“So?” A hint of self-satisfaction flavored Lucien’s voice. “Are you going to come quietly?”
In reply, Jani hunched her shoulders and shot forward at a forty-five-degree angle, cannoning into his midriff and pounding her rock-loaded fists into his solar plexus.
Lucien emitted a gratifying “oomph” as he stumbled backwards, but his jacket, well-padded and lined with impact absorbers, took the brunt of Jani’s blows and cushioned his fall. He grabbed her by the shoulders before she could straddle him, rolled her, and rammed her to the ground.
Something hard, large, and pointed impacted Jani’s upper back. Her “oomph” came much louder than Lucien’s since her civilian snowsuit didn’t come equipped with bumpers. Gold lights novaed and died before her eyes. Seeing stars—amazing how damned literal that term was.
“What the hell—” Lucien struggled to his feet and backed away “—were you trying to pull?”
The sound of his labored breathing wended through Jani’s pained daze. Took ’im by surprise on my own—augie, who needs you? She tried to raise up on her elbows, but slumped back as some invisible giant planted his foot squarely in the middle of her chest. Then jumped up and down. Me, that’s who. She attempted to draw breath through the suffocating mask, then to tear the clear shield away, but an upper-back cramp stopped her short. Vanquished, she closed her eyes, pulled in the occasional pained gasp, and waited for the fire in her lungs to go out.
Lucien made no move to assist her. He brushed snow and dead-leaf confetti from his suit, freeing his shooter from an inside holster in the process. “You aren’t going to try to jump me again, are you?” He approached her gingerly, free hand extended. “Rolling around in the snow with you might have its attractions, but it’s too damned cold right now.”
“Sweet-talker.” Jani waved him back and rose as best she could on her own. “Bet you say that to all the prisoners.” She turned and kicked weakly at some dark ridging poking up through the snow, revealing the embedded rock that had knocked the wind out of her. “Lead on, Lieutenant.”
Lucien stilled at the mention of his rank. Then he motioned with his shooter for Jani to walk on ahead.
Progress proved slow. The trail sloped and rose; Jani’s back cramped with every jolting step, every strained breath. For a time, the only words spoken were Lucien’s terse directions as he told her which way to turn. Then, as they approached the clearing in which he had stashed his skimmer, he drew alongside. Jani noted he had holstered his weapon. “You were going to brain me with a rock,” he said, sounding genuinely upset. “I stole underwear for you.”
“I wouldn’t have hit you hard. Just enough to slow you down.” She swallowed a moan as her back seized. “Honest.”
Lucien cut in front of her and popped the skimmer passenger door. The vehicle was a newer sport model: satin-finish silver exterior, black-leather interior, and very low-slung. This time, when he offered Jani his arm, she took it. “Anything broken?” he asked, as she inserted herself into the cockpit.
Jani shook her head, slowly at first, then more vigorously as the pain in her upper back receded to a duller, more manageable ache. Augie to the rescue. Now you show up. “I’m too old for this crap.”
“That’s what you get for jumping poor unsuspecting lieutenants.” Lucien slammed the gullwing shut and hurried around to the driver’s side.
Take your time. Jani stared at the vehicle’s dash, which resembled a GateWay-certified transport control array. Not like I could skimjack this thing anytime soon. She lifted her arms as high as she could, pulled off her goggles and mask, pushed back her hood, and worked a hand through her matted hair.
Lucien fell into his seat and yanked his door closed. Security seals whunked and hissed; the changing cockpit pressure made Jani’s ears pop. “Fancy skim for a looie,” she said, as he freed himself from his own headgear and gloves. His mussed hair gleamed in contrast to the cabin’s dark decor. “Surprised someone from the A-G’s office hasn’t rapped your knuckles.”
Lucien jabbed at the vehicle charge-through three times before he hit it. “I have permission.”
