Max waved a hand in apology. “Go on.”
“I think she suspected something of what happened, and she wasn’t happy when we were pulled off the job. Plus she doesn’t like Slade at all, or at least she didn’t seem to.” Heikki paused, pulling herself back to the main line of her argument. “As director of operations, she has to know a good deal about the crash, and about Slade’s behavior immediately afterward. She might have what you’re looking for.”
“I’ve tried to contact Lo-Moth personnel,” Max said gently. “In fact, I have spoken to some of them. But I haven’t been able to pry any of them loose from their company-appointed lawyers—they don’t want to be pried loose, most of them—and I’m not going to get anything useful from them under those circumstances.”
“Ah.” Heikki could not restrain a smile of sheer pleasure, and then laughed aloud as Max’s brows drew together into a frown. “You are a suspicious sort, Max.” She sobered quickly. “Max, a woman named Alexieva, Incarnacion Alexieva Cirilly, rode back to the Loop with us, she’s staying with Jock Nkosi right now. She is, or at worse was, FitzGilbert’s agent while she was on Iadara. If anybody could get you a private conversation with FitzGilbert, she could.”
“But would she?” Max said, and Heikki smiled again.
“I think you could persuade her.”
Max nodded, and pushed himself away from the console with renewed energy. “But you’ll make the call, Heikki, just in case.” He smiled, and this time there was no humor in it, just the predator’s bared teeth. “I don’t care what company secrets he was trying to protect—I don’t even care if Tremoth crystals did cause the EP1 disaster. That was a hundred and fifty years ago. You don’t kill, what is it now—the latac crew, and the hijackers—almost a dozen people, for a stale secret.” His smile shifted, went lopsided and wry. “And if you ever repeat that, Heikki, I’ll reveal your first name to the Loop.”
“No one would ever mistake you for an idealist,” Heikki said, her voice more gentle than her words. She was tired, her eyes gritty from staring at the screen, but forced herself to stand upright. “I’ll make the call.”
To her surprise, Nkosi was both in and accepting contact, though he did not switch on his cameras. Heikki could hear someone moving in the background as she made her appeal, asking him and Alexieva to come by the office suite as soon as possible, and hoped it was the surveyor. There was a moment of silence when she had finished, and then Nkosi said, a faint note of surprise in his voice, “But of course, we will be there within the hour.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said, but the pilot had already broken the connection.
“Will he come?” Max asked.
“Jock doesn’t break his word,” Heikki said, but privately she was not quite so confident. Nkosi she trusted, knew she could trust, but Alexieva remained an unknown quantity. She massaged her temples, digging her fingers hard into the pressure points in a vain attempt to drive away some of the aching tiredness.
“Why don’t you lie down for a while?” Santerese said gently. “This hasn’t exactly been one of your better days.”
Heikki nodded in reluctant agreement. “I’ll do that,” she said. “Wake me when they get here.”
Santerese looked as though she would protest, but Max said, “Of course.”
Heikki nodded again. The bedroom was cool, and very quiet, the air lightly touched with Santerese’s perfume. A single light faded on as Heikki entered, the room sensors reacting to her movements, but she waved it off again, and stretched out on the bed without bothering to undress. It seemed only a few moments before Santerese was touching her shoulder.
“Jock’s here, and Alexieva.”
“Oh, God.” Heikki sat up slowly, blinking away sleep. The brief nap hadn’t helped at all—if anything, she thought, I feel worse than I did before.
Santerese gave her a sympathetic smile, and held out a single dark red capsule. “Try this.”
Heikki swallowed it without question, grimacing at the bitter taste. “Pick-me-up?” she asked, and Santerese nodded.
“You’d better come on,” she said. “Alexieva’s getting difficult.”
Heikki swore under her breath, but levered herself up off the bed. “What do you think of her, Marshallin?”
Santerese shrugged. “I don’t know her. I don’t think I like her, but I don’t know her. And these aren’t the best of conditions for making those decisions, doll.”
