“I know I’m asking too much of you,” she said. “But—”
“Don’t,” Nyquist said, putting up his hand to block her words. He didn’t want to hear an apology or a rationale, even though he had been angry with her a few minutes ago about this whole thing. “You have no one else to talk to the clones.”
“Not with a good excuse,” she said. “I suppose I could send one of my people in to see Palmette’s lawyer, but that would look—”
“Awkward, I know,” he said, “and I had already called Uzvaan into the station to discuss Palmette when the Peyti Crisis happened. It’s on the record, Noelle. If anyone suspects I’m doing anything wrong, all they have to do is look at my witness interview from that day.”
DeRicci nodded. Every now and then he saw beneath the façade and it worried him. She was so close to breaking apart.
“What I’m going to need from you,” he said as gently as he could, “is a list of questions by early tomorrow morning, things that you believe I’m not going to have thought of.”
“You’re not doing the standard informational interview?”
“I’m going act like we don’t have time,” Nyquist said, “because we might not. S-Three might shut us down.”
DeRicci nodded. She clearly hadn’t thought of that.
Nyquist continued. “I’m going to tell Uzvaan that I’m afraid the courts will shut us down eventually. I’m not going to tell him about S-Three. But he’s sat through dozens of these interviews. He knows what’s proper and what’s not. He would want to know why I’m not following procedure.”
“Do you believe he’s thinking that clearly?” DeRicci asked.
“Yes,” Nyquist said. “And I have another motive. If I shake up the questions, and don’t build like we usually do, then maybe I’ll shake some things loose.”
DeRicci gave him a tired smile. “I’ll put something together. I’m not sure what that’ll be. You’re a hell of an investigator, Bartholomew.”
“I’m sure there are things you’ll want to know that haven’t yet filtered their way to the Armstrong PD. So give me those. I’ll ask what I can.”
She nodded.
“I also have one other thing,” he said. “Do you have someone on staff who speaks Peytin?”
“Popova,” DeRicci said. “But we have translation programs—”
“I know,” Nyquist said. “I also listened to one on the way here, and there was a disclaimer up front that said depending on tone, one sound can mean two dozen different things. I’d rather have an actual living ear on this before I go to the programs.”
“And before you consult with a Peyti,” DeRicci said, with too much accuracy.
“That too,” Nyquist said.
The door opened, and Popova peered in. Apparently, DeRicci had contacted her on her links while talking to Nyquist.
“You needed me?” she asked.
“Come in for a moment,” DeRicci said. “Bartholomew wants you to translate something from Peytin.”
“You haven’t tried the programs?” Popova asked.
Nyquist smiled at DeRicci. Once upon a time, DeRicci had hated Popova. Now, they seemed to think in unison.
“I will if you tell me to. I just want my colleagues to hear this. It was weird.”
He had the interaction with Uzvaan cued up. Nyquist started a little farther back, so that Popova could hear Uzvaan’s speaking voice, and have context.
He hit the chip, and Uzvaan’s voice filled the office:
“Now, I’m in a legal purgatory. Your authorities know what I am. I have no rights under Alliance law. And yet, I’m a lawyer, with more knowledge than almost anyone about the way things work. I truly did not expect this.”
DeRicci had her head bowed. She was staring at her hands. They were clenched tightly, her knuckles turning white, just another small indication of how much emotion she was reigning in.
Then Nyquist heard his own voice ask the question that had caused Uzvaan to give his answer in Peytin:
“You didn’t consider failure?”
Uzvaan’s answer came quickly, and it sounded odd, flatter to Nyquist’s ears. But he wasn’t an expert. Maybe that sentence was something more—a quote, a song, a popular saying.
“May I hear that again?” Popova asked.
Nyquist jumped. He hadn’t been looking at her. He had almost forgotten she was here, so deep had he gone into DeRicci’s reaction.
Popova was standing near him, a frown creasing her face. He hadn’t really looked at her lately either. She had lines alongside her mouth and eyes that hadn’t been there before. A few silver hairs mixed into her signature black mane.
“Sure,” he said, and played Uzvaan’s answer again.
She used her hand to indicate that Nyquist should play it at least one more time.
He did.
Then she said, “What did he say next?”
“I asked him to tell me what he had just said, and he told me it wasn’t important,” Nyquist said. “I can play that for you if you’d like.”
She shook her head. Then she looked at DeRicci, not him.
“I’m fluent,” Popova said, “but I’m not an expert. I speak schoolgirl Peytin, the kind you’d speak as a tourist. It’s very formal. I can read the language too, better than I can speak it. Peytin has variations all over the known universe, and there are idioms that I don’t know.”
DeRicci sighed. “So you don’t know what he said.”
“Oh, I do,” Popova said, “and it’s weird. It sounds like he was quoting someone or something. The reason I gave you the disclaimer is because I don’t know if he said something that every Peyti school child knows.”
“All right,” DeRicci said through gritted teeth. Nyquist could tell she just wanted Popova to get to the point, and not go through all of this disclaimer stuff. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You can’t have a failure in a unit.’”
