Starbase Human (33 page)

“I don’t get it,” Robuchon said to Mycenae. “If your brother wasn’t able to destroy the DNA, and you think it’s stored elsewhere, how do you find the clones?”

Her back was to Robuchon. She rolled her eyes at Deshin, as if they were co-conspirators. He didn’t respond.

“We know where the clones are made,” she said. “We know how they’re distributed. We have set up clients who demand Mycenae clones. The clones show up at that location, and we kill them. It’s easy.”

“But expensive,” Kee said.

“We don’t worry about money,” Mycenae said.

Deshin made a mental note of that. Because if the new leaders of the Mycenae family didn’t worry about money, that meant the entire empire would be for sale in a few years.

“I want to know how the clones are transported,” Palone said.

“Depends on the size of the order,” Mycenae said. “And the point of the clones.”

“They’re selling clones as well as distributing them like secret agents?” Kee asked, as if that had just become clear to her.

Mycenae shrugged. “I didn’t design the business model. I actually think someone inside the clone factory is selling them without government knowledge, but honestly, I don’t really care.”

“Well, you should care,” Cyzewski said, “because if you’re only killing the ones you buy, you’re missing all the ones owned by the government.”

Mycenae tilted her head and looked at him sideways. The look chilled Deshin. She wasn’t entirely sane.

“I told you,” she said. “I’m not sharing everything.”

“Where is the clone factory?” Deshin asked.

“Not all of them are inside the Alliance,” she said.

“We know that,” Ibori said. “The one you’re working with.”

Color suffused Mycenae’s cheeks. “I’m not working with them.”

“You’re paying them money and keeping them in business,” Ibori said. “I think that’s working with, not working against.”

“Enough,” Deshin said.

The room got quiet. Everyone looked at him. If he handled this next part wrong, then everything would fall apart.

“I have a question,” he said to Mycenae. “You said there are a lot of clone factories. I assume you mean that there are a lot owned by the government.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are the ones making clones of us and infiltrating our organizations inside or outside of the Alliance?” he asked.

“Where would you put them?” she asked, bracing her elbow on the table, putting her chin on her palm, and looking directly at him.

“I would put them inside the Alliance, close to government facilities,” he said. “It’s easier to protect. I’d make other types of clones, military or manufacturing, near the edges of the Alliance.”

Mycenae grinned. “Mr. Deshin gets it in one. Are
you
working for the government?”

He felt a surge of anger run through him, even though he knew making him angry was what she had been trying to do.

Maybe the anger came because he had been working with the government on the bombings, even if that working “with” had been through the Retrieval Artist Miles Flint.

“If I were,” Deshin said, “I would know where the facility is.”

“You’re looking for the place building those assassin clones, aren’t you?” Maurizio Eto spoke up for the first time. He was the oldest man in the room. He had eaten nothing and touched nothing. He had simply watched everyone as the discussion played on.

He was asking the question of Deshin.

“Yes,” Deshin said. “I’m looking for the assassin clones.”

“You need a facility that handles both human and alien clones, then,” Eto said.

“There is none,” Mycenae said. “No cloning facility handles both.”

“One does,” Eto said. “It is exactly as you described, Luc. It is not far from some major government facilities, and it has existed for more than a century. It is on Hétique.”

“It is not!” Mycenae snapped.

Three others in the room glared at her. Eto didn’t even bother to look at her.

“We have been watching that facility for some time. It is also the source of some of the small ships that a decade or two back found their way into the black market. We’ve been worried about attacking the facility on our own, especially given what happened to Aurla—”

“She wasn’t attacking that!” Mycenae said. “She wasn’t that dumb. She was—”

“—but,” Eto said, clearly ignoring Mycenae. Apparently, he had decided she was worthless. Deshin was beginning to agree. “—if we approach that facility with all of our forces together, we might be able to destroy it.”

“Is that worthwhile, given that the DNA is stored elsewhere?” Palone asked.

Deshin turned his chair slightly, so that Mycenae didn’t block his vision of the others.

“They’re attacking us,” Deshin said. “Even if they continue making more clones of us elsewhere, this will slow them down. And it might just take out the folks inside the Alliance who are making those assassin clones.”

“Lots of ifs, Deshin,” Steeg said.

Deshin nodded.

“I see no benefit in this,” Mycenae said.

She had gotten on his last nerve. He gave her his coldest look, and she actually shrank back just enough.

“The benefits are simple. Best case, we stop them from cloning our families. But like you, I doubt that will happen. Also best case, we destroy those who are making the assassin clones. I also doubt that will happen.”

“See?” Mycenae’s bravado had returned. “No benefit.”

“However, if we succeed, we will slow them down. If the attacks on the Moon are being caused by a rogue element inside the Alliance, then that rogue element will be on notice. They’ll know we’re after them. The Alliance itself might think the attacks on the Moon have moved to other parts of the Alliance—”

“And they’ll come after us,” Mycenae said. “You don’t know what that’s like. They took out half my family—”

“Correction, little girl,” Eto said quietly. “You took out half your family. The Alliance may have killed your mother, although I doubt it.”

He looked at Deshin and raised his eyebrows. Deshin got the message:
Don’t trust Mycenae
. As if he were dumb enough to trust her at all.

“You just want to continue killing,” Ibori said to Mycenae, “and we’re going to take away your excuse.”

Deshin liked the
we’re
.

