into static; and on the far side of the space station from us the Sarcodinay Nova-class carrier where Shaniran waited made good on the promise of my empty bluff and exploded in a brilliant, silent fireball.
In my mind, searing pain was overpowered by the cool flood of memory.
ggg
“You are too gracious,” I bow before the Emperor, showing him my thanks.
He smirks. “You may change your mind once you realize the enormity of the task that we have set before you. We do not desire first contact.”
I pause, surprised. “You do not?”
“No. Are you familiar with the work of Maia-Leia Shana?”
“Of course, your majesty. She is a priestess of great renown.”
“There have been some...” The Emperor waves a hand. “...initial samples taken. Discretely, of course. I asked Leia-Maia to analyze them for us. They are not compatible with our species, she tells us. The base acids are different. It would be impossible for any natural mating to occur, as the laws of the Tridates demand. Ignore that bit of trivia, however, and the differences between our two species amount to less than one percent.”
“One percent...” I murmur, then I feel my mouth drop open. “One percent?”
The Emperor cackles, and I do not dare suggest how undignified or insane it makes him look. “I know! One percent is practically standard deviation. You see, don’t you? They are us! Children of the Keepers, just as we are. We have found our brothers, our sisters!”
“Are you certain you do not wish first contact, your majesty?”
“No, no. It would ultimately be a disaster. They are too violent, too erratic, too divided. They do not even have a single government—they have a thousand governments. They are not to be contacted. Not at first. They must be conquered. They must be broken.”
ggg
The High Guard shuddered. Her mind opened to me. Her mental assault slackened, slowed.
I didn’t have any opportunity to savor my victory. The universe reared up and swallowed me into the black.
EIGHT.Belisle
“So what were you doing here again?” Navy Intelligence officer Petrov asked me, drilling his nails on the Sarcodinay conference room table. His red face was puffy, covered with soot, and he hadn’t had any time to change out of the vacuum suit he’d worn when helping out with search and rescue. The dirty brown and metallic ochre stains on the fabric could only be blood, human and Sarcodinay—mostly Sarcodinay. His partner, Kovacs, was standing against the wall, holding up the side of the station with his shoulder. Kovacs was a long grim-faced man who wouldn’t have looked out of place standing on the street corner of any given western frontier town, showing off his selection of coffins to the passing gunslingers.
Someone had found me a ceramic mug. The coffee was cold, but I held it anyway—mostly to hide my shaking hands. “I told you, I came here to talk to the War Leader.”
That wasn’t good enough for Petrov. It hadn’t been good enough the last time I’d said it either. “Mighty strange company you keep, for an IO agent still ranking as lieutenant. I suppose you’re on a first name basis with the Emperor, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, mostly to put some variety into the script. We’d already been through a few repetitions.
Kovacs spoke for the first time. His voice was the quiet hiss of air escaping to vacuum. “No, what’s ridiculous is that a guy like Shaniran would spare the two seconds it takes to wipe his ass on someone like you.”
I raised an eyebrow and tried to pull the cloak of tough bitch back over me. “Oh, so you do talk? Amazing. Next you’ll be walking around on two legs like everyone else.”
Petrov leaned forward. “Why you little—”
Kovacs chuckled and looked at me. I could tell he was mentally fitting me for that coffin. He held up a hand to his overly enthusiastic partner. “Don’t rise to it. She’s baiting you.” He chuckled again. “You assholes in Intelligence Operations think you’re such hot shit.”
“Only compared to some.”
Petrov only knew one question, but he knew it by heart. “What were you doing here again?”
I groaned and wrapped the blanket they’d given me around my body tighter. It was damn cold in here. Most of life support and auxiliary power was being used overtime to keep the air breathable. Meanwhile, parts of the station were going to dip below freezing.
“You will answer our questions. I don’t care if you are IO—”
I looked up at him. “Do you have a hearing problem? I told you. I’ve told you a dozen times already.”
“Maybe I’ll start hearing you when you start telling the truth. There’s no way the Sarcodinay War Leader let you waltz through all his security. You were trying to steal records maybe? Or was this a black-bag job?”
“That’s Flynn’s specialty. I don’t do assassinations.”
