Blowback

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “I did not.” Goudkins stood up and walked to the other side of the conference room. “The link severed when the dome blew open.”

  If she was acting, she was doing a terrific job. Flint could feel her upset, even though she had tamped it down.

  She had walked to a corner of the conference room where the light hit the windows just right. He could see shadows of her face, but not a reflection of her face.

  That movement, more than any other, convinced him she was telling the truth.

  “You people here on the Moon,” she said, her voice steady but just a bit too soft, “you think you’re the only ones hurt by this crisis. You forget that families get spread all over the Alliance. You forget that we all watched what happened, just like some of you did. You forget that analysts agree with your Security Chief. This attack was something big, something that’s aimed at a large goal we don’t understand. And until we do understand it, we won’t know what’s going to happen next or who it will happen to.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Flint said quietly. “That’s why I’m here, even though I know my old partner Noelle DeRicci will be quite angry at me for talking with you.”

  “You’re here for the children,” Ostaka said drily.

  “No,” Flint said. “I’m here for one child. Mine. If other people get helped, then that’s all well and good. But in this case, I’m being one selfish son of a bitch. This crisis has gone on too long. I want it to end. And I’ll do what I can to end it, even if it means disagreeing with good friends.”

  Ostaka studied him for a minute, as if he’d never quite seen anything like Flint before.

  Then he asked, “How do you know you can trust us, Mr. Flint?”

  “I don’t,” Flint said. “But I’m willing to work with all kinds of people I don’t trust. I’m willing to look at all the information and see what fits. I want to stop this thing. Am I the only one?”

  His words echoed in the overly large room. Ostaka watched him.

  But Goudkins was the one who moved. She turned around. Her eyes were sad, her mouth turned down. She looked like she had aged a year in the past few minutes.

  “No,” she said. “You’re not the only one. I volunteered for this assignment. I’m here because I want this solved, too. I’ll help you, Mr. Flint. No matter what it takes.”

  Twenty-seven

  The Earth Alliance headquarters in Henatan, the largest Peyti city on Peyla, sprawled across half a kilometer of land. The headquarters had several buildings, attached by what could only be called airlocks. Since the Peyti built the headquarters and they were housed in the Peyti’s largest city, the main areas all had a Peyti-safe atmosphere.

  However, an Earth-type environment worked better for the bulk of Alliance members, so over the years, the oxygen-rich parts of the headquarters had grown to nearly fifty percent of the available space.

  Rastigan stood in what the humans privately called the true office complex of the Earth Alliance Headquarters. In most ways, the layout was identical to the layout in the Peyti section. The conference rooms in this section were bigger since they got used more often, and the offices were smaller.

  Rastigan stood in the Office of the Director of the Peyti Earth Alliance Headquarters, which was, in Rastigan’s opinion, a fancy way of saying that the Director had no real power outside of this building, a problem that Rastigan was butting her head against at this very moment.

  The Director, a slight human man named Cyril Connab, stood in the center of his office, watching the habitat security vid for the third time. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His brown hair needed a trim, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long time.

  Granted, the food on Peyla left a lot to be desired, but people generally got used to it.

  “Here’s my problem,” he said, still watching the cloned Peyti sail through the air, turn orange, and dissolve. “The Peyti haven’t contacted us. And this is their jurisdiction. Peyti-against-Peyti crime. I don’t think I have the authority to even comment on this.”

  Rastigan felt a frustration so deep that she could only sigh. “Sir, Uzvot went out of her way to let us know the facts here—”

  “Those aren’t facts, Jin,” he said. “It’s her speculation. We don’t even know that these Peyti are cloned.”

  Rastigan resisted the urge to roll her eyes even though the director’s back was turned. She had done that once before and had gotten reprimanded. Apparently, he watched the security vids of all of his office interactions.

  “We do know they’re cloned, sir,” Rastigan said. “I’ve shown you the images from my suit. The Peyti in the center of that group are identical. And the Peyti do not have multiple matching offspring, like twins, so there is no possible way that these Peyti could be anything other than clones.”

  “I have to take your word for that, do I?” he asked, still not turning around.

  “The Peyti reproductive capacities are in the database, sir,” she said, hoping her irritation did not show in her voice. “But it would be easier if you took my word.”

  He turned around. “Why do you care so much about this? The Peyti are taking care of it.”

  “It mirrors the Moon’s Anniversary Day, sir,” she said.

  “I don’t see how,” he said. “No leaders have died. No bombs have gone off.”

  “The clones are of a mass murderer, sir, and they are young adults. They were produced en masse, and they’re clearly training in murder.” She cut off the ends of all of her words. She couldn’t help it. He was a transfer here, and saw the post as a stepping stone to a better Earth Alliance position. Even though he’d been here nearly two years, he hadn’t bothered to learn much about the Peyti at all.

  “Yes, but what kind of murder? We have no idea. We don’t know that they’re going to go kill Peyti leaders.” He raised his chin slightly. It still left him half a head shorter than she was. “And even if they do, Jin, it’s a Peyti matter. If they believe there’s a threat to the Alliance, then they have a duty to contact us. They haven’t, so they do not believe there is a threat.”

