“I tell them they aren’t,” Chidi pointed out.
Woodrow crossed the tiles to where Chidi was standing. He was a short man. Overweight. And balding. Now Chidi could see him properly. He might have dismissed the man as past his prime if he had seen him before he had spoken. Everything about the man was completely forgettable.
Perhaps that blandness is intentional, Chidi thought and shivered at the idea and at Woodrow’s nearness. He couldn’t say why he felt the man was dangerous. Instinct told him to back off. Because of that primitive urge, Chidi stayed where he was, defying it and the man studying him. He wished he had taken the coat when it had been offered to him. His nakedness was making him oddly vulnerable and he didn’t like it.
Woodrow looked up at him with properly brown Karassian eyes. “We want you to go on telling everyone the Xenia tapes are forgeries,” he said quietly. “Even when every competing feed is trying to shout you down, you would have my gratitude if you stick to your theories.”
“That they’re fake,” Chidi finished. His throat was dry again.
Woodrow patted his shoulder. The man’s hand was hot and damp. Chidi shivered.
“I’ll be in touch,” Woodrow murmured and moved around him.
Chidi whirled. “In touch? Why?”
Woodrow looked back at him. The officer studied him, too. Then Woodrow smiled. “You’re our guy, Chidi,” he said, sounding happy. “Later, we’ll have other messages for you to give to your eager fans.”
Chidi shivered again. “I don’t work for anyone!” he shouted. Fear grabbed at his throat and belly. “Not even for you!”
The pair had gone.
Chidi raced to the apartment door. It was closed. He sealed it. Checked the seal. Then he went back to watch the sunset.
Halfway across the tiles, he froze. “Theories?” he said aloud, as he would do if a lens was on him. It was pure habit.
Moving more slowly, he walked over to the upright chair next to the servery. He didn’t want to sit in his favorite armchair now, nor the square one by the window. Instead, he perched on the upright chair and gripped his knees, digging his fingers in.
Theories. Woodrow had called his claims about the Xenia feeds theories.
“If the feeds are fakes, he would have called my claims facts,” Chidi said, still speaking aloud by habit. His heart was hurting again. He massaged his chest absently, thinking it through.
Theories were suppositions that might be wrong. Did that mean he was wrong, calling the Xenia tapes fakes?
And if he was right, if they were fake, then why the heavy-handed insistence that he go on calling them fakes?
Chidi was good with people. He understood how to please them. He knew how to read them. People like Woodrow only applied pressure in that way when they were on the back foot. When they were fixing things.
Woodrow had implied that a whole lot of people were going to start shouting that the feeds were real. That Shavistran was real. That Xenia wasn’t an android, but a real woman—an Eriuman—who had been held against her will, mind-fucked into submission and made to fight for Karassia.
He let out a shaky breath. “It’s all true…” he breathed, sick horror closing down his throat.
The last of the sun disappeared behind the city towers, unnoticed.
* * * * *
Demosthenes, Alkeides System
Thecla called out to Bellona as she was traversing the main corridor, heading back to her quarters. She beckoned Bellona back. She was standing in the open door of one of the big workrooms that lined the corridor leading up to the bridge.
Bellona was surprised to see her there. As far as she had been aware, everyone worked on the deck level, or congregated in the dining hall. “You work here?” Bellona asked her.
“Temporarily. I found some stuff…well, come and see for yourself,” Thecla said, waving toward the room she was standing by.
Bellona back-tracked.
“Hayes all calmed down?” Thecla asked.
“I’ve never see him speed talk like that before,” Bellona said. “He so rarely talks at all. Usually one or two words.”
“Did you let him have the decking space to extend the garden?” Thecla asked.
“Of course. We’re not using it.” Bellona looked at her. “You knew he was going to ask me?”
“He’s been talking about nothing else for a week.”
“Not in front of me.”
“When you turn up he shuts up and moons over you.” Thecla grinned. “Do you know how often he talks about Xenia helping him plant fresias?”
Bellona cleared her throat awkwardly. “You have something to show me?”
Thecla moved into the room. There was a big counter in the middle of it. Cupboards and lockers lined the walls. The counter was littered with cylindrical objects, about half a meter in length. She picked up one of them and rested it across her hands.
“I found these a few days ago, stuffed in a cupboard. No documentation, no manuals. They’re not on the supply inventory, either.”
“What are they?” Bellona asked. There was nothing on the cylinders that hinted at their purpose.
“It took me a while to figure that out. I think they were shoved deep into a cupboard because they were an experiment that didn’t pan out.”
“Shouldn’t you be helping with the second bridge forge?” Bellona asked.
“I’m on my downtime shift,” Thecla said. “Fontana almost pushed me out the door and told me to go get some rest.”
“And this is how you rest?” Bellona reached out. “Can I touch it?”
“It’s harmless right now.” Thecla held the cylinder out to her. “It’s a micro satellite.”
“It’s not a very small one, for a micro-anything,” Bellona said, turning the cylinder over and over in her hands. There was a hairline split in the middle of it, where it would open to give access to the interior, and that was all.
