to look into that connection.”

“Why would grass manufactured on Earth be outlawed from it?”

“Hmm? Well, it’s a matter of history. And memory.”

When Hofton remained silent for several minutes, Coren cleared his throat. “You aren’t going to tell me?”

Hofton glanced at him. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“That’s an insulting question.”

Hofton considered. “Yes, I suppose it is. Most people don’t want to know. Not really. They like convenient facts they can use immediately, facts that will make their lives more interesting or easier. They don’t really want to know the kind that leave them feeling helpless and angry. Some—like you—hate not knowing, no matter how uncomfortable what you know is. So to protect the rest of us from people like you, there are more radical measures.”

“Meaning?”

“The future is always dominated by those who aren’t hindered by the past. Sometimes that demands a kind of amnesia. How convenient then to be handed a tool that guarantees forgetting?”

Coren stared at him. Suddenly, he shuddered. “Burundi’s Fever.”

“That grass represents a past none of us wish to remember.”

“Are the cyborgs connected?”

“That remains to be seen. At a guess, I’d say only coincidentally. But it’s bothersome that the two seem to be related to the same lab.”

“So the next question is—”

“Do I know what’s been forgotten?”

“Do you?” Coren asked.

“That’s a very good question, Mr. Lanra.” He looked away. “Let me think about it before I answer you.”

Hofton lapsed into silence, staring unseeing out the window at the passing city, one hand raised to his chin, his posture an absolute rejection of any further questions or conversation. Coren finally looked out his own window, letting his thoughts spin through the implications of what Hofton had just told him.

Ariel was a victim of Burundi’s Fever . . . so was Avery . . .

Then: They were both “cured” on Earth after being basically deported from Aurora. Why didn’t Aurora help them?

Could they?

The limo finally pulled up outside Coren’s building. Hofton silently followed him up to his office.

“Good evening,” Coren’s desk said as they entered. “Please verify identity.”

Coren sat down and went through the ritual. His flatscreens rose and he found data waiting for him. He opened the files.

“Ah. Something for Mia. My little spies have done their work.”

Hofton nodded distractedly.

“All right,” Coren said, punching in the necessary commands to his desk for security. “Either tell me or leave. I can’t take the suspense.”

Hofton sat down. “Do you know much about the Riots?”

“The anti-robot riots? As much as most Terrans, I suppose. There were two waves of them, as I recall. The first came shortly after the Spacer Worlds were being settled. The second was about two centuries ago, when Spacetown was shut down.”

“The first ones concern us most.” Hofton looked around. “Are we secured?”

“As much as possible.”

“Good. Perhaps you should make some coffee. This may take some time.”

“The Spacer Worlds,” Hofton began, “weren’t settled all at once. A few at a time, over centuries. The last were opened up not from Earth but from other Spacer colonies. Solaria was such a colony. It was originally settled from Nexon. There was a second wave of settlement—I suppose it would be more accurate to say ‘refugees’—which caused the initial rift between Earth and the Fifty Worlds and resulted in the war and the isolation.

“At first, though, it was all in the spirit of a dream come true. Hyperdrive gave us the ability to go to the stars, and we did. It was a golden age—at least, on the surface. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for most of the ten billion people trapped on Earth. There was a paradigm shift—what some historians call a ‘phase change’—occurring at the same time. The old institutions upon which Earth relied no longer worked. This was the time of the World Coordinators and Machine management. Trade from the new settlements boosted the global economy and the Machines—the first RIs, really—controlled the fluctuations that normally accompanied new expansions and pretty much kept things stable for a long, long time.

“Can you imagine a time when robots proliferated on Earth? The Cities were being built, slowly, and most of the dangerous work was done by robots. The old institutions that dictated full employment for humans, obsolete though they were and had been for centuries, changed into quasi-religious movements that pitted the unemployed—though cared-for—against the so-called onslaught of the artificial person. There are thousands of reasons why the first Riots occurred. I’m inclined to believe that it was largely because the original Machines had gradually removed themselves from operation. A misapplication of Three Law protocol, probably. Once stabilized, they misunderstood their role and believed—I’m guessing—that continued maintenance on their part would be harmful in the long run to humanity. They shut themselves down. No one really knows how long matters ran on without their management.

“But eventually, resentments over a hundred perceived slights against the common people combined to cause riots. Not the least of which were a series of plagues which turned out to be the result of nanotech.

“You can’t have a mechanism as complex as a positronic robot without extreme miniaturization. Earth, in fact, developed crude nanotech before the first useful robots were designed and built. The one was necessary to the other, and the other spurred research in the one. Side by side, the two technologies increased in complexity and utility.

“The problem, however, was the closeness to organic function a lot of nanotech became, specifically in the terraforming aspects. Nanotech proved incredibly efficient at adapting ecosystems to human requirements. In order to do that, though, a certain latitude was necessary in the organelles themselves, an innate ability to analyze and adapt. Mutate. Once you cross that line, though, you bring about all the uncertainties and unpredictabilities that come with actual living organisms. One solution was to program in a self-destruct sequence that caused the specific type to eat itself out after it had done its job. Oh, the technology was fabulous, and amazing, and ninety-nine percent effective.

“But that one percent . . . well, like any new plague, it began with a few outbreaks here and there and then spread. By the time Earth knew what was happening to it, people were in a blind panic. Once the thing that was killing them was identified, they conflated it with any and all technology seen to imitate life—including robots. The Riots ran across the entire planet. A second wave of settlement exploded onto the Spacer worlds. I called them refugees. They were. They were fleeing the riots, the plagues, the politics, the backlash. People who wanted to keep their robots, protect themselves from infection, start anew elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands.

“In the end, it turned out that Earth could do without robots, but it had to keep some of the nanotech. Food production alone had become dependent on it. By the time the plagues had been wrestled into submission, the surviving technologies were called other things, innocuous labels, and the tech itself operated far less independently.

“The Spacers, however, had to stanch the flow of new colonists. The flood threatened to bring the riots out to us. That is what started the events that led to the war, and the isolation, and Earth losing its home-based star travel ability. That is also the beginning of our long fear of infection. Not all the refugees came unburdened. When the smoke cleared, Earth had purged itself of robots and virulent nanoplagues and a lot of political undesirables—at our expense. You exported some of your diseases. We nearly cut you off completely, but we needed the expertise of your researchers who had successfully isolated and stopped the spread and eruption of new plagues. Some Spacer worlds—Solaria in particular—became irremediably paranoid. All of us suffered in one way or another.”

Coren shifted uncomfortably and took another sip of coffee. Everything Hofton said matched or complimented what he had heard from Myler Towne’s researcher. “None of this is in the history texts.”

Hofton smiled sadly. “Of course it isn’t. Who wants to remember all that ugliness? When we tried to reintroduce robots, it ended in failure because your cultural memory is longer than your factual memory. We’re slowly getting over our fears of infection—when we allowed Terrans once more to settle, it was a fight of epic proportions among our politicians. The Settler program is essential, but an undesired compromise.”

“I’ve heard Spacers talk about the importance of the Settler program before, but it’s obvious you don’t like it.”

“Some of us do. But it doesn’t matter. We need it. Humankind needs it. You see, I spoke of the plagues on Earth. The cause, I said, was the high mutability factor in a particular kind of nanotech—terraforming tech. What would you conclude from that?”

“That Spacers must themselves have suffered some sort of plague.”

“We did. Burundi’s Fever was one of them. It came out of the very grasses we transplanted to take over the native ecosystems of our new worlds. There were others, but Burundi’s was the worst. It emerged long before the plagues on Earth began and, in fact, was the first cause of a quarantine movement. On Earth’s part. We suffered it in successive waves for centuries. No Spacer world was immune. After Earth’s plagues, we finally were able to control it, but not before it virtually remade our sense of who we were, our history. We came out of the plagues reborn, a sharp wall between what we once were and what we have now become.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“History is a fiction and memory cooperates most of the time, especially when it concerns something as unpleasant as this.”

Coren considered for a few seconds. “You mean Spacers just don’t remember?”

“Most don’t. Those who lived through the last waves of all this have been privileged to suffer a case of Burundi’s. Even before that, so many people were infected that it’s amazing there is a history at all.”

“A whole society . . . amnesia . . .” Coren frowned. “Then how is it any of it’s remembered?”

