Читать книгу A Strangled Cry of Fear - B.A. Chepaitis - Страница 7

Chapter 4

Home Planet, Virginia, USA

The Cleaner was on permanent retainer with the military and had worked for General Matthew Durk in the past, so he was admitted into his office without delay, his retinal scan giving him priority status. When he entered the office he walked across the very good Pakistani rug, the only personal item in the room besides a photo of the General’s yellow Labrador Retriever, to the desk where the General sat. He nodded politely, took a seat in the chair on the other side, and got right to business.

“I’m on Planetoid One for a while. You want anything done there?”

Durk didn’t ask what his job was. He knew better. “Is there anything worth getting?”

“I can grab some post-mortem data from their infirmary,” the Cleaner said. “They’ve got a lot of activity.”

“Point of Death?” Durk asked. His unit was researching heavily in that area right now. They’d found that post-mortem energies carried a punch in deltas unlike the living human energy field, and they wanted to study it further, though they didn’t yet know what they’d do with the information. But much of Psi Ops was speculative, and they didn’t mind dropping a dime to add to their store of information.

“That, and long-term. They’ve got a way of keeping the energy stable and present.”

This earned the Cleaner a small frown. “How?”

“A new vent system. It works off a laser field, and seems to do the trick.”

Durk nodded. That made sense. The energy also blocked empathic contact, a similar field and range. But he had another question about it. “Why would they want to?”

“I’m looking into ways they might use it. See if they can access it to up the ante on their own energy system. They’re always interested in saving a buck on One.”

Durk’s frown deepened into a look of derision. “You think you’re dealing with lab rats?” he asked. They’d tried holding onto post-mortems in Special Ops, and got nothing but trouble. For reasons they couldn’t explain, they created turbulence in all their equipment.

“Not that different,” the Cleaner said. “I shifted my equipment to accommodate the overload, take care of the glitches. I’m guessing I can figure out the rest. You want me to bring you some data on it?”

Durk considered, tapping his wooden hand against his desk. He doubted it would work, but the Cleaner was good at that kind of thing. It was, he said, a hobby he enjoyed. Psi ops might as well look at his numbers. “Do so,” he said. “The usual rate of pay. Anything else?”

“A Dr. Addams is paying a visit,” he said. “For a Planetoid investigation. I hear she gave you some trouble once. If you want, I can do a cleaning on her.” He had no objection to getting paid twice for doing the same job.

“No,” he said, definite and without room for negotiation.

The Cleaner let it go. He never pushed these things. The client was either interested or not. “Data retrieval on her?” He could work that in somewhere between Discredited and Dead.

Durk waved his wooden hand in dismissal. She used psi capacities his unit couldn’t even name yet, and from a past incident he knew her knife could slit a throat in under a second.

“You couldn’t shine her shoes without getting a heel in your eye,” he said. “Leave her alone. Get the post-mortem data. That’s all.”

The Cleaner rose, shook down his pant legs. “Sure,” he said. He turned and walked away. He didn’t waste time, and neither did the General.

But as he put his hand on the doorknob, Durk spoke. “Wait,” he said. The Cleaner did so.

“Are you already cleaning her for someone else?” Durk asked bluntly.

The Cleaner kept his hand on the doorknob, didn’t turn around. “Do I kiss and tell?”

Durk grunted, and his wooden hand went tap tap tap on the desk. “If that’s your job, you’re in deep shit. Better men than you have tried and failed.”

The Cleaner shrugged. He’d heard that about her. It didn’t bother him. “Maybe better,” he said, “but not smarter. And I have the best toys.”

He opened the door and left the office.

One of Durk’s guards, standing outside the door, watched him leave, and then was surprised to hear a sound not often associated with the General.

From within the office, he was sure he heard that man laugh.

* * * *

Planetoid One

The shuttleport on One was noisy with the motion of machinery, goods, and people. Jaguar stood inside it, listening to the announcements of arrivals and departures, to the low and constant hum of the ventilation system, the cacophony of voices that always sounded louder here.