“I know. Saw you and your permission on the ’Vee last night. You make quite a couple.” She mouthed an “ow” as the skimmer rose with a jerk and banked sharply, causing her to ram against her unapologetic driver. “I finally got the meaning of your little card,” she said as they flutter-glided down a slope. “Your sailracers. Off to surf the solar wind. You’re trying to tell me a certain someone was augmented.” Lucien jerked the wheel again, and she banged into her door. And if you think I’m going to tell you who it is, you can go wrap yourself around a tree. Hopefully, after she had disembarked. “I’ve never been kidnapped before. Are you taking me to Exterior Main? A stronghold outside Chicago? The next province?”
Lucien cocked his head. That was the only reply Jani received as they hopped over a low fence that marked Interior’s boundary. Not once during the transit did she see any Interior vehicles or staffers. Anywhere. Evan, we must talk when I get back. When she got back—keep the happy thought.
Lucien’s wariness lessened as soon as they ramped onto the Boul, the twelve-lane thoroughfare that had welcomed Jani so roughly the day before. He drove fairly well. The skimmer’s proximity alarms didn’t yelp that often, and he only passed on the right twice. After a few minutes, they ramped down, leaving the pressing traffic behind. The snow had fallen on this quiet world as well, but Jani could see from the bare sidewalks and roofs that staff had already seen to the cleaning up.
Lucien, too, eyed the facades of cream and light brown brick and stone, tiny patches of manicured hybrid greenery filling the narrow spaces between house and sidewalk. “This is the Parkway,” he said softly. “I suppose you could call it a stronghold.”
Jani recalled Minister Ulanova’s stern portrait in the Amsun Station gangway. I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to this.
They stopped in front of one of the buttercream manors. In the center panel of the double-wide front door, Jani spotted the gold-enameled oval centered with the black double-headed eagle of the Ulanovs. As a uniformed Exterior staffer hurried out to take the skimmer, she and Lucien disembarked and made their way up the narrow walk.
The doors flew open. A dark-haired young woman rushed out onto the landing.
“Lucien!” She wedged between him and Jani, imprisoning his arm in hers. “Where have you been? Milady has been calling for you every five minutes—the hell of it!” She pushed Lucien ahead of her through the entry, then tried to close it on Jani. “You go around the back,” she snapped.
“No, Claire, she comes in the front.” Lucien shook himself free of his petulant escort and ushered Jani into the mirror-lined entry hall. “Now go tell Her Excellency we’re here.” His not-so-gentle shove propelled Claire halfway down the hall. “Bâtard,” she spit as she disappeared through an open doorway, her kittenish face aged to cat by a nasty glare.
“My thoughts exactly,” Jani said as she turned to Lucien, who had developed an interest in the gilt frame of a mirror. “Stoking fires upstairs and down. You’re asking for trouble.” The dig elicited only a bored shrug. “What does Ulanova want from me?”
“You’ll know soon enough.” Lucien’s eyes held the dull cast of ice left too long in the cooler. The Arapaho seemed a long time ago. A very long time.
CHAPTER 15
A still-pouting Claire poked her head into the hallway and motioned for Jani to follow. They passed through a series of sitting rooms, each larger and more ornately furnished than the last, ending up in a salon grande with crimson fabric-covered walls and museum-quality furnishings. Jani looked at the muraled ceiling and berugged floor. Everything’s freaking red—I dub thee the Bloodshot Room.
“You wait here,” Claire said as she departed, whipping her waist-length hair like an animal repelling flies.
Jani shrugged off her snowsuit jacket, gave up on the pants, then flexed her neck and worked her stiff shoulders. An odd languor had settl
ed over her, an unsettling contrast to her usual post-augie jitters. At least I won’t go bouncing off these goddamn walls. She listened for approaching footsteps, then stared blearily at the fragile glass and porcelain contents of the cabinets.
When that palled, she switched her attention to the wall decor. She contemplated several holos, their colors calibrated to resemble the mutedness of old oils, before stopping in front of the portrait of a young man. He wore a plain tunic in Exterior burgundy; his clipped hair shone white-blond. Full-lipped, his professional smile held a hint of dry humor. Jani couldn’t see the color of his slanted eyes, but a long-forgotten fragment of Commonwealth gossip told her they’d be brown.
“That was my late brother-in-law, David Scriabin, at the age of twenty-five.”
Jani twisted around. Her upper back cramped. She hadn’t even heard the door open.
