CITY PEARL MM

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Chapter One

Mars Orbital
April 25, 2299

I'm going home."Good morning," said Shan Frankland, and held up herwarrant card. "We're from Environmental Hazard Enforcement.Please, step away from the console."

She loved those words. They cast a spell. They laid baremen's souls, if you knew how to look. She looked aroundthe administration center and in three seconds she knew theman at the desk was uninvolved, the woman marshalingtraffic was surprised by the intrusion, and the man loungingagainst the drinks machine ... well, his face was too composedand his eyes were moving just wrong. He was the fissurein the rock. She would cleave it apart.

I'm going home. Five days, tops.

"Inspector McEvoy," she said, and motioned her bagmanforward. "Over to you." She put her warrant card back in her top pocket and stood watching while her technical teamflowed in and put in override codes on all Mars Orbital'ssystems. The station was temporarily hers.

This is the last time I'll have to do this.

"May I?" She walked across to the station's video circuit.The traffic marshal stepped aside. She settled into theseat and tapped the transmission key.

"May I have your attention, please? This is SuperintendentShan Frankland. This orbital station is now under thejurisdiction of the Enforcement Division of the FederalEuropean Union. There will be no traffic movements ortransmissions until the preliminary investigation is complete.Please report to your muster stations at 1600 stationtime for a briefing from my officers. Thank you for yourcooperation. We'll be out of your way just as soon as wecan."

She leaned back, satisfied. Space stations were lovelyplaces to carry out environmental hazard audits. Nobodycould make a run for it. Nobody could get evidence off thepremises. There was only one way off Mars Orbital without ascheduled flight, and that was via an airlock. It was right andfitting that she should have a relatively simple rummage jobas her final task before retirement. She had earned it.

McEvoy crouched down level with her seat. "All lockeddown, Guv'nor. We should have it logged and wrapped insix hours, but there's no reason why we couldn't start carryingout preliminary interviews now."

Shan cocked her head discreetly in the direction of theman she'd spotted at the drinks dispenser. "I'd make a starton him," she said. "Just a feeling. Anyway, I'd better go andpay my respects to the station manager. This has probablyruined her entire day."

And this time next month, I'll be clearing my desk.

Mars Orbital looked and felt exactly as the schematicson her swiss had told her it would. She took the little red cylinder with its white cross from her pocket and unfurledits plasma screen to study the station layout.

"You should treat yourself to some new technology,"McEvoy said, and tapped the side of his head, indicating hisimplants. "How old is that thing?"

"Hundreds of years, and still as good as that thing inyour skull. I'm an old-fashioned girl. I like my computingin my pocket." She stood up and oriented herself along thelines of the map on the swiss's screen, then set off downthe main passageway. Looking straight ahead, she coulddetect the gradual curve of the main ring. For a second shefelt she might be falling, but she looked straight ahead, resistingthe temptation to stare out of the nearest observationarea to goggle at a Mars that filled her field of view. Itwasn't her first time away from Earth, but she had neverbeen within touching distance of an inhabited planet before.She wondered if she might find time to do a fewtourist things before departing. She'd never get anotherfree flight like this again.

The station manager's office was exactly where theswiss said it would be. Its name-plated occupant, CathyBorodian, was quietly angry. "I thought you people were ona fact-finding mission for the European Assembly."

"It wasn't a complete lie. We're still finding facts, aren'twe?" Shan stood before her desk and watched the woman tryingto cope without access to her mainframe, hands fumblingacross the softglass surface; it remained steadfastly blank,showing only a system unavailable screen under the coffeecup and half-eaten chocolate brioche. "We'll be out of hereas soon as we possibly can. Routine inspection for biologicaland environmental hazards you're not licensed to manage."

"I don't think Warrenders is going to be happy aboutthis. They have a contract."

"Well, last time I looked, civilian government still justabout ran Europe. Not corporations."

"Are you able to tell me exactly what the problem is?"

"So there's a problem?"

"No. Not at all."

"The Federal European Union doesn't ship out forty auditand technical officers unless it thinks there might be irregularities.

"Does that answer your question?"

"Not completely. What about our teams on the surface?Can they come back inboard?"

"If they need to, they can flash us and one of my peoplewill escort them." Shan understood the woman, even if shefelt no sympathy for her. She had schedules and commercialpressures, and shutting down the orbital was a majorcrisis, with or without a police investigation ...

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Excerpted from City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
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