He didn’t leave word. He was waiting at the entryway.
“Humility.”
Both my hands were in his, held with a care which said he remembered their condition, and he was searching my face, concern in his eyes. Then he let me go. His smile was gentle.
“Thank you for coming.”
He escorted me inside without even pausing for the usual scans. We didn’t speak as we rode up in the elevator until its doors opened at the floor which was his apartment. He’d told me Morgan had the floor above. I wondered whether Camille had special accommodation or if she roughed it with only a couple of rooms to herself like the other courtiers. I couldn’t bring myself to feel much concern.
“Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”
“Thanks.”
It was something to hold, though there was still enough boost buzzing in my system to make me cautious. I cupped the fragile glass in both hands – it was cool against still-sore palms – but didn’t drink.
“How’s Daisy?”
“I don’t know. How do you feel when someone’s killed your partner and your unborn child?”
“It was a killing, then? Not an accident?”
I was almost surprised. Forgetting he didn’t know about the other deaths. I shook my head. “No. Not an accident.”
At least he didn’t offer platitudes about the peeps finding the killer soon. They had no leads, no suspects. If Daisy knew anything she wouldn’t confide in the peeps anyway. She’d prefer to deal direct rather than trust a company which could always be bought. And what she would want to do to the perp wasn’t in any lawtext. I’d help her if I could. I shook my head, stared down into the pale gold liquid in my glass. Looked back up.
“Let’s not talk about it. Tell me about going back to your Estate.”
He grimaced. “Morgan’s decided he’s seen enough. That means we all follow him back to base.”
“Even you?”
“Even me. I’m on his staff. Even if I don’t do anything. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Me? I’m not in a position to offer you a job.”
He looked startled. Laughed. Knew I had to be joking to suggest he might have any wish to stay here. “No. But you could come with me.”
My turn for shock. “Me?”
He laughed again. Then came and crouched in front of where I was sitting. His eyes were a soft brown. His lashes were long and thick. His skin was clear. If he’d ever had a hangover or a high it hadn’t left any marks on him. I wondered how old he was. He didn’t touch me. Except with his voice.
“You. Why not? We could be good together.”
It would have been easier if he had touched me.
“But what would I do?”
“Whatever you wanted.” Now he did reach out, a hand gentle on my cheek. “You’ll come?”
It was a question. Just.
“What about the Pig?”
He hadn’t thought about it. Had to concentrate to remember what I was talking about. Spread his hands as though problems like that were trivial to Family. They probably were.
“Keep the boat here. You could come down whenever you wanted. Or I’m sure Morgan would love to share one of his racers with you.”
“I’m not.”
He straightened, his smile rueful. “You may be right. I’d just have to give you your own.”
“Milo…”
“Don’t say anything yet. Finish your drink. Think about it. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
He went through a door into a room I’d not seen, which I guessed was some sort of office or comcentre, since there were no obvious screens in here. Though what the cabinets disguised was impossible to tell. I stood up, went over to look more closely at a heavy antique bureau.
I didn’t really see the ornate carving which garlanded it though my fingers traced its outline. I was thinking of what Milo offered. I guessed it was the difference which drew him: he’d developed a taste for something which seemed exotic but was only unusual. He wasn’t suggesting a partnership or any sort of contract, but what did I have to lose? I could turn over all I knew or suspected about the ID scam to Byron and disappear with Milo. If I could just forget that he had a cousin called Camille.
Roll the dice, girl.
And take a chance. Jack had died taking a chance. The chance that his worn-out heart would keep going long enough for him to win enough money to buy another. I turned back to the room. Picked up and put down again the litter of ornaments on a small table. Most were silver; one was a box, wood inlaid with shell. The nacre gleamed with shifting subtlety.
The box had no obvious opening. Intrigued enough to let the smaller puzzle displace the larger, I put my glass down on the table and turned the box in both hands, seeking its catch. It was old. Far too early to have a digital or sonic key. There must be a trick to it.
A bar of inlay shifted. Another. Yes, they had to be moved in sequence, I saw, then one of the ends, not the more obvious top, slid free to expose a small drawer. I pulled on the tiny turned handle.
Inside: a lifebox. Like mine. And unlike. This one was whole, undamaged. With an ID chip inside, gleaming in its secret nest.
When I could bring myself to touch it with one finger, I imagined I could feel the pulse of a life inside it.
Whose?
“It’s not your friend’s partner.”
I turned. Still holding the inlaid box. “No. I checked. She was still …”
“Intact?”
“Yes.”
Milo walked over. Took the box from me. Closed it. Set it back on the polished table. Saw my full glass there and gave it back to me.
“You haven’t tasted the wine. You should.”
“Why? What have you put in it?”
Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish.
He hadn’t changed. He hadn’t gone into the other room and come out a monster. He still looked at me with what I had to believe was affection. The thread of amusement was still in his voice, inviting me to share a joke against the system, his eyes were still gentle, warm. Perhaps there was a trace of regret in his face but I might have been imagining things. There was none in his voice.
