Thalia turned to Brig. “Would you mind leaving us for a short while?”
“No, I don’t mind—not that I understand why the death of one of us is such a big deal.”
“I appreciate your cooperation. We’ll only need few moments alone.”
She waited until Brig had left the room and closed the door behind her.
“Friller’s too far gone to be any immediate use to Doctor Demikhov,” Thalia said.
“But he’ll still want to open the head up,” Sparver said.
“What’s he hoping to learn? There’s nothing in there but boiled meat.”
“You can be the one to tell Demikhov he isn’t going to get some evidence to poke at. Even if there’s nothing he can get from the implants, he’ll want to verify that it fits the pattern of the other deaths.”
“Just as long as we don’t have to sit with that body next to us, all the way back to Panoply.”
Thalia put the helmet back on the body, then followed Sparver through into the reception area. The workers were already looking restless and impatient. Brig was in the middle of a heated discussion with three others, voices rising to the point where it seemed a fight might break out at any instant.
“I know this may seem like an over-reaction, but Prefect Bancal and I will need to take Terzet Friller back with us to Panoply. You have my word that the body will be treated with respect and returned to you in good time.”
“You can take the body,” Virac said dismissively. “But the suit stays with us. Tell them, Brig.”
“How it works around here,” she said. “Your suit is your credit. It’s how you pay your way onto the squad, move shifts around, trade up to better equipment. Friller was in deep with the collective. We all own a piece of that suit.”
“You said it was in bad repair,” Thalia told her.
“It was—is. But we’ll cut it up, divide our share of it.” Brig knuckled the alloy shin of her own suit. “Can always use replacement parts. Cut ’em out, weld ’em in. The tradition is you keep the artwork as it is. That way you’re always carrying a piece of someone else’s life.”
Thalia nodded. “I understand, and I’ve no wish to disrespect your traditions. Can you assist me in removing the body from the suit? Prefect Bancal will go back to the ship for a forensic body bag.”
“If you don’t need the suit, why does the body interest you?” Virac asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
But Brig said: “She’s just trying to do her job.”
While Sparver went back for the body bag, Thalia, Brig, Virac and two other workers helped her remove the suit. It came apart at a number of seams but the process was still exactly as unpleasant as Thalia had expected. The hardest part, though, was fielding the continuing series of questions from Virac and his colleagues.
“We’ve heard about those rumours,” one of them said. “That there’s something building, something you can’t stamp out. This wouldn’t be about that, would it?”
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in rumours, if I were you,” Thalia said, with crisp politeness.
“Then there’s nothing in what that man says?” Brig asked.
“Which man?” Thalia replied, trying to sound only mildly interested in the answer.
“Nice try,” Virac said.
Sparver came back just as they divested Friller of the final parts of the spacesuit, now laid out like painted trophies on the gripping surface of an adjoining pallet. Thalia and Sparver slid the body into the bag, sealed it, made their farewells, and went back to the ship. They stowed the body in one of the evidence compartments, then signalled Panoply and announced their imminent return.
Thalia took the corvette’s controls, detached from the dock and backed slowly out of the way of the other parked ships. As soon as the nose was clear of any obstructions she tapped the steering jets and applied cruise power, thinking she would be very glad when that bagged-up body was no longer her immediate responsibility.
“You handled that well,” Sparver said. “I’d have come down with the weight of the law, insisted we take what we asked for. But sometimes the gentle touch works wonders.”
“It’s called diplomacy. You never know when we might want those people on our side again.”
“Demikhov won’t complain, anyway. He wouldn’t have given a second glance at the suit in his hurry to cut open some bone. At least they all get to keep a part of Friller now.”
Thalia applied emergency reverse thrust, both of them straining forward in their couches.
“Did I miss something?” Sparver asked.
“No.” She turned the corvette around, and aimed it back at the eight-spoked wheel. “But I think I might have.”
Vanessa Laur raised an indifferent eyebrow as Dreyfus approached, soft-shuffling along the humming floor.
“Come to quibble over my analysis?”
“No,” Dreyfus said. “I was coming to thank you for expediting that search as quickly as you did. Unfortunately the numbers still aren’t large enough to produce a convincing correlation. I’m going to ask something more of you.”
“And there was me thinking you’d come all the way down here just to thank me.”
Niceties over with, Dreyfus settled his features into a businesslike mask. It was a relief to be back on familiar terms: at least they both knew where they stood.
“You have access to all new case files as they come in. Friller is the latest, but we can expect a new one within the next twenty-six hours or so. Continue looking for risk factors, and keep updating that likelihood parameter. That’s the easy part.”
“Oh, good.”
“In parallel with that, assuming the risk propensity is a common factor, I want you to give me an estimate of how many more cases might be out there. Healthy, happy citizens, just walking around unawares, completely oblivious to the fact that their heads may be about to explode.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Dreyfus. This is a castle built on sand, and now you want to build another one on top of it?”
“Whatever metaphor suits you, Vanessa. All I want is your best guess for how many non-affected citizens might fit the same profile. If there are a thousand potential victims out there, I need to know. Ten thousand, one hundred thousand, however many it is. That way we can begin to draw up appropriate plans.”
