I kept my face expressionless as I struggled to make logic out of where I’d been and what I’d learned last night, when Miya … before she’d— I dragged my mind away from her memory. If Sand already knew everything, I’d be in Borosage’s lockup, not here at this meeting.
I tried to think about Joby: Joby was the whole point of this. But in the light of a new day, I realized I couldn’t be certain of anything—who I’d be helping, who I’d be hurting, if I opened my mouth. “Someone from HARM contacted me—”
“How did they know where to find you?” Borosage demanded.
I glanced up, frowning. I was sitting directly across from him, putting as much table surface as I could between us but still giving myself a clear view of his hands. “Well, I don’t know,” I said, staring at my tiny, distorted reflection in the metal skullcap around his eye. “I suppose they read my mind.”
“You don’t think it had anything to do with your visit to the oyasin?” Sand asked, too casually. Borosage’s eyes ate holes in me.
“No,” I said, remembering not to be surprised, remembering that as long as I wore a databand I couldn’t even take a piss in a public toilet without somebody knowing it. “She’s got nothing to do with this. She’s just an old woman.”
Borosage grunted in disgust; the ghost vips stared. “Then what were you doing down by the river in the middle of the night?”
“I wasn’t doing anything. I couldn’t sleep.” I glanced at Perrymeade, remembering why.
“There was some—dissension among the team members … about the constant interruptions of their field work,” Perrymeade murmured. His expression tried too hard as he looked from face to face.
I followed his gaze around the circle of faces, registering everything from suspicion to total incomprehension. “Doesn’t anybody on this planet ever have trouble sleeping? Do you put drugs in the water supply—?”
Frowns, real and virtual. “Perhaps it’s because we all have clear consciences,” Kensoe said.
“Then I don’t know what we’re doing here.” I picked a blue flower from the dish on the table. I put it in my mouth. Its petals dissolved on my tongue with a faint taste of mint. I swallowed, wondering if every color had a separate flavor. I picked another one.
“Cat,” Perrymeade murmured, “what about Joby? Anything—?”
I forced myself to ease off and keep my attention on him. “It was Miya who contacted me.”
“Miya—?” he said, turning in his seat to face me. “You actually met with her?”
I nodded. “And I saw Joby.”
He stopped breathing. “She brought him to you?”
“She brought me to him. Somewhere in Freaktown.”
“Where?” Sand demanded. “Can you locate it on a map—?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We teleported.”
“I thought you were brain-damaged. I thought you couldn’t do any of that.”
“I can’t … I didn’t have to,” I said, slowly and carefully, like he was the one with brain damage. “Anyhow, even if I could locate their safehouse on a map, it wouldn’t do you any good. They said they wouldn’t be there in the morning. Do you want me to tell you what happened last night, or not?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Then butt out.”
“We’re all here to listen,” Perrymeade said, his voice straining. “Please, tell us.…”
I took a deep breath, and nodded. “Joby’s all right. Miya’s taking care of him. I don’t think she’ll let anything happen to him.”
A film of relief formed on his face as thin as monomole. “Then she is with HARM?” he murmured. I could barely make out the words.
I nodded again. His face went gray—the face of someone hearing his own death sentence. I glanced at the other faces around the table, reading their expressions as they looked at him. I realized then why he looked the way he did: He hadn’t merely handed over his own nephew to kidnappers by trusting a Hydran. He’d also ruined his career—which meant his entire life. I felt a sick pity for him, a sudden helpless resentment toward the Hydrans and toward Miya … felt my doubts and my loyalties eddying like oil in water.
I met Perrymeade’s gaze again, and there was only one thing I was sure of now: I couldn’t trust him anymore. Because even he didn’t know how far he’d go to save his own place in the keiretsu.
“How many other HARM members did you meet?” Sand asked, getting impatient when I didn’t go on.
I shrugged, shaking off Perrymeade’s stare. “Maybe half a dozen.”
“Did you get a sense of how many there are altogether? Did you learn any identities? Would you know them if you saw them again?”
