Evan could feel Shroud’s glare brand the side of his face. “Early next week.”
“Well, perjure yourself as you never did before. Jani won’t live out the month if you don’t.” Tellinn nodded to him, then shambled out of the room.
Parini struggled to his feet. “Damn it, John!” He tripped over the edge of a rug but bulled onward, rubbing his knee and cursing as he stumbled out the door. “Hugh! Wait!”
Shroud watched the hot pursuit with a disgusted grimace. “Poor Val. He certainly can pick them.”
Evan listened as Val’s shout rang down the hall. “Jani’s survival instinct is knife-edged—she knew the Service was looking for her. She knew her medical problems were so distinctive, she’d attract immediate attention. Yet she still braved a visit to Neoclona-Felix.” He remembered the last time he saw her, just before Justice arrived to arrest him—her lips tinged blue from lack of oxygen, her breathing a rattle he could hear through his haze of pain. “She must have felt like hell.”
“I’d worry about myself, if I were you.” Shroud stared into the dregs of his glass. “Now repeat after me, I do not remember . . . I do not recall . . .”
After a final warning from Shroud on the benefits of acquiring alcoholism-induced amnesia, an actual condition with the name of Korsakoff’s syndrome, Evan was passed off to a series of staff physicians. They lectured him on diet, scanned his brain, and scoped his knee. No one gave any indication that they cared who he was or who he had been. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
His rage mounted as he descended to the parking garage, entered Shroud’s loaned skimmer, and fast-floated through the Chicago streets. By the time the driver deposited him in the front yard of Elba and reset his security bracelet, his hands shook and his head pounded. Markhart showed her good sense by remaining silent when she met him at the door. Halvor showed even greater sense by staying out of sight entirely.
Joaquin’s secretary put him on standby. By the time the attorney’s sere image formed on the comport display, Evan had to grip the edge of his desk to keep from punching his fists through it. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me Jani was at Sheridan!”
Joaquin blinked slowly. “You heard that from Parini, I’m sure. The man’s a shameless gossip. Why Shroud tolerates him, I’ll never know.” He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Evan, I only learned myself the day before yesterday.”
“So why didn’t you tell me the day before—”
“Because I knew you’d do just what you’re doing now—work yourself into needless panic.” He paused to sip from a cup. Tea, most likely. Earl Grey, flavored with plenty of personality-enhancing lemon. “She was seen being pushed through the O’Hare Service concourse in a skimchair. Immediately upon arrival at Sheridan, she was admitted to the Psychotherapeutics Ward. I understand she has since been released, but is under constant medical monitoring.”
Evan’s fingers cramped. He eased his grip on the desk and sat down. “They’ve got her working with the idomeni, don’t they?”
“She is on restricted duty, yes.” Joaquin riffled through a folder. “In the Foreign Transactions department.”
“Her old department at Rauta Shèràa Base.” Evan opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out a half-empty bottle. “Shit.”
“Evan, calm down. She hasn’t been deposed yet, but she will be. We can’t control what she’ll say, but we will be able to counter. Is that clear?”
That’s what you think. “Yes, Quino.” He cracked the bottle seal and took a healthy swig.
“Good.” Joaquin closed the folder and pushed it aside. “So, how did your examination go?”
Shroud grabbed me by the balls and squeezed. “Fine.”
“Good, good.” Joaquin stilled, then reached for another file. “By the way, why did you ask me to check into Niall Pierce’s background?”
Pierce? The visit to Neoclona had rattled Evan so much, everything else had slipped his mind. Oh, Scarface. He shrugged. “I don’t know.” Finding the man’s Achilles’ heel didn’t seem important anymore.
“Well, you always did have a nose for the nasty.” Joaquin sniffed. “He’s a Victorian. Orphaned at age four. Ward of the Commonwealth. Entered the Service twenty-three years ago under the Social Reclamation Act, a nice way of saying join up or go to prison. Numerous disciplinary actions against him—a wonder he wasn’t booted out.” His eyebrows arched. “As a last resort, he was transferred to the Fourth Expeditionary Battalion. After that, he seems to have grown up, and the nasty ends.”
