The Elysium Commission (20 page)

I have never been a human being who glories in naps or in catching sleep at odd intervals. Rather I have always followed sleep who kissed me in the brain so as to drop into dreaming. With such effort in attaining a second sky far from the mundane stars, I had barely reached the cloud coast, seeking Magdalena, when the link slammed me back into full awareness.

Ser Maraniss…Director Eloi would like you back at the operations center. He apologizes, but something has come up.

I'll be there shortly.

Of course something had come up. With Legaar, and with most of those who inhabited and structured modern corpentities, any nonfinancial contingency was unexpected and unwelcome, something to be avoided or eliminated. Their creativity was like the fabled emperor of ice cream, invariably melting under the heat of either stress or sensuality, yet for them, even when they dawdled with their nymphs and wenches in such undress, sex was as coolly concupiscent as a chilled confectionery, and even less pleasing, though they knew it not.

He would appreciate it.

That was something I seriously doubted, since Legaar was not the sort to appreciate anything provided by other individuals. He regarded all services as his due, and, in time, I would provide him just that.

For that reason alone, I did take a little time to shower and clean up.

Legaar was once more pacing when I reached the operations center. Despite the climate control systems, the air was acrid, permeated by the odor of his perspiration and stress emanations.

“You took your time.”

“You didn't say that it was urgent,” I replied. “I was showering when you linked. I didn't think you wanted me to arrive here in that state. Besides, your nymphs might have waylaid me along the way.”

“That might have done some good.”

Not for me, since none of them happened to be anywhere as close to perfection as Magdalena, a creature who matched Elysium for grace and beauty.

“I shouldn't have let you create her.”

I ignored his reference to Magdalena, obvious as my reactions must have been. “What did you want?”

“The surveillance team never reported back. Less than a stan after they should have reached the target location, there was another energy burst. That made two in less than three stans,” Legaar said. “One was at four fifty-seven this morning, and the other at seven nineteen. The second one was explosive in nature.”

Since his commando team hadn't returned, that certainly made a direct and crude kind of sense. “So someone else has decided to reply in kind. Do you know who?”

“We had no reports from the team after the explosion. We launched an RPF for surveillance. There's a seared area in a clearing on the hillside on RT lands. There's some debris. It appears to be what's left of the TCs and some sort of aircraft, although the sections are too small and too scattered to determine the type and source from the RPF scans.”

“You're not sending anyone out to recover the TCs?”

Legaar shook his head. “There's no reason to. The team didn't carry anything that would link them to Time's End. If they were stupid enough to walk into a trap, that was their problem. They took out the aircraft, and it was positioned to do surveillance. We didn't detect ongoing emissions, and that means it was set up for long-term passive observation. We've stopped that for now.”

“You'll just leave everything there?”

“We'll let RT deal with it. For all we know, it was just an aircraft crash. It didn't occur here, and that's not our problem.”

If what Legaar said happened to be correct, his judgment was right. “That makes sense. But why did you ask me to come back here?”

“I had my reasons.”

He always did, but I wasn't about to ask directly. That was what he wanted. “What did you find out about the shadow?”

“He flew out to Villedumont last night. That's not all that far from the Special Operations base. He was medically retired from Special Ops.”

“That sounds like he still might have ties there. Could he be a covert agent of theirs?”

Legaar laughed. “I'd love to prove that. Special Operations can't employ their techniques and equipment against Assembly citizens on Assembly worlds. They can do training, but that's limited to weapons training on their own reservations and nonspecific surveillance.”

Nonspecific surveillance sounded like an oxymoron or, more politely, a military contradiction in terms. “There's no reservation near here. Did any of the debris suggest Special Operations?”

“From an RPF scan? How could we tell? Once RT looks into it, I'll have sources suggest that they probe the possibility of SpecOps involvement. Right now, that shouldn't come from me.”

“Are your other…arrangements…in place?”

He ignored the question. “I have a small task for you, Maraniss. I do believe it's within your capabilities. You'll need to return to Thurene for the next few days.”

I didn't like that at all. I could return to Time's End in less than a stan using the projection field, but that would alert the sisters prematurely. “What can I do there that you don't have far better tools for?”

“They're known as tools. You're not. You're known as a civic planner and patterner, if a rather unreliable and eccentric one. I want you to talk to a few people. You know who. Suggest that you've been relaxing at Time's End, but that you've seen or heard strange aircraft more than once and that some of them seemed to be Assembly craft rather than planetary or system craft.”

“No one who knows anything will tell me anything.”

“That's not the point. What we want to do is get other people to start asking questions.”

Upon occasion, Legaar was even close to logical, and this appeared to be one of those occasions. That I found it so nagged at me, so much so that I still didn't like it, neither being separated from Magdalena nor from quick transit-access to Elysium.