“Nothing much. Just a relaxant.”
“I’m relaxed.”
“I don’t think so.”
“So tell me a relaxing story. Like how you got involved in all this.”
“Involved?” He was hurt. “I devised it.”
I should have known. In a way I had known. I just hadn’t wanted to know. The mind’s not a machine – though Byron’s might be. It can believe two contradictory things at once. It can know a man is a killer, however indirectly, yet believe the opposite. I’m not fool enough to believe that love, or any of its near-neighbours, is an absolute, but it makes me willing to offer the benefit of the doubt. Until proved wrong.
“You devised the scam? Or the technology to do it?”
“Both. I suppose you want me to tell you all about it?”
“It’s the tradition, isn’t it?”
I tried to look around without being obvious. I didn’t give a damn about tradition but I didn’t fancy my chances unless I could get to the door without his intercept. There had to be an emergency exit which didn’t involve a tech device. Those, I was sure, he could control.
“By all means let us comply with tradition. But first…
I didn’t see what signal he gave, but the door slid open to allow me to see the tekkie. The one who worked block security. The one who had taken Jon’s job, which had handled the general post. What else had I expected? He said nothing, but his eyes gloated. On his hip was a sheath: the knife’s handle was black This tekkie had handled more than packages. Milo nodded at him.
“Wait outside.”
The tekkie stepped back. Let the door slide shut. Milo’s message was delivered. Any violence he considered necessary wouldn’t come directly from him.
He was watching me with mild curiosity. “How did you know it was me?”
“I didn’t. Not until just now when I found that box. I’d thought it might be someone else not even here, or possibly Morgan.”
“Morgan.” It was a sneer. “He doesn’t know about anything except boats. He doesn’t even know why Camille had her face changed. Do you know about Camille?”
I wished it had been Morgan who had smiled at me and taken me out for a luxury meal. At least we had something in common.
“I saw her obit on a vidcast. Saw her arguing with Morgan this morning.”
“You recognised her? I wondered if you were cleverer than you look. She had to disappear because she was caught up in a messy affair with a member of a Family which didn’t like the association. But we couldn’t afford to lose her business acumen. She’s been running the Family’s finances since she was seventeen. A mind like a computer with the sexual discrimination of a rabbit and no discretion at all.”
“So you arranged a new ID.”
“That’s it. There’s no risk in it. Once I’ve got the new ID it doesn’t have to be reimplanted. The trick is to lift the old codes from the one you want wiped and retune it. That’s the technology I developed.”
I was working it out. Trying to understand the implications. A part of me was also wondering if there’d ever been any feeling for me but contempt beneath the easy charm.
“But if you can do that, no one need die! Surely you could just make a copy?”
He looked pleased by my quickness. “Of course. But that would leave two people with the same ID. And the anomaly would be bound to show up sooner or later. Logical to delete the donor.”
I’d been wrong: it was Milo, not Byron, who thought like a machine. Logic translated into Jon’s bound and disfigured corpse. Blue Eyes’ sightless eyes staring at me. I swallowed. Tried to equal his indifference.
“That why you chose people like Jon?”
“Which Jon? Doesn’t matter. Donors are people no one would miss. Nothings. The IDs will achieve more in their new hosts than the originals could ever have imagined.”
Except that ID chips weren’t sentient. The donors had been.
“How many IDs have you transplanted?”
“Not many yet. Half a dozen. It’s important to stay exclusive, and I charge megacredits for the service. Nor am I easy to locate. Even my Family don’t know just who they paid for Camille’s new name.”
He liked that. The secret pleasure of knowing more than anyone else. He’d said he liked planning. I remembered thinking on Em’s boat that they’d no idea how far a Family member would go to complete a job. I should have listened to myself. Had he also liked the killings, the vicarious thrill of dealing random death to people who would never know he existed? Or why they died? I remembered what he’d said about the boredom of a safe Estate life. Had Jon died because Milo was bored?
“And now you’re going to get rid of me. What made you decide?”
He took a sip from his own glass. “I saw the lifebox on your boat. In the drawer, when you put the cards away. I’d already heard you were asking questions about the dead man, had been over to where he lived. Knew you might put it all together eventually.”
Might. Not would.
“There was a chip in there too. A woman’s, if the jewellery with it is a clue. Do you know whose?”
He smiled as though I’d given him the solution to a small but irritating puzzle.
“It must have been Camille’s. It took me two months to find another. The one you have would be the first one I requisitioned. The contact here claimed it had never reached him, been misfiled somewhere. I realised he was lying, of course, and knew it when he threatened me. He’d guessed some of what was happening. And now you have it.”
He was pleased.
He’d answered the question I hadn’t thought to ask: who was the chip for? I’d meant: who was it from? But for him that was a meaningless question. Donors had no independent existence. I wondered again if he’d felt as little for me. Something, conceit probably, still made it hard to accept.
