Final Inquiries (42 page)

"That's still not much," said Stabmacher.

"We're not going into a court of law, sir," said Jamie.

"Agreed. We're dealing with something much bigger than that--our relations with one of the most powerful Elder Races--and with all the other Elder Races as well. If we make an accusation against the Vixa, it must be convincing. Convincing enough that it will stand up against Vixan denials. It must be utterly solid, indisputable."

"We have the evidence we have, sir," said Hannah. "Considering the situation, I'd have to say we've done pretty well."

"Agreed. No question at all about that--but that doesn't solve my problem."

"One thing might," said Zhen Chi. "Having a little chat with Brox's simulant. It's not all that smart, all on its own. If we could cut it off from its links to its base, isolate it somehow, and keep it from dropping into rag-doll mode, maybe we could question it, get something out of it."

"I'm afraid that is no longer possible," said Brox. It was the first time he had spoken in a while, and his voice was not altogether steady.

"Why not?" Flexdal asked.

"Because," he said, "I destroyed my simulant earlier today, as soon as we returned from the government dome."

TWENTY-TWO

DISSECTION

"Back at the conference dome, we saw your simulants quite literally turning on you," said Brox. "They chased you out of the inner conference dome. We could see them continuing to pursue you. Our driver witnessed their pursuit as you made your way to your aircar, and described it to us. We even overflew the bodies of the two simulants Special Agents Mendez and Wolfson destroyed. Kragshmal started threatening us, as well--and as we have observed, the simulants don't act on their own. I recommended to Xenologist Flexdal that I destroy my simulant at once before it could be turned on us."

"And I concurred, very strongly," said Flexdal. "Perhaps I would have done otherwise if I had known the simulant was the, ah, weapon used in the attack, but perhaps not. I couldn't leave the thing running around loose where it could attack my people."

"I must admit that I am quite pleased to have destroyed it," said Brox, "but I am also glad I destroyed it
before
hearing what we all just heard. I can know, and all of you can know, that I acted out of duty, not for personal reasons."

"But it is--unfortunate--that we have lost a potential source of evidence," said Stabmacher.

"I am not sure that we have," said Jamie. "No offense, Zhen Chi, but I don't think we could have gotten the simulant to talk before the evac deadline--and I don't think our Kendari friends would have wanted to bring it along to question on your ship after we left--and I don't think the Vixa would have allowed that anyway."

"It might be things aren't as bad as we think. Maybe our medical and investigative specialists can get more from a dead simulant than a live one," said Hannah. "We should examine it. And we should do it now--before anything else can happen."

"I shot it in the far corner of our compound," said Brox. "The body is still there."

"Ambassador Stabmacher?" Hannah asked. "Xenologist Flexdal? Permission granted?"

"Most certainly," said Flexdal.

"Make it fast," said Stabmacher. "But go get us what we need."

Brox stood guard, weapon in hand, ready if the corpse should suddenly come to life--not altogether unlikely, considering that the simulant was in large part robotic. Jamie set one video camera on a tripod to get an overall view of the scene, and moved in and around getting close-up views with a handheld camera. Remdex and Zhen Chi performed what amounted to a field dissection, emphasizing speed over precise technique. They all wore protective clothing, gloves, face masks, and eye protection. No telling what toxins or acids or solvents might come spewing out at any moment.

And they all watched the clock.

"I gotta say, that was some nice shooting, Brox," said Jamie, looking over the corpse. "I wasn't thinking. I went for the phony head. You went right for the thorax. Were you aiming for the braincase, or did you just get lucky?"

"A little of both," Brox said. "There was a lot of guessing involved as to where it would be on a Vixan body that was this severely modified, but apparently I guessed right. And I might add that I had the benefit of your experience to guide me--and I was not shooting in the midst of a near-riot situation. You did quite well yourself."

"Well, we're both still alive," said Jamie. "That must show something."

Remdex and Zhen Chi were working fast to strip off the false Kendari skin that hid the half creature, half machine underneath. It was a grisly job, but Zhen Chi seemed to be pursuing it with real enthusiasm and was gloating over every new tidbit of information they gleaned on the subject of how to build a simulant. It was startling to see how much of the simulant hadn't really been there at all, how much the creature inside had relied on artificial structure, how much of its interior was given over to electronics of one sort or another.

"Don't get too involved in detail work," Hannah warned. "We've got to hurry."

"I know, I know," said Zhen Chi. "But we might have another murder to deal with if Dr. Subramanian finds out we had a chance at these electronics boxes and didn't grab them." She looked over at Remdex. "I could cut out those two fast. One for you and one for me?"

"Our investigative technists would also be very interested. Yes, please."

Zhen Chi used a cutting laser and sliced the two boxes out of the corpse. Something arced and sparked as the beam sliced through a cable.

"Careful!" Jamie called out. "The simulant is dead, but there are still lots of live power sources."

"Now he tells us," said Zhen Chi, calmly extracting her prizes. She handed them to Remdex. "We'll split these up later," she said.

Hannah checked the time again and swore. "Zhen Chi! The digestive chamber!"

"All right, all right. We've been working toward it. We have to do this with at least some degree of order if we're going to make sense of it later." She stood well back from the half-dissected body. "I wanted to get some information about the rest of the body before I sliced that thing open. From what we can tell, there must be some hellacious acids in those chambers. The stuff might just slosh out and dissolve half of what's left of the body."

"Or us," said Jamie. "Everybody back, and watch out for fumes as well."

