A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel (20 page)

Zhu had always thought it a strange habit from a man who claimed he didn’t like to travel far from home.

“I suppose you want me to cool it down in here,” Salehi said, and as he did, Zhu noticed that the temperature was several degrees warmer than he was used to. The floor had lost its carpet as well. It had some kind of covering that mimicked sand.

The lights on the ceiling were as bright as the sunlight emanating from the walls, and the air here smelled both dusty and spicy. Zhu frowned, and again, Salehi seemed almost like he could read minds.

“Sagebrush. I’m enjoying a high desert today, even though I do have the light properly filtered so that we won’t get sunburned.”

Or light-burned as the case might be. Zhu was about to lower himself onto one of the nearby chairs when Salehi stopped him.

“Not yet,” Salehi said. “Let the sunlight fade a bit.”

The brightness had eased, and a cool breeze came from the area of the wall. Storm clouds now covered the desert skyscape.

Zhu looked at it warily. “I hope that you’re not going to make it rain in here.”

Salehi grinned. “No. If I truly imitated a high desert cloudburst, we’d have to deal with flash flooding.”

“Oh, fun,” Zhu said.

“Ah,” Salehi said, waving his hand dismissively, “if you can’t control your environment, what’s the point of living in space?”

Zhu decided that the question was meant rhetorically. Otherwise, his answer would depress both of them. People like them lived in space because that was where the jobs were. The court system had its own network of bases precisely so that it could remain neutral, and not be subject to any culture within the Alliance simply because it had its courts on that culture’s property.

“You look morose, Torkild.” Salehi put his hands on the arms of a nearby chair and eased himself down, as if testing the temperature. He finally sat all the way. “Temp’s are back to normal.”

Which was as good an invitation to sit as Zhu would get. He sat on the chair he’d been about to sit in before. Its smooth, leather-like surface was still a bit too warm, but not as hot as it probably had been a few minutes earlier.

“Lawyers aren’t meant to see death and destruction up close,” Salehi said. “Especially defense lawyers.”

If Salehi had sent those words across a link, Zhu would have thought them flip. But Salehi’s tone was serious, his expression more so.

“You hit the dark night of the soul, didn’t you?” Salehi asked. “I told Schnabby you weren’t the guy to handle our Moon-based clients, given their culpability—and you didn’t hear that word from me.”

Schnabby was Salehi’s private nickname for one of the other name partners. Zhu wasn’t sure Salehi had ever said it to Schnable’s face.

“But,” Salehi continued, “Schnabby was convinced that it wouldn’t bother you.
Balls like rocks
, Schnabby had said.
Zhu always knows how to keep his emotions in check.
But I told Schnabby that guys like you—and me, for that matter—are the ones you got to watch out for. We do great until we don’t.”

Zhu managed a rueful smile. Balls like rocks, eh? That was the perception of him? It explained how he hit partner so fast. But those words didn’t really describe him. Not after Anniversary Day, and maybe not before.

They actually described Berhane.

“So,” Salehi said, “you want to drop everything and go to some prison somewhere to rescue somebody. I didn’t get it all, but I assume this has something to do with Anniversary Day?”

“You told me once that I would need reminding—”

“About the difference between what’s legal and what’s right, and why our clients need defending.” Salehi leaned back in the chair and placed one ankle on the opposite knee. “I give everyone that speech, you know.”

“I know,” Zhu said.

“Only the good ones listen,” Salehi said.

Zhu really did smile now. “And you tell everyone that too so that they feel better, don’t you?”

Salehi’s grin had faded as Zhu spoke. “Actually, no. Most of the lawyers in this godforsaken place don’t really care about the difference between what’s right and what’s legal. They care about billable hours and advancing to a bigger office and maybe handling a case in front of a Multicultural Tribunal. They’re all about themselves.”

Salehi tilted his head just a little, then rested a hand on his calf, bunching the leg of his pants.

“I was beginning to think you were one of them,” he said. “I’ve been wondering for about a year now if I misjudged you.”

“Maybe you did,” Zhu said.

“And Anniversary Day shocked you into sense?” Salehi shook his head. “Those clowns who truly care only about the office or the job would’ve handled all the Moon-based cases without a qualm. You didn’t have the stomach for them, did you?”

“No.” Zhu’s cheeks had grown warm.

“That’s the guy I championed,” Salehi said. “I knew there was a heart in there somewhere.”

Zhu shook his head. “This isn’t about heart. This is as self-focused as it gets. I gotta get back to what I do, to what I know, and you said this might work.”

“I said that you would someday need to remember the difference between justice and what’s right,” Salehi said. “That’s not you?”

“I was very proud of my office two months ago,” Zhu said.

Salehi’s mouth twitched, almost as if he were repressed a smile. Then he nodded, as if conceding a point. “Tell me about this case.”

“I don’t know anything about the case,” Zhu said, “except that this guy claims he knows something about Anniversary Day, even though he’s been in prison for years. He also looks something like the assassins.”

“Which means he’s a clone,” Salehi said.

“We don’t know that,” Zhu said. “I can’t get information.”

Salehi nodded. “Probably just as well. I honestly thought clone law was the next frontier in the legal system. Discrimination and all that, those pesky definitions about what’s human and if being human even matters in the Alliance. Then this tragedy happened, and it probably set clone law back a hundred years or more.”

His gaze narrowed, and Zhu could almost feel the question. He answered it before Salehi asked it. “I don’t care about making precedent.”

“So you think this case will solve the mysteries of the Anniversary Day bombings,” Salehi said.

“I think it might help,” Zhu said.