  She wanted to shake him, but she knew that wouldn’t help her cause. Although it would make her feel better.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” she said, “but the Peyti are very rule-oriented. They do things subtlely and when they do break a rule, as Uzvot did today, we have to pay attention. The Peyti do not do such things lightly.”

  “I don’t know what you’re telling me,” he said.

  “I’m telling you,” she said slowly so that she wouldn’t add you idiot each time she took a breath, “that Uzvot told me these things with the full knowledge that I work here, in Earth Alliance headquarters, and absent your presence at that habitat today, I was the top Earth Alliance official on site. Everything she said, she said with the full knowledge of my rank and position. I told her repeatedly that I would have to go to the Earth Alliance with this, and while she said she wished things could be different, she continued to tell me details about the deaths, the clones, and about the parallels between Uzvekmt and PierLuigi Frémont.”

  The director studied her for a moment. She could almost hear his calculations. How much risk was he taking if he contacted the Earth alliance with this? Would he offend the Peyti? Would he have to leave Peyla in disgrace, sidelining his diplomatic career?

  Careers had been destroyed for less.

  “Sir,” she said, “if you fail to provide the Earth Alliance with this information and this is an important piece of the Anniversary Day puzzle, if this incident actually shows what direction the next attacks will move in, then your career will be over.”

  He blinked at her. Clearly he hadn’t considered that side of the argument. He turned away from her and looked at that vid for the fourth time, his expression unchanging.

  She had no idea how anyone could watch that repeatedly without becoming at least a little upset. But she had long suspected that Connab had a human bias, and that all other members of the Alliance were just not
as important to him as humans were.

  Apparently, he didn’t see them as individuals who could suffer and feel pain.

  Or maybe this reaction of his came because they were clones, and not because they were Peyti.

  Or perhaps it came from both.

  He turned back to her. “If you believe this is so important,” he said, “then you have my permission to contact the Investigative Arm of the Alliance.”

  “Your permission?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He was distancing himself from the information in case it was tainted. He would blame her then.

  “I think it would be better coming from you,” she said, “and I think it should go to the council.”

  “If the investigative arm agrees, they will contact the council.”

  “It’ll slow down the release of information,” she said.

  “Which you have already told me the Peyti do not want,” he said.

  Her breath caught. Damn him for using her words against her. He had missed the point, again.

  Or maybe she had. At least she had gotten permission to contact the main branch of the Alliance.

  If she didn’t know how to do it properly, if she accidentally included the council in her notification to the investigative arm, well then, it would be his fault, wouldn’t it, because he didn’t do it himself.

  “I could rethink my entire position,” Connab said.

  “No need, sir,” she said. “I would be happy to let the investigative arm know what happened here. Then they can deal with it as they see fit.”

  “Exactly, Jin,” he said. Then he waved a hand at the holographic image. “Now, get this thing out of my office.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She would gladly get this issue out of his office. And she would make sure it went to the people who needed to know about it.

  The people who could follow up on it.

  The people who might make sense of yet another group of clones with a sinister historic origin. A group of clones who killed and, unless she missed her guess, reveled in it.

  Just like their originals had.

  Twenty-eight

  It took only a few hours to reach the resort that Zagrando had programmed into the navigation system. H’Jith stood for half of that, but then its complaints got to Zagrando. He didn’t want to listen to the whining for the rest of the trip. So he expanded the bars on H’Jith’s little prison to allow H’Jith to sit down.

  Then H’Jith complained about sitting on the floor instead of a chair. Zagrando didn’t give in any further, and, by the end of the journey, had added a sound barrier in addition to a light barrier on H’Jith’s private prison.

  He probably should have listened to H’Jith. H’Jith had been in and out of the resort dozens of times. But Zagrando had had enough.

  Besides, he wanted this little detour to end. He needed to contact his handler. He needed a ship. He needed to control his own destiny again.

  He hadn’t given the resort much thought, so when he arrived, it surprised him. It was much more upscale than he had expected. If he had gone in as a civil servant, he wouldn’t have been able to afford the docking fees alone. Fortunately, paying to dock was the first test of the account that H’Jith had given him. The fee got paid with no problem.

  If Zagrando hadn’t received the reminder to pay the docking fee, he would have forgotten to turn on the sound in H’Jith’s little prison. As it was, he had to make sure the account had enough money to handle all the expenses of the resort plus a ship purchase.

  “How much money is in this account?” Zagrando asked.

  “It’s not my fault you chose to go to Goldene Zuflucht,” H’Jith said.

  That was the name of the resort, which apparently should have been some kind of clue. Zagrando hadn’t heard of it, but then, he hadn’t heard of most places in this part of the sector.

  “Answer the question,” Zagrando said.

  “Take me with you,” H’Jith said. “We can forget that our little misunderstanding ever happened. I can broker the ship purchase—”

  “Answer my question,” Zagrando said.

