Search & Recovery: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel Read online

  The girl clutched the ring.

  “She’s trying to help, Fee,” the girl’s father said. “Let her put it on the chain.”

  The little girl gave the ring back, lips thin, as if she expected Berhane to keep the ring again. Instead, Berhane slipped the ring through the chain, then hung it around the little girl’s neck.

  The chain was still too big. It extended to the bottom of the little girl’s rib cage. The girl clutched the ring as if she would never let it go.

  “What do you say, Fee?” the man asked.

  The little girl looked at Berhane, whose cheeks were flushing again. The child didn’t trust her. Of course not. Her relationships—

  Then the girl launched into her arms, hugging her tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispered in Berhane’s ear, then pulled away so fast that Berhane felt breathless.

  The girl clung to her father’s leg.

  Berhane stood.

  “That was a kindness,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” Berhane said. “But I’ve learned—well, it doesn’t matter. I should be thanking you both for making this morning a little easier.”

  The girl looked at her, hand still clutching the ring.

  The man smiled at her—a real smile for the first time.

  “I hope the universe is nicer to you after today,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be all right. I think it’ll end up being a kindness for both of us.”

  “Wish I could have your optimism about things,” the man said. “It’s a gift.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s hard earned.”

  And then she walked away. Somehow she’d figure out how to put Torkild behind her.

  She needed to.

  THREE

  LUC DESHIN SAT cross-legged on the hand-woven rug, shoes off, palms resting against the soft wool. The rug was worth more than his house—each of the rugs in this large room was worth more than his house. In fact, everything in here was so expensive that he was afraid to sneeze.

  He was sitting with nearly one hundred of the most important business leaders on the Moon. Some (all) were considered shady, and a good ten percent (like himself) were considered more crime lord than legitimate businessman.

  Yet no authority had ever been able to pin anything on any of them, no matter how hard someone tried.

  In fact, most city governments left them alone, particularly here in Yutu City. Yutu City welcomed them like no other city government on the Moon had in the past.

  This facility was testament to it. A series of meeting rooms, all hidden under arches and minarets, served as Yutu City’s main conference center, even though the facility belonged to a private company run by Ghodrat Kerman.

  This year, Kerman was running the entire meeting, and he was making certain no one would forget it. He also made sure everyone here knew how important he was, and to Kerman, important meant wealthy.

  Deshin didn’t like ostentatious displays of wealth.

  And he considered everything in this large room, with its individual rugs for all of the participants, ostentatious. And they hadn’t even gotten to the food service yet. Kerman had promised the best meal this group had ever eaten.

  Deshin doubted anyone could live up to that claim: he’d eaten spectacular food all over the known universe. But he knew that the Gathering, which had no official name attached to it, had a competitive streak when it came to meals. Each participant wanted to prove to the others that he was wealthier than all of them and had better taste.

  Fortunately, Deshin had organized the Gathering a decade ago and hadn’t hosted it since its early years, before every aspect of it became so competitive.

  He would stop coming if he didn’t get so much business done right here, every single quarter.

  He wasn’t sure he liked this conference center, though. It was made of compacted Moon clay, which was covered with dyed Moon sand tiles made in the Bay of Rainbows. Yutu City had many ties to the Bay of Rainbows, even though they were not officially sister cities.

  Yutu City was on the southeastern side of the Mare Imbrium, about as far as it could get from the Bay of Rainbows and still be part of the Mare Imbrium section of the Moon.

  Deshin preferred the Bay of Rainbows. It was a lovely city that took its fanciful name seriously. Yutu City had simply built up from an ancient colony and, like Armstrong, had lovely sections and sections so dilapidated that he felt dirty just walking into them.

  This section was neither, although it contained some of the most arresting architecture in Yutu city. The neighborhood had covenants that required only Moon-based materials be used in the buildings. That led to a lot of compacted clay and Moon brick structures, except in this block, where the Moon sand tiles had become part of the design.

  Many who lived in Yutu City thought this area a disaster waiting to happen, because some of the building codes were lax to accommodate the covenants. Most people thought the Moon-based materials were weak, especially when it came to beams and struts.

  But Deshin had legally invested in many of the building companies that focused on Moon-only products, and he believed in them so strongly that he had built his own home in Armstrong from the materials.

  Still, the conference room’s small dome arching above him, its supports hidden in the gold and green design, made him uncomfortable. He felt like he was sitting in the middle of some kind of target—both outside and in.

  Normally, he didn’t think about dome structure—he lived and traveled inside domes all the time—but he was aware that the huge domes protecting the Moon’s cities had an intricate structure—and parts that sectioned (and supported) each dome whenever there was a problem.

  He doubted there were any sectioning parts in this conference center’s small dome. It was a marvel of engineering, but not one he was comfortable sitting under.

  He was careful not to look up. He was trying to pay attention to Kerman’s welcoming speech, but Deshin’s fascination with the dome clearly showed him how hard paying attention was.

