Finder

by Suzanne Palmer

  The other two attendants were each holding one of the flat’s side rails, which looked potentially conductive. He moaned and flailed a hand onto one rail. As soon as his fingers connected, he sent enough juice into it to knock both attendants to the floor. He met Medic Zofia’s surprised gaze.

  “Sorry,” he said, and reached up and zapped her. He only barely managed to catch her as she fell. It was getting easier and easier to use the Asiig’s “gift,” and he was grateful that he was too damned busy and in the middle of things to think too deeply about that.

  He collected the medics’ access cards. Swiping one to unlock the comm console, he pressed the button for the routing desk. “Uh, this is Assistant Medic Peyn,” he said. That figures. “Can someone send Attendant Lenof back to collect the two who came in with the patient in bay nineteen? They’re in lounge five. We have pressing questions.”

  “Will do, Peyn,” came a response. Fergus let go of the comm button and looked around the room. It had the console, a bank of cabinets full of supplies on one wall, and a tall closet. He opened the closet and smiled.

  He’d already changed out of his suit and into a clean medic tunic and pants by the time the door chimed. Lenof entered with Mari and Bale behind him and was several steps into the room before he realized he wasn’t looking at a medic he knew.

  “Uh,” Lenof said, taking a half step backward and bumping up against Bale behind him. “I—”

  Fergus put his palm on Lenof’s chest, zapping him. Bale left him slumped against the wall beside the medics.

  Rummaging through the cabinets again, Fergus found clean bottled water and drank one down without pausing for breath. “Damn, that makes me thirsty,” he said.

  He also found a small roll of sleep patches. Peeling four off with care, he stuck them onto the medics and Lenof, then put the remainder in the pocket of his borrowed tunic.

  “What’s the plan now?” Mari asked.

  “Keycards,” he said, holding them up. “Spare uniforms in the cabinet. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ditch our suits, but we can hide them here.”

  Mari snatched one of the cards out of his hand as Bale pulled uniforms out of the cabinet, and they changed as quickly as they could. “Nothing better happen to my suit,” she told Fergus, folding it carefully and tucking it away in the cabinet, “or I’m going to punt your creepy pale head so hard they’ll be patching the hull where it exited.”

  “Now what?” Bale asked.

  Fergus swiped his access card from the triage room into the inner halls, and almost immediately an alarm sounded.

  “Excellent plan,” Mari said.

  “That’s a full-station defense alert,” Bale said. “Medusa must be under attack. Looks like Gilger is dumber than I thought after all. We need to go now.” He pushed the inner door open, and Fergus and Mari tumbled through after him.

  The hall wasn’t crowded, but there were people hurrying up and down its curved length, some with patients, some with empty flats stained a deep, terrible red. “What we want is Section Five,” Bale said, keeping his voice low. “Came here once with Mr. Harcourt to see Ms. Ili, so I have some memories of the place. Several security layers to get through.”

  “Let’s hope everyone is distracted,” Fergus said as he swiped his stolen senior medic ID at the next corridor heading deeper into the station. A security squad, heavily armed, nearly ran them down passing the other way.

  Behind the squad, another man in a medic tunic was hurrying along. As he got closer, his eyes narrowed. “Who are you people?” he demanded.

  “Medic Peyn,” Fergus said, holding out a stolen card. When the medic reached for it, Fergus grabbed his hand and zapped him. Mari had already walked forward to the next set of doors. “Retinal scan,” she said, snapping her fingers. “We need him.”

  Together Bale and Fergus held the man upright, prying open one eyelid in front of the scanner as Mari swiped his card. The lock light turned green, and the door slid smoothly open.

  “Hey!” someone shouted behind them, and both Fergus and Bale dropped the medic as they whirled around. A guard had rounded the corner and was drawing his weapon. Mari grabbed the back of Fergus’s collar and yanked him through the doorway as Bale threw himself after them. A shot rang out, then another as the doors slid shut again.

  “Run, idiots,” Mari said, and turning around, immediately ran into the chest of another guard.

