The Elysium Commission (17 page)

I had the feeling I wasn't about to get much more from Carthon Wills. “Here's my contact link.” I flashed it across, with a brief message requesting that Terrie McGerrie return the vidlink. I doubted that she would.

I sat at the table desk, not even really thinking. I was just wondering if I'd ever had to deal with so many ambiguous commissions at the same time before.

Seigniora Reynarda, requesting an appointment here in one stan, sir.

She doesn't just want to vidlink?
That was odd.

It was just a coded request.

I'll see her.
It couldn't hurt.

While I waited, I sat down and set up several more different search routines. I used the systems to draft a quick hard-copy report for Seigniora Elisabetta Reynarda. I ended up revising it twice before I had it printed out and set on the desk. Then I checked the search results. They added nothing new.

In the few minutes after that, I half thought and half let my mind wander, trying to see if it might offer some brilliant insight that I could offer Seigniora Reynarda.

It didn't.

When Seigniora Reynarda entered the study at quarter past eleven, she looked almost the same as she had when she had appeared weeks earlier. The natural stormy blond hair was perfectly in place. This time she was wearing a fitted black singlesuit, with black boots, and a lighter gray short jacket. She wore neither a scarf nor ear jewelry, and only a single silver-gray pin on the lapel of her jacket. The pin was a silver fox.

Was she claiming ancestry or affinity?

I moved out from the desk. “Seigniora…”

Before I could say more, her black eyes raked me. She stopped a good two yards away from me. “Seignior Donne. For a man with your background and reputation, you don't seem to have accomplished much—except get a citation for swimming in the city reservoir. That does not come under covered expenses, Seignior Donne.”

“The swimming, no. The citation, probably not. Escaping a swarm of Arswaran wasps, yes.”

She pulled the single-eyebrow trick She was good at it. That I had to admit.

I half turned and lifted the clear case from the corner of the desk, then handed it to her. “One Arswaran wasp. It's time-dated. If you can persuade the Garda, they could also confirm it.”

She took the wasp and handed the case back to me. “Exactly what have you discovered?”

I handed her the hard-copy report. “I could give you a linked one.”

“This is most suitable…in format.” She read the three pages quickly, then looked up. “From what I can tell, you have managed to alert the Elois to your presence and interest without finding out more than Maraniss is engaged in something with them, and that Classic Research is involved in a hidden effort on Legaar's estate requiring a massive amount of power.”

“Also that the Elois have a measure of effective control over what the Garda in Thurene observes and whom they harass, and that they have snoops and taps in almost every aspect of the record system of the Civitas Sorores.”

“You have found nothing about a link to Elysium?”

“Only the probability that it is the project being undertaken at Time's End and that I've observed at least three military-style RPFs patrolling that perimeter.”

She offered a snort. It wasn't that good an expression of disgust. “You've established that they're probably doing something illegal but without enough proof for the Garda or anyone else to act. But then, they always are. That's their methodology. Just to show my goodwill, I'll even provide another five thousand as remuneration for what little you have discovered, and for your difficulties with the wasps. I think ten thousand credits should be sufficient for your time and even the cost of the citation.”

Before I could speak, Max verified that the receipts account had accepted another five thousand credits.

The black eyes fixed on me again. “If you wish to investigate further, and if you find more, you'll do it without any more advances. I'll contact you later. If you can find a definite link, I'll pay another ten thousand credits. Otherwise, I'll pay nothing.”

“I'll see what more I can find out.” How hard I'd try was another question. Still, it was worth a few more stans of work.

“Good day, Seignior.”

I watched her go. I had a very uneasy feeling. Feminine as my scans and systems showed her to be, she still exuded no pheromones. I could only hope that some of the nanotraps from the desk and the case were sticking tight.

She was barely into the private limousine before Max informed me,
Incoming from Del Shannon.

Accept.

The colonel appeared in the space before the study desk. “Donne.”

“Yes, Colonel. What can I do for you?”

