VI
The Pin
The Majda police station had no books, tapestries, brocaded divans, or anything else that remotely resembled the aristocratic gentility of the palace. Sleek and sharp, it was all polarized glass and white Luminex, and it looked as efficient as hell. Takkar met me in an interrogation room.
The chief and I faced each other across a table, both of us standing up. Takkar looked ready to blow holes in the sky, preferably with me as the ammo that got pulverized by the strike. People filled the overly bright room. Major Ebersole stood by the wall on my right, his handsome face schooled to neutrality. He would blend well into a crowd, making him even more effective in his job.
The Majda sisters were all here, tall, formidable, and pissed off. Corejida Majda paced like a caged desert-lion on my left, back and forth in front of her sister, Colonel Lavinda Majda. The colonel stood by the door, looking stunned. It didn’t surprise me. She had just discovered the dead body of one of her best people. Vaj Majda stood across the table with Takkar, a silent figure who watched us all, her appraising gaze like ice. I had no doubt she missed nothing.
Max, I thought. Record everything that happens here and store it in file “Interrogation.”
Recording, he thought.
The wall to my right doubled as a holoscreen. At the moment, it was playing the recording made by a Majda bee-bot that had followed Lavinda around today. The playback showed the flycar that had taken the colonel, her aide, her bodyguard, and Captain Krestone away from the palace.
The playback showed Lavinda’s flycar as it settled on the roof of an office tower in Cries. Krestone was piloting and Ebersole sat in the front passenger’s seat. The colonel and her aide were in the back of the car, working with screens they had rolled out into thin films on their laps. Holos danced in the air above the screens showing graphs, images, and glyphs.
Lavinda was professional with her male aide. It fit my research; the Majdas were scrupulous in their relationships. They treated everyone with the same distant professionalism. If they ever strayed in their personal lives, they had left no trace of their indiscretions. In their circles, heredity determined everything. During the Ruby Empire, the penalty for adultery among the nobility had been execution, and to this day that law remained in force. I had never heard of a noble House executing anyone for fooling around, and I seriously doubted they were all paragons of virtue, but they kept it discreet. As far as I could tell, however, the Majdas actually followed the law. They were annoyingly well-behaved, another reason blackmail would never work with them.
In the recording, the colonel disembarked with her aide and Ebersole, and the three of them walked across the landing pad. A bland bodyguard I vaguely recognized from the palace staff met them at the lift shaft, which jutted up from the roof like a spire of modern art. The bee-bot flew with them. The airlift inside was little more than a disk in a chute, but it lowered them so smoothly, it didn’t ruffle a lock of anyone’s hair. It stopped at upper level of the building, and the four of them walked into a huge place, a confusing expanse of gleaming silver and white Luminex. Then my mind reoriented and I made sense out of the scene. The room spanned the entire floor of the tower. Partial walls of white Luminex stood here and there, but it was mostly open. Abstract sculptures of blue and silver chrome stood in a few areas. It was artistic in a weird sort of way.
The colonel went to a glass-enclosed office with her aide and the bland bodyguard. She left a box of data spheres on the desk and checked the console there. Major Ebersole stood by the door and kept watch on the huge room, which was empty except for the three of them. He grinned suddenly and swatted directly at us, as if to strike our faces. Of course he didn’t. However, our view did swerve, showing the other offices as if the camera had swung around. Then it came back to Ebersole and the colonel. Hah! Ebersole had done the supposedly impossible, which was see a bee-bot spying on him, and by swatting it, he made it check the rest of the room. Smart fellow. So far all four of them were quite alive, and with Ebersole there, they seemed likely to stay that way. So when had Lavinda’s aide died?
At the moment, the aide was standing at Lavinda’s side in the office, checking his mesh glove whenever she asked him a question. The bodyguard stood behind him, looking bored. After about fifteen minutes, the three of them rejoined Ebersole and they all returned to the airlift. The entire visit seemed perfunctory, a company owner putting in an appearance. They rode back to the roof and walked to the flycar.
Krestone had fallen asleep, slouched over the controls. It was the first oddity; she was scrupulous about with her duties, and I could never imagine her sleeping at work. Judged from Lavinda’s frown, she had the same thought. When her group reached the flycar, the bodyguard opened the door and pulled Krestone back.