  It didn’t help that Kerman had gone on for fifteen minutes now. Generally, the welcoming speeches at the Gatherings weren’t speeches at all. They were simple greetings, followed by all of the instructions that the participants needed to make it through the three-day conference.

  Deshin’s back ached. He wasn’t used to sitting like this, and he had to figure out how to get off the floor without looking like a weak old man. He wasn’t weak in any way; he was in the prime of his life. But he wasn’t limber anymore, particularly when sitting cross-legged.

  He looked around the room. His security team ringed him. For every single person in this room, there were five members of their personal security, not to mention the crowd outside. It looked like some army had bivouacked here.

  Back in the days when he had organized the Gathering, he had wanted the participants to leave their security at the hotels, but no one had. He hadn’t either. You didn’t invite criminals and shady business people to meetings and expect them to behave well.

  Now, as he looked past his team, he saw dozens of people he recognized. While Kerman droned on, Deshin made a list of the appointments he already had scheduled, the short contacts he would try to make, and the handful of rivals he needed to warn off.

  He would have a busy conference—and he had no idea what the others who were here would ask of him. He expected to have very little free time after this opening session ended.

  He picked his hands off the carpet and rested his wrists on his knees. Sometimes—like this morning—the Gathering felt like a waste of his time, and sometimes it was the most valuable thing he did.

  He had started it for everyone he knew whose businesses had both legal and illegal components. If the police ever asked what the group was doing here, they would say they were networking, and they wouldn’t be lying. They were networking. In the early days, everyone had been trying to figure out how to make illegal businesses
look like legal ones.

  Now, everyone was trying to figure out how to marginalize the profitable illegal businesses so that they didn’t threaten the profitable legal ones.

  He almost smiled. He loved the problems that came from success.

  Kerman said something about lunch and Deshin looked up, finally focusing on the man who had organized this quarter’s meeting.

  Kerman stood in the middle of the group. His turban seemed unusually elaborate, and it matched his gold trousers. In fact, everything had gold trim, including the edges of Kerman’s kaftan. He wore rings on each finger, and they caught the light as he gestured.

  He was barefoot and he even had rings on his toes, which made Deshin look away again. He could barely sit cross-legged. He couldn’t imagine walking barefoot, his toes separated by bits of metal.

  Then he smiled inwardly. He wasn’t squeamish about most things, but he was squeamish about wearing rings on his toes. His wife, Gerda, would make fun of him if she knew about this. His son Paavo would be surprised to learn that his father had a weakness, even such a small one.

  Deshin exhaled at the thought of his son. One day, his brilliant boy would realize that his father wasn’t half as smart as he was, that Deshin was just pretending to be smarter than Paavo was.

  That wasn’t entirely true: Deshin was smart about the street, about people, and about business. But when it came to engineering and learning and books, Deshin wasn’t smart at all. He admired Paavo and his ability to absorb any fact, all bits of knowledge, without using AutoLearn or his links.

  He—

  Mr. Deshin?

  Luc?

  Mr. Deshin?

  Sir?

  Mr. Deshin?

  —an image flashed across his vision: Arek Soseki, the Mayor of Armstrong, sprawled in front of O’Malley’s Diner in Armstrong, face gray, clearly dead. The image multiplied into a dozen images and scrolled along the bottom of his vision.

  His emergency links had activated. His brain was finally able to separate out the voices from the visual contacts. He blinked, organized them by priority, then looked over the scroll at the room.

  Some people were standing. Others had their hands to their ears. Kerman was threading his way between the rugs, heading to the tapestries on the wall, tapestries that Deshin suspected hid doors that Kerman generally didn’t want the conference goers to know about.

  Normally, Deshin would have stood at the moment his emergency links got activated. He would have left the building to find a quiet place to handle his business.

  But everyone here was disrupted, involved in their own personal crisis.

  Deshin took a moment to catch his breath, and let the information sink in. He had a lot of projects—both legitimate and illegitimate—with the Mayor of Armstrong. He’d spent a lot of money cultivating their relationship.

  He hadn’t liked Soseki, but he had found him useful.

  And now, Soseki was dead.

  He looked at his colleagues. They all would have a different reaction to Soseki’s death. The Mayor of Armstrong wielded a lot of power on the Moon, and now he was no more.

  Some in here would be trying to manipulate the next election, even though no one knew when that would be held. Others would be trying to make some instant money off the death.

  Then Deshin remembered: It was Anniversary Day, the anniversary of the bombing in Armstrong four years ago. He had no idea if that was a coincidence or not.

  He doubted it, and that made his stomach clench.

  Deshin had family in Armstrong. He needed to know what was happening—not just for his business, but also for the people he loved.

  He hunched forward and answered the only voice that mattered to him: his wife Gerda’s.

  Where are you? he sent. Are you all right?

  I’m at home, she sent back. But they’re saying the Mayor was assassinated. Paavo’s at school…

  The Armstrong Wing of the Aristotle Academy, the most prestigious school on the Moon. Also the most expensive. The place where children of the rich, famous, and powerful went to school.

