Hammer and Crucible Cameron Cooper (web ebook reader TXT) 📖

Was that a touch of grumpiness in his tone?

“Small joint,” Dalton said, with the air of recall. “But they still have seven bars on the main concourse.”

“Also, you should know that when we arrive, we can’t swing around and dive back through the gate,” Lyth said. “We must dock. The fuel cells will be close to depletion by the time we arrive.”

I absorbed that and nodded, telling myself it was just another mission parameter. “So, what did you want to show us?”

A dozen documents and images laid themselves out over the top of the display of Polyxene, their corners covering others, layer after layer.

“You might want to slow down a bit, Lyth,” Juliyana said with a diplomatic tone. “We don’t read that fast.”

“There is no need to read any of them,” Lyth said. “I have already done so and have collated the data.”

Dalton pointed. “That’s Rozsa Chang’s public itinerary,” he said, as the blizzard of documents ceased.

“This month’s, yes,” Lyth said. “That was my starting point.”

“You found where she will be,” I said.

“That will be impossible, captain, as the public documents are fabrications.”

We all looked at him.

“You mean, all the little Cygnets drooling to glimpse the president check these documents, hurry to where she’s going to be…and she doesn’t turn up?” Dalton’s tone was incredulous. “And no one bitches about that?”

Lyth shook his head. “The closer to the actual date, the more accurate the documents are—that’s quite normal, really. Humans are woeful at predicting what they will be doing and more inaccurate the farther ahead in time they are predicting. But in this case, I believe the inaccuracy is deliberate misdirection.”

“Why do you think that?” I demanded.

“Because for any one day of President Chang’s real agenda, only one or two events actually happen. Often, they are public events where Dalton’s Cygnets can see her—and those events are scheduled at the very last minute, sometimes with only hours of warning.”

“Security,” Juliyana murmured.

“Security…and something else,” Lyth said.

The documents hanging in the air in front of us moved around, showing pages with tables. They flipped in a mesmerizing cascade. “I could only draw that conclusion by comparing where President Chang had actually been against her public agenda.”

“You tracked her real movements?” I asked.

“I didn’t track her movements, but the traces those movements left behind. She uses three different identities to move around anonymously. The correlation with her known movements gave me the names, and I tracked them back.”

More documents popped up. Landing bay fees. Gate fees. Bioscans. A dozen different stations, stellar cities and commercial hubs. The last document showed Sh’Klea Sine, which lay directly behind us. “Passenger Sprita Niessner passed through bio scanning every second month. Those dates coincide with the Cygnus board meetings, but Niessner is not a board member.” A list of board members overlaid the bio scan list.

“Lemme guess,” Dalton said. “Chang has never been documented arriving at Sh’Klea Sine, but the board meeting minutes says she was there.”

“Correct,” Lyth said.

I looked at Dalton. “You were saying it would be easy to find out where she’ll be, I recall?”

He scowled. “You’re telling us all this to explain why you can’t figure it out, Lyth?”

“Oh, I can predict where she will be with a degree of accuracy, and the closer in time that location is to us, the more confident I can be about the prediction. Which means you may have to sit and wait for her to come to a location near you. But that isn’t why I wanted you to see this.”

The documents shifted again.

“I was curious,” Lyth said. “So I went back forty years and put together Chang’s real movements, as best as the documentation allows. I draw your attention to these dates and locations.”

This time, dozens of documents arrayed themselves so they were readable, with highlighted lines of dates and locations, and durations of stay.

“This is Chang?” I asked, for the name was not hers.

“This is an identity she was using in that decade,” Lyth said. “I verified it the same way I verified the Neissner ID. Then I cross checked all other people of interest surrounding Noam Andela’s death and established that some of them also regularly used false IDs.”

“Shit, and we spent days trying to find just Dalton,” Juliyana murmured.

The original dozen documents ranged across the air shifted, so that similar documents were paired with each one, also with highlights.

We examined them for a moment. “The dates, times and locations match,” I concluded.

“Who is Addilyn Blanchard, Lyth?” I demanded, for that was the name of the ID that matched Chang’s movements.

Lyth’s gaze was steady. “Ramaker III, First of the Tanique Dynasty.”

Dalton and Juliyana stared at Lyth, their jaws slack.

I felt the same freezing shock, but it was a superficial layer floating over a sense of inevitability. “The Emperor was meeting with her. Almost weekly.”

Juliyana bent and put her hands on her knees. “The stars in their firmament… Everything I dug up said there was a connection, but I kept dismissing it. I didn’t think…I thought it was impossible, that I was being paranoid.” She gave a strained laugh and pressed her hand to her mouth.

Dalton drained his whisky, set the glass on the floor and turned to study the documents once more. “Lyth, focus on that one.” He pointed.

The document zoomed larger. Lyth helpfully pulled the corresponding document’s highlighted line over to this one and floated it just beneath the first.

“Thanks, but it’s the letterhead that interests me,” Dalton told him. “Napoli Incorporated.” He turned to face us. “It’s not widely known, but the information is out there. Lyth can confirm. Napoli is the parent corporation that owns and controls Fantasy Inc.”

Lyth intoned, “Fantasy Inc. Pleasure Resort is controlled by a consortium of business interests. Napoli Incorporated holds a majority share and has administered the resort for the last one hundred and three years.”

I felt my mouth turning down. My gut was joining it. “Chang and the Emperor were having an affair…”

Juliyana kept breathing deeply, still bent over. Her breath