Mirage

Ariel caught herself, face red, mouth open to respond. "I need to know more."

Derec felt a moment of hope, a brief twinge of success. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, folded his arms, and, in as calm a voice as he could manage, told her what he had learned. All the while he watched her, hoping he could still trust what he saw in her expression. Rana kept glancing over the top of her console at Ariel, who sat on the opposite side of the lab, arms folded, staring at the floor.

"What are you wondering?" Derec asked finally.

Rana gave him an annoyed look. "She enters a couple of commands and in half a second gets to where it took me hours to fail to reach." She shook her head. "I'm not sure if I'm wondering or just resenting."

"Ariel's one of the best."

"Along with you?"

"Sometimes I think she's better."

"How long will she take to make up her mind?"

Derec looked at Ariel. "I don't know. It will take as long as it takes."

Rana shook her head. "I was really excited when I found out you knew Ariel Burgess. It was a major disappointment when it turned out you weren't on speaking terms anymore." She glanced at him. "I knew there was a problem between you two, but…"

"Philosophical differences. "

"You said that before."

"You didn't believe me?"

"People don't usually display that much heat over philosophy."

"Not the abstract kind, no. But when it relates directly to what you do, who you are…" Derec frowned. "She believes I betrayed her trust. We… it sounds like a clichй, but we really had everything together for a while."

"Until?"

"Until I started playing around with the ideas that became Bogard." He looked at Rana. "You can be damn nosy."

Rana shrugged. She began to say more, then nodded toward Ariel. "Decision time?"

Ariel was walking toward them.

"We'll see," Derec whispered.

Ariel leaned on the console. "What do you think is going on?"

"Obviously, someone had a stake in seeing the conference stopped or at least rendered useless. I don't think anything constructive can come of it now."

"Do you believe what the news nets are saying? That it was the Managins?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"They don't have the resources," Derec replied. "The will, yes, but the ability to subvert the Resident Intelligence of a facility like Union Station? Get several armed people inside? And then escape?" He shook his head. "I gather no other arrests have been made?".

"None that I'm aware of."

"Someone used the Managins, maybe."

"Who?"

Derec shrugged. "I don't know."

"Do you think the Calvin Institute is involved?" Ariel asked.

"Someone issued that maintenance directive. Someone who understood the nature of positronics and knew what I might find."

Ariel's mouth was a thin, hard line. "I can't disagree. Not entirely. But I have another problem."

"Which is?"

"That robot of yours. The bodyguard unit. Why did it fail?"

Derec felt himself stiffen. "I don't know. "

"You admit that it did?"

"It… something went wrong."

"It was designed to defend a primary subject, correct? In this case, Senator Eliton. It didn't. Eliton died. Why?"

"I wish I knew. It's more complicated than that, even. From what I saw, it was defending Eliton. Then, for some reason, it abandoned him."

"Perhaps your design was faulty?"

Derec hesitated. "Perhaps." He had not wanted to admit that possibility-especially not to Ariel-but he could not reject it.

"Or was it subverted the same way the RI was?" Ariel asked.

That surprised him. "I can't see how. But I don't know how the RI was subverted, so your guess is as good as anyone else's. There's no way to tell. If I had Bogard here, I might be able to determine what went wrong, but it's gone. Destroyed."

Ariel tapped a finger absently while she regarded Derec. Suddenly, she slapped both hands on the top of the console. "All right, I'll help you. I've got unanswered questions myself. But I want to know what we're supposed to do if we find something."

"Like what?"

"Like what we both suspect-that this is more than the actions of a group of disaffected bigots. Unless those bigots have members in the government."

"I suppose that depends on just who it is we find. If it's the authorities, we can't very well go to them, can we?"

"It's not likely to be all of them."

"No, but-"

"The problem, Derec, is that whoever is behind this, the consequences of uncovering it could be worse than leaving it alone."

"Are you serious?"

"Perfectly," Ariel replied. "Right now, as much as I hate to admit it, we have a diplomatic crisis. We're left with a shattered program and we have to start allover. What we do not have is a war. Push this and that's exactly what we might have."

"War? You're overstating a bit, aren't you?" Rana asked.

"I already told you: I'm perfectly serious. If it becomes clear that the Terran government, or a part of it, engineered an assassination of an Auroran ambassador, the only conclusion Aurora and the Fifty Worlds can make is that Earth cannot be trusted. They could decide that the only way to deal with it then is containment. No more Settlers will be permitted out. No more trade. No more anything. Isolation."

"Is that doable?" Derec asked.

Ariel shook her head. "No, not entirely. We can't even get rid of the pirates that have been raiding the lanes. But it doesn't matter. It's enough to set off a war."

"So who would benefit from that?"

"I don't know. Someone always benefits from a war. But that's one possible outcome of this." Ariel paused. "So. I'll ask again. What do we do when we find out?"

"We may not be able to do anything. I think we need to find out what we can first, then decide."

"No going off on your own. We decide."

Derec nodded. "Agreed."

"All right. Where do you want to start?"

"Well… getting inside Union Station would be good. I need to do a physical inspection to see what's been done to the matrix."

"I may be able to help with that."

"Good. That will do for a start."

Ariel gave him a curious smile. "It would really help if you could talk to Bogard?"

"Of course it would! But-"

Ariel's smile broadened. "Why don't you come with me. I have something to show you."

Fourteen

In light of recent revelations," the newscaster declared from the subetheric, "the death of Special Service Agent Mia Daventri and the destruction of the experimental robot assigned to guard Senator Clar Eliton have taken on new significance. The entire team of agents charged with the security of Eliton and his staff during the Union Station meeting with Spacer legations has now been killed. Special Service is conducting an internal investigation on which they refuse to comment, except to suggest that certain irregularities are at the heart of the tragedy. The utter failure of a trained team of agents to protect one of Earth's most prominent politicians cannot be explained unless that failure was part of a larger movement. Sources inside the Terran Bureau of Investigation have let it be known that flies have been opened on the agents involved, and their affiliations with various organizations-ostensibly in the line of duty-are being questioned. Nevertheless, the question no one seems willing to either answer or deny is the Spacer connection."

Mia pressed the contact on the remote, shutting off the subetheric. After going from one newsnet to another in between other tasks she felt nervous and edgy. None of the news reassured her, almost all of it had raised more questions, and she should have stopped listening. She especially should not have watched this 'cast.

Dal Kammer, one of the top-rated newscasters on subetheric, implying that Mia and her teammates had been involved in the conspiracy to kill Eliton and Humadros, made her cringe. If it had been any of a dozen other newsnet people she might have shrugged it off-there was more detritus on the subetheric than legitimate data-but Kammer was prominent, reputable. That did not mean he would not twist, color, alter, or fabricate his facts. But it meant that to get him to do so was expensive.