“Of course.” Moily was youngish, smooth, and completely unbothered by the approach. He went with Raylee to a slightly less crowded corner beside a table of drinks, so unbothered Ari knew it was all an act. A genuine innocent would be at least a little concerned, approached by the police at a wedding.
“Do you know this man?” Raylee reversed her badge to show the image—Subject A, back when his head was still intact.
Moily frowned at it. “That’s Mr Rowan. He and I have done some business. Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“He’s dead, Mr Moily.” Very predictable surprise. “We have reason to believe that Mr Rowan, as you call him, was from the League. We think that he was killed in relation to the same business that you were doing with him. We also think there’s a large possibility that the same people who killed him might also attempt to kill you.”
It was remarkable how fast a man’s studied calm could disappear when confronted with something that made his previous act seem unimportant. Fear and fast thinking. All these Tanushan hucksters and hustlers, Ari thought tiredly. Meet some League operative, hear some story of fast profits, and never a thought to the morbidly high mortality rate with anyone who dealt with League operatives lately. They always thought they could handle it.
“Oh my god,” Moily murmured, eyes wide. “That moon that . . . this doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?”
Raylee studied him. “What exactly do you do, Mr Moily?”
“I . . . we don’t have time for this, you have to protect me!”
“Well, I can’t really protect you unless I know what you’re into. What do you do, Mr Moily?” Damn, she was good, thought Ari.
“I’m . . . I’m a zodiac readjustment therapist.”
Raylee frowned. Turned and looked at Ari, then back. “You’re a what?”
“Star signs, zodiac signs, it’s all so important at Indian weddings.” Raylee’s very Indian features showed fading patience. “And people want their prospective matches’ personalities to match also. Only sometimes they don’t, sometimes the Aries aren’t so stubborn, and the Capricorns aren’t so disciplined . . . and it doesn’t make a good match. So I run them on a personality readjustment program, you know, tape teach, VR and meditation sessions to get the new couple’s personalities to match up just like on the star charts. . . .”
“All bullshit,” Ari formulated. “Only the super-rich are stupid enough to fall for it.”
“And what business did Mr Rowan do with you?” Raylee persisted.
“I . . . introduced him to some friends of mine.” Evasively, eyes darting.
“Please describe these friends.”
Real fear on Moily’s face. These people scared him. Scared him worse than League operatives, by the look of it. Personality readjustment, bullshit as it was . . . and now League splinter group agents fishing for contacts. . . .
“Excuse me,” said Ari, leaning in with his own badge, “Mr Moily, could you tell me if any of these faces are familiar?” He flashed his badge, uploading links onto the reverse display . . . a series of faces flashed across it. The facial-recognition software would have caught Moily’s response, but Ari didn’t need it.
Raylee saw it too. “Pyeongwha,” Ari formulated to her. “Neural Cluster Technology, wonderful. Subject A was talking to the Pyeongwha-nians about NCT.”
Raylee wasn’t good enough with internal formulation to bother with replying. “I think we’d better get you into custody real fast,” she told Moily drily. “Come with us, please.”
All the lights, save the independent candles and ambience gas burners, flicked off. Then the emergency services–mandated voice began, warning of a fire alarm. All wedding guests stopped what they were doing and stared at each other in disbelief.
“Not good,” Ari said grimly. “Let’s move.” He pulled his pistol and moved fast, indicating for Raylee to bring Moily. Ari paused at the tent rear exit, then strode quickly about the rim of a pool, past milling guests in no real haste to move to the exit . . . and Ari recalled an action memo from somewhere that Tanushans in a fire drill would never move fast, being unable to conceive of an actual fire in Tanushan-designed buildings. About which they were of course correct; Tanushan buildings wouldn’t catch fire unless deliberately set alight—and thus his alarm.
Something zipped in the air. Ari spun and saw a hotel waiter fall to the ground.
“That was me,” came Rhian’s voice before he could yell warning. “Gun, left hand, he was drawing.” Amidst fallen drinks, Ari saw the gun, the “waiter” shot neatly through the shoulder. Raylee paused from dragging Moily to stare back across the road, figuring where Rhian must be. . . .
