Bitter Angels (32 page)

“Stop it. Slow down!”

Bloom’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m sorry, Coordinator?”

“Sorry.” Siri shook her head. Fortunately, Shawn had subsided and she could focus on the man in front of her. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“I know, and I’ve had years. But…you do believe me?”

“I believe him, Siri. It makes perfect sense.”

“I don’t know,” she said to Bloom, and to Shawn. “You haven’t given me much proof.”

“But you
feel
it. I know you do.”

“I don’t know,” she said again, but the words were weak.

“Will you at least promise me you’ll look into it?” Bloom reached out and took her hand. “I can’t do anything outside of this space. They’re watching me. They’re watching all of us. Everyone thinks the cameras are in the cleaning drones, but I think they’ve really set the essences, the voices, to watch us.”

“I will do what I can.” Siri rubbed her forehead. Shawn was restless in the back of her mind, almost as if he wanted to break out of her skull and fly free, looking for the voices on the wind.

After all, what was Shawn but a voice in her head?

“Thank you.” Bloom released her hand. He smiled, wistful and tired. “We probably shouldn’t prolong this. They’ll be watching us both now. I’ll show you out.”

He took her down the elevator. Walking through the
mausoleum of grandeur was excruciating. Siri breathed in the dust and thought about the voices, the essences, trapped and transmitted across whatever frequency the Clerks had claimed for themselves.

“I don’t want it to be, but I feel it.”

“That’s what we need to find out, Siri. If they’ve trapped Bianca’s essence somehow…”

She was so lost in her inner conversation, she almost failed to realize that they had reached the main doors.

“Thank you for listening to me, Siri.” Natio Bloom pressed her hand once more. “I hope we will be able to speak again soon. But I urge you to take care. The Clerks are not to be trifled with, even, I think, by the Pax Solaris.”

Siri nodded and turned away, walking down the base streets, into the flickering shadows.

He reached up to the proscenium and touched a switch.

The houselights came up and much of the room vanished: the balconies and frescoes, the velvet curtains, the scarlet-and-gilt paint. What remained was a scuffed white cavern with rows of incongruous red-velvet seats, all facing a featureless white stage.

“And there you have it,” said Bloom to whoever might be listening. “Very simple really. Take someone away from the familiar, put them in a situation already resonant with emotional meaning, and tell them your tale. A very ordinary
illusion, really.” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but did not entirely succeed. “Now she has a shape for her delusions, and she’ll fall as quickly as you could wish.”

He walked to center stage, spread his hands, and Natio Bloom bowed deeply to his empty space.

The illumination for the room was the best simulated daylight he’d ever seen. There was also a long, narrow strip of window that showed the black sky and a single yellow star shining in the far distance. The carpet was soft and whole and clean. So were the blue shirt and black trousers he’d been given to wear. The bed had swaddled him comfortably for the ten hours he slept. The chairs adjusted to fit his contours. He had been extremely well fed, and for the first time in more years than he could remember, he was not thirsty. Their gravity was too heavy for him and he ached from it, but he was adjusting.

If he ever saw Amerand again, he was going to stomp him into the deck for stealing all Emiliya’s nerve. But Jireu
always had been a fuckless coward, even back in the tunnels, always hiding from every fight. Always trying to play it safe. How the hell could an
OB
believe
anything
was safe?

Kapa’s wrist itched under its beige stabilizing cast. The saints’ doctors told him that was a side effect of speed-healing the bone. The gook they spread on his chest and stomach had already taken away the pain there, and the bruises. His nose also itched under the form they secured over it, which was somehow more annoying. He’d been told the itch would fade in six more hours and that he should touch the red circle shining on the top of the broad desk if it didn’t. That would open an active pane directly to his doctor in the ship’s clinic.

They also told him the green and blue lights would open panes so he could talk with his crew. He hadn’t touched those.

He had been further informed that the door would be unlocked as soon as his debriefing was completed, then he could have the run of the ship, anywhere that was not crew-only access.

Kapa found himself utterly and truly stunned at these calm declarations.

The arched doorway lit up green, the signal that someone was about to enter. Kapa turned away from the window. His good hand flexed automatically, but he had nothing to grab hold of. The portal swung open a split second later and a single man entered. He was about Kapa’s height with black hair and startling, pale green eyes. His uniform was very like the ones the saints had worn.

Kapa shrugged.

“Shall we sit down?”

Kapa shrugged again, and sat in one of the chairs beside the active desk. The saint, Marshal-Steward Misao Smith, sat across from him. The desktop lit up at the touch of Smith’s gloved fingertips. Several panes opened immediately. As Smith shuffled them, Kapa’s gaze flickered from the man to his work, trying to find a hint as to what was coming. But Misao Smith’s face gave nothing away, and the displays he sorted might have been written in hieroglyphs for all Kapa could read them.

“Now.” Misao folded his hands. “The first thing you need to know is that you have currently broken no laws within the boundaries of the Pax Solaris. Therefore, if you now wish to request asylum, it will be granted to you.”

