Masterminds Read online

  She knew she wasn’t done; she had come to the Moon to talk with Noelle DeRicci, who as head of Security for United Domes of the Moon, seemed to be the only representative of the Moon’s government. Gomez had actually had one of her crew, Neil Apaza, research who the best person to contact was, and Apaza had concluded that Gomez’s initial instinct had been right—no one else on the Moon had the kind of political reach that DeRicci did.

  Apaza had wanted to come with Gomez. So had Lashante Simiaar. Like Gomez, Simiaar had taken a leave of absence from the Earth Alliance Frontier Security Service. The EAFSS had no idea that the two women were actually moonlighting, investigating the attacks on the Moon from all the way out in the edges of the Alliance.

  Gomez’s ship, the Stanley, had encountered the PierLuigi Frémont clones fifteen years before, in a strange circumstance on the far side of the Frontier. After the Anniversary Day attacks, Gomez realized that no one had ever acted on the reports she had filed about that enclave of clones.

  Had someone acted, Anniversary Day would never have happened.

  In her long travels to the Moon, Gomez had investigated the clones and other things that had bothered her about the Anniversary Day attacks. She had convincing evidence that the attacks on the Moon had originated within the Alliance—and because she was convinced, she couldn’t send that information along her links.

  She needed to convince Security Chief DeRicci in person.

  And now that Gomez was facing the moment, she felt uneasy. Here she was, a EAFSS Marshal near retirement, coming to the Moon with a fantastical story of betrayal within the Alliance.

  She had to approach DeRicci correctly, so that the woman didn’t dismiss her out of hand.

  Which was why Gomez was going to see DeRicci alone, and why she hadn’t contacted DeRicci before arriving on the Moon.

  Gomez didn’t want to give DeRicci the opportunity to put off a meeting. Gomez needed DeRicci to hear her out immediately.

  Particularly since another set of clones whose original had been a mass murderer had tried to destroy the Moon a second time.

  Whoever—whatever—was after the Moon clearly wasn’t willing to give up after one or two tries.

  Gomez had visited Armstrong at several points in her career, but the last time was decades ago. She remembered it being busy and full of aliens from all over the Alliance.

  The port seemed busier now—the crush of people was intense. They wove around her as they hurried to whatever their final destination was. But she saw very few aliens, and the ones she did see looked like they were heading to the departures area or were waiting near the arrivals lounge for someone else.

  There had been some odd bumps before arriving—the port wanted her ship, the Green Dragon, to declare whether or not it was a multispecies vessel. The pilots had simply declared them a human-only ship without consulting Gomez.

  Simiaar found out about it before Gomez, and gave them a tongue-lashing, reminding them that no one had those rules inside the Alliance. But the crew Gomez had put together hadn’t been inside the Alliance in years except for short stops near the Frontier, which was why they didn’t know Alliance protocols.

  Instead, the crew operated on Frontier protocols, which were to do whatever the port authorities asked for, if the ship really had to land in a particular site.

  Gomez knew that the Moon was on edge, but some of the changes here disturbed her greatly.

  She had always thought of the center of the Alliance as the most civilized place in the universe. To see that some of the basic tenets of civilization were being ignored here or deliberately flaunted really upset her.

  Just like the fact that some in the Alliance were involved in these attacks disturbed her as well.

  She allowed the port map to activate inside her links. She would follow the map to the nearest exit, and then she would take whatever kind of public transportation that existed in Armstrong directly to the Security Office.

  She needed to give all of her information to DeRicci and then offer assistance.

  It had all seemed so easy when Gomez had laid it out for her crew on the Green Dragon. But, as Simiaar had pointed out, it wouldn’t be easy at all.

  No one in the Security Office had reason to trust Gomez, especially with the outrageous information she was bringing them.

  She had enough evidence to make them believe, if they only listened.

  And listening would be the hardest part of all.

  ELEVEN

  THE COCKPIT ON S3’s space yacht should have been more accurately called a bridge. It housed eight people easily and had more equipment than the environmental control room in S3’s main offices on Athena base.

