“What kind of message would they be sending to you?” Flint asked.
Deshin pushed himself out of the chair. He paced back to the window, looked out, then turned around again. It was as if the cityscape calmed him.
“I had a weird reaction when I saw the footage of those clones for the first time,” he said. “My reaction was shock. Shock that someone would actually pay for and use designer clones for crimes this big. Shock that it worked. Because I always thought that things like this sounded better in theory, for the very reasons you mentioned. The idea that most humans in their twenties would have lives of their own, would make decisions on their own, that they couldn’t be sustained as a weapon for this long.”
“A weapon,” Flint said.
Deshin nodded. “That’s how they were initially advertised to me,” he said. “As weapons.”
“My God,” Flint said. He couldn’t tell Talia about this. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell anyone about this, even though he would have to. DeRicci had to know. “You will give me the names of the sellers who approached you.”
“And you’ll give me all the bomb components,” Deshin said.
“Yeah,” Flint said. Deshin had given him something they hadn’t had. Deshin had been right; they needed each other on this.
Flint would trust Deshin at least a little.
“We got sidetracked on the clones,” Flint said. “You were going to tell me something about zoodeh.”
Deshin smiled. “Something I’m sure you’ve thought of. But it’s better to be safe.”
“All right,” Flint said, sure he wouldn’t have thought of it. It was beginning to seem like he hadn’t thought of anything. “What is it?”
“The Earth Alliance banned zoodeh when it became clear that zoodeh was a great weapon for assassinations,” Deshin said.
“Yes,” Flint said. He knew that.
“But the Earth Alliance didn’t force people to turn in whatever zoodeh they had. The zoodeh the Alliance knew about got quarantined, but there was a lot of zoodeh the Alliance didn’t know about.”
“Is it still being sold?” Flint asked.
Deshin shook his head. “That’s the quickest way to get the Alliance to notice you. The Alliance watches weapons sales—at least those inside its borders. You need to look at who ordered zoodeh back when it was legal.”
“Or who made it,” Flint muttered. He suppressed a curse. They had missed that as well. “Do you have a list?”
“On zoodeh?” Deshin gave Flint a half-smile. “No. I don’t sponsor assassinations. I’m not in the business of killing. But I do know that death is a big business. A lot of money gets made not just on weapons, but on finding the right targets, and manipulating the right events.”
“You know who does this?” Flint asked.
“No more than you do,” Deshin said. “This kind of stuff is always in the news. We just don’t pay attention to things outside of our little sphere. Until those things try to blow up our sphere.”
“Or succeed in blowing it up,” Flint said.
“Yeah,” Deshin said. “I’ve done a lot of thinking these past few months. That’s why I’m talking to you.”
Flint stood and extended his hand, something he hadn’t thought he’d do at the beginning of the conversation.
“I’m glad you did,” Flint said. “I’m very glad you did.”
Twelve
Noelle DeRicci kicked off her shoes, moved the gift basket off the top of the bar at the far end of her hotel suite, and reached for the whiskey on the bar’s top shelf. Earth-made whiskey in a bottle covered in dust. She didn’t care.
She wanted a drink. She deserved a drink, and by God, she was going to have one.
She poured three fingers worth into the real glass tumbler near the mirror, and looked at herself as she did so. She wanted this moment burned in her memory.
This was the moment when she started drinking alone.
Which wasn’t actually true. She had done the same thing after the bombing of Armstrong four years ago. And about at the same place in the timeframe. Six months after the actual event, when she realized she would never ever catch the damn bomber.
When she realized she might never have answers.
She set the tumbler down without taking a sip. Then she sighed.
You don’t understand, Dominic Hanrahan, the mayor of Tycho Crater, had said to her just a few hours ago.
The problem was that she understood too well. He didn’t understand. He had no idea what kind of pressure she was under. It was the same pressure he felt, magnified one million times. Each death that he allowed himself to think about matched one thousand deaths she couldn’t allow herself to think about—particularly as individuals.
If she thought about all of those people as individuals, she’d crack.
She looked up. A thin-faced woman with large eyes looked back at her, her once-dark hair now almost completely gray. She had never been thin, never looked thin, never was incredibly thin, not even when she was in her best shape as a police officer.
Now she wasn’t eating enough because she wasn’t sitting down long enough to have a meal, and when she did sit down for a meal it was often in a high-stress situation with someone like Hanrahan. What great way to kill an appetite. Then when she got to her hotel room or her office or home, she didn’t want to eat or she just plain forgot.
She was forgetting a lot of things, which her assistants kept telling her was normal for someone under the kind of stress she felt. Her forgetfulness was another reason she had staff shadowing her at all times.
Or at most times. Fortunately, at the moment, those shadows were in their own hotel rooms, probably contemplating their own liquor cabinets.
Long damn day. And tomorrow would be more of the same. Hanrahan promised to have the rebuilding plans in her hands by breakfast.
She wondered where he would find an architect who could design a working model of an entire dome section on such short notice.
