CHAPTER 10

They passed through Customs’ usual cursory check without difficulty, without even attracting the full attention of the young man on duty at the residents’ gate. After the struggle to get off EP4, Heikki found it hard to muster the strength for fear, and could see from Galler’s face that he was feeling equally numb. The sights and sounds of the main concourse roused her a little, let her shake off the lethargy that had closed around her, and she caught at her brother’s arm to hold him back from the jitney line.

“Let me call Santerese first,” she said.

“You’re expecting trouble?” Galler asked, and Heikki shook her head.

“No, but there’s no harm in being careful.” She hesitated, but could not resist adding, “You stirred up enough trouble on EP4; it may have spread by now.”

Galler made a face, and did not deny it. Heikki left him slumped on a bench in the orbit of one of the concourse’s grand mobiles, staring at the intricate exposed clockworks that sent tuned spheres bouncing through a maze of nuglass and chiming crystal, and went in search of a public combox.

She found an empty one at last, half a level below the main concourse, on the mezzanine overlooking the floater platforms. She settled herself in the booth, latching the door behind her, and fed her personal card into the machine. The system considered it for a moment, matching numbers and credits, and flashed a clear screen. Heikki punched in the callcodes, and waited.

It took a few minutes for Santerese to respond to the summons—an unusually long time, Heikki thought, and sat up straighter on the hard bench, frowning at the screen. Then the picture cleared, and Santerese’s broad face looked out at her.

“Heikki.” There was something in her tone that was not quite right, and Heikki’s frown deepened.

” ‘Shallin. I’m back, with what I went for.” The evasion came out smoothly, almost without thought. “How’re things at home?”

“All right.” Again, there was an unfamiliar note in Santerese’s voice, a hesitation that was not normally there, almost, Heikki thought, as though she were choosing her words for an offscreen listener. “I’m glad you were successful, doll. We’ve had—a bit of a time here.”

“What do you mean?”

Santerese grinned, but it was a shadow of her usual smile. “I told you there were questions about our working methods? Well, the investigation is official now— nothing’s showed up, nor is it likely to, but it’s been expensive, and a hassle. I’m glad you’re back.”

“So am I,” Heikki said. The story was plausible enough, and would certainly account for Santerese’s harried look, but…. They had set up codes, check phrases, long ago, the first time they had worked apart on a politically restless planet; over the years, the system had come in handy more than once. “What does that do to the Morgan job?”

There was a moment’s pause before Santerese answered. “I thought we could hand it over to Penninzer, if worst comes to worse.”

That was the countersign, the signal that everything was all right. Heikki relaxed, and said, “Good enough. But I hope we won’t have to.”

“Me, too,” Santerese answered. “Are you coming straight here?”

Heikki nodded.

“Take a jitney,” Santerese said, with a ghost of her usual manner. “This is no time for you to be cheap, Heikki.”

“I’ll do that,” Heikki said, relieved, and broke the connection. The screen faded to neutral gray, waiting for her next command, but Heikki sat still for a moment longer, staring past the screen at the floater platforms half a level below. Even as she watched, one of the bubbles rose past her, carried on the invisible beam, its riders distorted shapes against the transluscent plastic. She fixed her eyes on it as it rose out of sight, then waited until it began its leisurely descent toward the receiving station on the far side of the station’s open central volume. It was not like Santerese to be so quiet, not like her to worry—in fact, Heikki thought, it would be more like her to be fighting back, with suit and countersuit. Something simply wasn’t right. Heikki shook herself then, annoyed with her own imaginings. She had asked the code question, and Santerese had answered: nothing could be wrong. No one else knew their system, not even Djuro. Nothing was wrong.

A prompt question had been flashing on the screen for some time now, Heikki realized suddenly. She touched the keys that closed down the system and retrieved her card, and then levered herself out of the narrow box. Nothing is wrong, she told herself again, but caught herself looking over her shoulder more than once as she returned to the concourse where she had left Galler.

“What kept you?” Galler looked up from his lapscreen, scowling irritably.

“It took me a while to find an empty box,” Heikki answered. “Come on, will you?”

Galler’s eyebrow rose in a mocking question, and

Heikki glared at him, daring him to speak. After a moment, it was Galler who looked away. Heikki allowed herself a grim smile, and took her place in the line of people waiting for jitneys.

Most of the crowd from their train had already found transport, and it wasn’t long before a jitney pulled up to the platform. Heikki fed it her cashcard, wondering morosely just how much this rescue was going to cost her before it was over, and gave the machine her address. The canopy sprang up instantly, and Heikki climbed in. Galler followed, tugging the canopy closed behind him, and the machine slid smoothly away from the platform.

EP7 had only one major connector, a massive corridor known as the Artery that ran along the central spine of the station. The jitney swung wide around the open volume at the center of Pod One, then turned onto a spiral ramp that carried it up and into the traffic of the Artery. It was not crowded at this time of the Exchange Point’s day, and the mix of traffic, mass carriers on the lower levels, private vehicles, jitneys, and the like in the upper lanes, was moving almost at the permitted maximum. Heikki’s mood lifted a little, seeing that: not long, she thought, not long at all until we’re home and we can finally start fighting back.

The jitney deposited them at the top of the stairwell that led down into Pod Nineteen. Heikki stopped at the security booth to identify Galler to the bored-looking securitron, then led the way past the lowered barriers and down the spiralling stairs to the suite of rooms that was both office and flat. As she stepped off the stairway, she noticed that the heavy curtains had been drawn across the narrow window. Stepping closer, she saw that the red bar was lit above the concierge plate: Business closed.

“I would’ve thought your partner would be working today,” Galler said, at her shoulder.

Heikki shrugged. “Things happen.” She turned toward the alleyway that led to the private entrances, and Galler caught her shoulder.