The captain’s body flopped lifelessly to the side.
Hell and damnation. I had assumed Lavinda’s aide was the one who died because he wasn’t here, but they must have already debriefed him.
“My people arrived three minutes after Colonel Lavinda commed us,” Chief Takkar said. “At that time, Captain Krestone had been dead for eleven minutes.”
I wanted to hit someone. I liked Krestone. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I also had no clue where the blazes Takkar had come up with me as a murder suspect. I’d been having dinner with Jak when Krestone died. Unfortunately I couldn’t prove it; I’d been shrouded, hiding from Majda. Even if I had thought Jak give me an alibi, I would never ask. No way could I risk drawing Majda attention to the Black Mark.
“What was the cause of death?” I asked.
“She was shot with a tangler.” Takkar’s voice hardened. “Your area of expertise, Major.”
Well, shit. That wasn’t evidence. I spoke coldly. “I trained with contraband weapons in the army, if that’s what you mean.”
All three sisters watched me with their dark eyes. Assessing.
General Majda spoke. “You can use a neural tangler?”
“Yes.” I met her gaze. “However, I haven’t fired one in years.”
“Where were you this evening?” Takkar asked, her voice even more brusque than normal. “For some odd reason, we have no record of your whereabouts.”
“I was having dinner with an old friend.”
Takkar’s snort left little doubt what she thought about my alibi. “His name?”
I crossed my arms. “Captain, are you accusing me of something?”
General Majda answered. “No one has accused anyone.” She glanced at Takkar. “Do you have evidence as to who fired the tangler?”
“We will,” Takkar said, which I translated to mean, We haven’t a clue. Tangler bursts were notoriously difficult to trace. They left no residue; they just disrupted neural activity in the brain. No matter. Whoever had done this to the captain would pay. I would see to that.
Vaj Majda was studying me. Her controlled expression and posture gave away nothing. I tried to remain cool, but being scrutinized by the General of the Pharaoh’s Army was an unsettling proposition. She spoke coldly. “You may return to your apartment. However, do not leave the city. And don’t use any more shrouds.”
That was no good. “I can’t do my job unless I can assure my sources of secrecy.”
“What sources?” Takkar demanded.
I just looked at her. She knew perfectly well I wouldn’t reveal mine any more than she would reveal hers.
Vaj spoke in her dusky voice. “Very well, Major. Use your judgment.” She left unspoken the obvious warning; if they had no record of my whereabouts, I had no alibi if anything else happened.
Corejida came over to me, her posture so tense she seemed ready to snap. “Have you news about Dayj?”
Normally I wouldn’t talk about a case with so many ends dangling. I didn’t want to give her false hope. Right now, though, it seemed a good idea to give them something before they decided to toss me in jail.
“It looks like he sold some jewels,” I said. “I think he bought a new identity and passage off Raylicon.”
“No!” Corejida stared at me. “That can’t be. Dayj has no idea how to do that.”
Takkar snorted. “It’s an absurd suggestion that he could manage that on his own.”
“It’s no less absurd,” I said, “than suggesting I shot Captain Krestone.”
“I didn’t hear any such suggestion,” Lavinda said coldly. “Just an inquiry establishing that you had the requisite experience.”
“Stop it!” Corejida told her younger sister.
Lavinda’s reaction didn’t bother me. She had just witnessed the death of a vital member of her staff, probably someone she liked, given Krestone’s personable nature. Vaj Majda unsettled me far more. She stood back, quieter than the others. It didn’t fool me. Of the three sisters, she was by far the most dangerous.
“Did Dayj actually go offworld?” Corejida asked me. “Where to?”
“I’m sorry,” I said as gently as I could manage. “I don’t know yet. I wish I had more news to give you.” I meant it. I could see their heartbreak coming from a kilometer away. At best, Dayj had left Raylicon of his own free will and would be difficult if not impossible to trace. Or he could be a Trader pleasure slave, forever beyond our help. If he was still here, he was probably a prisoner.
Or dead.
