The Dark Imbalance
Page 15
It was refreshing to be able to move again, and Roche relished the sensation of walking, even though it was in the cumbersome hazard suit. There seemed to be fewer people around than there had been earlier. Maybe that was because the habitat was between shifts, or the conservative Vax still maintained a consensus “night.” Either way, Roche was glad for the relative anonymity.
They came to a major branching-point, where numerous corridors met at a wide variety of angles. The artificial gravity maintained in the habitat decreased slightly to accommodate the sudden shifts in orientation. Ansourian took them around a curved wall, then down into an undulating tube barely tall enough to accommodate Roche and her suit. This way was completely deserted; they passed no one, nor any doors or windows. But for her reopened link with the Ana Vereine, Roche would have had no idea where she was.
Ansourian turned right, taking them along a corridor that curved smoothly upward, then abruptly dropped 90 degrees in only a few meters. Roche negotiated the incline with care, trying not to let the wildly shifting gravity throw her off balance. The corridors from that point became decidedly cramped, with odd protrusions and corners and, overall, a makeshift air, as though they had been assembled from spare parts over many decades with little or no forethought as to their final function.
“Why don’t you use transit tubes?” Roche asked.
“There are only a handful for freight,” Ansourian explained. “Otherwise we don’t care for them. There was a terrible accident a few years ago, and the previous administer discouraged their use.”
“Where exactly are you taking us now?”
“Into the maintenance infrastructure. Security is relatively lax there, and we’ll most likely pass as workers. The area is rarely monitored firsthand; only a basic AI checks for movement.”
“We’ll register, won’t we?”
“Yes, but my Quare persona has clearance.”
<1 can disable the security systems in your vicinity, if you like.>
Roche had thought about that. She didn’t have much to offer the administer apart from a vague hint about the enemy among her number and reassurances that the council was doing everything in its power (and more besides, in the form of the Ulterior) to rectify the problem. She was really only there to ask questions of her own, and if the administer was feeling uncooperative, then it was unlikely those questions would be answered.
“Is there a proper way to address the administer?” she asked.
Ansourian glanced over his shoulder. “I have no suggestions on how to get her to do what you want, if that’s what you’re asking.” He shrugged and returned his attention to the way ahead. “Inderdeep is unpredictable at best, and can be willfully destructive at worst. Her father left me to keep an eye on things when he died. He never expected me to have to run things the way I have been. But if Inderdeep was left to act as she wished, the habitat would fall apart within months.”
“What will happen if you’re not going to be there?”
Again, he shrugged. “Maybe things will go well when you talk to her and I’ll be able to reveal myself,” he said. “If not, there are a couple of options still available. Oren Quare may prove to be eminently suitable for an advisory post closer to the administer’s office. I know enough to work my way back in; given time, I could regain lost ground. But time is something I do not have, I’m afraid.”
Roche knew what he was referring to. “How long do you think Alta has?” she said.
“Not long,” he replied. “The evidence alone would have been enough for a guilty verdict. Her confession will hasten the legal proceedings. Only the fact that I was so close to Inderdeep is keeping her alive right now. Who knows? Sentence may already have been passed. The matter was bound to come up in the current round of audiences, so Inderdeep may have already signed the execution order.”
“She has power of life and death in the habitat?” Roche said, shocked that so much authority could reside in one person—especially one such as this Inderdeep Jans seemed to be.
“Indirectly she has some power,” Ansourian explained. “She ratifies the decisions of the judicial system. Without their approval she can’t impose the death penalty, but she can overturn one at will. I am hoping she will do this in Alta’s case.”
“Why should she do that?”
He faced Roche again. “Because you are going to ask her to,” he said. “Tell her you came here because Alta and I called you. Tell her you’re here to help, but you don’t know how. Only Alta knows, now that I’m dead. The habitat may be riddled with the enemy for all anyone can tell, but with Alta’s help you might be able to ferret them out.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Roche scoffed. “She won’t believe that.”
“She might,” he said. “Besides, it’s not so far from the truth. Someone did try to kill me, after all.”
Ignoring the obvious—that someone might’ve killed Ansourian simply because they disagreed with him—Roche said, “Is there anything else I’m supposed to be asking her? Anything else I should know?”
He thought for a long while as he continued to lead them through the habitat’s maintenance labyrinth. “Just don’t take her for an idiot,” he eventually replied. “She’s not stupid. She’s just... wayward.”
Roche absorbed the comment as they walked. Since Ansourian had worked with the administer so closely for so long, Roche had to assume that he would know her better than anyone else would. If he said she wasn’t an idiot, then Roche had to accept that she wasn’t—even though it was difficult to believe, given everything she had heard.
