“Oh, well,” Feather finally said. “Eventually there’s bound to be a riot, or a suicidal renegade Kzin, or some other diversion from mother hunts.”
Sigmund patted her hand. “Ever the optimist.”
“You’ll think of something. You’re the smartest person I know.”
“Hardly,” he said. “That’s got to be Carlos Wu.”
Wu! Lately, Sigmund couldn’t get Carlos out of his thoughts. The explosion at the galactic core had been the first of so many dominoes to topple. Every physicist with whom Sigmund had consulted swore to the integrity of the instrument readings Shaeffer brought back on the Long Shot. And every physicist also considered Carlos to be the very brightest of their fraternity.
In his mind’s eye, Sigmund teetered at the edge of an abyss.
“Feather,” he whispered. “What if Carlos Wu fabricated the core-explosion data?”
VINDICATED
Earth date: 2650
22
Sigmund sipped his coffee, half-awake. A news digest shimmered over the breakfast table. Color-coded by topic, brightened or dimmed according to Medusa’s sense of immediacy, inset windows scrolling . . . it would be a challenge to absorb even after the caffeine kicked in. His glance flitted about the projection, steered by Medusa’s cues. Little of the information registered. Feather sat across the table, feigning interest in soccer-match highlights, no more prepared than he to speak.
“Stupid Cavaliers,” she finally managed, minutes later. Her complaint was directed at the holo, or the coach, or the universe. Not him. She turned up the audio when he looked her way.
Another big mother hunt was imminent—not just regional harassment, for appearances, but a big global push. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t excuse her. He couldn’t protect her if anyone else detected her interference.
He couldn’t bear her misery.
A green face, crowned with hissing, coiling snakes, popped up over a corner of his news digest. “Turquoise alert,” Medusa said softly.
Sigmund pulled his chair closer, instantly alert. “Display.” A new window opened, within it an oblique view of a transfer booth. He watched four men emerge and take up positions around the booth. Moments later, Calista Melenkamp appeared. The bodyguards, faces expressionless, swept the Secretary-General up the broad granite stairs into her New York club.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve got to take care of something.”
Feather looked away from the game. “What?”
He stood. “We’ll talk later.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not doing something stupid, are you?”
The jury was still out on that. “Me?” Dialing his destination, he had a moment to appreciate that Feather still cared.
Manhattan was overcast and blustery. As Sigmund climbed the stairs of Melenkamp’s private club, the doorman made no move to open the door.
Sigmund halted two stairs from the top. “I have an urgent message for the Secretary-General,” he said. It didn’t surprise him to find he was unwelcome. Whatever unseen security system had ID’d him was as modern as everything within was antique. That, or the doorman had a very good memory for faces. Either way, Sigmund was impressed.
“I am sorry, sir. Only members and escorted guests are permitted inside.”
“I understand.” Sigmund took an envelope from his coat pocket. The day’s gloom made the melodramatic bloodred drop of sealing wax all the starker. He had carried the missive for weeks awaiting just this opportunity. Melenkamp (at Gregory Pelton’s urging?) had seen to it that Sigmund could only communicate with her through channels. The information in his hand must go only, and directly, to the S-G. “It’s a matter of global importance. Solar importance.”
The doorman palmed the sheaf of thousand-sol bills beneath the envelope. “I’ll see what I can do, sir. Please wait here.” He left Sigmund on the narrow porch.
Ten minutes later, two of Melenkamp’s bodyguards appeared to escort him inside.
“LEAVE US,” MELENKAMP told her guards. They hesitated just long enough to convey disapproval before backing from the room, closing the massive oaken door behind them. She gestured at a fragile-looking chair. “Sit.”
Sigmund sat. The pages of his letter rested, side by side, on the otherwise bare table before her. “I hoped you would be curious.”
“How could I not?” She bit off each word. “How long have you been following me, Agent Ausfaller?”
Sigmund had surrounded this establishment with almost invisibly small ARM sensors. No good could come of admitting that. “I’ve followed money, not people.”