  If someone were targeting important people, then they might go after Aristotle Academy.

  And he was hours away, unless he got some kind of emergency shuttle to land here. Dammit, he had taken the bullet train.

  He stood and started threading his way through the tangled legs and hunched bodies of his colleagues. A few of them looked at him as he passed, their faces slack with shock.

  A death like Soseki’s—an assassination, on the Moon, in the middle of Anniversary Day commemorations—would have terrible ripple effects even if no one else was targeted.

  I’ll order a security team to the school, he sent, and shuddered. His five best security operatives were here, protecting him.

  In fact, he corrected, I’ll send as much security as I can. That school needs protecting.

  His team was following him, all dealing with the unfolding crisis on their links. Keith Jakande, the best security operative Deshin had ever had, grabbed him by the elbow and hustled him toward the door.

  Deshin turned to him, snapped, “Push much harder and I’m going to fall.”

  “We have to go, sir,” Jakande said. “There’s a crisis—”

  “I know,” Deshin said, but he let Jakande pull him through the growing crowd to a side door Deshin hadn’t even known existed. The three men on this security team were all large, “grown on Earth,” his wife liked to say, because they had a solidness that was common on Earth and harder to find in anyone who had traveled or grown up in space.

  They made Deshin feel small.

  The smaller members of the team, both female, were covering his back. Usually the smaller members of his security team disappeared into crowds, but right now, all five were protecting him.

  It took Deshin a moment to remember that he was considered someone important in Armstrong as well. If they—the mysterious “they”—were targeting the power structure in Armstrong, of course they would come after him.

  And his family.

  His heart was pounding, his mouth dry.

  He wasn’t afraid—he rarely felt fear—but he was getting angry.

  He sent for the teams to go to Aristotle Academy through his links, then told Jakande through their private links to make sure the best people were heading there.

  “I sent the best team to your home,” Jakande said, sounding worried.

  The choice: Gerda or Paavo. Deshin’s heart constricted.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Just send a lot of people to that school.”

  He had a hunch other important parents would be sending their security teams to the academy as well.

  He hoped. Because he couldn’t get home fast enough to protect anyone. They were on their own, and he had to trust his staff to protect the people he valued the most.

  FOUR

  BERHANE WAS NEARLY to the exit of the luxury departure lounge when a red warning label crossed her links. Voices echoed in her head at the same time, and images appeared on all the screens.

  Until further notice, The Port of Armstrong has been locked down by order of the Armstrong Police Department.

  She stopped walking, just like everyone around her did. She looked toward the nearest screen while sending a request for clarification through her links.

  Screens appeared on all the walls, including some screens that had been hidden. The images on the screens alternated. One screen carried information about the closure notification, while the screen next to it showed the exterior of O’Malley’s Diner near the port. The exterior views came from overhead. A few tried to show the ground, but hands blocked the cameras, and then those cameras winked out.

  “What the—?” asked a woman next to her.

  Berhane shook her head. She had no idea. She’d been to O’Malley’s a million times, usually with her father at some fundraiser. In fact, she normally would have been with her father right now at some other location, at a speech the governor-general wa
s giving for the Anniversary Day commemorations.

  Berhane hated Anniversary Day. She would rather ignore the fact that on this day, her mother had been blown to bits by Etaen terrorists—or someone associated with them. The bomber had never been caught.

  The bomb had blown a hole in the dome, and if the sections hadn’t come down, everyone would have died.

  Berhane still had nightmares about that train, about the blood she’d seen, the bisected car—and the rubble where her mother had been. The smell of burnt electronics still gave her the shudders.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” a man asked her.

  She turned. It was the man she had spoken to a few minutes before. He had his daughter, little Fiona, in his arms. His right hand held her head in place. He clearly didn’t want her to see this.

  “I’m not getting anything on my links,” Berhane said.

  “The mayor’s been murdered,” someone said across the terminal.

  Reaction rumbled through the crowd, everyone talking at once. Berhane’s stomach clenched.

  Of course. O’Malley’s. Another Anniversary Day commemoration. Mayor Arek Soseki lived for that stuff. He loved glad-handing people. He never seemed to think about the lives lost—not anymore.

  Then she caught herself.

  She knew Arek. He was dead?

  “That can’t be true,” she said. “I would know.”

  But how would she know? She was her father’s daughter, not her father.

  An employee with the port stood on one of the departure desks. He was a slender man in a Space Traffic Control uniform.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’ve got confirmation. The mayor was murdered this morning, and they’re searching for his killer. The port’s in lockdown until further notice. I’m sure it won’t take long. They just need to make certain that whoever attacked him didn’t board any of the outgoing ships…”

  “Dammit,” the man beside Berhane said softly. “I don’t want Fee in the middle of this. Is there a lounge around here or someplace that’ll be quiet?”

  “There’s a children’s area on the second floor of this departure lounge.” She knew because she’d come here so many times with her family, especially when she was younger. “Come on. I’ll show you.”