I also didn't like the idea of Special Operations getting interested. Unlike the Civitas Sorores, whose competence and foresight were limited, not to mention their assets and technology, Special Operations had greater competence and, more important, direct access to the Assembly space service—and they did have the resources to affect my plans for Elysium.

I walked only three or four klicks to the RT field station. It felt like ten, and it took me more than two stans before I staggered across a wide expanse of grass toward the old-style log dwelling. Behind it was a long shed that had to have contained far more modern equipment than its broad plank exterior walls suggested.

The woman who stood on the narrow covered porch of the dwelling wore RT field greens. She greeted me with opaque brown eyes and an immobilizer aimed directly at me. I'd have been trussed up in intelligent expanded foam in instants if she triggered the truncheonlike device. “What the frig are you doing here? This is a restricted watershed.” Her eyes dropped to the crude sling and splint on my left forearm. “How did that happen?”

“I thought you might know.” I tried not to wince. “I was overflying the area just north of here. I had a flitter, and something went wrong. I set down. I was checking the flitter when some commando types in TCs charged out of the woods and started firing. I scrambled behind some trees, and everything exploded.” All of what I said was true, if not necessarily in that order or with the implications my sequence suggested.

Her face tightened. She forced it to relax. “Who are you?”

“Blaine Donne. I live in Thurene. You can check that.”

“Blaine Donne?”

“D-O-N-N-E, that's right.”

She studied my face. “You're in a lot of pain.”

“Some,” I admitted.

“Sit down on the bench there. Don't move until I come back.”

I sat. It was a relief to get off my feet. Despite being fall, the day was warm enough that being in the shade didn't bother me.

She returned in less than five minutes. Another woman in the RT field greens now held the immobilizer. The first woman held a portable diagnostic until and a medkit.

I barely managed to stay conscious while she did the diagnostics, then immobilized the arm in a temporary cast.

“You'll need some better work on that, but this will keep it from getting worse,” she explained. “RT will be sending a transport. They may bill you for it.”

I hadn't expected less.

All in all, I waited almost two stans. It was a long two stans because the field foresters had clearly been instructed not to converse with me any more than absolutely necessary. Finally, a pair of RT flitters appeared in the cloudless afternoon sky. One was a standard transport flitter, the smaller variety, almost bulbous. The other was a deadlier and sleeker version. It didn't have stealth features. With the shields and armament it carried, it probably didn't need them.

Both set down on the open space to the north of the porch where I waited.

A slender but muscular individual emerged from the transport flitter and strode across the grass to where I sat in a more comfortable chair than the green bench where I'd first been. The newcomer wore the royal green of the RT private forces. Her hair was so blond it was almost silver, but it was cut even shorter than Krij's was.

I stood although I didn't feel like it.

Her eyes took in my tattered and ragged flight suit and the bulky temp-cast on my forearm. “Why don't you sit down, Seignior Donne? You're a long way from your villa and the shadows of Thurene, and you look like you've had a difficult time. Oh, I'm Fiorina Carle, and I'm an information specialist with RT.”

Her obvious concern and manners—as well as her knowledge about my background—chilled me more than Javerr's arrogance ever had. I did seat myself.

She turned and walked to the far side of the porch, where she lifted the other chair and carried it back toward me. Then she placed the chair just outside the edge of my personal comfort space. She settled into it with a studied ease that bothered me even more. “We've had the report from the forester, but I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me what happened in your own words. We're not exactly pleased when innocent pilots”—she smiled humorously—“not that many would claim innocence as one of your characteristics—find their flitters destroyed on RT lands. We also don't like it because this land is the watershed for the springs that feed our waters and vineyards. We take contamination seriously.” She laughed, sympathetically and warmly. “I can understand that you're more likely to be concerned about your injuries and those who caused them, and we're concerned about that as well. If you wouldn't mind…”

Exactly how much should I tell her?

The more I could without compromising my own situation, the better. She was clearly one of RT's best, and that might be why it had taken two stans for before the two flitters had reached the station on what was a flight of less than one stan from Thurene.

I frowned. “You obviously know who I am, and what I do. I hope you'll understand if I don't name names.”

“Why don't you tell me what's comfortable?” She didn't smile, just nodded sympathetically.

“The bare bones of what never yet was heard in tale or song?” I asked with a grin.

“That to the service of this house belongs,” she countered.

She was well-read, and that made her all the more dangerous, but perhaps not to me. “I have a client who paid me to discover the connection between several individuals. Not any dirt. I wasn't asked to delve into possible illegalities, but everything seemed to lead toward the property to the north of here. That became especially interesting after I discovered that several RPFs from that property crashed on RT lands recently. The news didn't give much in the way of details, but I thought it might be worth looking into. So I flew out here, but I found myself having difficulties, and I set down in a cleared area on the other side of the hills to the north. I was outside my flitter when my detectors alerted me to energy concentrations moving toward me. I tend to be suspicious, Lady Carle—”

“Fiorina, please.”

