He left the room only once, to confirm with a befuddled Markhart what he’d had for lunch the previous day. Vegetable soup. Cheddar bread. Pear tart. Got it. Combed the newssheets to assure himself he had indeed watched the holoVee drama he remembered from the night before.
He slumped in his chair, the desktop and the surrounding floor scattered with confirmatory remnants. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.
And if he didn’t act quickly, that fact could keep him marooned on Elba for the rest of his life.
He adjourned to bed, exhausted. Slept. Dreamed. Of Jani.
She looked as she had before the crash. Rounder, cuter face. More compact, curvier body.
She wore the nightgown he’d bought her for their first anniversary. A gift both for her and his twenty-four-year-old hormones, a murderously expensive confection imported from Phillipa. Transparent film from neckline to floor, cut with an opaque swirl that covered just enough and no more.
She straddled him, the gown’s skirt hiked up to reveal her satiny thighs. She said something that made them both laugh. Then she leaned forward, shoulder-length black hair veiling her face, and kissed him.
The scene shifted. No more nightgown. Just her flawless skin, lit by unseen illumination to the shade of the Crème Caramel. Perfect breasts. Narrow waist. Swell of hip. Head thrown back as she moved above him, called his name, cried out—
He snapped awake, mouth dry, heart pounding. Damn it—anybody but her—! He groaned as the ache of an erection overtook him; he dispatched it in the usual manner.
He got out of bed, showered, switched into fresh pajamas. Then he collected a bottle and padded downstairs and outside to his sheltered patio.
The night air was weighty with heat and the unfulfilled longing for storm. Evan sat, propped his bare feet on a table, and drank. Then he laid back his head and counted the stars.
I visited some of you. Committed crimes. Then returned home to the life that had been made for him, a glossy thing with a hollow center built on a foundation of sand.
“Didn’t turn out the way you planned, did it, Dad?” He kept his eyes focused on the night sky as he spoke to his dead father. Then he decided that was being optimistic, and looked down at the flagstone instead. “I started out so full of promise.” But the posting to the Rauta Shèràa Consulate, meant to be the first step in a great career, devolved into disaster, followed by full-blown, tail-between-the-legs retreat.
The journey from hell. A detour to Phillipa to take on supplies added two weeks to an already-interminable journey. By the time Evan touched down at O’Hare, he had lost fifteen kilos and, despite the efforts of the Hilfington medical officer, much of his hair. Stress, he’d told his mother, who had broken down at the sight of him. To Dad, he’d said nothing. You did the right thing, his father told him as they walked down the VIP Concourse. You did it for Rik.
He’d come home to the hard looks the bereaved sometimes bestowed on the survivors. And to the funerals. Rikart Neumann’s memorial service, sans body, followed by Ebben’s, Unser’s, and Fitzhugh’s, that might as well have been. Closed caskets all, because of the condition of the bodies. Severe decomposition caused by improper storage, his father had said. Criminal negligence, the mourning Families maintained.
Sloppy of Mako. The forceful performance he’d given before the Board of Inquiry assured that the furor didn’t damage his career, but still . . . . All he had to do was put the bodies in the damned freezer. What the hell had he done, stuffed them in body bags and shoved them in the hold?
Evan sat and watched the moon, his mind emptying with the bottle. No more thoughts of death. Jani. Lyssa. His children. By the time he returned to bed, he felt numbed. Nothing wrong with my memory. But then, that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Chapter 18
Jani sat at her desk, her hands moving over her workstation touchboard at their own pace, in their own world. She was sufficiently adept at report assembly that she didn’t need to concentrate on what she did in order to do it. Lucky for her.
With the help of some cold water and borrowed makeup, she had pulled herself together by the time she met with Friesian, at least on the outside. Their discussion began contentious, with a gradual shift to tense treaty by the end. Yes, he would sit at her side during her Office Hours with Burkett and yes, this did complicate any possible deal with the Judge Advocate. Her special knowledge of idomeni customs would weigh in her favor. Any pressure applied on her behalf by the idomeni ambassador would not. Nema had been told exactly that after he called Burkett in person to protest her treatment, and seemed to understand when told that his interference would only complicate an already-messy situation. At least, he had nodded his head in a positive manner. When Jani had commented on the many ways such a head-nodding could be interpreted, Friesian had once again broken out the bright pink headache tablets.
