Code of Conduct (13 page)

Ulanova's shining gaze moved about the bare room, focusing on nothing. “We will, in deference to your sensibilities, refrain from asking you to question your physician-priest skeins as to whether any idomeni have likewise taken ill these past months. But we do need to know what types of soil and water treatment the Haárin have in place in Zell and NorthPort, nìRau. We need to know what sort of untaxed trade is taking place between your people and mine. Specifically, are your Haárin selling food to my colonists? Food that is proving to be more than an exotic delicacy, but that is
poisoning them? I realize your religions and cultures all dictate care and secrecy with regard to the production of your foods, as they do with your treatment of illness, but we need that information. You must comply with our requests. An order is required. Through your Council, and coming from you.”

“You know what the answer will be, Anais.”

“Then we will expel the Haárin from the Outer Circle.”

“And we will expel humanish from Samvasta and Nèae, and all will go as before.”

“We need that information, nìRau.”

“You know it already, Exterior Minister. Do not come to me for confirmation you have obtained from your own. Your doctors keep you well informed, this I know, and truly.”

“No, nìRau—”

Tsecha bared his teeth quite broadly. “Ever since their first work in Rauta Shèràa, your Neoclona doctors have worked as they pleased, Anais. DeVries, and Parini, and your most excellent Shroud. You keep their secrets from idomeni. Why should idomeni behave as different?”

Ulanova looked Tsecha in the eye, her stare most steady. “Because idomeni, I think, want what we in the Commonwealth want. A well-ordered future.” She stepped down from her high seat. When she stood most straight, she seemed not as short as Tsecha knew her to be. “This is what I assume, nìRau. To the best of my knowledge, your government does not share your vision of the future.” Her gaze probed like a physician's instruments. “They know what you believe, and still they sent you here.”

Tsecha bared his teeth. He welcomed the opportunity for open discussion, the chance to speak as idomeni. “Yes, Minister. All on Shèrá know my beliefs.”

“That if we share worlds long enough, eat the same foods, drink the same water, we will begin to change? The idomeni will become more human and the human will become more idomeni.”

“Until, in the end, we will be as one people, Minister. Such is order, greatly to be wished. All the same, in the end.”

“Hybridization.” Ulanova's eyes dulled. “John Shroud
testified before the Cabinet last month on just that subject, nìRau. He believes the idea laughable.”

“Does he, Minister? That is most interesting. When he labored in his basement in Rauta Shèràa's humanish enclave, he believed quite differently. So often would he visit me at the Academy, to argue the beliefs he does not believe in anymore.” Tsecha remembered warm breezes, the sweet odor of lamptree, the raised voices. “Even then, his research told him the benefits of combining. Of hybridization. ‘Humans could live two hundred years, nìRau,' he would tell me. How pink his face grew as he spoke. Even now, I remember the pinkness.”

Ulanova stood very straight and crossed her arms. “But his research led nowhere, nìRau.”

“Indeed, Minister?” Tsecha gestured in disregard. “This is why he and DeVries and Parini govern their hospitals as Oligarchs, watch over the Commonwealth as propitiators? Because John's research has led nowhere?” His hands trembled. Such joy to be had, in open disputation. “But he still thinks his new humans could be changed as he wills, and remain most as human. He thinks he can take the advantages of combining and give nothing in return. So little he understands of order. So little he has always understood.” An even more joyous thought occurred to him. “Did you ever ask John Shroud, Minister, whether
he
knew where Jani Kilian is?”

Ulanova closed her eyes and began to massage her forehead. “Doctor Shroud assured me—”

“Did he, Minister!” Such joy Tsecha felt, he interrupted without apology. “So well John assures. He assured my Hansen, just before my Hansen died. And he assured me, just before the Haárin entered Rauta Shèràa and the sect dominants demanded my death. ‘I do not have her, nìRau,' he said. ‘She died in that transport crash. Nothing left but ashes.' Thus did John Shroud assure, while in his basement, his new human healed.”

Ulanova's eyes snapped open. “If my hunch proves true, nìRau, and your Captain turns up, I will first use her to destroy Evan van Reuter. Then, she will face court-martial, and if I have any say in the matter, she will be executed for the murder of Rikart Neumann.” Her lip curled. A humanish
smile. The smile of a wall. “Ironic, if that augmentation which helped her survive the crash only served to keep her alive for me.”