“No,” I said, knowing his bioware could read my galvanic responses like a truthtester, but knowing from experience that I had enough control over my life signs to keep him from reading the truth. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t find them. They don’t have databands.” I watched him frown.
Borosage shifted in his seat, rubbing his thick, scarred hands together. I studied him, trying not to make it obvious; watched him watching me, hating me.
I shifted in my own seat until I didn’t have to look at him anymore. I glanced out the window, needing to clear my head. The scene had changed, subtly. I realized that the room we were in was rotating almost imperceptibly through a full 360-degree view of the city and the land beyond it. I wondered who had designed this complex and the Aerie canting out over the edge of Riverton’s neat little world like a bird ready to take flight. I wondered what had been on the mind of whoever had done it. I looked down at the tabletop in front of me again, feeling queasy.
Looking back at Sand didn’t make me feel better. I knew in my gut that nothing I could say would reach the Tau Board Members, any more than I could reach across the table and touch them. Perrymeade was a desperate man, and Borosage didn’t even qualify as human. The only person in this room who might actually listen to what I had to say was Sand. I wished like hell that I could get a glimpse of what was going on inside his head right now; wished he even had eyes that I could look into. “The, uh, HARM members told me that they’d only return the boy if the FTA investigators come to Freaktown to meet with them. They want the Feds to witness firsthand the things they claim need changing. They want the FTA to support their demands; they want more rights … and more help, from Tau.”
Kensoe snorted. “After kidnapping a crippled child, they want more freedom, and more aid from us?”
“The same tired set of complaints we’ve been receiving from the Hydran Council ever since Landfall,” another Board Member, one I hadn’t met, said. He frowned at the view, or at some view.
“The Hydran Council has no real influence, even with their own people. It can’t even control these terrorists—” Kensoe said.
“Maybe that’s why HARM feels it has to make demands,” I said. “Because when they say please, you don’t listen.” Perrymeade’s eyes were begging me to stop; I looked away. “They want the Feds to make an impartial report.”
“The FTA, impartial?” Sithan muttered. “That’s an oxymoron.”
“I saw the kind of things the Hydrans want to change—”
“You saw what HARM wanted you to see.”
“Freaktown’s medical center is a joke,” I said. “And there are addicts hooked on drugs they could only be getting from this side of the river. If you want to make a profit off of them, why don’t you sell them medical technology, not street drugs—”
“That is absolutely not true,” Borosage said, opening his mouth for the first time.
“Maybe you aren’t the best one to give an opinion on that.” I glanced away at the ring of faces, back at Borosage. “They get hooked on the drugs you use on them in jail. Where do they get their supply—are you selling it to them?”
He pushed up out of his seat, like he actually intended to come after me. Sand stopped him with a look. Perrymeade put a hand on my arm, the fingers closing over my flesh so hard it hu
rt. “Cat,” he murmured. “For God’s sake—”
“Kindly keep your naive political opinions to yourself,” Kensoe said. “You’ve caused enough trouble.” His empty gaze looked right through me. He looked past me at Sand, dead eyes meeting dead eyes, before I could even close my mouth. “Of course, acquiescing to their demands is out of the question,” he said. “Ours is the position of strength. The cost-benefit ratio of any conciliatory action would be completely unacceptable.”
“Am I to understand, then, that you feel any contact Cat has achieved with HARM is essentially useless?” Sand asked. “That any attempts to regain control of the situation through negotiations will fail?”
“It has never been our policy to tolerate Hydran dissidence,” Kensoe said. He gave Sand a sidelong look, as if he was trying to guess what really lay behind Sand’s question. Corporate politics was a mind game, a minefield where judgments so subtle even a psion might miss them could mean life and death for an entire Board. “We can’t be soft on this sort of thing—you know where that leads. Administrator Borosage has made it clear enough: Terrorism must be rooted out, or it spreads.” He checked Sand’s expression again, surreptitiously.