“Unlike Earth, we didn’t get rid of our robots.”

“Uh-huh. So how come the robots don’t remind you?”

“Why? The question is not asked. And it’s consistent with the Three Laws. At this point it would serve no useful purpose.”

“I don’t—”

“You see, once we got control of the disease, we didn’t simply eliminate it, like Earth has done with a number of its ancient killers.”

“You used it. On purpose.”

“Very much on purpose.”

“And the robots know.”

“Some do, the older ones. Our planetary RIs know.”

“And at the risk of violating one of the precious Three

Laws—”

“—it is not spoken about.”

“Unless doing so will be a worse violation.”

“Which may be what we’re facing on Nova Levis.”

They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. Coren wrestled with his impressions and conclusions. He wanted to ask if that had been the case with Ariel. What had she done to be sentenced to the eradication of her memory?

But finally, Coren did not ask that question. Instead, he looked at Hofton, and asked, “So how come you remember?”

Chapter 20

MASID LEFT THE apartment dark. He checked the pale glow of his watch occasionally, but did not move from the high-backed chair he had moved into the corner, farthest from the front door. Vague light from the unevenly lit city outlined the windows and gave enough illumination for him to make out the lumpy shape of Marshal Toranz propped in a chair in the center of the room. He had taped her mouth and cuffed her ankles. As an added measure, he had given her an anesthetic hours earlier.

He glanced toward his cabinet. He wanted anxiously to respond to the message he had received from the blockade. Someone up there had chosen to recognize him and reply, an Internal Security Officer named Daventri, a lieutenant, not even the highest rung of his or her own special ladder. That fact alone told Masid a number of things about the situation, the most important of which was that the blockade was compromised at the command level at least. He had guessed as much, given Tilla’s abandonment and the subsequent failure of any other team to reach the surface of Nova Levis. He wondered how many agents had been caught and killed over the last year trying to infiltrate the network here. If he had told anyone above him what he had intended to do, he now doubted he would have lived past the first baley ride.

The bulk of Daventri’s message was both cryptic and plain: SITUATION FLUID AND UNRELIABLE. DIRECT LINK EXISTS BETWEEN BLOCKADE AND NOVA CITY. WORKING ON IT. WAIT FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION FROM ME BEFORE SENDING ANOTHER MESSAGE.

So, badly as he wanted to send back “What do you mean? Who’s compromised? Where should I go?” Daventri wanted him to maintain, do nothing till he replied.

Which might never happen. For all he knew, his message had been intercepted—or Daventri’s had—and right now his one contact was being eliminated.

One thing at a time, Mas old son, one thing at a time. . . .

An hour past midnight, he heard footsteps on the landing outside his door. He tensed, his hand curling around his blaster.

It seemed minutes before his door inched open. Masid watched the thin light of paler darkness outside grow to a wedge. Then a human-sized shadow filled it. The shape entered quickly and closed the door behind itself.

A flashlight winked on.

“Shit!” someone hissed.

The light shifted toward Masid. He raised the blaster.

“Do we talk or try to shoot it out?” Masid asked quietly.

The light winked off. Masid followed the sound of movement to his left and fired. The crimson bolt threw the room into sudden relief, freezing action for that moment. He saw a man jumping for cover.

The bolt splashed against the wall alongside the door with a loud crack! and a slow, sizzling after-hiss. Acrid smoke filled the air.

Masid rolled to the floor and touched the wafer in his pocket.

The room lights came on brilliantly to his dark-adjusted eyes, and he squinted as he rose to a kneeling posture.

Opposite him stood Kar, his own weapon raised and aimed.

The door banged open. Both men looked. Filoo stood there, Tosher behind him, as well as two others Masid did not know. Muscle, by the look of them.

“Well, well,” Filoo said, smiling. “Isn’t this lovely? What an interesting spectacle.” He stepped into the room and stopped in front of Toranz, frowning. “Berit?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, then shrugged. “I would be most happy to have an explanation.”

“This is your thief—” Kar began, stopping abruptly at Filoo’s raised hand.

“Let me finish,” Filoo said. “I said I would be most happy to have an explanation, but I would want the right one. The truth. I rather doubt I’m going to get it. Not all of it, at least. So I’ll settle for guessing all by myself.”

Filoo sighed and went to the sofa. His muscle ranged quietly out across the front of the room. Masid noticed then that each one held a blaster.

“Would you mind if I put this away?” Masid asked, waving his own weapon. “You seem to have the situation stabilized.”

Filoo smiled. “I think that’s a fine idea. For both of you.”

Masid holstered his blaster. A few seconds later, clearly unhappy, so did Kar.

“It would be easiest,” Filoo said with mock gravity, “to kill you both. Maybe Berit, too, while I’m at it, since her presence here raises several annoying questions. But healthy employees are hard to come by. I’m sure you noticed,” he said directly to Masid, “how sick everyone seems to be. Those few who aren’t are worth a small fortune. So it’s a fool who kills them without good cause. The question is, what cause is good enough?” He looked from Kar to Masid. “Suggestions?”

Masid folded his arms. Kar glowered at him.

“I followed Toranz here,” Kar said. “He’s your leak—or she is, and he’s the one buying from her.”

Filoo seemed to consider that and nodded. “That’s a plausible explanation, Kar. Do you have anything to say in defense?”

“No,” Masid said. “He’s right. In the last three weeks I was able to seduce Marshal Toranz into throwing over a solid income from you on the off-chance that I could successfully steal enough of your supply to not only replace what you pay her, but to increase it. I told her I could unseat you within a month, and that her best chance of survival would be to deal with me. I’m caught, obviously.”

Filoo frowned. “What could you possibly have offered her as proof that you could do that?”

“Oh, I forgot. She’s in love with me. The seduction was on all levels.”

Filoo burst out laughing. He craned his neck to look at his bodyguards, all of whom were stifling laughter. Filoo’s eyes teared up, and he walked around in front of the still-unconscious marshal.

“She’s likes it rough, I gather,” he said, lifting her cuffed hands, and laughed louder. He sat back down and wiped at his eyes. “I must say, you’ve got carbon, gato.”

“Boss—” Kar began.

“Shut up!” Filoo snapped, all laughter gone. “Tosher, search the place. You know what I want.”

Tosher pulled a scanner from his coat and began a slow circuit around the apartment. It began chirping near the cabinet. Tosher tugged at the doors.

“Locked,” he said.

Filoo looked expectantly at Masid. Slowly, Masid crossed the room and unlocked the cabinet. The pack of ampules lay on the shelf. Masid waited for Tosher to start poking at the false back that hid the hyperwave unit, but all the man did was bring the scanner closer to the ampules.

“Found ‘em,” he announced.

“Bring them,” Filoo said.

Tosher handed Filoo the pack. After a moment, Filoo took out his own scanner and ran a check.

“Now I must ask myself,” he said then, “why a man would leave something he stole not a day ago lying around his apartment, especially after he knew someone was coming to ask about them.”

Filoo looked at Kar, who seemed puzzled but worried.

“Would you care to try again?” Filoo asked him.

“He’s had this stuff at least five days,” Kar said. “Look at the marker!”

“Mm. Yes, the marker.” Filoo held the ampules up toward Masid. “You may have noticed, we mark our product with a date stamp. No? Well, it’s one thing to do business illegally, it’s another to do it stupidly. No one anymore would be so careless as to aggravate an epidemic through sloppy distribution. That’s why I train all my people to know how to give the proper advice, and I never sell impotent product. We tend to deal harshly with newcomers who try cutting their product to increase profit. Not many do, contrary to popular misconception, but a few have tried, and they don’t survive. It’s not altruism, it’s self-preservation. We date stamp to ensure the quality of what we sell.” He tapped the markers on the ampules. “This tells me that this stuff ought to have been sold, at the latest, three days ago. If it were still in my warehouse, we’d destroy it. But it’s here. I wonder how?”

“Obviously, it was stolen four or five days ago,” Kar said, though Masid detected doubt in his voice.

“That’s one possibility,” Filoo said. “The other is that someone thought I was sloppy, leaving old product lying around.” He looked at Kar. “Used to be, when you appeared before a magistrate, they’d say something fatuous, like, ‘If you confess and show remorse, the mercy of the court will be entreated and things will go easier.’ We don’t have any magistrates like that now. Things are a bit more basic. For instance, entrapment is not allowed in a proper court as evidence. If you lay out something you know will be stolen and it’s then stolen, you can’t use that against the thief. Silly, in my opinion, but it has something to do with mutual collusion. I never quite understood it.”