  “What the hell?” the guard said, reaching out to grab Mari’s shoulder. “Who the hell are you people?”

  “We’re from Section Two,” Fergus said. “The station is under attack! There are medics down. They need help!”

  The guard pushed past them, drawing his weapon as Mari, Fergus, and Bale sidled deeper into the corridor. There was pounding on the door as the guard yanked his mouthpiece down and started talking rapidly into it.

  “Go,” Fergus said, and they fled. Another guard came running the other way, and before he could stop and question them, Fergus pointed back the way they’d come and shouted, “Help him! We’re under attack!”

  The man ran past without stopping.

  “It won’t take long—” Mari started to warn.

  “I know, I know,” Fergus said. “Bale, where next?”

  “I’m looking,” he snarled, moving ahead of them. “We need an elevator into the hub—there!”

  They crowded around the door, trying every access card they had to no avail. Behind them they heard shouting and weaponsfire. There was too much of it to be just Medusans. “We don’t have time for this,” Fergus said; he put his hand against the plate and fried it. He and Bale pried the door open, and Mari slipped between them and held it from the other side as they took turns pulling through before it slammed closed.

  The inside of the elevator car was dim red, emergency lighting the only thing on. “Now what?” Bale said.

  Fergus peered at the control panel, then up and around the car. “I think they shut down the elevator to try to hold us in here.”

  “It’s working.”

  “Yeah.” Fergus stood there thinking as muffled sounds of fighting echoed through the elevator tube.

  “You really think that’s Gilger?” Mari asked.

  “Who else would attack Medusa?” Bale said. “If he decided Ili was behind Vinsic’s betrayal, you know he’d be all over this place in an instant. I didn’t think we’d be safe here for long, but I didn’t think we’d get caught in a fucking elevator on the way in.”

  “Maybe they’ll still let us ask Ili a question or two before we all get executed,” Mari said. “I’m sure that would make this entire adventure feel worthwhile.”

  Fergus got down on his hands and knees, feeling around on the floor. His fingers found the small ridge first, followed it to a corner, then around in a square. “Stand back against the wall?”

  “What?” Bale asked, but he moved back.

  Fergus punched the emergency release, and a small square panel slid open at the very bottom of the car. Bracing himself on either side, he lowered himself through. “You guys coming?”

  “That’s a long way to fall,” Mari said.

  “Gravity neutralizers in the tube,” Fergus said. “Keeps the cars from turning into missiles in a spin crisis. You just have to push off and float your way down.”

  “And what happens when you hit the far end?”

  “There’ll be a slug field to slow down the car.”

  “What if that’s also powered down?”

  “Emergency lighting is on, so the other safeties should be too.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then I’ll cushion your fall with my broken body,” Fergus said. He let himself through the rest of the way, hanging from his fingers, then gently let go with one hand. Doing a slow somersault, he managed to hunch up and brace his feet against the underside of the car, then sprang into the
tube.

  He moved faster than he’d expected; the neutralizers must not have been at 100 percent. Please have a slug field, he thought as the end of the elevator tunnel zoomed toward him.

  Suddenly it was as if he’d dived into invisible gelatin. Invisible gelatin with no air, he realized. It seemed to take forever for his outstretched fingers to touch the emergency release for the doors at the bottom of the shaft, which dumped him out into the corridor like he was being ejected from a treacle cannon.

  Unprepared for the transition to full gravity, he mashed his face into the floor, then rolled over, gasping for breath. It was some moments before he realized there were two boots in front of him, leading up to legs. From there he focused on the pistol pointed at his head. Coughing, he blinked up at the guard. “Hi,” he said.

  Bale came tumbling out of the open doors, landing heavily on top of Fergus. “Neither of you move!” the guard shouted.

  “You didn’t say there wasn’t air in there,” Bale complained, chest heaving as he lay down next to him.

  “I didn’t know,” Fergus said.

  “Hey!” The guard shouted. “No talking! Don’t move. I’ve got backup coming.”