Sand didn’t say anything, just went on listening, noncommittal, as other vips muttered agreement around the table. Nobody suggested any alternatives. No one even asked a question.
I swore under my breath. “What about Joby?” I said.
“Who?” someone asked.
“The boy they kidnapped—!” I broke off. There was no use arguing fairness or justice with these people. Compassion probably didn’t mean anything to them either.
“You said yourself that you didn’t think they’d harm him,” Kensoe said. “Aren’t those people supposed to be nonviolent?” He looked at Sand; Sand shrugged. “After the FTA’s representatives are gone, they’ll have no reason to keep him. They’ll let him go.”
“What if they don’t?” I said. I looked at Perrymeade. “What if they don’t…?” He sat motionless, frozen, not meeting my eyes at all now.
“That would be unfortunate,” Kensoe said. He took a sip of water, as if having to express any emotion, even as a lie, was enough to choke him. “But the child was defective, wasn’t he? Perhaps his family would even be relieved without that burden. They’re relatives of yours, aren’t they, Perrymeade? What do you think about that?”
Perrymeade stirred beside me. “Yes, sir,” he said thickly. “Perhaps so.”
I turned in my seat to look at him. The urge to shout out what kind of a bastard and a coward I thought he was filled my throat until I couldn’t speak. Everything Miya had told me must be true: about why Joby had been born with genetic damage; about why his parents would never have another child … about why Tau’s Board might even prefer it if they never got him back. Suddenly I wanted to be out of this room more than anything I could think of, except never to have set foot on this world at all.
“This remains a dangerously volatile situation,” Sand said to Kensoe after a silence that seemed to last for years. “Pursue every opportunity to keep this situation under control. For humanitarian reasons … and for practical ones as well, you ought to keep your options flexible. But I think you understand what I am saying.” More nods, around the table.
His glance flicked to me. “That brings me back to you. You said you’d do anything in your power to help Joby. It will be up to you,” he said, and his stare was a black hole, sucking me in, “to make the Hydran radicals understand that this act of terrorism will gain them nothing. Tau will not meet their demands. The people they claim to be doing this for will only suffer, if they cause Tau more trouble with the FTA. That would be disastrous for Tau and disastrous for the Hydrans as well. Surely that isn’t what they want. There can be no winners in such a situation. Make them see reason.”
“Me?” I said. “I’m not a diplomat. How am I supposed to change their minds? I can’t even change yours.”
He looked at me. “Do you believe what I just told you?”
Slowly I nodded.
“Then you can make them believe it. Just let them look into your mind … your soul.” His face was absolutely expressionless.
I shook my head. “But I don’t even know how to contact them—”
“They’ve obviously chosen you to be their go-between. They’ll contact you; soon, I would expect. They’ll have to.” He rose from his seat, smoothly and unexpectedly, nodding to each phantom Gentleman and Lady of the Board in turn.
“I’m not a trained negotiator,” I protested, twisting in my seat as he started past me. “I’m not even a Tau citizen. Why are you putting this on me—?”
“Because,” he murmured, leaning over and lowering his voice until only I could hear him, “from what I can see, no one associated with Tau has even the slightest idea of how to resolve the situation without bloodshed.” He straightened up again. “I’m sure you’ll do everything humanly possible to prevent a tragedy from occurring, Cat.” I wondered whether he was being ironic. “If everything you can do is still not enough, Administrator Borosage is responsible for any further actions that Tau takes.” He glanced at Borosage, back at me. “And now, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board, I must be going, if I’m to make the shuttle.”
“Going?” I said. “You’re leaving?”
Sand shrugged. “I’ve been called home by Draco.” Out of the line of fire. The worst thing I could have imagined happening as I’d come into this meeting had happened before it even began: Draco had already distanced itself, literally and figuratively, from any of the repercussions they’d decided were going to strike Tau.
I sank back into my seat. “You coward,” I breathed, and saw him frown. But he went on toward the lift without stopping.
Around the table the Board Members began to wink out of existence one by one, until I was left with only Perrymeade, that lifeless puppet, and Borosage, who was smiling.
