The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  But Gerda had convinced him, and he had benefitted. He loved the food she made with the slow heating unit.

  “Daddy!” Paavo shouted and ran to Deshin. He hit Deshin with a force that rocked him slightly.

  His boy, eight now, was no longer so thin that Deshin worried about him. He was getting taller as well. He hadn’t hit a growth spurt yet, but it was coming. His face held hints of the adult he would become.

  In the two years since Deshin had solved the problem of Paavo’s ghosts, the problems that had filtered into the illegal links his biological parents had installed before Disappearing, Paavo had become a steadier, happier child.

  He still treated his father as if his father—not his mother—were the center of his world. Deshin constantly braced himself for the day that would change: his memory of growing up and all of the child-rearing experts said at some point in his pre-teen years, Paavo would challenge his father’s authority. But that point hadn’t come yet.

  Paavo looked up at him. The streak of flour was no longer on Paavo’s cheek, which meant it was probably on Deshin’s clothes.

  “Something wrong?” Paavo asked, and his tone held that adultness that had threatened for months now.

  Deshin didn’t know how to answer that.

  Something always was wrong when he arrived home in the middle of the afternoon, but Paavo had meant the question in a particular way. He was asking if something as drastic as Anniversary Day or the Peyti Crisis had occurred.

  Deshin’s gaze met Gerda’s. There were lines on her face that hadn’t been there before. She clearly had the same question their son did.

  Deshin didn’t want to talk about the family’s future with Paavo. The boy was brilliant, one of the smartest children ever to attend Aristotle Academy, but he was still very young emotionally. And Deshin never had a good handle on the boy—what he could deal with and what he couldn’t.

  Deshin had thought that Paavo would have trouble with the Peyti Crisis, particularly since several people—including a student—had died in the United Domes emergency action to stop the Peyti clones. But Paavo had taken that in stride. He was too young to know the student, and somehow he had come to the conclusion that bad things happened everywhere.

  The only thing Deshin didn’t like about Paavo’s attitude was that Paavo also seemed to believe his father would make everything right.

  “We haven’t heard anything on the news,” Gerda said. “Has something happened?”

  “Not like that,” Deshin said, his hands still on Paavo’s back. The boy’s muscles had developed now, partly because he had insisted on learning how to be as strong as his father.

  Some day, his boy would be as strong as his father and fifty times smarter. His boy would be the most formidable man in Armstrong, maybe in the Alliance—if there was anything left of Armstrong or the Alliance by then.

  “Some business has come up,” Deshin said. “Paavo, can you let your mother and I—”

  “You’re going to leave?” Paavo asked, his grip tightening. “Mom’s scared and you’re going to go away on business?”

  Gerda winced, confirming Paavo’s words—as if Deshin needed them confirmed. Deshin’s heart sank. He knew that Gerda was upset by all that had happened; he hadn’t realized that her fears had seeped into the boy as well.

  Deshin didn’t want to lie to his son, so he told an incomplete truth. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  The actual truth would have been “that’s not exactly why I’m here,” although it was close.

  Gerda must have seen the thought cross his face. She tried to get control of her own expression, but didn’t seem able to. Instead, she bent down, turned the bread pans around inside the oven, then closed the oven door, her face flushed from the heat. She had done that so she wouldn’t have to look at him, so that he wouldn’t see her reaction to his news.

  “Can you give us a minute, Paavo?” Gerda asked, only her tone brooked no disagreement. She had made it sound like a question, but both the men in her life knew she was commanding Paavo to leave the room.

  “I’m old enough—”

  “Yes, you are,” Deshin said. “But right now, this isn’t about age. This is about private things between your parents. Please, let us talk.”

  Paavo pulled away from him. Gerda half-smiled at Deshin. He never said “please” to anyone except his boy.

  He and Gerda had brought him into their lives as a baby, but hadn’t formally adopted him until two years ago, fearing legal complications with his Disappeared parents. They ended up having legal complications, just not the ones they expected.

  But he was theirs now, and that moment when Deshin thought he might lose the boy, that was the worst moment of his life.

  He never expected to be this kind of parent. He thought he would be the father of half a dozen children, coming home to a large laughing household filled with playful athletic kids, not a quiet place with his wife and his brilliant son, thinking the day away.

  But early on, Paavo had proven such a difficult child and they had loved him so much they didn’t want to lose focus on him when they brought in a different child.

  Deshin and Gerda had talked about adopting another child. They felt that it might be good for Paavo now. But that had been just before Anniversary Day.

  Anniversary Day changed everything.

  Gerda walked to the kitchen door and stood, arms crossed. She watched as Paavo walked into his room and pulled the door closed.

  Then she turned to Deshin.

  “You can’t leave us now. There’s going to be another attack. We’ll die without you.”

  He’d never heard his wife sound so terrified. He had married her for her courage as well as her heart. She had stood up to horrible things in their past, and she had defended Paavo like a she-tiger during the crisis with his biological parents.

