Disappearing Act

by Margaret Ball

  And that list was very interesting. Annemari skimmed through it once, deleted the obvious and expectable entries—well, okay, maybe not so obvious. She had had no idea a "cosmetic consultant" could get paid that much, but right now she didn't have time to waste on the makeup people and the personal trainers and the groomers and buffers. With those culled out, she studied the list of surgeons and other specialists employed at the Cassilis Clinic with deep interest. The obvious cosmetic specialties were well represented, but there was another group whose areas of expertise seemed at first glance to have nothing to do with the clinic's public goals.

  Time to activate another kind of data search, the kind she wasn't so good at. Annemari tapped her deskvid and sent a note to Nunzia Hirvonen asking her to respond when she had time.

  Nunzia was on vocal almost before Annemari took her fingertip off the screen. The top half of her face, the liquid dark eyes and arching brows, showed over the spyder's resume spreadsheet. "Anni! What's up? You going to take up eating lunch? There's this new place on the Concourse—"

  "Wow," Annemari said, caught off guard. "I didn't think you would be free right now."

  "I'm not," Nunzia said. "Scrubbing for surgery, talking on voice control, thirty more seconds, slice and dice some poor guy's brain."

  "Improving it in the process, I trust."

  "Honey, how could surgery not improve it? He's a guy." Nunzia's laugh was like warm honey flowing down into a pool.

  "Fifteen seconds, now. Is that long enough for you to tell me if there's any reason a general health spa and plastic surgery clinic should need neurosurgeons?"

  "Only if they plan to botch up customers' facial nerves on a regular basis, and want to do the repairs in-house," Nunzia said crisply, "in which case they shouldn't be in business anyway. Wait a minute—you said neurosurgeons? Plural?"

  Annemari nodded, then remembered Nunzia had said she was on vocals only. "Right. Three at least, probably five—I'm not sure what some of these subspecialties mean."

  "That," Nunzia said with her usual assurance, "makes no sense."

  "That depends," Annemari murmured to herself.

  "Now you have to meet me for lunch," Nunzia announced, "and Tell All. I want the full story. Gaetano's on the Concourse, twelve sharp. If you get there first, order us some bruschetta with lemongrass sauce for starters. See you there."

  Before lunchtime Annemari dealt quickly and competently with three more requests for various statistical analyses, an attempt by the head of Data Entry to steal her best two nerds, and a complaint from Legist Kovalainen that the "girl" who'd asked him to join the meeting on the Information and Privacy Acts couldn't explain anything. She also comforted Vibeke— "Don't worry, nobody can explain anything to Kovalainen; he hasn't the basic equipment for understanding it. I just wanted him off Jeppe's back for the day, and now I owe you one. Okay, I owe you two. After lunch?"

  While she handled data and personnel crises, the back of her head was turning over Tomi Oksanen's mysterious recovery and equally mysterious disappearance, the glorified health spa in Castelnuovo Province that kept three—or maybe five—highly paid neurosurgeons on permanent staff, and one puzzling little bit of data the transit-permits-search spyder had retrieved for her. Something she hadn't even been looking for, but it was a smart spyder program and remembered she'd previously been interested in this matter. Put together, these three matters weren't puzzling in the slightest; in fact, Annemari sailed off to her lunch meeting with Nunzia feeling that she had probably figured out almost everything she needed to know.

  The one thing she hadn't thought of was the risk of encountering Evert Cornelis on her way out of the building.

  "Annemari! Nothing wrong, I hope?" Evert looked toward the Med Center.

  "No, no, I'm just going to lunch," she reassured him, and then realized she might have made a slight mistake.

  "I have to see this," Evert announced. "You never take time off for lunch. What's lured you away from the delights of a fruitpak at your desk while yelling at your staff?"

  "I don't yell at my staff," Annemari said.

  "No, sorry, wrong word. You freeze them with a glance, of course. But what inspired you to take a break? Let me guess, you're avoiding Legist Kovalainen."

  Annemari's pace quickened. "Is he looking for me?"

  "I'd recommend a long lunch," Evert said obliquely. "Where are we going?"

  "I'm meeting Dr. Hirvonen," Annemari said. "It's a business lunch. We have Federation business to discuss."