“And if it’s more than that?”
“Then forget making plans. We’ll be busy enough digging graves.”
When he was done with Laur he went to the refectory, grabbed an apple, and made his way to the tactical room, polishing the apple on his thigh as he walked. He pushed through the doors to find Aumonier and the usual retinue of seniors and analysts present. One of the analysts was reading solemnly from a list of technical procurement delays and cost overruns, his voice taking on a chantlike drone as he recounted each item.
Aumonier seemed glad of the interruption. “Tom, good. Come in. It’s about time we discussed the Grobno problem.”
Dreyfus eased into his customary seat, to the right of Aumonier and between Clearmountain and the dour-faced analyst who had just been interrupted.
“Actually,” he said, “I don’t regard it as a problem—more of an opportunity.” He crunched on the apple, ignoring the frowns from some of the less experienced operatives. “Antal Bronner was a genuine instance of death by Wildfire, but to Grobno’s employers it looked like a hit by a rival squad of Ultras, trying to get their own back on the Bronners. They assumed Ghiselin Bronner was next, so they sent Grobno in to squeeze her for secrets before the others got to her.”
“That hardly exonerates Grobno,” said Clearmountain.
“I’m not saying it does—just that pushing him through our judicial apparatus would be a waste of time and resources we’d be better off directing at Wildfire.”
“So we just let him go?” Clearmountain asked.
“He’ll get his day in court,” Dreyfus said. “Do you remember Seraphim, my friend in the swarm? All right, friend might be stretchi
ng it. But the Harbourmaster and I have depended on each other before and I feel I can trust him. “He’s given me his categoric assurance that Grobno will receive a fair and open hearing once he’s returned to the Ultras.”
“A fair and open hearing where Ultras are concerned?” Clearmountain asked, looking around with a cynical smile.
Dreyfus took a final crunch from his apple and allowed the browning core to drop to his feet, where it was detected and quickly absorbed into the floor. “Two years ago we depended on the Ultras for help. Nothing’s changed since then.”
“No,” Ingvar Tench said, “other than a complete shift in the public mood, the undermining of confidence in our authority and a growing mistrust of foreign elements like the Ultras.”
“Fortunately the public don’t make our day-to-day decisions for us,” Dreyfus said drily. “The Ultras are here to trade—everything else is incidental. If they harmed the Glitter Band, they’d be cutting off one of their main avenues to profit.” He paused, directing his address at Aumonier, sensing this was his one chance to make a persuasive case. “I think we all agree that hard times may lie ahead, be it Wildfire or the breakaway crisis. Under these circumstances we may well end up depending on the Ultras again—perhaps more so than last time. Even the smallest gesture of trust that we can offer them now may be vital. Seraphim agrees.”
“He’s hardly a disinterested witness,” Aumonier said.
Dreyfus conceded her point with a slow, dutiful nod. “All the same, he and I have kept open channels of communication since the Aurora affair. I wouldn’t want to spoil that good work.”
“Then your proposal is …?” she asked.
“I’ll take Grobno back to the Parking Swarm—hand him over personally. It won’t take me long, and I’m due a visit to Hospice Idlewild anyway.”
There was a silence from the gathered prefects and analysts. Even Dreyfus’s bluntest critics knew better than to comment on his business at the Hospice.
“I would be glad to wash my hands of Grobno,” Aumonier said. “And you’re right about relations with the Ultras. I don’t like their ideas of justice, but I’d sooner have them on my side than against it. And if you were going to visit the Hospice—as of course you must—then the proximity of the Parking Swarm would save a second round-trip. From a perspective of self-interest, I’d like to minimise the time you’re away from Panoply.”
“I’m glad I can be of use,” Dreyfus said, already rising from the table.
6
Most of the workers had dispersed back to their work assignments by the time Thalia and Sparver returned to Carousel Addison-Lovelace. Less than a dozen were still in the meeting area, loafing around in their motley spacesuits, making idle conversation as they carried out minor repairs or finished some desultory game of cards or dice.
“I thought we’d seen the last of you,” said a deep-voiced man. He had a prominent, motile brow ridge, as if there were a tube of well-exercised muscle above his eyes. Two plastic lines curved up from under his chin and went into his nostrils. “You got what you came for, didn’t you?”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Mallion Ross.”
“Very good, Mister Ross. Do me a favour and call Brig back.”
Ross scooped up his helmet, jammed it on loosely and spoke in a low voice, evidently using the workers’ private communications channel. Thalia crossed her arms and waited patiently. A few more workers packed in their games and went back to their duties.
“Any time you feel like telling me …” Sparver whispered.
Ten minutes passed and Brig returned, looking flustered and prickly about being summoned back so soon. She set her beak-faced helmet aside and fixed Thalia with a wordless, quizzical stare, green light flaring off her jewelled eye.
“I’d like to see the suit again,” Thalia said.
“We explained. You don’t get to keep the suit. It’s our property now, not yours.”
“Let me clarify something,” Sparver said. “My colleague was being very reasonable with you earlier. She could have taken the suit there and then. But she decided to be nice about it, and now she’s asking nicely again.”