FOURTEEN
I GOT UP. “Let’s go,” I muttered to Perrymeade. I struck the back of his seat.
He stood up without protest, glancing at Borosage and back at me. He nodded once and led the way to the lift.
I heard Borosage leave his seat behind us; heard his footsteps closing in on us. Somehow I kept myself from looking back or flinching as he crossed into my line of sight. He blocked my path as we reached the lift.
I had to stop moving or run into him. I stopped.
“It’s just you and me now, freak,” he said, as if Perrymeade had disappeared along with the rest of them. “And you heard what he said—” Sand. “You make the rest of the freaks understand that Tau isn’t caving in on this. Because I’m in charge here, and they’re making me look bad. This is going to cost them no matter what they do. It might not cost them too much, but only if they surrender the boy soon. You understand me—?”
The lift doors opened, slowly, silently, behind him. But there was no way to get by him until I gave him an answer.
I chewed the inside of my mouth. Finally I muttered, “I understand.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.” He glanced at Perrymeade. “You get that freak Hanjen on line and tell him what’s going to happen. The Council must know something—those people have no secrets. Tell him they’d better cooperate with us. I’ll be waiting. I’ll be watching,” he said to me. His mouth twitched. “All the time … freak.” He looked down at my databand before he moved out of my way and let us pass.
Perrymeade took me back to the hotel, not to the site where the research team was working. He looked out the window the whole way; never looked at me once until the mod settled in the usual spot in the square.
“So this is it,” I said. “I’m off the team? What does that make me, then? Your prisoner? Borosage’s meat—?”
He looked at me then, finally. His eyes were wet and red.
I closed my mouth and got out. I crossed the plaza without looking back as the mod rose up again behind me.
Ezra was waiting in front o
f the hotel when I reached it. My hands fisted as I saw him, until I realized he wasn’t waiting there for me.
He wasn’t even looking at me. He was standing in the center of a pile of luggage, looking up into the sky as an air taxi came drifting down. It settled in front of him; a hotel worker began stowing his belongings into the maw that popped open in its side. Ezra got into the passenger compartment just as I reached the hotel entrance. I took the last bag out of the staffer’s hand. He took a look at me and went away. I threw the bag on top of the others and sealed the hold. Then I went forward until I was standing by the mod’s raised door.
Ezra looked out, starting to say something, spasmed in surprise as he saw me. He swore instead. His hand rose to cover his face: A patch of sudoskin still hid his nose, with purple bruise seeping out from under its edges. “What do you want?”
“Just wanted to say good-bye,” I said.
He glared at me, lowering his hand. “I don’t need this—” He gestured at the hotel, the town, the planet, me. “This means nothing.” Only the bitterness in his voice told me how much of a lie that was. “I could have been working on half a dozen better projects.” He slammed his hand down on the door control; the open door began to arc down above me. “I’ll get her back—” Kissindre. “Twenty years from now I’ll be at the top of my field. And you’ll still be nothing but a freak.”
I ducked aside as the door came down. “And you’ll still be an asshole,” I said. The door sealed with a soft hiss. I stepped back, watching the mod rise, watching his face and the hatred on it grow smaller and smaller until he merged into the mirroring window surface, into the mod itself, into the sky, until he’d disappeared.
I went into the hotel, straight to the nearest access port, and put in a call to the Feds. The message that came up on the empty screen told me they were gone from the hotel. Not just for the day—for good. Tau had taken them away, probably far away. I didn’t have to guess why.
I thought about tracking them down, sending a message after them, telling them why they had to come back. But even as I requested the search, my mind was calling up half a hundred reasons why it would never happen. And there was only one that mattered: They really didn’t give a damn. They’d been oblivious to Tau’s fawning and flattery. They’d been just as oblivious to everything I’d done to get their attention. Nothing really mattered to them; they were what I’d always thought the Feds were: drones, going through the motions and collecting their pay. Nothing short of a dome caving in on them personally was going to change how they saw any of this.