Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [222]
"Fassa del Parma and Alpha bint Hezra-Fong came out to the Nyota system on the same transport," Sev went on. "So did Darnell Overton-Glaxely. They've all been helping each other get rich by the quickest and dirtiest means they could arrange. There were two others on that transport—Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and Polyon de Gras-Waldheim. Fassa's already implicated Blaize—the one who was posted to Angalia. Don't you see? You're holding one thread into this tangle; I'm holding another one."
"You think that together we could unravel it?"
Sev gave her a flashing grin that was all but wasted on his present purpose. "Or take Alexander's solution, and cut the Gordian knot. This corruption ought to be cut off," he argued. "Don't tell me it's just a small part of what 'everybody does.' I don't care. This is the part I can see, that I can do something about. I have to see this through!" He stopped, looking momentarily embarrassed by his own intensity. "And I had hoped," he went on in a somewhat quieter voice, "I had hoped that you would want to join us. Lead us."
The flyer skated to a perfect landing just outside Nancia's opened entry bay.
"Come with me?" Sev suggested.
"I've got a scheduled transport to Kailas. Back to my desk job."
"You can change that," he said confidently, and grinned at her as he would at a contemporary. "Come on, Mic! You don't really want to go back to shuffling papers on Kailas, do you?"
Micaya rubbed the back of her neck. She felt generations older than this intense young man: tired, and dirty from the corruption of Summerlands, and not very interested in anything except a long bath and a massage. "Damn it," she said wearily. "You're not bad at persuasive speeches yourself, Bryley-Sorensen. I suppose you think I can get your brainship's orders changed so that we can go on to Angalia, instead of transporting del Parma straight back to Central?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Sense," said Micaya, "has never been a compelling argument for any bureaucracy. All right. You win. I'll see what I can do towards persuading Central to reassign both Nancia and me. I must admit, I'd like to see the end of this case." Despite her weariness, she felt a smile beginning deep inside her. "Besides, your ship's brawn owes me a rematch at tri-chess."
"Caleb?"
"Forister," Micaya corrected him. "Nancia's been assigned a replacement brawn, remember? Forister Armontillado y Medoc. We were working together on this Summerlands business, until Central pulled him off the case to brawn Nancia back to Central." She stopped in the open landing bay. "Wait a minute. What did you say the other boy was called—the one who went to Angalia?"
Sev didn't have time to answer; a second flyer pounced down on the landing strip, and a messenger in the white uniform of Summerlands came running toward them.
"Tried to raise you in the air," he panted. "Your driver's comm unit must have been defective. Hopkirk's testified!"
"The devil he has! Already?"
"He seemed rather eager to do it. Dr. Thalmark thought it would do more harm to restrain him than to let him speak. His deposition's on datahedron—and there are a few honest men left on Bahati, Mr. Bryley; two of them are going to arrest Overton-Glaxely now. Since he'll likely be sent back to Central for trial, they'd like a representative of Central to accompany them now, just to make sure everything's in order."
"You mean, to make sure there's somebody else to blame if his family goes out for revenge," Sev muttered.
"I'll go," Micaya said. "No one will question my word."
"I'll go," Sev corrected her. "I've already annoyed so many High Families, one more makes no difference. You go catch up on your tri-chess."
"I always did like subordinates with plenty of initiative," Micaya said wryly. But she was tired, and worried