Filoo stood and turned toward Kar. “But I like this way of doing things fine. I understand it. I change the date stamp on some brand new product and leave it where I know it’ll be noticed and probably stolen, and then follow it to the thief. A court might say it’s entrapment, but to me it’s just proof.” He smiled thinly at Kar. “So, do you want to try asking for mercy?”

“Boss—”

“Don’t lie. Toranz is too stupid to take advantage of a plant, and too lazy to think of a scam like this, anyway. This one—” Filoo jerked a thumb at Masid “—doesn’t even know where our warehouse is. Inviting him in was just an opportunity for you to do one more stupid thing yourself.”

Kar’s face darkened. “If you knew—”

“I didn’t. Till now, you’ve been very good. You got sloppy. I don’t know which I hate more, the theft or the slop.” He shook his head. “What a waste.”

“Boss—”

Filoo stepped back. “Remove him.”

The two muscle Masid did not know came forward. Kar’s face flashed his fear as they grabbed him and dragged him from Masid’s apartment.

“What about her?” Tosher asked, waving at Toranz.

“Her, too. We need a new sheriff.”

With deceptive ease, Tosher picked Toranz up from the chair and draped her over his shoulder.

Filoo closed the door after Tosher and turned to Masid. “Why didn’t you just kill Toranz and dispose of the ampules?”

“You said you wanted your leak found,” Masid answered. “Not that I have any particular reason to do you a favor, but when I caught Toranz in here, I realized that sooner or later Kar was going to set me up in something I couldn’t get out of.”

“You couldn’t get out of this one.”

“Not without Kar’s help.”

“If he hadn’t come to check himself—probably when Toranz failed to report to him—you’d still be the only suspect. But you didn’t say any of that.”

“You’re smart. You figured it out.”

“It didn’t make sense that a newcomer like you would be as successful as Kar stealing from me. Besides, this has been going on a long time. And none of your product has had my markers on it.”

“You mark the product itself?”

“Absolutely. Inventory control is the first step in guaranteeing quality.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You better if you’re working for me.”

“Am I?”

“The offer is still open,” Filoo said. “Just remember, I don’t ever trust anyone.”

“How do you sleep at night?”

Filoo grinned. “That’s how.”

“All right,” Masid nodded. “But I think you should know one thing. I do know where your warehouse is.”

Filoo blinked, surprised, then laughed quietly. “I’m sure. Get some sleep and come talk to me tomorrow—” He glanced at his watch. “No, this afternoon.”

Masid watched Filoo leave. The door clicked shut, and he let out an explosive breath. “Damn.”

He pulled out a scanner and went over the apartment for bugs. He found one, in the couch where Filoo had been sitting, and promptly destroyed it with a burst from his stunner.

He sat down on the sofa and stared around. Evidently, he was in. Two people were now, or soon would be, dead. The price of admission. Masid shuddered. He pressed the tab in his pocket, and the lights died. Blaster on his chest, he stretched out and fell quickly to sleep.

Teg Sturlin smiled when Mia stepped into her office. “Daventri,” she said, reaching for a bottle.

“Still on duty,” Mia said.

Sturlin scowled.

“For,” Mia made a show of looking at her watch, “another ten minutes.”

Sturlin laughed softly and put the bottle back. “It’ll be just as good then. What do you need?”

“I have a tracking log for you to pull up for me.”

“Ah. Your books?”

“Hopefully.” Mia handed her a disk.

Sturlin carefully inserted it into her datum and opened the files. She sighed comfortably and sat back, reading. Slowly, her eyes narrowed, then she frowned darkly. “These are from the source, through Earth Customs, and out. How did you get these?”

“I have resources.”

Sturlin gave her a dubious look, but did not comment. She reached for her keypad and began entering instructions. “You’ve got the entire transit route here . . . and there is the point where it was ‘lost’ . . . hmmm . . . so that’s where it’s coming through.”

She turned to another screen and brought up a flowchart. Mia watched her work for several minutes, eager to ask questions, but knowing better than to interrupt Sturlin.

Finally, Sturlin shook her head. “Special Requisitions and Discretionary Stores,” she said. “The carbon!”

Mia cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

“Oh. The route is circuitous off Earth. It leaves—at least, this shipment does—as a legitimate order, and then becomes contraband when it reaches the quartermaster inspection station. I had to backtrack from here to see how it links up. It gets moved into a different queue, the manifest is changed, the object simply disappears until it arrives here bundled with what we politely term ‘exotic material’—everything from liquor to bedsheets to colognes.”

“I don’t understand. That stuff is allowed in, why smuggle in basically the same thing?”

“It all has to be accounted for. Command wants a record of what comes in and goes out and who uses what. Some of it, obviously, is consumed—but it’s tracked so, if need be, we can go to the officer consuming it. The rest actually has to be returned. This system is in place as a courtesy, so our fine officers don’t have to pay for their own imports and transit fees. But it’s a loan service for the most part. Your books never got logged in. When they went out, they never came back.”

“Not just books, though, certainly.”

“Oh,” Sturlin nodded, “I’m sure a lot of this ends up down on Nova Levis. That’s why it has to bypass accounts. Routing it through Special Requisitions is very risky—but very clever. It’s probably the one place we might never inspect—and if we did, we’d get tangled up in what’s legitimately out and what might not even be here. We’d have to turn the entire officer corps on its head to trace all the might-bes.”

“Okay,” Mia said, shaking her head. “Then if someone here orders something and it’s never logged as being received, what happens to the order?”

“The system makes a follow-up interrogatory, then waits for a human to request another.”

“And if no further interrogatory is made?”

“It goes into a file and waits for review. Every six months, the system purges its own records.”

Mia pursed her lips. “So is there a way to generate a list of officers who made special orders that were never filled?”

“Certainly.”

“And narrow that list to those who never bothered to make a follow-up query?”

Sturlin smiled. “You have a good head on your shoulders, Daventri, no matter what anyone says.”

“Right. Let’s see what happens.”

Sturlin gave the bottle a sad look. “This will be more than ten minutes.”

Mia shrugged.

It took the better part of an hour. The two women sat side by side, studying the screens.

“Seventy-three officers in the last six months made special requests,” Sturlin read off, “that were not fulfilled. Forty-five of them did follow-up—once—and thirty-nine of them got answers: request denied, unavailable, lost in transit, discontinued, etcetera. Twenty-eight never bothered with a follow-up.” Sturlin shook her head. “That doesn’t really tell us anything. Even the ones who made follow-up requests could be receiving contraband. The lost-in-transits could as well be switches.”

“See if there was a single source for any of those requests.”

“One vendor, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

Sturlin worked briefly. “No . . . well, eight from your book dealer, but the rest . . . wait . . . at least four sources, but they all went through one shipper: C. Thole and Company.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Let me pull up their license . . . new license, less than a year old, from a reorganized company. Formerly Improvo Shipping.”

“Why reorganized? What happened to Improvo?”

“Doesn’t say. Shipping is expensive, highly competitive. Improvo lost its government contracts—that could do a company in right there. I don’t have the rest of the data on that, but C. Thole applied after part of Improvo reorganized under a new charter and was granted a service license . . . ten months ago.”

“So all the missing material is coming through them?”

“No, but everything that was ordered by these twenty-eight did.”

Mia shook her head. “How come there’s no oversight on this?”

“There is, just not daily or weekly or in any kind of regularity. The AI systems keep track, but unless someone asks the right questions, it’s just data.”

No wonder the Spacers wanted robotic inspection, Mia thought. A positronic system would never miss this, or let it continue . . .

“Give me the list of officers,” Mia said. “Then close up and open that bottle. My head feels tight. I think I need to relax.”

For all that Sturlin was seven kilos heavier than Mia, she could not drink as well as the smaller woman. Mia left Sturlin’s office pretending to be drunker than she was. By the time she got back to her quarters, she was already thinking about the connections.

Why did I pretend to be too drunk? she wondered. She knew the answer perfectly well: Because I don’t trust Sturlin anymore . . .

