Flight of the Vajra (15 page)

“No.”

“No? For cosm’s sake, whose idea was that?”

“Mine.” She continued smiling even when I didn’t.
“Are you surprised to learn that we pay property and access taxes as well?”

“Not anymore,” I said, and faced back outside.

The ride down to Kathayagara in the elevator
took another couple of hours. The
Vajra
was small enough that we only
ended up being charged for a single docking slot—I hadn’t expected it to be
more than that—but I was dreading what the final fee would come to. I was
willing to pay whatever we needed to keep the
Vajra
close at hand. If,
cosmos forbid, there was another general donnybrook like the one we’d just
escaped from, the last thing I wanted was to leave my big fat sleeve full of
aces conveniently out of reach. Even though I had any number of backups of the
Vajra
’s
design, it still wasn’t something I could replace by just clicking my heels the
requisite number of times. But there was no orbital parking, anyway—no, not
even for us diplomatic envoys—and if there had been, the costs would most
likely have been brutal.

The costs, I thought. There was another longtime
criticism of protomics for you. It had promised a universe where everything
could be spontaneously manufactured, and for the most part we had that
universe. But only in the eyes of the naïve had it also promised a universe
where nothing would ever have to cost anything. Sure, it was possible to give
people houses that built themselves and clothing that rarely wore out—but with
those basics out of the way, they went on to want all the things that required
actual
people
to make them. The bar for what humanity wanted was always
being raised beyond what could be automated, and that in turn meant there would
always be a need to pay someone to do those things.

How had Dad put it?
Protomics might give you a
free lunch, Henré, but you have to clear the table yourself. And you’re
still
gonna pay for breakfast and dinner out of pocket.

Enid was the first one on her feet when the far
end of the elevator pod dilated open. Standing there in the reception dock was
Prelate Jainio, again looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Behind him
were two other people—identifiably male and female—in the unmistakable black bodysuits
of IPS officers, their sleeve-cuffs decorated with bright orange chevrons.

Angharad stepped to the front and exchanged a lowered-head
salute with the Prelate.

“Your Grace,” he said, stepping out of the way, “this
is Inspector Kallhander and Inspector Ioné. They insisted on asking you and the
others some questions first . . . ”

Angharad bowed again. “I completely understand.”

I’d once seen a picture of the first protomic facial
reconstruction. It didn’t look unrealistic at all, but there was always
something subtly stiff and wrong about it—something that declared
This is a
mask; believe in me at your own risk.
Delius Kallhander looked like that—he
was big at just under two meters, solid all around. His cheeks, chin, and brow
all looked like they had been cast from something that never solidified into
smoother surfaces: it was crags and bumps all the way across. The brow was
particularly lumpy, and hung so far over his eyes that they seemed to be
looking at you from the far end of a dark alley. Nobody lets themselves look
like that naturally anymore, I thought; it had to be by design.

Inspector Ioné matched his height, but she was all
smooth surfaces and rounded corners, and her large eyes made her head only seem
all the larger and more oblong. For a moment I thought she was hairless, until
I realized her close, curly hair was almost the same russet-red as her skin.
She was just as synthetic in her own way. No, she
was
synthetic: that
was an entirely protomic body, a full-body prosthesis save for the brain. One
glance at her CL broadcast flag explained why: along with her single-word name
and IPS badge number was an eyebrow-raising item for the “WoO” (World of
Origin) flag:
Continuum
.

“Inspector Ioné and I are part of IPS’s Joint Protomic
Investigations Task Force,” Kallhander said. If that was his idea of an
icebreaker, it was a lousy one, because I could see a dozen klicks off what
hint it was meant to drop. They wanted me to start talking about all the
assorted junk I had in the
Vajra
and on my person, which I’d ostensibly
used to liberate Angharad from her would-be captors, and in the process
incriminate myself. Not happening.

