Memorys legion, p.37
Memory's Legion, page 37
The conference was in Carlisle. It was the third-largest city on the planet, and fewer than a million people lived in it and the area around it. It was in a higher clime than Barradan and in the northern hemisphere where the seasonal shift made the air cold and the daylight periods slightly briefer. The trees were similar to the ones in Barradan, but with the cold weather, they had shriveled, wrinkled, and gone limp. The dark trunks bent toward the stony ground. The reception and Biryar’s speech had been planned for a courtyard in the center of the mayoral complex, but a storm changed direction as Biryar’s transport left Barradan, and a cold and bitter rain was pelting down from low clouds when he arrived. As his liaison rushed him from his transport and into the mayoral complex, Biryar sniffed the air, hoping to find some hint of the minty smell of wet Laconian soil. Rain on Auberon smelled like nothing. Or it smelled like an open sewer, and he couldn’t tell any longer. One or the other.
The liaison apologized his way down the wide, pale hallway. The change in the weather had come with no warning. They hadn’t thought they would need to shift to the secondary venue—a public theater just across from the complex—until the last moment. It would only take them a little time to have it ready and the audience of local business and government leaders taken there. Biryar swallowed his annoyance and made himself as gracious as he imagined Duarte would have been in his place.
The waiting area belonged to the mayor herself, part of her private apartment. If he would make himself at home and be comfortable…
In fairness, the waiting room was pleasant enough. A wide glass window looked out over a vast, wild landscape. Rough, toothlike mountains rose above the city, halfway lost in the gray of the storm. The rain that struck the window froze there for a moment, then melted and dripped down. When the clouds finally cleared, the landscape would be encased in ice. Ice like a second skin. Ice like a shroud.
His speech was on the importance of maintaining robust trade with the other systems and Laconia’s commitment to keeping the economy of Auberon strong. He knew it by heart. Instead of reviewing it again, he sat on the little couch and looked out at the weather. The door opened behind him, and a man in a crisp white jacket and matching gloves came in carrying a tray with a thermos of coffee, two cups, and a plate of pastries.
“Put them on the table here,” Biryar said. “I can serve myself.”
“You know, Governor,” the old man said as he placed the thermos and cups on the table at Biryar’s side, “I have got to give it to your security people. I’ve been trying to see you for a while now, and they’ve got your place buttoned up tighter than a horsefly’s asshole.”
The old man smiled. Even before Biryar registered the glint of metal between the man’s cuff and his glove, he remembered the thin mustache.
He’s come to kill me, Biryar thought, and a thrill ran through him. He felt the weight of the sidearm on his hip, even as he sensed that a gun probably wasn’t going to help. He knew enough killers to know that he wasn’t one, and that the man facing him was. He nodded solemnly.
“I was wondering if I’d see you again. You’ve been hard to find as well.”
The one-armed man sat down across from him and spoke as he plucked off his gloves. “Well, I was worried that we’d gotten off on the wrong foot. That’s my fault. I come on a little strong sometimes. You want some coffee?”
“Cream, please,” Biryar said. His heart was tapping against his ribs like it was desperate for his attention. He let his hand casually drift toward his hip.
The one-armed man’s voice was harder. “If you pull that gun, it’ll mean we’re having the worst version of this conversation. Honest to Pete, you’ll wish you hadn’t. No sweetener?”
“No,” Biryar said. He let his hand drop to the sofa, near his holster but motionless. It was dangerous to move forward, but he wasn’t going to give up ground either. He imagined pulling the gun and firing. How quickly could he do that? How long could it take? The rest of his life, maybe. “Just cream.”
“Good choice. I like it black myself. The older I get, the more bitter shit suits me. You ever feel like that?”
“Sometimes,” Biryar said.
The man held out a coffee cup on a saucer, and Biryar nodded toward the table. He wouldn’t take it. The old man was holding it with his prosthetic hand. How fast was the mechanism? What weapons were concealed in it? It was like watching a snake that he knew was venomous, and wondering how long a bite would take to stop his breath.