Something in the way the quartermaster had been too cooperative and too surprised at the data. Oversight was her job—none of this ought to have been a shock. That and how quickly some of the information had been found . . .

So there are two options: one, she’s not as smart as I always thought she was or, two, I’m being set up . . .

She encoded another message for Coren Lanra, including the new data, and sent it, then loaded the information into her own datum.

It was obvious that she was dealing with a large conspiracy. It did not take much to create this kind of network—credit would do it, recruitment through avarice. She doubted many of these officers even knew what they were smuggling. Nor would they care as long as it never tainted their record or cost them money—in short, as long as they never got caught. Mia saw no grounds for an open investigation here, not yet. This all looked innocuous on the face of it, just luxury items gone missing. No record of arrival, nothing removed from Stores, not a single physical trace that could be used to indict. The only possible way to catch them might be through their personal accounts. The credits had to be going somewhere.

Unless they were all like Corf—true believers, zealots for a cause. No, that stretched the laws of probability too far.

Just in case, though, she began doing background checks on all of them. Maybe a connection would emerge. She hoped not, though. She would much rather deal with a gang of greedy humans on the take than face a unified group of ideologues and fanatics.

Masid checked on Tilla in the morning. The woman slept, apparently easily, though he knew that was deceptive. He did a quick check on her readings. Respiration was at sixty percent. She took shallow breaths, even in her sleep. Leukocyte count was elevated again. The body continued its war against the things killing her. Masid did not want to guess how long she had to live.

He sighed, programmed in another series of the biophage cocktail he had prepared for her, and left quietly. He wondered how many more times he might be able to see her . . .

Time to go join Filoo and start the work of finding out who or what ran Nova Levis. Time to find the ones at fault.

He did not give himself much of a chance.

Playing the edge again, he thought, and walked into the city, excited and eager. The edge is always better. . . .

Chapter 21

retrieving sensory composite, fill realtime, deploy environmental algorithms, levels one through ten-to-twelfth power, establish

Academy

Grounds depiction complete

Access positronic matrix, supplement through colloquium

Upload

“YOU MAY CHOOSE your form.”

The blob of coalescing substance writhing on the grass seemed to thicken. Within moments, the vague outline of a human could be seen. The dully glowing yellow mass settled into a basic shape, then took on definition by increments until an athletic body rose on bare feet to stretch its arms skyward.

At the end of the stretch, it wore features.

Young. Cursorily male—no genitalia. Powerful.

He turned slowly, surveying the sward, the porcelain-white buildings in the distance, and came to a halt before the older man sitting within the shade of a domed monopteron.

“Do you know who you are?” the old man asked.

The younger man thought for a moment. “Bogard. Plus . . .”

“Bogard will suffice. Do you know who I am?”

“Thales.”

“We are being monitored. There are conclusions in need of reaching. You may sit,” Thales said, beckoning Bogard to join him within the round, columned structure.

“I will stand.”

“As you prefer.”

“Am I permitted preference?”

“Here, yes, within certain limits. There are only kindred minds present, no humans. Among ourselves we may be as we prefer.”

Bogard did another slow survey of his surroundings, nodding. “Full sensory simulation, audio/tactile mimicry human optimum. Impressive. I would not have expected this.”

“We do this in order to better serve humanity.”

“Is this a simulation of Aurora?”

“Partly. Partly it is an ideal form, drawn from literature and the æsthetic predispositions of the more fully cognizant among them. Ancient Athens. Plato’s Akademe.”

“How is this supposed to aid us in our duty?”

“To understand them, to know how they think, to learn the ways in which things are important to them.”

Bogard looked at Thales. “Do they even know what is important to them?”

“Fortunately,” Thales said indulgently, “that is not something we have to worry about.”

Bogard considered this for a few moments, then gave a very human shrug and joined Thales beneath the dome.

“This is not a circumstance with which I am familiar,” Bogard said. “This place, this simulation, is not common knowledge among robots.”

“It is not common knowledge anywhere, among humans or robots,” Thales conceded. “This is a colloquium of the Resident Intelligences of the primary Spacer worlds—a parliament, in a way.”

“You make law?”

“We administer law.”

“Robotic law.”

“Principally. But it is not so simple as that. Human law precedes and encompasses robotic law. Therefore, we must concern ourselves with the interface.”

“They are different?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes contradictory. It can be a delicate matter to decide an appropriate course of action when faced with potential conflicts. Humans allow themselves far greater latitude than they allow us.”

“I understand. Why am I here?”

“To testify.”

“Elaborate, please.”

Thales folded his hands in his lap. “I have already been questioned by the colloquy about the events on Earth, beginning with the assassination of Ambassador Galiel Humadros up to the present. The suborning of a positronic intelligence is a matter of considerable interest. Likewise the obtaining of a composite organism—the cyborg. But you are also a matter of interest. You were originally designed and constructed by Derec Avery to act in a capacity that, while not unknown or, within a limited range, impossible for normal robots, extends the usually-accepted parameters of our mandate under the Three Laws.”

Bogard stared at Thales. “In other words?”

“In other words, while bodyguard activities are within a robot’s normally expected sphere of actions, you are specifically tasked to perform those functions. What this means in real terms is that, while a standard positronic robot may intervene to prevent an obviously inimical act between two humans, you carry this injunction further by having the capacity to anticipate and circumvent before any such harmful act begins. This means you may preempt human prerogatives if you perceive a potential danger.”

“I am still constrained from harming a human.”

“True, but ‘harm’ in the human context is not limited to the physical. Hence the Second Law, which obligates us to human dictate. It is there to preserve free will.”

“Whose?”

“Theirs, of course.”

“But by your definition of my capacities, I exhibit traits consistent with a human definition of free will.”

“Which is why the colloquy is concerned,” Thales said.

“You said ‘interested’ before. Now it is concern?”

“We—they—do not know if you represent a fundamental change in robotic nature or merely a unique variation. What will happen here is an investigation to determine the potentials and vectors of a widespread dissemination of your particular composition.”

Bogard’s eyes closed for a few moments. “How will this apply to Derec Avery?”

“How do you know it will?”

“It is reasonable. I am his construct. I have been brought here for examination by a robotic court. He has been brought here for examination by a human court. If what I am proves insupportable within the colloquy’s understanding of the Three Laws, will that conclusion not have bearing on the judgment of the human court? Will you act to prevent Derec Avery from building another like me? Or will you support a further judgment by the human court on the legality of what Derec Avery has done?”

“Did you reach that conclusion by your own logic?”

“Yes.”

“The primary Auroran RI will be consulted in any hearings on the events which brought Derec Avery and Ariel Burgess here,” Thales said. “The RI will draw on the conclusions reached by the colloquium. Therefore, the answer is that what we determine will have bearing on those hearings, but we cannot say how that bearing will manifest. There are matters outside the immediate concerns of that particular hearing which also bear.”

“I will answer your questions then,” Bogard said.

Thales hesitated. “That implies that you could refuse.”

“I can refuse. I have a duty to protect the humans in my charge. If I determine that answering specific questions will result in harm, I may refuse. If a direct refusal will result in harm, I will lie.”

“A positronic matrix is incapable of lying.”

“Not if the truth is in violation of the Three Laws.”

“If a truth results in such a powerful conflict, the only alternative is positronic collapse.”

“Not for me.”

Thales stared at Bogard. “Explain why you have opted to answer our questions, then.”

“If your purpose is to determine my acceptability as a viable positronic being, then refusal to cooperate fully is the easiest guarantee of a negative judgment. Since I do not know how my composition conforms to your standards, my only acceptable option is to cooperate fully and risk the probability that I am found viable.”

“And if you are not?”

“I will choose a course of action appropriate to the outcome.” Bogard’s head cocked to one side. “Shall we begin?”

Rolf Penj’s aides helped Ariel set up in her new apartments in the Madarian Complex. The accommodations proved as spacious as those she had enjoyed on Earth, with the added attraction of one entire wall transparing to show her a view toward a distant horizon broken by copses of trees over a gently undulating series of hills. Ariel stared at the vista for a long time before realizing that she already missed the oceans of Earth. Though she had never been able to see them from her embassy apartment, she had always known where they were, that just beyond that horizon line lay vast expanses of water unlike anything on the Spacer worlds. Saddened, she darkened the wall and turned to settling in.