  Salehi had only been up here a few times, and each time, he felt the breadth and power of this particular ship. It made him feel like a master of the universe, which was probably why Domek Schnable bought it. Schnable, whom Salehi privately called Schnabby, was the oldest named partner at the firm. Schnabby reserved many large purchases—like space yachts—for himself.

  Not that Salehi or the other name partner, Debra Shishani, cared. Schnabby had a great sense of luxury combined with a practicality that showed itself well in this ship. Fast, but comfortable. And clearly expensive, because Schnabby—hell, everyone at S3–knew that money talked.

  Lefty Wèi, the ship’s pilot, was standing behind the control panels, looking through the clear windows at the Moon, looming large enough to be a presence in front of them. Hundreds of lights gathered around the Moon’s exterior—ships of all types, inside the Moon’s protected space.

  Wèi had a virtual screen active above his pilot’s chair, showing all of the ships in 2-D, but he wasn’t looking at it. His copilot and his navigator were monitoring their own screens.

  “What’s this, now?” Salehi asked as he stepped across the yellow line that Wèi had painted along the edge of the cockpit, ostensibly to bar “civilians” from his domain. Wèi preferred to be called Captain Wèi, but Salehi refused, given the fact that Wèi had never served in the military and he wasn’t really in charge of this ship. “We’re a mixed-species vessel? What the hell’s that?”

  “Apparently, some new regulation established by the Port of Armstrong,” Wèi said, arms crossed. “I have sent you all the documentation they want. Looks like it violates all kinds of laws that pertain to open Alliance ports, but I’m no lawyer.”

  Salehi was, but space law wasn’t anywhere near his specialty.

  “Fortunately,” said a voice behind Salehi, “you are ferrying a ship filled with lawyers.”

  Salehi turned. Uzvuyiten, the Peyti lawyer whom the government of Peyla had asked to join S3 on the clone case, stood just inside the door. He was acutely attuned to the moods of others, no more so than on this trip. He knew that his mask made humans nervous, even though the humans on this ship knew he had nothing to do with the attempted bombings on the Moon.

  His sticklike arms were at his sides, his damaged fingers mostly hidden by the human-style suit he wore. He had maintained formal dress throughout this trip, ostensibly because that was who he was, but Salehi knew that Uzvuyiten was doing it primarily for the others on the ship. He wanted them to know he was on their side in all things.

  Even among the high-powered lawyers on this ship and in S3, Uzvuyiten was among the most subtle and manipulative, which often made him the smartest person in the room.

  “Have you sent the port a passenger list, complete with species designation?” Uzvuyiten asked Wèi.

  “Of course not.” Wèi was clearly insulted by the question, which made Salehi glad that Uzvuyiten had asked it. Salehi had planned to ask the same thing just before Uzvuyiten entered the cockpit.

  “Then how do they know this is a multispecies ship?” Uzvuyiten managed to ask the question without it sounding accusatory.

  “Perhaps they don’t,” Salehi said. “Perhaps the new policy is to send every new ship this message and let it self-identify.”

  Uzvuyiten inclined his head
toward Salehi, silently complimenting him on that thought.

  “Have you self-identified?” Uzvuyiten asked Wèi.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Wèi said, looking at Salehi. Apparently, Wèi was one of the humans who now had difficulty with the Peyti. Or perhaps Wèi was still feeling insulted.

  “How did you respond to their multi-species demand?” Salehi said, both clarifying and asking the same question.

  “I contacted you,” Wèi said. “I didn’t contact you.”

  The second you was directed at Uzvuyiten. He shrugged his bony shoulders, then adjusted his mask, which—oddly enough—looked like a threatening move, even to Salehi.

  Perhaps Uzvuyiten had intended it that way.

  But Wèi probably didn’t. Because his gaze was on Uzvuyiten’s hand. Uzvuyiten’s fingers had been damaged long ago, bent backwards between the last knuckle and the tip of the finger. The damaged section glowed blue, and brought out the weird blue edges of Uzvuyiten’s gray eyes.

