The Golden Way (The Kestrel Chronicles Book 3)

by mikel evins

  “Toward what?” she said sharply.

  “Open space,” I said. “We set it up to get as far away from Solomon as possible before it—”

  Everything went white.

  44.

  “That was too close,” Erdos said.

  I blinked as the white noise cleared and my vision returned.

  “How long was I out?” I said.

  Erdos and Jaemon looked at me.

  “Out?” said Erdos.

  “Ah,” I said. “Kestrel, are you all right?”

  “I’m here,” said the ship. Her usual warmth was gone.

  “I think I lost consciousness,” I said.

  “My torch blew very close to Solomon,” said Kestrel. “The plasma caused a brief loss of function in many electronic systems.”

  Erdos bent forward, one hand to her ear.

  “Say again?” she said, and squinted.

  She sighed and looked at Jaemon.

  “So?” he said.

  “It could have been worse,” she said.

  “How bad?”

  “A little superficial structural damage. A couple of traders were outside. They were a little too close to it.”

  “They going to make it?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos winced, then said, “They were archived. Like I said, it could have been worse.”

  “Doctor?” I said. Yaug was ominously still. He didn’t reply.

  I jetted to him, taking hold of one of his segmented legs, placing my fingertips carefully against his faceted abdomen. Watching me, Erdos made a face as I ran my hand over his body.

  “I need to move him now,” I said.

  Jaemon said, “Do it. Burrell, can you come up now? We need to check Kestrel’s systems in case Isaac left anything else for us.”

  “I doubt he had time,” I said.

  “Let’s just make sure,” said Jaemon.

  “I’ll bring Isaac,” said Erdos, scowling at her Customs Chief’s still body.

  “Hey,” said Captain Harris, “Make sure he makes it alive, will you? He still has our dingus.”

  “He’ll be alive when he gets there,” said Erdos. “I can’t promise he won’t accidentally collide with a sharp corner or two along the way.”

  Harris looked at her, his skin slowly turning a warm purplish brown.

  “I can live with that,” he said.

  45.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” said Gebre Isaac. He smiled at us.

  We were in the Captain’s mess. Isaac sat at the foot of the table, in Yaug’s usual place. He was in the same black coverall he’d been wearing when we caught him.

  The Captain was at the head of the table. Jaemon and I sat to his right, with Erdos across from us, her back to the hatch.

  “What are you smiling at?” said Erdos.

  “How did you survive my attack?” said Isaac.

  “Kestrel,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Crippled, Dear,” said the ship.

  “That’s how,” I said. “It messed with the Fabric again when it blew, but that’s all.”

  Isaac frowned at me. Then he got it.

  “You scuttled the torch,” he said. “Drastic.”

  “It worked,” said the Captain. “You owe me a torch.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be around for you to collect,” said Isaac. He smiled wider, then looked puzzled.

  “Guess again,” said Jaemon.

  He frowned.

  “How did you—?” he began, then stopped. He said, “Oh. We’re not really here.”

  “Got it in one,” said Erdos.

  “We’re running you in a Fabric partition,” I said.

  He cocked his head.

  “You need access to my full memories if you want to learn anything.”

  “We have it,” I said. “You’re not a superficial sim. We put you in a creche and took a full archive scan. We’re running your entire metabolism.”

  “Really?” he said. A smile crept over his face.

  “Isaac,” said Jaemon. “Before you try your duress access, you should know that this isn’t our first run.”

  “What do you mean?” Isaac said.

  “We already ran you three times before. We had this conversation three times before. It was getting old fast, so Lev and Kestrel used those other runs to figure out how your booby trap worked. It won’t work this time.”

  Isaac frowned for a moment, then his eyes went wide.

  “Told you,” Jaemon said.

  “Yeah,” said Erdos. “Lev defanged you. You’re stuck with us now.”

  “Next,” said Jaemon, “You’re going to tell us how well-trained you are, how you can hold out for years. Go ahead. We’re running you at about a million times faster than real time.”

  “Closer to two million,” I said.

  “How long will a year take?” said Jaemon.

  “About fifteen seconds,” I said.

  “Stall all you want,” Jaemon said. “We have all the time in the world.”

  “Let’s talk about ancient artifacts,” said the Captain.

  46.

  “Why did you take our cargo, Commander Isaac?” said the Captain.

  Isaac was silent.

  “Who are you really working for?” said Erdos.

  “I’m working for you, Commander,” said Isaac, smiling.

  “Don’t give me that shit, Isaac,” said Erdos. “Tell us who you’re really working for.”

  “Why the hostility?” said Isaac. “I thought we worked very well together.”

  “So did I,” said Erdos. “Before I found out you were a criminal and a goddamn traitor.”

  Isaac looked sad.

  “I am not a traitor, Commander,” he said. “I am true to my oath and my duty.”

  “You violated your oath when you illegally diverted cargo, not to mention armed robbery and murder.”

  “I was under a binding oath when I joined Solomon Security,” said Isaac. “It takes precedence. I am loyal to my oath. I’m not a criminal. I have nothing but respect for you, Commander Erdos. I’m confident that in the same situation you would have done the same things I did.”

