Chimera

Fourteen

A dinner?" Derec shook his head at the image on the comm screen. Ariel returned his cynical look. "I don't get this," he continued. "Two days ago we were all but persona non grata and now Setaris is inviting you to embassy soirees."

"It gets better," Ariel said. " Jonis will be there."

"Taprin…it occurs to me that you're being used here."

"Really?" Ariel intoned with mock dismay. "I asked Lanra to be my guest. One good surprise is worth another."

"Do you trust him?"

"Of course not. He hasn't told us half of what he's looking into."

"Fair is fair. We aren't telling him everything, either."

Ariel shrugged. "Do you want to take odds on whether the two lines of inquiry intersect?"

"I'm not sure I want them to."

"Well…Lanra asked me if Chassik would be there tonight. I asked him why, and he said it was something he stumbled on."

"Chassik. What could he possibly want with Chassik?"

"I have some opinions. Did you know that Solaria owns Nova Levis?"

"That hasn't come out in the newsnets."

"No, and it may not. They owned it before it was Nova Levis, when it was no more than a Solaria mining franchise called Cassus Thole. The colony-a Settler colony-is a lease agreement that was originally set up between Solaria and the Church of Organic Sapiens."

Derec started. "Looms' church?"

"The same, only back before they were so rabidly antispace. Now, just to heap coincidence upon coincidence, Gale Chassik was one of the initial investors in a biomed research lab called-are you ready?-Nova Levis, which was closed after having been investigated for infant brokering."

Derec whistled. "Convergence is imminent."

"So it seems. How's it coming with the robot?"

Derec glanced across the small workspace at Rana. She stared, rapt, at the banks of screens, calibrating the myriad details of Thales' link to facilitate a precise excavation. The robot itself remained where it had been left, on its pallet, now connected to Thales and Rana's console via several heavy cables.

"I'd say another half-hour, we'll have the interface running at an acceptable level," he said. A small icon in the upper left corner of the comm screen revealed Thales' presence in the exchange, monitoring security and running an encryption routine. Ariel saw the same icon on her end, otherwise she would never speak so freely on a commline.

"Speaking of things robotic," Derec said, "the director here is a man named Rotij Polifos. Do you know anything about him?"

"No. Should I?"

"He's been director for seven years. I was just thinking,, it's kind of unusual for an Auroran to stay in a Terran posting like this for that long. Don't they usually rotate out more regularly?"

"Usually. Maybe he likes it."

Derec frowned. "Maybe. "

"Is there a problem?"

"No, I just…it seems odd, that's all."

"Have Hofton look into it. Keep your mind on the robot, Derec. "

"Right, right. You know, Lanra wants us to prove a robot committed the murders. There's no way, Ariel. Not this one, anyway. It's just a standard DW-12 with a few added modules-nothing I don't recognize-and it's showing a nearly textbook collapse pattern. It couldn't even have made the crack in the cargo bin, not without some tools."

"Oh, I don't doubt the robot you have is innocent. What I'm wondering is, why didn't the robot prevent the deaths? If a second robot had been involved, as unlikely as it sounds, this one should have intervened. Has Sipha Palen told you much yet?"

"No. She wants us to run the excavation without any preconceptions. I can understand that."

"Get it done ASAP. I want to move this to the next level."

Derec raised an eyebrow. "What next level?"

"I'm sending you a packet to go over in private," Ariel replied. "About Nova Levis. Very interesting reading."

"The colony, or the lab you mentioned?"

"Both. The list of shareholders in the lab is intriguing all by itself. Chassik isn't the only surprise." She looked away for a few seconds. PACKET RECEIVED appeared along the bottom of Derec's screen.

"Got it," he said. "Be careful tonight, Ariel. We don't want to be deported for bad taste."

Ariel's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Derec, please! I? Bad taste?"

Derec smiled. "Forgive me. I do know better."

She grinned. "Have fun."

The screen went blank then, except for Thales' icon and the notice of the data packet. Derec plugged his personal datum into the board.

"Download the packet for me, Thales," he said. "I'll look at it later."