“When you consider that some satellites are the size of space stations, this is pretty small. Thing is, I think I could make it smaller still.”
“And make it work, too?” Bellona suggested.
“Oh, I got that one working inside an hour,” Thecla said dismissively.
Bellona handed the cylinder back to her. “How small?”
“Ten centimeters.”
Bellona looked at her, startled. “What would be the range on it?”
“With one of Sang’s miniature communications links in it, the leash could be as long as you want.”
Bellona suppressed her growing excitement. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That ten centimeters is smaller than the most sensitive security scanner can detect?” Thecla nodded. “These things, at that size…we could print them, once we’ve set up the file. Hundreds, even thousands of them, a half year and a light year out, five years out, even farther if you want. It would be an untraceable early warning system.”
“And not just for us,” Bellona said. “Do you know how many free worlds would pay their gross annual profit for a system like this, one that enemies can’t find and knock out before they sneak up on them?”
“You want to go into business, boss?” Thecla asked, startled.
Bellona shook her head. “Something like this, given freely, would generate a lot of good will.” She patted the cylinder. “Make a miniature. Show me it can be done.”
Thecla pursed her lips together. “Before or after I finish the forge?”
“In your spare time, of course,” Bellona said, as she turned to go. “You have enough of it to dig around in cupboards, it seems.”
“That’s not fair!” Thecla yelled after her.
Bellona was still smiling when she reached her quarters. Her gaze fell on the empty bed visible through the interconnecting door to the bedroom.
She didn’t feel like smiling anymore. “Connie?” she whispered and waited.
In the last few weeks, Connie had spoken to her five times. Each time, it was a simple statem
ent, pared down to essentials.
“Khalil is well. He eats. He sleeps. His work does not go well,” had been her first statement. She had not responded when Bellona tried to talk to her. Later messages were similar. Connie’s lack of response could mean they had jumped to null-space, or she had chosen to severe the connection with Bellona, perhaps so she could concentrate on ship functions. Except AIs and androids could multi-task until their buffers were full—which rarely happened.
When she received the fourth message, Bellona had said quickly; “Do you fare well, Connie?”
“I…yes,” Connie replied. Then the connection had terminated. Bellona heard it cut out.
Connie’s fifth message had been slightly longer. “I am well. Khalil is well. The work continues. He talks to Arany’s people.”
That had been two days ago.
Bellona tried one more time, her gaze still on her bed. “Connie, please let me know you are well. I am worried.”
The silence stretched for a heartbeat or two. In computer time, it was a small ice-age for Connie to think it through and make up her mind to talk…or not.
Disappointed, Bellona went through to the bedroom. It was time to try to sleep.
“We are well,” Connie whispered in her ear.
It was enough. Bellona was content.
* * * * *
Cerce City, Cerce Prime, Cerce
Natasa Garza was an ornery woman and always had been. Khalil wasn’t sure why Ben had liked her so much as his exo, although her demanding ways did contribute to an efficient ship. Perhaps that was why. In all other situations, her personality grated, like iron against stone.
After a fast circuit tour of the top players in the free worlds and weeks of steady rejections and refusals to consider working with Bellona or—stars in their heavens!—working with other free states, Khalil had returned to Cerce to look up old contacts, including Natasa. Ben’s former crews and ships were still kicking around the free worlds. They were mostly toothless, without Ben for cohesion, although Natasa was trying hard to fill his shoes.
Cerce and Cora were the two places where most of those people hung out. Khalil did the rounds of the spacer bars in the city, looking for familiar faces. Freeships kept their own schedules. It might be weeks before they popped back into normal space over Cerce. Sooner or later, though, they would be back. Moving from place to place was how they made their money. A cheap commodity on one planet was worth rubies on another, while that planet’s weed was another free world’s luxury meal. Knowing the needs and wants of a dozen different worlds and staying on top of current fads was how the freeships turned a steady income into bonanza pay days.
Stopping by to drink at the local bars where other freeshippers hung out was how such information was passed along, especially when the Republic or the Homogeny was on the warpath and communications feeds couldn’t be trusted.
In Cerce City, there were five drinking holes the shippers preferred, on the lower levels of the villages and out in the fringes, where the vertical villages had not yet taken over. Khalil spent an hour a day in each of them, nursing a drink and talking to anyone even vaguely interesting.
He was a known man, here. His association with Bellona was known, too, although most people remembered him for being Benjamin Arany’s strange brother. Far fewer knew of his former association with the Bureau. All his statuses, though, opened up conversations that might otherwise have been stilted and unproductive.
While he was chatting, he let slip that he was looking for Arany’s people. Freeshippers were nomads with friendships across the free worlds. If any of those he spoke to had connections or even secondary connections to Natasa and her crew, word would reach her.
He didn’t bother with a direct communication to Natasa’s ship, the Yoxall. That would make it official business and he wanted to avoid the formal restrictions a business discussion set up. By reaching out to her the old way, he would be sending a message along with it: I’m one of you. I understand your world.
