“No, that’s fine, Sera.” He looked around once more. “If your cousin’s not available I’m certain you can pass on what Immigration told me to tell her.”
“Of course. I’ll be glad to.” Sera Lane stood up then and let the officer out while Stella watched with a smile. Once the door was closed and locked, Sera Lane came back and sat down again. “Does Sera Ky know that you didn’t know about this until your last trip here?”
“I think I told her. Why?”
“Because she’s likely to wonder why you took care of your own citizenship and didn’t warn her about hers.”
“What I said was the truth. I did not think they’d go after her, because she’s a hero—the whole planet was excited she was coming last year, desolate when the search was called off, and excited again to find out she survived.” The defensive edge in Stella’s voice was clear to Ky. She expected Lane to pick up on it, too.
“But nothing much in the media.”
“She didn’t want a big fuss, she told me.” Stella pushed her hair back and clenched her fingers in it. “Such a mess—you can fix it, can’t you? It’s ridiculous that they’re treating her as a common criminal—”
“Not quite that,” Sera Lane said, “or she’d be in prison by now, awaiting deportation. Or she might well be drugged into apparent brain damage. She’s getting special treatment only because they haven’t broken into the house.”
“They would’ve tried that, if my security team hadn’t shown up.”
“True. I sense desperation. But you did very well; that officer was attempting surveillance, of course, but he’s not the most skilled. I need to contact my office now and let the morning shift know I will be late or absent, depending on your needs. Do you think you could find out what time dinner is?”
Upstairs, Ky shut off the video feed. “Do you believe Stella really didn’t think about my citizenship status?”
Rafe tipped his head to one side. “Certainly possible. She knew you were being treated as a celebrity, a hero, before you arrived. She would assume special allowances would be made, and if someone did make a fuss about it, at a level where it mattered, you would be told. She traveled back and forth several times in that half year, as you know, and it was only on the most recent arrival that Immigration tagged her. The news that you had survived, that you had led other survivors to safety—that was loud, the first days while you and she were busy with the Vatta turnover. You were ducking interviews, and the news began to die down faster than I’d have thought. We know now that someone was behind that, and the news media had already lost contact with the other survivors.”
“Why, though?”
“Maybe the media were told about a possible contagion or toxin, told not to scare the population. Slotter Key’s media’s a lot more controlled than ours on Nexus.”
“So someone set it up that way.”
“Looks like. Probably not Immigration, though they might’ve had a mole in the hole. Or someone suddenly noticed that you weren’t a great public figure anymore, and decided it was time to check into your citizenship status. And someone else said, ‘Sure, go ahead, we don’t need her on this planet anyway if she’s not going to be a hero anymore.’ ”
Ky’s skullphone pinged. “Yes?”
“Dinner in forty minutes. I’m lying down, downstairs. My ankle isn’t broken, just bruised. Sera Lane’s staying.”
“I’m coming down,” Ky said. She found Stella alone in the living room and told her about the man across the street.
Stella grimaced. “Oh, him. Cecil Robertson Prescott, self-appointed neighborhood watchdog, though he’s really interested only in finding things to complain about. He acts like he’s lived there forever, but it’s really only ten or twelve years. Father used to wonder where he got the money for it.”
“Why?”
“Ah. Well, according to Father, the Prescotts were one of the Founders, and chose one of the smaller land grants because of its location and the scenery. They wanted an isolated island all to themselves, because they planned to make a mint by picking up contract workers and then not paying them.”
“But that’s against the Founding Contract!”
“Yes, and presumably that’s why they picked a remote island, and why—after a lot of stuff Father told me that I don’t remember—they went broke and came straggling back to Port Landing and Port Major. This branch of the family had to do actual work up around Grinock Bay, but then Cecil managed to cobble together enough to buy that house and he’s been the neighborhood grouch ever since.”
“How did he get the money?”
