Mari stopped in front of a random door like any other. “The observation platform is here,” she said. The door opened to reveal a large room with dark, nonreflective flooring and a wall that was either entirely transparent or a huge viewscreen. It must have been on the side of the station, because the system’s red giant wasn’t visible, just the blackness of space lit by clusters of stars and galaxies near and far. It was beautiful, awe-inspiring, and not remotely what Vakar probably wanted to see.
“Thank you,” Vakar said politely, stepping inside and bending his knees back so he could kneel on the floor. At least he could hack from just about anywhere, depending on their systems.
The door closed and Mari continued to lead Eva and Sue in silence. As full of questions as Eva was, she suspected she wasn’t going to get anything out of her sister now, especially with every person they passed glaring at Eva like she’d pissed in their protein powder. Her leg was holding up, no doubt thanks to the painkillers Pink had dosed her with, but Eva was starting to regret that she hadn’t asked Mari to get her a hoverchair instead of taking this long walk. At least Sue had fixed her gravboots so they weren’t randomly sticking again.
They eventually entered an elevator, which gave Eva an annoyingly anxious flashback to the last time she’d been to Nuvesta and fought off a slew of bounty hunters, but this one was fast and quiet except for the VI announcing “forty-two” when they reached the appropriate floor.
Like the observation platform, this room was large and dark with a floor-to-ceiling view, but it showed the enormous orange-red star, its surface roiling with heat. In the center of the room was a bare metallic desk with two chairs, one behind it and one in front of it, both occupied by people Eva could barely see because of the star’s placement. She summoned up her isohelmet and shifted its color to shade her eyes.
“Captain Innocente, Mx. Zafone, thank you for joining us,” the figure behind the desk said in a voice that walked the line between smooth and hardass. Her hands were steepled under her chin, the soft glow of an old-fashioned commlink on her arm lighting her face from below. Kloshian, her tentacle-like hair swept back, her skin currently the blue-gray of a Terran marine mammal.
Eva inclined her head politely. “And you are?”
“Agent Elus,” she said. “I am the head of operations at this facility. My associate is Agent Miran.”
Miran was human, but his eyes had the catlike reflective sheen of implants, and neural tattoos ran down the exposed parts of his dark forearms. Probably heavier upgrades under the surface; expensive, and illegal in some places. He leaned back in his chair, ankle resting on his opposite knee, his posture as relaxed as a lion in its own den.
“Charmed,” Agent Miran said gruffly. “Let me be brief.”
“I like brief,” Eva said. “Cuéntamelo.” Sue shifted uneasily beside her, but Eva kept her attention focused on Miran.
“A number of civilian scientists escaped the destruction of the Fridge facility six months ago,” he said. “While we recovered a substantial amount of actionable data during our mission, some items were incomplete or indecipherable, so we’ve been trying to find these missing scientists to obtain their help.”
“I assume this relates to the Gate you and your Forge buddies are building out there?” Eva asked. She still wasn’t sure it was a Gate, but it was worth a shot. Sue gasped next to her, and Eva hoped that didn’t wreck the bluff entirely.
Agent Miran’s gaze twitched slightly to one side; he had looked at Mari, behind Eva’s left shoulder. Well, if he wanted to think she’d told Eva about it, let him.
“It does,” he said. “For security reasons, I can’t tell you more.”
“You were secure enough to invite us here instead of meeting at a more neutral location.”
“Consider it a show of trust,” Agent Elus said.
Or a show of their headquarters being a giant space station that would probably disappear to another system before Eva could even think of selling them out. Which she wasn’t planning to do anyway. Eva smiled and mimed zipping her lips shut.
With luck, Vakar would have plenty to tell her later anyway.
“We want to hire you to track down one of the Fridge scientists,” Miran said, leaning forward with both feet on the floor, resting his forearms on his knees. “You would be compensated appropriately, including a fuel stipend and reimbursement for travel wear and tear on your ship.”
Nice. Eva was used to soaking up those expenses herself to stay competitive. But she still didn’t trust these people, and a hell of a lot of questions came to mind right away. She settled for the most immediate one.
“Why hire me for this?” Eva asked. “You’ve had six months to send your own agents after him, with all your resources.” She glanced back at her sister standing straight-backed with her arms crossed. “Why do you think I’ll do any better?”
“And why am I here?” Sue asked. Eva resisted the urge to pinch Sue’s arm, like her mom used to do when she didn’t want Eva to talk.
Agent Elus waved her hand over her commlink and a holo image appeared above the desk. A human with wild gray hair, apparently dyed because the roots were dark. His skin was pale, ruddy at the cheeks, and his dark eyes had the hooded, sullen look of someone who hated being interrupted. He wore a white lab coat over a bright-green shirt, black-gloved hand raised as if to stop whoever was taking the picture.
“Holy rusty buckets,” Sue said. “Josh?”
“Indeed,” Agent Elus said. “Your sibling, Joshua Zafone. He was one of the head engineers on the project whose research we require.”
“But he, he was . . .” Sue’s mouth opened and closed, and Eva could almost see her thoughts moving at light speed in a hundred different directions. The Fridge had told her Josh was a hostage, that her family had to pay a ransom to free him. “Head engineer” didn’t sound very hostage-like, no matter what language you tried it in, no matter how hard his arm had been twisted to do the work.
Eva knew how it felt, to be lied to about something like that. Mari’s presence behind her was a stark reminder. She gripped the head of her cane and made a mental note to have Pink talk to Sue about it later, in a private psych session.
“So you think Sue might know something you don’t,” Eva said. “Something that could help us find him where you failed.”
Agent Miran nodded, his profile lit by the dying star. “We also suspect that should you locate Mr. Zafone, he will be more cooperative if he’s approached by his own sister instead of a stranger.”
Eva raised an eyebrow. “He got away from you once, didn’t he?”
Miran’s gaze flicked in Mari’s direction again, and Eva suppressed a smile. It was nice to know her perfect sister could fuck things up occasionally.
“Just to make sure I have this straight,” Eva said. “You want me to find Josh and bring him back here, is that it?”
“Correct,” Agent Elus said. Her skin color darkened almost imperceptibly.
“Do you have a deadline?”
“Not a fixed one, but time is of the essence.” Elus waved a hand over her commlink again and her lips parted briefly, exposing knife-sharp teeth. “We can offer you a bonus if you bring him to us within the next twenty cycles.”