“Whatever you figure out, it won’t change what happened. All those people will still be dead. All those domes will still be damaged.”

“I know,” Zhu said.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Salehi’s tone was dry, maybe even a bit sarcastic. “You would tell your clients the same thing.”

“Actually, no,” Zhu said. “I’d tell them there are no heroes.”

Salehi crossed his arms and leaned back, studying Zhu. “Do you believe that now?”

Zhu had seen a lot of people act heroically that day. He’d seen others step up since. But did that make them heroes? He wasn’t certain.

“I’m not sure what I believe in,” he said.

Salehi sighed. “Would a rest be better? You know, a year off to regroup?”

And be alone with my thoughts? No.
Zhu had to stop himself from blurting that. Instead, he managed to edit it to, “Let’s reserve that as an option. Let me try this first.”

Salehi frowned. He stared at Zhu for several minutes, then finally said, “You realize you’re never going to be the man you were. And you can’t solve the Anniversary Day cases all on your own.”

“Yeah,” Zhu said. “I know.”

And he did. He knew both things. He didn’t care. He still wanted this case.

“The case might be nothing, just some con trying to get out of a life sentence,” Salehi said.

“I know that too,” Zhu said.

Salehi raised his eyebrows. “And you still want to go.”

“I still want to go,” Zhu said.

Salehi nodded. “You realize a case like this, if it’s what you imagine, might make you into someone else.”

“I’m already someone else,” Zhu said.

Salehi’s expression vanished. It was as if he had no emotions at all. Zhu realized he shouldn’t have responded so quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Zhu said. “You had a point.”

Salehi nodded, and the warmth returned to his face. “My point is that you might not want to continue with the law after this.”

“Do you think that’ll happen?” Zhu asked.

Salehi smiled. “I think anything’s possible,” he said. “That’s why I build deserts in outer space.”

Zhu grinned. “And I thought you built them to keep warm.”

Salehi’s smile faded. “That too, my friend,” he said. “That too.”

TWENTY-FOUR

THE PRISON BASE was actually dark. Gomez had been to a dozen different prison bases throughout the Alliance, and most were unbelievably well-lit places, so well lit, in fact, that she had always thought they would drive her crazy. She liked a bit of darkness, particularly at night. She had trouble sleeping in the light.

But the lights on 8596 were dim at best. All the prison bases inside the Alliance had numerical designations, but they also had nicknames that developed over time. This one was called Clone Hell, and she was beginning to understand why.

No outside ships could dock on 8596 because it was a maximum-security prison for the very worst offenders. The ships had to dock on the habitat base, where the guards and administrators lived. Guests could stay there as well. Theoretically, guests would stay while waiting for approval to visit the prisoners.

Only, this place had almost no guests. The prison administration had responded with surprise when she requested a visit.

It had taken longer to get here than she expected. Not because of travel time, but because she had to finish the apology with the Cean. The humans did apologize, and theoretically all was well, but she had debrief interviews to conduct. She hated doing so while she had Anniversary Day on her mind.

Then she felt free to travel to Clone Hell.

She hadn’t brought the
Stanley
to the habitat base. She had taken a shuttle, leaving the
Stanley
at a resort base so her crew could get some needed time off. She had docked at the habitat base, and she had stayed in a nearly empty hotel, courtesy of the Alliance, while she awaited the proper documentation.

The documentation had come through quickly, partly because she was listed as the arresting officer in the clone’s file. It was impossible for her to distinguish which clone she was seeing. He was identified in the files only by his case and prisoner numbers.

Even if he had been called by his name, she wouldn’t have known that either. The clones who had attacked Thirds hadn’t identified themselves to her, and as far as she knew, Thirds hadn’t identified them later.

All she knew was that this clone was one of the two who hadn’t been near death when they were taken off Epriccom. His file—at least the one she could access—was very short on details. She had no idea how bad his injuries had been, if he had spoken to anyone, or even what exactly he had been charged with.

After all, he had killed clones on a non-affiliated planet. Epriccom or the Eaufasse might have had a law against clone murders, but she doubted it or the clone wouldn’t have been here. In various places in the Alliance, clone murders were treated as major felonies, but in most places, human clone murders—governed by human law—were simply property crimes. Felonious property crimes, but property crimes nonetheless.

She had to take a prison shuttle to 8596. The shuttle was for guests and administration. 8596, like most places in the Alliance, ran by a 24-hour Earth clock. She was arriving in the middle of 8596’s day, too early for shift-change. There were no other guests, and the shuttle was an automatic run.

She had been alone on the shuttle, which she found a bit unsettling, particularly when she realized that the cockpit wasn’t just locked, it had been sealed closed. Even if there were a problem with the shuttle, she wouldn’t have been able to resolve it. She had no access to the controls at all.

The docking port was relatively well lit, but she had entered on the administration side. After she had gone through all of the scans and decontamination units, she was allowed into the visitor center. It actually had windows that overlooked the prison proper. She saw rows and rows of units, some with tiny windows, and some with none at all.

About ten stories down, she saw what the guard who had led her into the visitor center called “the yard.” There was no “yard”; they weren’t on a planet, and the bare patch below her had no plants.

It was just a box with a more open skyline, a box that could probably fit fifty inmates. If the “yard” were anything like the other places she had visited around the Alliance, it could become whatever the administrators wanted it to be, from a sports arena to a garden-like spot to an uncomfortable vista that might punish the inmates more than give them a place for recreation.

Most of these places were standard holochambers with the controls in a completely different part of the base, so that the inmates couldn’t break in and control the imagery they were seeing.