gaian consortium 06 - zhore deception (25 page)

It was a short flight, not quite a half-hour. The moon base was unfamiliar to her, since she’d been knocked out before being brought here the last time. But Trinity still recognized the graceful curves and arches of Zhore architecture, even in this airless environment.

The shuttle landed in an open bay and connected its hatch to a corridor that led somewhere into the bowels of the base. A private corridor, it seemed; she and Nalzhir were the only ones traversing it at the moment, although she was under the impression that the base was actually a fairly busy hub. Because she had left her apartment and gone out in public, she once again wore the heavy hooded robes. They were a thin disguise, though, and she knew it. Under those robes and the gloves, she was all too recognizably human.

Nalzhir guided her down another corridor. Almost at once, a group of five more Zhore joined them, tall, silent, in the ubiquitous hooded cloaks. Since her companion didn’t appear surprised by their presence, Trinity guessed that he’d been in communication with them somehow and had instructed them to meet up here, out of sight. Although she would have felt a bit better if even one of them had spoken, she was still glad of their presence. As they’d walked, she’d begun to get the sinking feeling that Nalzhir intended to meet with Gabriel with absolutely no backup, which she thought was an extraordinarily bad idea. But it looked like they were going to have some kind of muscle after all, even though she couldn’t tell whether the guards were armed or not. They could be hiding anything short of a poleax under those robes.

At last they reached a door, where they emerged from the cramped hallway into a sort of small open plaza, where plants grew around a graceful little fountain in the center. It was hard to believe they were on a moon base, rather than somewhere back in Torzhaan. But then Trinity looked up and saw the domed ceiling high overhead, its smooth metal surface showing plainly that they were most definitely not back planet-side. Still, she appreciated that the Zhore had brought their love of growing things even here to this barren moon.

“This way,” Nalzhir murmured, pointing to a door in a one-level building on the opposite side of the courtyard.

Two of the guards moved ahead of them so they could be the first inside, while the others brought up the rear. Trinity clenched her gloved hands inside the dangling sleeves of her robes and wished she’d had the courage to tell the Bureau agent no when he’d asked her to come on this insane mission. No, actually, that would have been the cowardly thing. They were all playing at roles here, Gabriel Brant most of all, but she’d already done enough wrong. She wouldn’t compound her past sins by refusing to help out where she could.

They moved along yet another hallway, although this one had been painted a soft taupe color, and abstract paintings hung on the walls. It felt like the kind of temporary office space that high-ranking executives might lease when they needed to conduct business somewhere away from their home base. And then they were going into a conference room, and Gabriel Brant was standing there, Blake Chu at his side. Both of them wore high-collared business suits and looked the very epitome of Gaian style. Well, Gabriel did, anyway. Blake still sported his ridiculous glasses and brush haircut, giving him the appearance of a nerdy computer hacker forced to dress up for a relative’s wedding.

The brief amusement that thought caused disappeared rapidly, though, because Trinity could feel Gabriel Brant’s charcoal-colored eyes boring into her, as if attempting to see through the thick hood that obscured her face. She forced herself to stand quietly as Nalzhir moved past the guards and spoke.

“We are here, as you requested.”

“And I see you brought your basketball team with you.”

Nalzhir’s head cocked to one side. “I fear I don’t recognize the reference, Mr. Brant. But yes, we are within our rights to have an escort. That will not hinder our talks, will it?”

A negligent wave of the hand. “No, of course not. Do sit down.” He gestured toward a conference table off to one side, set up with four chairs around it.

Trinity didn’t much like the look of that. No matter how they arranged themselves, that meant she’d have to be sitting across from or next to either Gabriel or Blake. She knew better than to protest, though, and so she waited quietly while Gabriel sat at the head of the table and Nalzhir at the foot. Holding back a sigh, she settled herself in the chair to Nalzhir’s right.

Once that was done, a mousy-looking woman came into the conference room with water for everyone, pouring an equal amount in each glass before retiring to the sitting area on the other side of the space. There, she picked up a tablet and appeared engrossed in whatever she was reading on its screen.

