Reyer and Tate were on the floor, sitting back-to-back. The bars were between them, but otherwise, all pretense of caution had been dropped.
“Tyler Creed?” she said.
“Well, I had to pick something, didn’t I?”
“It sounds so noble.”
“Do I have to remind you that Captain Vas originally named you after the most vicious part of a flower?”
“That was a few names ago.”
“Hmmm. With that much practice, one might think you’d be better at keeping an identity secret. Or is that why you’ve had so many names?”
“Was Fenn mad?”
“It’s hard to tell with him. He wasn’t happy though.”
“Why haven’t you been arrested?” Jane asked. She was pacing from the front to the back of the cell.
“Give him time, Doc. He still might,” Tate called. “But for now I’m his deputy, and god knows, he needs one.”
“He doesn’t mind that you lied about who you were?”
Tate shrugged. “Fenn’s always been careful not to ask too many questions. You don’t around here. People don’t come to Ionu because they want to. I think he assumed I was a Sup-AWOL.”
There was a look of confusion on Jane’s face.
Reyer explained, “A Supremacy soldier that abandoned their duty.”
“Yeah,” Tate grumbled. “He might have managed to almost accept that, but finding out I was former Rising probably hit him hard.”
“You told him the whole story?” Reyer asked.
“It was either that or have you do it.”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“What version of the whole story did he get, Tate?” Ciro asked.
“I told him my name—”
“Your real name?” Reyer asked.
“The name I go by, Sarge.”
“It’s Reyer, remember?”
“Sure, Sarge. I told him that you and I worked together, and how that led to me working for Dr. Jane, which led to the mission that brought me to Ionu. Then he told me to get back in here and guard you.”
“You’re doing a fine job.” Jane prodded his butt with her foot.
“Thanks, Doc.” He looked up. “How are you, by the way?”
One of Jane’s cheeks lifted in her otherwise straight smile. “Fine, Joseph. Thank you for asking.”
“Are you glad you’ve got a new specimen?” He used his thumb to motion back to the cot Tennama was sitting on.
“He’s a friend,” Reyer said. “Not a specimen.”
“Well, Mr. Tennama,” Tate said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m sorry about pulling a gun on you when we first met, but you startled me.”
“You’re Joseph Tate,” the xeno said. “I’ve heard of you.”
“I’ll bet. What’s Sarge been saying about me?”
“She called you a sentimental idiot for breaking protocol.”
Tate laughed. “So what did you think of my conspiracy nuts, Sarge?”
Reyer rolled her eyes.
“They did tell you everything I’d found out, didn’t they?” Tate said.
“It was a dumb risk.”
“It worked.”
“It was idiotic!”
“It still worked. You learned everything I could tell you with no physical evidence left behind to incriminate them.”
“Lucy had a crush on you, didn’t she?”
Ciro, Tennama, and Jane all peered at Tate to see his reaction. Alix didn’t have to look; she knew he’d be blushing.
She went on, “Hell, Michael probably had a crush on you. I’ll bet there was a night or two you both stayed up talking about weapons.”
“They’re good kids. Silly sometimes, but I liked them.” Tate dropped his head back onto the bars. “Anyway, you found me, so you don’t get to complain about me not telling you where I was going.”
“You think that’s how this works?”
“Probably not.” After a quiet sigh, Tate said, “How did you track me down?”
“We didn’t. You left no clue, remember? We were only trying to find the xeno queen, and you turned up like a bad penny.”
“Chloe Naaji?”
Reyer nodded.
“Did you get the murder file?” Tate asked.
“We found out the xenos were using a hacker,” Ciro said, “so we hunted down his tag and tracked him back to Daidas. He told us about Chloe Naaji and how she had him add Ionu to the list of planets where she could hide.”
Joseph sounded incredulous—almost horrified: “She chose Ionu?”
“It was perfect for her,” Tennama said.
“Tate, how did you wind up here?” Alix asked.
“I got a job as a janitor for the MI building on P5. Huh! That took some finagling. About a month later, I managed to get my hands on the file about Devi Kumar’s death. Well, I knew we hadn’t killed her, so that meant Ms. Naaji was lying.”
“I’m impressed you found her new identity,” Ciro said. “That couldn’t have been an easy hack.”
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“Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Vas, but us mere mortals have to find other ways to figure things out.”
Reyer reached over her head and knocked on a bar with her knuckle. “How did you do it?”
