Harry Turtledove - In High Places

"Miss Klein?" he said as she came up. She nodded. He held out his hand. "I'm Kwame Daniels."

"Pleased to meet you," Annette said.

"And you." He smiled, his teeth very white against his dark skin. The baggage carousel started going round and round. "Now we see if your suitcase ended up in San Francisco or Singapore."

"You know what? I don't care," Annette said. "As long as I'm back where I belong, I'm not going to jump up and down about the luggage."

"You're smart," Detective Daniels said. "Knowing what's important, that helps a lot. Too many people get all hot and bothered over stuff that doesn't matter." Annette plucked her bag off the carousel and pulled up the handle. He asked, "Shall I take you to your hotel first, or do you want to get right to it?"

"I'd like to get it over with, if that's all right," Annette said.

"My captain told me, however you want it, that's how we do it," Daniels said. "You're doing us a favor being here."

"No, I don't think so," Annette said as they started for the parking structure. "What I went through, what those other poor people are going through . . . That needs smashing. How could I look at myself if I didn't do everything I could to set it right?"

"You get no arguments from me." Daniels popped open a big umbrella to keep them dry while they crossed the street.

The police station to which he drove Annette looked like a fortress. Inside, though, it might have been almost any office building. Men and women sat at desks. They talked on the telephone. They sent and read e-mail. They typed or dictated reports. In most offices, though, very few of the workers would have been armed.

Most office buildings had conference rooms. So did this one, but they were called interrogation rooms instead. Kwame Daniels opened the door to one of them. Annette went in. In a loud, formal voice—everything that happened in there went onto video—he said, "Miss Klein, I would like to ask you if you recognize any of the persons seated here."

She'd cleaned up. She wore stylish business clothes instead of the outfit the manor had given to its slaves. Her blond hair didn't hang limp alongside her head any more. It rose in fancy curls. She had makeup on now. Without a doubt, though, she was Birigida, or whatever her real name was.

And, without a doubt, the man sitting beside her was a lawyer.

Annette sighed. "Yes, I recognize the woman."

"Thank you," the detective said. "And where did you last see Bridget Mallory?"

"Is that her name? I never knew what it was," Annette said.

"The last place I saw her was a manor that used slaves. It was in Madrid, or what's Madrid here. I don't know what alternate it's in. I don't think it's one that Crosstime Traffic visits, but I can't prove that."

"This is all a put-up job," the lawyer said. "If this person was a slave at this place, and if my client was a slave there— which she does not admit, not at all—what's the difference between them? That this person has bought immunity from prosecution by testifying against my client? That won't play well with a jury. We've seen it too often."

Kwame Daniels smiled a most unpleasant smile. "There is another difference, Mr. Nguyen." He turned to Annette. "Do you want to tell him, Miss Klein, or shall I?"

"I'll do it," Annette said. "I was a slave there because I got captured and kidnapped while I was working for Crosstime Traffic. The raiders didn't know I was from the home timeline. They took me to Madrid in that alternate, and the man who bought me took me to the manor I talked about. Miss, uh, Mallory was a slave there because she, uh, volunteered."

Bridget Mallory turned white, or possibly green. Under the harsh fluorescents in the ceiling, it was hard to tell. Detective Daniels threw back his head and laughed. "How do you think a jury'll like that, Sam?"

It didn't faze Sam Nguyen. Lawyers got paid for not letting things faze them. "What you say here and what you say in court under oath may be two different things," he said. "Besides, while it is illegal to make other people into slaves, it is not illegal to be made into a slave."

Annette had wondered about that. Wanting to be a slave might be sick and twisted and disgusting. Was it against the law? She had no idea. Up till a few months ago, she'd never imagined she would need to worry about it.

"Nobody's talking about charging her with being a slave, Mr. Nguyen," Daniels said. Annette wondered what he thought of this. His ancestors hadn't wanted to be slaves, but they got brought to America anyway. He went on, "But she dealt with people who took slaves. She paid money to people who took slaves. She worked with people who were slaves and didn't pay for the privilege. She knew they were forced into slavery, too. And she didn't say a word about any of it till we found out about it from Miss Klein here. How many different conspiracy charges do you think will stick?"

"You can bring conspiracy charges. Whether you can convict . . . You don't know how a jury will decide any more than I do." Nguyen was a cool customer. Whatever Bridget Mallory paid him, he earned his money.

But she turned and spoke to him in a low voice. Annette couldn't make out what she said, but he shook his head. She spoke again, more insistently. This time, Annette could hear her: "What will my name be worth after the reporters and the Net ghouls get their hands on this? Let's make the best deal we can. She was—"

Her lawyer held up a hand. "Whatever she was, you don't say it with the recorders running. You don't do anything with the recorders running till we have a deal. Got that?"

Bridget Mallory nodded. Annette hadn't dreamt she could sympathize with the blond woman, but she did. Her folks had had to sneak her to the airport in the wee small hours so she could go to Seattle. Too many stories had already said too much about what happened to her while she was a slave. Too much of what those stories said wasn't even slightly true. She'd had her picture splashed all over the Net, TV, and the papers. She didn't like being recognized wherever she went.

Maybe it was just as well she wouldn't be starting college for a while. By the time she did, maybe some of the fuss would die down. She didn't want people staring at her all the time. It would make her feel like a freak.

She sighed. It was probably too late to worry about that. People were going to recognize her. Aren't you the one who . . . ? She wondered if she'd be hearing that for the rest of her life. Maybe she would, because she was the one who. . . .

"You will be cooperating with us, then, Ms. Mallory?" Daniels asked.

Sam Nguyen started to say something, but she gestured for him to stop. She nodded. "Yes," she said. She sounded tired.

"All right, then," the detective said. "If you are, you'll need to talk to the people above me. We'll get that started now, if you don't mind." Bridget Mallory nodded again. Her lawyer looked unhappy. Annette understood why. Daniels wasn't giving her a chance for second thoughts. Once she started talking, turning back would be next to impossible.

"Please come with me, then," Kwame Daniels said. The blond woman and the lawyer got up. Before the detective led them away, he turned to Annette. "Wait right here, please. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay," Annette said. The door closed behind the others. She didn't like being alone in the interrogation room. It felt almost as lonely as waking up in slavery every morning. This wouldn't last long, though. That. . . That might have lasted forever.

When Detective Daniels came back, he was grinning. "I hoped putting her face-to-face with you would crack her," he said. "We get her testimony, we get your testimony, we get all the electronic evidence . . . They've recycled a lot of files, but they couldn't get rid of everything."