“You can talk to Officer Javerr when he arrives, for one thing.”

That was one of the last things I'd prefer to do, but I couldn't very well play runaway. “Could you tell me what we'll be talking about?”

“I'm sure Javerr can explain it, Donne.” Shannon smiled. It wasn't a friendly expression. “If you'd rather, we could insist on your coming here to headquarters.”

“I'll be happy to talk to Officer Javerr, Colonel.”

“I thought you would be. You've always been reasonable.”

“Can you at least tell me when to expect him? I'd rather not miss him.”

“Very shortly.” The colonel broke the link.

Shannon had never been so cold, not even when we'd had to deal with the Frankan incursion in the Grenadan sector, where we'd initially been hammered.

Shortly turned out to be less than a quarter stan.

Garda flitter incoming, sir
, announced Max.

Hold the defenses
.

Javerr dropped his flitter right into the courtyard, almost at the base of the steps. The armament was aimed at my front door. What the Garda carried wouldn't have done much damage, but there was no point in letting them know that. He walked up my front steps as if he owned them.

I met him at the top, just outside the columns framing the main entry. “Would you care to come into the study, Officer?”

“Not especially, Seignior Donne, but it would make the most sense.”

He followed me across the entry hallway, trying to record everything in sight. There wasn't much there.

The door closed behind us, and he took two more steps before stopping and turning. “Where were you on Domen morning, Seignior Donne?” Javerr made “seignior” sound like a curse.

“I was here in the villa, Officer.”

“You were here all day?”

“I certainly was.”

“And I suppose you were here all day Senen as well?”

“No. I went to brunch at my sister's house.”

“Just the two of you, I suppose?”

“No. There were four other people there.”

“Close friends?”

“Three of them I'd never met before, Officer.”

That upset Javerr, or at least surprised him.

“Who were they?”

“My sister and her business partner, an academic economist from the university, and two dynamic re-creators who provide stories out of the early interstellar period.”

“How long were you there?”

“Until midafternoon.”

“Then where did you go?”

“I came back here. I had work to do.”

“I understand you have a connection to Lemel Jerome.”

“That's certainly no secret. He occasionally engages me to provide information for his various projects.”

“Are you working on one now?”

“I have in the past, Officer Javerr. I am now.”

“On what?” He didn't quite snap.

“You'd have to get his permission for me to reveal the exact nature of the project. I can say that every commission he has given me has dealt with information on whether some individual or corpentity might have been infringing on one of his patents.”

“You won't tell me?”

“Not without his permission, no.” I paused. “Could you tell me what this is all about, Officer?”

A quick hint of indecision flickered about him before he spoke. “There's no reason not to, now. Lemel Jerome was killed in an explosion in his dwelling sometime after midmorning on Senen.”

On Senen? The energy surge I'd felt when he'd been cut off occurred the day before, on Domen. “Lemmy? Killed? On Senen?”

“That's what all the evidence shows. There wasn't much left of his dwelling, and less of him.”

Was I losing my mind? If Legaar or someone else had destroyed Lemmy's place a day after the vidlink had crashed, then what had caused the crash? Why hadn't I heard something? Or had Lemmy set up something to throw Legaar Eloi off his trail? Or was Javerr trying to mislead me?

Javerr watched me. “You really didn't know, did you?”

“About his death on Senen?” I shook my head. “I knew there was something wrong because when I tried to link him to give him a status report, I got a system talking head. I kept getting it.”

“You didn't go looking?”

“I've never known where he lived or worked. That's often true of my clients and commissions.”

Javerr kept battering me with questions, all from the same angle, but after close to a stan, he quit. It wasn't a surrender, but more like an armistice until he could find another weakness.

After he departed, I wandered across the study and looked out on the verandah. The late-morning light appeared chill.

Incoming from Terrie McGerrie,
Max announced.

Accept and record.

