The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (37 page)

Someone must have made a note in his personnel file, because from then on, the bulk of his cases were human-on-human. Crimes he could understand. Oh, he still caught a Disty Vengeance Killing now and then—he’d met Miles Flint on one. But mostly, Nyquist investigated crimes he could understand, crimes that made sense, crimes that were crimes—at least in his book.

Which meant that he rarely sat in the part of the Reception Center that housed nonhumans. Even when he visited Peyti criminals here, they had been escorted to the human wing.

This time, Nyquist had been escorted to the Peyti wing. He had been given an environmental suit that he did not want to wear unless he absolutely had to. He draped it over his arm. The authorities also gave him a mask that he could use in place of the suit, rather like the Peyti did, provided he didn’t stay in their environment for long.

The mask looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in the past decade. He didn’t even want to carry it, but he did, just in case he needed it.

He asked for—and received—permission to see Uzvaan in what the Reception Center called “The Tunnels,” the area between the human section and the Peyti section. The Tunnels looked like they’d been transported from Mars, narrow little warrens that meandered around equipment he didn’t understand.

The Tunnels that he went through were narrow little tubes made of a thick, scratched substance that looked like permaplastic, but couldn’t be. Permaplastic hadn’t been used on buildings since the colonial era. Still, he hated that he couldn’t see through what should have been clear.

His links had been shut off, except for his emergency links, and those had been adjusted to the Reception Center’s systems, which meant that anything from the outside went through the Reception Center first. But if there was a crisis inside the Reception Center, then he’d be among the first to know.

Not that he could do anything. His weapons were gone. The only reason he still had his badge was because it was part of a chip built into his hand, and not attached to any of his links.

He didn’t even have a human guard to take him this deep into the Reception Center. Instead, mouthless android guards with muscles twice the size of his thighs led him inside. He hated the android guards more than he wanted to admit. He found them creepier than some aliens he’d had to deal with over the years.

They deposited him, alone, in a clear round room that looked like it was floating in air. He’d seen the specs for these things but had never actually used one. They were little one-person protective shields. If he knew where the control panel was, he could drive the thing like a spaceship into other parts of the Reception Center—or at least, other parts of The Tunnels.

Instead, he got to sit at a table in what appeared to be a bubble inside an ocean of blue liquid. The table rested on a clear flat floor, that made him feel like he was floating in the center of the bubble—a sensation he didn’t like at all.

And that’s where he waited for another hour, that was where he decided his day was already wasted and so he shouldn’t resent the task, and that was where he felt a small bubble of his own—a bubble of panic. Should there be another attack, should there be some kind of crisis in the Reception Center itself, he was trapped in his little one-person ship, all alone, in that ocean of blue.

After ninety minutes, he found himself wondering if the little one-person bubble was a test of a visitor’s resolve. Because he knew if he stayed much longer, he’d go ever so slightly crazy.

Or maybe not slightly.

About the point where he started to weigh the pros and cons of leaving without seeing Uzvaan, another bubble made its way through the ocean of blue liquid. As it got closer, he saw that the new bubble had a single occupant—a maskless Peyti.

Nyquist assumed that Peyti was Uzvaan. He’d only seen the lawyer without his mask once, that day of the Peyti Crisis. And if Nyquist were being honest with himself, he would admit that he had no real idea what Uzvaan looked like without the mask.

That day, Nyquist had simply been focused on the mask itself—and the bomb it contained.

Uzvaan’s bubble stopped a few meters from Nyquist’s. Uzvaan sat on a chair. Nyquist couldn’t tell if Uzvaan’s arms were bound to the chair or if he was just sitting with his hands pointed downward.

Every time Nyquist had been with a Peyti lawyer, they’d either been standing or they had been sitting at tables working. He had never seen one just sit before.

Nyquist was grateful for his own small table. He had something to rest his arms on. He used that moment to tap one of his chips, so that he could record the conversation. He wasn’t certain if he would be allowed to remove the recording from the Reception Center, but he had to try.