“How much farther?”
“We’re practically there,” he said, negotiating a narrow pass between two large ducts that intruded on the passage. “Just around this corner.”
“Good, because I’m getting claustrophobic.” That wasn’t exactly true; she was just tired of squeezing through the tiny spaces. Her suit scraped the ducts even when she turned sideways to slip through.
“Here,” said Ansourian, taking them up a short corridor that ended in a cul de sac and bringing them to a halt. “I prepared this entrance in secret when Ehud Jans, the last administer, was still alive. It was intended as an escape route only, but it can work both ways, of course.” He produced some silver tape from the pocket of his uniform, along with what looked like a small battery. “This will only work once,” he said, affixing a length of tape to the wall at head-height and another down by his feet. The tape slowly changed in color from silver to red. “It may look like an ordinary section of wall, but it’s not. It’s barely solid at all: enough to fool a rapping knuckle, or even a gentle punch, but barely more than that. When I run a current through it, the alignment of its molecules will change, and it will dissolve completely. You’ll be able to walk through without any trouble at all.”
“And then?” said Roche uncertainly.
“Inderdeep will be on the other side,” he said, meeting her gaze squarely. “I’ll wait here and listen. The
less she knows about me, the better—as her old friend Atul, or Oren Quare.”
Roche nodded, and drew her side arm in readiness.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said.
“No?” She didn’t put the pistol back into its holster. “You told me not to trust you before. Why should I start now?”
He smiled. “Just don’t shoot her, whatever you do.”
She smiled in return, but there was no humor to it. “I’m not stupid either, Ansourian.”
He turned back to the wall.
Ansourian reached up to affix the battery to the top strip of tape.
“Get ready,” he said.
Roche tensed and watched expectantly. Little happened at first, then the red plastic seemed to soften and ran. As though it was composed of grains of sand slipping through a person’s fingers, the wall simply fell away. After barely ten seconds, all that was left was a spreading accumulation of dust on the floor, and a smell like ozone.
“Right,” Ansourian whispered. “In you go. Good luck.”
Roche nodded and, with Maii following, slipped through.
* * *
Roche’s first impression of Inderdeep Jans was that she looked older than she’d expected. Her skin was paler than that of the other members of the Caste whom Roche had met, and she actually had hair: a long ponytail of perfect white that hung from the back of her skull and was bound in three places with bronze clasps. She wore a simple yellow robe adorned with a stylized sun—a motif echoed throughout the room.
She was seated on a wide couch, drinking deeply from a glass containing a pink liquid. She stopped drinking the moment Roche stepped from behind the wall hanging that hid the secret entrance, and turned coolly to face her.
“Who are you?” she demanded, seemingly unsurprised by the sudden intrusion. She put down her glass calmly but didn’t rise from her seat. “How did you get in here?”
Roche kept her distance, not wanting to alarm the woman with any gesture that might be construed as hostile. “I apologize for the intrusion, Administer, but I—”
“What are you doing here?” Jans said with a hint of irritability when she saw Maii emerge from behind the wall hanging, also.
“We mean you no harm,” said Roche. “I assure you.”
The administer snorted. “Why should I believe, you?”
Roche hefted her side arm. “We could have killed you already, if that was what we really intended.”
A sly look passed across the woman’s face. “Then what do you want?”
Before Roche could answer, the administer raised a hand and said: “Wait. I know you, don’t I?” Roche opened her mouth to speak again, but again never got the chance. “Roche!” she said, clicking her fingers and nodding her head triumphantly. “I was told about you barely an hour ago. They showed me footage of your arrival and said you wanted to talk to me.”
This surprised Roche, given what Ansourian had said about how her request for a meeting with the administer would probably be deliberately delayed.
“Yes, Administer,” said Roche. “And I apologize for the manner we went about it, but—”
“This must be your blind companion.” The woman stood now, and Roche realized with a shock that Jans was almost as tall as she was, hazard suit included. The administer took a step closer, scrutinizing with some fascination the bandages about Maii’s eyes.
“This is Maii,” Roche said. The girl nodded in greeting.
“I don’t recognize her type.” She looked at Roche. “Local, I assume?”
“The Surin are neighbors of the Commonwealth of Empires.”
“Ah, yes, I’ve heard of them.” The woman nodded with private satisfaction. Then, as if remembering something, she said: “You were meant to be in Stateroom B, waiting to be granted an audience.”
“We were, but we were told it could take up to two days for us to see you...”
“Very likely,” Jans said. “I am a busy person, you know.” She glanced away for a second, her expression sad. “A dear friend will be consigned to the sun tomorrow. And that is more important to me than anything you or anyone else might have to say at this time.”
