Matheson grounded the rifle butt to free his hands and ripped away the torn pocket and its flap from his shirt front. Fahn and Gant watched him with narrowed eyes. Matheson smiled and poked the torn fabric into his ears—better than nothing.
Once Tenzo had returned and joined the other Ohba, Matheson shouldered the rifle and looked down the barrel—the sights were clean and easy to use, but fairly broad. Shoots slightly left . . .
Fahn raised one finger, drawing Matheson’s attention to him. Matheson lowered the stock from his shoulder and restrained an urge to growl his frustration. Instead, he gave an inoffensive lift of his eyebrows while pulling the fabric from his nearest ear.
“You should not be striking the bells,” Fahn said.
“Why?”
“The spirit tree’s bells are containing the souls of our dead.”
Matheson closed his eyes and forced a smile—of course there’s a complication . . . “And they wouldn’t like to be shot.” He reopened his eyes and stared Fahn down. “What’s the penalty for disturbing them?”
“We are killing you.”
Merry fucking hell. “Naturally.” And the dogs are out there if we make a break for it. Matheson tucked the bit of rag back into his ear.
He dropped to one knee and lined up the first shot. The rifle was warm against his cheek and he squeezed . . .
The orange burst and threw pulp down into the bushes. Matheson’s ears buzzed a little and the heat of the combustion gases fanned over his wrist as the spent case ejected. A bit high.
He didn’t linger. He lined up the next shot, adjusting slightly down, and eased the trigger back until it snapped like glass breaking.
An expanding cloud of orange chunks was the only thing left above the post. He could smell it, but the blast and report covered any sound. The bells on the spirit tree didn’t move.
Matheson grounded the rifle and dropped prone beside it. His sore back and shoulders objected to the curvature of his spine as he re-shouldered the gun. But he could see the orange clearly under the arch of the tree branch and he lined up the shot as quickly as he could. Fahn’s going to be disappointed, but he can go jump. Matheson squeezed the trigger . . .
The spirit tree shivered as the orange vanished behind it in a fragrant spray.
The ringing in his head and pressure in his ears made Matheson a little dizzy and he got slowly to his feet. Gant was right there, reaching for his rifle, but Matheson dropped the magazine and cleared the gun before he handed them over. Gant took them with a thoughtful expression as Matheson pulled the stuffing from his ears and shook his head. The thumping of his blood vanished and took the dizziness with it, but his hearing was still muted with a high whining sound.
As Matheson turned, he could see Fahn laughing, then the shape of a word on his lips, but he couldn’t hear it as more than a bass rumble. He started toward Fahn, ready to shake the location out of him, but Aya snatched his elbow and tugged him around.
Shaking her head, she began walking back down the twisted aisle of plants by which they’d entered. The Ohba stood aside and let her go. Matheson went with her. She led the way with hasty steps and handed him the gun box, revealing the mobile she’d hidden under it.
Matheson checked their backs continually for the first few minutes, then only occasionally until they were back inside the cliff tunnel, groping forward by nothing more than the illumination of the mobile’s screen. No one followed them and they slipped back through the fissure to the Dreihleen side.
When they finally reached a branching in the tunnel, Aya tugged him into it and turned him to face her. She leaned into his body, pressing her mouth to his ear. “I’m have it.”
She swiped the mobile screen and showed him a long log of audio stream data and voice-to-text translation. At the bottom was a single word.
The receptionist walked the inspector down the hall to Pritchet’s door. She watched him go inside and the door closed again behind him. Pritchet waited on the far side of his desk.
Dillal started forward, then flinched as if he’d been hit and clapped his hands over his ears. Then he snorted as if disgusted with himself.
Pritchet stared with quickly concealed alarm. “What is it?”
“Gunshots.”
“What? Where?” Pritchet demanded, stepping toward him.
Dillal waved off his concern. “In my data stream.”
Pritchet looked relieved. “So it’s not live.”