  “Hey, Bale, what did you do with the bomb?” Fergus asked. “You didn’t drop it in the tube, did you?”

  “I didn’t—” Bale started to say.

  The guard glanced up at the doors, and Fergus reached out, grabbed the end of the pistol, and yanked hard. The guard tumbled forward just as Mari barreled out of the shaft and crashed into him with both feet.

  Fergus hauled himself out of the people pile, found the roll of sleep patches in his pocket, and stuck one squarely in the middle of the dazed guard’s forehead.

  New alarms began blaring, red lights flashing at intervals, and there was the sound of boots coming from around the tight curve of the hallway. “Move, you two!” Bale shouted.

  The three ran, pelting down a long, empty stretch of corridor. Ahead Fergus spotted a wide pair of what appeared to be genuine oak doors. “Uh . . .” he said.

  “That’s it!” Bale said. “Ms. Ili’s personal office.”

  Together they took hold of the doors and pulled, but they didn’t budge. Behind the three of them, the shouting and sounds of boots were getting closer. “Guys . . .” Mari said. “Fergus?”

  “It’s not an electronic lock,” he said. He patted his pockets again, found a handpad stylus, and snapped off the tip. He knelt and wiggled the sharp edge into the lock.

  “Fergus!” Mari said again from behind him, more urgently.

  “Shush!” he shouted, trying to hear the tumblers and nothing else as he felt his way around with the makeshift pick.

  Just as the lock clicked, someone grabbed the back of his stolen tunic and hauled him backward. He fell on his ass, staring up at the face shield of a heavily armed man in an Authority uniform.

  A second soldier had his arm around Bale’s neck, and a third his pistol pointed right at Mari.

  “Um . . .” Fergus said.

  The soldier holding Bale flipped up his face mask. “Bale?”

  “Gurne?!” Bale asked. “What are you doing in yellow?!”

  The man with the grip on Fergus’s collar let go and opened his own face shield. Fergus blinked, staring into the face of the Governor himself.

  “You,” the Governor said, and he made a sound of deep exasperation. “Our very own ghost, haunting us each in turn. I should have known.”

  Chapter 26

  “Gurne, kick the door in,” the Governor said.

  “I already picked—” Fergus started to say, but Gurne let go of Bale, raised his boot, and sent the left door crashing open.

  “Put your hands up and go in first,” the Governor said.

  “They’re not any less likely to shoot us than you,” Mari protested.

  “Yes, but still, they won’t have shot us,” the Governor said.

  “Really sorry,” Gurne said. “In you go.”

  Fergus stood slowly and put his hands up. Together he, Mari, and Bale were pushed through the door into the room beyond. Behind the wide oak desk in a high-backed chair sat Ms. Ili, her hand on the top of a large console screen. Also in the room were four men in Ili’s gray and green and two in Vinsic’s blue, all with weapons raised and pointed in their direction.

  “You,” Ili said, eyebrows arched high in surprise.

  “Everyone keeps saying that,” Fergus complained. “What have I ever done to you people?”

  “You can put your hands down,” Ili said. “Whatever trouble you’ve come to cause, I don’t expect it’ll make a difference, and it makes me tired to look at you.”

  “Uh, we can’t,” Mari said. She jacked a thumb over her shoulder back at the door.

  “That would be because of us,” the Governor said, stepping into the room, carefully keeping Fergus in front of him.

  “Lord Governor,” Ili said. “You I was expecting.”

  “Where’s Vinsic?” the Governor demanded.

  “He’s not here,” Ili said.

  “He’s dead,” Bale added.

  Ili and the Governor both stared at him. “We came here from Attic,” Fergus explained. “Vinsic . . . well, he told us as we were leaving to tell you he died peacefully.”

  “Then you don’t know for sure that he’s dead?” the Governor asked.

  Mari shuddered. “No, he’s definitely dead.”

  “‘Died peacefully’ is typical Vinsic bullshit,” Ili said. “He shot himself, didn’t he? After he blew up Gilgerstone?”

