“Nion,” the scanner said. “Element two. Confederacy five, Fontailloe two.”
Wait, Rafenkel thought.
Delleroy had picked up the next tile, putting it into the reader with a methodical sort of precision. “Delleroy. Element seven — ”
No, the scanner had said Nion. She’d heard it. Rafenkel reached for the tile that Delleroy had just put down; he brushed her hand away with an impatient gesture that sent tiles flying. There were tiles all over the floor. Which one had just said Nion?
“Delleroy. Element seven. Chilleau seven, Confederacy zero.” That wasn’t right either. Delleroy didn’t seem to have noticed. He went right on as though he hadn’t heard, reaching for the next tile in his box — his tile-set, his, uniquely his, Padrake Delleroy’s, the tiles he had won in debate with his peers. He had not argued for Chilleau but against it. She must have misheard. But she remembered no such polarized result from Delleroy’s debate with Ivers; that had been one of the things she’d noted from the start — almost all of the spreads were within one or two points of each other.
She was frowning, watching Delleroy; he seemed to take notice, like a man hearing a message on time-delay. “What’s wrong with these tiles?” he asked, his voice light and aggrieved. “I never won that from Jils. Has someone been tampering with these?”
“Nion,” the scanner said. “Element — ”
Delleroy sprang to his feet, backing away from the table toward comm console on the wall. “What kind of a trick is this?”
“Well, damn, Delleroy,” Vogel said. “I was hoping you could tell us.”
Silence. Delleroy stared, the fingers of his right hand twitching as though feeling for the butt of an absent weapon, coming to rest on the comm console behind his back instead. The contact seemed to calm him. “Explain yourself,” he suggested. “You’ve gone in and what, altered the tile’s secures? Changed the data? Is that what you’ve done? We’re all waiting to hear, Vogel, tell us.”
Vogel shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint,” Vogel said. “I don’t have the expertise. Feeling my way through the secures on these tile-boxes, that’s about my limit. All I did was trade a few tiles between your cache and Nion’s. Wanted to see what would happen when you tried to log someone else’s tile into the scanner.”
Delleroy had straightened up; his expression was contained, even confident. “I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to tell Jils,” he said. “That it was you. Trying to shape the future to your own liking, and what does it get you, after all?”
“It’s a good effort.” Vogel sounded almost admiring. “My cap’s off to you, for that. But the evidence is in these tiles. Or are those booby-trapped, as well? That was a sweet job, on that record. Whoever did that was a genius, on my tally-board.”
“Recess,” Rafenkel said. “Time out. Share the story, you two. Why did the tile think Delleroy was Nion?”
“Because Delleroy told it he was Nion,” Vogel said. “Or at least that’d be my guess. A genius, I tell you. But you’ll come to a bad end yet, Delleroy, I’m sorry to say.”
Rafenkel stood where she was, behind Capercoy — who had resumed his tallying when his tiles had been read — and listening, and trying to make sense of this. Capercoy had set his flat-form to one side and was beginning to stand up, slowly and carefully, not making any moves sudden enough to attract the attention of either Delleroy or Vogel.
Vogel had his back to them, including Tanifer; he wouldn’t see Tanifer exchange an uneasy glance with Rinpen and start back up to the upper level of the theater. Delleroy could see that, though. Delleroy apparently did.
“Empty talk will get you nowhere, Vogel, this is all a diversionary tactic, isn’t it? Something to distract us all from the holes in your story? Tell you what I’ll do.”
It was a confident, in-control, fully in command of the situation tone of voice, the sort that went with a folding of arms across the chest and a casual leaning back against the wall. Delleroy wasn’t folding his arms across his chest, though. And he wasn’t leaning back against the comm console, either. Comm console. Rafenkel frowned.
“Come on,” she said. “The two of you. I don’t know what your issues are, but I’m sure they can be more efficiently addressed than this.”
Delleroy should step away from the comm console. Delleroy wasn’t moving. She didn’t know exactly what she didn’t like about him being there, but she knew she didn’t like it.
