Republic

by Lindsay Buroker

  Maldynado offered her a tentative wave with the knife. That was when he noticed the blade smoking.

  “Uhh.”

  Something silvery dripped off the tip to land on the bed. Weird. The goo in the jar was more amber than silver. Unless... oh. His knife wasn’t smoking; it was melting. Disintegrating before his eyes.

  “That’s... alarming.” Maldynado held it so none of the goo would drip onto his hand.

  Basilard pointed at the blade. It’s the section that was in the jar. What’s in there? Acid?

  “Acid,” Maldynado repeated. “That must be it. Like that stuff Tikaya used on those cubes in the...” He stopped because Basilard was holding a finger to his lips. Right, secret stuff.

  “Maldynado,” came Yara’s sigh from behind Basilard’s shoulder. She stepped up to the edge of the bed. “Why was I so certain this call for enforcers would have something to do with you?”

  “No idea. Did you come because you wanted to keep me out of jail? Or because you wanted to throw me in jail?”

  “Well, if you had to be thrown in jail, I thought it should be by someone who cares.”

  “Thoughtful of you.” Maldynado shifted his attention to the foreman. He was staring in fascination at the melting blade; at least he had lost some of his bluster—and some of the alarming prune coloring on his face. “What do you think we should do with this?”

  The foreman removed his cigar. The thing wasn’t even lit, though it had been chomped down to a nub. Maybe Maldynado could win some good will from the man by offering him the two Bridgecrests. No need to mention where they had been stored.

  “What do you think we should do?” the foreman asked, swiveling to face Yara and the other enforcers.

  Maldynado propped a fist on his hip. He had found the acid. Shouldn’t he be consulted?

  “Is that something from Sarevic’s shop?” Evrial asked.

  Maldynado forgot his indignation. He hadn’t seen the craftsman’s mark, but maybe so. “Could be.”

  “Let’s take it back to the hotel and see if she can tell us more about it.”

  “It should go to enforcer headquarters where someone qualified can examine it,” one of the enforcers said, a man who also wore sergeant’s rank pins. Too bad. Evrial couldn’t simply countermand him.

  “The person who made it would be a more logical examiner,” Evrial said. “She can tell us exactly what it is, and she’s being held in a secured room in the president’s hotel.”

  “The president’s hotel?” the second enforcer mouthed.

  Yes, that’s right. Evrial knew people. Maldynado smiled and picked up the lid. “I’ll just ready this for transport. Any stalwart young enforcers want to volunteer to carry it?” He wasn’t sure what the goo would do to skin, but he didn’t want to find out, either. He hoped the remaining glue would prove sticky enough to keep the lid affixed.

  Wait. Basilard held up a hand. If that’s the item that was to be placed for something to happen at midnight... someone will be expecting it to be there then.

  “Good point,” Maldynado said. “These prisoners go back to their little jail cells at the end of the day, don’t they? So they couldn’t have anything to do with whatever happens at midnight.”

  “Midnight?” the foreman asked. “What midnight?”

  Maldynado dug out the note and passed it around. When it made it to Evrial, she asked, “Where did you find this?”

  Basilard smirked.

  Maldynado pointed downward, though he couldn’t see the man on the ground from his position. “In that unconscious fellow’s pocket.”

  Yara looked down. “What fellow?”

  “Did he crawl off?” Maldynado frowned at Basilard. “You didn’t stop him?”

  Basilard signed, He disappeared when I was obeying your command to distract the foreman.

  “Which didn’t work particularly well. Too bad. I bet we could have gotten some answers just by questioning that man. Well, maybe. They probably didn’t tell him much. Just paid him to do a job.”

  “There are missing prisoners?” The foreman scowled and jumped out of the truck. “These were all men who were getting out within two months. I was promised they wouldn’t be flight risks.” He raised his voice and shouted for two of his workers to round up the rest of the prisoners.

  “Cigar Breath must have decided that whatever he agreed to do would get him some extra months if he was caught,” Maldynado said, though the foreman wasn’t listening to him anymore.