She stared up at the translucent ceilings, then around at the people walking by or being driven in the shuttleport carts. They all looked busy, many working their cellcoms or pressing one hand against an ear and speaking rapidly to whoever was on the other end of their earpieces. Most of them wore suits and carried briefcases, a very different fashion sense than that on Planetoid Three. She sighed and picked up her bags, scanning for the sign pointing to Tunnel 10, which led to the bubble dome housing she’d be staying in. When she found it, she walked.

She’d last been here six years ago—or was it seven? Seven years. Not, she decided, long enough.

She saw a flash image of herself, a memory from when she’d first arrived, new at the job but with a head full of her own ideas about how to manage prisoners. She’d been prepped for her work by both the intense Planetoid training and by the work she’d done with Jake and One Bird, her guardians and mentors after her grandparents were killed during the Serials. They’d worked her harder than the Planetoid ever could, putting her through a series of sweat lodges, testing her empathic boundaries by every means possible. They knew the risks she’d face, and knew her well enough to realize she’d go beyond even the ones they could imagine.

She’d done so more than once, and she supposed she would again. That much hadn’t changed, though other things had.

Now she carried more confidence and a great deal less pain than the young woman who’d walked these corridors seven years ago. At that time the first person to greet her was Diane Lasher, who came up to her, extended a hand and said, “Dr. Addams? Welcome. Glad to have you with us.”

She clasped Jaguar’s hand firmly, smiled as if she meant what she said. Jaguar, doing a quick read on her, realized she did. She had very little dishonesty in her, and even less complexity. She was as she presented herself—warm, enthusiastic, high energy.

Her native warmth went far to thaw Jaguar’s naturally cool exterior, and her capacity for laughter reminded Jaguar that happiness still existed in a pure form for some people. Diane had been with her historian parents in the protected boundaries of a small village in France during the Killing Times, helping them research the Little Ice Age of the 1600s while Jaguar was struggling to survive on the streets of Manhattan. She was the first person Jaguar knew who was unscathed by that event, unscathed by the world in any real way. All she’d ever known was love and support, and that was what she extended to others.

Diane, whose light she drank like a promise, offered the possibility of other truths than the ones she’d lived. Through her friendship she’d been taken under Regina Hawthorne’s broad wings, and her soothing influence worked its magic as well. They had changed her. They had, she thought, been more than friends.

Jaguar’s mother died in childbirth, and she’d been raised by grandparents. When they were murdered, she’d gone to the New Mexico village of Thirteen Streams, where Jake and One Bird, contemporaries of her grandparents, had taken over her guardianship. But Regina was more of an age to serve as a mother figure, which was different. And Diane had become the sister she’d never had. They were, she thought, the closest she’d ever get to a nuclear family. Unfortunately, they reached critical mass, for all the wrong reasons.

Diane’s betrayal came as a physical shock, the hand that always supported her knocking her flat instead. Even worse, she knew Diane was acting in accord with her most deeply held principles, part and parcel of who she was. Jaguar couldn’t hate her for being exactly who she was after she’d learned to love her for that same reason. To this day what she held in memory of Diane was a sense of her light, which had given her hope. Because of that she’d returned to Plaentoid One. But a different Dr. Addams was here today.

Planetoid One was also different in some ways. When she was last here they didn’t have half as many mutoids, and the work programs were still just a concept Regina was trying to realize. Now most of their population was classified either mutoid or criminally insane, and the work programs were central to their operations.

However, their attitude toward empaths remained the same. The regulations that once prohibited hiring Teachers with empathic capacities were gone, but Planetoid One still strictly enforced the rules against use of psi capacities with prisoners. On Three and Two the unwritten rule said a skilled empath could do their job as they saw fit, if they didn’t make a noise about it. That, Jaguar knew, was largely because of Alex, the first Supervisor to quietly allow his Teachers to use the arts, always backing them in their choices and discreetly offering his own empathic skills in ways that proved too useful for the governing entities to give up.

That wasn’t the case on One, where they stuck to psychotherapeutic and medical programs, their people trained in using neural probes and medications more than anything else.

“Technotoys and drugs,” Jaguar mumbled to herself. “New names. Same old shit.”

