Bitter Angels (34 page)

Kapa.

“Kapa was in the shadows,” she said. “If he was following
orders…I wouldn’t know about that.” She shifted quickly, aware she had made another mistake. Not that it mattered. This woman didn’t matter.
What’s she going to do, report me to the Clerks?

The Field Commander stood and bowed formally.
She recognizes a stonewall at least
, thought Emiliya with a kind of desperate gratitude.

“Thank you for your time, Dr. Varus. I won’t take up any more of it. I don’t want to get either of us in trouble.” Drajeske smiled with a casual mischief that made Emiliya’s blood burn. “I seem to be wandering about without my keeper. I’m sure they’ll catch up with me for that sooner or later.”

“Field Commander?”

“Terese,” the Field Commander reminded her. They had gone onto a first-name basis when Terese had helped glue her to the ceiling.
Glued me to the ceiling! Kapa would have laughed so hard
.

“Did,” Emiliya licked her lips and tried to change her mind, but she had started the question and couldn’t think fast enough to come up with a plausible replacement. “Did Amerand send you?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since we got back.” The commander’s gaze was too sharp, too obvious. She believed she was about to hear something meaningful.

“Neither have I.”

The Field Commander blew out a sigh that ruffled the curls falling across her forehead. “Interesting. Well.” She paused once more. “You know where our base is, I think?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Amerand is likely to have to take up his station with us again right away, especially since I’ve been on the loose, so
if you want to see him before you head back to Hospital, or if you want to leave a message for him…”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Varus.” Terese bowed again. This time there was a hint of acknowledgment in the gesture and the look. She knew she’d been beaten, that she would come away with nothing.

“Good-bye,” said Emiliya.

The Field Commander turned and left without looking back.

It was almost too much to stand. Almost, but not quite. Emiliya was a child of Oblivion. She would keep going. She felt her mother’s rough hand over her heart.
This is still beating
, Mother said, after one of the riots, the first time a friend didn’t come back.
As long as this is still beating, you can keep on going
.

Thinking on her mother’s words, it occurred to Emiliya, oddly and belatedly, that she was free. Her family had been her hostages. They were gone now, probably beyond the reach of the Security and the Clerks. There were those who said the black sky wasn’t that big, but Emiliya didn’t believe that. Her mother would not have started a run she couldn’t finish. She was very thorough like that. So, they were gone, and if she did wrong, if she made a mistake, there would be no one else to suffer. No one to arrest or imprison. No one to execute for the crime of having a rebellious relative.

It touched Emiliya like a faint reflected light. That was what her mother had been thinking. That was why she’d run so fast. Her mother had made sure Emiliya would have the one set of skills that was known to have use and worth beyond Erasmus, and set her free.

She had no money. She had nothing with her but her medical whites and her depleted doctor’s kit. And freedom. It wasn’t much, but she’d worked with less.

Emiliya Varus turned her footsteps toward the port yard.

The area around the port yard was in fairly good shape. Trade from those shipping, warehousing, and related enterprises brought in the money and paid for repair. No one bothered her as she walked down the well-ventilated corridors, although some looked on her medical whites with envy. It had been a long time, but Emiliya still recognized the order of doorways, the graffiti and other signs, some of them subtle, some not subtle at all.

She knocked on the sixth door from the south stair. An old woman opened the door. She had bones like a starved bird and a dowager’s hump that lifted her shoulders permanently around her ears. She and Emiliya stared at each other for a long time. Emiliya managed a watery smile, and the old woman’s sparse eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“You’re Andera’s girl, yes?”

Emiliya nodded.

“Andera’s and…that man, what was his name?”

Emiliya didn’t think for a moment the old woman had really forgotten. “Nikko Donnelly.”

“Nikko, Nikko Donnelly, that was it. Long time ago.” The old woman shook her head.

The old woman pursed her sunken mouth. “I think that’s going to depend on what
he
has to say.” She nodded, and Emiliya turned.

Behind her stood a Clerk, tall and composed in his plain black coat. Cold fear shot through Emiliya and she froze before she remembered she was now on the side of—in the pay of—Fortress itself.

The old woman slipped backward and bolted the door so softly Emiliya barely heard her. She just felt the breeze. Somewhere, Emiliya heard the parakeets chattering, but other than that, the corridor was silent. All human sounds had died away.

Emiliya straightened herself. “Is there something I can do for you, Seño?”

The Clerk stepped right up to her, standing less than six inches away. His breath was warm and smelled of nothing at all. “I have you identified as Emiliya Varus,” he said.