“Move!” Ari snapped. They made fast for the rear stairwell, then down, shouldering past reluctantly moving guests, then quickly outpaced all guests as the stairs descended along the rear glass wall of the entertainment, convention, and ballroom levels . . .
. . . and suddenly the glass wall lit them up, bright lights glaring as Ari’s vision augments struggled to adjust. Shots hit the stairs as glass broke, concussion blasts and gas.
“Go go!” Ari yelled, shoving Raylee and Moily ahead of him down the stairs, following as they reached the next floor ahead. Armoured figures crashed in, a well-trained combat entry, rolling amidst the shattering glass. Raylee hauled Moily away from the stairs and, diving for cover behind potted plants in the adjoining hall, Ari struggling to follow as the armoured figures came up kneeling and aimed. . . .
And were hit from behind, a new entry through shattered glass, landing amongst them and firing all ways at once. Leg-swept one, spin-kicked another into a wall with bone-crushing force, then aimed behind her out the window to plaster the hovering cruiser there with fire. The glaring light vanished, then Sandy—because it could only be her—leaped at Ari as grenades hit behind and pinned him onto the ground by a wall as they exploded.
“Rhi,” she formulated calmly even as Ari struggled to get his head back into order, heart pounding and lungs choking with the smoke, “trace the cruiser, would you? It’s silent but I put holes in it. I’m not allowed to shoot it down over people.”
Satisfied that the threat had passed, she lifted Ari to his feet, as effortless as a child lifting a teddy bear. “You hurt?” she asked. Ari managed a shake of the head. Sandy smiled, kissed him on the lips, and strolled past Raylee with a wink, reloading pistols.
Raylee stared at Ari in disbelief. “You’re fucking kidding me,” she said.
“Yeah,” Ari conceded, gasping. “I know, right?”
Raylee emerged from interrogation two hours later, blinkingly tired.
“Nice work,” said the FSA lead interrogator, Sriharan, and walked to his own debrief, to which she was not invited. Leaning against a wall opposite was Kresnov. Watching her. Raylee still found that disconcerting. Something about Kresnov—Sandy, Ari always insisted she should call her—was so effortless. Calm, in a way normal humans were never calm. Interrogating her would be a nightmare.
“It was good work,” Sandy affirmed.
“You were watching?” Sandy tapped her ear. She’d been watching real time in her head, then. Ari could do that too. Raylee tried sometimes, but it gave her a headache and sometimes made her nauseous. “Right.”
“You want a coffee?”
The coffee machine was in a hall by big windows, surrounding offices still quite busy despite it being two hours from dawn. Sandy took hers strong, milk, no sugar. Raylee, even stronger.
“You’re not attending debrief?” Raylee wondered.
Sitting opposite, elbows on knees, Sandy shook her head. “I get the summary. Nice thing with being the kinetic asset, I get to stay a few degrees separate from all the talking. Form my own opinions.”
“Sounds more like you’re the overview than just the kinetic asset.” Sandy shrugged. Raylee couldn’t deny that it made her edgy. So much power this woman had acquired. At this range, she looked astonishingly normal, shortish hair, wide features, strong figu
re. She had a power about her, a poise, like the gym junkies Raylee had known who walked and sat with rippling muscle, never a slouch or an awkward pose. Ari swore by her, this killer with the blood of hundreds on her hands, as though she’d never had an evil thought. Surely that wasn’t possible, given what she was, and what she’d done.
But her three victims from two hours ago, she’d been astonished to learn, were all still alive. And the one Rhian had shot.
“So, what do you think?” Sandy asked with a jerk of her head back to the interrogation room.
“Well, he was the go-between,” Raylee summarized. “Between your Subject A and some of the Pyeongwha radicals you haven’t caught yet.”
“Quite a few of those, sadly,” Sandy said into her coffee. “The question is, what does a League splinter group guy want with Pyeongwha radicals?”
