And only thirteen days later he’d been killed, right beside her, dead in the street with his guts falling out of his belly, and people yelling and screaming and someone else grabbed her arm, dragged her away, made her run for safety.
Safety. Nothing had been safe from then on. Angry, frightened, disgusted, shocked—she had survived, using all the intelligence, cunning, and physical ability she possessed. She’d made it back to her parents’ friends’ house a few days later, hungry, scared, exhausted, hoping to find them, hoping to be rescued, but the house was a shattered ruin, with no sign of Gretchen and Portia and Miran. After that, in a city where both sides had roving gangs of supporters, she’d joined one at the point of a gun and ended up…standing before a court to explain how a well-brought-up daughter of a wealthy, respectable merchant family could have any excuse for what she had done.
She had no excuse. Girls like her were supposed to be immune to the seductions of handsome strangers, violent emotions, even the pressures imposed by captors. She was, according to the court, a monster who deserved death—and she’d expected it, until the day she was taken from her cell and transferred to a facility for the criminally insane, where she was drugged, probed, subjected to “reconditioning” for years. Endless years, they’d seemed. When finally the years and exhaustion quieted the turmoil inside, and suicide attempts led only to more pain, she grew numb, unresisting.
She looked at her hands. One still bore the scars—faded now—of wounds inflicted in that war. The other, almost indecently young with its smooth, unmarked skin still soft, the arm above it also young, full-sized now…had been lost to another attack and regrown from her own cells. Both her hands and arms had looked like that, before…everything. “I was beautiful,” she whispered, looking at the young arm. “I was.”
But not after. Her father, her mother had exclaimed over her, the one time they were allowed to spend a short time with her. “You look so old,” her mother had said, patting her cheeks. She had flinched; her mother had looked frightened. Her father had shaken his head. “Graciela…I don’t understand how…why. You were so pretty.” Meaning, You are so ugly now. Meaning, You ruined yourself, your value to the family.
And somewhere a file still existed, she was sure, with pictures of her young face. When she was finally released, when she could finally get to the family homes again, after her father and uncle died, she had destroyed every one of the portraits made during her girlhood. She could not bear to see them. She could not bear to answer more questions.
She pushed herself upright again, and opened the files on her desk. Enough of that. If retribution came, she would accept it. In the meanwhile, she would do what good she could for others.
—
The inquiries she’d put in place before the attack had produced only partial, unsatisfactory answers. The Miksland survivors were listed as “disabled, pending disposition” in two responses, but in the most recent—two days old—their status had changed to “disabled permanently, custodial care necessary.” That sounded ominous. No location was given. She had eight requests from family members and three from official sources for their location and information about them. Sergeant McLenard’s wife wanted to know why he wasn’t answering her mail. Sergeant Cosper’s father angrily demanded to know where his son was and why he hadn’t come home on leave. The family court judge dealing with the guardianship of Tech 1st Class Betange’s siblings wanted to know why Betange was ignoring the legal summons to appear. A prosecutor wanted to know when and where charges would be filed in the murder of Master Sergeant Marek, because Marek’s wife was considering a civil suit. Still another wanted copies of all the evidence returned to Port Major by Admiral Vatta, to see if she could be held responsible for the shuttle crash.
Still no sign of where that evidence had gone after Ky turned it in. She called her office and asked her clerk to send her Ky’s debriefing statement, only to be reminded that it, like the items Ky said she’d delivered to Spaceforce, had disappeared as if it never existed.
Time to call Ky directly. She recognized Teague’s voice when he answered. “Teague, is Ky there?”
“Good morning, Rector. Yes, she’s here. You wish to speak with her?”
She could tell from his voice that he was in a mischievous mood, and she had no time for mischief. Mayhem, perhaps, but not mischief. “Yes,” she said. “I need to ask her a question.”
Ky sounded tense. “Aunt Grace? Why didn’t you call my skullphone?”
“Because I might want to talk to others in the house without a separate call,” Grace said. “Do you remember who you gave your initial statement to, that first week?”
“Um…I’ll check.” A very brief pause. “My implant says it was a Colonel Vertres, in Commandant Kvannis’s office. Is that missing, too?”
“Yes. We should have had a copy—I asked Spaceforce HQ for it, but they said they couldn’t find it.”
“I have my own recording of it. Would that help?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Bless the child, she’d had the sense to do that. Even a low-density implant recording was evidence. “If you can transfer it, I can print it out here.”
“Print—”
“Easier for old eyes to read, but also hardcopy to send elsewhere as evidence. What about the other items?”
“I read only part of Greyhaus’s log, Aunt Grace, so my implant has a record only of those pages. I should’ve made another copy but—we were rushing to find a way out before the bad guys came.”
“And the evidence of the shooting—do you have any independent copy of that?”
“No…but I have a witness.”
Grace’s mind blanked for a moment, as it had been doing since the gas attack, but then she remembered: the fugitives Ky had talked about, that she herself had not yet met. “One of them was there?”
“Yes. But we have to keep them hidden. The military wants them—you know that.”
