by Natalie Grey
Barnabas grinned at her. Their games had abounded with cheating since they first began playing chess together, and it had been the subject of several good-natured “fights.” Gar still refused to be in the room with them while they played.
“In any case...” Barnabas moved his knight toward the center and forward. “It’s beginning to seem as if we all underestimated the lengths the Jotun Senate would go to—which, I have to say, I would not have seen coming. My opinion of them was extraordinarily low.”
“You and me both.” Shinigami’s eyes were wide as she shook her head. “What are they doing that’s worse than selling out their own people to someone like Koel Yennai?”
“Something that involves another government,” Barnabas said softly. “Apparently.” He looked up at her. “And what would that be, do you think? What would Huword have been involved in that touched another government like that?”
Shinigami curled one leg under her and pulled the other knee up under her chin as she thought. The movement reminded Barnabas of Tabitha’s more contemplative side—assuredly, not a side of her anyone saw often.
“What do we know?” Shinigami asked quietly. She wasn’t looking at Barnabas, or at anything. “Huword pretended to be everyone’s friend to get information about them.”
“It may not have started that way,” Barnabas said. “Some people seem to attract confidences. Over time, that familiarity breeds contempt.”
“Why?”
“Honest question?”
“Honest question.” Shinigami shrugged. “I hear a lot of confidences.”
“Ah, I suppose you would as an AI.” Barnabas considered. “I think it may be that over time, the secrets take a toll. One learns terrible things and starts to believe that everyone they meet is venal, self-absorbed, cruel…” He shrugged. “I saw it often with the other monks and priests. Some had come to believe that there was nothing worth saving in humanity.”
“And you?” Shinigami asked curiously.
“I never inspired many confidences.” Barnabas seemed amused. “I was in the monastery, for one thing, but I was also still struggling to keep myself sane. I hardly seemed like the sort of person who would welcome confessions.”
“Hmm.” Shinigami considered this. “Wait. You don’t seem worried that I might have heard some of your confidences.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” Barnabas said, amusement growing. “I can’t think of anything that’s happened since we started working together that would I would want to be secretive about.”
“You need to live a little.”
“We’re getting off-topic,” he told her, although he was still smiling. “And that was due to baseless speculation on my part about Huword. We don’t know how it started, but we know that at the end he was feeding secrets to the Jotun Senate.”
“And doing something else.” Shinigami swayed from side to side contemplatively as she thought. “What if it has to do with his demotion? Someone found out about what he was doing and demoted him.”
“Why would they also bother killing him?” Barnabas asked quizzically.
“One of two reasons.” Shinigami held up two fingers at once. “First, because they thought demoting him would be enough of a punishment, then they realized they wanted to hurt him more. Second, because they wanted to get him out to the middle of nowhere to kill him.”
Barnabas shook his head, frustrated. Neither of those rang true for him. “What I don’t get is why they're so secretive. Jeltor is right; he should have been told. Whoever in the Navy figured out what Huword was up to you’d think they would have told the others. And this assassination seemed to be carefully planned. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, right?”
“I don’t know. By the way, are we just giving up on chess?”
“I think so.” Barnabas looked at the board. “I can’t focus.”
“I like that—easy win.”
“Opportunist.” He gave her a look. “All right, let’s try to state the facts a different way. A Jotun assassin sent by the Navy killed Huword, but the people who are now chasing her, and us—the black ops group under Jotun senatorial control—seem worried that another government might be in play. What do we make of that discrepancy?”
“I don’t know.” Shinigami groaned and flopped her head down theatrically. “Hey, maybe it was a bunch of things at once. Everything caught up with him at the same time.”
“That is depressingly likely,” Barnabas said. “He sounds like a nasty piece of work.” He considered. “You know what? I think we need to go talk to Ferqar again.”
“The assassin is still on the station, you know.”
“I don’t think we’re going to get anything out of her,” Barnabas replied. “It sounds like she made up her mind not to tell us anything, and short of torture, which we won’t be using, I can’t think how we’d persuade her. Ferqar, though…there were some cracks in his armor.”
“I’ll send another message to Kelnamon—and one to Ferqar as well. I’ve found some of the channels the Jotun Navy uses. Do you think the Srisa’s moved?”
Barnabas felt a sudden chill. “If they haven’t, they should have. We should have told them to move as soon as we realized the Jotun government was involved and things didn’t add up. What direction did this Jotun ship come from?”
“I can’t tell,” Shinigami said honestly. “Their programming is like them—all blobby and incomprehensible. I could only block the signals because I could understand the station’s computers.”
It was Barnabas’ turn to groan. “All right, send a message to Captain Kelnamon in pretty much every direction you can think of, and then one for Ferqar. In both, pass on what we need from the other one.”
“You think they’re working together?” Shinigami asked, surprised.
“I’m not certain. Actually—no, I’d bet they’re not working together. Kelnamon struck me as fundamentally honest, and not as if he was holding something back. But I think one of them might persuade the other to talk to us if they’re hesitant.”
