Espero (The Silver Ships Book 6)
Page 41
Billings’ wife, Janine, straightened up and took a breath to retort, but her husband laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay, love.” Looking up at Terese, Billings said, “Yes, it’s a lesson learned, even if I think the court’s punishment is much too harsh.”
“Cheer up, Emile, there’s always tomorrow,” Terese replied.
Terese’s shift to an upbeat voice confused Billings, but he responded to her statement. “Tomorrow isn’t going to look any better than today, I’m afraid. My life’s passion has been effectively and permanently truncated.”
“So you’re saying you care to do nothing else?” Terese asked.
“I would give almost anything to continue my research and my teaching,” Billings replied.
“Careful what you wish for, Emile.”
Billings raised his head to stare at Terese. He could just make out her grin. The sun was behind her, and her hair glowed as if on fire.
“What are you asking … I mean, what would I have to do?” Billings asked, hope dawning in his heart.
“Say yes, Ser.”
“What … what’s going on?” Janine asked, looking at the anticipation blooming on her husband’s face.
Billings turned to his wife, grasping both of her hands. “What would you say to living on Haraken?” he asked her.
“Could he teach? Continue his research?” Janine asked Terese.
“Yes, to both, Ser.”
“Then, yes … oh, yes,” Janine exclaimed, hugging her husband and crying with joy.
“We leave in a few days, Sers. Can you be ready?” Terese asked.
“Ready?” Billings repeated. “We’ve lost just about everything except for an account with a few credits left in it. We can be ready in a few hours.”
“Comm the Rêveur when you’re ready to leave and ask for me. I’ll send a traveler for you.”
Janine stood up, hesitated, and then hugged Terese fiercely. “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered into Terese’s ear. “You won’t regret this. He’s a good man.”
“I know he is, Ser,” Terese replied quietly and left the family to enjoy the turn in their future.
* * *
Uneven verdicts continued to issue from the trials that Bernoulli presided over, but Drake had one item to accomplish that he could perform that didn’t require the cooperation of Bernoulli’ office. Since General Oppert reported no progress in his investigation to track the source of the illegal stunners, Drake hired Maria’s services, and the first thing Maria did was contact Alex.
“Are the SADEs available for hire, Alex? And how much would they cost?” Maria said when her reader connected with Alex.
“Drake’s asked me to locate the source of the stunners.”
Julien had connected Maria’s comm, and, at her first question, he linked Cordelia, Miranda, and Willem.
Alex detected the SADEs online and knew Julien noticed his comm check of participants.
The Harakens could hear Maria’s deep laughter. “I believe I can afford the fee,” she finally managed to say while still chuckling.
Alex queried Julien, but the SADE was at a loss for a response.
Willem explained.
This time, it was the Harakens who were smiling and chuckling.
Alex’s laughter boomed out of Maria’s reader, and the mirth in his thoughts inundated the SADEs. Julien, for one, was pleased to hear the sound of his friend in good humor again.
When Alex signaled his consent, Julien closed the comm.
Maria sat back and looked at her three investigators. “The SADEs are on the job,” she said, grinning, and smiles were returned to her from around the porch table.
“One credit each,” Steve said, shaking his head and laughing.
“Help is getting so expensive these days,” Sarah quipped.
“I recognized the voice of the one called Cordelia. She said to give them some time. How long do you think that will be?” Fredericka asked.
“For Haraken SADEs, not long,” Maria replied. “And don’t think that a voice identifies a SADE. They can produce any voice or sound they wish. They just don’t do it in mixed company so as not to frighten us mortals, especially local New Terrans,” Maria said.
“That’s a scary thought,” Sarah said.
“When I heard Alex was going to free the SADEs, I wondered about the sanity of his decision,” Maria replied. “Releasing cognitive intelligences among humankind seemed to me to be a potentially catastrophic move. But over the years, I’ve seen my share of people like Downing, Bunaldi, García, Toyo, Kadmir, and O’Brien who have been as treacherous for human societies as anyone. Now, I think I understand Alex’s motivation. He doesn’t care in what form the entities come at him … humans, mechanical, or alien … it’s what lies in their heart, whether they have one, two, or none. And, I’ve come to believe he has the right idea.”
