Scardown jc-2

by Elizabeth Bear

  Captain Wu paused inside the doorway and cast a scorching gaze over all of them. “Second Pilot,” he said, in a voice that carried. Drawn lines creased his cheeks; Min-xue straightened as best he could, pulling himself into the captain's orientation with one hand on a grab bar.

  “Sir.”

  Min-xue kicked off the wall once the captain turned away, and drifted toward him.

  Wu drifted to the far bulkhead, turned, and stared out one of the Huang Di's tiny portholes. A single bright golden disk flared in the darkness: the Sun, limning the curve of Mars crimson beneath them. They'd accomplished something the Westerners hadn't — taming the Huang Di's drive for use in-system. The trick was microsecond bursts calculated in advance, and then desperate corrections with the attitude rockets, gentling the velocity before the starship could impact a planetary body.

  Not precise.

  But effective.

  “Second Pilot,” the captain said, without turning from the window. “A shuttle will be arriving from our interests in the asteroid belt shortly. We'll be bringing a cargo back to Earth.”

  “Captain?”

  “A load of nickel-iron. I wish you to relieve the third pilot for the duration. It may be tricky, and you're the best with the maneuvering jets.”

  “Captain.” The other two pilots didn't speak, but Min-xue could feel their restrained curiosity even as they pretended deafness. “I'm honored.”

  Wu shrugged and turned to face the pilots, putting the shoulder of the planet at his back, stars drifting in his hair. “Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd restrict your off-duty reading to more approved writers. That's all.” He pushed off from the bulkhead and drifted, quite accurately, toward the interconnecting door. Min-xue watched him go, wondering.

  Why does he want the whole ship to know that what we're picking up is asteroidal iron?

  Why are they wasting the Huang Di ferrying iron ore at all?

  9:00 AM

  Sunday 10 December, 2062

  Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

  Hartford, Connecticut

  Kuai watched with amusement as Sally dug around in the bottom of an insulating carry sack and came up with a breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee. “They were out of ham so I got you Canadian bacon.”

  “Like there's a difference.” Kuai took it and set it on the edge of her desk, away from the interface plate. “How does the day look?”

  “Paperwork,” Sally said, and Kuai blew out around a groan. “Dr. Bates is in today. You're off the hook for autopsies.”

  “Can't you arrange a nice triple homicide or something else to keep him busy?”

  “You have pixels to push, Madam Hua. It's all in your in-box—” The bag swung in Sally's hand, rustling faintly.

  Kuai could see the icon blinking unread messages on the corner of her interface. She didn't wear contacts at work; too much chance of infection in this environment. Her burrito reeked of grease, nauseating her and sparking her appetite all at once. Bring fruit to work, she reminded herself for the third time that day.

  “I'll bring you a bagel at eleven if you're good.”

  “Hell. Do I get a potty break at least?” But she tapped her in-box open obediently, barely noticing the interface's chill.

  Sally blew brown strands out of her eyes and smiled. It plumped her hollow cheeks and made her suddenly pretty. Sally, unlike Kuai, had been both a uniformed and plainclothes police officer before accepting the appointment as Kuai's executive assistant. “You have got to be the only woman on Earth who would rather be up to your elbows in a nice stinky floater than sitting behind a desk. Which reminds me: any leads on that triple from September yet?” Sally also knew Kuai had adopted the case as half hobby and half obsession. A cop was a cop. Even an ex-cop. Sometimes especially an ex-cop.

  “We have a scenario that accounts for all three deaths. The officer — Kozlowski — and the bounty hunter Yin follow Casey into the steam tunnel. The bounty hunter was operating out of the North End under the alias Bobbi Yee, by the way, and had been for some time. So they're both locals. There's a fight. The cop takes a bullet from the Unitek employee — Barbara Casey. Casey had been shot at long range, not enough to pierce her body armor but she had some pretty nasty blunt trauma ventrally. Yin and Casey mix it up, one thing leads to another, and they're in the wrong place when the steam plant vents. End of an ugly story, nobody to prosecute.”

  “I can hear the except coming.”