Nyquist blinked. He wasn’t sure what that meant at all.
“Here’s the thing,” Popova said. “Peytin has maybe a hundred meanings for ‘unit,’ because the Peyti work well in groups.”
“Yeah,” DeRicci said dryly. Nyquist glanced at her. Two minds with the same thought: Last week, the Peyti clones had worked as a unit.
“In this usage, I think, he meant military unit or a group that forms like a military unit.” Then Popova shrugged. “It’s weird, like I said, and almost a nonsequitor.”
“Or not,” DeRicci said. “If these clones were designed as a military unit, then maybe that would explain it…?”
“I wouldn’t guess based on my translation,” Popova said. “I’d listen to the translation programs, see what they say, and then maybe bring in an expert. There are several professors of Peytin in the Language Department at the university. Call one of them.”
“Are any of them human?” DeRicci asked.
Her words hung in the office. Nyquist wanted to protest. He wanted to say We can’t mistrust the Peyti forever, but he understood the impulse. Besides, his gut reaction had been the same one. He didn’t want to hear a Peyti interpret those words. Who knew what that Peyti’s affiliation was and what they were hiding.
“No,” Popova said after a moment. Her gaze caught Nyquist’s. She, at least, was shocked by the question. Good for her. She was a better person than he was.
“I’ve got several programs here,” DeRicci said. “Let’s have each one translate. Isolate the phrase, please, Bartholomew.”
He did. Then he played it over and over again.
Each program translated the phrase differently, substituting a slightly different word for the word “unit.” Some used military unit, some used “group,” others specified “team.”
After six translations, DeRicci shut it all down.
Then she nodded, as if this were one more frustration in a universe filled with frustrations.
“We know he was in a group,” she said tiredly. “Which we knew before we started.”
; “No,” Nyquist said. He felt a little more optimistic after hearing the translations. He wasn’t sure why. “We know that whoever trained the group did not tolerate failure. Uzvaan seemed unfamiliar with the concept of failure as a learning tool at all. My sense is that he’s very broken now. I told you that, Noelle.”
“Yes, but that could simply be because he got caught,” she said.
“Yes, it could,” Nyquist said. “But it could also be because he was programmed against failure. That sentence sounded automatic to me. He said it in his native language, and he said it really fast. I don’t know if the Peyti are like humans, but sometimes that early training goes so deep that we can’t prevent it from coming out our mouths.”
Popova was frowning. “It’s possible. One reason the Peyti do so well in the Alliance legal system is because our species are a lot more similar than other species in the Alliance. I’ll check up on it.”
“What good would that do?” DeRicci asked. “It would just help S-Three with their defense.”
“It’ll help with my approach to Uzvaan,” Nyquist said. “We know he was created for this job. If he was trained for it so deeply that he’s giving out rote answers to questions—even with his prodigious brain—then we’re looking at truly hardcore training.”
“So?” DeRicci asked. “We knew they were trained.”
“Hardcore training isn’t just telling kids to be grateful and sending them on their way. It’s true programming, and it takes work. With humans, it also takes fear and a lot of intimidation.”
DeRicci froze. “And murder?”
He wasn’t quite sure what she meant. “You mean, ‘to murder’ as the goal?”
“No,” DeRicci said. “Fear, intimidation, and murder.”
Popova was looking at her. “Do you want me to contact Jin Rastigan?”
“Yes,” DeRicci said.
“Who is Jin Rastigan?” Nyquist asked.
“She’s the one who discovered the clones in the first place,” DeRicci said. “Young ones were being murdered, horribly, in some outpost. Jin thinks they were clearing out the undesirables.”
“Undesirables,” Popova said. “Like failures?”
“Possibly,” DeRicci said. “We’re guessing, but possibly.”
“My God,” Nyquist said. “Yeah, with humans, that would work.”
“I’ll bet it works for Peyti too,” DeRicci said. “We might have some answers without even realizing it.”
“I’ll contact her right now,” Popova said. “She might have answers for us.”
“And questions,” Nyquist said. “Ask her for questions to ask the clones. On a secure link.”
The look that Popova gave him was withering. He felt warmth build in his cheeks.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m used to police department staff…”
She waved a hand at him dismissively, and left. Nyquist wasn’t sure how badly he’d offended her.
“She’s used to it,” DeRicci said. “I did that to her at first too. Or just did it myself. She’ll also ask Jin Rastigan what that sentence means.”
“I figured that out.” Nyquist stood. His knees made a cracking sound that they’d made off and on ever since he survived the attack from the Bixian assassins.
“Noelle,” he said, “at some point, we’re going to need more investigators that we can trust.”
“I know,” she said and this time he heard something in her voice he’d never heard before. Something almost like resignation. “I just can’t figure out who they would be.”
FIFTY
TWO FRUSTRATING HOURS. Flint had spent two frustrating hours trying to find out more about Jhena Andre than Deshin had discovered his cursory search, only to run into firewalls too strong to be Alliance-designed.
Flint had paced his small office, noting with some satisfaction that the Moon dust he had tracked in was gone now. It almost made this space feel like it belonged to someone else.