“It is, but of no threat to anyone’s health. I have—or will within an hour—a murder weapon used at the Paz da Sorte. And the location where I can find the men who used it. I need you to call off further action against the ghettos.”
“Why?”
“Because Corporation House’s excuse is spurious—there’s no racial connection in the case. The killers are Dreihleen, just as the victims were.”
“That’s not what we’ve been told.”
“Any connection between the Ohbata and the Dreihleat is not material to the case. Where did you get your information?”
“From your lab.”
Dillal glared at him. “That’s not possible. Someone has told you a lie.”
“And yet you have a dead lab technician—”
“Mr. Starna is not dead and his unhappy circumstance has no bearing—”
“But you didn’t say there’s no evidence that links the two ghettos.”
“It’s not germane—” Dillal winced again, twice in quick succession.
Pritchet used Dillal’s distraction to step close to the inspector. “The ammunition is from the Ohbata, via an arms dealer named Bomodai. And yet, despite everything I’ve invested in you, you didn’t give me this information—if you even had it,” Pritchet snapped, looming over Dillal.
The inspector grunted through gritted teeth and raised his head, fixing Pritchet with the red-and-gold reflection of light off the lens and exposed frame of his artificial eye. “Because you would have misused it, as you clearly have. You know that action against the people of Gattis is not warranted, that Corporation House is only looking for an excuse to destroy them to protect the interests of certain First Settlement families.”
“It’s not my plan—I don’t want this any more than you do, Dillal, but the evidence is out.”
“Rumor is out. If you let the corporation’s plans for the Dreihleat and Ohbata go ahead, the end result will be tens of thousands of deaths. All predicated on a false assumption. The cause of the Paz da Sorte massacre is not racial strife—but if this case isn’t solved, there will be strife and more death than we’ve already seen. Let me resolve my case and there will be no cause for violence on any side. And your faith in this project will be vindicated.”
He twitched once more and Pritchet stepped away. “You actually have something. You’re not blowing smoke in my face?” the director asked.
Dillal shook himself, then stood straight and still, facing Pritchet. “Yes. I’m telling you the truth. Matheson has the weapon used. It will connect the crimes to the man who used it and him to others—just men, not a conspiracy or revolution-in-waiting. An ugly, stupid crime, but not of concern to the corporation’s running of the planet.”
Pritchet scowled and studied Dillal. “No. No . . . you’re lying to me about something, but it’s more than your life is worth to fail here. So . . . if you can bring these people in, I can call off the dogs.”
“You must persuade Corporation House to withdraw first, or I can’t move.”
“Ah. So, they’re in the Dreihleat. That only makes the corporation’s plans better.”
“They are not in Dreihleat Ang’Das nor Ohbata Ang’Das. Moving on the ghettos at this time and for this reason will only cause exactly the uprising you and I do not want.” Dillal paused and smiled very slightly, his gaze defocused for another moment before he continued, “Tell Corporation House they must hold until I bring the perpetrators in. And after that there will be no need to for the action they contemplate. No. Need.”
“I won’t be able to buy you much time, even with that. Maybe a day or a day and a half, given the timing. And you’d better bring back a hell of a case-closer, because I’m running out of favors to call in.”
“I will.”
Pritchet sighed and looked tired. “Where are these men?”
“Agria.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Day 6: Monday—In Transit
The lifter swayed and rattled as it rose over the planet. The suborbital hop from the edge of one continent to the middle of the other would take six hours to cross almost fourteen thousand kilometers.
Nothing good ever happens to cops in the middle of the night. Matheson lay on his side with his eyes clenched shut, trying not to think about the transport that had crashed into the canal. He’d never been afraid of jumps or lifters before, and he should have been asleep—he’d had little enough that his mind was slow and his body leaden as well as sore—but the thought of being trapped if this craft met a similar fate over the Sea of Pearls kept returning and knotting up in bits of memory. The SO’s face in the flooding pilot pod; violet mud oozing beneath him, his knee to the ground; the weight of a rifle stock on his shoulder; shouts that became the jangle of broken bells . . . Pieces slid into his mind as he dropped toward sleep and knifed him back to the misery of the moment—traveling by continent-class freight hopper and entangled in his own wretched thoughts. Apparently “first available transport” didn’t take much notice of the state of the passengers wedged in with the goods and equipment being transferred from Ariel to Agria. Two exhausted policemen were just more cargo.