He offered Angharad his bow, which she converted
into a simple handshake. “Your Grace; I’m glad you’re all right. And Mr. Henré
Sim, I take it?” Kallhander smiled, but his smile was all mouth and not one
thing else. My memory of the mask seemed all the more relevant. I let him shake
my hand and gave him back a smile that was, in my mind, no less phony. Ioné was
also smiling, so I suspected between the two of them I was going to have my
year’s quota of insincerity met in a matter of hours.

“Enid Sulley,” Enid herself said, stepping up. “Formerly
of Septimus’s Great Sky Theater.”

“A pleasure.” Kallhander nodded at her.

Smart girl, I thought after looking sidelong at
Enid and seeing the dubious air she was giving off. She’s just as skeptical as she
needs to be about all this. I didn’t even know why we were bothering with
introductions; we could all read each other’s CL ident broadcasts for names and
occupations and all the rest—well, save for Angharad, of course. Most likely this
atavism was all for her sake.

“The Prelate has set aside a suite for the two of
you,” Kallhander said, turning and gesturing towards the far door where a
groundcar waited in an underground access tunnel. “We’re going to have to
insist that you remain there during the period of your debriefing—”

“Well, that’s nice. How long is that going to
take?” I stood my ground.

“That depends,” said Ioné, “entirely on the
character and quality of the answers you provide to our questions.” The
graciousness and even the cheer in her voice sounded every bit as meticulously scripted
as Kallhander’s smiles (or lack of same).

“What are we talking about?” I went on. “Hours?
Days?”

“For the sake of our own investigation we wouldn’t
want to keep you there more than a day or so at the most.” Kallhander waved the
door open. “But as my partner here said, it will all depend on what you tell
us.”

“So I take it she’s not coming with us, then.” I
pointed back at Angharad. “Because, now that I think about it, it sounds like
it’d be in all our best interests if she was present during that questioning,
or if I was present during hers, or . . . you get the idea.”

Kallhander actually laughed at that. One laugh; I
wondered if he had any more to spare for the day. “I’m sorry to say this, but
that won’t be possible. She has to be debriefed separately. Now—please
. . . ”

“What about legal counsel?” I turned in place,
arms out. “I don’t see anyone here that looks like a lawyer, Inspector. Do you?”
I shot this last at Enid; she shook her head vigorously and frowned just as
vigorously.

“You’re not under arrest,” Ioné said. “You’re
officially classified as diplomatic envoys. This is a protective measure we’re
offering you for the sake of your own safety. You’re under no obligation to
come with us, but we believe you may still be in danger. All we’re asking is
that you let us represent IPS to speak with you about your experience, at your
leisure.” (Not
the
IPS, I thought; IPS members had it drilled into them
early on to refer to their parent organization simply as “IPS”.)

Angharad, off to one side, shoulder-to-shoulder
with the Prelate, looked just as dismayed by this as we did. Ten to one this
wasn’t how she thought it was going to go down either, I thought.

“Will you get in touch with us as soon as this is
over?” I said to her, in a voice just resigned enough for most anyone to think
we were caving.

“Of course. Contact the Prelate’s office and give
them your name; they will set everything up.” She took my hand in hers and
bowed her head slightly. It’s us she’s worried about more than herself, I
thought, but that’s not something she can own up to in front of those two.

I turned back to the cops and gave them the best to-cosm-with-you
smile I had. “You guys really need to work on your soft blackmail tactics,” I
said. “Because if this is voluntary, and I’m not under arrest, then I think I’ll
go take my chances outside.” I put my arm on Enid’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said to them. “We’re big boys and
girls. We can take care of ourselves.”

And with that we stepped out the side door towards
the corridor that led to the public ground transportation pavilion. They were
still trying to figure out which stupid expression to wear when the door
dilated shut behind me.

I’ll say this for Kallhander—he was great at
catching up with us without making it look like he was hurrying too much. He
managed to fall in step with us after we’d stepped out into the main ground
transport selection area, and a moment later his partner flanked us on the
other side. Enid eyed Ioné like she was worried about catching something.

