Or the moment she became Security Chief.
It could blossom into a scandal—why were these ships left to rot in public areas of Armstrong’s port?—and, honestly, it was a scandal. A serious one, one that would have long-term repercussions. Not just political ones, but health and safety ones.
In truth, she only cared about the health and safety repercussions. But she was being paid to care about the political ones. As soon as she had preliminary information on all the ships—what kind of quarantine they were under, how long they’d been there, who owned the ships—then she would have to notify the mayor and the governor-general.
DeRicci leaned back in her chair and surveyed the room. The dome lights had dimmed to night, putting everything in her office in relief. Now that the place was filled with plants and antique furniture, she liked it here. Before it had seemed cold and imposing. Now it was more familiar to her than her own apartment.
Sixty-five ships. She shook her head. Then her screen pinged. Popova sent her the notes on the Bixian government’s quarantines. DeRicci had asked a specialist at Armstrong University to research this for her, and do it quickly.
Even if the specialist had leaked the information, no one would understand it. There wasn’t a hook yet. No one except DeRicci and her staff had context.
She wasn’t even sure her staff quite understood what DeRicci was searching for.
DeRicci sighed and glanced at the notes. They’d been put in a vid file, probably because the specialist wanted credit for his work and this was the best way to get it.
DeRicci shook her head. It was also the slowest way to pass information.
“Computer,” she said with another sigh, “transcribe and organize.”
She was taking a few risks having the computer organize the material. Sometimes, a computer’s organization was based on key words, not on concepts.
But she figured it would be just as easy to scan out-of-order information, written by computer, as it was to listen to every word of some professor’s lecture. If this professor was anything like the ones she’d had at the academy, he would give the lecture out of order as well.
The image had frozen on the screen as the computer did her bidding. It wasn’t the transcription that took a long time; it was the organization part.
DeRicci stood and walked to the windows. Lights were on all over the city. They reflected in the dome’s interior surface, making it look like another city—rounder, a little chubbier—floated above them, the buildings upside down.
She loved Armstrong at night. It had a warmth that it lacked during the day. It didn’t matter to her that it wasn’t as safe as it was in Dome Daylight. She just liked the light show.
Her computer pinged, and an image flashed across her right eye, asking her if she wanted the information downloaded into her personal system. She declined, and went back to the desk.
Then she scanned the professor’s two-hour-and-twenty-minute lecture.
The computer had organized the material into information on the Hazar Empire, the history of the Bixian Government, and the quirks of both. In its zeal to get every piece of information correct, the computer also listed the areas that the professor plagiarized from published material.
The plagiarism caught DeRicci’s attention, until she realized that the professor had been repeating information he’d provided to some vid on the Hazar Empire, and regurgitating—line by line—stuff he’d written in his poorly published (available only through the Armstrong University System, and only on this region of the Moon) treatises on the Bixian government.
The upshot was a little simpler than DeRicci expected. The Bixian government was allowed to keep its traditions because a number of people in the Hazar Empire exploited them. It seemed that the Bixians weren’t really a tribe at all. Instead, they were a loosely connected group of assassins, isolated within the Hazar Empire so that they could be controlled.
That control had continued for hundreds of years, and as a result, the Bixians married into the empire and created a whole bunch of little assassins. Their traditions weren’t so much religious as trade craft.
Occasionally groups from the outside used the Bixian’s services, often with permission of the Hazar Empire. And there were code words for the bizarre series of political maneuvers that allowed the group to enter Bixian territory.
One of the code words was quarantine. The Bixian government could—and often did—quarantine ships that had never entered Bixian territory. Often the ship hadn’t even been to the Hazar Empire. The Bixian word for quarantine, often misinterpreted as curse, was simply code for “target.”
Anyone who had a ship under Bixian quarantine was a target for a Bixian assassin.
DeRicci felt cold. Paloma had been murdered. Had the assassin been Bixian? And if so, how could she tell?
Then she leaned back. It wasn’t her job to tell. It was Nyquist’s.
She needed to do more research. She needed to know Armstrong’s relationship with the Bixians, and whether or not Bixian traditions were allowed on Armstrong’s soil. From her own preliminary work, it seemed like they weren’t.
But her initial research had also told her that Bixian quarantines were curses. So she couldn’t trust everything she found on her own.
She was about to summon Popova when the door opened. Popova slipped inside.
DeRicci would have made a snide comment about Popova’s psychic abilities if it weren’t for the expression on her assistant’s face.
“We had an explosion at the port,” Popova said. “People are dead.”
DeRicci’s first thought—that the explosion couldn’t have been very big because she hadn’t felt it like she had felt that bomb two years ago—shamed her. She didn’t say it.
“How many?” she asked.
Popova shrugged. “But that’s not our biggest problem.”
“What is?” DeRicci asked.
