The Golden Way (The Kestrel Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  “People are different,” I said. “It doesn’t mean they can’t understand each other. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to help.”

  She looked at me for a moment, then moved closer and looped her arms around my neck. It startled me a little. I pulled back. After a moment’s hesitation I reached up and patted her shoulder and then held her close.

  She stayed that way for a couple of minutes, then sat back and sighed. She sniffed again and wiped at her eyes. Her tears beaded on my upper carapace. I didn’t wipe them away.

  “The Captain and the crew respect you,” I said. “You’ve made a good place for yourself here.”

  “Yeah?” She said it with a cynical snort and a half smile that wasn’t a smile.

  “Yes.” I looked steadily at her until her eyes met my cameras and the sneer faded from her face.

  “You’re an important part of Rayleigh Scientific,” I said. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  She looked away.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” I said. “It’s true.”

  “I’m not embarrassed,” she said quickly. Then she stole a look at me.

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s not true. I am a little embarrassed.”

  “Maybe you can’t be Erszbet Erdos anymore,” I said. “But you can be Erszbet Zang. Of the two, who do you think Kestrel would miss more?”

  She snorted skeptically.

  “You started off saying we were the same.”

  “No. I said that you and Erdos are similar. I didn’t say you were the same. I didn’t say you were interchangeable, or that one of you was extra.”

  She shook her head, starting to tear up again.

  “Jaemon and the Captain think you’re similar, too. They don’t think you’re the same. They don’t think that Commander Erdos is a substitute for you.”

  She snorted again, elaborately.

  “What would they know about it?”

  “More than you might think,” I said. “Maybe you should talk to them.”

  “Look,” she said, “I get that you came from a run of sixteen thousand identical brothers.”

  “And sisters,” I said. “And gender-nonspecific siblings.”

  “Whatever. The point is you’re a mech. You don’t understand what it’s like to be someone’s creche beta. Someone’s clone. And neither do Jaemon and the Captain.”

  “I think they understand it perfectly,” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “I know Jaemon’s bright,” she said, “No matter how dumb he likes to act. I know the Captain is an all-knowing goddamn Historian, Mister Goddamn Knowledge, but—”

  “They’re clones,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Jaemon and Esgar Rayleigh are both clones of their father, Milos Rayleigh.”

  She goggled at me.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “No,” I said.

  She pointed at the hatch.

  “Jaemon and the Captain are clones? Of the same guy?”

  “Correct.”

  “But they’re nothing alike!” she said.

  “My point exactly,” I said.

  32.

  Lysander Harris and his chief officer, Ahmon Spader, floated above the table in the Captain’s mess, their huge eyes bright, their tentacles relaxed and waving gently. Jaemon and I sat together on one side of the table with Zang. She was eyeing Jaemon and the Captain, who sat in his usual place at the head of the table. Doctor Yaug was in his customary spot at the foot. Commander Erszbet Erdos sat across from me.

  “This is bad news, right?” said Captain Harris. “I know you haven’t gotten the thing back from those lowlifes, not this quick.”

  “It’s news,” said the Captain. “We’ve learned some things. You wanted to be kept in the loop.”

  “Yeah,” said Harris. “I did. What’s the scoop?”

  “You’ve met Commander Erdos? Of Solomon Security?”

  “Yeah, we talked some. I told her if she used to be Zang, she’s all right with me.”

  “Um,” said Jaemon, “That’s not exactly—”

  “Skip it,” said Erdos, waving a hand.

  “We’ve learned some things about our robbers,” said the Captain. “At least, we think we have. Some of them are kind of troublesome.”

  “Whatever,” said Chief Spader. “They get us any closer to recovering our cargo?”

  “Maybe,” said the Captain. “Jaemon, you want to fill them in?”

  “Sure,” said Jaemon. “Commander Erdos, you’ll correct me if I get anything wrong?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Here’s what we know,” Jaemon said. “While we were examining your cargo with Director Harken, some thugs shut down Kestrel, broke into the cargo bay, and shot us all up. They stole your cargo.”

  “We know all that,” said Harris.

  “Sure,” said Jaemon. “Just starting from square one.”

  “Get to the good stuff,” said Spader.

  “Okay,” said Jaemon. “They took off with our cargo, we don’t know where. That’s important. Solomon watches everything that happens aboard him.”

  “So you can track those bastards?” said Spader.

  “No,” said Jaemon. “That’s the point.”

  Erdos squirmed a little and made a face, but she didn’t say anything.

  “We checked Solomon—Commander Erdos did—and there’s no record of these guys.”

  “What do you mean no record?” said Chief Spader.

  “Based on Solomon’s records, they never came near Kestrel. Nobody did. It was just us and Director Harken the whole time.”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Harris, flushing pink.

  “What’s this about no record?” said Spader.

  “Just what he said,” Erdos said. “I reviewed Solomon’s memories myself. He didn’t see any of it. As far as he’s concerned, nobody ever approached Kestrel after Director Harken.”

  “What?” said Harris loudly. He and Spader had both turned bright red.

  “Obviously, Solomon’s memories are wrong,” said Jaemon. “Obviously, they’ve been tampered with.”