  Erdos looked at the Captain.

  “Can I punch him in the face a few times? He’s only a sim.”

  “None of that,” said the Captain. “Let’s get back to the question. Exactly what oath are you talking about? Who are you really working for?”

  “Take your time,” said Jaemon. “No rush.”

  “If we’re in a sim,” said Isaac. “You can’t really do anything to compel me.”

  “Nice try,” said Erdos. “You mean we can’t do anything to the real Gebre Isaac. That’s true enough, but it doesn’t help you. We can do whatever we want with you in this sim, and you’ll experience all of it, just as if it was real. You know it and we know it.”

  Isaac, shrugged and smiled his small smile.

  “You working for the Church, Isaac?” said Jaemon.

  “He is,” I said. “But it’s complicated.”

  Isaac frowned at me.

  “We told you before,” Jaemon said. “Remember? Lev’s a forensic physician. You don’t have to say a word. He can pluck the thoughts right out of your head.”

  “No he can’t,” said Isaac. “That’s not how it works.”

  “It is if we find the right questions,” said Jaemon. “And like I said, we have plenty of time.”

  “Were you looking for Kenjiro Isono?” said the Captain.

  “He was,” I said.

  “Why?” said the Captain.

  Isaac glared at me.

  He said, “Need to know, Captain Rayleigh. You don’t need to know.”

  “Were you acting on orders from the Church leadership?” said Jaemon.

  “No,” I said.

  Isaac swore and started to get up.

  “Sit down, Commander,” said the Captain. The sim moved him back into his chair.

  “I don’t think I want to answer any more questions,” said
Isaac.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you want,” said Erdos.

  “You haven’t answered any questions yet,” said Jaemon. “We’re getting our answers from you anyway.”

  “Look at it this way,” said the Captain. “You can talk to us reasonably, and maybe we can find some kind of accommodation. Or we can sit here for as long as it takes to winkle the whole story out of you, one question at a time. Like Jaemon said, we have all the time in the world.”

  “What accommodation?” said Isaac.

  “For starters,” said Jaemon, “You won’t have to sit here for days on end and listen to our questions and leak who knows what kind of confidential information to Lev.”

  He pointed at me.

  “I wouldn’t get too hopeful beyond that,” said Erdos. “You have some things to answer for.”

  “There are some things I simply can’t tell you,” Isaac said.

  “So let’s start with what you can,” said Jaemon.

  “Why were you looking for Kenjiro Isono?” said the Captain.

  “Wouldn’t you?” said Isaac. “If you thought you might know how to find him?”

  “I don’t even know that he ever really existed,” said the Captain.

  “Oh, he definitely did,” said Isaac.

  “He believes it,” I said.

  “I have reason to,” said Isaac. “And reason to think I know how to find him. Tell the truth, Captain Rayleigh, if you were in my position, wouldn’t you look for him?”

  “I suppose I might,” said the Captain. “But I wouldn’t steal and kill and betray my employer to do it.”

  Isaac shrugged.

  “Maybe you would if you wanted him badly enough.”

  “What do you want him for?”

  “Historical value isn’t enough?”

  “He’s deflecting,” I said.

  “It might be enough for me to hunt for him,” said the Captain. “Not enough to turn criminal. What’s your interest in a legendary shipboard knight?”

  Isaac shrugged.

  “Like I said, there are some things I just can’t tell you.”

  “He’s under compulsion,” I said.

  Isaac banged a fist down on the table.

  “How the hell do you do that?” he said, voice raised.

  “There are patterns of tiny movements in your face and hands that are consistent with acting under duress. They appear when we ask questions about your employer and your purpose in searching for Isono.”

  “You can see that in a sim?”

  “The sim is very high fidelity,” I said.

  He shook his head.

  “I was warned that you would be clever,” he said.

  “Warned by who?” said Jaemon. “By whoever you’re working for?

  Isaac looked at him blankly.

  “Did you mean the person who’s giving your orders?” said Jaemon.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Isaac swore and came out of his chair. He shoved himself right across the table at me.

  “Stop,” said the Captain.

  Time froze, then we sat back in our chairs. We really were in the Captain’s mess, all of us except Isaac, whose body was in a creche down in the infirmary. The frozen tableau of the interrogation floated in miniature over the mess table.

  “Well, this is fun,” said Jaemon.

  “It’s going to take forever,” said Erdos.

  “It’s not as bad as it seems,” I said. “That session took less than a second of real time.”

  “Yeah, but I still experienced the whole thing. I’m already exhausted.”

  “Good point,” said Jaemon.

  “We’re making progress,” said the Captain. “We know more than we did. If we keep at him we might unravel the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, but how long will it take?” said Erdos. “You said we have all the time in the world, but we can’t hold him here forever. I’m Solomon Security, remember? I have to enforce the laws of Solomon and of the Consortium. We have cause to hold him, but his surety will have to be notified.”

  “You are his surety,” said the Captain.

