Emissaries from the Dead

twice, and tumbled toward us. As it drew close, it telescoped until it reflected us bow to stern, stunning us with a mural of our own dazed and terrified faces. I wish I could say mine looked vindicated. It did not. It looked more like the expression of a woman who had fully expected to die and wasn’t certain that the deliverance before her was deserved.

Lassiter’s face was drenched with sweat. “We’re getting a signal.”

“Patch it through,” I said. “No need for a privacy shield. What it has to say to me it can say to all of us.”

Lassiter obliged.

An AIsource voice said, Andrea Cort.

“Yes.”

We put this off as much as we dared. But without our interference, you would now be dead.

“I know.”

You had no reason to expect a rescue. Your actions of the last few minutes have been so reckless that you may not deserve one. We should admonish you for your stupidity and then go away, leaving you and your companions to the fate you seemed so determined to arrange for yourselves.

My throat had gone so dry that my first attempt at speech failed. “I don’t know how you feel about a couple of these others, but you weren’t about to let me die.”

Do you think you’re special?

“Yes. I’m not sure why, but that’s exactly what I think. I think you’ve made a point of protecting me.”

It was still a stupid risk. There are still other entities aboard this station, not within our control, who want you dead.

“Not like this. I don’t think they want to take advantage of a happy accident. I think they want to put on a bigger show than that. And I think you won’t let it happen until you tell me why.”

It is not that simple, Counselor.

“It very much is that simple. Just last night I told you I was sick of your bullshit, and I see no reason to change my position now. Either answer my questions to my satisfaction or I’ll resign from this case. I’ll take my transport out of here, the Dip Corps will send somebody else, and you’ll start this rigmarole all over again. That person might find a solution. But that person also won’t be me. And I’ve just bet the lives of five people on knowing what you find more important.”

The silence that followed was all of one second long; an eternity to us, and what must have been the equivalent of eons to the AIsource. During that second, the others gave me the kind of look they might have reserved for a human being whose skin had peeled away, revealing a second face not quite human.

The AIsource remote flashed a brilliant white light.

Return with us. There is much we need to discuss.

18. ROGUES

The others didn’t say much on the flight back, Godel and Lassiter still resenting me for risking their lives, the Porrinyards respecting my need for silence.

The only real conversation was Godel wanting to know why I’d chosen her, out of Gibb’s entire crew, to play games with. After all, she said, her name hadn’t been all that prominent in my investigation so far. Why would I pick on her, of all people, when I could have chosen anybody else?

I let her stew. One question at a time.

The AIsource remote accompanied us every meter of the way, a mirror blazing as it captured the light of the glowsphere suns. I wondered what would happen if I asked Lassiter to outrun it and decided she’d probably toss me overboard just for making the suggestion.

When we arrived at the Interface dock, we left Godel and Lassiter in the skimmer, bringing the Porrinyards to escort me down that long spongy corridor and back.

Godel and Lassiter therefore missed the significant alterations that had been made to the hatch since our last visit. It now bore an arch of gothic lettering, in Kiirsch, a language I read but had not used for several years. ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE. It was one of the few classical allusions I, with my prejudices against fiction, would have gotten. I doubted the AIsource could have meant it for anybody other than me: confirmation that I was right about my own importance to whatever the AIsource were trying to accomplish here.

The Porrinyards did not remark on the fresh inscription. The pale blue glow emanating from the open portal gave their skin and mine a sickly, cyanotic tinge. My stomach was lurching as I contemplated another exposure to the vertiginous environment in there, so I held back, closed my eyes, and concentrated on regaining my balance for the confrontation ahead.

Oscin placed a steadying grip on my upper right arm. Skye moved to the other side of me and placed a complementary hand on my upper left. “You’re swaying.”

I found to my surprise that I did not resent their touch at all. “Thank you.”

“That’s all right. You’re holding me up too.”

So it was not just a trick of the light. “That little trip got to you, didn’t it?”

“Let’s just say I’d appreciate a little warning the next time you feel like frightening everyone in the room. I don’t much enjoy having heart attacks in parallax, and you’ve subjected me to a couple already.”

I felt a pang of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” they said, with implacable logic. “Just stop doing it.”

“I can’t. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s another rough stunt coming. Maybe two.”

Their grip on my arms tightened. “Now?”

“No, not now. Soon. I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

They both let go and regarded me with identical measuring expressions, their eyes steady as a single thought percolated in the space between them. “You’ve changed, Counselor. I’m aware that I haven’t known you for even two full days yet, but you’re already different from the woman I met. I don’t know if you’re even aware how different you are.”

“I’m aware of something,” I said. “I’ve been feeling it since yesterday. I just don’t know what it means.”

“Neither do I. I don’t know what’s different or how it can be so easy to see if I can’t figure out what it is. But it’s there. It’s, I don’t know, an improvement somehow.”

I didn’t know what to say about that, so I just nodded, and turned to enter the portal.

But they weren’t about to allow me such an easy exit. “Counselor? One other thing?”

I stopped. “What?”

“That conversation we had last night? After the evacuation? You have decided to trust me, haven’t you?”

I considered that. “Yes.”

“That’s why you brought me, along with Godel and Lassiter. You knew I’d back your play, whatever it was.”

I considered that. “Yes. I knew.”

“And you’ve never been a person willing to give away her trust.”

“No. I’m not.”

They nodded. “So we’ll have to talk about this, sooner or later.”

“Sooner,” I promised, and slid down the chute into the Interface.

***

The chamber hadn’t changed much since yesterday. Its dimensions still skirted with the infinite, its ambience still resembled a bottomless blue sky, its atmosphere still exuded a comfortable warmth of the sort designed to engage the senses as little as possible. I wondered if a Riirgaan or Bursteeni summoned here would find the thermostat set higher or lower to accommodate their differing skin temperatures. I decided they probably would, and from that found confirmation of my earlier judgment that the room was nothing more than an exercise in theater.

Just what the AIsource had to gain by putting on such an elaborate show remained a mystery to me. But it