  “That’s the most bullshit thing you’ve said yet,” Harris scoffed. “How’s anybody gonna tamper with his memories? They’d have to have somebody—”

  “Somebody inside,” said Erdos. “That’s right. There would have to be somebody in the robbers’ pocket. They would have to be on my staff.”

  Spader and Harris didn’t say anything. The color drained out of them. They just floated above the table, their tentacles wrapping themselves in knots.

  “For real?” Harris said quietly.

  “Yeah,” said Erdos. She looked down at her hands.

  “You know who?” said Spader.

  “Maybe,” said Jaemon.

  “Geez,” said Harris. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  Erdos looked up at him. She had the same tight expression I’d seen on Zang in her cabin. She shot a look at Zang. Zang looked back, expressionless.

  “Somebody high up?” Spader said softly.

  Jaemon nodded.

  “Man,” said Harris. “I don’t know what I’d do if one of my own crew screwed me like that.”

  “I do,” Spader said. “You’d pop a hatch and blast ’em out it with a scattergun.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I probably would. So we any closer to getting it back? You know who your ringer is, right?”

  “We think so,” said Erdos. “And you’re right, it’s somebody high up. Somebody I trusted.”

  “There’s more to it,” Jaemon said. “The guy’s a chaplain in the Church of the Makers.”

  “So?” said Spader. “What of it? Priests don’t get bent?”

  “That’s not the point,” said Jaemon. “The point is that the Church is powerful. And there’s a possibility they might actually be involved.”

  “The Church of the Makers stole our cargo?” Harris scoffed.

  Doctor Yaug leaned forward, startli
ng the Lambertans.

  “It may not be that simple,” he said. “The thing to remember about the Church is that it’s not a single, monolithic entity.”

  “What are you talking about ‘monolithic entity?’” said Spader.

  “What I mean is, operatives of the Church might be involved in this theft. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Church itself is.”

  “So you’re saying, what, our robbers are priests gone wild?” said Harris.

  Laughter bubbled around the table.

  “What?” said Harris. “That’s not funny.”

  He swiveled from side to side, glaring at us.

  “It’s a little funny, Sandy,” said Spader.

  “I’m saying,” said Yaug, “That the Church has many special directorates. Some of them have covert action teams. They don’t all know what each other are up to. Even the Gray Cities probably don’t know what they’re all up to.”

  “What’s that all supposed to mean?” said Harris. “It’s the Church but it’s not the Church?”

  “It’s not that complicated,” said Captain Rayleigh. “Well, okay, it might be complicated, but it’s not that hard to understand. The Church of the Makers is five thousand years old. It’s ruled big chunks of the solar system for that whole time, either by direct rule or by involving itself in the affairs of local governments. It has the Sacred Host, and that’s one of the largest militaries in history, but most of the time it doesn’t accomplish its aims by main force. Most of the time it uses more indirect means.”

  “You mean spies,” said Spader.

  Jaemon said, “Diplomats and advisors and trade representatives and negotiators and...”

  “So spies,” said Spader.

  Jaemon grinned. “Sure,” he said.

  “You don’t think the main Church knows what their own guys are doing?” said Harris.

  “The main Church isn’t one person,” said the Captain. “It’s a lot of people. They each have their own fiefdoms and their own agendas. The Primate’s job is to make it look like it’s all one big happy Church, but it isn’t. It never was. Maybe the Church is involved in the robbery and maybe it isn’t. If it’s involved, maybe it’s some kind of official operation, and maybe it isn’t. We may never know. Even if we find out for sure, we probably can’t prove much.”

  “Swell,” said Harris.

  “So you’re saying we’re not going to get our cargo back by suing the Church’s ass,” said Spader.

  “I think that’s a given,” said Jaemon. “Even if we could absolutely prove the Church took the cargo and that it was an official operation, I’m not sure how we could get them into a legitimate court.”

  “Have your Consortium do it,” said Harris. “What else is it for? The Church grabbed something off a Jovian ship, didn’t they?”

  “That’s not how it works,” said Jaemon. “The Consortium’s job is to defend member holdings, not to gallop all over the solar system bailing out foreign traders. Even if the foreign traders are on Jovian ships.”

  “What’s Solomon for, then?” said Spader. “Or the other dreadnoughts? Why do they drift all over the system all the time if it’s not to go after your enemies?”

  “Their job is simple,” said Captain Rayleigh. “It’s to be big and scary and all around you. So whenever you think about attacking Jovians somewhere you have to be worried about what the dreadnoughts might do.”

  “So intimidation,” said Harris.

  “Basically,” said Jaemon. “Yeah. Plus working a dreadnought gives member troops something to do besides making trouble at home.”

  “To further complicate things,” said the Captain, “one side effect of using covert action teams is that you can never really be sure what they’re up to.”

  “So they might be rogues after all?” said Harris.

  “They might,” said the Captain. “Even assuming we could prove the people behind our robbery were covert Church operatives, we don’t have any way to prove they were acting on orders.”

  “Well, this is all just swell,” said Spader.

  “You called us in here to say you’re giving up, right?” said Harris. The red was starting to come back in his complexion. “It’s time to talk compensation, right?”