“Well, Mr Moily’s no help there. But they’re all into mind alteration, aren’t they? Moily’s just a low-grade hack, but he’s interested in personality change, technologically induced psychology. Which is pretty interesting, when it comes to Pyeongwha.”
Two years ago, the FSA had ended the regime of the planet Pyeongwha. Consensus was that Pyeongwha’s brand of uplink technology, called Neural Cluster Technology, was causing radical sociological extremism, leading to a paranoid regime sabre-rattling at its neighbours, and massacring its own noncompliant citizens by the tens of thousands. NCT caused humans to go mad in groups. Now, word was, the entire League had caught a similar disease.
“Seems pretty strange that the representative of a group that just murdered an entire moon would be seeking out a group even more radical than his own,” said Sandy. “They’ve no other connection. Pyeongwha’s never had direct League contacts, they were xenophobic about other Federation worlds, let alone League worlds.”
“Seems logical that a group that’s going insane might want to find out more about the condition,” Raylee reasoned.
“Can ideology recognise its own extremes as insanity? Most of humanity’s genocides have been carried out by lucid and rational individuals.”
“You think?”
“It’s not an opinion, it’s basic psych analysis. Radical politics is a natural function of human society. Pyeongwha’s condition isn’t something new, it’s just created by something new. The condition itself has been observed thousands of times before in human history, statistically frequent enough to be considered normal.”
And this was disconcerting too. Kresnov was crazy smart. Even Ari thought so, and Ari was so smart it sometimes made Raylee’s head hurt. Why these two had ever left each other, she didn’t know. They seemed a perfect match.
“Those guys who tried to kill us,” said Raylee. “Ari thinks they’re FedInt.”
“Well, Ari would.” Sandy sipped coffee. “They’re underworld, scary well equipped, and they’re not talking.”
“Employed by FedInt. Ari insists. He says they do that sometimes, to hide their tracks.”
“Which raises the question, why would FedInt want Mr Moily so badly? On his own, he’s nothing.”
“Same reason they killed Subject A,” Raylee said tiredly. “To cover up some kind of connection between FedInt and the people who just killed Cresta. Ari says.”
“You believe everything Ari says?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Raylee said tiredly, rubbing her eyes. “He’s a spook, I’m just a cop.”
“So you keep insisting.” Raylee just looked at her, sipping coffee, waiting for that remark to be explained. “You thought you turned down this offer of employment, didn’t you?”
“I did turn down this offer of employment.”
“And yet here you are.” With mild amusement. “Again.”
Raylee blinked. “Well, Ari asked, and . . .”
“And you keep saying yes. You do realise how this works? You accepted FSA-standard augments and uplinks, now you’re accepting FSA jobs that require FSA-level secrecy. Soon you’ll barely be able to talk to your old police friends because you can’t share any of this with them. And you get this deeply entwined with FSA investigations, we’ll just put you on permanent attachment.” Gazing at her, with those deep-blue eyes. “But you said no.”
Raylee sighed and stared at the floor. Of course she knew. Dammit. “Thanks for the warning,” she said.
“Oh, it’s not a warning. It’s an observation. And if you don’t like the people who are doing it to you, then I’m your worst enemy.” She got up. “I have to go, apparently there’s someone I have to meet.”
“Why’d you kiss him?” Raylee blurted. Silly thing to ask, but she was tired, and it was on her mind.
“Because I can,” said Sandy.
“You can do a lot of things.”
“So can Ari,” Sandy replied. “But apparently, he’d rather do them with you.” Raylee gazed at her, frowning. And was astonished when Sandy kissed her on the forehead and left.
CHAPTER THREE
They sat in the briefing room, the most secure place in all FSA HQ. Director Ibrahim, Sandy, Assistant Director Hando, Ari. There could have been many more, but Ibrahim was determined to keep the numbers down to the absolute minimum. Chief Shin was reportedly frantic that he had no asset in the room and was making all kinds of calls and threats. Soon Fleet would be as well, no doubt. Then others.
Hando poured tea. Their guest took it politely, no milk or sugar. Hando passed around to others. Coffee for the Director, always.
