by Sage Walker
Helt had to call him out, to know what Doughan feared, but he didn’t know how he was going to do it. All he knew was that it had to be soon.
Elena hesitated a little before she responded. “But that really wouldn’t solve anything, would it?” she asked. “Someone killed him. I’d like to know who did. And establishing that I’m not a murderess has become strangely important to me.”
Elena spoke without a trace of irony, without a single tell to mark the anger Helt knew must be there. Helt decided he would never, ever play poker with her.
“I’m so sorry,” Mena said. “I’m horrified that you’re having to go through this. But I can’t see a way around it. The Rule of Law. I don’t want it in my face, in your face; I don’t want it to hurt you or anyone. It should be in the background, always, as dependable and sturdy as—as the stone walls that hold up my ceiling. It isn’t. It’s a tissue of assumptions, glued together with hope, at best. Since this death, this murder, I’ve been forced to remember what’s happened, over and over and over again, if the Rule of Law is permitted to crumble. Remember the rubble that’s often all that is left when it does.”
Mena shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I’m an old Greek woman, still grieving over broken pillars and barren sands.”
For a moment, she looked the part, her back curved and her neck bowed from years of gleaning what the harvesters might have missed.
But she straightened her shoulders and was Mena again, strong and alert and in her prime, and her smile was designed to show she knew the irony of what she was about to say. “It won’t happen here.”
And that’s why I love you, Helt thought. You, Mena, and Archer, and maybe even Doughan. You’re bright, and you’re good at what you do, and you don’t waste anyone’s time with idle chitchat, especially your own.
“The Rule of Law. Due process,” Helt said. “Those concepts tend to get shoved aside under the pressures of clear and present danger. Is that what we’re facing, Doughan? Clear and present danger?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes it’s my job to play paranoid.” If Doughan was lying, he was lying with determined bravado, and his control of voice was superb, the threat in it carefully modulated. “I’m doing that. When I’m not interrupted by documentaries made to reassure the good folk on Kybele and below, designed to tell the people who funded us that all is well.”
Yes, there may be danger to the ship, and no, I’m not talking about this here and now, Doughan was saying.
On the instant, Mena supported his shift toward a lighter topic. “I thought the interview was bland enough,” Mena said.
“Sure, all is well. That’s what we told them,” Doughan said. “Dr. Maury, I don’t know if it helps, but the people who know you have been discreet. They must have been deflecting questions. It seems the news hounds aren’t particularly interested in you.”
Helt imagined the headlines. Prime Suspect Autopsies Murdered Lover, and worse.
“I haven’t looked at news coverage or gossip sites,” Elena said. “I’ve been afraid to. I’m surprised that I’m not being pilloried.”
“We were braced for the usual scandal questions, conspiracy speculations, and so forth,” Doughan said. “I gave a canned statement that we’re looking into all possibilities and went down the list, blah, blah, and so forth. I put homicide in the middle of the list and kept going, accidents due to hypothermia, reckless behavior, and so forth. The interviewer went somewhere else.”
“Your distaste for the subject was apparent,” Mena said.
“You mean I scared her.” Doughan didn’t look abashed about it.
Mena looked at the ceiling.
“She was more after emotional stuff, feelings about leaving, regrets. She wanted to know what we’d miss most,” Doughan said.
“What did you tell her?” Helt asked Mena.
“I lied,” Mena said. “I told her I’d miss the balalaika. I don’t even like the jangly things, and I could see Archer’s eyebrows do that frowny thing he does.”
“You’re afraid he’s going to make one and serenade you in the middle of the night,” Doughan said. “He probably will.”
“What will you miss?” Helt asked Doughan.
Elena sat so quietly and so close. We’ll be off this train soon, Helt wanted to tell her. Hang in there.
“I followed my peer’s example and lied, too. Don’t bristle like that, Mena.”
Mena hadn’t.
“I told her I’d miss Longhorn cattle. I figured Mena wouldn’t grow me one for a pet,” Doughan said. “They’re too ornery to let loose.”