“Yes, Seño?” She resisted the urge to step back.
Have they got you people on drugs now?
It was possible. His pupils didn’t look right even though his eyes sparkled with awareness.

He nodded once. His expression was intense, involved, with her but not with her. “You will return to Hospital and resume your duties.”

Emiliya’s heart stopped, but she managed to work a note of mild surprise into her voice. “Of course.”

The Clerk’s eyes snapped into focus so quickly, she could practically hear the click. “No, I think you do not understand me. You will do this because otherwise we will find it necessary to refine the questioning of Amerand Jireu.”

The Clerk’s focus faded, and snapped back again. “Captain Jireu is needed for other duties, but the law and public vigilance cannot be overlooked, no matter how inconvenient. If he is involved in a conspiracy against orderly trade and the public peace, it will be discovered.”

Because they knew she was his friend. Because they knew that she had tried to love him even if Amerand didn’t know it.

She was wrong when she’d thought they had no hostages anymore.

The Clerk watched her with his alert, intense, unfocused eyes. “You are authorized to return on the
Argos
, leaving from Bay 12 in four hours. Your access numbers have already been verified. You will need only your personal identification and Hospital residency codes.”

“Thank you, Seño.” Emiliya bowed, because there was nothing else she could do.

The Clerk turned on his heel and strode away before she straightened up.

Amerand never truly committed himself to anything—not to jump from one ledge to the next, not to the Security,
not to her, not anything. Not like Kapa, who never did it any other way. That, more than Kapa’s shadow, was why they had never come together. Amerand probably thought he was sparing her, but he was sparing himself and pretending to leave them both free.

But even as she thought this she remembered how Amerand looked at the Field Commander, the new notes in his voice as he promised her help. There was something in that moment so far beyond the shabby loyalties she had known that she didn’t even have a name for it.

Alone in the corridor, Emiliya Varus began to laugh. She laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks and she couldn’t tell whether she was still laughing or weeping. In the end, she straightened up, smoothed down her jacket, and began the walk to the port yard.

“Water I got!”

Crowds formed shifting walls around the water sellers. The Security, dressed in full-body armor, stood on platforms and balconies with their guns cradled in their arms. Some of them looked hard at Siri, but not for long. She’d left her uniform back at base and was dressed in plain work clothes. To them, she appeared to be just another of the garden-variety saints you saw down in the base streets. Probably they thought she was out on some pointless charitable errand. Nothing for
them
to be concerned about.

Another time she might have enjoyed being here. Unlike the rest of Dazzle, this place had life. It was still part of the
same messed-up system, but it was brimming with people doing their level best to carve out lives for themselves and there was an energy, a vitality, in that.

But she kept feeling distracted. The whispering wouldn’t leave her alone. It was as if, now that Bloom had made her aware of its presence, she couldn’t shut it off. She wanted to be back at base working her listening station, searching for the hidden frequency. It had seemed so implausible when Bloom had told her about it, and yet…Shawn was so certain. She couldn’t ignore it. She had to prove it one way or another.

And if it was real, he was right—they had to find it, had to open it up. Even if it was just some kind of electronic ghost of Bianca in there, they couldn’t leave her. Even Terese would see that. But Terese would have to be shown, especially after Siri had tried to convince her Bianca might still be alive.

“She might still be,” murmured Shawn. “We don’t know. We won’t know until we find the network.”

Maybe she could find a way to tell Vijay about the network. Vijay would believe her even if Terese wouldn’t. Vijay had always trusted her.

“There.”

As soon as Shawn said it, Siri spotted him. She hated what they’d done to him, even though it made for an excellent disguise. Vijay shouldn’t have looked like he couldn’t stand his own life. It was the opposite of everything he was.

A Solaran thug meeting his woman. She could feel the secops sneer as they looked down, but that didn’t matter, so long as they were only seeing the show.

“Hey, lover,” he murmured, and with his arm still wrapped tight around her waist they strolled up the street. They casually skirted the edge of the thickest crowds, where the shouting would cover conversation and the shifting sea of human beings would keep them from standing out.

“Any news?” asked Siri quietly.

A sly smile spread across Vijay’s face. “Oh, yeah. Your kidnapping seems to have had an unintended consequence.” She felt him slide the sliver drive into her side pocket.

“What?” There were rules about the kind of information that could be passed in crowded places. She and Vijay long ago decided these should be considered as guidelines rather than absolutes.

“Seems Kapa Lu was making fairly regular runs for a smuggling outfit. Out to Habitat 3,” he added quietly.