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  “I’ll want Hofton reassigned to me,” Ariel said.

  “I think you need an aide in any case. It doesn’t look good to be all alone in your department.”

  Ariel stood. “What level of access do I have?”

  Setaris looked genuinely surprised. “I don’t believe your clearance was ever rescinded, Ariel.”

  “I would like confirmation of that. “

  Setaris regarded her for a long time before nodding.

  “By this afternoon, if it’s not too much trouble,” Ariel said then, turning.

  “Don’t you feel sometimes that you’ve been on Earth too long, Ariel? That certain of their less admirable qualities have transferred?”

  “I like to believe that it goes both ways, Ambassador.” She made herself present a pleasant, innocuous, naive smile, though she did not expect Setaris to be fooled. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to make some calls.”

  Ariel expected Setaris to call her back and retract everything, but she made it to the door without hearing her voice. She wondered then what kind of confirmation she would actually get when she returned to her own office and checked.

  Her heart hammered as she reached the main corridor. Her head still hurt, but for the time being she did not really mind.

  Halfway back to her office she came to another conclusion and entered a general clerical station to call Hofton. An hour later, he joined her in the embassy restaurant at a table beside a bank of windows that overlooked an open air park on the roof of the building. False dawn gave everything a shimmery, vague appearance. Beautiful, she thought, and pitied the agoraphobic Terrans who could not enjoy such a simple, open view.

  “I understand,” Hofton said as he sat down, “that I’m working for you again.”

  “When did you receive notice?”

  “Around midnight. I didn’t bother going to bed. I gather you know something about this?”

  Ariel chuckled. “She told you before she called me. That’s interesting.” Ariel gazed out the window for a time. The trees swayed in a breeze. Somewhere to the east lay the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere northwest was the spaceport. It would be pleasant, she thought, to live on a world where you didn’t have to make a special trip just to see open sky and trees...

  Hofton waited patiently. At some point during Ariel’s reverie he had ordered an iced drink.

  “Sorry,” she said, turning back to him. “To answer your question: yes, I know something about it. Not enough, of course, but it seems we’re being given a chance to redeem ourselves. “

  “At what cost?”

  Ariel shrugged. The question was rhetorical--Hofton understood the machinery of politics better than she. “Ambassador Setaris would like us to render assistance to Mr. Lanra.”

  Hofton frowned contemplatively. “I suppose,” he said, “we have no choice. “

  Ariel flashed a sarcastic smile. “Oh, sure. We have a choice.”

  Hofton looked skeptical, then raised his glass in mock toast. “Here’s to damnation, then. Who do we have to kill?”

  SIX

  C

  oren kept a private office in an old quarter of D.C., far from the corporate warrens of DyNan. He had not used it in nearly eight months. When Looms had asked him to find Nyom, he hired the best cleaner he knew to find any and all eyes and ears. Only a few had turned up, and those had long since been severed at the receiving end. Coren set up a screen to let him know if any new ones turned up, and moved in.

  The neighborhood was undergoing one of its period downturns in popularity. Not a year earlier, it was impossible to find available space here, but now even his own building was nearly empty. He had leased the space before accepting the position with DyNan, right before it had become really popular, thinking that he would go into private practice after leaving Special Service. He had never used it for business other than DyNan’s, though, and sometimes thought about breaking the lease and letting it go. He was glad now that he had kept it.

  He walked through the small reception area and into the main office. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the pole by the door.

  “Good afternoon,” his Desk said. “Please verify identity.”

  Coren sat down and placed his palm against the ID scan on the desktop. He felt a moment’s warmth as the machine explored his hand, body temperature, blood chemistry, and pattern of bone growth.

  “Welcome, Mr. Lanra,” the Desk said. “You have three messages. “

  “List,” Coren said.

  “One from Sipha Palen, one from Rega Looms, and one from Myler Towne.”

  “Who is Myler Towne?”