“Are they?” Mena asked with feigned innocence. “At any rate, we got through it. Archer said he missed having time for cello practice, not on Earth but right here, and it was time for him to go do that before tonight’s concert. So he got up and left.”
“So that’s why there were just the two of you when I looked in on the filming,” Helt said. Two of you, who deploy white lies like weapons, who excel in the art of courtesy in its original sense. Court manners. Polite lies in words and behaviors, designed to maximize the chance of staying alive around kings. And you’re offering a united front to your audience of two right here. You’ve closed ranks, and it’s hard to believe it’s only because Elena is here. You’ve closed ranks against me as well.
“You’re always on the job, aren’t you?” Doughan asked.
“I can’t seem to stay away from it,” Helt said. “I wanted to get Elena off the suspect list this afternoon and I didn’t manage it. I want to. I am not objective about this.”
Doughan leaned back in his seat and got his interface out of his pocket. “Let me quote what Dr. Maury said.” He paused, searching his interface, and then found what he wanted. “‘We live in small towns now. We’ll be living next door to our morticians, our bakers, our butchers. It’s not a new pattern and perhaps it will be easier for us than cities were.’” Helt’s memory brought him Elena’s voice, the lilt and the hesitations, as Doughan read her words. She’d said them when he walked beside her in the quiet, dark agora. That first interview seemed so long ago now. Doughan had reviewed it. He’d found time to do that.
“Even if it’s not easy,” Doughan said, “you’ll do what you have to do. There’s no one on this ship who could do this better.”
Doughan was telling him he was reviewing the NSS records as they came in. That he was looking for any slip Helt Borresen made. That Doughan was on this 24/7, too. “Back off, Helt. I’m doing my damned job, too,” was one of the meanings. But Helt wasn’t going to back off.
“Since I haven’t found an alibi for Elena yet, I’m back to reconstructing where everybody was on Wednesday evening,” Helt said.
“Screening everyone on the ship is a method that requires thirty thousand separate entries,” Doughan said. “It’s labor intensive, Severo tells me.”
“I know,” Helt said. “However, it’s not a linear progression; one sure location can delete multiple names associated with that location or activity. It runs parallel to gathering data sets on some selected people. Your Seed Bankers, for instance.” Helt left the implication that he’d found some other selected people to be of interest hanging in the air.
Doughan reached up and rubbed his cheek and then stared at his palm. “Makeup. I need to wash this off. David II might find it alarming.”
“I doubt he’ll think you’re flirting with him,” Mena said. “I think it’s more likely that he’ll worry you’re getting absentminded.”
“That’s all we need,” Doughan said.
The train began to slow.
Helt got to his feet before it stopped at Petra station.
“Don’t forget our lunch,” Elena said. She handed him the rucksack.
“Bye, guys,” Mena said. She wasn’t out of her seat yet. She was giving them time to escape. Helt was grateful for that. Or she and Doughan were going on to Stonehenge.
Helt followed Elena out of the train, past the canteen, out onto the path beside the river
. She was so strong, so resilient. Jim had said it; one injury one time is something that a lot of people can get past with few scars. “Did you say something about food?” Helt asked. He glanced back. Mena and Doughan weren’t behind them. He wondered what David II was doing in Stonehenge, and what Doughan’s plans were for the remaining daylight hours. If David II was in Stonehenge. Helt checked. He wasn’t. He was down in Athens Level Two near the shuttle port.
And then, on a hunch, he reached for his interface and went hunting for where David II had been last night. And found him, near the train station at Petra, at 0300 this morning. The Petra station videos showed two men walking into the dark, hunched into their jackets, their collars up, their faces turned toward each other in what seemed to be an interesting discussion.
“… not going. It’s just a bruise.”
It was Doughan’s voice.
“You must be hungry,” Elena said.
“I am. Let’s pick up a bedroll from my place.”
“That’s forward of you. Surely we could eat first,” she said. “At a table, perhaps. I have one of those.”
