"Peace treaties are meaningless when vengeance is demanded. Getting rid of the weapons will be pointless, unless we punish those who’d dare to use them,” Cipher said.
"The Minoans don’t think the treaties are pointless.” Ariane answered Cipher, but her attention was on Brandon. "The light-speed data will be here soon and then we’ll know the extent of damage to Ura-Guinn. We can prepare to help the survivors. Only four months left, Cipher. Plenty of people have hope that the sun’s still there and operating.”
Brandon’s gaze sharpened and he gave Ariane a barely perceptible nod, answering her unspoken question.
"Don’t tell me you believe the analysis of the glitch data?” Cipher’s lips twisted in disdain. "That’s a government conspiracy.”
"Scientific communities on both sides have analyzed it,” Ariane said.
"Then it’s a scientific conspiracy.”
"But in four months—”
"And what happens in four months?” Cipher was gesturing with the stunner, her eyes glinting from the landscape lights. "Punishment of the guilty should have been swift—instead we waited and we forgot. I can’t let people forget.”
"Punishment has to wait for justice, and justice must wait for proof.” Ariane’s voice was steady. "In this case, the evidence only travels as fast as the speed of light. You’re counting your casualties before the fact, Cipher.”
"Perhaps we should punish the intent to destroy Ura-Guinn’s sun, not the fact. You’re always falling back on cold logic—don’t you feel any remorse, Ari? Any feelings? Or is that what you’re always looking for at the bottom of a bottle?” Cipher gestured widely, and unwisely, with her weapon.
Ariane was taken aback, first by Cipher’s illogic, then by the sudden personal attack and her movements. It seemed as though Cipher wanted her to jump and struggle for the weapon—or was subliminally urging her to do so. That was puzzling, and her emotions cooled.
"Are you angry because I stayed with AFCAW?” Ariane changed the subject. "Because I took assignments with the Directorate of Intelligence?”
"You thought you were protected by Owen’s magic.” Again, the wide gestures that said, Attack me. Go ahead, try it. "His secrecy corrupts, doesn’t it? Little by little, from the inside out. By now you’re rotten inside, and that’s why you secretly want to die.”
"Ah—just to quibble, but I’m remarkably attached to my life right now.” Ariane intended to bait Cipher with her remark, but she felt a quiver of surprise; she meant it. Cipher clearly wanted to take out all three of them together in some macabre murder-suicide plan, but she, Ariane Kedros, wanted to live.
"We deserve to die,” Cipher shouted, extending her arms. As she yelled, Brandon rolled backward and to the side, hitting Cipher in the knees. Cipher went down with a grunt, landing on her left side and temporarily immobilizing her arm. Her left hand was still stuck in her pocket and she used her right hand to cushion her fall awkwardly. She dropped the miniature stunner.
Ariane leapt, landing on Cipher and trying to keep her pinned to the ground. That didn’t work, since Cipher weighed more. Cipher’s body had undergone fifteen years more aging than hers had, but it hadn’t gone through significant abuse in the past two days. Ariane tried to go limp to prevent Cipher from pushing her off. Catching movement in the corner of her eye, she saw Brandon trying to pick up the stunner.
"Don’t stun her,” shouted Ariane.
A dark shape silently blotted out the stars above. Ariane instinctively ducked and stiffened, which allowed Cipher to push her off. Cipher was on her hands and knees, pushing toward the short wall between the patio and the steep edge of the escarpment. Ariane grabbed on to Cipher’s leg as she felt the distinctive teeth-grinding vibration of a large antigrav generator. It felt like metal scraping against metal silently inside her head.
Cipher kicked, almost upright, trying to free her other leg. Ariane felt pain explode along her shoulder. Her arm loosened about Cipher’s leg, but she pushed herself off the patio stones and launched herself at Cipher again. They went down together, rolling. Cipher pulled away using the waist-high wall for support as she stood. Ariane, still on her knees, clutched at Cipher’s tunic. For a moment they looked into each other’s eyes.
