The Dark Imbalance (13 page)

7

Perdue Habitat

955.1.32

0150

Roche held on to the little man for a while longer, searching his eyes for some sign of a lie. When she failed to find it, she let him go, saying, feebly: “But you’re
dead
!”

“A necessary ruse, I’m afraid,” he apologized. “I needed to disappear in order to survive. If I hadn’t done that, the chances are I really would be dead right now.”

“But Pacecca—”

“Doesn’t know anything,” he said, cutting her short. “To her I’m just another faceless drone to boss around. And that’s what I want her to think. Her mind is weak. I couldn’t trust the likes of her with the truth; she’d be too easily read.”

Roche remembered how Maii had described the woman’s transparency. Quare—no,
Ansourian,
if he was to be believed—was making sense in this respect, at least.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” she said.

“I’m not asking you to trust me,” he said. “All I ask is that you hear me out.”

“Why?” said Roche.

“Because I think we can help each other,” he said. “At most I’ve only got another day or so before the truth comes out. And once that happens, there is every chance that
both
my daughter and I will wind up dead.”

Roche was curious despite herself. “But if your daughter’s going to die for killing you, why not confess to the truth so she’ll be set free?”

“It’s not that simple.” Ansourian stepped over to the conference table and sat in one of the chairs. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the chairs opposite him.

Roche glanced at Maii. The girl was still, concentrating.

she said.

Roche took a seat at the wide wooden table opposite Ansourian. The roomy, low-backed chair creaked beneath her weight, but held. Maii positioned herself a couple of seats down.

“You’ve no doubt heard the official story,” said Ansourian.

“That your daughter killed you a couple of nights ago and then turned herself in?” said Roche. “Yes, we had heard something.

Ansourian nodded, his expression earnest. “It’s an open and shut case,” he said. “Security has a body and a killer, with no evidence to suggest anything out of the ordinary. But for the fact that my daughter will almost certainly be charged with patricide if I maintain the fiction of my death, I would be content to let the situation rest. But obviously I cannot do this. In the next day or so the deception will be exposed, and my daughter will be forced to reveal the truth.”

Roche was still wondering what she had to do with this. “And then what?”

Ansourian shrugged. “There is no legal precedent for this situation,” he said. “Understand that we follow reproductive customs that are regarded as unusual by many Castes. The Vax do not have two parents as most do; we have just the one, who creates a child by combining his or her own genetic code with another’s, sometimes chosen at random. The child, always the opposite gender of the parent, is gestated artificially, then released to its parent—and that parent is the sole caregiver for that child. But just as we have only one parent, so do we have only the one child. Perhaps you can appreciate that the bond between father and daughter or mother and son is
very
strong.”

“So the murder of one by the other,” said Roche, “would be considered one of the worst crimes imaginable.”

“The most heinous of crimes,” he said. “Punishable by death. It doesn’t matter if the child is murdered or the parent, the consequences are the same:
two
lives are ultimately lost—and along with them is lost a long line of descent.”

Roche could understand what he was saying, but she still didn’t see the relevance of it all to herself.

“You say security has a body,” Roche broke in. “Did you clone yourself and kill the clone?”

The look of surprise and disgust was genuine. “No, of course not!” he said. Then, seeing Roche’s confusion, Ansourian took a deep breath and continued slowly. “Please understand that this is very difficult for me. Under normal circumstances, I am very much a recluse; I am uncomfortable with face-to-face contact. Only one person is allowed into my chamber and knows my face—and that is my daughter, Alta. Until two days ago, she shared my apartment in a high-security wing of the habitat not far from where the administer herself lives.”

“Alta lived with you?”

“Yes, and would have until I died, with her son—should she have chosen to bear one, of course. But she is not as antisocial as I. Although she respects the lifestyle I have chosen, she does not feel the same need to remain isolated from the rest of the community. She works—or worked, I should say—in the Logistics Department, supervising the distribution of resources that pass through here to those who need it the most. Perhaps she was reckless in believing that the situation was not as dangerous as indicators suggested—and it does seem that my opinion on that score has been vindicated. But the fact remains that had she not gone out and returned when she did she would have died with me, or I would have died alone.”

Roche listened closely. Again, the subtleties of Vax relationships escaped her. Did they take lovers from outside the family line, or was incest the norm? The question was irrelevant, yet it nagged at her just the same.

“Two nights ago,” he went on, “Alta returned home late. When she came in to say good night, she found me asleep and another person in the room with me. This person, she says, was in the process of giving me a dose of poison that would have killed me in seconds and left no trace whatsoever.” Ansourian stopped for a moment before going on. “Alta is a proficient fighter, Roche. Perhaps too proficient. She killed the assailant with little effort, but she did so before we could determine
who
he worked for.”

“But did you at least find out who
he
was?”

Ansourian shook his head. “He carried no papers,” he said, “nor did he have any DNA files in the habitat records. And I was not in a position to call security to find out, either. Disregarding the fact that I had already explored all the avenues they have open to them, my would-be killer had not broken into my rooms by force; he simply walked through my extensive security system as though it hadn’t even existed. Someone
must
have shown him how to do that, and only a handful of people have access to that information.”

“They’re all high-up in the security chain, no doubt,” Roche put in.

Ansourian leaned forward on the table, nodding. “I couldn’t risk reporting the incident for fear of alerting whoever was responsible that they had failed.”

“So you had to find a way to make the problem disappear, in other words,” said Roche, wanting him to get to her relevance in this scenario.

He nodded again. “Smuggling the body out of the habitat was not an option, either,” he said. “The moment I stepped out of my room, my enemy would have known something had gone wrong and would make sure security was watching every dock. And I couldn’t keep the body in my rooms for any length of time for similar reasons. There seemed to be no avoiding the fact that I had survived by mistake; no matter which way I turned, that mistake looked likely to be rectified soon.