"I would recommend sooner," Thales said. "I compiled the raw data. It may be more relevant than you might think. "

"'Keep your mind on the robot,' Ariel said. I'll add it to the list, thanks. "

Lights winked on the datum's pad. He scooted his chair over by Rana. She worked with confidence, clearly in control, comfortable in her expertise. Better than Derec remembered, and he remembered her as being very good.

"I suppose," Rana said slowly, "that it's occurred to you that you're both being used."

"You think so?"

"You're being set up to take blame."

"That would be consistent."

"Then why are you going along with it?"

"It's a question of being deported now or later. The longer we put it off, the more chance there is to avoid it completely."

"You don't believe that, do you?"

"Shouldn't I?" She shrugged. "I suppose you're thinking that you might find something in this mess-" she waved at the screens "-that will make you so valuable to someone that they'll intercede on your behalf and restore you to former glory."

"Something like that."

Rana shook her head. "I can't imagine why. All I want to do is get away from this planet, and all you want to do is stay." She turned to look at him. "Why?"

"We've been over this before," Derec said uncomfortably.

"Yes we have. And you've never given me an answer. Excuses, reasons, justifications, but not an answer." Rana glanced toward the curtain that isolated them from the rest of the lab. "This planet has treated you pretty badly. Hell, it's treated me badly and I was born here; you weren't. I grew up on Earth and I have no place here. I'm leaving first chance I get, to go somewhere I might be appreciated."

"Aurora is just as bad in different ways."

"But it's not personal the way it is here."

"Who told you that?"

"My co-workers, for one. After they got over the idea of a Terran who understood positronics, they treated me as an equal. "

Derec shook his head. "No. You just haven't learned to read the signs."

Rana cut the air with her hand. "Stop. It is different because I have skills they value. Maybe it will be only more of the same in a new way, but for now it feels like respect. I already know what I don't have on Earth. "

"So what is your question?"

"Why are you so set on trying to stay here?"

"You think there's one answer?"

"No, but there's usually one thing that validates all the rest."

Derec stared at her, mind suddenly blank. "I never thought about it that way before," he heard himself say. He no longer looked at Rana, but at a point just past her right shoulder, as if waiting for something to resolve in the air behind her.

"I don't need an answer now, boss," Rana said. He refocussed on her.

"Um…"

"And I can manage this," she said, turning back to the console.

Conversation abruptly terminated, Derec went over to the gurney, annoyed and impressed by Rana.

Beyond the fabric curtain he could hear the other lab workers moving and speaking in low tones. He leaned on the edge of the pallet and gazed down the length of the robot.

"So where did you come from?" he muttered.

The torso showed age and use. Scratches gave the impression of a complicated urban map etched in bronze. The metal gleamed dully through patches of tarnish and encrusted grime. Plates covered linkages thirty centimeters below its arms that allowed extra limbs to be connected. The arms themselves, three-jointed and thick, ended in finely articulated six-digit hands. The legs depended from a rotating platform beneath the torso shell. Derec noted more removable coverplates on the platform hiding assemblies to which secondary legs or support braces or tractor modules or one of several other modifications could be fitted. The DW-12 was a large robot, two-and-a-half meters tall, designed for a multiplicity of heavy tasks in conjunction with human workers, very adaptable, with an advanced positronic brain that allowed for considerable independence and problem-solving capacity.

Vaguely humaniform, the head was little more than a protective helmet curving over the intricate sensor array behind the mesh-covered eyes. A complex architecture of connections rose out of the torso and joined the brain that lay within the chest cavity to the communications and sensory apparatus beneath the headcap. The normally thick column had been modified by the addition of accessory modules and cables. Normally, the "neck" would be covered by a smooth carapace, but the extra components jutted out like synthetic goiters, requiring a specially-fitted casement no one had bothered to acquire.

Derec frowned at the overall dirty appearance. This robot had been worked hard for a long time. Hiding it, as would be necessary on Earth, probably prevented the owner from caring for it as thoroughly as needed, but he would have expected Palen's forensics people to clean it up in the course of their inspection.

But no thorough examination had been made.

Derec started going over it more carefully.

