A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel (10 page)

The outpost seemed primitive, even though she had a hunch it was not. She suspected most everything in here had been removed or shut down in anticipation of her visit.

Something brushed against her back, making her jump. She didn’t like how on edge she had been since she arrived on Epriccom. She looked over her shoulder, saw Norling closer than she should have been. Norling’s brown eyes were wide, but she dropped her gaze and stepped back just a bit.

Had Gomez seen fear in those eyes? She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to guess at anyone’s emotions, not even her own.

Stay here,
she sent to Norling through the FSS’s private channel.
I want to know if anyone else enters.

Should I be outside?
Norling asked.

Gomez thought of those plants. They had sent feelers through the skin of the dead bodies. She had a hunch those tips could go through living human flesh as well.

No
, she sent.
Inside is fine for now
.

Norling moved away from the group and stayed by the door.

Approve this?
That question came through the joint alien-marshal link. Gomez wasn’t certain if the question was to her or to the other Eaufasse. Then she remembered that the other Eaufasse did not speak Standard at all.

It is our custom to protect entrances and exits,
Gomez sent on the link.
I’m sorry. I should have checked. Is this all right?

The two Eaufasse who were with the group looked at each other. One wrapped an arm around its head. The other leaned back like a branch in a strong wind.

This approve
, sent the Eaufasse on the joint alien-marshal link.

Gomez took that as approval. If it wasn’t, someone could stop her.

Thank you
, she sent.

She didn’t even think to have Okani handle the interaction until the interaction was over. He wasn’t on the joint alien-marshal link. He wasn’t part of the FSS.

Besides, he had enough trouble getting through the hallway. As she had suspected, his shoulders were too wide for him to move comfortably.

The first Eaufasse moved the group forward, leading them past rectangles carved into the walls. It took her a moment to realize that those rectangles indicated doors or windows.

As the group approached what seemed like the end of the hallway, a vertical rectangle slid back, revealing more corridors and a ramp that led downward. She thought she saw more plants poking their tips over the edge of the ramp, but she couldn’t be certain.

A dim, brownish light illuminated the new area. The first Eaufasse waited half-in and half-out of the entry. When Gomez got close, the Eaufasse stepped all the way inside.

She followed, Okani directly behind her, and Washington near the second Eaufasse. Everyone seemed calm, which was a good thing. Norling had been too nervous for her tastes.

The Eaufasse led them down a side hallway, and Gomez realized they had made a U and were now going back toward the main door through a different corridor. She wondered if there had been an easier way to get to this part of the outpost, something that cut through those walls, going from one corridor to the other quicker. She suspected there was an easier way, but that it revealed more than the Eaufasse wanted her to know, at least at this point.

A single horizontal rectangle slid open in a wave of brownish dust. Through it, she could see the boy. He was in the same room she had seen from the surveillance footage the Eaufasse had sent her. He was pacing the back part of the room. A clear door led into an area she couldn’t quite see.

A table filled the room. Around the table were three Eaufasse chairs, which looked a bit like cones that had risen out of the ground. On the far side of the table, near the boy, were two regular human chairs. They seemed shiny, new, and out of place.

The boy kept looking at them as if he didn’t know what to make of them.

The first Eaufasse stood next to the window.
Go. Private
, the Eaufasse sent through the joint alien-marshal link.
No watch
.

She glanced at Okani. He looked back at her, and raised his eyebrows. She should have asked him to check on what was being said, but she found that she was reluctant to do so.

You in
, the Eaufasse sent to Gomez.
You.

As the Eaufasse voice spoke through the joint alien-marshal link, the first Eaufasse nodded to her.

“Are they speaking to you?” Okani asked.

She didn’t answer that directly. “I’m going in alone.”

I wouldn’t advise that
, Washington sent through their private links.
Let me go with you.

The boy has asked for protection from humans,
she sent.
One human’s going to be hard for him. Two or three will be even harder.

I don’t like this
, Washington sent.

He didn’t have to like it. No one did.

You two stay with the Eaufasse
, she sent.
I’ll be fine
.

Then she sent to the Eaufasse through the joint link.
I’m ready. I’ll talk to the boy alone
.

A door opened. She hadn’t even seen the outline of the door in the wall. That door opening made her rethink her assumptions about the rectangles.

The boy looked up. When he saw that she was human, he backed away, hitting the wall behind him.

He started beeping in Fasse.

“He’s saying he didn’t want to see any humans,” Okani said softly. “He’s saying he asked for protection.”

She figured as much. She didn’t answer Okani. Instead, she stepped all the way into the room. The door closed behind her, and as it did, her external links shut off.

Great. She should have expected that, but she hadn’t.

The silence inside her head without her external links always seemed to echo. She hated that. But it did make her concentrate.

“Do you speak Standard?” she asked the boy in that language.

He was as tall as she was, but very thin. His blue eyes had shadows beneath them. She could see the veins in his pale skin, except where his cheeks had reddened. His lower lip trembled.

He was clearly terrified.

She held up her hands, revealing her palms to him, in what she always thought of as a non-threatening gesture. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk. Do you speak Standard?”