"Now you can sleep, Ari.” Cipher smiled and sharply pushed her away.
Ariane tried to hold on, but the pain in her shoulder weakened her grip. She heard the sound she feared, the sound of the stunner. One of her hands still held Cipher’s tunic and she reacted instinctively to the sting of a close stun—her hand jerked away, letting go. Cipher’s smile stretched into agony as she slumped backward.
"No!” Ariane screamed as she irrationally grabbed for Cipher’s twitching legs. She couldn’t hold on as Cipher went over the wall. She turned to see Owen and Joyce crouching at the open side doors of a hovercraft currently on antigrav. Owen held a stunner—did he understand what he just did?
"Dead-man-switch! Explosives!” Ariane shouted into the eerie silence.
The more precise definition was conscious-man-switch, but Owen figured things out. It didn’t matter whether Cipher was still alive. She heard him shout. The pilot switched on the conventional VTOL engines and they whined into action. They’d need altitude fast.
She ran across the patio to where Brandon crouched. He had apparently realized what had happened and was talking into his implanted mike as he pressed the switch in his jawbone.
"... evacuate everybody in the west wing. Good.” Brandon raised his voice to be heard over the engines. He released his mike switch and said to Ariane, "Cipher moved all visitors, except for you, out of the west wing this afternoon.”
"We have to go.” Ariane pointed toward the hovercraft.
Brandon nodded. He was able to walk, but couldn’t climb or jump. The pilot lowered the hovercraft and Ariane helped boost Brandon, while Owen and Joyce hauled him into the hold like a sack of grain. They were losing precious time. All Cipher’s automated agent needed was confirmation of unconsciousness. How often would it poll her implants?
"Go, go, go!” shouted Ariane as soon as she had a secure grip on the handhold with her good arm.
She felt the ground fall away. Her clenched hand ached as she tried to swing and extend the other toward Owen. She saw Joyce holding on to Owen and a familiar face behind them both. Matt? Someone grabbed her free hand and the pain along her shoulder caused her to yelp. Her vision grayed at the edges.
She felt a force hit her back, like a wall moving through space. The hovercraft jerked and lunged. Hot burning arrows of pain pierced her lower legs and it felt as if her skin were ripping off her back. She screamed. She heard grunts of pain above her.
Gaia, please save me.
CHAPTER 22
Now for news from the Terran scene. An astounding shake-up on Overlord Three’s staff has State Prince Isrid Parmet moving up to fill the position of assistant for the Exterior. There’s been rearrangement internal to Parmet’s staff also; our feed received an exclusive report that Nathaniel Wolf Kim has resigned, although the Terrans are mum regarding the reason.
—Interstellarsystem Events Feed, 2105.300.19.05 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 17 under Flux Imperative
An angel? No. A man in white. He lectured her in a stern voice.
". . . multiple lacerations—internal bleeding and significant loss of blood—torn ligaments and cartilage in—cracked collarbone, dislocated right shoulder, broken left thumb, three cracked ribs, cracked . . .”
She tried to focus on him as words rushed out of his mouth, stomping over each other and intermingling. He had AFCAW medical technician insignia on his collar.
". . . welds started in your lower leg—problematic when considering your classified condition—can’t perform bone growth stimulation again until . . .”
Classified condition? It’s not my fault, she wanted to say. She closed her eyes.
She remembered Owen had blood running down his face and neck. The right side of his face had looked like chewed-up meat.
Now it was covered with plastiskin and was healing.
She tried to ask him about Brandon, but only a sigh came out of her mouth.
"Don’t talk, Ariane,” Owen said. "You’ve lost almost twenty percent of your body weight. They’re pumping calories into your body and they’ve got you drugged, but they also have to suppress your metabolism.”
"Brand?” she croaked.
"He’s fine. He’s having a liver transplant, a little earlier than usual, but they knew it was coming and they’d already grown him one. Now go to sleep.”
Contrarily, she struggled to get out another question. "Others?”
