Rules of Conflict

by Kristine Smith

  Evan underlined the sentence about the blades, and continued reading.

  Since the ships would be fully outfitted prior to their arrival, no stops would be made on the way back to Earth. Most of the evacuees were Family members and affiliates, highly placed officials with heads crammed with sensitive information. They needed to be returned to the mother world as soon as possible for debriefing.

  Evan underlined that sentence twice. “So why the detour back to Station Ville Louis-Philippe, Roshi?” That could be discerned from the next two documents.

  The defense Mako assembled to justify the return trip had been carefully assembled, with enough basis in fact to withstand examination. His argument, combined with his proof of Family criminal wrongdoing and his threat to make it all public, had allowed him to keep his career.

  Facilities and Environmental were taxed to the limit, Mako had written. Space was at a premium. Therefore, there was no room to house “exceptional cases,” those who could batter already-tenuous morale and endanger other passengers and crew. One evacuee who suffered from claustrophobia was put ashore at the Station, as was an odd case who had taken to lurking in the women’s showers.

  It surprised Evan to see that he had been one of the examples cited in Mako’s defense of his sidetrip.

  Mister van Reuter refuses to eat. He sleeps fitfully, and has been found wandering in restricted areas of the ship. If his condition does not improve soon, it’s the recommendation of my medical officer that we put him ashore at Station Ville Louis-Philippe, since it is her belief that he poses a danger both to himself and the other passengers and crew of the Hilfington.

  The name of the Kensington medical officer turned out to be Sophia Carvalla. So she was in on it, too. Evan didn’t meet her during the journey, although he did recall meeting her at a party several years back. Seemed a sound woman. Just the sort her frazzled colleague from the Hilfington would consult with concerning his highborn problem patient.

  And Mother got to read this fresh from the receiver. No wonder she had fallen apart at the sight of him. “I wasn’t that much of a problem.” True, he refused to eat. And he had trouble sleeping. But his appetite had never been the sturdiest, he had always suffered from insomnia, and the lack of liquor had made both situations worse.

  Yes, I infiltrated a restricted area. Suicide had crossed his mind, and he wanted to see what the weapons lockers had to help him along. But that only happened once. At the start of the trip. When the memories were still fresh.

  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and unearthed a bottle.

  “So they put two people offship, and topped off supplies.” Took on prepack rations. Medical goods. And two meatfilled objects referred to only as TD4J1 and TD4J2. Evan’s intuitive leap with the decomp bags had led him to ask Halvor to make a special trip to question their grocer. Yes, the model numbers were old, but she recognized them. Agers. Meat-curing chambers.

  Or meat-rotting chambers, if a person wasn’t careful about the settings.

  Which led to the fourth document, a handwritten communiqué from the unlucky clerk who had been the first to crack the Kensington hold seals at Luna Station.

  . . . hosed them out. Shoved them into hold, Gleick said. Too many evacuees, not enough room. No time to care for the dead—they had the living to worry about.

  Mako, of course, took full responsibility for the error. “But it was no accident—he rotted those bodies for a reason.” This was where the leap in logic came. Gut instinct.

  Evan stood, stretched, walked around his tiny office. Adjusted the window controls and let the first light of day into the room. It had been years since he’d pulled an all-nighter. Good to know he still had it in him when he needed it.

  “The way Ebben, Unser, and Fitzhugh died points to Pierce. Pierce killed them. Maybe he planned it himself. Maybe his criminal cronies sent him. Whatever happened, he shot them. Then he realized that if it was discovered they died by shooting, he couldn’t blame the Haárin. So he ran squealing back to Daddy Mako.”

  And Daddy Mako fixed. By disobeying orders and detouring to Station Ville Louis-Philippe to take on the agers, then shoving the incriminating shooter-burnt corpses in the meat boxes and cranking the settings to maximum. “The putting-ashore of the two nutcases was a decoy.” As was the addition of the SFC to the mess. “Make it look like an accident by throwing in a nobody.”

  It must have been a difficult decision for Mako to desecrate an innocent like that. Or was it? Survival instincts had kicked into overdrive by that point. A man could find himself capable of anything when faced with the loss of everything he valued.

