Rules of Conflict (20 page)

Joaquin looked up with a start. “Early this year. Right after your
arrest, as a matter of fact.” He pulled a disc out of the file. “Here, why
don’t I just transfer this to you. I’ll code it as legal communication so no
one can monitor it. If you think you recall meeting him during the evac, let me
know.” He inserted the disc into his comport. “Now, if you’re sufficiently
becalmed, perhaps you’ll let me get back to work.” It wasn’t like Joaquin to
request permission, and this time proved no exception. His image sharded,
leaving Evan to stare at the blue standby screen.

He waited for the data transfer to complete, then called up
Pierce’s file on his comport display. Joaquin had covered the high points, but
the details revealed the more complex picture of a self-destructive young man
undergoing a complete transformation under the firm guidance of the only father
figure he had ever known. “Boy, Niall, you’d fall on a sword for Roshi,
wouldn’t you?” If every great man had his dog, Mako had bred an attack animal
in Pierce.

Evan rested his head against the chairback and let his mind
wander.
I get arrested.
Directly afterward, the son the A-G never had
starts cracking up. “But Roshi doesn’t let him down. He keeps him by his side
to play escort and take notes on diarrhea-inducing herbs.” However much Pierce
esteemed Mako, the feeling seemed mutual.

“What else happened after my arrest?” Well, relations with the
idomeni became more interesting. Nema started talking GateWay rights and trade
routes as soon as the fact that Jani Kilian lived became widely known.

“Jani’s alive—Pierce goes downhill.” Evan pondered, then shook his
head. “Coincidence.” He stared into space for a time. Then he scrabbled through
his desk for a recording board and stylus and reread Pierce’s file, making
notes along the way.

It might have been a dream. Could have been a dream.

Jani rode a waveglider. But she had no arms to steer the board,
and skimmed out farther and farther on the lake. The shoreline disappeared from
view. Skies darkened. Wind howled. The waves grew higher and higher, breaking
over her again and again before finally flipping the glider like a vend token.
She tumbled through the air. Into the water. The cold wet closed over her,
pulled her down. She could see nothing in the frigid blackness, but she could
hear.

Voices.

No.

One voice.

Neumann’s.

Welcome to my home base, Kilian.

Deeper. Darker. Colder.

I’ve been waiting for you.

Pain. In her stomach. She pressed the side of her body
against the floor, and tried to drive it out with cold.

“Jani!”

She curled in a ball.

“
Somebody call an ambulance!
”

Tighter. Tighter. If she made herself small enough, she could sink
between the tiles, disappear into the floor, and leave the pain behind. It
wouldn’t fit. It was too big.

“Hurry up! She’s in here!”

Pimentel glowered at the cartridge tester. “You’re the
gatekeeper, Jani. You’re the one who controls what you eat. Your scanner
doesn’t come equipped with little hands to clamp over your mouth.” He looked at
her over the top of his magnispecs. He wore summerweights rather than his usual
medwhites; his shirt was rumpled, and his hair needed a trim. Some A&S-hole
would make his or her quota and then some the next time he stepped outside.

Jani sniffed the air, then continued to breathe through her mouth.
According to Pimentel, Lucien had stopped by her room to take her to breakfast.
When she didn’t answer the buzzer, he had broken in and found her semiconscious
on her bathroom floor. She had come to in Triage. Taken a deep breath. Passed
out again when the smell from the next alcove hit her. There, a burn team
attended to a firing-range accident. The young woman’s shooter had backflashed;
the half-formed pulse packet had burnt through her summerweights and seared her
right side from shoulder to knee.

“Please don’t admit me,” Jani whispered. Even though she now sat
in an examining room on the opposite end of the building, she swore she could
detect the odor of burnt flesh in the air. Burnt, like Borgie and the others.
Burnt as she had been, too, but she had survived. “I don’t want to stay here.”

Pimentel removed the magnispecs. “Jani, you are in no condition to
leave. Acute intermittent porphyria can affect the autonomic nervous system.
Part of that system controls the adrenal glands, which, along with your
thyroid, are the sites of your secondary augmentation. While you were in Triage,
you started talking to someone who wasn’t there. I’m concerned that stimulation
of your adrenals is aggravating your primary insert, and you don’t need the
threat of augie psychosis on top of everything else.” He held out the recording
board and stared at it. “I’m going to schedule you for an augmentation imaging.
Today. And you’re staying here until that’s done.”

Jani sat on a skimchair in the imaging lounge and spooned
another mouthful of fruit sludge from the overlarge container. Strawberry,
supposedly. Judging from the texture, “straw” was a given, but she’d fight to
the death the “berry” part.

The clip of footsteps in the hallway gave her an excuse to drop
the spoon in the remains of the semifrozen glop. The door swept aside and
Friesian bustled in; he slid to a stop when he spotted her.