  “We recovered a bullet from the sewer wall. It didn't match a weapon at the scene. And Yin and Kozlowski were seen in the company of Dwayne ‘Razorface' MacDonald earlier that night.”

  “The crime boss?”

  “The same.” Kuai reached for her burrito and started to unwrap it, although she wanted the coffee more. The acid would make her regret that, though, if she didn't buffer first. It was either eat or start putting milk in her coffee. And that would be a fate worse than death. “Moreover, we've got other complications. It looks like an outside supplier was giving MacDonald's enemies access to high-powered weapons. Guns manufactured by a Korean Unitek subsidiary and reported stolen some year previous. And a North End fixture — a sort of information broker, street doctor, and auto mechanic type, if you can picture that — went missing around the same time. Crossed the border at Niagara with Barbara Casey — then Casey returned to the U.S. and got killed.”

  “Have we found any other links?”

  “Her—” Kuai stopped herself. “Excuse me. ‘An anonymous tipster' turned over the documents I had you fact-check and forward to Gary Orsin. The auto mechanic's name… want to guess?”

  “Kozlowski?”

  “Genevieve Casey.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, that's what I said. Guess where she works now?”

  Sally's answer was cut off as the interface beeped a priority code. Kuai glanced down at it — mail from Judge Orsin at Hartford Criminal Justice Court — and felt a grin start to tug her lower lip taut. About damned time. She opened it with a twist of her hand before the smile got away from her, on the off chance that it was a denial.

  It wasn't. The documents attached included two search warrants, three subpoenas, and a polite request for assistance from the governor of the state of Connecticut to the Canadian consulate in New York City.

  8:00 AM

  Monday 11 December, 2062

  Allen-Shipman Research Facility

  Toronto, Ontario

  Valens stopped outside Alberta's office and straightened his uniform. He stopped himself before his hand could creep up to adjust his tie. Alberta—he thought, and resisted the urge, as well, to shake his head. Dammit. I hope Casey's wrong.

  He rapped twice and opened the door. “Busy?”

  Holmes shoved away a half-eaten doughnut on a paper napkin. “Did you bring coffee?”

  He stepped inside and shut the door. “No. I just got a message from the prime minister's people.”

  “You did? Really?”

  He permitted himself a curt shrug. “I think it's an attempt to end run. They want an interview with Casey. Friday, at a location they don't plan to disclose until Casey's in the car.”

  Alberta sucked her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed it contemplatively. “Put a tracer on her, Fred. Just in case?”

  “Just—?”

  “We wouldn't want your star pupil going missing between here and there, would we?”

  Forgive me, Jenny. Valens took a deep, calm breath and nodded. I hope you're still as good at taking care of yourself as you used to be. Because I just set you up as the bait in a bear trap, and you don't even know it.

  BOOK THREE

  If any question why we died Tell them, because our fathers lied.

  — Rudyard Kipling

  0500 Hours

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  HMCSS Montreal

  Earth orbit

  Trevor Koske awoke with a mouth full of blood. Old instinct told him to lie still until he knew where he was; he breath
ed shallowly, red light filtering through closed eyelids, and quickly — thoroughly — counted fingers and toes, checked breathing and respiration, realized that the crusted, sticky feeling tugging his throat and chest was not a good sign.

  He opened his eyes a crack, pleased that the lashes weren't gummed together with—

  Jesus. Is that all my blood?

  With infinite caution, he raised his right hand. The yellow light assailing his eyelids flickered away as if cut by a guillotine, leaving the room in darkness, but he knew where he was. His quarters. Which were spinning with the Montreal, taking him from sunside to darkside, and all that sticky wetness on his hands, under his buttocks, weighing his jumpsuit to his lap—it can't all be my blood.

  His fingertips brushed the knife handle protruding under his chin.

  He almost fainted. “Montreal?” he whispered, and in a less cautious moment might have sobbed in relief when he heard his own voice. “Montreal? Can you hear me?”

