Page 58

J ielt unfolds beneath us, resolving slowly out of a dusty, desert smear.

Low buildings bracket greenways: strips of terraforming plants put down by the early Colonists, which continue to chew away at the desert, turning the sand into soil.

In the center of the city, the buildings are topped by glittering blue and gold domes.

Govvie offices; Jielt’s massive central market; the spaceport.

I turn my head and whisper to Kez, “Think that might be our future there?”

“In Jielt? I hope not. It’s a sandpit.”

“Exporting off-world.” If we can find a big enough market for Tyng’s legit products, the company wouldn’t be dependent on the profits from Hex. “Could help us divest faster.”

“Mmm.” Kez wriggles a little tighter against me as she considers. “Maybe. T-White is pretty pure by any standard. We might be able to market it to the garden worlds as a luxury product.”

“We’ll do some market research on Yrillo.”

Kez twists her head to look up at me. “You’d have to untie me first. ”

I wink at her. “For an hour or two.”

She grins and goes back to watching the view.

We swing wide around the city’s space-tether to avoid the worst of the morning traffic and head into the sunrise, to the western edge of the city, where the Jielt DeSal plant rises like an accusatory black finger from the sand flats.

At the base of the plant there’s a loading dock where a huge skimmer sits, ready for today’s shipment.

The plant sits at the mouth of a natural estuary, and the morning light glints off an abundance of undrinkable water: mercury-filled rivers, the toxic ocean, and the rectangular hypersaline pools that stretch to either side of the plant.

The glittering pools framing the plant’s black spire remind me of the dragonflies that dance off my deck on warm nights.

Too bad this dragonfly ain’t so benign.

As the ship rises to the landing pad on top of the spire, I rise and gear up. Kez helps me, but it’s Exeter who takes my katanas out of the storage cubby. He passes me the first sword and holds the second between his hands. and hands them to me.

“May I?” he asks.

“Sure.”

He slides the sword free of its sheath smoothly. Not the first time he’s handled a sword. He examines the edge, tests the balance by rotating his wrist, then does a neat horizontal noto to return the sword to its sheath. He holds the sheathed sword out to me.

“This is an Amata,” he says. “How’d you get it?”

“Trade secret,” I say. Actually, I just know a guy who knows a guy. Evvan, my knife-seller, has an impressive collection of sharp metal and was willing to part with both katanas for just a little less than a new starjumper would have cost me.

The corner of Exeter’s mouth quirks. “I might trade you secrets, after this is over, if it gets me one of those.”

“We’ll talk.” While not my weapon of choice, there’d be some big advantanges to carrying a gun.

As I’m settling the katanas on my hip, Payton rises from her chair and holds out her eskey. “Mother Jo is trying to reach you, Mister Snow.”

I nod and take the eskey from her.

“Sandringham Snow.” I identify myself and wait while the AI scans me through the eskey’s biomonitor.

“Mister Snow, Security Xec Giglan instructed me to contact you directly,” the AI says when it finishes the scans.

I frown. I figured Gig would be safe enough flying the Infinity back to Nock. “What’s happened?”

“There’s been an attempted security command, level two. It failed the second level of security.”

The traitor’s finally sprung the trap I set.

“Who gave the command?”

“Halemano Hauser,” the AI says.

I’m speechless for a moment. Kez notices and puts a hand on my good arm. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her close.

“Locate, Halemano Hauser,” I tell the AI

I hear Kez take a surprised breath at the name, but I’m focused on Mother Jo’s response.

“Hemos Tower, Xecutive Office C.”

Pretty fucking sure I’m not in Hemos, or in my office at Tyng H.Q.

“Security command level one,” I tell Mother Jo before giving her the security handshakes.

“Have Hemos Tower security search Xecutive Office C and detain anyone in that office, no matter who it is. No reason given. No release until authorized by—” I pause before giving my name.

Someone’s been impersonating me. Both of me.

“Until authorized by Xec Kezra Kerryon. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Implement. Now.”

“Done, sir.”

“Mother Jo, what was the attempted security command?”

“Cancellation of the contamination alarm in Jielt.”

Someone’s trying to undo our fake emergency. And it ain’t me. Either of me .

I sign off and give the eskey back to Payton. Look down into Kez’s worried face. “We got a problem,” I murmur.

She nods.

“We need a moment alone,” I tell Exeter.

Without argument or hesitation, the merc shows Payton and Acker the door. Before he leaves, he pauses. “No one’s listening. If you need something, all you have to do is ask.”

I hold out my good hand and he shakes it before sealing the door behind him.