The room grew quiet. They sat there looking at me like I’d told them that Emperor Kathanial had sent me a marriage proposal. They knew IO, at least by reputation. They knew about jerks like Flynn, whose fame could largely be attributed to the fact he was sloppy enough to have been caught. Who was I to explain to them that IO did more than break into people’s homes and kill them?
“I’m not an assassin,” I repeated.
Apparently I needed to wear a sign.
Petrov stopped tapping his nails against the hardwood desk and swiveled in his chair. “Yeah. You’re not an assassin. I’ve got a Sarcodinay carrier that’s imploded because someone brought a shuttle out of hyperspace inside their bridge. At least two hundred Sarcodinay got their toe tags out there, plus a dozen humans when the explosion tore open a section of the docking bay to vacuum. Now we’re sure that one of the Sarcodinay killed was their War Leader, Shaniran, although nobody’s going to know for certain until we finish DNA-checking the various fine red and gold mists floating around the station. On the outside ring we have a dead High Guard. A High Guard! I’ve never even seen one of them in person, but I know the rep. When a situation goes to hell the Sarcodinay will send in battalions, maybe a squad of knights in that fancy powered armor of theirs, unless it’s really fucked up and then they send in one guy. Only now this High Guard is dead with one of your daggers in her. But you don’t do assassinations.”
I pulled open the fingers of my left hand and removed the cigarette lighter I was clenching inside. I slowly slid the lighter out of reach.
“Are we boring you, Lieutenant?”
“I think you don’t need me, boys. You’ve already made up your minds about what happened. Why don’t you call it in? Call IO and ask for Merlin. He will tell I am not on a case. I’m not here on company time. I’m not under orders.”
“And I’m supposed to believe he’d admit to it if you were?” Petrov shared a good, long laugh with Kovacs the Undertaker. “Man, what kind of idiots do you take us for?”
I stared into space. “Don’t make me answer that question.”
Petrov stood up to start yelling at me as the door opened.
We all stopped.
The man who walked inside was a colony man. I could tell by looking at him. His parents hadn’t been matched up by some computer database on Terra. Love or hormones or any of the usual clichéd reasons had brought them together, and he was going to suffer for it for the rest of his life. He was blessed with a surplus of homely. His hair was unruly and rust-colored; a smattering of freckles drew attention to a wickedly long nose he could probably twitch on demand. His jaw was distinctly lop-sided and in this day and age, when a hundred fixes for poor vision existed, he wore old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses. His hands were jammed deep into green twill pants, almost but not quite faded to the color of sour apples. He looked like the kind of man who belonged in an old-fashioned Terran library, sorting through the periodicals or tsking to himself because someone left ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock’ over by Proust.
The newcomer waved Petrov back in his seat and sat down in a corner chair. He rested his chin on his chest, cro
ssed a leg over a knee, and seemed determined to take a nap. Neither Petrov nor Kovacs were inclined to make introductions.
Petrov and Kovacs stared at the man; the hesitation of schoolchildren when they realize a teacher is watching them practice the play. Should they go on? Stop? Start an improvisation?
“So who are you?” I asked.
He looked up from his catnap and smiled at me, thin and tight without showing any teeth. “I’m Colonel Belisle with Navy Intelligence. Pardon my boys. They can be a might enthusiastic.”
“Sure. So can rabid dogs.”
Petrov stood again. “Sir! She’s not—”
Belisle cocked his head and waved two fingers at Petrov’s direction, like turning down the volume. Petrov fell silent.
“Strange days, ain’t they, Lieutenant MacLain?” Belisle said.
“And how.”
Belisle rubbed his chin. He had graceful hands with long fingers, perfect for playing a concerto or moving a chess piece. I wondered if they would be equally proficient at using syringes or signing arrest orders. “You have a good rep, Lieutenant. Solid. Clean. You take a job. Job gets done. Best not to look too close at how. Most of the time the Sarcodinay never even realize you’d been there. They say you are the only person in the galaxy who can hack an AI. Hell, I’ve even heard you’ve built one.”
“Rumors are such wacky things, aren’t they? You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“I don’t, but it is my job to gather it all up and sift through it for the