“Caused by Peyti,” Rastigan said, feeling surprised. Somehow she had believed that some other group had caused this, or something had malfunctioned.
“Yes,” Uzvot said.
“And you consider this murder,” Rastigan said.
Uzvot bowed her head. “It is murder, yes.”
“Wow,” Rastigan said softly. “Wow. I didn’t think such things happened here any longer.”
“They don’t,” Uzvot said with emphasis.
“And yet this has,” Rastigan said. “Is that why you don’t want the information leaked?”
“No,” Uzvot said.
Rastigan glanced outside, feeling horribly off balance. She hadn’t contemplated any of this before.
The Peyti still crouched in the dirt seemed frantic, their movements quick and forceful. Two Peyti stood to one side, conferring.
“I’m confused,” Rastigan said. “Are you asking me to bury this vid?”
“Yes,” Uzvot said.
“Because of the murders,” Rastigan said.
“No,” Uzvot said.
Rastigan sighed. She couldn’t destroy the vid even if she wanted to. She was being foolish to consider it. But she was curious. She had no real idea what was happening here.
She turned. The color in Uzvot’s face had receded to a light blue.
“You do realize that parts of this are out of my hands, right?” Rastigan said. “The Earth Alliance has already been notified. We’ve been involved from the start. We got the distress call. We don’t silence our people, no matter what species they belong to. Any crime here will be prosecuted by Peyti law because this happened on Peyla, but the Earth Alliance will be involved. Gallen ensured that just by being here. This is not a strictly Peyti matter.”
“Can’t we do something to fix that?” Uzvot asked. The blue in her skin seemed darker. “Perhaps tell the Earth Alliance that there was a mistake?”
Rastigan shook her head. If she got caught lying to the Alliance about something this important, she would lose her job.
For a brief second, she thought of lying to Uzvot. The lie was easy: She could say that security information from all habitats got uploaded onto a special network. But that was too easy to check.
She supposed she could also lie and say that she would tell the Earth Alliance it was all a mistake. While that would work with some species who contacted the Alliance as little as possible, it wouldn’t work with the Peyti, who followed the minutia of all Earth Alliance activities.
“You know we can’t,” Rastigan said. “I’m sorry. This is on the record.”
Uzvot tilted her head back. A hand went to her mask to hold it in place. But Rastigan could still see that the turquoise color had returned.
“Forgive me,” Rastigan said, lapsing into diplomatic speak, “but why don’t you want this out?”
Uzvot shook her head. She turned away slightly, as if she were embarrassed by her emotional reaction.
“Then what?”
“You did not notice anything strange about that incident?” Uzvot asked.
“I think the deaths are strange,” Rastigan said. “I honestly did not think that was possible here.”
Uzvot tilted her head slightly, the human equivalent of a sad smile. “Not all of us control our dark impulses every moment of every day.”
In other words, murder did happen here, and the Peyti did not discuss it with outsiders.
Which was fine. Outsiders didn’t need to know anything about Peyti-to-Peyti relationships.
“You’re referring to something specific, aren’t you?” Rastigan asked. “You saw something in particular.”
“I did.” Uzvot walked to one of the side windows.
Rastigan joined her. On a far hillside, another swarm of Peyti were barely visible. Rastigan squinted. They seemed to be encircling some buildings.
“We are different,” Uzvot said, and Rastigan waited. Of course the two species were different. It was obvious on more levels than Rastigan wanted to consider.
“I know,” Rastigan said.
“No,” Uzvot said sharply, “you do not know. Your people think we know nothing about the jokes, about how difficult it is to tell a Peyti from a twig, let alone a Peyti from each other. But we are different. Each of us—like each of you—is unique.”
Rastigan’s face warmed. She hadn’t realized—she doubted anyone had realized—that the Peyti were aware of the jokes. But of course they were. It should have been obvious from the beginning. The Peyti paid attention to the smallest of Earth Alliance details. Of course they would notice something as prevalent as a joke.
But Rastigan didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to derail Uzvot.
“The Peyti out there,” Uzvot waved an arm toward the window they had abandoned, “the ones who died. They were not unique.”
Rastigan frowned. She wondered if she had understood properly. She repeated the same sentence in Peytin, repeating the Peyti word for “unique.”
“Yes,” Uzvot said in Standard. “Your eyes did not deceive you. Those Peyti did look the same.”
Honestly, Rastigan hadn’t noticed. She had been so shocked by the deaths that she hadn’t looked at the faces of the individual Peyti, except to see their sheer terror.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Unlike so many other species, we do not have the phenomenon of twins or naturally occurring duplicates. Those Peyti, they were cloned.”
Rastigan frowned. “Cloned?”
Uzvot nodded.
“So someone was killing off its own clones?” Rastigan asked.
“I don’t think so,” Uzvot said, her turquoise color nearly neon now, “since the original has been dead for more than a century.”
“You recognized the clones?” Rastigan said.
“No Peyti could have missed it,” Uzvot said. “We have our PierLuigi Frémonts as well. Only we teach about them, tell children how horrible they are, what monsters they were—monsters that lurk in our own skin, monsters that we must always control. And we use faces of real monsters to illustrate our point.”