“This isn’t right, Gwynne. There could be something wrong.”

Heikki made a face, debating whether she should tell him, then shrugged. “Ever since we stopped working for Lo-Moth, people have been asking questions about our past methods. The Marshallin says we’re under investigation. That’s why we’re closed.”

“Damn.” It was unlike Galler, ‘pointer to the bone, to swear, and Heikki stopped to look at him, startled. He gestured apology. “I’m sorry. But if they’ve started to investigate you—what is it, illegal procedures, things like that?”

Heikki nodded.

“Then I don’t see how you can help me,” Galler said. “I need supporters who are above reproach.”

Heikki took a deep breath, and caught her brother’s shoulder, spinning him back to face her. “Get one thing straight, little brother. I am above reproach. We are professionals, we do not break laws, and we don’t cut corners. The Licensing Board, or even the cops, can investigate until doomsday, and they won’t find anything that isn’t faked—obviously faked. Is that clear?”

Galler nodded, but did not look particularly convinced. Heikki turned away, angry with herself for losing her temper, and unlocked the grill that barred the private entrances. The door to the flat opened before she could lay her hand against the lock, and Santerese beckoned her in.

“I heard you yelling outside,” she said, with a shadow of her normal smile.

“I’m sorry, Marshallin,” Heikki said, and stepped into the familiar room, Galler at her shoulder. A drinks tray was resting on the side table, two filled glasses waiting. A third stood half-empty on the monitor console, and a fourth—also half-empty—on the sideboard beside the door to the workroom. Heikki’s eyes narrowed, but before she could say anything, an enormous figure poked its head out of the doorway. If he had been a little smaller, and darker, he could have been Nkosi’s twin; as it was, he bore an uncomfortable resemblance to one of the shaggier terrestrial bears. He looked like a clown, Heikki thought, torn between laughter and shrieking fury, and drew breath to say something she would certainly regret. Before she could speak, however, the big man said cheerfully, “Good to see you, Heikki. And you, ser, must be the lady’s all too elusive brother.” His tone changed abruptly. “You are Galler Heikki?”

Galler hesitated, and Heikki said, flatly, “Yes, this is Galler.” She looked at her brother. “And this is Idris Max, who last time I knew him was with the Transit Police.”

“Oh, I’ve been promoted since then,” Max said genially. He always had been impervious to insult, Heikki remembered. She looked at Santerese.

“I thought you told me everything was all right.”

“As far as I knew, it was.” Santerese looked at Max. “Unless you’ve changed your plans?”

Max smiled. “Not at all. But there is a query out for him.”

“Which is not the same thing as an advice of arrest,” Galler murmured, just loudly enough to be heard.

“Very true,” Max said. “However, I am obliged to ask you a few questions.”

Heikki looked again at Santerese. “Marshallin, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Santerese made a face. “Doll, I wish I knew. When I got word that a formal investigation was being launched, I put Malachy on the legal aspects, and—since I had to admit you were probably right about Lo-Moth screwing us on this one—I started to work on the tapes you sent me. I also got back in touch with your ex-boyfriend here.” She nodded to Max, who bowed.

“He never was,” Heikki said.

Santerese grinned. “Whatever you say, doll. Anyway, I figured if anybody had the connections we needed, it would be him. So here he is, and here you are.”

“What did you find on the tapes?” Heikki asked.

“Now that,” Max interrupted, “was the most interesting thing about all of this mess.” He lumbered over to the drinks tray, and scooped up one of the glasses. He passed it to Heikki, who stared for an instant in fascination at the delicate goblet clutched in the enormous paw before accepting it.

“It’s that bad?” she said aloud.

“The crystal matrix was destroyed at the wreck site,” Santerese said.

Heikki swore, and did not bother to apologize. That was, in her opinion, the least likely of all the possible results—but on the other hand, if Galler was right, if Lo-Moth’s new matrix wasn’t new at all, but was derived from the same research that had produced the flawed crystal that had destroyed EP1. . What else could the pirates do with it? It couldn’t be sold, and it certainly couldn’t be kept—and the pirates couldn’t’ve been the usual run of hired thugs, she realized abruptly. They had to be company men, trusted men, because otherwise there would be too many opportunities for blackmail….

“This is making sense to you,” Max said, and the buffoonery was gone from his voice. “Give.”

Heikki took a deep breath, marshalling her thoughts, but before she could say anything, Galler spoke. “Wait a minute, Gwynne.” His voice was brittle, amused. “Before you start talking to the—authorities—I think there are a couple of questions you should be asking.”

“Ask away,” Max said.

“First, what’s the status of this investigation of yours?” Galler glanced at Heikki. “You see, I’m not entirely selfish. And what’s my status—ser?”

“Commissioner,” Max said affably. Heikki lifted an eyebrow. The change in title represented a considerable promotion since the last time she had seen Max. “The investigation is proceeding—though right now I’m more interested in why we were put on the job than in the trumped-up Violations’ we’ve been shown.” He smiled at Heikki. “Not at all your style, Heikki.” He looked back at Galler. “As for you, ser…. As they say, that depends in large part on how you choose to answer my questions.”

“I see.” Galler managed a wry smile, and reached for the last drink left on the tray.

Max seated himself on the largest of the chairs and leaned back, still smiling benignly. “Now, as I said, this all seems to make sense to you two. Why don’t you explain it all to me?”

Heikki looked at her brother, unable to keep an unholy joy from her face. “Galler knows so much more,” she said sweetly. “I think he’d better explain this one.”

It took perhaps half an hour for Galler to outline what he had found in Tremoth’s files and Slade’s reaction to his discoveries. When he had finished, Heikki spoke, explaining her contract with Lo-Moth and the work she had done on Iadara. Max sat quietly through it all, eyes hooded, leaning back comfortably as though he were listening to children’s tales. When they had both finished, he sat quietly for a moment, staring at nothing then shook himself, looking up with an abstracted smile.