“Evasion noted.” She poured a cup of coffee from the carafe on the sideboard, then sat at the table by his letter. “Talk about the money you followed.”
So he did: Of the almost unimaginable fortune General Products must have earned in Sol system, much of it still untraced. Of the wealth that remained behind after the Puppeteer Exodus five years earlier. Of funds from what ought, logically, to be dormant accounts, still seeping away. Of circuitously routed transfers, passing through conduits as anonymous and untraceable as modern financial engineers could construct. Of—
She exhaled sharply. “Puppeteers were secretive when they were here en masse. So now, with their presence reduced to one lonely Puppeteer in hiding, of course they’re indirect. I remember the name Nessus, and that he remained behind to settle outstanding obligations. I did read the reports from your task force, Mr. Ausfaller—when you had a task force.”
He was losing her. He couldn’t allow that! He should have begun at the end of the tortuous money trail, not the beginning. At an off-world bank haven in the Belt. “And if a hidden Puppeteer is putting money into a numbered account controlled by one of your deputies?”
“Damn it, Ausfaller, of course I care! That’s why you’re here, however briefly. That’s why you aren’t in custody for a years-long rogue investigation. Not yet. I will confirm the substance of your accusation—if that’s possible. For now, I’ll assume you are neither so foolish nor so mad as to stalk me in order to lie to me.”
Or Melenkamp meant to find out how much he knew about her, before having him arrested. No, Sigmund lectured himself. You couldn’t trace any GP money to her. You have to trust her now. “You should check everything out—discreetly. A deposit happens by the tenth of every month. Your man checks his balance between the eleventh and the thirteenth.”
Her cheek twitched. “Belter banks will confirm this? In my experience, neither they nor the goldskins are so cooperative.”
Belter cops wore yellow vacuum suits; the familiar mention was no accident. Melenkamp’s UN career began in the attorney’s office. She had prosecuted her share of interworld money-laundering cases. She had surely had her share of run-ins with the goldskins about jurisdiction and sharing evidence.
Admitting to further infractions risked nothing. Either he convinced her he acted for a higher cause or he went, soon enough, into the organ banks. “Some will cooperate,” Sigmund said. “It depends who is beholden to whom.”
And that, in a nutshell, was why it had taken so long to get here. Five years of offering more information to Belter authorities than was revealed to him. Five years of running interference for naïve Belter tourists, of making behind-the-scenes interventions. “Enough gold-skins owe me favors now.”
One folded sheet of paper remained in Sigmund’s coat; he removed it now. “This is a list of financial analysts in the Office of the Secretariat who probably aren’t getting trickle-down payoffs. I suggest you send at least two to the Prague branch of Bank of Ceres.”
“Two? Ah, to watch each other.” Sighing, she accepted the folded paper from his hand. “You live in a devious world, Ausfaller.”
He sensed the stirrings of belief in her response. “Respectfully, the matter we should be addressing is: What next?”
She stared. “Arrest, certainly. Confiscation of every cent of every bribe. Into the organ banks with him, as quickly as it can be arranged.”
“No.” In Sigmund’s mind, the dissent continued: As happy as that would make me. “I’ve traced some of the money. Some of the downstream recipients. There’s so much we don’t know. I’m skeptical even Max Addeo can tell us everything—knowingly.”
Slowly, she smiled. “So for now you’ll watch Max.”
Sigmund nodded. “As you will. Puppeteers bought access to the innermost circles of the UN for some still-hidden reason. I doubt they would reveal their purposes to Addeo.
“With your influence over what Max sees, reads, and hears in the office hallways, I hope to scare whoever controls General Products’ wealth into showing himself.”
FEATHER GRUNTED AT Sigmund’s approach, more an acknowledgment than a greeting. Her attention remained on her workstation.
“Feather,” he said.
She heard something in his voice, and finally looked up. “Big crunch, Sigmund, especially since I was covering for your unexplained absence.”
“Sorry.” He touched her arm lightly. “Five minutes. Come with me.”
