The Cold Between (16 page)

Elena squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. If MacBride had been under orders, why had he lied? Or perhaps he hadn't lied; perhaps he had told as much of the truth as he could. He had been
under orders, after all. Perhaps Greg was under orders as well. There had been a time when he would have told her everything, regardless of restrictions; but now she had no such expectation.

“Six months ago,” she said, opening her eyes, “I would have told you with absolute conviction that my captain did not know anything of this, that if he knew of any such orders being given he would have raised holy hell and done everything he could to stop it from happening. Now . . .” God, she was tired. “I don't know who has been telling me what anymore.”

“You are exhausted,” Trey said to her. “You need rest,
m'laya.
Just for a little while.”

So did he, but she shook her head. “There's no time.”

“You could return to your ship,” he suggested.

She picked up her head and looked at him. “And leave you to be arrested?”

He shrugged. “I have been arrested many times,” he reminded her. “I would survive it.”

She was less sure of that. “No,” she told him. “And not just because of you, Trey. Because it's more than Danny. Whatever this is, it's big, maybe as big as Central. I can't go back there and close my eyes and wish it away. I can't keep working for an organization that might have done something like this. And I won't let them sweep it into your lap, not if I can stop them.”

He was studying her with that same intensity he'd had earlier, his eyes hard and hopeful all at once. “I could elude you,” he told her. “We could go out onto the street, and I could leave you behind, and you would not be able to find me again.”

“Is that something you'd do?”

Something desperate crept into his gaze, and she thought she could spend hours just staring into his eyes, reading his
thoughts, falling into them. He lifted a hand and brushed her hair away from her face, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. He had done that the night before, she remembered, right before he kissed her, and she felt herself blushing again. “I should do it,” he said softly. “I should tie you up and leave you here and call your people to pick you up and take you home.”

“But you won't.”

He sighed, and dropped his hand. “Ilya lives around the corner,” he said. “I believe he is home. I do not wish to comm him in advance to check.”

“I thought local comms weren't recorded.”

“They are not, but that does not mean they cannot be traced while they are active, if one knows what one is looking for.”

Reluctantly she stood, her eyes down on the dark tabletop. “I have this wish,” she said, half to herself, “that your friend will tell us something that will make this all make sense. But I am afraid of it as well. Is that crazy?”

He reached out to her and slipped his hand into hers, and she held on to him, her only lifeline. “It is human,
m'laya.
And under the circumstances, perhaps the only logical response.”

She looked over at him. “I am less naive now, I think,” she said.

The ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. “I have concluded, my dear, that I am the one who was naive. So perhaps we have both learned something.”

Hand in hand, they left his chaotic flat behind.

Galileo

G
reg had set the precedent early on in
Galileo
's run that in the pub, rank was not acknowledged. Here the crew members were just people, no saluting, no rules of hierarchy. While he was never quite afforded the status of comrade, they had learned to relax around him, and behave with each other as if he were not there. Now, sitting in a dark corner with his hand curled around a glass, he was fairly confident he was seeing their genuine reactions to the day.

Despite the morning's hangovers, there had been drinking throughout the afternoon, all of it in Lancaster's honor. On the whole it had been an affectionate wake. People swapped stories both humorous and sentimental, and the general impression he got was that Lancaster would be deeply missed. It was impossible not to feel some guilt at the fact he had not liked the man; but in that respect, Danny Lancaster had been no different from any of the men Elena had become involved with over the years.

Professional grief was another thing entirely, and more than once he wished he was drinking scotch. This whole thing was wrong, and the closer he looked at it, the less sense it made.

Galileo
's biography on Captain Treiko Zajec had failed to suggest in any way, shape, or form that the man might be involved in anything hostile. Zajec had been thirty when
Castelanna
had fallen under his command, and there were regular reports of both trade with corporate freighters and skirmishes with Syndicate tribes. His record with the Syndicates was brutally one-sided, and the tribes had filed hundreds of formal complaints with Central Gov, but Zajec had never been charged. Every time the Syndicates produced evidence, a freighter captain would claim to have witnessed the initial Syndicate hostility and insist that
Castelanna
's retaliation was self-defense.

