Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

“Again,” I said, “tell me how you knew the difference.”

Li-Tsan just shook her head, showing herself and all the world her incredulity at my failure to get something so transparently obvious.

It wasn’t that I thought she was wrong. I’d been an outcast for most of my life, and I’d learned the hard way that some of the people who wanted to befriend me, and understand me, often acted that way only because it made them feel kind and giving and charitable and special. I’d grown so suspicious of anybody who wanted me to open up that I now assumed ulterior motives long before confirming that there actually were any. But the near unanimity on the subject of Cynthia Warmuth was unusual even by my standards. Either One One One housed the most selective group of misanthropes in the known universe, or she faked sincere concern worse than any other human being ever born, or…

…or what?

There was something else here, something I was still failing to see.

D’Onofrio looked too tired to jump in and help me. “Come on, Counselor. I don’t know anything about you, but sometime in your life you must have known what it was like to have somebody feel sorry for you. Not just a little bit; not just for a few minutes on end. I mean deep, compassionate, ostentatious pity, hauled out at every opportunity, stressed again and again as if you were too stupid to get it the first time, then offered anew even after you recognized it for what it was.” He took a deep breath and stood up, stepping away from the table to face the ship that had become his home, his prison, and the symbol of his greatest failure. “Sometimes that hurts even more than just being left alone.”

And for a moment I still didn’t get it. I knew that it had more to do with D’Onofrio than with the others, but had no idea what.

But then the universe shifted, and one small piece of the puzzle slipped into place with such finality that I came damn close to hearing the click.

D’Onofrio saw the light dawn. He looked away from me, more disgusted with himself than at any other point during the conversation.

Li-Tsan just laughed her nastiest little laugh. The sound that bubbled up from somewhere deep inside, bringing with it the palpable taste of poison. “Pity sex. Ever had any, Counselor? Done right, it hurts even more than any other kind….”

As our transport reentered the Habitat, the first fresh view of that great empty space was enough to reintroduce me to the digestive effects of soul-searing vertigo. That and the sheer organic smell of the biosphere almost got the better of me. I would have vomited over the side, but the ionic shields would have repelled it back at me. So I just closed my eyes, counted to one hundred by primes, and entertained myself with yet another inner recitation of all the reasons I hated ecosystems.

The Porrinyards had enough decency not to mention my discomfort, but Lastogne called attention to it. “You’re turning colors, Counselor. Would you like some medication?”

I hadn’t heard so many people intent on medicating me since my days as a guest of the state. “No. But I would appreciate it if you wiped that amused grin off your face.”

“Not an option,” Lastogne said, with friendly malice. “Nausea may not be all that fun to experience, but among unaffected travelers it bears a long and honorable history as a spectator sport.”

I tasted stomach acid. “I’m beginning to understand your attitude about making friends.”

“Oh?”

“It’s self-preservation. Whenever you say something like that, a stranger just considers you an asshole. A true friend would be obliged to kill you.”

“You’re right. It must be why I’ve always avoided making true friends.” He hesitated, weighed the moment, and plunged in: “So how have you found your interviews so far?”

This exemplified the truism that local liaisons exist to funnel information in both directions, not just one. Lastogne wasn’t here just to help me. He was here to make sure my investigation didn’t go anywhere embarrassing. I urped. “Incomplete.”

“Nothing helpful at all?”

“Nobody confessed to a massive conspiracy, if that’s what you mean. I found more interest in the things people left unsaid.”

“Oh?”

I called the Porrinyards. “Oscin, Skye.”

Skye was too occupied on the freight deck, tending to one of the packages we were ferrying from the hangar, to look up. But both Porrinyards answered, their shared voice once again a neutral compromise between them. “Yes?”

“I’m about to have a screened conversation with Mr. Lastogne. Please don’t disturb us.”

“Understood,” the Porrinyards said.

I unclipped my hiss screen from my belt, setting it for a radius that included Lastogne and myself. A pleasant murmur filled the air around us. I waited for the murmur to reach full volume and said, “Point one. Robin Fish.”

Lastogne seemed surprised. “What about her?”

“The other two came from high-altitude environments. They were trained and experienced and excellent prospects for One One One. When they failed, it was against all reasonable expectations. But Fish was assigned here despite minimal qualifications, given brief and inadequate training in what seems a transparent attempt to justify her posting to this facility, removed from the environment at the first sign of trouble and condemned to literally years of performing busywork in virtual isolation. Her very presence is an anomaly. Why is she here?”

Lastogne shrugged. “No big mystery. The Corps had a number of slots to fill and filled as many as they could with qualified people. The rest had to be chosen off the rack, in the hope that they could be tailored to fit.”

“It seems an awful leap from people as completely suited for the job as the Porrinyards, to somebody as completely unsuited, physically and psychologically, as Robin Fish. Weren’t there any more candidates from the middle ground?”

His sideways grimace proved no more mirthful than the one requiring both sides of his face. “What makes you think there weren’t?”

“Were there?”

“This isn’t exactly a typical environment, Counselor. If we’d staffed it with nothing but people trained in climbing and high-altitude gymnastics, we would have fallen short on every other skill set we needed. We would have no linguists, no biologists, no environmental analysts; nobody capable of maintaining the hammocks, nobody qualified to assess the well-being of the Brachiators. So we have several dozen other indentures on-site whose backgrounds offered no special indication of any talent for functioning here. There are even one or two who spent their formative years living on planetary flatlands, without so much as a low rise between them and the horizon, and who never once enjoyed a view from any kind of height until they joined the Corps. I would be lying if I said that everybody found the going easy, but just about everybody adjusted to the conditions better than those three did.”

“It still seems excessive to keep a mere clerk like Fish on-site, doing nothing of any real importance, for two full years. Especially since Mr. Gibb arranged her presence here himself.”

He shrugged again. “Gibb has a thing about quitters, and about admitting a mistake. I think he believes that if he keeps Fish and her friends penned up long enough, they’ll stop being silly, pull themselves together, and rejoin the rest of us.”

“Do you believe that?”

“For what it’s worth, no. People who fall apart can be put back together again, but they’re usually more fragile not less.”

“But you still support what Gibb’s doing.”

Lastogne’s grimace became a smirk. “I may not like the man, and I may think he has his head so far up his ass on this subject that he may never live to breathe fresh air again, but he is in charge, and I have to support his decisions, regardless of my own personal feelings.”