“Fourth Expeditionary?” Evan perked up. “They’re the ones who got us out of Rauta Shèràa.”
“Yes, the Fourth was Roshi’s old crew, wasn’t it?” Joaquin continued reading. “Roshi’s good with the hard cases. Pierce thrived. Promotion through the enlisted ranks followed. To top it off, his actions during the Rauta Shèràa evac earned him a battlefield commission.” He glanced up over the top of the file. “Was it that bad?”
Evan took another swallow before answering. “Yes.”
“We should make more use of it.” Joaquin read on, his brow wrinkling. “Pierce has actually become something of a scholar in his spare time. Master of Literature from Chicago Combined. Published a well-regarded essay on Macbeth—who would have thought? For the past few months, he’s been a regular visitor to the PT Ward. He’s augmented, of course—most combat Spacers were back then. Some of them go on to develop augment depression—he’s apparently one of the unlucky.”
Past few months—define few! Evan had always hated it when aides became vague about time—it always meant they hadn’t done their homework. “Can you be more specific as to the date?”
Joaquin looked up with a start. “Early this year. Right after your arrest, as a matter of fact.” He pulled a disc out of the file. “Here, why don’t I just transfer this to you. I’ll code it as legal communication so no one can monitor it. If you think you recall meeting him during the evac, let me know.” He inserted the disc into his comport. “Now, if you’re sufficiently becalmed, perhaps you’ll let me get back to work.” It wasn’t like Joaquin to request permission, and this time proved no exception. His image sharded, leaving Evan to stare at the blue standby screen.
He waited for the data transfer to complete, then called up Pierce’s file on his comport display. Joaquin had covered the high points, but the details revealed the more complex picture of a self-destructive young man undergoing a complete transformation under the firm guidance of the only father figure he had ever known. “Boy, Niall, you’d fall on a sword for Roshi, wouldn’t you?” If every great man had his dog, Mako had bred an attack animal in Pierce.
Evan rested his head against the chairback and let his mind wander. I get arrested. Directly afterward, the son the A-G never had starts cracking up. “But Roshi doesn’t let him down. He keeps him by his side to play escort and take notes on diarrhea-inducing herbs.” However much Pierce esteemed Mako, the feeling seemed mutual.
“What else happened after my arrest?” Well, relations with the idomeni became more interesting. Nema started talking GateWay rights and trade routes as soon as the fact that Jani Kilian lived became widely known.
“Jani’s alive—Pierce goes downhill.” Evan pondered, then shook his head. “Coincidence.” He stared into space for a time. Then he scrabbled through his desk for a recording board and stylus and reread Pierce’s file, making notes along the way.
Chapter 12
It might have been a dream. Could have been a dream.
Jani rode a waveglider. But she had no arms to steer the board, and skimmed out farther and farther on the lake. The shoreline disappeared from view. Skies darkened. Wind howled. The waves grew higher and higher, breaking over her again and again before finally flipping the glider like a vend token. She tumbled through the air. Into the water. The cold wet closed over her, pulled her down. She could see nothing in the frigid blackness, but she could hear.
Voices.
No.
One voice.
&
nbsp; Neumann’s.
Welcome to my home base, Kilian.
Deeper. Darker. Colder.
I’ve been waiting for you.
Pain. In her stomach. She pressed the side of her body against the floor, and tried to drive it out with cold.
“Jani!”
She curled in a ball.
“Somebody call an ambulance!”
Tighter. Tighter. If she made herself small enough, she could sink between the tiles, disappear into the floor, and leave the pain behind. It wouldn’t fit. It was too big.
“Hurry up! She’s in here!”
Pimentel glowered at the cartridge tester. “You’re the gatekeeper, Jani. You’re the one who controls what you eat. Your scanner doesn’t come equipped with little hands to clamp over your mouth.” He looked at her over the top of his magnispecs. He wore summerweights rather than his usual medwhites; his shirt was rumpled, and his hair needed a trim. Some A&S-hole would make his or her quota and then some the next time he stepped outside.