“As I said, I tend to be suspicious, and since my flitter wasn't going anywhere, I ducked behind a tree. I don't know what they used, but there were fragments of flitter going everywhere. Then there was an explosion. I was flattened. When I came to, there was a limb pinning my left arm to the ground. I couldn't move it—the tree—but I did manage to use my belt knife to scrape away enough under the arm to slide it out. I have to say that I passed out. I managed to splint it and tie together a sling. Then I started walking.”

“You were closer to Time's End. Why didn't you head there?” The question was delivered warmly and rhetorically. She already knew my answer.

“I had the feeling that whoever had been shooting at me had come from there. Somehow, Time's End didn't seem like a good idea. I have my little vices and limitations, but I try to avoid complete stupidity.”

“The satellite scans didn't show your arrival over RT lands, though,” she mused.

“I came in very low,” I admitted, “and the flitter did have some rudimentary stealth features. Obviously not enough to avoid detection by someone.”

“What time did you set down?”

I smiled. “In the dark before dawn. I'd thought that very early morning would have been less dangerous. I was wrong.”

“Do you recall exactly when?”

“Not exactly. You don't think about time under those circumstances.”

“With your passion for detail, Seignior Donne?” She raised her eyebrows. The effect was less because they were so pale.

“Detail tends to get lost when things go wrong quickly. I'd say it was somewhere around six hour, but that's a guess.”

She was very quiet, very professional, very thorough, and very insistent. She spent two long standard hours talking to me. I gave up more than I'd hoped and less than I could have, and that was about the best I could have expected.

Then she smiled once more. “You've been very helpful, Seignior Donne, and I do appreciate your patience at a time when you cannot have been that comfortable.”

“I've told you what I can, and I appreciate your professional approach.” I still didn't want to call her Fiorina, and she didn't want a more formal salutation.

“I may be back in touch once you've returned to Thurene.”

“I understand.” I paused. “I have a question or two for you.”

She waited.

“Were you aware that a civic patterner named Judeon Maraniss has been working for Legaar Eloi?”

“I really can't comment on that.”

That meant she knew.

I grinned. “On another subject…do the names Stella Strong, Maureen Maud Gonne, or Astrid Forte mean anything to you?”

There was the faintest stiffening at the last name, but she shook her head. “Should I?”

“I've been asked to locate them—or her. I think they're all the same individual. This isn't connected to Time's End.”

“I can't help you here, Seignior Donne.” She gestured toward the small transport flitter. “The flitter is ready to lift off.” We both knew that it could have lifted off long before.

I stood, then eased my way down the two steps off the porch and walked across the browning grass toward the flitter. She accompanied me. She didn't say anything, and I could sense that she was linked elsewhere.

As I was about to step into the transport flitter, she smiled abruptly and turned to me. “The investigatory team confirmed that you were pinned under the tree and that a rather large explosion shredded a significant area.”

I almost shrugged. “Did they find anything else?”

She grinned. “Let's just say that there's nothing that concerns you, Seignior Donne. Not obviously, at the moment. Along with the bill for transport back to Thurene, we'll send you a waiver.”

That did puzzle me. “A waiver?”

“We release you from responsibility for damage to the trees and watershed, and you agree that RT has no responsibility for your injuries. You also agree to testify in the unlikely event that our investigation uncovers proof of who was behind the attack on your flitter and the subsequent destruction. That's only if RT takes justiciary action against those responsible.”

In short, RT was going to be investigating other means of dealing with Legaar Eloi. “That seems fair.”

“I thought you'd see it that way.” She smiled again, warmly. “Take care of that arm, Seignior.”

“I'll do my best.”

After she stepped back, I climbed into the flitter. The hatch closed, and I sat alone in the rear passenger compartment as the craft lifted off. The couch was the most comfortable position I'd been in all day, and I could almost forget the muted throbbing in my forearm. The RT information specialist reminded me of someone, and yet she didn't. Her matter-of-fact manner was similar to…

Siendra—that was it! I frowned. For all that I couldn't have explained why, I had the feeling that Siendra was more genuine. To be Krij's business partner, she would have had to be. Krij didn't go in for false warmth.

Would RT do anything in handling Legaar Eloi? If they did, would I ever know? Somehow, I doubted it.

What I didn't doubt was that whatever the Elois and Maraniss were doing, it was important enough and possibly dangerous enough that Legaar had no compunction about sending a commando team out, then cutting them off when matters went bad.

It had to be Elysium. The only problem I had was that I still didn't have the faintest idea of what Elysium was and how it connected to either Maraniss or Legaar Eloi. And for whom was Seigniora Reynarda fronting? She certainly couldn't be a cover for the original Fox. It was amusing in a fashion that we all referred to the unknown fox as the original, when the unknown had actually taken the name of a former marshal. But then, so far as I knew, no one had ever uncovered the unknown Fox's true identity, while even the histories mentioned Marshal Reynardo.