The Dark Imbalance

by Sean Williams

  De Bruyn had hoped for more, but she was content with anything at all. She at least had more knowledge, now, of Roche’s life on Ascensio, and that knowledge could be verified in time. All she needed was one person to say that they recalled Roche, and De Bruyn would have the proof that the official information had been covered up.

  She was still missing the why, though. That would be much harder to find, she was sure.

  At her instigation, Lemmas dug deeper. A life as unremarkable as that of any other orphan from an out-of-the-way world presented itself: her hopes, her fears; her delights, her disappointments; her ambitions, her failures; her dreams, and her everyday anxieties. The COE was full of people like her.

  So why, then, De Bruyn wondered, had she been chosen? And, more importantly, for what?

  After four hours, they took a break. De Bruyn was tired and, although he displayed nothing but cool aloofness, she suspected that Lemmas was also feeling the strain. Roche’s condition was a concern, too. De Bruyn couldn’t tell exactly what the autosurgeon’s data meant, but the patient was showing signs of extreme stress. That was the idea, of course, but it was possible to push too far too soon.

  Lemmas asked.

  “No.” She didn’t feel inclined to discuss her quest with the reave; the fact that he could reach into her mind and pluck out the information himself only made his asking all the more insincere. “How deep can you dig?”

  he said with unfaltering confidence.

  “Is it possible to hide information from you?”

  he admitted.

  “How?”

 

  “Which aspect of the mission?”

 

  “What about the AI?”

  <1 don’t know. That’s what the block is for.>

  She ignored his sarcasm. “Can you break through it?”

 

  “Could it be that she doesn’t want anyone to know that the Box still exists?”

 

  She studied Roche’s face in silence for a moment. Bruised, missing one eye, encrusted with blood, the woman was barely recognizable. Fleetingly De Bruyn wondered if she might be wrong—if Roche wasn’t as important as she had first thought. What would she do if all this had been for nothing?

  But there was no getting past the enemy’s fixation on her: the way they had disseminated her name and interfered with her work among the Vax, the Fathehi, and the Noske. And what of Adoni Cane? It all had to fit together somehow. If she wasn’t herself a clone warrior, then there had to be another explanation.

  De Bruyn glanced again at Roche’s genetic code. The unidentifiable sections remained just as mysterious as they had been before, different from those of the clone warriors and any known Caste. Random mutations? She didn’t know. But at least now she had that data.

  The voice came from the command network, not the reave. said the pilot.

  She felt a tiny shot of adrenaline.

 

  she said.

 

  A slight apprehension tightened her gut. The idea of the Disciples’ leader arriving made her uneasy. she said.

  The pilot went back to his work with no mention of Roche. That side of their mission was not relevant to him.

  But cracking Roche was relevant to De Bruyn, and she was conscious now of time running out.

  “Let’s continue,” she said, approaching the table.

  The reave inclined his head. Earlier, he had removed the pack covering the great wound through Roche’s chest. Smoke came from where his index finger now brushed the stump of her shattered clavicle.

  She only had to think for a second; there were so many questions to choose from. “Find out if she knew anything about the enemy prior to her meeting with Adoni Cane.”

  He probed Roche’s mind at the same time as he sent her nerves jangling with pain.

  “Then did she know anything unusual about the Box prior to commencing her mission on the Midnight?”

 

  “Has she ever had any contact with Eupatrid Gastel or his predecessor?”

 

  “Does she know why I was sacked?”

 

  De Bruyn sighed. She hadn’t really believed it would be so easy—but it would have been nice.

  She tried another tack: Did Roche know how the clone warriors communicated among themselves? Did she know why Cane was helping her? Did she know who made him? Did she know why she seemed to be the only one who could find them?

  The answers came as rapidly as De Bruyn fired the questions, and each time the response was the same: No.

  Her questioning became bolder, and Lemmas’s probing blunter: Was Roche aware of any plan to the engagements in Sol System? Was the fact that they were in Sol System in the first place significant, or was that just chance? To her knowledge, was the planetary ring as dire a navigation hazard as the Heresiarch feared—and if so, why?

  But again, Roche had no knowledge of these things.

  De Bruyn moved down to details. Had Proctor Klose, captain of the Midnight, known anything about Cane? What about Uri Kajic, ex-captain of the Ana Vereine? Why did she think Cane’s introns were so important? Did she know where Jelena Heidik was hiding, or how many of the enemy were still at large in the system? Did she know anything at all about the movements of the enemy?

  Within fifteen minutes De Bruyn guessed that Roche in fact didn’t know anything about the big picture; two hours more and she was convinced of it. Nevertheless, she persisted, digging for what she suspected might remain behind a veil she hadn’t pulled back yet, working through her own fatigue and the continuing fluctuation of Roche’s condition. If the reave’s finer efforts weren’t successful, maybe sheer persistence would win the day.

  The trouble was, she was running out of questions. Since the only area she had taken steps to avoid was that of the Box, it was there that De Bruyn finally turned. She didn’t know why it was important, but Roche clearly thought so, and that was enough for her.

  “What can we do about that block?”

  The reave was weary but still compliant.

  “How difficult is the latter?”

 

  “Give me an example.”

 

  “What about?”

 

  “Then where is it?” De Bruyn said, then added: “Or where does she think it is?”

 

  “What has the Box been doing since?”