The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (21 page)

“But, see, not everyone would have lost money,” Deshin said. “Because we need the Moon. It’s the gateway to Earth. So corporations that fund construction would’ve made a lot of money rebuilding the domes.”

“Or rebuilding the governments here,” Flint said.

“But that’s the stuff that no architect can plan,” Deshin said. “Money in and out, that can be planned.”

“Just like response can be planned,” Flint said. “There’d be first responders. Money would flow into the Moon, not just rebuilding money, but money to help the survivors.”

“And then some of the survivors would be consultants on what the dead would want.”

Flint looked at Deshin. The man said the most ghoulish things with calm certainty.

“And a lot of those survivors would have been Peyti lawyers or represented by Peyti lawyers,” Flint said.

“Who would have been in some meetings six months after the destruction, about the time the shock had worn off, the rebuilding had started, and hope was beginning.”

“And then thousands—maybe millions—more would have died,” Flint said. “This time, it wouldn’t have just been Moon officials, but Earth Alliance officials.”

“Corporate CEOs,” Deshin said.

“Another group of authority figures,” Flint said.

“And not just on the Moon,” Deshin said. “But throughout the Earth Alliance, because by then, these surviving Peyti lawyers would have been in demand in various places.”

Flint’s mouth was dry. He peered through the windows down the darkened hallway.

No one had come back yet, so far as he could see.

“The third wave,” he said after a moment. “It’s not predictable. No one could figure out what would happen after two catastrophic attacks.”

“Sure we can,” Deshin said with calm certainty. “The third time isn’t about investigations or rebuilding the Moon. It’s about rebuilding the Earth Alliance itself.”

Flint turned around. Deshin’s face had gone gray. His eyes were sunken, almost lost.

Flint suspected he looked just as bad.

“We’d give up on the Moon,” Flint said softly. “It wouldn’t be that important, not in the short term.”

Deshin nodded.

“The final attack would be on the Earth Alliance itself,” Flint said. “But the Alliance would be prepared.”

“You hope it would,” Deshin said.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Flint said. “The attacks are focused on the Moon. The Moon is an understandable target from thirty years out. But the Alliance itself? It would be impossible to figure out how big or small the Alliance would be, what it’s edges and borders would be.”

“What are you saying?” Deshin said.

“I’m not sure we can dismiss a third attack on the Moon,” Flint said.

“But it would have to make sense as part of a larger war,” Deshin said.

“If this is war,” Flint said, “who are we fighting against?”

Deshin shrugged. “Whoever it is has incredible patience.”

“Governments have patience,” Flint said. “Governments have money.”

Deshin stood as well. He also glanced at the hall. Obviously, he was feeling the time pressure too.

“We’re still missing something,” he said.

“But we’ve found a lot, thanks to you,” Flint said. “You’re right. I need to start tracing that money.”

“And I’m going to trace the DNA,” Deshin said. “But from a completely different angle. I’m not going to be a buyer. I’m going to look for the original seller.”

“You think there’s only one?” Flint asked.

“It’s easier to track the DNA of two mass murderers than it is to track thirty-year-old cloning operations,” Deshin said. “I’m going to see what I can find. You keep me informed.”

“I will,” Flint said. “And thanks.”

“For what?” Deshin asked.

Flint smiled at him, just a little. “For getting me focused again.”

“We gotta figure out that third attack,” Deshin said.

“We will,” Flint said. “I’m finally beginning to believe that we will.”

TWENTY-THREE

ZHU DID REGRET turning down Salehi the moment Salehi disappeared from the glass tabletop in the booth at the bar. Zhu hoped the feeling would pass.

He wanted to be the kind of man who could stand up for his principles. He wanted to be the man who said no and meant it, who would travel to hell and back to do what needed to be done. He would be traveling to hell if he took up Salehi on the offer of building a branch of S
3
here. Zhu would spend decades defending those horrible, horrible clones, justifying their acts while trying to keep them out of prison and maybe, just maybe, changing clone law.

And if he succeeded? He would put killers back out on the street.

He staggered out of the booth, waved off the bartender—who was probably going to tell him that his credit chip had been denied—and headed into the bright light of Dome Daylight. He squinted. He had entered the bar in Dome Night. Armstrong always tried to maintain Earth normal days, and they did it by manipulating the dome, something he thought particularly stupid.

But then, he had lived for years in space stations, where no one cared what time of day it was. And they certainly didn’t turn up the lights for no apparent reason.

Out here, on the street, cars floating past, people hurrying by to the jobs, some Disty arguing on a street corner, looking like out-of-place children as they waved their long arms, he could smell himself. Sweat, more sweat, and rum, along with an acrid odor from the clearer.

He ran a hand through his hair, felt grease and a tangle, and wondered when he last took a shower.

He put his head down and walked the three blocks back to his hotel, hoping no one at the desk saw him, because they had probably received notice that his company credit had been denied as well.

His legs shook. So did his hands.

He had thousands in savings, but a court case against S
3
would eat that up in days. So would a trip to the Frontier. He had been to the Frontier once, and he had hated it.

He hated alien places—and aliens, truth be told. Which was why he had been so happy at S
3
, at least in the beginning. No one cared if his clients were human-only, and no one cared if he refused to partner with some of the nonhuman lawyers.

