Heikki hesitated, knowing just how much was riding on her answer. At last she said, “Damn it, I can’t tell you that. I can’t predict the future. All I can do is give you my word that it isn’t our—his—” She pointed to Max. “—intention that FitzGilbert be hurt in any way.”
It was not, she thought remotely, a particularly convincing speech, but to her surprise, Alexieva looked away. “That was what I meant,” the surveyor said, after a moment. She glanced up at Nkosi, then looked away, shrugged. “All right. Yes, I will contact Dam’ FitzGilbert, and ask her to contact me here, through secure channels.”
“But will she do it?” Galler murmured, loudly enough to be heard.
Alexieva glared at him. “She will.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” Max said, interrupting Galler’s response. “Dam’ Alexieva?”
There was no refusing the invitation. Alexieva pushed herself to her feet, looking suddenly very tired, and followed Max into the workroom. Nkosi pushed himself away from the couch, shaking his head.
“You had better be right about this, Heikki,” he said, and followed the others into the workroom.
Heikki looked at Santerese, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “I do hope so,” she said softly, and Santerese grinned.
“Like the man says, you better be.”
They sat in silence for the better part of an hour before the others emerged from the workroom. “Well?” Santerese said after a moment, and Max shrugged.
“I left the message,” Alexieva said—rather defensively, Heikki thought.
“What message?” she asked.
“We have a whole code,” Alexieva said impatiently. She looked at Max. “Dam’ FitzGilbert will contact me.”
“It would be helpful,” Max said dryly. “Preferably before entropy sets in, however.”
Alexieva looked as though she wanted to spit at him, but Nkosi laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “She has done all that she can,” he said quietly, but with a note of gentle menace that might, Heikki thought, have given even Max pause. “All we can do now is wait.”
The commissioner, however, did not seem impressed. “True enough, but I’ll have to ask you to do your waiting here.”
For a moment, it seemed that Nkosi might protest further, and Heikki said softly, “Jock….” The pilot looked at her then, and sighed.
“All right. We’ll wait—here.”
FitzGilbert did not respond for almost twenty hours. Heikki spent most of that time drowsing on the couch, the events of the past few days finally catching up with her. She roused long enough to eat at some point late that night, station time, when Max allowed Nkosi to send out for dinner, but soon fell asleep again. The next morning was better, however, and by the time she’d finished the second pot of coffee she felt almost ready to face whatever FitzGilbert’s call might bring.
The chimes sounded a little after station noon, bringing Max bolt upright in his chair.
“Incoming transmission,” Santerese said, unnecessarily, and started into the workroom. Heikki followed her, and heard Max call behind her, “Alexieva!”
The surveyor appeared a few minutes later, Max looming behind her like a jailer. “Are there any special codes?” he asked, and Alexieva shook her head.
“No. It should go through.”
Heikki seated herself at the main console, watching numbers shift across her board as the machines on Iadara and on EP7 struggled to match frequencies precisely. At last, the connection was made; the media wall lit and windowed, FitzGilbert’s face framed in the apparent opening.
“Dam’ Heikki.”
The Iadaran’s voice was almost less surprised than angry, Heikki thought, and her own brows drew together into a frown. “That’s right,” she said, and knew she sounded inane. “I need to talk to you.”
“You and someone else, I see,” FitzGilbert said, and Heikki realized that Max had stepped into camera range behind her.
“Yes,” she said, and Max cut in smoothly.
“My name is Idris Max, commissioner, Terrestrial Enforcement. I have some questions to ask you about this lost crystal of yours.”
FitzGilbert frowned. “I’ve already spoken to the Enforcement at some length, and I really don’t see what I could add to that.” She looked directly at Heikki. “As for you, Dam’ Heikki, I remind you that Lo-Moth had a confidentiality clause in its contract with you, which I suspect you are in breach of already.”
“Confidentiality clauses can’t be used to hide criminal actions,” Max began, and Heikki said, “Shut up, Max. FitzGilbert.”
The Iadaran looked at her warily, her expression without encouragement.
“It’s about the latac,” Heikki went on, fumbling for the words she needed to convince the other woman. “Tremoth, Slade’s people, they didn’t come up with anything of use in tracking the hijackers, did they?”
After a moment’s pause, FitzGilbert shook her head silently.
“That’s because he, Slade, was responsible,” Heikki said. “I have proof.” She reached for the tapes she had made, but Max caught her wrist. Before she could protest, FitzGilbert said, “Why? It makes no sense….” Her tone was less convinced than her words, and Heikki struck at that uncertainty.
“Because Lo-Moth got its idea, and most of its plans for that crystal out of Tremoth’s back files, didn’t they?
It was just your technician’s bad luck he/she got the wrong set. Those plans were supposed to stay buried forever, lost in the system, because that was the crystal that destroyed EP1. But your techie found them, passed them along, and you grew a crystal, grew a matrix—a flawed matrix—before he even knew it was in the works. And by the time he did find out it was too late to stop you any other way except by destroying the matrix and then taking over and burying your research. You’d already set up a test facility for it, hadn’t you?”
FitzGilbert nodded, her expression very still. “Slade did this personally—killed my people?”
“He hired the men who did it,” Heikki answered.
FitzGilbert’s face was grey even in the link’s flattering reproduction. “So what do you want of me?”
“You may have information,” Max began, and Heikki said again, “Shut up, Max. Slade pulled me off the job you hired me to do before I had the chance to complete it, and did his best to ruin my professional reputation, just in case I happened to put the pieces together. And that’s nothing compared to what he did to you. I want his head, FitzGilbert. And so should you.”
There was a long silence, and then FitzGilbert said, in a sleepwalker’s voice, “Slade told me you had a brother who worked for Tremoth, that you were working with him to ruin the company.”
Heikki laughed. It was a harsh sound, without humor. “My brother used to work for Slade, yes. I hadn’t spoken to him for twenty years—I wouldn’t have spoken to him if Slade hadn’t tried to ruin me.”
“What do you want from me?” FitzGilbert said again.
“Anything you have,” Heikki answered.
There was another silence, this one longer than the first. Finally FitzGilbert said, “Yes—no, wait. There’s one thing you don’t know.”
Max stirred slightly, and Heikki flung out a hand to silence him. “Well?”
“Those crystals—the plans, I mean, for the matrix. It was Slade himself who gave the schematics to Research.”
“Why the hell would he do that?” Heikki said, almost to herself, and then stopped, appalled. Slade was a Retroceder, everyone had said so—he wore the party’s green badge openly even inside the corporation. If the Loop were destroyed—and the defective crystals would do that—he would be in a position to take up power in the Precincts, could probably have his choice of planets, backed by his fellow Retroceders. God knows, she thought, he may have become a Retroceder only to make use of their ideals, their politics, to make this entire maneuver possible. It would explain why the original data had never been destroyed. “He was going to use the crystals—sell them?”