Leave an old man to die. Let an impromptu child soldier fall behind to defend their rear. Let this bunch of hungry, tired, shaken-up people, few of them soldiers, run a brutal gauntlet that would surely kill some of them, if not all. Accept the acceptable losses.
No. No. Not on her goddamned watch.
“Captain Ariokis,” Cora said as the assassin was just passing her in the narrow hallway. Ariokis stopped with preternatural suddenness, regarding her sidelong. Cora said, “I need your help with something. Is there an infirmary in here?”
“Next chamber over,” Ariokis said. Her gaze flicked over Cora, quickly assessing. “You don’t look hurt.”
“I’m not. But I’m about to undertake a… special preparation. Something medical.”
Ariokis turned to face her full-on. She was half a head shorter and probably twenty pounds lighter than Cora, but it was still unnerving to have this much of an assassin’s attention. Cora had met a few asari huntresses who exuded the same quiet, eerie lethality. “Abubakar’s the only medic we have left,” Ariokis said. “I can find him for you.”
Cora swallowed. In for a penny, in for a credit. “No. I think this is something you’re perfectly suited for, actually. If—” If SAM-E’s wrong, I could become as much of a threat as the augments. At the very least, I fail, the group will need someone to lead them through to the shuttle. Or make a merciful end for them. She took a deep breath. Nerves. “If something goes wrong.”
Ariokis narrowed her eyes.
Finally, she said, “All right. Come on.”
They headed off to the infirmary.
BREAKING: ALLIANCE NEWS NETWORK SPECIAL REPORT
Newly declassified reports are shedding light on the recent disaster at the colony of Fehl Prime. Alliance intelligence suggests that a large vessel or asteroid crashed into the planet’s surface near the colony, but it remains to be explained how this object approached the colony without sufficient warning for an evacuation.
An Alliance marine, Lieutenant James Vega, received a commendation for his efforts to save the colonists, although those efforts proved ultimately futile. Requests for more information from Councilor Udina’s office have not been answered at this time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was surprisingly difficult to get an appointment with a minor Earth politician. Alec Ryder discovered this the hard way.
He called in favors, made offers, and issued a threat or two, all just to get the contact information of one Delegate Alis Silhaus of the Union of Incorporated Nations. UNIN had grown out of the remnants of the United Nations back in 2149, after the largest eighteen countries on Earth had united to form the Systems Alliance.
The smaller nations might have lacked the wealth, influence, and interplanetary reach of the Alliance, but they’d made up for some of that through close ties with a number of Earth-based corporations. It made them big fish in the small, backwater pond that was Earth—meaning that even a delegate from a nation so small that Alec kept forgetting its name had a substantial shield of bureaucracy around her. After the third hour of talking to the tenth official and leaving his fourteenth message, Alec got fed up.
“SAM,” he said. He sat in front of one of the terminals in his lab, rubbing his eyes.
“The course of action you’re considering is ill-advised, Pathfinder,” SAM replied.
Alec almost laughed, though he wasn’t entirely surprised. “And how do you know what I’m considering?”
“You’ve visited the Home Away project’s extranet site twice, checked Theia Station shuttle-prep records to see if there’s anything fueled and ready to go, and skimmed the list of qualified Initiative pilots for only twenty point two seconds. And you have been tapping the fingers of your right hand on that desk with exponentially increasing speed. The last time you exhibited that mannerism, you ended up in a fist-fight with Assistant Director Hachian.”
Oh, for—“It wasn’t a fist-fight.”
“My apologies. To clarify, you threw him onto an antique untempered-glass table. Which broke, resulting in the director needing a forty-stitch skin weave.”
“He fell, SAM.”
“My apologies. He fell, and you assisted his landing with military-grade hand-to-hand techniques.” A meaningful pause. “As I recall, Assistant Director Hachian tendered his resignation as soon as he regained consciousness, citing ‘that bastard Ryder’ as one of several job dissatisfaction factors.”
