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

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He wondered if she remembered. He suspected she did.

  “What’ll you pay, Berhane?”

  “Is this really about money?” she asked.

  He thought, Of course it’s about money, Berhane. Don’t you know me? and struggled to keep that thought to himself as well.

  “Berhane?” he asked.

  She frowned. That disapproving expression that had covered her face so many times in the past. He recognized it, and then he would try to placate it. Now, he didn’t want to.

  She said, “The organizations that represent the victims, we don’t have a lot of money.”

  He knew that. He had known that when he asked the question. But he wanted her on the defensive now.

  “So,” he said, “pay for it with family funds.”

  If she did that, if she paid him commensurate with the money he would get from S3 over the next ten years, then maybe he would consider working for her.

  Her lips thinned. She whirled away from him and walked to the window.

  He’d hit a sore spot. And as he was getting over his shock, he realized he was also getting mad. She had attacked him.

  He was going to attack back.

  “Your father doesn’t approve of what you’re doing, does he?” Zhu said.

  “It’s not about my father,” she said.

  Liar, he wanted to say. It’s always about your father.

  “Did he cut you off?” Zhu asked.

  “No,” she said, arms crossed.

  Zhu recognized the posture. He wasn’t to ask any more questions. She would lose control if he did. And he didn’t want her to cry in front of him. That had happened more times than he could count, and he really didn’t want to suffer through it again.

  “So, he put you on an allowance?” Zhu asked.

  “Why is this suddenly about me?” she ask, turning around to face him. Her skin was beet red, her eyes wet. “You’re defending murderers.”

  He was. And, oddly, that was the job he had signed on for. He had decided to be a defense attorney years ago, knowing he might defend awful criminals.

  And knowing it would make him rich.

  “What do you want from me, Berhane?” Zhu asked quietly.

  “Everyone knows we were engaged, Torkild. They sent me up here to call you off.”

  “We’re not engaged any longer, Berhane,” he said less gently than he probably should have. “Why did anyone think I would listen to you now?”

  They both knew the rest of that sentence. When I didn’t listen to you before, was what he should have added if he really wanted to hurt her.

  He didn’t. He respected what she had been doing. He admired it. He wished he could be like her, but he wasn’t. He never would be.

  “They tried to destroy the Moon, Torkild,” she said. “How can you defend that?”

  His back stiffened. He actually felt himself growing stronger. It didn’t matter that he had asked himself these questions. What mattered was that she was questioning him, and she had no right to do so.

  She was crystalizing how he felt—about the cases, about himself, about S3.

  “I’m going to handle these cases like I’d handle any other case,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “Don’t give me that crap about everyone being entitled to a defense. You know better,” she said. “Monsters don’t get a defense.”

  “We’re a society of laws, Berhane,” he said, maintaining that dignity. He was rather shocked that he was no longer using his humor-Berhane voice. Now he was actually talking to her like she was an equal, something he probably hadn’t done in years.

  “That’s crap, and you know it,” she said. “If it were true, we wouldn’t have Disappeareds, we wouldn’t have—”

  “People who Disappear are breaking the law,” Zhu said. “There’s a lot to dislike in the Alliance system, but there’s a lot to like. We get along with thousands of alien species. We have cultural exchanges and economic cooperation because of this ‘crap’ you’re talking about. That means, sometimes, you have to abide by laws you don’t believe in. It also means that sometimes you have to make sure that a group of bad individuals get the best treatment possible under the law.”

  “You can’t believe that,” she said, in a near-whisper.

  Oh, God, he thought. Here come the tears.

  “You know,” he said, “I actually do.”

  He sounded surprised. He was surprised. After the death of Trey, Zhu had let himself believe all the horrible things everyone had ever said of him—that he was in the law only for the money, that he didn’t belong anywhere, that he was a screw-up of the first order, that he didn’t believe in anything.

  But he did believe. He had always believed in rules and order and law. He knew, deep down, that without them, governments couldn’t survive.

  Governments were a fiction, after all. They were a fiction that individuals agreed to abide by, and the moment an individual didn’t abide by those rules, then there had to be punishments or other individuals would join. There would be chaos, governments would collapse, and he would be living in a universe that he didn’t like.

  That idealism that Salehi had tried to nurture in him, the one Salehi had tapped when he got Zhu to agree to represent Trey in the first place, that idealism was still there, under the cynicism, the lies about money, the lies about his personal strength.

  If anyone could turn Zhu against this mission, it was Berhane. He really admired her now. He admired the victims’ advocacy she was doing; he admired the work she was doing in cleaning up the mess left by Anniversary Day.

  She had become an amazing woman, and he had never thought she could. She was standing on her own, and he thought that tremendous. There was something about her that reminded him of their early days, of the woman she might have been, without the toxic influence of her father.

  Without the toxic influence of Zhu himself.

  “You’re not going to change your mind,” Berhane said, as if he had stunned her.

  “No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

  “You’re doing this for the money,” she said. “If I can get Daddy to pay you to leave here, will you do that?”