  We should set a trap with the jar, Basilard signed, then return at midnight and see what happens.

  “If it’s full of acid, it’s probably meant to eat away a bunch of those support beams.” Evrial waved toward the burgeoning building structure.

  “So we should set a trap with an empty jar,” Maldynado said.

  Basilard nodded.

  Maldynado glanced at the overcast afternoon sky. “We have time. We can take it to Sarevic and have her remove the acid.” The woman could also let them know what its capabilities were, aside from melting knives. “Then we can bring back the jar and set something up.” He gently pushed the jug to the edge of the lorry bed and climbed down.

  “Does this mean we’re not arresting him?” The enforcer sergeant pointed at Maldynado’s chest with his baton.

  “Not today,” Evrial said.

  “Should I be concerned that he looks disappointed?” Maldynado muttered to Basilard.

  Probably.

  “The foreman’s assistant was adamant about him being a troublemaker,” the sergeant said.

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t a troublemaker,” Evrial said, “just that we’re not arresting him.”

  “I love it when she defends me,” Maldynado whispered to Basilard.

  You are lucky to have such a loyal woman.

  True. If he could just figure out how to keep her...

  Chapter 17

  The door to the intelligence office was open with the sounds of voices floating out, so Tikaya hesitated by the jamb before entering.

  “...million people. Some are in hospitals, injured from the fighting this winter. Others are—”

  “They don’t have to be moved overnight. The plant isn’t growing that fast, and there are plenty of army vehicles available for transport. You can figure it out.” That was Dak’s voice. “Here are the routes. Communicate with the enforcers and get their help.”

  “The enforcers have been swamped dealing with the plant.”

  “Tell them to leave the plant alone. They can’t be any help with it anyway. We have a big team of specialists on it. They’ll take care of it. Now, go. Let’s try to make this as orderly as possible.”

  Big team of specialists. Rias and Mahliki? Maybe he was counting Sespian too...

  A pair of officers walked out of the room, glancing at Tikaya curiously. She nodded to them and strode in, as if she had been in the middle of doing so all along.

  Dozens of desks formed rows in the large room—it had been a gaming hall before being requisitioned for this purpose, and dartboards and tile tables had been stacked against the far wall. Several heads were bent over those desks, scribbling notes and pushing around paperwork, but Tikaya didn’t see Dak. He must be there. She had been listening to him ten seconds ago.

  “Help you, my lady?” a lieutenant at the closest desk asked. Most of the men lifted their heads to regard her.

  Her determination to simply announce that she would be whisking through the office on a whirlwind, grabbing papers and rummaging through files at her pleasure, faded in the face of all the young soldiers. She anticipated opposition. Best to start at the top and see if she could get permission before seeing how far her husband’s influence would get her in a room of military officers.

  “Is Colonel Starcrest still here?” Tikaya asked.

  The lieutenant pointed to an open door at the side of the room. “In his office, my lady.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tikaya peeked through the door before knocking.
Lanterns burned in the windowless room, but it still had a dim, drab feel, reminding her more of a cage than an office, even though wooden filing cabinets lined the wall and towering stacks of papers perched precariously at the corners of the large desk in the center. A few safes rested against the far wall, the steel doors all shut. Dak sat in a wooden chair that didn’t look much more comfortable than a stump in the forest. His elbows were propped on the papers carpeting the center of the desk, and his hands cradled his forehead. He was either asleep or wanted to be.

  “Come in, Lady Starcrest,” Dak said without lifting his head.

  More stacks of papers occupied the floor, and Tikaya had to follow a meandering alley to reach the clearing in front of the desk. She sat on the edge of a seat identical to Dak’s and confirmed its lack of cushioning.

  “I would like access to your files,” she said. Perhaps she should have started by attempting to console him or at least with some friendly chitchat, but he was still on her suspect list, and she felt uneasy simply being in there.

