“I’m not sure how we do that,” Elvi said. “He hasn’t had a really lucid moment since—”
“We make it,” Trejo said. “I understand that this is a little below your collective pay grade, but I’m not interested in bringing a media team into the fold. We’ll scan the high consul, get recordings of his voice, and generate a message to enemy and empire. You have some experience with imaging, yes?”
“I’ve run a bunch of animals through sampling pouches,” Elvi said. “It’s not really the same thing.”
“We can make it work,” Ilich said.
“Good,” Trejo said, and stood. For a moment, Elvi thought the meeting was adjourned and started to head for the door herself. “Dr. Okoye. We’re not waiting on this. We’re doing it now.”
The scanning device wasn’t particularly bulky, but Duarte’s room wasn’t built for it. Kelly had dressed the high consul in his formal uniform and was helping him to his chair. The thought, as Elvi understood it, was that if they scanned the uniform into the same profile as the man, creating the false version would be simpler.
“There are going to be forensic traces,” Cortázar said. “There always are.”
“We have very good imaging programs,” Trejo said as he tried to fit the lighting stick into its base.
“Other people do too,” Cortázar said. “I’m not objecting to the plan. Just be prepared to discredit the people who say it’s faked.”
“Already on that,” Trejo said, and stood. The lighting stick cycled through its spectrum, getting ready to catch the subtleties of Winston Duarte’s skin and hair. He’d grown thinner since the break. His eyes still had an intelligence to them if not a focus, but his cheekbones had become more prominent. Elvi felt like she could see the skull beneath the skin, and she didn’t remember thinking that before. Kelly brushed his hair, trying to put it into place the way he probably had before other addresses and announcements. Only Duarte wouldn’t keep still. His hands were thinner, gray and dusty-looking, and he moved them constantly. His eyes rolled in his head like he was following butterflies no one else could see.
“Is there any way to make him sit still for a minute?” Trejo asked.
“He does sometimes,” Kelly said. “Having people around agitates him. Give him a little time to settle.”
Trejo muttered something but didn’t object. Elvi waited with the others, watching the man who had, however briefly, been the god-king of a galactic empire. All she saw now was a lost man. She remembered feeling the force of his personality the first time they’d met. The sense of being in the presence of something vital and irresistible. She saw something in the way his jaw fit against his neck that reminded her of Teresa. It was easy to forget that they were also people. Father and daughter. The same complicated, fraught relationship that human beings had been navigating since they’d developed language. Before that, probably.
Without really knowing why, Elvi stepped forward and took Duarte’s hand. He considered it like it was a pleasant surprise. She knelt, smiling gently, and his gaze swam through whatever dark waters he lived in now until he found her.
“We just need to scan you, sir,” she said. “It won’t hurt.”
His smile was gentle and filled with an unspeakable love. He squeezed her fingers gently and let them go. She stood back, getting out of the light and the scanning radius. Duarte looked around the room like a beneficent king in his dying hours until his attention landed on Cortázar.
“All right,” Trejo said. “Let’s get this done before—”
Duarte stood, his head tilted at an angle like he was remembering something half-forgotten. He stepped away from his chair. Ilich made a small, frustrated hiss.
“All right,” Trejo said. “It’s okay. Let’s just get him back in position and try this again.”
Duarte stepped over to stand before Cortázar. His attention seemed as focused as Elvi had seen since his fall. Cortázar smiled and bowed his head like it was something he knew he was supposed to do. Duarte’s jaw worked, his mouth opening and closing, but the only sound he made was a small oh. He moved his hand in a soft gesture, like he was fanning away smoke, and Cortázar’s chest bloomed out at the back. It was so slow, so gentle, that Elvi couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Not at first.
It was as if Cortázar were an image projected on mist, and the mist was being blown away. Nothingness swirled through his chest, his face. And behind him, floating on the air, spirals of red and pink, gray and white, as ornate and beautiful as ink dropped into water. The air filled with the smell of iron. Of blood. Cortázar sat on the floor, his legs folding under him, and then slumped to the side with a long, wet exhalation. The left half of his head was missing from the jaw to the crown. His heart was still trying to beat in the open theater of his ribs, but the man was gone.
They were silent and perfectly still. Duarte looked up, his attention caught by something that made him smile like a child seeing a dragonfly, and his hands rose aimlessly. Trejo put the scanner down on the bed, turned, and walked quietly out of the room, pulling Elvi along with him. Ilich followed, and then Kelly, shutting the door behind them. They were all pale. The State Building was shaking under them, tremors that matched Elvi’s heartbeat. She fought to breathe.
“All right,” Ilich said. “Okay. That happened. That just happened.”
“Major Okoye?” Trejo said. His normally dark face was pale and gray.
“I have never fucking seen anything like that. Ever,” she said. “Holy fucking shit.”
“I agree,” Trejo said.
“He knew,” Elvi said. “That’s what this was. He knew about Teresa. Did you tell him?”
“What about Teresa?” Ilich asked. “What did he know about Teresa? What did she have to do with this?”
“Let’s not lose focus here, people,” Trejo said, leaning against the wall. “Mr. Kelly, would you escort the high consul to fresh quarters until we can get these cleaned?”
Kelly looked like Trejo had just asked him to put his hand in a meat grinder to see if it was running. For a moment, Elvi thought the man would refuse, but Laconians were a breed apart. Kelly nodded and walked stiffly away.
“We can do an announcement without him,” Trejo said. “I can do it. As his … acting military commander. Pleased to accept the position. Thank him for his faith in me. Like that.”
“We need to shoot him,” Ilich said. “Whatever that thing in there is? That’s not the high consul. I don’t know what the hell it is, but the only sane thing any of us can do right now is put a bullet in its brain.”
Trejo drew his sidearm, took it by its barrel, and held it out toward Ilich. “If you’re sure that’ll kill him, be my guest.”
Ilich hesitated, then looked away. Trejo holstered his pistol. “Major Okoye.”
“I know,” she said. “Another top priority. I’ll get right on it. But …”
“But?”
“I know you told Cortázar to give me full access. I’ve never been entirely certain he did.”
Trejo considered it. From the far side of the door, something rattled. A thump, like a piece of equipment had been bumped into, knocked over. If it had been a sound of violence, it would almost have been better. Trejo pulled out his hand terminal, thumbed in a code, and adjusted something she couldn’t see.
“Major Okoye, you are Paolo Cortázar. You want to go through his room and check his underwear, you go right ahead. See what he’s been eating. Check his medical records for sexual diseases. Read his letters to his God damn mother, I don’t care. That man’s life is an open book to you starting now. Find something useful in it.”