“I doubt it,” said Verity, thinking privately that John Aaron didn’t have any honor. “You don’t think he could have gone anywhere?”
He shrugged. “Where?”
She considered. “There’s no proper GPS for getting detailed surveillance beyond the base. He could have had an ally put a ship down. The spy took the horse and he was going somewhere. He presumably got his information from someone. It might be John Aaron was an inside informant.”
Smith shook his head. “Unlikely, but it bears consideration. I’ve no idea how the spy got in here. The ANT reported unauthorized personnel, but we recently had a shipment of goods and a staff change, so it’s most likely he found a way to stow away on that. It is an awfully long way to come to Callisto to steal something, and rather expensive using one’s own transport. Possibly the spy panicked when the alarm went off, and took a horse in some kind of desperate hope, thinking he might be able to hide outside.”
Verity thought that seemed a bit of a stupid thing for a spy to do, but then she also thought it was stupid of the spy to have reached for a weapon when she had told him twice to stop. It could be he was merely a very inept spy. She said nothing.
“I’ll need to speak to Inquisitor Farron about the spy.” The Commodore’s face gave a slight twitch when he spoke Farron’s name, and his tone changed slightly. “It makes sense to ask him if he knows anything about Private Aaron while we’re there but, before we go, there’s another matter I need to discuss with you. There’s a breeding program commencing involving the base’s horses. Torrmede have sent someone to oversee it, some sort of scientist.”
“Vladimir Bolokhovski.” Verity pulled the name off the ANT. “He was hanging around the stable block earlier.”
“Yes. I’d like you to introduce him to the facilities here, and make sure he knows what he’s doing with this breeding program.”
“But, Sir,” she said, “it’s Referendum Day! I’m supposed to get the afternoon off so I can read and vote.”
“Sergeant Verity, I am not suggesting you have to do it this afternoon. I meant for you to arrange with him to do it in your own time.”
Verity protested, “I’m looking after the core-sampling project already. Sergeant Black’s better at this sort of thing than I am. She harps on about it enough. Why don’t you ask her to do it?” Verity frowned. “Has Sergeant Black been saying things about me?”
“Verity, we are not discussing Sergeant Black’s profile of abilities, we are discussing yours. I’m aware you have recently been involved in an incident, but may I remind you that you are a sergeant in the Sky Forces, and while this particular branch of the Sky Forces is not a true military division, you are still expected to conduct yourself in the proper manner!”
Something in Smith’s posture and parlance told Verity her suspicion was correct. Sergeant Black had never liked Verity, since even before Callisto. When she’d confided on the matter to Gecko, he’d thought it was because Verity was younger than Black, and Black envied her Magnolia Order connection. Her enmity had worsened when Verity was promoted to sergeant only a month after Black, who was five years Verity’s senior. Furiously, Verity wondered why, if Black had a problem with her, she couldn’t say it to her face. Backstabbing arse-licker!
“Do you think it is acceptable, just because certain aspects of your career profile are very strong, that you should neglect other parts of it?”
Verity folded her arms. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t be disingenuous! You weren’t promoted to sergeant for nothing, but it certainly wasn’t your interpersonal skills that put you in line for it. Now, if you are at all concerned about what I am going to write on my report about this incident, you can put those concerns out of your mind. I’m convinced you acted in a manner that was absolutely judicious and rational, and your training has served you extremely well today. Had you contacted me through the ANT and asked me what to do, I would have told you to do exactly as you did. Only you didn’t, quite rightly, because you knew explaining the situation to me would cost you time you needed, and so you made the decisions yourself, and they were the right ones.”
Smith paused to give Verity some time to consider this before continuing. “Now, your most recent appraisal shows that your interpersonal skills need work. This is one of two reasons why I’ve decided to give this duty to you. If you want to know my other reason, it’s because I honestly think you are the best member of staff here in terms of handling the horses. Certainly Sergeant Black and I are trained to use them, and do so effectively, but you understand them. Surely you can see that the best person to train someone how to handle horses is such a person who understands them thus?”
Verity took her gaze away from his face and stared at the surface of the desk. “I suppose so, Sir.”
“Good, then. Let’s go to the Inquisitor’s laboratory.”
* * * *
The Inquisitor greeted them in the entrance to his laboratory. Lloyd Farron had wavy hair with a tawny, auburn color, extending into luxuriant full-length sideburns. With his sturdy, medium-height build, he looked like a lion. He had a mug of tea in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other.
“Morning, Commodore. Sergeant Verity.” Lloyd glanced sideways at Verity and smiled, one eyebrow twisting below his interface apparatus. In addition to the standard fixed neural shunt in the center of the forehead, the Inquisitor had two auxiliary shunts just forward of his temples with a web of diodes and extra wiring interconnecting all three, supposedly to shield his mind from bleed-back off the people he interrogated. Verity doubted the efficacy of those, and there had to be some truth somewhere at the root of the rumor of the inquisitors’ compromised sanity. No one can dodge bleed-back, same as you can’t evade age and death. A hundred years ago, people used to say “death and taxes,” but that no longer worked since the Meritocracy made paying taxes an optional privilege. Perhaps one day scientists would find a cure for ageing, and then there’d only be bleed-back and death left. Verity couldn’t see death ever going away. Probability always wins in the end.
“Indeed it is morning,” said Commodore Smith, his attention drawn to the windows running the span of the outer wall, where a pale glow lightened the horizon.
“For the next four days,” said Verity.
Lloyd rubbed his hands together briskly. “Good Referendum Day. Was there something you wanted to speak to me about?” He glanced rapidly back and forth between Verity and the Commodore.
“Yes.” Smith fidgeted with his fingers. Tall and sable-haired, he looked very different to Lloyd. Verity could see the discomfort written on his face. People feared a man like Lloyd Farron, who could prize open someone’s mind at will. Verity, on the other hand, had from her first encounter with him seen it as something enticing, something dangerously exhilarating.
“I’ll need your report on the spy Verity terminated,” Smith said.
“I don’t have the information yet. It shouldn’t take more than a day. I’ll file a private report on the ANT once I’m sure I’ve extracted everything.”
Verity had been looking round the lab while they spoke, at the computers and the interrogation chair with its thick straps to restrain the arms and heads of Lloyd Farron’s subjects. In the far corner a lot of machinery had been connected to something Verity realized, with a pang of dread, was the head of the spy she had brought back, mounted on a stick like some grisly trophy. The long hair had been hacked off with scissors, and the face was covered with lacerations from Verity’s makeshift ice pack. The wound at the neck she had made with her katana looked unnaturally straight, perfectly horizontal, and thick tubes delivering oxygenated reanimation fluid had been clamped to its blood vessels. Wires trailed over the table around the head and jacks had been plugged into the shunt on its forehead. Saliva dribbled constantly from the mouth, and