“True,” Heikki agreed, but could not help feeling rather pleased that Santerese shared her own opinion of the Iadaran. The thought buoyed her up as she made her way back into the suite’s main room.
The others were waiting there, Alexieva seated on the long couch, her face set in an expression at once stubborn and remote. Nkosi loomed protectively behind her, scowling at Max, who seemed completely unaffected by his stare.
“Ah, there you are, Heikki,” the commissioner said affably. There was a choked noise from the wall behind him, and Heikki glanced curiously in that direction to see her brother smothering a laugh. “I’ve explained the situation to Dam’ Alexieva, and what we want from her, but she’s a little uneasy. She wants assurance from you.”
From me? Heikki thought. What can I give you— what can I promise you that Max can’t? She said nothing, however, but looked at Alexieva.
“What I want,” the surveyor said clearly, “is your word—which Jock tells me is good—that Dam’ FitzGilbert won’t be harmed by this.”
Heikki hesitated, knowing just how much was riding on her answer. At last she said, “Damn it, I can’t tell you that. I can’t predict the future. All I can do is give you my word that it isn’t our—his—” She pointed to Max. “—intention that FitzGilbert be hurt in any way.”
It was not, she thought remotely, a particularly convincing speech, but to her surprise, Alexieva looked away. “That was what I meant,” the surveyor said, after a moment. She glanced up at Nkosi, then looked away, shrugged. “All right. Yes, I will contact Dam’ FitzGilbert, and ask her to contact me here, through secure channels.”
“But will she do it?” Galler murmured, loudly enough to be heard.
Alexieva glared at him. “She will.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” Max said, interrupting Galler’s response. “Dam’ Alexieva?”
There was no refusing the invitation. Alexieva pushed herself to her feet, looking suddenly very tired, and followed Max into the workroom. Nkosi pushed himself away from the couch, shaking his head.
“You had better be right about this, Heikki,” he said, and followed the others into the workroom.
Heikki looked at Santerese, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “I do hope so,” she said softly, and Santerese grinned.
“Like the man says, you better be.”
They sat in silence for the better part of an hour before the others emerged from the workroom. “Well?” Santerese said after a moment, and Max shrugged.
“I left the message,” Alexieva said—rather defensively, Heikki thought.
“What message?” she asked.
“We have a whole code,” Alexieva said impatiently. She looked at Max. “Dam’ FitzGilbert will contact me.”
“It would be helpful,” Max said dryly. “Preferably before entropy sets in, however.”
Alexieva looked as though she wanted to spit at him, but Nkosi laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “She has done all that she can,” he said quietly, but with a note of gentle menace that might, Heikki thought, have given even Max pause. “All we can do now is wait.”
The commissioner, however, did not seem impressed. “True enough, but I’ll have to ask you to do your waiting here.”
For a moment, it seemed that Nkosi might protest further, and Heikki said softly, “Jock….” The pilot looked at her then, and sighed.
“All right. We’ll wait—here.”
FitzGilbert did not respond for almost twenty hours. Heikki spent most of that time drowsing on the couch, the events of the past few days f
inally catching up with her. She roused long enough to eat at some point late that night, station time, when Max allowed Nkosi to send out for dinner, but soon fell asleep again. The next morning was better, however, and by the time she’d finished the second pot of coffee she felt almost ready to face whatever FitzGilbert’s call might bring.
The chimes sounded a little after station noon, bringing Max bolt upright in his chair.
“Incoming transmission,” Santerese said, unnecessarily, and started into the workroom. Heikki followed her, and heard Max call behind her, “Alexieva!”
The surveyor appeared a few minutes later, Max looming behind her like a jailer. “Are there any special codes?” he asked, and Alexieva shook her head.
“No. It should go through.”
Heikki seated herself at the main console, watching numbers shift across her board as the machines on Iadara and on EP7 struggled to match frequencies precisely. At last, the connection was made; the media wall lit and windowed, FitzGilbert’s face framed in the apparent opening.