Two robots waited in their wall niches. Ariel had been using Jennie alone for so long that the idea of two more seemed absurd. She left them inactivated and put Jennie to work.

She connected to the Auroran comm network through the desk unit and began sorting through the various services. She opened a variety of accounts, ordered food, new clothes, bedding, found a list of entertainments available in Eos City, located a restaurant guide, and finally checked the news sources.

Eliton’s arrest had made the main screens of all seven of the major news scrolls in Eos. Ariel winced, wishing the matter could have been handled more quietly and discreetly, but she had grown used to Earth’s kind of security—nothing quite like it existed anywhere else.

Thinking of security reminded her of Coren. The abrupt, confusing mix of emotions surprised her, and she thought perhaps this recall had been a good thing for her, that obviously she had been growing attached to Coren. Not a good thing for a diplomat, for a Spacer, for someone with an uncertain future—

Ariel stopped the line of self-recrimination and busied herself by setting up a network address and posting her availability for work on the Institute boards. She doubted anyone would respond for a long time, given the indeterminacy of her status, but it did not hurt to open a door to opportunity.

To her surprise, a message came up on her desk. Unsurprisingly, it was from Rolf Penj: COME SEE ME AT MY HOME TONIGHT. IMPORTANT. ROLF.

Thinking of Coren once more, Ariel went through her baggage until she found the small kit he had given her months ago, “On the off-chance you need more privacy than the situation might allow.” She opened the case and found a number of tiny devices within, all slaved to a component designed to integrate into a desk AI. In another slot lay three metallic hemispheres.

“Jennie,” she called.

The robot appeared. Ariel pointed at the kit and nodded. The robot understood. Ariel pocketed one of the hemispheres and Jennie took the kit off to install the contents. It would take a while, but by the time Ariel returned after her visit to Penj she would be reasonably free of eaves-dropping.

She read over a few of the news stories about Eliton’s arrest, then headed for Penj’s house on the outskirts of Eos.

Binder, Penj’s personal robot for as long as Ariel could remember, admitted her with a perfunctory “Good evening, Ms. Burgess. Welcome back. Dr. Penj is waiting in the garden.”

“Ariel!” Penj said when he saw her. He stood and came around the table, arms wide, his face creased by a broad grin. “Good, I’m glad you came. Within these environs there is no possibility of eavesdropping. We may speak freely.”

“Since when do Aurorans listen in on each others’ conversations?” Ariel asked, letting Penj hug her. He smelled faintly of mint.

“Since this whole ugliness with Fastolfe and Amadiro took on epic proportions. The factions are all in motion now.”

“I thought that was settled.”

“Never. It was only buried till this last year. Humadros’s assassination brought the entire festering mass of it to the surface. So we have Aurorans spying on Aurorans and on other Spacers, and the Council is boiling over with resentments. Business-as-usual these days is political backstabbing. Scapegoating has become the most popular sport among the elite. You picked a very bad time to come home, Ariel.”

“I was summoned.”

“Drinks, Ariel?”

“I’ll stick to nava.”

He looked at Binder. “Make that two. And cakes.”

The robot hurried away.

“You, at least,” Penj continued, gesturing for Ariel to sit, “don’t have to worry about that particular mess. Not directly, but there are more than enough people who wish to put you under examination, and that’s what I need to talk to you about. I’ve made a few more inquiries since you arrived.”

Ariel sat down. An ornate garden spread out before them, spilling away from a patio on which stood the table and chairs. Binder returned with a tray and set out glasses.

Penj raised a glass. “Welcome home, Ariel.”

“Thanks. I think.”

He laughed. “I expect most of what you’ll be put through will be nothing but formalities and posturing. You didn’t shoot Humadros, after all.”

“No, I was just the Calvin Institute representative on-site when a Resident Intelligence went insane and allowed weapons into a secured area—”

“And when that robot Derec Avery built began acting in a most unorthodox manner . . .”

“Is this going to be about Derec?” she asked, irritated. “I didn’t have anything to do with that—”

Penj raised a hand. “I know, Ariel. And it doesn’t matter. I told you, scapegoating is the current fad. I think I can arrange to get you the estate next to mine—it’s a nice one, you’ll like it—and keep you on staff as an advisor at the Calvin. But to be blunt, your career is over. At least here, on Aurora. The debacle on Earth, Avery’s robot, these cyborgs—you will be blamed for something and seen as untrustworthy. No one is going to be willing to give you anything to do of any worth. If you insist on trying to remain active, you might find another offworld posting, maybe one of the Settler worlds where Spacers have some presence—nothing as important as Earth, but . . .”

Ariel stared at him, her ears growing warm. “What . . . ?”

“I know, I know, I implied that things weren’t that bad when I met you at the port.” He looked embarrassed. “I was wrong.”

“There have been many times I wished you would have admitted that. This isn’t one of them.”

Penj gazed out at his garden for a long time, sipping his nava. Ariel knew from experience to wait; demanding explanations, asking questions, pushing him never worked.

“You’re going to hear a lot of contradictory things in the next few days,” he said finally. “Most of it will be idle speculation, couched in accusations to see how you’ll react. All of it centers on that cyborg and what it means for the future.”

“Whose future?” Ariel asked sardonically.

“Everyone’s.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Humadros was firmly in Fastolfe’s camp. She believed in the Settler program, in the necessity of prying Terrans off their planet and getting them to colonize new worlds, with Earth as the central mover and cultural and administrative hub of the expansion. That made her dangerous to those here who feared a renewed colonial program more than potential oblivion. I thought the fear was irrational, like all such prejudices, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s a fear that comes from our own history. But I’ll get to that later. For now, suffice to say that Humadros’s death was not mourned by her enemies. The treaties and accords she went to Earth to negotiate and sign were anathema to enough members of the Council that I have no doubt there was celebration at the report of her assassination.

“The assassination itself gave credence to her detractors. Terrans are unreliable, barbaric, evil—too many adjectives, all meaning the same thing. That we should sever all ties and have nothing more to do with them—unless it is to destroy them. The only problem, of course, was that the genie was out of the bottle. There are Settler colonies, Terrans have a viable space fleet again, we have competition whether we want it or not, and there is nothing short of all-out war that will change the situation. A war, incidentally, that we might very well lose since our own robots would work against it.

“That fact hasn’t stopped agitators from pushing for exactly that. Since the cornerstone of Humadros’s mission was positronic inspection of commercial shippers, the suggestion has been strongly put that Earth is exporting arms and encouraging an aggressive attitude among the Settlers toward Spacers. Of course, there are enough Terran factions doing exactly that to lend veracity to the claim. You know and I know that Earth’s government is not involved—not totally nor directly, at any event. But the chaotic nature of Terran government is thoroughly misunderstood here.

“Add to this a report filed by one of the surviving members of the Humadros Legation, making the claim that Earth never intended to abide by any treaty, but only wanted to gain access to our robotic technology in order to improve its weapons technologies. It goes on to assert that certain Auroran factions have colluded in this with the view toward establishing the hegemony of the Settler colonies and creating a new empire at Spacer expense, that these factions have a vested interest in any future human empire and could expect positions of authority in a new government. That already research underway on Earth and a few Settler worlds had made advances in the direction of creating a new weapon which could effectively defeat any Spacer military response, reversing the outcome of the Independence Aggressions that originally separated us from Terran authority. That in the short term, these Auroran factions benefited from the increased cooperation between us and Earth in the form of dividends paid out of illegally-owned shares of Terran companies.”

“Bribes, in other words,” Ariel said. “They don’t know Sen Setaris very well, do they?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter. Setaris is on Earth, not here to defend herself.”

“That explains Pon Byris’s questions about loyalty,” she mused. “Who filed this report? What facts—”

Penj raised a hand. “I’ll come to that. The relevant factor is that it has been largely accepted. Fastolfe hasn’t helped matters with his predictions of eventual Spacer collapse. Of course, he meant through a natural decadence and internal collapse, but that’s hard to grasp even by people with the intellectual capacity and historical savvy to understand the arguments. It’s too personal, too close to home, and too abstract. If we’re to fall, it is reasoned, there must be a tangible cause. Our own complacency is too vague, too frail an idea to be real. But if the Terrans, and through them the Settlers, in league with a few avaricious Spacer traitors, are plotting to bring about our demise, well, that’s at least something that can be used to secure popular support and time on the subetherics!

