Declassified

“What? That’s not possible.”

“Well, it’s possible if the person you’re dealing with isn’t being entirely straight with you. MaybeAmity Price is an alias. Do you have any identification information on her at all? A photo or a signature?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, sir,” I said. “I have a data card filled with samples of her journalistic writing.”

“I’m not sure what we might be able to pull from a card like yours that would prove helpful.”

“I see.”

“I am sorry, Tim. I wish I could help more. There’s just nothing at all here. If something breaks loose that I can help with, find me.”

“Indeed I will. Oh, and thanks.” I surprised myself by remembering to add my thanks before terminating the co

As real as the icy yet polite voice that just then echoed in my apartment.

“It’s all pretty simple, Mister Pe

I wheeled around to my now open doorway to see a tall man in a finely tailored business suit leaning against the jamb. His deep black skin almost glistened in the light, as if he had been formed from a pool of crude oil.

“I beg your pardon,” I snapped loudly. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?”

“I’m a little disappointed you can’t place me. I’m certain we have been introduced before now.”

My eyes sca

“I do,” he said. “And I came to offer you information I think you will want and I hope you will take to heart.”

“What did you do with Amity Price?”

“I merely aided her in her request to be gone from the station.”

“She wouldn’t have made such a request.”

“Ah, but she did,” Zett said as he strode into my living room. “If I recall correctly, she said she wished she never had stayed on Vanguard, and that she had stayed on the ship that brought her here. So, I did what I could to accommodate her request.”

“How could you rub someone’s existence from every data bank on Vanguard?”

“She wanted to be gone, so I helped all that I could.”

“You killed her.”

“She is gone, and she will not be missed.”

“That part is absolutely not true,” I said. “She has friends all over your boss’s ship.”

“As you can imagine, we have a high, let us say, turnover rate of employees. Our workers are used to comings and goings, many of which occur on very short notice. Consequently, they find such matters . . . uninteresting to discuss.”

“Someone will look for her.”

“And they will find, as did you, that Miss Price’s arrival and departure went by largely u

“But I do have a bit of an exposure issue these days,” I said, “and that might work to my advantage should I continue to make visits to the Omari-Ekon.”

“However, it would not work to the advantage of your known associates. I would be disappointed to see . . . Mister Qui

If Zett was going to push a button with me, he had just pushed it. Putting myself at risk for my job is acceptable for me—but never at the expense of someone else’s health and safety. I did not have to respond to Zett for him to recognize he had made his point. My bruised, fallen face and aching, slumped shoulders likely communicated that for me.

“I believe we have reached an understanding, then,” Zett said, “and I thank you for your time and attention.” And the door slid shut.

I stood in my silent, empty apartment that morning for I have no idea how long, wishing that Amity Price merely had been sent away so intently that I almost had myself convinced of the possibility. I imagined her walking down the boarding ramp onto the first shuttle away from Vanguard to pursue every big story she ever hoped to write during a big career elsewhere on the frontier—a place where a reporter and a story can make a difference without getting people arrested or hurt or killed.

It was a place where I had not been for a long, long time. And maybe it was time to go.

14

“You look like hell, son. I don’t mind tellin’ ya.”

“Doctor Fisher,” I said, “should I ever need a refresher course in candor, I trust you will be available to teach it.”

As the chief medical officer was leaning in so close that I thought our foreheads would touch, I more felt him laugh than heard him. When I had arrived, he happened to be milling about the reception area of Vanguard’s medical center cradling a mug of coffee in his large hands—practically in the same place that I had left him after my attempt to see T’Pry

I sat on an edge of the room’s only biobed as Fisher tended to my wounds while demonstrating his apparent habit of talking his way through procedures. I had to wonder whether he did this to steady himself as much as to soothe me; regardless, it seemed to work. I humored myself by trying to predict where he would choose to pause in a given sentence.

“This autosuture I’m . . . using here . . . runs a little slower than a dermal regenerator,” he said as he passed the device over my right eyebrow. The ice-blue glow of its emitter shone through my eyelid, and I could feel my skin tingle in response. “But I . . . use it on places like this because . . . it’s more precise. Newer isn’t always . . . better.”

“Not always,” I echoed.

He clicked off the autosuture. “You can open your eyes now. I know your lip is still pretty sore, but hold it down a minute while I recheck the root of that tooth I replaced.”

I complied despite the jolt of pain my action delivered, then I looked down my nose into his eyes as he peered into my mouth.

“Mm-hmm. Now, how did you lose this again?”

“I’m not able to tell you. I woke up this morning and it was gone.”

“Woke up or regained consciousness?”

“Little of both?”

Fisher raised the tip of a bone-knitting laser to my gumline, and I watched a hair-thin beam lance from the device and onto me. The sensation was different from the autosuture, but equally soothing.

“Got someone you can talk to about . . . all this?”

“Not really,” I said, still holding my lip down so he could work.

“Care to talk to me?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, then. You can let go now.” I saw the beam snap off. “I can give you something that will take the edge off your pain. This may not be what you want to hear, but for facial wounds such as yours, sometimes it’s best to let the swelling subside naturally before we rush right in and fix anything.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

“I’m glad you concur.” Fisher did not look up from putting away his surgical instruments, but that did not silence him. “Did you ever track down Doctor M’Benga?”

“Actually, no, I didn’t. I’m certainly still interested in T’Pry

“Kind of figured,” the physician said. “Typically, I would not circumvent Doctor M’Benga in matters of his patients. But being that you are here and all, I can make an exception in this instance, if you would like to see her.”