Jani sniffed the air, then continued to breathe through her mouth. According to Pimentel, Lucien had stopped by her room to take her to breakfast. When she didn’t answer the buzzer, he had broken in and found her semiconscious on her bathroom floor. She had come to in Triage. Taken a deep breath. Passed out again when the smell from the next alcove hit her. There, a burn team attended to a firing-range accident. The young woman’s shooter had backflashed; the half-formed pulse packet had burnt through her summerweights and seared her right side from shoulder to knee.
“Please don’t admit me,” Jani whispered. Even though she now sat in an examining room on the opposite end of the building, she swore she could detect the odor of burnt flesh in the air. Burnt, like Borgie and the others. Burnt as she had been, too, but she had survived. “I don’t want to stay here.”
Pimentel removed the magnispecs. “Jani, you are in no condition to leave. Acute intermittent porphyria can affect the autonomic nervous system. Part of that system controls the adrenal glands, which, along with your thyroid, are the sites of your secondary augmentation. While you were in Triage, you started talking to someone who wasn’t there. I’m concerned that stimulation of your adrenals is aggravating your primary insert, and you don’t need the threat of augie psychosis on top of everything else.” He held out the recording board and stared at it. “I’m going to schedule you for an augmentation imaging. Today. And you’re staying here until that’s done.”
Jani sat on a skimchair in the imaging lounge and spooned another mouthful of fruit sludge from the overlarge container. Strawberry, supposedly. Judging from the texture, “straw” was a given, but she’d fight to the death the “berry” part.
The clip of footsteps in the hallway gave her an excuse to drop the spoon in the remains of the semifrozen glop. The door swept aside and Friesian bustled in; he slid to a stop when he spotted her.
“Pimentel called,” he said as he took in the skimchair, her hospital-issue robe and pajamas. “Said—they found you—in your room.” His voice was choppy, his face flushed. It was a healthy run from Defense Command. “What happened?”
“Didn’t eat right. Got sick.”
“Jani.” Sweat beaded his forehead and soaked his short-sleeve. He pulled a dispo from his trouser pocket and mopped his brow. “How do you feel now?”
“Fine.”
“‘Fine,’ she says.” He sat down on the sofa next to her chair. “And we know what that’s worth, don’t we?”
Jani remained quiet and stirred the remains of the sludge.
Friesian shook his head. “Pimentel thinks one of the reasons you suffered this episode is because you’re under a great deal of stress. I told him I had a piece of news I thought might reduce that stress substantially. When he heard what it was, he suggested I share it with you.” He sat back, arms at his sides. He looked as exhausted as Jani felt. “I received a call early this morning from a Colonel Bryant, a member of the prosecution. We had a very interesting talk. I’m expecting an offer to work out a deal anytime now.”
Jani kept poking at the sludge. “No trial?”
“Just a hearing.”
“How do you know they’re not just pulling your leg?” She set the container on her chairside table and wiped her condensation-wetted fingers on her robe.
Friesian tugged at his damp short-sleeve. “I’ve been at this game a while. I know when someone’s playing with me and I know when they’re scrambling. This is a scramble like nothing I’ve ever seen. They want you settled and out of here.”
Jani sat back. As she shifted, the skimchair rocked. The motion sickened her—she had to swallow hard before speaking. “Makes you wonder what’s the rush, doesn’t it?”
Friesian flexed his neck forward, back, then side to side. His cervical vertebrae cracked like knuckles. “No, it doesn’t. My job is not to run after the prosecution and ask them why they’re not going after you harder. My job is to get you out from under with as little penalty as possible. And to keep you from shooting yourself in the foot, which from the notations in your record appears to have bordered on a second calling!”
