Bel had already covered her face with her hand. “Oh fucking hell.”
Kiem could feel his momentum crumbling away from under his feet. He barreled on anyway, desperate. “I have to do this before they hurt him. There’s stuff you don’t know about Taam and—please. I know you need to get to your grandmother soon—”
“Stop,” Bel said. Her voice was muffled behind her hand. “Stop, shut up, for the love of everything, shut up. There is no sick grandmother!”
Kiem stopped. “What?”
“I’ve been lying to you!” Bel said. Her voice was lower and faster now, almost a whisper. “I don’t know where the hell my grandmother is, she was with the Black Shells last time I spoke to her. She’s probably fine. Stop—stop sympathizing!”
That put a wrench even in Kiem’s current panic. “Black Shells? Is that a monastery?”
“She’s a raider!” Bel said. “Do I have to spell this out for you? The Black Shells is a conglom! Like the one I came from!”
“I don’t—you—conglom?”
“Raider outfit!”
“Right,” Kiem said and bit down on I knew that. His limited knowledge of Sefalan affairs wasn’t the issue here. He tried not to feel like he was talking to someone else, someone who wasn’t Bel at all. “Why did you need to lie to—” No. He found he didn’t care. Bel was still the same person she’d been for all the time he’d known her, and she hadn’t let him down in anything yet. She would have her reasons. “You know what, if you don’t want me to know, I don’t need to. But please, can it wait for just a few hours? I’ll rebook you on the next shuttle out.”
Bel was now staring at him. “You’re an idiot. Don’t you want to know why I’m going?”
“Did I do something?” Kiem said desperately. “Can I make up for it?”
“No!” Bel leaned in closer. She was still whispering, apparently not trusting the privacy capsule. “Did you hear the part where I said my grandmother split off with the Black Shells? Do you know that kind of trade usually runs in families? I was born on a Red Alpha ship! I was one of our system breakers for ten years! It was my job to break into shuttle communications networks so they couldn’t use them when our ship attacked!”
This called for thought. Thought that Kiem couldn’t really spare. “I’ve seen your resume,” he said. That hadn’t been on it.
“I faked nearly everything I gave you!” Bel said, in a whisper so vicious, it was almost a hiss. “You’re not this slow on the uptake!”
“Oh, right, obviously,” Kiem said. Every minute he couldn’t get Bel to come back was a minute Jainan was still under arrest. “So…？ I thought you might have some friends that weren’t totally aboveboard. You don’t still do that stuff, do you? I know you.”
Bel looked utterly taken aback for the first time since Kiem had known her. “So? I lied to get this job. I lied to that outfit you use to recommend people—charities are easy to fool. I used to be a raider, do you need this spelled out for you? I used you to get away and go straight!”
Kiem rubbed his hand across his forehead. “Listen, you can break the security protection on any palace system you’ve accessed,” he said. “Or you take it to dodgy back-alley shops and it magically does what I’ve asked you to make it do. Of course you picked it up somewhere, I’ve always known you had some shortcuts. You’re not doing anything bad, so I don’t know why I should have cared.”
“You will care when Saffer sends it to the media!”
“You’re—wait, you’re being blackmailed?” Kiem said. “By Aren Saffer? That’s why you’re leaving?”
Bel’s mouth pursed shut. Her nod was almost imperceptible.
A wash of relief went over Kiem. “Oh, well, that’s fine then.” He knew he could outmaneuver Aren if it came to the media. “I’ll call a journalist. We’ll make up a story for you. Come back and help me get Jainan.”
Bel looked at him, then something in her seemed to crack, and she covered her eyes with her hand. “You need help,” she said. “No, I know Jainan needs help, but so do you, because you’re clearly out of your mind. But I’m going to come back, and this is a conversation we’re going to have later. Okay?”
“Okay! Yes!” Kiem said. “Come straight back. I’ll meet you at our room.”
“And you’re still going to get me a replacement shuttle ticket even if Internal Security comes after me.”
Please don’t go, Kiem wanted to say. “No problem.” He gave her a thumbs-up. “Anonymous and first class.” She nodded and cut the call.
Raiders. Kiem let out a long breath. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to give him her real history. He couldn’t imagine Bel as part of a hijacker crew, but most of what Kiem knew about raiders came from vid dramas, so what did he know? And what did it matter? Since he’d offered Bel the aide post a year ago, she’d been in his corner every time he’d needed her. She was coming back now because he’d asked. He could at least keep her out of trouble afterward, even if it meant she was going to leave.
An emergency ping came from outside the door. Kiem opened it.
Gairad pulled herself from her slump against the corridor wall opposite, scrubbed the back of her hand over her swollen, watery eyes, and glared at him. “Where the hell were you? I couldn’t find you! The bastards have taken Jainan!”
Kiem hadn’t previously supposed an ally might come in the form of a tearful teenager with anti-Iskat pins on her jacket, but right at this moment he was prepared to consider her Heaven-sent. “You saw them? Who was it?”
Gairad’s combative air weakened, as if she’d expected him to argue. “I was coming here to talk to him, and I saw him get dragged out. He wasn’t conscious. What the fuck is going on? They looked military.”
“Where did they go?” Kiem said urgently.
“Shuttle docks,” Gairad said. She gave the long, ugly sniff of someone determined to be functional. “Unmarked short-range capsule. I tracked the first bit of its flight on the public system.”
“You are a vision of staggering brilliance,” Kiem said fervently. “Come in. When Bel gets here we’re making a battle plan.” He passed her a handkerchief and set the door to admit Bel and no one else.
By the time she arrived, Kiem and Gairad had trawled his room in the hope that Jainan had left a message, then had a tense conversation with the Thean Ambassador, and now were obsessively poring over the flight clues Gairad had collected. “I’m back,” Bel said from the door, her luggage hovering behind her. She sounded tentative.
Kiem didn’t even think before he shoved back his chair and hugged her. She obviously wasn’t expecting it, and it only occurred to him he probably shouldn’t have done it after he had, but Bel was already patting him cautiously on the back. “You are the only person right now apart from Jainan that could make me feel better,” Kiem said. “That wasn’t workplace-appropriate, was it. Sorry. I have some ideas about your blackmail thing—”