The Dark Imbalance (15 page)

8

Perdue Habitat

955.1.32

0330

Roche took the chance to speak to Haid and Kajic once she and Maii had tested her vague ability to its limits.

Haid said when she had finished bringing them completely up to date on the situation.

Roche replied. galaxy.
If we don’t understand why and how it’s happening here, we’ll never be able to stop it elsewhere. Slowly, but surely. In that sense, I think Nemeth
has
done the right thing in sending us here.> She added:

Haid said.

When she asked Kajic about the status of the ship, he was more relaxed.

Roche asked.

said Haid.

Roche pondered Haid’s choice of word, and found it apt. He might exude calm and patience, but she knew Vri was wound like a spring. She wondered what it would take to make him snap.

she said, knowing Maii would overhear. <1 don’t want him rushing in with guns blazing because he thinks I’m up to no good.>

Haid said. <1 imagine your radio silence isn’t helping any.>

Roche dropped back into the real world while Maii conversed with the Surin warrior. They didn’t talk long, and Maii’s expression was sour when they were finished.

she said.

Roche didn’t want to intrude upon that pain. She and Maii sat in silence for a long while, thinking private thoughts. It was odd for Roche after such mental intimacy to be alone again in her skull.

Or nearly so...

the Box asked.

she said.

the Box reassured her, echoing her own thoughts.

<1 guess so.> She was glad to be reminded that epsense gave her a way to converse with the others without the Box overhearing—especially at times like these, when she didn’t feel like talking to the AI. She was afraid of letting slip that Maii knew about the Box’s survival. The Box probably wouldn’t approve, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether it would take any steps to ensure the girl’s silence.

Very little time had passed when Maii lifted her head and said:

Roche stood and shut the helmet to her suit. Maii did likewise. A minute later, the door clicked and opened.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said as he entered, his voice loud as it filled the quiet of the room. “Pacecca’s kept me busy, and Inderdeep is running behind schedule.”

“Are we going now?” Roche asked.

“Yes.” He started to lead the way, then turned back. “I do understand your need for security,” he said, “but it would attract a lot less attention and suspicion if your visors were open.”

Roche did as he suggested. The risk of physical assault was small, and the hazard suits wouldn’t be as effective as combat armor anyway. If they were recognized, so be it; as it was, she had made no attempt to hide her identity when they arrived at the station. Someone looking for her would have found her regardless of an alias, or a visor covering her face.

Maii did likewise, and when Ansourian caught his first glimpse of her face, he smiled amicably.

“It’s nice to see you properly,” he said. “You have a very strong mind.”

“The Vax were taught the technique by a senior adept passing through from Guo.” Seeing no sign of recognition, he explained: “The Guo Sodality is dedicated to epsense training and study in the Middle Reaches; its senior adepts are renowned throughout our region for their strength and subtlety. The technique they taught us has been handed down along certain family lines in order to secure their places in the hierarchy of our culture.”

“We noticed a lot of shielded minds in one particular spot in the habitat,” Roche said.

He nodded. “That would be the audience chamber,” he said. “That is where they would gather at this time.” He half smiled. “Sometimes I wonder if there are any actual thoughts going on behind those shields.” He shrugged. “But that’s politics for you.”

Roche debated whether to tell him about the two clone warriors, but decided to wait until she was sure. “Shall we go?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, leading them out the door and into the corridor.

It was refreshing to be able to move again, and Roche relished the sensation of walking, even though it was in the cumbersome hazard suit. There seemed to be fewer people around than there had been earlier. Maybe that was because the habitat was between shifts, or the conservative Vax still maintained a consensus “night.” Either way, Roche was glad for the relative anonymity.

They came to a major branching-point, where numerous corridors met at a wide variety of angles. The artificial gravity maintained in the habitat decreased slightly to accommodate the sudden shifts in orientation. Ansourian took them around a curved wall, then down into an undulating tube barely tall enough to accommodate Roche and her suit. This way was completely deserted; they passed no one, nor any doors or windows. But for her reopened link with the
Ana Vereine,
Roche would have had no idea where she was.

said Kajic, throwing a 3-D map of the habitat into her left eye. They were a red dot inching through a twisted tube that led, as Kajic indicated, to the heart of the habitat.

Ansourian turned right, taking them along a corridor that curved smoothly upward, then abruptly dropped 90 degrees in only a few meters. Roche negotiated the incline with care, trying not to let the wildly shifting gravity throw her off balance. The corridors from that point became decidedly cramped, with odd protrusions and corners and, overall, a makeshift air, as though they had been assembled from spare parts over many decades with little or no forethought as to their final function.

“Why don’t you use transit tubes?” Roche asked.

“There are only a handful for freight,” Ansourian explained. “Otherwise we don’t care for them. There was a terrible accident a few years ago, and the previous administer discouraged their use.”

“Where exactly are you taking us now?”

“Into the maintenance infrastructure. Security is relatively lax there, and we’ll most likely pass as workers. The area is rarely monitored firsthand; only a basic AI checks for movement.”