Tiny tubes floated out of Nyquist’s bubble and out of Uzvaan’s bubble. The tubes met in the middle of the liquid stuff.

“Bartholomew Nyquist,” Uzvaan said, his voice as clear as if he were inside Nyquist’s bubble. Nyquist started despite himself. Uzvaan’s voice had haunted his nightmares for a week now. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

And I would have thought that you would sit there quietly, refusing to talk,
Nyquist thought, but didn’t say. He didn’t want to give Uzvaan ideas.

“I actually have to talk to you as a lawyer,” Nyquist said, managing to sound put upon.

“Come now, Bartholomew,” Uzvaan said in that precise way that once won him cases. “We both know I’ve been disbarred.”

“Well, then one of us was misinformed,” Nyquist said. “Surprisingly, none of you clones have been disbarred, at least not yet.”

Nyquist couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He told himself that Uzvaan would expect the sarcasm. Nyquist wasn’t sure if that were true, but he could only pretend so much.

The bastard across from him had tried to kill him after all.

“Hmm,” Uzvaan said. “I would have thought disbarment automatic after the commission of a felony.”

Uzvaan was annoying him just enough to keep him on his toes. Which was a good thing; then Nyquist didn’t have to focus on the fact that Uzvaan had actually frightened him a week ago.

“I suspect disbarment is automatic,” Nyquist said, “but you know how documentation works. Slowly, and sometimes not at all. So, ironically, I need to talk with you about Ursula Palmette.”

Uzvaan made that screechy sound that passed for laughter among the Peyti.

“I don’t give damn about Ursula Palmette,” he said. “Do what you want with her. I’m not her attorney any longer.”

“Yes, you are,” Nyquist said. “You’re the attorney of record.”

“For all I care, that dumb woman can rot in prison. Or be killed by the Alliance’s lovely death penalty.”

Nyquist didn’t rise to that. He couldn’t. He had to play this one carefully, because he suspected that someone else was recording this. Once they realized that Uzvaan no longer represented anyone, this conversation was not privileged. At the moment, it was protected, but Nyquist had no idea how long that would last.

“You need to release her to find a new attorney, then,” Nyquist said.

“How do you propose I do that?” Uzvaan asked. “I have no access to nets here, no way to talk to anyone, and am allowed to interact only with those nameless faceless android guards that even now stand outside my little cell. I see they put you in a cell as well.”

“Is this what cells look like on the Peyti side?”

“No,” Uzvaan said. “This is a step up. I should probably thank you for the short reprieve. When this conversation is over, I go back to my ugly four walls and three squares per day. Apparently, humans run this prison. Because no one bothered to tell them that Peyti eat one large meal per day, and nothing else.”

“Or maybe they don’t care,” Nyquist said. “I’m rather surprised that you do.”

Uzvaan leaned forward, but his wrists—if the joint between his hands and his arms could be called that—remained in the same place. So apparently, he was locked in.

“Why are you really here, Bartholomew?” Uzvaan asked. “It’s not to inquire after my health. You do realize that you would have died with me if somehow the Armstrong government hadn’t blocked my attack.”

Nyquist kept his face impassive. Had no one told Uzvaan that most of the attacks failed? Did he not know that there were hundreds of other Peyti in this prison awaiting trial?

“You aren’t the first who tried to kill me,” Nyquist said. “I doubt you’ll be the last.”

He actually managed to sound nonchalant about that.

“And you hold no grudge?”

“I didn’t say that,” Nyquist said. Hadn’t Uzvaan heard the bitterness? Perhaps Uzvaan wasn’t paying attention to nuance.

Not that it mattered. Uzvaan had finally opened the door that Nyquist wanted him to open. Nyquist could now say they were having a discussion that Uzvaan initiated, a
personal
discussion, not a legal one.