“What will you do?” Vogel challenged, seeming to ignore Rafenkel’s attempted intervention. Rinpen had reached the opposite end of the room, and was opening up the doors as unobtrusively as possible.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Delleroy said. “I may need you to bear witness. Or do you have this pre-arranged amongst you all? Don’t open that door.”
Reluctantly Rinpen turned away from the door to put his back to the wall. “Just thinking, somebody should go after Balkney and Zeman,” Rafenkel said. “If there’s going to be a confrontation we should all be in on it at once, wouldn’t you say? Delleroy?”
The doors to the theater opened as Rinpen spoke. Balkney and Zeman back after their errand, clearly enough; who was with them?
Brisinje’s First Secretary, Arik Tirom; Bench specialist Jils Ivers. Glancing quickly at Delleroy to see how he was taking this unexpected appearance Rafenkel noted that the quality of his surprise seemed to be of a different order than just that Tirom was here before Delleroy had expected him to arrive. Vogel took advantage of the distraction to take half-a-step forward, apparently in order to close on Delleroy where he stood; Delleroy stopped Vogel with a word.
“Don’t. It’s not worth your life, Vogel. Jils, what are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to Chilleau.”
Ivers was white in the face, limping badly as she came forward. There were other people behind Ivers and Tirom in the corridor, Rafenkel saw. Security.
“I don’t think I need to get to Chilleau to resolve my problem.” Ivers’ voice was calm and controlled, but bitterly regretful. “On behalf of the Second Judge at Chilleau Judiciary I accuse you, Padrake Delleroy, of the murder of Sindha Verlaine, and of attempting to subvert thereby the Judicial order and the rule of Law.”
###
Jils hadn’t wanted the First Secretary to accompany her, but she knew that she was operating on fuel reserves that were running dangerously low. She couldn’t spare the time it would have taken to dissuade him; perhaps it would be for the best after all, she’d decided. She had things to say to Padrake that he wasn’t going to like hearing. Maybe Tirom’s presence would help keep the situation under control. She was under no illusion that the simple act of bringing a squad of Security was enough to do that, where Bench specialists were involved.
When the doors to the lift-car opened at the bottom of the access shaft she took a position squarely in front of the others in the car, determined to gain and maintain control of the situation. They would know that she was coming. They would not know about the three squads of Security who had started down the air-well hours ago. The cable-car was a careful mover, but it was slow. According to the calculations she had reviewed, they would be arriving soon; but there was no way to tell how close they were without compromising the secrecy of their descent.
It was Balkney waiting for her there — Balkney, and Zeman. Balkney was startled to see her, and perhaps a little startled at her appearance as well. She could walk in the scaffold-boot, but not quickly. The brace they’d put on her shoulder was cumbersome and annoying, even if it didn’t show underneath her uniform; but it was better than having her concentration interrupted by periodic bouts of intense pain every time she breathed too deeply or turned her head the wrong way.
“Where is everybody?” Jils asked, not moving out of the doorway of the car until she knew what she was walking into. “Where’s Padrake?”
“Preliminary count, in the theater,” Balkney replied, not asking the questions that were obvious to both of them — what are you doing here,
what’s going on, what happened to you. Why do you want Delleroy. “Left ‘em all there. Zeman and I came out when we saw your signal.”
Good. Everybody in one place; better chance of keeping this as clean as possible. It wasn’t going to be clean. It was going to be ugly. It was going to be painful. She needed to get it done.
“Follow me,” Jils said to the Security squad, because she didn’t give orders to First Secretaries or to other Bench specialists when she could safely rely on their curiosity to motivate them to do what she wanted. “We’ll just be joining the rest in the theater. I have some tiles to tally myself.”
She couldn’t take the chance of saying anything more. The knowledge that she held within her was so painful as to be all but intolerable. She hadn’t told Tirom what Delleroy had done. She didn’t know how much of it had been Tirom’s idea.