“What can I do for you?” Biryar said, trying desperately to make the words sound casual. As if he were in control. “Or are you here to make good on your threat?”
“Nah, we’re past that. But I am here on business, as it were,” the man said, putting the coffee cup down on the table. “I have something for you. Kind of a peace offering.”
“I didn’t know peace was an option between us. I was hoping to have you tried, sentenced, and executed.” The provocation struck home. The man smoothed his mustache. Biryar knew he shouldn’t have said it, but the fear was shifting in him. Turning to something like courage. Or anger. Or a mad, dark, rushing hope that Biryar didn’t wholly understand.
“I get that. But let me ask you something. Hypothetically, there’s someone in your organization. Laconian, not one of ours. Let’s say they’re making up projects in your name, using them to falsify work orders. Fudging the budget. That’s a problem for you, right?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I do. But I’d like to hear you say it just the same. If it’s not a problem.”
The one-armed man looked distracted by the conversation. A few centimeters would put his hand on the pistol. The angle made it awkward to draw. Biryar shifted his weight a little to make it easier, and the one-armed man shook his head like he was reading his mind.
“Misappropriation of Laconian funds is at best larceny, at worst treason,” Biryar said. “One is a prison sentence. The other is death.”
“What about a governor’s pardon? You can do that, right?”
“No Laconian is above the law,” Biryar said. “That is what discipline means.”
“That’s what I thought,” the old man said. His eyes locked on Biryar’s as he drew a handheld from his pocket. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry about this.”
He held it out. Biryar’s gaze flickered down to it, and then back up, ready for the attack. It took a few seconds for what he’d seen to register. Mona Rittenaur. Almost against his will, his eyes drifted back down. The old man kept holding it out, and this time Biryar took it.
The financial records were marked as Xi-Tamyan, and the spreadsheet listed Mona’s name. And monetary amounts. Budget levels and outflows. There were other names, and one rang a bell. Carmichael. The woman whose research had been unfairly canceled. The one they’d fought over. The one-armed man forgotten, he shifted through the files. Mona’s name was highlighted. And the words cooperative government programs. If programs like that existed, he would have known about them. He would have had to approve them. He hadn’t.
The storm had grown worse, the wind so terrible, it was shaking the building itself, making the walls shudder, only it wasn’t any louder. And the beige surface of the coffee was smooth and still. Something else was shaking. Biryar put down the handheld.
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” the man said. “I’m just letting you know that one of your own stepped a little off the path.”
“Blackmail?”
“For blackmail, you need an ask. I don’t want anything from you. I have this information. I’m giving it to you. That’s all. I’m being the good guy here.”
And now it was his duty to tell what he’d learned to Major Overstreet. And it would be Overstreet’s duty to arrest Mona. Biryar would have to recuse himself, so they’d send her back to Laconia for trial. His Mona. The woman whose fingers he kissed in the morning. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to see her sent to the Pens. It was like trying to imagine being dead.
Or he could hide the information, make her scrub away all sign of it. Cancel the projects. Erase the financial trail that led to her. Then, when Overstreet found them, they would die together. His sternum ached like he’d been punched there. Everything under it was hollow. He could hardly draw a breath.
It was perfect. Even if he could pull his pistol and shoot the one-armed man dead, there was still a bullet coming for him. Worse, it was coming for Mona, and there was no way to stop it. He couldn’t even die to protect her. He tried to move, but he was made from clay. He saw sympathy in the other man’s eyes.
“Truth is, if Xi-Tamyan found out about this, they’d probably praise her initiative and give her a raise. Those guys just do business that way. But she’s one of yours, so…”
“Discipline,” Biryar said. There was no way out. The end of his world had come. There was nothing to do but welcome it.