  “That’s up to you, Sandy,” said the Captain. “We’re not giving up until you tell us to.”

  “What?” said Harris. “You’re still going after this thing?”

  “They shot us up on our own ship, Sandy,” said Jaemon. For once he wasn’t smiling. “Nobody here wants to let that go.”

  “They’ve got a goddamn mole on my goddamn staff,” said Erdos. “I’m sure as hell not going to let that go.”

  “We can give up on your artifact if you want us to,” said Captain Rayleigh. “And we can talk about compensation for breach of contract, but it’ll have to wait until we’re done with this. We’re going after these guys. I’d rather have you with us, but that’s up to you.”

  “You’re going after them how?” said Harris. “You just got done explaining to me how you don’t know anything, you can’t prove anything, and if you did, you couldn’t do anything.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said the Captain.

  “Jaemon did,” said Spader.

  “No,” said Jaemon. “I said there wasn’t a lot we could do legally.”

  He grinned.

  “So what’s it gonna be, Sandy?” he said. “In or out?”

  Spader flushed red and started to speak, but Harris touched him with a tentacle. Spader swiveled in the air to look at his captain.

  Harris was red, too, but not as florid as Spader. He blinked a couple of times.

  “We’re in,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

  33.

  “What next?” said Captain Harris.

  Both he and Chief Spader had settled down some. Their color was pinkish. Their dermal speech patterns were small, but high-contrast. Their skin was bumpy. Translation made their voices sound tense.

  “Go after your mole?” Harris said, gesturing at Commander Erdos. “Do you know who it is?”

  “Harken says it’s Gebre Isaac,” said Erdos. “My customs chief.”

  “Customs, eh?” said Spader. “I never trust those guys. Too many temptations in a job like that.”

  “We’re still not sure it’s him,” said Jaemon. “Harken isn’t exactly the most reliable informant I’ve ever talked to.”

  “It looks pretty bad, though,” said Zang. She spoke softly.

  “You all right?” said Harris. “You sound a little funny.”

  “Fine,” said Zang.

  “Zang’s right,” said Erdos. “It looks bad for Isaac. He’s disappeared. Somebody killed Harken and before they did it they wiped her archive.”

  “Wiped her archive?” said Spader. “That’s cold. How the hell did they do that?”

  “That’s part of why it looks bad for Isaac,” said Jaemon. “Any old joe off the street can’t just walk in and order an archive wiped.”

  “Matter of fact,” said Erdos, “That’s got me worried. I’m not sure I could have an archive wiped. I think the techs would fight me on it. It makes me wonder if Harken’s bullshitting us.”

  “You’re saying you don’t have enough authority to get it done?” said Harris. “So who does?”

  Erdos looked at Zang.

  Zang slammed her fist down on the table.

  “No goddamn way!” she shouted.

  “I agree,” said Erdos. She scowled uncomfortably. “But you have to admit, it’s the obvious question.”

  “What is?” said Jaemon.

  “My father,” said Erdos.

  “Who’s your father?” said Spader.

  “Captain-General Arnim Erdos,” said Jaemon. “Commander of Solomon.”

  “No shit?” said Spader.

  “No way,” said Zang. “He’d never be involved in something like this. Those bastards killed me!”

  Captain Rayleigh said, “Are you seriously suggesting he’s in
volved?”

  Erdos sighed.

  “He’s my father, okay? I don’t think he’d come anywhere near this. But we have to ask the question, don’t we? We’ve got somebody tampering with the operation of Solomon, and it has to be somebody with a lot of authority, because nobody else could do the kinds of things they’re doing.”

  “Listen,” said Zang, “I don’t think the Captain-General could just order a wipe, either. He might or might not have legal authority to do it, but either way, I don’t think the techs would go along without a fight.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Erdos. “But who does that leave? Somebody did it.”

  Zang shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe Isaac’s got somebody in the Archive Office, too.”

  We sat in silence. The color in the Lambertans’ skins slowly faded.

  “Gebre Isaac is the best lead we have right now,” said Jaemon. “The trouble is, we can’t find him.”

  “Simple,” said Spader. “Ask Solomon where he is.”

  “I’ve asked,” said Erdos. “Solomon doesn’t know.”

  “What do you mean he doesn’t know?” said Harris. “He’s supposed to be able to see everywhere, right?”

  “Everywhere public,” said Erdos.

  “Actually,” said Doctor Yaug, “He can see everywhere aboard himself. He just can’t share or act on any information that isn’t public.”

  “You mean he can see us in here?” said Spader.

  “No,” I said. “We’re aboard Kestrel, not aboard Solomon. Kestrel has her own Fabric partition.”

  “Had me worried for a second,” said Spader.

  “Why?” said Harris. “You been doing something embarrassing in your cabin?”

  “Solomon can’t share or act on any information that is privately owned,” said Yaug. “Not without the owner’s permission. And anyway it seems our enemy can give Solomon orders. We think he’s ordered Solomon not to tell us where he is or what he’s up to.”

  “Can we get around that somehow?” said Harris.

  “Not the privacy restrictions,” said Yaug. “They’re built into the Fabric. We can’t change them.”