“Yes. Ky, I have to admit, the gas attack seems to have left some blanks in memory. The doctors said it might. I tested okay on their cognitive exams, or they wouldn’t have let me out, but the questions weren’t complex. I need you to tell me things again if I don’t remember.”
“Of course,” Ky said.
“Just a hint—back up everything about your time in Miksland in some other form than your implant. I can understand if you don’t want to trust it to me, but—”
“Agreed. I’ll run external backups—you know that takes awhile—from leaving my flagship to the present. Duplicate backups.” Ky sounded more cheerful suddenly.
“Mac says you’ve met Sergeant Major Morrison?”
“Yes, she was here, very briefly.”
“Stella has reason to visit me, so if you have information for Morrison, or she for you, I can be the exchange point. Is Stella there?”
“No, at the office.”
“Then let me speak to Rafe, please. I want to ask him some security questions.”
Rafe, when he answered, sounded calmer than she’d ever heard him. “We can’t get back in your house yet,” he said. “Our legal situation is still serious, and we’ve been told by counsel to stay put. What can I help you with that doesn’t involve stepping outside?”
“Ky has data on her implant that duplicates what she reported officially—in reports now missing. I need to know how far we can push an inquiry based on her data—especially who she gave the first reports to, who took custody of the physical evidence, if she knows that. She’s going to be downloading her implant data and making copies; can you start working on the investigation from that?”
“Of course,” Rafe said. “Even one or two names would give us something. Um—there’s another possible source. The Mackensee troops that pulled her and the others out of that mountain valley may know—might have seen and even recorded—where the hard evidence she left with the others changed hands. You could contact them about it. She told me she left the recorder with the data on the shootout she had with Marek with the serg
eant who was there and the tech who did the recording, when Mackensee flew her up to meet with us.”
“Excellent,” Grace said. “I didn’t know that, and Mac has a contact with Mackensee, so he should be able to find out if anyone noticed. It’s a chance, anyway.”
She called Mac in and told him what Rafe had suggested. He nodded. “I’ll contact Master Sergeant Pitt. It may take awhile to hear back. I doubt they’re out of FTL flight on the way home.”
“Whatever we can find out helps,” Grace said. “Ky’s downloading her implant’s recording of the interview she gave a Colonel Vertres on Commandant Kvannis’s staff that first week she was back here.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAY 7
Sera Lane looked up from the stacks of papers she and Ky had been discussing when the call came in. “What was that about?”
“Aunt Grace. She’s out of the hospital and not surprisingly full of things for other people to do.” Ky grinned. “When I was little, she would visit our house and keep us all busy. We had a cook and a gardener, but she found things that she thought needed doing, and she was not tolerant of what she called ‘idle hands.’ ” Ky sat down at the table. “Actually, we did learn things from that—aside from hiding from grown-ups with agendas—and her suggestion today is good. She wants me to download my implant’s record of the interview I gave Spaceforce and make multiple copies in case of any other mishaps.”
“Excellent idea,” Sera Lane said. “I was going to suggest you continue writing out your memory of what transpired, but pulling data directly from your implant will be faster. Do you have the equipment here?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “It’ll take some time—”
“No matter. I have plenty to do and we can continue our meeting later. If I finish the petition to the court on the citizenship matter by 1500, I could get it filed today. I believe Sera Stella has spoken to our head of Legal and they’re supposed to call me with the names of the additional attorneys the entire project will require.”
“Will you be working from here, or going back to Vatta headquarters?”
“Here, unless you’d rather I left.” She smiled at Ky. “It’s not entirely because your cook is so skilled, but that does add a point in your favor.”
“Stay, by all means,” Ky said. “Can you function as a witness to validate the download?”
“As an officer of the court, yes,” Sera Lane said, pushing back her chair. “I will need to observe the hookup—does that other Vatta employee have certification in the procedure?”
“We’ll find out,” Ky said.
Downstairs, Rodney was busily working through something on one of the computers. Ky explained what they needed.
“Yes, Sera,” he said to Lane. He pulled out his identification and handed it to her. “I can access my personnel file for you and you can see it all, if you wish.”
“Not necessary,” Lane said. “Your certificate is high enough. I need to observe the hookup—any idea how long it will take?” She looked at Ky.
“No—I want to start with leaving my flagship, and then go all the way through. Hours. Maybe even another session tomorrow.”
“That’s too long for the storage on the media you’ve got,” Rodney said. “We’ll have to break it into chunks. These are two-hour backups.” He had pulled a carton of them from one of the cabinets.
“I’ll certify the hookup, and then when you break I’ll take custody of the backup until copies are made,” Lane said. “Perhaps break for lunch after the first session?”
“That works for me,” Rodney said.
He pulled out the necessary cables and plugged into Ky’s implant jack. Rafe appeared in the door. “Ky, Allie wants to know—what are you doing?”
“Downloading the record of that interview for Aunt Grace,” Ky said.
“Passive download?” Rafe turned to Rodney.
“Yeah—wait—is there another kind?”
