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

  “Consult,” said Jaemon. “We’re available as consultants.”

  Erdos chuckled.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not. At least you aren’t working for Isaac.”

  “Thanks,” said Jaemon. “And you remind me of somebody I’ve worked with. She was pretty good, as I recall.”

  Erdos shot a look at him.

  “She going to be all right?” she said.

  “Who?” said Jaemon innocently.

  Erdos punched him in the shoulder.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “Zang, idiot,” said Erdos. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She’ll be up in a few hours,” I said. “I have no reason to expect complications.”

  Erdos nodded and looked at the distant bloodstain on the dock.

  “I don’t understand her,” she said after a moment.

  “Who?” said Jaemon. “Zang? Who could understand her better?”

  Erdos shook her head.

  “You’d think, right?” she said. “But I don’t.”

  “What don’t you understand?” I said.

  She was silent, chewing her tongue, staring at the blood.

  “Why’d she leave Solomon?” she said, finally.

  “She never told you,” said Jaemon. It wasn’t a question.

  Erdos shook her head again.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “I waited around for her to be ready, but then one day she was just gone. Not even a goodbye, just gone.”

  “Ready for what?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos looked at him quizzically.

  “You said you waited for her to be ready. Ready for what?”

  “You know,” said Erdos. “To be Erszbet Erdos again. To resume her post.”

  “She couldn’t,” said Jaemon.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She flatlined. She died. When that happened, you became Erszbet Erdos. It wasn’t her anymore.”

  Erdos waved dismissively.

  “Only technically,” she said. “Come on, it was her whole life!”

  Again she shook her head.

  “I just don’t see how she could walk away like that.”

  She frowned, staring at the bloodstain, chewing her lip.

  “You’re worried, aren’t you?” said Jaemon.

  “What?” she said.

  “You saw her drop everything and walk away. What if the same thing happens to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “No way,” she said. “Not a chance.”

  “You’re a copy of her. She walked away. Maybe one day you will, too.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head.

  “Just lose your interest, lose your dedication. Walk away, just like that.”

  “Shut up,” said Erdos. She punched him in the shoulder again.

  “Ow,” said Jaemon. “Lev, help me out.”

  “You need something for the pain in your shoulder?”

  “The pain in my neck, more like,” said Erdos.

  “No, Bucket Brain,” said Jaemon. “Help me explain this to Erdos.”

  “I can’t talk about it,” I said.

  “Why not?” said Jaemon. “You know everything I do about it. Probably more.”

  “I’m Zang’s doctor,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So anything she says to me is in confidence. I can’t talk about it.”

  “Zang told you all this?” Erdos said. She grabbed my arm.

  “I can’t talk about it,” I said.

  Erdos released me and turned to Jaemon.

  “She talked to you about it?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jaemon. “We’re friends. She punches me in the shoulder all the time.”

  He rubbed his shoulder where Erdos had hit it.

  “She told you all that stuff?” Erdos said.

  “Look,” said Jaemon. “You’re right. Her life, her command, it was everything to her. She didn’t lose interest. She left because she couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Couldn’t take what?”

  “She wasn’t Erszbet Erdos anymore. That was you.”

  “Just until she came back,” said Erdos.

  “Like I said, it wasn’t hers anymore.”

  “That’s just some law,” Erdos said. “I was ready to give it back. She just had to say the word. Every day I thought it was going to be my last day.”

  She was heating up. Her face was turning red. She stuck it close to Jaemon’s.

  “You know what that was like? Waiting to have my life taken away from me? It’s everything to me, too, you know. You think that’s easy?”

  Jaemon shook his head.

  “You two are a piece of work,” he said.

  Erdos frowned.

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “There she is, trying to fit in, resenting the hell out of you for taking her life, but too proud and noble to say anything. Meanwhile you’re eating yourself up inside. You can’t stand to give up your life, either, but you can’t tell her to go jump in the lake because you’re just as goddamn noble as she is. Must have pissed you off when she up and left. You were all ready to be a martyr and she took it away from you.”

  “You’re goddamn right it pissed me off!” Erdos said, shoving Jaemon hard. “What the hell was she thinking, pissing away her whole life like that?”

  “And you never once talked to her about it,” Jaemon said. “Never said one word.”

  “What was there to say?” Erdos said. “I was Erszbet Erdos until she was ready to come back. Then I was…I don’t know what I was.”

  “Maybe Erszbet Zang?” I said.

  Erdos shot a poisonous look at me.

  “Anyway, now you know,” said Jaemon.

  “Know what?”

  “Why she walked away.”

  “Why?” she shouted.

  “So you wouldn’t have to, Genius,” said Jaemon.

  Her face went blank. She blinked at him a few times.

  “Well hell,” she said. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  49.

  “Nothing at all about our cargo?” said Lysander Harris.

  We were back in the Captain’s mess, the Captain and Erdos and Jaemon and the two Lambertans, and me. Spacer Mai floated in shepherding a pair of trays that orbited her as she came. She was Kestrel’s only Canine crewman, and a master of the ship’s magnetic manipulators second only to Chief Verge. She darted around the table, floating bulbs of coffee and other drinks to each person’s elbow or tentacle.

