Recovery Man

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “So, is he a suspect?” she asked.

  “In Shindo’s kidnapping?” Zagrando shrugged. “Everyone’s a suspect until we find out what happened.”

  “But I mean really. Is he really a suspect?”

  Zagrando sighed. “It seems odd to me that he’d show up after. If he went through the trouble of hiring a Recovery Man—which seems odd right there, considering Flint’s a Retrieval Artist—but if he went through that trouble, why not meet the man outside Callisto’s protected space? Why come here?”

  “Talia?” Gonzalez asked.

  “I don’t think he knows she exists,” Zagrando said. “There’s no evidence that he does.”

  “And no evidence that he doesn’t.”

  “Why take the mother?” Zagrando asked. “Why not just request a meeting? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Neither does his arrival now,” Gonzalez said.

  “Unless he still has feelings for the woman,” Zagrando said.

  Gonzalez took a deep breath. The corridor had gotten narrower. She hadn’t been in this part of the Port before. Arrivals were very different—startlingly different—from departures.

  “What would his feelings have to do with this?” she asked.

  “If he somehow found out she’d disappeared, maybe he wants to offer his services.”

  She looked at him with surprise. “That’s what you believe, isn’t it?”

  Zagrando shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and didn’t answer her. Instead he turned into a side corridor. She had to hurry to keep up.

  “How would he have found out?” she asked.

  “Your law firm, for one,” Zagrando said. “Don’t think I don’t know how many of your people are holed up in the Silver Sunshine.”

  She made a face just before she caught up to him. “My firm respects confidentiality.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Retrieval Artists get their information everywhere. For all we know, he has his links set up to download any news report from the entire solar system that mentions his family.”

  “Even his ex-wife?” Gonzalez asked.

  “Even her,” Zagrando said. “Supposing he still has feelings for her.”

  “You want him to be a hero so he can take temporary custody of Talia and you don’t have to.”

  “That, too.” Zagrando turned one more time and led her up a ramp. Then a door swished open, and they were in a section of the Port she hadn’t expected.

  It wasn’t wide and clean like the landing area where the firm’s yacht was. Several of the ships had quarantine markers and others had clear protective barriers that glowed yellow, a sign—she remembered from her law school days—that a criminal had come to the Port unannounced.

  “Why’s he here?” she asked.

  “Because he mentioned someone who is part of an active police investigation,” Zagrando said.

  “Does he realize he’s a prisoner?” she asked.

  “He’s not,” Zagrando said. Then he looked at her and smiled. “At least, not yet.”

  Forty-nine

  The ship notified him that he had visitors before they announced themselves. He watched them stand outside the field that the Port had erected around his ship; he saw them consult.

  So he looked them up: Iniko Zagrando, a police detective from Valhalla Basin, and Celestine Gonzalez, a lawyer with Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek. From Armstrong. On the Moon.

  The Port had cut off his ability to network. They’d left him with rudimentary links—emergency, of course, and some basic information about Valhalla Basin, most of which he’d discovered on his way here. But in that basic information, he found Zagrando’s name.

  Gonzalez’s was in Flint’s own database, as one of the legal assistants who drafted some of the documents in his divorce. She had clearly risen in the firm since then.

  As they came up the ramp, he shut down the cockpit, then sealed it so that only he could open it. He transferred several functions to the lounge area the yacht’s designers had called the game room, and it was there that he waited.

  The Emmeline let them in, just as she was instructed to do. She closed off all passages, except the one that led to the game room. He waited near a portal, his elbow on the edge, his chin resting on his hand.

  “Miles Flint,” Detective Zagrando said as if he were seeing a ghost.

  Flint turned. Zagrando was studying him.

  “You know me,” Flint said. “You want to tell me who you are?”

  That started the round of introductions.

  He shook hands and, like a genial host, offered his guests something to drink. And like guests, they each took a beverage, although it was clear they wouldn’t drink.

