Vigilantes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

Whoever the mastermind was, he could weed out his candidates, leaving very few to do the work.
    It was wasteful, if one looked at the clones as tools, like Uzvaan had said. A tool with even the slightest flaw did not move forward.
    The amount of money behind this scheme was stupendous.
    “You are quiet now,” Uzvaan said.
    Nyquist looked at him. At least Uzvaan’s skin tone had returned to normal.
    “Yeah,” Nyquist said. “I was just thinking how vast this was. Did you have any idea how many others there were in your—religion or whatever you called it?”
    “We knew we were one among many,” Uzvaan said. “But if we saw someone else who might have been from our group outside of a group, we were not to talk to them about anything we learned.”
    “So the lawyers here on the Moon,” Nyquist said, “you guys never held a meeting.”
    “We held many meetings,” Uzvaan started, and Nyquist just about exploded with irritation.
    “About your upcoming end date or your team or unit or past,” he snapped, clarifying before Uzvaan could finish his damn lawyer answer.
    “We were forbidden from doing so,” Uzvaan said.
    “But you did meet,” Nyquist said.
    “As lawyers, as colleagues,” Uzvaan said. “We met the way that all lawyers meet, about cases and clients and our work.”
    “There’s no Secret Society of Peyti Clone Lawyers, huh?” Nyquist asked. He couldn’t hold the question back.
    “Not that I know of,” Uzvaan said, taking the question seriously. “Nor is there a Moon-based organization of Peyti lawyers who are not clones. I know that some of the human lawyers formed one, but the Peyti did not. At least on the Moon.”
    Nyquist let out a breath. He hadn’t expected Uzvaan to volunteer any information so that last was a surprise.
    “Because it was forbidden?” Nyquist asked.
    Uzvaan looked down. “Because it might be misconstrued.”
    Nyquist let the words echo for a moment. “Were you being watched?”
    Uzvaan looked up at him. Uzvaan’s eyes seemed even more liquid than usual.
    “I do not know,” he whispered.
    “They didn’t tell you they’d supervise you?” Nyquist asked.
    “I assumed they watched,” Uzvaan said. “We had been watched our entire lives.”
    “But you had no proof?” Nyquist asked.
    “I had no contact with the people who raised me from the moment I moved to the Moon,” Uzvaan said.
    “Did you think that unusual?” Nyquist asked.
    Uzvaan let out a small sigh. “I tried not to think about it at all.”
    Nyquist shook his head. “When you did think of it?” he asked, letting his irritation show.
    “I assumed they were watching and I was following the rules,” Uzvaan said.
    “Did other clone lawyers die because they didn’t follow the rules?” Nyquist asked.
    “I did not know which lawyers had an end date and which ones did not,” Uzvaan said.
    That was a curious way to state the mission of the clones.
    “So, you didn’t think that your clone siblings or whatever you called the other clones of Uzvekmt had the same mission you did?” Nyquist asked.
    “We were not allowed to discuss our assignments,” Uzvaan said.
    Nyquist let out a frustrated breath. Now he remembered why he preferring interrogating humans. At least he could pretend to understand what they were talking about.
    He had no idea what was normal for a Peyti or not, what was normal for most Peyti or not, how distinct Peyti culture was—he knew none of it. And he would have thought—just a few hours ago—that he knew a lot about Peyti culture, including how many damn subcultures had spun off of it.
    “You didn’t assume they had the same assignment that you had?” Nyquist asked.
    “It is not advised to assume anything,” Uzvaan said.
    He’d said that in the past, when Nyquist had been interrogating Uzvaan’s clients, and Nyquist had thought the sentence an example of Uzvaan’s fussy lawyerly precision.
    Now, Nyquist wondered if Uzvaan’s unwillingness to assume anything had