Trinity didn’t know if the woman was pretending to be Gabriel’s secretary or assistant, or whether she been rented along with the meeting space where they had gathered. She supposed it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he sat only a few feet away from her, close enough to reach out and grab her by the arm. Not that he would do anything so overtly threatening. She didn’t know what he was plotting, but she doubted it was anything that simple.

“So, Mr. Brant,” Nalzhir began. “We are here on your request. As you can see, Ms. Knox is quite well, and here by her own choosing. Certainly nothing that should cause a diplomatic incident.”

Gabriel lifted his glass of water and took a long drink. Pure theater, of course. Trinity wished she could grab that glass of water and throw it in his face. Then again, she doubted even that would mess up his hair. He had enough pomade in there for three or four men.

Then he said, “Well, I’d like to believe that, Nalzhir, except that I really can’t see that Ms. Knox is well. In fact, I can’t even say for sure whether that
is
Ms. Knox under all those robes.”

“If you’re suggesting — ”

“What I’m suggesting is that Ms. Knox isn’t a Zhore, so there’s no reason for her to be wandering around here dressed like a mad monk, is there?”

She should have known he would force the issue. Nalzhir hadn’t told her whether he’d informed Brant that she’d been restored to her normal appearance, but that wasn’t why she hesitated now. Although she’d cursed the robes more than once for being bulky and heavy and in the way whenever she stopped thinking about how to manage them, they also offered protection. She didn’t much like the thought of being exposed to Gabriel’s gaze. But she also knew he’d continue to press the issue, so there was no point in protesting.

“No, I suppose there isn’t, Mr. Brant,” she said, then reached up and pushed back the hood, letting it drop to her shoulders so her hair could fall free.

A small pause. Then he said, “Ah.”

That was it. “Ah.” His eyes caught hers for a second, and she felt a chill go down her back. And then he was looking away, returning his attention to Nalzhir. “Yes, she does appear to be in perfect health. As for being here of her own volition…well, I suppose we can let her tell us about that.”

Voice cool, she said, “I’m here because I wanted to make it very clear that I am not being held against my will on Zhoraan. Therefore, there is no reason for the Consortium to interfere with my affairs. I believe that Consortium citizens still have the right to travel about the galaxy as they choose, don’t they?”

“Of course they do,” he said smoothly. “That is, regular upstanding,
law-abiding
citizens of the Consortium. But you, Ms. Knox, aren’t either of those things, are you? It seems there’s an outstanding warrant for your arrest. Magda, could you show Ms. Knox?”

In response to his request, the mousy-looking woman got up from the sofa and came over to the conference table. She held up her tablet so that everyone could see what currently occupied the screen — the booking image of Trinity, with the word “wanted” flashing in Galactic Standard underneath.

Son of a bitch….

In the seat to her left, Nalzhir didn’t so much as twitch. “Well, that is unfortunate, but I do believe the Consortium’s laws guarantee that a person is innocent until proven guilty, do they not?”

“Yes,” Brant replied without blinking.

“So has Ms. Knox been convicted of any crimes?”

“No, but neither is a person accused of anything greater than a misdemeanor allowed to leave the Gaian system without permission. Her identification would have been annotated to show that, if she had in fact requested and received that permission.” He turned toward her, eyes glinting. “Perhaps you could show us your identification, Ms. Knox, so we can get all this cleared up.”

God damn him. He was enjoying this far too much, and she knew she didn’t dare react either outwardly or inwardly, since Blake Chu had her fixed with his own impassive stare from behind those ridiculous glasses of his. The second she’d seen him, she’d clamped down her barriers as tightly as she could, but if they kept pushing her….

“I don’t have any identification,” she said. “It was…misplaced.”

“Indeed? How unfortunate. You should have contacted the embassy here on the base as soon as you realized it was missing. As to that, I must confess that I am a little curious as to what you were doing on Zhoraan at all, a world that allows no one who is not a Zhore to set foot on its surface.”

Of course he knew exactly what Trinity was doing there. And who she was doing it with. This was all part of the charade, but damned if she could figure out what the hell his endgame was. Maybe he was just trying to see if he could provoke her or Nalzhir into the sort of outburst that would reveal more information than either of them wanted to let slip.

