“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.”