  “It seems I’m a prisoner here,” Flint said, and Gonzalez looked at Zagrando in surprise.

  Since she already knew about the barrier, she was probably surprised that Flint knew.

  “You want to tell me what the charges are?”

  “Someone kidnapped your ex-wife,” Zagrando said.

  Flint started. He saw no reason to hide his shock. Kidnapped Rhonda? Why would anyone do that?

  Then he remembered the files that got him started on this investigation in the first place.

  “You think,” he said, as he gathered himself, “that I kidnapped her, then dumped her somewhere, and came back here to be arrested?”

  “We think it’s odd that you showed up right afterward, when you’ve never been here before,” Zagrando said. “Why are you here?”

  “We?” Flint repeated. “You and a lawyer from the firm that handled my wife’s divorce? A lawyer from Earth’s Moon?”

  Gonzalez gave Zagrando another quick look.

  “Yes,” Zagrando said as if this were a normal investigation.

  “You look like a smart man,” Flint said. “You already know that my flight plan shows I’ve been traveling for some time. If you’re good, you also know that, except for the last two weeks or so, I’ve been traveling all over the solar system. If I wanted Rhonda, I could have sent for her. Or I could have come here to visit her. Or I could have taken her on my own. I’m a Retrieval Artist. I can make people leave with me without resorting to kidnapping. They all leave legally.”

  “Except when they Disappear,” Gonzalez said, and Zagrando took her arm. His movement was clearly a warning. He didn’t want her to say anything more.

  “So why are you here?” Zagrando asked.

  “I didn’t come to be arrested,” Flint said. “If that’s the case, I’m just going to leave. I have an excellent attorney of my own back in Armstrong, and she handles most legal matters inside the Alliance. Before I say anything else, you tell me whether or not you plan to arrest me. If you do, I’m going to remain silent. If you’re not, then I will talk to you, on the guarantee—and I am recording this—on the guarantee that you will not go back on your word. You will treat me like a full citizen of the Alliance, with every right and privilege this accords.”

  “I’m not here to arrest you,” Zagrando said.

  Flint noted the careful language. “I asked if you plan to arrest me. Technically, you can’t arrest me in the Port as this is still my ship and I haven’t legally entered Valhalla Basin. I’m still in Alliance territory. But if I leave with you, I’ll be in your jurisdiction and you can arrest me. So I’ll ask again, do you plan to arrest me?”

  “No,” Zagrando said. “I do not plan to arrest you. Unless you break some law in Valhalla Basin.”

  Flint relaxed slightly. That admission was enough to cover him legally should things go wrong. He hadn’t done anything; he had witnesses to his whereabouts for the last several days, so he was fine. But he had been around the law long enough to know that fine sometimes meant nothing.

  “So,” Zagrando said, “why are you here?”

  “I’m a Retrieval Artist,” Flint said. “I got my business from a woman named Paloma. She died two weeks ago. I was going through her old files when I found a reference to Rhonda. I traced it, saw several su
spicious things, and got curious. I was coming here to talk with her.”

  “Suspicious things?” Zagrando asked, just as Flint hoped he would.

  “From the files, it’s clear that Paloma investigated far enough to realize that Rhonda isn’t a Disappeared. But her files indicate that someone connected with the Gyonnese embassy on the Moon wanted information on my ex-wife. That’s when I discovered that there was a legal case filed against her, which she lost, and that this happened around the time of our daughter’s death.”

  He wasn’t sure how much he was going to say about Emmeline. He would see what he could find here.

  He sighed and let himself look more vulnerable than he felt. “I’ll be honest. Rhonda was the one who wanted the divorce, and I’ve been wondering if that was because of the legal problems.”

  “So you came here to patch things up?” Gonzalez asked.

  He shook his head. “I came for some answers. And I came to warn her that someone was looking into her past.”

  “But if things rekindled, you wouldn’t mind,” Zagrando said.

  “Ever been married?” Flint asked Zagrando.

  “No,” he said.

