The Lost Stars (45 page)

“No, sir. I am certain she was not,” Malin said forcefully. “But that does not rule out someone in her camp.”

“Or someone who wants you to think she was behind it,” Rogero suggested.

“Or someone who wants her to think you are trying to frame her,” Malin added.

Drakon's laugh was no more than a bitter snort. “I get it. We've still got no idea. But if you're concluding that whoever is behind all of this is not a snake, no matter which particular incident we're talking about, then President Iceni needs to be told. I'll do that. Colonel Rogero, you get with Captain Bradamont and make sure she understands that someone is still after her. She might want to know about Ito,
too.”

“And me, General?” Malin asked.

“Just try to avoid Morgan for a while.”

GWEN
Iceni offered Drakon a seat before her desk, her hand in the midst of indicating the seat twisting for a moment into a sign whose meaning she hoped he would recognize.

Someone may be listening.

They were in her office, the most secure place under Iceni's personal authority, but some instinct warned her that even here speaking freely could be dangerous. She hadn't felt that way before, but it had been growing on her. Was it justifiable caution or real paranoia?

Drakon sat down, his eyes on her, his first words indicating that he had seen and recognized the hand sign. “I know there are a lot of things we shouldn't talk about,” he began in a conversational tone, “because we can't trust anyone.”

“No,” Iceni agreed. “We can't trust anyone.”

“But there are some people I distrust a lot less than others.” He looked toward the virtual window behind Iceni's desk, a window currently set to show a beach on the planet, the waves rushing up the sand and back again into the ocean in an endless rhythm. “Didn't that used to show the city?”

“I changed it,” Iceni said. “Sometimes I find myself liking things that I never expected
to.”

He looked back at her, watching Iceni for a moment before speaking again.
If only I could know what you were really thinking, Artur Drakon.

“I'm here to let you know,” Drakon said, “that even though I've been the target of the last two assassination attempts, there are reasons to believe you are also still being targeted.”

Instead of any fear, Iceni felt a sense of weariness filling her. “Of course. Does it ever
end?”

“Beats the hell out of me. I also don't know who is doing the targeting, but my staff believes that more than one party is involved, with more than one set of goals.”

“Interesting.”
Malin already passed me that information this morning. I wondered what he would tell Drakon, but I'm no longer surprised that Drakon shared the information with me. I wish I knew exactly why he was doing it.
“Who besides the snakes?”

His hand made a negating sign. “I don't know.”

Not snakes? Malin had passed the same conclusion to her. But that had been before Ito had tried to kill Drakon, and Ito had snake all over her. “You once apologized to me for not sharing information. Now I must . . . apologize . . . to you.” That word
was
very hard to get out. “My people were supposed to have screened out any threats. Instead, I let an assassin get within reach of
you.”

How had Togo been so careless? She had grown to count on his ruthless efficiency. She had grown to count on it too much.

But why had Malin said nothing to her about his suspicions regarding Ito? Why make such a public demonstration of Togo's failure and his own effectiveness?

Or perhaps that had been the point of the whole display.

“We need to talk again later,” Iceni said. “There are some things I need to check
on.”

“All right.” Drakon stood up. “Gwen . . . stay safe.”

“Don't get all sentimental on me, General,” she chided him. “You might make me wonder what you're up
to.”

“I wish the hell I knew.”

HE
had barely left Iceni's secure office when his comm unit buzzed urgently. Very urgently. “I need to see you in your office right away, General,” Morgan said.

“What's it about?”

“A threat to you. A threat right next to
you.”

“Morgan, this had better
be—”

“You wanted evidence. I have
it.”

He paused. “All right. I'm on my
way.”

His thoughts on the short trip to his headquarters were a tumbled mess. Did Morgan really have conclusive evidence against Malin? Or had she finally gone too far down a road that had threatened her for a long time?
I wish I knew more about the medical waiver she got after that mission messed her up. It couldn't have been patronage pulling strings for her, so there must have been solid grounds for declaring her stable enough for service. But more than once I've wondered, especially lately.

