Anniversary Day (23 page)

Murray, the guy who ran it most days, was a genial sort, and that made him a talker. They had a friend in common—Miles Flint, the Retrieval Artist who, long ago, used to work as a cop in Space Traffic. Murray liked Flint and thought he could do no wrong. Nyquist always felt uneasy around Flint, and worried that Flint was masking illegal behavior under the guise of cooperation.

Nyquist didn’t want to tell that to Murray, and so always tried to avoid conversations with him.

Fortunately the map displayed a path to Palmette’s desk, through a twist of warrenlike corridors, near the back of Space Traffic. Nyquist frowned. He had thought her job important, yet she had been shuttled to the very back of the building, away from everyone else.

Maybe that was the nature of dealing with quarantined vessels. Maybe there was a reason she was isolated.

He hoped not. He remembered talking to her a year after she had recovered from her injuries. She was going through psych evaluations, and failing them.

Nyquist had had to go through those as well before he got his shield back. He wasn’t allowed to work anything but a desk job until he passed each evaluation. And the desk job was a courtesy, given to him because of his rank and years on the force. He really didn’t do much work during that time, because no one wanted him on major cases.

He had hated that time of his life, sometimes wondering why he had survived the attacks at all, wondering why his service record and his closure rate made no difference. Later he understood: he’d seen others break down from post-traumatic stress or sheer terror based on an attack they survived.

Not everyone was designed to return to a job that had nearly killed them.

Apparently Palmette was one of those people. She had appealed to Nyquist, asking him for a recommendation to the board, trying to reinstate herself in the Armstrong Police Department. He hadn’t known her well, and was reluctant to do so, but he did talk to the Chief of Detectives Andrea Gumiela about it. His argument was essentially that Palmette, injured in the line of duty, should be allowed to prove herself as an investigator while she went through these evaluations. At least give her a desk job, which Gumiela had. Palmette had contacted him, thanking him for the good words.

Not that it lasted. She never passed the psych evals and was told that if she wanted to remain in law enforcement, she had to take the desk version of an investigative job. That was when the Special Administrator came up, and she had taken that, hoping it would lead to something better.

Apparently it hadn’t.

He had to go through a rabbit warren of narrow corridors to reach the back of this building—or section, as it was called. He expected to find an office, with Palmette’s name on the door. Instead, he found a desk crammed into a cubby filled with other desks. Her desk was walled off from the others by a kind of clear material that could be opaqued. She couldn’t even have true privacy.

For such an independent woman, this must have been hell.

He sighed. She wasn’t at her desk. In fact, her desk looked like it hadn’t been used all day. The chair was pushed in, the screen was off, and there were no personal items—no glass of water, no forgotten mug of coffee. There wasn’t even anything in the nearby garbage can—not even a stain or two.

Now that could be attributed to a zealous cleaning bot, but he didn’t think so. The desk felt unused.

There were no other employees nearby at the moment. Those desks, however, looked like they were being used, the chairs askew, jackets or sweaters on the backs of them, a purse still remaining on the floor.

No one to ask about Palmette however. So he did the next best thing: He used his link to ping her. Because she was Space Traffic and he was police, he should also be able to get her location.

The ping bounced back:
Ursula Palmette is in the middle of an important assignment. She will return your message when she has a moment. If this is an emergency, use the emergency link system.

He was surprised. No cop should ever get that message from someone else in the department.

So he looked at her location, and started in surprise.

She was, according to the computer system, sitting at her desk. Working hard, in fact, because he got the same message warning him away. A message that told him how hard she was working.

He delved deeper into Space Traffic’s system, requesting her arrival time that morning, and her movements throughout the day.

She had arrived at 9 a.m, and except for a short lunch break, remained at her desk all day. The system was useless.

Or it had been rigged.

Which made him nervous, given Palmette’s job.

Something quarantined had made it into Armstrong, and now the one person who was in charge of quarantined ships had false information on her job report. Someone had tampered with it.

His heart raced.

Ursula Palmette was in trouble—again.

Thirty-nine

Someone was going to have to coordinate the investigations, and it couldn’t be Armstrong PD because the attacks were Moonwide. DeRicci stared at the giant screen in her office, which had, in effect, become the investigations board. An attack in Gagarin Dome, another in Tycho Crater, two in Armstrong, one in Moscow Dome, and a lot of clones unaccounted for. The governor-general was incapacitated, maybe dying, the council had to vote on her successor, and the other leaders of the Moon were already in hiding.

DeRicci was—once again—the only one in a position to do anything.

She peeked out her office door. Popova was standing beside her desk, listlessly moving her arm as she described the layout of the office. Clearly, the young man standing in front of her was the new assistant.

He looked twelve. Maybe thirteen. Certainly not old enough to grow a beard. He had copper hair and dark skin, eyes so green that they looked like they were backlit, and a strong chin. His face shone with intelligence, which was a good thing.

DeRicci stepped into Popova’s office.

“Rudra?” DeRicci said.

Popova turned. DeRicci had never seen anyone look like the life had been sucked out of them before. Whatever made Popova Popova had vanished, leaving a shell of a person with haunted eyes.