The holo image that appeared in the air in front of my table desk was that of a small blond woman, with fine features and gray eyes. Her chin was slightly pointed. She turned, as if to face me. I could tell it was an altered image, not by anything obvious, but by the smoothness and directness of the motions. “I believe you vidlinked seeking me. I wish to inform you that I accept neither unsolicited commissions nor inquiries. Nor do I respond, except in this fashion, to such. Good day.”

The holo image vanished. Another dead end.

Except there was something…something about her. Or had it been her words or her way of speaking?

Try as I might, I couldn't dig out what it might have been. I set that thought aside. I needed to check on what the snoops I'd placed on Seigniora Reynarda had found. If anything.

Once the seigniora left the villa, I discovered that she'd immediately neutralized all the snoops. I couldn't hear what was going on, but I could still follow the tracking patterns. The limousine made its way to the Boutique, where Reynarda apparently wandered through the shops around Maiden Lane. Then she and all traces of the snoops vanished. One moment, her location was registering normally. The next, there were no signals. That alone confirmed my uneasy feeling.

Who was Seigniora Reynarda? Someone had clearly borrowed the name, if not the methods of the Fox. Was it some government entity? Neither Special Operations nor any Assembly-level unit would risk having the commander court-martialed, not to mention facing planetary charges. Meddling with local citizens, or even with a former special operative, couldn't be worth that kind of risk. And I couldn't see why the sisters would bother with using a front like the seigniora. They could monitor me through the Garda in any public place and track any public act I did.

Whom did that leave? Another corpentity? I snorted. Who else could it be? Who else wanted to expose Legaar and not leave any traces? The problem was that, if I wanted to track those behind the female facade, I could be looking at almost any corpentity in Thurene, if not from even more distant stars and climes. Except that I had the feeling that the seigniora's feminine form had merely concealed another woman, probably a samer, but that was far from certain.

Did I want to pursue the Elysium contract on her terms? Not really, but I had the feeling that, dangerous as it had been and might be, not tracking Legaar might prove even more dangerous, now that he and his systems knew I was interested. By dealing with Tony diVeau I'd emphasized that. But I'd hated the idea of a glad-handing sleazy banker snooping my systems. I couldn't let that go. Not if I wanted to retain any effectiveness in my line of work.

More to the point, credits were credits, especially with my level of expenses.

I frowned. I'd been concentrating on the Elois and on Maraniss. That hadn't gotten me anywhere. What about tracking more information on those around them?

Max, search all names associated with the various Classic corpentities…or with Eloi Enterprises. As possible, match names with jobs. Limit search to this past calendar year.
Then I recalled that Odilia had also provided lists in the dataflat she had slipped to me. I added those names to the search.

I tried a link with Krij. She wasn't taking links. I left a message with her talking head and finalized my draft report on Dyorr's research proposal. Basically, I made several points. First, his research was long-term and expensive. Second, it would benefit a limited number of people, but they were those who could not be helped by existing medical technologies. Third, it would greatly deepen true understanding of what comprised intelligence. Fourth, if successful, it could lead to even more potentially socially disturbing implications than present psych-conditioning used by existing less-than-savory commercial applications. Fifth, it would upset every established religion. Finally, sooner or later, someone was going to do it, and Dyorr's proposal was likely to provide Devanta and the Assembly with greater oversight and control than anything else. Seldara Tozzi wouldn't like the report, but she'd regret my not telling her what she didn't want to hear even less.

I hoped it wouldn't be that long before Myndanori got back to me, but she would when she did, and not when I wished.

With that task done, I began to study the Eloi-related search results.

Max had come up with 611 matches, linked to 203 individual names. First I read through them and set aside those that were clearly “social” or irrelevant matches. Those were the ones that mentioned the spouse of someone attached to one of the Eloi Enterprises in a different context, such as attending a benefit or leading a volunteer or charitable effort. Then I dug in and began to study the rest.

After another hour I had a short list of eleven names. What was interesting about them was that all of them were still alive and that none was presently on Devanta.

Incoming from Krij.

Accept.