  Fergus nodded.

  “I need to ask you to surrender, Ms. Ili,” the Governor said. “At least until we sort out the roots of this conspiracy. If we live long enough to do so.”

  “Is it your intention to kill me or my people?” Ili asked.

  “Not unless you force me,” the Governor said. “But I need this war to end, whatever it takes. I came here hoping Vinsic had answers, some information that might give me a way to stop this bloodshed. I never would have expected you to be part of this.”

  Ili gave a slight nod, as if both acknowledging and dismissing his disappointment, and walked forward to stand in front of Fergus. She was as tall as he was, and she looked him over like she was assessing a plague victim with an eye toward spacing him for the safety of others. “And why are you here?” she asked.

  “It was the only logical place left to go,” Fergus said. “Vinsic didn’t do all this just for some last-minute fun; he did it for someone. For Cernee itself. And even more, for you.”

  “I didn’t ask him to,” Ili said.

  “Nevertheless, here we are,” the Governor said.

  Ili snapped her fingers. Her men lowered and holstered their pistols, followed by Vinsic’s. “Call security. Tell them Medusa is fully cooperating with Authority on my orders. No one else needs to get hurt, and we have better things to do than make more wounded,” she told her people. Then she looked at Vinsic’s men. “I’m not sure what orders Vinsic gave you or what his intentions were after he died, but he’s gone now. You have no obligation to either of us except as your own needs and consciences dictate. You can stay and fight with us or find your own way out of here.”

  The two Blues exchanged glances, and it was clear they’d already discussed this. “We want to go back out and try to protect our people,” one said, a woman barely older than Mari but built like she’d grown up in the mines. “Gilger’s main jammer went down when Gilgerstone did, and we’re hearing that the Golds are in disarray. Now’s our best chance to reclaim our habs before they regroup.”

  “Fair enough, Saffa. Do try not to get killed,” Ili said.

  “Any word of Gilger himself?” the Governor asked.

  “No, and no one’s seen any of the Luceatans,” the woman—Saffa—said.

  Fergus unclipped the comm from
his wrist and held it out to the two Blues. “This was a Gold comm,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re even still sending, but it hasn’t squawked once since we arrived at Attic. It might help.”

  Saffa took it. “Thanks,” she said. She and her partner both bowed to Ms. Ili. “If we hear any rumor of where Gilger is hiding out, we’ll send word immediately.”

  They left. Once they were gone, the Governor turned back to Ili. “Okay. It’s time for an explanation.”

  “Everyone is aware that this was not a new ambition of Gilger’s, yes? He knew he couldn’t take control without unseating at least one of the other powers first, and he had been trying to bribe people away from all our houses to find out who was weak.”

  The Governor gave a short bark of a laugh. “Graf even approached Katra, though he was smart enough not to make his intent explicit, or she’d have gutted him right on the spot and strung his intestines throughout the Halo as a warning. In hindsight I wish she had anyway.”

  “Vinsic was also informed of the attempts. He had already learned he was dying and knew that Gilger’s predations would only become more bold. So at his request, I let one of my people who Gilger had been courting let slip that Vinsic was dying, and she sold Gilger a copy of the report for a healthy sum of cred,” Ili said. “I let her keep it. She also told Gilger that Vinsic had been talking about how afraid he was that Harcourt would join forces with the Governor and quash all independent habs. That was, of course, a lie, but one that Gilger found easy to swallow. At Vinsic’s request, I provided a neutral space for their first meeting. That was about half a standard ago.”

  “So you’ve known all along,” the Governor said.

  “Only in a limited way,” she said. “Vinsic kept most of the details from me, telling me only what he felt I needed to know except when he wished to consult me on what the right action would be. He had an alliance with Gilger and a plan to turn the tables as soon as Gilger had irrevocably shown his hand. Vinsic believed that casualties and damage were inevitable but that this way they could be minimized. He called it ‘a controlled burn.’”