The Golden Way (The Kestrel Chronicles Book 3)

by mikel evins

  “Steady there, Chief,” said Jaemon. “Let’s see if we can save your ship before we talk about scuttling her.”

  “You’re right. I’m just tired. This whole thing makes me tired.”

  “Is there anything useful to know about Serik?”

  “He’s from the Gray Cities,” said Erdos. “Spent several years on Mars in the Eighth Avenue Police.”

  “When?”

  “Same time as Isaac, more or less.”

  “Yeah?” said Jaemon.

  Eros looked at him.

  “Oh, they didn’t know each other,” said Erdos. Her eyes narrowed. “Or anyway, that’s what they said when he came aboard.”

  “Could be true,” said Jaemon. “Isaac’s in the Host. Serik’s in the Red cops. They didn’t have to run into each other.”

  “Yeah. Convenient,” said Erdos. “They can say they aren’t connected, but then if you find a connection they have an easy explanation.”

  “There you go,” said Jaemon, slapping her on the back. “We’ll make a paranoid out of you yet.”

  “I can’t think of any connection I ever noticed, though,” said Erdos. “Serik came onto the regular patrol staff. He was a good organizer. He was okay at working with others, and he had a good work ethic. Took responsibility for things. Worked his way up to chief of Operational Security. My main problem with him is he can be kind of sarcastic.”

  Jaemon gave her a look.

  “What?” she said.

  “Only room for one brand of sarcasm in this town?” he said.

  She glared at him.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said. “So I’m a little sarcastic, too. So what?”

  “Anyway,” said Jaemon. “Nothing stood out about him, then?”

  “Nope.”

  “Doctor Yaug thought there was something about him,” I said. “I have to admit, I found him a little odd, myself.”

  “What’s this?” said Erdos.

  “Serik reminds the Doc of somebody,” said Jaemon.

  “Who?” said Erdos.

  Jaemon shook his head.

  “He doesn’t remember.”

  “Gee, that’s swell,” said Erdos.

  “Yeah, I know. He said he’d tell us if he remembers.”

  Jaemon pointed at me.

  “I don’t know what Lev’s talking about, though. It’s news to me.”

  “It’s vague,” I said. “I noticed that he often watches people as if he’s…I don’t know, measuring them or something. Maybe like he’s watching to see if they’re going to do what he thought they’d do. He seems very calculating.”

  “He is that,” said Erdos. “I always thought of it as an advantage. Makes him a good department head, you know. Useful.”

  “Yeah,” said Jaemon, “But he just punched a couple of cars full of tickets and then punched his own. Kind of changes things a little, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it does. Makes all that calculating seem a lot creepier.”

  “Maybe it was creepy all along,” said Jaemon.

  “Maybe,” said Erdos. “Have we learned anything from all this gossip?”

  “Not a damn thing,” said Jaemon.

  51.

  “There she is,” said Jaemon.

  Erszbet Erdos stood in the companionway outside Kestrel’s infirmary. We were waiting for Zang to emerge from her creche. Erdos was in her nicest dress blues.

  “Good to see, you, Commander,” said the Captain. “What brings you to see us?”

  Jaemon, the Captain and I were in the Infirmary. Doctor Yaug had been out of his creche for a couple of hours, but was back in the diagnostic room indulging my desire for more tests. I still didn’t feel expert on his unique anatomy.

  “I’ve got an invitation for you,” she said.

  “An invitation?” said the Captain.

  “The Captain-General wants you to come and have dinner with him tomorrow night. At his private table.”

  Jaemon pulled a face at his brother.

  “Private table,” he said.

  “You always have to make a joke out of everything?” said Erdos.

  “I do,” said Jaemon. “It’s a character flaw.”

  “Who’s invited?” said the Captain.

  “You are,” said Erdos. “Lev. Your Lambertan passengers. Even this guy.”

  She nudged Jaemon with an elbow.

  “In fact, everybody’s welcome,” she said.

  “Really?” said the Captain.