She grinned at that thought. Hanrahan was so transparent. She had defeated him verbally at the disaster site, and now he was afraid of her. Now he would do what she wanted.
She only wished he would do it without intense supervision.
She wished a lot of things. None of them would ever come true. She wished she had known what life would be like now back when she had agreed to take this job. She wished she knew that life was this way because the change was inevitable, not because it was her fault.
She wished she had someone to talk to, someone who would truly understand what she was going through.
Noelle? At first, she thought the voice coming through her links was her imagination.
She turned away from the mirror. Miles?
A small holographic image of him appeared on the bar. The gift basket dwarfed him. She moved so that she wouldn’t see both in the same frame.
I wasn’t sure I’d reach you, he sent. I know that sometimes you’re unavailable when you’re touring the scenes.
That was earlier. She pulled over one of the bar stools and sat down. She hoped he couldn’t see the drink sitting untouched near the mirror.
You look tired.
He was clearly being polite. She looked exhausted.
He looked—what? Energized? Animated? Something was different about him. Something she recognized, but something she hadn’t seen in a long time, since before Anniversary Day.
I had the most extraordinary meetings today, he sent.
With who? She wished she could say her meetings had been extraordinary. They weren’t. They had been like every meeting she’d had since Anniversary Day.
I’ll get to that in a minute, he sent. But I’ve got some information, about the clones, about the zoodeh, and about the way we’re approaching the investigation.
What about the investigation? she asked.
We’re going about it wrong, he sent.
Of course they were. She rubbed her eyes, noting that even her thoughts were sarcastic or c
ynical. She was tired. She didn’t want to contemplate the idea that they had done something wrong, let alone conducted the investigation wrong.
What’s wrong with it? Just asking that question took more strength than she had anticipated.
We’re assuming that Anniversary Day was a practice run, just like that first bombing in Armstrong. Flint practically vibrated as he sent that. Wherever he had gotten this idea, he liked it. No, it was more than that. He believed it.
It isn’t?
He shook his head. We need to search for other smaller bombings elsewhere in the Earth Alliance. There will be more attacks, but probably not here.
Who told you this? DeRicci asked.
This part is just a theory, Flint sent, but it makes sense to me.
Her brain hurt. The theory didn’t make sense to her. But then, little had of late.
Look, Noelle, Flint sent, the only reason I’m telling you this is so that we can move the investigation wider. We’ll need Earth Alliance help.
We already have Earth Alliance help, she sent.
Looking at internal records of other cultures, he sent. I suspect the practice runs on some of them have already happened.
And you want me to contact someone, she sent. She was feeling more and more tired with each idea. She didn’t want the Earth Alliance involved any more than it already was. She certainly didn’t want those investigators to interfere with the way things were going on the Moon.
He shrugged. Maybe you should contact someone. If we find anything. First, I need your permission to look.
I’m not in charge of you, Miles.
I know, he sent. But you’re in charge of the investigation, and I can’t give orders without your authority. In fact, I need you to tell Rudra that my theory is worth pursuing.
She disagrees? If Popova disagreed, then DeRicci would too. After a difficult period just after Anniversary Day, DeRicci could trust Popova again.
She doesn’t know, he sent. She doesn’t like the Earth Alliance investigators already in your office.
DeRicci didn’t like them either. But maybe this was a sign that DeRicci needed a real assistant. Not shadows, not a glorified secretary like Popova. Someone who could make decisions for her. Someone she trusted one-hundred percent.
The problem was that she didn’t trust anyone one-hundred percent, not Miles, not anyone.
DeRicci sighed. Looking in a new direction won’t hurt. I’ll let her know. But I don’t want her to involve the Earth Alliance investigators. I think they’re here to take over my investigation.
At that moment, she sent Popova a private message. In it, she warned that whatever direction Flint wanted to take the investigation was all right with her, but that the Earth Alliance investigators should be kept in the dark.
Flint had his arms crossed. Something was bothering him.
Anything else? DeRicci sent.
Zoodeh and the clones, Flint sent. He was frowning now, as if he couldn’t believe she had forgotten that.
She could believe it. She really needed something to eat. Or some sleep. She wasn’t sure which was more important.
What about them? she sent.
He told her about the zoodeh, the fact that a lot of it remained in the Earth Alliance after the ban.
We should have thought of that, she sent. The Alliance is so disorganized.
Flint nodded. So we’re going to investigate that too.
Good, she sent. And the clones? Did you find who made them?
No, he sent, but I did find out how they came to be. They’re designer clones, Noelle. Someone is selling clones for specific activities, as thieves or assassins. As weapons.
DeRicci closed her eyes and tilted her head back. There it was. Someone from the Alliance had finally talked to Flint.
I know, she sent.
You know? he sent and she could feel his disbelief. She knew what he would say next. This was something she should have told him.
It’s classified. I couldn’t have told you if I wanted to, she sent.
Don’t you think it would have helped the investigation if I knew?
