Burning Bright

Cella met his eyes steadily, only the note of scorn in her voice betraying any emotion. “Why would I kill Illario Ransome? Do you think I care if you fuck him? What’s that to me, any more than any other of your minor conquests? We have a—more complicated arrangement. I thought you knew me better, Damiano.”

“I think I do.” Damian did not move, still leaning back in his chair, his hands steepled across his chest. “What annoys me, Cella, is your interfering in my business, screwing up a deal I had a hard time salvaging. I told you before that this was the only thing I could do to save the situation. I meant it, and I don’t appreciate your trying to force my hand. You’re not good enough to play politics.”

“Ransome’s death is the best thing that could happen,” Cella said. “For you, for Chauvelin—even for the Visiting Speaker, if you wanted to play it that way; he’d be under obligation to you if you let him go. Ransome’s worth a lot more dead than alive—and don’t try to tell me that Chauvelin loved him so much that he’d rather get revenge than use him to bring down the je Tsinraan. It’s the best thing that could happen, if you’re serious about going over to the tzu line.”

“It’s not your place to make that decision,” Damian Chrestil said. He sighed, looked down at his files again, then spun the first one so that it faced Cella. She looked down at it, her expression first curious, then angry, before she’d gotten herself under control again.

“Our arrangement is over,” Damian Chrestil said. “That’s my assessment of your property, a fair settlement. You can take it or not, I don’t really care. But I don’t want to see you again.” He pushed himself up out of the chair, took a few steps away from the desk.

“Very well,” Cella said, her voice still rigidly controlled. “But you won’t object if I verify some of this?”

“Help yourself,” Damian said, and heard the whisper of the interface cord drawn out of its housing in the side of the datanode. He did not look back, bracing himself, and a moment later heard the fat snap of the current as she plugged herself into the system. There was no cry, no sound except the buzz of the overload box shorting out, and then the sprawling thud as she fell. The room smelled of electricity, and then, insidiously, of scorched hair and skin. Damian Chrestil turned then, without haste, knowing what he would find.

Cella lay contorted by the corner of the desk, limbs tumbled, her face pressed into the carpet. Her dark hair had come out of its crown of braids, lay in disturbed coils over her neck and across the floor, hiding the data socket at the base of her jaw. A thin tendril of smoke was rising from it as the implant housing smoldered. He looked at her for a moment, but did not touch her after all. The end of the data cord dangled over the edge of the desk, inert: the automatics had cut the power instantly after the massive current passed through. He left it there, and reached into his pocket for his thin gloves. He drew them on, ignoring the smell—burned flesh, urine, burned implant plastic, and hot metal—and used the tool kit to pry off the cover of the datanode. The boards and wires had fused, a ragged mess; he stepped over Cella’s body to lean closer, carefully freed the black box from the ruined node. The military does good work, he thought, and gingerly stuffed the ruined components back into the node’s casing, closing it carefully behind him. By the door, where the carpet ended and the tiles began, he stopped, dropped the black box on the hard surface. The casing shattered, spilling fragments; he set his heel on them, methodically grinding them to gravel, then swept them toward the nearest garbage slot. The baseboard hatch slid open, and he swept the fragments into its waiting darkness, running his foot twice over the tiles even after he was sure he had it all. He did not look back—he did not have to look back, would remember Cella’s twisted body in absolute clarity even without a second look—but walked away, letting the door slide closed behind him. Power surges happen during big storms; you shouldn’t go direct-on-line when the weather’s bad. Everyone knows that, and everyone does it just the same. Poor Cella, what a shame it caught up with you. But you shouldn’t’ve tried to force my hand. In an hour or two, if no one had found her, he would send Ivie looking for her: until then, let her lie.

Epilogue

« ^

Day 6

Storm: The Barge Gemini, Nazandin

Wharf, the Inland Water by Governor’s

Point District