mind was starting to unblank, but it was filling with thoughts they didn’t want to have, like how the guard had moved to kill them both without the slightest hesitation and how Niko had completely frozen and Asala had shoved them out of the way . . .
My fault she’s hurt. All my fault.
“Do you need a med team?” Niko asked. “We can call one in . . .”
One of Asala’s shoulders lifted and then lowered. “Eventually. I’ve had worse.”
And you were trying to convince her you were ready to go out in the field. At the first sign of pressure you fell apart, while she sits there shot acting like it’s a stubbed toe.
The adrenaline and panic were receding, leaving shame behind.
Was there any chance of salvaging Asala’s impression of them? Some way to show Niko wasn’t just a data rookie who froze up at the first sign of trouble?
Intelligence, Asala had said. Something useful . . .
The traitorous guard was still lying where she had fallen. Niko tried to figure out how to step over to her without tracking through all the blood, but it was impossible. They gingerly crouched down to start lifting the flaps on her pockets.
There has to be something here. Something worth showing Asala . . .
“Shouldn’t you wait for the forensic team to do that?” Asala said it from over on the couch, not moving.
“You want to wait and take whatever sanitized report they choose to give you?” Niko said, with more bravado than they felt.
The edge of a smile quirked Asala’s tired expression. “You’ve got more guts than I gave you credit for, kid.”
The compliment should have delighted Niko, but instead their heart was banging out of their chest. Was it cheating, to do things this way? It had to be. It felt like it.
And—worst case—what if Niko couldn’t find any evidence at all, even missed something really obvious, and then Father would ream them out for disrupting the scene and Asala would think they were a green know-nothing and—
Oh. There. At the bottom of a back pocket. Niko drew out the thick packet. Across the room, Asala’s eyes widened and she sat up slightly—she knew what it was too.
“That’s concentrated glow,” she said. “Way more than for personal use. That much is an automatic intent-to-deal charge.”
“Which means it’s also enough for a payment,” Niko said. “What’s the going rate for assassinating a head of state?”
And whoever happened to be in the way. Niko felt another wave of nausea and tried not to think about it.
Asala frowned. “There aren’t many people who would use glow as currency. Too hard to unload, unless . . .”
“Unless you’re in the trade. She’s got to be out of Khwarizmi.” That wasn’t too big a leap, was it? Niko didn’t think so. Khwarizmi, the only other Inner Ring world, was warmer even than Khayyam and a haven for pleasure resorts and smuggling cartels alike. Just the shady sorts who might believably have assassination as one of their goals. Asala would agree, wouldn’t she?
“Glow dealers wouldn’t have any beef with Gan-De,” Asala said, as if feeling it out. “But the Khwarizmian syndicates also deal in ice smuggling. Throw Gan-De into chaos, especially now, and the black market for water would go through the roof.”
“What percentage of Khayyam’s water comes from ice mining on Gan-De or Hypatia, instead of pulling it from the sun? It’s a lot, right?” Niko agreed. “And with all the—the environmental crisis—on Hypatia, Gan-De’s where it’s at.”
Asala didn’t look entirely convinced. “Maybe . . .”
Come on! Niko barely bit back from voicing their frustration. This is solid information. You know it is!
Something beeped.
It wasn’t the wall interface. Asala dug out a personal handheld, miraculously undamaged even after the fight.
“Your father’s coming down here,” she said. “He has the interrogation reports from the suspects who survived this morning’s incident. It seems you’re right—they were out of Khwarizmi.”
Niko took a breath and tried to look the part of a confident intelligence expert who’d expected nothing less.
They weren’t at all sure they managed.
• • •
I hope I never have to have a conversation with the woman again, Asala had told President Ekrem. And now here she was, ringing through to the general’s personal quarters at an hour well too late for polite calling of any variety. She hadn’t slept in a full day, and the nanosplints tingled painfully where her ribs were knitting back together, but she was on the scent of something. Everything was fitting together so well . . . and yet somehow just slightly not well enough.
She cradled one hand over her injured side while she waited at General Cynwrig’s inner door. The med team had told her not to exert herself, that she’d damaged internal organs and “healed” didn’t mean it all couldn’t be jarred out of place, but Asala had never been good at listening to instructions when it didn’t suit her.
It was a long, long time before Cynwrig answered. In the meantime, Asala ignored the spider chittering behind her. At least the woman will know who’s calling, she thought sourly.
When General Cynwrig finally did open the door, she was dressed in full uniform.
“Am I mistaken,” she asked, with a curled lip, “or is it not a very late hour here in Khayyam’s capital?”
Asala quickly said a canto of Our Mortal Stars in her head, one of the verses she used to relax herself while she waited with a rifle. She took a breath. “I need to examine your ship.”
“Out of the question.”
I could just go to sleep and let you die. But that—that would have stung her professional pride. “The intelligence about Khwarizmi is wrong.”
“Explain.”
“I think both assassination attempts were distractions,” Asala said. “The attack in your chambers came immediately on the heels of this morning’s show in the plaza, almost as if they expected the first attempt to fail—and I think they did. This morning’s incident was timed to be stopped, and this afternoon, the guard should have known she wouldn’t be able to get past the inner doors before real security caught up to her. Even if I hadn’t been here to stop her—the intelligence needed to get this far should have told her she couldn’t succeed in the time frame she had. I think someone paid these people and then didn’t tell them they were being set up.”
“Their true purpose being?”
“To throw you off your routine.” As she said it, it felt right, deep in her gut, where she’d learned to trust her instincts. If the general would just cooperate, dammit, Asala would solve this and save her sorry Gandesian hide for a third time, and the mighty General Cynwrig would always and forever owe her life to someone with a clan tattoo. Wouldn’t that be sweet justice.
“Ekrem already told me you’ve moved up your departure timeline, and that dominoes in a host of changes all on its own,” she continued. “I’ve been combing through the interrogation reports, and one bit might have some truth to it—one of them said something about an indirect attack before going silent. But both the attacks we’ve seen were more than direct. ‘Indirect’ suggests something like coming at you in transit, or poisoning your food. Or your water supply.”
“I bring my own sustenance for that reason,” Cynwrig said. “It is secure at all times.”
“I