It wasn’t a thought, it wasn’t considered. Like water moving down, it was simply the way things worked. The way they had to be. Natural. Biryar drew the pistol, lifted it to his head, and pulled the trigger. The old man’s eyes barely had time to widen.
His false arm, though, had a mind of its own, and it was faster than either of theirs. Before the trigger came back a full millimeter, the gun wrenched away. The old man cried out, clutching his real hand to his chest. The metal hand held Biryar’s pistol, its barrel visibly bent.
“Jesus fuck, but I hate it when it does that,” the old man said. Then, with heat, “Fuck is wrong with you, kid?”
Biryar didn’t answer. He wasn’t there. Governor Rittenaur, the voice and face of Winston Duarte, didn’t make sense here, and without him, Biryar was like a vine whose trellis had collapsed. He had no form. No structure. He couldn’t even die.
The one-armed man put the ruined pistol on the table, picked up Biryar’s cup of coffee, and sipped from it.
“Okay. I get it.”
“I can’t lose her,” Biryar said. “I can’t stay with her, and I can’t lose her. What else is there to do?”
“They really do a fucking job on you people, don’t they?” the one-armed man said. Then after a long moment, he sighed. “Listen to me. I didn’t lose my arm in a fight or anything. I was born wrong. Something about not enough blood flow. Stunted development. Whatever. It was like a skinny little baby arm. Mostly I just kind of curled it up against my chest here and forgot about it. I did fine. It was nothing big. I kept meaning to get it seen to, you know? Take it off and regrow it from gel? But one thing and another, I just never seemed to get around to it. You know what I mean? People would give me shit, and I’d laugh and say how, yeah, it would be a good idea. But I didn’t do it. Then maybe fifteen years ago…”
He raised his metal hand, rotating it in the light.
“This,” the old man said. “It’s fucking badass. Basically a built-in waldo with virtual intelligence and pattern matching. It’s not networked, so it’s unhackable. And it’s strong as shit. Bends steel. Stops bullets. You know what else it does? Plays piano. No shit. I can’t, but it can.”
“It’s very nice,” Biryar said.
“You’re young yet. I’m not. There’s this thing when you get older where you have to make a choice. Everyone does. You have to decide whether you care more about being your best self or your real one. If you’re more loyal to who you ought to be or who you really are. You know what I’m talking about?”
Biryar nodded. He was weeping.
“Yeah,” the old man said. “I thought you might. I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve never told anyone this, not my girlfriends, not my closest allies. No one. You listening to me?”
Biryar nodded again.
“I miss my real fucking arm,” the old man said. “I liked it better when I was me.”
Biryar sobbed, and it sounded like a cough.
“I don’t want anything from you, Governor. But I would ask you this. Looking at where you are now, and the choices you’ve got? Is there anything you maybe want from me?”
The wind howled, threw a handful of hail at the window. Biryar barely heard it.
“You can’t make this go away,” he said. “Overstreet will find it. He’ll know.”
“He will,” the old man said. “You know. If.”
They were quiet. Biryar felt something happening in him. Something he both didn’t recognize and also knew as well as the sound of his own voice. “Could you have done it? Could you have killed me?”
“Yeah,” the old man said. “Half a dozen times. Easy. But it would have been a risk. I don’t get to pick your replacement, right? Thing about this Overstreet fella? He’s not on his home pitch. If something happened to him, maybe it’d be a good idea to put together some locals to take over the security jobs. People who know the lay of the land. How things work here.”
“If something happened to him?”
“Yeah. If,” the old man said. And then, “Do you want it to?”
Biryar breathed yes.
The one-armed man relaxed and stood up. He put on his gloves again, looked out at the sleet and rain and hail. The half-hidden mountains. “This isn’t just you.”
“What?”
“Don’t feel bad, because it ain’t just you,” the one-armed man said with a lopsided shrug. “There are, what, a couple hundred decent-sized colony worlds with shiny new Laconian governors on them? And this thing has or is going to happen on every single one. It’s the basic problem with religion, be it Jesus or Vishnu or God Emperors. Ideological purity never survives contact with the enemy.”