* * *
With the night more than half over, Cries had settled into its second sleep cycle. I went to an empty park and sat in a gazebo built from lacework designed from some shimmery gold stuff. Then I activated my gauntlets. They were plugged into sockets in my wrists, which linked to biothreads in my body. Max sent his signals to the threads, they carried the data to my spinal node, and it fired bioelectrodes in my neurons according to signals it received. I perceived the end result as thoughts from Max. I could reverse the process; if I thought with sufficient force, the electrodes fired and the node picked up my response. Tech-created telepathy. It offered far more security than any shroud.
Wake up, Max, I thought.
I don’t sleep, Max answered.
Did you get a full record of the session at the police station?
Unfortunately, yes. Max did such a good job of simulating distaste, I wondered if he actually felt the emotion. Quite a scene between you and Chief Takkar.
Friendly, isn’t she?
She’d like to knock you into the wall.
Yah, probably, I thought. You know the beetle I sent to follow Colonel Majda? It should also have a record of the trip that ended with Krestone dead.
Yes. Would you like a neural dump?
Anything you’ve got on the murder.
Checking. Max paused, then thought, The beetle followed Colonel Majda as far as the entrance to the office tower. It calculated that if it entered a space as confined as the lift, Major Ebersole might notice its presence. So it flew down the side of the tower and spied through the window-walls. It came back up when they returned to the flycar.
Damn. The beetle had made the logical choice, following Lavinda Majda rather than staying with the car, but that didn’t help my investigation. So it didn’t see the murder.
No. But it did record the scene as the colonel and her party returned to the flycar.
Play it for me.
The scene formed like a translucent wash over my view of the park. I closed my eyes and the images intensified. This time I was watching the flycar from a different angle, one in front of the windshield. Again the bodyguard pulled Krestone back. Unlike Takkar’s playback, however, this one showed Krestone from the front, enough to reveal what the bee-bot had missed; as the bodyguard moved Krestone, she took a pin off the dead captain’s uniform.
My pulse leapt. Replay that, Max.
The scene reran. Yes, there! The bodyguard pulled some sort of needle off Krestone’s shoulder. In the record made by the Majda’s bee-bot, Krestone’s body had hidden that action.
Who is that guard? I asked.
Her name is Oxil. She’s on staff at both the palace and the Majda Tower in Cries.
She expected Krestone to be dead. I needed more information about this bland bodyguard. Go back and play whatever you have from the last time Krestone was alive.
The scene reset to an earlier time and showed the flycar landing on the roof. Lavinda disembarked with her aide and Duane Ebersole. Krestone remained in the driver’s seat, visible through the windshield. The captain raised her hand to the others, either in a salute or waving farewell. Lavinda nodded to her and then walked with Ebersole and her aide toward the lift shaft.
When the bodyguard met them at the lift, Lavinda said, “Oxil, inform security we’re on our way down.”
“Right away, ma’am.” Oxil thumbed her gauntlet and spoke into the comm.
Interesting. Takkar’s recording had focused on Lavinda. My beetle watched everyone, which gave me a better view of the bodyguard. Max, replay that bit where Oxil talks to security.
The recording backed up and showed Oxil telling security that Colonel Majda was coming down. Oxil started to sign off, then stopped as someone apparently asked her a question.
“Krestone is staying in the flycar,” Oxil said. “She has everything worked out up here.”
Replay that, Max, and magnify it as much as you can.
Max zoomed in on Oxil’s hand. The playback blurred, losing resolution, but it was clear enough. When Oxil started to sign off, she discreetly tapped the comm mesh.
Freeze that! I thought. She switched channels! She wasn’t talking to security anymore.
Apparently not, Max said.
I studied the image. She said Krestone had “everything worked out up here.” It was a warning that Krestone figured out something. I gritted my teeth. Oxil told someone to kill her.
You have no evidence to support that.
Yet. I couldn’t prove it, but I had no doubt Oxil had warned set up Krestone’s murder. Can you identify that pin Oxil took off Krestone’s body?
I’d say it’s a data storage device.
It looks familiar. I couldn’t recall why, though.
Max asked, Shall I forward this recording to Chief Takkar?
Hell, no. Oxil works for her.
You can’t withhold evidence.
I’ll send it to General Majda.
Shall I do that now?
No.
Why wait?
I have my reasons. Before Max could push anymore, I thought, I wish I could remember where I’ve seen a pin like that before.