That meeting finished, she had returned to FT to find no one had heard from Hals. The desk-pool techs watched her with coiled-spring wariness when she emerged from her office to get coffee, which she drank from a dispo. Her Acadia Central United mug joined the Gruppo Helvetica in the bottom drawer of her desk. Ischi hadn’t been in the mood to take a joke, and she certainly hadn’t been in the mood to make one.
Jani entered the last of the data-transfer parameters into the report grid, applied the macro, and sat back to watch the report assemble itself, section by section. Part of her monitored the formatting and data retrieval with an eye that could detect a problem without consciously thinking about it. The rest of her decamped to the dark corner of her soul and pondered whether Sam Duong could actually be Simyam Baru.
He looks so different. She caught a glimpse of her skewed reflection in the display surface. Join the crowd.
She wondered if she could dare broach the subject. She wondered where she would start. Hello, Mr. Baru. Do you remember me? I’m the one who let it happen, the one who didn’t act quickly enough, the one who let you die.
Do you remember me?
I’ve never forgotten you.
“So this is how the other half lives.”
Jani looked up to find Lucien leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded, examining her office with a doubtful eye.
“I thought there’d at least be furniture.” He sauntered in and paced a circle in the large empty space between her desk and her window. “Great view,” he sniffed as he walked past the pane. He flopped into her visitor’s chair and put his feet up on her desk. “Do you know what time it is?”
Jani checked her timepiece. “Twenty-one seventeen.”
“Have you had dinner?”
“No.”
“When’s your next appointment with Pimentel?”
“Tomorrow.”
“He’s going to be perturbed.”
“Probably.”
“Well, that makes three one-word answers in a row.” Lucien tugged at his trouser crease. He looked extremely crisp, as though he’d changed into a fresh uniform just prior to dropping by. “Are you angry with me for not giving you Nema’s code?”
“No.” Not much.
“Good, because I spent the whole day busting tail for you.”
“Really?”
“That’s five one-word answers in a row. What’s wrong?”
Jani watched page after page of her export-license agreement pull itself together from portions of other people’s reports. That’s how Roger thinks Sam’s mind works. Every day, every hour. And I have no good reason to think otherwise. “I talked with Sam Duong today.”
“And?”
“He’s sick.”
“I could have told you that.”
“I think he might—” No, she couldn’t give the possibility voice. Not yet. “I think he might have a very good reason for being the way he is.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.” Lucien plucked her stylus holder from her desktop and toyed with the charger. “Doing anything tomorrow afternoon?”
“Burning a candle for my Office
Hours appointment. Otherwise, no.” Her workstation signaled the report complete, and she forwarded it to Hals’s system for sign-off. “Why?”
“Interdepartmental soccer match. I’m captain of the Fourth Floor Wonderboys. Star halfback, and a joy to watch.”
“Modesty becomes you.”
“We’re playing a team from North Lakeside.” Lucien rattled off a tinny drumroll with two styli. “The Specials.”
Jani smiled for the first time since her SIB visit. “Spec Service?”
He grinned. “I thought that would get your attention.”
“Pierce play?”
“No, but he attends all the games.” One stylus became an orchestra-leading baton. “I juggled our schedule and brought the match forward six weeks. The Sports and Activities department is not my friend anymore, if you know what I mean. That’s what I spent all day doing, when I should have been reading security investigation reports about the next place Nema’s visiting.” Lucien pointed the other stylus at Jani like an overlong accusing finger. “If anything happens to him at the Commodities Exchange next month, it’s all your fault.”
“I’d worry about the Exchange, if I were you.” Jani brushed off his aggravated stare. “I need to figure out how to approach Pierce.”
