Adam-Troy Castro - Emissaries from the Dead

I’d just been fed about fourteen different flavors of self-contradictory bullshit and told it was all the same shade of vanilla. “So are they necessary, or not? Do you need all three of them, or not? Do they do an excellent job, or are they worse than useless, or what?”

Gibb was getting fed up with this line of questioning. “Let’s just say we might be a little overstaffed in that area, though not entirely by choice.”

More bullshit. In the absence of any other agenda, refusing to transfer them was vindictive, wasteful, and stupid. But only in the absence of any other agenda.

“Second question. Peyrin Lastogne. The man has no Dip Corps file. He has no Confederate file. He’s not even an official member of your delegation. But his authority, here, seems second only to your own. Who the hell is he?”

Gibb showed teeth. I don’t think I could call it a smile. “That’s classified.”

“I’m cleared for that kind of information.”

“I’m sorry, Counselor, but I’m afraid you’re not.”

This was outrageous. “In any investigation of this kind, the Judge Advocate’s office has total access to—”

“—to less than the Judge Advocate imagines,” Gibb said. He did smile then, the kind of unsympathetic smile customer service representatives of major transport lines use to hide their schadenfreude when dealing with troublesome passengers whose belongings have been accidentally dumped into the coldest regions of deep space. “I’m sorry, Counselor. But this comes from the very top. Mr. Lastogne is off limits.”

One of my earliest assignments, about a decade ago, had been to support a task force investigating allegations of high treason in the Confederate Executive Branch. We’d questioned Cabinet members on a daily basis. Nobody, not even the president, had been off limits to us then, which had turned out to be a good thing, since we soon discovered a link to the whereabouts of the fugitive terrorist, Magrison, among the members of the first family. (He still remains at large.) My authority now was at least as high as that shared by the task force then. But sometimes bureaucrats of middling rank, like Gibb, put up more of a fight than the people at the top, who know what their limits are. “All right, then. Without giving up any particulars, is information about his background in your own possession?”

Here came that apologetic smile again. “I only know what I’m cleared to know.”

“You can’t even tell me if you’ve been informed?”

“I’m saying that my knowledge is far from total, and that I’m not cleared to answer that kind of question.”

To hell with this. “Fish told me you’ve taken control of all communication in and out of this Habitat.”

“Yes, but that’s just a security concern. Our position here is such that—”

His last three words were obliterated as I spoke over him. “I don’t need to know your position here to make this particular point, sir. I intend to issue a report to New London tonight. I will send it through you, because that’s the way you’ve set yourself up here, but I will send it coded. Any attempt by you to read that communication before transmission, or to censor its content, will be detected and taken by the Advocate’s office as obstruction of justice. Do I need to advise you of the seriousness of that charge?”

Gibb’s face was a portrait of repressed anger. “You don’t have to act like this, Counselor. I’ve been nothing but cooperative.”

“You’ve been nothing, period,” I said.

Which was excessive. I regretted saying it the second the words left my mouth.

But if you must make enemies, you might as well make make sure you can expect them to stay that way.

Making Gibb escort me to my hammock may have amounted to salting the wound, but I had no choice. The route was vertiginous enough in daylight and might have killed me after dark.

Dropping dead of fear or falling off a rope bridge would have amounted to a cruel practical joke on any investigators who replaced me. They’d no doubt think I was the latest victim of this increasingly murderous conspiracy, and neglect any number of reasonable explanations for the deaths of Warmuth and Santiago that failed to account for my own.

And that’s just if their own deaths were connected. If they were unconnected, then the confusion caused by my also irrelevant passing would be even worse. Imagine anybody trying to float the theory that three different difficult women all died, one after another, from a series of stupid coincidences.

The first person to suggest that unlikely possibility would no doubt find herself marked as a prime suspect.

I preferred not to burden strangers with problems like that.

Not that I’d have the luxury of feeling any guilt if the eventuality came to pass.

The hammock smelled of the previous night’s sweat. I slid down the slope, practicing how to stop midway so I wouldn’t find myself trapped at its lowest point. My progress was minimal. Scrambling back to the circular spine, with somewhat more effort than it would have taken Gibb or the Porrinyards, I tied my bag to one of the restraining hooks, then used one of the cables there to secure myself as well. It wasn’t comfortable, but it felt more secure than coming to rest at the hammock’s lowest point.

Temporarily satisfied, I inhaled the dinner Gibb’s people had packed for me, then activated the hytex and composed a text message to Artis Bringen, confirming that I was on the job but leaving out any of the findings or theories I’d come up with so far. Most Advocates on my level, investigating incidents at remote locations, send obsessively detailed daily updates, documenting every single movement. I’d trained Bringen to tolerate vagueness, on the theory that the less I told him during my investigations, the less I’d have to deal with his second-guessing. I did assure him that while early inquiries seemed to support the theories he’d relayed (unspoken: that the AIsource were as guilty as sin), unforeseen developments suggested a number of other possible interpretations (unspoken: that the search for a scapegoat was proceeding without hitch, thank you). The politician in him would take comfort in that much, and I needed him happy so I could pump him for certain information I wasn’t getting here.

I have had difficulty accessing Confederate files on a Peyrin Lastogne, who is operating as second-in-command under Stuart Gibb .

At this juncture I have no particular basis for suspecting Mr. Lastogne of any involvement in these crimes. His reputation on-site seems to be exemplary. However, I cannot eliminate him from consideration until I am provided his background and diplomatic record. Please forward this information as soon as possible.

I almost sent it, but then thought of something else.

Also, you mentioned that my services were specifically requested by several parties on-site. Neither Gibb nor Lastogne will admit to making this request. As they screen all mail, there seem no other possible sources. Please clarify.

I almost asked him another question, Why would the AIsource say I’m wrong about you? but demurred. That was an issue for a face-to-face meeting, if I even bothered bringing it up at all.

To counter the local protocols that funneled all such messages through Gibb and Lastogne, I scrambled the text and added a subroutine that would reduce the entire message to gibberish if opened by anybody other than Bringen.

A version of that gibberish, forwarded back to me, would provide confirmation, if necessary, that neither Gibb nor Lastogne could be trusted.

I might have done more, but that’s when a fresh wave of exhaustion washed over me.