Catalyst Page 7

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  CHAPTER 8:

  Sholokhov

  Ekatya’s good mood lasted through breakfast and continued to buoy her as she walked through the streets, across the park, and into the Presidential Palace. It even held up when she passed through security and her appointment was confirmed. It began to slip in the dark-paneled corridors with their ostentatious artwork, fell a bit further when Sholokhov’s assistant ignored her greeting and pointed her to an uncomfortable chair, and died altogether after half an hour of waiting. She had arrived precisely on time for an appointment Sholokhov had made. It was clear that the power games had already begun.

  Forty-five minutes after her appointment, the assistant stood up and opened the inner door. “Captain Serrado, Director Sholokhov will see you now.”

  She did not offer a thank-you as she walked past him. If power games were what Sholokhov wanted, then she would not put herself into a position of weakness by thanking an assistant who had, probably by order, treated her rudely.

  The office oozed luxury, from the handwoven Galay Imperial carpet to the unique art in individually lit niches along the walls. It had the same dark wood paneling as the corridors, and Sholokhov’s desk matched in both color and style, its massive bulk taking up the entire space in front of the wall of windows.

  Sholokhov did not look up. He was sitting at an angle to his desk, reading an old-fashioned paper document, the ornate windows behind him lighting his features. His wiry, graying hair was closely cropped and ended at a bald spot atop his head. Though his body was slender, his face was rounded, with shaggy eyebrows shadowing the blue eyes that stood out vividly against his black skin. It was an unusual color combination, and one that Ekatya normally found attractive. On this man, it was unsettling.

  As she had expected, his suit was expensive and perfectly tailored. The purple scarf of office was tied into an expert knot at the front of his throat, its ends draping gracefully over his shoulders. Each hand bore a heavy gold signet ring.

  He said nothing, and she waited in silence. Eventually, he swiveled his chair back to his desk, signed the paper, folded and sealed it with a bit of putty, and pressed one ring into the seal. Then he set the stamped packet aside, picked up another paper, swiveled his chair around, and began reading.

  Ekatya rolled her eyes. This was beyond petty. And who used signet rings in this age? Or paper?

  She stood through three more signings and stampings, noting that he used the left ring for one of them and the right for all the others. She remained motionless as the assistant entered the room, silently accepted the four packets, and left again.

  Fifteen minutes after she had walked in this room and one hour after her appointment, Sholokhov looked up at her. “Sit down.”

  “I would rather stand,” she said. “I’ve been sitting for most of the past two weeks.”

  His gaze grew sharper, if that was possible. Her reference to the confinement he had arranged had hit its mark.

  “I suppose you’re feeling ill-used about that.”

  “Mostly just bored with the game playing.” In her head she heard Tsao’s voice saying Don’t give him a reason to strike, but what was the point? This man was a torquat with an ego that would never be sufficiently stroked, and she might as well be honest since satisfying him was out of the question.

  “Says the woman playing her own game.” He leaned back in his chair and tapped one forefinger on the scrolled wooden armrest. “The interesting part is that you have a reputation as a straight shooter. I’m almost impressed by how well you’ve covered your real agenda.”

  Did he really think she was going to ask the question he wanted?

  He tapped his finger a few more times, then abruptly let his chair come forward and rested his hands on his desk. “Sit down, Captain. I’m not going to get a crick in my neck.”

  She sat. Her point had been made.

  “Did Tsao tell you the vote tally on the court-martial panel?”

  “Admiral Tsao,” she said, putting emphasis on the rank, “would never share information that I am not authorized to know.”

  “Good for her. I will. The panel voted four to three.” He paused, then added, “In favor.”

  She had expected his first salvo to be unpleasant, but this slipped right past her shields. “Then why was I called back for a debrief instead of a court-martial?”

  “That’s a very good question. One I’ve been asking myself for several weeks. Imagine my surprise to find out that the vote for your court-martial was overruled by order of the President. She does not get involved in Fleet decisions, but for some reason she took an interest in the case of the captain who disobeyed orders and lost her ship to a pack of barbaric aliens who don’t even have shield technology. I understand they still use swords.”

  Ekatya clenched her jaw but said nothing. He wanted her to defend his characterization of the Alseans. She needed to understand his game.

  He waited, then gave her a slight smile. “It was a mystery, and I love a good mystery. So I put a few words in the right ears. Do you know what I learned? I learned that the order saving you from court-martial was tied to the order putting you into another Pulsar-class ship. And both orders came from an agreement between the President and the Lancer of Alsea.”

  Though startled to learn that she owed Andira even more than she had realized, she kept her face still.

  “The President acted on a flawed recommendation from the negotiation team,” he continued. “Which neglected to consult this office before issuing it.”

  You were cut out of the loop and your ass is burning, Ekatya translated. She was beginning to see how she had earned the enmity of a man she had never met.