“What’s happened?” Kez asks.

“Someone tried to undo our fake emergency.”

Kez frowns. “Who?”

“Me.”

“What?”

“Halemano Hauser gave Mother Jo the command.”

“What?” Kez’s voice shoots up an octave.

“From my office in Hemos Tower.”

“I don’t understand.” Kez rubs her hands over her face. “Does Hale Hauser even have access to Mother Jo?”

“Looks that way. I didn’t set up the account, but she’s been taking security commands from someone using my real name.”

“Which Chiara knows.”

I nod. I had that thought, too.

“Damn. What did you tell Mother Jo to do?”

“Send a security team to detain whoever was in my office, no matter who it is. You’re the only one who can order their release. Maybe we’ll catch ‘em, maybe not. Either way, we know where to look now. After we ruin B’s day, I figure we head back to Hemos and catch us an imposter.”

Kez folds her lips together for a moment before she asks, “What if it’s Chiara?”

I lean in and kiss her on the forehead. “We deal with it. What matters is that we know. We got a chance to catch ‘em all today, kitten. B, Jaxon, and whoever’s been fucking us from the inside. ”

“And then we can go to Yrillo?” she asks, her voice small and wistful.

I give her a firmer kiss. “Yeah, we got lots of market research to do.”

Acker, Payton, Exeter and his two mercs wait for us on the ship’s open ramp.

We’ve landed on the pad at the top of the tower, and despite the time of day and the season, the wind whipping across the platform is already a hot kiss on my face.

Payton’s blinking into it, her braids whipping around her shoulders, when I tap her arm.

“Sir?”

“Snow,” I remind her. “Once I take down B, however it goes, I want you to be ready to step up and take over the plant. Kez’ll announce the transition.”

Payton nods. “What about Miz Tyng? She’s arriving at noon.”

Or she might be sitting on ice back in Hemos.

“Let’s see how this goes,” I say.

“Keegan is the plant’s second-in-command. She’s very knowledgeable about the methane conversion process and it is unlikely she shares B’s prejudices, as she’s a mod herself. Should I assign her to assist Miz Tyng?”

“Can you do that?”

“No, but Miz Kerryon can.” Payton pulls out her palmtop, taps in a series of commands and holds it out for Kez to authorize.

“The amount of trust your people place in machines is terrifying,” Acker murmurs to me as Kez presses her thumb to Payton’s palmtop.

“That’s why I like doin’ things face-to-face,” I respond. “Less opportunity for misunderstandings.”

Kez snorts. “More opportunity for bloodshed.”

I elbow her with my strapped arm. “Do I look like I’m up for bloodshed? ”

She gives my katanas a pointed glance. “Yes.”

Exeter chuckles at our exchange but doesn’t relax his ready stance. I can tell he likes being out in the open as little as I do.

“Let’s go.” I draw Kez against my bad side and point across the platform to the glaz lift entrance.

One of Exeter’s mercs takes point, Acker falls in on Kez’s far side, Payton and Exeter follow a step behind us and the last merc takes up the rear.

Exeter’s done no more than nod to get the other two mercs to form up.

He wasn’t kidding about his experience, and it shows in the mercs’ organization.

There’s no reception committee waiting at the lift, but since it’s early and we’ve thrown a big fucking spanner into their works, that’s understandable.

Not very professional, though. I can tell Payton has the same thought by the way the corners of her mouth turn down as we pass through the outer security doors without challenge and board the grav lift.

“This place is wide open,” Exeter observes as the lift begins to drop.

“The doors wouldn’t have opened to anyone who wasn’t authorized,” Payton says primly. “I gave the AI the clearances before we landed.”

“Like the man said, you people rely too much on tech. Two blasts,” Exeter says, patting the holster on his thigh, which now contains his big gun, a Smitty Fifty-Six.

“I could have been through those doors. And look how vulnerable you are to abuse from the inside. Miz Kerryon created an emergency your own people can’t tell is fake, because everything runs through your AI. ”

“Yeah, SecHead,” I say to Acker. “Better tighten up the meat security ‘round here.”

Acker gives me a stink-eye even blacker than Kez’s. “Remind me why any of this is my problem?”

“Cause the job’s got good perks,” I say.

“Not so far,” Acker grumbles.

I’m grinning at him when the lift reaches the lobby and the doors snick open .

The missing reception committee’s waiting for us in the lobby, which is a smaller-scale version of the atrium at Tyng Tower in Hemos. All of Tyng’s buildings follow the same basic design, which makes it easy to find your way around, even if it’s a nightmare from a security perspective.