  “Which files?” He lifted his head with a wince. Ah, headache. Though Turgonians were trained to expect death and torture in the field, they seemed as susceptible to the small annoyances in life as the next person.

  “All of them.”

  Dak stared at her for a long silent moment, long enough for Tikaya to wonder if he had something to hide somewhere in these cabinets or in the numerous others in the larger room.

  “Rias sent you?” Dak finally asked.

  A lie? Or the truth? If she lied, it would be discovered soon. He and Rias talked several times a day.

  “Rias doesn’t know I’m here.” Tikaya lifted her chin. “I intend to find that which has eluded yo—all of your men.” It might not be tactful to suggest he had missed something important. “The names and whereabouts of those who are trying to kill my husband.”

  Dak’s face revealed little. She might have read that headache, but she couldn’t tell what else he might be thinking. Was he offended? Did he think her arrogant? Delusional? Maybe she was some of the latter. She didn’t truly know if she could find the answers she sought, but she had to try.

  “Lady Starcrest,” he finally said, “you are... Rias’s wife, of course, and not, as far as I’m aware, considered suspect in any matter regarding imperial—national security, but at the same time, you are a Kyattese citizen, not a Turgonian subject—citizen. Dear ancestors, I’m tired.” Dak waved away the words of habit. “Forgive my dullness, please. My point is that while many of these files have grown obsolete of late, there are still national security issues that we would not care for any other governments to be apprised of, including the Kyattese government.”

  Though Tikaya had realized his objection right away, it took her a moment to formulate a response. Here she was suspecting him of being a threat to national security, and he was making the argument that she couldn’t be trusted here? Maybe that was simply an excuse to keep her from prying.

  “Colonel Starcrest,” she said—though she had been thinking of him by first name since Rias introduced him thusly, she felt the utmost professionalism should be used in this meeting. “I suspect I already know all the secrets out there between your government and mine. Much was reveled twenty years ago, and Rias and I were the ones to dig up that history. But if it will make you more comfortable, I will swear not to reveal anything I stumble across to anyone except you or my husband.”

  “You, as a Kyattese citizen, would be comfortable taking that oath?” Dak’s eyes had narrowed, and she sensed some judgment in there.

  She leaned back in the hard chair. Blighted banyan sprites, what was in those files? Something about Kyatt that she would feel compelled to report about if she knew? “Do you know what I’m talking about from twenty years ago?” she asked. Maybe she hadn’t been clear enough, or maybe he had no idea about those events.

  “In regard to the truth about the colonization of the Kyatt Islands? Yes, I received one of Rias’s letters.”

  “Oh.” Tikaya had never asked who had been the recipients of the three copies of the letter that her president had authorized Rias to send. “I hadn’t realized, er...”

  Dak’s lips twisted. Wryly? Bitterly? “That he trusted a twenty-year-old student that much? I think he just wanted someone young enough that the odds were he would still be alive when the letters were to be opened. Though with my combat record—” he pointed to his missing eye, “—that might not have been a good bet.” He shrugged, then waved away the past. “My mother would have opened the letter if not me.”

  Tikaya didn’t know how to respond to his bitterness—or the revelation that there might be deeper, darker secrets that Turgonians were withholding from her government and from the rest of the world. For all that Rias loved her and trusted her with his life, he hadn’t told her every detail from his military career, nor had she asked. And who knew what the Turgonians had been up to in the last twenty years?

  “Colonel, I’m not looking to dig up old secrets from a government that doesn’t exist any more. I’m only concerned about the last three months. Those are the only files I need to see.”

  “Very good men have been analyzing those files all along,” Dak said. “If there was something to find in them, it would have been found.”

  “I know that you and your officers are intelligent and wouldn’t be employed in this branch of the military if you weren’t, but I’ve spent my entire life deciphering logic puzzles and teasing out clues from crevices that others walk past without noticing. If you care about your uncle, why would you turn down a resource that might possibly make a difference?” Tikaya stared into his single eye, silently imploring him to accept her argument. It was a logical one. He must see that. Unless he had more to hide than old state secrets. That eye... it held mulish stubbornness. “Besides,” she added, trying a lighter tone. “If Rias gets killed and someone else steps into office, you might find yourself unemployed.”

