Chapter 18 #2
“There’s a problem,” Daxon says. “A Hunter can’t simply take a being.
That’s not how the license works — it’s not a hunting permit, it’s an enforcement instrument.
” He’s got his forearms on his knees now.
“I can only move on a target with a Bounty on him. A posted one, registered with the Guild, with a legal basis behind it that survives inspection. Somebody has to have brought a formal complaint, somewhere, and had it accepted.”
“And there’s no complaint against Andrew Wilson,” Ines says.
“There’s no complaint against Andrew Wilson anywhere in the Four Sectors, because as you’ve all just spent an hour explaining to me, that male has never once been charged with anything in his life.
” Daxon spreads his hands. “So I can’t touch him.
Not without a Bounty. If I take a being off Chronos with no Bounty posted, I lose the license, the Guild blacklists me in every sector, and I go from being the only one of you who can reach him to being another male stuck somewhere he can’t leave. ”
“You need a Bounty. And you need it to be real. The Guild checks.”
“I’ll post the Bounty.” Grytel doesn’t move.
“Sabotage of Illibrium infrastructure. It’s the one charge in the Four Sectors that every sector authority takes seriously without exception — it has to be, the whole of civilization runs on what comes out of this rock, and there are provisions in the founding compacts that predate the Houses entirely.
” He glances at Daxon on the screen. “As Chief Executive of Timbur Minecorp I have standing to bring a formal complaint on behalf of the operation. It’s my signature.
It’s my authority. Filed by end of shift tomorrow, if this room wants it. ”
“And it survives inspection?” Daxon says.
“It survives inspection because it’s true,” Grytel says.
“That’s the part I find restful about it.
A male took payment from a foreign House and used his sister’s credentials to compromise the security of an Illibrium extraction facility, and a facilities tech died.
I’m not manufacturing anything. I’m simply the first being in eight rotations who’s been willing to write it down. ”
“What does it cost you?” Cannibal asks. It’s the first thing my brother has said all night. He’s been standing at the back with his arms folded, and he means it as a real question, which from Cannibal is nearly courtesy.
Grytel turns to look at him. “Everything, probably,” he says.
“The moment that filing goes through, my name is on a public instrument declaring against House Vaszneth. Not implying. Declaring. I am Royal Pigment. My House is minor and my line is distant and I have spent eleven rotations being useful to beings who are neither, and every one of them will read that filing inside a diurnal. My cousins on Chronos will call it betrayal of blood. The Houses will call it worse. And Vaszneth kills witnesses. We’ve established that.
I’d be a great deal more than a witness. ”
“Then why do it?”
And Grytel of Thirty-Nine looks up at him.
“Because they used my name for eight rotations to murder your parents. They ran the whole thing out of my administration and let every being on this planet believe it was me, and I sat in that office and signed what they put in front of me and never once looked hard enough.” His voice doesn’t rise at all.
“I’ve had my name used for something I didn’t choose.
I’d like to use it once for something I did. ”
Cannibal looks at him for a long moment. Then he nods, once, and doesn’t say anything else, and from Cannibal that’s practically an embrace.
“It’s still not enough,” Mara says. She shifts in the chair with difficulty.
“You post a Bounty. Daxon goes and gets Andrew. Great. Then what? You’ve got a broke human gambler in a hold with no evidence connecting him to anybody, and House Vaszneth has never heard of him.
He’s a tool. You can’t put a House on trial for a tool. ”
“She’s right,” Ines offers. “So the question isn’t how do we catch Andrew. It’s what do we catch coming through him.”
“Go on,” Grytel says.
“He’ll come back,” Mara says.
Chief frowns. “He’s off-world.”
“He’ll come back, or he’ll reach out, or he’ll try to sell something.
He has to.” She sits forward. “You’re all treating my brother like an operative who got extracted.
He isn’t. He’s a gambler. Look at where he is right now.
He’s parked somewhere cheap with no income.
He took the largest sums of money he’s ever seen and he was broke again inside a moon cycle, three separate times, so he’s in deeper debt now than he was before they bought him.