He had expected the Alliance information on Andre to be as porous as Old Armstrong’s filtration system. But it wasn’t.
He suspected that was because she had been involved in law enforcement and security. Her job descriptions had never been logged. The methods he usually used to gain information, particularly from government sources, didn’t work.
At first, he had thought someone had discovered and closed the back doors he used. Then, the deeper he got, the more he realized that those doors had never existed in the system where Andre’s information was stored.
The software designs were different as well, made by someone—or something—that thought differently from the average computer programmer. Flint wasn’t the average programmer, and he still had trouble figuring the system out.
He finally had run a weird background search—one that compared elements of the system he was trying to break into with other systems that existed in the Alliance.
He couldn’t find anything like that in the human-based programs.
But in one of the Imme-based programs, for the residents of the Imme System, he found a match.
The Imme looked like many other aliens in the Alliance. They had four limbs, walked upright, and had a recognizable face. They also had feathers covering every part of their bodies. The feathers weren’t like bird feathers, which fell out or got plucked.
They were more like bark on a tree, an essential part of the Imme. The tips of the feathers brushed against the other feathers, creating links that formed the Imme’s brain. Destroy enough feathers, and the Imme’s brain function also decreased, just like a human’s would if someone damaged one section of the head.
For that reason, the Imme did not mix with non-Imme much. They used the Alliance for protection and trade, but used proxies. And the Imme security systems were based on small packets of data touching other packets of data in a pattern that humans found disturbingly illogical.
Which made Imme systems difficult to hack for groups used to the standard Alliance protocols.
Flint was torn between thinking whoever had designed the security protocols in this part of the Alliance had been utterly brilliant to cursing that person’s name. It would take him hours, maybe days, to break into the system, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to do it invisibly, like he did with all the other systems in the Alliance.
His pacing reflected his agitation. He couldn’t just sit still and work. He needed to move just to keep his brain working.
He needed to go to the Security Office. Maybe DeRicci had access to some anti-hacking information that Alliance Security Officials used.
Flint often used anti-hacking documents as a guide for how to hack a particular system. The people who developed anti-hacking information often revealed too much, and told anyone with a slightly criminal brain exactly where the system’s vulnerabilities were.
He was about to return to his main network when he froze in his tracks. His subconscious asked a question so unrelated to the work he was doing he almost felt like another person was in the room.
How do the Peyti pay for law school?
He let out a half-laugh of surprise. His brain had clearly been working on that for some time, and he had calmed down just enough to let that information rise to the surface.
It wasn’t just about how the Peyti paid for law school, but how they educated their kids at all.
Unlike the clones of PierLuigi Frémont, each of the Peyti clones had long histories and established lives. They had records, that dated back to law school if not further.
And somewhere, someone had paid money to get those young Peyti into schools that weren’t controlled by the Masterminds. Because law firms only hired lawyers from accredited law schools.
Flint couldn’t believe that the Masterminds ran all the accredited law schools in the Alliance.
Follow the trail.
If he found the same source of funds—or similar sources—for the Peyti clones’ education, then he would have a way to investigate the pool of money they were dipping into.
&
nbsp; He grinned like a crazy man. His heart was pounding as if he had run several miles.
Sometimes his brain worked like a cluster of Imme feathers. He had no idea what tiny data packet had touched another tiny data packet.
He just knew he was glad the connection had been made.
Because it felt like a major breakthrough.
Only time would tell if it truly was.
FIFTY-ONE
NYQUIST LEFT DERICCI’S office. She wanted to speak to Jin Rastigan alone. He closed the door gently, feeling tired but not quite as dirty as he had felt earlier. Despite his concerns for her, just seeing DeRicci lightened his mood.
Popova sat at her desk, but she wasn’t alone. Flint’s daughter Talia sat beside her. The girl looked different somehow. She had always been a bit exotic, with her curly blondish-red hair, her pretty copper colored skin, and Flint’s startling blue eyes. Every time Nyquist saw her, he thought she would be a beauty when she grew up.
Her appearance was still startling, but not because she was a nascent beauty. She looked ragged and lost. What had happened to her in the last few weeks?
He threw a questioning glance to Popova, who shook her head ever so slightly.
He wasn’t quite sure what she was warning him off: was he not supposed to say hello? Or was he supposed to keep quiet about Talia’s appearance?
He could send Popova a message on his links, but that felt weird. Instead, he said, “Hello, Talia.”
She looked up as if she hadn’t seen him at all. “Oh. Detective. Hi.”
“She’s waiting for her dad,” Popova said quickly. Apparently, Nyquist wasn’t supposed to ask Talia about Flint.
Nyquist wasn’t even sure if he should sit down now. And then his stomach growled. Apparently, he had relaxed enough to want food.
“Is it possible to order in these days?” he asked Popova.
“There are a few places whose food doesn’t end up looking like it has been crushed by rocks when it arrives,” she said. “You want me to order?”
“I want you to order food every few hours,” he said, “as long as Noelle’s here. She’s not sleeping, so she needs to eat.”
The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) Page 31