He considered himself responsible for her epitaph; the way she would be remembered. Because she owned him, the outcome of her life was his to define, and he meant to do it justice.
He intended to follow her example in directions she would never have dreamed were possible.
LANE
Lane Harbinger felt poleaxed by exhaustion—a disconcerting sensation for a woman who often lived on an exclusive diet of artificial stimulants. She hardly knew what to do with herself. Should she put her head down? Close her eyes? That was tempting. But then she would miss—
Instead she lit another nic, gulped down the remains of a flask of coffee laced with hype, and stumbled away from her console toward the lab foodvend for a refill.
Strange—She could hardly keep her balance. Her knees no longer seemed to hinge normally, and her feet had an imprecise relationship with the floor. Had she ever been this tired? Ever in her life? She couldn’t remember.
That, too, was strange. She liked to think of herself as a woman who remembered everything.
She must have been expecting some kind of epiphany. Some small blaze of vindication. Perhaps just a little shaft of triumph. Maybe that was why she felt so disoriented. Nothing of the sort had happened. Her eyes had simply lost their ability to focus, and a minor vertigo had begun to tug delicately at the side of her head.
Reality as she’d always known it had just undergone a radical transformation—and all she could think of to do about it was lie down.
She needed hype. Caffeine. Hell, she needed IV stim. Maybe then she would be able to sort out the situation.
After a couple swallows of coffee, which the foodvend supplied hot enough to raise blisters on anyone else’s tongue, she noticed that Hashi was ranting.
He stormed back and forth in front of Chief Mandich as if he thought Mandich might appreciate why he was so incensed—as if he’d forgotten that Mandich was Enforcement Division, therefore brain-numb almost by definition. For a moment all Lane heard were dissociated accusations like “irresponsibility” and “arrogance” and “monomania.” Monomania, ha! He was a fine one to talk. But then she concentrated harder and recognized several words in a row.
“—refused to authorize a channel!”
Something like nausea squirmed in Lane’s stomach. She felt her disorientation getting worse.
“I’m sure Director Donner has a good reason,” the Chief of Security retorted stiffly. He should have been as tired as Lane was, but he didn’t look it. Instead he looked like he wanted to hit Hashi.
“Of course she has a good reason!” Hashi fumed back. “She is the acting director of the UMCP”—he sneered the words—“and she’s developed a passion for it. She adores control. Is that not what ED is for?” He flailed his scrawny arms. “Henceforward no one will be allowed to breathe or think or shit his pants without Her Lordship’s authorization!”
Lane was vaguely amazed to hear herself ask, “What’s going on, Hashi?” She hadn’t realized that she could muster the strength for any more confusion.
He wheeled on her with such vehemence that his glasses slipped off his nose. He caught them expertly in midair, however, and slapped them back onto his face.
“Min Donner, in her vast wisdom,” he snarled savagely, “refuses to let me contact Koina.”
Oh, dear. That was a problem. What was it all for, everything she and Hashi and Mandich had done, if they weren’t allowed to tell the Council about it?
But Mandich snapped, “That’s not true, and you know it.” The brainless fidelity of Min Donner’s underlings was legendary. “She didn’t say you can’t have a channel. She said you can’t have a channel until she gives the word. Until she’s ready.”
“A distinction without a difference.” Hashi seethed and spat with exasperation like a beaker of fulminating acid. “Our efforts are wasted. As is the ordeal Koina has been forced to undergo without evidence. And I can scarcely bear to contemplate the consequences for Warden, who has labored with such cunning to bring about precisely these circumstances.
“Min Donner,” he asserted bitterly, “grasps neither the significance nor the urgency of what we have accomplished!”
The Chief’s fists strained in front of him. Lane wondered whether he would actually strike Hashi. If he didn’t, she worried that he might start to trash the lab.
If he did, what would she do? Call ED Security? Ha! That was a joke.
