Read Online Embedded by Dan Abnett - Free Book Online Page B

instrumentation. It wasn't a strike."
      "How did you get this?"
      "The Manchurian was the driver I came in on. A reasonably senior crewperson decided it was better to source the clip for me than have me write about the non-regulation relationship he conducted with a passenger on the trip insystem."
      "Dirty pool," he said, almost in admiration.
      "It wasn't even something I was keeping in my back pocket," she replied. "It was just expedient. You said to me they'd boot me upstairs to catch the next driver home, and it got me thinking about drivers. Just in time."
      "What do you mean?"
      "There was a guy on one of the general networks this lunchtime interviewing an SO rep. He asked straight out if anything parked or circling had got a view of the strike, and the rep told him categorically that all sources had been checked and there was nothing."
      "It's been redacted already."
      "Uh-huh."
      Falk tapped his fingers on the tabletop beside the tablet. He felt hot, and the plastic seat was hurting his hip. He unwrapped his straw, uncapped the Cola bottle and took a drink.
      "I can see why you were conflicted," he said.
      "I thought you might have some ideas."
      He reached over and helped himself to a skewer from her greaseproof cone. He was experiencing something like a caffeine rush, and he needed to be steady. He needed some carbs and protein. It actually tasted okay. Crunchy. Like pork-flavoured peanut brittle.
      "The explosive sniffers have slightly more significance now," he said.
      "They do."
      "If we're going to 'do' anything with this, we need to be sure what we're 'doing'."
      "Go on."
      "If we're going to expose something, we need to know what we're exposing. What's going on that they needed to say it was a bolide strike? Did whatever it was happen in Letts randomly, or because of what was in Letts?"
      "Okay. How do we find that out?"
      "Let me work on it. Let's meet up again tonight."
      She nodded.
      "Can I take this?"
      "No."
      "A copy?"
      "No."
      "But I can trust you to look after it?"
      "Yes."
      "And not do anything stupid with it?"
      "Yes," she said.
     
    Cleesh had been crying.
      "You're late," she said.
      "It's a little out of my way," he replied. He looked at her and narrowed his eyes.
      "Have you been crying?"
      "My eyes have been playing up," she said. "I told you about it the other day. Tear duct, humidity thing. I was up in a can for too long. I told you."
      He remembered her saying something. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her with pink puffiness around the eyes. He was beginning to realise that he didn't know her that well, in person. He didn't know if she suffered from allergies, if she was prone to tearfulness, if pink puffiness was a normal look.
      The six foot tall aluminium cut-outs mounted along the concrete forecourt spelled PIONEER USEUM, because the first M in museum had been mysteriously removed by hands unknown. The site was just off Equestrian, in an area earmarked for parks and memorials by city planners. At some point, three decades or more in the past, someone had got militant about the investment of serious capital in a museum to celebrate the settlement of Eighty-Six, when there were still so many aspects of Eighty-Six's infrastructure in need of funds. The project had been frozen. It wasn't the first world Falk had visited where a grand scheme of commemoration had been mothballed.
      Weeds had inveigled their way between the pavers in the concourse, the coloured gravel in the beds, the layout of paths. Nothing ornamental had ever been planted, so the weeds had filled in there too, and supplanted the lawns where the grass hadn't gone wild and hippy. The museum structure was a vast shed, like a boat dock or a bulk hangar. Construction had halted a week or two before it had reached the tipping point of being weatherproof. Guttering had slumped. Stained skylights in the immense roof had