Ben was grateful Ronan hadn’t said I-told-you-so about McLellan. No one could have predicted Etta’s reaction, but even so, they had taken a vulnerable woman into a dangerous situation. That they had rescued Etta, whose trauma was all from McLellan in the first place, was just another twist in the ethics of the situation, as was the fact that McLellan had not been as damaged as they had all believed.
He wasn’t sorry that McLellan was dead.
He didn’t think Cara was sorry either, though she hadn’t said anything beyond, “I’m all right, now,” since they’d arrived back from Sentier-4.
“Etta’s memory,” Ben asked. “Will it return?”
Ronan shook his head.
“Is that a no?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure she is what she appears to be?” Cara asked. “I mean, after McLellan . . . Etta’s been in Sentier-4 long enough for . . .” She waved expressively. “Changes to be made.”
“I’m as sure as I can be that Etta’s no ticking time bomb,” Ronan said. “I can’t blame you for asking, but Ari sent her there to make sure she wasn’t going to pass on any of his information.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t just have her killed,” Ben said. “Though sooner or later someone would notice the high mortality rate among Ari’s secretaries.”
Ronan nodded. “Better to have her harmlessly released back into the world with a pension. If McLellan hadn’t been caught up in Ari’s demise, they might have finished the job before we found her. She’d be a little old lady in a fluffy jumper with a neat little apartment, a couple of cats, and only a very vague memory of her former boss.”
Ben had to be satisfied with that. He left Etta entirely to Ronan’s care, tending instead to the everyday demands of running the Free Company, sharing Nan’s daily reports with Mother Ramona and Garrick, and keeping count of the number of incidents reported involving unrest between the megacorps and their colonies.
Dissatisfaction was contagious. Cotille had been the first, but in the last week alone fifteen colonies had declared independence. Three of them had sent delegations to Crossways and a further six had formed an alliance of their own. It didn’t take much to drive a wedge between those exploited and those exploiting.
On the morning of the eighth day after leaving Sentier-4, Ronan announced, *You can see Etta now, but don’t expect miracles.*
*Just me?* Ben asked.
*And Cara. Etta might remember her.*
Etta was fully dressed in a violet shirt that brought out the paleness of her blue eyes. Her dove-gray hair had been trimmed and washed and her cheeks had begun to fill out, though her expression still looked haunted. She sat in an armchair between her rumpled bed and a screen showing a landscape of rippling barley framed by trees rustling in a light breeze.
She looked up as they came in and smiled at Ronan.
“Here are the visitors I promised you, Etta. Remember, we talked about it.”
“I know you.” Etta looked up.
“I’m Cara.”
“Not you. You.” She looked at Ben. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Have you?”
“He said you cost him.”
“Cost who?”
“You brought them home.”
“Is it Hera-3 she’s talking about?” Ben asked Ronan.
“Could be, couldn’t it?”
“I don’t think she was Ari’s secretary at the time of Hera-3,” Cara said. “That was Pete Gaffney.”
“Gaffney,” Etta said. “What happened to him? I should have known better. Secretaries. Such a fast turnover. I know you, too.” She looked at Cara. “He’s bad for you. Don’t get involved. It won’t end well. Pretty things. They come and go.”
“He’s dead.” Cara reached forward and held Etta’s hand. “Ari’s dead. He can’t hurt me any more. He can’t hurt you any more.”
“He was so sweet. He brought me flowers. It always starts with flowers. He sent you flowers. I made sure they got there on time. Always use the best florist. Did you give her flowers?” She looked at Ben.
“No, he’s never given me flowers.” Cara dropped her voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “I don’t think he knows about flowers.”
Etta giggled.
Ben opened his eyes wide. “Should I have given her flowers?”
“It’s traditional,” Etta said.
“I’ll remember that for future reference.”
“You see that you do, young man.”
“Etta, do you remember when you were working for Ari, for Mr. van Blaiden?” Cara asked.
“I should have known, shouldn’t I?”
“He wasn’t a very nice man.”
“He bought me flowers.”
“Did he take calls from Gabrius Crowder? Do you remember the name? Crowder.”
“The elephant man. I remember the elephant man. Very sad story. Very old book. True, though. People didn’t understand.”
“What?” Ben asked.
“A man called Joseph Merrick, back in the 1900s,” Ronan said. “He had a deformity that resulted in elephantine growths all over his body.”
“No, she’s talking about Crowder,” Cara said. “When I first saw him he reminded me of an elephant: the size of him and his ill-fitting skin with a grayish cast to it. He looked like a pachyderm.”
“You saw it, too,” Etta said. She leaned over and patted Cara’s hand. “He wasn’t a very nice man either.”
“Did Mr. Crowder ask Mr. van Blaiden to find a home for some settlers?”
Etta’s eyes clouded over. “I used to live in a very nice apartment. There was a park opposite. It had a statue of the Black Prince. From before. Very old.”
“Settlers, Etta,” Ben said. “Do you remember the settlers? Where did they go to? What did Mr. van Blaiden do with them?”
Etta just shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock back and forth.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Ronan said. “You can come again tomorrow, but I don’t know how much good it will do. Half the things she says appear to be nonsense, but they mean something to her.”