“This is our new assistant,” Popova said, her voice hollow. “Ephraim Hänsel. He’s been running network security, linking the various domes, or trying to. Most places don’t want their private networks linked to a main network. He’s got the highest clearance I could find on such short notice.”

DeRicci was familiar with the work that Hänsel did. She just hadn’t been aware of the man in charge of it. He was good at his job, which didn’t mean he would be good at this one.

“Rudra misspoke a moment ago,” DeRicci said. “You’ll be assisting me. She will aid you in figuring out how to go about some of these tasks, but for the most part, you’ll have to act and act quickly. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, but his voice wobbled. She made him nervous. Of course, she was getting to the point in her life where she made everyone nervous.

Or maybe it was the job.

“Have you ever worked in a detective unit?” she asked.

“No, sir,” he said.

“Any type of investigation?”

“No, sir.”

She wanted to curse, but she didn’t. He wasn’t what she needed, but then even Popova, if she had been functional, would have had trouble with what DeRicci needed too.

“All right,” DeRicci said, already mentally dismissing him from 90% of the work she had wanted him for. “I need you to do two things. I need you to draft a statement to every government in the Earth Alliance, telling them that the Moon has found itself under attack, and warning them to keep an eye on their own leaders. Step up security, that sort of thing.”

“A draft, sir?” he said.

“I’m going to approve this. If I find out you sent it out of this office without my input, you will be in more trouble than you have ever been in your entire life. Do you understand?’

“Yes, sir.”

“Secondly,” she said, “I need you to set up a meeting with all of the security chiefs or their equivalent in the Earth Alliance governments. Work with my counterpart in the Alliance. See if she wants to include representatives from each government. I’ll need this meeting within the hour.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Then he swallowed hard. “Um, which job takes priority, sir?”

She stared at him, then gave Popova a disapproving look. Two spots of color appeared on Popova’s cheeks. Even in her depleted state, she knew that this man would never do. She had also already explained him. He was the best they had available.

“They’re of equal importance,” DeRicci said. “I need both, and I needed them an hour ago. Get busy.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “May I bring in help, sir?”

He was competent enough to know that he was about to become incompetent. That, at least, was a plus.

But DeRicci didn’t want a bunch of new and inexperienced people in her office. She couldn’t deal with them and the crisis at the same time.

“No,” she said.

“I’ll make sure it gets done,” Popova said.

And DeRicci gave her another hard look. Had Popova deliberately brought in someone unqualified so she would have to stay? She wasn’t usually that manipulative, but she was frightened and not herself.

“Thank you, Rudra,” DeRicci said, then went back into her office.

For the first time ever, she felt the urge to lock the door. She knew better than to ask herself if this day could get any worse.

She knew from personal experience that it could.

And that was the last thing she wanted.

Forty

Nyquist sprinted down the corridors leading to the main office of Space Traffic Control. He had already sent a message to Murray Atherton, the man in charge. In fact, much as Nyquist tried to avoid Murray on a good day, on
this
day Nyquist was relieved Murray was on duty because Murray was sensible—and would go off the books if need be, but knew when the rules had to be followed to the letter.

Nyquist suspected this was one of those off-the-books situations.

He was almost there when his emergency link chirruped, then opened. A see-through image of DeRicci stood before him, and it was so real that he stopped rather than run into her.

“Bartholomew,” she said through a clearly scrambled channel, “I really need you. Can you get to the Security Building as soon as possible?”

He hadn’t seen her look this frightened and frazzled since he woke up from surgery after the Bixian assassination attempt. And it broke his heart to answer her. Although he couldn’t do so verbally because there were cameras everywhere in these corridors. He had to send his response on the link.

I’m sorry, Noelle
, he sent.
I’m on an important lead. I’ll need back-up here before I leave. I can be there in an hour or two.

She shook her head. “That’s too late. Thanks, I’ll come up with another solution.”

And then she was gone. He stood in the corridor for a moment, feeling really unsettled. DeRicci didn’t get upset by much—at least not the asking-for-help type of upset.

If he didn’t believe that Palmette was in trouble, he would go immediately. But Palmette had control over a lot of quarantined vessels—the kind that weren’t well monitored—and if this attack was just the beginning the way Soseki’s assassin said, then subsequent attacks could come from those vessels as well.

Nyquist didn’t dare lose track of this part of the investigation.

But he had no idea what could make DeRicci so frazzled.

He sent a ping to her links, telling her he’d be there anyway. Then he hurried down the corridor.

After a moment, she sent a message back.
I have an organizational issue, Bartholomew, nothing more. I just need someone competent since Rudra is overburdened. I thought of you. I’ll find someone. You take care of what you need there, and when you’re done, let me know. I’ll tell you if I still need you.

And that was it. The message ended right there.

It was a typical sent message, without inflection, and yet it seemed curt, dismissive, and filled with hurt. Maybe he was just imagining that.

Everything with DeRicci had been dicey lately, and most of that was his fault. He was defensive and difficult—always had been, if truth be told—and he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to be in this relationship.

But she had cared for him, and she had helped him get back on his feet.

And now that she had finally come to him with something that made him feel as if she respected him again, he had to turn her down. As he ran down the corridor, he wondered if he had refused her so quickly because he was angry at her.