"Jato!" Soz’s voice was almost on top of him. She had fallen lengthwise on the wall, with one leg hanging over the edge.
"Below you!" he shouted. His hands slipped again.
As she grabbed for him, he lost his grip. She caught one of his wrists-and the force of his falling yanked her off the wall. They dropped, dropped, dropped-
And smashed into ground. Soz landed on top of him with an impact that nearly broke his ribs. She rolled off and kept rolling, scrabbling for a handhold. He clutched her upper arm, but it jerked through his grasp, then her elbow, her lower arm, her wrist-and he locked hands with her, clutching in desperation while they slid downhill. He struggled to stop their plunge, but his fingers just scraped over stone.
Then he caught a jutting piece of rock and held on hard, his body straining with Soz’s weight. A scratching came from below-and she let go of his hand.
"Soz, no!" He grabbed at the air. "Soz!"
"It’s all right." Her strained voice came from below him. "You slowed me down enough so I could stop on a ledge. We’re on a shelf in the cliff, under the Promenade."
"How can you tell? It’s dark." Even the starlight was muted below the bridge.
"Got enhanced optics in my eyes," she said. He heard more scrabbling, and then she was pulling herself up beside him.
So they went, climbing the cliff centimeter by excruciating centimeter. Soz reached the landing at the end of the Promenade and stood up, her body silhouetted against the stars. He climbed up next to her, half expecting the ground to crumble. But they were solidly on the mountain now, at the top of a staircase that wound its way through the mountains down to the plateau.
They descended in silence. Gradually the wind eased, until it was no more than a whisper of its earlier violence.
Finally Soz said, "Someone knew we were up there."
"The drones." Jato wondered if Crankenshaft had set alarms in the city computer web to alert him when anyone looked at records of the trial. Whoever had set the Wind Lions against them would be desperate now, knowing they had to complete what they started lest Soz escape and report back to ISC.
"I hadn’t intended to get involved here," Soz said. "I was going to wait until I got back to headquarters to recommend they send an investigator."
Investigator? Jato stiffened. If ISC got into this, he could be retried in an Imperial court. "Soz, why? I’m serving the sentence they gave me."
She spoke quietly. "To find out why someone went to so much trouble to trump up that phony murder charge against you."
That threw him. Really threw him. Crankenshaft had been meticulous in setting up the evidence, specifically to fool people like Soz.
It was a moment before he found his voice. "How did you know it was false?"
She snorted. "I saw the holos of that kid you supposedly killed. He was hanging around the port docks, watching a ship unload cargo."
"‘That kid’ was a computer creation. He never existed."
"I know."
"But how?"
She motioned toward the starport. "In several holos you can see the ship he’s watching. It’s a Tailor Scout, Class IV. Eight years ago those Tailors were using non-standard flood lamps to light their docking bays. Kaegul lamps. Advertised as ‘the next best thing to sunlight.’ They emitted ultraviolet light as well as visible."
"Sounds reasonable."
She shook her head. "Their UV component was too strong. It caused sunburns. So that model fell out of use fast. Only a few ships ever carried it."
Jato whistled. "Dreamers have less melanin in their skin than most people. It makes them more susceptible to UV."
Quietly she said, "Any Dreamer who spent as long under those Kaeguls as they claimed that boy did would have been broiled raw. Those records are beautiful, near perfect. Probably 99.9 percent of the people seeing them would have been fooled. But they’re still fakes." Glancing at him, she added, "That’s not all."
"What else?"
"Combat."
"Combat?"
"See enough of it and you get good at recognizing the symptoms of shock." She watched his face. "You. In every holo. You hardly said a word throughout that entire trial."
The whole nightmare was a blur in his mind. "Nothing I said would have made any difference."
"But why, Jato? Judging from how the Dreamers treat you-forgive me for saying it, but they act as if they don’t like having you around."
"They think I’m revolting."
"So why make you stay?"
His voice tightened. "Because of Granite Crankenshaft."
"What is that?"
"Not what. Who. A Dreamer. He wanted me to be his model. For life. To sit for him with nothing in return but the ‘honor’ of living here. I told him no. I thought he was crazy."
She stared at him. "He framed you for murder because you wouldn’t be his model?"
"I don’t know why. He finds me as repulsive as everyone else here." Jato spread his hands. "He used blackmail because it’s more effective than abduction. As long as I cooperate, he won’t call in the Imperial authorities."
"All because he wants to paint your picture?"
"Not paint. Holosculpture. It’s on his web. I’ve never seen what he’s doing." He exhaled. "The stakes are high, Soz. His sculptures bring in millions. A few have gone for billions."
She drew him to a stop. "This Crankenshaft-does he have glittering hair?"
"I don’t know. It’s too short to tell."
"Black?"
"Yes."
"How about his eyes?"
"Grey, with red rings."
"Bloodshot?"
"No. The irises have red in them."
She blew out a gust of air. "This is making more sense."
"It is?"
"The Traders established this colony."
It wasn’t her comment that surprised him, but how she said it, as an accepted fact rather than a long-debated theory the Dreamers vehemently denied. The Traders were a genetically engineered race distinguished by red eyes, and black hair with a distinctive shimmering quality. Their creators had only been trying to engineer for a higher pain tolerance, but the work produced an unplanned side-effect: Traders felt almost no emotional pain either-they had no compassion.
A race with no compunction about hurting people could do a lot of damage. Fast. When they began to spread the stain of their brutality across the stars, the colonized worlds had two choices: submit to them or join the Imperialate. As far as Jato knew, no one had ever willingly chosen the Traders.
There were those who claimed the Dreamers descended from a group of Trader geniuses morally opposed to their own brutal instincts. They manipulated their genes to rid themselves of those instincts and produced their translucent coloring as an unexpected side-effect. It led them to settle on Ansatz in the forgiving dark, where they traded the fruits of their genius for dreams, in penance for the sins of their violent siblings.
"It’s possible Crankenshaft carries throwback genes," Jato said. "His wife, too. She’s like ice."
Soz considered him. "You realize that except for your eyes and the relative dullness of your hair, you could pass for a Trader."
He stiffened. "Like hell. I can trace my family-"
"Jato." She laid her hand on his arm. "No one would ever mistake you for a Trader. It’s the Dreamers’ problem, not yours. They evolved themselves into a mild people, rejecting their heritage. Your large size, dark hair, and muscular build may stir memories they can’t deal with. It’s probably why your appearance bothers them."
A strange thought, that. It would never have occurred to him that perhaps he repulsed the Dreamers because he reminded them of themselves.
She peered down the stairs, though they were too far up to see much except the lonely circle of light from a lamp at the bottom. "Who do you think activated the Wind Lions?" She turned back to him. "Are we up against the city government or this Crankenshaft? Or both?"
He considered. "Most city officials don’t believe I was set up. Those few involved with the set up would be more subtle, use a scenario easier to pass off as an accident. This is Crankenshaft’s style. He would go for drama and make it look like I planned it, some rape-murder-suicide thing."