He felt beneath the headcap for the release and flipped the cover off, revealing the strutwork that caged the components. He took a rag and small bottle of solvent from the workbench and lightly cleaned off grime from the smooth surfaces until he found the serial number. He jotted it down and went to the comm, where he fed it to Thales to be encrypted and sent to Ariel.

Derec made note of each component he recognized within the head. Optical and aural receptors and translators, UV and Infrared telemetric assemblers, gas traps linked to interferometers, location and attitude modules-nothing unexpected. He wanted to turn it over to get inside the torso shell, but not till Thales finished the excavation.

On its right side, below the accessory limb coverplate, new metal shone brighter than the surrounding surface. A fifteen-centimeter square area had been replaced, the weld itself invisible but for the age difference in the material. Derec went over the rest of the body for signs of recent damage, but found none.

He tried to imagine its last minutes. A chamber full of humans died around it. What would its reaction have been? Derec tapped his finger arrhythmic ally on the pallet.

One human had been assaulted: Nyom Looms had suffered a broken neck. And this robot had failed to protect her from an alleged second robot.

Which had now disappeared.

Ridiculous.

Derec turned over first one robotic hand, then the other.

A dark substance filled the joints of three fingers, palm-side, of the right hand. Derec tried to flex them open but the segments were too tight. He found a small flathead screwdriver among the tools on the workbench. He slid a sheet of paper beneath the hand, then pried one of the segments open and dug at the matter embedded within the joint. Flakes fell to the paper.

He looked around their workstation. No magnifier. Derec carefully brushed the recovered material into a small dish, clapped a lid on it, and stepped from behind the blind.

Three technicians worked at two stations across the chamber. Derec spotted the equipment he needed against the wall to his left, midway between the curtain and the techs. He strode across the lab as if he did so every day and sat down at the console.

Within seconds, he had the magnifier powered up and the dish in the drawer of the observation platform. He keyed for a relatively low magnification-200X-and let the machine perform.

The screen showed him three distinct substances: two clearly artificial-one crystalline and the other fibrous. The third was blood.

He tapped a command to separate out the three materials and deposit them in separate dishes. A few seconds later, a different drawer in the platform slid out bearing three dishes. Derec pocketed the one containing the blood and reinserted the one with the crystalline material.

"May I help you; sir?"

Derec looked around at a young female technician standing anxiously behind him.

"No, I have what I need. Thank you."

"Um…"

"It's all right, I'll clear it with your director."

"Did you find something?" another tech asked, suddenly leaning past the first and gazing at the image on the screen.

Derec switched it off. The man frowned.

"I'm fine," Derec said. "If I need help, I'll ask."

The man met Derec's gaze coldly, without the scowl of offended dignity and violated territoriality Derec expected. Derec sensed that it would be a mistake to look away, to yield at all to this one. He would lose his samples and the presumed privileges he had just accorded himself, access to any and all parts of the lab.

"I am qualified to ask for help," Derec said. "I've had years of practice."

The tech smiled thinly. "Of course, sir. Sorry to bother you."

The first technician watched her coworker retreat.

"Where's the infirmary?" Derec asked. His legs trembled slightly.

"Next level," she replied, pointing downward.

"Thank you." He removed the sample tray from the magnifier and wiped the machine's log. "I want one of these in our area when I return."

"Yes, sir," she said uncertainly.

"It is authorized. " He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice. "It wouldn't do anyone any good for me to take this to Director Polifos. Would it?"

"No, sir. No." She glanced in the direction of the other tech.

"Don't worry about him," Derec said. "He's an amateur."

She gave him a surprised smile. "Yes, sir. I'll see to procuring you a magnifier."

Samples in his pocket, Derec walked out of the lab, feeling the male tech 's eyes on him all the way to the door. He wondered what internal politics he had just upset and how, if at all, it applied to him. An elderly Auroran named Greler attended the infirmary. After a brief exchange of names, Greler amiably ran a complete scan of the blood samples and handed a disk to Derec along with his sample.

"Apologies for being unable to run the match for you," Greler said. "This sort of thing must go through Kopernik Medical. You can take it to them and have it done."

"Thanks. "

Derec returned to the positronics lab.

He walked in to find two more techs sitting with the first pair. All of them fell silent when they saw him and watched as he crossed the floor to the curtained station. Derec felt a prickle up the back of his neck.