“So sorry, but I was just thinking, this might explain a couple of bodies that turned up one one of the lower levels of EP10 last week—Tremoth employees who’d broken their contracts and gone underground. Or so their bosses said, even though the grieving widows claimed they were company men to the last molecule.”

“The hijack crew?” Heikki said.

“By coincidence, they were last seen on Iadara,” Max said. “Oceanic survey work, officially.”

Definitely the hijackers, Heikki thought, but said nothing. Iadara’s oceans were effectively useless for any of Lo-Moth’s products; they weren’t even terribly useful as a food supply. She shook the memory away, and said to Max, “So now what?”

Max shook his head. “You tell me. It might interest you to know, by the way, that Slade’s been giving money to Retroceder politicians and action groups.”

“I thought he was a Retroceder,” Heikki said, and Galler made a little noise of satisfaction. Max pointed a finger at him. “You claimed you had information from Tremoth’s files. Where is it?”

Galler made a face. “It was in my office, in the reader there.” Max raised an eyebrow in polite disbelief, and Galler said, stung, “Well, in my experience, no one ever looks at the tapes in the reader, they search the files and the strongbox and all that. It was the safest place I could think of on short notice. I was planning to recover them, anyway, take them back to my pied-a-terre, but things moved a little faster than I was expecting. I set things up so that Gwynne—”

“Gwynne?” Max said, chortling. Heikki waved him to silence, all too aware of the color mounting in her cheeks.

“—so that Heikki could collect them,” Galler went on, “but she didn’t do it.” He shrugged. “So I don’t have any proof. I have to admit, I wasn’t able to tell her they were there, but—” He broke off abruptly, staring at the circles of plastic Heikki was pulling from her belt pocket. Heikki allowed herself a single smile, one smile of triumph for all those years of rivalry, and leaned forward to pass the disks to Max.

“What’s on these, anyway?”

Galler closed his mouth, blinking. After a moment, he said, “You had them all along.”

Heikki nodded. “What are they?”

“Why—?” Galler began, then shook his head. “No. Not important.” He took a deep breath, focusing his attention on Max. “Those disks contain the information I pulled from our files on the original crystal project, including schematics. There are also records of Daulo Slade’s actions after I informed him of the overlap between the historical documents and Lo-Moth’s latest project.”

“Very nice,” Max said, tranquilly, and tucked the disks into his jacket. “But not exactly conclusive.” He held up his hand, silencing Galler’s automatic response, and looked at Heikki. “Heikki—your name’s really Gwynne?”

Reluctantly, Heikki nodded, and Max shook his head. “I was expecting something really awful, after all the fuss you made about not using it. Can you reconstruct the crystal matrix that Lo-Moth lost from the information on the tapes?”

Heikki looked at Santerese, who said, “It was pretty well fragmented, and the fragments were mixed in with a lot of other debris. It looked like they swept it down into the hold.”

“I remember,” Heikki said, softly. There had been a mass of wreckage, objects crushed almost to powder, a powder that glittered in the beams of their handlights…. She shook the thought away, said aloud, “I don’t know. It depends on how big the fragments were, and how many of them we can find on the tape. And, of course, how good the tape is.”

Santerese said, “We can try. But do you really want us to do it, Max? We’re—interested parties, to say the least.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Max said, with a smile that showed a disconcerting number of teeth. “Copies of your tapes are already in my main labs. But you are the best, Marshallin, you and Heikki. You’ll do it?”

“Of course,” Santerese said, with a quirky smile, and Heikki said, “I don’t see you’ve left us a choice, Idris.”

The tapes from the wreck site were already in the workroom. Heikki settled herself at her console, frowning, and called up the menu of tools she had available for this sort of job. At the console opposite, Santerese bent over her keyboard, reloading the raw data. “Was the composition of the matrix standard?” she asked, and Heikki shrugged.

“Galler?”

“What?” Her brother appeared in the doorway, Max looming behind him.

“Was the matrix of standard materials, do you know?”

“I think so,” Galler answered, frowning. “Why?”

Max laid a hand on his shoulder, drawing him away, “Let’s let them get on with it, shall we?”

Heikki was hardly aware of his departure. She stared at the list of programs displayed on the workscreen, tugging thoughtfully at her lower lip. She touched keys to load the restoration program—no question I’ll need that one, she thought—then added the more sensitive of the two modeling programs. After a moment’s hesitation, she added a second construction program, and leaned back to let the three spool into working memory.

“I’m sorting the debris by apparent composition now,” Santerese announced. “Or trying to, anyway. God, I hate working with tape.”

Heikki nodded her agreement. Even with the most sophisticated programs, you were still working with a computer’s best guess, and if that guess was wrong, it was usually catastrophically wrong, so that you thought you were looking at diamonds, and were actually dealing with ground glass. She put the thought aside. After all, the computers weren’t often wrong. Her eyes still on the filling screen, she said, “So what do you think of my brother, Marshallin?”

Santerese looked up from her screen in some surprise. “I’ve hardly seen enough to judge.” Heikki said nothing, waiting, and Santerese shrugged. “Got his eye on the main chance, hasn’t he?”

Heikki grinned. “That’s a polite way of putting it.”

“You don’t like him at all, do you, doll?”

“No,” Heikki said, “I don’t.” She became aware, tardily, of the disapproval in Santerese’s tone, and looked away. “I’m sorry if it bothers you, Marshallin, but that’s the way it is. It’s a little late to change.”

There was a brief silence, and then Santerese said, “I think you’re overreacting, just a little.” Her screen beeped before Heikki could think how to answer, and Santerese said, “I can flip you the raw feed now.”

