Crossways

by Jacey Bedford

  It would have made sense for them both to sit down and compare notes, but Cara hadn’t offered the details of her relationship with Ari to anyone and she didn’t intend to start. She was comfortable with Ben now, and remembering Ari would only mess her up again. That was one of the reasons she’d been putting off confronting Donida McLellan. It was all part of the same tangled package.

  She concentrated her Empathy on Kitty. Ronan had done a psych evaluation and cleared her, but Jussaro and Nine hadn’t pinned down the leak yet. Cara had made a careless mistake when she’d dismissed her feelings about the false Mirakova before the attack in the warehouse. She needed to trust her instincts, not rationalize away her worries.

  While Ben explained that they needed to get hold of Ari van Blaiden’s secretary, Cara concentrated on Kitty.

  “It’s not Etta Langham now,” Kitty said. “Etta left months ago. Ari’s current secretary is Barb Rehling.”

  “Damn!” Cara said. “I remember her from the admin office. A bit of a martinet. Not Ari’s type at all, but then Ari was always careful to keep his relationships with his secretaries strictly business.”

  “Barb by name, barbed by nature,” Kitty said. “I think she liked me, though. She did try and warn me off Ari at first. I thought she was jealous, but then I figured that she was trying to be kind in her own way.”

  “Do you think you could arrange a meeting with her?” Ben said. “Outside of work, of course.”

  “We’re actually going to Earth?”

  “Unless you think you can get at Rehling any other way,” Cara said. “Does she have an implant?”

  “A receiving implant, but she’s generally wearing a damper.”

  “So it would be better to talk to her face-to-face,” Ben said. “If we can get you to York, do you think you can do that?”

  “Maybe. It depends on what information they have about me. It’s not like I’m officially off payroll, I probably just show up on the files as missing. Officially, I’m on detached duty seconded to Ari. Now that he’s dead I don’t know where that leaves me. I guess they have to give me time to find my way back before they suspend me.” She flashed a rueful grin. “I wonder if they’re still paying wages into my bank.”

  “We’re going to have to go by a roundabout route to disguise our origins, and we’ll need false IDs again,” Ben said. “Let’s see if Mother Ramona will oblige.”

  “Who’s going?” Cara asked. “Do we need muscle?”

  Ben shook his head. “You, me, and Kitty. Let’s keep it small.”

  Cara let her attention drift back to Kitty, but whatever she’d caught before was well under control now.

  Three false identities, some cosmetic facial changes (temporary), and four hub hops later, Cara, Ben, and Kitty landed at Lakenheath, England’s major spaceport, and caught the shuttle train to York, dressed as tourists for an English winter.

  “Expect rain,” Kitty had said, and Cara concurred. “Except in the old city, of course.”

  The old city of York was protected by a massive bubble dome, itself an ancient monument, a four-hundred-year-old structure protecting a museumized city stuck forever as it was in 2120 with its Roman remains, its medieval churches, including the magnificent but fragile Minster, buildings from the 1300s, the Georgian era, some Victoriana, and two beautifully preserved twenty-first century shopping streets between the River Ouse and the market. Such was the attraction that the still-functioning city employed thousands in the tourist industry, everything from street cleaners and gardeners to shop workers, catering, and hotel staff. The whole place was owned by the Old City of York, itself a small corporation. It advertised an authentic historical experience, which brought in tourists not only from around the world, but from all over the galaxy.

  Cara’s short hair was now sleek raven black and her skin color olive with almond eyes that made her look more Asian than Gen. Kitty had turned into a flaming redhead, with unruly hair framing pale skin and freckles. Ben’s color had been deepened to a rich ebony from his normal mid-brown and his hair had been curled into a wild springy mass. There was yet another layer of names and backstory to memorize. Cara hoped she’d fixed it in her mind, but it would be so easy to slip into one of the previously learned personas. Luckily they slipped through immigration with no trouble, especially when they showed their reservations for one of the most expensive hotels in the country.