“Get out, get out, get out!” the boy said.

“So you do speak Standard,” she said, letting her hands drop. “That’s a good place to start.”

“I can’t talk to you. Please. I want the Eaufasse. Please! Getoutgetoutgetout! Please! Leave me alone!”

His terror made her heart rate increase. She’d never quite seen anything like it.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said again.

“You
lie
!” He screamed that last word.

“No,” she said. “I don’t. I’m with the FSS. The Eaufasse called me here. I’m just going to talk to you.”

“They…called you?” He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, as if his last hope was gone.

She felt sorry for him. But she had to keep that emotion in check. She had misrepresented her presence just enough; the Eaufasse hadn’t called her for him, although she let him think that.

Still, the idea that they might have betrayed him seemed to devastate him.

“I’m not part of the enclave,” she said. “I don’t even know what it is. I’m part of the Earth Alliance. Are you familiar with that?”

His lips were pressed together as if he were holding back a scream.

“The Eaufasse want to join the Alliance. That’s why they called us. They don’t know how to handle human interactions.”

His eyes opened. “There wouldn’t be a human interaction if you weren’t here,” he snapped.

His argument was better than she expected. He was clearly intelligent, and clearly willing to use that intelligence.

“The Eaufasse saw what happened to your friends outside the enclave,” she said. “They’ve never seen anything like that before. They called us to interpret that.”

His head turned slightly, his eyes still on her. “What happened to my friends?” he repeated, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

She hadn’t thought it through: Maybe he didn’t know.

She took a deep breath. “You four left together,” she said. “Then twelve others came out of the enclave.”

He hadn’t moved. He was watching her so closely that she thought he could see right through her.

“They followed the other three. They never came after you.”

He let out a small breath. “They sent you?”

“The twelve?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “The ones in charge.”

If she hadn’t been paying attention, if she hadn’t been thinking about each word, she could have said the wrong thing. Because she
was
sent by the ones in charge—the ones in charge of the Eaufasse, the ones in charge of the FSS, the ones in charge of the Earth Alliance, if she wanted to be technical about it.

She wondered if Uzven would have been technical, if its answer to that one question would have ruined this entire interview.

“No,” she said softly. “The ones in charge did not send me.”

The boy continued to stare at her with that awful intensity. He seemed to have no idea about the FSS or the Earth Alliance, and he clearly did not trust her.

“I don’t look like anyone you know, do I?” Her question was a gamble: he was a clone, so she figured his contact with adult humans was limited to a small set of people, some of whom might also be clones. She could be wrong as easily as she could be right.

But interviews were a gamble sometimes, particularly in her profession.

“No,” he said, the word short and reluctant. “I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

“There are a lot of humans in this universe,” she said, and stopped herself from explaining further. She didn’t want the Eaufasse to know that their assumptions about the Earth Alliance were wrong. “The people who run the enclave have broken off from the rest of us. They want nothing to do with us.”

That too could be an untruth. She had no idea what the truth was. But she suspected this boy didn’t either.

“You say enclave,” he said. “I didn’t leave an enclave. I left the dome.”

“All right,” she said. “I didn’t know what you called that structure. My people call it an enclave because that’s what the Eaufasse call it.”

The fact that he had offered up that detail was a good sign; it meant that in his mind, he was arguing about whether or not she was right.

He didn’t say anything else, clearly thinking about that last interchange. So she kept the conversation going.

“I don’t know what you’re called either,” she said.

“I told the Eaufasse,” he said.

“I don’t speak Fasse,” she said.

His eyes narrowed. “Then how did they contact you?”

“Through others who speak their language. How did you learn it?”

His head moved slightly, almost as if he considered shaking it and then changed his mind.

“They call me Third of the Second.” His voice shook. “Thirds if they don’t want to say the whole name.”

So Okani’s translation was wrong. “Thirds” not “Third.”

That would be easy to mishear.

“And your friends call you that too?” she asked.

His mouth moved, but nothing came out. Then he bit his lower lip, drawing blood. “What happened to the others?”

Her gaze met his. It was time to be honest with him, in more than one way.

“I wasn’t called to see you,” she said. “I didn’t find out about you until several hours after I arrived.”

She hoped he would understand the subtlety. She hoped he would know what she meant.

His eyes narrowed a little. He seemed to have an idea what she was talking about. He frowned.

“What happened?” he asked again.

She rather liked the fact that he wasn’t going to assume. She liked that he needed confirmation.

“The twelve killed the three who left with you,” she said as calmly as she could.

“How?” he asked.

She was surprised by that. She figured he would know they had used their laser rifles.

“They were shot,” she said.

He turned his head to the side, quickly, and closed his eyes, as if denying the news. Then his face crumpled. He slid down the wall and brought his hands up.

She remained standing for a minute. Then she took one of the nearby human chairs, as much to prevent herself from going to him as to wait for him to calm a little.

He folded his arms on his knees and buried his head. His shoulders shook.

She watched. She’d seen similar reactions before, usually from parents who had lost children or people who had lost lovers. Sometimes it took quite a while for the person to calm down.