Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel by K. R. Richardson

Author:K. R. Richardson [Richardson, K. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2018-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

Dillal read through the stultifyingly dull report and smiled. Then he directed the document to Pritchet, and rose once again from his desk.

He avoided both staff and private transportation and made his own way to the hospital.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Day 5: Morning

The crowds in the street seemed like a mirage to Matheson. His thoughts fragmented—part still with Aya, part mourning Santos, while the rest was trying to get back on track with the investigation. The two men Aya had named should be somewhere around Yshteppa Park, but he didn’t know what they looked like. He sent a database request for any records of Hoda Banzet and Osolin Tchintaka and flagged the inspector on it as well. Dillal wouldn’t be able to do much with it while he was dealing with Orris, but at least the names would be in his queue.

Matheson hadn’t noticed the crowd thickening and slowing until he couldn’t move forward without elbowing the people around him. They glared at him with more open annoyance than he’d seen from Dreihleen before. One or two seemed familiar—from the coffee house? Most of the bystanders were as tall or taller than Matheson, blocking his view of all but the top of the obstruction—a banner that bore the “Relief, Redress, Revolt!” pictograms in bright red and the fleeting view of a man’s head and hands as he spoke to the crowd.

“. . . Equality among all races of Gattis!” the man was saying. The man’s voice was clear and easy to hear.

Matheson frowned. He’s loud. Odd among people with such an unusual way of speaking and so quietly that Matheson often had to lean in to hear them and pay close attention to every word. He didn’t see an amplifier. Was this another trick of what the inspector had called “the long breath”? He craned his neck and tried to figure out how the man was doing it.

“We’re not as worthy as any blue-skinned man or woman?” the speaker continued.

A few muttered answers came from the crowd, but the audience seemed unsure if they should agree or disagree.

“We’re less human than people who’re live on the Quay?”

Now a few of the crowd answered back, “No,” and Matheson blinked at the direct reply. They never just say “no” or “yes.”

The speaker asked them again, “Are we less human?” He wasn’t saying anything that other rabble-rousers and street corner preachers didn’t, but the man’s passionate sincerity seemed to infect everyone near him. Was this the man Venn had listened to?

The crowd answered louder, more sure of themselves, “No.”

“We’re less worthy of fruits of our labor?” This guy doesn’t lock his jaw and they haven’t noticed. But they wouldn’t, because he had them in the palm of his hand.

“No!”

Disquiet stirred the hair at the back of Matheson’s neck and he stood quite still. He watched what he could see of the speaker, and studied the crowd without turning his head.

“Our parents and grandparents—all our ancestors from before First Settlement worked hard as anyone for this planet,

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