As they turned to go, Etta stopped rocking. “An ark ship shouldn’t be piloted by a freelancer, not alone. He told me not to worry. He was sending someone to get Jake Lowenbrun, the best in the business. Best at what, that’s what I want to know.”
“Jake Lowenbrun? Is that who piloted the ark with the settlers, Etta?”
But Etta had gone back to rocking.
Chenon’s predominantly pink native foliage blended effortlessly with green Earth imports. It was false spring and the long day was just beginning. Earthy aromas with a faint tang of spices rose from the dewy grass. Crowder paused to stare at an agglamentia, but though his gaze rested on its perfect bell-like flower, his mind was far away. Coming back to himself, he bent and plucked the tender stem, pink sap staining his fingers. He’d never had the time to appreciate his garden before. Not that this was his garden, but it was a garden in a very nice suburb of the city, surrounding one of the Trust’s safe houses. The guard posts were subtly disguised, but Tori LeBon had authorized a small army to keep him safe round the clock. He had full connectivity to his network, a personal Telepath on the premises, and Stefan flitting back and forth each day.
Things were going to plan. Tori had engaged two of the younger Board members to put forward Crowder’s plan as their own, and John Hunt himself had come down in favor with his deciding vote when the Board had been divided. He would have never done that on principle if he’d known whose plan it was.
If the plan worked, then Crowder would reveal himself as its instigator and Hunt would be left with egg on his face. If it failed, then Hunt would still suffer.
Perfect.
Taking down Crossways would be a massive undertaking requiri
ng a huge fleet and careful negotiation with the FPA and the other megacorporations. Earth didn’t keep a standing fleet of any great size. The FPA relied on levies from the colonies and the spacefaring corporations, each providing according to their resources. Crowder had hoped for actual support from the FPA in terms of ships, but when approached, both Vetta Babajack, Europe’s First Minister, and Malusi Duma, the pan-African president, vetoed any military support. Now the best they could hope for was an agreement not to interfere. Disappointing, but Crowder was confident they could still achieve their objective as long as the FPA wasn’t in active opposition.
Meanwhile John Hunt was busy in the United States of Canada, deep in talks with the Monitor Council at their Calgary headquarters. Composed of the eight sector commissioners and Sebastian Rodriguez, the Chief Commissioner, the Council was responsible for the fair allocation of policing resources across the galaxy. No single organization could hope to cover the vast distances involved, so the Monitors, thinly spread, also worked closely with the megacorps’ private police forces and planetary legal systems.
Ben had been on duty out on the Rim when he’d been in the Monitors. Crowder knew all the details. In the early days, before Hera-3, before Olyanda, they’d been close. He’d begun to think Ben might be someone he could trust with some of those delicate matters that cropped up from time to time that were not strictly legal, but Crowder soon came to realize that Ben’s rule-bending had its limits. Ben hammered the rules into his own shape to force the letter of the law to conform to the spirit. No one sensible ever expected the law to be fair, but Ben had risked his career more than once to try and make it so.
If Ben had disappointed Crowder with his unsuitability for somewhat shady jobs, he’d unwittingly made Crowder aware of his ex-boss, Sergei Alexandrov, who would take any shady job offered as long as it paid enough.
Crowder smiled. Sergei had proved very adaptable.
The last time Remus had called, Kitty had told him she was sick and had been in bed for three days. Lying mind-to-mind was one of the most difficult things any Telepath could do. The only way around it was to tell the truth, just not the whole truth. She was genuinely sick, thanks to taking an emetic. She’d given Remus a genuine wave of nausea, not without a ripple of satisfaction for all the times he’d barged into her mind without so much as a by-your-leave. Imperious bastard! Take that!
If she could give Benjamin a chance to find the missing settlers she would. Unfortunately Akiko Yamada had other ideas.
So, today, Kitty was sitting in the Ocean coffee shop with Arran Syke, whom she’d become rather fond of despite his social stiffness and somewhat stern appearance. He wasn’t easy to talk to like Wes had been, but she’d gradually come to appreciate his dry sense of humor. He reminded her of Wes. They’d started meeting at lunchtime whenever his duty allowed it, at first in a group, but now just the two of them.
Kitty had begun to admit to herself that she was comfortable on Crossways, that she’d miss it when Alphacorp called her home. She’d even begun to wonder whether she wanted to go home. If it hadn’t been for her mother . . .
She’d never been in this position before, but she knew that deep cover invariably meant a false life with false friends. One that would eventually have to be abandoned.
She’d almost coaxed a laugh out of Syke when a stabbing intrusion caused her to falter and drop her half-empty coffee cup back onto the table with a clatter.
It took a few moments for her to realize that Syke was asking her if she was all right.
*Not now, you’ll blow my cover,* she managed to say to Remus, who had broken into her thoughts like a hammer blow.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just caught the end of a transmission that wasn’t meant for me. It surprised me, that’s all.”
*You’re well now?* Remus asked.