  Zhu thought about it; he really did. He checked in with himself. He glanced around the office, and thought about how he’d feel.

  He could almost see it—the money, the apartment, the stupid silk suits. The feeling of emptiness.

  He could almost taste the alcohol on his tongue.

  “Working with victims, they need defense too. They don’t have anything right now. Two of the biggest insurance companies handling civic organizations have gone bankrupt, and that means that two of the domes won’t be able to compensate victims for the dome’s lack of action—”

  “What?” Zhu asked, frowning. “The domes didn’t act? Are you talking about Anniversary Day?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am. It’s too soon to see what kind of excuses the authorities will have for the Peyti Crisis. Not catching these clones immediately, not realizing they were clones, I mean, Torkild, the responsibility—”

  “The law states that an organization is only liable when a future event is both foreseeable and preventable,” Zhu said.

  She looked at him. “Who are you?”

  “Blame goes to the clones and whoever created them,” Zhu said. “Innocent people suffered. It was awful for everyone. But you can’t make the wrong people pay.”

  “The city governments are responsible,” she said. “It’s their job to protect us.”

  “And they did the best they could,” he said softly. “Berhane, you have to account for failure. Not everything can be successful.”

  “Like you are,” she snapped. “You just want to be rich. You want to be at the top of your stupid game, whatever that means. You don’t care about other people’s lives.”

  He let the words hang between them. She was breathing hard, as if spitting out those thoughts had cost her too much effort.

 
“Berhane,” he said softly. “If S-Three succeeds in its defense of these clones, it will improve millions of lives.”

  “So that’s the lie you tell yourself,” she said. “That you’re doing this for the public good.”

  “You’re telling me that some lives are worthwhile and others aren’t? The Peyti clones are individuals, Berhane. All normally raised clones are. They are the same as the originals, except under the law. How is that right?”

  “They should die for what they did,” Berhane said, her face squinched up. He had never seen her like this.

  “If they were Peyti,” he said, “they would receive the appropriate punishment. But they’re clones. They can be destroyed in their sleep.”

  “So?” she asked.

  “So, isn’t a long punishment better? Something that would give them time to reflect—”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t care what happens to them. And neither should you, Torkild.”

  He stared at her. Who was this woman? She used to say that he should have compassion for everyone, including the aliens whose cultures were so different that he couldn’t understand them. He had never thought of Berhane as bloodthirsty, certainly not as dismissive of the rights of others as she was being now.

  “Berhane,” he said softly, “I care about the law.”

  “At the expense of real people, Torkild,” she said. “Stop thinking about theory, and start thinking about lives damaged and lost. Start thinking about repercussions, for once, instead of yourself and how famous you’ll become. You won’t be famous doing this. You’ll be infamous. Do you know how awful that will be? Do you have any idea—”

  “Awful?” he asked. “For me? Or for my former fiancé?”

  “How dare you,” she said. “I’m doing good work, no thanks to you or my father, and you’re getting in the way. Both of you are. And you’re ruining lives. Just ruining them. Don’t you see that?”

  Zhu took a deep breath. They could argue about this forever. He thought it no coincidence that she was comparing him to her father.

  Zhu was treating her—he had always treated her—like her father had. Dismissive, difficult, emotional, as if she counted for nothing.

  She had just been arm-candy for him, never an equal. And now she was demanding equality and he was giving it to her, but not in the way that she wanted.

  He would never be what she wanted, and she would never be what he wanted. He understood that. In calmer moments, she probably knew it as well.

  “Berhane,” he said.

  “Don’t use that tone with me,” she snapped. So she did know, deep down, how fraught their relationship had been.

  “Berhane,” he said again, not changing his tone. “You are doing good work.”

  “You always talk to me—what?” She blinked at him, looking young and startled and vulnerable. “What did you just say?”

  “You’re doing great work. Things that I never would have expected of anyone. You’re changing the Moon all by yourself,” he said. “You’re making the kind of difference that so many people say they want to make and never do. It’s wonderful.”

  Her frown grew deeper. “But?”

  He shook his head. “No ‘but.’ None. You’re amazing.”

  She swallowed hard. He could see her bracing herself for whatever was going to come next.

  “So join us,” she said after a moment.

  “You know that wouldn’t work,” he said. “We’re fighting now. We’ve been together half an hour and we’re at each other’s throats. I’m not made to do the kind of work you do. I like theory. I don’t like individuals much. I’m really good at what I do. So are you.”

  “And we’re on opposite sides,” she said quietly.

  He shook his head. “Weirdly, we’re on the same side. We’re both trying to preserve our way of life here, and repair the damage that’s been done. Deep down, I don’t understand what you do or how you can do it. I know you don’t understand me.”

  “And who you’re working for,” she said.

  “I’m working for S-Three,” he said.

  “Your clients,” she said. “I’m talking about your clients.”