  If Gerda were one of his valued employees or even one of his friends, he would have tried to placate her. But she knew him better than anyone. She knew when he was trying to manipulate her.

  He extended his hand toward the table, so that she would sit down. She shook her head slightly, clearly too upset to sit calmly. So he did.

  He sat in one of the soft chairs that were such a part of his comfortable home, and stretched out his legs, crossed at the ankle, as if he were relaxing after one of Gerda’s marvelous meals.

  “I’m not here to talk about my absence,” he said.

  She frowned. She clearly didn’t understand.

  “Sit, please,” he said.

  She did. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs as if she were going to spring up at any moment. Behind her, he could see bowls on the counter. They were filled fresh-cut vegetables, some meat, and a spice mixture. He had no idea what she was going to make, but he knew it would be good.

  “Since the Peyti Crisis, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Hell, since Anniversary Day. Since I couldn’t get home.”

  “Luc, we’ve talked about that—”

  He held up a hand, silencing her, then instantly regretted it. He didn’t want to treat her like staff, but he didn’t apologize either.

  “Let me, Gerda,” he said.

  Her lips thinned. She leaned back in the chair like a petulant teenager, and he almost—almost—smiled at the movement.

  He’d been married to her long enough to know better than to smile at anything in a serious discussion.

  “You remember that Retrieval Artist? Flint?”

  She nodded.

  “Before the crisis last week, I asked him to get me information on the explosions—what materials were used.”

  “Luc, you promised you wouldn’t get involved.” That exasperation again.

  He hadn’t promised. He had dodged. He had believed, after he had traveled to trace the zoodeh, that someone in authority would take over the investigations he was running.

  He had hoped it would be Flint, but Deshin was just beginning to realize how stretched everyone was, and how clueless.
<
br />   He didn’t argue with his wife. He couldn’t.

  “I know you’re worried for me,” he said. “And—.”

  “It’s not just me,” she said. “Paavo is afraid for you. He knows how close you came to dying on Anniversary Day. I don’t know how he knows, but he does.”

  Deshin’s cheeks flushed. He hadn’t wanted his boy to know, but it was hard to hide information from Paavo. The boy was getting good at ferreting out a lot of things he shouldn’t know.

  Another sidetrack.

  Deshin nodded, working hard to keep his focus on Gerda.

  “I’ve been talking to Flint, and my people have been following the official investigation.” Deshin made certain his tone was slow and measured. “They know nothing more than they did six months ago. And yet we all agree on one thing: there will be another attack.”

  She shook her head. Denial.

  “Gerda,” he said softly. “You know it too. That was the first thing you and Paavo thought of when you saw me.”

  She closed her eyes and bowed her head. She wasn’t denying anything.

  “I used to make fun of people who stayed in war zones,” he said quietly. “Especially people who had the money to escape. I wondered what kind of delusion kept them in place.”

  She raised her head, eyes open now. She was watching him closely.

  “Now, I know,” he said. “It’s a feeling that things just can’t get worse. Nothing else can happen. We’ve been through it all.”

  That guarded expression had returned to her face. If the circumstances were different, he’d kiss the expression away.

  “Gerda,” he said, “I’d like you and Paavo to go to Earth until this is all over. Somewhere with fantastic schools, somewhere pretty or with great weather or lots of history. Somewhere that will nurture our son.”

  “You nurture our son,” she said.

  “I protect our son,” Deshin said. “And I’ve been trying to come up with some place safe for him. There’s nowhere on the Moon right now. And you know it.”

  Gerda stood. She walked over to the counter, and put her hands on two of the bowls as if she were thinking of doing something with them. Only she didn’t.

  “You’ll come with us?” she asked with her back to him. Her posture told him she already knew the answer, and she didn’t want to see it on his face before he spoke.

  “No,” he said.

  “Because of business.” She had never spit the word like that, never made it sound so very hateful, before.

  “No,” he said.

  She whirled. Her face had gone gray.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “There’s an investigation that only I can do.”

  “You?” She said in that same tone, the one he’d never heard before. “You’re going to work with the authorities? You?”

  It was a sign of how stressed she was, how frightened she was, that she was going to attack him.

  He had never seen her like this before.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I told you about that Retrieval Artist.”

  “He’s working with the authorities,” she said.

  “Yes,” Deshin said. “He wants my help with designer clones.”

  “What can you do?” She asked. “You never had any respect for people who used them. And you hated it the one time someone planted a clone in our…”

  Her voice trailed off. She was clearly beginning to understand.

  “These people, they saved our lives,” Deshin said. “They stopped the Peyti clones.”

  “Yes,” she said, head down.

  “But they have no idea how to investigate the designer clones, and honestly, if they tried, the makers would scatter like the insects that they are. But they won’t run from me.”

  “Won’t they know?” she asked. “Won’t they suspect you’re doing something with the government if you come asking about Peyti clones and PierLuigi Frémont?”

  “I won’t asked about Peyti clones,” he said. “That would tip them off.”

