She had gotten him. She had hurt him badly.
If only she had killed him.
“I could have suffocated.” Her voice sounded both nasal and hoarse. She had trouble getting air when she spoke. Her nose really was shattered.
He turned and crossed his arms, but not before she saw the layers of heal-it bandages on his hand or the wince of pain when his palm brushed his upper arm. Heal-it bandages were more serious. They were the kind of bandages you used in a warfare situation or far out in space when no medical facilities were available.
Aleyd had made those, too, years before she joined the company. It was one of the corporation’s triumphs, and every year, the staff was encouraged to improve upon it.
She never tried. Why improve on something that worked brilliantly? Better to improve things that worked poorly.
“You didn’t suffocate,” he said.
“You never leave an unconscious person with a broken nose untended. You don’t know where the blood will go, what happens to the shattered bits of bone. You have no idea if that person is going to make it through the next few hours.”
“Yet you did well enough to wake up and harangue me.” He leaned against the console. “I monitored you. No sense delivering a dead criminal to the Gyonnese. Then you’re not worth anything—to me or to them.”
That was the first confirmation she got that the Gyonnese were paying him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The rendezvous time is close. You’ll be able to move then.”
She swallowed, and cursed herself for forgetting how much dry-swallowing against dried blood hurt. “I’ll pay you double what they’re paying you to take me home again.”
He smiled. It was a pleasant smile. If she’d met him in a café or passed him on the street, she would have thought him a nice man.
Maybe that was how he managed to steal all the things he stole. Because he had a nice face.
“On the salary Aleyd pays you, you would pay me?” He shook his head. “It would take the rest of your life to pay my fee. Two lifetimes to double it.”
“I would get the money from Aleyd,” she said.
“Because they have an interest in keeping you out of Gyonnese hands?”
“Yes,” she said.
He studied her for a moment, as if she had surprised him. He stood and came toward her.
Despite her attempts at remaining calm, her heart started to pound rapidly. Her breath came in shorter gasps. Her body remembered how he had hurt her, even though she tried to will that memory away.
“You killed my partner,” he said.
“He wasn’t your partner,” she said. “He was your employee.”
“You tried to kill me.”
She nodded. “I felt like I had no choice.”
“And now?”
“I hadn’t realized you were being paid.”
“Why would I steal you otherwise?”
She shrugged—or tried to. Her shoulders didn’t work. The travel chamber held her tight. “I don’t know. You could have been some kind of vigilante.”
“Out to get mass murderers and bring them to my ship?”
She winced in spite of herself. “I’m not a mass murderer.”
“At least, not intentionally,” he said. “That mitigates it, right?”
Sometimes she thought so. Accidents happened. But she dreamed of the demo—of the way her glider flew across a Gyonnese field, dropping the synthetic water, letting it get caught in a swirling wind.
She had run the specs so many times; she hadn’t thought that anything would be on the ground near the demonstration area, certainly not something as precious as larvae.
Children, she mentally corrected herself. The Gyonnese considered them children.
“And now you’ve killed a man with your bare hands,” the Recovery Man said. “How does that feel?”
“How does it feel beating a woman within an inch of her life?”
“After she tried to kill me?” He smiled. “Exhilarating.”
She didn’t believe him. She had scared him, just like he had scared her.
“I can get Aleyd to pay you,” she said. “We can set something up, some off-world account, and they can wire the money. They will do it. They paid for my defense—”
“And that didn’t work, did it?” the Recovery Man said.
“—and they paid to relocate me. They want me to stay away from the Gyonnese. Not all the suits are settled.”
He tilted his head back, as if looking at her through the lower part of his eyes would let him see her clearly. Then he snorted.
“If they kill you, then the Gyonnese won’t have you.”
“If Aleyd wanted me dead,” she said, “it would have happened long ago.”
She knew that to be true; she’d overheard one of the corporate execs discussing it in a private meeting at the courthouse just before the Multicultural Tribunal met. Wouldn’t it be cheaper, he asked, to get rid of the defendants? Then there’d be no case.
Then the cases will focus solely on Aleyd, one of the lawyers said. Someone will see the pattern, call foul, and we’ll lose.
Besides, a third person—a person she couldn’t see—said. The scientists will lose. The Gyonnese will exact a price from them, and it’ll look like we’re cooperating. Then we’ll have a greater chance of winning our cases.
She had hired her own lawyer then. And Martin Oberholst, bless him, had come up with several schemes to protect her and Emmeline.
And to keep Miles out of all of it.
Poor innocent Miles, who still had no idea what had happened to his life.
“You’re asking me to trust you,” the Recovery Man said.
“No,” Rhonda said. “I’m trying to figure out the best way for you to make a profit.”
“And for you to survive.”
“Of course,” she said. Then coughed so hard that she spit blood on the travel chamber’s exterior. “You injured me badly. You might want to get those fake medical idiots up here to set the nose.”
