Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel

by K. R. Richardson

  “Yeah. I’m green as grass. I didn’t figure out that it was you who set the rest of S-Office on me so you could conveniently ‘save’ me and sideline me at the same time. Why? I mean . . . Why in merry hell did you do any of this?”

  Orris glowered up at Dillal. “Get this shit off me or I’m not saying anything.”

  Dillal shrugged and looked at Matheson. “He can still run.”

  “Go fucking jump!” Orris shouted. “Santos was gonna turf me! Me. After all I did for him and that blood-red bitch of his. He got all weepy about a bunch of drecks.” He whipped his head in frustration. “Shit!”

  “What? Nothing else to say?” Matheson demanded. “If you want to walk away alive, you’ll keep talking.”

  Orris gaped at Matheson. “What in fuck . . . ? You threatening me, rook? You better have something nastier than carnivorous creeper up your sleeve, ’cause I don’t think you’ve got the big brass ones required to whack me.”

  Matheson gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t have to. We have evidence that ties you to a conspiracy to commit robbery and multiple murder, aggravated murder, and a double murder on your own account. I can add on insurrection, smuggling, illegal arms trading, and conspiracy to incite—just to start.”

  “Cat shit.”

  “Not a bit. You provided both guns used in the Paz da Sorte killings and coordinated with Bomodai, who provided the ammunition—which you’d sold to her in the first place.”

  “Specu-fucking-lation. You think that’s gonna make me piss myself and roll over? You got nothing that ties me in.” Beads of sweat had sprung up on his forehead and a fiery rash was beginning to blister his hands and spread up under his cuffs.

  Dillal spoke up behind him. “We already have one witness who will identify you in that deal, and we know of others.” Orris jerked to stare over his shoulder at the inspector, wincing as thorns stabbed deeper into his arms. “There’s more, of course. You were a member of the Cafala flood team. During the clean-up, you transferred into GISA Agria Corps, and after that to GISA Ang’Das, from a military unit that was issued the particular rounds used in the Paz da Sorte murders.” He held up the pistol. “This is the type of gun issued to your Cafala unit as personal sidearms and I have no doubt that the database will show that this specific piece was issued to you. You provided the one we recovered from Hoda Banzet as well. This one may not have as much DNA and forensic value, but it will have a ballistic match to bullets recovered from the bodies in the Dreihleat. And how certain are you that you never left a trace?

  “You were running protection when we met and it won’t be hard to confirm that you ran the bagmen who remained in the Dreihleat when you booted up—including Santos. You’ve already admitted he was in your debt, but ready to grass. So . . . when he suggested he might tell Matheson the truth and get off the hook of accessory to capital murder by offering you instead, you drugged him and hanged him from his own balcony. After you made sure he hadn’t turfed you.”

  “Santos wasn’t drugged—you said so.” Muscles in Orris’s jaw bunched and twitched and the sweat was beginning to run down his neck.

  “I never did. Andreus certified death by hanging, but she also conducted a full autopsy. She found a compound in Santos’s system that’s used in field hospitals for pain relief in terminal patients. You’ve spent your share of time in those wards, sat by the beds of dying comrades, watched doctors mix their tonic . . . Could you say you don’t know what ‘deadman’s dram’ is without hiding your hands in your armpits—as you do when you’re nervous? I doubt it.”

  “It’s still just fucking circumstance and guesses.”

  “But this gun and the key to the Paz da Sorte aren’t. Santos said he threw the key down the alley drain, but it wasn’t there. It’s in your pocket.”

  Orris flinched, setting off a chain reaction of tightening vines and torn, blistering skin that let the creeper’s toxin flow, drove the thorns in deeper . . . and Dillal smiled at him. The cold, one-sided expression made Orris shudder and he wrenched his gaze back to Matheson, his eyes showing white all the way around. “He’s a fucking lunatic,” he panted. “You believe this shit?”

  “Now you’re appealing to me?” Matheson cocked an ironic eyebrow. “That’s funny . . . because I think you not only drugged and murdered my training officer, but you went back to the Ohbata and shot that gun runner in the head to clean up after yourself. And I know you were at the Paz da Sorte earlier than you claimed, because you had your scene kit in your pocket.”