The skies had opened in Fairbanks, and cold rain fell in torrents. Sigmund dialed Sky Meadows State Park in Virginia. The mid-Atlantic region was sunny and fair, and the venue seemed apt. He led her off a meandering trail into the shade of a solitary and stately pine. Rolling meadow and wooded hills stretched to the horizon.
“Five minutes, huh?” Feather finally said. She ignored him for the spectacular view. “Aren’t you in enough trouble already?”
Sigmund bent to retrieve an old fallen pinecone. Evergreens. Verdant fields. The seed in his hands. It all symbolized newfound hope. “Feather, I’m going back to New York. UN Headquarters. I want you there with me.”
Her head swiveled round. “Headquarters! Why?”
“Officially, a new special-investigations unit, reporting directly to the S-G. Unofficially . . .”
“Unofficially, what?” she snapped. “Not coordinating futzing mother hunts. I refuse to take more responsibility for those.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Unofficially, we’re back hunting Puppeteers. It turns out they’re still around. At least it looks that way, because someone is spending General Products money. That’s why I’ve been secretive. If Melenkamp hadn’t believed me—or if she were in on it—I didn’t want to take you down with me.”
A sour look came over her, an expression that said she didn’t want or need anyone’s protection. “Spending their money on what, Sigmund?”
“For starters, the Deputy Undersecretary General for Security Affairs.”
“Addeo,” Feather hissed. “That’s why the bastard disbanded the task force.”
“Addeo,” Sigmund agreed. “Working at headquarters, we’ll be able to watch him. We’ll know who Max talks to. Behind the scenes, working through the Secretary-General, I hope to control everything Addeo is assigned and everything he’s told.”
Suddenly, it was the old Feather who stood beside him. A happy, predatory glow lit her face. “And Addeo leads us to Nessus.”
“Nessus may be gone.” Addeo’s dirty money, all the payoffs, flowed through the underworld. None of Sigmund’s informants had heard from or about Nessus in the past two years. Some had encountered a new name, though, a name the mere thought of which made Sigmund’s gut cramp with remembered agony.
Sigmund said, “The criminal mastermind my sources keep reporting is called Achilles.”
23
From deep in the throat the growl emerged, rolling on and on. A hairless tail lashed from side to side. Ears lay flattened against the head.
Better to fixate on tail and ears and harmless noise than the baring of needle-like fangs. Than the razor-sharp claws that extended from hands like four-fingered black leather gloves.
Achilles stood, alone and unarmed, before the enraged Kzin. “I thank you for coming,” he snarled. The snarl carried no aggressive intent; Hero’s Tongue could be spoken no other way. “I am Achilles. How should you be called?”
The Kzin retracted his lips still further. Sunset glinted like blood on his teeth. He towered over Achilles. “Address me as Maintainer-of-Equipment.”
A title rather than a name, Achilles noted, and a lowly title at that. The Kzin had come to this remote and barren plain for one purpose: to earn a name in hand-to-hand combat.
Achilles had, with extreme indirection, posed as a human adventurer. His simple boast to the underclass of this impoverished Kzinti colony world of Spearpoint: to defeat, one by one, all challengers. How wondrous and depressing it was that merely one Kzin had come. Was this warrior race so intimidated by the humans? After six disastrous wars, Achilles supposed he was saddened more than surprised. “Maintainer, you are surely disappointed to discover your challenger.”
The Kzin’s only immediate response was a deeper growl.
“I will explain,” Achilles continued. “I seek those prepared to confront our mutual adversary.”
Maintainer-of-Equipment’s tail scythed the air. “Leaf-eater, I am soiled merely talking with you. Do not presume to speak of anything mutual.”
Achilles’ legs trembled from the effort not to flee—not that he could possibly outrun this monster. He had come secure in the knowledge that no Kzin would demean himself by attacking an herbivore. “Nonetheless, Maintainer, we share an interest in teaching humility to the humans.” And, for our separate reasons, we both desire to pursue our aims discreetly.