  “Yes.” Evan leaned against the window and took another swallow from the bottle. “I can’t have been the only one to figure this out.” He knew he possessed a sound native wit, and he could reason in the policy stratosphere when he needed to. But it’s all here. All someone needed to do was comb and piece, and Families paid people lots of money to do just that. He wrote a paper on Macbeth, for crying out loud. A story of a murderer driven mad by guilt. Jesus, Roshi, how could you let him walk around loose?

  “So here I have it.” His great defense—one-third bluff, one-third bullshit, and one-third hard fact. “Government in a nutshell, part three.” He hoisted the bottle in the air and toasted himself for a job well-done.

  Before he could seal the self-congratulation with more bourbon, his door buzzer sounded.

  “You’re up early, sir.” Halvor blinked blearily at him, then at the documents covering the desktop. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all.” Evan felt so pleased with himself, he even smiled at the young idiot. “What’s up?”

  Halvor yawned. “It’s Mr. Loiaza, sir. He’s here. He says he needs to speak with you.”

  “That was last night. As of this morning, she’s still in hospital.” Joaquin dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “The idomeni are in quite the happy uproar. Tsecha actually told the Exterior Affairs correspondent for the Tribune-Times that the embassy had finally been properly blooded. I suppose that means that was the first bout that had been fought there. One doesn’t know whether to be relieved or appalled.” He wadded the linen square into a ball and tossed it onto his plate. “What utter savagery.”

  Evan picked at his omelet and snatched glances at Joaquin’s face. The lawyer’s expression remained placid. He seemed to have enjoyed the hastily assembled fare Markhart had prepared. They had elected to eat outside, and the man had joked amiably about the fact that the two-seat table filled the miniscule patio.

  Evan took a sip of coffee. Too damned bland—he hadn’t thought to lace it until they’d sat down to eat. He set down his cup. Tapped the rim of his plate with his fork. Waited. “What does it mean, Quino?” As if he didn’t know.

  “It means Kilian had been officially acknowledged by the Oligarch. It means she’s proven her usefulness to the Commonwealth in a way we wouldn’t have thought possible months ago.” Joaquin stared out toward the cramped rear yard, the truncated banks of roses. “It means we need to talk, Evan.”

  “Yes, I—” Evan looked into Joaquin’s turtle-eye stare, and his tale died in his throat. Better to hold his fire until he could see down the enemy’s gullet. “You first.”

  “Thank you.” Joaquin shot the cuffs of his charcoal day-suit. Even in the morning heat, he kept his neckpiece snug and his collar fastened. “You were never a man for weasel words. Well, outside my chosen profession, neither am I. I’ve been forced to admit a couple of things to myself these past few days. One is that taking you on as a client was the greatest miscalculation of my career.”

  Evan tried to probe Joaquin’s expression. No use looking for signs of joking—at their level, one didn’t kid a fellow about tossing him over the side. He forced a laugh through clenched teeth. “If you cut me loose now, I’ll have a hell of a time bringing a new attorney up to speed for my trial.”

  Joaquin smiled coolly. “There will be no trial, Evan. Anyone as poli
tically shrewd as you must have figured that out by now. The Service’s refusal to charge Kilian with Neumann’s murder negated your usefulness to them. It also gutted her usefulness to you. You needed her, Evan. You needed a foe with as many strikes against her as you could uncover in order to draw attention away from your own missteps.”

  He’s saying you now. Not us. Not we. “The charges against me are independent of the ones against Jani. There’s no reason for them not to proceed.”

  “If they did, you’d have a greater problem.” Joaquin tsked in disgust. “I should have seen it coming. Mako had his own agenda all along. He stuck Kilian in the Psychotherapeutics ward as soon as she arrived at Sheridan—she’s been in and out like a fiddler’s elbow ever since. It’s on paper that she’s not entirely well between the ears. Attacking a sane alleged murderer is one thing. Engaging in the character assassination of a woman diagnosed as mentally incapable of defending herself would not have been the way to rebuild a political career. Thus does the Service guard its own.” He took a linen square from his jacket pocket, dipped a corner in his glass of ice water, and patted it over his forehead. “Let’s walk. It’s stifling to sit in this heat.”