“Pimentel called,” he said as he took in the skimchair, her
hospital-issue robe and pajamas. “Said—they found you—in your room.” His voice
was choppy, his face flushed. It was a healthy run from Defense Command. “What
happened?”

“Didn’t eat right. Got sick.”

“
Jani
.” Sweat beaded his forehead and soaked his
short-sleeve. He pulled a dispo from his trouser pocket and mopped his brow.
“How do you feel now?”

“Fine.”

“‘Fine,’ she says.” He sat down on the sofa next to her chair.
“And we know what that’s worth, don’t we?”

Jani remained quiet and stirred the remains of the sludge.

Friesian shook his head. “Pimentel thinks one of the reasons you
suffered this episode is because you’re under a great deal of stress. I told him
I had a piece of news I thought might reduce that stress substantially. When he
heard what it was, he suggested I share it with you.” He sat back, arms at his
sides. He looked as exhausted as Jani felt. “I received a call early this
morning from a Colonel Bryant, a member of the prosecution. We had a very
interesting talk. I’m expecting an offer to work out a deal anytime now.”

Jani kept poking at the sludge. “No trial?”

“Just a hearing.”

“How do you know they’re not just pulling your leg?” She set the
container on her chairside table and wiped her condensation-wetted fingers on
her robe.

Friesian tugged at his damp short-sleeve. “I’ve been at this game
a while. I know when someone’s playing with me and I know when they’re
scrambling. This is a scramble like nothing I’ve ever seen. They want you
settled and out of here.”

Jani sat back. As she shifted, the skimchair rocked. The motion
sickened her—she had to swallow hard before speaking. “Makes you wonder what’s
the rush, doesn’t it?”

Friesian flexed his neck forward, back, then side to side. His
cervical vertebrae cracked like knuckles. “
No
, it doesn’t. My job is not
to run after the prosecution and ask them why they’re not going after you
harder. My job is to get you out from under with as little penalty as possible.
And
to keep you from shooting yourself in the foot, which from the
notations in your record appears to have bordered on a second calling!”

After a flare of anger that set her stomach to clenching, Jani
decided not to argue. She felt too sick. Besides, truth was truth. “So what
would I be looking at?” She leaned forward. Her lower back balked, and she
braced her elbows on her knees for support. “A plea bargain?”

Friesian glanced at her, then looked away. “Not quite. More an
arrangement that would see justice served, while taking your condition into
account.”

“My condition?”

“Your emotional and physical health, both now and at the time of
the infraction.”

Infraction?
That made it sound so . . . A&S.
Jani sat up carefully. “Go on.”

Friesian hesitated at the tone in her voice. “This arrangement
would be worked out by a panel of experts. In your case, the panel would
consist of an adjudicating committee, your attending and consulting physicians,
a prosecutor from the JA, and me.”

“Who sits on the adjudicating committee?”

“A judge and two members of Service Medical unaffiliated with your
case.”

“No trial?”

“What would be the point? We would admit you did what you were
charged with. Your physicians would explain why you did what you did. The
prosecution would delineate the consequences of your actions. Then, it’s up to
the committee to decide a fair punishment, while at the same time protecting
you.”

Why do I have a feeling what I need protecting from is the
committee?
“And you expect what?”

“A general medical discharge. A verdict that while you may have
been somewhat aware of what you were doing when you missed being evac’d from
Rauta Shèràa, your physical and emotional states contributed to your disregard
of the consequences.”

“How can you define my physical and emotional states when no one
will believe me when I tell them what happened?”

“Jani, we need to make a determination according to what we
know
happened. What we have paper on. The effects of the experimental treatments you
received from John Shroud. Your guilt over the deaths of your comrades in the
transport crash. Your inability to prevent the deaths of the patients at
Knevçet Shèràa.”

Jani rested her hands on her stomach. The nausea had eased, but
the fruit sludge settled like a weight, heavy enough to push her through the
chair. “What does a general medical entail these days?”

Friesian’s shoulders slumped. It was as if he’d braced for a
fight, then realized there wouldn’t be one. “It entitles you to a partial
pension. You’d give up the right to sign yourself as
Captain, Retired.
No access to ship-stores discounts or emergency travel on Service vessels. But
you’d still retain rights to medical care, which in your case, I believe, is
the most important consideration.”

“Jail?”

“Sentence would be limited to time served.”

“Which was?”

“Your incarceration at Fort Constanza.”

“One week in the brig infirmary?” She searched Friesian’s face for
some sign of wonderment or confusion, any indication that he felt mystified.
She certainly did. “You really believe they will offer me this deal?”

“Bryant indicated it could be finalized within a week.”

“And that I should take it?”

“I would recommend you do, without hesitation.”

“Just walk away?” She watched Friesian nod.