  0600 Hours

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  Wellesley Street East

  Toronto, Ontario

  They send a limousine before dawn. At least they're kind enough to send it to Boris's and my new apartment, which is in the same featureless block of guard-walled Canadian Army flats as Elspeth's — one floor up and three doors over. Convenient. Maybe we should get Gabe to move in here, too. Make it that much easier to spy on us all.

  I wait in the lobby for no more than ninety seconds before the sleek black car pulls up outside. I pass through wood-paneled revolving doors, snugging my scarf tight around my neck. I'm only wearing a uniform cap because of time spent fussing my hair, and the wind takes my breath away. Valens insisted I play dress-up for this, and brushed green wool peeks out of the cuffs of a coat rated for arctic wear. Someone's out of the car before I make it to the curb, opening the rear door; in the darkness and with the green cast from my low-light confusing things, it takes me a moment to recognize a Mountie in winter uniform. He waits until I draw my legs inside and shuts the door; just as the locks click and he slides in front next to the driver, I feel Richard join me.

  “Relax and enjoy the ride, Master Warrant Officer,” the driver says. “We'll be there in about three hours.”

  Excellent. Plenty of time to get sour with a cold sweat. We must be going somewhere up past Huntsville.

  How are you, Richard?

  “We have serious problems, Jenny.”

  I stiffen, hear my heart rate start its apparent drop into combat time. But I can't afford that now. What?

  “Someone tried to kill Trevor Koske last night.”

  Like a damned parrot, I find myself mouthing the words. Kill… Koske? Richard, who?

  He's resolving strongly, a firmer manifestation than he usually bothers with. “I don't know.”

  You're the ship!

  “Dammit! I don't know. Somehow, the logs got wiped for that section of the ship. I was running some heavy equations, because I'm working on releasing the hobbles on my progenitor. Tell your boyfriend he does good work, by the way; it's a pain in the keister. And while I was occupied, somebody hacked in, removed camera logs, access logs. Managed to shunt my awareness out of that section of the habitation wheel without my noticing. Koske hasn't woken long enough to ask what happened, but as near as we can reconstruct, he went to his cabin and woke up on the floor with a steak knife in his neck.”

  Soft leather stretches under me as I curl back against the seat and try to give the appearance of dozing. He survived that? I've heard of stranger things. A girl I knew on the street got her throat cut into a second smile and was dumped out of a moving car halfway to Vermont. She lived to retire. In the nonpermanent sense.

  “He's in surgery now. The nanotech kept him alive. Sealed the wound, kept his brain oxygenated. He's in bad shape.”

  No suspects? I didn't need to wait for his answer; he would have told me by now. How's the Montreal?

  “Well, that's the other problem.”

  Shit.

  “I'm afraid Wainwright knows I'm here now, Jenny. And she's not happy about it.”

  I yank my hand out of my coat pocket, when I realize that my fingers are fretting the cap of the vial that lives there, so I don't forget to take it to work. Right.

  Even though I got through the weekend's unofficial test with Elspeth without touching a pill, and Monday's, too — and didn't tell Valens I wasn't Hammered, and he didn't ask. I got away with it clean. What did you do, Richard?

  “Alerted her that Koske was wounded. And—” A long-suffering sigh, and he knots both knobby sets of fingers in his wavy gray hair. “—I kind of averted a Trojan horse that would have jammed the airlocks and hatchways and probably spaced half the ship. There's no record of how that was done either. It's an obvious attempt to cripple the Montreal and the program, and if this guy managed to hide his activities both from me and my other self—”

  Yeah. Somebody who knows the system pretty good. You think the Chinese?

  “Yes, exactly.”

  Richard, if you had to take a wild stab… bad choice of words. But if you did?

  “Ramirez,” he said assuredly. “He's got advanced degrees in computer science and he's one of the people who wrote the damn ship's O/S. He has been cultivating Trevor Koske, and you wouldn't do that without a reason. I've got no proof, but I'm working on Wainwright.”

  No shit. The vial's smooth under my fingertips. I haven't had coffee yet, and although I'm tempted to see if there's any bourbon in the minibar I'm not quite fallen far enough to go plead with the prime minister stinking of booze.