Zhen Chi adjusted the cutting laser. She lifted it to her shoulder like a rifle and sighted down its length. "A little off the top," she said, and fired. The beam lanced out and sizzled into the top of the chamber. The flesh twitched and drew back, either simply shriveling in the heat or through some sort of creepy postmortem reaction. Zhen Chi kept firing, moving the beam slowly across the top of the chamber. Suddenly a plume of greenish gas jetted up, and an unpleasantly familiar smell of rotting meat filled the air. A nasty-looking fluid dribbled out, and whatever it dripped onto immediately started fizzing and spitting.

Remdex was ready with a long pole with a hook on the end. He eased it into the hole Zhen Chi had cut, and pulled hard.

The digestive chamber came apart with a crack. Remdex reached in again with his pole--ignoring the plume of smoke rising from the pole itself--and pulled out what looked like a sealed package of some sort. He dragged it over away from the ruined body of the simulant. "Water," he said. "Clean it up."

Brox slung his weapon, trotted away, and came back moments later dragging a flexible hose behind him. A jet of water played on the package. Remdex made sure it had a good long soak, then used a surgical knife to slice it open.

Inside was a Kendari sidearm, the twin of the one Brox was carrying, along with two packs of ammunition for it.

"Well, they weren't done with us yet," said Jamie. "I wonder how many of us would have had Kendari bullets in our guts? How many would they have left alive? They'd need a
few
of us still around to investigate."

"Get some good shots of this, Jamie," said Hannah. "I think we have proof enough to make the ambassador happy."

Except, of course, that the ambassador was going to lose his embassy in another two hours. Even if they got out of this alive, it was possible that nothing would ever make him happy, ever again.

TWENTY-THREE

DEADLINE

They stripped off their protective clothing and left it all next to the eviscerated simulant corpse. No time left to clean anything up, and no point in dragging all over both compounds whatever acids or solvents or toxins that had splashed around. After a hurried discussion, it was agreed that the humans would take the protective package that had been around the Kendari sidearm, plus one pack of the ammo. The Kendari would take the gun itself, and a sample swatch of the material that made up the package. It took a few minutes they couldn't really spare to photograph everything in detail and get their prizes into evidence bags, but everyone was very aware of the clock, and they got it done in good time.

Brox escorted the humans back through the Kendari-side doors and into the joint ops center. Milkowski, Farrell, and Singh were all there, very obviously back on duty, very obviously frantically busy. Milkowski was bellowing in Lesser Trade to whoever was on the other side of the phone. The two younger agents were running through some sort of security checklist. Zhen Chi instantly made a beeline to the human-side doors. Hannah was about to follow her when Jamie pulled her to one side. "Listen," he said. "We might have a problem. I don't know if we will or not--but if we do, we have to decide what to do about it."

"Here? Now? Jamie, there's a lot to do before we get on that ship."

"That's the point, Hannah. I'm not so sure we're
going
to get on that ship."

Milkowski was on a new call, shouting in English, by the time they finished talking. "Yes!" he yelled. "For real. Right now. Yes, the whole embassy staff. No, ma'am. We're not in control, ma'am. If we were, we'd say yes to all the kids." He covered the phone and nodded to Hannah. "Hold it a sec!"

Milkowski listened at the phone, and rolled his eyes, and spoke again, his hand still covering the mike. "If we were in charge, we wouldn't have allowed anyone to bring kids to this madhouse in the first place. No,
we're
not endangering them.
You
took care of that when you brought them here." He took his hand off the mike and forced his voice into a more soothing tone. "Of course you do, ma'am. Yes. No, we can't. Because we can't. Believe me, the ambassador stretched every rule as hard as he could to swing the interns. Ma'am, my hand to God, we would take the younger kids if we could. But if the Vixa board the ship once she's in space--which they have the right to do, and they have the firepower to back up the right--if they board, and find someone whose name
isn't
on the list--well, ma'am, that might cost the lives of everyone on board. We have no choice but to play by their rules. Ma'am. Ma'am! Please! I'm sorry. I have to go. The clock is running, and I have other people I must contact. It is your decision--but the ship can't wait. Have--damn, which name is this"--he checked a list on his desk--"Marlana--have Marlana at the pickup point in by 2050 hours--not a split second later. If she's there, we'll take her. If she's not--we won't wait. We
can't.
I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm sorry. I have to go. Good-bye."

He slammed down the receiver, cursing with rage and frustration. "Damn fool!" he shouted at the phone. "If you're so worried about your child's safety, don't bring her to a place that's likely to become a hostage-taker's swap meet." He looked up at Hannah. "Ambassador managed to get that Weldon kid on the evac list. She worked at the embassy as an intern, and somehow he got them to concede that was official status enough to qualify as 'all and only' embassy personnel--and
then
he stretched the point even harder, and got the other five kids who did intern work. Now I have three more idiot parents of smart kids to contact and explain the situation to them."

"What's the pickup point?" Hannah asked. "Is that job covered--or do you need us for it?"

"Zamprohna volunteered. The pickup point is back in the human residential compounds. He's the right man for the job. He knows the area, and he's got a vehicle. He's whacked-out politically--but, well you saw how he was about his
own
kid. He knows the way there and back. He'll do it right. But two things. One--thank you. You got me off the charge."

"No one got you off anything. You didn't do it," said Hannah.

"That wouldn't really matter to
some
agents I could mention. Including me, maybe. You played fair. So fair it hurt. So fair everyone's going to have faith in the result. No gossip. No speculation. Believe me, that helps a guy like me a lot. Second thing. This, ah, evac list. You two have got a situation. Go see the ambassador. Now. He's in the conference room."

"There's damned little I can do," said Stabmacher. "In fact, absolutely nothing. Less than nothing. I stretched the loopholes as far as I could to add the interns to the evac list. We physically have room for you on board the
Kofi Annan.
But you're not on the list. Officially speaking, you don't now and never have worked for the embassy. The Vixan I spoke with had a particular phrase that he kept using."