And his employers are sitting there deciding whether he’s worth the food. ”
“He’s desperate,” Hallie says.
“He’s desperate. And a desperate male with exactly one skill in the world is going to try to use it again, because he’s never had another idea in his life.” Mara looks around the room. “So we don’t chase him. We give him something to sell.”
It takes an hour after that, all of them at once, the way this family does everything.
I watch with pride burning in my chest as Mara plans it all out with my family, Grytel and Daxon.
She’s going to build a false vulnerability in the old grid. A genuine-looking weakness in a section Andrew audited beside her for two moon cycles, documented, logged and hidden slightly too well, of exactly the type a House with ambitions toward this mine would pay a great deal to know about.
“He’ll recognize the work,” she says. “That’s the whole point. He’ll be able to see it’s mine — my notation, my method, the way I mark a load path. And he’ll know it’s real, because I’m the one who taught him what real looks like.”
“And how does he hear about it?” Chief asks.
“Because he still has one asset in the Four Sectors. Me.” Her jaw sets.
“He knows I’m taking a permanent Minecorp systems position.
I told him myself, in my own kitchen, the last morning I ever spoke to him.
He knows exactly where I’ll be and what I’ll have my hands on for the rest of my career.
If word gets to him that his sister has found something enormous in the old grid and hasn’t reported it up yet, then… ”
Ines nods. “He has something to sell.”
“And when he sells it,” Grytel says slowly, “Vaszneth has to send someone to Timbur to act on it.”
“Yes.” Mara sits back. “And whoever comes here is a House operative, on Timbur soil, on Minecorp property, committing a crime, in front of witnesses, documented by an investigative journalist, under the authority of the Chief Executive of the facility.”
“That’s a case,” Mara says.
Ines makes a small sound of pure professional joy. “Finally.”
Daxon’s voice comes off the screen, low. “And when they run,” he says, “they’ll run for Chronos. Which is where I’ll be sitting.”
“With a Bounty posted,” Grytel says.
“With two.” Daxon’s eyes are steady. “Post one on the brother and one on whoever comes off that rock. I’ll take them both. I’ve got a hold that’ll carry four and beings in three sectors who owe me a great deal more than they’d like.”
Grytel considers it. “That’s actually cleaner. If the second Bounty’s posted before the operation, then any being fleeing Timbur is fleeing a live warrant.”
“Then post it before. And when this starts, when she springs that trap, I’ll be in orbit.”
Chief’s head comes up. “You can’t land.”
“I’m not landing. The banishment order says I may not set foot on the surface of Timbur, and I have read that order approximately four hundred times, and it says nothing whatsoever about the orbit.
” Something dangerous and pleased goes across his face.
“A Hunter ship in a legal parking orbit above a Minecorp facility is a Hunter ship in a legal parking orbit. And every being who runs off that rock runs up.” He shrugs.
“It’s the closest I’ve been to my family in four rotations and it’s the closest I can legally get. I’ll take it.”
“And after?” Rook says. “If the ban lifts?”
“The ban will lift,” Grytel confirms.
Daxon looks at him. “Then I’ll bring Darcy and the boy for a visit. And my brothers you can hold their nephew.”
“That’s a promise.”
And Roxy, who has been quiet for most of an hour, looks across the room at Mara and says, “How long does it take to build?”
“The fault?” Mara doesn’t look up from the tablet she’s borrowed. “Properly? Six weeks. Eight, to make it perfect, and it has to be perfect, because Andrew audited beside me for two moon cycles and he’ll know the difference between a real load anomaly and…”
“Mara,” Roxy says gently. “You’re due next week.”
Mara puts the tablet down in her lap. “I know.”
“So when this actually happens — when whoever they send actually comes — “
“I’ll have a newborn.” She says it evenly. “Yes. I’ve done the arithmetic. I did it the diurnal I thought of the plan.”
“We’ll manage it,” I tell them. “I will be by her side every moment.”
We have not managed worse.