Hofton waited with Rana, along with Rotij Polifos and Yart Leri.

Polifos wore a pinched expression. Ambassador Leri looked concerned. Hofton and Rana seemed mildly puzzled.

"Mr. Avery-" Leri began.

"I would appreciate," Polifos cut in immediately, "that any and all requests for equipment or special analyses be made through me. This is my lab."

Derec did not respond. Polifos looked frustrated. When he finally broke eye contact, Derec looked at Leri.

"I was under the impression that we had your full cooperation."

"Of course," Leri said, glaring briefly at Polifos. "I apologize for any misunderstandings, but we are answerable to Ambassador Setaris and, through her, Aurora itself. We're used to a more regular set of procedures. "

Polifos blinked in amazement at Leri. "I should have been told what this was all about. I am responsible to the Calvin Institute and the Positronics Commission-directly-and any and all matters concerning robots and other positronic entities within and involving this facility are my responsibility. I'm required to report, oversee, and voucher all activities-"

"You don't have to quote the code to me," Leri snapped. "This is, I repeat, an unusual circumstance-"

"I have this authority precisely for unusual circumstances! All due respect to Mr. Avery, he is not the only roboticist on Earth, and unless I have a very good reason to relinquish my responsibilities, I cannot allow him to simply take over-"

"No one is taking over," Leri said.

"Stop interrupting me."

"Stop jumping to conclusions! You didn't know about this because I didn't know! I didn't know because Ambassador Setaris told me I wouldn't know! She has asked for the utmost discretion, and I will not tolerate petty fits of temper over personal slights!"

"I can't cooperate with Mr. Avery unless I know what he's doing," Polifos said.

"I agree, " Hofton said. "Can't expect useful cooperation from ignorance. "

"Perhaps I was remiss," Leri admitted. "But I was told that your work was highly confidential and that a minimum of interference was in order."

"Misunderstandings are easy under these circumstances," Derec said. "Evidently, I was misinformed about protocol myself. "

Leri looked sheepish. "I, uh…"

"Director Polifos and I can work this out, I'm sure," Derec said.

"Well." Leri gave Polifos one last glare.

Polifos did not look away this time. "I do not want Palen's goons tramping through here as if it were their office and we were criminals. "

"Under the circumstances, we don't have much choice," Leri snapped. "Now, straighten all this out with Mr. Avery. I'm too busy to do arbitration over bruised egos." He looked at Derec. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Avery. If you have any more trouble…"

He stormed off. Huddled techs watched him leave.

Derec turned to Polifos. "Chief Palen?"

"One of our staff was arrested," Polifos said. "Nothing unusual in that-the man in question has a history of running afoul with Palen."

"Doesn't sound like someone you'd want to keep on staff," Hofton observed.

"We have personnel shortages," Polifos said. He seemed distracted. "But even so, I've tried to get this one rotated back to Aurora and it simply doesn't happen." He shook his head impatiently. "That isn't the real problem. What is the problem is her people have been in and out of my lab since yesterday, questioning my staff. Then you show up, and the next thing I see is Palen herself with your man Hofton here bringing in a robot of which I had no knowledge! I can't help but think that it's all connected. Your presence has changed our relationship with Palen, and not for the better."

Derec exchanged a look with Hofton. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about-"

Polifos cut him off. "No, I don't imagine you do, nor would you even if you did. One of her police appears in the doorway, points, and expects to be followed. Our arrangement with the Terran authorities here is peculiar to say the least-we were all required to concede that Palen is in charge of all security throughout the station. Makes sense, I suppose, but-"

"We were informed about none of this," Hofton said. "When was the arrest made?"

Rana frowned at Hofton but said nothing.

"Shortly before you arrived," Rotij said. "Naturally we're nervous. "

"What are the charges?" Hofton asked.

"Disorderly conduct. But Palen's been questioning my people about smuggling. " Polifos snorted in disbelief. "Smuggling! Why would an Auroran engage in smuggling?"

Derec looked across the lab and recognized the tense look in the eyes of the staff.