  “You, Captain Serrado, have an alien patron. A patron who somehow found herself in possession of something highly dangerous to us and used it to hold us hostage. The concessions that woman wrung out of us are beyond belief. We gave the Alseans everything but my underwear, and in exchange, we can’t even land a trade ship there until two years from now.”

  Ekatya resisted the urge to point out the obvious. No trade or transport company in the Protectorate had ships that could land on Alsea, thanks to the nanoscrubbers. New ones would have to be built, and the negotiating team had calculated that no ships would be ready earlier than eighteen months from now. The condition that Alsea be allowed time to recover from the invasion and prepare for off-world trade had been a minor one as far as the Protectorate was concerned.

  But not for Sholokhov, apparently.

  “Fusion reactors, surf engines, base space tech, matter printers…not to mention a top-of-the-line warship left behind for them to pick over, including its entire contingent of fighters. I suppose we should be grateful you managed to get the shuttles away. And then you sat on their side of the negotiation table and helped that woman steal our credit chits and the rings off our fingers. So I am quite understandably concerned about where your loyalties lie.” He brushed one finger over an ornament on his desk, which she now saw was a crystalline carving of the Protectorate emblem.

  “I left Alsea,” she said. “I believe it’s obvious where my loyalties lie.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence!” he barked. “You could do nothing more for your patron while trapped on that backwater planet. You needed to get here. Now, I’m going to give you one chance to do this the easy way. What did Lancer Tal ask from you in exchange for getting you another ship?”

  “She asked me to stay on Alsea.”

  The unexpected answer made him pause, then scowl. “This is not a joke.”

  “And I’m not joking. She wanted me to stay and work for her government, but she didn’t want that to be a decision I made because I had no other options. So she gave me an option. I chose to return.” And she was regretting that decision more and more every day.

  “Why? What are you doing
for her here?”

  She stared at him for several seconds in silence. At last she said, “Director, you work in a world of shadows where no one says what they truly believe or intend. I think you don’t know how to recognize it when someone is being forthright. I am telling you the truth. Lancer Tal is not my patron, but she is my friend. What she did for me is what one friend does for another. She didn’t put any conditions on her gesture.”

  “Your friend,” he scoffed. “Planetary leaders don’t make friends, and if that’s what you truly think, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Nor are you a player. You’re something far worse: naive.”

  “I certainly have been naive,” she shot back. “I was naive to believe it when I was told that the Protectorate’s sale of Alsea to the Voloth was a difficult but ultimately beneficial exchange. I stopped being naive when I found out that the five civilizations we were supposedly saving didn’t exist, and the Alseans were being destroyed for profit. I didn’t help them for the sake of a patron or even a friend. It was just the right thing to do.”

  “You’re not only naive. You’re an idealist.” He spoke the word as if it tasted foul in his mouth.

  “And you’re a person who is so far down the sewer, you no longer recognize that some ideals are worth fighting for.”

  “How dare you!”

  She was all the way in now, with no option but to play it out and hope for the best. “How long has it been since someone was honest with you? Who spoke and acted without a hidden agenda? Doesn’t it get tiring having people trip over themselves to tell you what they think you want to hear?”

  “Are you seriously trying to convince me that I should value being insulted for the sheer novelty of it?”

  “That wasn’t an insult. It was an observation that the nature of your job has, by necessity, altered your perceptions. You do difficult work, and I and everyone in the Protectorate who has benefitted from your vigilance appreciate that you do it. But there is a personal cost to what you do. I am not your enemy, and I am not an enemy of the Protectorate. I am an enemy of those who would defile the ideals of the Protectorate—whether they’re Voloth or our own people. I swore to uphold those ideals, just the same as you. We’re fighting on the same side.”

  He glared, speechless, and she guessed that no one had spoken to him that way in a long time.

  Then his face went blank, the anger gone as if it had never existed. “Very well, Captain. If we’re fighting on the same side, then you’ll have no issues with my assignment for you.”

  “You’re altering my orders,” she said in resignation. Of course he was.

  “Only slightly. You’ll still be working with Minister Staruin on his task force, and I believe that you bring some useful skills to that table. But I don’t believe that Staruin is prioritizing the security of the Protectorate. He has his own agenda. You will find out what that is, then report on the activities and possible agendas of the other members of the task force.”

  “You want me to spy for you?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. I call it observing and reporting.”

  She hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Director, I’m not trained in infiltration. That’s a specialist skill.”

  “True, but regrettably, you’re what I have to work with.”

  He was enjoying this. She hated to twist on his hook, but she had to at least try to convince him.

  “Wouldn’t you have a better chance of success if you replaced me on the task force? Surely you’ve already seen that I’m not good at dissembling—or holding my tongue. You need someone who can play a role.”

  “I do,” he said in an alarmingly cheerful tone. “And while I’ve definitely seen that you can’t hold your tongue, I’m not so certain about the role playing.”

  “Director—”

  His cheer vanished as he stared at her with cold eyes. “You’re not doing a good job of convincing me of your loyalty, Captain.”