“The only way I could hope to find out what happened was to doctor habitat records to indicate that the body was mine, and convince whoever was responsible that I was dead. Under the cover of an alias I could watch to see what happened next: who would be looking to take over my position; who would advocate a speedy trial to see the matter closed quickly—”

“Basically,” said Roche, “who would benefit the most from your death once the dust had settled on the whole unpleasant affair.”

“Exactly,” said Ansourian. “The most difficult problem to get around was the fact that Alta had left genetic evidence all over the body. But there was no avoiding that. We figured in the end that it would be best if she turned herself in and thereby forestalled a thorough inquiry. Her story wouldn’t stand up under a detailed forensic examination, and no doubt my enemy is puzzled as to why my assassination didn’t go quite as planned—it must have startled him to see Alta accused of the crime, especially if the assassin was supposed to report in, and has not—but I hope his acceptance of the situation will continue a little longer. While Alta is imprisoned, the thought that he might soon discover that the body is actually that of his assassin, and not mine, concerns me greatly.”

“But surely he would be aware of that already?” Roche found this aspect of the story difficult to swallow. “I mean, didn’t habitat files reveal a mismatch between your genetic profile and that of the body?”

Ansourian shook his head. “I had my own records removed a long time ago. It seemed a sensible precaution to take, especially for someone in my position. As far as preferring anonymity goes, doesn’t it seem reasonable that the person who wielded the true power in this habitat should not seek recognition of any kind? The temptation to use it for personal gain would always be there. And the fact that I could walk the length of every corridor in this habitat and not be recognized by anyone but my daughter actually pleased me. As long as I could continue making the right decisions for Inderdeep to follow,
that
was the main thing.”

“What about the administer?” Roche asked. “Doesn’t she even know what you look like?”

“I couldn’t take the chance.” He shrugged. “I know this may seem paranoid to you, Roche, but if I
hadn’t
taken such precautions, I might have died a long time ago. Everything I have feared appears to have come to pass. And now, I must find out who tried to kill me, and save my daughter.”

Roche nodded her understanding. “This is where I come in, right?”

“I can’t do this alone,” he said soberly. “I need your help.”

“Why do you think I should help you?” she asked. “It’s not my brief to become involved in domestic politics.”

“But you are,” he insisted. “You are one of the Ulterior’s agents, and the Ulterior is dealing with a much larger enemy. Our goals may overlap.”

“How?”

“A week ago, Guidon, one of Perdue’s sibling-habitats, was destroyed.”

“I heard about that on the way here,” Roche half-lied. The Box had found the information en route, but hadn’t told her until she arrived.

“No doubt,” he said. “But what you wouldn’t have heard is that Guidon Habitat was destroyed from within using security codes known only to a handful of people. Exactly
how
they were obtained remains a mystery, but I suspect that the enemy—
your
enemy—was involved. Perhaps he is my enemy too.”

“Why?”

“Inderdeep tends toward a policy of indifference and nonintervention regarding the problems we left at home. It took a lot of convincing just to get her here. Ultimately, though, I wonder how much good we can do here, particularly now with Guidon destroyed—but I have always felt that it is important to at least try.”

“So it was you who persuaded Inderdeep to come here?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I’ve maintained a steady influence over her not to change her mind and return home. Maybe someone took offense at that, finally—this faceless man, pulling her strings so freely. Maybe that someone decided the war effort could do without me helping it along. But if that is the case, then this habitat has already been infiltrated, and we may all be close to the same fate that awaited those on Guidon.”

“Let me get this straight,” Roche said. “Someone in Guidon, working for the enemy, somehow managed to get the codes that led to its destruction, and now you believe this same person has turned up here on Perdue?”

“And is attempting to do the same thing again, yes,” Ansourian said. “It would be easy to sneak on board right now. We’re still collecting life-capsules from the wreckage of Guidon. In fact, we have inadvertently picked up a couple belonging to the enemy, but we disposed of them before they could open.”

“You think someone in an ordinary capsule could have sneaked in unnoticed?”

“If they were carrying the right papers,” said Ansourian, “there would be no cause to suspect anything. And once in, they could go about working their way up the chain of command. From there it would be a simple matter of working on Inderdeep to change her mind and go home. It would be an efficient way to get rid of the Vax.”

“Efficient, yes, but that’s not normally how they work,” Roche said. “The more destruction and loss of life, the better for them—at least in my experience.”

“Perhaps that is a generalization deserving examination,” he countered. “The most destructive actions are the ones we see most clearly, and remember. There may be more subtle plots going on around us all the time.”

said Maii, privately.

“Perhaps,” she said in response to both of them. “But I still don’t know
how
you expect us to help. Your daughter’s locked up somewhere. What do you want us to do? Break her out using brute force?”

“I’m not naive enough to think that would work—or that you would agree to such an action.”

“What, then?”

“Your name precedes you, Morgan Roche. If my adversary hears that you have spoken to Inderdeep Jans, he may become anxious. If she can be reminded that the enemy may be whispering to her even now, she might take his advice less to heart. I may yet be able to come out of hiding in a way that will not place me or Alta in any more danger than we already are. I hope to use you, in other words, as a catalyst to change Inderdeep’s mind.”

Roche stared at him for a long time. He wanted to use her in much the same way the Ulterior and the Crescend both did: as a pawn in a personal power game. She wasn’t sure she liked this role at all—but neither did she want to rule out the possibility that she could use it to her own advantage.

“You can get me to the administer?” she asked.

“I believe so, yes,” he said. “I should be able to get you into her chambers without anyone knowing. You will have as much time alone with her as you need—as long as you can convince her to let you stay. You see, her chambers aren’t monitored. Not even by me.”