A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel (37 page)

“Thank you,” she said. “We are honored as well.”

Ask about the damn site
, Simiaar sent, as if Gomez had forgotten the reason for coming here.

“I do have two other requests,” Gomez said. “If it is not possible to fulfill those requests, we understand. You will not offend us by saying no to any of our requests, and I hope we do not offend by asking.”

“Ask no me offend,” Mir Munshi said.

Oaupheau had bowed its head. Gomez didn’t want to think about what might be happening here diplomatically.

“We have traced the ship that left the enclave just before it got destroyed to Ohksmyte,” she said, hoping she pronounced the name of the second moon correctly. “We were wondering if you know anything about why it landed there.”

Mir Munshi spoke harshly and rapidly in Fasse. Oaupheau kept its head down, but moved its arms. It said, “We do not know why it landed, but we know where it is. Mir Munshi believes it might tell you something.”

“Forgive me,” Gomez said, as she interrupted. “Is he saying that you know where the ship
is
?”

“Yes,” Oaupheau said. “It did not leave Ohksmyte.”

“Did the occupants transfer ships?” she asked.

Oaupheau spoke to Mir Munshi. Mir Munshi answered in rapid Fasse again.

“No one investigated that. We located the ship. It has remained in the same place for fifteen years.”

Wow
, Simiaar sent.

Wow, indeed. Gomez tried not to look thrilled at the news.

Oaupheau continued, “We will give you coordinates, but you must exercise caution. The mining operation on Ohksmyte is protective of the dome they have built there.”

“How old is that dome?” Gomez asked Oaupheau.

“It did not exist when the ship landed,” Oaupheau said.

She nodded, then realized it had not answered her question. She didn’t need to press. She could find the answer to that question in some other way.

“My last question has two parts,” Gomez said, “and I ask them for my friend, Doctor Simiaar. She would like to inspect the enclave’s grounds, if they have not been built upon or excavated.”

Oaupheau made a small peep as if the request startled it. Then it spoke, as if it were translating.

It paused and looked at Gomez. Mir Munshi was watching her as well. Apparently, they were waiting for the other part of the question.

“And,” she said, “if the Eaufasse collected materials from the destroyed enclave or conducted some kind of investigation, we would like that information as well.”

“What do you think you will find?” Oaupheau asked Simiaar so quickly that Gomez knew it had not had a chance to speak to Mir Munshi.

“The way that humans practice investigative science,” Simiaar said slowly, “is to go into an area without preconceptions. I do not believe I will find anything. But I would like the opportunity to look at what is there, and see if it means anything to me.”

Oaupheau eyed her for a long moment, then looked at Gomez, maybe wondering if she disapproved of what Simiaar said. Gomez remained quiet. Simiaar had handled that well.

Finally, Oaupheau translated that (she hoped) into Fasse.

Mir Munshi answered. Oaupheau dropped its arms.

“We do not know if the gathered materials still exist, but Mir Munshi said he would make sure that whatever we have is added to the material he would give you. The enclave itself is long abandoned, the land destroyed, and now is part of the nearby city. We cannot allow you to visit without a discussion between our ambassadors.”

“There is no need at this time,” Gomez said. “I think the materials you provide will be more than enough. Thank you.”

Mir Munshi spoke again. Oaupheau bent almost in half, before it said, “Mir Munshi will have a friend talk with your pilot about how to land on Ohksmyte undetected. He does not say, but I will. It is dangerous. I do not think you will learn anything.”

“Have you seen the ship?” Gomez asked it.

“I have not. Mir Munshi has not. It is in an isolated part of Ohksmyte. I suggest that you do not visit. Mir Munshi believes you should do what is best for your investigation.”

Fascinating. Gomez felt her heart rate increase. She had not expected Epriccom to be such a wealth of information.

She turned to Mir Munshi. “You have assisted us greatly. I cannot speak for the Alliance, but I can speak for myself. I am in your debt.”

Mir Munshi made that peeping sound again. Then he said, “No, me debt you,” shook his head, and said something rapidly to Oaupheau.

“Mir Munshi says that without you, your help, and your discretion, the Eaufasse would not be part of the Alliance. The Alliance has been extremely beneficial to us. It has changed life here on Epriccom. Mir Munshi says that we are in your debt and we cannot ever repay you. He is honored to assist.”

Gomez actually felt moved. “Thank you,” she said, thinking that the words—even doubly translated—were extremely inadequate. “Thank you so much.”

FORTY-ONE

TREY’S HEART POUNDED, but he tried not to look frightened. For the first time since he’d come to this horrible place, he had been summoned to the warden’s office unexpectedly.

Trey had gone to see the warden before, usually after some incident that Trey had stopped or to corroborate some problem that someone else caused. Trey had worked hard not to be considered a suck-up, and he’d worked hard to keep himself clean.

He hadn’t quite kept his head down, but he hadn’t voluntarily raised it either.

All he had managed to do was get himself a cushy job within the system and a single cell. It had taken years to get both.

And now, for some reason, they were probably threatened. No one got called to the warden’s office for a good reason.

The stupid android guards had their fake hands on his shoulders. Four of those gigantic things surrounded him, with small robot units patching the holes.

Someone was afraid that Trey would die on the way. Trey had seen this kind of protection before, usually for some prisoner that everyone hated or who was going to rat out someone else in court. A lot of times, those prisoners never returned.

