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

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Now, she didn’t seem to love anything.

  Flint ran a hand through his blond curls and made himself breathe. He had been a high-level computer programmer, a police officer, a police detective, and a Retrieval Artist. He had dealt with murderers from several species, saved lives, handled harrowing circumstances, and lost a child to an even more harrowing circumstance. His wife had betrayed him, not once, but dozens of times in the cruelest possible ways, and he had survived.

  In fact, he had thrived—or he wouldn’t be able to afford this place.

  What he hadn’t been able to do was comfort his daughter after her experience a week ago. She had left her room for meals, where she sat sullenly, staring at the food before she forced herself to eat it.

  She wouldn’t talk to him. Her lovely copper skin had become sallow, her cheeks chapped, her blue eyes—so like his—red-rimmed.

  He knew she’d been crying. When she would finally fall asleep, he would sneak into her room, and see the damp spots on her pillow. Sometimes he even saw a tear leak out of her closed eyes.

  She wasn’t faking sleep, either. The sadness had followed her into her dreams, giving her no respite.

  During the Peyti Crisis, she had been at school. Flint had thought her safe. He had put her in Aristotle Academy, the best school on the Moon, the place where everyone from high-end government officials to the exceedingly wealthy sent their children both for a good education and for protection against whatever might threaten the families.

  But the Peyti clones who had attacked the Moon had been “sleepers,” a term that Chief of Security of the Moon, Noelle DeRicci, had started using the day after the Crisis, and one that everyone in the media had picked up. It didn’t quite fit: those Peyti clones weren’t sleeping. They were taking advantage of their differences and their intellects to ingratiate themselves in human society.

  The Peyti were fragile-looking aliens, who wore masks that obscured most of their face, and enabled them to breathe in a human environment. The masks, it turned out, also masked their identities. Humans had grown accustomed to thinking that all Peyti looked alike, and the Peyti clones had taken advantage of that.

  They had looked alike. There were hundreds of them, all clones of something quite rare in Peyti culture, a mass murderer who had committed genocide decades before. That wasn’t a coincidence, as everyone on the Moon knew.

  Flint stood, and slipped his hands in the back pockets of his brown pants. He wore a sweater over them because he’d been cold since this last attack, even though the temperature controls in his apartment hadn’t changed in the last week.

  He’d been affected by this second attack—hell, he’d been affected by the first attack—but not as badly as Talia.

  Talia, who had forbidden him from sitting in the living room. The living room was the center of the apartment, and if he sat there, he could hear her rustling about in her room. He could also hear her sob, or at least, he had heard her on the first day after the attacks.

  Then he had gone in and comforted her until she pushed him away. The sobbing had stopped, but the tears hadn’t, and he had no idea what to do about it.

  He had been consulting with several networked psychologists, mostly people he had known when he worked with the police, and they just told him to give her time.

  But his daughter was strong and brilliant, and this kind of collapse was unlike her. She had survived an attack by her mother’s kidnappers, and she had survived not just the loss of her house, but the loss of all she had ever known.

  Including her identity. Because the great shock for Talia, in addition to learning that her mother had lied to her about pretty much everything, was the fact that Talia was not an original child. She was not a natural-born human being.

  She was a clone of Emmeline, Flint’s natural daughter, who had died in a day care center when she was an infant. Flint had learned that Talia’s mother Rhonda had cloned Emmeline several times for purposes of her own. Most of those clones were older than Talia, whom Rhonda had kept and raised as a natural child, until everything fell apart around her three and a half years ago.

  When Flint got Talia, he had adopted her immediately. He had done so for two reasons: He wanted her to feel valued and loved, but he also wanted her to be a legitimate human being in the eyes of the Earth Alliance. His actions had legally declared her a natural human being, even though she had a day of creation document instead of a birth certificate.

  The hatred of clones inside the Alliance—and on the Moon especially—had only gotten worse since the Anniversary Day attacks.

  Flint hadn’t been out in public much since the Peyti Crisis, but he suspected that what had once been acceptable hatred had probably become some kind of vitriol.

  For that reason alone, he had been glad his daughter had barely come out of her room—at least on the first day after the attacks. But now, he wanted her beside him. He had vowed, after he had looked one of the Peyti assassins in the eye at Talia’s school, that he would make sure that one clone alone would come to justice. What was between him and that Peyti was personal.

  But he hadn’t been able to deal with that Peyti; he hadn’t felt comfortable leaving Talia alone—and he had no one to ask for help. Those he trusted to stay with Talia were busy with their own problems in these days after the crisis.

  He walked to the door of his office, hovered there for a moment, then walked back inside. He should have been researching Uzvekmt, the Peyti mass murderer on whom the clones were based, or figuring out what these clone lawyers had worked on throughout their years on the Moon. He should have been tracing their origins, but he hadn’t had the ability to concentrate the way he wanted to.

  He could only think of Talia.

  His links chirruped, and the sound caught him off-guard. He didn’t have an aural setting for his link alarms. He frowned, and examined the link, and realized that it was an inactive private link that he hadn’t used for nearly a year.