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While Maria entertained the investigators at her home, the SADEs searched New Terran records for transactions involving stunner components sold during the past year and then cross-referenced the buyers and their addresses. It took them less than half a day to identify a single buyer in common to all components, who was extremely careful to purchase small quantities so as to evade casual detection.
Maria and her investigators were about to sit down to an evening’s meal when her reader chimed. Steve glanced at the swirling image of colors on Maria’s reader. “SADE calling,” he said and carried the device to Maria.
“Hello, Cordelia. How many potential suspects are we looking at?” Maria asked.
When the reader closed with a swirl of colors, Sarah said, “I really love that pattern. Did you notice it never repeats?”
The investigators stared at the plates of hot food with longing, but they jumped up and grabbed their body armor and stun weapons, while Maria contacted Colonel Portis, the TSF officer who had teamed with Ross previously, and arranged to meet her and a squad of troopers at the location.
Steve handed Maria her weapon, and Fredericka and Sarah carried her body armor to the transport for her. They wasted no time lifting off with Steve at the controls and were the first to arrive at the address. They had some moments to observe the building and the lot before the TSF transport settled beside their grav car.
Colonel Portis regarded the empty lot and looked at Maria in confusion. “No activity, Madam President?’ she asked.
“Looks that way,” Maria replied.
“Could the intel be wrong?” Portis asked.
“SADEs,” Sarah said simply.
“Oh, well … understood,” Portis replied, her voice rising with interest.
“They tracked the purchase of the stunner components to this place,” Maria explained.
Despite the lack of activity, the TSF forces and Maria’s group approached the building carefully. There was no need to force an entry. The front door was slightly ajar. Past the front offices, the interior was an open space, set up at one time for an automated manufacturing plant. Someone had cobbled a series of small work tables together. There wasn’t a person in sight nor a fully or partially assembled stunner either.
“Probably cleared out the moment they heard Toyo was dead,” Portis reasoned.
Steve examined some small components left on one table. He picked up his reader, opened a comm, and said, “Cordelia.”
Steve smiled at his compatriots, raising his eyebrows high and enjoying the success of his idea. The SADEs were monitoring their activities. “No one home at the location you gave us. Everything looks cleared out, but take a look at these,” Steve said. He pointed his reader at the table and with his stylus slowly turned over several components.
“As you are such a brilliant and wonderful entity, Cordelia, I thought you might have another way to track these people,” Steve said. He grinned at his friends, and the women shook their heads at his audaciousness.
Over the reader, they heard Cordelia laugh, and then, eerily, the laugh segued into a tinkling of delicate bells.
“Yes,” Steve celebrated.
“He just loves it when he’s clever,” Fredericka grumped to Colonel Portis.
Cordelia linked the SADEs and reexamined their data.
The SADEs raced throughout the system — planets, stations, ships, outposts, habitats, and domes — in search of the readers.
Maria glanced at Portis, who shrugged in reply.
“Um … certainly, ma’am, thank you,” Portis replied, totally out of her depth in a conversation with a Haraken SADE.
“Cordelia, Maria here. Do you have a name?”
“Thank you, Cordelia,” Steve said and blew the SADE a kiss. The tiny bells tinkled as Cordelia closed the comm.
“I swear … you’d flirt with anything feminine,” Sarah said, laughing and swatting Steve’s shoulder.
“Load up,” Maria ordered. “We have another appointment.”
A quarter-hour later, they were flying over a heavily residential area comprised of expansive houses. The transports settled in a nearby park, and the group made their way to a vacant lot across the street from a beautiful, stone and timber house.
Maria swore under her breath. “I know this house,” she said. She picked up her reader, raced through her list of contacts, and chose one.
“Hello, Maria,” Will Drake said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You have a problem, Mr. President,” Maria said.
Drake bolted upright in his living room chair. Maria’s use of his title said she was in company and on the job. “Talk to me, Maria,” Drake replied.
“The SADEs traced the components of a stunner to a delivery location, an abandoned manufacturing warehouse. We raided it in the company of Colonel Portis of the TSF, but the place was cleared out days ago. In turn, the SADEs tracked two of the four readers that made the purchases. One of those readers belongs to Toyo’s chief of security, who’s in custody. The other active reader is sitting inside the home of Assemblyman Finian Egan.”
“Maria, I so want to ask you if this is a joke, but I won’t waste your time. What do you need?”
