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

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  She was correct. He knew that, and it scared him. Because if she had thought of it, then dozens of others in the room had as well. Maybe that was what this meeting was about. Maybe it wasn’t about picking partners at all.

  Or maybe it was.

  The chill he felt grew more powerful. Those who objected to the “property” definition would be paired with others who objected, and those who preferred the “property” definition would be paired with like-minded detectives. Those in charge would know, and success would be measured by results.

  He leaned his head against the wall.

  He also knew which group would get the best results and it wouldn’t be the ones who followed the spirit of the law.

  You disapprove, Romey sent. You were there on Anniversary Day. One of these clones tried to kill you—someone you’ve known for years. And you still disapprove of following the law.

  Nyquist wasn’t certain what part of her comment to respond to. He found that he couldn’t look at her.

  He had respected her. He was attracted to her. He liked her.

  She was suggesting something wholly repugnant to him. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around her words. Not because of what she said—he hadn’t thought of what she said, but it didn’t surprise him that someone in this room had come up with it—but he was surprised at who said it to him.

  And he was surprised at himself. How could he have misjudged her so badly?

  He had to respond. He couldn’t keep silent. So he sent, You’re right. Someone I had known for years tried to kill me during the Peyti Crisis. Someone. A person.

  She elbowed him, probably trying to get him to look at her. He didn’t want to. He felt childish about it, but he wasn’t sure he could face her right now. So he shifted just a bit to his right, moving a little closer to another detective who gave him an odd look.

  Nyquist shrugged. He mentally debated moving across the room, when a door opened a few meters from him, and Gumiela’s team entered.

  The meeting had officially begun.

  NINETEEN

  WITHOUT THE ELABORATE environmental programs, Salehi’s office was distressingly normal. Gray walls, black furniture, whitish-grayish carpet. He had forgotten what the place looked like without the magical, make-believe overlay.

  He had designed it this way, so that when he concentrated on work, he would have to concentrate on work, and be willing to leave the comfort of his own sanctuary to do whatever needed to be done.

  Unfortunately for his potential clients, he had been unwilling to leave his sanctuary these last few years. He had taken less and less work. He hadn’t exercised his mind enough. And he’d made stupid pronouncements to the new hires.

  His standard speech went something like this: You’ll hit a point when you’ll wonder what’s the point of defense. You’ll feel tainted. You’ll think you’ve sold your soul for a bit of wealth and privilege. That’s why you do pro bono work. Or you volunteer for a quarter back at the Impossibles. You’ll see the need for defense then. You’ll remember it’s not just about the guilty. It’s also about what’s right.

  And then, when half of the hires moved on (and blamed him for their shattered idealism) and the other half 3/8ths became money-grubbing whores, he would say fatuously that no one ever listened to him.

  Hell, he didn’t even listen to himself.

  It’s not just about the guilty. It’s also about what’s right.

  Wasn’t that what Shishani had just said to him? So what if the Peyti clones had tried to destroy most of the domes on the Moon? They would be treated like property, not like Peyti, and that could mean all kinds of disastrous things—for them.

  A lesser man would say too damn bad. Or might even decide that they deserved those things. (They probably did.) An even lesser man would take the case for the money. (Screw you, Schnabbie, you bastard. You defend them if all you want is money.)

  But Shishani was right: Salehi could make a difference. A major difference in clone law. Clone law was inherently unfair. Salehi could change it all. Yes, he’d have to go to bed with mass murderers, but he would improve life in the Alliance for millions of very good citizens.

  Sometimes good things were built on the backs of very bad events.

  Besides, dealing with bad people for good reasons was what he had signed on for, back at the Impossibles. With his pedigree, he could have stepped into a prosecutorial role or he could have gotten on a judgeship track instead of going to the Impossibles. He didn’t have school loans, so he didn’t have to work them off in the public defender’s office.

  But he had worked in the worst, most notorious part of the Alliance’s judicial system. Not because he was altruistic (okay, he was), but because someone had bet him he couldn’t survive that place. Everyone, from his professors to his parents, believed that his delicate upper class upbringing hadn’t prepared him for life in the Impossibles—and it hadn’t.

  But that upbringing had given him a certain invincibility, a certain sense of what was right. He had needed it in the Impossibles. He was often dealing with clients who had broken a law that they hadn’t even realized existed, a law that made no sense to a human being.

  The Earth Alliance was built on the idea that local trumped the Alliance—at least when it came to events that happened within a culture. If a human smashed a gold cup on Ostii, the human would be forced to lose an eye for shaming some Ostii God, because the aliens who governed the planet believed that crap, and anyone who went to the planet had to abide by Ostii law.

  He always thought of that example because it had been the basis of the first case he lost in the Impossibles. The prosecuting attorney—as green as Salehi was—said after the thirty-second gavel down was over, Asshole, didn’t you take Alien Cultures first year? You should know this stuff.

  Salehi had known it. He somehow hadn’t believed until that moment that the Alliance laws protecting local customs applied to actual living beings.