Alec made a face. He was really going to have to figure out which of SAM’s humor heuristics was responsible for the AI developing that deadpan vocal inflection. And he stopped himself from continuing to tap his hand.
“Well?”
SAM uttered a little sound, perhaps of exasperation. “As you requested, I have already asked Dr. Udensi to, ah, adjust the delegate’s day schedule. I recommend that you leave in ten minutes; your appointment is two hours from now. Shuttle 512 is on hangar pad three, only half-fueled, though that should be more than sufficient to get you to Home Away and back. I will of course assist you with piloting.”
“Home Away?”
“Yes. The delegate is currently visiting relatives who have a villa on the station.”
Alec got to his feet, beginning to pace. All of this had started with the theft. He’d been convinced until recently that the thief had been a simple opportunist, snatching a piece of Alec’s AI to sell for profit. But then he’d tracked the kernel package to Home Away, and then Menoris had betrayed Harper, and then someone had paid an assassin to get the kernel from Menoris…
It was Wei who’d found the first tracks leading to a possible endpoint, but Alec needed proof before he played J’accuse. Silhaus was his smoking gun, if he could get her to talk. It couldn’t be just coincidence that she had an affiliation with Home Away.
He pivoted on his heel and had set off before he realized he’d made the decision. “SAM,” he said as he walked, “ask Wei to do me one more favor. Tell him I’ll put another six-pack of that beer he likes into my personal-possessions locker.”
“I believe he has already found what you’re looking for, Pathfinder. And he advised me in advance to specify a keg, not a six-pack.”
“Of course he did.”
With an appointment on Delegate Silhaus’ schedule, Home Away’s security staff didn’t challenge Alec much even on an Initiative shuttle, particularly since he bypassed the station’s administrative hub and aimed straight for the platform which housed the Silhaus villa. Villa was a weak word for it: the platform accommodated a sprawling multi-storied complex of buildings in the old California hacienda style, with terracotta tiles on the roof and imported palm trees lining the walkways. The core of the complex was a mansion that probably contained at least twenty rooms. It had its own shuttle pad, naturally, and a flock of small security drones, which scanned Alec’s shuttle as it landed, but otherwise didn’t bother him.
An aide hurried up as Alec stepped out of the shuttle.
“Alec Ryder, I’m very sorry that I didn’t send my usual greeting before you landed,” she said, looking at a datapad in a frazzled sort of way. She was young and primly dressed, barely looking at him and frowning at the pad as if it had personally offended her. “I just didn’t notice you on the delegate’s schedule until now. If you’ll follow me…”
She led Alec along a winding pebbled path and through a carefully landscaped garden, until they reached a long teardrop-shaped pool. Here, stretched out on one of the loungers beside the pool, was Delegate Silhaus: a handsome woman of middle years, whose deep brown skin hardly needed the filtered sunlight, and whose salt-and-pepper hair formed a tight gray cloud around her face. She wore oversized sunglasses, which she pushed down as they approached, frowning over the rims.
“Alison, what is this?”
“I’m sorry, Delegate,” Alison replied, biting her bottom lip. “I should have reminded you in advance of this appointment. Shall I order refreshments for you and Mr. Ryder?”
Silhaus stared at Ryder, suspicion
narrowing her eyes. “Yes,” she said, slowly, “and double-check that day schedule. Take a particularly close look at when Ryder made this appointment, if you please.”
Alison looked confused, but she nodded. “I’ll have something brought right away.” She hurried off.
Alec folded his arms, waiting for Alison to be out of earshot. “I imagine you’ve guessed by now why I’m here.”
“Perhaps,” Silhaus said. She tapped the fingers of one hand on the arm of her lounger, then nodded to another seat behind Alec. “Sit down, Ryder, and educate me on why you just committed fraud in order to see me.”
Alec moved to sit on one of the other loungers, gingerly. The things looked so flimsy. He’d never been able to relax on them, even when Ellen had managed to drag him out for a vacation. These were higher-quality than most, though, made of heavy wood that must have cost a fortune to import up from Earth, so maybe it wouldn’t collapse under him.
