"Yes, Ms. Burgess." Bogard began displaying the names of the delegates as they appeared on the screen.
"You captured three of the assailants," Derec said to Mia. "Didn't you?"
"Yes," Mia said. "I-"
"Stop," Ariel said, standing. Bogard fell silent. She stared at the screen. "That last name…"
"Tro Aspil," Bogard said.
"Tro… but he survived…"
"The wound depicted," Bogard said, "is not consistent with survival. The shot entered the throat and severed the carotid artery."
"Then…" Ariel went to her datum.
"What is it?" Mia asked.
"Should I continue?" Bogard asked.
"Hmm?" Mia glanced up at the robot. "Compile the list for future reference."
"You captured three of the assailants and…?" Derec prompted.
"Yes, I did. Well, Bogard captured two of them, but-"
"How did Bogard perform?"
"After I gave him a new priority, perfectly. I couldn't have apprehended those men without it."
"Then…" Derec looked at Bogard self-consciously. "How do you explain the failure?"
"I'm not sure-"
"I built Bogard, Agent Daventri. Senator Eliton is dead. I need to know what happened."
"I see. Yes, you should know. Frankly, I had intended to ask you that question. When-" She gave Bogard an apprehensive look. "I'm not sure we should talk about this in Bogard's presence."
Derec nodded. "Bogard, have you completed compiling the list of casualties from this recording?"
"Yes, Derec."
"Stand down, then, please."
"I cannot do that, Derec. I am still responsible for Agent Daventri's safety."
Derec frowned briefly, then shrugged. "Should any of the subject matter we're discussing present potential operational difficulties for you, alert us."
"I will do that, Derec."
Derec smiled. "Bogard will know better than any of us when it's in trouble."
Mia felt uneasy. "I attempted to get a full report from Bogard last night. The part about Senator Eliton is absent from its logs."
"No, it's not. It's elsewhere, but it's there. At some point I'll have to run a complete debrief on all Bogard's systems to get at it, but it means that its system is working the way it should. Please, go on."
"When the explosions began, Bogard immediately enshielded the Senator. That left us free to confront the assault. But it came so suddenly and unexpectedly-you train for the possibility, but nothing can prepare you for the reality. The casualties, the explosions, the panic-what do you do first? Our training says to get the people we're supposed to protect out of harm's way as soon as possible. There was nowhere for them to go. We couldn't get them to safety. Then… then my teammates started going down. I tried to return fife, but for all I know now I may have shot nothing but images. Or I may have shot innocent spectators. There was too much all at once."
Mia swallowed thickly, aware now of the stinging in her sinuses and eyes and the faint quiver in her stomach.
"I remember turning to see if anyone was covering the Spacers. I saw Bogard retract from around Senator Eliton and head for Ambassador Humadros. Senator Eliton stepped backward-"
"Stepped or stumbled?"
"Stepped… as if he was ready to be abandoned… but he still looked surprised…"
"And?"
"And Ambassador Humadros went down before Bogard reached her. It reversed itself to return to Eliton at the same time I started toward him. Then Senator Eliton… went down." She wiped at her nose, embarrassed. "Excuse me, I'm not-"
"It's all right. This isn't a normal day. You're entitled."
Mia sniffed, then looked at him, suddenly angry. "Am I entitled to fail? I don't think so."
"How did you fail?"
"I did not protect my assignment."
Derec waved his thumb at Bogard. "There stands several million credits of technology a hundred times faster and more alert than you could ever be. It failed."
"There has to be a reason."
Derec nodded. "Exactly."
"But-" Mia caught herself and held back. In an instant she lost the sense of recrimination that had been building in her all day and had nearly overwhelmed her just now. Not entirely, she could sense it still within, but it was at arm's length again, manageable. Perhaps it would get worse later. Perhaps it would come and go for the rest of her life. It was a simple truth Derec had handed her, and it sabotaged the guilt she felt… at least for the time being.
It's not, she thought, so much my failure as it is someone else's success… temporary success.
She cleared her throat. "I see. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Avery."
"Derec, please." He looked at Bogard again. "So the question is, why did Bogard abandon Senator Eliton? You said Eliton had ordered Bogard to protect Humadros, but that shouldn't have made any difference. I need to take Bogard back to Phylaxis to debrief it."
Mia felt herself tighten up inside. She glanced at the robot. "I shouldn't travel yet-"
"You only need to release Bogard from its priority and turn it over to me."
Mia would not meet his gaze. "I-I'm not comfortable with that, Mr. Avery."
"Not-" Derec caught himself when she looked away. "Please understand me, Mia. Bogard has data necessary to this-this investigation. The only way I can get at it is to do a full debrief and reset."
"Bogard is the only reason I'm still alive. I can't-"
"You're in the Auroran Embassy. What's going to hurt you here?"
"I don't know. And that's just it. I do not know. Until I can walk on my own and defend myself, I just-I can't release Bogard to you."
"Agent Daventri-"
Mia shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. A very. I can't. Please don't press me further on this. Maybe in a day or two…"
"There's another problem," Derec said. "Bogard right now is unaware ofa discrepancy in its memory. Its behavior is conforming to its program, but there is discrepancy and eventually the self-diagnostics are going to tumble to it. When that happens, Bogard will hunt it down even if it means tearing its own programming apart to find out what the problem is. Bogard could easily destroy itself. That's why debrief is important. More so because it involves a personal failure on its part."
"I don't know what to tell you."
"Don't tell me anything. Release Bogard-"
"No."
Derec jerked back as if she had slapped him. "How long do you want to wait to find out what happened to Senator Eliton?"
"You can figure that one out," Ariel interjected, returning from her datum console. "The question I want answered is how can a dead diplomat board a shuttle back to Kopernik Station to take passage on a starship bound for Aurora?" "You're sure it's not an error?" Derec suggested.
Ariel scowled. "That was my first thought. But last night when I spoke to Benen Yarick, one of the junior members of the Auroran Legation, she mentioned Tro. I replayed our conversation and she listed him among the fallen. But he was on the list of survivors I had from the embassy comptroller's office. One or the other had to be wrong. Perhaps Yarick only saw him injured, not killed. I checked the embassy transit office and found a passage booking for him on the shuttle that lifted this morning at four-fifteen for Kopernik. I sent a query to confirm his arrival at the station. The confirmation also verified that Tro Aspil boarded the liner Corismun at one-ten local time."
"It could still be an error," Mia said. "It was chaos afterward."
"That's what I want to find out." Ariel tapped a code into her com.
"Trina Korolin."
"Ms. Korolin, this is Ariel Burgess. Sorry to bother you again."
"No bother. What can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to make sure everything was still on for tomorrow's meeting and to check a couple of details. The rest of the survivors are leaving tomorrow."
"Yes, I-I'm sorry we're all turning out to be such-"
"No, don't. This was extraordinary. I can't blame anyone for wanting out."
"That's… kind of you…"
"I was curious, though. Tro Aspil has already left. Was there a reason he needed to depart before the others?"