  To say learning that was a rude awakening was an understatement.

  It certainly wasn’t the worst thing he’d seen at the Impossibles, where every judge was horribly overworked, every defense attorney was unable to have an hour to review a case, and all of the legal rulings were stacked against anyone unfortunate enough to walk through those doors.

  His clients often hadn’t done what was right—at least under the law—but he felt they should have been treated fairly, and they usually weren’t, because they were poor, unable to afford any of the amenities that he had, or they didn’t understand the various cultures, or they simply weren’t smart enough to realize what was happening to them.

  He hadn’t looked down on them, like so many public defenders had did. He got angry for them. He had defended them.

  And then he had come here, a firm built on defense. But it was defense for rich people, and he had slowly come to despise that.

  Hence his little speech, his attempt at touching the others around him.

  His desire to improve the universe around him.

  About the time Salehi thought that impossible, Shishani threw his idealism in his face.

  You have to defend the worst to protect the best, he had once told a third-year lawyer. That lawyer was now one of the firm’s top earners, and on track to make partner.

  She had taken the advice.

  Salehi had let the problems get to his heart. And he knew this case—these cases—would get to his heart as well.

  He wasn’t sure he was capable of hardening it enough.

  After all, he wouldn’t just be dealing with the worst, as he had told that young lawyer. He would be dealing with creatures that had no fellow-feeling, creatures willing to kill for a cause. Or worse, creatures somehow damaged in their creation, creatures deliberately missing something.

  He shivered. He hoped the clones were identical to their original, because if they weren’t, his case would be ever so much harder.

  His case.

  He was already thinking of it in a proprie
tary way.

  He rubbed his hands on his bare arms, feeling goosebumps from the so-called normal temperature in his office. He got up, went to the large ensuite bathroom/sleeping area he had built for the days when he believed he would be really ambitious and work 18-hour days. He hadn’t done worked 18-hour days in years, but he still had the bed, the bathroom and the clothes.

  He pulled open the closet, seeing an array of high-end suits that someone had been replenishing, probably his legal assistant. Latest styles in the neutrals and light colors that Salehi preferred. He wondered where the old suits had gone. To some charity probably, because that was what he used to mandate.

  He grabbed a tan suit with a long coat and matching pants, and found a pale pink shirt. He changed, pulled back his hair, wondering if he should trim it. How much effort should he put into looking like a lawyer who actually gave a damn?

  And when he asked that question of himself, he knew that he had just become a lawyer who gave a damn. If he was going to defend those mass murders (attempted, he corrected himself. Then, because he was horribly out of practice, he corrected himself again. Alleged. They were alleged conspirators toward mass murder. Or maybe failed assassins for hire. Or something).

  Anyway, he already foresaw what a disaster this all could be. Schnabbie believed the cases that would extend for years, and he was right. No matter how Salehi argued this, he would be arguing for these alleged killers for a decade, maybe more.

  If the authorities on the Moon treat the alleged killers as property and destroyed them before their day in court, then Salehi might be arguing even longer.

  He wasn’t certain. After all, these were new waters, uncharted and unsung. He would change the law if he succeeded, but he would be using a case (and defendants) so heinous that he wouldn’t be lauded for it.

  He would be despised.

  And strangely enough, that galvanized him even more.

  He hadn’t become a defense attorney to be liked.

  Nor had he become one to be rich. Unlike his colleagues (but not the name partners) he didn’t need the money. His family had owned this firm for generations. He had money coming out of his ass. He loathed money. Sometimes he actually believed that cliché that money was the root of all evil.

  Hell, Salehi always looked pointedly at Schnabbie when spouting that cliché. Because Schnabbie, despite inheriting millions in cash not counting the value of all the property and one-third of the firm, always believed that a man could never have enough money.

  Salehi had seen Schnabbie drool when he talked about the unlimited fees they could charge the Peyti government. Shishani, who liked to claim that she represented the healthy balance between the two men, knew that no client would pay forever, particularly in a heinous case.

  But the Peyti, as lawyerly as they were, understood that this case would define not just the Earth Alliance, but the relationship the Peyti had with all members of the Alliance, maybe for decades.

  The Peyti needed to get ahead of this case, and they were already years behind.

  Salehi was already a week behind, and no matter what he did, he would be another week behind. He couldn’t get to the Moon quickly.

  He adjusted the sleeves on his suit, then headed back to his desk, finally feeling comfortable for the first time since he shut off the desert program. The clothes, the change in the environment, the cool white light on his desk, made him think like a lawyer again.

  He needed injunctions. They could get to the Moon within hours. He needed to enjoin the authorities on the Moon from destroying the clones. He also needed to enjoin them against prosecuting the clones until he and his legal team arrived. He needed to enjoin the authorities from treating the clones as property. Property got placed in storage. Property could be dinged and damaged as part of the treatment in a case. Property wasn’t protected, not like living beings were.

  His stomach was in knots, not because he was taking this case, but because he was so far behind. Not just in time, but in thought.