  “I didn’t know I still had to,” she snapped before she could stop herself. “I thought that was what the two-week inquisition was for.”

  “No, that was to convince Fleet of your loyalties. I’m not as naive.” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a pad. “Let’s dispense with our little games, shall we? I need you to perform a task. You’re trying to wriggle out of it, and I can’t have that. So this is the part where we get down to the deal making.”

  He slid the pad across to her, and she saw at a glance that the file on it was an arrest warrant. How predictable, the little slime. He couldn’t get at her through military justice, so he was going to the civilian justice system.

  She picked up the pad and scrolled down, curious to see what the charges would be, and nearly dropped it when she read the name on the warrant.

  “Ah, you’ve reached the meat of it, I see.” Sholokhov was practically glowing with pleasure. “I had you figured out long ago, Captain. I did entertain the tiny possibility that I could be wrong, but obviously…I wasn’t.”

  She took a breath, trying to wrestle down her rage. “There is no reason to bring her into this.”

  “There is every reason. I need you to do a job, and I can’t trust you to do it. So I need leverage. It’s a straightforward exchange—surely you can appreciate how forthright I’m being?”

  “How can you possibly expect these charges to hold?”

  He leaned back and crossed his hands over his stomach in a relaxed pose. “Let’s see. The head of an anthropology expedition discovers that one of her team has betrayed her research to the Voloth, thereby destroying nearly a year of her work. She calls for help, but before help can arrive, the man selling her research is mysteriously tossed out an airlock. Who would have had the most incentive to kill him? And spacing…it’s the sort of murder that doesn’t require anything other than the ability to shove someone through a door and slam it shut behind them. Even a skinny academic could do it. Of course, there’s always the ship’s security footage, which could have cleared Dr. Rivers of any suspicion—but sadly, that footage was tampered with. Almost as if Dr. Rivers didn’t want anyone to see what was on it.”

  Ekatya clenched her fists in her lap where he couldn’t see. “Dr. Rivers was never under investigation. She cooperated fully with her captain at the time and with the investigators on our way back here. There is no evidence tying her to that murder, and anyone who knows her knows that she could never have done it.”

  “Do you know how many murderers are convicted after a dozen character witnesses swear up and down that so-and-so could never have done such a thing?”

  “You have no evidence!”

  He smiled at her. “You are betraying your naiveté. I don’t need evidence. I just need a good story. And a lead scientist killing someone who sold off her work is an excellent story.”

  She threw the pad on his desk. “You’re so bent on proving your power that you won’t even consider the fact that I’m not the best person for this job. You would be far better served with someone trained in infiltration, but that’s not your real concern, is it?”

  He didn’t move. “Do we have a deal, Captain?”

  As if she had any choice. It didn’t matter that Lhyn would never be convicted; all Sholokhov had to do was make certain she went to trial and then arrange for her to be denied bail. With his connections, he could keep her locked up for years until the system ground through its gears and spat her out the other end.

  “I’ll do your dirty work,” she said in disgust. “But I want a guarantee that you will bury these ridiculous charges and make sure no one ever brings them up again.”

  “Ah, see? Now that’s how I determine loyalties. You won’t do what I ask for the sake of the Protectorate, but you’ll do it for your lover. You’ve told me a lot today, but not with your words. And not with your honesty.” He put the pad back in the drawer. “You can have
your guarantee.”

  “And this assignment does not exceed the construction time of my new ship.”

  “I can’t imagine it would.”

  “In writing.”

  “Of course. It will be in your office by the end of the day. Your new assistant is waiting outside; he’ll show you to it. You’re dismissed, Captain.”

  She stood up, seething at his usage of military authority when he had none. But there was nothing she could do.

  The small chuckle that followed her out the door haunted her for months afterward.

  CHAPTER 9:

  Revelations

  Alsea, present day

  It was dark outside when Ekatya paused to sip some water. After a long and enjoyable day spent walking the island trails, lounging on the black sand beach, and nibbling on any number of tasty treats, they had all returned to the central cabin for evenmeal and conversation. She had waited until after Jaros had gone to bed to tell this part of her story, and now her throat was dry from the constant use of her voice.

  It hadn’t been a nonstop tale, of course. Everyone had questions about Command Dome and Gov Dome, and there were even more about how she and Lhyn had met. Andira had a few things to say about her gift of choice being misinterpreted by Sholokhov, which led to a discussion of different cultures and how the inability to verify honesty could lead to paranoia as a lifestyle. Colonel Micah wanted to know more about an entire department of government being devoted to spy activities.

  Now Andira rose and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve just remembered something Aldirk needed me to do. I’m afraid I’ll have to excuse myself from our conversation. It’s a fascinating story, Ekatya—I look forward to hearing more tomorrow. Sleep well, everyone.” She dropped a kiss on Salomen’s cheek and was out the door before anyone could react. A few murmurs of “good night” and “sleep well” followed her, but Ekatya didn’t think she heard any of them.