“Bullshit,” he snorted. “I’m sure she understands it as well as you do. If she doesn’t, it’s because you didn’t explain it to her. You’re so goddamn cryptic”—he punched at the word as if it meant dishonest—“you can’t answer a straight question, or tell a straight truth.”
Hashi brushed that accusation aside. It might have been as insubstantial as the smoke from Lane’s nic.
Suddenly he rounded on Mandich. “But you could req a channel for me. As Chief of ED Security, and acting ED director, you have the authority. Center will obey you.
“You need not tell them why you desire a channel. Your general duties will suffice as explanation.” His voice snarled like a hive of wasps. “You have it in your hands to redeem the UMCP as well as Warden Dios.”
The Chief stared back in disbelief. Then his face closed. “Go to hell, Lebwohl. I’ll see you dead first.
“Do you think I like being the man who let a kaze get Godsen Frik?” Dark fury gathered in his eyes. “The man who missed Alt? I’ve got so much goddamn responsibility for this mess I can hardly carry it around. If I screw up again, I might as well be dead. I’ll sure as hell be useless.
“The only thing I know is my duty. I get my orders from Director Donner. I’m not going to betray my job and my oath by letting you pressure me into insubordination.”
“But I must talk to the Council!” Hashi yelled.
To her amazement, Lane thought she heard desperation in his voice.
She sighed. Her gaze slipped out of focus. He and Mandich blurred into the background.
He wanted to talk to the Council. He loved to talk. Sometimes she suspected that he loved talk more than life.
Thinly she murmured, “Maybe she has a reason.” Where had that idea come from? “One you haven’t thought of.”
But Hashi didn’t react with the same indignation he heaped on Mandich. She’d snagged his attention somehow. He stared at her with his mouth open; bit it shut. The smears on his lenses caught the light in streaks.
“A reason I haven’t thought of?” With unexpected restraint, he asked, “Such as?”
He may have recognized that she was nearly comatose.
She levered her shoulders into a shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.” After a momentary lapse she added, “She knows more about what’s going on than you do.”
Mandich nodded fiercely.
Hashi peered at her as if he, too, couldn’t focus his eyes. Or couldn’t believe what he saw. In an ominous wheeze, he inquired, “Are you suggesting that I must trust Min Donner?”
“I’m suggesting that,” Mandich rasped.
Hashi and Lane ignored him.
“You picked her as acting director.” Lane wasn’t quite sure why she considered this relevant. “I didn’t.” She seemed to be speaking in her sleep.
“Is her high-handedness my doing?” Hashi protested querulously. But at once he flapped his hands to dismiss the question. “I take your point, however. Why did I ask her to assume my duties, if I was reluctant to trust her? If I was wrong then, I can hardly correct the error now.
“It follows, as you say, that I’m forced to guess What her reason might be. Otherwise I run the risk of undermining her”—he flung a glare at Mandich—“presumably commendable intentions.”
“My God,” the Security Chief muttered to himself, “an outbreak of reason. I can’t believe it.”
Hashi didn’t reply. He might not have heard Mandich. Hooking his glasses off his face, he held them with one finger while he rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to grind his v
ision clear.
Obliquely Lane remembered the flask of coffee in her hands. She lifted it to her mouth—it seemed to come up from an astonishing distance—and emptied it. Damn, it was already cold. She needed the burn to help her concentrate. Time for a refill.
She got as far as discarding the butt of her nic and lighting another. Then she forgot what she was about to do.
Hashi had put his glasses back on. “Very well,” he said as soon as she looked at him. “If she claims the right to choose when the Council will be addressed, I will determine who speaks for us.” He squared his shoulders. “Attend your pickup, Lane.” He pointed toward her console. “When Director Donner allows us a channel, you will contact Director Hannish.”
She nearly fell. Her flask did: when her fingers went numb, it slipped away from her and clanged plaintively on the deck. Had she dropped her nic as well? She must have. It wasn’t in either of her hands. She couldn’t feel its reassurance between her lips.
Without warning tears began to stream down her face.