“So this is—?”
“Uzvekmt,” Uzvot said, “destroyer of the Qavle.”
The worst genocide on Peyla in the last three hundred years. Maybe the worst genocide on Peyla ever. Rastigan had learned that, just like she had learned that it was in response to Uzvekmt that the Peyti had developed the program they now used to get rid of the so-called “dark impulses.”
“So someone is killing clones of Uzvekmt?” Rastigan asked.
“Let us hope that is all which is occurring,” Uzvot said, “because it could be so much more.”
Sixteen
The J’Slik called their starbase some unpronounceable combination of symbols that Zagrando couldn’t quite grasp, even with a phonetic translation. On human-made charts, however, someone had labeled the J’Slik base “Hellhole,” and the name had stuck.
Zagrando had expected some ancient and decaying starbase, dark and dingy and impossible to navigate. Instead, he found a colorful, modern starbase with a docking system so easy that he wondered why places in the Earth Alliance hadn’t adopted it.
When he disembarked, all he had to remove from the stolen Black Fleet ship were his own bag and that bag that Whiteley had been carrying (cleaned of the Emzada goo). He had sent the clothes he had worn to Abbondiado through the airlock long before landing, putting on a pair of black pants and a matching black shirt. The rest of the clothes he had brought with him were in his own bag, along with some weapons he had found in the ship.
Before he took the weapons, he removed all the tracking devices from them.
The docking ring’s exterior was a bright orange. Its interior was an equally shocking kelly green. The door leading into the main part of the base was a neon purple.
All of the colors in the Hellhole were so clearly defined that they hurt his eyes. He was so distracted by the brightness that it took him a moment to realize no one had checked him for weap
ons, nor had he gone through a decontamination chamber.
Apparently, a person entered Hellhole at his own risk.
He did, however, have to stop in front of a J’Slik guard positioned in front of three ornate gold doors. At least, Zagrando assumed he was looking at a guard. The J’Slik had a pad of Earth Alliance design in one meaty paw and tapped on the surface with a curved claw.
Every J’Slik that Zagrando had ever seen had a triangular head with matching triangular eyes and a nose that was little more than nostrils against a curved mouth. The ears stuck straight up like antennae. J’Slik had very flat feet the length of a human leg, and seemed to get most of their balance from a short tail that touched the ground when they weren’t walking.
They hid their gender under scarves and multicolored markings, although doubted he would recognize what gender they were even if he could see the genitalia. The identification came from the number of hairs in the belly fur—two hundred or more belonged to a female of the species, less than two hundred strands indicated a male.
He supposed if he saw little or no belly fur at all, he would know he was looking at a male. Otherwise, he figured determining gender would be impossible.
The J’Slik could change color at will, and this one had chosen to clothe itself in a muted forest green. It wore a gold scarf that matched the ornate doors.
“State the purpose for your visit,” it said in a flat tone.
“I would like a new ship,” Zagrando said. All of the information he had seen about J’Slik territory warned him to give away as little as possible when being questioned.
“Use the door on the far right,” the J’Slik said.
Zagrando did, and it wasn’t until he went through the door that he realized he had not been asked to identify himself in any way. Nor had his very sophisticated chips told him that surveillance had surreptitiously looked for his identification.
He glanced back to see if he had missed some kind of security, but he hadn’t—at least none visible to the human eye.
He was in a neutral area, like an airlock, between doors. He had to push open a gray door to go farther. He did, stepping into a wide atrium with a design that appeared to show the stars around the base. The ceiling design almost vanished in the shock of the rest of the atrium.
Everything was hot pink, from the floor to the walls to the doorways. The only way he could even see the doors was that they were outlined in a bold, almost clashing, red.
Maybe Hellhole was a more accurate name than he had initially thought. The colors—at first bold and refreshing—had already become unsettling. He could imagine how they might turn nightmarish over time.
At least the smells were better than those in the Emzada Lair. This place had the faint odor of oranges, which also caused a sensory disconnect with that hot pink. Dozens of J’Slik stood before him, gathered in small groups, talking, gesturing with their paws, and tapping on various pads. Some J’Slik sat at tables at what seemed to be the exteriors of restaurants.
He saw no humans at all, and very few aliens of other types.
He took a deep breath and slipped into the crowd. He didn’t read J’Slik, so he had to set his links to translate signs for him. He saw nothing that told him where he could get another ship.
Finally, he found an information booth. A pale yellow J’Slik stood in the center of the booth, resting its chin on its paws.
He stopped in front of the booth, but the J’Slik did not look up. Other J’Slik, however, glanced over at him, and several stopped their nearby conversations.
Rather than speak out loud, Zagrando decided to use his links. That way his query would get translated immediately, and it would be harder for the nearby J’Slik to overhear him.
Excuse me, he sent. I need some information.
The yellow J’Slik did not raise its head. Zagrando wondered if he needed to tap on something or do something to get the J’Slik’s attention. He felt uncomfortable doing so; he had no idea what this culture considered rude—or worse, some kind of legal offense.
