Rift in the Sky

“The one item that does keep surfacing? Marcus Bowman was an expert on the Hoveny Concentrix. Does that mean anything to you?”

KaeCee said the artifacts were Hoveny. Marcus Bowman had put his name on them as proof. “A past civilization,” Aryl said. “One that ruled this section of space a long time ago.”

“Hoveny relics are rare. Incredibly valuable,” the constable informed her, leaning his arm on the back of his chair. His eye glinted. “Our mutual friend KaeCee would be interested, but the oddest thing? There hasn’t been so much as a whiff of anything untoward about his activities in weeks. Since you’ve arrived, in fact. Have you been a good influence?”

She tried not to flinch. Maynard was on the hunt; she knew the signs. She’d been wrong to come, Aryl realized, her mouth dry. Wrong not to see the dangers in names and data. Haxel would want this Human “handled.”

Not going to happen, Aryl told herself fiercely. “Did you find Karina Bowman?”

“She’s dropped off.”

She’d never understand the Human fondness for meaningless expressions. “Off what?”

Maynard regarded her. “The First may not acknowledge Marcus Bowman, but they legally claimed everything he owned. Home. Credit deposits. Savings. We’ve no current location or work address for anyone in his family. My guess is those who got wind of the claim took what they could and ran offworld. It happens.” With a shrug. “Puts them out of my jurisdiction.”

Offworld. It meant away from here. But where?

Like most M’hiray, Aryl wasn’t quite convinced the locates for the seven Houses were on other planets entirely and struggled with the scope of the newly formed and growing Trade Pact. Worlds. Solar Systems. Quadrants. Galaxy. Words. That’s all they were. Offworld said it all.

“They’re gone?”

He brandished the disk in one hand. “Which leaves this. Whatever Bowman put in here, it’s encrypted. Secret,” at her questioning look. “You’d need his code to access it. Might be for privacy. But secrets raise another possibility. Not a pleasant one.”

“Nothing about this is,” she retorted. “What possibility?”

“That Bowman never intended this for his daughter. The First’s claim went through about the time you arrived. Maybe he knew she’d be gone. Maybe he expected someone else to obtain it from you, someone with the code.”

Aryl relaxed and smiled. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that this is for the baby.”

“Baby?” His gaze sharpened. “What baby?”

“Karina.”

Maynard activated the image disk again. “The little girl here?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t know—I see.” He turned off the image. “This vid was made fourteen standard years ago.”

No. That was Marcus’ family. He’d shown her. Talked of them. They’d been alone together, both lonely . . . Family was everything. To him as well.

Aryl surged to her feet. “I don’t believe it!”

The constable didn’t move. “City records state Kelly Bowman dissolved their partnership shortly after this was taken, keeping the son, Howard. The daughter became the sister’s ward, Cindy Bowman, and both were last known to reside in the Bowman home in Norval. Karina Bowman isn’t a baby anymore.”

“Why would he show me this?” Aryl sank back down. “Why this and not the truth?”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Maynard said quietly. “At a guess, Bowman was far from home. Living like that—you take your best memories with you, not your failures. Do you understand?”

“Lie” she understood. Now. Another meaning revealed. To say what wasn’t true, to do it on purpose. She didn’t like the words the constable taught her. She didn’t like them at all.

“If Marcus didn’t lie to me,” Aryl replied with a scowl, “he lied to himself.” To pick and choose parts of a life to remember, parts to forget? If that was what the M’hiray had done, they’d lied to themselves, too. She should go home. There was no point to this. To any of it.

The past was broken.

“Listen to me, Aryl di Sarc.” Maynard came and sat across from her, the disk held flat between his palms. “I said this was a puzzle. It’s not an ordinary one. Parts of your friend’s life are being hidden by those in power. There’s a stench to what’s being left in the open. If Hoveny relics show up anywhere, right after a Triad Analyst is declared dead and his belongings confiscated? The snoops will be all over it. Bowman will be accused and convicted by opinion. His reputation won’t be worth a pox’s piss.”

“There’s nothing I can do about that.” Besides believe him. Besides believe it was all their doing, that by selling the artifacts the M’hiray had done exactly what this Human predicted: plant suspicion on Marcus.

Who’d known this would happen.

The look in his eyes from the vid. Why hadn’t she seen it?

Marcus Bowman had known what giving the M’hiray the artifacts, what sending both to Stonerim III would mean. The destruction of his reputation. The cost to his family.

He’d traded it all for them.

“There’s nothing I can do,’ Aryl repeated, hair sliding limp over her cheeks. “It’s too late.”