Price of Ransom (26 page)

Yehoshua patted him on the shoulder with awkward sympathy, but it was with relief that he left Gregori to Pinto’s ministrations and followed Deucalion and Paisley off the shuttle. Yehoshua was not quite sure why the captain had sent Paisley along on this expedition, except that the young Ridani woman had been remarkably subdued lately and perhaps Lily thought a glimpse of Concord might cheer her up.

And indeed, as Deucalion led them through the bewildering maze of halls and corridors and concourses that made up Concord—that made up this one small section of Concord, he had to remind himself—Paisley’s face brightened and she stared about herself with infectious awe at the huge murals that ornamented each concourse.

“It be not just ya big,” she informed Deucalion ingenuously, “but ya pretty as well. All ya pictures, and so bright, and so—so many.”

“Concord’s murals
are
famous,” Deucalion conceded. “It was the Temu Assembly that suggested commissioning artists to depict human history and culture on Concord’s walls. A fitting tribute, and a reminder.”

“Ah,” said Paisley wisely. “I reckon you all must be ya rich, as live here.”

“Rich?” Deucalion chuckled. “It’s a rich life, certainly.”

“No. I mean ya credit rich. Like ya Senators on Central. They could have all or everything they wanted.”

“Couldn’t everyone?” He shook his head. “No, I suppose you lived under a primitive economy there.”

“We have free trade,” protested Yehoshua, disliking Deucalion’s tone of voice. “Central’s abuse of trade regulations was one of the factors that caused the revolution. But perhaps you’ve moved beyond free trade here.”

“Certainly not. Where would people find their incentives? But we no longer have the vast inequities in the distribution of wealth that used to characterize that system.”

“Do you mean anyone could live here?” Paisley asked, disbelieving. “Even ya Ridanis?” As she spoke, they passed a pair of people, one of whom was, like the administrator Scallop from Diomede Center, a half-tattooed Ridani.

“Ridanis?” Deucalion looked puzzled, clearly not understanding the thrust of her question. “Of course anyone can live here, given the population constraints on a closed system.”

“Sure,” Paisley breathed. “And glory.” Her eyes shone with the wonder of it.

“Here we are.” Deucalion directed them past a mural of men and women harvesting a field of grain and then off into a corridor on the left that led into a warren of offices. He halted by a wall panel next to a door and keyed in. A moment later the door shunted aside silently to reveal a small room with an elaborately contoured desk and an exceedingly tall, black woman sitting behind it.

Seeing her visitors, she smiled broadly. “Deucalion! Come in. Come in.” She stood up and came forward to give him a hug, then shook hands with Yehoshua and Paisley. Under her loose, half-length tunic, her belly swelled out in the universal proportions of a pregnant woman. “Please, sit down. I’m Kaeshima.” As she turned back to the desk, Deucalion showed them how to lever out and open chairs from the wall. They unfolded into constructions of delicacy and beauty and remarkable comfort.

“You’re well?” Deucalion asked once they were seated.

“Quite well. Now.” Kaeshima sat down and tilted a slender screen so that Deucalion could view it as well. “I’ve done some investigation and on any general channel there is no record of a secure yacht from Zeya Depot or any record of this person arriving at Concorde—not on the regular manifests or even on the reports of traffic into Rehabilitation. I’m digging down farther now. We’ll see if he turns up in classified.”

“You think he won’t?” asked Deucalion.

Kaeshima smiled, her very full lips mocking. “He ought to if he hadn’t shown up here before. But it could be that they’re going to cover his arrival up entirely.”

“How can that possibly be done?”

“Deucalion, I do love you for your naïveté. They leave no trail at all. They just never enter him.”

“But that’s—”

“Not very sociable, I know.”

“Sociable!” Deucalion stood up, as if that action were the only outlet for his emotions.

Yehoshua braced himself for the lecture he saw coming, and was surprised, glancing at Kaeshima, to see that she was still smiling. Her eyes met his and she exchanged a complicitous glance with him.

“That kind of secrecy goes against every principle on which we’ve built our society. It subverts democracy itself. How can they possibly justify—”

“Deucalion.” The gentleness with which Kaeshima interrupted him brought his tirade to an abrupt halt. “Most people can find a way to justify even the most unreasonable actions. I’m just warning you that it might not be as easy as we’d hoped to track down this Hawk. Especially if he’s who I suspect he is—one of the old saboteur network. But if anyone can find him …” She trailed off.

