Mark Tiedemann - Mirage

Mia swallowed thickly, aware now of the stinging in her sinuses and eyes and the faint quiver in her stomach.

"I remember turning to see if anyone was covering the Spacers. I saw Bogard retract from around Senator Eliton and head for Ambassador Humadros. Senator Eliton stepped backward-"

"Stepped or stumbled?"

"Stepped… as if he was ready to be abandoned… but he still looked surprised…"

"And?"

"And Ambassador Humadros went down before Bogard reached her. It reversed itself to return to Eliton at the same time I started toward him. Then Senator Eliton… went down." She wiped at her nose, embarrassed. "Excuse me, I'm not-"

"It's all right. This isn't a normal day. You're entitled."

Mia sniffed, then looked at him, suddenly angry. "Am I entitled to fail? I don't think so."

"How did you fail?"

"I did not protect my assignment."

Derec waved his thumb at Bogard. "There stands several million credits of technology a hundred times faster and more alert than you could ever be. It failed."

"There has to be a reason."

Derec nodded. "Exactly."

"But-" Mia caught herself and held back. In an instant she lost the sense of recrimination that had been building in her all day and had nearly overwhelmed her just now. Not entirely, she could sense it still within, but it was at arm's length again, manageable. Perhaps it would get worse later. Perhaps it would come and go for the rest of her life. It was a simple truth Derec had handed her, and it sabotaged the guilt she felt… at least for the time being.

It's not, she thought, so much my failure as it is someone else's success… temporary success.

She cleared her throat. "I see. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Avery."

"Derec, please." He looked at Bogard again. "So the question is, why did Bogard abandon Senator Eliton? You said Eliton had ordered Bogard to protect Humadros, but that shouldn't have made any difference. I need to take Bogard back to Phylaxis to debrief it."

Mia felt herself tighten up inside. She glanced at the robot. "I shouldn't travel yet-"

"You only need to release Bogard from its priority and turn it over to me."

Mia would not meet his gaze. "I-I'm not comfortable with that, Mr. Avery."

"Not-" Derec caught himself when she looked away. "Please understand me, Mia. Bogard has data necessary to this-this investigation. The only way I can get at it is to do a full debrief and reset."

"Bogard is the only reason I'm still alive. I can't-"

"You're in the Auroran Embassy. What's going to hurt you here?"

"I don't know. And that's just it. I do not know. Until I can walk on my own and defend myself, I just-I can't release Bogard to you."

"Agent Daventri-"

Mia shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. A very. I can't. Please don't press me further on this. Maybe in a day or two…"

"There's another problem," Derec said. "Bogard right now is unaware ofa discrepancy in its memory. Its behavior is conforming to its program, but there is discrepancy and eventually the self-diagnostics are going to tumble to it. When that happens, Bogard will hunt it down even if it means tearing its own programming apart to find out what the problem is. Bogard could easily destroy itself. That's why debrief is important. More so because it involves a personal failure on its part."

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Don't tell me anything. Release Bogard-"

"No."

Derec jerked back as if she had slapped him. "How long do you want to wait to find out what happened to Senator Eliton?"

"You can figure that one out," Ariel interjected, returning from her datum console. "The question I want answered is how can a dead diplomat board a shuttle back to Kopernik Station to take passage on a starship bound for Aurora?" "You're sure it's not an error?" Derec suggested.

Ariel scowled. "That was my first thought. But last night when I spoke to Benen Yarick, one of the junior members of the Auroran Legation, she mentioned Tro. I replayed our conversation and she listed him among the fallen. But he was on the list of survivors I had from the embassy comptroller's office. One or the other had to be wrong. Perhaps Yarick only saw him injured, not killed. I checked the embassy transit office and found a passage booking for him on the shuttle that lifted this morning at four-fifteen for Kopernik. I sent a query to confirm his arrival at the station. The confirmation also verified that Tro Aspil boarded the liner Corismun at one-ten local time."

"It could still be an error," Mia said. "It was chaos afterward."

"That's what I want to find out." Ariel tapped a code into her com.

"Trina Korolin."

"Ms. Korolin, this is Ariel Burgess. Sorry to bother you again."

"No bother. What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to make sure everything was still on for tomorrow's meeting and to check a couple of details. The rest of the survivors are leaving tomorrow."

"Yes, I-I'm sorry we're all turning out to be such-"

"No, don't. This was extraordinary. I can't blame anyone for wanting out."

"That's… kind of you…"

"I was curious, though. Tro Aspil has already left. Was there a reason he needed to depart before the others?"

"Tro…" There was a long pause. "You're joking, aren't you? Tro died."

"But I have a transit record for him through the embassy."

"I don't care what you have, Ms. Burgess. I saw Tro die. He-his neck exploded. He bled to death in the middle of us."

Ariel widened her eyes. "I'm sorry. This is an inexcusable error. My apologies. I'm glad I asked. I-"

"When they loaded him into the ambulance, he was dead. He died with his eyes open, Ms. Burgess. I tried to shut them. They wouldn't close, they just kept… staring…"

"Ms. Korolin, please. I am very sorry. This was a transcription error, obviously. Perhaps it was for his remains?"

"No, all the bodies have been sequestered by the authorities pending autopsy. We were told it may be weeks before we can ship them home."

"I see. Well. Thank you, Ms. Korolin. I'm frankly a little embarrassed about this."

"Don't be. I apologize if I spoke inappropriately. I just-it hasn't been easy since…"

"Will you be up for tomorrow? Would you like to postpone?"

"No, not at all. I need to get on with this. If I wait another day, I might change my mind."

"I understand. In that case, I'll let you get back to your privacy. Thank you for your time."

"Thank you."

The connection broke and Ariel turned back to Derec and Mia. "I didn't know the bodies had been sequestered."

"It's standard procedure, Ariel," Mia said. "Even for foreign nationals, They'll be at the Sector morgue, attached to the Reed Hospital Complex."

Ariel nodded.

"So if," Derec said, "Tro Aspil died, then who is on the way back to Aurora?"

"We need to verify that Tro is the one who did die," Ariel said.

"Then," Mia said, "you need to get into the morgue. Normally, I'd be able to get you in, but right now I'm not one of the living myself."

Ariel looked up, almost grinning. "I think I can arrange that."

The Civic Morgue occupied a sublevel, well below the main hospital complex in Reed District. Its innocuous faзade could have been easily missed-a plain metal door with an ID scanner to its right, a plain sign above the lintel. No other vehicles were in the small lot when the embassy limo pulled in.

Derec stepped from the limo and tugged at the hem of the formal jacket Ariel insisted he wear. It did not quite fit and he kept pulling at the sleeves and shrugging as if to ease the tightness out of his shoulders. He had been glad she had lacked the rest of the suit that went with it.

A second door was set into the wall a dozen or so meters from the visitors' entrance, one large enough for ambulances. The space hummed with a deep background noise from above. The place was unadorned-bare metal, struts and sheeting and harsh lights. Derec could not even find graffiti, as if by unspoken agreement no one intruded upon the area.