I have a suggestion.
Yes?
Your vital signs indicate extreme fatigue. Go home and sleep.
I smiled wanly. A good idea.
I headed to the penthouse.
* * *
“Major, wake up.”
I grunted and turned over in my airbed.
“Major Bhaajan, you must wake up.”
“Go away,” I muttered.
“You have a visitor,” my tormentor said.
I flopped onto my back. The voice belonged to the EI that ran the penthouse. Too bad I hadn’t named it yet, because at the moment I would have liked to take that name in vain.
“I’m asleep,” I said. “I don’t want visitors.” Only the Majdas knew I lived here, and right now I had no desire to see anyone connected with the palace or their charming police force.
“He is rather aggressive,” the EI persisted. “He says he will stand outside until you, as he put it, ‘goddamn deign to acknowledge my existence.’”
That wasn’t Majda. I sat up in the dark, the covers falling around my hips. Then I remembered I didn’t have on any clothes. I lay back down and pulled up the blanket. “Fine. Let him in. But I’m not getting up.” Closing my eyes, I endeavored to sleep.
“Let him in?” The EI sounded confused.
“That’s right.” I had no intention of explaining myself to a machine.
I had started to drift off when someone walked into the room. I’d have recognized that booted tread anywhere. “I’m asleep,” I muttered. “Go away.”
The bed shifted as he sat down. “Bhaaj, come on.” Jak pulled the pillow off my head. “You know you’re glad to see me.”
“Like hell.” I turned onto my back under the covers. Light trickled in from the living room and cast his face in planes of light and shadow. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I have sources.”
I glowered at him. “Did your sources tell you I’m dangerous when bat-brains wake me up?”
His wicked grin flashed. “Sounds interesting.”
“You make me crazy, Jak.”
His smile faded. “I also heard the Majda police chief tried clinching you on a murder rap.”
“She doesn’t have any evidence against me.”
“That’s right. I just got back from the station.”
“What!” I sat up so fast, I forgot I was wearing any clothes. Then I grabbed the metallic blanket and smacked my fist against my chest, covering myself. “Why did they bring you in?”
“They didn’t.” He was watching my gyrations in the blanket with a great deal of interest. “I went in on my own.”
“What for?”
“To tell them you had dinner with me.”
I gaped at him. “You gave me an alibi?”
“Yah.”
“If they start sniffing around the Black Mark—”
“They won’t find shit. I moved it.”
“Even so.”
“Even so.” His gaze was dark.
I had never known Jak to put anything ahead of the Black Mark. To risk Majda attention so he could give me an alibi was so far off from what I expected, I just stared at him.
“Major Bhaajan, stunned into silence?” He smiled. “That’s one for history.”
I scowled at him. “Ha, ha.”
“That sounds more like the Bhaaj I know.”
“Jak.” I spoke awkwardly. “Thanks.”
He stabbed his finger at me. “Just be careful.”
“All right.” I tapped his chin. “You still got that cute dimple.”
He folded his hand around my fingers. “You’re going to ruin my reputation, you go telling people Mean Jak has a cute dimple.”
“I hear Mean Jak has other attributes, too.” I let go of the blanket, and it fell onto the bed, around my hips.
His gaze turned dusky as he stared at me, good and long. Then he pulled me into his arms. “You’re looking good, Major.”
“So are you,” I murmured as I slid my arms around him. He moved his palm up my back, making my skin prickle. Then we lay together on the air mattress. I rolled with him onto my side while we tangled our legs in the sheets. He felt good in my arms, his body lean and familiar. His kiss was hungry, seven years hungry, but I remembered it as if it had been yesterday.
They say night lasts forever on Raylicon. This time, I was glad for the endless hours. Jak and I had plenty of time. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly, but tough. When the sun came out we could deal with the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this.
For tonight, we would forget.
* * *
I sat up with a jerk. “Scorch!”
“Ungh,” Jak mumbled. He pulled a pillow over his head against the sunlight streaming through the windows.
“Max,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” His voice came from my gauntlets, which I had dropped on the floor last night.
“Check the EI for this place. Is its spyware still blocked?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I remember where I saw the pin that bodyguard took off Krestone. Scorch smuggles them. It’s a recording device.”