  “Not really,” said Erdos. “I mean, he’s registered to Consortium Assurance, and so am I, and, yeah, I’m on his review board, but I don’t make policy. I don’t even enforce it for people under my command. As soon as I officially inform the surety, there will be procedures we’ll have to follow. We’ll lose control of him soon after that, unless you propose to break some laws.”

  “How long can you delay informing them?” said the Captain.

  Erdos winced.

  “Maybe twenty-four hours?”

  “Lev,” said the Captain, “How much time is that in the sim?”

  “About ninety-six years,” I said.

  Jaemon clapped his hands together and rubbed them.

  “Let’s grab a snack,” he said. “It’s going to be a busy century.”

  47.

  “You believe his story?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos shook her head.

  “I guess I have to,” she said. “If Lev can really tell what he’s thinking.”

  We were on the dock outside Kestrel. Solomon Security had Gebre Isaac and his men in creche gurneys. All but a couple were scorched husks.

  “I told Serik to keep them asleep,” Erdos said. “If they wake up they’ll probably try to kill each other.”

  “Why?” said Jaemon. “Isaac told us everything.”

  Erdos looked at him.

  “They don’t know that,” she said. “Hell, you don’t know that.”

  Jaemon grinned.

  “He didn’t want to tell us, but he told us.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. We watched Timur Serik directing several individuals in Solomon uniform.

  “Don’t get overconfident,” I said. “I reported what I saw, but I might have misinterpreted something. Even if I didn’t, I can only see what Isaac believed to be true. Whoever is commanding him may have lied to him. And there may be things we didn’t think to ask.”

  “Yeah,” said Erdos, “And who is it who’s pulling his strings? We still don’t know.”

  “We know it’s some kind of Church faction,” Jaemon said. “We know they’re hunting Kenjiro Isono’s remains for some crazy reason.”

  “We still don’t know where your stupid artifact is,” said Erdos. “We don’t know if Isaac’s monkeys are really with the Church or not.”

  “You asked him that yourself,” said Jaemon.

  “And Lev said he was conflicted.”

  “Means it’s some suppressed faction or something,” said Jaemon with a wave of his hand.

  “You don’t know that, either,” said Erdos.

  “What else would it be?”

  “Somebody outside the Church, but with followers inside it?”

  Jaemon cocked his head at her.

  “Seems a little contrived.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Compared to what?”

  He shrugged.

  “Fair enough. The whole thing is a rat’s nest of conspiracy, any way you look at it. The main loose end is we didn’t get the artifact back.”

  “Your main loose end,” said Erdos.

  Jaemon cocked his head at her.

  “What’s yours?” he said.

  “Moles on my staff.”

  She pointed at the creche gurney containing Gebre Isaac as two of her people loaded it aboard a cargo car.

  “We thought he was the mastermind, but it turns out he’s just a flunky. We still don’t know who’s running this operation or how big it is.”

  “Yeah,” said Jaemon thoughtfully. “But now at least you know it’s there. And you’ve got a few people you can sweat for information. And you can trace down their stories and their connections, and—”

  He turned to her and his grin got big again. “Need any help?”

  “What, from you?” she said. She sounded indignant.

  “Me and my buddy Lev.”

&nb
sp; He laid his arm across my shoulders and patted me heartily.

  “Do I get a say in this?” I said.

  “No,” said Jaemon. “Because you want to help anyway, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” I admitted.

  “Lev would be an asset, for sure,” said Erdos.

  “Come on,” said Jaemon, dialing up the sparkle in his grin.

  “What about Kestrel?” said Erdos.

  Jaemon’s grin disappeared.

  “That’s just it,” he said.

  He turned to face our ship. We could see her through Solomon’s membrane, floating outside, still moored to the dock. Half of her was gone—the half that made her go. She looked like someone had taken the galactic scissors made up of the Milky Way and the Golden Way and snipped her in two.

  “She’s not going anywhere for a while,” Jaemon said.

  48.

  “Where to, Commander?” said Serik. He sounded cheerful.

  We were still on the dock outside Kestrel’s gangway. I was looking at the bloodstains at the far end of the dock, where Zang’s body had been.

  “Take them to Central,” said Erdos. “Keep them sedated. They have reason to kill each other if they wake up. I don’t want to lose them that way.”

  “Sure, Commander,” said Serik.

  I looked at him. He saw me turn and looked back. He was expressionless, but there was something about him—a twinkle in his eye.

  “Go ahead, Serik,” said Erdos. “I’ll be along.”

  “You don’t want to come with us? We have plenty of room.”

  He gestured at the waiting cars.

  “There’s something I want to do first,” Erdos said. “I’ll be along.”

  Serik looked disappointed.

  He said, “You’re the boss.”

  He turned and half-smiled at me. He jetted to the nearest car and stopped at its hatch. He turned and waved, then pulled himself aboard. The door closed, then both cars pulled away from the dock and slid into traffic.

  Erdos sighed.

  “Seems like some kind of ending,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Jaemon.

  “Nothing is resolved, though.”

  “Yeah. Well, Isaac’s down for the count, at least.”

  “You really want to stay and work for me?” said Erdos.