Derec stepped close to Polifos. "I want that equipment, Director. Soon as possible. The quicker we get done here, the sooner we'll be out of your lab and away from your people. But we want the equipment here. I don't want any more confusion over who's responsible for what."

"No, we don't," Polifos answered sharply. "All right." He stepped around the blind. "Hovis!"

Derec looked at Hofton. "What's this about?"

"You stepped on toes in your walk across hallowed ground," Hofton said. "Someone complained. The accusation that we're plants from Palen materialized. There's a rather ugly atmosphere here. Also," he lowered his voice, "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier. I tried to look into Director Polifos's record. This posting and credentials from the Calvin Institute were all I could find. There's a security block on records older than Kopernik."

"Terran security?"

"No, sir. Auroran."

Derec stared at Hofton, for a moment uncomprehending. Then he shook his head. "We'd better proceed on the assumption that we have even less time than we started with." He showed the disk to Hofton. "I had the blood sample screened and typed."

"Blood sample?" Hofton asked.

"The robot's hand. I found material in the finger joints. Some of it is blood. The rest I'll look at when I get the proper equipment."

"Blood. Wonderful. That should help exonerate the robot."

Derec slipped the disk into the comm console. "We're going to need a complete autopsy report on all the victims, I think. And I want to look at that cargo bin. In person, not on a screen."

"I'll see what I can do," Hofton said.

"One way or the other, we need to see for ourselves."

"I understand. "

Derec turned to address his RI. "Thales, I'm sending a blood screen. I want you to run a match through all available databases."

"Yes, Derec. That may take some time."

"I can wait. " He pressed SEND and turned to Rana. "How's the link?"

"Established. Thales is beginning the first level excavation now. I've set up buffers to receive intact memory nodes as they're found and retrieved. We should be able to view them in isolation."

"Good, good." Derec went to the edge of the blind and watched a pair of technicians setting up a magnifier on a cart. "I want a complete scan for eyes and ears on all this equipment. Have Thales do one on the lab itself."

"All of it?" Rana asked.

"Every bit."

"Derec," Thales said, "I have a consanguinity match."

"Already?"

"Given the probable source of the sample, I began with the most obvious. I am continuing through the rest of the databases on the chance of finding an exact match. "

"All right, what do you have?"

"There is a 99% match to Nyom Looms. "

"So…it's her blood?"

"No. I can display the details, but the distinction is clear. This sample came from a male."

"Her father, perhaps?" Rana suggested.

"No, Rana. Even given the unlikelihood that Rega Looms would permit a robot close enough to him to touch, I ran the same match against his genome and it remains only a close match, not identical. The markers I used to verify distinctions number two hundred eighteen. There is no significant margin for error. The sample belongs to a male relative of both Rega and Nyom Looms, probably a son and brother."

"Son…" Derec mused. "Looms never had a son."

"The record would so substantiate. However, there are always possible oversights."

"'Oversights'," Hofton said. "Interesting way to put it. Have you typed the sample against Looms' wife?"

"Yes. The same degree of consanguinity. The logical implication is that Nyom Looms had a brother. However, no record of such a relative is forthcoming."

"Can you determine age, Thales?" Derec asked.

"That is proving difficult, Derec. Normally there are mutations over time in the chemistry and base DNA. Proteins provide a reliable clock. But this sample shows an incongruity of results. Certain proteins suggest an age of twenty-nine, others an age of ten."

"Rehab treatments?" Hofton suggested.

"The requisite chemical signatures of all known rejuvenation or rehabilitation protocols are absent. This does not preclude that one or more have not been employed that are unknown, but I cannot consequently give you an accurate estimate of age. "

"Send this data to Ariel, Thales," Derec said. "Continue your search for an exact match. Add the databases of all rejuvenation clinics extending back a period of, oh, thirty-five years, and see if anything turns up. "

"Yes, Derec."

"Nyom had a brother she didn't know about?" Hofton said. "Amazing. Imagine that, from a man like Looms."

"Call Palen," Derec said. "We need to see those bodies and all the autopsy reports. " He stared across the lab, watching the personnel, and realized after a moment that he was looking for something that did not fit. "Thales, ask Ariel to run a background on Rotij Polifos. "