“Father never figured out, or if he did, he didn’t tell me. I was tempted to infiltrate their house and record them, but Father said let it go.”
“What did Aunt Grace say?”
“I think she dug around a little, but she had other, more urgent concerns. And then the attack came.”
“And this house was spared,” Ky said. “I wonder why.”
Stella looked at her, wide-eyed. “You don’t think—”
“I know Aunt Helen thinks it’s because it was a Stamarkos house to begin with. But think, Stella—how easy it is for him to keep an eye on this place.”
“But why would the Prescotts want to attack Vatta? The Quindlans—”
“He could be working with them. For them. Or someone else. Aunt Grace was getting close to finding out how things connected—”
—
Over the course of the evening, Sera Lane interviewed all three fugitives from the military, Ky with her combination of pending murder charges and citizenship issues, and—briefly—Rafe and Teague with their visa problems. She stopped shortly before midnight. “I’ve got as much as I can get my head around, and I definitely need help. Sera Stella, I’d like you to assign two more attorneys and at least three more assistants to these cases—they’re complicated and though I’m willing to lead, there’s simply too much to do and too little time.”
“I’ll speak to Legal first thing tomorrow,” Stella said.
“We may have to go outside Vatta,” Sera Lane said. “We do not have a great deal of depth in immigration issues. It would be best to use Vatta’s people on these cases, and hire outsiders for the more routine issues the company usually faces. Employees wanting to take citizenship here, for instance. I will write up my recommendations tonight—”
“Would you like to stay over?” Stella asked. “My mother’s suite is unoccupied.”
“No thank you. I want my own desk and my own bed; I hope that doesn’t sound ungracious, but at home I have everything I need.”
“You’ll need an escort,” Rafe said. “That police officer will have reported you’re here, and someone might wish you ill. Where do you live?”
“Cantabile Gardens; I have a very pleasant unit in Section One.”
“Stella?” Rafe looked at her.
“I’ll call—who, though? Vatta Security?”
“I would.”
Sera Lane left with a Vatta Security team driving her car, and her riding in the following car with two more. She checked in later to report that nothing untoward had happened, and she had agreed to have an escort the next morning as well.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DAY 7
On the way into base the next morning, Sergeant Major Morrison stopped by the vet clinic to see how Ginger was doing and bring her a treat.
“She’s doing well, considering. I wish someone would invent a regen tank for dogs—but their biometrics are just too different.”
Ginger whined and pushed her nose against the front of the cage. The bright-pink wrapping over the splint looked three times as big as her other legs. Morrison murmured to her and pushed a treat through the bars of the crate. Ginger gobbled it and licked Morrison’s fingers.
“How’s the other thing going?” Kris asked.
“Not as well as I’d like. Heard from MacRobert this morning?”
“He’s over on the other side with Jo-Jo. I’ll walk you
through.”
MacRobert, measuring rations into numbered bowls in the facility’s big feed room, looked up as they entered. “Ah, Doc—how’s the Red Queen this morning?”
“Doing well. Owner would like to discuss her rations with you.” She took the bowl he had just filled and put it on a rolling cart with others. “I’ll take these out to Jo-Jo. Owner has some special treat she’d like to incorporate in Ginger’s feed.”
“Sure, Doc,” MacRobert said. Turning to Morrison, he said, “Sera?” as Kris rolled the cart out the door and shut it. Then he grinned. “Safe space. Here’s what’s I know at the moment. Someone did indeed kick Immigration into action. High-ranking military, but I don’t have a name yet, or any connections other than the obvious. They’ve tied the citizenship thing and the murder accusation up tight. Did you hear about the attack on Stella Vatta yesterday?”
“No. What happened?”
“Supposedly Immigration, but Immigration’s not confirming, rammed Stella’s vehicle as she was arriving home. Ky, Stella, and Rafe agree it was probably an attempt to get into the house and grab Ky.”
“They want her unable to plan a rescue of the other survivors,” Morrison said.