  “Sure,” she said. “Pop didn’t want to list everyone in a formal invitation because it might be awkward. He knows you can’t leave Kestrel unmanned.”

  “There are, what, fourteen of us with the Lambertans,” said the Captain.

  “Pop’s the Captain-General of a dreadnought,” said Erdos. “It’s a big table.”

  “Angier can stay,” said the Captain. “And Verge. We’ll find a couple more to man Kestrel.”

  “Angier will complain that we’re excluding him,” said Jaemon.

  “So?” said the Captain. “If we take him he’ll complain that we’re forcing him to attend a useless formal function.”

  Jaemon laughed. He turned to Erdos.

  “You always deliver invitations in person?” he said.

  Erdos turned and looked at him.

  “You’re bugging me about that again?”

  “Again?” said Jaemon.

  “You asked me if I always investigated shootings in person, too.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Jaemon. “I did. But then, there was something behind that. You were investigating your own people, weren’t you?”

  Erdos sighed.

  “Guilty,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Jaemon, “So what’s your ulterior motive this time?”

  “Isn’t it about time for Erdos to come out?” she said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “I thought I’d like to be here for that,” said Erdos. “I’d kind of like to talk to her, if it’s okay.”

  “Okay with me,” said the Captain. He looked at me.

  “No medical reason she shouldn’t,” I said.

  “What about?” said Jaemon.

  “Is there some reason you need to know that?” said Erdos.

  “I’m nosy?” said Jaemon, grinning.

  “Big-deal investigator,” Erdos scoffed.

  We heard banging from the creche room.

  “Speak of the devil,” said the Captain.

  “I’d better get in there,” I said. I looked around the room. “I think it’s best if the rest of you stay out here.”

  “It’s your infirmary, Doc,” said Jaemon.

  Zang was already muscling her way out of the creche when I got to her. I handed her a towel and then a robe. She released the towel to float and tied the belt around herself.

  “What was it this time?” she said. “And how come there’s nobody to meet me?”

  “Nobody?” I said.

  “Besides you, I mean. Come on, Lev.”

  “They’re in the other room.”

  “Why?”

  “I told them to wait there. It would have been crowded in here.”

  When we came out, Yaug had joined the others, and Spacer Mai was floating in the infirmary’s main hatch.

  “Holy Makers,” said Zang. “It’s a goddamn convention.”

  “Welcome back, Grumpy,” said Jaemon. He hugged her. She hugged back and looked around the room. Her gazed settled on Erdos.

  “What’s she doing here?” she said.

  Erdos’ expression turned sour.

  “Nice one, Zang,” she said. “I came to welcome you back. You got a problem with that?”

  Zang thought it over, running one golden hand over the stubble of her blue mohawk.

  “Nah,” she said, finally. “It’s a free city, I guess. What’s with Yaug’s bandages?”

  “A lot happened,” said the Captain.

  “I guess,” said Zang. She turned to me. “You didn’t answer me before.”


  “About what?”

  “How’d I end up in the coffin?”

  She jerked a thumb backward at the creche room.

  Jaemon grinned.

  “You took one for the team,” he said.

  “Took one?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Erdos. “Turns out you’ve got some kind of martyr complex.”

  “What, you mean I got myself shot or something?”

  “That’s it exactly,” said Jaemon, pointing at her.

  “That’s right,” said Erdos. “You’re a goddamn hero.”

  52.

  The Captain-General’s table was large and impressive. So was the Captain-General. I expected him to look like Zang and Erdos, but he was taller and more heavily built, red-faced, white-haired, and jolly.

  He and his people served us twelve courses. They even brought flavored lubricants for Py and me. Captain Rayleigh argued diplomatically with the Captain-General about the history of the Church and about whether Kenjiro Isono was a real historical person.