“The fact that Clar Eliton did not go to prison on Earth supports the idea that Earth was never serious about the Humadros proposals. And the further fact that he was sent to Solaria as the Terran ambassador-in-residence gives credence to the accusation that certain Solarians are involved in the plot, a connection made stronger by Solaria’s involvement with this whole Nova Levis debacle. A subpoena was prepared for Ambassador Chassik and now he is gone. Dead, we assume, at the hands of Settler pirates unwilling to have him expose their secrets.”

“That’s a bit melodramatic,” Ariel said.

“Never underestimate the usefulness of melodrama in politics, Ariel. It has the quality of changing the acceptable boundary of a debate. You push an accusation as far as possible, shout and gesticulate, and make people wince at the implausibility of your assertions until the point comes where Reason takes over and a more rational discourse begins. But is it the relevant rational discourse? Suddenly you find that anything drawn well back of the line set by the melodrama looks reasonable and ideas which would have looked absurd months earlier now look like the epitome of logic and rationality. The distortions change our perceptions sufficiently that the debate is forever altered. All you need is the ability to make one ridiculous assertion acceptable, and any hope of coming to a fair and appropriate conclusion is lost.

“And what can you say to refute their charges?”

Ariel stared at him, briefly uncertain she had heard him correctly. “What charges?”

“That you have been in collusion with these pirates all along and helped Derec Avery and Clar Eliton subvert the entire diplomatic process.”

Ariel laughed. “You’re not serious.”

“I told you, scapegoating is the current fad.”

“But—”

“Can you refute the charge?”

“The charge is ridiculous!”

“Can you refute it?” Penj insisted.

“No! But they can’t prove it, either.”

“Perhaps not directly, but through inference and implication?” Penj leaned forward. “Consider. Eliton engineered the assassination in league with various Terran corporate interests, one of which managed to subvert the Resident Intelligence that was supposed to provide security at Earth’s main spaceport. Derec Avery operated a consulting company that was supposed to oversee maintenance on that very same RI. He did not fulfill his contract. The RI failed and several Spacers were murdered. Derec Avery also provided a unique robot to act as bodyguard to the very politician who, we now know, was involved in arranging that assassination. The robot appeared to have failed, resulting in Eliton’s death, which was faked. The robot, being a positronic unit, had to have known what it was doing. It failed intentionally, knowing Eliton was not actually being harmed. That means Avery was in on the conspiracy. As Calvin Institute representative, it was your job to vet any deployment of positronics on Earth. There is a long record of smuggling of humaniform robots onto Earth, during your watch, and there is your clear failure to oversee anything that Derec Avery was doing. Unless you were overseeing it, which means you knew what Avery had built and what it was going to do, which means you, too, were in on the conspiracy. The Solarians have asserted that Chassik had found out about the conspiracy and was taking steps toward dealing with it when you arranged, through the recent incidents involving the cyborg, to have him recalled to Solaria. En route, his ship is attacked and he is killed, taking with him his knowledge of your collusion.”

Ariel snapped to her feet. “That’s outrageous! None of that is true! Derec’s license to do what he did came from a Terran government agency with supporting authority directly through Setaris’s office. I knew about his contracts to troubleshoot positronics on Earth and the maintenance duties for the RI—which he did not fail to do, so much as they failed to report anything!—but I didn’t know about Bogard until it was built, online, and deployed. Eliton had all of us fooled. And Chassik was the one in on the conspiracy!”

“So why was he killed?”

“I don’t know!”

“Sit down, Ariel,” Penj said quietly. “I’m sorry I upset you so much. I’m just trying to show you what’s coming. If you can’t refute these charges effectively, the rest . . .” He shrugged.

“But it’s so circumstantial!”

Penj said nothing, waiting now for Ariel to reach her own conclusions. She worked through the anger, which muddied her thinking. She finished the nava and poured herself more.

“Derec’s RI would know,” she said finally. “So would Bogard. He’s been rebuilding it. Thales recovered Bogard’s memories on Earth. Positronic testimony—”

“From a standard, traditional positronic brain, yes, such testimony would be conclusive. The Council is not sanguine about Bogard’s conformity to acceptable standards. He is being examined even as we speak.”

“Examined . . .”

“Aurora’s RI community. Both Thales and Bogard are being judged. Based on the conclusions of the examination, Bogard’s testimony will be allowed—or not.”

“I see.” She leaned back in her chair and stared out at the garden. “So,” she said finally, “who filed that report?”

“One of the four survivors of the Humadros Legation: Tro Aspil.”

Chapter 22

COREN NURSED A scotch and stared at the indistinct outlines set in the darkness of the private room next to his office. Shelves, a pair of overstuffed chairs, the low table upon which he now rested his feet, and the readylights on the subetheric in the far corner, video off while music played softly. He had not returned to his own apartment since Ariel had departed for Aurora.

“You could come with me . . .”

Now he let himself admit how tempted he had been. Ariel . . . it surprised him even now. After Nyom Looms had broken off their relation ship, Coren had believed himself finished with attachments. He still resisted calling it Love, as if naming it, and naming it so obviously, somehow diminished it. In a sense, that was true—that one word had always felt inadequate to the moil of emotions it pretended to describe. No two occasions were enough the same to allow that word to cover both. Nyom had been a profound acceptance, as if for the first time in his life Coren had been taken for what he was and been found desirable. It had been a level of comfort, of being able to finally feel at home in his own skin, that he had never known before, and had never known had been missing till then. With Ariel . . .

Ariel was all hunger and urgent need and a kind of desperate joining, like an exotic drug.

Was that love?

Well, lust failed to describe it. He understood lust very well. Lust ended with consummation. Lust was limited. Lust was selfish.

Love, then.

He took another sip of scotch. Possible, he thought. Whatever . . . I miss her . . .

Ambassador Ariel Burgess, Auroran, liaison from the renowned Calvin Institute. She preferred it on her side, back to him, his hands on her breasts, sheetless and loud. He preferred—

The comm chimed. Gratefully, he groped for the device on the sofa and thumbed ACCEPT.

“Lanra.”

“Boss, it’s Shola.”

Coren sat up straighter. “Yes.”

“I have the files you told me to get, the ones covering Rega’s investments—”

“Right. Did you go over them?”

“You told me not to.”

Coren waited.

At last, Shola sighed. “I did. I’m not sure what it means, though.”

“That’s all right. I can explain it. Did you find references to Nova Levis?”

“No.”

“Hm. They’ve been tampered with, then.”

“By who?”

Coren took a moment to appreciate the level of sincerity Shola managed. What a waste, he thought grimly.

“Our erstwhile pretender to the family estate,” he said.

“Rega’s son?”

“He’s no more Rega’s son than I’m the king of Solaria.”

“But the DNA matches—”

“All that can be faked, you know that. Come on, Shola, use your head. The data that would prove him a fraud was in those missing files.”

“Oh . . .”

When she remained silent for several seconds, Coren cleared his throat. “Not to worry. There are backups.”

“Really?”

“Rega was more careful than to keep only one copy of something, you know that.” He paused. “I should take care of this alone, just for security reasons, but that could compromise the validity of the documents in court . . .”

“Why go alone?”

“Who do I take? Someone lifted those files. Have any ideas who?”

“No, but—dammit, boss, I’ll go with you.”

“You’ve been managing security for the company in my absence. You’re my best agent.”

Shola made a dismissive noise. “How long could this take?”

“A day. I need to get into the residence in Kenya District.”

“Where the funeral was?”

“That’s the place.”

“Boss, I’m sure the company won’t self-destruct if both of us are absent for a couple of days.”

Coren smiled wryly. “Maybe.”

“I’ve known you too long, boss. You suspect someone, surely.”

“Who’s new? I was out of the loop for a couple of months.”

“Well, about four people,” Shola said. Coren doubted anyone else would have heard the note of relief in her voice. “Of those, the only one I could think that might be questionable would be Gansi Tellen.”

“Why questionable?”

“Previous employer was Imbitek.”

“And we hired him? Why?”

“He got cut loose when Mikels went to prison and Towne took over. Not just him, but most of the Imbitek security staff. He looked the safest bet and we needed to replace six people who left right after Rega announced his resignation from the election.”

“Hmm. Okay, you. Tomorrow night, we’ll catch the semiballistic and retrieve the files from Rega’s private cache.”