The ones who did return often didn’t make it through the week.

Trey tried to make himself small. He kept his face hidden behind the android guard in front of him, and hoped no one could see the number on his jumpsuit in the back. For the first time in years, he felt happy about the fact he looked like a few of the other inmates.

The farther he got away from his cell block, the more likely it was that someone would mistake him for them.

The administrators had sent the android guards that had no mouths. They were probably linked to the system, but he’d never been able to break in. He’d always felt that trying was probably stupid on his part, and would call attention to himself.

Now he wished he had. He wanted to know what the hell was going on.

All he’d received was a message through his prison-installed links:
Warden’s Office
, and the time he was due there.

The guards had shown up exactly thirty minutes before his appointment, and now they led him at a leisurely pace through the corridors. The inmates all got silent when they saw the little troupe. They wanted to know what was going on too.

All Trey could hear were murmurs, and he didn’t even have to hear the words to know what the murmurs were:
Who is that? What’s he done? Who’s he ratting out?

If they didn’t know, the inmates would make something up, and in some ways, that was worse.

His skin prickled, almost as if it had received some kind of charge. His throat had closed up. He hadn’t been this terrified in years.

Usually because he had a plan. Hell, even getting beat up in the yard hadn’t been a surprise, not after he saw those images. He’d known some of the other clones would get him in trouble one day, and he’d had a plan.

Not that it had worked. He felt a twinge of anger, which he’d tried to bury. Damn lawyer. Trey had never heard from the bastard again.

Of course.

Finally their little marching unit swerved into the administration corridors. The lighting was better here, the air fresher, the temperature just about perfect. It was always cold in the cellblocks—apparently to keep the inmates a little on edge. Heat somehow made them angrier, or so the theories went.

Most of the doors in the corridor were closed and dark, but a bright orange light surrounded the doors to the warden’s office.

Trey’s stomach clenched. He wasn’t just going to some assistant’s office so that he could be told what the warden thought. He was going to see the warden proper.

That
never happened.

At least that he knew of. He had no idea what had happened to all of those other prisoners who never came back.

What had he done? How had he gotten this kind of attention?

He hated it here, but he wasn’t ready to die for some reason he didn’t understand. And he also didn’t want to go to another prison. He’d learned the systems here.

He knew what every sound meant, what every gesture could do.

He knew everything about this prison except what happened to prisoners in the position he was in now.

The robot guards peeled off and wheeled their way down a side corridor.

Three other androids joined the grouping. These androids had mouths. Their coloring was dark gray, their bodies sleeker than the androids that had led him out of the cell block.

The warden’s special guards.

Trey didn’t think his heart could pound harder, but it did. He probably stank of fear. He was sweating, and he couldn’t stop it.

Those damn machines around him probably picked up every nuance— the increased heart rate, the shallow breathing. They had probably already informed the warden—or whoever Trey was meeting—just how terrified he was.

He wasn’t sure he could bluff through any of it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

The door slid back, and the androids led him through the orange light. It coated him, and that was when he realized it was searching him for hidden weapons and probably other things he hadn’t even thought about. Someone clearly had thought about those things, once upon a time, and probably used them on a warden somewhere, so the protections were in place.

For all he knew, this orange light was a small decontamination unit too.

His mouth tasted metallic, and he wasn’t sure if that was because he had bit his lip and drawn blood without realizing it, or if the very thought of a decontamination unit made him react like he always did when he went through one.

Then he was on the other side of the light. The android guards in front of him moved to the left and right of him. The guards with their hands on his shoulders tightened their grip.

The door swooshed shut behind him.

He’d never been in this room before. It was smaller than he expected. Then he blinked, his vision cleared, and he realized he was in some kind of antechamber. The warden didn’t work here; she met with prisoners and/or undesirables here, and didn’t let them go any farther.

The room was probably well defended. Circles and squares jutted out of the walls, and there were small shadowy circles on the floor as well. He didn’t know if he wasn’t allowed to see some of the items in the room—he had no real links, except those the prison system installed—or if each circle and square marked some kind of hidden camera or weapon.

He expected there were a lot of ways to control an angry prisoner in this small room. He also guessed that some part of the room might be able to kill him.

The warden stood in the very center of the room. She had a lined face, grayish in color, and her hair, tied back in a bun, was as black as the walls. He knew that was not exactly what she looked like. Wardens never allowed an inmate to know precisely what they looked like; too many inmates got out and might go after the wardens.

It would be easy to track the face, the eyes, the look, on a simple link. A lot of the inmates here had illegal links. A few of those inmates had even offered some to Trey. He hadn’t taken anyone up on it; he didn’t want to be beholden to anyone—and he didn’t want a possibility of them in his head.

“99373,” the warden said, using Trey’s prison number. Her voice had been altered as well. He wasn’t even sure if it was her voice. It sounded as metallic as the taste in his mouth. “Judge Bruchac ruled on your petition. You are being released in ninety minutes into the custody of your attorney’s representative. You may return to your cell to collect your things or you may go through the orientation we have prepared for you.”

Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t that. He felt his mouth drop open.

“Forgive me, sir,” he said. “I—my attorney? I didn’t know I had one.”

“According to the record, your attorney is Torkild Zhu. He visited you here three weeks ago.”

So the bastard
had
become his attorney. “No one notified me that he had taken my case,” Trey said.