  Zang and Erdos got choked up when the Captain-General told stories about their mother. We learned that she had been nearly five hundred years old when she finally decided to end her life, and that Erszbet Erdos, the first naturally-born child in Solomon’s history, had been part of Captain-General Arnim Erdos’ last, desperate attempt to cultivate his wife’s interest in remaining in the world of flesh. We learned that it had worked, for a while. Then the ennui of great age had crept up on her again inexorably, and she had decided to leave the world of the living.

  Jaemon entertained us all with jokes, and the Captain educated us with stories. Zang asked Jaemon why, if they were clones, he was bigger than his brother. Jaemon said he’d been re-embodied when he served on Mars, and he liked the new size.

  The Captain-General asked Spacer Mai everything he could think of about life among the Canine Clans. I learned that Captain Rayleigh had recruited Mai by participating in a tradition known as the Great Hunt, in which equity lords join the Clans to hunt dangerous game in Callisto’s Green Preserves. I learned that Mai’s brother Morr had given his life to defend the Captain against an enraged boar.

  By the end of the night, when we returned to Kestrel in three cars, I felt that we had been made welcome. Our next six months had been changed from an exile in strange territory to a long visit among friends.

  Then we pulled up to Kestrel’s dock and found a delivery arbeiter waiting for us.

  We piled out of the cars and faced it. It was a small egg-shaped thing sitting atop a large cage of metallized segments. Inside the segments was a dark box, hard to see through the dense mesh.

  “Keep your distance,” said Jaemon.

  “Verge?” said the Captain.

  “Welcome back, Captain,” said the Chief. “You will find a package awaiting you.”

  “I found it. What do you know about it?”

  “It is addressed to Doctor Yaug. Kestrel and I scanned it. We can detect no sign of anything threatening.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “I think it best that you see for yourself. Our Lambertan guests will want to see it.”

  Captain Rayleigh looked at Captain Harris. The Lambertan’s skin warmed from a cool tan to a pale orange.

  “Package,” said the Captain, addressing the arbeiter. “Open, please.”

  “I require identification from the addressee, one Constantine Yaug,” said the robot.

  “I am Constantine Yaug,” said the Doctor. He presented his glyph.

  “Thank you and good day, Sir,” said the arbeiter. The mesh of its transport cage dilated, then separated into legs that telescoped away into a second egg shape suspended below the first. The arbeiter lifted away on jets and sped down the transit tube.

  A familiar black case sat on the doc in front of us.

  “No way,” said Chief Spader.

  Captain Harris started toward it.

  “Easy, Sandy,” said Captain Rayleigh, but Harris was already on the case, tentacle tips dancing over the control surface.

  Harris swore.

  “Damn thing is locked,” he said, starting to turn red. “I’m locked out!”

  “It was addressed to Yaug,” said Captain Rayleigh. “Let him try it.”

  Harris turned bumpy, his skin flashing a jarring pattern of red and purple that translation rendered as an inarticulate growl. He shoved himself aside with his tentacles.

  Yaug glided to the case and lowered himself close to it.

  “Well?” said Harris.

  “One moment,” said Yaug.

  He touched the control surface tentatively with a manipulator, then with a couple more. The top of the container popped open with a slight hiss, and then retracted, revealing a pock-marked sphere, matte-black and engraved with complex patterns.

  “It’s there!” said Harris. He popped his jets and returned to the case, touching the ancient sphere reverently with a tentacle.

  “There’s a message,” said Yaug. “I’ll share it.”

  The wry voice of Timur Serik said, “Isaac wants you to have this. I can’t see the harm in it. Your new captain told Isaac he owed him a torch. He’ll have to get it from you. You owe me for much more than that. I look forward to collecting the debt. It tickles me that you didn’t recognize me when we met aboard Kestrel. I suppose you’re working with limited resources, but I knew you right away, even with your new name and your new body. No wonder you never fooled the Titans.”

  We waited, but there was no more.

  “Well,” said Yaug. “Now I know who he reminded me of.”

  53.

  Doctor Yaug floated above the open cargo container. His robes tapered to a point below his body. His hands were steepled in front of him, hood bent over them. He looked like a contemplative ghost.