“The ship that blew belongs to Paloma. It’s called the Dove. They think your friend Flint set the charge.”
DeRicci stood and went back to her spot by the window, careful not to let Popova see her reflection. She wasn’t sure how to react. Nyquist had gone to the port. He’d gone to see the Dove.
Flint wouldn’t murder Nyquist. Flint was capable of killing people, DeRicci knew that. DeRicci knew of one occasion.
He’d thought the circumstances justified, and so did she.
Had he thought so now?
“Is Detective Nyquist okay?”
“I don’t know,” Popova said softly. “You want to go there?”
DeRicci shook her head. She could almost hear the governor-general exhorting her to delegate. She wasn’t an investigator any more, and in this case, she wasn’t sure she could be.
She couldn’t be objective.
“No,” DeRicci said. “I’ll get in the way.”
Besides, the port had procedures that wouldn’t allow her to go in unless she pulled rank. If she did that, she would be in the way.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She had to handle this from here, and not think about Nyquist. “Seal the area around the port. Get someone to handle the media so we don’t have a panic. And find out what’s really going on.”
“What are you going to do?” Popova asked.
DeRicci normally would have found the question cheeky. At the moment, though, it seemed logical.
“I’m going to contact Nyquist,” she said.
She wanted to reassure her that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
Thirty-one
Bartholomew Nyquist was unavailable to everyone, including Noelle DeRicci. His links were shut down.
He was in a decontamination chamber unlike any he’d ever seen. It was large and high-ceilinged. The door locked behind him. He couldn’t get back out if he tried. He had to go through the entire process.
He was told, in a variety of languages and in a variety of ways, to remain clothed for the first part of the decontamination. The signs flickeri
ng all over the walls made him dizzy. The voices, speaking in more languages than he could recognize, made him feel crowded.
He followed the directions and went up two steps into another chamber. As the door closed behind him, he watched the first chamber fill with small ‘bots. They were supposed to pick up any trace he left behind before the water and then the lights cleaned up after him.
The port had several of these. He hadn’t realized one was so close to Terminal 25, but it made sense. It also made sense that this decon chamber was the ritziest he’d seen, given where he was.
Rich people needed to feel like they were being treated with style.
But as the process began in the second chamber—which seemed like nothing more than a giant tube to him—he realized that he wasn’t being treated with style. He was getting the most thorough cleansing of his life.
The lights that ran across his clothing actually had heat. Something moist coated his hair. At first, he thought it a kind of shampoo, and then he realized it was some kind of nanocleanser—tiny ‘bots that took more debris from him and stored it who-knew-where.
More instructions in all those languages (no signage this time) came with the lights—turn this way, lift that arm, move that leg—and he felt crowded again, even though he knew he was alone.
He wondered if Zengotita had already been through this decon chamber or if she had gone into a different part of the unit. He had no way to find out.
Nor could he discover how the search for Flint was going or if the techs, all of whom had stood, had really survived after all. His ears itched, and as he clapped his hands onto them, he realized that the voices he heard weren’t coming from overhead, but from something inserted in his ear, something that dealt with the severe trauma that had happened to his hearing.
Either that something healed the trauma or avoided it; he didn’t have enough medical knowledge to tell the difference.
When the stuff floated out of his hair and the light show ended, more voices instructed him to go to the dressing room between chambers. Again, that room was through the only open door.
There he had to remove his clothing. A claw-handed thing, another ʼbot apparently, pulled the articles away, and after a moment, the voices told him he wouldn’t see his clothing again. It was evidence in a criminal case.
He wondered how it could be evidence when they had removed all the trace from it. But this case, being at the port, wasn’t exactly his concern. Since he was a victim of the explosion, he wouldn’t be able to investigate it. Whoever got the call from his office would have to share duties with port security and whatever jurisdiction held title to the yacht or its berth.
Just because Paloma had owned it and just because she lived on Armstrong didn’t mean the Dove had been registered here. A lot of yacht owners registered with other governments who provided tax breaks or even stipends for running such an elaborate vehicle.
The voices came back and directed him into another decon chamber. This one was even smaller than the second one. He pressed against the wall and let the light work on his skin. That substance coated him again, and he watched with a sick fascination as it floated away, giant globules carrying bits of whatever had clung to him.
The substance left him feeling sticky and wanting a water shower, which he wasn’t sure he was going to get. He wasn’t even sure he would get clothing from the port, since his own wouldn’t come back to him.
It would be hard to maintain his dignity while he was waiting for someone from headquarters to bring him clothes. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do that.
His face itched. He wanted to rub his nose, but he couldn’t. The voices had instructed him not to touch anything except the walls.
Light came on again, this time making sure he had no breaks in the skin. The voices explained it all as the work occurred. The examination showed several breaks in the skin (Cuts, he muttered), and as a result, the voices directed him to yet another chamber.
