“No—I didn’t know that.”
“In addition, the materials that Ky preserved through that period—evidence that might be useful in finding out who sabotaged the shuttle and the survival suits that killed all officers aboard it but Ky and her aide—have disappeared. Ky turned them over to Spaceforce personnel upon her return to Port Major. Staff Sergeant Gossin held evidence of the investigation done after Ky shot Master Sergeant Marek. It has also disappeared; presumably it was taken from Gossin when she was in custody, after Ky left Miksland.”
Morrison had not known about the sabotaged suits, or the missing evidence, but all that came out of her mouth was “Why wasn’t the admiral with her troops?”
“Because, fearing for her life, I had asked Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation—the mercs we hired to intervene against the Black Torch, who’d been hired to kill everyone—to have her flown directly to meet me, and then she and I traveled together to Port Major. And she is not, after all, a member of Slotter Key’s military any longer.”
“I see.” Morrison kept her face calm with an effort. She still wanted to demand how the Rector could possibly have ignored the welfare of the other survivors, but she sensed that yelling at the Rector would not help her find out. “What did you think had happened to the others?”
“The other survivors? I was told that they were being interviewed and checked over medically after their ordeal and would be reunited with their families for thirty days’ leave. Initially I had no reason to doubt that report. I was faced with many other issues relating to the shuttle crash, including complaints from the Moscoe Confederation about the death of their citizen Commander Bentik. The legislature opened investigations—still ongoing—into the two mercenary companies—who hired them, who permitted them to land on Slotter Key soil—and I was called to Government House repeatedly to answer questions about that. At any rate, being assured the other survivors were being taken care of, I didn’t worry about them again until Ky called a few days ago. And the next night I was gassed when I came home and have been in the hospital until today.”
“I did wonder…”
“I’ll just bet you did.” For an instant those old eyes were sharp as spears and just as penetrating. “You wondered if I had deliberately let them be hauled off, drugged, and imprisoned for some reason—was it a Vatta reason or a military?”
“I didn’t know, ma’am.”
“Ah. Well. Natural that you would worry. Natural you’d want to snap my neck if you thought I’d done it.”
“And there’s something else I should tell you,” Morrison said. She opened her briefcase and pulled out the old file. “Someone left this in my quarters on base. It was found by the same security squad that investigated the break-in. Major Hong gave it to me with orders to keep it safe.”
“What—? Oh.” The Rector looked at the cover, then up at Morrison. “That’s my file? The one from the Unification War? They never let me see it.” She slipped the cover open. “Gods, I was young. And stupid.”
“I read some of it,” Morrison said. “It was not… reassuring.”
“No, it wouldn’t be.” The Rector leaned back a little, folding her hands on top of the file. “I don’t propose to read it myself; I have memories.”
“Implant memories?”
“No. They took my implant, stripped it, and put it back in with their edits. The only good memories of that period I have are the ones stored in the brain itself.”
“Which ‘they’?” Morrison asked, fascinated in spite of herself.
“The authorities. When I was brought back here and tried—surely you read that far.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. Their intent was to make it impossible for me to forget the bad things I’d done—which, if they’d had any sense, they’d have known I couldn’t anyway—and make me miserable. I was already miserable. I was surprised when I finally got out of that place and back with the family, and more surprised when, after the attacks on Vatta, I was asked to become subrector and then Rector.”
“Because of your family’s contract?”
“Contract? No, not that I know of. Because there were still people who remembered enough to hate me. But really, it worked out fairly well. I don’t look like that anymore.” She glanced down at the page of images and tapped one. “Or that. And I’ve been functionally sane for decades.”
“Your father signed a contract in which you were released to family custody on the condition that the family would not permit you to be active politically in any way,” Morrison said. “You were to be kept safely confined, medicated as necessary, subject to regular inspection by a court-appointed psychiatrist until at least age fifty.”
The Rector’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. “Seriously? I knew nothing of that. Father told me he’d gotten me out and I should stay home, on Corleigh, in seclusion, for at least five years. Which I did. He said after that I could return to the mainland and he would provide a house and staff. Which he did. He said nothing about a permanent bar to any political involvement. I would never have taken the post otherwise, no matter what anyone said.”
Morrison tapped the file. “It’s in here, the official copy. The rules under which you could live outside the hospital, and the penalties if you committed any crime or became political.” She watched the Rector’s face, and saw nothing but astonishment and confusion.
The Rector paged through the file quickly, stopping when she found the reference, near the end. Her breath caught while she read, her eyes widened again. “He never told me. He should have told me.” She looked up at Morrison. “He was—he liked to keep family business in the family. And I was a disgrace, he said, when I asked why I couldn’t attend a family gathering. Then he died unexpectedly.” She looked down, read the next paragraph in silence. “So—this says my brother would be my guardian after my father died, but he never said anything about this contract, either. Things did change—my husband died—”
“You were married?”
“Oh, yes. For a few years. My father insisted; he arranged it all. It would make me seem normal, he said. My husband was older, a distant relative, a widower. My father trusted him to keep family secrets in the family. He was gentle and put up with my—my nightmares and things without complaint.”
Morrison tried to imagine what it had been like for the young girl, a survivor who if not convicted of war crimes would have been treated for combat trauma, not criminal insanity.
Morrison believed her. “Is your brother still alive?”
“No, he died… twenty years ago or so. The guardianship would have passed to either Gerry or Stavros, probably Stavros as the elder. Neither of them said anything about it. They kept me busy in the company, but that’s all.”
“What did you do in the company?”
“Security. Typical commercial stuff—competitors always want to know financial details they can use. Sabotage of products or production lines or other company infrastructure. We’re diversified—not just a transport service anymore, and not limited to one planet. Vatta Transport alone has land, sea, and air cargo service here, and we’re a major interplanetary shipper in this quadrant. We have both scheduled and chartered service. Then Gerry, Ky’s father, expanded the tik plantation on Corleigh, gradually buying out others, and we moved into other products, as well. I supervised security procedures, researched new markets for possible dangers—political instability, for instance.” She paused, shook her head, then went on. “They didn’t want me traveling offplanet, so I had to train others when we needed someone on the ground in another system.”
“Do you think your brother and your—nephews, would it be?—knew about the contract? Wouldn’t your father have passed it on?”