  “S-Three’s client is the Government of Peyla,” he said, and watched her eyes widen in surprise. “This Crisis is ruining their place in the Alliance. They need our help.”

  “Why didn’t you say that?” she asked.

  “Because,” he said. “The help begins by representing the clones. Then we work from there.”

  “But they have lawyers, right? The Peyti Government?”

  “No Peyti is being allowed on the Moon, and no Peyti lawyer has a job since the Crisis,” he said.

  She made an odd grunting sound, kind of an agreement mixed with humph. “I’m supposed to care about that, aren’t I? I’m supposed to say that it’s a shame, and the Peyti aren’t all alike. But how do we know that, Torkild?”

  “The same way we know that we’re nothing like the clones of PierLuigi Frémont,” he said.

  “It’s not the same,” she said.

  He resisted the urge to close his eyes against her words. It was exactly the same. And if she weren’t so locked into her position, she would see that.

  “It’s time you leave, Berhane,” he said.

  “And we’ll agree to disagree,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “We’re not going to agree on anything. I don’t think we should see each other at all any more.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Why not?”

  Because what we used to have in common was our self-absorption, he thought. And we’re changing. We’re not those people any more. But we’re still self-absorbed. I think my way is better. You think your way is better. We’re probably both wrong.

  “Because,” he said, “I’m not your fiancée any more. You have no ties to me. What I do is what I do, and what you do is what you do. Tell your so-called friends that. Tell them we broke up because I was a prick. I was, too, and I’m sorry about that. Tell them I can’t be influenced—and neither can you. Tell them S-Three will do what it does, and nothing will change that. Tell them to focus on their work, and not mine.”

  “You don’t know these people,” she said. “You don’t—”

  “I do know them,” he said. “Maybe not them as individuals, but I know their type. And I know who you and I are, Berhane. Let’s declare this relationship over once and for all.”

  Her breath caught, then she nodded. His heart twisted. This was the break-up. The real one. And it wasn’t mean or dispirited. It was the kind that two people who had nothing in common except an initial attraction should have had in the first place.

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Good-bye Berhane,” he said, and walked away.

  THIRTY-SIX

  FLINT TRIED NOT to pace. He fidgeted on the soft blue couch in the waiting area, clenching and unclenching his fists. He’d tried every relaxation trick he knew except finding some relaxation program through his links.

  He even counted his breaths, trying to focus, but he kept staring at the door on the far wall. The door was fake blond wood—at least, he assumed that it was fake. He couldn’t imagine that a group of therapists made enough money to afford a real wood door.

  He had come to the Armstrong Comfort Center on the strength of Popova’s recommendation. He hated the place’s name, because he worried that it promised more than it could give. Plus, he wasn’t certain comfort was what Talia needed.

  He had left her with Popova, without telling either of them where he was going. He knew the Security Office was safe. Popova would provide Talia with a sympathetic ear and maybe find something for her to do.

  He hadn’t told Talia he was coming here. He knew that Popova had breached the subject with Talia before, and he had asked Popova to discuss it with her again. Not to tell Talia to get help, but just to let Talia know that strong women sought help now and then.

  He couldn’t say it without sounding patronizing. Or worried. Or both.

&nb
sp; That door bothered him. It upset all of his assumptions about therapists. He had thought they had marginal businesses in these days of constant links and modern medicine.

  But the door belied that. He was beginning to believe it was made of real wood, because the waiting room itself was upscale. The longer he sat here, the more money he realized the place had.

  Two original pieces of art—the actual painted kind, not the kind that rotated on a screen—hung on the wall beside that door. The two chairs across from him matched the blue couch, and looked equally comfortable. End tables beside them had actual lamps on them, with clear artistic bases.

  This wasn’t the only waiting room either. The designation was waiting room five, which meant there were at least four others, so that clients wouldn’t share the space, maintaining that all-important confidentiality.

  These therapists had come highly recommended—and not just from Popova. Flint had spent a late night searching, as well as talking to friends, and he couldn’t find anything untoward about the place. He believed that if there was something untoward, he had the skills to find it.

  So he searched. He searched databases, court records, arrest records. He’d searched through the Armstrong Therapists Association’s complaints files, he’d searched the medical licensing boards records, and he’d found nothing bad.

  Then he started searching for recommendations: people who felt they got help, organizations who had sent employees who also felt they got help, and discovered several groups that started here. Groups that focused on trauma recovery and daily survival.

  Not to mention Popova’s transformation.

  Flint hoped for that for Talia. He knew he couldn’t provide it.

  But he had some concerns that he wasn’t sure how to address.

  He didn’t know if Talia could discuss the fact that she was a clone in this place. Flint believed she needed to, because in addition to losing her mother and watching a group of people die at her school, she had lost herself.

  She had believed herself to be an individual, with a birthdate, the only child of Rhonda Shindo, with a dad who had abandoned her. Instead, Talia had learned that she was one of many clones of a child who had died, and that her mother had raised her without ever telling Flint about her existence. And then there was her mother’s crimes…