Owen gave her a strange look and then said, "Everybody else in the hovercraft was protected because of its pitch. Only you and I caught the shrapnel, but you took the brunt of it.”
Her mind had been cycling through Cipher’s remarks, in particular the ones made about Owen. She worked her tongue and managed to get some more saliva into her mouth for her next question. "Cipher crypto? You?”
Owen sighed. Apparently, he knew exactly what she was asking.
"Yes, knowing her talents, I tried to recruit her. She did one job for me, but we both realized she wasn’t suited for intelligence. Soon after that, she ostensibly died in the airliner accident. When we collected her equipment, I made the mistake of not having it broken down immediately and checking the internal seals. The outside seals looked good and unwittingly, I gave her what she needed to generate, encrypt, and decrypt military keys.”
Stupid, but we were all played by Cipher.
"I’m sorry, Ariane.”
A sincere apology from Owen? She hoped she remembered this. She closed her eyes and slipped back into sleep.
This time it was Joyce she saw when she woke. Her mind didn’t feel so fuzzy; perhaps they were taking her off the drugs. She noted the new stripe on his arm.
"Congratulations on making master sergeant.”
"Thank you, ma’am. Had to see for myself that you were recovering.”
"Perhaps to remind me that you had to save my ass this time?”
"It was an honor, ma’am.” He snapped to attention.
"Cut the bullshit, Joyce. I suppose this makes us even.”
"Yes, ma’am, I s’pect so.” He grinned. "Until next time.”
"If there is a next time,” she muttered, feeling fatigue attack her again.
"You always say that.”
"This time . . .” She closed her eyes.
This time was different. The threat of discovery, capture, and torture had been stimulating and motivating until actually experiencing it. Now she knew how she measured up: After having the shit knocked out of her, she’d broken and given the Terrans exactly what they wanted by turning on her business partner and employer. Then she was dumped in the Addict Commons, and the inmates . . . She shuddered. What, but for the grace of Gaia, makes me any different from them? The distinguishing mark of addicts was their untrustworthiness, whether they lived on the dole or made their own way in the world.
She thought a lot of time passed, and when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see Joyce still standing there, looking as though he was internally debating about what he would say next.
"Your employer, Mr. Journey,” he said hesitantly. "He went through a lot and he did help us, regardless of what the colonel says.”
" ’S that so?” Her tongue was getting thick and her eyelids heavy. A pang of sadness ran through her. She doubted she’d ever see Matt again.
"Never seen the colonel so angry, once he figured things out.”
She wanted to follow up on that, but her eyelids slammed down.
Ariane didn’t remember hospital soft foods tasting so good. What were the shreds of meat in this soup? Perhaps she shouldn’t ask.
"Cipher installed that meditation platform for me over three months ago,” Brandon said softly. "She said she finally understood the power of meditation, but that was a lie. Owen’s analysts say she planted the explosives when it was constructed. She planned all this.”
Ariane finished gulping her soup. Gaia, I’m still so hungry. At least this meant she was healing. She wiped her mouth and pushed the tray away. Looking around the small private room, she itched to be up and walking, but she’d been told to stay in bed for twelve more hours. She’d been awake for two.
Brandon sat beside her bed in a mobile chair, as it’d be another couple of days before he’d be allowed to stand and walk on his own. Although the explosion hadn’t harmed him, he looked worse than she did, with tubes plugged into all his implants and bags hanging from his chair.
"Any chance she survived the fall?” Ariane asked.
Brandon shook his head. "Nobody thinks so, considering that the explosives were set deep enough to cause ground rippling. Tons of debris and dirt have cascaded down the side of the gulley. They’re digging through it, expecting to find her body—mostly because Owen thinks she didn’t want to come through this alive.”
"Well, Cipher was always thorough. She wanted to make sure we all died together, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if she left explosive packages littered all over your property.”
Brandon snorted. "That’s what Owen said, right before he slapped a specialized AFCAW search warrant on me and had teams crawling all over the Reserve—before my legal staff could respond and block him.”
"Wouldn’t it be best to let them search?”