  Dak snorted. “Blast, woman, if someone could guarantee that, I’d strangle him myself.”

  This blunt statement—and horrifying image—startled her so much that all she could do was gape.

  Dak shook his head, more in exasperation than apology. “Don’t they have jokes on that tropical island of yours?”

  “Not... about killing people.”

  “Sounds like a repressed place to live.”

  Tikaya was debating whether to point out all the ways Turgonians were far more repressed than her people when Dak stood up and walked around the desk. She stood as well, eyeing him warily. Though he hadn’t been anything but civil with her—poor jokes aside—she remembered that he had enough fighting acumen to knock Rias across a gymnasium floor. Though the uniform hid his muscled form from sight, she wouldn’t forget that it was there.

  But he walked past her, heading for the door. Tikaya frowned after him. He wasn’t going to leave, was he? Ignore her and hope she went away? Well, she had no intention of doing so. She would sit in his office until he returned, and maybe she would start browsing through those filing cabinets as well.

  “Captain Banovitch,” Dak called out the door. “See me.”

  Scarcely a second passed before a slim bespectacled man popped into the doorway, his uniform pressed, his short brown hair neat, and his face as earnest as a puppy dog. “Yes, sir?”

  “Lady Starcrest has requested to see all of the files we’ve gathered since the president’s inauguration.”

  Tikaya hadn’t realized how tight her chest had grown until a lightness spread out from her heart. She hadn’t learned anything yet, and Rias might yet be poisoned, but she had won the right to search for answers.

  “Yes, sir. Uhm...” The captain glanced at Tikaya. “All of them, sir?”

  “All of them.”

  “Er, yes, sir. Where shall we put them?”

  “She can have my office for as long as she wishes.”

  “I... yes, sir.” The captain lifted a folder with a three-inch-thick stack of papers in i
t. “Lieutenant Dodgecrest delivered these.”

  Dak accepted the folder. “Excellent, thank you.”

  “I’ll just... go get some help for those files.”

  The captain surveyed the room before leaving. Looking for empty places for stacks of files? Tikaya was beginning to fear she had volunteered for an impossible task.

  Dak walked up to her and held out the folder. “Want the first look? Lieutenant Dodgecrest was the night duty officer.”

  Tikaya opened the folder to the first sheet of paper and found a hastily penned page full of ink, about one in three words legible. From what she could make out, it was some soldier’s report of what he had and hadn’t seen from a spy position in the city. She flipped through a few more pages and found more reports filled out by other hands, some more legible than others. All thorough.

  “This is all from last night?” she asked. There had to be more than two hundred pages.

  Dak’s eye glinted, not maliciously exactly, but close. “Yes.”

  Tikaya refused to look daunted, though her mind quickly did the calculation of ninety days times two hundred pages times two shifts a day, not to mention whatever else the office had gathered independent of its various spies and independent contractors. She couldn’t quite refrain from a prim, “You know, Colonel, you’re not as nice a man as your uncle is.”

  His dark humor faded, and she almost regretted her comment, for the weariness that replaced it gave him an air of defeat.

  “No,” Dak said, “I’m not.”

  Tikaya thought he might explain himself, justify his edge somehow, but he didn’t. He picked up a pen and scribbled a few names on the top of the folder.

  “Those are the men in hot spots who are most likely to have reported something useful. If you want to delegate some of your research, Darkcrest and Moorivich have quick minds and sharp eyes. They’re out there.” He waved toward the office. “I need to go outside and check in with the men watching that plant. I hear the cursed thing is snatching up people openly now. Why these idiots keep wandering close...” He growled something more under his breath and headed for the door. But he paused with his hand on the jamb and looked back. “Lady Starcrest, if you do find the answers that have eluded us, I’ll have to resign my position in shame, but I shall hope that luck and your intellect favor you.”