This was not the time to discuss Galler, Heikki knew. She touched keys on her board, and said, “Ready to receive.” Numbers streamed across her screen, and she pushed the keyboard aside to make room for the more sensitive shadowscreen. The flow of numbers stopped at last, and a single icon pulsed in the center of the screen. Heikki took a deep breath, once again remembering the wreck site, and touched the shadowscreen.

The icon vanished, to be replaced with a strange, washed-out image. There was a scattering of brighter shapes along the bottom of the screen. Heikki frowned for a moment, then realized what she was looking at.

This was a processed image of the latac’s hold, looking down onto the field of debris that had been swept onto the distillery. The highlighted pieces would be the bits the computer had decided probably belonged to the crystal matrix. She ran her fingers along the sensitive edges of the shadowscreen, shrinking that image and opening a new window above it, then began painstakingly to transfer the highlighted pieces from the original image to the window. They hung there as though suspended in space, strange three-dimensional shapes that showed odd rifts and fracture lines.

“I don’t think that’s all of it,” Santerese said.

Heikki looked up, startled—she had not seen Santerese leave her console to come and lean over her shoulder— but looked at the screen again. She had already moved more than half of the highlighted pieces to the working window, and even allowing for the remainder, there was not enough to make up a complete matrix. “I agree,” she said quietly.

“Do you want me to run the program again on what’s left?” Santerese asked, and Heikki shrugged.

“You might as well. I don’t know if it will do any good, though.”

Santerese nodded, and returned to her machine. Frowning, Heikki finished removing the last highlighted images from the lower screen, then ran her hand along the edge of the shadowscreen to shrink the image even further. The pieces isolated in the upper window swelled until they almost filled her screen.

Those fragments weren’t enough to make up a complete matrix, that much was obvious. Heikki studied them for a moment longer, head tilted to one side, then ran her hands across the shadowscreen again, shifting the pieces. Several of the larger shards looked as though they would fit together, and she ran her hand across the shadowscreen, lifting and rotating them until the broken edges meshed and melded. It was a start, she knew, but resisted the temptation to do more. Instead, she called up the first of the reconstruction programs, and let it work while she waited for Santerese to finish the second survey. As she had expected, it displayed “inconclusive” across its tiny window, and when she touched the override, produced a vaguely dodecahedral shape. Most of the lines flashed blue, indicating serious uncertainty. Heikki shrugged, and banished the program.

“How’s it coming, Marshallin?”

“Almost done,” Santerese answered. “The probability is lower, though, by about ten percent. You’ll want to bear that in mind.”

Heikki nodded. A few moments later, her screen flickered, and Santerese said, “I’m flipping you the new figures.”

“Thanks,” Heikki said. “Ready to receive.”

The image at the bottom of her screen disappeared, and was replaced a moment later by another, this one larger, with a rather sparse collection of highlighted images spread across the lower part of the window. They were concentrated in the center, where the debris field had been deepest, about what Heikki had expected. She nodded to herself and began transferring those images to the larger working screen.

When she had finished, the fragments looked somewhat more promising than they had, almost, she thought, as though there might be enough for the computer to work from. She triggered the construction program again, and this time the machine went to work without immediate complaint. After a few moments, a shape—still dodecahedral, but more clearly faceted, more recognizably something functional—appeared in the working window. A moment later, a second image, a crude cross section, with more lines flashing uncertain blue, appeared beside it, and then a third, this one a rotation of the first.

“Analysis?” Heikki said aloud.

The program considered for a moment, then responded, Function unclear. No recorded parallels of statistical significance.

Heikki had not expected anything else. She sighed, and leaned across the console to fit a disk into the room’s recording system.

“No luck?” Santerese asked, and pushed herself up from her console.

“Nothing conclusive,” Heikki answered, shrugging. “It’s handwork from here on in.”

Santerese grinned, and brought her chair around so that she could sit beside her partner. “I’ve seen worse.”

Heikki nodded, still staring at the screen. This was the trickiest part of any reconstruction, especially when they had only the tapes to go on, not actual samples of the debris. The reconstruction and restoration programs had taken things as far as they could; now she and Santerese would have to evaluate the machine’s work, and use their informed judgement to add to the computer’s construct. “Switch on the recorder, will you?” she said aloud, and Santerese did so. “Report—” She glanced at the string of characters that appeared at the bottom of the workscreen, labeling the work by date and time and session number. “—229.1631.2, Gwynne Heikki and Marshallin Santerese, for Heikki/Santerese Salvage, private report. Data is drawn from tapes 214.1426.a, 214.1426.b, and 214.1426.c, taken under contract to Lo-Moth, of and on Iadara. Data has been processed using Loppi Standard Analysis, and modified Forian Reconstruction and Restoration programs. We are now proceeding under the assumption that the recovered fragments were part of a crystal matrix, deliberately destroyed by hijackers.” She nodded to Santerese, who adjusted the recorder’s setting.

“This machine is now set for sound-activated recording,” Santerese said, “and for realtime recording of all on-screen and in-memory activity.”

Heikki nodded again. “Then let’s begin.”

It took them another four hours of slow, painstaking work to finish reconstructing the crystal. At last, however, Heikki leaned back in her chair, stretching, and said slowly, “I think that’s all I dare do. I can’t really justify adding anything more.”

Santerese glanced at the secondary screen, which displayed schematics for half a dozen different types of standard crystal. “It’s pretty obvious what it was, doll. That was a matrix.”

Heikki nodded her agreement, and reached across her partner to touch a button on the recorder cabinet. “Work is completed on report 229.1631.2. This recording ends.” She flipped off the recorder, and said, more normally, “And that proves it wasn’t an ordinary hijacking.”

