She turned the device over, feeling the weight of it, trying unsuccessfully to scan it.
“Second button from the left,” Korchow said.
She pressed it. The box beeped discreetly. A bioluminescent display window began counting thousandths of seconds. Li’s security programs flashed a yellow alert on her retina and went dead as her internals cut out.
Korchow leaned across the desk and took back the box. “Some things are better kept private,” he said.
“What do you want from me?” Li asked.
“Nothing complicated. Just to do business. Business that could be to our mutual advantage.” He paused and fingered the controls of the jamming device.
“It’s working fine,” Li snapped. “And it’s giving me a headache. So just tell me what you want and get it over with.”
“I represent parties who are, shall we say, interested in recent events in the Anaconda mine. Particularly in the aspects of the explosion that your, er, office seems to be investigating.”
“You want information about Sharifi,” Li said.
“Among other things.” Korchow smiled. “I can see how difficult this is for you, Major. You’d rather halo-jump into enemy territory than sit over tea talking to a Syndicate spy. I understand better than you can imagine. But we are not always called to serve in the ways we prefer. This is the price of owing allegiance to a greater good.” Steam curled from his cup, veiling his narrow, intelligent face. “We’ve met before,” he said. “Do you remember? Or have they taken that from you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was with the Thirty-second on Gilead. I fought on Cale’s Hill.”
Li looked at him, her face stiff. She’d commanded that assault.
“You don’t remember me, I suppose. Corps files are so… unreliable. But I remember you. I remember with perfect clarity.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, pulled the cloth aside to show Li a chewed-up slash of scar tissue at the base of his neck. “I was sitting in the sun. The first warmth after a cold night. Drinking a cup of tea, of all things.”
An image of a thin, stubble-faced soldier flashed through Li’s mind. A spill of dark tea and darker blood runneling over boot-packed dirt.
She looked at the wound. The shooter had pulled high and left, missing the spine by a hair. “I remember,” she said finally. “There was a crosswind. I overcorrected.”
Korchow buttoned his shirt. “Do you remember what happened after that? Or have your psychiatric technicians deleted it?”
Li watched Korchow, her heart pounding.
“I was still conscious when you arrived,” he went on. “I remember that your captain’s insignia was ripped off another uniform and sewn on with mismatched thread. I remember your smile—quite a lovely one, by the way. I remember you talking to your lieutenants. They asked you what to do with the wounded. Do you recall what you told them?”
“I told them to shoot everyone still breathing.”
“Don’t think I blame you,” Korchow said. “Though I do owe my life to the fact that some of your soldiers had more… scruples than you did. Still, it was a moment of revelation. A conversion of sorts. Do you know what I thought as I looked up at you?”
Li stirred restlessly. “How the hell would I?”
“I thought, She’s one of us. She’s like us. She can’t help but be merciful. I saw your face, you see. And I thought you would spare us because of what you were. Because of who you were. When you ordered them to shoot us, I understood, finally and completely, what they had stolen from you.”
Li watched the hypnotic blinking of the status lights on the jamming device. She probed her memory, poking at the Gilead files, looking for the cracks, the places where the emotions welled up between the digitized data and gave the lie to the official story. They should never have sent us, she thought. And the thought that she could think that—that she already did think it—frightened her more than anything she remembered doing on Gilead.
“No one’s stolen anything from me,” she said finally. “I sold it. And why, and when, and what for is none of your business.”
Korchow watched her over the rim of his teacup. When he spoke, his voice was cool and detached, and he looked up at the ceiling instead of at her. “I’ve been on five Trusteeships in the last eight years. And I’ve seen the same game, a sport I suppose, on all of them. A poor man’s sport, popular in the Trusteeships, but not at all known in the inner worlds. The enthusiasts breed male chickens—”
“Cocks,” Li said.
“Cocks, then. They breed them to kill each other. The fights are held at night and in secret; the sport is illegal on most worlds. Spectators arrive at the appointed place and hour, lay bets, drink various types of hard liquor. Then the handler of each bird takes it from its cage, attaches razor blades to its spurs, and sends it into the ring to peck and claw a fellow chicken to death.”
Korchow put down his teacup and leaned across the desk to pour Li another cup of tea. “Good tea, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I get it from a friend in New Ceylon. They appreciate the art of tea there. And the art of the deal. Ever been there?”
“No.”
“Mmm.” Korchow settled back in his chair, cup in hand. “Between tournaments the fighting cock lives in oriental luxury. He is a prince, a diva, a satrap. He knows nothing of the ordinary woes and sorrows of his species. But each pleasure we savor must be purchased with pain—a principle I am sure you appreciate, Major. And even the most spectacular fighting cock is, after all, a chicken.” He drew a taut index finger across his throat. “I wonder what those cocks would say about their lives if you could get inside the cage with them. I wonder if they’d tell you they chose this fate. That they’d sold their life, their death, and gotten a fair price for it.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Li said. “I’m not a chicken.”
“No you’re not.” Korchow smiled. “And I have a powerful presentiment that you’re about to tell me to get on with it and stop wasting your time.”
Li raised an eyebrow.
“I represent certain interested parties,” Korchow continued after a few beats.
“The Syndicates.”
“Let’s not name names just yet. In any case, at the time of Hannah Sharifi’s death, these parties were engaged in… ongoing negotiations. Their negotiations had reached a point at which the involved parties expected to receive specific items of information from Dr. Sharifi. That information was never received. The parties believe that you, as the UN officer investigating her death, are in a position to deliver it.”
“You want the datasets from Sharifi’s live field run.”
“Ah. The direct approach. How like you.”
“You can forget about it. I don’t have them.”
Korchow rocked back in his chair as if he were dodging a blow. “Now that is a most interesting statement. First, because we have assumed until this moment that you did in fact have them. Second, and correct me if I err, your answer suggests that if you were to acquire this information, you might not be absolutely opposed to sharing it.”
Li shrugged.
“I think,” said Korchow, “this is the juncture at which I am supposed to inform you that my… clients would be prepared to reward you liberally for your assistance. In money, or in ways that might, in the end, mean more to you than money.”
“Are we talking about chickens again?” Li said.
Korchow threw back his head and laughed. “Major,” he said, still laughing. “You more than live up to your reputation. No, we are not talking about chickens. We are talking about a level of remuneration that would allow you to, how shall I put this?… decide when and where and for whom you strap on the razor blades.”