been activating the sleepers.”
There was silence.
“Look,” Vanessa began, “Just because he was out of camera view when—”
“I know him.”
Medusa said: “You do? From where? His biometrics don’t register anywhere in the Sarcodinay database.”
“They wouldn’t. He’s a Kaimer graduate. Like Kaimer itself, he would be compartmentalized into invisibility.”
“You went to school with him?”
“Not exactly.” I reached to pour myself another drink, then decided against it. “You know, the whole activated sleeper thing with Kaimer took me by surprise because I always thought that at least some of the students there were being trained to be active special operatives, people who were fully aware of who they worked for and what their missions involved. You don’t use triggers buried in the subconscious on people who are consciously following your wishes. Part of my reason for that belief was because one of my primary teachers was just such a person—a Kaimer-trained assassin who had taken his oaths to throne and empire.”
Vanessa paused. “What does that have to do with this man?”
I swallowed and gestured expansively towards the screen. “Because he is this man. Meet Zacharei Zaitsev, one of my teachers at the Kaimer School and the most dangerous human I have ever known.”
“Ah,” Vanessa said. “That explains the way you turned out, doesn’t it?”
ggg
I hear shouting inside Minister Lorvan’s office. I try to shrink smaller into the oversized Sarcodinay chair in the foyer and pretend the shouting isn’t because of me. Bad enough I am here; I’ve never heard of any student going to the Minister’s office who came back out again. I have attacked a teacher, and the Kaimer School was notoriously unforgiving of such things.
Penrolyr is shouting. She demands I die for daring to lay a finger on her. I hear a timid, too-polite female voice: Victoria, the human who teaches my language classes. Other teachers are in the room as well. I don’t think one of them will stand up to try to save my life.
After a few more minutes the door opens. Penrolyr stalks out, casting such a smug grin in my direction that I know I am doomed. The others follow, eyes downcast, grim or vacant of any emotion at all.
“In my office, Mallory,” Lorvan tells me.
I enter his office. I look around for escape routes, but I know there have to be a dozen masers trained at me. I can’t run fast enough, not with a broken arm. They have put me in a sling, but as a rule Kaimer doesn’t waste nanites on non-lethal injuries.
Object lessons, they call them.
“Sit.”
I do.
“It’s Penrolyr’s right to demand your death. I’m sure you are aware of the laws of this school. You are, aren’t you?”
I keep my eyes on the floor. “Yes, Sir.”
“Then you know what you’ve done. I commend your efforts to save the life of your study partner, but that in no way exempts you from punishment for your own actions. And the surviving boys are claiming the attack against your partner was in retaliation for sexual advances...”
“That’s a lie!”
“Control yourself.” He glances at me uneasily, and I see his fingers are a few spaces from a control panel undoubtedly designed to activate automated defenses. At that moment I realize something: Lorvan is scared of me.
It doesn’t really make me feel any better.
“Your partner will not be punished, however I have no choice—” He stops talking, and stares over my shoulder.
I look behind me. The dark-haired human who’d rescued me is standing there, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the door frame. He holds Lorvan’ gaze in a tight grip.
“You were saying, Lorvan?” His voice is sardonic, smooth, and unabashedly contemptuous. I blink at the man, stunned with amazement that a Human can talk that way to a Sarcodinay and live to finish the sentence.
“Uh....I....” Lorvan searches around vacuously for what he’d been about to say. “Oh yes. I have no choice but to remove both of you from regular classes. From now on you’ll be training with private tutors we’ll bring in... uh... including this man here, Seris-Zaitsev. Hopefully we can prevent any more incidents like this from happening again.”
My new teacher nods. “Indeed.” Then he looks at me. “Come with me. I’ll have your possessions transferred to your new room.”
I nod and follow him out. I am confused. I’m certain that Lorvan had been about to have me killed or injured as punishment. I would have sworn it. But he hadn’t. I didn’t understand why Lorvan changed his mind.