It must be nice to believe in some god and leave the worry of crashing into the sea to them . . . him . . . her . . .
“Possibly.”
Matheson hadn’t realized he’d spoken until Dillal replied.
He rolled in his sling to see the inspector on the other side of the dimly lit passenger pod. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“I’m no more able to sleep than you, Matheson. I feel I’ve already failed—spent too much of our time running interference in GISA’s meddling on behalf of Gattis Corporation’s avarice, rather than doing the job I was intended for. And left you to the fire too often. Between injuries and actions—mine included—this must have been one of the worst days you’ve spent here.”
Matheson was glad of something to take his mind off the ceramic-and-steel eggshell that was hurtling through sub-orbital space with them inside. “Having the merry shit beaten out of me was worse. At least this time I did what I set out to do. We may have saved some people from drowning—though that’s really down to you and Aya—and no one beat me bloody today, nor shot me, shocked me, or drowned me. Another thing I owe Aya, but—”
“But?”
Matheson shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face. “She hates me, but she stood with me, helped me, protected me . . .”
“Did you not do the same?”
“Yes, but, not in spite of who she is. When we parted at the East Gate . . .”
Aya handed him the box and stepped back, her expression stiff. “You’re go to Djepe. Find Hoda—you’re not find Oso I’m think.”
He tucked the gun box under his arm. “You think or you hope?”
“Think. Fahn’s only speak of Banzet. For Oso I’m cold. He’s poison our hopes, but I’m still burn for what should be. I’m to Norenin and do what I must. For you I’m can have nothing.”
She turned sharply away and left him standing as she walked back into the Dreihleat, back straight and head high.
He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut.
He dropped his hands and stared upward. “I’m guilty, but I’m not to blame for Donetti. ‘I have nothing for you’—that’s what Con Robesh told me, too, but Aya did give me . . . something. And I can’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
“That she’s my half-sister? That I knew you were sleeping with her? Something else?” The inspector’s voice seemed slower than usual.
“All of it.”
“Aya and I are hardly bound together, close as rose and thorn,” Dillal said. Then he sighed. “And I . . . I needed you to make your own evaluation, not to be swayed by the familial relationship.”
“You told me to be wary of her.”
“I would have said the same in regard to any contact you had grown too close to. But in the end, your own judgment must guide you. As hers will.”
“I see.”
“Your connecting the silence of the victims’ families to the political cause . . . was impressive.”
“Thank you.” Matheson shifted in surprised discomfort, and changed the subject. “What about this business with Starna?”
Dillal shook his head. “Poor, rash Starna. Dr. Woskyat is technically more proficient, but not as driven or intuitive—and she also has problems—but she’s already confirmed that the rifling on the gun you retrieved matches bullets from the scene. Positive identification of the fingerprints should be simple once the gun is fully dismantled and inspected. Now we know why they used the spray seal—to avoid leaving prints their dangerous allies could use against them.”
“Can we be sure there are prints? Uncle Fahn is a twisty old bastard and while the rifling matches some of the bullets, so far it’s only his word that the gun was used by Tchintaka or Banzet. And why was Fahn even involved?”
“There was a middle man—that’s another link yet to be made. Everything that happens in the Green Houses territory falls into Fahn’s purview, whether it’s done by Ohba or outsider.”
Matheson, tired and scared as he was, talked just to avoid thinking of where he was. “And how are we going to find Banzet on Agria—the continent’s twice the size of Ariel and we have no idea where he is.”
“Fingerprints are taken on entry to any Agrian port,” Dillal replied, as if each word had grown longer. “We’ll be able to discover which camp via the intake records when we arrive.”