“We’ll register, won’t we?”

“Yes, but my Quare persona has clearance.”

Roche asked privately.

<1 can disable the security systems in your vicinity, if you like.>

She thought for a second. <1 don’t suppose you could get us to the administer more easily, could you?>

the Box replied.

Roche had thought about that. She didn’t have much to offer the administer apart from a vague hint about the enemy among her number and reassurances that the council was doing everything in its power (and more besides, in the form of the Ulterior) to rectify the problem. She was really only there to ask questions of her own, and if the administer was feeling uncooperative, then it was unlikely those questions would be answered.

“Is there a proper way to address the administer?” she asked.

Ansourian glanced over his shoulder. “I have no suggestions on how to get her to do what you want, if that’s what you’re asking.” He shrugged and returned his attention to the way ahead. “Inderdeep is unpredictable at best, and can be willfully destructive at worst. Her father left me to keep an eye on things when he died. He never expected me to have to run things the way I have been. But if Inderdeep was left to act as she wished, the habitat would fall apart within months.”

“What will happen if you’re not going to be there?”

Again, he shrugged. “Maybe things will go well when you talk to her and I’ll be able to reveal myself,” he said. “If not, there are a couple of options still available. Oren Quare may prove to be eminently suitable for an advisory post closer to the administer’s office. I know enough to work my way back in; given time, I could regain lost ground. But time is something I do not have, I’m afraid.”

Roche knew what he was referring to. “How long do you think Alta has?” she said.

“Not long,” he replied. “The evidence alone would have been enough for a guilty verdict. Her confession will hasten the legal proceedings. Only the fact that I was so close to Inderdeep is keeping her alive right now. Who knows? Sentence may already have been passed. The matter was bound to come up in the current round of audiences, so Inderdeep may have already signed the execution order.”

“She has power of life and death in the habitat?” Roche said, shocked that so much authority could reside in one person—especially one such as this Inderdeep Jans seemed to be.

“Indirectly she has
some
power,” Ansourian explained. “She ratifies the decisions of the judicial system. Without their approval she can’t impose the death penalty, but she can overturn one at will. I am hoping she will do this in Alta’s case.”

“Why should she do that?”

He faced Roche again. “Because you are going to ask her to,” he said. “Tell her you came here because Alta and I called you. Tell her you’re here to help, but you don’t know how. Only Alta knows, now that I’m dead. The habitat may be riddled with the enemy for all anyone can tell, but with Alta’s help you might be able to ferret them out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Roche scoffed. “She won’t believe that.”

“She might,” he said. “Besides, it’s not so far from the truth. Someone did try to kill me, after all.”

Ignoring the obvious—that someone might’ve killed Ansourian simply because they disagreed with him—Roche said, “Is there anything else I’m supposed to be asking her? Anything else I should know?”

He thought for a long while as he continued to lead them through the habitat’s maintenance labyrinth. “Just don’t take her for an idiot,” he eventually replied. “She’s not stupid. She’s just... wayward.”

Roche absorbed the comment as they walked. Since Ansourian had worked with the administer so closely for so long, Roche had to assume that he would know her better than anyone else would. If he said she wasn’t an idiot, then Roche had to accept that she wasn’t—even though it was difficult to believe, given everything she had heard.

“How much farther?”

“We’re practically there,” he said, negotiating a narrow pass between two large ducts that intruded on the passage. “Just around this corner.”

“Good, because I’m getting claustrophobic.” That wasn’t exactly true; she was just tired of squeezing through the tiny spaces. Her suit scraped the ducts even when she turned sideways to slip through.

she asked Kajic.

came the confident reply, echoed a split second later by the Box, privately. Kajic went on.

she said.

“Here,” said Ansourian, taking them up a short corridor that ended in a cul de sac and bringing them to a halt. “I prepared this entrance in secret when Ehud Jans, the last administer, was still alive. It was intended as an escape route only, but it can work both ways, of course.” He produced some silver tape from the pocket of his uniform, along with what looked like a small battery. “This will only work once,” he said, affixing a length of tape to the wall at head-height and another down by his feet. The tape slowly changed in color from silver to red. “It may look like an ordinary section of wall, but it’s not. It’s barely solid at all: enough to fool a rapping knuckle, or even a gentle punch, but barely more than that. When I run a current through it, the alignment of its molecules will change, and it will dissolve completely. You’ll be able to walk through without any trouble at all.”

“And then?” said Roche uncertainly.

“Inderdeep will be on the other side,” he said, meeting her gaze squarely. “I’ll wait here and listen. The less she knows about me, the better—as her old friend Atul, or Oren Quare.”

Roche nodded, and drew her side arm in readiness.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“No?” She didn’t put the pistol back into its holster. “You told me not to trust you before. Why should I start now?”

He smiled. “Just don’t shoot
her,
whatever you do.”

She smiled in return, but there was no humor to it. “I’m not stupid either, Ansourian.”

He turned back to the wall.

Roche asked Maii.

said the reave,