“You can. I know.” Deucalion sat down, not quite meekly. “That’s why I came to you, Kae.”

“Flatterer. And here I thought it was for sentimental reasons.” When Deucalion did not reply to this sally, she returned to the keyboard built into her desk. “In case no reference to min Hawk shows up, which I suspect will be the case, I’m also running a cocurrent cross-check of Rehabilitation, Psych, and Xenology for unusual activity or unexpected transfer of personnel.”

“Can
anyone
access all of this information?” Yehoshua asked.

Kaeshima glanced up, curious. “It’s public.” She looked over at Deucalion.

“They really aren’t from League space,” he replied.

“Ah.” It was comment enough.

“Even classified material?” Yehoshua persisted.

Kaeshima continued to type as she spoke. “Define classified. It’s not as if it’s a private organization with qualifying standards and memberships fees. This is government. There are, of course, privacy restrictions to protect the individual. I can’t nose into your health records, for instance, or find out how you voted. But when a government starts keeping secrets from the people—you and I—who are in fact the ultimate authority”—she shrugged—“Certainly there is classified information. But if one can prove necessity to know and fair intent of use, that kind of information remains accessible.”

“Is that what you’ve done here?”

“No.” She grinned. “I’m circumventing the system. I snuck in the back door. After all, I helped design the current software.”

“But min Belsonn,” exclaimed Paisley. “That be
wrong
.”

Deucalion blushed. “We’re in a hurry,” he said, but the excuse sounded lame. Paisley stared at him. Yehoshua chose not to press him, seeing how embarrassed he already was. They sat for a time in silence, until Kaeshima made a brief exclamation.

“I think we’ve got it.” As if it was a good luck charm, she rubbed her rounded belly. “This may not mean anything, but I have a transfer of Dr. Vespa Tuan Farhad from her post in Xenopsychology to Rehabilitation. Seven days ago.”

Deucalion leaned forward. “Not
the
Dr. Farhad? The one who worked with Soerensen on the psycholingual xenographic correspondence—”

“I don’t know, but there can’t be many Dr. Farhads fitting these specifications. And it is an unusual transfer.”

“Follow that up. I wonder …” He trailed off.

“What be ya psycholingual xenographic correspondence?” Paisley asked.

Deucalion chuckled. “I haven’t a clue. Breakthrough research into language and alien psychology. The kind of work that wins Nobel Prizes. And Farhad was young, especially to be working with someone of Soerensen’s stature.”

“Who be—?”

“Paisley,” Yehoshua said softly. “We have library files on League history on the
Hope
. You ought to avail yourself of those.”

“Yes, min,” she replied meekly.

“This is strange,” said Kaeshima from the desk. “She accepted a transfer to Concord prison, secure level six.” Deucalion whistled. “Temporary assignment, no fixed time limit, her former post pending for her return.”

“Secure level six.” Deucalion shook his head. “Now, Kaeshima, tell me how we can get a message to her without alerting anyone in Rehabilitation.”

Kaeshima smiled, not without sympathy. “Scarred forever by your childhood, my dear. Don’t bridle up at me, Deucalion. You’re the one who suggested it. Well, an old-fashioned, hand-carried note.”

“And how do you suggest I get to secure level six without attracting attention?”

“You could agree to be my baby’s crèche uncle and I might find an untraceable transitory message coded private to Dr. Farhad and ask her to meet you here.”

“Kaeshima,” he answered with some exasperation. “I’ve already agreed to be its crèche uncle.”

“Then there you are. I should have been a saboteur.”

“Please.” He shuddered. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Probably not. How do you suggest I lure the good doctor up here?” This query brought silence from her audience. “It has to be good,” she added, “to move her.”

“It be only right,” said Paisley pugnaciously, “that she help min Ransome, seeing as she be lovers with min Hawk.”

“Lovers? I admit, sentiment is a nice touch, but I’m not sure it will be a strong enough bait.”

“No.” Deucalion nodded. “That’s exactly the right suggestion, Paisley.” Paisley beamed. He stood up and went over to lean on Kaeshima’s desk. “If Hawk is pretending to be a je’jiri, and Dr. Farhad was called in for that reason—if she was even transferred to Concord prison because of his arrival—”

“It’s the only lead we have so far.”