  “It’s stifling to sit, period.” Evan rose shakily, leaning on the table for support. “They can’t just shunt me aside.”

  Joaquin locked his hands behind his back. He walked easily. No shakes. No nerves. Just another morning spent setting someone adrift on the stormy Family seas. “The evidence against you seems to have disappeared. No surprise there—Lady Commonwealth has a long reach. It doesn’t do to reopen old wounds with the idomeni, who in their distinctly odd way have accepted the fact that Kilian is alive and in the public eye. It doesn’t do to appear fragmented before the colonies.”

  Evan shook his head. He still found it hard to comprehend. His screwed-up Jani, the fulcrum on which two civilizations balanced. “She means that much to them?”

  “On the day she’s discharged from the Service, Felix has pledged to withdraw its lien against Fort Constanza. In addition, the Channel Worlds will sign a pact promising full cooperation with Exterior’s efforts to rein in the runaway smuggling operations based in their sector.” Joaquin leaned over to sniff a fully opened Nathan Red. “And let us not forget nìRau Tsecha, who just last night put forth an offer of GateWay rights to the Samvasta Outlet, the granting of which will shave one week off Outer Circle long-hauls.” He plucked a partially opened bud and inserted it in his collar notch. “I don’t relish telling you this, but we’re both realists. It’s moved beyond you, Evan. You’re yesterday’s news.”

  Evan kicked at a clot of soil. It exploded into powder against a stand of rocks. “What do you get out of this? A Cabinet Court retainer fee? NUVA-SCAN contracts?”

  “I had those before. When I took you on, I lost them, one by one. Now, I’m getting them back.”

  “So you’re working for them now. You didn’t come here as my attorney. The Families sent you here to make me an offer.”

  “Offer? No. They sent me here to tell you the way it’s going to be.” Joaquin kept his turtle gaze fixed on the roses. “Arrest will be rescinded. Gradually. You’ll have this house, and a stipend with which to run it. Your personal assets will be held in trust for a period of five years, during which time your conduct will be monitored. Behave, and when the term ends, you get the money. Step out of line even once, every bit reverts to the Treasury.”

  “The personal assets are nothing compared to the NUVA holdings!”

  “Which reverted to the company on the day of your arrest.” Joaquin shot a quick look at Evan’s shoes, as if assuring himself of the distance between them. “After a year or so, a board meeting or two is a possibility, but only as a courtesy. You will have no voting rights.”

  “You can’t confiscate my family’s property!”

  “Consider it reparations.” Joaquin hesitated. “Some of us were very fond of Lyssa.”

  That was easy when you didn’t have to live with her. “You said no proof existed.”

  “There’s trial-quality proof, and there’s the opinion of people who watched you grow up.” Joaquin plucked a dead leaf from the stem of a Tsing Tao Pink. “If several members of the Cabinet had their way, you’d spend the balance of your life on a Lunar construction site welding transport frames. As it is, you’ll have your native sky above your head and native soil beneath your feet. And you’ll be cared for.” His mouth twisted. “All the medical treatment your heart desires.”

  Evan followed Joaquin’s gaze, still fixed on the flowers. Why did people love roses? All he saw were twists and thorns; their pungent perfumes, released by the first wash of sun, sickened him. “I’m too young to be shut away like this—I’ll go mad.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I’ll demand a trial. I’ll name names.” Evan nodded firmly. “The van Reuters weren’t the only ones who made money off Knevçet Shèràa technology, and they weren’t the only ones with something to hide. I could tell you—”

  “Who will listen to the ravings of a mentally impaired maintenance alcoholic? I received a copy of John Shroud’s medical findings last night. Suffice it to say that if a person asked you if it were night or day, they’d be well advised to look outside first.” Joaquin turned to him, stiff and formal, thirty years’ acquaintance gone by the boards. “The sad end to a promising career, perhaps, but you did it to yourself. I’m only glad your parents aren’t alive to witness the fall.” He nodded. “If it’s any consolation, you went farther than most of us thought possible. Good-bye, Evan.”