“She was occupied with personal business,” Nalzhir said, his tone mild. “As for the rest, no one here knew anything of it. Was that why you requested her presence at this meeting, Mr. Brant? So you could take her into custody? I’m afraid I cannot agree to that.”

“And why not? She is not a citizen of your world. Not to be rude, but you have very little say as to where she goes or what she does.”

The Zhore did shift in his seat them. Just a fraction, but enough that Trinity knew he was being backed into a corner. If the Zhore were capable of lying, then he could have said any one of a number of things. She doubted he would mention the child unless there were no other options left to them, because doing so would reveal that they’d known all along what Gabriel had been up to. Right now they were all playing the innocent, trying to see who would make the first misstep.

Fine, then. Since Nalzhir couldn’t lie, she’d step in and do the deed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been lying to herself and almost everyone around her ever since she was a young girl.

She crossed her arms and looked Gabriel directly in the face. “I requested diplomatic immunity.”

That did take him aback; at least, a muscle twitched in his cheek, although he didn’t show much more reaction than that. “I beg your pardon? On what grounds?”

“The charges against me were trumped up. The real criminal made me his scapegoat. So I thought I should come someplace where the Consortium couldn’t possibly track me down.”

A glint entered his eyes, and a corner of his mouth lifted so briefly that Trinity wasn’t sure she wasn’t imagining things. But no…he had tight controls, but every once in a while he let something leak out. Whether that was on purpose or not didn’t really matter. Right now, that little flash told her something.

He was actually amused by her playacting. He wasn’t going to call her on it. No, he seemed as if he would be content to watch her keep spinning yarns, just to see what happened. Which meant he was definitely plotting something. He wouldn’t let things get this out of hand if he didn’t have some sort of endgame in mind.

Leaning forward slightly, he said, “Well, that certainly was very…resourceful of you, Ms. Knox. Most of the time when criminals flee Gaia, they go someplace where they can blend into the population, like Iradia. Not much chance of your blending into the population on Zhoraan, is there?”

“I don’t know,” she retorted. “These robes can hide a lot.”

Nalzhir’s hood had been swiveling back and forth between the two of them, as if he was bemused by the entire conversation and didn’t quite know how to interject himself into it. “Mr. Brant,” he said, “because of Ms. Knox’s particular gifts, we decided we could bend policy a bit.”

“Gifts?” Gabriel repeated. “What gifts?”

“It’s all in my file,” Trinity said distinctly. “Unless that part has been redacted. It’s possible you don’t have the clearance to read it.”

Across the table from her, Blake grinned briefly, then turned sober again as soon as he realized his superior was beginning to frown.

Both her remark and Blake’s reaction to it had clearly annoyed Gabriel; the amused glint disappeared from his eyes, and his mouth pursed slightly. “I assure you, Ms. Knox, I have sufficient clearances to read your entire file. If you’re referring to those so-called psychic talents of yours, I’m afraid I don’t believe that particular fairytale. You’re a gifted…well, let’s just call it a ‘storyteller’ and leave it at that.”

“I don’t think that is necessary — ” Nalzhir began.

But Gabriel rolled right over his words, saying, “I believe I’ve heard enough. While you might think you’re doing the compassionate thing, Nalzhir, the truth of the matter is that Ms. Knox here is a fugitive and a known criminal. She’s not the sort of person you want on Zhoraan, even if you were to, shall we say, open yourselves to more interaction with aliens.”

The leer in his voice was more than apparent to Trinity, and she guessed it was to Nalzhir as well, because he sat up a little straighter. A wave of irritation seemed to emanate from him, then subsided.

Don’t feel too bad, Nalzhir,
Trinity thought.
Gabriel has that effect on everyone.

“No,” he went on, “I really think it best that you allow Ms. Knox to come with us. In the future, you might want to be a bit more selective about the sorts of people you allow down on your planet.”

Nalzhir planted his hands on the tabletop and rose to his full height, which was an inch or so taller than Gabriel. “I fear we are at an impasse, then. For we cannot give her up, not when she has been offered sanctuary among us.”