“You injured me just as badly. I lost a lot of blood, and—” He extended his right hand. “—and I might lose my right hand.”
She would have shrugged if she could. She hadn’t realized how important the shrug was to her attempts at nonchalance. “They build better hands now than we’re born with. Consider yourself lucky.”
“You’re a cold bitch,” he said.
“And you’re a coward,” she said.
He blinked at her, startled again.
“If you had any guts at all, you’d take my proposal.”
“If I had any guts at all, I’d take your proposal and then sell you to the Gyonnese.”
She made herself remain calm. She hadn’t thought of that. She was out of her depth, and she knew it. But she had to stay alive somehow.
“Why do they want me so badly?” she asked. “The case they had against me was settled.”
“They think you broke the law.”
“I did, according to the court,” she said. “That’s why I lost.”
“After the case got settled. They think you hid your child from them.”
“You saw Talia. I didn’t hide anyone.”
“The original child,” he said.
“Is dead.” The lie came easily. It always came easily. To her, Emmeline was dead. To her and Miles and everyone on Armstrong.
Emmeline was dead.
“The Gyonnese think otherwise. They’re going to use you as an example.”
She felt cold. Blood loss or what he’d said. “An example of what?”
“They’re trying to prosecute anyone who helps Disappeareds.”
“But I’m not a Disappeared.”
“And you are a terrible liar.” He let his arms drop, then winced again as his right hand bumped his leg. “Your child has disappeared. Where else could they have gotten the cloning material?”
“From her body,” Rhonda said softly. “They clone the dead on Armstrong. There’s a whole ind
ustry that does it. I thought you knew that.”
He studied her for a moment, as if he were trying to see through her. Then he shrugged. She envied the movement.
“You’ll never convince the Gyonnese of that,” he said. “They want you. They want this case. They want to punish Aleyd. They lost an entire generation of children.”
“They lost what they call original children,” she said. “They weren’t even sentient yet.”
“More excuses?” he asked.
“And those larvae divide. The genetic material is the same in all the subsequent larvae. Just because the originals were killed doesn’t mean the individuals are gone.”
“You’ll never understand the Gyonnese, will you?” he asked.
“Why, do you?”
He shook his head.
“You live among them, don’t you?” she said. “That’s your home, isn’t it? On the fringes of the Alliance.”
His eyes had gone flat. Either he was angry or scared. Either way, she knew she’d hit him emotionally. No one had ever guessed where he lived before—at least, that’s what she figured from his expression.
“I’m taking you to them,” he said. “This is all too fraught for me. Then I’m going back to nonliving things. They don’t try to kill me.”
“Oh, they will,” she said. “That cargo hold of yours is deadly.”
“I don’t spend a lot of time there,” he said.
“It nearly killed me,” she said. “I kept some pills for the last of it. What happened to them?”
“They’re on you.”
“Maybe you can get me some medical help and let me take one. I’d like to keep improving. Unless you want me to die before the Gyonnese get me…?”
He sighed. Then he waved his good hand over a nearby console. Something chirruped above her.
“Computer, transfer the medical programs to the bridge.”
“They’re not designed for transfer,” the computer responded.
He cursed.
“You only need one of them,” she said. “Get whichever one has the capacity to touch. I need someone to set my nose.”
He glared at her.
She tilted her head. Almost as good as a shrug, except it made her slightly dizzy.
“I can’t swallow otherwise,” she said.
“Send the expensive one,” he said to the computer. “And have the avatar appear in human form. Anything else gives me the creeps.”
“Excuse me?” the computer asked.
“The expensive program. Transfer it. Without power loss. Got that?”
“What about equipment?” the computer asked.
“Have a ʼbot bring anything the avatar needs when the avatar asks. And do it quickly.”
The computer chirruped. Rhonda realized that was the sound it made when it shut down.
He leaned toward her. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m not helping you in any way. I’m getting my money, and I’m getting out of the human recovery business. If the Gyonnese kill you, fine. If they destroy the Disappeared programs, fine. If they exact revenge on Aleyd, fine. It’ll have nothing to do with me.”
“It’ll have everything to do with you,” she said. “Until you found me, this case was dead.”
He grinned. The look was mean. “I have news for you, lady. I didn’t find you. I just recovered you.”
Then he turned away. She frowned, trying to understand what he meant.
When she did, she moaned.
She hadn’t thought it through; if someone had found her, they had found the others. Talia was marked Number 6. The Recovery Man had mentioned it when he kidnapped Rhonda.
Which meant that they’d search for the remaining five.
Rhonda had supervised the destruction of the cloning records—no one would ever know how the clones were made.
They hadn’t taken Talia. But some of the numbers were hidden even better on the earlier clones. Some of those girls were hard to distinguish from Emmeline.
And Emmeline.
Rhonda closed her eyes.
She had thought her daughter was safe, even if she wasn’t. Rhonda had thought that no one would be able to figure out what she had done.
But what if she was wrong?
What if they found Emmeline?
