Pushing Ice (60 page)

“But justice,” she said plaintively. “Justice should have been done. They shouldn’t have been allowed to get away with it.”

“They’ve spent every day since worrying that they’d be discovered. I told them I’d concealed the evidence of who was in that EVA party, but I always made it clear that the evidence could be retrieved again, if I deemed it necessary.”

Bella’s mind ran through the implications. “Didn’t it occur to them to kill you?”

“Wouldn’t have helped. For all they knew, I’d told Svetlana, or someone else I trusted.”

“So they’ve lived out their lives in a state of constant worry,” Bella said. “Haven’t we all?”

“It’s lasted a lot longer for those men. It’s still going on.” He scratched at his moustache. “For fifteen years it’s been common knowledge that the Bagley case was open again. I doubt that the two survivors have gone a day since then without wondering when they’ll hear that knock on the door.”

“Why now, Parry?”

He offered her a consoling smile. “You’d have got there in the end, even if you didn’t necessarily like where it took you. Then you’d have been arresting me.” Parry opened his hands in surrender. “Whereas I’ve come to you freely.”

“You deleted a log file, Parry. You didn’t kill Meredith Bagley.”

“I concealed a crime.”

“You did it to help Crabtree — so we wouldn’t lose another three lives.”

“That’s what I’ll tell the tribunal. Whether or not they believe it…” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Let the tribunal decide.”

“I can’t do this,” Bella said.

“Do you want justice or not?”

“Of
course
I want justice, just not… this way. You’ve been good to me, Parry, good to us all. It can’t end like this.”

“It has to. I’ve come to you, not the other way around. The choice isn’t yours, it’s mine.”

Bella felt sick. “What about Svetlana?” she asked. “What does she think about all this?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Oh, no.” Bella closed her eyes, willing someone to come in and take over from her, tell her that she had nothing to fear, that everything was going to work out all right in the end. “I can’t do this,” she said, so quietly that she doubted Parry had heard her at all. But he had.

“Be brave,” he said. “Do the right thing.”

“You’re telling
me
to be brave?” she asked, incredulously.

* * *

In some already resigned part of her mind, Bella knew that she had no choice. She allowed Parry to return to Svetlana for forty-eight hours. As he left the High Hab she gave him her assurance that she would have him called before the tribunal. But two days was long enough for doubts to circle. The case had already lain dormant for long periods since it had been reopened. If Bella were to tell the others that she had drawn another blank and needed time to explore other leads — time that might easily stretch to months or years — no one would have thought it suspicious.

Each time the doubts arose she crushed them and forced resolve upon herself, knowing that she must finish what she had started. And for a little while that was enough. And then the doubts began circling again.

After a day she heard from Svetlana. From her tone of voice, Bella knew instantly that Parry had spoken to her.

“I have to see you,” Svetlana said.

Bella should have refused to take the call, and having taken it she should have refused to meet with Svetlana. But when she reached for the strength of mind to do that, there was nothing there.

“Where?” she asked.

“You tell me, Bella.”

“I have to be at Underhole in four hours — I’m due Skyside. I can meet you in Sugimoto’s, in the plaza.”

Bella was there on time, travelling alone except for a haunt. The haunt was a BI robot stealthed for maximum discretion, a paper-thin thing like a full-sized origami figure. It trod silently beside her, semi-transparent as a ghost image in the corner of her eye, folded into knife-edged invisibility when she was still. Haunts were technology from the last days before the Cutoff, troublesome to manufacture even with the latest forge-vat protocols.

Sugimoto’s was all wangwood screens, ornamental fans, miniature rock gardens and delicate watercolours. Judy Sugimoto had opened the Japanese restaurant in the early years of the transit plaza, content to do quiet business until the population curve ramped through the roof. Which it would, soon.

The place was in its usual state of near emptiness. Bella spotted Svetlana in a corner booth, finishing off a dish of thick-lipped, thuggish
fugu
— pufferfish.

Bella ordered a glass of sake for herself. She had no appetite.

“I know what this is about,” she said, as she settled into the booth. Through its curved window they had a dizzying view of the transit plaza, with its intersecting geometries of maglev tubes and Skyside-bound elevator shafts.