  “Director ProTem of Imbitek Incorporated.”

  Coren drummed his fingers tentatively on the edge of the desk. “Play Rega Looms’, please.”

  The flatscreen remained retracted--no video, typical of Rega. A crisp tenor voice snapped out of the air.

  “Coren, I’m in Dukane District, code appended. I would appreciate an update on that detail I asked you to look into at your earliest convenience. I’ll be here till tomorrow, then I’m going to--” He paused. “Going to Delfi. I’ll forward the code when we get there.”

  Coren checked the time chop. Most likely right now Rega Looms’ entourage was packing him up to leave Dukane. It would not be a good time to interrupt, especially with bad news. Besides, Coren thought, it would be best to tell Rega in person. He did not want to; for anyone else a comm dialogue would be sufficient. But not Rega.

  “Desk, see if you can get me an update on Mr. Looms’ itinerary for the next three days. “

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Play Sipha Palen’s message, please.”

  This time the flatscreen slid up from the desk top and winked on. Sipha’s face filled the field.

  “Coren, we’ve got prelims on the autopsies. Atropimyfex, an atropine-based neurotoxin. Basic crystalline structure that gasifies on contact with moisture--in this case, the humidity of all those exhaling lungs. It has the same profile as certain beneficial pharmaceuticals, but my pathologist says it didn’t need the camouflage since the rebreather’s filter system wouldn’t have caught it anyway. Baxin is really impressed, by the way. Says this is very sophisticated stuff, high profile. It’s used mainly in terraforming work, suppression of indigenous fauna. Very expensive and not available legally on Earth. Someone way up the chain wanted these people dead. He’s doing work-ups on all of them just to be sure, but he estimates that death came within five minutes of the first seizures. Paralysis in under ten seconds, then gradual destruction of the autonomic nervous system. It starts breaking down, then, and becomes very difficult to trace in a few days. “

  She glanced off-screen briefly. “Nyom Looms is a different matter. She was evidently smart enough to carry her own breather. We found it in one of the couches, crushed. She died from a broken neck. I’m having Baxin go over her for any foreign material--he found some fabric under her fingernails--but he says you can rule out the robot we found. Whoever killed her was still on board; there’s no sign that anyone got out. So we have a suicide/murder. I know that’s not what you thought we’d find, but...”

  She shrugged elaborately. “No sign of the robot you told me about. The only thing we’ve gotten out of there are corpses. No telltale handprint on Nyom, either. This was a very clean break; anyone with the hand strength and the training could have done it. That’s all the good news I have, Coren. I’m sending you an encrypted data package with everything we’ve got so far. Let me know what you turn up down there. I hope you come back up soon.”

  Coren suppressed a mild shudder. A return flight?

  He had not hoped to find the second robot, but if the seals were intact from the inside, then someone had to have accompanied the baleys up. So one of Nyom’s own baleys had committed the crime? It strained credulity.

  But there was a missing passenger... “

  Desk, code a reply to Sipha Palen, use same encryption. Sipha, we may still be looking at a robot, just not the one we h
ave in the locker. The second one got out somewhere, and someone else might have gotten in. We don’t know what the exact procedure is for this kind of smuggling. Keep me apprised of what you find under Nyom’s fingernails. I’m still trying to find my informant. She’s disappeared, of course. I’ll comm you later. Desk, send.”

  “Yes, sir. Message encrypted and sent. You have one message remaining.”

  “Wait.”

  Jeta Fromm posed a problem. Without her, tracking down the people Nyom worked with would take days, weeks. Finding the dockworker, Yuri Pocivil, would be even harder.

  For now, though, he had no answers. Maybe she would contact him, but he doubted it.

  “Desk, do a records search for Yuri Pocivil. Last known residence in the Petrabor District. Now play the last message.”

  Appearing on the flatscreen was a face Coren did not recognize, with a wide brow and short, black hair. Large, moist-brown eyes stared out at him.