  He hadn’t contemplated any of this stuff for years, if at all.

  He would also need injunctions against taking DNA from the so-called conspirators. He needed to prevent the Moon’s authorities from interviewing the clones or having any interaction besides the care that they would normally have if they were actual Peyti under the law.

  He let out a breath, then rotated his shoulders, listening to them crack. He needed matching injunctions against any authorities in the Earth Alliance, in case the Moon’s officials decided to make this one an Alliance case from the start, just to get around what he was doing.

  And he needed this all quickly.

  He couldn’t write these on his own.

  If Schnable and Shishani wanted to profit from these cases, then they needed to let him use all of the resources of S3 to protect these cases until Salehi arrived.

  He contacted his partners through the partner link.

  I need you, our best attorneys, and our most promising associates in a meeting room right now. Prepare to work all night.

  He didn’t wait for their answer.

  Because he had one more person he had to contact. Only one staff member of S3 was on the Moon at the moment.

  It didn’t matter that the staff member was on leave of absence pending a review which (everyone knew) would lead to him stepping down from the firm.

  That incident no longer mattered. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to step down. He actually had experience with the Earth Alliance and with clones, and Salehi needed him.

  Salehi contacted his legal assistant on his links.

  Find me Torkild Zhu, he sent. And find him now.

  TWENTY

  THE LAW OFFICES of Oberholtz, Martinez & Mlsnavek looked empty, even though a skeleton staff ran the place. No receptionist guarded the first floor lobby. Instead, someone had set the automated reception protocols.

  Luc Deshin didn’t have to go through those. He’d caged a staff chip years ago, although he never told anyone at the firm. They knew he came in and out at will, and they pretended they didn’t mind.

  He knew that the staff, with the exception of a few junior lawyers, were out of the building for the entire day, attending funerals. Most everyone who had died during the Peyti Crisis had been a lawyer or someone connected to a lawyer.

  This firm had lost two lawyers who represented the Growing Pits, and were in the middle of an outside the dome conference when one of the idiot Peyti clones set off its mask. The explosion had destroyed an outbuilding and killed twenty.

  The reason Deshin had insisted Flint come during this hour was because he knew the offices would be empty. Gonzalez had told him so.

  She looked defeated. Normally, Celestine Gonzalez was unflappable. A tall woman who had become matronly in the last few years, Gonzalez also had a warm and vicious courtroom presence that Deshin admired.

  But this morning, she had seemed smaller, older.

  I can’t help you, Luc, she had said. I have this funeral, and then we’re going to have a partners meeting this afternoon. The Moon’s legal system is in great turmoil right now. Everyone’s questioning everything. I don’t have time for clandestine meetings between clients of mine who aren’t supposed to know each other.

  Normally, she wasn’t that harsh with her bluntness. Normally, she pretended that she didn’t understand half the things Deshin was doing. Obviously, on this day, she didn’t give a damn.

  He had thanked her, asked a few questions that sounded sympathetic and weren’t, and at the same time, downloaded her calendar for the day while he was talking with her. It was linked to the law firm’s calendar, something he would point out in a few weeks, mentioning that confidentiality was easily breached at Oberholtz, Martinez & Mlsnavek. That would appall her.

  If she could be appalled any more.

  Once he got past the automated receptionist, he took the elevator to the proper floor. He didn’t care that he would show up on all the surveillance. If anyone asked him—i
f anyone bothered to look—he would say that he had thought he would have time to see Gonzalez before her meetings.

  If someone mentioned Flint, Deshin would say he had no idea why the Retrieval Artist had shown up here. After Flint arrived, they were doing what anyone would do these days—discussing Anniversary Day, the Peyti Crisis, and what it meant for the Moon.

  Deshin doubted anyone would challenge him. He brought too much money to this firm, and had for decades.

  When he reached the right floor, he exited and waited in what passed for reception here. There was never an actual living being at this reception desk; it had always been automated, and it had always accepted him, whether he had been scheduled or not.

  He just wanted to make sure he shepherded Flint through.

  Deshin paced while he waited, still turning over his meeting with Iban in his mind. He’d managed to monitor a lot of her link communication, coming up with several names when she consulted via what she thought was a secure connection with the other members of her team.

  They hadn’t used full names, assuming that each had known who the other was referring to, but that didn’t matter to Deshin. He already had staff investigating the connections, hoping he would not have to meet with Iban again and pretend to be interested in buying clones.

  Still, he proceeded as if he were going to do business with her. He had several members of his staff follow her to a dilapidated building in Old Armstrong. They had to be careful not to get noticed. They’d tagged off each other, and someone had also included a small fly chip, something barely the size of a fingernail clipping that honed in on a subject and not only tracked it, but recorded it as well.

  The chips weren’t that sophisticated, and a lot of systems caught and disabled them, which was why he’d actually sent a human team as well.

  None of them had been able to get in the building, at least not yet, and he had no idea if they’d been able to set up some kind of internal surveillance. He would find out soon enough, he supposed.