That one was dark and tiny. The walls pressed against him, and there was barely any place for his feet. It felt filthy in there, even though it couldn’t be. A decontamination chamber wouldn’t work if there was filth.
Still, the sensation left his skin crawling. He cringed as the lights invaded all of his orifices. More small ‘bots took readings, some from his skin, some from his blood, and some from his other bodily fluids. His eyes were forced open, his mouth probed.
He was beginning to feel more like an assault victim than a bombing survivor.
He knew better than to struggle, though. The decontamination process was supposed to help him, to protect him from whatever dangers had been found in that explosion. Still, he hadn’t been through anything quite like this before, and he was sure he didn’t want to go through anything like it again.
Finally, the lights shut down, the voices told him in all their languages that he could wait in the next room. His skin burned. He felt worse than he had when he entered the decontamination chamber.
He found himself in a small room, furnished with heavily upholstered furniture and a thick carpet that soothed his bare feet. A robe, sealed in plastic, waited on one of the couch cushions. He knew it was his, even without his name on it.
He pulled the plastic off, put on the robe, and felt the material caress his skin. The robe probably had some soothing fibers, something that was supposed to calm him, and he didn’t care. He needed some calming.
He needed to get out of here.
After a few minutes, the doors clicked open. His links powered on, identifiable by a small hum that he hadn’t even realized was missing. His hearing was back—whatever they had done to let him hear the voices had repaired the damage to his eardrum.
A list of what had been removed from him scrolled along the bottom of his vision; he instructed the links to save the information and send it in a compacted file to his desk at headquarters. He would look at the information later.
Right now, all that mattered was that he was cleared enough to leave.
As he walked through the doors, a woman wearing a port security uniform met him. She handed him a suit of clothes remarkably like the ones they had taken from him.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “Nothing permanently damaged.”
Just cuts and bruises and repaired ears. He nodded at her, and hoped she would leave without him telling her to.
This room wasn’t as comfortable as the last. It was some kind of exit chamber. Dressing rooms were built into the walls.
“Is everyone else all right?”
She nodded. “Only Theda died in the initial blast.”
Theda. The woman had a name, and he didn’t learn it until she was dead.
“Did you find Flint?”
“Flint?” she repeated as if she hadn’t heard the name. “Was he in your group?”
Nyquist sighed. “I’m going to change. When I get out, I want to meet with whomever is in charge of the bombing investigation, and anyone left from my original team.”
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t care what you think,” Nyquist said. “I’m investigating a murder that just got compounded by another murder, and the killer might still be in the port. We need to act quickly. Make sure your people are looking for a Retrieval Artist named Miles Flint, and do it fast.”
She frowned at him. “The former police officer?”
“Yes,” Nyquist suppressed a curse. He hated repeating himself. “Quickly. We’re running out of time.”
She nodded, then tilted her head the way people did when they sent confidential information along their links.
He stepped into the dressing room, noting for the first time that they had forgotten to supply him with shoes. Everything was screwed up, including him, and he wasn’t sure how to make it right.
Thirty-two
They got out of the port, which surprised Van Alen but not Flint. When he’d worked in Space Traffic, there’d been several similar incidents—five bombings, two bomb threats, and one serio
us explosive decompression—and each time, the port had responded with remarkable chaos.
He took advantage of that.
He had also caught a glimpse of Murray’s screens, and knew which parts of the port had already sealed down. Flint couldn’t have gotten to the Emmeline if he wanted to, since the explosion happened in Terminal 25. Everything from Terminal 8 to Terminal 33 was blocked off.
But the exits from the port weren’t. He kept hold of Van Alen’s hand and tugged her through various corridors toward the main exit. Travelers, both human and non-human, ran out as if they were personally being pursued by the bombers.
Flint made sure he and Van Alen kept up with the crowd, finding it ironic that everyone was panicked except him, the one man who might have something to worry about when it came to being pursued by bombers.
Had that bomb been placed in the Dove after he left? If so, had it been placed there for him?
Chaos was worse outside the port—people trying to get in, emergency services personnel carrying equipment, and panicked travelers scattering in all directions. Flint continued to tug Van Alen, who seemed distracted by everything.
Finally, he reached down, grabbed the plastic bag with the handheld, and clutched it to his own chest.
Van Alen didn’t even notice.
Nor did she seem to notice when they reached the lot that held her aircar. He was glad they hadn’t taken his here, glad they had decided it would call too much attention to their plan. He hadn’t figured it would keep the authorities from finding him.
“I’m driving,” Flint said. “Give me the codes.”
She blinked as if she hadn’t heard him. He sent a message across her links, and she blinked again, this time looking directly at him.
“No,” she said.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.” She shook free of his hand and hurried through the rows of cars. Right now, no one else was in the lot—maybe everyone who had parked here was trapped inside. This was short-term VIP parking, after all, and a lot of the VIPs would be in Terminal 25.
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