“Not that you ever thought it was,” Santerese murmured.

“Well, what hijacker in his right mind would destroy the thing he came to steal?” Heikki asked, and pushed herself up out of her chair. She was stiff from the hours of work, she realized belatedly, and winced as she moved to the door. “Max?”

The commissioner had been asleep, sprawled on the couch, his feet propped up on the monitor box, but he opened his eyes at the sound of his name, contriving to look instantly aware. “Yes?”

“We’ve finished the report,” Heikki said. “I’d like you to see the results, and seal the disks.” She looked around the room. “Where’s Galler?”

Max pointed down the hall toward the bedrooms. “Asleep, I expect. I’ll take a look at your disks.”

Trust Galler to have settled in comfortably, Heikki thought, but there was less malice in the thought than there would have been before. That was not an entirely comfortable realization, and she put it aside, saying, “We’re almost certain it was a matrix—”

“Almost?” Max cut in, and Heikki gave a reluctant smile.

“I’m certain. The almost is there for the courts and the statistics.”

“Good enough,” Max said. He maneuvered his bulk past the banks of machines to perch cautiously on Heikki’s chair. “Show me.”

Obediently, Santerese triggered the media wall, throwing the final projection onto its central field. “This is the complete reconstruction,” she said. “We made a full recording of all procedures used, of course, but this is what we got.”

Max stared at the slowly rotating crystal, his face without expression. It didn’t look like much, Heikki admitted to herself, just a rough cube, its corners sawn off to create smaller planes, and those corners sawn off as well, creating smaller and smaller facets. She leaned past Max to touch keys on the nearest workboard, throwing a second, similar image onto the wall beside the reconstruction.

“That’s a simulated core crystal from a class-5 freighter—just a sample of the approximate form, not a real one.” She touched keys again, and produced a third image. “This is a schematic of the type of crystal used in the Exchange Points’ PDEs.”

“All right,” Max said again, “they’re obviously very similar. What did Lo-Moth tell you this one was, again?”

“A matrix for a possible universal center crystal seed,” Heikki answered.

“Mmm.” Max returned his attention to the media wall. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, and drew out the disks Heikki had given him. “Can you copy these?” he asked, not taking his eyes from the screen. “And then play back the copies?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Santerese said. She took the disks, slid them one by one into a diskprinter, then fed the copies into her workboard. Max tucked the originals back into his jacket. He had never taken his eyes off her during the entire process, Heikki realized abruptly, and wondered if she should be insulted.

“Put it on the big screen, Marshallin?” she said instead, and Santerese nodded. Another window opened on the media wall directly below the slowly rotating crystals, and filled with text that flickered past at an almost blinding rate.

“This is just the record of Slade’s movements,” Santerese translated. “I’m looking for the data on the original crystal.” The text, mixed now with strings of numbers and flashing images, flickered past for a few minutes longer, and then Santerese said, “Got it.”

The flow of data slowed, and then stopped, a delicately drawn schematic filling a quarter of the image. Santerese adjusted her controls, and the schematic expanded, until it had pushed the last bits of text out of the window. It looked surprisingly familiar.

“Bring up the schematic we created, would you, Marshallin?” Heikki said slowly. Santerese smiled grimly, and did so. The two diagrams were very similar.

“So,” Max said, almost to himself, sounding satisfied.

Heikki reached for her own controls, adjusting the images until the two schematics overlapped. There were minor differences, of course, there always would be between plan and actual crystal, but the main lines merged impeccably into one. “So Galler was right,” she said aloud, and Max leaned back to look at her, a crooked smile on his face.

“That’s assuming you’re right, Heikki, in your reconstruction.” He held up his hand, forestalling her automatic protest. “Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you—but please remember, I have to go to the courts with this, and Tremoth’s lawyers are—well, experts is the politest word I’ve heard used. This is nice, but I’d like to have something solid in evidence to back it up.”

“What about the records of Slade’s movement, this stuff?” Santerese asked. “And his politics?”

Max shrugged. “Again, useful, but not conclusive. The source is tainted, after all.”

He was right, of course, and Heikki looked down at her workscreen, not really seeing the array of figures it displayed. By now, Slade would have covered his tracks, both within Tremoth and on Iadara. Though it might be more difficult on Iadara, where a substantial local population hated Lo-Moth, and not all of Lo-Moth supported its parent…. She frowned. FitzGilbert, in particular, had disliked Slade, and, more to the point, she’d lost people of her own when the latac was shot down. She had not approved of Heikki/Santerese being taken off the job—and even putting all that aside, Heikki thought, with an inward grin, she’s the likely scapegoat if Slade decides to dump the blame on Lo-Moth. All of which just might make her willing to cooperate with the authorities.

“Max,” she said, “what if I told you there was someone on Iadara, in Lo-Moth, that just might be able to come up with the hard evidence you need—if you approached her the right way, of course.”

Max eyed her warily. “If it was true, Heikki, I’d be very happy, naturally. What makes you think anyone in Lo-Moth would have anything useful, even if they were willing to give it up?”

Heikki took a deep breath, marshalling her thoughts. “My contact on Iadara was a woman named FitzGilbert. She’s the operations director on-planet—it was her latac that was shot down, and her people who were killed.” There was a faint look of amusement in Max’s eyes, and Heikki said, stung, “Yes, people still take that sort of thing seriously in the Precincts, Max.”

Max waved a hand in apology. “Go on.”

“I think she suspected something of what happened, and she wasn’t happy when we were pulled off the job. Plus she doesn’t like Slade at all, or at least she didn’t seem to.” Heikki paused, pulling herself back to the main line of her argument. “As director of operations, she has to know a good deal about the crash, and about Slade’s behavior immediately afterward. She might have what you’re looking for.”