“I’ll send the messages,” Shinigami said. “Jeltor may also have an idea of how to get hold of Ferqar. For all I know, the channels I found are the sort everyone’s supposed to use and don’t.”
“I’m hesitant to involve Jeltor any further than he already is.” Barnabas felt a stab of worry.
Shinigami snorted. “He’s in it now, and it’s a good bet that they know as much. There’s nothing to be gained from him sitting the rest of it out.”
“We give him a choice,” Barnabas suggested gravely.
“He’ll help,” Shinigami predicted. “He’s pissed about this guy. If there’s dirt—and, let’s be honest, there’s clearly tons—he wants it to come out.”
“We give him a choice,” Barnabas repeated.
“Fine.” Shinigami rolled her eyes. “Those messages have been sent, by the way, by every means I know of to send them. What now?”
“Now I go talk to Jeltor, and you get Gar and Tafa to the conference room. We’ll see if either of them can make heads or tails of this.” Barnabas ran a hand through his ginger hair. He’d taken to changing his appearance every so often, usually regarding his hair color and cut, and he was enjoying the reddish brown—although Shinigami liked to tease him about it.
He sighed.
“What is it?” Shinigami was replacing the chess pieces. Barnabas caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye and realized that she’d replaced one of the pieces with a hologram. What her aim had been, he wasn’t entirely sure—but he opted not to mention it in the hopes that he’d get to see her plan unfold soon.
In response to her question, he only shrugged. “I wish we could even think of a theory that fits, but nothing fits the facts we have, and every new thing we learn only seems to make things less clear.”
Shinigami considered.
“Well, someone killed him,” she said finally. “And they had a reason. So it’s not like it’s senseless; it just seems that way.”
Barnabas nodded, somewhat heartened by this. “That’s true. I’ll see you in the conference room.”
Chapter Twenty
It took two hours of dedicated work before Kantar could be sure that she was safe to contact her employers.
She knew about the Senate’s lackeys, of course. She had watched every piece of the pantomime unfold, knowing that they were coming after Barnabas because of her—but knowing, too, as she listened in on the conversation, that she could not be of any help to him. Any aid she gave might trace back to her, and they could not find her.
Because they did not know why she had been hired, or who she was. And, of all things, she watched Barnabas hit upon the one suggestion that would frighten them the most: that another government had found out about what they were doing.
How could he have known? She could only wonder at first, awestruck that he had put together the pieces.
Then she realized the truth: he didn’t know. He had just been looking for a way to keep them talking while his AI broke through their control of the station. She knew about Barnabas. She’d done her research after he helped the Navy stand against the Yennai Corporation. His AI was said to be one of the most advanced in known space.
The Etheric Empire had been far ahead of its time in many ways. Kantar knew that the Jotuns had been looking into many of the technologies the Empire—and now the Federation—had at its disposal.
Whoever he worked for now, Barnabas had a good team. He was resourceful and honorable. Kantar wanted to trust him with the rest of the plan.
It wasn’t her choice, though. Her employers were the ones who needed to approve this. Therefore, she took the risk of contact. Even with the Senate’s lackeys dead and their ship under Barnabas’ control, she took every precaution.
The call spent long enough connecting that she knew they were questioning whether they should answer. When they finally did, it was from a nondescript white room that could be anywhere.
“What has gone wrong?” Gil asked her at once. She did not know his full name. His suit was optimized for scientific research and surveillance, but she knew no more than that.
“Nothing is wrong,” Kantar said. “The Senate sent a team, but not for me.”
“What?” That was Wev, who was much like Gil, except that Gil was always quiet and Wev was always in motion. His tentacles churned through the water of his tank in a constant swirl. “Who would they have gone for?”
“You’re at Gerris Station,” Gil said. It was a question of a sort.
“Yes.” Kantar nodded. “Brakalon law says that a ship must be brought to a halt after a murder. We drifted for a week before someone came—Ranger One, formerly of the Etheric Empire.”
Both stilled. Not everyone would be aware of who Barnabas was, but Jotun Intelligence knew. It was their databases she had gone into when she was researching him. Neither Gil nor Wev spoke after she said that. They were watching her warily.
“Word of Huword’s death was sent to the Senate,” Kantar explained. “Other ships that had tried to approach the Srisa had been destroyed by one of their watchdogs. They wanted their ship to get there first to investigate. When Barnabas’ ship docked, I thought they bought him.”
“They had not?” Gil sounded suspicious.
“No.” Kantar rippled to show amusement. “I distrusted him and tried to subdue him. It was a miscalculation. He nearly caught me, and after I fled the ship, he pursued me here.” She would explain all of that later. “The Senate’s team found him here. They must have spoken to the crew of the Srisa.”
Neither of her employers said anything, and Kantar sighed. This was the frustrating part about working with Intelligence. They rarely offered anything to make a conversation go well. They just listened and watched.
“He would make a good ally,” she said, laying her cards on the table.
Both responded to that. Shock showed in Wev’s constant movements, and even Gil shot sideways in his tank.
“No,” Gil snapped, recovering first. “Absolutely not.”