Morgan was waiting as he entered his office.

Consumed by thoughts, he hadn't realized that Malin had fallen in behind him, oblivious to events. His first notification of that was when Malin began speaking as the door closed, his tone as normal as if everything was routine. “General,
I—”

“I finally found you out!” Morgan yelled. “I know what you
are!”

To Drakon's astonishment, Malin's weapon was out in an eyeblink, the barrel leveled at Morgan's head, Malin's face drawn and rigid.

Morgan had been surprised as well, but only for an instant. She had shifted her posture, her lips drawn back in a frightening smile, hands posed for the sort of strikes that had killed before and would surely do so now if she attacked Malin.

“Stand down, both of you!” Drakon shouted.

Malin didn't seem to hear Drakon, his eyes fixed on Morgan, his expression rigid, his weapon aimed directly at her face.

Morgan looked back at Malin, scorn and anger radiating from her, ready to leap into attack.

“Colonel Malin,” Drakon said again, this time in a more controlled voice but putting all of his command authority behind it, “lower your weapon. Colonel Morgan, don't attack when Malin drops his weapon, or I swear I'll shoot you myself. Now, both of you follow orders and follow them now or both of you will regret the days you were born.”

Malin took a long, deep breath, blinking as if coming out of a daze, and took one step back, the hand holding his sidearm lowering as if it had been forgotten.

Morgan's eyes twitched toward Drakon, judging the ferocity in his gaze. She slowly dropped her hands to her sides and also stepped back.

“If this ever happens again,” Drakon said in a voice that didn't sound like his own, “you are both gone from here. Do you understand? Out of this headquarters, off this planet, out of this star system, and out of anywhere within a hundred light-years of here. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Malin said, his voice now calm and composed.

“Yes, General Drakon,” Morgan said.

“The Syndicate is preparing another attack on this star system. It could come at any time. We need to be getting ready for that, focused on that, and not on internal rivalries and behavior so out-of-control that I don't know why I'm giving you two a chance. But there will not be another. Now get out of here before I order you both to be arrested, and don't come within a hundred meters of each other for the next two days.”

Morgan shook her head. “General, I came here for a reason. A very important reason.” She turned a once-more-contemptuous look on Malin. “Colonel Malin has some questions to answer, and once you read this,” she added, holding up a data coin, “you'll want to ask them.”

“Questions about what?” Drakon asked, not ready to give in at all to Morgan.

“DNA,” Morgan said. “Colonel Malin's actual DNA,” she continued with the cadence of a judge pronouncing sentence on a condemned prisoner, “which I recently acquired by using a sampler in my hand when I grabbed his wrist, does not match the DNA reference contained in the official service file of Colonel Bran Malin. Does it?” she challenged Malin.

“That's all?” Malin asked. “The DNA doesn't match?”

“That's enough,” Morgan snarled. “You're a phony, someone else claiming to be Bran Malin.”

Drakon held out his hand. “Give me the coin. Morgan, if you've manufactured false evidence—”

“You can get another DNA sample from him right now, General, and check it against the official record.”

Taking the coin that Morgan smugly offered, Drakon looked at Malin. “Bran? Do you have anything to
say?”

“Yes, sir. I will answer every question to your satisfaction, but”—he gestured toward Morgan—“I request in the strongest terms that Colonel Morgan not be here when I
do.”

“Why?”

“You will understand once I have answered your questions,
sir.”

Morgan spoke up again, shooting her words at Malin. “You have no right to demand any terms, Colonel Malin, or whoever the hell you
are.”

“Quiet.” Drakon stood looking at the two colonels in the total silence that fell after his single word of command. He studied Morgan and Malin, recalling what he had asked of each of them in the past, remembering what they had done for him. What did he owe each of them now? “Colonel Morgan, if your information is on this data coin, then you need not be present when I look at it. Therefore, I will grant Colonel Malin's request. If I am not fully satisfied with his answers, I will be able to bring you in afterward.”