“I’ve tried to contact Lo-Moth personnel,” Max said gently. “In fact, I have spoken to some of them. But I haven’t been able to pry any of them loose from their company-appointed lawyers—they don’t want to be pried loose, most of them—and I’m not going to get anything useful from them under those circumstances.”

“Ah.” Heikki could not restrain a smile of sheer pleasure, and then laughed aloud as Max’s brows drew together into a frown. “You are a suspicious sort, Max.” She sobered quickly. “Max, a woman named Alexieva, Incarnacion Alexieva Cirilly, rode back to the Loop with us, she’s staying with Jock Nkosi right now. She is, or at worse was, FitzGilbert’s agent while she was on Iadara. If anybody could get you a private conversation with FitzGilbert, she could.”

“But would she?” Max said, and Heikki smiled again.

“I think you could persuade her.”

Max nodded, and pushed himself away from the console with renewed energy. “But you’ll make the call, Heikki, just in case.” He smiled, and this time there was no humor in it, just the predator’s bared teeth. “I don’t care what company secrets he was trying to protect—I don’t even care if Tremoth crystals did cause the EP1 disaster. That was a hundred and fifty years ago. You don’t kill, what is it now—the latac crew, and the hijackers—almost a dozen people, for a stale secret.” His smile shifted, went lopsided and wry. “And if you ever repeat that, Heikki, I’ll reveal your first name to the Loop.”

“No one would ever mistake you for an idealist,” Heikki said, her voice more gentle than her words. She was tired, her eyes gritty from staring at the screen, but forced herself to stand upright. “I’ll make the call.”

To her surprise, Nkosi was both in and accepting contact, though he did not switch on his cameras. Heikki could hear someone moving in the background as she made her appeal, asking him and Alexieva to come by the office suite as soon as possible, and hoped it was the surveyor. There was a moment of silence when she had finished, and then Nkosi said, a faint note of surprise in his voice, “But of course, we will be there within the hour.”

“Thanks,” Heikki said, but the pilot had already broken the connection.

“Will he come?” Max asked.

“Jock doesn’t break his word,” Heikki said, but privately she was not quite so confident. Nkosi she trusted, knew she could trust, but Alexieva remained an unknown quantity. She massaged her temples, digging her fingers hard into the pressure points in a vain attempt to drive away some of the aching tiredness.

“Why don’t you lie down for a while?” Santerese said gently. “This hasn’t exactly been one of your better days.”

Heikki nodded in reluctant agreement. “I’ll do that,” she said. “Wake me when they get here.”

Santerese looked as though she would protest, but Max said, “Of course.”

Heikki nodded again. The bedroom was cool, and very quiet, the air lightly touched with Santerese’s perfume. A single light faded on as Heikki entered, the room sensors reacting to her movements, but she waved it off again, and stretched out on the bed without bothering to undress. It seemed only a few moments before Santerese was touching her shoulder.

“Jock’s here, and Alexieva.”

“Oh, God.” Heikki sat up slowly, blinking away sleep. The brief nap hadn’t helped at all—if anything, she thought, I feel worse than I did before.

Santerese gave her a sympathetic smile, and held out a single dark red capsule. “Try this.”

Heikki swallowed it without question, grimacing at the bitter taste. “Pick-me-up?” she asked, and Santerese nodded.

“You’d better come on,” she said. “Alexieva’s getting difficult.”

Heikki swore under her breath, but levered herself up off the bed. “What do you think of her, Marshallin?”

Santerese shrugged. “I don’t know her. I don’t think I like her, but I don’t know her. And these aren’t the best of conditions for making those decisions, doll.”

“True,” Heikki agreed, but could not help feeling rather pleased that Santerese shared her own opinion of the Iadaran. The thought buoyed her up as she made her way back into the suite’s main room.

The others were waiting there, Alexieva seated on the long couch, her face set in an expression at once stubborn and remote. Nkosi loomed protectively behind her, scowling at Max, who seemed completely unaffected by his stare.

“Ah, there you are, Heikki,” the commissioner said affably. There was a choked noise from the wall behind him, and Heikki glanced curiously in that direction to see her brother smothering a laugh. “I’ve explained the situation to Dam’ Alexieva, and what we want from her, but she’s a little uneasy. She wants assurance from you.”

From me? Heikki thought. What can I give you— what can I promise you that Max can’t? She said nothing, however, but looked at Alexieva.

“What I want,” the surveyor said clearly, “is your word—which Jock tells me is good—that Dam’ FitzGilbert won’t be harmed by this.”

Heikki hesitated, knowing just how much was riding on her answer. At last she said, “Damn it, I can’t tell you that. I can’t predict the future. All I can do is give you my word that it isn’t our—his—” She pointed to Max. “—intention that FitzGilbert be hurt in any way.”

It was not, she thought remotely, a particularly convincing speech, but to her surprise, Alexieva looked away. “That was what I meant,” the surveyor said, after a moment. She glanced up at Nkosi, then looked away, shrugged. “All right. Yes, I will contact Dam’ FitzGilbert, and ask her to contact me here, through secure channels.”

“But will she do it?” Galler murmured, loudly enough to be heard.

Alexieva glared at him. “She will.”

“Then let’s get on with it,” Max said, interrupting Galler’s response. “Dam’ Alexieva?”

There was no refusing the invitation. Alexieva pushed herself to her feet, looking suddenly very tired, and followed Max into the workroom. Nkosi pushed himself away from the couch, shaking his head.

“You had better be right about this, Heikki,” he said, and followed the others into the workroom.

Heikki looked at Santerese, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “I do hope so,” she said softly, and Santerese grinned.

“Like the man says, you better be.”

They sat in silence for the better part of an hour before the others emerged from the workroom. “Well?” Santerese said after a moment, and Max shrugged.