The sorrow on the woman’s face seemed completely genuine. Roche would have liked to reassure her on that score, but knew she couldn’t do that just yet.
“I understand that, Administer,” she said. “But please hear me out. My mission is of the gravest importance, and I need your assistance to complete it. In two days, it might be too late.”
“Too late? For what?”
“For me to make a difference.” Roche was loath for the moment to stoop to the story Ansourian had suggested. She had to at least see if something closer to the truth would work first. “I’ve been sent here by the Interim Emergency Pristine Council in response to claims that your habitat has been infiltrated by agents working for the enemy. With Atul Ansourian’s help, I had hoped to investigate these rumors and, if they proved to have some foundation, determine precisely who among your staff could no longer be trusted.”
“Atul knew you were coming?” Jans turned easily and returned to her seat.
“Yes, he did.”
“And he was going to help you?” she said, leaning back and looking over at Roche with some suspicion.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure exactly. All I know is that he was to be my contact here.”
The administer’s expression became one of distaste and annoyance. “But Atul is dead now,” she said. “Killed by his own daughter.”
Roche nodded. “We were told,” she said. “I’m sorry. Perhaps...” Roche vacillated regarding how much to say. “Perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye.”
“What are you saying?” Jans studied Roche. “Are you implying she might not have been responsible?”
“It is a possibility, Administer.”
“But why would she lie?” The woman looked confused.
“She could be covering for the real assassin,” suggested Roche.
The administer’s confusion deepened. “The person you came here to warn me about?” she said. “Why would she do that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Roche. “But if you would allow me to talk with her, perhaps we could find out just how much she knows.”
“And what makes you think she would tell you anything?”
“Maii, here, is a reave,” said Roche. “She could read her mind.”
“Really?” Jans turned to face the girl. “Can she read mine?”
Maii shook her head.
The woman looked smug. “So why assume she could read Alta’s? She was Atul’s daughter through and through, and his shield was perfect. I should know. I once hired a reave to crack it, just to see if she could. She failed.”
“Be that as it may, Administer, I do feel it is worth a try.”
The woman shrugged, and with it Roche knew the possibility had been dismissed. “It doesn’t really matter anyway,” said Jans. “Alta is guilty of something. I signed her execution order barely an hour ago. Whether she is interrogated or not, she will be dead this time tomorrow.”
Roche took a deep breath. That closed off that line of inquiry, for the time being. “Even so, that doesn’t change what I have come here to tell you.”
“No? Without Atul, what can you do?”
“I can still try.”
“How?”
“With your help.”
“Mine?”
Roche tried to contain her impatience. “Administer, I am not exaggerating when I try to impress upon you the urgency of my mission. The council needs the help of the Vax, and in return I will try t
o help you. Atul Ansourian freely offered us his assistance. It continues to be my hope that you will decide to offer us the same.”
The administer looked bored. “Why should I care about your Pristine Council? The Vax can take care of themselves.”
Roche recalled the number of ships in the habitat’s docks, at least one of them—the COE’s Paraselene—a Pristine vessel. “You already lend support to the IEPC’s campaign. And I note, without meaning to offend, that you yourself are of different stock from the other Vax I have met. With such diversity—”
“Mind your words, Roche,” Inderdeep Jans stood abruptly, taking one menacing step forward. Even with her side arm, Roche felt threatened and instinctively stepped back. “How dare you suggest that—”
“That’s not what I meant, Administer,” said Roche quickly. “I was merely trying to reinforce the fact that different Castes can work together for a common good—be they Vax, Pristine, or any other. If you—”
“If you hadn’t come here, maybe Atul would still be alive.”
The sudden shift in topic caught Roche off guard. “What? That’s ridiculous! There is no evidence to suggest that—”
“Really? Atul calls for your help, and within days he is dead. The coincidence seems striking, does it not?”
“Then surely you must see that your life is at risk also?”
“Why should that be?”
“Because if your chain of command has been compromised by the enemy, then their ultimate aim will be to dispose of you too.”
“I don’t see why they’d want to do that,” Jans said, gesturing dismissively with one hand. “I don’t even want to be here. It was Atul who talked me into it, and see what it cost him! Besides—” She took another couple of steps forward, her relaxed expression belying her words, “the only person who has even remotely threatened me to date, Roche, is you.”
“That’s not true, Administer,” said Roche defensively. “I pose no threat to you whatsoever!”
“No? You break into my private chambers and exhort me to assist you in your mission—a mission, I might add, that requires turning my staff upside down to search for a hypothetical spy—while muttering vague suggestions that if I don’t, my life will be forfeit. That sounds like a threat to me, Roche.”