“You think Scorch was spying on Lavinda Majda?” Max asked.
I swung my legs off the bed. “Could be.”
“Scorch wouldn’t be that stupid,” Jak mumbled under the pillow. “She gets busted for spying on Majda, she’s sorry she’s alive.”
“She’s a risk-taker.” I padded across the room and into the bathing chamber. The tiled pool was bigger than my living room in Selei city. As I slid into the water, soap-bots swam around me, glittering like silver and blue fish. They even matched the color scheme the tiles. Welcome to the Majda universe.
Jak appeared in the doorway, framed in its horseshoe arch, holding the sheet around his hips. His lean chest with its chiseled muscles and dark hair showed above the wrinkled blue cloth. Nice.
“There’s risks and there’s insanity,” he said. “Scorch has a lucrative operation. She wouldn’t risk it by rizzing-off the General of the Pharaoh’s Army.”
I slid into the pool until only my shoulders were above water. “That depends on the stakes.”
Jak leaned against the doorframe. “The undercity survives in the shadow of Majda. We don’t bother them, they don’t notice us. Why would Scorch upset that balance?”
“Maybe she’s selling to Traders.”
“I hope you didn’t say that to her.”
I squinted at him. “I might have, uh, implied it.”
He stared at me. “And you’re still alive?”
“She fired a damn laser carbine at me.”
“I take it she missed.” He grinned suddenly. “Or maybe she didn’t. You’ve a harder head than anyone else I know.”
“Ha, ha. Funny.”
“Scorch wouldn’t sell a Majda prince.”
“I don’t know, Jak. A Majda guard pulled Scorch’s recorder off Krestone’s body.”
“You think this Oxil guard is works for Scorch?”
Good question. “Could be.”
“Why kill Krestone?”
“I’ll bet the captain was figuring out some of this.”
“Still makes no sense.” He shook his head. “Scorch hates the Traders. Why endanger her operation in a way guaranteed to bring down Majda’s wrath? It’s crazy.”
I thought about that. “Not if Scorch disappears off-planet. If she’s sold Dayj, she can afford to go anywhere.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t fry your ass.”
I smirked to cover my unease. “She likes me.”
“Yah, the same way Chief Takkar likes you.”
“Oxil works for our dear captain.”
Jak made an incredulous noise. “You think the Majda police chief is involved in a conspiracy to sell Majda princes to slave traders? What mental asylum did you escape from?” He came over, sheet and all, and crouched by the pool. “Scorch is going to kill you.”
“No she won’t. I saved her life once.” Of course, in her view that debt was now repaid. “Besides, if I disappear, people will look for me. It will draw too much attention to her.”
He pulled off the sheet and slid into the water. “Maybe.”
I swam over to him. “Hey, it’s fine.” So was he.
As we drifted together, though, I wondered who I was trying to convince, him or myself.
* * *
Jak took off after our bath, but not before extracting a promise that I would have third-meal with him, which most people ate before they slept at noon. Interesting timing. He wanted to come to the penthouse, too, which meant either he liked the place more than he would admit or else he didn’t want me knowing where he had moved the Black Mark.
Out on the balcony, I released my beetle-bots, the red one to look for Oxil and the green to find Scorch. Then I went inside, sat at the console, and data-mined the meshes for info on Scorch. I found zilch: she hid better than a special ops agent. After an hour of work, I finally located a news holo with her in the background. The colorful image floated above my console showing a crowd of people gathered in a Cries plaza. They were watching a broadcast playing above a public holo-pedestal, a story about some government event in Selei City on the world Parthonia. That was why I had set up my business in Selei City; it served as the seat of an interstellar government, offering plenty of opportunities for a discreet investigator.
Scorch watched the broadcast with an odd look, a mixture of fascination and loathing. I didn’t see why; the story looked boring, just images of people filing into a building. The reporters went on and on about the excitement of the event. It must have been a slow news day. Given that the Assembly met four times a year, every year, and that half the delegates only attended as VR simulacrums, the broadcasters were really pushing it with all this supposed excitement.
After the holo finished, I sat rubbing my chin. Why would Scorch care about who went to a routine Assembly session?
A light flickered on my gauntlet and Max’s voice rose into the air. “Want to chat?”