“I left the message,” Alexieva said—rather defensively, Heikki thought.

“What message?” she asked.

“We have a whole code,” Alexieva said impatiently. She looked at Max. “Dam’ FitzGilbert will contact me.”

“It would be helpful,” Max said dryly. “Preferably before entropy sets in, however.”

Alexieva looked as though she wanted to spit at him, but Nkosi laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “She has done all that she can,” he said quietly, but with a note of gentle menace that might, Heikki thought, have given even Max pause. “All we can do now is wait.”

The commissioner, however, did not seem impressed. “True enough, but I’ll have to ask you to do your waiting here.”

For a moment, it seemed that Nkosi might protest further, and Heikki said softly, “Jock….” The pilot looked at her then, and sighed.

“All right. We’ll wait—here.”

FitzGilbert did not respond for almost twenty hours. Heikki spent most of that time drowsing on the couch, the events of the past few days finally catching up with her. She roused long enough to eat at some point late that night, station time, when Max allowed Nkosi to send out for dinner, but soon fell asleep again. The next morning was better, however, and by the time she’d finished the second pot of coffee she felt almost ready to face whatever FitzGilbert’s call might bring.

The chimes sounded a little after station noon, bringing Max bolt upright in his chair.

“Incoming transmission,” Santerese said, unnecessarily, and started into the workroom. Heikki followed her, and heard Max call behind her, “Alexieva!”

The surveyor appeared a few minutes later, Max looming behind her like a jailer. “Are there any special codes?” he asked, and Alexieva shook her head.

“No. It should go through.”

Heikki seated herself at the main console, watching numbers shift across her board as the machines on Iadara and on EP7 struggled to match frequencies precisely. At last, the connection was made; the media wall lit and windowed, FitzGilbert’s face framed in the apparent opening.

“Dam’ Heikki.”

The Iadaran’s voice was almost less surprised than angry, Heikki thought, and her own brows drew together into a frown. “That’s right,” she said, and knew she sounded inane. “I need to talk to you.”

“You and someone else, I see,” FitzGilbert said, and Heikki realized that Max had stepped into camera range behind her.

“Yes,” she said, and Max cut in smoothly.

“My name is Idris Max, commissioner, Terrestrial Enforcement. I have some questions to ask you about this lost crystal of yours.”

FitzGilbert frowned. “I’ve already spoken to the Enforcement at some length, and I really don’t see what I could add to that.” She looked directly at Heikki. “As for you, Dam’ Heikki, I remind you that Lo-Moth had a confidentiality clause in its contract with you, which I suspect you are in breach of already.”

“Confidentiality clauses can’t be used to hide criminal actions,” Max began, and Heikki said, “Shut up, Max. FitzGilbert.”

The Iadaran looked at her warily, her expression without encouragement.

“It’s about the latac,” Heikki went on, fumbling for the words she needed to convince the other woman. “Tremoth, Slade’s people, they didn’t come up with anything of use in tracking the hijackers, did they?”

After a moment’s pause, FitzGilbert shook her head silently.

“That’s because he, Slade, was responsible,” Heikki said. “I have proof.” She reached for the tapes she had made, but Max caught her wrist. Before she could protest, FitzGilbert said, “Why? It makes no sense….” Her tone was less convinced than her words, and Heikki struck at that uncertainty.

“Because Lo-Moth got its idea, and most of its plans for that crystal out of Tremoth’s back files, didn’t they?

It was just your technician’s bad luck he/she got the wrong set. Those plans were supposed to stay buried forever, lost in the system, because that was the crystal that destroyed EP1. But your techie found them, passed them along, and you grew a crystal, grew a matrix—a flawed matrix—before he even knew it was in the works. And by the time he did find out it was too late to stop you any other way except by destroying the matrix and then taking over and burying your research. You’d already set up a test facility for it, hadn’t you?”

FitzGilbert nodded, her expression very still. “Slade did this personally—killed my people?”

“He hired the men who did it,” Heikki answered.

FitzGilbert’s face was grey even in the link’s flattering reproduction. “So what do you want of me?”

“You may have information,” Max began, and Heikki said again, “Shut up, Max. Slade pulled me off the job you hired me to do before I had the chance to complete it, and did his best to ruin my professional reputation, just in case I happened to put the pieces together. And that’s nothing compared to what he did to you. I want his head, FitzGilbert. And so should you.”

There was a long silence, and then FitzGilbert said, in a sleepwalker’s voice, “Slade told me you had a brother who worked for Tremoth, that you were working with him to ruin the company.”

Heikki laughed. It was a harsh sound, without humor. “My brother used to work for Slade, yes. I hadn’t spoken to him for twenty years—I wouldn’t have spoken to him if Slade hadn’t tried to ruin me.”

“What do you want from me?” FitzGilbert said again.

“Anything you have,” Heikki answered.

There was another silence, this one longer than the first. Finally FitzGilbert said, “Yes—no, wait. There’s one thing you don’t know.”

Max stirred slightly, and Heikki flung out a hand to silence him. “Well?”

“Those crystals—the plans, I mean, for the matrix. It was Slade himself who gave the schematics to Research.”

“Why the hell would he do that?” Heikki said, almost to herself, and then stopped, appalled. Slade was a Retroceder, everyone had said so—he wore the party’s green badge openly even inside the corporation. If the Loop were destroyed—and the defective crystals would do that—he would be in a position to take up power in the Precincts, could probably have his choice of planets, backed by his fellow Retroceders. God knows, she thought, he may have become a Retroceder only to make use of their ideals, their politics, to make this entire maneuver possible. It would explain why the original data had never been destroyed. “He was going to use the crystals—sell them?”

FitzGilbert nodded, once, but then her face hardened. “Which I will deny, publically and in the courts.”