  “Why the hell shouldn’t I?” Orris demanded, his voice tight.

  “You were IOD—that’s a desk assignment. You shouldn’t have needed a kit any more than you had cause to enter the jasso before Dillal arrived. But you did both. You didn’t have the rest of your equipment and there was no reason you’d have put only the scene kit in your pocket, but you had it and it was open.”

  “You’re guessing again.”

  “No. You handed the inspector a solvent wipe from your own pocket while we were standing in the jasso. I saw you do it. I thought it was odd at the time, because if you were just stopping by to settle an assignment dispute, you should have had no reason to get your hands dirty. But yours were and so were your shoes. And, as IOD, you assigned Neme—because she’s the most corrupt detive in the division and you thought she’d just pick a likely scapegoat and close it without a fuss, didn’t you?”

  “You enjoying this recitation, Fishbait?” Orris was shivering and fruitlessly working his arms against the tightening creeper and its spreading, gnawing rash.

  “Not particularly. But the point I want to make is, you’re so deep in the shit you’re going to need a ladder to climb out. And while the inspector and I would both love to push you under and hold you down, there’s actually something we want more. So I might have a ladder . . .”

  Orris nodded, narrowing his eyes. “You want Tchintaka.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Because he’s the big bad in this.”

  “Is he?”

  “Stop screwing with me, rook, if you got to Banzet you know he is! And I know you got to Banzet because you have his gun,” Orris snapped.

  Matheson grinned. “Oh, yeah. Do keep on tying that noose around your neck. Maybe I won’t have to pay for information after all.”

  “What?”

  “I may be inexperienced, but it’s a mistake to think I’m stupid, or soft. The inspector and I have enough to send you to the wall on your own account, but we’d prefer solid information that will take us to Tchintaka.” Matheson watched Orris squirm at the name. “You killed Santos and Bomodai to cover yourself, but it wasn’t enough. So long as there’s a single witness left alive who can put the finger on you for supplying the guns and being the middle man to the ammo, you can’t afford to back out. You’ve admitted that you spied on us for your own protection, but you’re keeping Tchintaka in the loop, too—both for leverage and to make sure we didn’t get to him first. You know he’s a self-serving, manipulative prick, and he’ll drag you down with him if he can.”

  Orris stared at him, shuddering as leaves and thorns burrowed into his flesh. His breathing was short and choppy through clenched teeth.

  Matheson cocked his head at the older ofiçe and watched him for a minute before he said, “So, here’s what I’m proposing. I remove the creeper that’s trying to digest your forearms and you start talking. I want a sworn statement, proof, and physical evidence—like the key and the rest of the ammunition—that will take us to Tchintaka and nail him to that wall. Give us that, and I’m willing to make a deal with you. Me, Eric Matheson. Not Ofiçe Matheson. This will be off the books, because, really, I just want to get rid of you and your kind, and I can’t be bothered to shoot you. So, you give me what I want, and you . . . get to leave.”

  “Leave . . . ?” Orris sounded as if he didn’t recognize the sound as a word.

  “Gattis. Alive.”

  Orris tried a laugh, but it came out shaky. “Jus
t alive? Mother of fucking stars, rook, it’s not like this fucking creeper’s gonna kill me . . .”

  “No, but if we leave you here, something else will. None of the residents are altruists and I hear the cats around here are bigger and meaner than the ones in the Dreihleat.”

  Orris began cursing under his breath, “Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . All right, kid, all right . . . just get this shit off me.”

  Matheson gave a cynical chuckle. “When you’re done talking and if I’m satisfied with what you tell me—and it had better be truly damning.”

  “Don’t ask much . . .”

