Mark Tiedemann - Chimera

A dinner?" Derec shook his head at the image on the comm screen. Ariel returned his cynical look. "I don't get this," he continued. "Two days ago we were all but persona non grata and now Setaris is inviting you to embassy soirees."

"It gets better," Ariel said. " Jonis will be there."

"Taprin…it occurs to me that you're being used here."

"Really?" Ariel intoned with mock dismay. "I asked Lanra to be my guest. One good surprise is worth another."

"Do you trust him?"

"Of course not. He hasn't told us half of what he's looking into."

"Fair is fair. We aren't telling him everything, either."

Ariel shrugged. "Do you want to take odds on whether the two lines of inquiry intersect?"

"I'm not sure I want them to."

"Well…Lanra asked me if Chassik would be there tonight. I asked him why, and he said it was something he stumbled on."

"Chassik. What could he possibly want with Chassik?"

"I have some opinions. Did you know that Solaria owns Nova Levis?"

"That hasn't come out in the newsnets."

"No, and it may not. They owned it before it was Nova Levis, when it was no more than a Solaria mining franchise called Cassus Thole. The colony-a Settler colony-is a lease agreement that was originally set up between Solaria and the Church of Organic Sapiens."

Derec started. "Looms' church?"

"The same, only back before they were so rabidly antispace. Now, just to heap coincidence upon coincidence, Gale Chassik was one of the initial investors in a biomed research lab called-are you ready?-Nova Levis, which was closed after having been investigated for infant brokering."

Derec whistled. "Convergence is imminent."

"So it seems. How's it coming with the robot?"

Derec glanced across the small workspace at Rana. She stared, rapt, at the banks of screens, calibrating the myriad details of Thales' link to facilitate a precise excavation. The robot itself remained where it had been left, on its pallet, now connected to Thales and Rana's console via several heavy cables.

"I'd say another half-hour, we'll have the interface running at an acceptable level," he said. A small icon in the upper left corner of the comm screen revealed Thales' presence in the exchange, monitoring security and running an encryption routine. Ariel saw the same icon on her end, otherwise she would never speak so freely on a commline.

"Speaking of things robotic," Derec said, "the director here is a man named Rotij Polifos. Do you know anything about him?"

"No. Should I?"

"He's been director for seven years. I was just thinking,, it's kind of unusual for an Auroran to stay in a Terran posting like this for that long. Don't they usually rotate out more regularly?"

"Usually. Maybe he likes it."

Derec frowned. "Maybe. "

"Is there a problem?"

"No, I just…it seems odd, that's all."

"Have Hofton look into it. Keep your mind on the robot, Derec. "

"Right, right. You know, Lanra wants us to prove a robot committed the murders. There's no way, Ariel. Not this one, anyway. It's just a standard DW-12 with a few added modules-nothing I don't recognize-and it's showing a nearly textbook collapse pattern. It couldn't even have made the crack in the cargo bin, not without some tools."

"Oh, I don't doubt the robot you have is innocent. What I'm wondering is, why didn't the robot prevent the deaths? If a second robot had been involved, as unlikely as it sounds, this one should have intervened. Has Sipha Palen told you much yet?"

"No. She wants us to run the excavation without any preconceptions. I can understand that."

"Get it done ASAP. I want to move this to the next level."

Derec raised an eyebrow. "What next level?"

"I'm sending you a packet to go over in private," Ariel replied. "About Nova Levis. Very interesting reading."

"The colony, or the lab you mentioned?"

"Both. The list of shareholders in the lab is intriguing all by itself. Chassik isn't the only surprise." She looked away for a few seconds. PACKET RECEIVED appeared along the bottom of Derec's screen.

"Got it," he said. "Be careful tonight, Ariel. We don't want to be deported for bad taste."

Ariel's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Derec, please! I? Bad taste?"

Derec smiled. "Forgive me. I do know better."

She grinned. "Have fun."

The screen went blank then, except for Thales' icon and the notice of the data packet. Derec plugged his personal datum into the board.

"Download the packet for me, Thales," he said. "I'll look at it later."

"I would recommend sooner," Thales said. "I compiled the raw data. It may be more relevant than you might think. "

"'Keep your mind on the robot,' Ariel said. I'll add it to the list, thanks. "

Lights winked on the datum's pad. He scooted his chair over by Rana. She worked with confidence, clearly in control, comfortable in her expertise. Better than Derec remembered, and he remembered her as being very good.

"I suppose," Rana said slowly, "that it's occurred to you that you're both being used."

"You think so?"

"You're being set up to take blame."

"That would be consistent."

"Then why are you going along with it?"

"It's a question of being deported now or later. The longer we put it off, the more chance there is to avoid it completely."

"You don't believe that, do you?"

"Shouldn't I?" She shrugged. "I suppose you're thinking that you might find something in this mess-" she waved at the screens "-that will make you so valuable to someone that they'll intercede on your behalf and restore you to former glory."

"Something like that."

Rana shook her head. "I can't imagine why. All I want to do is get away from this planet, and all you want to do is stay." She turned to look at him. "Why?"

"We've been over this before," Derec said uncomfortably.

"Yes we have. And you've never given me an answer. Excuses, reasons, justifications, but not an answer." Rana glanced toward the curtain that isolated them from the rest of the lab. "This planet has treated you pretty badly. Hell, it's treated me badly and I was born here; you weren't. I grew up on Earth and I have no place here. I'm leaving first chance I get, to go somewhere I might be appreciated."

"Aurora is just as bad in different ways."

"But it's not personal the way it is here."

"Who told you that?"

"My co-workers, for one. After they got over the idea of a Terran who understood positronics, they treated me as an equal. "

Derec shook his head. "No. You just haven't learned to read the signs."

Rana cut the air with her hand. "Stop. It is different because I have skills they value. Maybe it will be only more of the same in a new way, but for now it feels like respect. I already know what I don't have on Earth. "

"So what is your question?"

"Why are you so set on trying to stay here?"

"You think there's one answer?"

"No, but there's usually one thing that validates all the rest."

Derec stared at her, mind suddenly blank. "I never thought about it that way before," he heard himself say. He no longer looked at Rana, but at a point just past her right shoulder, as if waiting for something to resolve in the air behind her.

"I don't need an answer now, boss," Rana said. He refocussed on her.

"Um…"

"And I can manage this," she said, turning back to the console.

Conversation abruptly terminated, Derec went over to the gurney, annoyed and impressed by Rana.

Beyond the fabric curtain he could hear the other lab workers moving and speaking in low tones. He leaned on the edge of the pallet and gazed down the length of the robot.

"So where did you come from?" he muttered.

The torso showed age and use. Scratches gave the impression of a complicated urban map etched in bronze. The metal gleamed dully through patches of tarnish and encrusted grime. Plates covered linkages thirty centimeters below its arms that allowed extra limbs to be connected. The arms themselves, three-jointed and thick, ended in finely articulated six-digit hands. The legs depended from a rotating platform beneath the torso shell. Derec noted more removable coverplates on the platform hiding assemblies to which secondary legs or support braces or tractor modules or one of several other modifications could be fitted. The DW-12 was a large robot, two-and-a-half meters tall, designed for a multiplicity of heavy tasks in conjunction with human workers, very adaptable, with an advanced positronic brain that allowed for considerable independence and problem-solving capacity.