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Chapter Twelve


Spin One


Naliryiz rose slowly, her body very still, as Murphy explained. “Before I came out of the interview room, I scanned ahead to the corrections Yukannak had made about Reification. I suspected he hadn’t told me everything, but I wasn’t prepared for the full story.

“Catalysites do not ripen until they’ve gone through height of the Searing in the high desert beyond the Hamain.” He turned to Naliryiz, anticipating the question about to leave her mouth. “Yukannak doesn’t know—and maybe no Kulsian does—the crucial variables in that process. The radiation of the two stars at the right range; the humidity; the microbes in the air and the soil; the magnetic fields: Kulsians have tried to replicate all the variables in every possible combination. Without luck.”

Mara almost spat her summation. “So they come here every Searing to get these Catalysites or the master race on Kulsis stops being the master race. Is that about it?”

Murphy shrugged. “That’s how it started.”

“There’s more?”

“Yes. There’s economics, Mara. There’s the relationship between scarcity and value. The Overlords not only adapted to sending Harvester fleets here every eighty-eight years, they realized that any family that hoped to keep an ‘elevated’ genecode would want—would need—to be a part of that effort. If they didn’t do the actual gathering themselves, by helping, they could at least audit the process. Because there’s no honor among thieves—particularly those who are also autocrats.

“So now, the Overlords who control the Harvesting have leverage over every family that wants a share of the Catalysites: that wants to remain ‘superior.’”

Mara’s eyes narrowed. “Otherwise, sooner or later, they’ll get sent down to the southern hemisphere to join the rest of the defectives. Christ, it makes me want to puke.”

Naliryiz stood over Murphy. “Why?” she asked, holding Murphy’s eyes.

He stood. “Why what?” he countered, moving his gaze to someplace—anyplace—other than a meeting with her own.

“Why did you not tell me you knew of this?”

Really? How can you even ask me that? “If you mean not telling you when I learned what Reification is, I wasn’t about to put you in a position where you’d have to decide between keeping my secret or telling Anseker—as your oath requires.”

“But why keep it a secret at all?”

“It was the only way to be sure that it didn’t lead to an inquiry involving dozens of ego-bruised Families that might then paralyze our efforts to defeat the approaching fleet. And until now, I didn’t know how much of Yukannak’s story I could trust.

“But if you mean the secret that R’Bak is Kulsis’s only source of Catalysites, I just learned that when I flipped through his corrections in the interview room.”

“I must report to Anseker. Immediately,” she breathed. But she didn’t move.

Murphy nodded. “I understand. There will be more interviews with both Yukannak and Lanunaz. Do you wish to be present?”

“Is that what you wish?”

Murphy waited until he was sure his voice and his words would be perfectly calm and perfectly professional. “I’d be glad to have you as the Otlethes Family’s witness, if it’s convenient for you.”

Although nothing in her face changed, somehow Naliryiz looked as if she’d just been punched in the gut. She nodded, turned, and left.

Two seconds after she had, Mara let out a long, loud sigh. “Wow. Really turning on the charm there, huh, Murph?”

“We’ve been over this, Lee.”

“Apparently not often enough. Sir. Look: if you can’t be with her officially, and you still won’t take a chance to be with her on the sly—”

“Think of what that would mean, Major. Undisclosed meetings would be playing at the brink of political suicide.”

“Well, then at least you could have said something encouraging about the three of us getting together again.” Mara waved at the overhead fluorobars. “You know, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing your smiling face and violet eyes again!’”

“Impossibly corny. Besides, I can’t say anything remotely like that, not until the Harvesters are defeated and their wrecks are floating in our wake.”

“For Chrissakes, why?” Mara was almost shouting.

“Because Anseker has enough to worry about without one of his senior staff—and relatives—being seen with me.”

“I did say, the three of us, Colonel. Completely public.”

“And completely misreadable.”

“Look, Murph, no offense, but I don’t think anyone is going to ‘read you’ as the ménage à trois type.”

“Lee, can you be serious for a moment?”

“Sure . . . as soon as you can be clear. What, exactly, would there be to misread if the three of us were seen together publicly?”

“In a single sentence? That Family Otlethes was cozying up with two of the most influential Lost Soldiers, even to the exclusion of their own SpinDog peers.”

“Would anyone really see it that way?”

“Maybe not without a few helpful whispers, but you can bet there’d be plenty of muckrakers making the rounds. Unrepentant RockHounds. Secret Kormak sympathizers who still want to topple Anseker. Every primus wanna-be who worries that the Otlethes Family is becoming too ‘dominative.’ In short: that the balance of terror, which the SpinDogs call a balance of power, is in danger of becoming a unipolar state.”

Before she could object, Murphy put up a hand. “Look, Mara, you’re the only person I can speak to about any of this. About Naliryiz, about my MS, about the best way to respond when it finally catches up with me. So cut me some slack, okay?”

She bit her lower lip—whether in reluctance or regret, he couldn’t tell. “Sure, Murph.”

He stepped closer. “This isn’t just about me, Mara: this is about you, too. About the bag you’ll be left holding when I’m no longer around.” She started to step away; he held her with his eyes. “I’m not being paranoid or dramatic. Think it through. If something were to ever happen between Naliryiz and me, it would have to be completely aboveboard. There’s no way it could be a dalliance, and SpinDogs don’t ‘date.’ And there are too many cynical locals who’d immediately think, ‘Well, who knew? Murphy was a honeypot to get a second seat at the Otlethes’ family table.’ And that’s why I have to keep my distance until and unless we find an answer to my . . . my condition.

“Can you imagine the reaction if she and I were together and then it came out that I have multiple sclerosis? That I have a disease that renders me incapable of self-control, let alone ‘dominion’?

“We—none of us—would have a leg to stand on. The Otlethes would have to disown me and, to save face, they’d have to say they were tricked. And then what would happen to you? And your daughter with Ozendi? Is Anseker supposed to shield you? You, around whom there will always be this question ‘Did she know Murphy was defective? Did she keep the truth from Naliryiz, too? And isn’t that a betrayal of the whole Otlethes Family?’”

Now it was Mara who looked gut-punched, but he had to press on to one, final point. “Lee, if you haven’t thought about this yet, you should start. At some point, I won’t be able to conceal my condition. And I can’t let it take me slowly. If I do, that would make all the Lost Soldiers look weak, flawed, like a rootless bunch of ‘lesser beings.’

“So, there’s going to come a time where you’ll probably have to go in search of me. If you want my advice, you should fail to find me. That way, no one will ever have to tell a lie about the . . . the particulars of what you might actually encounter.” He made his eyes as hard as he could. “But if you actually disregard my advice, if you do go searching for me, you have to select a very small number of people to help you. People that you know intimately. People that you would trust with your life—because that’s probably what you’re doing. And if you choose wrong, that could be the end of you and all the Lost Soldiers.”

She nodded, eyes hollow. “I . . . I understand, Colonel.” She saluted, waited for his return. When he lowered his hand, she walked quickly out of the observation room.

Murphy sighed, tried to keep his shoulders straight as he took a long stride to the door to Interview One and opened it.

Yukannak was motionless, staring into the opposite corner.

“Sir?” asked the guard next to the table.

“Take the prisoner back to his cell, Corporal. We’re done, here.”


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