Of course some prisoners needed medical intervention. They had more illness than fear. But the Planetoids weren’t the place to treat them, and the home planet didn’t need more excuses for not dealing with them. Planetoid One was becoming a warehouse for the unwanted, exactly what the system was supposed to prevent. Soon they’d be stocking up on empaths so the home planet wouldn’t have to deal with that issue, either. Maybe, she thought, they were starting with her.

She followed the pink glow of surveillance lights to the entrance of her bubble dome, and at the gate she put her face to the retinal scan and waited. The station guard read it and told her someone was coming to meet her. She should stay put. As if, she thought, there was anywhere she could go.

She gazed up at the translucent dome above her, feeling the waves of micro and radiant energy it took to maintain the structure, the laser fencing surrounding all facilities. It made her neurons crackle, made it impossible to establish empathic contact outside its boundaries, disturbed her perceptual field in subtle ways. She wasn’t good at dealing with massive energy incursions. She wondered how she’d put up with it for the year she’d worked here. Of course, the last time she was here she wasn’t trying to contact anyone empathically outside of the domes, or worried about someone trying to kill her.

“Someone’ll be here for you soon,” the guard said, eyeing her restless motion. She made herself still and waited until she saw Regina moving toward her on the other side of the gate. She was dressed in long skirt and soft blouse, her usual attire. Jaguar always wondered about it. Such soft clothing for a woman with such secure control over her particular realm. But it probably put others off their guard, made them suspect she was herself soft, until it was too late.

“Jaguar,” she said warmly as she approached, “I hate to say it, but it’s good to see you.”

Jaguar smiled and let Regina hug her briefly, returned the squeeze and released her. Regina kept her hands on Jaguar’s shoulder and surveyed her, her face full of sympathy.

“I know,” she said, “it’s horrible for you. But selfishly, it’ll be nice for me to spend some time with you.”

“You’d be the only one here who feels that way, Regina,” Jaguar said.

“You’re probably right. But we’ll make the best of it.” Regina nodded at the guard. “Have someone bring Dr. Addams’ bags to her room,” she said. “Harris corridor, room 131.” She took Jaguar’s arm and led her forward. “Much better,” she said. “Now we can stroll unencumbered. You remember Harris corridor?”

“I was there for three months when I first got here.”

“You’ll find nothing’s changed, except there’s a new coffee shop around the corner at Jenkin’s Market. But how are you, Jaguar? Not just now, but in general, I mean.”

“Outside of this, I’m fine Regina. Work’s going great, and all’s well with the world.”

Regina smiled, bringing up dimples in her round face. “I believe you. You seem. . . .relaxed. Even here. But work’s what you think of first. What about the rest of your life?”

Jaguar paused, smiled at her blankly.

“Social life, love life, personal growth, family and friends—the rest of your life, Jaguar,” Regina prompted.

“Oh. That. Well, that’s fine, too. I’m singing a lot with Moon Illusion—when I can, of course. Gerry’s pretty upset when shit like this happens and he has to do his own singing.”

“And?” Regina asked.

She was fishing for something, and Jaguar thought she knew what. Regina, perpetually single, always encouraged her workers to establish solid relationships, even to start families, though more often than not that meant they left their work here. Jaguar tried to take the conversation elsewhere.

“My people on the Home Planet are well. I was there recently with—” she stopped herself, realizing she was about to say with Alex. “With an assignment,” she amended. “You really have to let me take you to Thirteen Streams sometime. You’d love New Mexico.”

Regina laughed. “Don’t try your evasive tactics with me. I won’t let you wiggle out of this. The grapevine says you’ve taken a lover.”

Jaguar offered a cool smile. “Do they think that’s a first for me?”

“Oh, Jaguar. This is me. You and Alex—are you together now? At last?”

She wanted to say yes, wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to share her joy, especially with Regina, mentor, model, and the closest to a mother she’d ever had. Her example showed Jaguar how a woman might find her power within this very male system. She and Diane spent quite a few nights sitting at Regina’s table after hours, drinking wine and arguing with enthusiasm about various theories of rehab for prisoners. They’d come to be seen as a triumvirate of powerful women, some of the men referring to them as the three witches, asking how their last cauldron had gone, the sharpness of their fear cloaked within a jovial, joking manner.