  Deshin was known for not using aliens in his business.

  “But,” he continued, “I can ask about Frémont, as long as I have the right kind of bank roll.”

  “You’d offer to buy…?” her voice trailed off again. “Luc, can’t you send some of your people to do this?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’m not sure. But as I was thinking about it, I realized that I would be worrying about you and Paavo the whole time. And I can’t, Gerda. I can’t be here for you. If something happens on the Moon, we could all die in an instant, even if we’re together.”

  “I’d rather die together,” she said softly.

  He waited until she looked at him, chin out defiantly.

  “You’d condemn Paavo to that?” he asked. “An early death? Or maybe outliving us, and having to survive in the wreckage that would be the Moon.”

  “Don’t put it like that, Luc,” Gerda said. “That’s not fair.”

  “The truth isn’t always fair,” he said.

  She glared at him. When she did that, he knew he had moved her. If he didn’t push, she would come around.

  “How long would we have to be gone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  She swallowed hard, then crossed her arms.

  “Will you live through this?” she asked softly.

  “I hope so,” he said.

  “You have to promise me,” she said fiercely. “You have to promise me or we won’t go without you. I’ll make you stay with us. You have to promise me.”

  He hadn’t expected this level of vehemence. It told him just how terrified his wife was underneath her calm façade.

  “Gerda,” he said gently. “You know I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

  She burst into tears.

  He got up and put his arms around her. She felt marvelous, all warm and soft and perfect, his familiar and very strong wife.

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “I can’t live without you,” she said into his shirt.

  “Of course you can,” he said, nuzzling her hair. It smelled of fresh bread. “You just don’t want to.”

  “Damn right,” she said. “Don’t make me, Luc.”

  “I don’t make you do anything,” he said, “except consider Paavo.”

  She stiffened in his arms. Then she leaned back so she could see his face.

  “Bastard,” she said, but the word wasn’t vehement. It was a capitulation.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And that’s exactly what the Moon needs right now. Bastards like me.”

  TWELVE

  AVA HUỲNH STALKED down the halls of the Earth Alliance Security Office. She really shouldn’t have left her department, Earth Alliance Security Headquarters for the Human Division, but she couldn’t remain there any longer.

  Someone was going to have to take care of this, and since no one was, she was going to step in. She had thought about it all night, and when she got up, she put on battle clothes.

  Not that anyone else would know what those were—her most comfortable outfit, a blue pair of slacks, a matching blue shirt, and her favorite blue shoes—but she knew. And that was what mattered.

  That, and the fact that she had been right all along.

  She got to the “sky bridge” which connected the Human Investigative Unit and the Joint Investigative Unit, and continued to stomp. If she were going to change her mind, this was where she should have done it, right here, as she crossed out of her jurisdiction to the one she got criticized for consulting all the time.

  But she had come here six months ago, and had been shot down, and she had been right, dammit. She had believed that humans and aliens should have been jointly investigating the Anniversary Day attacks, because—despite what everyone said—the Moon was not just a human place.

  It was the gateway into the heart of the Earth Alliance. Earth herself, the very center of the Alliance, the place where it had all began.

  Not to mentio
n the fact that every species traveled to Earth at one point or another, and that meant every species traveled to the Moon.

  But noooo, Xyven would have none of that. Xyven believed the bombings on the Moon had been a human problem. Xyven had turned down her petition for joint investigatory teams.

  And she couldn’t help think that there might have been more to it.

  She had spent all night trying to shed that thought, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure if she was being as bigoted as Xyven had been when he quashed the idea of joint investigations or if she had reason to be suspicious.

  And, since she was the kind of woman who didn’t even know how to be circumspect, she was going directly to Xyven first, even though she probably should have gone farther up the ladder, to the Director of the entire investigative unit—the one that coordinated every single department, human and alien, and the joint department where humans and aliens investigated together.

  She hated this damn sky bridge. Because there was no sky. She was on starbase that housed all of the Earth Alliance’s Security division. She thought of the entire thing as a giant spider web, with smaller bases encircling the larger base, and all of them attached by tunnels and “bridges” and all sorts of other walkways and passageways that made the place the most confusing she had ever worked.

  At least she had memorized it. So many staff members simply let the maps on the links guide them, which she figured would bite them in the ass one day. What would they do when the systems went down and they had to get from one part of the base to another?

  They’d have no idea where to go or how to get there.

  But she would.

  She slammed her way through Joint Unit’s green and gold reception area, past the android receptionist that sent a panicked message to her links:

  You do not have an appointment!

  She never had appointments, but she knew one day that bipedal thing with the green/gold/blue eyes and the face that tried to shift from preferred species to another would try to stop her from entering.

  If it tried today, she’d—oh, she had no idea what she’d do, but it would be bad.

  She ignored the insistent messages, and stomped down the Disty-decorated hall. Because the first director had been Disty, everything was warrenlike—small and twisty. Fortunately, she wasn’t very tall either. Some of her colleagues couldn’t even stand upright here.