Nemesis

in blood inside the aeronef or the shape that Jaared Norte’s body had been cut into,

there were eight-point stars all over the light-coloured walls. It seemed that the killer

had used the residue of Perrig as his ink, repeating the same pattern over and over

again.

“What does it mean?” Hyssos mumbled.

The reeve licked his lips; they were suddenly dry. He had a strange sensation, a

tingling in the base of his skull like the dull headache brought on by too much recaf

and not enough fresh air. The shapes were all he could see, and he felt like there was

an answer there, if only he could find the right way to look at them. They were no

different from the mathematical problems in Ivak’s schola texts, they just needed to

be solved to be understood.

“Sabrat, what does it mean?” said Hyssos again. “This word?”

Yosef blinked and the moment vanished. He looked back at the investigator.

Hyssos had removed something from among the ashen remains; a data-slate, the

screen spiderwebbed and fractured. Incredibly, the display underneath was still

operating, flickering sporadically.

Gingerly, Yosef took it from him, taking care to avoid touching the powderslicked

surfaces of the device. The touch-sensitive screen still remembered the words

that had been etched upon it, and flashed them at him, almost too quickly to register.

“One of the words is вЂ˜Sigg’,” Hyssos told him. “Do you see it?”

He did; and beneath that, there was a scribble that appeared to be the attempt to

form another string of letters, the shape of them lost now. But above the name, there

was another clearly-lettered word.

“Whyteleaf. Is that a person’s name?”

113

Yosef shook his head, instantly knowing the meaning. “Not a person. A place. I

know it well.”

Hyssos was abruptly on his feet. “Close?”

“In the low crags, a quick trip by coleopter.”

The investigator’s brief flash of grief and sorrow was gone. “We need to go there,

right now. Perrig’s readings decay over time.” He tapped the broken slate. “If she

sensed Sigg was in this place, every moment we waste here, we run the risk he will

flee again.”

Skelta had caught the edge of their conversation. “Sir, we don’t have any other

units in the area. Backup is dealing with a railganger fight that went bad out at the

airdocks and security prep for the trade carnival.”

Yosef made the choice then and there. “When Daig gets here, tell him to take

over the scene and keep Laimner occupied.” He moved towards the door, not looking

back to see if Hyssos was following. “We’re taking the flyer.”

The operative had lost colleagues before, and it had been difficult then as it was now;

but Perrig’s death was something more than that. It came in like a bullet, cutting right

into the core of Hyssos’ soul. Losing himself in the rash of the dark, low clouds

outside the windows of the coleopter, he tried to parse his own emotional reactions to

the moment without success. Perrig had always been a good, trusted colleague, and

he liked her company. She had never pressured him to talk about his past or tried to

worm more information out of him than he wanted to give. Hyssos had always felt

respected in her presence, and rewarded by her competence, her cool, calm

intelligence.

Now she was dead; worse than dead, not a corpse even, just dark cinders, just a

slurry of matter that did not bear any resemblance to the human being he had known.

He felt a hard stab of guilt. Perrig had always given him her complete and total trust,

and he had not been there to protect her when she needed it. Now this investigation

had crossed from the professional to the personal, and Hyssos was uncertain of

himself.

Looking from the outside in, had he been a passive observer, Hyssos would have

immediately insisted that an operative in his circumstances be withdrawn from the

case and a new team assigned from the Consortium’s security pool. And that, he

knew, was why he had not yet sent an official report on Perrig’s death to the Void

Baron, because Eurotas himself would say the same.

But Hyssos was here, now, and he knew the stakes. It would take too long to

bring another operative up to speed. As competent as locals like Sabrat were, the

reeve’s seniors couldn’t be trusted to handle this with alacrity.

Yes. All those were good lies to tell himself, all gilded with the ring of truth,

when in fact all he wanted at this moment was to put Perrig’s killer down like a rabid

animal.

Hyssos clasped his hands together to stop them making fists. Outwardly his icy

calm did not shift, but inside he was seething. The operative glanced at Sabrat as the

flyer began to circle in towards a landing. “What is this Whyteleaf?”

“What?” Sabrat turned suddenly, snapping at him with venom, as if Hyssos had

called out some grave personal insult. Then he blinked, the strange anger ebbing for a

114

moment. “Oh. Yes. It’s a winestock. Many of the smaller lodges store vintage