No, she sent, even though she did think it might have helped. The Earth Alliance already has people investigating this.
And they haven’t done anything in years, Flint sent.
They have, she sent. They’re on the trail. They’ve moved even more personnel to this task since the bombings.
His little holographic self stared at her. She was glad she was seeing him in miniature, because if he were across from her, she wasn’t sure she could defend his lack of knowledge on this.
Who told you about this? she sent. Those lackeys from the Earth Alliance that Popova’s been messaging me about?
Luc Deshin, Flint sent—and severed their connection.
DeRicci sat down. She wasn’t sure if she was more surprised that Flint had cut her off or that he had been talking with Armstrong’s most notorious criminal boss.
Luc Deshin. He had probably been the source of all of the information that Flint got. She wondered what Deshin got out of pushing the investigation in this direction.
Flint wasn’t easily manipulated. In fact, he had a stronger spine than she did. So Deshin couldn’t push him in a direction he didn’t want to go.
Still, Deshin’s presence in this investigation made her wary.
Everything made her wary.
And the conversation with Flint left her unsettled.
She thought of contacting him again, and then she changed her mind. She needed food. She needed rest.
She needed to think about something else for a while.
She turned around, and without giving herself a chance to change her mind, she downed the tumbler of whiskey.
It burned and it didn’t make her feel any different. Not more relaxed, not happier, not anything.
It didn’t make her forget either.
Nothing ever would.
Thirteen
Whiteley’s ship started the moment Zagrando touched the controls, just like it would have with Whiteley at the helm. The ship rose easily, and all of the monitors—from the automated ones to the visual ones—showed no one following him.
This ship was huge, and it felt empty. Zagrando had hated it from the first moment he’d seen it, and he hated it more now. It looked more like a battleship than a businessman’s yacht, with all the weaponry up front and the utilitarian cockpit.
Zagrando’s stomach ached. He was both tense and queasy. He had to get off this ship quickly, and he really didn’t have a plan for that. He figured the Black Fleet would know within hours that Whiteley no longer piloted his own ship.
And Zagrando did not want to be on board when they figured it out. He suspected they would do nothing to him because Whiteley had been the one who had been incautious, but Whiteley was part of the Black Fleet family and Zagrando was not. Therefore, predicting what the Black Fleet would do to him was a fool’s game.
Even though he had disabled the ship’s coded command system before boarding, he had not expected to steal the thing. Now he was in an unfamiliar region of space in a stolen ship, after he had shot its owner, who was an integral part of the Black Fleet.
He didn’t dare contact the Earth Alliance. He didn’t dare contact anyone for help.
He had to figure this out on his own.
But first, he had to get the Emzada’s skin cells off him. He had no idea what that goo would do to him after a day or so of contact, and he really didn’t want to find out.
He clicked into the ship’s navigation system, looking for nearby starbases. He didn’t want anything affiliated with the Earth Alliance. Nor did he want a place frequented by the Black Fleet.
He needed some place that would allow him to dump this ship and purchase another. Then he would have to dump that ship somewhere along the way—after changing its identification codes—and find yet another.
At some point he would have to stop leaving a trail—both physically and metaphorically. He needed
a destination, but his desire for one warred with his desire to get this crap off his skin.
His nose twitched, and his throat felt thick with Emzada cells. How many of those damn things had he swallowed anyway?
He would have to use one of the nanocleansers from Whiteley’s medical stock, just to make sure this stuff hadn’t permanently become part of his system.
It would be brilliant, wouldn’t it, if those cells turned into some kind of tracking device.
Three years ago, he would have considered that thought paranoid. Now he worried that he wasn’t paranoid enough.
The navigation system pinged. It had located several stops not too far away. Most were human-based. One was Disty-owned, and his already tortured skin crawled at the thought. He hated the warrens that the Disty built everywhere, but he’d use them if he had to.
The other belonged to the J’Slik. His already upset stomach twisted even more at the thought of going there. The J’Slik refused to join the Earth Alliance because of all the legal requirements. Like the Black Fleet, the J’Slik had a criminal culture. Unlike the Black Fleet, the J’Slik believed the individual primary, so anything any J’Slik individual did took precedence over any group activity.
He had studied the J’Slik and had run into a few of them, but he had never deliberately gone to one of their bases.
But the Black Fleet tried to avoid them as well. And that, more than anything, was a point in the J’Slik’s favor.
Besides, the J’Slik loved trades and money—of all types. Zagrando had something to trade and, failing that, he had enough money to buy his way out of there.
The trick would be to leave shortly after he arrived.
He programmed the coordinates into the navigation system, then sighed. He had a hunch that just by programming those coordinates, he guaranteed some Black Fleet ships would head his way.
He hoped he could get to the starbase before they did.
But he wasn’t going to worry about it at the moment. He was going to think about it all after he had cleaned the Emzada out of his system.
Before he left the cockpit, he activated one more automatic control. He wanted the ship’s cleaning system to get rid of any trace of the Emzada as well.
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