And Regina, who’d seen her pain at Diane’s abandonment, also saved her ass from being fired altogether. She’d sent her to Alex, and would certainly be glad of her happiness with him. But Jaguar was reluctant to give up any secrets here. Too many ghosts, and all of them listening. Too much knowledge might put Regina in a bad position at some point. That was either paranoia, or her finely honed instinct for danger, her capacity to pick up on the smallest signal of it in a face, in a gesture, in the air. Either way, she’d listen to it.

“People have been talking about me and Alex for as long as I’ve been on Three, Regina,” she said. “I’d think they’d get tired of it by now.”

Regina showed clear disappointment. “Then it’s not true?”

Jaguar was a lousy liar, but she had a talent for evasion, and she used it. “I can get sex anywhere,” she said, “but a really good supervisor is hard to find. You think I’d risk it?”

Regina sighed. “I’ve said this to you before, Jaguar. Love is worth a risk or two.”

Jaguar grinned. “Yes, Mother. I remember. And our work should be part of that love, caring for the prisoners as if they were our own children.”

Regina laughed. “I remember saying that. Vaguely. How much wine did we drink that night?”

“Too much. And some tequila got in there somehow, I think.

“Those were good days,” Regina said, sounding wistful. “But—well, if you’re happy, I’m happy for you. Are you? Happy?”

“I’m happy to be alive,” she said. “Happy my hair is looking as good as it is. Happy about a really good tequila. How’s everything with you? Anything interesting going on?”

“I’m getting old, Jaguar. The most interesting thing in my life is waking up in the morning.”

Jaguar laughed. “Not this week.”

“You may be right. Ah—here’s the scanning station.”

They passed into a small grey room, where red lights blinked as they were scanned for weapons, drugs, any suspect object. Jaguar’s glass knife passed through undetected, as always. For as many new sensors that were invented, humans came up with a way of sneaking past them.

“That’s fine, then,” Regina said, when the lights all turned green.

They moved through the open space beyond the entrance checks, and from there into what served as the streets of the bubble domes—broad corridors banked by housing facilities. They were the equivalent of hotel suites, row upon row of numbered doors that all looked the same except for the small decorations some people put on their doors to help them find their own rooms after a night of carousing at one of the pubs or lounges.

“Do you need anything before we get to your room?” Regina asked. “We can stop at the market.”

“I just want to settle in. I can shop tomorrow—I mean, I think I can. What’s my routine here? Has a schedule been set for me, or am I supposed to wing it?”

Regina chuckled. “Nobody would dare let you improvise, Jaguar. No, we’ve got a pretty full schedule laid out. Piles of records to go through, tours, interviews with Diane’s co-workers, sessions with Francis. And you’ll be attending daily meetings so you’ll understand our system as you investigate.”

She stifled a groan. Alex was right. They wanted to kill her. Death by meetings. “Great,” she said as heartily as she could. “What’s first on the agenda?”

“Tomorrow is orientation, and a training on our new psychotropics. You’ll find that interesting. We’ve seen some great results with this generation of Alitrans. They lower mutoid anxiety levels considerably.”

Without thinking Jaguar opened her mouth and let some untactful words fall out. “Nice to know the miracle of science can relax the slaves,” she said dryly.

Regina stopped walking and regarded her with pained courtesy. “These are my programs, Jaguar. I’ve developed them very carefully, with our prisoners’ welfare in mind. ”

Jaguar regretted the sharpness of her words, though she continued to believe they were true. It was something she’d argued about with Regina in the past, and she would continue to do so.

“Sorry,” she said, “I’m tired and my mouth got ahead of my brain. And don’t get me wrong. I like work programs for prisoners.”

“I know. We talked about it often enough. But you’ve been making lots of noise against these. Frankly, it’s troubled me.”

“It’s not your vision that’s wrong,” Jaguar said. “It’s the connection between the prisoners and your economy. The Planetoid’s getting dependent on what they do. Last time that happened—well, we both know what came next.”