Natasa would not parse the distinction, although Khalil was betting most of her crew would appreciate the subtlety.
On the fourth day and in the third bar for the day—a beer hall on the outskirts of the city where the hot, yeasty smell of fresh bread lingered because of the bakery next door—Khalil was contacted.
The tug on his sleeve drew Khalil’s attention downward. The girl standing next to his stool looked around five years old. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with clear skin, very large gray eyes and hair that curled and tumbled about her face. Her mouth was a perfect bow. She did not smile.
Her clothes were ordinary, her pants torn at the knee and the hems were too short by a centimeter or two.
“Hello,” Khalil told her. He glanced up at the mirror behind the bar as chuckles sounded. After four days he had learned who was transitory and who was a regular. The regulars were not the ones laughing. The server wasn’t smiling either. Neither was she telling the girl to leave.
The girl tugged on Khalil’s sleeve once more.
He considered her. “You want me to come with you?”
She nodded.
Khalil looked up at the server. She shrugged. She wasn’t going to help him.
He turned on the stool and glanced around the rest of the bar, at the tables and the booths at the back. The place was filling up already, for this was a popular bar.
No one was watching him with any particular interest.
Khalil mentally shrugged. He would let this play out and see where it took him. He had already paid for his drink, so he drained the cup and got to his feet.
The girl walked out of the bar. Khalil followed, shortening his steps so he didn’t out-run her. She struggled to open the heavy swing door so he pulled it open for her. With an air of self-possession, she stepped out onto the graveled path. Khalil let the door swing shut behind him and blinked at the late afternoon sun overhead.
The girl held up her arms, asking to be picked up.
“It’s really me you want?” Khalil asked.
She nodded.
He bent and hoisted her up and settled her on his hip. “Where now?”
She pointed along the lane, toward the river and the old original village site.
There were people using the trail. Just on the other side of the trail, more people zipped by in transit pods. No one screamed at Khalil that he was absconding with their child, even though he had braced himself for it.
Moving at the same speed as the other pedestrians, he headed in the direction the girl had pointed. With her in his arm, he could move faster than he would have if he had been forced to follow her short pace.
When the trail forked, she pointed to the right, which would continue to follow the transit line toward the old village.
At each intersection or fork, the girl pointed without hesitation. She was leading Khalil steadily south, toward the old village, which reassured him that she wasn’t simply playing a game. He kept an eye out for blind alleys and dark niches where muggers might possibly be waiting for her to bring Khalil to them. There were plenty of them, for this was the old section of the city, with abandoned buildings, derelict warehouses and more.
He could smell salt in the air and the caw of the carrion gulls as they got closer. At the next junction of trails, the girl pointed west, away from the fishing wharf and old town to the east, where the tidal estuary ran freely. Farther east, it stagnated, which added to the aroma in the air.
“You’re sure?” Khalil asked. It was the first time he had spoken since leaving the bar. She was a remarkably silent child, although if she was mixed up in…whatever this was, then she was probably only a child in stature. Children tended to grow up fast when they were involved in adult scams.
The trail grew more overgrown as they continued and Khalil worried about the lack of people and the quietness around them. Anything could happen here. The sun was getting lower, too. This was not an area of the city he wanted to be in after dark.
The dark, fragmented roof of an old clay brick building was ahead, peeping over the abundant verdure. Khalil’s wariness grew.
The girl tugged on his shoulder, getting his attention. She pointed to a dark doorway between overgrown bushes. There was no door. He couldn’t see anything beyond the door but shadows. “In there?” he asked.
She nodded and wriggled.
Khalil put her down and straightened. She instantly ran off down the narrow path, leaving him.
He shook his arm and dug his fingers into his forearm, to get the feeling back. Even a five year old grew heavy on the arm after a while. As he kneaded his arm, he studied the yawning dark space beyond the door, weighing up how smart it would be to go in there versus the need to find out what this was about.
The lack of an actual door was the deciding factor. They couldn’t close the door behind him, locking him in. That would give him options.
He walked into the warehouse ruins, blinking to make his sight adjust to the lower light as quickly as possible.
The building was just a shell. There was nothing inside, not even a decent floor. The homeless, kids or gangs had built fires on the weedy ground. There were nearly a dozen blackened pits.
Through the partial roof that remained, the last of the daylight was turning Cerce’s sky a stained pink.
Khalil halted, looking around. He would wait three minutes, he decided. Then he would go back to lights and environmental controls and Connie’s incessant chatter. He wished for a moment that he’d had the foresight to grab one of Aideen’s earworms before he had left Demosthenes. It would be good to be able to talk to Connie right now, even if it was just to hear her complain about how dumb the other ships on the landing field were.
The silhouette of a tall, slender figure slipped through a hole in the wall of the warehouse at the far end. It blended with the growing shadows there and for a moment, Khalil wondered if he was imagining the shape.
Then she strolled out in the middle of the empty shell, watching him.
“Natasa,” Khalil acknowledged, hiding his relief. His message had reached her. “Why all the cloak and knife fuss?”
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