After a flare of anger that set her stomach to clenching, Jani decided not to argue. She felt too sick. Besides, truth was truth. “So what would I be looking at?” She leaned forward. Her lower back balked, and she braced her elbows on her knees for support. “A plea bargain?”
Friesian glanced at her, then looked away. “Not quite. More an arrangement that would see justice served, while taking your condition into account.”
“My condition?”
“Your emotional and physical health, both now and at the time of the infraction.”
Infraction? That made it sound so . . . A&S. Jani sat up carefully. “Go on.”
Friesian hesitated at the tone in her voice. “This arrangement would be worked out by a panel of experts. In your case, the panel would consist of an adjudicating committee, your attending and consulting physicians, a prosecutor from the JA, and me.”
“Who sits on the adjudicating committee?”
“A judge and two members of Service Medical unaffiliated with your case.”
“No trial?”
“What would be the point? We would admit you did what you were charged with. Your physicians would explain why you did what you did. The prosecution would delineate the consequences of your actions. Then, it’s up to the committee to decide a fair punishment, while at the same time protecting you.”
Why do I have a feeling what I need protecting from is the committee? “And you expect what?”
“A general medical discharge. A verdict that while you may have been somewhat aware of what you were doing when you missed being evac’d from Rauta Shèràa, your physical and emotional states contributed to your disregard of the consequences.”
“How can you define my physical and emotional states when no one will believe me when I tell them what happened?”
“Jani, we need to make a determination according to what we know happened. What we have paper on. The effects of the experimental treatments you received from John Shroud. Your guilt over the deaths of your comrades in the transport crash. Your inability to prevent the deaths of the patients at Knevçet Shèràa.”
Jani rested her hands on her stomach. The nausea had eased, but the fruit sludge settled like a weight, heavy enough to push her through the chair. “What does a general medical entail these days?”
Friesian’s shoulders slumped. It was as if he’d braced for a fight, then realized there wouldn’t be one. “It entitles you to a partial pension. You’d give up the right to sign yourself as Captain, Retired. No access to ship-stores discounts or emergency travel on Service vessels. But you’d still retain rights to medical care, which in your case, I believe, is the most important consideration.”
“Jail?”
“Sentence would be limited to time served.”
“Which was?”
“Your incarceration at Fort Constanza.”
“On
e week in the brig infirmary?” She searched Friesian’s face for some sign of wonderment or confusion, any indication that he felt mystified. She certainly did. “You really believe they will offer me this deal?”
“Bryant indicated it could be finalized within a week.”
“And that I should take it?”
“I would recommend you do, without hesitation.”
“Just walk away?” She watched Friesian nod.
The realization settled over her gradually, like the slow-motion buckling and flattening of a sailchute after a landing. They’re letting me off the hook. She licked her dry lips, swallowed. I killed Rikart Neumann, and they don’t care.
I wonder why?
Jani felt a slight tingle, the mild frisson of the shock not completely unexpected. She used to feel it back at Rauta Shèràa Base, when she’d show up for an audit. The catch in a voice. The sidelong glance. The sense that things were going on that other people didn’t want her to know about.
I’m being diddled. She sat back and clasped her hands over her still-sore stomach. It didn’t do to get excited—a person could miss things if she let herself get carried away.
Eyes and Ears open—that was always the key.
Friesian rose, walked to the wall opposite, and thumbed through the tacked-up notices on a message board. “By the way, I received a packet in the interdepartmental mails from a Lieutenant Yance in SIB Archives. It contained missing portions of your ServRec. He noted in his cover memo that he had sent copies to you, as well. At your request.” He walked back and stood in front of her. “What were you doing at the SIB?”
Jani grew conscious of a disquieting sensation. A flashback to her teen years, and her papa standing before her. Same stance as Friesian. Same probing glare. “Just looking around,” she replied softly. A voice caught out past curfew.
“Just looking around?” Friesian rubbed his face. He suffered the curse of the dark-haired and pale—only midmorning, and he already looked like he needed a shave. “The next time you feel an overwhelming urge to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, call me.”
Rules of Conflict Page 14