  Mother Ramona, operating behind several layers of identity screening, had booked them two coveted rooms in the Royal York Hotel, restored to its Victorian glory, apart from the sanitary facilities and the connections to the globalweb. They changed from the shuttle to the local monorail at York’s Hunslet interchange, with both Cara and Kitty keeping their heads down as an extra precaution. Anyone who knew them well might see through the cosmetic changes.

  York and Old York were separated by barely twenty klicks in distance but five hundred years in time. York had been built over the ruins of what was once Leeds and had become one of Federal Europe’s foremost cities. It was not only a banking and communications hub, but also a cultural marvel. It was the administrative center for Alphacorp’s Special Operations and Colony Operations, separate from the main HQ in the Saharan Rainforest. It had its own shuttleport at Yeadon to the north of the city, linking it to the main intergalactic spaceport on the Moon.

  Cara had once thought of the city as home. She’d lived in a small sub apartment sunk deep into the rock strata. Ari had owned an apartment in a center city high-rise as well as a garden house discreetly nestled into a gentle hillside between the old city and the new.

  She wondered what had happened to Ari’s homes. He had no relatives that she knew of who might inherit, but it was likely his estate would be tied up in litigation forever with the files that they’d released into the wild. Alphacorp’s investigators might be all over his office, which was an added complication when it came to seeking out his secretary.

  She said as much to Ben and Kitty while green fields flashed past their pod window.

  “Let Kitty make the first contact,” Ben said. “We’ll worry about the rest if and when we have to.”

  “Do you entirely trust Kitty?” Cara asked when Kitty had made her way down the pod to the washroom.

  “I have wondered about her,” he admitted. “But her psych evaluation was clean despite her time with Ari.”

  “Cleaner than mine, I expect.”

  He reached for her hand. “Just for the record, I’ve always trusted you.”

  “I know. That’s sometimes been a mistake. It might still be. Just because I think I’ve beaten Neural Readjustment doesn’t mean I have. Donida McLellan was good at her job. There might still be things planted in my subconscious that I don’t know about.”

  “If there are, I’m trusting that you’ll let us help you deal with them.”

  She subsided into quiet contemplation of the scenery as Kitty returned. The shuttle to Old York terminated outside the dome and they had a choice of entering the city by steam train, open-topped omnibus, horse-drawn carriage, or on foot.

  “It’s not far to the hotel,” Cara said. “Let’s walk. I’ve been sitting on shuttles for far too long. Come on.” She tugged Ben’s hand. “I’ll give you the guided tour.”

  And she did. They diverted to walk through the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey and its gardens, complete with mature specimen trees and the Roman remains of the Multiangular Tower, then, though it was out of their way, walked up to Bootham Bar, one of Old York’s medieval gates, and from there to the magnificent Minster with its cool towering interior, fantastical stone carvings, and stained glass.

  “I wish we had time to be real tourists,” Kitty said as they cut down Stonegate and worked their way toward Lendal Bridge. “I should have taken the time to come here when I was transferred to York.”

  Cara looked at her sideways. There weren’t many people who would
ignore the opportunity to visit Old York if they lived and worked in such close proximity. Ari had been fascinated by it, even though the whole place had been turned into a giant museum. He’d brought her here on many of their early dates. Hadn’t Kitty had the same treatment?

  Their hotel was sumptuous, plushly decorated in keeping with its Victorian origins and offering every modern convenience neatly hidden behind a historical facade. The check-in was smooth and efficient. Yes, their reservation was in order, two rooms with garden views, all paid for.

  Once in their room, at the head of an elegant sweep of staircase, Cara flopped down on the bed, so soft that she bounced, and stared at the ornate plasterwork ceiling.

  “How come Kitty’s never been here before?” she asked.

  “At this price? Are you kidding?” Ben flicked on the entertainment center built into the wall. It was full of restored movies and TV shows from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, some of them historical even when they were made.