No one even cared if he argued that alien laws as applied to humans were unfair and unreasonable and inhumane. He was
supposed
to argue that. He had been
good
at arguing that.

He had been a good lawyer.

He had gotten Trey out of prison, for god’s sake. A clone of PierLuigi Frémont, held illegally for years. A clone who might have known something important.

It wasn’t his fault that S
3
had screwed up.

They were the ones who brought in that transport company, and they were the ones who had let Trey die.

Zhu could have died, if he had gone to get Trey.

He shuddered again, his stomach turning.

He climbed the stairs to his room, afraid to use the elevator. The stairs were black and gold, as fancy as the hotel itself. He could see his reflection in the walls, a too-skinny man with a hollowed-out face, flushed from drink and clearer.

He looked like he had been on a bender. He smelled like he had been on a bender.

He had a choice.

He could go back to work, do his damn job, and save the lives of a bunch of alien murderers, build a law firm in one of the most law-firm heavy cities in the Alliance, and get fat and rich.

Or he could fall further.

This was what he looked like after a few months leave, knowing he would be fired. This was why Berhane had looked at him and said,
You know it’s over, Torkild. It’s time to let go.

She hadn’t even offered him volunteer work with her foundation. She was doing good works, rebuilding cities, and she hadn’t suggested he join her. She knew he wasn’t that kind of man.

He wasn’t any kind of man.

He was a brain that could pick apart legalities. He was an ego that needed to feel he was important. He could either make a living at his chosen profession, feeling like he was doing something to change the universe in his own small way, or he could die slowly, either from drink or starvation or loneliness.

He sat down on the steps. He hadn’t even gone to the next landing. He put his head in his hands.

Wow. He’d managed to stand on principle for not even an hour before realizing how stupid he was being.

He could be weak with money or weak without money.

He was so weak, he opted for the first choice.

He activated his S
3
links.

You son of a bitch
, he sent to Salehi.
I’m in.

TWENTY-FOUR

FLINT MADE A decision halfway home. He turned the car toward his office. He knew that was dicey. He had Talia with him, and he wanted her nowhere near this investigation.

However, if she showed interest in the investigation, he would see that as a step forward. At least then, she wasn’t sleeping or staring into space.

He glanced at her. She didn’t even seem to have noticed the change of direction.

That was so unlike her. Usually, she was asking him questions the moment he did something different.

She hadn’t said a word since they left the meeting with Deshin. Flint had left first, which made him both grateful and uncomfortable. He found himself wondering what Deshin would do when he was alone in the offices.

Then Flint felt that he was being uncharitable.

The man didn’t have to come to him. Deshin didn’t have to be participating in this investigation at all.

And now, he was going to do something very risky.

Flint could tell that just from the way that Deshin had acted when he talked about investigating the DNA. Flint liked to lie to himself and say that a man like Deshin was used to taking risks. But Flint knew that a man like Deshin took calculated risks.

Flint also knew that Deshin had a family at home, one he loved. Deshin might have taken a lot of personal risks in the past, but he might have reduced his exposure to personal risk when he had a son.

Flint was doing the same thing. Ever since Talia had come into his life, he took fewer risks—except where she was concerned. In fact, the only times he had been in difficult or life-threatening situations in the past few years had been when he was trying to help (or rescue) Talia.

He glanced at her again. She leaned against the window, eyes closed, her skin slightly gray. At least the tears had stopped. Her nose looked red and sore, and the area around it was raw.

Then the air car bumped as it glided into the dirtier air of the original dome. Flint’s office was in Old Armstrong, the oldest part of the city. Many of the buildings here were made of permaplastic, the material that the original colonists used when they built this place. Much of the construction was a combination of old, older, and oldest, some of it dated from the protections put into place when the city started growing.

The city wanted to maintain its historical district, and it made some mistakes as it did so. The laws protected parts of the dome itself, those parts attached to historic buildings, and that meant preserving an environmental system that had been out of date centuries ago.

As a result, Moon dust leaked into this part of the city. The environmental systems in the nearby sections of the dome were as powerful as such systems could get, trying to keep the Moon dust and all the other contaminants out of the rest of the city.

Hence the bump.

Years ago, he had been used to it. Now he was aware of it.

He glanced at Talia again. She didn’t even seem to notice.

Even though the Dome was on Dome Daylight, it was clearly darker in this part of the city. The old parts of the dome were scratched and cloudy, the buildings dilapidated, and the sidewalks barely worthy of the name.

He lowered the car in his favorite lot. Several other cars were parked in that lot, but they were all covered with a layer of dust. He wondered how many of them had been in that spot since last week, and how many were just plain abandoned.

He had no idea. He hoped that the presence of the little-used vehicles didn’t mean that the neighborhood had grown even more dangerous.

He used to love that sense of danger here. That was before he had to bring his teenage daughter with him whenever he went to his office.

The car shut off with a shudder. He wasn’t sure he had ever brought this vehicle to his office. The car was relatively new, and he came here less and less.

He did a lot of his work these days in conjunction with the United Domes of the Moon Security office. All of his focus had been on solving the Anniversary Day attacks. He preferred to use government resources when he was, essentially, doing an unpaid government job.