  “Where’s Doctor Yaug?” said Erdos, a little too casually.

  “Still in the Infirmary,” I said. “His injuries were extensive.”

  “He going to make it?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “He’s very robust.”

  Captain Harris cleared his throat.

  “Cargo?” he said.

  “Not a thing, Sandy,” said Captain Rayleigh. “I’m sorry.”

  Harris sighed.

  “Not your fault,” he said. His skin tone was a pale brown, almost white. His speech patterns were small and subtle. When translation rendered them into voice he sounded tired.

  “We should have stuck to mining,” he said. “To what we know.”

  “Aw, don’t be like that,” said Spader, the other Lambertan. “You gotta admit it’s been interesting.”

  “Expensive,” said Harris. “It’s been expensive. I’ll admit that.”

  “Listen,” said Captain Rayleigh, “We’ll return your payments. You guys don’t owe us anything on this one.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” said Harris.

  “I insist,” said the Captain. “You paid us for safe delivery, and you didn’t get it.”

  “I can’t let you be out of pocket for all you did for us,” said Harris. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “I thought you were ready to sue Rayleigh’s ass off,” said Erdos.

  Harris turned to look at her.

  “I was just
mad,” he said. “I hate being suckered.”

  “It was your boy Isaac that messed with us,” said Spader. “Not the Rayleighs.”

  “Right,” said Harris. “What happens to him?”

  “He’s on his way to our central holding facility,” said Erdos. “We’ll sweat him. If he knows where your cargo is, we’ll get it out of him.”

  “I thought he was some kind of spy or something,” said Spader. “Don’t they get training or augments or something to help with interrogation?”

  “Lev’s going to help us,” said Erdos. “I’m going to have to talk to the Captain-General about hiring a forensic physician.”

  “Lev should be available for quite a while,” said Captain Rayleigh. He sounded tired. “We aren’t going anywhere. A fusion torch isn’t built in a day.”

  “How long do you expect to stay?” said Erdos.

  The Captain looked at Jaemon.

  “Burrell says it’ll be six months,” said Jaemon. “At least.”

  “Months?” said Erdos, obviously surprised.

  Jaemon grinned.

  “Put ‘er there, partner,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Erdos just stared at his hand and shook her head slowly, but a smile slowly crept onto her face.

  “Message for Commander Erdos,” said Kestrel.

  “I’m here,” said Erdos.

  Solomon’s voice said, “Commander, you are needed at Serra Station right away.”

  “What’s the emergency?” said Erdos.

  We didn’t hear what Solomon said next. He switched to a private channel. Erdos looked blank, then wide-eyed, then angry.

  “Where’s Serik?” she said. Then she swore. She flushed red and swore some more, creatively.

  “What happened?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos seemed far away for a moment, then looked at Jaemon.

  “Huh?” she said.

  “What happened?”

  Erdos waved a hand.

  “They’re all dead,” she said. “Every damn one of them. Makers damn it.”

  “Who?” said Jaemon.

  “Isaac, his flunkies. All of them. Both cars. Shot to pieces.”

  “Who did it?” said Captain Rayleigh. “Do you know?”

  Erdos looked at him and laughed once, without humor.

  “Apparently it was Serik,” she said. “Apparently he shot up both cars just after they reached Central. Then he shot himself in the head.”

  50.

  “Makers in a pot,” said Erdos.

  Serra Station was near the Belt, the divided thoroughfare that traced Solomon’s equator through the heart of the city. Solomon Security’s Central Administrative Office was a hundred meters away, a stolid building in the Accretionist style, looking like a squat coral formation, with a bank of blue-green tube lifts that rose the four kilometers straight up to the Axis District overhead.

  The station was large and open. Clumps of decorative trees and shrubs outlined its grounds. The transit tubes fed in below ground, and several lifts and ramps led from the park-like grounds down to the platforms. The ramps surrounded a wide atrium that admitted daylight down to the level of the platforms, where we stood around trying to avoid the spatters of blood and the arbeiters spraying them with forensic fog. Timur Serik and the other Security officers were sprawled around the place between the creche gurneys that held Gebre Isaac and his gang. The gurneys had been popped open without preparation, not that it mattered. Large bullet holes in the chests and faces of all the occupants made medical procedure irrelevant.

  “Either Serik was working for the same people,” said Jaemon.

  “Or he was behind it all,” said Erdos.

  “You prefer one explanation over the other?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos shook her head.

  “The more we learn, the less we know,” she said.

  “Let’s go over it,” said Jaemon.

  “What for?” said Erdos. “Ailes, come here.”

  A slim uniformed woman with peach-colored skin and dark hair trotted close.

  “Get a crew over to the Archive Office,” Erdos said. “If any of these people are in reconstruction there, I want them guarded every minute until they’re up.”

  “Right, Commander,” said Ailes.