  “No, I don’t mean the hotel, I mean Old York. If she’d been dragged into Ari’s orbit she would have been here. He’d have taken her to the Café Concerto near the Minster and for a cruise along the river and possibly even to the Theatre Royal, or to Evensong at the Minster to hear the choral singing. There’s something not adding up about her. Don’t trust her, Ben. I didn’t warn you about Mirakova when I had suspicions. I didn’t mention what I thought about Crowder. I might be wrong about Kitty, but . . .”

  Ben sat next to her, took her hand and kissed her fingers. “I hear you. We’ll trust her only as far as we must to get at Ari’s secretary. So far and no further until she’s proved herself.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then anything else she might have said was forgotten as Ben stretched out beside her and she pulled him close.

  Kitty closed the hotel room door. Had she seemed so totally clueless about Old York? She should have taken time to do the tourist thing when she’d first been transferred to Ari’s department, but she was too busy getting herself noticed.

  Yes, he’d shown an interest in her, but it took more than being blonde and pretty to attract him. She’d had to work at it while letting him think that he was making the running. She’d only been included on the Olyanda trip at the last minute because she’d said she could fly a jumpship through the Folds. A slight exaggeration—she’d completed the theoretical training, but only on sims. Having tried to shadow Ben through the Folds she now knew that she’d have been completely overwhelmed. Ben’s theft of the Solar Wind had done her a huge favor even before she knew of his existence.

  She idly flicked through the entertainment channels on the screen, but her mind wasn’t really on them. She had a dilemma. Alphacorp would love to get their hands on Ben and Cara. Kitty only had to send in a report and there would be a black ops team here to take them out within the hour. Did she want that?

  Did it matter what she wanted? Akiko Yamada still had her mother secreted away at some resort, mounting up bills that she’d never be able to pay off. Unless Kitty continued to do as she was told her mother would be declared insolvent and shipped off to a labor compound for the rest of her days.

  But Akiko Yamada had been Ari van Blaiden’s lover. She had a share in all the nastiness he’d been involved in. A sleeping partner in all senses. Kitty shuddered. Had Yamada been involved in the disappearance of thirty thousand innocent settlers, too?

  Remus was probably here on Earth. She was close enough to contact him herself rather than waiting for him to contact her. She’d managed to shut him out the last time he barged in on her thoughts, but he’d call again. If Kitty reported Cara and Ben to Alphacorp not only would it be the end for them, but it would end all hope of the missing settlers being found.

  Whose side was she on?

  Weighed against her mother’s future were thirty thousand settlers. If there was even a chance of finding them she had to play her part and give Ben and Cara time. After that—well—she’d see.

  First things first, contact van Blaiden’s secretary.

  She’d tried mind-to-mind and, as before, there was not a glimmer of a reply, but Barb Rehling usually wore a damper, so that was no surprise.

  Van Blaiden’s office would no doubt be in upheaval. Maybe Barb was trying to hold everything together. Kitty attached a disruptor to the public comm link and deactivated the video so that no one could put a trace on the call or see her. Getting through to a secretary on a local line was usually pretty easy, but she hadn’t figured in whatever internal chaos was going on.

  “Mr. van Blaiden’s office is closed,” the receptionist at the other end informed her.

  “Closed? What about Mr. van Blaiden’s secretary?”

  “Mr. van Blaiden’s secretary passed away very recently after a short illness. I can put you through to the Internal Affairs team. Who’s that calling, please?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Thanks for your time.” Kitty cut off communications. Internal Affairs and Barb Rehling dead wasn’t a good combination. The woman had looked well enough the last time Kitty had seen her. She wondered if the short illness was an allergy to a blade between the ribs.

  What had happened to Ari’s previous secretary? Etta Langham surely hadn’t contracted the same short illness. Kitty needed to access Alphacorp’s central files. She had clearance, but she couldn’t do it without leaving an imprint. Would Ms. Yamada find out?

  Oh, hell! Do it anyway.

