He came to a man he hadn’t met in person before, with brown hair, a serious expression, and a mole on his cheek like a dot of paving tar. Biryar almost pulled away, shocked by the sudden visceral image of how the fleck of tar had gotten there, and then felt amused and even strangely pleased.
“Deputy Balecheck,” Biryar said. “Good to finally meet you.”
Balecheck’s eyes widened a fraction. The surprise at being recognized melted quickly into a smile as they shook hands, and then Biryar moved on. From the other man’s point of view, it had been a gratifying moment that showed his importance to the new governor. Functionally, it was an example of building the kind of good relations with the local authority that would cement Laconian rule on Auberon. It was also a smutty joke with his wife, but that was a fact Biryar would keep entirely private. At least until he was alone with Mona.
It works better when you commit to the process, she’d said. He had to commit to the process of governing Auberon, even the parts that he found difficult. Especially to those parts.
A car waited for him at the edge of the courtyard, ready to take him back to his offices. When he ducked into it, Major Overstreet followed and sat across from him. His pale, bald face shone with sweat.
“How are you doing, sir?”
“Fine,” Biryar said. “A bit of a headache.”
“The stutter,” Overstreet said.
“The what?”
The car pulled away, and cool air, as fresh as if it came from the Notus’s recyclers, touched his face and filled his nose. He noticed the absence of Auberon’s stench and dreaded the end of the ride when he’d step back into it. It made more sense to keep exposing himself to the foul air. Breaks from it like this could only prolong his acclimation.
“They call it the stutter, sir. It’s common among new arrivals. The four-hour cycles don’t sync well with normal circadian cues. Irritability, headache. Some people get vertigo after about a month that clears in a few days. It’s just our brains learning the new environment.”
“Good to know,” Biryar said. “Is it bothering you?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” Overstreet said. “I’m looking forward to it being over.”
The growing twilight in the streets was the real one. The end of the day and the beginning of evening. If he did it right, Biryar hoped to be asleep before the nighttime dawn. If he could just sleep through and give his body the impression of a full twelve hours of darkness… The longing for rest surprised him. Maybe he was more tired than he knew.
“What progress have you made on that other investigation?” Biryar asked.
“The man with the metal arm,” Overstreet said, making the words like the heading on a report. Neither a question nor a statement, but a tag that identified the content to follow. “He is a known figure in the local criminal demimonde. He goes by several names, but he has no entry in the law enforcement systems. He has no accounts on the exchanges, though given the token he tried to bribe you with, it’s safe to assume he has significant access to untraceable funds.”
“Where did he come from?”
“There aren’t any records of his arrival in the databases.”
“So he grew out of the dirt?” Biryar said, more sharply than he’d meant to.
Overstreet shrugged. “I’m moving forward with the assumption that the local databases are at least inaccurate and more likely suffering ongoing compromises.”
Biryar leaned back in the seat. A group of young men were playing football in the street, and the security detail was yelling at them to move off and let the cars through. Biryar watched them. Long-limbed, lanky young men. Maybe Belters. Maybe just adolescents. Any of them could be a separatist terrorist. All of them could be. For a moment, it felt like madness to be on the planetary surface at all. There was no safety here. There couldn’t be.
“He’s not a criminal mastermind,” Overstreet said as the car started forward again. “He’s just got a head start. We will track him down.”
“Don’t turn this one over to the local police. He should be our guest until we can fully understand how he got past our security arrangements.”
“I understand,” Overstreet said. “No formal arrest, then?”
“Once he’s helped with our security review, we can revisit the issue,” Biryar said. And then, a moment later, “He was talking with my wife.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
The compound was well guarded now. Laconian marines in powered armor stood like sentries at the approaches and on the roofs. He lost something by having them there. Duarte’s rule through him should have been inevitable and confident. A standing guard made him seem concerned, and concern made him look weak, but he couldn’t bring himself to dismiss them or release them to other duty.
As he stepped into the private rooms, he unbuttoned his collar. In the time since they’d arrived, Biryar had made some changes to the governor’s compound. He hadn’t brought many things from their old home on Laconia, but what there was had pride of place. The picture of Mona receiving her Laconian distinguished service award, framed on the front wall where the light caught it. The clay sculpture she’d given him as a wedding gift. A calligraphic print of one of High Consul Duarte’s sayings—Effort in Discipline. Effortless in Virtue—in gold leaf.
Everything else in the rooms was foreign. The fluted wall sconces with different spectrums of light for daytime darkness and night. The grain of the false wood paneling, made from the treelike organisms of Auberon to mimic the trees of Earth. Neither one was his home. It felt like the room itself was telling him that he didn’t belong. Like it was pushing him away. He was sure that, with time, the sensation would pass.
He stretched. The knot between his shoulders appeared to be there permanently now, like the grit in his eyelids. The door behind him opened with a click, and Mona’s footsteps—as familiar and unmistakable as her voice—followed. He looked over at her, and his heart sank to his gut.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She dropped into a cushioned chair and shook her head. A small, tight, unconscious gesture he’d seen before. Anger, then. Well, better that than fear. He went to sit near her, but didn’t touch her. Her rage didn’t respond well to physical comfort.