*Better, but nothing to report.*
*A station of a million people and nothing to report?*
“Sometimes I think I’m missing out not having an implant,” Arran said. “Other times I realize that they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
She forced a weak smile and aimed a thought at Remus. *Back off. I’m having coffee with the head of Garrick’s guard. Call me in two hours.* She slammed down her shield.
Syke tapped the earpiece that all Garrick’s guards wore. “This works well enough for me on-station, and who do I know from away?”
“Well, there’s me,” she said. “I’m not always on-station and it would be nice to keep in touch.”
“Yes, it would.” He actually smiled. Was that a first?
Two hours later, Kitty locked herself in the tiny room she’d been allocated in Blue Seven. She’d only slept in it a couple of times. Mostly she went back to Wes’ spindle apartment—she still thought of it as Wes’—where she felt she could be herself. This room was barely bigger than an onboard cabin on a utilitarian transport, but it did have a bed, a chair, a table, and a narrow window onto what would become a garden when it was finished. She’d wheedled a garden view not because she liked flowers, although she did, but because directly across the garden was the Benjamins’ window, somewhat bigger than hers and with a garden door.
*Your two hours are up.* Remus again. *Ms. Yamada wants to know why she didn’t receive advance warning of the raid on Sentier-4.*
*I can’t tell you what I don’t know.* That wasn’t a lie, not exactly.
*They took Etta Langham. What do they want her for?*
*Benjamin thinks she might know what happened to the missing ark.*
*And does she?*
*She’s a mess. They won’t get any sensible information from her. Sentier-4 broke her completely.*
*Better not to take any risks. Your orders are to end her.*
*Kill Langham?*
*Do you have a problem with that?*
*I’m not an assassin.*
*You’re whatever Alphacorp needs you to be.*
Kitty sat down on the edge of her bed and stared out at the mess that would become the garden. She’d like to be a gardener.
Kill Etta Langham.
Or maybe she’d like to go to work full time on the community farm.
Kill Etta Langham.
Or she could see if they needed help at the Ocean coffee shop.
Anything except be an Alphacorp operative with a kill order.
Etta Langham today. Cara and Ben tomorrow.
Cara was worried about Ben. His personal battle with foldspace was weighing him down. He needed to face up to it or admit that he was never going to fly a ship through the Folds again. Until he found his own solution he was putting that part of his life on hold, but it was eating at him.
“We need to see Mother Ramona if we want to find Lowenbrun,” Ben said. “High-grade freelance pilot-Navigators are pretty rare, and it would take a Psi-3 at least to fly a ship the size of an ark through foldspace.”
“Or into foldspace and lose it forever,” Cara said quietly.
“We’ll deal with that possibility when we get there. If we get there.” His mouth was set in a grim line.
They collected muscle from Gwala, who was on duty in the guard post.
“Hilde, is that you?” Cara asked the bucket-helmed guard.
“How’d you know?” Hilde’s voice held amusement.
“Because try as you might, you don’t walk like a man, and that’s not an insult.” Cara laughed. “Do you mind doing a routine run to the hub?”
“I’m up for it if it gives me an hour away from this big lug . . .” She jerked her head at Gwala. “He only wants to talk about the grapple league and who’s going to win the series. As if I care.”
“Only because your team got knocked out in the first round,” Gwala said without rancor.
She checked her sidearm, tapped her helm in a half salute that was more a friendly up yours than a yes, sir, and ca
lled up one of the private tubs in the new siding.
Traffic was light. They reached the Mansion House and Hilde settled into the tub to wait for them. Mother Ramona was in Garrick’s office. Garrick wasn’t in evidence, but there were now extra desks, a receptionist, and a staff of ten. Cara supposed that he needed to increase his staff as Crossways’ interests expanded to take more planets into the Protectorate.
“Garrick’s inspecting the troops,” Mother Ramona said, inviting them into her own inner sanctum.
“Troops?” Cara asked.
“We have eleven colonies to protect now, plus Olyanda. We need something to protect them with—ships, pilots, hardware. The station is well armed and we have our hornets and drones, but not enough of them to send them out to patrol settlements. We need skiffs, cruisers, battlewagons.”
“And you need them with fast-response, jumpship capability,” Ben said. Cara could hear the wariness in his voice.
“Yes, we do,” Mother Ramona said. “Being able to get ships from one place to another in the blink of an eye cuts down on the size of fleet required and eliminates our reliance on potentially antagonistic jump gates owned by the megacorps. How’s the research and development coming along?”
“Dido Kennedy has adapted a jump drive, but it’s platinum-hungry. Yan Gwenn says she’s ready to retrofit it for field testing soon. She says she can put any size of ship into foldspace with the right pilot and enough platinum.”
“So we need a test pilot.”
“I’m not the right person—”
“Then find me someone who is.”
Cara watched Ben’s expression. She was a Telepath and an Empath, but even so there were times when Ben’s shielding was so good she didn’t have a clue what he was thinking or feeling.
He nodded. “I believe I have a way to find potential jumpship pilots. In the meantime I need a favor—some research. You have a lot of contacts. I need to know where a freelancer called Jake Lowenbrun hangs out between jobs. He’s got to be a Psi-3 Navigator or above and not too particular about who he works for.”
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