Although, if he thought about it, a legal offense seemed a lot less likely, considering how much the J’Slik opposed the Earth Alliance legalities.
Then he realized that the yellow J’Slik’s eyes were open. They were yellow as well, their pupils slitted and dark.
What? it sent back.
The question had arrived in Standard, but Zagrando had no idea if that was a translation or if the J’Slik had actually sent the response in Standard.
I’m in the market for a ship, Zagrando sent. I was sent through the door that led me here. Is there someplace—
The J’Slik actually sighed, shook itself as if it were getting cobwebs off its fur, and then sat up. It extended its right paw and curved all but one of its claws downward. The remaining claw pointed toward the right.
“That way,” it said out loud in Standard. “Talk to H’Jith.”
Then it crossed its paws again, and put its head back down, closing its eyes.
Zagrando sent, Thank you, mostly out of fear. He still didn’t want to seem rude and he figured being on his best human behavior would help.
The J’Slik to his right had parted to form a corridor. They watched him pass. At the end of their makeshift corridor was another J’Slik. Its fur was a patchwork of oranges that clashed with the hot pink around it. Its eyes were blue, and—Zagrando thought—seemed to be twinkling.
But he didn’t dare assume that twinkling eyes meant a kinder, gentler J’Slik, or even an amused one. He was beginning to regret his decision to come here. He had no obvious allies, and no one knew where he was.
“A ship, eh?” the J’Slik said in Standard. “But you just arrived in a cruiser. How can I improve on that?”
Zagrando’s still-sensitive stomach turned. But he had to look at all of this logically. With so few humans here (if there were any others at all), he would be conspicuous. And they would know what he arrived in.
He suspected it would take very little for them to track the ship itself.
The J’Slik tilted its head. Its lips curled upward in what Zagrando would call a smile, even though he wasn’t sure if that was correct either.
“You are Whiteley?” it asked.
So they had checked the ship’s ownership. They probably knew it was a Black Fleet vessel.
“Unfortunately, Whiteley is dead,” Zagrando lied. He figured that the lie was a better explanation than the truth. Besides, the lie kept up with the do-not-over-explain rule. And, all by itself, it gave a reason for Zagrando’s presence here with someone else’s ship.
“That is unfortunate,” the J’Slik said. “I take it that you do not like his ship?”
Games. It was all about games.
“I would like one of my own,” Zagrando said. “I was told to talk with H’Jith about that. Are you H’Jith?”
The J’Slik’s mouth opened just a little, then closed. Its tail twitched, then it bowed its head slightly. “I am. And you were told correctly.”
“I do not know your customs very well,” Zagrando said, “so forgive me if I’m hurrying you, but I am due to meet a friend and have little time.”
He deliberately did not specify where he was meeting that friend. Perhaps H’Jith would believe that he was meeting the friend in Hellhole.
“With paying customers,” H’Jith said, “we follow their timeline. What sort of vessel are you searching for?”
Good question. If he said something fast, it sounded like he was in trouble. If he said something large, it sounded like he had money.
“I would like to see your ship,” Zagrando said, remembering a trick an old trader had once taught him.
H’Jith’s tail twitched again, but the movement was different. Zagrando would like to think that the question surprised it. Perhaps it did.
“I will not sell my own ship,” H’Jith said.
“I understand,” Zagrando said. “But if I see what you consider to be quality, then I can better communicate my needs
to you.”
H’Jith’s eyes slitted and it tilted its head toward Zagrando. “Just so. Let us repair to my section of the docking ring then.”
H’Jith had its own section of the docking ring? Either it bought and sold a lot of ships, or something else was going on here.
Or both.
Zagrando had a large knot in his stomach. He always had an acute sense of danger, and this place had more danger than he had expected.
He needed to be smart, and he needed to be quick.
He also had a hunch money might not solve his problems.
But he didn’t want to trade the Black Fleet ship for any old ship that H’Jith gave him. Nor did he want to leave behind a trail.
He needed some kind of plan, and he needed it quickly.
Seventeen
Noelle DeRicci sat on one of the bar stools in her hotel room for the longest time, staring at her empty whiskey glass. All the damn stuff had done was give her heartburn.
Or maybe Flint had done that, the way he had disconnected their link. Or the mention of Luc Deshin, which disturbed her greatly.
Or maybe the whiskey had nothing to do with the heartburn. Maybe the heartburn had come from the walk that she had taken earlier through Tycho Crater.
She had done so many of these just on this trip alone that they blurred. The twisted rubble, the cautious mayors who believed their tragedy was the real tragedy. The lives, not just lost, but evaporated.
She swallowed hard. Her mouth tasted sour. The whiskey had been the exact wrong thing. Drinking never got her anywhere. If she wanted to be anesthetized, she could find a better way to do so. There were a whole pile of drugs that could shut off her emotions while leaving her reasoning intact.
Theoretically.
It was the “theoretically” that she didn’t like.
Any more than she liked her schedule. Three more cities, three more dome repairs to see, three more craters in the middle of a once-thriving district.
All those lives.
She reached into the gift basket, annoyed that it even existed. Who gave a gift basket on an occasion like this?
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