Search & Recovery: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel Read Online Free PDF

rings on his toes, which made Deshin look away again. He could barely sit cross-legged. He couldn’t imagine walking barefoot, his toes separated by bits of metal.
    Then he smiled inwardly. He wasn’t squeamish about most things, but he was squeamish about wearing rings on his toes. His wife, Gerda, would make fun of him if she knew about this. His son Paavo would be surprised to learn that his father had a weakness, even such a small one.
    Deshin exhaled at the thought of his son. One day, his brilliant boy would realize that his father wasn’t half as smart as he was, that Deshin was just pretending to be smarter than Paavo was.
    That wasn’t entirely true: Deshin was smart about the street, about people, and about business. But when it came to engineering and learning and books, Deshin wasn’t smart at all. He admired Paavo and his ability to absorb any fact, all bits of knowledge, without using AutoLearn or his links.
    He—
    Mr. Deshin?
    Luc?
    Mr. Deshin?
    Sir?
    Mr. Deshin?
    — an image flashed across his vision: Arek Soseki, the Mayor of Armstrong, sprawled in front of O’Malley’s Diner in Armstrong, face gray, clearly dead. The image multiplied into a dozen images and scrolled along the bottom of his vision.
    His emergency links had activated. His brain was finally able to separate out the voices from the visual contacts. He blinked, organized them by priority, then looked over the scroll at the room.
    Some people were standing. Others had their hands to their ears. Kerman was threading his way between the rugs, heading to the tapestries on the wall, tapestries that Deshin suspected hid doors that Kerman generally didn’t want the conference goers to know about.
    Normally, Deshin would have stood at the moment his emergency links got activated. He would have left the building to find a quiet place to handle his business.
    But everyone here was disrupted, involved in their own personal crisis.
    Deshin took a moment to catch his breath, and let the information sink in. He had a lot of projects—both legitimate and illegitimate—with the Mayor of Armstrong. He’d spent a lot of money cultivating their relationship.
    He hadn’t liked Soseki, but he had found him useful.
    And now, Soseki was dead.
    He looked at his colleagues. They all would have a different reaction to Soseki’s death. The Mayor of Armstrong wielded a lot of power on the Moon, and now he was no more.
    Some in here would be trying to manipulate the next election, even though no one knew when that would be held. Others would be trying to make some instant money off the death.
    Then Deshin remembered: It was Anniversary Day, the anniversary of the bombing in Armstrong four years ago. He had no idea if that was a coincidence or not.
    He doubted it, and that made his stomach clench.
    Deshin had family in Armstrong. He needed to know what was happening—not just for his business, but also for the people he loved.
    He hunched forward and answered the only voice that mattered to him: his wife Gerda’s.
    Where are you? he sent. Are you all right?
    I’m at home, she sent back. But they’re saying the Mayor was assassinated. Paavo’s at school…
    The Armstrong Wing of the Aristotle Academy, the most prestigious school on the Moon. Also the most expensive. The place where children of the rich, famous, and powerful went to school.
    If someone were targeting important people, then they might go after Aristotle Academy.
    And he was hours away, unless he got some kind of emergency shuttle to land here. Dammit, he had taken the bullet train.
    He stood and started threading his way through the tangled legs and hunched bodies of his colleagues. A few of them looked at him as he passed, their faces slack with shock.
    A death like Soseki’s—an assassination, on the Moon, in the middle of Anniversary Day commemorations—would have terrible ripple effects even if no one else was targeted.
    I’ll order a security team to the school , he sent, and