“He had just been elected First Deputy to Exterior Minister al-Muhammed.” Anais Ulanova stood in the doorway, eyeing Jani with cool cordiality. Unlike many public figures, she was just as imposing in private. Medium height, very thin, she wore a long-sleeved, floor-length black gown of stark design. Weighty gold hoops hung from her ears. Her short, dark brown hair glistened in the room’s soft light, its swept-back style accentuating her aquiline nose and wide-set eyes. Lyssa van Reuter, thirty annealing years on.
“Your Excellency,” Jani said, with a shallow bow that was as much as her balky back and colonial sensibility would allow.
Ulanova’s dark gaze shifted to the portrait, and softened. “He became Minister himself only five years later, the youngest Cabinet member in Commonwealth history. That was the year my sister and he married.” She waved languidly toward two nearby chairs set at opposite ends of a long, low table, on which rested a silver beverage service. “You’d like a refreshment? Coffee, perhaps?”
Jani sat down, her stomach grumbling as the rich aroma of truebean reached her. “With all due respect, ma’am, if our positions were reversed, I doubt you’d drink anything I offered.”
“Be rude if you wish, Ms. Tyi,” Ulanova said as she poured. “But it is a cold winter’s afternoon, and I need my coffee.” She sat back, cup and saucer in hand, her posture impeccable. “Lieutenant Pascal will be joining us shortly.” A smile flirted with the corners of her thin-lipped mouth. “Off seeing to things he could just as well leave to his staff. He really is the most…thorough young man.”
Jani waited until Ulanova raised her cup to drink. “He’s fucking Claire, too, you know. He’s snaking you with her just like David Scriabin did with your sister.”
Coffee sloshed, spattering Ulanova’s dress. Fifty years in the public arena served her well—the pain that flashed across her face disappeared instantly. “I never would have suspected you a wallower in common gossip,” she said slowly as she dabbed at her skirt with a linen napkin.
“Oh, I understand the situation was rather uncommon, even by Family standards. You and Scriabin had set the date and picked out the silver, next thing you know, you’re a sister-in-law.” Jani tilted her head in the direction of the Scriabin portrait. “The resemblance to Lieutenant Pascal is startling. Are they related, or do you breed David look-alikes on a farm somewhere?”
“If this is the way you intend to play, Ms. Tyi, please be advised I earned my letter in the sport before you were born.”
“I intend to disclose fully to Minister van Reuter this conversation as soon as I return to Interior House, ma’am.”
“My ex-nephew-in-law is an incompetent drunkard who has, in the grand tradition of his family, surrounded himself with a staff comprised of children and counter-jumpers. If you think your informing him of our meeting will help you in any way, you are doomed to disappointment.”
“Your concern is duly noted, ma’am. Thank you.”
“Why did he bring you to Earth?”
“A long-overdue vacation, ma’am.”
“Lieutenant Pascal believes otherwise. He was quite taken with you, Ms. Tyi. I can’t recall when anyone impressed him more.”
“My thanks to the lieutenant for the vote of confidence.” Jani rubbed her cheek and smothered a yawn. She ordered Lucien to jump me. She knows I’m augmented, or made a damned good guess. She wanted me post-augie. She wanted me off my game.
“Are you sure you won’t have coffee, Captain? Or perhaps you’d prefer something stronger? You appear drawn.”
Jani caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth, then shook her head. “Captain? I don’t have a rank. I’m not Service.” She forced a conciliatory smile. “I’ve only just come off a long-haul, ma’am. I don’t recover from those as quickly as I used to.”
Some emotion flared in Ulanova’s eyes, the last flickers of a dying fire. Then, with a complete lack of fuss, she filled a cup from the coffee ewer and thrust it at Jani.
After a pointed pause, Jani accepted the coffee. The cup’s holopattern caught the light as she drew it near; minuscule iridescent snowflakes seemed to tumble down the smooth white sides. She took a healthy swallow of the black, foamy brew. Strong. Sugared. Bracing. Lovely.
Ulanova’s measured voice slithered past her strange torpor. “I can be a powerful ally, Ms. Tyi. The reverse also holds true.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, why tell me?”