“Then telling her that his mate has arrived—his
human
mate.”

“Je’jiri?
Human
mate?”

“I’ll fill you in later. That she has arrived and needs an urgent and private conference with the doctor. …Try that.”

“
Human
mate,” Kaeshima muttered, but already her fingers tapped rapidly into the keyboard. “You’d
better
fill me in on the rest of the story, my boy, or I’ll make you join up for a season at my soccer club again.”

“I’ll tell you,” he assured her.

She finished and tilted back in her chair, stroking her belly again. Her gaze caught on Paisley. “We don’t see many orthodox here. What sect do you adhere to?”

Paisley looked first at Yehoshua, then at Deucalion, for illumination. “What be orthodox?”

“Your tattoos. And the locks.”

“Bain’t all ya Ridanis got ya tattoos and ya locks?” Paisley considered her own question and shook her head. “Sure, but I seen ya Ridanis here that be only half-tattooed, or scarce tattooed at all. I reckon ya pattern be sore troubled here.” She hesitated, as if at some troubling thought. “Or ya different.”

“Do you mean that
all
the Ridanis where you come from are uniformly orthodox?”

“Sure, if you mean they all have ya tattoos as I do. I never reckoned there be any other pattern but ours.” Her expression grew unexpectedly fierce. “Even if I might have hoped it be ya true, that there be another way for ya Ridanis to live.”

“You mean it was strict there?” Kaeshima’s interest seemed genuine enough.

Paisley drew in her breath. “
I
think min Hawk treated us Ridanis no different than he treated any other soul because he didn’t know no other way.” For a moment her gaze focused on Yehoshua, and he looked away, ashamed to know that he had harbored his own share of prejudices against Ridanis in his life, like most every other citizen of the Reft, unthinking and reflexive. “
I
think,” and here she turned her forceful gaze on Deucalion, “that you would be sore surprised and sore angry at the way us Ridanis be treated in ya Reft, unless you got ya special people you set aside here, as we have never seen.”

“Set aside?” Kaeshima asked. “How do you mean?” And then she interrupted herself. “I’ve got a reply. Goodness, that was fast.”

Deucalion hurried around the desk to stare over her shoulder. “Thank the Mother,” he muttered. “Yehoshua,” he added, “You and Paisley get back to the shuttle and return to the
Forlorn Hope
. Dr. Farhad has agreed to meet with Lily here in this office in two hours.”

Lily was already seated in Kaeshima’s tidy office when Dr. Farhad arrived. She had ruthlessly banished everyone except Yehoshua and Jenny from the office, including Kaeshima and a protesting Deucalion. “I want you as my witnesses,” she had said. “And I’ll need your support.” Jenny, squeezing her hand, said nothing. Yehoshua murmured something incomprehensible, feeling embarrassed but pleased.

The door shunted silently aside and a woman entered. She paused as the door shut behind her to examine the three occupants of the office with a lively, intelligent gaze. Her hands, clasped in front of her, had a smooth, ageless cast to them, relaxed in each other’s grasp.

“You must be Captain Ransome,” she said with a professional’s curt politeness, coming forward to extend a hand toward Lily.

Lily stood, recognizing an authority that, in their current situation, outweighed her own. “Yes. Dr. Farhad?”

“Yes. Your associates?” Still polite, her voice now questioned the necessity of their presence.

“My chief officers: Jenny Seria. Yehoshua Akio Filistia. I think it is important that they hear what we have to say.”

“As you wish.” The doctor shook their hands. She did not avail herself of Kaeshima’s desk but took a fourth chair and sat down with Lily on one side and Jenny on the other, making their group into a tight circle. “Under the circumstances, Captain, I could not ignore this unusual and rather secretive request for a meeting. Right now, I won’t question your motives for secrecy.”

“If you’ll excuse me, doctor, information leads us to believe that your prisoner has been brought into Concord under equal secrecy.”

Dr. Farhad smiled coolly. “He is not my prisoner, as I am not a jailer. I don’t know his status at Concord prison. I only know that he has suffered some kind of traumatic breakdown, and that I have been called in as a consultant. He is now my patient, and it is as his doctor that I am speaking to you now. I’m not interested in any other considerations but his health. That is the sole reason that I agreed to talk with you.” She paused, but it was not to let Lily reply, only to marshal her thoughts. “You claim to be his mate.”