It might have been true, but corporate freighter crews were notoriously closemouthed and risk-averse. That they had spoken up suggested they had liked Zajec. They had trusted him. Greg had no great admiration for corporations, but freighter crews—who often ended up in war zones with no one to rely on but each other—had little use for politics. They would not have defended someone intent on one-sided hostilities.

Zajec had been viewed, throughout his career, as the de facto leader of the Fifth Sector PSI tribes. No leader who followed him would have risked the goodwill he had obtained from the freighter crews. Which implied that what had happened with
Demeter
was not one-sided, and Greg was not yet sure what to do about that.

The mystery of Zajec's childhood crime had bothered him until
Galileo
had traced Zajec's original name: Ivan Rostovich. He had been thirteen when his stepfather had died, and the police had flagged the boy as a missing person, but it was clear from Novanadyr's records that they believed he was guilty of
murder. They also believed his stepfather had been beating the children, but Rostovich's mother had refused to let them speak to her eight-year-old daughter. Her statements suggested she was content to let her son take sole responsibility for the death. Zajec had sent his sister comms nearly every week for the forty-four years he had been away from Volhynia, but she had never answered.

It all added up to one thing: Elena had been right about Zajec. She had been right, and Greg should have trusted her. If he had listened, he might have considered a far more frank discussion with Zajec from the start, and he might have more to ask Admiral Herrod than
What the hell is really going on?

Twenty minutes before her scheduled check-in. He suspected, if he tried to comm her early, that she would cut him off again. His thoughts were interrupted by Jessica, who dropped into a chair next to his without waiting for an invitation.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing at his glass. Silently he handed it to her, and she took a sip; after a moment she grimaced and handed it back to him. “You might have warned me, sir.”

He had forgotten how much Jessica disliked tea. “What's got you needing a drink?” he asked.

“Well, sir. I just got finished talking to a crazy person, and I'm a little worried that he's not crazy at all.”

She had to mean Limonov. He'd had a few complaints about the man, mostly from the younger crew members. “I wouldn't think you'd be bothered by superstition, Lieutenant.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I don't think it's all superstition. The trouble is I can't decode it. And then it occurred to me that maybe you could.”

He leaned forward. “What have you got?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Danny was digging around about pulsars, right? This specific pulsar. The one you called a signpost. And I thought it was Volhynia he cared about—how it was affected by the pulsar—but Enkha said he listened to Limonov, even though nobody else did. So I talked to Limonov, and he talked like that wormhole was alive. Said it had taken the
Phoenix.
Said MacBride knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That's what's unclear, sir, although he implied Central was involved as well. But he said it would take all of us, and when I asked him how that would happen, he leaned over, so nobody else could hear him, not even Ted. And he said, ‘It sings.'”

Everything inside of Greg went still. It wasn't possible, not after all this time. “Did he say what it sang, Lieutenant?”

She shook her head. “I got the hell out of there, sir. He seems almost normal when you first start talking to him. Hearing something like that—it makes it worse.”

He wondered if Limonov could actually know, or if it was just the ranting of a madman. Greg had been told shortly after he was deployed, and he had only repeated the information once. His own father did not know. For Limonov to have sources seemed unlikely, since he wore his conspiracy theories on his sleeve, and nobody at Central was going to trust him with much. He was a talented mechanic, but his mental state had restricted his career.

Now Greg began to wonder if that was unjust.

“You know what it is,” Jessica said, watching him closely, “don't you, sir?”

He didn't know. He couldn't know. It was insane.
And yet . . .
“I have a guess,” he told her. He met her eyes, and he
thought she might have guessed herself. “Have you ever noticed that everything they've told us about the
Phoenix
doesn't really come to anything?”