“I don’t care how nice she’s being. The suit stays here.”
Sparver’s hand moved to his whiphound, releasing it from its holster. “Maybe you don’t know what a Panoply enforcement action looks like.”
Thalia touched his wrist. “I said I’d like to see the suit again, Brig. That’s exactly what I meant. I want to look at it, not take it away.”
“Why would you want—”
“I’d go along with her,” Sparver said, making an ill-tempered show of snapping his whiphound back into place.
They went back into the adjoining room, Thalia nodding at Brig to seal the door behind them. As far as she could tell nothing had changed since they were last here, with the suit parts still laid out on the tractive surface, arranged in the rough anatomical order of the original suit.
Thalia picked up one of the larger pieces of detachable plating. It was a curved piece which fitted across the abdomen, tucked under the contoured breastplate of the life-support system.
“Did you paint these scenes?”
“I painted whatever was asked of me. Does that make me a suspect, now?”
“Ease off. I’m just trying to get a better insight into Terzet Friller’s state of mind, their identity and preoccupations. From what I can gather you wear your achievements on these suits.”
“It’s no crime.”
Thalia sketched a finger across a scene from the middle of the plate. “This landscape, this island with this strange white tree rising from the middle of it. Was that yours?”
“What if it was?”
Thalia was starting to think that perhaps the whiphound was not such a bad idea after all. But she forced composure upon herself. “Did Friller explain the significance of this image? Was it related to something they’d been involved with in the past?”
“Why would you latch onto that?”
“Brig,” Sparver said, a warning rumble in his voice. “The general idea is that we ask the questions, you answer them.”
Brig drew breath and sighed. After some considerable internal struggle something eased in her face. Perhaps she was beginning to realise the futility of putting up this non-cooperative front.
“When you came back and said you wanted to get at the suit, I thought you were figuring one of us for sabotage.”
“No,” Thalia said. “But there’s something in this artwork that bothers me. The white tree … whatever it is.”
“It’s not a tree,” Brig said.
“Are you going to enlighten us?” Sparver asked.
Again Brig seemed to wage a private war with herself before answering. “Terzet got onto this job for a reason. It was plain to all of us. We were here because the reclamation contract pays well, not because we were in any hurry to spend time in this place.”
“And Friller?” Thalia asked.
“Money drew the rest of us here,” Brig said. “But that wasn’t why Terzet came—least, I don’t think so. I don’t think money was the problem. They never said much about their past, but you can tell when someone’s slumming it, living below their means. Every now and then the mask slips.”
“And what was behind the mask?” Sparver asked.
“Someone wealthy—or someone who’d had wealth, not so long ago. The way they spoke, the places they’d been—you could tell. Also, Terzet had some sort of unfinished business to do with this place.”
“They’d been here before?” Sparver asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Whatever it was, it didn’t sit well with the rest of us. People like Virac, or Ross—I know what makes them tick. Same with me. Risking our necks here is the means to an end—not the end itself. But none of us were sure about Terzet.”
“You said it isn’t a tree,” Thalia said.
“It’s a place. A building. Here, in one of the chambers we’ve
been clearing out.”
“I’d like you to take us to it,” Thalia said.
“It’s just a building. Why has that caught your eye?”
“Because I thought I’d seen it before,” Thalia said. “I wasn’t sure, and I needed a second look. But now I’m certain.”
Sparver looked on, his expression giving nothing away.
Dreyfus signed for a cutter, secured his prisoner in the only other seat, then locked in his destination as the Parking Swarm. The ship turned away from Panoply’s pumpkin face, acceleration building smoothly as Dreyfus applied power.
“You’re a lying smear of shit, Prefect.”
Dreyfus rewarded his passenger with an easy-going smile. “I didn’t lie, Grobno. I said I’d speak up for you.”
“You say you care about justice. You have no idea what—”
“I have every idea,” Dreyfus said, cutting him off gently. “I’ve seen Ultra justice at first hand, and I know how cruel it can be.”
“Then you’re a monster, if you know—”
“I don’t know,” Dreyfus mused. “I’d rather go with pragmatist. Why are you so concerned about Ultra justice, anyway, Grobno? Aren’t they your people?”
“You don’t understand them. Don’t understand us. It won’t be a fair trial.”
Dreyfus made a sympathetic face. “That’s too bad. Fairness is all you deserve, especially after the fair way you treated Ghiselin Bronner.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“You were giving it a good go when my operatives interrupted you.”
“I had a job to do. She wasn’t going to die. I was going to take the Painflower off her before—”
“There. You’ve got your defence all lined up. What are you worried about? You’ll sail through.”
“Bastard. I got caught, all right? That’s what you don’t do. You never get caught. They’ll get to me, punish me for making them look bad. You don’t realise …”
Dreyfus tuned him out, letting Grobno ramble on. He was still at it when the Swarm came within visual range. “… and I’ll make you regret promising me what you did, lying to my face. You think you can get away with that sort of thing, but you’re wrong. I’ve got friends as well. They’ll—”
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