“This place is rotten,” she said. “Xi-Tamyan has a scam going on in it that has profoundly compromised its research priorities for years. Years. Maybe since they came here.”
“Tell me,” Biryar said.
She did. Not only the way her liaison had added herself to the patent agreements, but that she was married to the union comptroller, that she had gotten the placement in Mona’s office over several other more qualified applicants, that her reported income didn’t remotely match the payments made to her. With every sentence, Mona’s voice grew harder, the outrage rising the more she thought about it. Biryar listened, leaning forward with his hands clasped and his gaze on her. Every new detail felt like a weight on his chest. Corruption layered on corruption layered on corruption until it seemed like there was more disease than health.
“And,” Mona said, reaching her crescendo, “either management and the union didn’t know, in which case they’re incompetent, or they did, and they’re complicit.”
Biryar lowered his head, letting it all settle. Mona’s gaze was fixed on nothing, her head shaking a fraction of a centimeter back and forth, like she was scolding someone in her imagination. She probably was.
There was a soft knock at the door. One of the housekeepers hoping to sweep or change their bedding. Biryar told them to come back later and got a muttered apology in return. Mona hadn’t even noticed. He risked taking her hand.
“That is disappointing,” he said.
“We have to fix it,” she said. “This can’t be permitted. This scam has cost years. Veronica has to be arrested and removed. The union has to be investigated and purged. I don’t know how deep this goes.”
“I will bring this to the attention of the local magistrates,” Biryar said. “W
e’ll address it.”
“Magistrates? No, we need to go now and arrest her. Ourselves. She’s undermining the most important colony world that there is. You’re the governor.”
“I understand that. I do. But if what she’s done is illegal under Auberon’s law, then it’s a matter for the local courts. If I step in, I have to step very carefully.”
Mona drew back her hand. The weight in Biryar’s gut grew heavier, the knot in his back ached. He pressed his lips thin, and went on.
“I am building on fear and hope,” he said. “Fear of the Tempest and the Typhoon, and hope that they won’t come. Our best path is to be seen as all-powerful but benevolent. Even indulgent. When we have a larger fleet, more experience, loyalty among the local police and military forces? Then we can enforce our ways here. We’re still in our first days. I have to be careful not to overreach.”
Disappointment changed the shape of Mona’s eyes. It softened her mouth. He felt the apology at the back of his throat, but it would have sounded like he was sorry for not giving her what she wanted, and he would mean he was sorry that the situation was what it was.
“If the payments to her don’t really go to her…” Mona said. “What if her income report is accurate? She could be part of a crime syndicate. That man who was here? With the arm? She could be working for him.”
“And I will have our people look into that. If she is, we’ll take action.”
“We should be taking action anyway,” Mona said. “I’m Laconia’s eyes on the most significant agricultural research that there is. You’re the governor of the planet. If we aren’t doing something, why are we here?”
“Please lower your voice.”
“Don’t patronize me, Biryar. It’s a real question.”
“We’re staying alive, Mona,” he snapped. “We are picking our fights, we’re identifying the most immediate threats and addressing them, and we are doing everything possible to give the impression that we could bring overwhelming power to bear and merely choose not to.”
“Because that isn’t true,” Mona said.
“It will be. Given time to establish ourselves, we can dominate any system, but we can’t dominate all of them at once. So this is how we govern. We are present, we exert influence, we exercise power when we have to, and we graciously allow self-rule until another option exists for us.”
“Self-rule?” Mona said, and her voice could cut skin. “Duarte sent us here so we could see the situation firsthand. And react to it. How is the two of us doing nothing self-rule?”
“Self-rule for them,” Biryar said. “Not for us.”
* * *
The old man sat on a metal barstool at the edge of the warehouse. Dust floated in the beam of light from holes near the roofline where ratdoves—which were neither rats nor doves—had chewed their way through to shelter. Agnete stood beside him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, a pistol in her hand. The old man was watching and rewatching video from the official government newsfeed. The poor asshole kneeling on the platform, mouthing some words, then the governor nodding like an old Roman emperor giving the thumbs-down, and the executioner putting a bullet through the prisoner’s skull. Every time the gun fired, the old man laughed. It wasn’t mirth. It was derision.
“This man,” the old man said, tapping the frozen image of Governor Rittenaur, “is fucking hilarious.”
“He just killed one of his own men to make a point,” Agnete said.
“Right? You know who does that shit? Theater majors,” he said. Then, seeing her expression, he put the hand terminal in his pocket. “It’s easy to execute your own. Someone that follows your orders, they’re easy to kill. This ‘We hold ourselves to an exacting standard’ thing? I’ve seen it before. It’s showy, because who does that shit? But it’s easy.”
“I don’t know, boss. It made an impression,” she said. In the distance, the whine of an electric motor and the clash of the steel fence rolling open. The old man heard it and rose from his stool.
“Well, it shouldn’t have,” he said, walking toward the loading dock. “We’re sure they were fighting? Him and his wife?”