  "Excellent! I love traditional Italo-Thai food."

  "How did you—"

  "Know you were headed for Gaetano's?" Evert beamed. "It's the only place on the Concourse that Nunzia considers serves decent food. She just doesn't appreciate the subtler pleasures of Franco-Mexican at Bistro Tapatia. No matter, I'll take you there another day."

  "That would be lovely, Evert," Annemari said politely, "I'll look forward to seeing you then. Now, if you'll excuse me, I don't want to be late for this meeting with Dr. Hirvonen." It was as close to a brush-off as ingrained civility would permit her to go.

  "Oh, I'm coming with you," Evert insisted. "Told you I like Italo-Thai, and as it happens, I've some business to discuss with you, too. That little matter you asked me about the other day, about your 'friend' on Kalapriya?"

  After looking at the information the transit spyder had turned up Annemari no longer felt anxious about Calandra, but it would have been really rude to tell him so if he'd already gone to the trouble to contact his Aunt Sanne. She resigned herself to listening while Evert told a long involved story with a predictable ending, slowed her pace so that he could get the breath to tell his story in his preferred fashion, and wondered, while he nattered on, whether there was any way short of murder to shake him off before she met Nunzia at Gaetano's.

  " . . . so, like you told me, and perfectly right you were, m'dear, as always, Sanne was only too happy to send me a long gossipy vid about all her social doings in Valentin. And I mean long!" Evert shook his head in wonder. "Gods, how that woman can rattle on. No idea where she gets it from. Rest of m'family can stick to the point and give you a straight answer to a simple question, but like my father always said—or was it Uncle Baar—anyway, one of 'em said, 'Ask Sanne if it was raining when she came inside and you'll have to hear all about the damage the water spotting would've done to her pricey new organic coverall if it had been raining, which is when you'll learn it wasn't.' " He paused. "Now where was I?"

  "Sanne's news from Valentin," Annemari prompted.

  "Oh! Right. Well, of course you didn't want me to ask a simple question anyway, so it's not her fault, but I just wish you had listened to the vid instead of me, Annemari."

  "So do I," Annemari murmured against the protests of her better self.

  Fortunately, Evert didn't take the comment as she had meant it. He patted her shoulder. "There, there, noble of you, but Sanne's a family misfortune—I mean, member—and I wouldn't really want to inflict her conversation on anyone else. Anyway, first word out of her mouth was about some grand banquet and dance they'd planned on having for the visiting Diplomat, so of course I thought I'd get to hear then whether Calandra had shown up or not, but no. First the woman has to tell me all about her new dress for the ball, and I give you my word, Annemari, I didn't know anybody could say that much about one dress—specially on a restricted planet where they're only allowed to use organics and native manufacture. Then all the gossip and matchmaking before the ball, and after all that it turns out . . ."

  "Calandra didn't show?"

  "Why, no!" Evert was startled into plain speech. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Annemari. Calandra was there and she's perfectly all right. Sanne's husband, Pledger, was seated at the head table with her for the banquet, and he seemed quite taken with her. So did the young man they assigned as her escort, according to Sanne. She said they were having altogether too much fun at the ball and Calandra ain't dignified enough by half for a Diplomatic env
oy."

  Annemari stopped in front of the green pavilion outside Gaetano's. "Evert, that's impossible."

  "What, for a Diplo to lighten up? Unlikely, maybe, but surely possible. I even have hopes of seeing you let your hair down, Annemari. Been meaning to tell you, it's high time you stopped spending every Joy Luck Fortune night home with a glass of milk and an old holovid."

  Annemari devoutly hoped Evert didn't know the title of the last holovid she'd rented, presently flashing across the inside of her head in neon-pink lettering with little hearts attached. Not that there was anything wrong with watching something called With All My Heart. It would just be . . . embarrassing. And after the unauthorized searches she'd recently pulled off, she couldn't help thinking how easy it would be for anyone who knew his way around Federation computer systems to bring up a list of the last ten holos she'd rented.

  But that somebody wouldn't be Evert, who called Tech Support when the cleaners disconnected the power to his deskvid. He was guessing about her habits . . . more or less correctly.