“The core question,” he said, “is why you’re supporting the Home Away project. And who’s paying you to do it.”
Silhaus laughed a little. “Not the sort to waste time on pleasantries and small talk, I see.”
Alec resisted the urge to shrug… just. “I’m not a politician. And we’re both busy people.”
“So we are.” Silhaus regarded him for a long moment, then removed her sunglasses. Her eyes were an unnerving shade of pale brown. “I am on the board of the HOME Group, yes, which funds Home Away, among other projects. It’s a pleasant enough job, since they hold meetings in exotic locations all over the planet and they aren’t stingy with their perks. But I can’t fathom why that would be of interest to you.”
Alec blinked twice to ask SAM to feed him the information he’d requested before coming, via his ocular display implant. A chart of names and businesses, with arrows and explanations showing connections between them, appeared on his vision, though Silhaus would simply see his eyes flick away for a moment.
“You’re on UNIN’s Scientific Appropriations Committee,” he said aloud, as he realized what SAM was showing him. “Because of you, UNIN has contracted with several research companies that are affiliates of other companies in the HOME Group. They’re not paying for the station directly, but it wouldn’t take particularly creative accounting to shuffle some funds around…” Aha. “…until effectively UNIN, and not the HOME Group, is funding Home Away.” He glanced around at the palm trees, the sprawling villa, the privacy of the whole platform. “And that leaves corporate funds free to be siphoned into other projects. Like your private getaway, here.”
Silhaus, to her credit, did not look flustered or dissemble. She smiled a canny old politician’s smile. “This villa is owned—and paid for—by my brother.”
“He paid for the platform lease. But the villa was built for next to nothing by Wadjari Prefabs. That company seems to have no connection to the HOME Group, but the connection just isn’t official; its CFO is sleeping with the CEO of one of the HOME board member companies. Not the sort of thing a casual probe of your finances would detect.” Wei had only just found it, actually. “It’s a stock corruption case, as I see it. A politician pushing through governmental funding for a project that benefits her privately. You’ve even been funding Home Away’s media campaign against the Andromeda Initiative, so that your—sorry, your brother’s—property values will rise.”
Alec shook his head, trying to rein in his temper. Everything he’d spent years struggling to achieve, threatened now by a bunch of greedy politicians and executives. Unbelievable. “So how much does it cost to get Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani on your payroll?”
“She went after Cora Harper for free, actually,” Silhaus said. She spoke lightly, but her smile was gone now, and she sat very still. Alec had her, and they both knew it. “I just had to make the takeaway sound good enough. An exposé about some scientists and their barely relevant vanity project—that meant nothing to her… but a chance to smear the Initiative’s backer was another matter.”
Yes. Alec sat forward. “And how, exactly, did you make it possible for Ms. al-Jilani to do that?”
Silhaus caught her breath, her eyes narrowing at once. “So that’s it. You’re not after me, you’re after her. Our backer.”
I’m after whoever it is that stole my damned AI tech, and seems determined to share it with all of humanity, Alec thought grimly. What he said, though, was, “If you could tell me everything you know, I might have plenty of reason to forget what I know about you, Delegate.”
Silhaus pursed her lips for a long moment, considering. Then she said, “What you seem to have missed, is that the HOME Group isn’t just UNIN and some corporations. We have a quiet affiliation with the Systems Alliance, as well. It’s been polite and superficial so far—they give us interesting technology, we give them money. Lately, however, relations between our parties have deteriorated. Squabbling, you see, over a particularly sensitive piece of technology which recently fell into, and then out of, the HOME Group’s hands.”
Alec frowned. Then he understood. Oh, God. And—he inhaled, horrified as the enormity of what had happened sank in. The Alliance military has SAM’s kernel code now.
He got up and started pacing. He had to. “You’re kidding me. You’re kidding. They threw me out, but they’re perfectly happy to use what they threw me out for working on?”