“Dam’ Heikki.”
The Iadaran’s voice was almost less surprised than angry, Heikki thought, and her own brows drew together into a frown. “That’s right,” she said, and knew she sounded inane. “I need to talk to you.”
“You and someone else, I see,” FitzGilbert said, and Heikki realized that Max had stepped into camera range behind her.
“Yes,” she said, and Max cut in smoothly.
“My name is Idris Max, commissioner, Terrestrial Enforcement. I have some questions to ask you about this lost crystal of yours.”
FitzGilbert frowned. “I’ve already spoken to the Enforcement at some length, and I really don’t see what I could add to that.” She looked directly at Heikki. “As for you, Dam’ Heikki, I remind you that Lo-Moth had a confidentiality clause in its contract with you, which I suspect you are in breach of already.”
“Confidentiality clauses can’t be used to hide criminal actions,” Max began, and Heikki said, “Shut up, Max. FitzGilbert.”
The Iadaran looked at her warily, her expression without encouragement.
“It’s about the latac,” Heikki went on, fumbling for the words she needed to convince the other woman. “Tremoth, Slade’s people, they didn’t come up with anything of use in tracking the hijackers, did they?”
After a moment’s pause, FitzGilbert shook her head silently.
“That’s because he, Slade, was responsible,” Heikki said. “I have proof.” She reached for the tapes she had made, but Max caught her wrist. Before she could protest, FitzGilbert said, “Why? It makes no sense….” Her tone was less convinced than her words, and Heikki struck at that uncertainty.
“Because Lo-Moth got its idea, and most of its plans for that crystal out of Tremoth’s back files, didn’t they?
It was just your technician’s bad luck he/she got the wrong set. Those plans were supposed to stay buried forever, lost in the system, because that was the crystal that destroyed EP1. But your techie found them, passed them along, and you grew a crystal, grew a matrix—a flawed matrix—before he even knew it was in the works. And by the time he did find out it was too late to stop you any other way except by destroying the matrix and then taking over and burying your research. You’d already set up a test facility for it, hadn’t you?”
FitzGilbert nodded, her expression very still. “Slade did this personally—killed my people?”
“He hired the men who did it,” Heikki answered.
FitzGilbert’s face was grey even in the link’s flattering reproduction. “So what do you want of me?”
“You may have information,” Max began, and Heikki said again, “Shut up, Max. Slade pulled me off the job you hired me to do before I had the chance to complete it, and did his best to ruin my professional reputation, just in case I happened to put the pieces together. And that’s nothing compared to what he did to you. I want his head, FitzGilbert. And so should you.”
There was a long silence, and then FitzGilbert said, in a sleepwalker’s voice, “Slade told me you had a brother who worked for Tremoth, that you were working with him to ruin the company.”
Heikki laughed. It was a harsh sound, without humor. “My brother used to work for Slade, yes. I hadn’t spoken to him for twenty years—I wouldn’t have spoken to him if Slade hadn’t tried to ruin me.”
“What do you want from me?” FitzGilbert said again.
“Anything you have,” Heikki answered.
There was another silence, this one longer than the first. Finally FitzGilbert said, “Yes—no, wait. There’s one thing you don’t know.”
Max stirred slightly, and Heikki flung out a hand to silence him. “Well?”
“Those crystals—the plans, I mean, for the matrix. It was Slade himself who gave the schematics to Research.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” Heikki said, almost to herself, and then stopped, appalled. Slade was a Retroceder, everyone had said so—he wore the party’s green badge openly even inside the corporation. If the Loop were destroyed—and the defective crystals would do that—he would be in a position to take up power in the Precincts, could probably have his choice of planets, backed by his fellow Retroceders. God knows, she thought, he may have become a Retroceder only to make use of their ideals, their politics, to make this entire maneuver possible. It would explain why the original data had never been destroyed. “He was going to use the crystals—sell them?”