“Why didn’t that come up on my search?”
“We didn’t have a fingerprint, only a name that he’d be an imbecile to use.” The inspector sighed again. “I feel that I am somehow culpable—at least for Starna, less so for the rest, but still stained with it. I pushed him too hard and he imagined that he could take any blame off my shoulders by casting himself as scapegoat—the deluded met who over-reaches and falls to his inescapable doom. Ironically, delusion was one thing he didn’t suffer from. It all feels inevitable, from the dead at Paz to the dead in yesterday’s streets, Starna, the canal—unavoidable consequences of the system gone mad.”
“But not because of you,” Matheson said, as much in his own defense as Dillal’s.
“Why not? I’m no young idealist from out-system. I’m as much part of this culture as any of us—more, perhaps. I chose to dig myself deeper into it because I am the thing that was meant to be and never happened.”
“Your sister said something about all the Gattian races dwindling down. Is that what you mean?”
Dillal peered at Matheson a moment. “I hadn’t realized she’d paid any heed to those stories our mother whispered. Half of them weren’t true, of course—there is no Great Breath, death bells don’t contain souls, and sollets don’t shed their skins to become human and dance on the islands of the Verdan Archipelago in the summer moonlight.”
He turned his gaze to the ceiling, a dull red gleam smearing at the edge of the prosthesis frame. “The Three Races of Gattis, though . . . ‘Once upon a time, before we were Dreihleen, there were three races of Gattis and they were called Red Team, Yellow Team, and Blue Team. They were each special, created for special work, and meant to build this beautiful planet for all to share.’ It sounds like a fairy tale but it’s as true as it is terrible. If you dig far enough into the charter you’ll see. In the historical logs, in the records of the gene engineers and biologists . . .”
Dillal sounded exhausted, thoughts wandering, more as if he were talking in his sleep than carrying on a waking
conversation and Matheson could hear the influences of Dreihleen and Ohba in his unguarded speech. “We were to be one people—red, yellow, and blue all united—but it didn’t work. Low birth rates, division, marginalization . . . and then the oppression, the isolation, the tribalism . . . We tear ourselves apart, fearing for our survival, fearing the other, hating ourselves and everyone else even more.
“And the result is crimes like this. I’m willing to risk my life to change that, but I shouldn’t have risked others. The Forensic Integration Project represents a chance—no more—though there are people who hoped I’d die in the process. If I fail—or even before that—they may get their wish.”
“It can’t be that bad . . .” Matheson objected, but Dillal didn’t look well.
“The ocular functions, the mechanics, electronics, sensors, data . . . I’ve gained good control over the system, but this . . .” Dillal said, spreading his arms and then letting them fall back onto his chest—he looked like a corpse as he did—“this machine of flesh and bone is in distress. I’ve done everything Andreus told me not to do. I can feel the cracks in my skull weeping, the unhealed wounds . . .” He fell silent.
Matheson waited for the inspector to speak again, but he didn’t. After a while Dillal’s head lolled a bit toward him, left eye slightly open and right eye closed. Matheson’s heart jolted in his chest and he sat up, catching his breath from the sharp complaints of a few still-angry bruises. He started climbing out of the passenger sling to see if Dillal was dead, but the inspector stirred slightly.
Matheson had begun to think the man didn’t sleep at all and this evidence of frail humanity, surprisingly, calmed him. He lay back down and closed his own eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Day 6: Agria—Afternoon
They’d lifted in one storm to come down in another. Even in pouring, windswept rain, Port Hyldra’s chaotic bustle surpassed the first impression Matheson had gotten from Angra Dastrelas on his arrival a month before. The port was smaller, but the sense that everything must move immediately was overwhelming. The ground was a perpetual wash of thin blue mud across the hardscape of landing pads and building aprons without a wisp of plant life to be seen within the perimeter. And in spite of the downpour, it was hot. It was all under Gattis Corporation, but it almost seemed like another world.
Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel Page 34