“To go on with your list,” Eto said as if Mycenae hadn’t spoken up at all, “we might force the Alliance’s hand. They might have to stop the clone infiltration of our businesses.”

“At least the way they’re doing it now,” Robuchon muttered.

Deshin shrugged a shoulder. “I think if we work together and strike at them, we’ll accomplish a lot.”

“Count me out.” Mycenae slid her chair back and stood up. “I’m leaving this dump. You people are crazy.”

She stomped her way to the door and walked through it.

“Are you going to let her go?” Kee asked quietly.

“We all decide that,” Deshin said. “I can prevent her ship from leaving if we believe it necessary. But if we come up with a good plan to go after that clone factory, she might be useful.”

“What makes you think that, Deshin?” Palone asked.

Deshin smiled. “She’ll tell them who attacked them. And why.”

“And they’ll come after us,” Kee said.

“They’re already after us,” Eto said. “We just make sure the press and the rest of the Alliance know that we’re doing this for noble reasons, right, Deshin? We make it clear we’re going after the assassin clones because the Alliance lacks the will.”

“And because the Alliance made them,” Cyzewski said, grinning. “Suddenly, we’re the good guys.”

Everyone laughed. They knew they wouldn’t be the good guys. But they also knew that distrust for the Alliance ran deep in many circles, and this plan might strengthen their standing in those circles.

Only Kee didn’t laugh.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Deshin,” she said.

“I always have, Layla,” Deshin said quietly. “I always have.”

FORTY-TWO

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Odgerel had just arrived at the Hall of Imperial Peace when she received a message along her links. She tried not to think of the irony. If she got a message through her links before she got to work, it often meant there was some kind of threat to peace—at least to her peace.

On lovely days like this one, with the sun whispering through the trees, she left her apartment early so that she could walk through the Imperial Garden on her way to the office. The Imperial Garden, which always seemed so rejuvenating to her after she walked through Tiananmen Square and into the Forbidden City. The garden was different every day—new flowers blooming, new plants pruned—and yet it had a feeling of eternity that eased her troubled spirit.

She thought of ignoring the message, but did not feel as if she had the luxury on the way to work. Everyone knew that she ignored all but the most important emergency during lunch, but very few knew about her walk to the office on days like this.

She stopped near an ancient cypress tree. The crowd was thin at this time of the morning, mostly locals and no tourists, but she didn’t want to monitor the aliens and tour guides while she was responding to a potential crisis.

She opened the message.

I would like to speak with you outside of the office about my assignment
. The message came from Mitchell Brown.

She sighed and sent him her location. She understood his caution.

He appeared near her, breathing hard. He had run again, and apparently slowed down as he entered the Gate of Heavenly Unity. Someone had probably reminded him to show respect.

She thought of taking him to the statues of the Xiezhi. The mythological creature had been a symbol not just of justice and law, but of civil service. She doubted Brown knew any of that, so the reminder would be wasted on him.

He stopped beside her, his clothing mussed, his face covered with sweat.

“Sorry,” he said, beginning that annoying apology again. “I’m just finding all kinds of strange stuff. You wanted proof that the Alliance is in danger, and I don’t really have that, but—”

She put a finger to her lips.

He stopped talking.

“Speak slowly and quietly,” she said.

He nodded, then took a deep breath.

“What I have,” he said, speaking slower than he had before, but still not slowly, “are some strange coincidences. Like the only place that the DNA for both mass murderers exists, as far as I can tell, is in Special DNA Collections of our own forensic wing. An accusation from a reputable law firm that Alliance ships fired on a transport that housed a Frémont clone that had been imprisoned during the years of planning for the first Armstrong attack, and—”

“You are saying that you find suggestions that within the Alliance, forces are gathering that would destroy the Alliance.” She raised her head, and gazed at the nearby rockery, plants poking their ambitious heads through openings in the stone.

Breathe
, she reminded herself.
Remain calm
.

“Yes, sir, I am,” he said, “and that’s with just a quick search. I also found a lot of dissident groups and some long-standing political groups from within the Alliance that believe all kinds of dumb things, like—”

“I’m aware of the levels of stupidity that can exist in any governmental endeavor,” she said. “None of this is proof positive, like I asked for.”

“Sir, forgive me,” he said. “But my gut sense is that something is happening, and it’s happening with the help of a branch of the Alliance.”

“You mentioned the Special DNA Collections Unit in the Forensic Wing,” she said. “You realize that is under the Security Division’s auspices.”

“I do, sir,” he said. “That, plus the fact that this Frémont clone died the moment he was released from prison by a judge’s order, sends some suspicion toward the Security Division.”

“If that is the case,” she asked, “how do you know you can trust me?”

His look was almost comical in its surprise. “Sir?”

“I lead the Human Coordination Department of the entire Security Division. You are implying that I do not know what happens under my watch?”

Brown swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She could see the calculation in his face. Did he say what he truly believed and insult his new boss? Did he risk his entire career by making a wild, unsubstantiated claim that might harm thousands of jobs? Or did he bob and weave and make nice until he had some kind of verifiable information?

“Sir, I’m sorry,” he said, and she felt a deep disappointment. So much for finding an employee who would face her head on. “But I think we need the help of all the other divisions and we need it fast. What I’m finding makes me uncomfortable, but it doesn’t give us the proof you want. I’m not sure the proof would be easy to find. I mean, you’re making an assumption here.”