“The Supremacy requires every protected witness to have a handler who’s on-planet. I went through the file and made a list of all the peacekeepers associated with the case. Then all I had to do was look for someone who’d been transferred about the time Naaji disappeared. There was only one: Lieutenant Jun Fenn.”
“You followed him here,” Jane said.
“I thought I’d be able to figure things out when I got here, but…” Tate’s voice was soft when he spoke again: “I’m sorry, Sarge. I never meant to leave you in the dark. I was going to call as soon as I arrived, but I wasn’t prepared for what this place would be like.”
“What do you mean?” Reyer asked.
“There’s no signal out here. Ashtell has no reason to put up a planet network. Why would they? They have a monopoly on the only publicly available channel in the whole damn town. You have to pay for time and wait your turn. The only other channel belongs to Fenn.”
“So neither of them would work as secured channels.”
“Fenn’s is secure, as long as you don’t mind the peacekeepers knowing about every call you make.”
“Do you have your messengers?”
He pulled a device out from his pocket and held it up.
“You carry it on you?” Ciro said.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Jane asked.
“Not many people are willing to search the deputy.” Tate put it back in his pocket. “I was a lot more worried about being killed before I could get word to you.”
“Killed?” Jane said. “By the xenos?”
“Not…exactly.”
Reyer said, “Care to explain that in a little more detail, Tate?”
“This whole place is completely corrupt, Sarge. You can’t even begin to imagine. Drugs, gambling, illegal prostitution, smuggling goods and people, and it’s all supported by the system put into place by Ashtell Mining and Manufacturing. Fenn is the only honest man in a city of two thousand, and he’s the sheriff. We’re not popular here.”
“It’s that bad?”
“I ran into him on my second day and decided to follow him. I figured if he didn’t lead me to Naaji, he’d at least lead me to his office where I could probably break in to learn about her. But as we’re walking, he gets attacked from behind.”
Reyer had a feeling she knew where this was going. She smiled and shook her head.
Tate went on, “I couldn’t let them kill him right after I’d found him, so I joined in on his side.”
“How bad did you get your ass beat, Tate?”
“Maybe we won, Sarge.”
“You’re both alive. Of course you won. But I also know you have this thing for throwing yourself into lopsided battles.”
Fenn’s voice came from the doorway: “I had to take him into the doctor, but if I recall correctly, only his nose and knuckles were broken.”
The sheriff was standing in the doorway. Adan was beside him.
As they came into the room, Jun said, “They weren’t expecting anyone to help me, so he had the element of surprise.”
“And you hired him to be your deputy,” Reyer said.
“He had vital qualifications I was searching for.”
“Like what?” Jane asked.
“He didn’t mind lopsided battles.” Fenn stopped in front of Tate. “Deputy, if you could at least stand while you’re guarding the prisoners, I would be grateful.”
Tate forced himself to his feet.
Jun walked over to the women’s cell, punched in the code, and used his hand print to unlock the door. Jane stepped back as the sheriff slid it open. He walked in and stood in front of Reyer. She was still sitting on the floor.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
“What’s this, Sheriff Fenn?” she said. “Are you worried about me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s kind of you, but you shouldn’t waste your energy.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“It always hurts, so there’s no point in worrying.”
Fenn put out his hand. Alix reached up to take it, and the sheriff helped her to her feet.
The sheriff started with, “Creed—Tate…” After a brief hesitation, he settled on, “Deputy, open the other cell. We need to interrogate the prisoners, but out of consideration for Miss Reyer’s back, we’ll be doing it somewhere more comfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tate and Fenn led them upstairs to the first of three rooms. It was dull, barren, and only as big as the room that had housed their cells. One wall was taken up with a line of cupboards and counters. There was a coffee table in the center of the room with an eclectic collection of chairs and sofas around it.
As Alix sank into her seat, she had to control her breathing so she wouldn’t cry out. When she opened her eyes, she noticed Fenn was watching her.
“What?” she said.
“It seems Captain Vas wasn’t exaggerating.”
Reyer’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything.
Once everyone was settled, Fenn said, “Captain Vas has given me the most relevant and least incriminating details about how you all got here, and he told me about what you’re trying to do.”
“Did he tell you about Devi Kumar and Chloe Naaji?” Reyer asked.
“He did.”
“And you believed him?” Jane asked.
“Doctor, the branch-head of a galaxy-wide corporation is using this planet as his personal base for a complete syndicate of organized crime. I would be shocked if he hasn’t bribed several senators and judges. The thought of a conspiracy doesn’t really faze me anymore, and it explained a lot about what happened on P5.”