Still, Nyquist couldn’t entirely let the comment about the grudge go. “I can’t say I liked you, Uzvaan. I’m not sure I like any lawyers. But I certainly respected you. I’m the one who recommended you handle Palmette’s case, remember?”

“I do,” Uzvaan said. “I thought it curious, since she was your former partner. I couldn’t decide if you thought I was horribly
in
competent or terribly competent. My ego allowed me to choose competent.”

“I thought you were damn good,” Nyquist said. “I felt a little personal responsibility for Palmette’s version of crazy, and I figured I owed her a good counsel. Guess I was wrong about that good counsel thing. You took the case knowing you personally were going to finish the job she started.”

“I had no idea what she started,” Uzvaan said. “She wasn’t part of my mission.”

Nyquist suddenly hated the clear table that he sat at. Because he would normally have clenched a fist underneath the table to hide the sudden anger that surged through him.

“It was a
mission
?” Nyquist asked. “Really? Because it seemed out of character to me.”

Uzvaan tilted his head slightly. “Some would argue that it was entirely in character. By now you know that I’m a clone of Uzvekmt, I’m sure.”

He spoke as if they were having an intellectual discussion, not talking about mass murder.

“Me, and everyone else on the Moon know exactly who you are and what you came from,” Nyquist said. “Although, I gotta tell you, I’ve never been one to believe that biology was destiny.”

Uzvaan sighed. Nyquist had never seen a Peyti do that, but then again, he’d never spoken to a Peyti in its own environment, without its mask on.

“What do you really want, Bartholomew?” Uzvaan asked.

Finally, Nyquist had worn him down. That surprised Nyquist. He had expected the discussion to take more work.

“I want help with Palmette’s case, but you won’t give me that,” Nyquist said.

“I have a hunch I can’t,” Uzvaan said as if he had no choice.

“A hunch?” Nyquist asked. He decided to listen to each word that Uzvaan used. “It sounds like they don’t tell you anything in here.”

“After I left the Armstrong Police Station,” Uzvaan said, “I was transported here with some undesirables, and some old friends. Since then, I’ve been alone. This is the first time I left my cell in more than a week.”

So S
3
hadn’t contacted the clones yet. Nyquist felt his pulse rate increase ever so slightly. That was good news.

“So,” Nyquist said, making sure he thought through each word, “they didn’t tell you how many people were killed in your attack.”

“No one was killed in
my
attack,” Uzvaan said, and now he was the one who sounded bitter. “You made certain of that.”

Nyquist resisted the urge to smile. Finally, he had gotten an emotional reaction out of Uzvaan.

“I meant,” Nyquist said, “has no one told you about the attack by all of the clones of Uzvekmt. Didn’t someone in the prison tell you about the death toll?”

“They haven’t said anything. I would assume it was quite high. I ran into other of my so-called brothers over the years. There were a lot of us on the Moon. It would have been hard to stop us.”

As quickly as that anger had spurted through him, it was replaced by a surge of elation. Nyquist allowed himself a small smile.

“Every one of your so-called brothers was as successful at bombing as you were,” Nyquist said. It was a bit of a lie. Some outside the domes had succeeded. But Uzvaan didn’t need to know that. “They were also as successful as you were at killing themselves.”

Uzvaan leaned back. His wide eyes closed for a long moment.

Nyquist couldn’t tell if the news devastated Uzvaan or relieved him.

So Nyquist decided to continue.

“I have to be honest, Uzvaan,” Nyquist said. “I never thought of you as a suicide bomber.”

Uzvaan opened his eyes. He moved his head forward in acknowledgement.

Nyquist couldn’t tell if Uzvaan had taken that comment as a compliment or not. Nyquist wasn’t even certain how he had meant it.

“Your life focuses down when you know it will end,” Uzvaan said. “I felt very alive at the end.”

Nyquist hadn’t expected that. “But you don’t feel alive now?