  The lobby of the Royal York was dim enough for privacy, with chairs arranged, four at a time, around low tables on which rested reprints of newspapers from the nineteen hundreds to approximately 2030, when the last paper copies were printed.

  Cara picked up one at random. It was from 1979, detailing the remains of a tenth-century Viking settlement discovered while digging the foundations for a shopping center. Tenth century, and still preserved fifteen hundred years later.

  “Fascinating,” she muttered to herself.

  “What is?” Ben asked from behind his own newspaper.

  “The layers of history preserved in this city. If I hadn’t tested positive for psi I would have liked to study archaeology. Did you know there are rock groupings on Aqua Neriffe that might indicate pre-colonial remains. Intelligent aliens.”

  “Might.”

  She sighed. “Well, we have to start somewhere. Surely humans aren’t the only species in the galaxy.”

  “Ah, that’s the big question, but it’s not only if, it’s when. Maybe other species have already evolved to intelligence and destroyed themselves again. We damn near did it with catastrophic climate change in the twenty-first century and the great meteor almost wiped us out a couple of hundred years ago, at least on Earth. Who knows how many civilizations have risen and died. Maybe the next intelligent species is at this very moment dragging itself out of some primeval methane swamp halfway across the galaxy and by the time it’s asking, ‘Are we alone?’ we’ll be long gone.”

  “Maybe. Ah, here’s Kitty.”

  Though there were only a few residents in the lobby and no one seemed to be taking any interest in them, they immediately switched to silent communication.

  *Any luck?* Ben asked.

  Cara could see from Kitty’s expression that the answer was no.

  *There’s already an investigation underway into Ari,* Kitty said. *Barb Rehling is dead.*

  Cara was getting an odd feeling from Kitty. She glanced up. *There’s more.*

  Kitty nodded and licked her lips.*I still have access to records. I checked on Etta Langham.*

  *And?*

  *She’s been transferred to Sentier-4.*

  *As an inmate or staff?* Ben asked.

  *That’s the big question, isn’t it?* Kitty kept her eyes averted from Cara’s gaze. *What do you think?*

  A cold chill ran down Cara’s back. The name Sentier-4 invoked dread. The neural r
eadjustment facility was the place of last resort for any errant Alphacorp psi-tech. Until lately Donida McLellan had ruled supreme there. Cara had escaped, thinking herself lucky to get out with her mind intact, only to have the memories of what McLellan had done to her surface later.

  She pushed away the memory of McLellan’s eyes, mad eyes, boring into her brain.

  *Breathe.* Ben was holding her hand.

  She breathed. *Sorry, was I that obvious?*

  *Only to me. You don’t have to come.*

  *You’re actually going to Sentier-4?* Cara asked.

  *Is there a choice?*

  She shook her head. *No, but . . . you’ll never get in . . . unless.* Oh, shit! Part of her brain put together a plan while the other part was screaming.

  *We’ve got McLellan,* she forced herself to say.

  *We have indeed,* Ben said. *But you don’t have to be involved in this.*

  *Yes, I do.*

  Cara’s guts lurched every time she thought about Sentier-4, but Etta Langham was there and she was the last potential link they had to the missing settlers.

  Such a tenuous link, she told herself. But the only one we’ve got, the logical part of her mind answered.

  “I need to talk to Jussaro,” Cara said as they grabbed their bags and headed for the checkout desk. “He has a lot more experience than I do. He’ll know what’s possible, and he’s been imprisoned in Sentier-4 himself.”

  “Can we trust Jussaro?” Ben asked.

  “Now that he’s free of Crowder, I think we can trust him implicitly. Ronan agrees.”

  “I’ll take your word on it.”

  Cara waited until they’d cleared the city and the three of them were seated in the pod on the way back to the transport hub at Hunslet before she reached for Jussaro, mind-to-mind.

  *Sentier-4! You think you can do it?* Jussaro’s interest was plain. Not only interest, but excitement. *I’m coming with you.*