“You need to think why you’re putting your ass on the line for a sick old man you don’t even know.” Lucien hunched his shoulders and sank down in his seat. “I bet you wouldn’t do it for me.”
Jani considered the not-so-veiled cry for sympathy. “You know what I think about sometimes?” She deactivated her workstation and dimmed the desk lamp. “What you told me in the sunroom, the first time you visited me.”
Lucien shifted uncertainly. He had expected her to protest or reassure him—he wasn’t sure how to respond. “I told you I was working with Nema.”
“You also said you reported to Justice. Now that makes me wonder—after Nema gets his and they get theirs, what’s left for me?”
Lucien pouted. “What do you want?”
“Your mind.” Jani finger-locked her desk drawers. “According to Sam, all the missing documents have shown up except for some records for the CSS Kensington. Death certs bubbled to the surface today. One, an SFC named Caldor, was directly attributable to the Haárin bombing. But the other three, Ebben, Unser, and Fitzhugh—mishandling their remains was the main reason Mako was called before the Board.”
“Ebben—Anais used to talk about her.” Lucien kept his gaze locked on his shoes. “They were best friends.”
“They deserved each other. Talitha Ebben CO’d Rauta Shèràa Base. Phil Unser was her exec, and Matilda Fitzhugh headed Spec Service.”
“Anais always felt the Haárin killed Ebben in revenge for Knevçet Shèràa.” Lucien glanced at Jani and shrugged apology. “That’s a big reason why she likes to stick it to the idomeni whenever possible. She knows it’s bad policy, but she can’t help herself. She hates them. She thinks they used the Night of the Blade as a cover to settle scores.”
Jani shook her head. “The idomeni don’t operate undercover like that—that was why the Laumrau’s conspiracy with Neumann upset them so.”
“Maybe if they felt angry enough, they’d make the exception.”
“No.” Jani twisted in her chair to stretch her stiff back. “They’d feel no compunction about admitting to killings they felt were justified.
Lucien removed his feet from her desk and leaned forward. “So how did they die?”
“The obvious answer is that they were murdered by humans. Problem is, the list of suspects is endless. They were involved with every smuggler, fence, and racketeer in the J-Loop and Pearl Way. It could have been that as the war entered the final stages, they defaulted on agreements with people who wouldn’t take ‘sorry, there’s a war on,’ for an answer.”
“But you’d know if someone like that had killed them, wouldn’t you?” Lucien asked. “What’s the point of making an example if it’s just going to get swamped out by background noise?”
“Maybe the signs were there, but Mako’s botching erased them.” Jani contemplated her comport, then glanced across the desk to find Lucien eyeing her in a much-less-attractive manner.
“And where were you during the night in question?”
“Very funny.”
“You were in the city that night, weren’t you?”
“I had just fled the hospital. I was trying to get to the shuttleport, to wangle a berth out of there.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Thanks.” Jani tapped out a search on her comport, then rang through the code that appeared on the display. “Good evening, Mr. Duong,” she said to the sad face that appeared.
“Captain!” Sam Duong’s expression lightened. Then his brow furrowed in concern. “Are you feeling better? You didn’t look well when you left.”
“I’m fine,” Jani replied, avoiding Lucien’s questioning look. “Mr. Duong, who signed the death certs for Ebben and the rest?”
“Oh. They’re locked away now, and I can’t—” His eyes widened. “Car—Carnival!”
Jani shot a dirty look at Lucien, who had clapped his hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. “Don’t you mean Carvalla?”
Duong blinked uncertainly. “Maybe.” He jumped as an alarm bleat sounded at his end. “Disaster drill—I must go!” His face froze, then fractured, leaving Jani to stare at the darkened display.
Lucien stood up with a growl. “Work day over—let’s go. We can go to the South Central Club and watch soccer and argue.”
The darkness felt comforting, like a warm blanket. Jani felt her mood lift at the sight of people dressed in base casuals—light grey T-shirts with steel blue shorts or pull-on pants—and at the squeak of trainers on scancrete that cut the still air.
