A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A
Authors: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
Alliance was willing to throw most of its underlings aside if it served a greater purpose.
She tapped into the FSS database to see if she could find Mishra. She had no trouble. He was not only a supervisor, but he was at the top of his division, with an impressive list of cases behind him.
She should have felt like she was in good hands—and she did—but that still didn’t reassure her.
Much as she loved her job, much as she loved working on the Frontier, moments like this made her nervous. The legal risks were the ones she couldn’t control with a laser pistol or a well-timed look. She couldn’t smile her way out of this or slam a suspect into the cells on the lower deck.
She hated ceding control to someone else.
And she hated waiting.
So she tried to research the asylum information on her own. As she did, she got a notification on her links that the materials from the Eaufasse had arrived.
She asked that the information get forwarded to her here, and that it remain off her links. She had learned the hard way that material on private links was sometimes considered personal, and she didn’t ever want to be accused of a crime because she had downloaded the wrong material onto her private links.
The Eaufasse materials showed up on the table’s main screen. It popped up in front of her, complete with menu. The Eaufasse had sent surveillance recordings of the incident, the discovery of the bodies, and the messages they had sent to the Earth Alliance.
They also sent materials about the survivor.
She went to those first, in case she needed more information in her next discussion with Mishra.
The images showed up as small holograms. She left the holograms alone, but called up a two-dimensional image on another screen so that she could see the boy’s face clearly.
And it was a boy’s face—unlined and very young. He was blond and unusually pale, so rare as to be almost unheard of in the Earth Alliance. She had noticed this with the clones’ bodies, but had not really thought about it much, figuring that Simiaar’s reproduction was as much guess as it was accurate.
Faced with a truly pale-skinned human, though, Gomez felt a slight disbelief. She knew that there were groups of pale humans with blond hair and blue eyes, but usually they were the result of decades of genetic purity—none of them allowed to breed with anyone who did not have similar skin and eye color.
Occasionally, there would be a pale, blue-eyed throwback in a large family, but it was so unusual that she had never met anyone that light-skinned in her travels.
The boy stood at the center of four Eaufasse. They encircled him, apparently deliberately. He was as thin as they were. His clothing was ragged and filthy, and he looked tired.
One of the Eaufasse spoke. The boy gave it a wary look, and responded.
In Fasse.
“What the hell?” Gomez asked.
She scanned forward on the recording the Eaufasse had sent. The five seemed to be having a discussion. She stopped the recording farther in. The discussion was happening in Fasse.
Which meant that the Eaufasse knew what the boy had asked for. Now the question was if the Peyti had translated correctly for her.
She tapped a corner of the desk. “Please translate this discussion into Standard,” she said.
An error reading rose in front of her eyes. Language insufficiently known for accurate translation was the response she got.
Dammit. She would have to talk with Uzven after all.
SEVEN
WHILE SHE WAITED for Uzven to arrive, she watched the surveillance recordings of the enclave. She couldn’t tell time from them; like Fasse, the way that the Eaufasse told time was unfamiliar to her. But she could guess at how much time passed while she watched the imagery unfold before her.
The surveillance recordings began as four young men left the enclave. They were all the same height, thin, and blond. They wore identical clothing. They stumbled outside as if they had been
She tapped into the FSS database to see if she could find Mishra. She had no trouble. He was not only a supervisor, but he was at the top of his division, with an impressive list of cases behind him.
She should have felt like she was in good hands—and she did—but that still didn’t reassure her.
Much as she loved her job, much as she loved working on the Frontier, moments like this made her nervous. The legal risks were the ones she couldn’t control with a laser pistol or a well-timed look. She couldn’t smile her way out of this or slam a suspect into the cells on the lower deck.
She hated ceding control to someone else.
And she hated waiting.
So she tried to research the asylum information on her own. As she did, she got a notification on her links that the materials from the Eaufasse had arrived.
She asked that the information get forwarded to her here, and that it remain off her links. She had learned the hard way that material on private links was sometimes considered personal, and she didn’t ever want to be accused of a crime because she had downloaded the wrong material onto her private links.
The Eaufasse materials showed up on the table’s main screen. It popped up in front of her, complete with menu. The Eaufasse had sent surveillance recordings of the incident, the discovery of the bodies, and the messages they had sent to the Earth Alliance.
They also sent materials about the survivor.
She went to those first, in case she needed more information in her next discussion with Mishra.
The images showed up as small holograms. She left the holograms alone, but called up a two-dimensional image on another screen so that she could see the boy’s face clearly.
And it was a boy’s face—unlined and very young. He was blond and unusually pale, so rare as to be almost unheard of in the Earth Alliance. She had noticed this with the clones’ bodies, but had not really thought about it much, figuring that Simiaar’s reproduction was as much guess as it was accurate.
Faced with a truly pale-skinned human, though, Gomez felt a slight disbelief. She knew that there were groups of pale humans with blond hair and blue eyes, but usually they were the result of decades of genetic purity—none of them allowed to breed with anyone who did not have similar skin and eye color.
Occasionally, there would be a pale, blue-eyed throwback in a large family, but it was so unusual that she had never met anyone that light-skinned in her travels.
The boy stood at the center of four Eaufasse. They encircled him, apparently deliberately. He was as thin as they were. His clothing was ragged and filthy, and he looked tired.
One of the Eaufasse spoke. The boy gave it a wary look, and responded.
In Fasse.
“What the hell?” Gomez asked.
She scanned forward on the recording the Eaufasse had sent. The five seemed to be having a discussion. She stopped the recording farther in. The discussion was happening in Fasse.
Which meant that the Eaufasse knew what the boy had asked for. Now the question was if the Peyti had translated correctly for her.
She tapped a corner of the desk. “Please translate this discussion into Standard,” she said.
An error reading rose in front of her eyes. Language insufficiently known for accurate translation was the response she got.
Dammit. She would have to talk with Uzven after all.
SEVEN
WHILE SHE WAITED for Uzven to arrive, she watched the surveillance recordings of the enclave. She couldn’t tell time from them; like Fasse, the way that the Eaufasse told time was unfamiliar to her. But she could guess at how much time passed while she watched the imagery unfold before her.
The surveillance recordings began as four young men left the enclave. They were all the same height, thin, and blond. They wore identical clothing. They stumbled outside as if they had been
Similar Books