“No,” she groaned. “Hashi, please. I can’t. I’m too—”
All at once she knew exactly what kind of vindication she wanted. She wanted to sit quietly and listen while someone else used the results of her work to make a difference. If she took that risk herself, it would all fall apart.
“You’re out of your mind, Lebwohl,” Mandich objected. “Look at her. She can barely stand.”
“You must,” Hashi insisted through her tears. “I am forced to guess at Min’s intentions. Therefore I speculate that they concern credibility. She hopes to choose a moment when the Council will be receptive to our evidence.
“But if that is a valid concern, then it is also valid to consider how our evidence is presented. And I am—”
He faltered. For a moment he couldn’t speak. He had to move closer to her, stand right in front of her, before he could go on.
“I’m tainted, Lane.” She had the odd impression that he was humbling himself: a sacrifice he made for the sake of something more important. “In recent days I’ve issued too many statements which the Council—and most especially FEA Cleatus Fane—will deem falsehoods. No doubt I’m perceived as Warden’s creature, in service to him rather than to the facts. If he has committed treason, then I have also. That argument will be used to erode the impact of my testimony.
“Chief Mandich is similarly disqualified by his famous loyalty to Enforcement Division.”
Mandich scowled at this assertion, but didn’t argue with it.
“The truth”—Hashi used that word as if it made him uncomfortable—“will carry more conviction if it comes from you.”
He may have been right. Or not. She couldn’t tell. But his appeal reached her all the same. The thought that the Members might refuse to believe the truth simply because they heard it from him was more than she could bear. The only part of herself she valued, the only part she took pride in, was her ability to sift through the rubble of facts until she found bedrock. And she respected Hashi, not because he was admittedly brilliant, but because he’d never hampered or misused that part of her.
If she had to confront humankind’s future in person in order to affirm the results of her work—
“In that case,” she told Hashi weakly, “you’d better order up a hypo of stim from the infirmary.” She couldn’t stop crying. “Otherwise I won’t be able to stay on my feet.”
Instead of returning to her console, she folded to the deck and covered her face with her hands.
KOINA
For the sake of her professional pride, she refused to cringe in shame and regret while President Len called the Council to vote on Cleatus Fane’s proposal.
She’d failed in the worst possible way: her efforts to weaken the Dragon’s grip on the GCES—and the UMCP—had only made it stronger. Cleatus had outplayed her. In the end, everything Warden had dreamed or desired would die because Holt Fasner’s people served him more effectively than she served Warden.
What could she have done? she asked herself over and over again. The question was important to her. She had no evidence. Nevertheless she could hardly face Members like Sixten Vertigus, Blaine Manse, and Tel Burnish. She couldn’t rid herself of the conviction that there must have been some way she could have made a difference.
Still nothing came to her. No desperate gesture or extravagant appeal would work now. The simple truth was that she’d failed. Cleatus would win. And the consequences for humankind’s future would be devastating.
Poor Abrim had wanted her to succeed: his extraordinary assertiveness made that obvious. Morn’s plight had touched a source of unexpected strength in him. And even now he did whatever he could to postpone the inevitable debacle. After the FEA’s proposal had been moved and seconded, he insisted on hearing its precise language for the record. That took a few moments. Then he launched a slow, tedious roll-call vote, asking the Members one at a time by name where they stood; announcing their positions back to them; logging the tally in the Council’s official minutes. Despite the urgency of the situation—and Fane’s fuming impatience—he led the Members on a weary trudge through the procedure of Warden’s ruin.
Koina admired the attempt, but she knew it was wasted. The tally had already reached eight: six in favor, one opposed, one abstention. As soon as the count on Holt’s side reached eleven, a simple majority, he could take the vote as law, even if Abrim required all the remaining Members to commit themselves.
