“Yes.”
“Then you know who killed her.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know I’m not the murderer.”
“I didn’t say that, Captain Risardas.”
He froze, started to speak, then stopped.
“Do you know who killed her, captain?”
He stared at me. “No,” he said finally. “But I have my suspicions.”
“You lied about what you were afraid of, that it had nothing to do with her death.”
“I wasn’t sure. She knew who I was, but I didn’t know how much else she knew.”
“Everything.”
“And now, so do you.”
“Yes.”
He twirled the empty glass in his fingers. “I know what you think of me, Doctor. I don’t have to be psychic to know that. I’ve read your history books, know what was said, what you have been taught to believe. But there is another side. I don’t suppose it would matter if I tried to explain.”
“About Captain Kieran Risardas and how he destroyed Sinder Station, killing ten thousand innocent men, women and children because they stood between him and the mines? That was five hundred years ago. I’m interested in a more recent murder.”
I flicked the safety off my weapon. “The man who killed your wife was after something, something she had hidden away. Copies of datafiles from the Sorca. Where are they, Risardas?”
He seemed confused. “Copies? I don’t know. I didn’t know she had copies. I have the only originals.”
“Here?”
He nodded.
“So she had access to them and made copies. That’s what she threatened her killer with. If he’s to be brought to justice, I’ll need those files.” His face hardened. “Don’t ask me for those, San’Janeiro. If you know about them you know why I can’t give them to you.” Then suddenly, he seemed to realize what I said.
“Gods, no. Not Nelsam!”
I didn’t move.
“But she’s his child, his daughter, his—”
“They were lovers.”
He blanched. Evidently there were some things that sickened even Captain Risardas of the Sorca.
“You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me.”
But I knew he was doubting his own words even as he said them. I shook my head wearily. “I wish to the gods I was. But it’s true. They’ve been lovers for a long time, longer, I’d guess than you’ve been married to her. I don’t know exactly why Nelsam arranged her marriage to you, other than it was a bargain they both made long before you knew about it.”
He stared past me for a moment, his eyes focusing on a time that only he could really see. “I, I felt I owed Nelsam something. He’s the only person I have left who… remembers. Who knows. In spite of his nature—and he is, he can be a brutal man—he would’ve given his life for me, before. And he was the one who actually found the Channel, though he didn’t know how to use it. I figured that out. For me, it was an escape from something that had gotten out of hand.”
He ran a hand through his hair as he gathered his thoughts. “There was a revolution, you see. One that was never recorded in your history books, never will be. All you know is that Risardas and the Sorca plundered the System; you didn’t know why and who for. Your Conclave wasn’t always the righteous group it is now, striving for the common good. Five hundred years ago, Doctor, they were just another faction striving for control, like I was. And if I was cruel, then they were vicious. Specifically, a few in their leadership, like Paro Bennita, Cortleen Branc and others.”
He was right. The names meant nothing to me.
“I was young and cocky and had a good ship and a damned fine crew. That was my only recommendation. And yes, we lived by taking the cargo off of Conclave freighters, raiding settlements. But the Conclave then was Branc and her kind and they were talking about a system of slavery, of imprisonment for anyone who didn’t fall in their category of the ‘chosen’. And that was most of the quadrant.”
“But Sinder…?”
He sighed, leaned back in his chair and briefly closed his eyes. “That was unfortunate, but they’d pushed me to the edge and I had to do something to prove to them that I meant business.” His words sounded crazy, but that wasn’t what scared me. What scared me was that I knew he was telling the truth.
“But what happened, what changed things?”
“Branc killed Bennita, her lover. The movement split widely after that and evolved into those people your history vids now claim as heroes. People I backed, put in power, like Ty St. Carins. Micha Lorte. But Risardas remained an unpopular name, so I used the Channel that Nelsam had stumbled upon quite by accident in mid-jump, and left. I didn’t know until six years ago that he had followed.”
“In the meantime—.”
“In the meantime, my less illustrious relatives had set about making honest citizens of themselves, creating a minor empire that was here for the taking when I arrived for the first time, about three hundred years ago. But my relatives lacked the drive, the ability to make the Depots truly successful. So I played the part of a long-lost Risardas cousin and began to build an empire for myself. Over the centuries, I’ve been my own father, brother and son. Everything you now see around you is because of my own hard work.”
“With a little help from the Channel,” I added. He touched the ornate desk. “Well, yes. Some habits do die hard. But if it’s any consolation all that I have was purchased fairly. My only advantage was the knowledge of what would become valuable in time and what would not.” It was like knowing what horse would win the race before it was run. No wonder he spent so much time in Taythis.
“And the files?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t give them to you. It’s been too long. I can’t give up my life just yet.”
“And when the police have me question Mar—? The truth will come out either way.”
“Let me handle him,” he said after a moment. “He’s one of my own people. I give you my word. He will not go unpunished.”
“You’re not the law, Risardas.”
He looked at me a long time. “I could have been, you know. There were times, in the past; chances that came to me. I could have been very powerful, could have used my knowledge to influence. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because inside I always knew I didn’t belong where I was. I was different. And exploiting that difference was not going to bring me peace.”
I understood about exploitation and being different. It was what had drawn me to the OutBacks six years ago.
“We’re much alike, you and I,” he said as I rose to leave. “Both anomalies in our time. Rara avis. Both caught up in the past. Me, in my own and you, in other people’s. Don’t you ever wonder if Jynx San’Janeiro really exists?”
“Constantly,” I said, as I flicked the safety back on the pistol in my pocket.
“And maybe someday I’ll even find out the answer.”
—
An O.B.C. officer found Nelsam Mar’s lifeless body two days later in T’garis. He’d evidently been working on a project for his mines at a laboratory there. There’d been an explosion, with almost all of the equipment destroyed. At first it had looked like an accident, but then a holovid had turned up, giving a full confession of the murder of his daughter. He could no longer abide his own incestuous impulses, he’d said, and planned to take his own life in a way in which there would be no chance he’d still be alive. After his lifeless body had been found in the power chamber, there was no doubt that he had kept his word. I accompanied B.J. to T’garis, knowing that what I was looking at was the remains of the Channel. Vandora had said that Kieran had intended to destroy it and so he had. Or rather on his instruction, Nelsam, ever the faithful crew member, had.
Which had also provided him an honorable means of death, in his own eyes. There would be no more going back for Lord Kieran now. He would have to live out his days in this time, fitting in as best he could.
Rara avis. Rare bird. It was a t
erm so ancient I had to look it up when I left Risardas Estates with B.J. that day. I’d told him of Nelsam’s complicity and incest and that had gotten his police instincts so excited he forgot to ask more, for got to ask why I had carried the pistol into Kieran Risardas’ study. Then, when Mar’s body was found, he became caught up in the glory of his promotion and my past actions no longer mattered.
I still outrank B.J., though it doesn’t bother me anymore. Kieran, at one time the captain of one of the most powerful hunterships in the galaxy, has taught me a lot about rank and authority. How it can be used or abused and what can come from it. He has seen it all in the past five hundred years. We talked a lot about the past, at first. But not so much, anymore.
Now, we talk about the future.
Rara Avis Page 4