Kapa crossed his arms over his chest, a little awkwardly because of the cast. “So what if I did?”

“You will be given the status of legal refugee. You will be assigned a living space, a stipend, and enculturation assistance. You will also become subject to the laws and regulations of the Pax Solaris.”

“Uh-huh.” His nose itched like hell. Kapa tucked his good hand under his armpit to keep from rubbing the healing frame. That just seemed to make it worse. “And if I don’t ask for asylum?”

Now it was Smith’s turn to shrug. “It is your decision. If you do not wish to receive refugee status, we will provide you with transportation to the destination of your choosing, outside the Pax Solaris, as soon as it can be arranged.”

“Of course,” agreed Misao Smith easily. “Now, we are first of all interested in why you led a kidnapping attempt on Field Commander Terese Drajeske and her escort.”

Kapa settled back, resting his cast on his thigh. “Suppose I don’t feel like telling you?”

Smith didn’t even blink. “That also is your decision.” He moved a couple of the panes around on the desk and studied the new one that came up. He said nothing. He did not look up. He sat there, apparently engrossed in his work, and the silence stretched out.

Kapa’s heel started to tap.

“Is that it?” he asked.

Smith looked up. “I’m sorry?”

“I said is that it? Is that all?”

“What else would there be?”

“I don’t know.” Kapa could not keep the irritation out of his voice. “You guys are in charge here.”

“Yes. But if you decline to answer my first question, I cannot continue.”

“And you’re just going to sit there?”

“I am not going to
just
sit. As you see, I have a great deal of work to do.” Smith gestured at the desktop. “Field Commander Drajeske and Field Coordinator Baijahn are my direct subordinates. I have a particular interest in this mission, and there is a lot of follow-up to do. I do not normally come out into the field anymore, which has put me behind on a number of fronts.” He pulled a stylus out of the holder at the desk’s edge and began making notes on one of the panes, tapping keys with his free hand.

Kapa stared.

The carpet was soft, and his movements soundless. He slipped up behind Smith, angling his approach so his shadow did not give him away. He raised his good arm to bring it down around the saint’s neck.

The room spun and pain shot from his wrist to his shoulder. When he could see straight again, Kapa was on his knees, and Misao Smith had locked his arm behind his back.

“You really are a very slow learner, Seño Lu,” Smith remarked as calmly as if he were still sitting at his desk.

“All right, all right!” shouted Kapa. “It was worth a try. Lemme go.”

Somewhat to his surprise, the saint did let go and stood back. Kapa rubbed his sore wrist. He glowered at Smith, who sat back down behind the desk.

“Why did you attempt to kidnap Terese Drajeske and her escort?”

Kapa got to his feet awkwardly, not wanting to use either of his hands. His healing fingers didn’t have a lot of strength and his formerly good hand was now a mass of pins and needles. He dropped into the chair. “I was offered an internal drive ship if I could bring your people in alive.”

“Who made the offer?”

Kapa considered for a moment.
Either you mean it about the legals and I’m free now, or you’re a fuckless liar and I’m screwed
.

“An old guy named Nikko Donnelly,” said Kapa. “He’s in charge of Habitat 3.”

“And how did Seño Donnelly have an internal drive ship to give you?”

“He’s Blood. Diluted, but in there, and he’s connected into the shipyard.”

Smith made a note. “He was able to purchase this ship?”

Kapa snorted. “Not likely. He’s on probation with them. Did something naughty-naughty back in the day. Never heard what, but it got his allowance cut off.”

Smith made another note. “Why did he give you an ID ship before you had completed your task? You might have simply stolen it.”

“He’d junked the codes. Scrambled them. The ship could only jump between Erasmus and the spot you found us. He was going to hand over the good codes when we handed over your saints.”

“So Donnelly had access to not one ID ship, but two. One for you to use in the kidnapping and one to go out to meet you.”

“I guess.”

Smith read over his notes. “Given the level of security surrounding internal drives in the Erasmus System, that seems most extraordinary.” He frowned. “Was Nikko Donnelly acting as an official representative of the Blood Family when he contacted you?”

“How the hell would I know?” sneered Kapa. “If I had to guess, I’d bet somebody closer to the best Blood gave it to him and told him what to do with it. Probably told him he’d get back in the good books if he did.”

“He had a job and a price beyond anything I’d dreamed of. That was the beginning and the end of what I wanted to know about him.”

“I see.” Smith made yet another note, selected another pane, and dragged it in front of him. “Very well. Thank you, Seño Lu, for your cooperation. Now, I am going to ask you again, do you wish to accept asylum in the Pax Solaris?”

Kapa’s jaw worked itself back and forth. What if he did? What if he made this little fuckless saint let him go inside the precious Pax, made Smith have to deliver him safe into one of their tidy little worlds,
pay
him a salary for fuck’s sake, and do everything but wipe his poor little refugee ass?