“Not everyone in the Alliance, not by far. It might be best to think of this as a faction within the Alliance.” Silhaus shrugged. “Any large organization has them, and some of the people who heard your pitch to Ambassador Goyle, a few years back, were intrigued by what you suggested. Is it any wonder that some of them chose to pursue it? While, of course, appearing to follow Council Law when your, ah, indiscretions came to light.”
Damn military brass. No different from politicians, at the end of the day. “This is why I’m going to another goddamn galaxy,” Alec snapped.
Silhaus chuckled, but her smile didn’t last long. “There’s a place you should know about. A research-and-testing facility called Quiet Eddy.”
Alec stopped in mid-pace. Remembered, with a chill, the last transmission from Harper, which had come in just that morning. No audio or text this time, just coordinates. One of the Traverse systems, out on the Kepler Verge. A single hanar-sounding name amid a swath of Russian-themed planets and planetoids.
“I have an agent there,” he blurted without thinking.
“Do you?” Silhaus reached for the drink that had been sitting untouched on a sideboard since Alec had arrived; she took a sip. “Well. I hope your agent is very good, Ryder—and very quick, because my military friends tell me they lost contact with Quiet Eddy about twenty-five hours ago. They’ve dispatched a cruiser to attend to the problem.”
The Alliance didn’t send cruisers just to check on a possible comm failure. Cruisers had one job: to blast a target into its component atoms. And if one was on its way to this research facility…
He’d sent Cora there. He’d sent her there, alone. Soldiers had died on his watch before; he’d survived Shanxi, but never forgotten the faces of the lost. And that had been his greatest consolation since the end of his military career: He was Pathfinder now. His job was to save lives and help spread humanity among the stars, not send good people to their deaths.
He turned to Silhaus again, and she drew back a little at the look on his face. “Tell me everything about Quiet Eddy, Delegate,” Alec said. “Now.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Through the windows of the infirmary, Cora could see the survivors of Quiet Eddy rushing to complete their preparations. Nearly every person who hurried past had a gun in hand; a few were packing more than one. One woman carried what looked like a shield, jerry-rigged from a piece of metal wall plating and duct tape. Someone had brought Cora the set-aside ration packet, but she’d only drunk the silver baggie of fruit juice. She couldn’t rely on her stomach to keep anything more solid down, and she wasn’t hungry anyway. She never was, before battle.
“
Everyone,” said Dr. Jensen over the lab’s public address system. “Please gather in Decontam in ten minutes. I’m about to initiate the distraction—basically I’m going to ‘reveal’ a completely different level to Medea, and fill it with false human life-signs. In theory Medea will send all her augments there, which should give us a better chance, but…” A heavy sigh. “Well. If you’re the praying kind, now is the time.”
Cora leaned back on the infirmary cot, pressing the last glowing sensor into place just below one collarbone. “Okay,” she said to Captain Ariokis. “Once I begin, there’s a chance my heart will stop. That’s why I’m rigging myself up to the monitor in here.” That was what SAM-E had instructed her to do. The infirmary was fully automated, and had a defibrillator arm, an adrenaline injector, all the usual equipment. It would save her life if the process caused heart failure—not that that was the real danger. “If that happens, just let the equipment do what it’s made to do.”
“Understood,” Ariokis said, folding her arms. “But answer one question for me.”
“What?” Cora wriggled to get comfortable on the cot, unsuccessfully. She’d never liked infirmaries.
“Who is it that keeps talking into your earpiece?”
Cora froze. But then, she should’ve expected this. An assassin would be good at observation, and Cora wasn’t good at acting. And this was why she’d brought Ariokis here, after all—so she decided to tell the truth. “A friend.”
Ariokis narrowed her eyes. “A friend?”
Not entirely to Cora’s surprise, since she’d had to link him up with the infirmary’s systems, SAM-E’s voice abruptly reverberated from the room’s speakers. “I’m one of the Andromeda Initiative’s Simulated Adaptive Matrices, Captain,” he said. “Currently integrated with Lieutenant Cora Harper, as is standard for all Pathfinders and Pathfinder candidates. As I believe you have already guessed, I am an artificial intelligence.”