FitzGilbert nodded, once, but then her face hardened. “Which I will deny, publically and in the courts.”
“Why—?” Heikki began, but FitzGilbert was talking on, staring now at Max.
“All right, Commissioner. Yes, I have information that would be of use to you, information that ought to help you convict that bastard, but I want guarantees first.”
“I can’t promise anything,” Max said, and FitzGilbert laughed harshly.
“Oh, you can promise this. You will, or you don’t get what I have.” She waited, and when Max made no further protest, went on, “Try him and welcome, but only for the latac. That’s enough, seven people dead, but leave EP1 out of it. Christ, do you know what would happen if it was known that somebody’d made a bad crystal that could get past all the tests? That was what caused EP1, and that somebody had tried to do it again? It wouldn’t just ruin Lo-Moth, and Tremoth, it’d destroy the Loop.” She paused then, searching their faces. “There are enough fringe groups that distrust the railroad, the Retroceders are just the loudest and the most organized. Give them a cause like this, and the whole system will go down. You give me that promise, Max, or you get nothing from me.”
There was another long silence, broken only by the faint hissing of the open communications channel. Heikki sat very still, staring at the trees beyond FitzGilbert’s window, and the bright reflection from the roof of a crystal shed. The Iadaran was right, there were entirely too many extremists who disliked the Railroad, some out of economic jealousy, some out of an irrational fear of the technology itself—which turned out not to be entirely irrational after all. She shook her head, and saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Max was nodding slowly.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “What about these flawed crystals? How’re you going to keep this from happening again?”
“I think something can be worked out,” Max said, with a cynical smile.
FitzGilbert’s lips twisted into an expression that might have been intended as a smile, but looked more like a grimace of pain. “I will see that the specifics of the design go to our heads of research, with an appropriate simulation of what might happen if such crystals were put into use. They can then compare all subsequent core crystals with that schematic—it can become a regular part of the inspection process. Will that suffice, Commissioner?”
No, Heikki wanted to say, it’s not good enough, damn it. Max was already nodding.
“I can accept that, Dam’ FitzGilbert. Now, about the data you said you had—”
“What about
your promise?” FitzGilbert answered.
Max sighed. “I can give you my word that Ser Slade will only be charged with the deaths of the latac’s crew, and with attempted fraud in regard to Dam’ Heikki here, and her brother—and whatever else I can catch him on that does not reveal that the EP1 disaster was caused by these flawed crystals. Is that acceptable?”
There was a long pause, and then FitzGilbert sighed. “All right.” Her hands moved on a workboard in front of her, out of the cameras’ line of sight. “Are you ready to receive my data?”
Heikki did not answer, still overwhelmed by the turn of events, and Max reached impatiently over her shoulder to touch the necessary keys. “Ready to receive,” he said.
“Transmitting.” The machines squealed thinly, just at the edge of hearing. Heikki ducked her head in spite of herself, wincing, and then green lights flashed above the diskprinter.
“Transmission complete,” FitzGilbert said, in almost the same moment. She looked suddenly very grim. “But if you break your word, Commissioner, you’re going to find that that’s worse than useless. End contact.” Her image vanished in a flare of light. Heikki began to shut down the system, her hands moving almost without conscious volition.
“I hate it when people threaten me,” Max said quite placidly, to no one in particular, and reached over Heikki’s shoulder for the disks. He slipped them into the nearest workboard, tuned it to a private frequency, and began scanning pages through his data lens. Heikki released the last console from the local system and leaned back in her chair, watching as a smile spread over Max’s face.
“I assume it’s good news?” she asked.
“It’s what I was hoping for,” Max agreed. “This should be the last piece.” He looked at Alexieva, waiting all but forgotten in the doorway, Nkosi still hovering at her side. “Thank you for your help, Dam’ Alexieva.”
“Then we may go now?” Nkosi asked, his face hard and watchful. Max nodded, and Nkosi transferred his stare to Heikki. “I will be in touch, Heikki.”
Mighty Good Road Page 31