  H’Jith had sighed heavily, then said, “There’s more than enough.”

  “To handle the fees and a ship purchase?” Zagrando asked.

  “And bribes if need be,” H’Jith said.

  Zagrando glared it. “There better be.”

  Then he left the cockpit. The door closed to sound of H’Jith cursing him. Zagrando had smiled, hoping he would never have to see H’Jith again.

  His backup plan was simple: If he couldn’t get a ship in a short period of time, he would take H’Jith’s space yacht to another port and make his decisions from there.

  Of course, H’Jith would have to tag along, until Zagrando abandoned the ship completely.

  The interior of Goldene Zuflucht was as golden as the name implied. The walls looked like they were made of gold leaf, even though Zagrando knew they couldn’t be or the place wouldn’t still be standing.

  He had gone through a significant amount of security to enter, and his arms’ dealer identity had held up. The identity had some dicey entries on purpose, to make him more palatable to the Black Fleet, but it also made him unwelcome at more law-abiding places.

  Either Goldene Zuflucht was not law-abiding or it didn’t care about anyone who broke Earth Alliance laws.

  More likely, the security had checked his fake identity’s bank accounts and determined that Zagrando had more than enough money to purchase anything he needed on this resort.

  Resorts like this, which were starbases with a limited clientele, catered to the very rich. Most everyone that rich had some kind of shady background, whether it was obvious or not. The most important thing at a place like this wasn’t how someone looked or his species, but how much money he could spend—and whether or not he would interfere with the other “guests.”

  Since Zagrando’s alias’s past had shady business practices, but had no murders or violent crimes on his record, he was one of the criminal class that places like this liked.

  At least, he hoped that was the case.

  He also hoped they wouldn’t discover that he had stolen the space yacht he’d brought to Goldene Zuflucht, and that the owner (or at least the purported owner) was being held prisoner inside.

  The interior of the station couldn’t have been more different than the interior of Hellhole. From the moment he entered the resort proper, he felt wrapped in luxury. The air smelled like mint. The lighting was soft. Well-dressed humans went from place to place, moving with purpose. His public links activated, filling with ads that he could delete if he wanted to. He shut off the audio—he preferred to hear what was going on around him rather than ads inside his own head—but he kept the visuals running as a tiny image on the upper left of his left eye. He purposely made the image hard to see, but he could see its movements, and he tracked it as if it were a suspect he was trying to ignore. He wanted to see what the resort offered him. It provided yet another clue as to the amount of money in his accounts.

  The corridor into this part of the resort looked like a path in a park on Earth. The path, made of multicolored stone, had flowering plants growing on either side. The ceiling above was a pale blue that clearly changed color with the time of day. At the moment, some wispy clouds drifted overhead.

  Restaurants and shops had windows that overlooked this part of the resort, and each door bore the name of the establishment in a florid gold script. In fact, everything in the interior had a faint gold tinge, which was, in Zagrando’s opinion, the only tacky thing about the place.

  He didn’t have to ask for directions this time. Instead, he linked into the information network that the station provided and searched for shops that specialized in ships.

  He thought he would have to settle for shops that specialized in ship design, but he didn’t. At least three stores near the dock sold ships, most of them focusing on Earth Alliance luxury brands. One shop specialized in
racing vessels, and Zagrando toyed with that. He would need speed.

  But he would probably have to dump this ship as well, and he was tired. He really wanted some place he could sleep before he had his big meeting.

  If he had his big meeting. He hadn’t even had time to think about it.

  He selected the largest of the luxury ship stores, and followed the lights that appeared on the path. He was the only one who could see those lights, of course, but he appreciated them all the same.

  In fact, he appreciated this place more than he wanted to. Given his druthers, he would stay here for a few days, get the rest he needed, and move on.

  He was burning out. Not that long ago, he would have loved this entire mission, Emzada Lair and all. He would have seen it as a challenge. He would have enjoyed the survival aspects of the game he played now, and he would have taken real pleasure in beating H’Jith, not to mention managing to outrun the Black Fleet (at least so far) and he would have done his best to figure out as much as he could about the people he was meeting before he met them.

  Now he hadn’t even given them a single thought.

  He wanted to quit, move on, become someone else for real.

  He wondered if Earth Alliance Intelligence would let him do that, or if they’d threaten to kill him again, like they had done on Valhalla Basin.

  It didn’t take him long to find the storefront for the luxury ships. The store’s name was in German, just like the resort’s was, and it meant—surprise, surprise—best luxury ships. (Why didn’t every place just default to Standard, so he didn’t have to use a translation program?)

  The door stood open, and he stepped inside.

  The place smelled of fresh-cut wood. The interior had polished wood walls with brass trim. Even the sales counter matched. Windows along the sides looked like portholes. It took Zagrando a moment to realize the place had been designed to look like a sailing ship—the kind that traversed seas, instead of ships that flew between planets.

  He was about to leave when a woman came through a side door he hadn’t even noticed.