“I figured it was just the Corps being the Corps.”

He nodded. “That, too. They didn't want anyone panicking, didn't want to lose funding or sponsorship, especially when they were in the middle of phasing out the old drives. Starlight was unproven. Blaming the explosion on the
Phoenix
's engine was useful . . . but they don't know, Jess. Because they never found the flight recorder.”

She would know what that meant, how blind Central would have been without the mission data stored on the flight recorder. She would realize that all of the Corps' public statements about the
Phoenix,
for the last twenty-five years, had been guesswork, misdirection, and flat-out lies. He saw her eyes widen. “You think that's what's singing?”

“Yes. No.” Radio signals were not uncommon in space, but
singing
implied something melodic, like a flight recorder signature. “Why would Central hide it, if it was? But what the hell else could it be?” What if this was what Lancaster had found?

And, if so: Why would he be killed over a flight recorder?

“Sir, I—”

His comm chimed, and he was not sure if he was relieved or annoyed at the interruption. “Who is it?” he snapped at his ship, and
Galileo
obligingly projected the name in the air before them.

Lieutenant Commander Janek Luvidovich, Novanadyr PD
.

He met Jessica's eyes; she looked as anxious as he felt. “What can I do for you, Mr. Luvidovich?”

The vid appeared before him, crisp and clear. Luvidovich was seated at a desk, his hands folded, unsmiling. Despite his professional demeanor, though, he couldn't hide the smug look on his face. Greg's veins turned to ice. “We have come across a piece of information,” Luvidovich said, “that holds some interest for us.”

Greg worked to keep his expression neutral. “And what would that be, Mr. Luvidovich?”

The man did finally smile, but there was a coldness in his eyes Greg suspected never left his expression. “It seems the alibi produced for our prime suspect is . . . in question.”

“Why?”

Luvidovich's face turned ugly. “You had best stop assuming I am an idiot,” he snapped. “You know precisely to what I am referring. Did you send that woman down here to make fools of us? We small, provincial colonists? Did you believe we would not find out?”

“And what is it you think you have found out?”

“That woman. Your engineer. She was involved with the dead man.” He seemed annoyed Greg had made him spell it out.

“Maybe if you'd asked her some real questions instead of trying to frame someone you don't like,” Greg said, his tone menacing, “you wouldn't have had to stumble on the information like a fucking
amateur.
”

Luvidovich's lips tightened. “We know she is in Novanadyr. Where is she?”

“Why the hell should I tell you?”

“Because if you do not,” Luvidovich said, leaning forward, “I will contact your Admiralty, and I will tell them you are obstructing our investigation into the death of one of your own men.”

Shit.

But he wasn't going to let Luvidovich see his vulnerability. “I
am
the Admiralty out here, Mr. Luvidovich,” Greg said coldly. “And before you threaten me again, I suggest you consider the fact that the weapons on this ship are precise enough that I could take you out right where you are without anybody around you seeing a damn thing.” Luvidovich opened his mouth to retort, but Greg talked over him. “I will contact Commander Shaw, and let her know you'd like to speak to her. But if you start slacking off on this investigation again, I will be down there with infantry, and I will shut down your whole fucking city until you get me my killer. I don't want to hear from you again until you have more than bullshit speculation.” He disconnected and stood, Jessica standing beside him.

“He's right, sir,” she said. “The Admiralty isn't going to like this at all.”

“Of course he's right.” He headed for the door, Jessica at his side, and he noted that she had no trouble hustling to keep up with his longer stride. “But I'm done fucking around with this. Whatever fixation he's got with Zajec, it's not finding us Lancaster's killer.” They moved into the hallway, and he turned to head for his office.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to warn Elena,” he said grimly. “I'm going to get her ass off of that planet. And then I'm going to find an excuse to blast that smug son of a bitch cop into fucking
dust.
”