I bite my lip the long walk back to the student’s barracks. The man, Zacharei, doesn’t feel any need to fill up the empty space with chatter, and so we walk in silence. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. He doesn’t act like the other humans at the school, not even Duncan. He isn’t subservient, meek, self-effacing. His expression is a cold sneering dare. He wears the Black: he is a Kaimer graduate—a killer. He carries himself like one.
Finally I can’t stand it any longer. “May I can you a question?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You may.”
“How did you know what was going on? When Paul was attacked, you were there so quickly. How did you know Paul was in danger?”
“I didn’t,” he says.
“You didn’t?”
Zacharei looks at me through slit eyes, a snake contemplating a rabbit. “I knew you were in danger.”
ggg
Vanessa sat down across from me in the cabin and waved her hand in front of my face. “Hello...Earth to Mallory?”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Medusa just said that Cerberus doesn’t have a record of Zacharei Zaitsev either, although she didn’t expect otherwise.”
I sighed and rubbed my temples. “And Duncan Goliard?”
“No information,” Medusa replied.
“You think they’re working together?” Vanessa asked.
I paused. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Well, which is it?”
“What I remember of Duncan—he would never have cooperated with something like this. Duncan was Zach’s ideological opposite. But my memories may be unreliable, and if Goliard truly is Kantari...”
“Duncan Goliard is a Kantari?” Vanessa asked. “When did this happen?”
“I started remembering things about the school. Things I was encouraged to forget. One of those pieces of information is the knowledge that Goliard was a Kantari.”
Vanessa poured herself a shot of cachaça in a new glass. “Duncan Goliard? Am I remembering him correctly? He’s the one who helped you break the Sarcodinay conditioning, right? Paul thought the world of him.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And he’s the man you found out had been assassinated by the Sarcodinay, wasn’t he?”
“Right.” I frowned at the memory.
“You went ballistic when you found out. I mean, you went certifiable.”
“Yes, I know. I was there.”
“You quit Janus because of him, because of learning what happened to him. You went tagger on us, joined a striketeam so you could have your vengeance and kill every Sarcodinay you could find.”
I smiled, grim and bitter and not at all happy. “Except if he really is Kantari then he’s not dead. It takes a lot more than a couple hits from a laser to kill one of their race. It means that the identity he had assumed so he could watch over me wasn’t needed anymore, so he just shed it and moved on. Don’t I feel silly pursuing my streak of vengeance for someone who didn’t need avenging after all?” I tapped the counter with my nails. “I am praying he is not involved in this. Zach by himself has me terrified. I don’t know how we could possibly deal with a virtually un-killable telepathic shape-changer.”
“But Zach was a normal human, right?”
“I did mention he is a Kaimer graduate, didn’t I?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Duncan alwa
ys emphasized non-violent solutions to problems, working outside of normal expectations. He was the expert on social engineering, persuasion, turning the enemy to your side or using his strength against him. Zach thought in terms of tactics, strategy, putting your opponent in a position of weakness for the killing blow. He was ruthless. Duncan would have considered killing over 300 humans and Sarcodinay to assassinate a single Sarcodinay War Leader to be sloppy work, and would have questioned why the War Leader needed to die in the first place. Zacharei, on the other hand, would not have hesitated.”
“And didn’t hesitate,” Medusa added. “Assuming he is the one doing this.”
“It can’t be coincidence he was there.”
“No, but it is circumstantial. All you know right now for certain is that he faked his identification on North Point Station and that he is very likely responsible for the death of that High Guard.”
“And he still cares about you,” Vanessa added. When I glanced at her sharply, she said, “It doesn’t sound like he was under any obligation to come out of hiding. The only reason you have him on film at all is because he answered Medusa’s rescue call. He even stopped to check on you. I’m betting he wouldn’t have done that if it were anyone else. If Lorvan knew that, then it might explain why he thought you were the only one who could help him, because he thought you were the only person that Zach wouldn’t kill.”
“Then Lorvan was naive. Zach would never let his emotions interfere with completing a mission. Zach is a pro. He is the definition of ‘pro.’ Flynn has nothing on this man.”
“Still, it may answer the question of why Lorvan went to you in the first place.”
“I know. And it