  Captain Rayleigh popped his jets, drifting close to Yaug.

  “Is there something you need to tell me, Doc?” he said.

  “Several things,” said Yaug. “But I need to make some arrangements first.”

  “Arrangements?”

  “I need to inform certain agencies that I’ll be talking to you about…certain subjects.”

  The Captain held Yaug’s gaze for a moment, then nodded.

  “What did you mean about who he reminded you of?” said Commander Erdos. “Do you know something about Serik?”

  Yaug straightened and looked around at her.

  “Timur Serik is Ennio Sparza,” said Yaug. “I’m surprised I didn’t realize it before, but he always was good at misdirection.”

  “Get outta town,” said Captain Rayleigh. He sounded exactly like Jaemon.

  “No, I’m sure of it,” said Yaug. “It’s painfully obvious now. Our whole experience here has his fingerprints all over it.”

  “I thought he was dead,” said Jaemon.

  “Who the hell is Ennio Sparza?” said Erdos. “I’ve heard the name, but—”

  “Auron the Second,” said the Captain.

  “The Red Emperor?” said Chief Spader. He was at the cargo container next to Harris. Both Lambertans backed away and faced us, eyes dilated wide.

  “Last emperor of the Second Imperium, yes,” said the Captain.

  Yaug was very still.

  “I should have seen it the first time they asked about Isono,” said Yaug. “Sparza must have been laughing inside every time he saw me.”

  “Should have seen what?” said Jaemon.

  Yaug looked at Jaemon.

  “That it was him. Sparza was always obsessed with Isono. He spent a fortune on the search during his reign. He looted the budgets of a dozen departments. It’s an important reason why the Imperial bureaucracy didn’t support him at the end.”

  “What for?” said Captain Rayleigh.

  Yaug shook his head.

  “I don’t think anybody knows. Sparza is a black box. He always had elaborate, long-range plans. He never shared more of them than he absolutely had to. Isaac probably meant it when he said there were things he couldn’t
tell us. He probably didn’t know most of what Sparza was up to.”

  “You think he was running the show,” said Erdos. “Not Isaac?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Yaug said. “Now that we know it’s Sparza, there’s no doubt. He rose from the Bahroz Municipal Safety commission to the throne of the Second Imperium, piece by piece, bit by bit, over the course of thirty years standard. He works slowly and steadily, in bits and pieces, building secret deals and alliances and using them to accumulate power. In the end, it’s always him running the show. However much power he has, he always wants more.”

  “So you know this guy pretty well,” said Jaemon.

  “Too well,” said Yaug. “And one thing I know about him is that he never stops. He never takes a break.”

  “I thought he was dead,” said Jaemon again.

  “Everybody did,” said the Captain. “But we never really know, do we?”

  Jaemon gave his brother a hooded look.

  “I think we pretty much know Milos is dead,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Zang. “We pretty much know my mother is dead, too”

  “Okay, right,” said the Captain. “What I mean is, if you don’t have witnesses to someone’s voluntary discorporation, if you don’t see their archives erased, you can’t ever really be sure they’re dead.”

  “Auron’s body and his archive were never found,” said Yaug.

  “See, that’s what I mean,” said the Captain, pointing at him. “We’ve all just been assuming he’s dead because nobody heard from him for seventy years.”

  “We heard from him,” said Mai. She cocked her head, floating next to Jaemon, looking quizzically at the Captain.

  “It’s a fair point,” said Yaug, “But the only reason we know it’s him is because I know him. He may have turned up in many places over the years—he must have.”

  “So why didn’t we ever hear about it?” said Erdos.

  The Captain cocked his head at her.

  “You mean, ‘Deposed Martian ruler sighted at scene of criminal attack?’ Something like that?’”

  “I don’t mean some wild rumor,” said Erdos.

  “What do you think this is?” said the Captain, gesturing at the dock.

  “Come on,” said Erdos. “We know what happened here. Yaug recognized him.”