disadvantages, but at least nobody ever made a fuss over who an icarus slept with.
Voices heralded the officers’ return.
'We appreciate your help,' Scarios said, looking around at the programmers. 'You can go home now. We'll contact you if we find Miss Wilkes or Mr. Deuse.'
'We'd just as soon wait.' Isobel looked up. 'At least until Exalted Forlore comes back.'
'We'll keep out of your way,' Victor added. The captain was already shaking his head.
'We can tell you about the engine,' Lars said, grasping at straws. 'Your men wouldn't know AE components from a box of broken clocks. You'll need one of us along to tell you if you've found the right crates.'
'I think we can—' Scarios broke off as Cassi burst through the door. The pockets of her flight suit were bulging, and she walked straight to the table and began pulling out slender boxes of cards.
'Pyke, he's walking up Trisent and he has a bag full of boxes,' she said, over her shoulder. Pyke nodded and left without a word. She looked up at the lictors. 'Emelie wasn't there, so we took all her notes and cards, in case any of them were important.'
Lars gave the captain a triumphant look and picked up one of the boxes. In moments the three programmers were thumbing through cards and dropping boxes on the floor.
'I think she left,' Cassi said, turning to the captain. 'A lot of her clothes were missing, unless she's got a smaller wardrobe than Taya.'
'Hey!'
'Give me a few minutes and I'll bring back whatever Pyke can't carry,' Cassi continued, grinning at her friend.
'Do you want me—' Taya started to stand, but her friend pushed her back into the chair.
'Stay off your leg.'
'You know, someday you're going to be the one who's grounded.'
'And I'll be smart enough to spend my time in bed reading lurid love stories and having handsome guys wait on me hand and foot,' Cassi shot back, heading out the door.
'Forgefire, Em must have saved every program she ever wrote,' Lars groaned, closing another box and dropping it on the floor.
'Not all of these are hers.' Victor tossed a box to the ground. 'Some of these are class demos, and this looks like Alister's work.'
'I doubt any of them are important.' Isobel frowned. 'Emelie was sneaky. She wouldn't leave anything significant behind.'
'Look anyway,' Scarios ordered. The programmers shrugged and turned back to their work.
Pyke returned with more cards and a bundle of letters that he handed to the captain.
A few minutes later, Cassi came back and unloaded more letters and papers. Amcathra handed bundles to each icarus and the few lictors who remained.
When Cristof finally walked in, the station was quiet, everyone busy reading.
'This is strange,' Isobel remarked, turning a box upside-down. Small flecks of bright metal rained down onto the table top. Everyone pressed close to look at it.
'Copper,' Victor said, picking one of the tiny pieces up on a fingertip.
'Punches,' Lars burst out. 'That's punch chad!'
'Great Engine cards are made out of tin—'
'But Torn Cards aren't,' Cristof said, grimly. 'The Torn Cards mark each of their attacks with half a copper punch card.'
The three programmers looked at each other, dumbfounded.
'Well, so much for your theory that a Torn Card would rather throw a bomb than learn to program,' Victor said at last, turning to Isobel.
'But a Torn Card would have put a bomb in the university lab, not stolen an engine,' she insisted. 'It doesn't make any sense for Em to be a Torn Card.'
'Well, she had access to the right tools to punch a card,' Lars said, looking up at the captain. 'And I suppose she couldn't leave copper keypunch droppings around in our chad box where we would see it. She probably brushed it into whatever program she was working on at the time.'
'Do you think she vandalized the wireferry?' Pyke asked, speaking up at last.
'She couldn't have. She was with us the night before the accident,' Isobel said. 'We were all working late, even Alister.'
'What about the refinery bombing?' Taya asked, remembering her hurried night flight to the site of the disaster. 'That was the Torn Cards, too, wasn't it?'
'No card was ever found, but the rubble hasn't been cleared away yet.'
'She wasn't with us that night,' Victor mused. 'None of us were working. Alister told us he needed to spend time with his cousin, since she was still recovering from the scare, and we all decided to take the night off.'
'But women don't plant bombs,' Isobel reminded her friend. Victor sighed.
'Well, that bomb didn't kill anyone, did it? Maybe a woman would plant a bomb if she knew it was only going to cause property damage.'
'You're so narrow-minded. Women can make as much of a mess as men.'
'The refinery never made sense,' Scarios said, looking at Cristof and ignoring the two programmers. 'Octavus is a legitimate target for terrorists, but refineries are low-technology. The Cards prefer high-profile vandalism.'
'Was the explosion ever investigated?' Cristof asked.
'The case wasn't closed, but with everything that happened afterward, it wasn't given a high priority.'
'Maybe someone should take another look down there, just to make sure we didn't miss anything. The refinery wasn't owned by a decatur, was it?'
'No. We checked the obvious leads. It belongs to one of the Big Three mining companies. Nothing screwy in its records.'
'It could have been a disgruntled worker,' Victor suggested. 'Labor isn't very happy with the Big Three.'
Scarios waved off the suggestion. 'Right now, I don't care about the refinery. The only thing that matters is that your friend was either a Torn Card or working with Torn Cards, and that makes this investigation a lot more urgent. We have to move down to Slagside.'
'Can we—' Victor had barely started before Scarios was shaking his head.
'You've done your part. Now it's time to step aside,' he said, his tone brooking no disagreement. 'The Torn Cards are violent. I'm not going to involve civilians.'
'What about us?' Cassi volunteered. 'Could you use some overhead reconnaissance?'
'Sorry, icarus, but you haven't been trained to fly in a firefight. Under other circumstances, I might be tempted, but this time I can't take the risk.'
The argument continued another minute, but Scarios was adamant, and he and Amcathra were already issuing orders to the lictors left in the station.
'Exalted.' Scarios turned at last to Cristof. 'I want you to stay here, too. You're too important to get killed by crossfire.'
'I'm not—'
'You're an exalted, you're a key witness in your brother's case, and this is lictor work. The Council would bust me back to Tertius gate guard if you got hurt.'
Cristof seemed to consider the captain's words. Taya held her breath.
'All right,' he said at last. 'But I think I'll run by the refinery on my way home, just to double-check.'
'There something you're not telling me?'
'No. I'm just bothered by the fact that the refinery was vandalized so soon after the Torn Cards attacked the wireferry.'
Scarios gave the exalted an evaluating look, and Taya could tell he was thinking the same thing she was — that Cristof was desperate to find something to do that would take his mind off his brother. Then the captain