They’d destroy her—just like Rhonda had destroyed their children.
Only it would be worse.
Emmeline was old enough to feel everything. Old enough to remember it.
Old enough to try to survive—no matter what it took.
Thirty-nine
To Flint’s surprise, the offices of Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek were in an old building not too far from the university. In fact, as he got closer to the offices, he realized they were in a building that had once been part of the university—part of the law school, if he remembered correctly.
The building itself looked like a house with another house attached. A sidewalk went around both sides, and led to yet another part of the building, something called a daylight basement, an architectural term that had come from Earth, since it had no real application here.
Real daylight appeared whenever the Dome didn’t filter it. Dome daylight was sometimes from the sun, and sometimes—during the 2 weeks in the Earth’s shadow—from some sort of simulated Dome lights.
He’d never known what daylight really was until he visited Earth a few years before.
The entrance to the building was on the daylight basement side. He had to go down before he could get inside. He suspected it limited the number of casual clients, which they would otherwise have gotten, considering that proximity to Armstrong University.
Still, when he went in, he was startled to see a human receptionist, a man who was bigger than Flint with muscles that had to be enhanced. No one would grow biceps like that. Certainly no one could design a suit for them. The receptionist looked like he’d been stuffed into his.
“Appointment?” the man asked, without a greeting at all.
“My name is Flint. I’m here to see Martin Oberholst.”
“Mr. Oberholst retired some years ago. Perhaps we can schedule for another day with another of our associates.”
“I don’t think so,” Flint said. “Mr. Oberholst handled a case for my wife. I need to talk with him about some information that has just turned up.”
“As I said, Mr. Oberholst is no longer practicing. If I could—”
“Mr. Oberholst is the only one I’ll see,” Flint snapped. “He’s the only one who’ll understand the case. Since you’re choosing your words carefully, I’m going to assume that Mr. Oberholst is still an active partner in this firm. He’ll be interested in this. It might pertain to the firm itself.”
The receptionist stood. He was taller than Flint. “You are not a client here, Mr. Flint.”
Clearly he’d done an ID check after Flint had come in. The results must have just downloaded into the receptionist’s link.
“The only tie I find to you is a divorce case, which we handled for your now ex-wife. Is that correct?”
Caught. He’d hoped they wouldn’t go through that much detail.
“Not exactly,” Flint said. “It seems that Mr. Oberholst handled a few other things that were off the record. I need to talk with him.”
“He won’t speak to anyone who is not a past client.”
“He’ll talk to me,” Flint said.
The receptionist leaned forward, balancing his considerable bulk on his fingertips. “I’m sure he will not.”
“He will,” Flint said. “Check my net worth, since you’ve checked everything else. Even though Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek is a successful law firm, I’m pretty sure you can’t afford to turn away a potential client who is worth as much as I am. In fact, I’ll bet you have instructions to accommodate people like me.”
“I have checked, Mr. Flint. There wasn’t enough in your divorce settlement to pay for Mr. Oberholst’s time.”
“Check again,” Flint said.
The receptionist looked like he was going to protest, but he knew better than to dismiss someone who claimed he was rich.
Finally, the receptionist said, “I cannot make an appointment with Mr. Oberholst. But I’m sure one of the other senior partners will help you.”
“As I’ve said repeatedly…” Flint spoke slowly, as if the receptionist had the IQ of a ʼbot. “…I can only talk with Mr. Oberholst himself.”
“Then you’ll have to wait a while.” The receptionist wasn’t as belligerent. In fact, his tone had gone from hostile to humble. He was trying to accommodate now.
“I can’t wait.”
“Mr. Flint, Mr. Oberholst left on business this afternoon. He’s not on the Moon.”
“I thought he didn’t practice.”
“He takes care of old clients, as I said.”
“Where did he go? I have a yacht. I could meet up with him somewhere.”
“Sir, this isn’t a vacation to Earth. Mr. Oberholst went to Callisto. I’m not sure when he will be back.”
The word Callisto made Flint freeze. “To Callisto? To see whom?”
“I can’t tell you, sir. That’s confidential.”
“Tell me this, then,” Flint said. “Does he have more than one old client on Callisto?”
The receptionist paused. Flint knew the man was not only checking his records, but also checking to see if he would violate privilege or any legal protocols by answering that question.
“No sir. We have only one client on Callisto at the moment.”
“One old client,” Flint said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Whom I once knew very well.”
“Sir?”
Flint held up his hand. Of course the receptionist couldn’t answer that question. Even Flint knew that would violate privilege.
He felt dizzy. He turned.
“Sir?” the receptionist said. “Would you like an appointment when Mr. Oberholst returns?”
“No,” Flint said. “By then I doubt I’ll need it.”
Forty
Talia was back in her apartment. It was cold, but she didn’t know how to turn up the heat. She supposed she could just ask the computer to do it, but she didn’t want to. She was feeling lonely and paranoid; she didn’t want any more of herself on file than she already was.
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