Vigilantes Read Online Free PDF Page A

noticed the recording chip that Nyquist used. He couldn’t guarantee that they would miss it today.
    “The name has many translations,” Uzvaan was saying, “but I believe that the one the corporation’s founders intended was a little known meaning for the phrase. It is legal fiction.”
    “You were part of a corporation called ‘Legal Fiction’?” Not even Nyquist could believe that.
    “I was not part of any corporation with that name. That corporation—named in Peytin—” and again, he said the unintelligible words—”is the one that housed, fed, and educated me and about one hundred of my fellows.”
    He did not say the word “clones.” Nor did he look at Nyquist as he said this last part.
    Nyquist paused for a moment. He could either follow his list or he could go with the conversation. At the moment, he wanted to go with the conversation.
    Jin Rastigan, the head of Earth Alliance Security Office Human Division on Peyla, had observed clones of Uzvekmt killing each other in rather horrible ways, not long ago. She had contacted DeRicci about it. Nyquist wondered if Uzvaan had lived through a similar experience.
    Nyquist would approach this issue slowly.
    “Did all of your fellows, as you put it, go to law school?”
    “No,” Uzvaan said, still looking down.
    “Did all of them survive their upbringing?”
    Uzvaan looked at him quickly, as if startled. Uzvaan opened his mouth, then turned his head a little, his face grayer than Nyquist had ever seen it.
    “Why do you ask?” Uzvaan asked.
    “Answer the question,” Nyquist said.
    “No, not all survived.” Uzvaan spoke softly.
    “Because some of the clones were not viable?” Nyquist asked.
    “Because some of them failed,” Uzvaan said.
    In spite of himself, Nyquist felt chilled. “The cloning techniques failed? That means the embryos weren’t viable.”
    “No,” Uzvaan said, speaking even softer than he had before. “They—the individuals—they failed.”
    “At what?”
    Uzvaan’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever they were assigned.”
    The chill Nyquist felt settled around his heart.
    “What happened to the ones that failed?” he asked, even though he knew. Or he thought he knew.
    Uzvaan closed his eyes. He twitched. Then he opened his eyes. They seemed bigger than before, glassy.
    “I would like to move on to more recent events,” he said.
    “I would like an answer,” Nyquist said.
    “It is not relevant,” Uzvaan said in his lawyer’s voice.
    “I decide what is relevant,” Nyquist said.
    “They died,” Uzvaan said so softly that Nyquist almost missed it.
    “They died because they failed?” Nyquist repeated.
    Uzvaan nodded, his face so tense that his eyes had narrowed.
    “Isn’t it more accurate to say that you and the other survivors killed them?” Nyquist asked.
    “No,” Uzvaan said.
    “Then how did they die?” Nyquist asked.
    “They failed ,” Uzvaan repeated. Then he spoke the Peytin phrase he had used the day before, which Popova had translated as You can’t have a failure in a unit.
    “So it’s okay to kill someone if they fail,” Nyquist said. “Because you were told it was all right?”
    Uzvaan’s skin had turned a bluish gray wherever it was visible. Nyquist had never seen anything like it, but he sensed it meant extreme distress. He wondered if he was pushing Uzvaan too hard.
    “We were raised,” Uzvaan said, “in a controlled environment. Failure was not possible, and that included a failure to follow orders.”
    “So,” Nyquist said. “Murder for you was something you did when ordered.”
    Uzvaan’s color grew even darker.
    “Never mind,” Nyquist said. “You don’t have to answer that because your behavior last week makes the answer obvious. Of course you can be ordered to murder someone. You’ve done it all your life.”
    “Failures are not ‘someone,’” Uzvaan said in a small voice. “They have lost the right to exist.”
    Nyquist paused. The next logical question—if this were a