After a long pause, Svetlana said, “I don’t condone what happened to Meredith Bagley.”

“I’d have been surprised if you did.”

Svetlana cast an uneasy eye at the haunt as it folded and changed colour to blend into the seat. “Those men deserve to be punished for what they did to her. But Parry didn’t do what he did to protect those men. He did it to protect all of us.”

Bella sipped at the sake. “At least you accept that Parry was involved.”

“He told me he was. Did you expect him to lie?”

The haunt stiffened at the aggression in the other woman’s voice.

“I only meant that it might be a lot for you to take in,” Bella said.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“Svetlana, I came to see you voluntarily. Please don’t take that tone with me.”

Svetlana pushed a chopstick into the remains of the puffer-fish and shook her head, disappointed as much — it appeared to Bella — with her own actions as with Bella’s.

“I want you to reconsider,” she said at length.

“Reconsider justice?”

“There are other kinds of justice. You know the names now — Parry’s given you that much.”

“Yes,” Bella said carefully.

“Then isn’t that enough? You have one line of evidence from Ash Murray that points to these three men.”

“Ash Murray is dead.”

Svetlana dismissed her objection with a stab of her chop-stick. “No dice, Bella. You can bring him back with one signature on the right form.”

“It still wouldn’t be enough for a conviction.”

“You have another witness now. Parry will testify that he saw that log, that he knew the three men were on that shift.”

“And the fact that he wiped that selfsame log?”

“It doesn’t have to come out.”

“The tribunal would get to the bottom of it sooner or later,” Bella said. “They’d want to know more — how he saw the names, why he didn’t mention it sooner. And even if the tribunal doesn’t figure it out, there’s still the problem of the other two men. They know what Parry did. Do you honestly think they’ll go down silently?”

“They still look up to Parry.”

“If they looked up to him that much, they wouldn’t have killed Meredith.”

“They won’t betray him.”

“Svetlana, he’s already betrayed them by coming to see me. As far as I’m concerned, all bets are off.”

“You’d have found Parry sooner or later.”

The sake nibbled the edge off her thoughts. “Let’s get one thing straight: I have, and continue to have, nothing but respect and admiration for Parry Boyce. In all the years of my exile —”

“Here we go,” Svetlana said, rolling her eyes.

“Hear me out — this isn’t about
you
, Svieta, or even about me. It’s about Parry, and that one lifeline of sanity he offered me. Other people were kind to me — Axford, Nick… Jim, of course — but it was Parry who drove out there. It was Parry who brought me the fish tank. It was Parry who left me with one microscopic shred of self-respect.”

“He trusted you,” Svetlana said. “He came to you voluntarily, so that you would know the truth, believing that you would have the good sense to bury it.”

“From where I was sitting, it looked very much like a confession, as if Parry expected me to arrest him.”

“That wasn’t how he meant it.”

“I can’t go second-guessing hidden intentions. I’m running an investigation. I was hoping to find the man who deleted those files, and to punish him. I can’t stop just because it turns out that he’s a friend, or because he had noble motives.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“Thirteen years in power really taught you very little,” Bella said, closing a shutter on the little window of friendship that had opened up between them. She turned to the haunt. “We’re done here.”

The robot emerged from its camouflage, peeling itself from the chair.

“Bella, please,” Svetlana pleaded.

Bella did not look back. She left the restaurant and took the first outbound elevator.

* * *

“This is a nice surprise,” McKinley said, expressing enthusiasm with an exuberant swish of tractor fronds. The other two aliens present — Kanchenjunga and Dhaulagiri — kept their usual discreet vigil at the rear. “I wasn’t expecting to see you up here again quite so soon after Mike’s revival.”

Jim Chisholm looked at her concernedly. “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?”

“There’s no problem with Mike,” Bella said. “He’s settling in very well, as far as I can tell.”

“The party was an excellent idea.” Chisholm kept his arms folded into the capacious sleeves of his gown. His hair was a little longer and whiter than Bella remembered from the last time she’d seen him, his beard a little fuller and shot through with white at the corners of his mouth, but as always time seemed to pass much more slowly in the embassy than it did in Crabtree. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it down, but I didn’t want anyone to think I might be trying to hog the limelight.”