“Entry will require a warrant. We don’t know if the reader belongs to our representative or a house guest. The warrant should specify the house and the grounds of the property to confiscate any and all readers.”
“Maria, tell me you have some corroborating evidence.”
“None, Mr. President … just the SADEs,” Maria said. She could hear Will’s muffled groan and sympathized with him. His government was mired in a heated exchange of extreme opinions among politicians, leaders, and the general populace over the involvement of the Harakens in New Terra’s business.
“I have your location, Maria. I’m sending Tessie to work through this with you on-site.”
Before Maria could reply, the comm went dead. Reply was the polite word for what Maria might have said. She couldn’t stand Tessie Bernoulli, and the counselor’s feelings for her were mutual. Now, there was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
“Boss,” Steve said quietly to Maria. “I hate to point out the obvious, but, despite the late hour, we’re as conspicuous as Méridiens at a New Terran party out here.
“Agreed,” Maria said. Thinking for a moment, she nodded at Steve’s reader and added, “We need remote surveillance.”
While the group trotted back to the park and their transports, Steve stopped to contact Cordelia and ask the SADE if she could monitor the house for them.
At the transports, Colonel Portis asked Steve, as he jogged up to join them, if the SADEs were going to help, and Maria paused in her conversation to hear the answer.
“It appears my request was superfluous, and I received a short lecture on the thoroughness of SADE surveillance.” Steve ducked his head and when he looked back up, his expression was that of someone who had bitten something sour.
Sarah and Fredericka broke into laughter. “Ah, Steve, is the bloom off your love interest so quickly?” Fredericka teased.
“Anything of substance from Cordelia?” asked Maria, which curtailed the laughter.
“Yes … a two-person grav car left before we arrived, but it wasn’t transporting the reader. I have the vehicle’s ID from Cordelia.”
The group settled down to wait, and it was more than an hour before a small transport landed beside theirs and Tessie Bernoulli climbed out. She was wearing an elegant and festive evening dress. Her hair, makeup, and accessories said she had been interrupted while attending a prestigious event.
“Counselor’s going to be in a good mood,” Fredericka remarked quietly to Sarah.
Bernoulli hadn’t taken three steps before she noticed the wet grass and soil were ruining her delicate slippers. She stopped, pulled them off, and threw them back through the open window of her transport.
“Worse, we just messed up her party shoes,” Sarah whispered, chuckling.
Maria wasted no time updating Bernoulli on the circumstances of the investigation.
&
nbsp; “President Drake told me your information came from the Haraken SADEs,” Bernoulli said. “Tell me you have a corroborating source.”
“As I told our president, we don’t,” Maria replied. “Do you have a problem with the SADEs?”
“Of course, I have a problem with them,” Bernoulli said in outrage, striking a pose with her hands on her hips. It was the kind of stance she thought would inform people she was adamant about her point. Unfortunately, her exaggerated poses just irritated most people around her. “Haven’t you been following the trials, Maria? People don’t trust the SADEs. I mean, just how are they supposed to believe a hyped-up, walking, talking, super computer, which can manipulate data to the point we can’t tell fact from fiction?”
“Is that your personal opinion, Bernoulli,” Maria asked, working to control her rising anger, “or the General Counsel’s opinion?”
“Let me be blunt, Maria. You know a representative’s reader is considered inviolate unless we have reasonable cause to confiscate it. That’s reasonable as defined under New Terran law. Nowhere in our compilation of judicial decisions does it say that a recording or data from a smart machine, a foreign one at that, constitutes proof of reasonable cause when it involves an Assembly representative.”
Bernoulli became nervous as Maria continued to stare at her. She was reminded that Maria was an ex-TSF general, and she sought to make her point again.
“You have to understand President Drake’s position. He is elected by the will of the people, and those people are dubious of these things being freed from their boxes. A point to consider is that the Confederation invented these things centuries ago and have kept them in confinement. Now Racine has let them loose … machines without hearts, without consciences, without pity for humankind … why shouldn’t people be scared of them? Why should they trust these monstrous inventions?”
Maria was as flabbergasted as were her investigators whose lives had been saved by the SADEs. It underlined to her why the investigations and trials conducted by the General Counsel sought to limit the use of Haraken implants and SADE recordings. She drew breath to give Bernoulli a piece of mind but was interrupted.