She was vaguely surprised by that one nay. It came from Sigurd Carsin, the UWB Junior Member. Captain Vertigus was her Senior Member; but for years she’d opposed him as if she considered his criticisms of the UMC and Holt Fasner contemptible. Apparently, however, she’d reevaluated her allegiances. After casting her vote, she’d reached over and touched Sixten’s shoulder as if she wanted to express commiseration or support.
That small, unexpected victory should have meant something to Koina, but she no longer had the energy to appreciate it. Her waning resources were fixed on the cruel task of sustaining her facade while each vote drove Fane’s stake deeper into the heart of the UMCP she wished to serve.
There were now seven in favor and two abstentions. So far no one had joined Sigurd Carsin.
At Koina’s side Cleatus seethed in silence. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t using his throat pickup. Apparently one of his techs had the job of reporting the vote’s progress. If the Dragon spoke to him, he showed no reaction. Instead he watched the Members—and especially President Len—with a corrosive glare which seemed to promise trouble for his opponents.
Sixten looked like he was asleep, overtaken by age and defeat. Tel Burnish and Blaine Manse hadn’t voted yet. Neither had Punjat Silat. They might bring the total opposed to five. But that was nowhere near enough. And who else would join them? Who had the courage? Vest Martingale, perhaps: her outrage might carry her. On the other hand, the UMC was the majority shareholder in Com-Mine Station—
Eight in favor. Maxim Igensard delivered Sen Abdullah’s proxy in a voice that shook with disappointed fervor.
Koina began to think that she should excuse herself; leave the room before the end. Then she would be able to grieve in peace. But her duty called her to witness this slow death: the incremental murder of humankind’s hope. She remained where she was while her heart brimmed over with desolation.
She hardly reacted when one of her techs shifted toward her, touched her arm.
“Director,” the woman whispered, “I’m getting a call from Lane Harbinger.”
Koina stared straight ahead while her brain limped to comprehend. Lane—? She didn’t recognize the name. Or did she? It left a tingle she couldn’t identify somewhere in her tired synapses. One of Center’s officers, probably, calling to ask her some painful question, or to give her more bad news.
“Dr. Lane Harbinger,” the tech prompted, covering her urgency. “She works for DA.”
DA—?
As if by magic, Koina remembered the precise to
ne of Hashi’s voice when he’d asked her, Are you acquainted with Lane Harbinger? They’d been aboard her shuttle from UMCPHQ, on their way to hear Sixten’s Bill of Severance fail. For his own obscure reasons, Hashi had remarked, You have much in common.
“She wants to address the Council,” the tech explained tensely.
Without transition, an eerie sense of dislocation took over Koina. She no longer seemed to have any control over her own behavior. In fact, she might have sworn that she took no part in it. As far as she knew, she was asking her tech—or herself—What for? Doesn’t she know how important this is? I’m surprised Center gave her a channel.
According to Hashi, Lane had uncovered some tiny but significant bit of information about Godsen Frik’s murder. Apparently she’d been able to determine that the SOD-CMOS chip of the kaze’s presumably faked id tag contained current GCES Security source-code—a detail which Hashi had considered almost preternaturally fascinating. Koina couldn’t remember why.
But all that was beside the point. Traces of evidence left behind by Godsen’s killer had no relevance here. No scrap of source-code, however suggestive, could avert Warden’s down-fall.
So what in God’s name did Lane want?
Nevertheless Koina asked none of those questions. Her thoughts had no connection to what she did. Her body had reasons of its own. As if it belonged to someone else, it leaped upright instantly; flailed its arms for Abrim’s attention.
While her brain struggled with its confusion, her mouth called out, “President Len!”
To her dismay, she didn’t have the slightest idea what she meant to say.
“Director Hannish!” Cleatus blared at her like a decompression klaxon. “Sit down!”
He was right, of course. She was out of order; had no business speaking; she’d already failed. Stricken with shame, she sank back to her seat—
—while her body remained on its feet. Her limbs balanced themselves like a fighter’s, as if she intended to strike anyone who interfered with her. “President Len!” she called again. “You have to hear this!”