Twenty-Seven

A faint smell of burning plastic brought him awake. Derec kept his eyes closed, remembering almost too late that he was a prisoner.

He concentrated on his other senses. After the smell, he noticed that his hands were bound-by a thin cord, from the way it bit into his flesh-and he was lying on his stomach on a pad of some kind. The air was cold. He heard distant sounds, like water dripping or the delicate rattle of tools in use, distorted by the space and the consequent echo. Then he heard footsteps, drawing nearer. The soles clicked on a hard surface, like concrete. He wondered…

"Hey, Bok," someone very near said, his voice tense with a forced joviality. And it sounded familiar.

"Shut up," the other-Bok, Derec guessed-said flatly, as though he expected to be obeyed.

There was silence.

"He's awake," Bok said then. "He didn't get that much. Mr. A very, I expect you can hear and understand me. Go ahead and pretend to still be unconscious if you want, it doesn't matter. Soon you won't be my problem anymore. But until then, let me inform you that if you try to escape, I will kill you without a second thought. The only reason you're alive now is because someone wants it that way. He could just as easily want it the other way. If we're clear on this, just continue to lie there as if you haven't heard a word I've said."

Bok walked away.

"Asshole," the other, familiar, voice said softly. Then: "Are you awake?"

Derec did not move.

"This is unbelievable," the other said. "Absolutely unbelievable." He sounded strained, barely in control. "All this was supposed to be… damn. No one was supposed to get hurt and after the station they told me it was over, no one else would get hurt, and then… this is unbelievable."

Now Derec opened his eyes. He lay on a thick pad, several centimeters from the floor, in some kind of stall. The light was dim and came from outside the small area, spilling over the contents unevenly. Across from him, sitting against a wall, was Tathis Kedder, his legs drawn up against his chest, one hand pressed flat against the floor, the other hovering by his mouth. He was staring out of the stall.

Derec recognized the space, then: the garage with the ambulances.

Kedder looked around and saw him. "You are awake." Kedder stared at him for a time, then seemed about to crawl across the stall to his side. He made the first move, then changed his mind and pressed his back firmly against the wall and shook his head. "This isn't my fault."

"What isn't?" Derec asked.

"This." He waved a hand at Derec, then at the garage around them. "None of this. I had nothing to do with this."

"Of course not. You only set me up to be abducted. Now it looks like you're in about the same position I'm in. Except you're not bound."

Kedder swallowed loudly and started shaking his head in desperate denial. "I am not like you. I didn't ask too many questions. I didn't scan where I wasn't supposed to. I did what I was told and nothing more. I shouldn't be here!"

Derec waited for Kedder to calm down. "So, why are you here?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"I don't." Kedder glared, his eyes wide and moist. He rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked away. "All I was asked to do was to modify a couple of reports. It was research. That was all. Basic research, they said, the installation of a few extra components, nothing vital, attached to a couple of maintenance nodes. In the interest of-the money was very good."

"Who asked you? Imbitek?"

Kedder nodded. "I looked over the specifications-there didn't seem to be any harm, and it takes forever to get clearance for some of the simplest changes. Did you know that three years ago, we needed an upgrade in the lavatories? A new processing unit had to be installed specifically to handle the increase in Spacer traffic. A few new microbes had gotten into their systems and the standard purification filters just didn't clean it all out anymore. Nothing serious, mind you, but it was a concern that should any of these flora get into the general sewage system, there could be a problem or two, so the request was made to upgrade. It took three months for the clearances. Do you have any idea how many people use the station facilities in a day? In three months, when you consider all the traffic, well, a major plague could have gotten started before the bureaucrats made up their minds. So when I was asked to help with this, well, you understand, it was with that in mind-"

"You were thinking of toilets and took the money. I understand. Makes perfect sense."

Kedder blinked at him, frowning. "The money was very good. And frankly, I didn't think I'd have a job for that much longer."

"At Union Station? Why not?"

"Things… it's a positronic unit-was-and I just couldn't see it lasting. When I'd tell people what I did, most of them thought I was weird. A few called me a traitor. If the idea was to get people used to the idea of positronics it wasn't working. And I was tainted. It occurred to me, Mr. Avery, that I might have trouble finding employment after the program shut down."