  “Y’know, I’d think that keeping your brains in your head instead of splattered on a certain wall would be a hell of a motivation by itself, but there is a sweetener—my family has obscene amounts of money and the power that goes with it. Once you’re off this planet for good, I’ll make sure some of what lines their pockets makes its way into yours, but you’ll be a wanted fugitive for the rest of your life because the information will come out. By killing Bomodai and Santos you wiped out anyone who could have spoken up for you or taken the blame, so it’ll all fall on you—their deaths, the guns, the ammo, the key to the jasso . . .

  “The inspector and I will make sure you’re on the next transport out of this jumpway. But if you ever put a foot back on Gattis, your former friends at GISA will snatch you up and have you against the wall before the incoming jump warning dies. So coming back here isn’t going to be much of a temptation, is it? Especially with the kind of money you’ll have.”

  Orris sat shuddering and thinking for a moment, then he raised his head to look at Dillal. “It’s you.”

  Dillal favored him with a quirked eyebrow.

  “Tchintaka’s mouth is a liability. He’ll start spewing his half-assed philosophy as soon as he’s on the stand and then your old friends from the ghettos—and maybe that long-faced sister of yours that the rook here is banging—they end up on slabs to benefit the corporation. That’s your angle, isn’t it? See, I’ve had a bitch of a time figuring you out, but this makes sense. You don’t want Tchintaka’s revolt to happen—you want to shut him up permanently.”

  Dillal shrugged. “If it were that simple, I’d kill him. I need him discredited and convicted of the crimes he’s committed. He needs to be a pariah among the Dreihleen. Disgraced and without hope of redemption.”

  Orris laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Rolled in the mud, but dead all the same. I can get into that—for the right price.” He turned his attention back to Matheson. “All right, I’m in. Get this crap off me and I’ll tell you where Tchintaka is. I’ll give you his head. What you do with it’s up to you.”

  Matheson shivered and rubbed his hands over his upper arms, though he certainly wasn’t cold. “There isn’t enough soap on Gattis to make me feel clean after dealing with him.” The tingling in his fingers and arms hadn’t quite left, in spite of walking and shaking his hands all the way through Centerrun and back into GISA HQ with Orris in tow. Now they were alone in Dillal’s office and it still felt like there were insects crawling unseen all over him.

  “If you stay here, you’ll find there’s never enough,” Dillal said, sitting with his head down in his cupped hands as he rested his elbows on his desk. In private, he no longer hid his illness and distress, and that worried Matheson.

  They’d finished their official interrogation and recording of Orris, sequestering the files within the hidden cluster the inspector had established—they were still hashed with official GISA time stamps and upload data, but inaccessible to anyone without Dillal’s access. They’d left Orris locked in a conference room above the lab and the man seemed resigned to wait while Matheson and Dillal made the arrangements they’d promised. The needlecast would come back in four hours with a response from the family lawyers and then Matheson would sell his soul—if they’d still have it. His world had become a warped mirror: everything he’d reached for twisted into what he’d run from.

  “Is finishing this going to make any real difference?” Matheson asked, wiping sleepless grit from his eyes.

  Dillal raised his head. Distant anger burned cold in his expression, but his amber skin was bright and damp with sweat. “It will to me, but my standards aren’t yours. You’ll have to determine for yourself what degree of filth you’re willing to endure. But it’s no better other places. Policemen toil in gutters. You work for the law, even if you try to work for justice. Either way, you walk in blood and slime and hope your balance is more to the good than the bad on the day you die.” His voice was bitter in his exhaustion.

  Matheson wrenched his appalled gaze to the floor and swallowed hard. Dillal would not appreciate his shock or his concern. Merry hell . . . how can he continue in such a state?

  But he voiced other thoughts. “Letting murderers go for the ‘greater good,’ or embracing a ‘lesser evil’—aren’t they the same as the evil itself?”

  “No. Banzet won’t go free and nothing can protect him from the choices he’s made. He will suffer, and it’s not your doing. No matter where they put him, no matter if he slips away, Dreihleen will find him and end him, eventually. He’s too afraid of it to understand that dying’s the easier way for him. And as to Orris, the corporation won’t pursue him, but his crimes will. There are places for men like him to thrive, but he’s no longer young and vicious. He’ll eke his way across the known worlds until someone swifter and harder takes him down for the convenience of stepping over him. I told you we would hunt them to the bitter end, hound them until the earth fell from beneath their feet. We have come to land’s end, stalked and driven them here, but they throw themselves into the abyss.”