  “Mr. Lanra, please forgive the presumption. I’m Myler Towne, current administrative head of Imbitek. You may know our company. “ He smiled slightly at his own false modesty. “I’m familiar with you, of course, and with your record. We’d like to discuss the possibility of acquiring your services ourselves. If you’re interested, please give me a little of your time and we can talk. My code is appended. I hope to talk with you soon. “

  The screen went blank and slid out of sight.

  Coren laughed out loud, then sobered. Surely this was a joke! Or was Myler Towne, temporary mouthpiece for the company that had nearly ruined Rega Looms, so ignorant of circumstances that he thought this was a good and accept able offer?

  It might be amusing to meet with him and see how it goes...

  “Do you wish to send a reply, sir?” the Desk asked.

  “No. Not yet. Do you have that itinerary for me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me see it.”

  A list of destinations within the northeastern quadrant of the continent appeared on the desk surface. He skimmed it quickly, then touched one. Baltimor District. That would be convenient, but Rega would not be there for another two days.

  Still, lacking any other worthwhile possibility...

  “Desk, send a message to Rega Looms, informing him that I’ll talk to him in Delfi. Then find the code for Brun Damik at Immigration and Trade Enforcement. “

  “Yes, sir. Do you wish me to connect you?”

  “No, just give me a location.”

  “Baltimor District ITE headquarters, Level Five, unnumbered private office.”

  “Thank you. “

  Coren leaned back and considered what to do next. Brun Damik would be a place to start, at least until he found Fromm.

  If he found her.

  Time, time, too damn little time...

  He really did not want to speak with Rega. He could put that off for a day. Brun Damik, though...so the man had a private, unnumbered office now. Coren chastised himself for not keeping better track of people he still knew in government service. The trouble was, he had left originally out of a desire to have no more to do with government service, so he was unmotivated to pay close attention.

  Not very professional, Coren. Not very professional at all...

  That was the reason he had bought the Desk in the first place, so he could overlook details like this without losing track of them altogether. He appreciated his Desk--it was the closest thing to full sentient awareness he could afford to buy on Earth, just shy of illegal positronics.

  Illegal, but not unobtainable. Nyom had gotten hold of a robot, had even owned it long enough to name it and work with it under the noses of ITE.

  Spacers kept robots within their own districts. The ban on positronics had many, many holes in it. There were even Terrans who owned robots--fetishists and self-indulgent social rebels who enjoyed flaunting the law and custom, even if only in private.

  Holes Rega Looms wanted to fill in, an ambition that would suffer should his daughter’s ideological treason become public.

  Coren stood and went to the door to his workroom. A sofa sprawled the length of one short wall to the right, a low table before it. An alcove contained changes of clothes. To the left, three sets of shelves held a variety of boxes, bags, and objects--tech Lanra used from time to time, some of it illegal even for him to possess. He absently took a replacement optam from one shelf.

  He locked the door and sat down on the sofa, folded his hands beneath his chin, and studied the shelves. After a time, he heaved himself to his feet and went to a lower shelf. He pulled out a shallow box and placed it on the table.

  He took out a set of images and spread them over the table. Nyom Looms: laughing, smiling, contemplative, seductive, playful, clothed, naked, painted, bathed in light. The kind of pictures meant for one other person, exposed and cloistered at once. Old pictures--Coren checked the dates, though he knew it without thinking--from five years ago.

  One image showed them both, together, holding each other.

  “Frivolously romantic, “ so Nyom had pronounced them afterward, when it ended and she chose a life that discluded him. Disclusion--left out, overlooked, omitted--rather than excluded. She never barred him from joining her, but she did not invite him, either. Probably because she already knew what he would say.

  They had argued, he remembered, and she had left him confused. It had taken some time for him to understand that part of what had hurt her was that he had not made a counteroffer. He had not asked her to stay with him. Coren Lanra did not think that way. Nyom had made a decision--what right had he to ask her to turn her back on her choice?