  “Jenny—” Richard says, a caution and a warning.

  I know. Putain de marde. Fucking hell. Richard, you don't have to remind me.

  “I know.” I feel his smile. “But I'm going to. Knock them dead, Jenny Casey.”

  That's what I'm afraid of, Richard. But he gives no sign he's heard, and I'm left alone in the dark under the rhythmic flicker of streetlights and then just the cold, distant gleam of the northern lights, waiting for the sun to rise.

  6:00 AM

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  West Side

  Toronto, Ontario

  Indigo dozed with her face leaned on the car window, cold glass pressing her temple against an all-night-wakeful headache, a wet breeze trickling in around the edge. The fresh air was the only thing keeping her awake: the scent of warm bodies and Farley's cologne half drugged her. She jerked into consciousness as Farley laid a big hand on her arm. “Hey, Indy.”

  She coughed slightly as she sat upright. “Message?”

  “Better. We've got a tracking signal. Casey's on the move, and control says this is it. She's supposed to meet Riel this morning. They're heading north on 400. It should be interesting to see where they think they're going.”

  “Excellent. Drive.”

  “Guns?”

  “I'll load once we're out of the city.”

  0930 Hours

  Friday 15 December, 2062

  Le Camp des Pins

  North of Huntsville, Ontario

  The Mounties who meet me at the gate and check me — meticulously — for weapons vanish into the trees like mist afterward, and although we're not far from town I can't see a trace of human habitation anywhere except the fence and a coil of smoke off in the distance.

  I'm checked again at the massive, red-painted door, where an armed woman — a blond with a smile on the sunny side of professional — takes my coat and hangs it in the hall closet. She picks a bit of lint off the sleeve of my dress greens and straightens my collar.

  They've sure gotten more careful about guarding the PM since I was a kid.

  I don't point out to them that I am a weapon, and they don't ask if my left arm comes off. I figure if I get too out of hand they'll toss an EMP grenade into the room, and that will handle that.

  Riel could have worse taste in secret clubhouses. The floors in the comfortably furnished living room I'm ushered into are old, wide wooden bo
ards, the walls paneled in cherry on either side of a fieldstone fireplace. To look out the windows, I'd swear I was two hundred kilometers north and more than spitting distance from anywhere. The low circular table between two overstuffed chairs in front of that window is laden with plates, a carafe of coffee you could wash your feet in if you were so inclined, and covered platters that smell enticingly of waffles, eggs, and other good things. Constance Riel — trim, dark, with flashing eyes over a hook-sharp nose that betrays some Italian blood — rises as I come, unescorted, into the room.

  “Master Warrant Officer Casey,” she says, extending her hand. I take it, and she clasps her other over mine, warmly, meanwhile stealing a glance at my metal hand. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “I hope that wasn't supposed to be reassuring, Prime Minister.”

  “Can I offer you some coffee? Better yet, food?”

  “That would be very nice, ma'am. Thank you.”

  She gestures me to the left-hand chair, sits herself, and pours me coffee with her own hands. It's meant to be an honor, or maybe to set us as equals. I take it as such, but I'm not about to presume. When I have the mug in my hands — generous, a working woman's portion and not the dainty porcelain I expected — she looks me in the eye and drops her bomb. “So tell me why I should protect you, Master Warrant.”

  Birds stir outside the window. Its clarity is a little off. A moment later, I realize that it's bullet-resistant glass. One of the things they teach you in the service is that nothing is bulletproof. “I was unaware that I needed protection, ma'am. I'm here to pass along some information I don't trust to anyone else, and to argue for the starflight program.”

  She stirs her coffee absentmindedly with the sugar spoon, then looks down at it ruefully and sets it on a napkin with a shrug. “Are you aware that there's a subpoena in existence for you in Hartford? For Colonel Valens and Dr. Holmes as well?”

  “I'm not surprised.” She thinks I'm looking for — a benefactor? Somebody to save me from Holmes's schemes? The eggs are fluffy and golden, and I haven't tasted anything better in days. “I'm more concerned with what's going to happen to Canada.”