Vigilantes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

more than he realized. That single sentence, both filled with pride and denial, was legal in its brilliance.
    Uzvaan had not failed, so he didn’t know what happened to the failures. And he was being trained alone at that point, so he could claim he had no knowledge.
    “Did the others you were raised with go to any other school besides law school?” Nyquist asked.
    “Not to my knowledge,” Uzvaan said. “But law school is a particularly good way for the Peyti to move around within the Earth Alliance.”
    Nyquist was about to ask his next question when he realized what Uzvaan had just said.
    “Are you saying that you weren’t all assigned to the Moon?”
    “I am, Detective,” Uzvaan said. “You know that.”
    He had suspected it, but he had not had confirmation. DeRicci had warned the Earth Alliance. No one had let her know whether or not more Peyti clones had been found.
    “So there are more bombs coming,” Nyquist said softly.
    “That I do not know,” Uzvaan said. “I only know my mission, not the mission of others.”
    “Your mission,” Nyquist said, “was it specific to this date and time? Did it change?”
    “No, the date did not change. I have known that date my entire life.”
    Nyquist froze for a half moment. Uzvaan surprised him. Nyquist had expected this attack to be a Plan B—the kind of attack that would only occur after something else failed.
    But apparently these masterminds, to use Flint’s word, did not plan for failure. DeRicci had been thinking of this all along. She’d been worried another attack would happen. She seemed to understand how this was organized.
    Or maybe she had just been planning for a worst case scenario. Maybe she had felt that there would be waves of these attacks until the goal was achieved, whatever that goal was.
    “You have known the date your entire life,” Nyquist repeated.
    “Since I could recall.” Uzvaan’s tone was flat. “I knew I had a creation date and an end date.”
    That was the second time he had referred to an end date.
    “Not a death date?” Nyquist said.
    Uzvaan leaned back a little, as if the question surprised him. “No, because death could come at any time.”
    “So what was the end date?” Nyquist asked.
    “The maximum length of my life,” Uzvaan said. “We all had maximum dates.”
    The hair rose on the back of Nyquist’s neck. “Were the maximum dates all the same?”
    Uzvaan turned blue again. Why would that question embarrass or distress him?
    “We were not allowed to talk about our creation dates or our end dates,” he said.
    “Why not?” Nyquist said.
    “Such things are personal,” Uzvaan said.
    “Would you get killed if you broke that rule?” Nyquist asked.
    “I do not know,” Uzvaan said. “I did not break it.”
    The silence hung between them for a moment. Uzvaan had given that answer quickly. Nyquist knew that was a lawyer answer, parsing the question on its face rather than for its meaning.
    Nyquist needed to be careful. He didn’t have a lot of time to ask Uzvaan questions. Nyquist couldn’t play verbal games. He needed to frame his questions as carefully as possible.
    “What else weren’t you allowed to talk about?” Nyquist asked.
    “Our assignments,” Uzvaan said.
    For a moment, Nyquist thought perhaps he meant study assignments—homework and the like. Then he realized he truly did not know what that word meant.
    “Explain assignments,” Nyquist said.
    “We were told when we were ten what our future would bring. We were sorted and given a life assignment. We could not discuss it with anyone else.”
    “What was your life assignment?” Nyquist asked.
    “I was to become a lawyer in the Earth Alliance,” Uzvaan said. “I was told I had an aptitude.”
    “Were you assigned to the Moon?” Nyquist asked.
    “I was to make the Moon my priority,” Uzvaan said. “If I did not receive that assignment, I would be considered a failure.”
    Nyquist shuddered. That failure thing was convenient.