  His frown deepened before he remembered that he had given that link out just recently and only because that link wasn’t associated with anyone or anything else.

  Luc Deshin.

  Flint wasn’t sure how he felt about Deshin. Deshin had given him good information about the Anniversary Day attacks before the Peyti Crisis, and they hadn’t really spoken since. Deshin’s odd little son, Paavo, went to the Aristotle Academy, and both men had seen each other the day of the crisis.

  Flint had already been at the school—he had hurried there to save Talia, only to discover her outside a clear barrier. People—humans—had died in that room when the school had changed the room’s environment from human to Peyti normal, deactivating the bomb on the Peyti lawyer’s face.

  Among the dead was a boy whom Talia had claimed she disliked. Only the boy had done something just that day which had confused her, and made her feel guilty about his death at the same time.

  Flint had guessed that she was feeling guilty over wishing the boy dead, but she claimed that wasn’t it. She said she wasn’t mourning the boy, and Flint believed that. But something about the boy’s death—about the fact that she had witnessed his death—had triggered this breakdown.

  The link chirruped again, and Flint hesitated. Deshin had proven himself trustworthy on the Anniversary Day attacks. He also loved his son, something completely in evidence during the Peyti Crisis. Deshin had swooped into the Academy, gathered Paavo in his arms, and hadn’t moved for what seemed like hours. The boy had clung to him, clearly feeling safe.

  Flint knew whatever he thought of Deshin and Deshin’s various enterprises, that the man was capable of great love.

  Flint sighed and sat down on one of the faux leather chairs that Talia had picked out for his office, saying they looked “professional,” whatever that meant. He clicked the link on visual, knowing that Deshin would be able to see his face, just like he could see Deshin’s.

  Deshin appeared from the waist up. Behind him, windows showed the curve of Armstrong’s dome over it
s skyline. The visible part of that skyline included the apartment building where Flint was. Flint wondered if that was a coincidence.

  “Mr. Deshin,” Flint said as flatly as he could. He didn’t want to show any emotion, even though he was certain that his exhaustion showed.

  Deshin’s square face looked pinched, as if he had eaten something that disagreed with him. He had shadows under his eyes, which surprised Flint. Usually shadows didn’t show on men with skin as dark as Deshin’s.

  “Mr. Flint,” Deshin said, nodding just a little. “I need to talk with you in person. It’s important.”

  Flint shook his head. “Let’s use the links and trust the encryption.”

  “No,” Deshin said. “We don’t dare. I’ve already arranged our usual meeting location. I’d like to see you there in an hour.”

  Their usual meeting location, if it could be called that, was the offices of Oberholtz, Martinez & Mlsnavek. It turned out that both Flint and Deshin shared an attorney, Celestine Gonzalez. She had handled Talia’s adoption and a case involving Deshin’s son.

  Flint did not want to leave the apartment, not even to go to the law offices for a short time. “I’m not taking orders, Mr. Deshin. I’m in the middle of a family crisis, and I don’t want to—”

  “Do you remember speaking to me a few days before last week’s attack? I have information that may help all of us, and I need to run it by you before I take any other steps.”

  Flint sighed. He had asked Deshin to use his connections to find out more about the designer criminal clones that had attacked Armstrong on Anniversary Day. The two men hadn’t spoken at all since a second set of clones tried to make a second attack.

  “Mr. Deshin, you don’t need my help on this. You know more about this area than I ever will—”

  “Flint, listen.” Deshin’s eyes had grown hard. “I already spoke to some people, and came across some information that has me—I need to talk with you. You’ll see why.”

  Flint glanced at the door to his office. He couldn’t leave Talia. Would she come with him? He wasn’t even certain of that.

  “I’ll do my best,” Flint said.

  “Best isn’t good enough,” Deshin said. “You don’t want me to be alone on this information. We need both of us on it.”

  Flint’s heart had started pounding. “I can’t leave Armstrong right now.”

  “Not asking you to. I’m asking you to meet me in less than an hour. I will see you there.”

  Deshin signed off.

  Flint stared at the empty spot where Deshin’s image had been. Every time Flint interacted with Deshin, he understood why that man had a reputation for ruthlessness. Deshin didn’t scare Flint, but something about the man put Flint at attention each time they spoke.

  Flint ran his hand through his hair again.

  Deshin wouldn’t have contacted him if it weren’t important. And right now, important took on a whole new meaning. Important might mean the future of the Moon, or even the Earth Alliance itself.

  Talia would understand.

  She would have to.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE BULL PEN was full of detectives. Nyquist hated the nickname of this part of the First Detective Division, but it was accurate. It was a large meeting area in Armstrong Police Headquarters reserved for times like this, when all detectives needed to be briefed on something.

  The ceiling was high, the walls curved, and floor was littered with built-in platforms that could rise at the touch of a button. The platforms were there for a variety of reasons. The Chief of Detectives before Gumiela liked to play with the buttons, so if anyone raised a hand to talk, that person would rise above the group, whether he liked it or not.