“There is at ISC,” Rafe said. “It’s been known to cause brain damage.”
“No, it’s nothing like that. Cable to the backup, backup in the machine, client specifies the file location, and the machine just sucks that location.”
“Ah. Good.” Rafe turned to Ky again. “Allie wants to know if baked stuffed fish is all right for dinner tonight. Grocery has a special on crabs.”
“Fine with me,” Ky said. “And Stella likes fish.”
For the next two hours, Ky closed her eyes and watched the mental image of a glowing blue line stripping the interview file neatly into the backup cylinder. In the machine it would be broken into sound and image, separate output types for each.
It would have been restful but for her awareness that time was passing inexorably for the survivors still in custody. She had to find them, get them out of their torment, and keep them safe. Somehow. And all she had done so far was hide out in the house, accomplishing nothing. Her own and Rafe’s legal problems also bore in on her. Could Lane really get her citizenship back? And if she did, then the threat of a murder prosecution still loomed, with the evidence she’d so carefully collected on the entire trip lost—or rather intentionally hidden or destroyed. And Rafe—his visa extension now exceeded—could be deported anytime he left the house.
“Want to run another right away?” Rodney asked. “Or take a break?”
“A break,” Ky said. “I need to move around. Is Sera Lane still here?”
“I think so—I’ll call—”
“Never mind. I’ll run upstairs myself.”
Ky found Sera Lane up in Stella’s office, interviewing Inyatta about her statement. They both looked up as she entered. Inyatta looked tense.
“We’re in the middle of something,” Sera Lane said. She gave a slight nod toward the door.
“I had an idea,” Ky said.
“Later,” Lane said. “I need to finish with Corporal Inyatta and her statement so I can move forward on the murder charge.”
Ky shut the door and turned away, more than a little disgruntled. Rafe met her at the head of the stairs. “You look like you want to hit someone,” he said.
“I do. And I shouldn’t. I am so tired of being cooped up in this house!”
“Better than a cell,” Rafe said.
“Not enough better.” Ky pushed past him, down the passage to their room. He followed. “I can’t do the things I need to do to rescue my people.”
“They’re not really your people, Ky,” Rafe said. His reasonable tone grated on her nerves. “They’re Slotter Key’s problem—the military’s problem—and you don’t have the right. Let Grace deal with it, now she’s out of hospital.”
“I have every right. You don’t understand—” She stopped herself from what would have been insulting, and tried for a more measured response. “Rafe, even if I was wrong to take command after the crash—we can argue that later, if you want—once I did so, they became ‘my people.’ That’s how command works. That’s how I was trained; that’s how I think. And clearly, Slotter Key military is treating them not as valued members of the service, but as criminals.”
“I do understand your point, Ky, but be reasonable: you have no leverage. Your citizenship’s been revoked, you’re suspected of murder—if you involve yourself in their case, you could do them more harm.”
“Or I could get them out.”
“How? If you leave here you’ll be arrested. You have no resources—human or financial—to do the job. You’ve got to wait until you’re cleared of the murder charge and a citizen again, at least.”
“I’ve got to get serious about the mission,” Ky said. “It will help keep my mind off being housebound.”
—
Sergeant Major Morrison, in uniform, arrived at the door to her apartment building in the city to find additional security in place. The trip in, through cold rain, had not improved her mood, nor did standing in the dank breeze while someone looked down a list to find her name. Finally, he found it and let her by. Another guard was outside her door; she sho
wed identification and he spoke into his comunit, a soft mumble. Morrison repressed an obvious sigh. She did not like this, even though she had suggested it. She should have sent someone else to pick up her clothes and move them to the other apartment, the one she hadn’t seen yet.
MacRobert opened the door. “Sergeant Major,” he said, with a short nod.
“Master Sergeant. I’m here to collect my clothes.”
He shut the door. “The Rector is waiting for you in the office.”
She went to the door of the office and stopped, startled by the change in the Rector’s appearance. Always before poised and erect, she now looked a little shrunken, as old people often did. Her gray hair was lusterless, her dark skin more wrinkled. She sat slumped in the chair, eyes closed.
“Excuse me, Rector,” Morrison said.
The Rector’s eyes snapped open, the same silver-gray as before, and just as alive and aware.
“Sergeant Major,” the Rector said. “Thank you for the loan of your apartment; I hope it will be a brief one.”
“Stay as long as you like,” Morrison said. “But—”
“But we have things to talk about.” The Rector pulled out a security cylinder and turned it on. “Try yours as well,” she added.
Morrison turned on her own. All the telltales were green.
“Have a seat.” The Rector pointed to the chair. “I’ve been told that your quarters and your office on base suffered intrusions and security breaches. And you believe these were related to your recent TDY when you observed what you considered ill treatment of other survivors of the shuttle crash just over a half year ago.”
“Yes, Rector. I’m certain of it.”
“I agree. I knew nothing until my great-niece Ky Vatta called in a fury supposing I must have known about and agreed to it. I believe you saw at least one of those who escaped confinement—is that correct?”
Into the Fire Page 21