“Exactly. Given that attack, and the near-certainty that someone in the hospital’s bent, the Rector’s medical team has agreed that she’ll be safer somewhere else. We’ll take her out under cover and with luck Dihann won’t figure out she’s gone for another day or so. Plenty of time to get her into a safe place. There’s an apartment open in one of the towers about two blocks from where your off-base is; it’s been swept for her now. She wants to see you; you’ll be on the approved list.”
“Why not put her in my apartment?” Morrison asked. “Then anyone following me will see me going in and out of my own apartment—irregularly, as I do. I can use the other one you’ve rented if she wants to be completely alone.”
“She’s not going to be completely alone,” MacRobert said, a grim tone in his voice. “She’ll have permanent in-residence security, like it or not. But that’s a good idea, Sergeant Major, just for the first few days. Thank you for the offer.”
“It’s not that big,” Morrison said, thinking of the “in-residence security.”
“It’s big enough,” MacRobert said. “We have seen the layouts of all the apartments in that building. Since it’s known your office and quarters were hacked into, doing a sweep there shouldn’t arouse interest. And I’m presuming you had military-grade communications put in when you took the lease?”
“Yes.” Morrison paused, then went on. “Have you found out more about the personnel who transported and guarded the survivors—or the ones who will?”
“All taken from a group that did not join the rest of the those who’d been under Greyhaus’s command when that group went north for cold-weather training this past summer. Argument for using same group was possible contamination/infection. We are concerned that a flag officer arranged both their assignment and Greyhaus’s ‘accident.’ ”
“Do you know which flag officer?”
“You don’t need to know that at this time, Sergeant Major.” MacRobert smiled at her, an unexpectedly wistful look. “Thank you for the offer of your apartment; I’ll let you know if it’s feasible later today. And I can certainly adjust your dog’s rations to accommodate a favorite treat. Have some with you?”
Morrison took the sack of treats from her bag, fished out the duplicate key to her city apartment, dropped it in with the treats, then handed the treat sack to MacRobert. “I meant to give you that anyway,” she said. “For ease of communication.”
“Been a pleasure doing business,” MacRobert said. “The doc will contact you.”
Morrison left through the clinic door, stopped to let Ginger lick her fingers again, and went outside, thinking hard all the way. Who—which flag officer—would have the authority to assign a subgroup of Greyhaus’s command? Slotter Key’s military had a command structure that was not rigidly hierarchical, as a safety feature, she’d been taught. From recruit to one of a branch’s commanders, through the Senior Command Circle to the President, it was hierarchical. But there was a side branch, established shortly after the Unification War, described to her as a workaround when there was something seriously wrong with the main command structure. As there seemed to be now. The concern had been the sudden influx of volunteers from the former anti-Unification areas, a mutiny that could lead to another war.
It hadn’t happened. Both Dorland and Fulland thrived with Unification. So now, all this time later, why would it? Except, on the evidence from the three fugitives and Ky Vatta, someone had built a secret military base, trained a secret military force. It had been building up for…none of them knew how long. And clearly the target of the shuttle attack was the former Commandant of the Academy.
She unlocked and entered her vehicle. Started toward the base, still thinking. Her comunit chimed; she clicked on the vehicle’s sound system. “Sergeant Major Morrison,” she said.
“Sergeant Major, this is Major Hong. Where are you now?”
“Leaving Petsational—I dropped by to check on Ginger. I’m on the way to base.”
“There’s been more vandalism at your base residence, and your clerk reports that the seal we put on your office door was broken last night. Were you on base at any time last night?”
“No, I spent the night in the city.”
“I need to brief you on all this; if your schedule permits, could you come to my office? Security 2-351?”
“Just a second, sir.” Morrison flipped to her schedule. What she had was the work left over from two days ago, and there were no urgent requests from anyone. “Yes, sir; I’ll park in my regular spot—”
“Don’t. You’ll be stopped at the gate; I’ll have transportation for you there.”