  Salehi frowned at Uzvuyiten. Was he monitoring all shipwide communications or just communications that came to Salehi? They would have to discuss that later.

  “You did not contact me.” Uzvuyiten’s tone made it sound like Wèi was a particularly poor student who had finally gotten an answer right. “I’ve been expecting this, so I’ve been monitoring in-ship cockpit communications since I’m not privy to your communications outside of the ship.”

  That last part was for Salehi. Uzvuyiten was explaining why and how he got here.

  Whether or not he spoke the truth was another matter entirely.

  “You’ve been expecting a problem and you didn’t tell me?” Wèi asked.

  “One of the reasons I’m here is that the Peyti have been consistently denied access to the Moon since the Peyti Crisis,” Uzvuyiten said. “We’ve been wondering how so many got turned back before arrival at the port itself. I think we have just answered that question.”

  He looked at Salehi as he said that last. Salehi had thought all the Peyti had trouble once their ships landed, not before landing.

  “And here I thought they were coming after us because we’re S3,” Salehi said.

  “S3 is well known for its human bias,” Uzvuyiten said. “Which is one reason I am here.”

  That sounded accusatory as well. Or maybe Salehi was just feeling sensitive.

  S3 did have a human bias. Most of their cases involved humans, primarily because human law within the Alliance was easier for humans to understand and work around.

  “We’d already discussed the Peyti problems.” Salehi didn’t like Uzvuyiten’s tone any more than Wèi had. “You weren’t going to come with us to the Moon. You were going to work from the ship.”

  Uzvuyiten shrugged his shoulders again. It looked so odd to see him do that. Schnabby would have said it looked like a coat hanger suddenly took on a life of its own.

  Salehi forced his partner’s cutting voice from his mind.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Uzvuyiten said. “You need me.”

  “Yes,” Salehi said. “You were going to work—”

  “No, my dear Rafael.” Uzvuyiten could sound so unctuous when he wanted to. “We are beginning to understand why the Peyti are having trouble on the Moon. You could protest that, with a bit of understanding. Or we could test the system each step of the way.”

  Salehi bit back irritation. He had enough to deal with. He had to plan his case for the Peyti clones, and he had to make certain that the local prosecutor went after Zhu’s murderers. Salehi knew that the Peyti government wanted him to pursue the discrimination against the Peyti that had just started on the Moon, but Salehi believed that the courts weren’t the best venue for the one-on-one discrimination. He was better off using a different strategy, one that included media coverage and the involvement of other species from within the Earth Alliance.

  “You really want to do this now?” Salehi asked Uzvuyiten. “Because we have a lot on our plates.”

  “We do,” Uzvuyiten said. “But this is part of what we have on our plates.”

  “You’re not going to be able to get into Armstrong, no matter how hard you try,” Salehi said.

  “Ah, but I will create a record that we can then pursue. Decorated attorney, barred from entry to the heart of the Earth Alliance—which his government is a founding member of. We would have more evidence than we know what to do with, my dear Rafael.”

  Salehi hated the way Uzvuyiten was talking to him right now, but he knew that Uzvuyiten was doing it for effect. And it was working, of course, because that was the kind of lawyer Uzvuyiten was—the kind who knew exactly how to irritate the people around him into action.

  “We can gather evidence,” Salehi said, “but I can tell you now, Uzvuyiten, I won’t have time to pursue this case, with everything else I have to do.”

  Uzvuyiten bowed slightly. “I am aware of that, Rafael. I am also aware that before he was so brutally murdered, Torkild Zhu hired some good lawyers from Earth herself, not to mention a few young lawyers who want to get their hands dirty. I propose to use them to handle this case, not you. Your time is best served handling the clones.”

  “You’ll be diverting resources,” Salehi said.

  “I’ll be setting up a different side to the same case,” Uzvuyiten said. “Since the discrimination and illegal behavior is starting outside the very entrance to Moon space, I think we’ll have more than enough to do.”

  “None of which concerns me.” Wèi spoke for the first time in a while. He’d been watching the interchange. “I want to know how we handle this contact from Armstrong’s Space Traffic Control.”