Ciro grinned. “Oh, I bet there were one or two things about that case that bothered you.”
“Everything about that case bothered me.” Fenn turned to his deputy. “Tate, I told Captain Vas you had no way of knowing I’d read Jane’s site, so whatever you were doing on his behalf, you did it without my knowledge.”
Tate bowed his head to hide his slight frown. If Fenn noticed, he didn’t say anything.
The sheriff went on, “I think we’d all like to know what you’ve discovered since landing here.”
“Chloe Naaji is dead,” Tate said.
Reyer saw Vas nod. Fenn must have already told him.
“She died six weeks after her arrival on Ionu. Fenn”—Tate raised his eyes to the sheriff, but Jun’s face was impassive—“Sheriff Fenn spent months actively investigating her death, but he was never able to find the culprit.”
“She was murdered?” Alix asked.
“The body showed signs of having been beaten to death.”
“But—no.” Jane scooted to the front of her seat. “No. If she was the xeno queen, she could’ve simply left her old body, and it would’ve looked like she died of natural causes. Why would she want to make it look like murder?”
Jane looked at Tennama. The xeno frowned and shook his head.
Fenn leaned forward and placed his empty coffee can down on the table. “It might be because the murder of an attractive woman on Ionu raises fewer questions than the natural but unexpected death of a protected witness.”
Reyer instinctively glanced at Tate, trying to gauge the sheriff’s unexpected statement by his reaction. The man looked exhausted.
“So it’s possible she did change bodies?” Vas said.
“It’s possible,” Tate agreed.
“Captain,” Tennama said, “we know the queen’s alive.”
“But do we know, for certain, Naaji was the queen?” Vas asked.
Joseph raised his hands in a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry, Captain. Her body was long gone before I arrived.”
After a few seconds of silence, Jane said, “Fenn, did you notice anything funny about her body as it was decomposing?”
“Doctor, I might have suspected something was wrong if she’d gotten up off the table, but I can certify to you, she was not one of the undead.”
Jane almost laughed, but her reaction was undercut by the surreal moment most people experience when they first try to read Fenn’s nonexistent body language.
The sheriff finished with, “Otherwise, I doubt I would have noticed anything.”
“It’s the dry heat,” Tate explained, “and the lack of any…helpers. Bodies don’t decompose normally here.”
“Helpers?” Jane sounded pained.
“You know, microbes, animals, and…things.”
She dropped her head in her hand.
“Oh, Doc.” Tate smiled. “If you only knew the number of times I wanted to call you up to ask you something.”
“They’re called decomposers. Do you think you can remember that?”
“Well, we don’t have any here. It messes things up.”
“You run into a lot of bodies, do you?”
“Hundreds.”
It took Jane a second to realize Tate wasn’t being sarcastic.
He explained, in a leaden voice, about the pile of corpses left in the desert to mummify. They were mostly refugees who were too ill or weak to survive the terrible conditions of being smuggled like human cattle. Some were employees or former employees of Ashtell who needed to disappear—people who’d made enemies in the system, or people who weren’t supposed to be on the planet at all. Fenn had started tracking them to gather evidence against Ashtell. When Fenn and Tate had learned the sheriff was being watched, they both agreed it was too dangerous for him to continue, so Tate had taken over.
Joseph’s smile was filled with bitter emotions. “It was perfect. While I was doing my work for Fenn, I could also do my work for you.” He raised his head. “I can’t tell you if Naaji was a xeno, but I think there are xenos on this planet.”
Tennama stood up from his chair and started pacing.
Joseph glanced at him before continuing. “There’ve been bodies with holes in their heads, and it’s hard to tell, especially since I haven’t been able to run the DNA, but I think I’ve been finding doubles.”
“Then she’s here,” the xeno said.
“We’ll bring in Lynx and help check the DNA,” Vas said.
“It’s her, Captain.”
“Tennama.” Reyer didn’t continue until he stopped to look at her. “It’s all right. We’ll get the confirmation, then we’ll find her. Everyone in this room has the same goal you do.”
Anthony turned to Fenn.
Jun said, “If this xeno is killing people, and you can prove it, I will do my best to help you.”
The edge of Tennama’s mouth twitched. “You believe in monsters, Sheriff?”
“I’ve always known there are monsters, Mr. Tennama, but recent compelling evidence has convinced me there are also dangerous aliens, and I’d rather not have them on my planet. I have enough problems.”