Balkney and Zeman followed without comment; was Balkney remembering what she’d told him, days ago? That Verlaine’s assassin was hers? Karol had told her Balkney hadn’t done it; now she knew who had, though she did not have evidence in hand. Evidence would come.
Koscuisko’s injuries were not to be permanently disabling. The medical staff’s initial evaluation on Koscuisko’s right hand was guardedly positive. Koscuisko was the best there was. He would get answers and obtain evidence.
She was forgetting something; she knew she was. The doors to the theater were closed. She could hear voices, inside, angry voices raised against each other. The voice nearest the door sounded more cautious than angry. They wouldn’t hear her if she signaled; so she simply opened up the door — it was awkward, but one of the Security helped her, once they understood what she was trying to do.
There they all were. Rinpen and Tanifer, by the door; Capercoy and Rafenkel on the middle tier standing to one side of the aisle, Karol closest to Padrake, Padrake with his back to the comm console. Padrake stared at her, apparently stunned; she stared back, looking for something in his face that would let her believe that she had been mistaken.
No such luck.
Karol began to move on Padrake; Padrake looked at Karol out of the corner of his eye. “Not worth your life,” Padrake said. “Jils. I thought that you were in transit to Chilleau.”
She’d just bet he did. Something had clearly been going on, Padrake was at bay; she could gather no hint about what it might be, beyond the obvious fact that Padrake and Karol seemed to be in opposition.
“I realized I didn’t need to go back to Chilleau to resolve my problem.” Because you set a bomb in my data-reader, Padrake. Because you tried to kill me, and that gave me time to think about things from a whole new vector. “It’s overdue. On behalf of the Second Judge at Chilleau Judiciary, Padrake. You are guilty of the murder of Sindha Verlaine, and of attempting to subvert thereby the Judicial order and the rule of Law.”
She could see the pain in his eyes as she spoke, and felt his wince like a knife in her own stomach. It had to be said now, openly, here. She didn’t know how many of the people here were co-conspirators. Padrake would tell her, though. Koscuisko would leave Padrake no choice.
“Jils.” She couldn’t quite interpret the choked sound in his voice. “That’s in rather poor taste, isn’t it? Arik. Nice to see you again.”
“Murder,” Jils said. She wasn’t going to let him defuse this situation. She wasn’t going to let him talk his way around it, through it, over it, underneath it, out of it. “To the great despite of the common weal. Single-handedly throwing all of known Space into turmoil and confusion and civil anarchy. You. Padrake Delleroy.”
She took a step down the shallow flight to the table in the middle of the room, behind which Padrake stood. Padrake laughed, but there was a little fear in it. She might be the only person here who could detect that note of deeply submerged panic, but she knew Padrake better than any of the others. Oh, she knew Padrake. She knew his laugh and his smell and the weight and warmth of his body in her bed, her body knew the comfort and security that his embrace had given her. She knew Padrake. She heard fear.
“I think the doctors need to adjust your medication, Jils,” Padrake said. “You aren’t making sense. What possible reason could you have for making such a wild accusation?”
The others weren’t moving. Why was that? Were they waiting to hear what she had to say, before they cast their lots, who to believe?
“Preponderance of circumstantial evidence.” She took another step, but stopped, reaching for the back of a chair to steady herself. He hadn’t been entirely off target with his remark about medication. She had to be careful to focus what energy, what strength she had left on the crucial points. “The traffic records that were destroyed to draw attention away from the ones that were only slightly altered. Your relationship with the chief medical officer on Galven, and where Noycannir got the record.”
It would make little sense to the others. They’d heard the rumors about a forged record, yes, but they couldn’t have guessed at its significance — unless they were all much smarter than she was, and it was possible, of course. She doubted it.
Padrake knew exactly what she meant, but more than that, it was clear from the look on Padrake’s face that he knew what she was saying. So the others would know that much. She had to keep on, she had to get it all out before she lost the threads.
