‘Sit down, lieutenant. If you can find the space.’
The cabin was cramped but meticulously tidy. A powered-down grav bed rested on the floor in one corner, under a desk that hinged out from the bulkhead. The work surface held a compact datacoil, a neat stack of bookchips and a pot-bellied statue that looked like Hun Home art. A second table occupied the other end of the narrow space, studded with projector gear. Two holos floated near the ceiling at angles that allowed viewing from the bed. One showed a spectacular image of Adoracion from high orbit, sunrise just breaking across the green and orange rim. The other was a family group, Carrera and a handsome olive-skinned woman, arms possessively encompassing the shoulders of three variously aged children. The Wedge commander looked happy, but the sleeve in the holo was older than the one he was wearing now.
I found a spartan metal desk chair beside the projector table. Carrera watched me sit down and then leaned against the desk, arms folded.
‘Been home recently?’ I asked, nodding at the orbital holo.
His gaze stayed on my face. ‘It’s been a while. Kovacs, you knew damn well that Sutjiadi was wanted by the Wedge, didn’t you?’
‘I still don’t know he is Sutjiadi. Hand sold him to me as Jiang. What makes you so sure?’
He almost smiled. ‘Nice try. My tower-dweller friends gave me gene codes for the combat sleeves. That plus the sleeving data from the Mandrake stack. They were quite keen for me to know that Hand had a war criminal working for him. Added incentive, I imagine they saw it as. Grist to the deal.’
‘War criminal.’ I looked elaborately around the cabin. ‘That’s an interesting choice of terminology. For someone who oversaw the Decatur Pacification, I mean.’
‘Sutjiadi murdered one of my officers. An officer he was supposed to be taking orders from. Under any combat convention I know of, that’s a crime.’
‘An officer? Veutin?’ I couldn’t quite work out why I was arguing, unless it was out of a general sense of inertia. ‘Come on, would you take orders from Dog Veutin?’
‘Happily, I don’t have to. But his platoon did, and they were fanatically loyal, all of them. Veutin was a good soldier.’
‘They called him Dog for a reason, Isaac.’
‘We are not engaged in a pop—’
‘—ularity contest.’ I sketched a smile of my own. ‘That line’s getting a little old. Veutin was a fucking asshole, and you know it. If this Sutjiadi torched him, he probably had a good reason.’
‘Reasons do not make you right, Lieutenant Kovacs.’ There was a sudden softness in Carrera’s tone that said I’d overstepped the line. ‘Every graft-wrapped pimp on Plaza de los Caidos has a reason for every whore’s face they carve up, but that doesn’t make it right. Joshua Kemp has reasons for what he does and from his point of view they might even be good ones. That doesn’t make him right.’
‘You want to watch what you’re saying, Isaac. That sort of relativism could get you arrested.’
‘I doubt it. You’ve seen Lamont.’
‘Yeah.’
Silence ebbed and flowed around us.
‘So,’ I said finally. ‘You’re going to put Sutjiadi under the anatomiser.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
I just looked at him.
‘We are the Wedge, lieutenant. You know what that means.’ There was the slightest tug of urgency in his tone now. I don’t know who he was trying to convince. ‘You were sworn in, just like everyone else. You know the codes. We stand for unity in the face of chaos, and everyone has to know that. Those we deal with have to know that we are not to be fucked with. We need that fear, if we’re going to operate effectively. And my soldiers have to know that that fear is an absolute. That it will be enforced. Without that, we fall apart.’
I closed my eyes. ‘Whatever.’
‘I’m not requiring you to watch it.’
‘I doubt there’ll be enough seats.’
Behind my closed eyelids, I heard him move. When I looked, he was leaning over me, hands braced on the edges of the projector table, face harsh with anger.
‘You’re going to shut up now, Kovacs. You’re going to stand down that attitude.’ If he was looking for resistance, he couldn’t have seen any in my face. He backed off a half metre, straightened up. ‘I won’t let you piss away your commission like this. You’re a capable officer, lieutenant. You inspire loyalty in the men you lead, and you understand combat.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You can laugh, but I know you. It’s a fact.’
‘It’s the biotech, Isaac. Wolf gene pack dynamics, serotonin shutout and Envoy psychosis to pilot the whole fucking shambles. A dog could do what I’ve done for the Wedge. Dog fucking Veutin, for example.’
‘Yes.’ A shrug as he settled himself on the edge of the desk again. ‘You and Veutin are, were, very similar in profile. I have the psychosurgeon assessments on file here, if you don’t believe me. Same Kemmerich gradient, same IQ, same lack of generalisable empathy range. To the untutored eye, you could be the same man.’
‘Yeah, except he’s dead. Even to the untutored eye, that’s got to stand out.’
‘Well, maybe not quite the same lack of empathy, then. The Envoys gave you enough diplomatic training not to underestimate men like Sutjiadi. You would have handled him better.’
‘So Sutjiadi’s crime was he got underestimated? Seems as good a reason as any to torture a man to death, I suppose.’
He stopped and stared at me. ‘Lieutenant Kovacs, I don’t think I’m making myself clear. Sutjiadi’s execution is not under discussion here. He murdered my soldiers, and at dawn tomorrow I will exact the penalty for that crime. I may not like it—’
‘How gratifyingly humane of you.’
He ignored me. ‘—but it needs to be done, and I will do it. And you, if you know what’s good for you, will ratify it.’
‘Or else?’ It wasn’t as defiant as I’d have liked, and I spoilt it at the end with a coughing fit that racked me over in the narrow chair and brought up blood-streaked phlegm. Carrera handed me a wipe.
‘You were saying?’
‘I said, if I won’t ratify the ghoul show, what happens to me?’
‘Then I’ll inform the men that you knowingly attempted to protect Sutjiadi from Wedge justice.’
I looked around for somewhere to toss the soiled wipe. ‘Is that an accusation?’
‘Under the table. No, there. Next to your leg. Kovacs, it doesn’t matter whether you did it or not. I think you probably did, but I don’t really care one way or the other. I have to have order, and justice must be seen to be done. Fit in with that, and you can have your rank back, plus a new command. If you step out of line, you’ll be next on the slab.’
‘Loemanako and Kwok won’t like that.’
‘No, they won’t. But they are Wedge soldiers, and they will do as they are told for the good of the Wedge.’
‘So much for inspiring loyalty.’
‘Loyalty is a currency like any other. What you have earned, you can spend. And shielding a known murderer of Wedge personnel is more than you can afford. More than any of us can afford.’ He leaned off the desk edge. Beneath the coveralls, Envoy scan read his stance at endgame. It was the way he always stood in the final round of sparring sessions that had gone down to the wire. The way I’d seen him stand when the government troops broke around us at Shalai Gap and Kemp’s airborne infantry swept down out of the storm-front sky like hail. There was no fallback from here. ‘I do not want to lose you, Kovacs, and I do not want to distress the soldiers who have followed you. But in the end, the Wedge is more than any one man within it. We cannot afford internal dissent.’