Morgan scowled, but bit off whatever she had been planning to say, and instead turned her gaze on Malin. “You can't lie your way out of this one. You wouldn't have had to if you'd had the guts to kill me before I told the General, but you've always been a worm. I know General Drakon can handle you if you try anything, and I know what he'll do to you once he sees that evidence. Have a nice trip to hell.”

Malin looked steadily back at Morgan. “I'll keep a place there free for you. A nice warm spot.”

Drakon held out his hand again. “Your sidearm, Colonel Malin.”

Shifting his grip on the weapon slowly so that he could no longer fire it, Malin offered the sidearm to Drakon.

Drakon placed Malin's sidearm on the desk, close at hand. “You may go, Colonel Morgan. Since Colonel Malin desires privacy, please return to your quarters while I speak with
him.”

Morgan bared her teeth in a vicious grin and saluted. “Yes,
sir.”

She left, deliberately turning her back on Malin and walking slowly as if flaunting her vulnerability to him during those moments.

The door sealed again. Malin waited, watching the security lights above the door shift from red to green to indicate that no surveillance devices could penetrate the room, then he faced General Drakon. “You should look at what Colonel Morgan gave you,
sir.”

Drakon pointed to a chair before his desk. “Sit down.” He wasn't being courteous with the command, and Malin knew it. Sitting down would handicap Malin if he tried to attack Drakon or flee, that chair was the focus of more than one concealed weapon, and the chair contained a variety of sensors for determining whether someone was lying or telling the truth as they knew
it.

As Malin took his seat, Drakon fed the data coin into his desk unit. Twin images of standardized DNA profiles appeared, one from Colonel Bran Malin's service record and the other from what was identified as a sample from the Bran Malin sitting before Drakon.

A segment of the DNA profiles was highlighted in red. Negative match. “You said you'd answer my questions,” Drakon began. “Do you know what this shows?”

“Yes, sir,” Malin said.

Drakon frowned at Malin, wondering why Malin sounded relieved. “And that
is?”

“The mitochondrial DNA does not match.”

Drakon flicked a glance at his screen. “That's right.”

“The DNA sample in my official record was falsified.” Malin slowly held up one arm, moving with care to avoid any appearance of threatening Drakon. “The DNA on my embedded personal data chip is accurate. Any variation there from my actual DNA would have been spotted long
ago.”

“You falsified your DNA in your official record?
Why?”

Malin sighed, looking unhappy. “I had to. Otherwise, a connection might have been spotted during routine genetic screening using official records.”

“A connection? To what?” Had Malin been a spy for the Alliance all this time? Or somehow linked to the enigmas? Or, impossible as it seemed, the snakes?

“Mitochondrial DNA, General,” Malin said. “It identifies the mother of any individual.”

“You wanted to hide who your mother was?” Drakon shook his head, baffled. “Your mother was a Syndicate medical executive. Even the snakes never claimed there was anything in her record that would bring suspicion on her. She died, what, eight years
ago?”

“Yes, sir,” Malin said, his voice growing thin with stress. “Medical Executive Flora Malin died eight years ago, of complications from exposure during Syndicate research assignments. She gave birth to me. She raised me. But she was not my biological mother.”

“Hell, lots of people have tangled family histories. There was a war on for a century! Why hide who your biological mother was? Was she a snake?”

“No, sir.” Malin pointed to Drakon's display. “Run a comparison check on the actual sample, General, the one Colonel Morgan pulled from me. You will find a match for the mitochondrial
DNA.”

“Your biological mother is on this planet?”

“You can limit the search to headquarters personnel, General.” Malin looked as if his face had drained of blood now, but his voice stayed calm.

The sensors in the chair said there was no deception in Malin. Frowning in puzzlement, trying to guess which of the soldiers assigned to his headquarters could possibly be Malin's biological mother, Drakon ran the search.