Tsecha bared his teeth. “My Captain was augmented for one reason only, Minister. So she would be alive when I needed her. So she would live until her time had come. Her time to succeed me. Her time to take my place as chief propitiator of the Vynshàrau.”

Something shimmered in Ulanova's eyes. Was it fear? “In your own way, nìRau, you are as fanatical as our most radical religious leaders.” Her tone hardened. “What you believe can never come to pass.”

“Such is as it will be, Minister. Whether
you
believe or not is of no importance. You will come to accept or be left behind. As the Laum were left behind, and as all will be left behind who do not accept order. Order must proceed, Minister. Order is all.”

“It is good I understand you, nìRau,” Ulanova said softly as she looked down at him. “Now, with regard to your refusal to supply information concerning illegal Haárin trade, please allow me to save both our staffs much time by lodging my protest of your behavior with you now.”

“Your protest is noted, Anais.” Tsecha remained seated, his hands twisted through his overrobe to stop their shaking.
But my Captain lives, as I prayed, so lodge your protests where you will
. Double meaning, he knew, in those words. Between the lines. Hansen would have been proud.

Jani sat at her desk, office door closed, curtains drawn against the distractions of sun, calm lake, and cloudless sky. Her workstation screen flashed in silence, its conversation input option shut down, alarms muted. Feet propped on her desk, touchboard cradled in her lap, she leaned forward to advance the shifting screen images with a stylus.

Then she hit the wrong section of the touchboard and dumped herself out of a sensitive region of Commonwealth systems. Exasperated, she leaned toward the screen too quickly and almost dumped herself out of her chair.

Voice would go faster
. Jani berated herself as a series of Lyssa's files disappeared in a rainbow flash. Then she re-hacked her way through the document tangle, once more by touch.

She had known dexxies for whom workstations provided the bulk of daily verbal exchange. For some, it had been a conscious choice; for others, it had just worked out that way.

Could have worked out that way for me. It's easy, and safe, and I could win all the arguments
. There were plenty of jobs out there for a paper-savvy fugitive with an antisocial streak. She could have lain lower over the years.

But she needed to hear real voices. Or, more to the point, voices she knew to be real. Perhaps the difference was subtle, one for philosophers. But she'd seen more than one augmented colleague done in by that difference during her time on Shèrá.

Hearing things is a bad sign
. Seeing things was worse.
That meant all those neurochems whose names she kept trying to forget were building up in her head in vain search of release, a condition more properly known as augie psychosis. Sometimes reversible, if you excised the implants in time, but most times, not. Shroud had begged her to keep watch for the signs of impending problems, to come to him when she felt she needed medical help.

Of course, her dear doctor had begged for a lot of things.

What a couple we made—at the time, we added up to one normal person
. Anyone's guess who contributed the bulk of the normalcy. Jani watched documents flick across the screen. She tried to avoid thinking of her medical history, which seemed equal parts tragedy and farce. There had been some good science in there as well, of course—it just got overshadowed.
I'm a walking tribute to some amazing minds, I suppose
. Galatea to three Pygmalions.
No, one Pygmalion, and two Frankensteins
.

A nested display sharded into prismatic chaos. With a groan, Jani flicked the workstation into standby mode. She walked to the window, swept the curtain aside, then gasped as the molten glare of sun on snow blasted through the glass and shocked her roomlight-adapted eyes. She buried her face in the curtain, patted away the tears, then eased her lids apart and tested the filming for the looseness that signaled stress fissures.

She blinked, waited, then looked out the window again. As well as the lake and city skyline, her view included the Private House grounds; snow-coated terrain banked and rolled around season-stripped native trees and shrubbery, forming a landscape of white sugar and dark chocolate.
You need to get out more
, Jani persuaded herself as she headed for the door.

 

“Cabin fever, huh?” The Interior staffer who helped Jani into the
one-size-adjusts-for-all-yeah-right
snowsuit nodded in commiseration. “Bites us all after a few days.” He led her to the house's rear entry, cocked an eyebrow at her refusal of a skimmer for a trip into the city, and shrugged at her determination to “just take a walk.”

“January in Chicago—it ain't for sissies,” he said as he closed the door behind her.