Krij's image appeared before the desk. Her smile was warm. For that I was glad. She tossed back her head slightly and flipped a short lock of shimmering jet-black hair back off her forehead. “You left a message, brother dear.”

“I'm still working on the Eloi project, and I've got some names I thought I'd run past you.”

“Before you do that…I need to ask…what did you do to piss off Banque de L'Ouest?”

“I told Antonio diVeau I didn't appreciate his trying to snoop and crash my systems under the guise of inviting me on a cataract rafting trip. Why? What did he do?”

“We keep running dossiers on all our clients. You're one of them. This morning we got an alert that you'd been credit-denied by Banque de L'Ouest. The notation with it indicated you were close to bankruptcy. Since you have this phobia about debt, and since we audit your books, I know that's somewhere between highly unlikely and impossible.”

“He's been suborned by Legaar Eloi.”

Krij sighed. “We'll file a reg-comp denial and issue a counternotice, with an intent to request documentation in support of their notice.”

“You'd better bill me on this.”

“We'll see. I hate bankers almost as much as you do. Now…what about those names? I've got to meet a client here in a quarter stan.”

“What do you know about Laisyn Welles?”

“Besides being the director of Classic Investment?” Krij smiled. “Not all that much. The Vallum Streeters think that he's the reason why Eloi Enterprises is so successful in the financial markets.”

“Then why did Legaar send him to the Abssenya systems last month?”

“He probably said something Legaar didn't like. That's a real danger.”

“You know anything else?”

She shook her head.

“What about Willa Ching?”

Krij offered a rueful smile. Her green eyes softened slightly. “You know I've always been better with the numbers and the regs. People are what Siendra would know more about. She deals more with personnel management. She's here. Would you mind talking to her?”

“Mind? Why would I mind?”

“You seem to avoid her. In a polite way, that is.”

“I've nothing against her. I just don't know her well, and she's so reserved around me…”

Krij's laughter filled the study. Before it died away, her image was replaced by that of Siendra, wearing a dark brown jacket over shimmering white shirt. She was smiling, as if amused at something.

“Siendra.”

“Blaine.” She paused. “Krij said that you wanted to know about people in Eloi Enterprises. You're interested in Willa Ching?”

“Among others,” I admitted.

“Ching has a talent absent from the Elois. She can make people feel wanted and valued.”

“She was sent to Frydrich in the Prussian system,” I pointed out.

“That would make sense if they're expanding in that area. You'd want a people person, particularly there.” She tilted her head slightly, thinking, and probably linking to her own systems.

I waited, but I couldn't help but note that she looked more alive in that unguarded linking moment. Most people didn't.

“Eloi Enterprises' annual report notes increased revenues from the Prussian systems,” she added. “They don't give details, but they wouldn't mention it if the numbers weren't significant.”

Left unsaid was that the city sisters would be on them for felonious misrepresentation for failure to at least note an area of markedly increased revenues.

“What about Laisyn Welles?”

“A true financial genius. He turned Spectrum around in less than a year. That was when the Elois took him aboard. Classic Investment had scarcely ever made much. It was operated more as a capital pool and low-risk hedge fund. Within a year, he had it almost as profitable as Classic Media, and within two it was nearly as profitable as the escort operation.”

“But why would Legaar send him to Abssenya?”

“To make more credits. The one thing the Elois like more than anything is credits.”

That might be, but sending all the names on my list out-system didn't make sense. “Do these names mean anything to you?” I began to read them. “Valera N'gao, Mahmed Kemal…” When I finished, I waited again.

Siendra smiled. “They're among the best people the Elois have.”

“Every one of them has been sent out-system in the last year. They haven't returned.”

“I'll have to ask Krij what she thinks, but it looks to me like they're trying to expand into true multisystem operations. You know that they've clashed with the Civitas Sorores repeatedly. It could be that they just want to move their operations elsewhere and that they're expanding as quickly as practicable.”

I hadn't thought of that. Was Elysium Legaar's plan for bailing out of Devanta? Or was Elysium just coincident with expanding operations? Or something else altogether?