“Table? That’s a concept,” Helt said. “But I’d like to go back to the stone tree. I’d like to see it in better light.”
“It’s a little cold for that,” Elena said.
“Therefore, the bedroll.” Because he was pretty sure Elena’s house was bugged.
“My place is on the way,” Elena said. “We could pick one up there.”
The light was dimming. The anti-spinward side of the sky would glow, soon, in the designated west, with the simulated colors of sunset. The unfinished part of the canyon, westward, was fitted with power for lighting; its faux moonlight had let Helt and Elena see the sculpture, the water, when they walked there together Friday night. There was no reason the sculpture itself couldn’t be bugged, but it wasn’t, in all probability. So few people knew about it yet.
They stopped at Elena’s door.
“We’re going blind,” Helt said.
“I beg your pardon?” Elena asked.
“Selectively blind. We’re almost at the point where images that aren’t recorded don’t exist.”
Elena looked at her door and opened it. “You’re saying anything we don’t want to see can be hidden. Clutter, for instance. I wish it were true.”
He followed her down an entry hall that opened on a great room of sorts, smaller than Helt expected. It didn’t look cluttered. Its floors were bare black stone. Its walls were rough, pale, sand-colored stucco. A dome-shaped fireplace occupied one corner. A gray rug patterned in geometric red, white, and black lay in front of it, and pillows.
“I’ll heat some cider,” Elena said. She went into the kitchen. Helt watched her from the door. Elena retrieved a container from the fridge. “New harvest,” she said. “It’s really good.” She set the jug in the nuke. “Oh, the bedroll.”
Helt stood aside to let her pass. “I’m saying that if something isn’t recorded, it effectively doesn’t exist.”
“Well, yes. That’s why I’m in trouble, isn’t it?” She didn’t go toward a bedroom. The bedroll in question was in the hall closet. The microwave beeped. Elena tossed the bedroll, rolled tight in its dark blue cover, toward the front door and came back to the kitchen. She located insulated cups, big ones, in the second cabinet she opened.
The cider smelled good when she poured it. Helt was thirsty. He was hungry. He wanted to explore Elena’s bedroom, with a tour guide. He wanted sex and there was no way to lie to himself about it.
“I’ll carry the bedroll,” Elena said. “These will fit in the rucksack.” She tightened the lids on the cups and brought them to him.
The rucksack was still on Helt’s shoulder. He took the cups from Elena and bent down to kiss her cheek. “Let’s go,” he said.
Outside, a few people walked the paths or raked leaves. The windows of the houses carved into the rock on either side of this narrow section of the canyon looked out at them with lazy, sleepy eyes. Helt’s legs weren’t sore, but he felt a faint trace of lactate burn in his calves and his thighs as they walked, an artifact of tension, not of exercise. A breeze came from anti-spinward and ruffled the surface of the river.
Elena had said nothing yet. Helt hadn’t, either. When they were past the last house, he broke the silence. “Your house is bugged,” Helt said. “Mine, too, I think. Wait a minute. I want to check.”
He went into NSS feeds. Yes. Both houses were there, and the access showed up in the Murder Management files in SysSu. So far so good. He looked for feeds from Mena’s house. There weren’t any. Archer’s place, no. Doughan’s? No. Uh-oh. It was the sort of thing Severo might not think to do, might need to be ordered to do before he would do it. He should take care of that right now. But Mena’s interface and Doughan’s and Archer’s were live. He knew where they were. It could wait a few hours.
“Yeah. We’re both bugged. I asked Severo to do it. Because, when things that aren’t recorded aren’t real, then anything that’s recorded is real whether it’s real or not.”
“Does it make a difference?” Elena asked. “There’s nothing ominous in what I’ve said or done. Or anything you’ve said or done, either. We’ve recorded every interchange, every conversation we’ve had at work or at home, even every snore.”
“Do you snore?” Helt asked.
“I don’t know,” Elena said. “Do you?”
“I don’t know. I could listen to what I sound like in my sleep, but I might not like to find out.”
