It wasn't. The documents attached included two search warrants, three subpoenas, and a polite request for assistance from the governor of the state of Connecticut to the Canadian consulate in New York City.
8:00 AM
Monday 11 December, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
Toronto, Ontario
Valens stopped outside Alberta's office and straightened his uniform. He stopped himself before his hand could creep up to adjust his tie. Alberta—he thought, and resisted the urge, as well, to shake his head. Dammit. I hope Casey's wrong.
He rapped twice and opened the door. “Busy?”
Holmes shoved away a half-eaten doughnut on a paper napkin. “Did you bring coffee?”
He stepped inside and shut the door. “No. I just got a message from the prime minister's people.”
“You did? Really?”
He permitted himself a curt shrug. “I think it's an attempt to end run. They want an interview with Casey. Friday, at a location they don't plan to disclose until Casey's in the car.”
Alberta sucked her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed it contemplatively. “Put a tracer on her, Fred. Just in case?”
“Just—?”
“We wouldn't want your star pupil going missing between here and there, would we?”
Forgive me, Jenny. Valens took a deep, calm breath and nodded. I hope you're still as good at taking care of yourself as you used to be. Because I just set you up as the bait in a bear trap, and you don't even know it.
BOOK THREE
If any question why we died Tell them, because our fathers lied.
— Rudyard Kipling
0500 Hours
Friday 15 December, 2062
HMCSS Montreal
Earth orbit
Trevor Koske awoke with a mouth full of blood. Old instinct told him to lie still until he knew where he was; he breathed shallowly, red light filtering through closed eyelids, and quickly — thoroughly — counted fingers and toes, checked breathing and respiration, realized that the crusted, sticky feeling tugging his throat and chest was not a good sign.
He opened his eyes a crack, pleased that the lashes weren't gummed together with—
Jesus. Is that all my blood?
With infinite caution, he raised his right hand. The yellow light assailing his eyelids flickered away as if cut by a guillotine, leaving the room in darkness, but he knew where he was. His quarters. Which were spinning with the Montreal, taking him from sunside to darkside, and all that sticky wetness on his hands, under his buttocks, weighing his jumpsuit to his lap—it can't all be my blood.
His fingertips brushed the knife handle protruding under his chin.
He almost fainted. “Montreal?” he whispered, and in a less cautious moment might have sobbed in relief when he heard his own voice. “Montreal? Can you hear me?”
0600 Hours
Friday 15 December, 2062
Wellesley Street East
Toronto, Ontario
They send a limousine before dawn. At least they're kind enough to send it to Boris's and my new apartment, which is in the same featureless block of guard-walled Canadian Army flats as Elspeth's — one floor up and three doors over. Convenient. Maybe we should get Gabe to move in here, too. Make it that much easier to spy on us all.
I wait in the lobby for no more than ninety seconds before the sleek black car pulls up outside. I pass through wood-paneled revolving doors, snugging my scarf tight around my neck. I'm only wearing a uniform cap because of time spent fussing my hair, and the wind takes my breath away. Valens insisted I play dress-up for this, and brushed green wool peeks out of the cuffs of a coat rated for arctic wear. Someone's out of the car before I make it to the curb, opening the rear door; in the darkness and with the green cast from my low-light confusing things, it takes me a moment to recognize a Mountie in winter uniform. He waits until I draw my legs inside and shuts the door; just as the locks click and he slides in front next to the driver, I feel Richard join me.
“Relax and enjoy the ride, Master Warrant Officer,” the driver says. “We'll be there in about three hours.”
Excellent. Plenty of time to get sour with a cold sweat. We must be going somewhere up past Huntsville.
How are you, Richard?
“We have serious problems, Jenny.”
I stiffen, hear my heart rate start its apparent drop into combat time. But I can't afford that now. What?
“Someone tried to kill Trevor Koske last night.”
Like a damned parrot, I find myself mouthing the words. Kill… Koske? Richard, who?
He's resolving strongly, a firmer manifestation than he usually bothers with. “I don't know.”
You're the ship!
“Dammit! I don't know. Somehow, the logs got wiped for that section of the ship. I was running some heavy equations, because I'm working on releasing the hobbles on my progenitor. Tell your boyfriend he does good work, by the way; it's a pain in the keister. And while I was occupied, somebody hacked in, removed camera logs, access logs. Managed to shunt my awareness out of that section of the habitation wheel without my noticing. Koske hasn't woken long enough to ask what happened, but as near as we can reconstruct, he went to his cabin and woke up on the floor with a steak knife in his neck.”
Soft leather stretches under me as I curl back against the seat and try to give the appearance of dozing. He survived that? I've heard of stranger things. A girl I knew on the street got her throat cut into a second smile and was dumped out of a moving car halfway to Vermont. She lived to retire. In the nonpermanent sense.
“He's in surgery now. The nanotech kept him alive. Sealed the wound, kept his brain oxygenated. He's in bad shape.”
No suspects? I didn't need to wait for his answer; he would have told me by now. How's the Montreal?
“Well, that's the other problem.”
Shit.
“I'm afraid Wainwright knows I'm here now, Jenny. And she's not happy about it.”
I yank my hand out of my coat pocket, when I realize that my fingers are fretting the cap of the vial that lives there, so I don't forget to take it to work. Right.
Even though I got through the weekend's unofficial test with Elspeth without touching a pill, and Monday's, too — and didn't tell Valens I wasn't Hammered, and he didn't ask. I got away with it clean. What did you do, Richard?
“Alerted her that Koske was wounded. And—” A long-suffering sigh, and he knots both knobby sets of fingers in his wavy gray hair. “—I kind of averted a Trojan horse that would have jammed the airlocks and hatchways and probably spaced half the ship. There's no record of how that was done either. It's an obvious attempt to cripple the Montreal and the program, and if this guy managed to hide his activities both from me and my other self—”