  Flint looked at Gonzalez. She shook her head.

  “Then you don’t know,” he said, trying to sound vulnerable. “The mixture of emotions that come, especially with a divorce. I’d’ve taken her back then. But now, I find out she’s been hiding information from me, and I’m both angry and hopeful. Angry because it feels like a betrayal, and hopeful that she was just trying to protect me.”

  “We think she was, Mr. Flint,” Gonzalez started, but Zagrando brushed her arm again, and said over her, “Brace yourself for another betrayal.”

  Flint did brace himself—at least mentally. He had suffered such an enormous betrayal with Paloma’s death; he had to be ready for anything from Rhonda.

  “She left a daughter,” Zagrando said. “She’s a clone.”

  “A clone,” Flint repeated, not expecting that. “Of Rhonda?”

  “Of Emmeline.”

  Flint closed his eyes and turned away. He thought of that ghost file, the brief mention of Emmeline, and the notation: On Callisto?

  Not the child he’d raised. But a part of her. All the same biological components.

  Denied him by his ex-wife.

  He let out a breath and opened his eyes. The lawyer and the detective were watching him carefully. “Was she kidnapped too?” he asked.

  “The kidnappers left her,” Zagrando said, “when they realized she was a clone.”

  “Because the judgment against Rhonda asks for her child,” Flint said, “and to the Gyonnese, a child is the firstborn.”

  “Yes,” Zagrando said. “How do you know that?”

  “I found the judgment, as I said, and asked myself if I were investigating the case of Rhonda Shindo, would I find it suspicious that her daughter died so near the time of the lawsuit?”

  “Would you?”

  Flint nodded.

  “Is that really why you’re here?” Zagrando asked. “To find out if your wife killed your daughter?”

  Flint started. He hadn’t even meant to imply that. “I know she didn’t. That man was arrested. He went through trials. His appeals continue through the various legal systems.”

  “You believe he killed your daughter,” Zagrando said.

  “Yes,” Flint said.

  “And you believe your wife had nothing to do with it,” Zagrando said.

  Flint felt dizzy. Was this how people felt when he interrogated them? Or was it just the stress of the moment?

  “Yes,” he said. “Rhonda loved Emmeline. Why else would she have her cloned?”

  “Why else,” Zagrando said softly.

  Flint tilted his head. “You think she had other reasons.”

  “What I think doesn’t matter at the moment. We have more pressing concerns.”

  Flint was still stuck on Rhonda cloning their daughter. Rhonda, involved in something that could have gotten Emmeline killed. Rhonda, who had never told him about the threat to their family.

  “Talia needs a guardian,” the lawyer was saying. Gonzalez. The woman’s name was Gonzalez.

  Flint had to force himself to focus.

  “Talia?”

  “Your daughter,” Gonzalez said. “If, that is, if you don’t believe the way the Gyonnese do.”

  “She’s not called Emmeline?”

  “No,” Gonzalez said. “She needs a temporary guardian.”

  “I don’t understand,” Flint said. “She’s fine, isn’t she? She wasn’t taken.”

  Gonzalez launched into an explanation of Valhalla Basin’s laws, and then talked about the fact that Aleyd claimed custody.

  “The corporation?” Flint asked. “Why?”

  “They said your wife signed off on it,” Zagrando said.

  “We’re verifying,” Gonzalez said.

  Flint almost said that Rhonda would never sign any such document, but he wouldn’t have believed until this week that she would have kept a big secret from him, either.

  “What does the corporation want with a fifteen-year-old girl?” Flint asked.

  “Thirteen,” Gonzalez said. “And they hope to trade her to the Gyonnese to prevent a lawsuit.”

  “What kind of suit?” he asked.

  “One that shows Rhonda violated Alliance law by creating clones and hiding the original child. One that essentially goes after the entire Disappearance System.”

  Van Alen had told Flint about the Gyonnese obsession with the Disappearance Services.