“I agree.” Wev backed up his partner without hesitation. “It’s too dangerous.”
“What’s too dangerous is waiting,” Kantar argued. “There’s more to do.”
“And we are doing it,” Gil snarled. “We hired you for one thing, and you have done it. We are grateful for your aid. You will be paid.”
“I don’t care about the payment,” Kantar argued. It was a lie. She did care; she had bills the same as everyone, and she had to lay low for a while in case the Senate found out about her, too. “I care about this. I’m useful, I’m a good asset, and they’re so focused on Barnabas that I could still be helping.”
“If they remain focused on Barnabas,” Wev replied smoothly, “then he is not a good ally.”
Kantar always forgot this about Wev. He looked nervous and usually waited for Gil to speak first, but every so often he would make a sly, sideways observation that shook her—and she wasn’t even being interrogated. She shuddered to think what it would be like to speak to them if they were not on her side.
Gil was watching her, meanwhile. He did not say anything.
“Yes, they know of him,” Kantar said, “but they will track him down now, no matter what he does. We might as well put that confrontation to good purpose. He could help us, and he would.” She took a deep breath. “By accident, he guessed that another government might be involved. It was a shot in the dark; he was trying to scare them. But that’s what they think is going on. That’s who they think killed Huword.”
The other two swiveled in their tanks and simply looked at one another for so long that Kantar guessed they must have some subvocal way of speaking to each other. That would be useful in Intelligence operatives, she guessed.
When they swiveled back they looked eerily similar, even moving the same way.
“Tell us everything,” Gil said.
“Everything,” Wev agreed.
Kantar did. She told them about the conversation they had seen and the conversation she’d had with Barnabas. They did not like that, she could tell, even though she had not told him much of anything.
“That was how he guessed,” Wev said when she was done. “Because you let something slip.”
“I didn’t let anything slip,” Kantar said angrily. “I told him deliberately. Maybe you don’t agree with it—”
“We don’t,” Gil replied unequivocally.
“He could be a good ally! How many more do we need to take out before this is all over? We can’t do it all on our own.”
“We will take care of it,” Gil said at last. “Not you. Certainly not him.”
Kantar settled into mutinous silence.
“I think we should remind her,” Wev said. He switched the video feed to his suit’s sensory intake, and Kantar found herself jarred by the sudden change in perspective.
Wev got up and left the room, and she had a glimpse down a long hallway lined with doors. Wev chose one and opened it and went inside, with Gil behind him. As soon as they entered, Kantar knew why he had chosen this one.
The patients inside were kept behind panes of thick plastic. She could tell it was unbreakable because it was clear that the aliens inside had tried to break it. As Wev and Gil entered, they all showed their hatred with broken cries and hisses.
And their injuries… Kantar could hardly bear to look at them. Marks were healing all over their bodies, along with numerous scars.
“We’ve tried to rehabilitate them,” Wev explained to her. His voice echoed strangely in her head, given her perspective. “We dare not let them out of the building, of course. The committee can’t know that their experiments have been stopped.”
“We couldn’t let them out of the building even if the committee were finished,” Gil continued. He was all business. Usually, they both were, but right now Kantar could hear genuine sadness. “We tried it with one of them, an Ubuara, and it nearly killed Wev.”
Wev’s biosuit gave a little shudder
at the memory.
“An Ubuara?” She could not believe that.
“Have you ever seen a creature fight when it believes that is its only chance of survival?” Wev asked. “Have you seen a creature fight when it hates its opponent with all of its being and wants nothing more than to make it suffer? For that Ubuara, it was both. We killed it. It was not our intent, but it was the only way to stop it from killing us.”
Kantar found herself weeping. The mechanics were slightly different for a Jotun than for other species, but she still seeped salt into the water around her and tasted it on the tips of her tentacles. She could tell from their voices that they had not wanted to kill the Ubuara.
“The rest…we cannot chance it.” Gil had recovered some of his composure, though not all of it. “We have given them food and made them as comfortable as we can, but they do not hate us any less. They have been driven mad.” There was a pause, and then his voice changed. “Sometimes by accident we do the things that must have been commands of some sort. They obey, even though they hate us with everything they are.”
Kantar was shaking in her tank. She did not want to see this.
And yet, she must. This was why she was here. This was part of what Huword had helped the committee do—and he had been prepared to do much more.
“We went through their notes,” Gil continued. “Every one of them should be killed, but there is too much more to learn.”
Horror and frustration surged within her. “Then why don’t you let Barnabas help? He would help—he would! You’ve seen the things he’s done, so you know he’s honorable.”
“It’s that very honor that we can’t trust,” Gil snapped. After a pause, Wev turned his body so that Gil was looking directly into the sensors—at Kantar, all those millions of kilometers away. “That honor is what makes him dangerous to all of us. What would the Ubuara do to us if they knew about this? What would the Luvendi do? What would the Brakalons do?”
Kantar had no answer for that.
“We have to fix this ourselves,” Gil said. “Their lives will be avenged—all who suffered for this. It may not be repaid in full measure, but those who are responsible will pay.”