“Look.” I sighed out the word. “If arresting me is
easier for you, let’s just jump straight to that and forget all about—”

“That wouldn’t be productive.” Kallhander strained
the last word. “I thought it might be best to start by offering something of
mutual benefit. Since you’re reluctant to do that, let’s discuss a more
advanced proposition.”

“Okay. Define ‘advanced’.”

“We’d like to exchange your time for information,”
Ioné said, “regarding newly-discovered evidence about the destruction of the
Kyritan
.”

I stopped walking. It took Enid a couple more
paces for it to sink in with her as well, but when it did she turned and stared
at the three of us in turn.

“This,” I said, “this really,
really
had
better not be a bait-and-switch.” I pointed at the volume of air between me and
Kallhander. “Because if you knew about this, and you were holding onto it for cosm
knows how long, just on the off-chance that you needed to dangle it over my head—”

“No, no.” Kallhander shook his head. “It’s
information that came to light literally only a week before the incident on Cytheria.
The timing was completely coincidental.”

“I’m sure it was! Nothing like lucking into a
piece of blackmail, is there?”

“You keep calling this ‘blackmail’, and that’s not
the fairest—”

“No, I call it that because that’s what it
is.
You don’t want to actually arrest me and charge me with something, because you’re
worried that’s going to blow up in your faces—and besides, why go through all
that trouble when you can just
tempt
me? Yeah, let’s not call it
blackmail.
Temptation
, that’s a much nicer word. You are
tempting
me into cooperating with you. See? Even
I
like the way that sounds.”

No answer, just Kallhander’s already-familiar
half-smile, which I was quickly learning to hate.

“Mr. Sim,” Ioné said, “we do want to help you. We’re
just asking for a little of your time.” She had enough cheery sympathy for a
whole platoon of nursery school teachers. Probably exactly where Continuum had
harvested it from for her.

I looked back and forth between the two of them,
and after three or four such glances gave my arms a helpless little flap. “Time,”
I echoed. “Well, right now it seems I’ve got nothing
but
that.”

I didn’t just let them pack us into their car,
though. I insisted on having a cab rendered afresh for the four of us, which
they agreed to without blinking. But I let them have their way by taking us to
the hotel room that had already been spawned and sectioned off for us. Their
excuse was, again, “security measures.”

The back of the cab had two large seats that faced
each other—Enid and I on the forward-facing one, our fine officers of the IPS
on the rear-facing one. Enid eyed the cops with non-stop hostility from the start,
legs crossed and arms folded:
Go on, give me a reason to open the door and
jump out.

“Once again, we’re not interested in building a
case against you,” Kallhander said, trying to fill the silence that stretched
for a full minute after the door shut and the cab got under way. “It wasn’t
difficult to assume you used illegally-programmed protomics in your rescue.
Frankly, given that the Cytherian government very nearly collapsed and is still
dazed, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to pursue
any
kind of case
against you. You’re more valuable to us as a witness and a possible ally.”

“That’s reassuring,” I said, not one bit
reassured.

“A witness?” Enid uncrossed her legs just long
enough to recross them. “As in, a witness to what happened on Cytheria? That’ll
be a pretty short statement. Some guys came along and tried to take Angharad hostage,
and we said ‘Nuh-uh’, and we took her and got out of there.”

“What she said.” I tilted my head at her.

“There’s more to it than that.” Kallhander put his
hands on his knees and leaned forward, like it was time to spill a big and
dirty secret about his family. “We’re assembling as much information as we can
about how the whole operation was carried out, and we need the broadest
possible panoply of active and passive witnesses we can find.”

“Well I can tell you right now, it was carried out
pretty badly,” I said. “They didn’t even block the fire doors.”

Ioné shook her head. “We’re fairly sure the
attempted kidnapping of the Kathaya was staged as a distraction. We don’t
believe it was meant to do more than draw attention for a few minutes.”

“Guess it didn’t work, then.” Enid looked back out
the window.