Mark Tiedemann: Mirage

"Perfect. you know, if you worked this hard and this well to solve problems and do the right thing, the universe would-oh, hell, what am I saying? There's no profit to be made from that, is there?" She got to her feet.

"Ariel-" Taprin began.

"Ambassador Burgess to you, Senator."

Taprin snapped his mouth shut and paled. He shook his head and looked away.

"My offer to help remains open," Chassik said.

"I'm sure it does, Gale. I'll let you know later what you can do with it."

Ariel felt a slight trembling in her legs as she walked out of his office and left the Solarian quarter. She had badly wanted to tell them what she now knew, how elegantly they had not only compromised her entire position but given themselves away as well, but she did not know yet if that information could be used to her advantage. The parts assembled themselves neatly now. They could not have known that she would recognize the visitor who had left before Chassik had ushered her in to hear the sentence they handed her on her career. They could not know that she held his partner and that Mia Daventri, whom they also did not know was still alive, was interrogating him.

No, she was right to keep it to herself. A name was still missing-the keystone, the node that connected Taprin and Chassik to the man she had recognized as Special Agent Gambel. "Very clever," Mia agreed. "A perfect trap."

Ariel nodded dreamily. It did not seem real, not back in her own office, amid people who knew her, trusted her, and depended on her. She was not letting them down, not Ariel Burgess, not Ambassador Ariel Burgess. That promotion was now a hideous weight. Had she remained only the Institute liaison, the political consequences of all this would never, bad as they might have been, amounted to the catastrophe before her.

"I spoke with Setaris already," she said, subdued. "She wants me to confine myself to the compound. The embassy offices or my apartments. If I go out, she can't guarantee my safety."

"Safety?" Mia said. "You're a diplomat. You can't be arrested."

"I think she was more concerned for the image of the embassy."

"It always bothered me a little," Derec said abruptly, "about the ambulance. Why hadn't they changed the ID markers? It seemed a stupid oversight."

"They wanted it followed," Mia said. "Somebody would have, eventually-probably a newsnet investigator-and it would have led to the same TBI discovery of contraband. It was just a bonus that Ariel found it."

"It's a good assumption that our little excursion there was recorded," Ariel said.

"Traps within traps," Derec mused. "But then, where's Eliton's body?"

"It might never be found," Mia said. "Even if it is and the cadaver in the morgue is announced as a fake, it still points to Spacers."

"How does that follow?" Ariel asked.

"The biotech. Cloning. We only do a little of it here; it's mostly illegal. Exceptions are made for rare blood groups or certain organs with high rejection factors-exotic stuff. But Spacers…"

"Ah. It doesn't explain the switch, though."

"Does it have to? The more layers we peel back from this, the more solid the conclusions become that Spacers were behind this. All it took was one good connection to the black market, and Udal handed that to them. What I don't get is the Solarian's connection."

"Oh, that's simple," Ariel said. "They can use this as a political fulcrum to lever themselves into the dominant position in the Fifty Worlds. For them, this is a perfect opportunity to become the primary Spacer world."

"But the RI," Mia insisted. "They allowed the corruption of a positronic brain. I thought that was a sort of blasphemy to you."

"Anywhere else but Earth," Derec said. "Prejudice cuts both ways. When Chassik offered to le:t me have the RI, it would have been a perfect way to get rid of it before it was shipped back to Solaria. I'm sure they could lose it anyway, but if I'd accepted it, then it would be one more bit of incriminating evidence linking us to the murders. And Chassik could deny all knowledge, since I was supposed to be the legal service for that system anyway. At best, Phylaxis was negligent. At worst, collusive."

"And if they had managed to take out Eliton's personal security and implicate Bogard…" Mia shook her head. "No one would be able to give a credible alternative account. The Spacers set up the conference to kill Eliton and damage Earth's position in all future trade negotiations. It would look like they had tried to make it appear that it was a Terran plot and they botched it."

"What about Cupra?" Ariel asked. "Has he told us anything worth while?"

"He hasn't stopped talking," Mia said. "But it's all verification of what we already knew." She frowned. "With one exception. The head of Special Service is involved. One signed off on everything they did, ran interference from other agents, and encrypted a lot of data under his personal seal. It made sense once I heard it. Someone had to compromise the external security links at Union Station, and since we were overseeing it…"

"You sound dissatisfied with that," Derec said.

Mia held up her hand and counted off points on her fingers. "We have Alda Mikels-the funding, the personnel, and the tech to undermine the RI. We have the head of Special Service-equipment, communications, and security, plus the cover-up afterward. We have the Solarian ambassador-collusion, diversion of legitimate Spacer interests, and the source of the final list of targets."

"That's a guess," Ariel said.

"Are you inclined to argue?"

"No."

"All right. We have all these people, plus a few fringe players-Kynig Parapoyos is an obvious choice for the contraband-and Udal, and maybe even Senator Taprin."

"I'm inclined to think that he's going along with what he's being handed by everyone else," Ariel said. "I've known him a long time. He's not fundamentally a bad man."

"Whatever." Mia shrugged. "But which one is the prime mover? They still all look like parts of the conspiracy to me. Which one came up with the plan and initiated the operation and organized it?"

"Cupra says it's Mikels," Derec said.

"I don't think Cupra knows. Why should he?" Mia shook her head. "Mikels makes a good figurehead for something like this, but the primary? I don't think so."

"Sounds like your One could do it," Derec said.

"At first glance, but why would the Solarians listen to him? For that matter, why would he listen to the Solarians? And why would either of them listen to Alda Mikels? Money? Does Gale Chassik need money? Influence? What could Mikels offer the head of Special Service?" She shook her head. "Something's missing."

"What about Golner?" Ariel asked.

"No, he's just muscle."

There was a knock on the door. Ariel turned in her chair. "Yes?"

Bogard entered the room.

"Your pardon, Ms. Burgess," it said. "I have a question."

"Yes, Bogard?" Derec said.

"I would like to know if your investigation is concluded."

"We're determining that now, Bogard," Ariel said.

"If I may offer my help. I have concluded that the conspiracy is composed of a pyramidal arrangement of persons. Several were hired for specific tasks without knowledge of the whole plan. Tathis Kedder, for instance, and Shor Udal. I imagine that many of the actual assassins knew little of the overall strategy. Above them were Agents Cupra and Gambel, who knew more but still not everything. Their counterparts would be people like Bok Vin Golner. At least three knew the entirety of it."

"We've just reached the same conclusion, Bogard," Mia said. "Our candidates are Ambassador Gale Chassik, Alda Mikels of Imbitek, and the head of Special Service, One."

"I concur," Bogard said. "With the arrest of those three, the entire conspiracy should be exposed. That being the case, I must ask if I may be allowed to resume my primary obligation."