"You’ve worked for Owen so long that you’re beginning to think like him, aren’t you?” Brandon’s voice was cold.
It felt as if she’d been slapped in the face, and she flushed with anger. "Look, I got firsthand experience with Cipher’s work when she blew a hole in Karthage Point. With all your disdain for the military, consider that they’re at least constrained from doing that by the Phaistos Protocols. Besides, Cipher wouldn’t have had the resources to assassinate, poison, and explode people and places if it weren’t for your Gaia-be-damned business empire!”
They stared at each other in silence. She heard the hurried footsteps of staff in the corridor intermingled with the shuffling steps of patients. The AFCAW physical rehabilitation wards on Hellas Daughter were busy.
"You’re right.” Brandon broke first, looking away. "I shouldn’t have withdrawn from active management, because that allowed Cipher to move in and take over operations. When she contacted me for a job a year ago, requesting secrecy, anonymity, and reclusion, I should have been suspicious. She said she had run her second life into the ground, which was certainly believable. I only cared that she was able to give me news of you.”
"Really?”
"Of course, I was angry that you were still in AFCAW.”
When she opened her mouth to correct him, Brandon added, "Or at least, in the Reserve and being a toady for the Directorate of Intelligence. But I got over all that, like I had to get over all my anger about the failed rejuv.”
"Got over all what?” Had she just missed something here? It was amazing how failed hopes could be so quickly rekindled, and with the hope came painful memories.
"You can get over the past, Ari, like I did.” He leaned forward eagerly. "You could find peace on the Demeter Sanctuary. Get rid of the nightmares. I know you have them.”
"Provided that our EOD teams can safely disarm the two explosive devices they found. One in the Demeter operations center and one in your study.” Owen sauntered into the room, followed by Joyce.
Brandon’s face tightened as he turned his chair to face Owen.
"I’m sure you’ve got some sleeper agents in your systems, given the particular talents of Cara Paulos,” continued Owen. "If your lawyers allow us, we can do a system audit for you. It’d save you a bit of money.”
"Thanks, Owen, but no. I’ll take my chances with a civilian audit. Get your people off my property.” Brandon turned his chair and headed for the door.
"Certainly, Mr. Leukos.” Owen’s voice was bland.
Brandon stopped in the doorway, twisting to look back at Ariane.
Joyce scanned and secured the room. Ariane sighed. It was debriefing time.
The grilling went on and on, exactly as she expected. Since she’d conversed with a Terran state prince longer than anyone else in AFCAW, bargained with a Minoan emissary, and survived torture from TEBI agents, Owen wanted every detail he could get from her. For the times when she hadn’t been under the influence of drugs or alcohol, her memory was too good. She hoped many of the scenes that seemed etched on the inside of her eyelids would eventually fade away.
One benefit of this debriefing was that information had to flow both ways.
"Did Parmet or his TEBI agents give you any indication that they’d be shutting down their intelligence network?” asked Owen.
"No. When did that happen?” she asked.
"We’re pretty sure a Hellas-wide shutdown went into effect. What was the time, Joyce?”
"Approximately an hour before the Minoan emissary docked at Karthage, sir.”
"By the way, we think that can only be done by authority of a state prince. It must have come from Parmet himself,” said Owen.
"Ah—the last piece of the puzzle clicks into place.” She smiled. "I knew that someone helped Cipher from the inside, because Cipher had doors physically disabled. Now I know that person was a Terran agent, because SP Parmet shut down his network so the Minoans wouldn’t connect the sabotage to his own agent.”
"Captain Rayiz mentioned that you had suspicions about a physical saboteur, but not about a Terran agent,” Owen said.
"I think Cipher infiltrated and used the Terran intelligence network. She used Parmet’s own agent to get her work done on the inside of Karthage. Damn, she was clever.” Ariane shook her head.
There was silence as Owen and Joyce stared at her. After a long pause, Owen delicately cleared his throat.
"Are you going to tell us who the Terran agent is, Major?” he asked.
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