Neither's taking a walk in some of the places I've lived, mister
. Jani lowered the light transmittance of her goggles until her eyes stopped watering. Each stride cracked like stuttershot as her boots broke through the snow's crusty white surface. Within minutes, she'd cut across a flat, well-trampled expanse that would be a billiard table-like lawn come spring, and entered a less-traveled area of sparse woodland and ravine.

Even when inhaled through her humidifier mask, the air possessed a peppermint clarity. With every breath she drew, Jani felt her head grow clearer. After weeks of recycled ship and station air, she grappled with the urge to strip off her constrictive headgear and feel real wind in her face again. Then she checked the weather sensor on her right sleeve.
Windchill—forty-nine below. Cancel the blow for freedom
. Even after years of adjusting to their quirks, she didn't trust her revamped nerve endings' ability to warn her of impending frostbite.

The landscape glittered with fairy-tale desolation. She bounded over fallen trees and ambled down the ghosts of trails. When a squirrel darted into her path, then stopped short, tail twitching, she rummaged through the pockets of her community snowsuit in case someone had left something edible behind.

“Hang on,” she said to the creature, which responded by launching itself across the path toward the remains of a storm-shattered tree. Jani watched it disappear just as her gloved hand closed over something crunchy. “Success—you should have waited,” she called after the departed creature as she examined the smashed packet of crackers. With the grace of a beneficent monarch, she tore the packet open and sprinkled the crumbs near the base of the tree.

Her good deed for the day accomplished, Jani continued down the path. Every ten meters or so, she'd glance up at the treetops and wonder where Evan's Security force had stashed the buggery. If her sense of Colonel Doyle was as spot-on as she believed, someone was monitoring her heart rate and blood pressure at this very moment.

The distant shooter-crack of snapping branches didn't alarm her at first. She assumed a large animal, some type of
ruminant. Or perhaps a member of the Interior grounds crew, who could fall into that category as well.
Not nice—everyone here has been very good to you
. With the exception of Ridgeway, of course. No one could mistake him for a cud-chewer.
Although the cloven-hoofed part
—

In the middle distance, hidden by trees, a high-powered skimmer shut down with an insect whine. Jani executed an about-face and started back toward Interior Private. She could just glimpse the house's roof between the trees.

My shooter is in my duffel, and my duffel is in my office. Good place for it
. She ground her teeth and focused on the red brick chimneys, poking up through the slate roof like feathered badges. A beautiful house, really. Too bad she hadn't stayed behind to take a better look at it. Designed to appear hundreds of years old when it was really no more than twenty or thirty—

Branches fractured again. Jani dived off the path and behind a fallen tree.

If that skimmer turns out to belong to grounds crew clearing trails after the storm, I am going to feel mighty stupid
. Not to mention look stupid.
Getting an eyeful, Ginny? Think Evan's guest is a loon yet
? She glanced around at the bare trees. No cover. No place to run. Not that she could make any time through the knee-deep snow, anyway.
Anytime, Colonel. Come collect the idiot
.

She gloved through the snow for anything that could serve as a weapon, but could uncover only brittle kindling. She waited for augie to kick in with the familiar calming cascade, but felt only the dry mouth and roiling stomach of growing panic. The air she gulped through her mask tasted only of bracing sharpness. And through it all, the broken thought worked through her racing mind, like subtle static, barely detectable…
I'm not right—this isn't right—it's not working right
.

Her berries didn't seem to be in season now. Who'd have thought in the end even augie would have let her down.

A short distance away, snow crunched. Jani nestled closer to the log, grateful for the shadowy color of her snowsuit.

The footsteps stopped. “Risa?”

Jani, hands working under the log, paused in mid-grope.
She'd managed to half-bury herself in snow, uncovering a couple of small rocks as a bonus.

“Risa? I know you're here. I saw you take a header.” Twigs snapped. “You're wasting time.”

Jani looked up just as Lucien Pascal, dressed in full Service winter camouflage, leaned over the log. “You have a lot of nerve, coming here,” she said as she sat up, rocks clasped in still-buried hands. She jerked her head toward the house. “You know you've been seen.”

“Depends who's watching.” Lucien's breath fogged the clear humidifier mask. He smiled, which she'd learned on the
Arapaho
wasn't necessarily a good sign, and held out a mottled white arm. “Could you come with me, please?”

“I'd rather not.”

Lucien's arm hung in midair. What did his eyes, obscured by darkened goggles, look like now? Jani knew she'd see more warmth in the rocks she held. “I wish I could say you had a choice,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. “But I'm afraid you don't.”