  “Bitter end,” Matheson said, remembering for a moment beautiful horses and ancient sail boats chased around the lakes at home when the world was safe and bounded in luxurious ignorance. “You know what that is? It’s the loose end—the working end—of a rope.”

  “So it is.”

  The door chime sounded and one of Dillal’s continual displays threw up the name “Myrine Andreus.” Dillal glared at it. “Damnable woman,” he muttered. But the office door opened anyway and Matheson was relieved to see the doctor, who looked as stern and cold as Dillal often did.

  The inspector did not rise as Andreus marched over to him. “It’s the middle of the night, Doctor—”

  “Yes it is. Particularly for you.”

  “Meaning?”

  “More patients die between 0200 and 0300 than any other time,” she said, checking her old-fashioned wrist watch and putting her work kit on the table. “That’s why they call overnight the Graveyard Shift. And you have one foot in it.”

  “You’ve been monitoring me.”

  “I thought we had an understanding.” She took a small light from her kit and shined it into his natural eye. “What have you done to yourself? Jumps?”

  “Sub-orbital lifts only.”

  “You think that makes a difference?” She put down the light and picked up a stick-like implement with a small, flattened paddle at the end. “You’re such a stubborn, self-serving bundle of hormones and arrogance. You put the system under pressure when you already had breakage. You’ve had pain, fluid in the socket, drainage, blood . . . and you didn’t call for my help.” She reached for him with the stick and Dillal stood up to keep his distance, though he wasn’t as quick as usual.

  “Not by choice,” he said. “The system was offline while we were in Agria and I removed the ocular to clean it, which shut off the stream.”

  Matheson watched the confrontation with a growing sense of dread.

  Andreus lunged and swiped the paddle across a patch of sweat on the inspector’s neck. She gave a satisfied grunt as she stabbed the instrument into the mouth of another device in the kit and stared at its display. The device issued an aggrieved whistle. “Hell!” She looked up at Dillal. “The pressure shut off the stream—it momentarily shut off the part of your brain that controls the system and now there’s hell to pay. If you were a normal human with n
ormal brain physiology you would have blacked out and if you didn’t already have cracks and drains around the orbit, you’d have died before landfall. You’re dying now because you insist on doing what I tell you not to.”

  Dillal rested one hand on his desk. The fingers trembled until he shifted his weight. “I must finish this investigation.”

  “It’ll have to fucking wait!” she snapped.

  “It can’t wait!” he shouted back. “I have less than twenty hours left to close this and if I fail, you fail. There is no second chance. Pritchet will cut his losses, abandon me, abandon this project. You know what happens after that.”

  Andreus’s face had gone still and her voice was much lower. “You don’t have twenty hours. You shouldn’t even be upright. You’ve already got the infection and fever, tingling and tremors in your fingers. In three hours or less you’ll get dizzy, nauseated, have trouble seeing on the organic side. Two or three more hours and you’ll lose fine motor control, have phantom pains in your limbs. After that come the spasms, the blackouts, vomiting, uncontrollable shivering. The system will try to save itself by taking over the rest of your brain. I don’t know if you’ll lose cognitive function before you pass out or after, but you will cease to be ‘you’ as we understand it and at that point, I can’t help you. When the system starts to invade, it will shut things down that it doesn’t recognize—first voluntary functions, then the involuntary, then the autonomic system. And then you die. Then you die. Not in twenty hours, not in sixteen. In twelve. But you’ll be useless long before that. Four to five hours from now you won’t be able to walk or see. You need drugs and sleep or you won’t survive to sundown. Get someone else to close the case—get him to do it,” she added, pointing at Matheson—he jerked back as if she’d jabbed him.

  “If it is that bad, you can’t hope to save me,” Dillal said.

  “I can. I have drugs that will stop the infection cold, but they knock you out while they do it.”

  “For how long?”