Agnete shrugged. She didn’t like the way the boss thought about two things at once. It made her feel like he wasn’t concentrating on the business at hand.
“They were yelling at each other,” she said. “Your friend in housekeeping couldn’t make out all of what they were saying.”
“Interesting. Our guy didn’t want money, so maybe he’s not greedy. But if he and the sweetheart aren’t getting along, maybe there’s an itch we can scratch there.”
“Honeypot?”
“There’s a reason the classics are classic.”
“I’m on it,” Agnete said. “But after we’re done here.”
The loading dock door hummed for a second, warming up, then clattered as it rose. Dust and translucent scales came down into the light. The truck was old and rusting. The logo of a grain hauling company that had gone bankrupt four years earlier still peeled on its side. The back of the truck opened and four men came out. All of them carried guns.
The old man sniffed, cleared his throat, sneezed.
“Bless you,” one of the four men said. The leader.
“Thanks,” the old man said. The new men waited, motionless. Agnete tightened her grip on the gun, but didn’t raise it. For a long breath, no one moved.
“If this is the delivery,” the old man said, “maybe you could deliver it. If it’s something else…”
Bless You shook his head. “It’s the delivery, but the price has gone up.”
“Disappointing,” the old man said, but amiably. “How much?”
“Doubled.”
“Nope,” the old man said. “Too greedy. Try again.”
Bless You raised his gun and the old man’s titanium arm moved too quickly for the eye to follow. The deafening report of the gunshot almost drowned out the metallic sound of the bullet impact. The thugs were quiet, as if they’d been stunned by their own violence.
“Boss?” Agnete said.
The old man had his real hand pressed to his chest, pain in his features. His false arm reached out before him and opened its closed fist. The bullet dropped to the warehouse floor with a sharp tick.
“You boys,” the old man said, enunciating each word clearly, “just fucked all the way up.”
“Hey, Erich,” Bless You started to say, fear in his voice. An apology? Whatever it was, he never got to finish.
High in the rafters, the turret emplacement had heard the old man give the go phrase. The warehouse went bright with the stutter of its muzzle flash. The four men fell together. The staccato roar of the gun echoed through the warehouse space and then faded, leaving only a high-pitched whine in Agnete’s ears.
“You all right?” she asked. Her voice sounded faint and distant. She opened and closed her jaw a few times to make the ringing in her head go away.
“Yeah, yeah,” the old man said. “I just hate it when the arm does that. Feels like the fucking thing’s about to rip loose every time.”
“One of these days, it will.” She walked to where the men were writhing in the guano and dust on the warehouse floor. Fléchette rounds had ripped bright red holes in their skin. The electrical smell of the shock rounds mixed with charred skin like roasting pig.
This was how the old man worked. Everyone had been looking at Agnete and her pistol, thinking she was the muscle. It had made them overconfident.
“You see,” the old man said, not to the fallen thug but to Agnete, “this is the difference. A buy goes bad, and I need to send a message that that’s not okay. I could go the Laconian way, right? Kill you and send these fuckers home. Would that make any sense?”
“I guess not,” she said.
“Grandstanding,” the old man said, his false hand wrapping fingers around Bless You’s throat. “It’s immature, is what it is.”
Bless You tried to say something. Before he could, the old man used him to send
a message.
* * *
Self-rule for them. Not for us.
Mona knew enough about psychology to put her feelings in context. As Veronica sat across the table from Mona, shifting the display between the reports, breaking down the datasets into digestible summaries and giving an overview of where the labs stood with the active experiments, Mona knew intellectually that the woman’s voice wasn’t really all that grating. Veronica’s habit of interrupting herself and never quite getting back to the first sentence wasn’t all that rare a quirk. Her haircut didn’t really make her look like she was wearing a “respectable administrator” costume. Those were all artifacts of Mona’s own state of mind.
The knowledge didn’t help.
“We’re expecting to see some data from the photosynthesis study at North Field by the end of the week,” Veronica said. “The preliminary report is, as you can tell, looking pretty good.”
She had to know, Mona thought. There was no way that the tension and antipathy were going under Veronica’s radar. The smile was just the same as it had always been, the solicitous manner, the ready facts and reports. The woman had to know that Mona loathed her, but there was no sign of it. So either Mona was very good at hiding her emotions or Veronica was.
“What about the microbiota compatibility studies?” Mona asked.
Veronica shook her head as she spoke. “Those aren’t in North Field. Balakrishnan’s workgroup is all in the old facility. I mean, nothing’s really old around here, right? We’ve only been on the planet for a couple decades.”
You’re changing the subject, Mona thought. Making Veronica Dietz uncomfortable was one of the few real pleasures in her day.
“When do we expect results from Balakrishnan’s study?” she asked.
“I think the next assay starts in about a month, but I’m not a hundred percent on that,” Veronica said. “I can check if you want.”
And tell me whatever is most convenient for you, Mona thought. If Balakrishnan’s results needed to be a failure to keep Veronica’s skimming unnoticed, Mona had no doubt that the study would mysteriously fail. Just the way Dr. Carmichael’s array translation study had become less promising when this woman—this snake, this parasite—didn’t get a piece of it.
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