“You let me believe you didn’t know Lazarbee. You didn’t know how much the pilot had told me. You weren’t sure I’d notice that the traffic data had been tampered with. That was why you tried to blow up the whole ship.”
“Jils!” It was a cry of honest anguish; she could hear it echo in her heart. “Jils, why would I have done such a thing as that? Even if. Even. If I had. Why would I have killed Sindha Verlaine?”
It wasn’t the question she wanted to hear. She knew that, and was ashamed. The question she wanted to hear was “Jils, how could I ever try to harm you?” She had let herself go. She had lost her professional detachment. It was the others who answered for her; had they known all along?
“Well, you did tell us that Verlaine was the worst threat to the stability of the Bench that the Jurisdiction had ever faced,” Balkney said, very gently.
“And that Bench specialists should be running the Bench,” Rafenkel added. “We had a talk about it. Remember? Verlaine would have put an end to that idea.”
“So what better solution all around than to remove an enemy of the Judicial order, and take his place at Chilleau while the administration struggled to recover?” Karol’s question was rhetorical. Unfortunately. They made it all too clear. Altruism and self-interest, duty and honor muddled up with the lust for power and privilege — too much sense by half.
“This is beginning to sound suspiciously like a set-up job.” Padrake spoke with aggressive bravado, but he was afraid. What was he afraid of? The truth? “What’s your take on all of this, Arik? Don’t tell me they’ve gotten to you, too.”
The First Secretary. Jils had forgotten that he was there. Now he came forward. “It’s perfectly true about Verlaine,” he said. “You and I were in complete agreement about that, Padrake. You were out of contact for some days, around that time, and you told me exactly where you’d been. You don’t usually seem to feel a need to do that. A man could wonder.”
But we will find out, Jils thought; and knew what Padrake was afraid of. He was right to be afraid of Andrej Koscuisko. Any sane person would be — not of the man himself, not necessarily, but of what he could do. What he would do. What he was going to do to Padrake, because the evidence that existed was enough to go to the extreme levels of the Protocols even as it stood in light of the gravity of the accusation; and the Bench would want to know how deep and wide the contagion had spread. Padrake. The Bench would do that to Padrake. Padrake, whom she loved.
“You’ve all taken leave of your rational faculties,” Padrake said firmly. “Or worse. I can’t believe that you’d be in on a plot against me, Jils, not even to save yourself.”
Padrake whom she loved, and who’d trie
d to murder her. That Padrake. Putting her hand to the holster at her side she drew her side-arm; she’d come prepared. She was in no condition to fight. “Nobody’s plotting against you,” she said, as calmly as she could. “It’s you. Isn’t it? Don’t bother denying it, we’ll have the truth of the matter soon enough.”
Koscuisko, here. Would his sense of duty allow him to go home, with this unresolved? Could Koscuisko sacrifice the greater good of the Judicial order to his personal morality — put his wife and child above the chance that a lesser torturer would lose Padrake to death before the crucial question of co-conspirators had been answered in full?
And the inquiry would just spread and keep on spreading; and the Bench needed all of its resources, to concentrate on restoring order and the regulation of trade. Verlaine was dead; no number of collateral torture-killings could reverse that and set the Judiciary back to where it had been before.
If there were other Bench specialists involved, the Bench needed them to do their jobs. The Bench couldn’t afford to throw any of them away, whether they’d been traitors to their sworn duty or not. It didn’t matter what anybody had done, not now. It was what they did next that would make the difference.
“And if you think I’m going quietly to be drugged into self-incrimination you’re insane, all of you.” Padrake straightened up proudly as he said so, one hand at his side, but one hand touching lightly against the comm console behind him.
She knew exactly what Padrake was saying, if nobody else did. Do I have a bomb? Maybe not, Jils. Can you take that chance, with Arik Tirom in the room? No. You have to kill me. And we both know it.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t possibly. There was no bomb. It was a bluff. He meant to escape the retributive punishment that he had earned. But there could be a bomb, and she — and Karol — were perhaps the only people here who knew that.
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