Before the Planetoids, prisons on the home planet swelled to house millions, most of them poor or mentally ill, racially or geographically disadvantaged. They became an industry, a complex system of economic interdependency. When they were no longer supportable the states started release programs, but they let all the wrong prisoners loose while cutting social welfare programs that might help them adjust. Those prisoners began the ritual killing that became the Killing Times. The Planetoids were built to make sure that never happened again.

“We both also know there’s lots of people who believe empaths started the Killing Times,” Regina noted.

Jaguar paused, looked to her. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“Of course not,” Regina said. “I’m saying your sight may be limited by your experience, just as the vision of other people is limited by theirs.”

“Or maybe I’m the voice crying in the wilderness, making sure your model doesn’t go to bad places. I don’t want home planet legislators thinking we should all be dependent on our prisoners to support us. They’re way too inclined to take the easy way out in these matters.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Jaguar. You have some funding advantages,” Regina said. “A few Senators to call your own.”

Jaguar cast her a quick glance, saw her mouth pinch in and quickly release. The tiniest expression of resentment, flashed once and swallowed into a smile. Jaguar had the high regard of Senator MacDanials, who was on the budget committee. A Senator in her nonexistent pocket, and Regina resented it.

“If that’s true,” she said, “I think we earned them.”

Regina ducked her head down, brought it up again. “Did I sound petty? I apologize. I just hate grubbing for money. Very tiresome work. But really, Jaguar, don’t you ever worry about what you do on Three? So much opportunity for abuse of the system. And the prisoners there are so toxic.”

“Francis was no slouch.”

“He’s mentally ill. It’s different than someone who—who eats their husband with a stir fry.”

Jaguar grinned at this reference to one of her assignments. “You heard about her? She’s actually doing fine. Got through her program and went on to work in a battered woman’s shelter on the home planet.”

Regina tsked softly. “She worked out, but what about the ones who don’t?” she asked.

Jaguar shrugged. “Next life cycle.”

Her success rate was 98 percent, but Regina knew her failures usually ended up dead. The consequences of failure on Planetoid Three were clear and high. Jaguar had no illusions about that. Neither did her prisoners.

Regina shook her head. “You say that, yet you voted against execution for Francis.”

“My prisoners have a fighting chance,” she said. “Putting a mutoid in shackles and killing him when he’s defenseless—that’s a bureaucratic meat grinder.”

“Hm. I happen to agree. But what you do—I still think it’s cold. And I sometimes worry it’ll make you cold—cynical and bitter. You always had a tendency for—let’s call it primal detachment.”

Jaguar smiled at the term, and the worry. Much had changed, but Regina still took the mother hen position with her. She found it felt good. Reassuring. She never had the chance other children got, to be both rebellious and loved, by parents whose wisdom you eventually incorporated into your own complex worldview.

“No, Regina,” she said. “The exact opposite. If I can flip a pedophile or a murderer, even just one, it makes me less cynical. And I’ve flipped quite a few of each. Plus drug dealers, con men, cult leaders—well, you know.”

Gerry, Rachel, Adrian, Clare, and many other former prisoners now brought their store of good to the world because of her work. Watching a prisoner move from murder to remorse to compassion wasn’t easy. It left her feeling skinless, vulnerable to hope, that most terrifying of energies. But cynicism was the position of rationalists and disappointed romantics, and she was neither.

“What about the ones who don’t make it?” Regina asked, and Jaguar heard real concern in her voice. Something personal there? She cast her a glance, saw something like turbulence behind the calm in her clear blue eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

Regina shook her head. “Nothing. Just—I’m wondering.”

“Some of the prisoners don’t want to go on. They can’t figure out how to be different, and they don’t want to keep being who they are. And they all know the score by the time they get to me. They live with risk, and make choices. So do I.” She thought of her last conversation with Alex. “Not always comfortably, but always with full awareness.”

Regina looked around. “It’s different here. Our prisoners are productive and content without risking their lives.”

“But most of them never leave. These days, at least, your population doesn’t heal. They just—maintain.”

