The camera withdrew, the action flowing languidly in reverse until a point just before the explosions.
"Stop," Mia said. "Bogard?"
"There is a discrepancy," the robot said. "I counted twenty-one assailants at the edge of the platform. Twelve of them are absent from the crowd at this point."
"What-?" Ariel started. She glared at the robot.
"Wait," Derec said. "The vid I saw at the station from the RI surveillance, just prior to it going off-line, showed people in the crowd vanishing. Now you're telling us that several of these figures appeared during the initial attack? They weren't already present?"
"That is what I am seeing, Derec."
Ariel's skeptical look slowly changed to apprehension. "Mia, do you remember what you saw?"
"Not that well. Our first concern was the explosions. Then the gunfire."
"Bogard," Derec said, "we'll advance the scene now. Tell us when those missing figures first appear."
The scene once more ran its course, in slow motion. The crowd seemed to undulate under the sound of the blasts, like anemone waving in an ocean current.
"Stop," Bogard said.
Derec leaned forward, then grabbed the subetheric control. "Where?" he asked, handing the device to Bogard.
The robot narrowed the view to a patch of people about four meters from the base of the platform. It was a variegated collection of onlookers, mostly well-off, dressed fashionably in brightly-colored jackets over more muted single-pieces, hair streaked and coifed in pastels. Now, panicked, their faces were drawn into macabre parodies of themselves, eyes wide, mouths gaping, and their bodies crouched in preparation to run. But they were trapped in a larger crowd with no room.
In the very midst of the twenty or so spectators, three people stood dressed all in black. Even their heads were covered by pullovers. There was something not right about two of them, though, the two following a third who shoved a path through the crowd.
"They don't fit," Mia said. "Look at the people immediately around them, especially that man in bright red. Beside him is a woman in orange? They're standing right next to each other. In fact-Bogard, can you give us more mag? Thank you-in fact, they're holding hands."
"So?" Ariel asked.
"Their arms are joined right through that assailant's stomach," Mia pointed out. "Look at the other one… the shoulder is passing through that woman's breasts."
"Images," Derec said. "Projections. Bogard, follow those two, continue scan."
The scene began to move again. The two black-clad figures stepped quickly through-through, not around-the intervening people, following a leader, to emerge into the space now at the foot of the platform. Others joined them. They seemed to lean their elbows on the edge of the plat form, rifles in hand, and commence firing.
"Bogard, see if the other sudden appearances come grouped in twos or threes."
The robot advanced and backed up the images, shifting from one part of the crowd to the next, so quickly Mia had trouble following the scene. She had to close her eyes when vertigo threatened to make her nauseated.
"There is always one in the lead," the robot said finally, "and two who appear behind. "
"Military," Mia said. "A holographic generator worn by a soldier projects an image of two or three more. An enemy targeting system can be confused, just like Bogard was, giving multiple counts."
"Bogard," Derec said, "do a projected trace on one of their shots and see where it goes."
There was a moment's pause, then one of the shadow rifles fired. The scene jerked forward then, into the frightened delegates, and stopped on an Auroran woman trying to turn and flee back into the debarkation umbilical. She looked unhurt and continued her attempted flight.
"Bogard, according to your trajectory plot she should have been hit?"
"Yes, Derec. "
"Wouldn't the newsnets have figured this out already?" Ariel asked.
"Probably not," Mia said. "They got their recordings, they put them on subetheric, they did their duty. I doubt anyone gave it a second look." She thought for a few seconds. "On the other hand, maybe they have and they don't know what to do with it. It doesn't change the results, does it?"
"All right," Derec said, "this would confirm your suspicion that Kynig Parapoyos at least supplied the weapons and that an ex-military man like this Bok Golner conducted the actual assault. What do we do next?"
Mia cleared her throat, then, and looked at Derec and Ariel.
"Before we go any further," she said, "I need to make it clear that once we start, it gets dangerous. I can't trust my own people and they control the security network for the planet, or at least a good portion of it. If we go probing we could get hurt. If you don't want to risk that, tell me now and we stop it here."
Ariel pursed her lips and made a show of thinking it over. "There's no option for me. I have to know. But Derec-"
"No option for me, either," he said. "I'm involved already through Bogard. No matter how this comes out, what I've built here is at risk. The only way I can protect any of it is to see this through. We're in."
Mia studied them both, then nodded. "All right, then. First we need to find out where the guns came from and where Bok Golner trained his team. The attack took expertise. You don't just get up one day and do something like this without practice. Where would they train?"
"Kynig Parapoyos bothers me," Ariel said. "Why would he do this? Or his organization? I don't recall ever seeing or hearing anything about him conducting assassinations."
"Not like this, no," Mia said. "But I don't think he's entirely behind it. Someone had to subvert the RI, someone had to subvert Special Service agents, someone had to be on the inside. Parapoyos could provide the weapons, but all the rest?"
Ariel was nodding. "He's the main supplier for the Settler colonies. Do you think they had anything to do with it?"
"Why would they?" Derec asked.
"The piracies," Mia answered. "One of the primary suspects is the Settler worlds. One or more of them may be harboring the pirate bases."
"And robotic inspections could affect that relationship," Derec said, nodding. "But all of them? As a matter of policy? Isn't that a stretch?"
"Of course," Ariel said, "but the Settlers aren't a monolith, no more than the Spacers are. It's a possibility."
"It would be a good idea for you to buy some guns, Ariel," Mia said.
Ariel's eyebrows went up.
"It would be a way to get to Parapoyos. You go to the Settler Coalition and talk to them. If they're buying through Parapoyos here, Riansa Visher was involved. Her successor will know about it. They can put you in contact."
"Why me?"
"Because this little incident could mean war," Mia explained. "Aurora may need weapons."
Ariel did not look comfortable, but she nodded.
After an awkward silence, Derec waved a hand at the subetheric. "With this and the recordings from the RI-"
"Assuming anyone but you and the RI staff saw those particular records," Ariel said. "By now, Special Service may have confiscated or destroyed them."
Derec frowned and stared at the subetheric.
"Bogard," Mia said, glad for the change of subject. "Find the actual casualties and trace the shots back to source. Determine how many live assailants were present."
For a few painful minutes the view shifted from victim to attacker, victim to attacker, several times. Each instance startled and saddened Mia. What struck her most consistently was the expression of surprise each wounded person wore upon being hit, followed sometimes by a rictus of pain, but only if that person had survived the injury. Death left the last expression stamped on each face: bafflement, confusion, amazement, in one instance a look of betrayal.
"Nine," Bogard announced finally. "There are twenty-one images and nine actual assailants."
"Nine," Mia mused. "That tends to validate the idea that they were after only a few individuals."
"Bogard, can you identify the individuals killed?" Ariel asked.