I recognized the code phrase. “Go ahead. We’re secure.”
“I have a trace on Oxil,” he said. “The red beetle picked her up by a lake at the palace.”
“Good work. Link me in.”
Max connected me to the beetle through his comm network. As I closed my eyes, a scene formed; I was on the shore of the Lake of Whispers, one of the few fresh water bodies on Raylicon. I wasn’t actually seeing the feed real time. The beetle recorded the scene, digitized the data, and sent it to Max, who relayed it to my spinal node, which converted the data into signals that my brain could process as optical input. So I “saw” the scene. With all that going on, a delay existed between what was happening and when I saw it, probably a few minutes in this case, when I wasn’t that far away from the scene I was watching.
The lake spread out before me like a green mirror rippled with breezes, reflecting the pale sky and surrounding foliage. Imported trees grew around the edge of the lake and dropped silky green streamers into the water. Huge, flat flowers floated on its surface like red and blue disks. It was beautifully alien, all the more so because that profusion of plants didn’t naturally occur in Cries. Raylicon hadn’t dried out completely; we had fresh water underground if you went deep enough, but it wasn’t easy to find.
Oxil stood gazing at the lake. She wasn’t doing much except enjoying the view. Breezes ruffled her spiky black hair. Probably she was on a break from work.
After five minutes, I said, “Max, this is boring.”
“Sorry.”
“Bring me out.” I opened my eyes as the scene faded. “Let me know if anything happens.”
“Will do. I have a report now from the other beetle.”
I sat up straighter. “It found Scorch?”
“Partially.”
“How partially?”
“She is well shrouded. The bot can’t record her voice or actions. However, it did locate her in the Vanished Sea.”
“Why is she out there?” Few people braved that barren desert.
“I don’t know.”
I stood up. “Think I’ll go for a visit.”
* * *
I jogged across the sea basin, doing my best to keep to the shadows cast by ridges that rose from the parched ocean floor like giant wrinkles. My feet pounded the ground, my smart clothes cooled my skin, and the jammer in my pack shrouded my progress. Max registered my speed as seventy kilometers per hour. Going on foot afforded better security than a flycar; it was easier to hide a person than a vehicle. I would have to walk at least part of the way back, though. At these speeds, my body built up damage faster than my nanomeds could do repairs. Even with high-pressure hydraulics to support my augmented skeleton and a microfusion reactor to provide energy, my body couldn’t handle the stress of such speeds for long before it began to break down.
It took me twelve minutes to cover fourteen kilometers. As I neared my destination, Max thought, Best to hide now.
I focused my vision on a bluff ahead. How about there?
Yes, that would work. Scorch is on the other side.
I climbed the jagged rock formation to a cleft at the top. By wiggling through the opening on my stomach, I reached a point where I could train my spyglass on the other side of the bluff. Scorch was down there with a woman I didn’t recognize, the two of them partially hidden under an overhang mottled with blue and green mineral deposits. A flycar also waited in its shadow. Both Scorch and her companion wore clothes patterned in colors like the desert, offering yet more visual camouflage. I couldn’t hear them, either. My beetle was circling the bluff, but even this close it only managed to send me a few random words of their conversation.
Easing down the bluff, I crept nearer, silent and shrouded. When I crouched in the shadow of a rock spike near the ground, I finally picked up their conversation.
“…on the ship,” Scorch was saying. Her spike of hair stood up behind her ear and glistened with oil. She still had the laser carbine, which she held down at her side.
“The ship is gone,” the other woman said. She looked like a drifter from the port, with her ragged jumpsuit and scuffed boots. However, she wore a top-notch shoulder holster that held a tangler snug against her body.
“What about the passenger manifest?” Scorch asked.
“I took care of it,” her companion said. “The manifest has his fake name. Caul Wayer.”
Scorch frowned. “The name on that ID I sold him was Caul Waver. Not Wayer.”
The other woman shrugged. “Waver, Wayer, the port made a mistake. Happens all the time. You’re set.”
“Good.” Scorch indicated the woman’s tangler. “I’ll take that back.”
Her companion pulled out the gun and tossed it to her. Scorch grabbed it out of the air, flipped it around—
And shot the drifter.