“It’s still a goal I’m more comfortable with.”

“No concerns that the home planet is using you as a dumping ground, a way to get rid of all the mutoids they can’t be bothered with?”

“If that’s the case, they’re better off here, where we can be bothered.”

“Yeah,” Jaguar admitted. “You may be right about that. But it’s just not what I do.”

Regina’s face brightened. “Then, as usual, we’ll have to agree to disagree, with mutual respect, yes?”

Jaguar smiled. The mother and daughter bond, unbreakable except under the most extreme circumstances. We are different, but we are still connected, in the most essential ways. “It’s always worked before,” she said.

“Yes. And since we’re on that subject, there’s something I’ll need from you.”

“Tell me.”

Regina held her hand out. “Your knife. No weapons allowed here.”

Jaguar felt her smile freeze in place. “Teachers here have weapons.”

“You’re a visitor, Jaguar. Not a Teacher.”

“I’m investigating a murder. I should have the means to defend myself.”

“From what? Meetings and reports? Your knife won’t get you out of that. And if I let it through, there’d be hell to pay. Susan Eideler’s already been very clear about that.”

Jaguar’s jaw tensed. Without speaking, she unstrapped the mechanism that held the retractable blade close to the skin of her wrist. A shiver washed through her, then she put her hand out and let it go.

“Thank you,” Regina said. “And don’t worry. I’m keeping a good watch on everyone while you’re here. They all know that.”

That, Jaguar supposed, was something. Regina was kind, soothing, but she allowed for no breach of her rules, and she’d shown herself to be protective of Jaguar in the past. Still, there was a murderer abroad. Jaguar wasn’t about to forget that.

“You think Diane’s killer will care what you think?” she asked.

Regina startled. “But—well, Francis killed her.” She stopped walking, looked to Jaguar. “You know that, don’t you? Alex told you, right? I know the protocol leans toward execution but, well . . . .”

She let the sentence trail to silence and thought of Alex’s conversation with Regina. “You hope I’ll figure out a way around the protocol?” she asked.

“You are very good at that,” Regina admitted. Then, she sighed. “I’d much rather let Francis live out his natural life here. We’d keep a better watch on him, of course. Adjust his meds and so on, but I don’t want him executed. I spoke against it, but others pushed for it. Quite vocally.”

“Who was the loudest?” Jaguar asked. That, she thought, would be a good place to start digging. And it would be better to dig while Regina believed she was merely trying to prevent an execution.

“Susan Eideler was one. She was good friends with Diane. And of course Diane’s ex-fiancee—Ned Tackerson—had a lot to say. Do you remember him?”

“I don’t think he was here when I was. I didn’t even know she got engaged.”

“You’re right. He came right after you left. They had quite the affair, and then they broke it off, but they stayed friends. He’s not a Teacher, though. He works in our PR department.”

“You have a PR department?”

“Something else we started after your time. Our production programs grew, and we had a lot of interaction with the home planet, selling our wares, so it proved useful. In fact, our PR director and the production manager are on the home planet now, setting up marketing and distribution for our Big Bear exports.”

“Like the bear Francis clutches?”

“That’s right. It’s a very successful export. Francis used to work in production, stuffing the bears, and Derek Rhinehart, the production manager, lets him keep one or two. He’s a lovely man. You’ll interview him when he comes back. Him and our PR director, Clyde Holmesby.”

Jaguar bit back on some words she knew she shouldn’t say. Instead, she considered Regina’s stance, and how to make use of it. “So you won’t mind if I gather enough evidence to establish reasonable doubt for Francis? At least, enough to get rid of the execution order.”

“You’d be doing us all a favor,” Regina said. “Aside from the humanitarian considerations, executions don’t do our reputation any good.”

“Okay,” Jaguar said. “Then let’s start with the fact that Diane was strangled from behind and Francis always attacked from the front.”

“No good,” Regina said. “His defense lawyer tried that, but Francis made those marks on her, and everyone knows that’s his signature.”

