The Cold Between. Elizabeth Bonesteel

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СКАЧАТЬ hub of a starship.

      Elena scanned the paths before her, oblivious to the beauty she passed. She did not have to search long. He was walking toward her, his stride businesslike, and she had the impression that he had been coming to find her.

      “Captain,” she said as they approached each other, “I need to talk to you.”

      “I need to talk to you, too, Chief.”

      He stopped, glaring at her, and she felt a flash of exasperation. So much for their recent argument diffusing his pent-up anger. He was annoyed with her again, for God only knew what, and she did not have time to tiptoe around his temper. “Captain, I’ve got to go back down.”

      “The hell you do.” She could not tell if he was more incredulous or annoyed.

      Why does he never just listen? Ignoring his outburst, she said, “I need a shuttle, and I need to get down there right now, because they’ve been beating him up already, sir, and it’s only going to get worse.”

      “You are not going anywhere until you tell me about this PSI officer you spent the night with!”

      There were not a lot of people in the atrium: half a dozen that she could see, huddled in groups, hanging on to each other as they processed the shock of Danny’s death. Greg’s outburst had secured the attention of all of them.

      She didn’t care. “I’m trying to tell you, sir. They’ve got the wrong man, and that investigator isn’t going to let him go, and I have to get down there and untangle it or they’re not going to do a goddamned thing to find Danny’s killer.”

      “They’ve got his killer. And I want you to tell me what the hell PSI is doing dropping people on Volhynia.”

      She replayed that in her head, and could not make it comprehensible. “What are you talking about?”

      “That man you were with last night? I want to know who he was, and what he was doing there, and how in the hell Treiko Tsvetomir Zajec ended up on Volhynia murdering my crewman.”

      “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” She wanted to shake him. “He didn’t, Greg. He couldn’t have. He was with me when Danny died, and for hours afterward. What the hell are you talking about?”

      Slowly his eyes widened, some of his anger and frustration dissipating. “You’re telling me the suspect—Captain Zajec—that’s the PSI officer you spent the night with?”

      “What did you think?” she asked irritably. “That there were hordes of them down there, and one of them diverted me while the others hunted down Danny?”

      He was staring at her, but she knew the look. That was exactly what he had been thinking. “Come sit down,” he said at last, and took a step toward a bench next to the herb garden.

      Now you want to keep this private? “We do not have time.” But she followed him, and she saw the others turn away, losing interest in the argument.

      When she sat, he turned toward her. “Tell me.”

      “That man they’ve arrested. Treiko Zajec. He’s the man I was with last night. And unless they completely bollixed up the time of death, he could not have murdered Danny.”

      “You’re sure of this.”

      “Yes.”

      “He didn’t step out, comm someone else? What about while you were sleeping?”

      “We didn’t sleep.” He looked away, and she felt like shaking him again. “Greg, the ident. Are we really sure it’s him?”

      “He’s the right age,” he said, “and he’s apparently known to the local PD.” He rubbed his eyes, and for a moment she glimpsed his extreme fatigue. She wondered if he had commed Danny’s sister yet. “Elena, what the hell is a PSI captain doing in a place like Novanadyr?”

      The Fifth Sector was not their usual patrol. Galileo took the Fourth Sector, and was familiar with the PSI ships that shared their territory. Greg had met all of the officers, had even befriended a few of them; Elena knew most of their names. But even outside of the Fifth Sector, everyone in the Corps knew the names of its PSI captains: Piotr Adnovski, Valeria Solomonoff, Aleksandra Venkaya, and Treiko Zajec.

      The dark-eyed chef. Her lover.

      “He’s retired,” she told Greg. “He said about six months.”

      “Why Volhynia?”

      “He was born there.”

      “Why’d he leave?”

      She thought of the sister who did not want to acknowledge him. “He didn’t say. Greg, why does it matter?” She shifted, wanting to run to the hangar and get moving. “He didn’t kill Danny, and I need to make a statement, or they’ll hang it around his neck.”

      “I’ve talked to the cops,” he said. “Stoya, and that kid they’ve got in charge of it. They’re not stupid. You really think they’re just going to hang it on an innocent man?”

      “That kid they’ve got in charge of it is part of the problem,” she said.

      His face grew wary. “Why?”

      She told him.

      “Oh, that’s fucking marvelous,” he snapped. “The chief fucking investigator, knocked on his ass by the most notorious pirate in the sector, over you.”

      “So you see why I need to make a statement.”

      He shook his head. “Elena, you can’t go back there. What do you think they’re going to say when they find out you and Danny were lovers? You really think that’s going to help the guy?”

      “What are they going to do, call me a liar? With Central backing me up?” He just looked at her, and after a moment her stomach dropped. “Oh,” she said.

      “You go down there, you’re just going to make it worse.”

      “You’re telling me Central doesn’t care who killed Danny?”

      “It’s not about that.”

      His expression had closed again, and she clenched her teeth. God, this secrecy is bullshit. “Greg,” she asked him, “what’s going on?”

      “You know the political situation with Volhynia.”

      Everyone knew the political situation here. Volhynia: the planet that didn’t require terraformers, had a healthy, growing population, was a tourist center, and a scientific hub. Central needed people to believe that Volhynia was not the exception: that humanity was able to thrive out here, that they weren’t fighting a losing battle against score after score of hostile environments.

      But she could not believe Central would let the murder of one of their own go unpunished. “I don’t believe it,” she said flatly. “It’s something else, Greg, something that you’re trying not to tell me.” I’m going back with or without your permission, СКАЧАТЬ