“Not at all,” he said. Which he always said, but he always seemed to mean it. And he was just what she needed at the moment: a major distraction.
BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter i
JULY 17, 2424
0827H
Twenty‑two weeks, and Giraud was growing a pancreas–not so dramatic as a heart, or lungs, but it meant he would be ever after able to digest food, to produce insulin and deal with sugars, and proteins…and thereby regulate his body chemistry. Not as dramatic as a heart, not as romantic, but just as life‑essential, and very, very important to a man who’d value good health and enjoy his table as much as Giraud would.
He had gotten a bit fuzzy, meanwhile: body hair had started. His skin was too big for him: he was wrinkled as dried fruit, but he actually had gotten lips, and had tooth buds–they’d be squarish teeth when they finally came in, the two center ones a bit prominent–but those wouldn’t be needed for months and months yet. The bones were still growing, and teeth now got their share of calcium and other nutrients.
He and his companions were getting much more complex.
BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter ii
JULY 18, 2424
1829H
Disappointing, the lack of progress on the Patil case and the Thieu business. Ari had a small soiree for at least some of the youngers–Yanni and Justin were at dinner elsewhere, Sam had gone off to Strassenberg: she’d urged him to be very, very careful, and she’d diverted two of her own security to go up there with him and make sure neither Sam nor Pavel did anything rash. Maria had stayed here–barracks living was no place for Maria, Sam said, and she’d take care of the place.
But Maria would have been lost in a council of war, so she didn’t get the dinner invitation tonight. Sam would have come, however, and they missed him.
Tommy and Mischa and Mika came. Yvgenia Wojkowski, who had lost no time dumping the boyfriend who had jeopardized her chance to stay with the group…she was there. Will Morley arrived, and of course Amy and Maddy. They had a simple supper and drinks after, and they sat under the fish wall, which cast a rippling light on everything, and tried to absorb the complex detail Catlin and Florian told them in the general what’s‑going‑on briefing.
Namely: Rafael’s lot had turned up a list of twenty contacts Patil had had with shady connections; nobody yet knew anything but rumor on Anton Clavery–but ReseuneSec was still digging–and the Thieu autopsy was still doubtful as to murder, but on circumstantial grounds the death was just too connected to the Patil murder to be anything but.
“Meaning they’re good,” Catlin concluded regarding the perpetrators, “and that means they’re not amateurs.”
“Or it means they meant to kill Thieu the hard way,” Florian said, “and ended up just stressing him to death. But there are no marks, no bruises, except the livor mortis that happens when a body–”
“Ugh,” Maddy said, and waved the information away. “We don’t need that much detail.”
“Blown out a window is nicer?” Mischa said. “Twelve stories down to a cooling tower?”
“Nasty,” Tommy said. “So we know they weren’t squeamish.”
“That’s not highly helpful,” Amy said. “As if you’re going to commit a murder and squeamishness matters?”
“It does probably add into the ‘not amateur’ theory,” Florian said.
“Getting into Planys also does that,” Amy said.
“And the tower at Strassenberg.” Will said. “Which is organization.”
“Considerable logistics,” Florian said. “ReseuneSec lab’s traced the explosives to a mining company at Svetlansk. That’s no surprise. The mode of delivery is uncertain. No boats are reported missing from Svetlansk, none scheduled to be in the vicinity on that day.”
“But the explosives might have been planted earlier,” Catlin said, “and detonated by timer or remote. Proximity‑detonation would have been possible, but it’s not really logical to do it that way, and it doesn’t seem they did.”
The site was an inconvenient remove and an inconvenient height above the Strassenberg complex.
“One other thing of note,” Catlin said. “We also didhave a boat out and in motion at that time. It came from Moreyville, visited Svetlansk, and came back.”
“Long trip,” ‘Stasi said.
“Especially long if they came from Moreyville, past Strassenberg–” Ari said.
“Upcurrent,” Yvgenia supplied.
“And,” Ari said, “didn’t refuel at Reseune docks.”
That got attention from the rest. “Big gas tank,” Mika said. “Did somebody do that?”
“Yes,” Florian said. “ReseuneSec is wondering about fuel drops along the way. The boat was in fact on its way back from Svetlansk when the tower blew. Rafael is trying to check currents and times. Downriver’s naturally faster. The time could work. It’s a large boat, a rental, which makes it more suspicious. It’s easy to piggyback in more fuel tanks without altering the boat.”
“So they didn’t want to refuel at Reseune so we wouldn’t have records?” Maddy said.
“Something like,” Ari said. “That’s the lead we’re following, at least, the best we’ve got.”
“A link, who knows?–from Novgorod to Morleyville, past us, to Svetlansk, for people wanting to blow up the tower,” Tommy said. “At least they didn’t get help here at Reseune.”
“Who was aboard?” Mischa asked. “Can we tell?”
“The rental was made by one Sera Penny Esker.”
“Never heard that name on any list.” Amy said.
“None of us have.” Ari said. “It searches to an Esker line resident in Novgorod, some employed by Novgorod Transport, Penny Esker being currently employed by the public library, data archive department.”
“Where Patil used to lecture.”
“Former student?” Tommy asked.
“Way out of her field. No University connections, not on any of the watch‑it lists, but they wouldn’t use somebody who flashed red lights. Penny Esker seems to be a nobody, so far as criminal records, which is the sort, if you were up to no good, that you’d prefer to use, especially to rent boats. Florian says, and I agree, she wouldn’t have been on the boat.”
“Why did they do it at all, though?” Amy asked. “Blow up a tower? Paxer nonsense?”
“Maybe,” Ari said. “Maybe something about the site leaked–but that sort of incident doesn’t do the Paxers any good. They’d want some sort of media coup, blowing up something of mine, coupled with revealing I’m some sort of junior megalomaniac out founding towns at random, building secret laboratories and siphoning money out of Reseune to do it. They want publicity. They want public dislike of me, in particular. What the bombers actually got out of this business was my attention, and a slowdown of about two weeks in the Strassenberg build.”
“It could scare people, though,” Tommy said. “It could scare Fitz Fitzpatrick. It could be aimed at him and his company.”
The man in charge of the construction company, the man Sam was up there working for. She nodded, not liking that version of it, but it was indeed possible.
“Did we do anybody out of a contract they wanted?” Amy asked. “Fourstar was closest bidder besides Fitzpatrick.”
“Worth checking,” Catlin said, “since Fourstar is working next door to us in Wing One. They’ve already passed a security check, but a second one wouldn’t hurt.”
“Investigate Svetlansk Mining and the rest of the Svetlansk operations that handle explosives,” Ari said. “How many companies are working up there?”
“Four,” Catlin said.
“Probably we won’t find anything blinking on and off with colored lights,” Ari said. “But if we continue asking questions, individual by individual, something may turn up.”
“Have we got any investigative people up on scene?” Mischa asked. “I know Sam is, but–”
“That’s the other thing,” Amy said. “Sam is up there and he’s at risk if this gets more serious than it is.”
“ReseuneSec’s going to be investigating,” Ari said, “already is, but that all lands on Hicks’s desk, and it’s clumsy, and it’s slow, and it’s damned useless if we need three layers of authorizations to stop a boat on the river. We do have Sam’s bodyguard. This is what doesn’t get out. He’s got non‑uniformed security with him. The two I sent with him aren’t trained as engineers. They’re taking tape on construction, but that’s not what they really do. So, yes, we do have our own investigation onsite. The problem is–they aren’t to leave Sam to go chase anything; and I don’t want Sam anywhere near a problem.”