“Tell her what you told me about decisiveness,” the governor-general said before DeRicci could answer. “Tell her about political decisions versus life-and-death decisions.”
So DeRicci reiterated her case, and as she did, she felt increasingly lightheaded, as if everything she had understood about her world had shifted.
“The reason we chose Noelle DeRicci,” the governor-general said, before DeRicci had a chance to finish, “is because she makes decisions like this, because she is not political, and because she thinks of lives first. I suggest the next time you come out with a hastily conceived story that could stir up the citizenry, you think of lives as well.”
DeRicci tuned out the rest. She allowed herself a few moments of relaxation while the two women near her sparred. DeRicci had survived her first test as Security Chief, and she had survived it because she had defended herself.
Because she wasn’t political; she was outspoken.
Because she was decisive.
And because she had a true friend in Miles Flint.
Sixty-nine
Sharyn Scott-Olson watched as her team carefully lifted the last body from the mass grave. One hundred and fifty people had died at this location one hundred years before. One-hundred-and-fifty men, women, and children, piled on top of each other, their secret lost to time.
Until someone—an unknown someone—had tried to revive it with a single skeleton. The Disty claimed they knew who that someone was, and they would perform a ritual with that someone’s help, clearing out the last of the contamination.
But first they had to clear the entire Dome, then this mass grave site, and finally the skeletal remains.
Scott-Olson had already been told to report to a Death Squad office as soon as the last of the autopsies were done. This last body meant that the victims of the massacre would be laid to rest. The victims of discovery of that massacre had already been cremated, most of them dead of crushed bones and shattered skulls.
Amazing how fragile humans were, even with the sophisticated medical techniques and life-expanding enhancements. No one ever thought to protect the body against outside violence. No one thought it necessary.
Even Scott-Olson, who had spent her last two weeks arm-deep in corpses who had died violently, wouldn’t enhance her frame to take that kind of punishment. She would die how she would die, and she wasn’t going to try to second-guess it.
The area around the mass grave was still empty. Most of Sahara Dome looked like a ghost town. The Disty wouldn’t return until the Dome and its human occupants were decontaminated. And that process wouldn’t end until these mummified corpses had their own funeral services, and Scott-Olson’s team left the Dome for that weird decontamination ritual.
She was looking forward to it, in an odd way. She needed the closure as well.
She also needed time to mourn.
Not just for these unfortunate souls who had started the entire mess, but for the people she had known who had died, and for the poor Disty whom she still didn’t entirely understand.
But most of all, she needed to find a way to grieve for Aisha Costard. Costard, who had died because she had come to help, had somehow managed to save them all.
Scott-Olson hadn’t been able to reach the Retrieval Artist who had found the survivors. She hoped she would get a chance to thank him someday. He hadn’t had to finish the case. When Aisha Costard died, he could have let the case lapse. But he had ethics, a thing she found was rarer than she expected.
Before she could go back to her own quiet life, she had to deal with her own choices. She had no idea if she could have done things differently, but she did know one thing:
From now on, she would not live in ignorance of her Disty neighbors, and she would not make assumptions about the knowledge of the people around her. She would explain the consequences of any request she made, no matter who she was talking to.
It was a small change, but an important one.
For the only way she could move forward was to learn from her mistakes. And she had to move forward. The surviving children of these poor victims had—and those children had enough courage to sacrifice weeks of their lives for people who may have descended from the people who murdered their families.
Scott-Olson didn’t know if she was capable of that same generosity of spirit.
She hoped she was, deep down.
And she also hoped that, as long as she lived, her belief would never, ever be tested.
International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won or been nominated for every major award in the science fiction field. She has won Hugos for editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and for her short fiction. She has also won the Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Readers Choice Award six times, as well as the Anlab Award from Analog Magazine, Science Fiction Age Readers Choice Award, the Locus Award, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her standalone sf novel, Alien Influences, was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. I09 said her Retrieval Artist series featured one of the top ten science fiction detectives ever written. She writes a second sf series, the Diving Universe series, as well as a fantasy series called The Fey. She also writes mystery, romance, and fantasy novels, occasionally using the pen names Kris DeLake, Kristine Grayson and Kris Nelscott. For more information, go to www.KristineKathrynRusch.com.
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
The Retrieval Artist Series
Dedication
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Forty-five
Forty-six
Forty-seven
Forty-nine
Fifty
Fifty-one
Fifty-two
Fifty-three
Fifty-four
Fifty-five
Fifty-six
Fifty-seven
Fifty-eight
Fifty-nine
Sixty
Sixty-one
Sixty-two
Sixty-three
Sixty-four
Sixty-five
Sixty-six
Sixty-seven
Sixty-eight
Sixty-nine
About the Author