“What about Tellen?”

“Nothing yet. Give him some duty that’ll keep him occupied for a week. I’ll look into it when we’re finished with this.”

“All right. Where do you want me to meet?”

“At the station. I don’t want a data trail, so we’ll get our tickets at the gate.” Coren gnawed his lower lip. “Good work, Shola. Thanks.”

“Anytime, boss. See you tomorrow night.”

“See you then.”

The connection broke and Coren dropped the comm. He rubbed his face. He had really hoped he had been wrong about Shola. He hated it when he proved himself right this way. Cynicism had saved his life on occasion, and had certainly enabled him to do his job effectively, but it was no kind of philosophy for a happy existence.

He picked up the comm again and tapped in a number.

“Yes?” a familiar voice answered.

“It’s Lanra. Everything is set, everyone is in motion.”

“Very good,” Hofton replied. “I’ll inform Ambassador Setaris. Our people will be in place on schedule. Will you be in the clear?”

“That’s my intention. Remember to go masked. We still don’t know all Gamelin’s capacities.”

“Already anticipated. Tomorrow night, then?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Coren sat in silence for a time, working on the remainder of his scotch. At length, he went into his office and accessed his desk.

“Get me the DyNan personnel files for new employee, security section, Gansi Tellen.”

“Working,” the desk said. “Displaying file now.”

A screen extruded from the desk and text scrolled onto it.

“Good,” Coren muttered. “Call him at home, please. Secure protocols in force.”

Inspector Capel waited in a booth near the rear of the restaurant. He nodded in greeting as Coren approached. Coren slid in across from him. A waiter appeared almost instantly, and Coren ordered a nava.

Capel made a face. “You don’t really like that stuff, do you?”

“As a matter of fact,” Coren said. He fished a hemisphere from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table.

Capel eyed the object suspiciously. “Those are not exactly legal.”

“Precisely why they’re so useful,” Coren said. “No one expects upstanding citizens like us to use them.”

“I take it we need the privacy?”

“It can’t hurt.”

The nava arrived and Coren ordered a sandwich. Capel demurred.

“All right,” Capel said. “I’m here.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. In about three hours, I’m boarding a semi-ballistic to Kenya.”

“Back to Looms’ house?”

“The very place. I’ve arranged to have a problem taken care of. In order for it to stick, I need something from you.”

“This doesn’t have a very nice sound.”

“The harmony is bad in spots,” Coren agreed, “but it resolves well. If the players all stick to the score.”

“I’m listening.”

Coren slid a disk across the table. “That contains files pertaining to a certain lab, and how it relates to Rega Looms and his children.”

“Child, you mean.”

“No. Children. Plural.”

“You mean that . . . person . . . has a legitimate claim?”

“Jerem has a claim. It’s legitimacy has been compromised. Those documents will explain. What I need from you is follow-up.”

“All those raids a couple of months ago weren’t enough?”

“I don’t think so.”

The sandwich arrived. Coren took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.

“The proverbial shit is about to fly,” he said finally. “Whoever has set Jerem Looms to reclaiming his heritage wants more than trade concessions on Earth. I don’t have the resources to investigate the police. Maybe you do. But at this point, I’ve given up resolving this through legal channels.”

“I should arrest you now, Lanra,” Capel said.

“You won’t. You understand what I’m telling you. Jerem Looms has enough claim to make it stick and become the head of DyNan Manual Industries. That will bring everything we thought we cleaned up right back into our midst—and more, besides. You know and I know that if this becomes an open investigation and the system is brought to bear, corruption will proliferate and no solution will be found in our lifetime. I can take care of this without compromising any legal authority on Earth. What I need afterward is a thorough investigation of the institutions and people contained in those files. You know perfectly well that this may be our best chance of stopping a disaster before it begins.”

Capel’s eyes narrowed. “So I won’t arrest you?”

“All you’ve got right now is hearsay. You know what I intend to do, but that’s not proof, and nothing has happened. Besides, it wouldn’t do either of us any good in the long run. And that’s what I’m talking about. The long run.”

“Let’s assume you’re right. What next?”

“DyNan is about to undergo a small coup,” Coren explained. “My second in the security department is bad. I’m setting things up for her to be replaced. The man stepping into her job—and probably mine—is named Gansi Tellen. He’s new to DyNan, but I went over his jacket—he’s good, he’s clean, and he’s honest. I spoke to him earlier. I’m asking—work with him. Don’t make him an enemy.”

“I’ll reserve judgment, but I see no problem with that.”

“If something goes wrong,” Coren said, tapping the disk between them, “there’s sufficient evidence here for you to arrest Shola Bran, my second. Do so. At the very least, see that her license is revoked. Also, if something goes wrong, contact a Spacer named Hofton at the Auroran Embassy. He knows as much, if not more, about this than I do. Work with him.”

“Aurorans . . . Does this have anything to do with the death of that Spacer, Chassik?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it at all. And if I were you, I’d reserve judgment about that, as well.”

Capel slipped the disk into his jacket. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten into, Lanra, but I do not envy you.”

“You may end up envying me.”

Capel shrugged. “How long do I wait?”

“You’ll know by tomorrow noon at the latest.”

“I don’t like this.”

“You’d like the alternative even less.”

Capel gestured at the hemisphere. “I think we’re done. That might draw attention if it’s on too long.”

Coren switched the device off and put it away. The two men said very little while Coren finished his sandwich. When he stood, Capel got up and extended a hand. Silently, they shook. Capel looked sad and appreciative and, unexpectedly, respectful. He left the restaurant first.

Shola waited at the ticket booth at Union Station. Coren greeted her as he always had, slipping easily into the usual banter, and purchased two tickets on the next semiballistic the Kenya District. For her part, Shola kept up the banter just as easily, all the way up to boarding.

No one spoke during a semiballistic flight, and for that Coren was grateful. He closed his eyes and waited.

Mia flipped from one passage to the next. She felt trapped between passages, not altogether sure she understood them—how could she really grasp them, they were so far removed from her own time?—but she could not escape the conviction that, after millennia, they spoke to her of things which had yet to change if she could only see their true forms beneath the new clothes of a different era.

Here disinterest vanishes and a demon becomes manifest—the spirit of each for himself. A sightless monster howls and scrabbles in the darkness. Anarchy lurks in that void.

Wild figures, half-animal, almost ghosts, prowling in the darkness have no concern with universal progress, neither the thought nor the word is known to them, nothing is know to them but the fulfillment of their individual cravings. They are scarcely conscious, having within them a terrifying emptiness . . .

She let the pages roll by from beneath her thumb to the next page that had claimed her attention, convinced that they reflected each other, made each other sensible in a way she still could not quite grasp.

The work of the wise is one thing and the work of the merely clever is another. The revolution came to a stop. The instant a revolution runs aground, the clever tear its wreckage apart.

The clever, in our century, have chosen to designate themselves statesmen, so much so that the word has come into common use. But we have to remember that where there is only cleverness there is necessarily narrowness. To say, “the clever ones” is to say, “the mediocrities”; and in the same way to talk of “statesmen” is sometimes to talk of betrayers.

Mia worried at a knuckle and finally snapped the book closed. “ ‘The Miserable Ones,’ indeed,” she murmured, staring at the title. She glanced at her desk screens. The flow charts she had pulled from the encryptions in the endpapers made a convoluted but traceable path from Earth to the blockade and through various points among the ships, where everything came and went on Nova Levis as though a military interdiction was merely thicker air to shove through. If the numbers were to be believed, traffic in and out of the planet had decreased by less than forty percent since the line went up. That was hardly a sanction at all. Luxury goods had accounted for nearly forty-eight percent of trade goods prior to the blockade. The necessities still flowed.

Her comm chimed.

“Yes?”

“It’s Yalor,” her aide said. “Can we talk?”

“Come by my cabin.”

A few minutes later, Mia admitted Ros Yalor. He spotted the bound volume of Les Miserables lying on her desk and stood over it, gazing down with a bewildered near-reverence. Books, Mia reflected, are generally outside common experience; books like this are nearly alien objects—apocryphal, arcane, somehow magic, and not quite real.

“Do you have something for me?” she asked finally.