"You were certain it was going to shut down?" Derec asked.

"Be serious. Did you think it would last as long as it did?"

"Senator Eliton-"

"Would do what his constituency told him to do. That's his job, that's what he's paid to do. His numbers were dropping. If this conference succeeded as advertised, I imagine he'd be voted out of office. People don't want positronics. They don't want robots. They don't want-"

"So why did you study it if that's how you felt?"

"What? Oh. I-well, I didn't always feel that way. But after working there and-I lost friends, Mr. Avery. I was a pariah among certain people."

"Find new friends. Not everyone on this planet is a bigot."

Kedder grunted and lapsed into sullen silence.

Derec licked his lips; his mouth felt dry and numb-leftovers from the anжsthetic. "So let me see if I guessed correctly. Imbitek paid you to allow them to install a few experimental components. Since they were already an authorized contractor on the project, you couldn't see a legal problem, certainly not an ethical one. They offered enough money to assuage any other doubts you might have and, besides, they convinced you that the RI was temporary and afterward, if everything went well, you could have a position with them. So you agreed. You also helped them with locating the nodes they wanted. They even had a Solarian consultant to convince you that nothing would go wrong. You know your training in positronics isn't on par with a specialist from Solaria, so this makes perfect sense. All you have to do over the course of the next several months is log any glitches that crop up and route the reports to the Solarian consultant rather than to the authorized service contractor-me."

Derec tried to shift onto his side to make breathing a little easier, but without success. "'Adjustment errors,' they told you-happens from time to time, nothing to worry about. Then it all blew up in your face when the attack on the conference delegates happened. You knew something to do with those systems had interfered with the RI and compromised security. You didn't know what, you probably didn't even know that it was supposed to do that. You only knew that something you had allowed to happen had caused a major disaster. I show up and you decide, on the spot, to say nothing. Maybe I'd conclude it was Imbitek's fault, which I did. It never occurred to me to question you or Hammis, not till I found out that no directive had been issued by the Calvin Institute to route those 'adjustment errors' to them instead of me. Even then, I didn't really think it was you. I thought you'd been lied to. I wanted to find out who'd done that. But now… let me guess, it was pointed out to you that your continued cooperation was necessary or the facts of your violation of protocol would be made public. You'd be lucky to escape imprisonment."

Kedder sniffed. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

"What about Hammis? Was he part of it?"

"No, he-I trained him. Sometimes I think he was better than me, but-he never knew. I think he suspected."

"So you had him fired."

Kedder shrugged. "Yes."

"Where is he? His apartment's been searched."

Kedder gestured with his thumb toward the wall at his back. "In the next stall. Dead."

Derec felt a chill grow down his back. "That means you're next, Tathis."

"Maybe." He looked at Derec. In the half-light his tears glistened. "You're only half correct about the Solarian. There was one, but he wasn't introduced to me as a Solarian but an Auroran, someone on staff at the Calvin Institute. Later I checked because I found his name on the roster of the Auroran legation en route."

"Tro Aspil?"

Kedder nodded. "The one I talked to was Solarian."

"How do you know?"

"Accent. During my training and during the installation of the RI I talked to both Aurorans and Solarians. They sound different. It's hard to define, but… I didn't think anything of it at the time… Solarians work for Aurorans, there are Solarians at the Calvin Institute…"

"But none on Earth."

"Not with the Institute, no."

"So who was this man?"

"I don't know. Just not Tro Aspil."

How far does this go? Derec wondered. Imbitek, probably Mikels himself-no, certainly Mikels himself-and at least two Special Service agents. And a Solarian? It would make the installation of those growths easier, certainly. Then there were his present captors-Managins. Maybe.

"I'm sure they know I'm awake now," Derec said. "So, could you help me sit up. This is a very awkward position."

At first, it seemed Kedder would not move. Then he unfolded from the wall and quickly turned Derec onto his side and helped him up.

"Thanks." Derec saw then that he was on an ambulance gurney.

Kedder resumed his position on the floor against the wall.

"So," Derec said, "who's Bok?"

"Bok Golner."

"Am I supposed to know him?"

"He's…dangerous."

"So I gather. Managin?"

Kedder nodded.