  On the other hand, perhaps he still did not know what it had been about.

  Beneath the sheaf of images were three small boxes. One contained a silver-and-jade bracelet, another contained a set of rings in gold and platinum, and the third held the receipt for an apartment lease they had shared.

  Coren stared at the pictures, left the boxes unopened, and grunted. This was all--the only evidence outside his memories of their relationship. All that remained of someone for whom he had cared. All he would ever have of her, now.

  “She’s dead,” he said quietly. “Nyom is dead.”

  And then, for the third time in his life, Coren Lanra wept.

  The office of Immigration and Trade Enforcement, Baltimor District, occupied five floors of a hexagonal block near the Trade Mall, where thousands of Import-Export firms kept offices, adjacent to the warehouse warrens that occupied an apostrophe-shaped wedge around the lines of the ancient harbor. South of the District, spaceport facilities filled the upper levels and the urban canopy almost the entire distance to D.C. Passengers debarked in D.C., at Union Station; cargo and its handlers came into Baltimor, through Customs and Dissemination.

  Coren waited outside the administrative entrance, in a small cafe, watching. Brun Damik emerged a little more than an hour before his regular shift ended. Damik walked quickly for a man of his size, but being so tall it appeared to be his natural gait. Coren had some trouble keeping up with him and nearly lost him twice before Damik entered a restaurant.

  Coren watched from the entrance as Damik was seated at a small table near the back of the dining room. When the maitre d’hôtel approached, Coren laid a credit note on his station and pointed at Damik.

  “He’s alone, sir,” the maitre d’ said. He palmed the note and turned his back while Coren, smiling, entered the restaurant.

  He sat down across from Damik, who looked up from his salad, startled.

  “What’s good here, Brun? A little expensive for you, isn’t it? Take must be good this year.”

  Damik’s face lost all expression for several seconds. Then, slowly, a wide grin compressed his features. “You ass. Lanra! How are you?”

  “Busy these days. But I thought I’d make time to talk to an old backstabber. How are your connections these days, gato?”

  Damik laughed loudly and slapped the table once, sharply. “What are you drinking? I’m
off-shift, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m not, so it does. Are you buying?”

  “Of course.”

  “Nava.”

  Damik frowned briefly. “That’s a Solarian drink, isn’t it?”

  Coren nodded. “Tastes like a good bourbon but without the alcohol. “

  Damik grunted. “Very Spacer. Riskless pleasure. Spineless ninnies.”

  Coren shrugged. “Good drink, though.”

  “Expensive. “ He gestured for a waiter and gave the order anyway, including a beer for himself. “What have you been doing, Coren? Still working for what’s-his-name? Rega Looms?”

  “I am.”

  “He pays you well enough to afford good food?”

  “When I have time to eat it. What about you? You’re not still counting canisters, are you?”

  “Not by hand, no. They gave me my own department.”

  “They must be desperate. “

  Damik laughed again. Their drinks arrived and he raised his beer in a mock toast. Lanra tapped his glass and sipped.

  “So,” Damik said. “Pleasantries aside, what do you need?”

  Coren reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small hemisphere that looked like polished foam. He pressed the base with his thumb and set it in the center of the table.

  Damik cocked an eyebrow. “Does Looms know you play with toys like that?”

  “I take it you’ve seen one or two yourself, then. No, actually, if Rega knew what I use in the course of my job we’d probably have a serious policy disagreement. Fortunately, he’s not the sort of employer that pries a lot unless things go wrong.”

  Damik thought about that. “Has anything gone wrong?”

  “We don’t have to be coy now, Brun.” Coren pointed at the hemisphere. “Maybe Special Service has something that can unscramble the interference that’s generating, but it would take longer than our conversation.”

  “You’re not staying for dessert, then.”

  “I don’t think I’m staying for a second drink. I asked how your connections are. I meant it.”

  “I got a promotion, didn’t I?”