“So you took me out to dinner and arranged for an accident when we got back?” He hadn’t been ordering wine when we’d stopped here. He’d been ordering my death. You should be dead, he’d said the morning after I’d gone into the water. He’d meant it. I’d taken the horror and revulsion to be at his own helplessness to prevent my near-drowning. But it had been fury at the failure of his plan.
And not for the first time: now I knew who Milo had been calling on his wrist link, whose voice I had heard telling someone to “Let her go!” as I scrabbled through the mud. He hadn’t want the enquiries a gunshot would have brought down on the Port. “So who cut the ladder?”
“You’ve met him.” Of course. The tekkie who was standing outside the door. He had others to help him out when there was a chance I might see his face, like down at the scrapyards, but he was the main muscle here. And at the flats? I’d only ever seen that man in the dark – but he’d had the knife.
Milo still had that reasonable smile on his face. “I gave you the chance to stay here.”
Which I’d almost taken.
“Are you going to recycle my ID?”
He pursed his lips, shook his head. “I’d like to, but you know too many people. Someone would notice when you showed up alive in the records but no one could trace you. A pity.”
It wasn’t going to stop him killing me. Or ordering in his thug to do it. I jerked my thumb at the door. “Did he kill the man whose job he took?”
The soft smile congratulated me. “That’s it. I told you, the other one asked questions. Besides, he didn’t want to do the wet work. When I insisted he tried to threaten the Family. Me. He had to be replaced. This one likes his work.”
I believed him. It was probably the thug who’d found Blue Eyes: middleman and potential donor in one. I imagined they’d once moved in the same circles.
“What about the northshore flats? Did he set the fire?”
An expression which might have been irritation chased itself across his face. “He was going to clean out the room, but the peeps got there first. It was the only way to be sure no one got too curious. Inconvenient.”
“And the girl?”
“What girl?”
“A blader. Ran a few messages for you. Got beat up, nearly got burned.”
He shrugged. “We weren’t using the flats any more. She was redundant, might be getting close to you. He warned her off. Didn’t kill her.”
He sounded as though he expected congratulations. If he’d needed a female ID just then, I wouldn’t have given odds on Luna’s survival chances.
“Nearly did. He enjoys his work too much.” I swallowed. “So what happens next?”
“I invite him in.” He gestured towards the door. “And he takes you away. As you said, he enjoys his work.”
I wondered where, if, my body would be found. That hint of regret was still in his face. He didn’t hate me for my interference. I doubted if he felt anything strongly. I understood the thug better than I understood Milo. At least the thug got real pleasure from his work. Milo’s pleasures were all in his mind. He would pore over his secrets like a miser with his gold, intent only on accumulating more.
I needed time. Time to find a way out. Time to think of some way past the security thug. Not the window. The room was climate-controlled, the windows armoured and sealed. Get past and into his office and send a signal? Who did I think I was? I couldn’t break into his system if he gave me all day and all night to try. He’d just lock the door and gas the room.
I wished I’d told Byron what I’d seen. Wished he was here, wished anyone was here. Knew no one was coming. Keep him talking. Jack’s advice. Pathetic. I couldn’t think of anything better.
“They’ll know I was last seen up here. And that you were the only one in the building. The vids will show you meeting me.”
He laughed. Pleased with himself. “Why do you think I came to meet you? Walked you through without a scan? The vids were looping. They’ll show an empty hall for all that time. I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. You were never here. Go on, drink your wine. It’ll make it much easier.”
“Who for?”
“Everyone.”
I watched the pleased smile begin to touch his mouth as I lifted the glass. Then I threw it at him.
Evil communications corrupt good manners.
It shattered in his face. For a moment he was blind. He lifted a hand in shock, wiping his mouth and eyes, staring when he saw his fingers stained red. He hadn’t felt the cuts till then. Now he did. Something lit his eyes – fear? rage? disbelief?
“You hurt me!”
“Good.”
I was backing from him, towards the door. He still stared. No one had ever hurt him before. I wondered if he had ever seen real blood, drawn in violence. Then his face twisted and he reached for me.
I ducked. Slid away. Hoped I was right to think the door would be unlocked so his thug could get in. It was my only way out. Past the thug. He had the knife and he would be stronger than me but with that belly he couldn’t be faster. And he lacked my motivation.
“You’re going to die!”
Milo was looking forward to it. He’d stopped trying to grab me himself and was laughing as the door slid open before I could reach it. I dived low to get under the thug’s reach. Hitting him before his hand even reached the sheath.
His belly was soft and I took him by surprise. His breath left him in sort of woof!
Of course I hadn’t done more than set him back a little. He outweighed me and his reach was longer. If he’d got hold of me I wouldn’t have had a chance. But I didn’t give him time to regroup, and life at sea has made me stronger than I look. Besides, he wasn’t used to victims who fought back.
Perhaps it was the memory of some of those victims which lent power and accuracy to the kick I aimed just below his gut. That and the thought that any moment Milo could get me from behind. When the thug doubled up with a high-pitched squeal of agony, I was past him and heading for the stairs.