He was probably right. Without augie stoking her, Jani knew she didn't stand a chance in a hand-to-hand with him. She curled her legs beneath her in a semicrouch and considered her options.
He's got a full head, fifteen years, and at least twenty kilos on me, he's armed, and he has a vehicle hidden nearby that he could use to chase me down
. Add to that the fact that Exterior infiltration apparently extended to Private House as well as Main.
They must have contacted him as soon as I stepped outside
. Which meant he must have been waiting for an opportunity to get to her since she'd arrived.
And he's probably not alone—must be a backup out there somewhere
—

“So?” A hint of self-satisfaction flavored Lucien's voice. “Are you going to come quietly?”

In reply, Jani hunched her shoulders and shot forward at a forty-five-degree angle, cannoning into his midriff and pounding her rock-loaded fists into his solar plexus.

Lucien emitted a gratifying “oomph” as he stumbled backwards, but his jacket, well-padded and lined with impact absorbers, took the brunt of Jani's blows and cushioned his fall. He grabbed her by the shoulders before she could straddle
him, rolled her, and rammed her to the ground.

Something hard, large, and pointed impacted Jani's upper back. Her “oomph” came much louder than Lucien's since her civilian snowsuit didn't come equipped with bumpers. Gold lights novaed and died before her eyes. Seeing stars—amazing how damned literal that term was.

“What the hell—” Lucien struggled to his feet and backed away “—were you trying to pull?”

The sound of his labored breathing wended through Jani's pained daze.
Took 'im by surprise on my own—augie, who needs you
? She tried to raise up on her elbows, but slumped back as some invisible giant planted his foot squarely in the middle of her chest. Then jumped up and down.
Me, that's who
. She attempted to draw breath through the suffocating mask, then to tear the clear shield away, but an upper-back cramp stopped her short. Vanquished, she closed her eyes, pulled in the occasional pained gasp, and waited for the fire in her lungs to go out.

Lucien made no move to assist her. He brushed snow and dead-leaf confetti from his suit, freeing his shooter from an inside holster in the process. “You aren't going to try to jump me again, are you?” He approached her gingerly, free hand extended. “Rolling around in the snow with you might have its attractions, but it's too damned cold right now.”

“Sweet-talker.” Jani waved him back and rose as best she could on her own. “Bet you say that to all the prisoners.” She turned and kicked weakly at some dark ridging poking up through the snow, revealing the embedded rock that had knocked the wind out of her. “Lead on, Lieutenant.”

Lucien stilled at the mention of his rank. Then he motioned with his shooter for Jani to walk on ahead.

Progress proved slow. The trail sloped and rose; Jani's back cramped with every jolting step, every strained breath. For a time, the only words spoken were Lucien's terse directions as he told her which way to turn. Then, as they approached the clearing in which he had stashed his skimmer, he drew alongside. Jani noted he had holstered his weapon. “You were going to brain me with a rock,” he said, sounding genuinely upset. “I stole underwear for you.”

“I wouldn't have hit you hard. Just enough to slow you
down.” She swallowed a moan as her back seized. “Honest.”

Lucien cut in front of her and popped the skimmer passenger door. The vehicle was a newer sport model: satin-finish silver exterior, black-leather interior, and
very
low-slung. This time, when he offered Jani his arm, she took it. “Anything broken?” he asked, as she inserted herself into the cockpit.

Jani shook her head, slowly at first, then more vigorously as the pain in her upper back receded to a duller, more manageable ache. Augie to the rescue.
Now you show up
. “I'm too old for this crap.”

“That's what you get for jumping poor unsuspecting lieutenants.” Lucien slammed the gullwing shut and hurried around to the driver's side.

Take your time
. Jani stared at the vehicle's dash, which resembled a GateWay-certified transport control array.
Not like I could skimjack this thing anytime soon
. She lifted her arms as high as she could, pulled off her goggles and mask, pushed back her hood, and worked a hand through her matted hair.

Lucien fell into his seat and yanked his door closed. Security seals whunked and hissed; the changing cockpit pressure made Jani's ears pop. “Fancy skim for a looie,” she said, as he freed himself from his own headgear and gloves. His mussed hair gleamed in contrast to the cabin's dark decor. “Surprised someone from the A-G's office hasn't rapped your knuckles.”