  “What would happen to the girl?” Flint couldn’t call her his daughter. His daughter had died years ago.

  “If Aleyd took her?” Zagrando shrugged. “We don’t know.”

  “But you suspect,” Flint said.

  “We suspect they’ll turn her over to the Gyonnese, who’ll kill her.”

  “Are the Gyonnese connected to the kidnapping?” Flint asked.

  “We don’t know,” Zagrando said. “We think so. They sent a Recovery Man.”

  Flint started. “A Recovery Man? Not a Tracker or a Retrieval Artist?”

  “Rhonda wasn’t a Disappeared,” Zagrando said.

  Flint’s brain kicked back in. He needed to focus on this. He couldn’t think about Rhonda or this child or the possible betrayal. It was all in the past. He had to think about what was happening now.

  “Recovery Man,” Flint said. “That’s all you have, isn’t it?”

  “Well,” Zagrando said, “we have your wife’s history, the problems with Talia, and a holo of the crime that occurred on Gyonne, which led to the whole thing.”

  “A holo?” Flint asked.

  “Left at the scene of the kidnapping,” Zagrando said.

  “To mislead you?” Flint asked.

  Zagrando’s face went blank. The man hadn’t even considered that. All of this about Aleyd and the kidnapping, maybe it was all an elaborate ruse by Aleyd to get the child.

  “What do you need for temporary custody?” Flint asked.

  “Just a few details,” Gonzalez said. “You’d have to come into the Dome proper. There’s a Valhalla Basin attorney I’m working with who might need more.”

  Flint nodded. He was about to leave with them when he stopped.

  “Have you looked for ships?” he asked Zagrando.

  “We checked all incoming and outgoing,” Zagrando said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Recovery Men don’t live in corporate towns,” Flint said. “He came here somehow.”

  “We checked,” Zagrando said. “That was the first thing we checked.”

  “It’s nearly impossible to get into Valhalla Basin,” Flint said. “It took me several attempts, and I doubt I would have gotten in without my connection to Rhonda. He’d need a legitimate identification.”

  “So?” Zagrando asked.

  “So most of your crime is internal, right?”

  “We have a closed Port,” Zagrando said. “You see w
hat happens to people with questionable records.”

  “That’s my point,” Flint said. “His record was spotless.”

  “Which is why we can’t find him.”

  “No,” Flint said. “You can’t find him because you don’t know how to look.”

  Zagrando bristled. He was about to speak when Flint held up a cautioning hand.

  “I do. It’s my job, finding people. Let me help you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Zagrando said.

  “I can do more than you think,” Flint said. “And I’m not bound by the restrictions you are.”

  “You’ll break the law,” Zagrando said with clear disapproval.

  “I doubt it,” Flint said, but didn’t add any more.

  “You know nothing about Valhalla Basin,” Zagrando said.

  “I’ll wager I know as much or more than your Recovery Man did,” Flint said.

  “And that helps how?” Gonzalez asked.

  “It keeps me looking in the right places,” Flint said.

  “You can’t investigate alone,” Zagrando said. “I’d have to be with you.”

  Flint almost smiled. Zagrando had agreed.

  “I wouldn’t be able to work alone. This is your place, your show. I need your help more than you’ll need mine.”

  Zagrando studied him. “I’m not sure I should trust a Retrieval Artist.”

  “And I’m not sure I should trust a man who imprisoned me the moment I arrived in his town.”

  Zagrando sighed. “If we had any real leads, I wouldn’t take you up on this.”

  “I know,” Flint said. “So let’s get to work.”

  Fifty

  Rhonda woke in a box. She flailed, panicked, then sat up. She didn’t recognize the room she was in. It was dirty, covered with some kind of dust, and cold. Not life-threateningly cold, just uncomfortable for a woman used to temperatures so regulated that she had never once altered the thermostat inside House’s system.

  House. She felt a longing so intense that it seemed physical. She hoped Talia was there, and that someone had helped her.

  She wondered if she would ever see Talia again.