“That’s all right. I’d have liked to have seen you — there’s a lot we could have talked about — but I appreciate that you had your reasons.”

“I’m sure Mike will do fine, in any case. And I hear that the party was successful in other ways.”

“If you mean Svetlana and me —”

He nodded sagely. “I was encouraged by the news. Let’s hope some small good comes of it.”

“Yes, let’s,” Bella said tartly. It was over, she knew. It would only be a matter of time before the news reached the embassy. A deceitful moment of thaw between two endless winters.

“Perhaps you’d like to discuss the scheduling of another rejuvenation?” McKinley asked.

“Ask me again in ten years.”

The alien formed a half-hearted high-res grid with its optic fronds, lashing them together in the sloppy manner of a poorly made basket. It was McKinley’s signal that she had his attention. “What is it, Bella? Would you like some time alone to talk to Jim in private?”

“That’s kind,” she said, “and an hour ago I might have said yes. But there’s no reason for you not to hear this as well. It would get back to you in the end, after all.”

“Does this concern us, then?”

“Yes,” she said, and felt a wash of dizziness pass over her, the feeling that she was horribly out of her depth, far from home and way off the script. “Forgive me, McKinley. This might be considered indelicate, but there are a few things I’ve been meaning to ask.”

Chisholm cleared his throat. “Bella, let’s not forget that the Fountainheads have never pretended that we’re ready for all the answers. There are certain truths that, in themselves, are as dangerous as any advanced technology.”

“I know that, Jim. I’ve been hearing the same story for years. Maybe I believe it, too. But now and then there are things you absolutely have to know.”

“It would be a mistake to assume that we have all the answers,” McKinley told her.

“But you must have some. Let’s talk about the Cutoff, shall we?”

McKinley’s fronds invited her to continue. “By all means. There’s nothing taboo about it.”

“You’ve never actually spelled this out, but in every exchange we’ve ever had, you’ve consistently alluded to the fact that you made contact with a human ship launched from Triton, somewhere around the time of the Cutoff.”

“That’s what the data tells you.”

“I’m not talking about the data,” Bella said, fighting to hold her temper and nerve in check. “I’m talking about what
you
know. The Fountainheads are a starfaring culture. You’ve been out here a lot longer than we have, even by the standards of the Thai expansion.”

“We have starfaring capability,” McKinley said, as if that ought to settle her doubts.

“Then answer me this: how extensive was your empire, or realm, or whatever you want to call it, when you bumped into the Thai ship? Did any of your kind ever meet any other representatives from the expansion? What about ships that were sent out after the Cutoff? What happened to them?”

His fronds brushed each other in obvious agitation, like the arms of an anemone stirred by some sudden marine tide. “These are problematic questions.”

“That’s why I’m asking them.”

“Our territory is large. It encompasses a volume of space containing many solar systems.”

“Put some numbers on that for me, McKinley. Are we talking hundreds, thousands, millions, or what?”

The three aliens squirmed. Flashes of ruby red and emerald green from their deeper frond layers signalled some frantic exchange of visual signals. “I have always striven to be straight with you, Bella,” McKinley said at length.

“So why can’t you just tell me?”

“Our realm encompasses hundreds of thousands of systems.” His tone became probing. “Why is this of such immediate and pressing interest, Bella?”

“Because it’s odd to me,” she said, “that you only ever chanced upon one ship from the Thai expansion.”

“Would it make much difference if we had encountered more?”

“Possibly.” She shrugged noncommittally. “Then tell me about the Musk Dogs. Do they have a realm as well?” Bella did not wait for McKinley’s answer, for she was certain now that she would hear nothing resembling the truth. “And the other species, the ones you’ve as good as admitted are stashed away elsewhere in the Structure — what about them? What kind of empires do they have? Hundreds of thousands of star systems, like you? Where are all these starfaring species, McKinley? Why didn’t we see any sign of these jostling empires when we looked out into the sky from Earth? Why did it all look so damned empty out there?”