They walked a little farther, side by side, not hurrying, exactly, but not with the slow, easy amble of people with no destination in mind, either. “I didn’t say I’ll disable the bugs,” Helt said. “We need them, you and I.” He could look later to see when they’d been placed. Severo might have sent a tech to put them in place that first night, even before he told Helt that Elena had been on the tower. Or Doughan might have.
Severo had said Doughan was home and would meet them at Ryan’s apartment. But Doughan could have gone somewhere in that time, could have done all sorts of things. Helt and Severo hadn’t seen Doughan that night until they met him on the street outside Ryan’s quarters. “But I’m going to have to check on who ordered it done, and when. Bugs aren’t legal without a warrant. I can find out when they were placed, and if the feeds are only going where they should go, when I get back to SysSu.”
“Tonight. You’re going back tonight.” Elena had moved ahead of him and he couldn’t see her face. Her voice was carefully neutral. They were nearing the wedge of stone that diverted the river’s flow. The stepping stones looked a lot less difficult to walk this afternoon than they had in the dark on Friday night.
“I’ll have to,” Helt said.
Elena made no reply. Helt concentrated on not falling into the river. The water lapped at the stones, patiently working to dissolve them in a few thousand years or so. The water had no deadlines to meet, the lucky, mindless stuff. He followed Elena around the sharp-edged foot of the barrier rock, back onto solid ground. She reached for his hand and that simple token of trust startled him away from everywhere else but here.
Everything but this could wait for a few hours.
Hand in hand, they walked the rough-cut steps that led down to the canyon floor and entered the courtyard where the stone tree grew.
No footprints marred the patterns the wind had rewritten on the black sand. The contours of the strange beasts on and of the stone tree were a trap for the eye and the senses because some of the creatures seemed to move, to grow and change in the waning light. Helt forced his eyes away from them and looked west. The waterfall marked its single vertical stroke of white at the canyon’s end. The sky above the black line of the cliffs was green, an echo of the evening color of the moist air in Center. The weathermen would shape that water into clouds before morning. It might rain up there tonight. The breeze brought clean, living air to chill his face.
He could capture this landscape, trap it in pixels, the cool ton
es of autumn light, the canyon, the sounds of the breeze and the river; replay them someday in an effort to tease back memories of his arousal and hunger, his body’s anticipation of desires slaked.
He would not. He wouldn’t trap the ghosts of this moment in images and recorded sound and look back, and wish he were here again. He would not.
Elena pulled her warmed hand away from his and tugged at the strap of the rucksack on his shoulder.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I was lost.”
“Food,” Elena said.
“Where?” Helt asked.
She scouted the roots of the tree and found a place where the wall of the canyon rose up sheer from the sand, where something like a dolphin’s back angled forward from the cliff face and offered shelter from the wind.
Inside the alcove, Helt looked up at the massive canopy that roofed it. The branches of the carved tree diminished in mass and size as they rose, spaced and spiraled in a semblance of individual striving toward light and space to grow. There were creatures up there, half-seen, graceful, elusive.
Yves Copani was a fucking genius. It occurred to Helt that he wouldn’t tell Elena he knew who the sculptor was, not today, not unless she asked. Yves had made this. There was too much baggage that went with knowing it; Yves, Susanna, the boundaries of what was lawful to create in public space and what wasn’t. Helt realized he no longer thought of the tree as the creation of a single man. Its reality existed of itself now. It just was.
The spaces between the branches let in shafts of cathedral light from the evening sky. At Helt’s feet, the black sand was dappled with geometric shards, green stained-glass light. Undersea light.
Helt knelt and helped Elena spread the bedroll. It was a double. Good. They sat with their backs braced against the dolphin’s side and attacked the contents of the rucksack. Helt’s ham on rye was good. He wolfed down half of it and then tried the hot cider. It was wonderful, a roomful of apples in a swallow. The second half of his sandwich wasn’t going to be enough to fill him up. He slowed down a little.