“I don’t—” Biryar started.
“Yeah, you do,” the one-armed man said, then stepped out and closed the door behind him.
Biryar sat for a moment, waiting for the guilt and horror to come, for his conscience to overwhelm him. Half a planet away, Major Overstreet was probably just waking up. There was time to call him. To warn him. Mona was waking up too, in their bed. Biryar took a long breath and let it out through his teeth. He felt something deep and profound, but he didn’t know what he felt. It was too big to judge.
The liaison came in, and Biryar tucked the handheld in his pocket. The liaison’s eyes widened at the pistol, but Biryar pretended not to notice that it was there. They walked together across a covered bridge and into the theater where his audience was waiting.
Mona felt the hair on the back of her neck go up the moment she stepped into her house and found Veronica Dietz waiting in the parlor. It had been a long day that followed a restless night. Biryar had been in Carlisle, and she never slept as well when he wasn’t on the other half of the bed. She’d wanted nothing more than to come home, take off her shoes, drink some wine, and relax. Finding Veronica lying in wait was like feeling a snake move in her pillowcase.
“Veronica,” she said, feigning pleasure.
“Yes, ma’am,” Veronica said, and then stopped. It was like she was waiting for Mona to say something. The moment stretched.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Mona said, carefully.
Veronica blinked, confused. “Oh,” she said. “I had a request from the governor’s office. I thought… that is I assumed that you—”
“I’m sorry,” Biryar said, coming into the room. “That was me.” He took Mona’s hand, squeezed it gently, and kissed her fingers. “I missed you.”
“I’m glad you’re back,” Mona said. Something was wrong. Or if not wrong, at least very different. She didn’t understand what was happening, except that Biryar was ushering them both to sofas and motioning them to sit. “How was Carlisle?”
“Fine. It was fine. I had some time to think, and I wanted you both here.”
Mona felt a stab of fear, but she took a seat. Veronica lowered herself into a chair. “What’s this about, dear?” Mona asked.
“It’s important that Auberon and Laconia be very much coordinated. In the sciences,” Biryar said. There was something very odd about the way he spoke. He seemed looser. Calmer. Maybe a little melancholy. That might have been more alarming than Veronica’s presence. “So I’ve taken the liberty of requesting a placement at the science directorate in the capitol. And I’ve recommended Ms. Dietz for the position. Transport will be entirely taken care of. Your housing will be in the university complex with some of the best minds in the empire. Xi-Tamyan has already been informed.”
Veronica’s mouth was open. Her face was pale. Mona felt like she’d been spun too long on a swing. She didn’t understand what Biryar was thinking. And then she did.
“Her living expenses…” Mona said.
“All overseen by Laconia,” Biryar said. “Everything will be overseen by Laconia.”
“I can’t do that,” Veronica said, and her voice was tight. “That’s very kind of you. That’s… But I have so much here that I can’t really—”
Biryar raised a hand, and his voice went quiet. Quiet, but not soft. “Ms. Dietz, it is critical to the success of this colony that you understand what Laconian culture and discipline are, just as we learn what it is to be from Auberon. You will accept this position, and you will take the honor seriously. We will be treating you as one of our own.”
Veronica seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. Mona felt something equal parts joy and vindictiveness brighten her heart. She thought she saw Biryar glance at her, a smile ghosting on his lips, but it was gone before she could be certain. His handheld chimed, and he looked at it before refusing the connection. When he looked back up, he was somber. He stood and drew Veronica to standing.
“This position could change your life,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Biryar said, and escorted her to the door. “Please don’t mention it. I hope you won’t think I’m rude, but—”
“No,” she said. “No, of course.”
“Good,” he said, and closed the door behind her. When they were alone, he seemed to sag into his bones, all his muscles gone slack. He turned back to her and smiled sheepishly. Mona shook her head.