“Send me the list, Blaine, and I'll see what we can find out.”

I flashlinked it to her. I also included the names of Sephaniah Dylan-Zimmer's and Antonio diVeau, as well as Seldara and Marie Tozzi, Dr. Richard Dyorr, Cecilia vonKuhrs, and Darlya Rettek.

“There's one other thing where you might be able to help, if you would,” I ventured. “I was trying to locate a dramaturge named Terrie McGerrie through the Authors' Centrality, but they weren't much help.”

“I don't imagine they would have been.” Siendra laughed softly. “They're not supposed to be helpful in that regard. More than a few of the dramaturges and creators use pseudonyms and don't want to be traced, even to a pseudonymous talking head. For some, the way words are used in direct vidlinks is as much an indication of identity as their face or name might be.”

“What are they hiding from?”

“If you'd written
The Exciting Escapades of Dragoon and Dirt,
would you want to talk to anyone?”

“Someone wrote
that
?”

“It's a spoof of an ancient spoof, and it lase-burns more than a few pretentious types in the Gallian sector. In literary terms, it's somewhere between bad and truly terrible. That's according to those who have read it.”

“Which? The original or the latest spoof?”

“I doubt either is that great, but I've read neither,” Siendra confessed.

“Somehow I don't think that's why people hide their creative identities.”

“What if you'd written
The Universe According to Sister Incognita
?”

“Was it that accurate in depicting the inner workings of the Civitas Sorores?” I asked.

“Accurate enough that the sisters attempted to suppress it,” Siendra pointed out. “Accurate enough that all the security systems were changed and the points of system and physical access were modified.”

“And all these creators think they'd lose their freedom of expression if their identities were known?”

“I doubt that most think of it in those terms, Blaine, but they wouldn't be comfortable without some identity shield. Nor would you, were you in their position. They're either notorious, or nonentities, or professionals who don't want their more lucrative major careers undermined by their minor literary and dramatic efforts.”

“I suppose not. Did I ask you about Maureen Gonne or Stella Strong?”

“Krij asked me. I've never run across either name. Our databases don't show them either, except that Gonne was with TFA for not quite four years, but you knew that.”

“What about Astrid Forte?” I had trouble remembering to use that name, although there was no certainty it was even connected to Strong/Gonne.

“Let me see.”

After a moment, her eyes widened. “That's a registered legal identity.”

“What does that mean? Everyone has a legal identity.”

“One that's registered means that it's not only reserved, but that its use by any other individual is a felony.” She smiled. “Registered identities are limited to the directors of major corpentities, justicers, and elected officials above the local level. They're also allowed to certain other individuals if a petition is approved by the Civitas Sorores.”

“What kind of individuals?”

“Security personnel, prominent artists, people whose fame or notoriety might make them vulnerable to ID theft.”

That left me concerned and puzzled.

“Blaine?”

I shook my head. “It doesn't make sense, but I'll have to think about it.” She and Krij had given me what they could. I supposed that I should have gone back to the commissions immediately. I didn't. I felt that breaking the link so quickly would have been bad manners. So I asked, “If I'm not intruding, what did you do before you worked with Krij?”

She shrugged. “I spent two tours as a line officer with the Assembly Interstellar Service. That was enough. Piloting was the only good part, and that didn't make up for the rest of it. I didn't see much combat. That was before the Frankans started getting restive. After that, I tried being an administrative resources director and a few other things. The service and the corpentity stints confirmed that, while I could handle military and administrative bureaucracies, I was severely less than pleased in doing either. I met Krij when she was on an assignment and persuaded her that my expertise was better as a consultant than as a bureaucrat. I haven't regretted it.”

“She's done better with you.”

“I'd like to think so.” She frowned. “Why didn't you join her after you left Special Operations? Your talents and hers would be formidable together.”

They might be, but I needed distance. Krij could be formidable all by herself. I laughed. “I'm more of a shadowy character. She's a creature of the light.”