  Unfortunately, he interpreted the pause as permission to continue dissecting her personal life. Or lack of one.

  "It was one thing when Kaarle—when you were widowed and left alone with Niklaas to raise. I know you didn't want to leave him in the creche anytime you weren't working. But Kaarle's been dead for years now, Annemari, and Niklaas—"

  "Still needs me," Annemari cut him off. "No, Evert, that's not what I want to talk about. Are you sure your aunt Sanne said she saw Calandra?"

  "Just told you so," said Evert. "Said she danced all night. Calandra, I mean, not Sanne."

  "And exactly when was the ball?"

  "On the fourteenth."

  Annemari frowned. "I suppose that's just possible. I should have checked the time on those transit records."

  "You found records showing she was someplace else at the time?"

  "Or just after . . . Is Tasman on Federation time?"

  Evert shrugged. "Dunno, but that's easy enough to check. But I'll trust a live person over a computer database any day, and so should you, Annemari—you know how easy it is to hack into those things. If somebody tried to fake a journey for Calandra to some other place, you need to be looking into who'd want to do that, not questioning my family's eyewitness information!"

  "I would," said Annemari abstractedly, as she tried to figure out what this latest twist could mean, "except it wasn't Calandra Vissi's travel plans I found."

  "Then what—how—"

  "Come inside and sit down, you two!" Nunzia Hirvonen swept up beside them, hugged Annemari and pushed Evert toward the door. "I'm starving. Order first, then gossip."

  Gaetano's might serve traditional Italo-Thai food, but the décor had been managed by a thoroughly modern aura consultant, from the collage of antique coins over the door to attract wealth to the trailing red cords that dangled from beams to dissipate negative energies. The entire north wall was covered by a screen of falling water dropping onto rounded stones, and the rounded lines of chairs and tables supported a smooth flow of energy from the fountain through the entire room.

  Over the bruschetta con limone Annemari gave up on discretion and decided to tell everybody everything. It didn't take much decision; Nunzia's warm pressure was almost impossible to resist. Besides, she didn't want to wait until after lunch to explain to Evert why Calandra couldn't have been at the banquet on Kalapriya.

  First she had to fill Nunzia in on the background—the offer of a bacteriomat implant for Nikki from an anonymous source, her dispatching of Calandra Vissi to look into the possibility that somebody was stealing bacteriomats from the Barents Trading Society's stock, her subsequent loss of contact with Calandra and request that Evert check on her discreetly through his family contacts on Kalapriya. "But while I was waiting to hear from Evert," she explained, "just this morning, in fact, one of my spyder programs came up with transit records for Thecla Partheni, leaving Tasman the day after I lost contact with Calandra, returning to Rezerval that same day. Or . . . I need to check what time Tasman is on; it could have been the equivalent of really late at night on Kalapriya, which would explain your aunt seeing Calandra at the ball, Evert."

  Both Nunzia and Evert looked blank.

  "Look," Annemari said, "this is really seriously classified information, and I never said anything, okay? But Thecla Partheni is one of Calandra's spare identities. Obviously her cover was compromised and she had to switch identities. Also obviously, she found some clue that sent her back here to Rezerval. And I would have thought, from the timing, that it all happened on Tasman. She couldn't have been on Kalapriya more than a few hours at most."

  "But she was there," Evert pointed out. "Damn it, Annemari, you've talked with the Tasman officer who escorted Calandra to the Kalapriya shuttle, and I've just had a vid from m'aunt Sanne going on and on about what Calandra wore to the ball in her honor. Did your spyder show Calandra returning to Tasman? No? Well then, most likely one of those Tasman thieves lifted Calandra's spare ID and used it to get off-station."

  "The spare identities aren't stealable," Annemari explained. "Nunzia, you know how they're done for Diplos, can you explain to Evert why we know nobody stole the Thecla Partheni ID?"

  "It doesn't exist," Nunzia said promptly. "Not physically, not outside Calandra's brain. One of her neurochip implants allows her to activate a signal that will cause Federation computers and any system drawing on their databases to recognize her retinal scans and DNA as belonging to—what did you say the alternate name was, Annemari?"