This sounded more and more serious. Even dangerous. “Yes, sir.”
At the gate, she pulled into the designated parking lot just inside, and locked her vehicle. Major Hong was in the one that pulled up behind hers. He said nothing as he drove her to the headquarters complex; she followed him to his office. Once inside he turned on a scanning device first, then a jamming device, locked the door, and then waved her to a chair.
“Yes, things are this bad,” he said. “It turns out that for a unified planet with no declared enemies, we seem to have a lot of spying going on. Of course, corporations spy on one another, and presumably sometimes on the military, hoping to figure out how to get us to buy their proposed weapons systems, but this is different.” He unlocked and opened a drawer in his desk, and passed her a fat file in a battered green-and-black cover with EXTREME SEC on the front. “What do you know about the Unification War?”
Coincidence is a bitch, Morrison almost said. “Only what we were taught in military history classes, sir.”
“Incomplete,” he said. “Did you know, for instance, that the Rector was involved, as a civilian? And was later tried as a war criminal?”
“What? But that’s—I mean, she’s old, but she’s not that old.”
“She was very young. A teenager. On a visit to friends of her family in Esterance, on Fulland.”
Morrison nodded. “I’ve been to Esterance several times, visiting our base.”
“Yes. When she was there, she met a young man, and they started spending time together, as young people do, and he got her involved. Some street demonstrations, that kind of thing. Then she disappeared.”
Morrison tried to imagine the Rector as anything but the formidable old lady with gimlet eyes and a legendary memory, but couldn’t. What had she looked like as a girl? Like Ky Vatta? Surely not Stella; she was too short and too dark.
“Afterward—when the war ended—she was brought back to Port Major as a prisoner, under arrest for war crimes.”
“I don’t—it must have been a mistake.”
“Apparently not. You will find…what may be evidence, or not, but was accepted as fact at her trial. Pictures. Testimony of allege
d witnesses. They could have executed her. Her family petitioned to have her declared insane; she spent years locked in a hospital for the criminally insane. Then her family took custody, promising that she would never intrude into politics again, and—look where she is.”
“In a hospital—oh. You mean she’s Rector. But her family died, and the President himself asked her—”
“He didn’t know. Records were sealed. But it occurs to me that her family dying opened the door for her. And there’s something else. She rescued a child during that war—it was one of the things her family claimed showed remorse. Guess who that was.”
“I haven’t a clue,” Morrison said.
“The former Commandant, Armand Esteban Burleson.” Morrison had never heard anyone use the name before. “He testified at the hearing that saved her from execution—as a child, his testimony wasn’t given much weight. But some years later, he testified again at the petition to have her transferred to her family’s custody, when he was a military officer himself. And that did carry weight. They stayed in casual contact over the years. After the attack on Vatta, he assigned Master Sergeant MacRobert to liaise with her. There was speculation that she used MacRobert to persuade the Commandant to provide a suicide means to President Quindlan, because she’d lost an arm and couldn’t do it herself.”
“That seems far-fetched, sir,” Morrison said. She had opened the folder; the first page had only the file number and a repetition of the security level. The second had the ID photo of the young Grace Vatta—Graciela Miranda Vatta was her full name. She’d had a healthy young teenage face, striking mostly for its lively, intelligent expression. She had been happy and relaxed—not that common for ID photos. Not beautiful, but pretty in the way healthy young women often were. The next photo was different—a blurry image of a thin young woman holding a long-barreled firearm—too blurry to tell much about her or the firearm—while moving through thick vegetation. Face in profile, slightly blurred; it might have been Grace or someone else. A third—obviously using the firearm, the muzzle blast clearly visible, and the face in focus. Definitely Grace. Angry, determined, expressing—could that be contempt? A fourth, of the same face as the first, but different—older, gaunt, lips tight, brows down in a scowl, eyes narrowed and—even in that still image—hostile, dangerous.
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