  Gumiela liked to be the most important person in the room, so she never used that feature. Instead, she used the platforms the way they were intended, to confuse someone who wanted to spy on the proceedings. There would be no way to know—until she arrived—where she’d stand or how she would conduct business.

  Like he always did at these things, Nyquist leaned against a back wall, near an exit. He used to arrive early and watch the techs sweep the room for foreign equipment. He stopped doing that when he started seeing holes in their procedures.

  The inefficiencies bugged him enough that he would either have to say something, which would then get him involved in the search for outside taps, or he would have to stop watching what happened before everyone else arrived.

  He opted to stop watching.

  He couldn’t fix what he didn’t know.

  He crossed his arms and tilted his head back, feeling the exhaustion from the night before filling him. He loved his time with DeRicci, even when she was stressed beyond belief, but the lack of sleep, combined with the tension of his job, made him feel worse than usual this morning.

  “C’mon,” a female voice said beside him. “Don’t tell me you of all people aren’t sleeping these days. I figured you had balls of steel and could sleep through anything if need be.”

  Nyquist opened his eyes and looked down. Savita Romey stood beside him, smiling. Her dark eyes met his, and he felt that familiar catch in his heart.

  Right after he had spent the night with DeRicci, he would have to see Romey. Spending time with DeRicci didn’t stop the attraction from flowing between Nyquist and Romey, deep and fine.

  She wore pants so faded he couldn’t tell if they had originally been blue or gray. Her shirt was loose, and it took him a moment to realize it had one of the local high school’s logos on it. She had sons, and one of them had to be in high school now. The fact she was wearing his shirt meant that the state of her laundry was the same as his.

  They had all been worked ragged. She just didn’t look it, unless he looked closely.

  “Rumor is that they’re going to pair us up for interrogations. Want to be my partner, handsome?” she asked.

  He wished she hadn’t added the “handsome.” He would have said yes automatically if she hadn’t. They had partnered up twice before, the first time on the Whitford case just before Nyquist nearly died in a Bixian assassins’ attack, and the second was on Anniversary Day, when they were both supposed to investigate Arek Soseki’s murder, before everyone realized that the death wasn’t isolated.

  “Maybe our partnerships are cursed,” he said.

  “Or maybe we’re in an extraordinary period in Armstrong history, and we need to accept that.” She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, mirroring his position. “I really want someone I can trust, not some of these idiots out there, who think they can do a job, and really can’t.”

  In spite of himself, Nyquist smiled. He liked this woman. He liked her humor, he liked her personality, and he liked her thoroughness. She was the best partner he’d ever had.

  Before Anniversary Day, in fact, he’d asked her to partner with him twice. After, everything got screwed up, and he barely saw her.

  He barely saw anyone.

  “We make a good team,” she said, scanning the room. It had filled with detectives—all human, he noted. Half were dressed up, and the other half looked like unmade beds.

  He knew, right then, he would only work with an unmade bed. If someone had enough time to dress up for a meeting with the boss—a group meeting with the boss—then that person was not busy enough. If someone wasn’t busy enough, they simply weren’t doing the job.

  “You think they’ll let us pick who we partner with?” he asked.

  “I think they would like anything that makes their lives easier,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  He would love an easier life, at least in theory. Back to the days when criminals were dumb and easy to find. Back when his biggest problem was some ethical dilemma caused by the conflict between some other culture’s laws and his own. Back when a Disty Vengeance Killing seemed like a problem instead of something normal.

  “I don’t think ‘easier’ is on the menu these days.” Nyquist couldn’t see where Gumiela was setting up. She hadn’t come into the
room yet.

  But it was getting hotter in here and stuffier. Detectives kept entering, pressing against him as they passed.

  Romey bumped him, probably because someone bumped her, and then she did not move away. He probably should have moved away, but he didn’t.

  “I don’t think pre-choosing partners is something they’ll disagree with,” she said. “Unless you’re talking about a different kind of easier?”

  He sighed softly. His thoughts had been pretty much the same all morning. That was one of the reasons he was dreading today’s meeting.

  “I don’t care what the brass says,” he said softly, thinking as he did so that he should probably have spoken to her on his links. “We’re not going to be able to successfully interrogate a bunch of Peyti lawyers.”

  Romey’s entire body was pressed against his. He looked around her, saw that several other detectives pushed against her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a grin. “It depends on the rules you choose to follow.”

  Nyquist frowned at her.

  What do you mean? he asked, going with his gut. The rest of this conversation had to be on their private links.

  We can interrogate Peyti lawyers, she sent, her grin widening. Or we can interrogate a bunch of clones.

  He felt a chill. He didn’t have to ask her what she meant. He knew.

  But she started to explain anyway. There are no rules for ‘interrogating’ property. Hell, as long as the property is logged in, we can break it or discard it. We just need to file documentation on what happened to the property.

  His heart was beating hard. He glanced around the room, feeling worried that someone else had heard, and knowing that no one had.

  That might be the letter of the law, he sent, but that’s not the spirit of the law.

  Oh, God, she sent. Not that old saw about justice versus legality, right? We don’t owe these bastards any kind of justice. Under the law, they have no rights at all.