“Why—?” Heikki began, but FitzGilbert was talking on, staring now at Max.

“All right, Commissioner. Yes, I have information that would be of use to you, information that ought to help you convict that bastard, but I want guarantees first.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Max said, and FitzGilbert laughed harshly.

“Oh, you can promise this. You will, or you don’t get what I have.” She waited, and when Max made no further protest, went on, “Try him and welcome, but only for the latac. That’s enough, seven people dead, but leave EP1 out of it. Christ, do you know what would happen if it was known that somebody’d made a bad crystal that could get past all the tests? That was what caused EP1, and that somebody had tried to do it again? It wouldn’t just ruin Lo-Moth, and Tremoth, it’d destroy the Loop.” She paused then, searching their faces. “There are enough fringe groups that distrust the railroad, the Retroceders are just the loudest and the most organized. Give them a cause like this, and the whole system will go down. You give me that promise, Max, or you get nothing from me.”

There was another long silence, broken only by the faint hissing of the open communications channel. Heikki sat very still, staring at the trees beyond FitzGilbert’s window, and the bright reflection from the roof of a crystal shed. The Iadaran was right, there were entirely too many extremists who disliked the Railroad, some out of economic jealousy, some out of an irrational fear of the technology itself—which turned out not to be entirely irrational after all. She shook her head, and saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Max was nodding slowly.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “What about these flawed crystals? How’re you going to keep this from happening again?”

“I think something can be worked out,” Max said, with a cynical smile.

FitzGilbert’s lips twisted into an expression that might have been intended as a smile, but looked more like a grimace of pain. “I will see that the specifics of the design go to our heads of research, with an appropriate simulation of what might happen if such crystals were put into use. They can then compare all subsequent core crystals with that schematic—it can become a regular part of the inspection process. Will that suffice, Commissioner?”

No, Heikki wanted to say, it’s not good enough, damn it. Max was already nodding.

“I can accept that, Dam’ FitzGilbert. Now, about the data you said you had—”

“What about your promise?” FitzGilbert answered.

Max sighed. “I can give you my word that Ser Slade will only be charged with the deaths of the latac’s crew, and with attempted fraud in regard to Dam’ Heikki here, and her brother—and whatever else I can catch him on that does not reveal that the EP1 disaster was caused by these flawed crystals. Is that acceptable?”

There was a long pause, and then FitzGilbert sighed. “All right.” Her hands moved on a workboard in front of her, out of the cameras’ line of sight. “Are you ready to receive my data?”

Heikki did not answer, still overwhelmed by the turn of events, and Max reached impatiently over her shoulder to touch the necessary keys. “Ready to receive,” he said.

“Transmitting.” The machines squealed thinly, just at the edge of hearing. Heikki ducked her head in spite of herself, wincing, and then green lights flashed above the diskprinter.

“Transmission complete,” FitzGilbert said, in almost the same moment. She looked suddenly very grim. “But if you break your word, Commissioner, you’re going to find that that’s worse than useless. End contact.” Her image vanished in a flare of light. Heikki began to shut down the system, her hands moving almost without conscious volition.

“I hate it when people threaten me,” Max said quite placidly, to no one in particular, and reached over Heikki’s shoulder for the disks. He slipped them into the nearest workboard, tuned it to a private frequency, and began scanning pages through his data lens. Heikki released the last console from the local system and leaned back in her chair, watching as a smile spread over Max’s face.

“I assume it’s good news?” she asked.

“It’s what I was hoping for,” Max agreed. “This should be the last piece.” He looked at Alexieva, waiting all but forgotten in the doorway, Nkosi still hovering at her side. “Thank you for your help, Dam’ Alexieva.”

“Then we may go now?” Nkosi asked, his face hard and watchful. Max nodded, and Nkosi transferred his stare to Heikki. “I will be in touch, Heikki.”

“Right,” Heikki answered, but the pilot had already withdrawn, pulling Alexieva with him. A moment later, Heikki heard the suite’s outer door open and shut behind them.

“Now,” Max said brightly, tucking the disks into his jacket pocket, and stepped out into the main room. Heikki pushed herself up from the console and followed, gratefully aware of Santerese’s presence at her back.

“Galler Heikki,” Max said, still with that alarming good humor, and Galler rose warily from the couch. “You, ser, will have to come with me. We’ll want your evidence.”

Galler smiled then, a bright, malicious smile, and Heikki shook her head. “You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

Her brother looked at her, his expression suddenly serious. “He tried to destroy me, Heikki, don’t forget. Yes, I’ll enjoy it. So would you.”

Heikki opened her mouth to deny it, but could not muster the energy. Suddenly their old quarrel no longer seemed important—she no longer cared, she realized abruptly, whether she had the last word. “Maybe,” she said, and looked at Max, who was waiting impatiently in the main doorway. “Make sure nobody strangles him, will you?”

“Why, Gwynne,” Galler murmured. “I never knew you cared.”

“I don’t,” Heikki said, but not until the door had closed behind them. Santerese touched her shoulder gently, comfortingly, and Heikki shook her head. “I really don’t, not about any of it.”

“If you didn’t care,” Santerese said, “you wouldn’t be angry.”

It was true, Heikki knew, but it didn’t help. I want justice, she cried in silent protest, not just for the latac crew, but for EP1 and the people killed—murdered— there. There ought to be some restitution made—except that FitzGilbert was right, justice for them, telling that old truth, could well destroy the railroad and the stations that depended on it. Where was the justice in that? She shook her head, tired of the uncertainty, wanting only to have it over. Did I do right, even remotely? I did the best I could.

“I’m too old for this,” she said aloud, and Santerese took her in her arms.

“Aren’t we all, darling, aren’t we all?”

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