Jaguar sighed. That was all she had. That, and the ephemeral Francis carried, but she couldn’t even mention that here. Regina wasn’t one to see the spirit realm as a solution to mundane problems. “Then I’ll need something else,” she said.

“Like what?” Regina asked.

“The most logical thing is finding someone else who might have killed her. Someone with motive, means, opportunity.”

Regina frowned. “I—I hadn’t considered that, oddly enough. An interesting denial on my part. But I’m not sure you’ll find anything. Everyone liked Diane very much. Even though. . .”

“Even though what?”

“Well, there were some accusations about a relationship with a female prisoner—a pretty young schizophrenic woman, here for aggravated assault. She wasn’t responding well to medication, and we had trouble with her before Diane took over her case. Then, of course, she had to be removed from it. The girl didn’t make the accusation, though. Susan Eideler reported an incident she thought was suspicious.”

Susan again, Jaguar thought. She was everywhere. “I thought you said they were friends.”

“They were. Thick as thieves. But Susan’s a stickler for the rules, and she felt obligated, she said. There was a thorough investigation, but it came to nothing. You knew Diane, so you know how unlikely it was. It broke off her engagement with Ned, though. Or, something did. They broke up just around that time.”

“And you think it was this accusation?”

“I’m not sure. It could be just one of those things. In a closed system like ours relationships get heated fast. Sometimes too fast to realize they won’t work. But Susan and Diane patched it up, somehow. Diane respected what it took for her to make the report, thank God. You can imagine how difficult that kind of fight makes things. Here’s your room.”

Regina stopped and opened a door, one in a long row that all looked the same. These rooms were for visitors and new workers. No point giving them the better housing until they looked like staying. She handed Jaguar her key card, and the two women stepped inside.

Jaguar looked around. Her bags were already there. Other than that there was a bed. A desk. A bathroom. A kitchenette with a tiny refrigerator, a toaster oven, microwave, and a hot plate. She remembered the set up from her first six months here. That, at least, hadn’t changed, except for the small black circle on the ceiling she recognized as surveillance equipment, and a black box on the wall she knew as an intercom.

“Cozy,” she said.

“I know it’s not much, but you can take your meals in the dining halls, and this way,” she pointed at the circle, “we can keep an eye on you.”

“Right,” Jaguar said. “What’s that for?” she pointed at the intercom.

“So you can reach security quickly, or for security to reach you if they see trouble headed your way.”

“Can I turn it off?”

Regina raised her eyebrows. “Why would you want to?”

“So I can get some sleep.”

Regina closed the door behind them. “It’s for your safety, Jaguar. Alex was concerned. I think he’s overly cautious, but I didn’t want to take any chances, so I had this installed. It was the least I could do.”

“I always thought that was a funny phrase,” Jaguar noted.

Regina folded her hands together and regarded Jaguar thoughtfully. “There were other precautions I wanted to take. I wanted a guard or a laser fence for your interviews with Francis, but you wouldn’t have them at your initial interview, so that was voted down. Especially since you said he didn’t kill Diane.”

“Hoist by my own petard?” Jaguar asked.

“If there’s ever any hoisting around you, that’s usually what does it,” Regina noted dryly.

“Yeah. And I’m guessing Susan was also loud about it.”

Regina shrugged.

“You couldn’t fight that? And here I thought you could do just about anything.”

“Jaguar. That’s silly.”

“No,” she said. “I really did. Especially when I first came here and saw how much you did get done.”

Regina smiled, obviously flattered, but she was not an arrogant women. She brushed it away with a wave of her hand. “The moment of disillusionment comes to all students. All good students, that is. I’m glad our friendship could survive it. Someone will send your schedule of meetings by morning, but I’ll stop by and bring you to dinner tomorrow night. We’ll eat in the common lounge and I’ll introduce you around.”

“As long as I’m not the first course,” she said.

“Audiences don’t eat their entertainers. You provide a little thrill of adventure. Much needed on these sky islands.”

“I suppose,” Jaguar said. “Though I could do with less adventure and more dancing.”

“Well, on Saturday nights, in the Terra Lounge, we have that, too.”

Regina left Jaguar unpacking her bags and wondering who would ever dance with her here.