Maintainer-of-Equipment turned away, striding for his small airship. “I tasted human in the last great war. I would do so again. And no leaf-eater will tell me how to hunt.”
Maintainer-of-Equipment poured all his rage into his takeoff. The exhaust incinerated a cluster of low-lying leathery shrubs and blasted dust and pebbles across the plain. His airship roared contemptuously low over Remembrance, and disappeared.
Achilles stood alone on the undulating plain, with only a few smoldering plants for company. So it had gone on every backwater Kzinti world he had visited. The humans had won: There were no more Heroes. His legs quivered as he made his way back to his ship.
If not even Kzinti still in search of proper names would serve, how could he deflect the unwelcome attentions of the humans?
24
Nessus was too excited to sleep. The sidelong glances he got at a communal dining hall made plain he was too nervous to show himself in public. As the least worst alternative for coping with his anxiety, he tramped in place within his tiny living unit until his legs ached and sweat dripped from his flanks.
His only company was an unending holographic herd. Companionable warbles and whistles sounded all around him. Only an occasional snippet, never more than a chord or trill, rose to the level of intelligibility. The synthesized voices were quite random. None of it calmed him. The stakes were too high, for him personally—
And for whole worlds.
Finally the time neared for the appointment he had requested. Demanded. Nessus refreshed and dried himself with a quick ultrasonic cleansing. He gathered his mane into a token few braids, whether for credibility with Nike, or for Nike himself, Nessus did not know himself.
He teleported directly from his arcology into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, emerging into a transparent isolation booth. Still struggling for the notes to articulate his vision, Nessus was startled by the sudden blue light he should have remembered to expect. He swiveled his heads toward the darting beam that sought out his retinal prints. At the same time, hidden sensors searched him for any inappropriate implements.
The booth was a sealed bubble of hull material, of course. At a higher intensity, the light would vaporize him where he stood, right through the unbreakable material. Nessus had a twinge of sympathy for his erstwhile visitors on Earth.
He was teleported without notice into a cozy antechamber. Nessus moved from the stepping disc inlaid on the floor to settle onto a pile of soft cushions. How those earthly visitors would have gaped at a proper stepping disc! Even their primitive closed transfer booths would hav
e been beyond them, but for General Products.
The problem was: He liked humans. Not all of them certainly, but enough. Now he feared that humanity’s fate rested in his jaws. Quivering with tension, Nessus worked himself into a manic state. Nike would not be easy to convince.
Nike. A rush of recent memories almost overwhelmed Nessus. An intimate stroll, just the two of them, along a secluded shore. The ballet, enjoyed from Nike’s private box. The exclusive party after the dance, introduced there to the cream of Experimentalist party politicians as Nike’s personal guest.
Citizens courted with rituals as formal as the ballet. By proper standards, Nike had made no commitment. But did not actions sing as loudly as words?
In his hearts Nessus knew that one such as Nike was schooled to choose every word—those uttered and those withheld—with exquisite care.
And yet.
After striving for so many years to be noticed, Nessus had finally been summoned to the ministry to meet Nike—although not for the reason Nessus had expected. His idol had listened politely enough to a report on the experimental scouting program, and the first mission of many that would roam ahead of the Fleet in its journey. But Nike’s interests lay not in probing the path ahead, but on the danger close behind: Sigmund Ausfaller’s renewed quest for Puppeteers. Only after systematically wringing from Nessus countless details about Earth had Nike asked Nessus to accompany him to the ballet.
I have earned Nike’s respect, Nessus concluded. It was a start. And if, in this time of crisis for the Concordance, I must return to Sol system, then at least I will do it with the full confidence of the Director himself.
And if Nike’s personal attentions were meant to soften him for a truly horrifying course of action? Nessus nervously straightened his token braids, eager for and dreading the pending session.
“Come.” A tall, green-eyed Citizen had materialized across the room. The green brooch on his utility belt bespoke allegiance to the ruling Conservative faction. “The Deputy Minister will see you now.” Then he was gone as abruptly as he had arrived.