“So, Cai,” said Sandy. Lead, Ibrahim had told her. She had had previous contact and was also a GI. Ari had had more direct previous contact, but Ari was not “strategic.” In the scheme of things, Sandy was somewhat superior. “How are you?”
“I’m very well,” Cai said mildly. “How are you and the children?”
“Wonderful,” said Sandy. “They’re adjusting very well.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“And your friends?” Sandy asked, sipping her own tea as it came to her.
Cai smiled. “My friends are doing very well also.”
It was quite absurd. Pleasantries and euphemisms were fine, but Cai’s “friends” were the Talee, the only other intelligent race in the galaxy, at least that humans knew of. Not only did he work for them, they’d made him, using the same technology that the League had borrowed to make the first human GIs, then called their own. The same technology, only a far more advanced version.
“I hope I have not upset anyone by being here,” Cai added. “That was not my intention.”
Sandy glanced at Ibrahim. Cai had just turned up, thirty minutes ago, on their doorstep. And had apologised to everyone for inadvertently getting in their way just now.
“Not at all,” said Ibrahim. “In fact, we’re quite pleased to see you. I’m sure you’re aware of my personal desire, and the desire of many in the security apparatus here, to make communications links between our peoples more permanent.”
Cai nodded. “I’m aware. But you are likewise aware that my . . . people . . . are not so sanguine.”
“Can you explain why not?” Ibrahim pressed.
“No. Revealing the nature of their concerns could reveal the nature of broader circumstances. Circumstances that the Talee would rather not share.”
It was paranoid in the extreme. Some analysts familiar with it expressed frustration. Sandy, for her part, thought it quite prudent, now in particular. Events at Cresta demonstrated that humans were capable of extreme action, exacerbated now in the League by an evolving crisis that was at least as much psychological as it was technological. A truly intelligent race might want to watch its step with such unstable aliens. And a peaceful intelligent race might just, in keeping their distance, be expressing a more genuine concern for human well-being than the more emotionally satisfying embrace that some humans appeared to desire.
“Cai,” Sandy resumed, “you were talking to a League splinter group agent at a football game. Why?”
“I’m afraid I can’t say.”
�
��Okay,” said Sandy. “If it’s going to go this way, I’m not going to waste any more time asking what you’re doing here and trying to connect those answers back to Talee strategic intentions. Obviously that’s not going to get us anywhere.”
Cai inclined his head slightly, and sipped tea.
“Let’s move this to another level,” said Sandy. “You chose to reveal yourself to us. You did not need to, you could have stayed quiet and none of us would be the wiser. Why?”
“There are things I would like to discuss with you,” said Cai. “With all of you.”
“Good,” said Sandy, somewhat relieved. “Because if there’s not, I’d really rather be home with my kids.” Hando gave her a warning look. Ibrahim might have smiled, very faintly.
“Cresta,” said Cai. “You are all in great danger.”
“Who is? Us in this room? Callay? The Federation?”
“Humanity,” said Cai. Silence in the room. “Cresta was a V-strike. Two percent light, quite deliberate. It came out of jump within the system shields, no defensive system could have stopped it.”
“Wait,” said Hando, “we don’t know that detail yet. How do you . . . ?”
“Their ships jump faster,” said Ari. Leaning back in his chair, dark hair, long face, leather jacket. Normally those hands fidgeted, scratched an imaginary itch, played with a stylus. Now, they held a mug of tea, unmoving, like his gaze. “He already knows. Could have known a week ago. And then went and talked to a League splinter group agent. An agent who didn’t know Cresta was dead. You couldn’t tell him that.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “You were profiling, weren’t you? Psych profile? Some kind of parameter matrix?”
Cai sipped tea. Not looking at Ari, not avoiding, not denying. Just waiting.
“You’re scared League’s going nuts,” Sandy summarised. “You’re scared the uplink technology they’ve been using is accelerating sociological disorder faster than anyone anticipated. I’ll bet you were doing more than just psych-profiling, you were finding out what he knew; you can uplink-hack anyone you like. If you have some information pertaining to the imminent destruction of other human worlds, we’d certainly like to know.”
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