  “See to it personally. Yeong!” She waved at another uniformed woman. “Go to the Archive Office with Ailes. Watch for these people to get up. Make sure nobody interferes. When they get close to done, get squads on them. I want them back at Central as soon as they’re walking.”

  “You want them arrested?” said Ailes.

  “You bet your ass I want them arrested,” said Erdos.

  “What charge?”

  “Conspiracy to commit murder,” said Erdos.

  “Okay, Chief.”

  The two officers glanced at each other and headed to across the platform.

  “Indulge me a minute,” said Jaemon. “What can it hurt?”

  “What?” said Erdos.

  “Go over the facts with me.”

  “Oh, that. Okay, fine.”

  “All right,” said Jaemon. “What do we know? Gebre Isaac, apparently working for someone else, joined your security service and made himself useful for—how long?”

  “Six, seven years,” said Erdos.

  “Where was he before that?”

  “Mars. He was a Red Jovian, born on Mars, but on Jovian territory.”

  “Consular Estate?”

  “Yeah. He’s from Jupiter House. Served in the Home Guard there, then joined the Sacred Host and went to seminary and officer school. Took a posting as a chaplain with with their MPs.”

  “Anything sketchy?”

  “No. We checked him out thoroughly. He was discharged in good standing. They’d have taken him back if he wanted to go. Told me he wanted to see more of Jove, get to know it.”

  “He did okay in your service?” said Jaemon.

  “He was good. I won’t lie. I took him on as a case officer in customs, and in six months he was the most effective employee I had there. When Adrian Bergen decided to leave us, Isaac was the obvious choice to replace her.”

  “Any connection to the Church?”

  Erdos eyed him.

  “Again with the Church?”

  “Well, was there?”

  “A little. He offered to act as a chaplain for the force, and I didn’t see any harm in it. He set up some kind of liaison with the sanctuary in Abercrombie.”

  “He did well in the job?”

  “A little too well, it turns out. He managed to put together a whole little criminal enterprise right under my nose. I never had a clue.”

  “Well, he had help,” said Jaemon. “Don’t forget, he was part of a larger organization. We just don’t know what it is.”

  “You trying to cheer me up or something?” said Erdos.

  “Sure,” said Jaemon. “If it works.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Erdos. “You’re just reminding me that your larger organization is still out there.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Jaemon.

  “What do you mean, ‘maybe?’” said Erdos.

  “I don’t know yet. Work with me, okay? Let’s think this through. So the way it looks is that whoever this is, they put Isaac in place thinking years ahead. They picked a guy with a great-looking record and moved him into place on Solomon Security.”

  “Makers’ snot, I’m going to have to go over every personnel record I have on file,” said Erdos. “And I don’t even know what to look for.”

  “So they obviously had some goal in mind. What? Apparently, from what we can tell, they had Isaac screening all the cargo that came through Solomon, looking for ancient artifacts. They were particularly interested in our creche, and from our interrogations, it sounds like they were looking for somebody specific.”

  “Yeah, Kenjiro Isono. Who, according to your know-it-all brother, maybe never even existed.”

  “Yeah, but Isaac’s certain he did. I’m guessing that whoever’s
behind this must think so, too.”

  “Sure,” said Erdos. “Otherwise, why all the funny business around shipping and artifacts?”

  “Okay, so we’ve got some kind of conspiracy that’s obsessed with a legendary warrior who may or may not have actually existed. And Isaac using his Customs job to screen shipments looking for it.”

  “And he hooked the local History Office into vetting artifacts for him.” Erdos said. “I still don’t know how the hell he did that.”

  “Oh, I should have told you. Harken gave us the scoop on that when we were hauling her betas back to Kestrel.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He was paying her well.”

  “Okay, sure,” said Erdos. “Money’s always a motivator. But what did she need money for? She lives like a damn monk.”

  “She wants a seat in the Lands and Houses,” said Jaemon. “Isaac was paying her enough that she could start to think about buying one.”

  Erdos put her hands on her hips and stared at Jaemon.

  “You’re kidding,” she said.

  Jaemon shook his head and smiled.

  “Cross my heart,” he said, making the gesture with one finger.

  “Well, it makes a weird kind of sense,” said Erdos. “Harken’s definitely a social climber. I never would have thought she’d turn criminal over it, though.”

  Jaemon shrugged.

  “People have done worse for less,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s true,” said Erdos. “Okay, you’ve got me interested. Where are you going with this?”

  “I have no idea,” Jaemon said. “This is what I do when I’m totally stumped.”

  Erdos glared at me.

  “You could have warned me,” she said.

  “It works sometimes,” I said. “He walks through all the stuff we think we know, and sometimes he stumbles over something we missed.”

  “Big-deal investigator,” said Erdos. She shoved him gently.

  “Wait ’til you get my bill,” Jaemon said.

  Erdos laughed.

  “What do you think about Serik?” said Jaemon.

  Erdos stopped laughing.

  “That one came out of left field,” she said.

  “So did Isaac,” said Jaemon.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Erdos. “He did. Makes me want to go upstairs and sack my whole department and start over. Maybe with a new commander. Does Rayleigh have room for another Zang?”