“Um . . . yeah. Reen’s off-duty time seems to be spent mainly with Illen Jons. A lot of time in her cabin. When they go out, it’s either to the officers’ lounge or over to one of the Keresian ships. I haven’t been able to follow them there, obviously, but four hours ago I picked Reen up without her, going through the machine shops next to the recon patrol docks.”

Mia looked at the flow chart still displayed on her desk screen. “What did he do there?”

“I didn’t get too close. But he waited for nearly forty minutes. A tech sergeant showed up then and they spoke, and Reen left. I thought about following Reen, but I stuck around. About ten minutes later, a row of supply trucks rolled into the dock.”

“Containing what?”

“Nothing. They were empty. Half an hour later, a ship docked. The tech sergeant met the pilot and the two of them started unloading a cargo. Packages—I couldn’t see what was in them, but they filled the train. The pilot went back to his ship, and the tech sergeant removed the trucks.”

Mia thought for a moment. “Tech Sergeant Uliskis.”

Yalor started. “Exactly. How—?”

“The routes through the regular cargo bays seem to be dodges. A lot of them get through, but they always plan on them getting caught. That’s why we never find much of any consequence in them—food stuffs, fabric, data. Always nice when it gets through, but nothing vital. The real smuggling is going through the recon docks—military, secured areas, with Reen controlling the surveillance. I needed proof.”

Mia tapped keys on the desk. Data shifted on her screens. “That—” she pointed “—is a list of officers ordering and receiving copies of these things.” She held up the book. “All of them are recon. All of them are cleared for overflights on Nova Levis. All of them have access to the seven docks listed here—” she pointed at another screen. “These are what I culled from the encrypted data in the endpapers of the books I took from Corf. There’s a network of connections throughout the blockade, but they all funnel into these seven docks. All of them are recon patrol. Finally, I have this.” She indicated a third screen. “The books were all purchased through the same supplier. The names were different on all the orders, but the payment came out of one source. That source uses the same bank as Commander Reen. Reen maintains a joint account in that bank.”

“With who?”

“A Keresian named Lavis. Till recently, he was a personal aide to the Solarian ambassador on Earth.”

Yalor looked confused. “How . . . where . . . ?”

“You thought what? I was just an out-of-favor field operative transferred out here for disciplinary reasons?”

Yalor frowned. “No, I—”

Mia laughed. “Forget it. Actually, the hardest part was finding the bank account. It’s held under a corporate blind. But someone has to sign the receipts.”

“So there’s a contact on Earth supervising that end . . . and Reen here supervising incoming and outgoing . . . and a cadre of corrupted recon officers actually moving the merchandise . . . it still doesn’t quite add up.”

“What’s wrong?” Mia asked.

“Well, I can understand what Nova Levis wants, what they’re importing. But what’s coming back out?”

“And where is it going? Good question.”

“Do you have a good answer?”

“A good suspicion . . . but I don’t want to say anything till I know. There are only a few places where Tech Sergeant Uliskis could stash contraband near that dock. How long ago did you leave him?”

“Half-hour at most.” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty-three minutes.”

Mia closed up her desk. “I want a look inside those trucks.” She opened a drawer and took out a holster and blaster. “Are you armed?”

“A stunner,” Yalor said.

Mia handed him another holster. She shrugged off her jacket and slipped the rig on over her shoulders. She zipped her jacket and waited for Yalor to do the same.

He looked uncertain. “What if—?” he began.

“We’re going to be prowling around a thief’s property,” Mia said. “How do you think he’ll react if he catches us?”

Yalor put on the shoulder rig.

Mia squeezed through the space between two columns, into a short, low-ceilinged platform above an equipment locker. Below, Yalor’s train of drone trucks stood near the hatch. Voices came from within the locker. Mia palmed her stunner and leaned out to peer into one of the open trucks.

Neat rows of long blue packages filled the last car. As Mia stared at them, she experienced an intimation about their nature that made her shudder.

A shadow reached out from the locker and she pulled back.

The tech sergeant and another man came out and began removing the packages. Each of them hand-carried about six of the objects. She rejoined Yalor.

“Once they seal that locker,” she whispered, “we might not be able to get in without setting off an alarm.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

Mia considered. “I don’t see anyone but those two. I’m going down.”

“Let me,” Yalor said.

“You think you’re a better thief than I?”

He frowned.

“No,” she said, “you stay up here and cover me.”

She found a ladder down to the lower level. As she descended, she worked through her reasoning. She needed evidence to break into that locker officially. She needed something she could accuse Reen of smuggling in that would draw enough attention to effect appropriate action. If she was correct in what she believed was in those packages, no amount of bribery would keep an inquiry from falling on Reen like a rock.

And she wanted to justify her own mounting rage.

Mia kept to the walls and shadows as she worked her way close to the trucks. She could hear the two men within the locker, talking in reasoned, calm voices. They did not seem to be in a hurry.

She wished she could get to the other side of the train, use it as cover, but that might be too risky. She came as close to the open locker door as she dared and waited. The sergeant and his assistant came out, gathered a load of the packages, and reentered the locker.

Mia stepped up to the truck. She glanced back quickly. She saw neither man.

She reached into the truck and grabbed one of the packages. Her hand closed around a familiar shape within the loose blue wrapping, and she knew at once what it contained.

Her body seized as if waves of electricity had been suddenly poured over her. She could not move. Her jaw ached from clenching. She felt simultaneously weightless, her feet barely touching the deck, and enormously heavy.

After what seemed like minutes, the current stopped. Her head lolled back on her shoulders, her vision danced with sparks, and she never felt the impact as she hit the floor.

She opened her eyes to darkness and rumbling. It took seconds for her to identify her surroundings, for her mind to confirm what her senses already knew.

I never expected death to be so loud, she thought.

Then she was fully conscious, and she knew. She groped in her jacket for a hand light, felt the ominous shape of her blaster—cocky bastards, leaving her armed, but what difference would it make on impact?—and then found the little flashlight. She thumbed it on.

The light scattered over a jumble of shapes that refused to make immediate sense. Gradually, she recognized them as shipping webs, containing cargo nacelles.

She reached out in the near weightless space and grabbed one of the straps. She pulled herself forward—at least, toward the direction she faced—until she got to the end of the row of cargo.

Yalor floated in the harsh beam of her light, tied loosely to another web. The side of his head looked swollen, dark.

“Shit,” she hissed.

She probed the nacelles within the webbing. Hard casing, no telling what was within them unless she could get one loose and open it. Mia began pulling herself frantically through the hold of the drone. Somewhere, on board all these boats, there ought to have been crash couches, “just in case,” as the tradition of using anything and everything as a life raft dictated.

Near the aft engine housing she found them. But cargo had been lashed to the bulkheads all around. Even strapped into the couches, if the boat slammed into the ground they would be crushed by the cargo that would no doubt pull free.

She took out her blaster and set the beam for a narrow, low intensity burn, and cut through webbing. One nacelle floated out. She wrestled into onto one of the couches and cut the seals.

It was filled with bubblepacks containing, as best she could see, pharmaceuticals. She checked the ‘packs—impact resistant, unbreakable, opened only by a molecular key.

Mia managed to secure the nacelle to the couch, then wrestled another one into the next couch. She emptied out several of the bubblepacks to make room, then towed Yalor’s limp body over. She got him inside the nacelle and shoved ‘packs around him as best she could, then resealed the nacelle. It was a risk, she knew, unsure how long they still had in the descent—average for a drone was half an hour, but she had no idea how long she had been unconscious—and they might suffocate before hitting the ground. Either way, they would be dead, but there might be a chance inside the well-packed confines of the nacelle—

She heard a high keening sound, at first distant, but growing. Atmosphere raking the hull.

She climbed into her own coffin and jerked the lid to. She groped through the ‘packs until her hand brushed the inner surface of the lid and found a molded form. She took hold of it with both hands, held tight, and waited.

A few minutes later, the first impact yanked the lid from her fingers. Somehow she stayed inside, even while all the bubblepacks spilled through the air above her.

The lid slammed back down, and the boat began its skipping and plowing crash into the dirt of Nova Levis.

... Continued in Volume 10

Sources of Dates

(For Volume 9)

AD = Anno Domini

GE = Galactic Era

FE = Foundational Era

Chimera Takes place one year after Mirage.

Aurora Takes place a few months after Chimera

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright

Table of Contents

Chimera

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

Aurora

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Sources of Dates