  "Thecla," Annemari said. "Thecla Partheni. We had to pick something that would be ethnically compatible with her general physical appearance. Calandra's small and dark; she might be able to convince a computer her real name was something like Katrijna van Alstyne, but no human being would believe she was from Barents. Oh, why am I going on about this, it doesn't matter; the point is that the retinal and DNA scans confirm that Calandra left Tasman for Rezerval as Thecla Partheni. And I haven't found any records showing Thecla—or Calandra—returning from Kalapriya to Tasman."

  "That just means they're misfiled," Evert said, "because she was definitely in Valentin on Kalapriya the evening of the fourteenth. And if you don't believe me, I'll drag you to my rooms and force you to watch m'aunt Sanne going on and on about the damned ball."

  "I just might take you up on that," Annemari said absently. "Does Sanne say anything about seeing Calandra after the ball?"

  "No, but she wouldn't, would she?"

  "She might say something about the surprising early departure of the Diplomat . . . Evert, could you check with her again and find out if she knows what Calandra has been doing since the day of her arrival?"

  Evert groaned.

  "Or maybe you could ask somebody else?"

  Evert's brow furrowed. "I've got a young relative in the Guards . . . no, that's no use; Moylen's only a leutnant, he wouldn't be in on high diplomatic doings. It'll have to be Sanne. But is it really necessary? I thought you had settled that she went back to Tasman."

  "Maybe. The timing's funny. And . . . Kalapriya is technology-restricted; they wouldn't be checking bio-data the way the space stations and shuttles do. It's just barely possible that Calandra found out something at the ball that made her return to Tasman at once, without reporting to me. But it's also possible that the shuttle taking this person from Tasman to Kalapriya didn't run the passengers through proper security and ID checks. An impersonator might be able to make herself up to look enough like Calandra to fool some Tasman officer who'd only seen her once before, if that. And if somebody is impersonating my Diplomat on Kalapriya," Annemari said firmly, "I'd really, really like to know about it."

  "Then look for Calandra and ask her. And why do you suppose she hasn't checked in with you already?"

  "Possibly," Annemari said, "for the same reason that she chose to use an alternate identity. Perhaps she doesn't want somebody to know that she's a Diplomat. In which case she'd hardly be walking in throug
h the front door of a Federation office building, would she?"

  "You know, Annemari," Evert murmured, "your eyes go more grey than blue when you're being sarcastic. It's not becoming. We both know there are plenty of ways your pet Diplomat could reach you without 'walking in through the front door.' If you really think Thecla Partheni is Calandra and that she returned to Rezerval four days ago, you ought to be worried sick. Why aren't you?"

  "Because I have reason to think she's following up the clue that brought her back here," Annemari answered.

  "How can you think that if you haven't heard from her?"

  "She left the Rezerval main port by the Garibaldi gate," Annemari said, looking at Nunzia rather than Evert. "Most of the public transit from there runs south . . ."

  "To Castelnuovo Province," Nunzia nodded. "Let me guess. That's the location of the clinic you were asking about?"

  Then it was Evert's turn to listen while Annemari described Tomi Oksanen's mysterious recovery, the visit to Niklaas in which he'd mentioned the Cassilis Clinic, and his subsequent disappearance. "On the public nets it shows up as a combination health spa and plastic surgery clinic for the rich and beautiful who want to stay that way," she concluded, "but they're paying a lot of surgeons, and they're not all reconstruction men. At least three neurosurgeons that I know of. Maybe more—Nunzia, what's stereotactic injection?"

  "A technique used, among other things, for implanting neuronal cells," Nunzia said. "If they've got a specialist in that on staff—"

  "Two," said Annemari with a brisk, satisfied nod.

  "Then they're doing something in the way of rebuilding neural networks," Nunzia said. "And either it's something very complicated, or they're doing a lot of it, because 'mat insertion is actually a fairly simple procedure."

  "Really?" Evert asked. "Personally, I'd as soon have as many highly paid surgeons as possible helping out before anybody puts a hole in my skull for therapeutic purposes."

  Nunzia smiled slightly. "You're safe from 'mat reconstruction, Haar Cornelis. Even now, we can't repair what was never there to begin with."