  Evan watched Joaquin walk up the shallow incline, the leather soles of his shoes sliding on the grass. He grappled with the urge to grab a spade from the shed, to run the man down and split his skull.

  He slipped and hit his head. Honest, Officer. It was Chicago, after all. The Bluffs. The ComPol dealt with accidents like that all the time.

  Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets. When Joaquin disappeared through the doors, he made his own slow way up the slope. His feet dragged. His perception played tricks. The house seemed to draw farther away the closer he came—he knew if he turned around, he’d see himself standing at the bottom of the yard, staring back.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Elba in all its poky homeliness sitting where it always had. He reentered the cool quiet of his tomb, closed himself in his office, and entered a code into his comport. It wasn’t a personal code—he had to threaten several peons before he was sent through.

  The pasty face formed on the display. “Evan.” Shroud scowled. “What do you want?”

  “Your head on a plate, you son of a bitch!” Evan sank into his chair. “You gutted me.”

  “Well, in the end, it did seem the best way to ensure Jani’s safety.” Shroud’s voice rose and fell, a singsong of mock condolence. “What are you upset about? You won’t face trial. You won’t die.”

  “I’ll go public—”

  The voice flattened. “The comlog ensures that you will do no such thing.” Shroud sat back. He wore medwhites. Greyed circles beneath his blue-filmed eyes combined with his chalky aspect to make him look like a nervous patient’s worst nightmare. “Don’t contact me again, or I may recommend hospitalization. Trust me, that’s the last thing you want.”

  Evan opened a drawer, drew out a bottle, then put it back. “Tellinn was here.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “He says Jani’s dying.”

  Shroud gave the smallest start. For an instant, he looked ready to crumble. But just for an instant. “Good-bye.”

  Evan stared at the blank display. He didn’t move until a shadow cut across his view. He glanced up to find Markhart standing deskside, regarding him thoughtfully.

  “Mr. Loiaza seemed confident this morning, sir. I hope that means things are going well?”

  “Things are great.”

  “How many for lunch?”

  “One.” He tasted the sound of the way it w
as. “Markhart, you said your sister worked at Fort Sheridan, didn’t you?”

  Markhart nodded. “Half shift in one of the snack bars. But only two days a week.”

  “Is today one of those days?”

  “No, sir. Tomorrow is, though.”

  Tomorrow. Evan swallowed down a growl of frustration. Take advantage of it. That would give him plenty of time. To word things properly. To decorate the few facts he had with just enough bluff and bullshit. “Ask her if she’d do me a favor.”

  Markhart stared at him. “Sir—”

  “Nothing illegal.” Evan grinned reassuringly. “I’d just like her to deliver a note. To a friend.”

  Chapter 28

  Pimentel balked when Jani mentioned attending the A-G’s garden party. She wore him down over breakfast and had him convinced by lunch. But late that afternoon, when Lucien arrived with her gear, he wavered once more.

  “I don’t like this one bit.” He watched Lucien lay out Jani’s dress blue-greys on her bed. “You’re in no condition to be discharged, much less attend a party.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to dance the night away.” Jani nestled in her visitor’s chair and tucked her bare feet beneath her. “It’s just a sedate little gathering. I’ll make small talk, avoid the buffet, drink water, and lean on the lieutenant for support when necessary.”

  The supportive lieutenant continued his silent organizing, setting out her mirror-polished black tietops and running a cloth over her dress lid’s black brim. Then he reached into his duffel and pulled out hairwash, makeup, and underwear.

  When he removed the bouquet of miniature roses, however, Pimentel’s eyes goggled. “What the hell?”

  Lucien turned to him and smiled. It was an odd expression, one Jani hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t a broad smile, or a boyish grin, but a half-mast bend of lip accompanied by hard-eyed evaluation. It said that he liked doing things like this, and would do them for the colonel if the colonel wished. It added that he would do a lot of other things for the colonel, too, if the colonel were at all interested.