“Evan brought you here to perform an investigation. All I ask is that you inform me of your findings as you do him.”
“You’re asking me to betray my Minister’s confidence, ma’am. What am I worth if I do that?”
“I’ve never been one to begrudge practicality.” Ulanova raised the lid of one of a trio of small dishes and removed a tiny, multicolored cakelet. “And coming over to the winning side before the last decisive battle seems to me the height of practicality.” The stiff icing crunched like frozen snow as she bit down.
“I wasn’t aware we were at war, ma’am.” Jani finished her coffee down to the bitter, grainy dregs.
“Trust me, Ms. Tyi, when I tell you we have a situation developing of even greater concern than the secessionist threat.” Ulanova refilled her cup and pushed the cake server toward her side of the table. “Have you ever heard the name Jani Kilian?”
Only a few thousand times. “No, ma’am, it doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Knevçet Shèràa?”
Poor pronunciation—too much buzz in the “c.” “Is that an idomeni phrase?”
“Rikart Neumann?”
“Everyone’s heard of the Neumanns, ma’am.”
“Acton van Reuter,” Ulanova said, a shade too loudly.
“My minister’s late father.” Jani popped a cakelet into her mouth. “The Old Hawk. Died about four years ago. Age of sixty-seven. David Scriabin was only sixty-four. NUVA-SCAN patriarchs don’t seem to live very long these days, do they, ma’am?”
Ulanova arched a stenciled eyebrow. “Perhaps the word treason may serve to fix your attention, Ms. Tyi. Treason, and premeditated murder.”
Jani’s jaw stalled in mid-chew. I had my reasons. “Ma’am?”
Before Ulanova could explain further, Lucien entered. He covered the distance to their table in a few rapid strides. “Your Excellency,” he said, handing her a sheet of parchment.
As Ulanova studied the document, her expression grew more and more somber.
“Do you recall our recent discussion of Commonwealth kidnapping laws, ma’am?” Lucien asked as he dragged a chair tableside.
Parchment crackled as Ulanova’s grip tightened. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“We’ve wasted this lady’s time,” Lucien said, gesturing toward Jani, “and entered tricky legal territory in the process.” He served himself coffee, then dug into the cakes, popping them into his mouth one after the other. “Kilian’s dead. No one could have lived through that explosion.” He had combed his hair and shed the snowgear. He now wore a snug turtleneck the color of rubies and Service winterweight trousers striped down the side in the same rich hue.
Mainline stripe. Jani swirled her cup. Mine
was sideline white. She checked his footwear. Sensible boots, like hers, though in better shape. Black. Mirror-polished and steel-toed.
Ulanova handed the paper back to Lucien. “The woman’s ID chip was never found,” she said. “Her death is assumption only.”
Lucien staged another assault on the cakes. “Analysis of the wreckage showed that a pulse bomb had been placed directly over the transport’s main battery, beneath the front of the passenger compartment.” He glanced at Jani. “Anyone sitting in the front of the craft was vaporized. The ID chips the recovery crew did find were as badly damaged as any they’d ever seen. It was their opinion Kilian’s was obliterated.”
Ulanova snorted. “That has never happened!”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Lucien replied.
Maybe, if I’d been sitting in the front. The memory of the transport cabin air’s ozone tang burned Jani’s throat. But I was way in the back. Jammed between the rearmost seat and the bulkhead, wrists bound to ankles, head between her knees. She could almost feel the rumble of the directionals shuddering through her dainty salon chair—
Pulse bomb?
“Ms. Tyi is just what she says she is, an Interior field agent,” Lucien said. “Kilian’s dead. Murdered along with the rest of the Twelfth Rovers.”
Jani leaned forward slowly and set her cup on the table.
Ulanova grew thoughtful. “Some would maintain Kilian’s death was an execution. My friend Gisela Detmers-Neumann, for one. You’ve heard of her, I assume, Ms. Tyi?” Her gaze sharpened as she shouldered on. “But innocent people died in that explosion, as well. Rescuers and rescued—loyal Spacers all. A great scandal, one to shake the foundations of the Commonwealth, the trust between those who administer and those who defend.”
Code of Conduct Page 15