But she needed to talk to someone, and Lucien wouldn’t do. Not for this. He had no use for sympathy. She doubted he had much use for hope, either.
She tapped his arm. “Is there a Misty Center nearby?”
“Why?” He pointed down the walkway, toward the brightly lit entrance of the South Central Officers’ Club. “At twenty-two up, drinks are two for one.”
“I don’t think Pimentel wants me to drink.”
“So I’ll drink yours, too.”
“Lucien.”
“Why now?”
“Because I need to talk to someone.” Two someones, really, whom she should have tried to talk to long before this.
“Code?”
“Acadia one-two. Ville Acadie TG-one-seven-X-one.”
“Name of contact?”
“Declan and or Jamira Kilian. Ninth Arrondissment, Seven Rue D’Aubergine.”
The civilian clerk continued to read items off a checklist attached to a recording board. “You realize sending family messages via Misty is considered nonessential use of an essential service?” She sniffed quietly.
Jani leaned against the wall of the transmission booth and folded her arms. “I seem to recall that the real reason message central transmit was invented was to relay Cup match results more quickly between bases.” She sniffed louder. “Apocrypha, I’m sure.”
“If you brought a Form Eight-twelve from your CO defining this as an emergency communication, I could waive the fee.” The clerk’s high-pitched voice kicked up an additional third. “This is going to chew up half your monthly. Are you sure you don’t want to go ServNet?”
Jani nodded. “I’m sure.” In a way, she was punishing herself for taking so long to get around to this. She should have done it sooner, but when she thought they were going to kill her, she didn’t see the point.
She handed her ID card to the clerk for scanning, then pressed her thumb against the input pad to authorize the deduction from her salary account.
“The instructions are—”
“I’ve Misty’d before.” Jani slid into the chair behind the console. “Thank you.”
The clerk executed a jerky about-face and closed the door after her. The last thing Jani saw was
Lucien’s face disappearing behind the sliding barrier, lips thinned in exasperation.
She straightened her shirt, fluffed her hair, then fiddled with the adjust angle on the relay screen until the slider base squealed in protest. She sat quietly, took a couple of steadying breaths, then punched the timer countdown on the side of the screen.
The changing colors marked the seconds. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green.
Green.
“llo, Maman. Papa. C’est Jani.” She fought the compulsion to stare down at her hands, forcing herself to hold her head up so the relay could light her properly. “I know I look different. I was assured my voice hasn’t changed, though. I hope you can recognize it.” She spoke slowly, pronouncing words in her head before saying them, but they still sounded strange when she said them aloud. That’s what she got for working so hard to lose her Acadian accent.
“You probably know what’s going on here.” Memories of ChanNet’s scandalmongering reputation dampened her enthusiasm. “It’s not all true, what they’re saying. I hope I can explain it all to you soon.” She struggled to think of a neutral topic, something as far removed from Knevçet Shèràa and Evan van Reuter as possible.
“Vive Le Rouge!” Well, the supposed nonpolitical status of the Commonwealth Cup was a joke, but she had to say something. “They drew a first-round bye. I wish they didn’t have to depend so much on Desjarlais, though. One-man teams don’t win the Cup. I wish Gilles would get off the disabled list. If they knew his leg wouldn’t heal in time for the prelims, they should have signed Stewart. He was worth the money. Good halfbacks are always worth the money.” OK, that did it for sports. What was next . . . ?
“It’s very hot here.” She saw half her paychit disappearing under a sea of banality, and berated herself for not planning the call better. “I don’t mind it, though.” She watched the timer blink, studied the controls rimming the display. She had trouble looking at the display directly. Too much like looking someone in the eye.
“There’s a tag line that runs along the bottom of the message—you need to use same systems to reply. So you can’t go to Vickard’s—he used out-of-date equipment when I still lived home, and I doubt he’s changed. Go to Samselle, or Fredericka.” It struck her that it had been over twenty years since she’d walked down a Ville Acadie street. “If they’re still in business, that is.
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