Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

"Right." Sathen remained sitting. "Thanks, Mr. Avery. You don't mind if I give you a call later?"

"No, I'd be interested to know how this is going." Derec glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of the destroyed room. "This is crazy, isn't it?"

"I haven't seen anything like it," Sathen admitted.

Derec left the hospital, the muzziness of too long a day smothering his thoughts. He let his transport carry him back to his apartment this time while he dozed along the way.

At home, he entered the darkened space, not troubling to call for the lights. He stumbled against a chair on the way to his bed before he finally stretched out.

"Zero radiation…" he mumbled to himself, just before sleep took him.

Mia's hand trembled with the knife as she sliced through the meat patty. The aroma seemed better than anything she had ever smelled before. She had not eaten since before the incident at Union Station and had not thought about it till Ariel asked if she were hungry.

"Maybe I shouldn't say this until you're done eating," Ariel said, "but… I thought you were dead."

"Almost," Mia said around a mouthful of bread. It was warm, fluffy. She wondered if it were freshly made. She did not ask, not about any of it. She wanted to pretend for the moment that it was authentic beef, natural potatoes, garden-grown greens. More than likely it was the same processed, reconstituted, vat-grown molecules everyone on Earth ate except the very wealthy and powerful. She swallowed and washed it down with milk.

"Bogard got me out. I can't go back to my apartment, it's being watched. I can't go-" She laughed wryly. "I can't go anywhere."

Ariel nodded slowly, the crease between her eyebrows deep with worry and puzzlement. "So you came here. Why?"

"Because you have no reason to turn me away and no reason to turn me in. "

"Are you a felon?"

"Victim."

"Risky assumptions, though. I'm Auroran and several of my people, important people, were murdered by Terrans yesterday. People whose safety should have been guaranteed by you. Why would I now trust any Terran?"

"That's a good question. I've been asking myself exactly the same thing." Mia tore off a piece of bread and pushed it through the sauce remaining on her plate. She ate it slowly, not looking at Ariel, and drank the last of the milk in her glass. "Thank you. Now I have to ask: Are you going to turn me in?"

Ariel frowned. "Should I?"

"If you do, you'll never find out who killed Ambassador Humadros."

"You want to explain that?"

Carefully, Mia recounted the day of the reception, the events she remembered just before the explosions, and the slaughter that followed. She told Ariel about the bizarre behavior of the robots, the chase and capture of three of the assassins. She described how Bogard had carried her from the hospital after her room was bombed. She spoke in an even tone of voice, choosing her words precisely, the way she would if giving an oral report on an assignment, as if it had happened to someone else and she was only the investigator. The habit of training and experience helped, kept the fear at arm's length, got her through the entire recitation without a break or a tremor.

"There are several unanswered questions," she said. "Several dozen, actually. But the big ones-who were the assailants, how did they get in through security, where did they get their weapons?-those can be confronted directly. Unfortunately, some of the answers may lead to questions just as large that can't be directly confronted. My conclusion is-has to be-that someone inside the Service is involved. They knew about Bogard, they knew where I was, they knew the only way to get me was the method they used because Bogard could defend against anything else. But they were also eliminating witnesses. They wanted Bogard gone, too. Besides, I can think of no other way security at Union Station could have been compromised so badly. There has to be an insider."

"How do you explain the behavior of the RI?" Ariel asked.

"I don't. Which brings me to you. You have a degree from the Calvin Institute, your specialty is robotics-"

"I'm a bureaucrat-"

"-and you're embassy staff with a stake in what happened. I think you want to know as badly as I do. Plus, you want to know that it won't happen again."

"You're still assuming."

"And you're not throwing me out."

Ariel smiled faintly. "I have some expertise in robotics, true, but that doesn't mean I can solve this for you. For all I know, I won't even be allowed near that system. Besides, there's already someone who has probably been called in to do that. Still… assuming you're right and there's an insider, that means that any investigation will be hampered, crippled, or blocked completely."

"Exactly."

"But that also means you can't do anything, either."

"Not exactly."

Ariel shrugged. "As an Auroran, there's not much I can do."

"You're being modest," Mia said. "As a member of the Auroran embassy mission, you have a primary interest in this investigation. You can make noise, embarrass people, harass them." She smiled. "All things you enjoy."

"Now you're being facetious."

Mia shrugged. "Do you remember when we met?"

"Four years ago, Kopernik Station. The day I arrived to take a job with the Auroran Trade Section."

"I was new on the job then, freshly certified, right out of the academy."

"And the reason they assigned you to the duty was your high tolerance for open spaces."

Mia smiled. "They assumed that included outer space, too, so I spent two hours' shuttle time with my eyes shut and my fingers clamped tight around my seat, not daring to look out the port."

"You were in charge of security on our baggage-"

"-and you weren't going to let me inspect your personal luggage-"

"-and you weren't going to let my bags off Kopernik without a thorough inspection-"

"-and you weren't going to let a human do it."

Ariel was laughing. "I'd met some stubborn people before that, but you were the most"

"After you, that is."

Ariel nodded. "Yes. After me."

"But I wasn't unreasonable, was I?"

"No. You asked what kind of inspection would satisfy me, and I said only a robotic inspection. You agreed. Surprised the hell out of me."

Mia nodded. "So we dragged some poor domestic from the Auroran section of the station over to do the inspection. I told it what specifically I wanted to know about, you validated my instructions, and everything else was kept confidential."

"I wasn't used to Terrans understanding anything about positronic robots. I'm still surprised when I find one that does."

"I trusted you."

Ariel raised an eyebrow. "You trusted the robot."

"But I had to believe the claims for them, which meant I had to believe you."

Ariel gave her a sober, assessing look, nodding slowly. "Yes. You trusted me."

"It could have meant my career if you'd deceived me."

"It could have meant your career if you hadn't compromised."

"And you had to trust me that I'd abide by the robot's findings."

After a pause, Ariel sighed. "We trust each other. Then and, I suppose, now. Is that your point?"

"That's my hope."

Ariel's gaze shifted to a point past Mia's left shoulder. "And that?"

Mia turned her head to look at Bogard, standing immobile at the archway between the foyer and the spacious living room. Ariel's robot, Jennie, stood nearby, waiting.

"Bogard? What about it?"

"That's the bodyguard, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Why do you have it?" Ariel asked.

"I'm its primary duty right now," Mia replied. "I had to transfer its priority from Senator Eliton to me to keep it from freezing up. Bogard was close to… what do you call it? Positronic collapse."