  Salehi normally would have glanced at Uzvuyiten. They would have consulted and figured out the best approach. But Salehi was too annoyed.

  Besides, Uzvuyiten had forgotten that he was here as a guest, because the Government of Peyla wanted a Peyti near the clone case. But the Peyti government believed that they couldn’t bring a lawyer here and get a good hearing, and circumstances were already proving them right.

  Uzvuyiten could play all the games he wanted with the Port of Armstrong, but that wasn’t going to help the case that interested Salehi the most.

  Salehi said to Wèi, “Tell the port that under Alliance law, the passenger composition of an Earth Alliance vessel is protected information. If they are searching for a fugitive or for some kind of contraband material, they may examine the ship and its passengers once we arrive. Otherwise, we have every legal right to enter the Moon’s space, and petition the port for landing.”

  Wèi frowned at Salehi. “That’ll piss them off.”

  “Fine,” Salehi said. “We’re S3. We’re already pissing them off. We might as well remain consistent.”

  “You don’t want to play their games?” Uzvuyiten asked.

  “We play along, we have no legal grounds to appeal their decision.” Salehi kept his voice calm even though he was irritated. Uzvuyiten knew all of this. “We proceed the way that we would have proceeded before this year. If they want to arrest us, fine.”

  “They won’t arrest us,” Wèi said. “They’ll arrest me.”

  Salehi gave him a withering look. “If you’re so frightened, Captain, then don’t leave the ship.”

  Wèi moved back to his ornate captain’s chair, turning his back to Salehi. “It’s just weird, that’s all.”

  “What’s weird?” Salehi asked.

  “All of this,” Wèi said. “It’s like we’re leaving the Alliance or something.”

  “Indeed,” Uzvuyiten said from the doorway. “Captain, you are onto something.”

  Legally, he was onto something, but at the moment, Salehi wasn’t going to agree with Uzvuyiten. Salehi was too annoyed.

  He had expected some territorial issues with Uzvuyiten on the various cases. Salehi just hadn’t expected them to start so quickly.

  “Let us know if anything else comes up,” he said to Wèi. “Otherwise, I expect to hear from you just before we land.”
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  “You’re an optimist,” Wèi said.

  “No,” Uzvuyiten said. “He’s just going to give me a good talking to.”

  “Yes,” Salehi said as he headed toward the door. “I am. We’re going to discuss how S3 is handling these cases, and how you, as a consultant, can help or hurt us.”

  “I am not going to remain on this ship for the duration of your stay here,” Uzvuyiten said. “If you do not like what I’m going to do, then we’ll make that strictly my responsibility.”

  Salehi felt his cheeks heat. Uzvuyiten had outmaneuvered him. Uzvuyiten wanted a case that he could handle for himself and the Peyti government without S3 involvement, and he had just designed it.

  As they stepped out of the cockpit, Salehi said, “All right, tell me honestly. This is why the government of Peyla insisted that you consult on the clone case, isn’t it? So that you, one of the most upstanding members of Peyti society, can be denied access to the Port of Armstrong.”

  “It’s simply a side benefit,” Uzvuyiten said.

  “It’s the point of the entire trip,” Salehi said. “I’m here on a wild-goose chase for your government. The representative of S3, who is handling a case that’s a real loser, while the famous Peyti lawyer creates a case all his own, one that he’ll win easily in the Multicultural Tribunals, should things go that far.”

  “You give us too much credit,” Uzvuyiten said as he headed down the corridor.

  Salehi resisted the urge to grab Uzvuyiten by his thin arm. Salehi was well aware how delicate the Peyti were in comparison to humans. He didn’t want to hurt Uzvuyiten physically, even by accident.

  “No, I didn’t give you enough credit at the beginning of this trip,” Salehi said. “I should have seen that your government had a secondary agenda. S3 is the perfect cover for you people because we’re so well known as a human-oriented law firm.”

  “You’re well known as one of the best law firms in the Alliance,” Uzvuyiten said. “And you, Rafael, are known as one of the most creative legal minds of our generation.”