Vaz found himself drowning in questions, like why people hadn’t noticed al these kids disappearing for a few weeks and then miraculously being found alive, but the colonies were a long way from Earth, and a long way from one another.
There were only seventy-odd kids involved. Kids went missing al the time. They were spread across so many planets that no cop would ever have spotted a pattern in al that.
So like Devereaux said—why bother with the clones? Why the hell go to all that trouble? Halsey didn’t need to.
The reports were written in disturbingly neutral clinical terminology, but they al boiled down to one thing. Naomi, like al the other Spartan kids, was terrified and wanted to go home.
Vaz read the names of the psychologists and medical officers at the bottom of those reports careful y. He wanted to remember who the monsters real y were. The one currently imprisoned on the deck below him couldn’t have done it without them.
You rotten bastards. You took an oath to do no harm.
He wasn’t sure if he grasped half of the medical stuff in front of him, but he understood enough to realize that he didn’t want to go on reading about the drugs and surgery, the brutal training, or the assessments of the kids’ pain and stress levels. It would surface in nightmares one day. He was sure of it. He didn’t want to know how Halsey changed them out of al recognition.
He had to, though. If the people he served with had gone through this, the least he could do was read it. He stuck at it for half an hour, getting every bit as angry as BB had warned him he would, until he had to take a breather or explode. He flicked forward to the end of the file, knowing there would be no happy ending, and found he was looking at a subfile of social workers’ reports about Naomi’s parents.
Even in a situation like that, with outrage piled on outrage without a thought for how far the ripples of misery would spread, it was stil a shock to see what had happened to the Sentzkes.
Their daughter had been returned to them, or so they thought, and for a while they’d been relieved to have her back. Then she fel il and spent eighteen months dying. The Sentzkes were told it was a genetic il ness. The social reports tossed in the consequences of that lie as if it was just a footnote:
Mrs. Sentzke is concerned that the genetic abnormality will affect any other children she might bear. She has asked to be sterilized and the decision is putting considerable strain on the marriage.
The next page was a coroner’s report, an inquest, dated six months later. Naomi’s mother had final y slashed her wrists. There was a comment from the coroner about her inability to deal with her bereavement.
Vaz read it a few times, unable to get past that paragraph. Had Osman actual y told Naomi al that? He’d have no idea until he asked, but if she hadn’t, the worst news of al would fal to him. Part of him resented Osman for not giving Naomi the ful story right away.
God Almighty. How do I tell Naomi that?
Her father, Staffan, seemed to be made of more obstinate stuff, though. The social worker had included a number of police reports detailing how he insisted that the girl who’d come back wasn’t his daughter, and that it was al a dirty government conspiracy. There was no genetic abnormality like that in his family, he said.
Vaz was now riveted. This factory worker, this ordinary guy, hadn’t realized just how right he was. Vaz scrol ed through the pages as fast as he could, but then he found himself reading Naomi’s service record. The trail went cold. There was no more mention of Staffan Sentzke.
“BB,” he said. “Quick question. Sitrep on Sansar, Outer Colonies.”
“Glassed,” BB said, not even materializing.
Vaz thought of that Staffan, screwed by his own kind and then glassed by the Covenant, and wondered if there was any justice left in the world.
He lay on his bunk for a long time, staring up at the deckhead in chaotic, numb anger. More than seventy families had been through something like that, and the only thing that had put an end to their misery was the Covenant. How many of them had been as tragic as Naomi’s parents? How the hel was he going to tel her any of this?
He swung his legs off the bunk, determined to come back later and finish reading every last damn word. One thought wouldn’t go away, though.
Halsey was stil down there, one deck below. She’d led a charmed life, paid and praised and given nice big budgets, while al the time she was no better than any of the other war criminals throughout history who’d been tried and hanged, or who’d never faced justice at al .
Vaz knew a little about World War II because it was stil compulsory history in the school he’d attended. Russia didn’t forget her wars. If he’d run into Dr. Josef Mengele five hundred years ago and known what the man had done, or would do, and if he’d shot him, then he’d have been hailed as a patriot. Everyone would have said he’d done humanity a favor.
Now he had a modern-day Mengele right here.
Vaz was halfway down the passage before the thought started crystal izing. By the time he got to the ladder that would take him to the deck below, he’d already kissed good-bye to his service career and his freedom. He found himself outside Halsey’s temporary cel with one hand on the door and the other resting on his sidearm. He thought of al the scientists responsible for wartime atrocities and how many of them made themselves too useful to hang, and died fat and rich and respected at a ripe old age. That was when he decided that the world could probably get by just fine without another Spartan program.
He put one finger on the lock override.
“Vasily,” said the voice behind him. No, it wasn’t behind him; it was somewhere overhead, in one of the ship’s broadcast speakers, like the voice of God. “Vaz, I told you it would make you angry, didn’t I? Come on. Walk away from it.”
“Nobody ever stops monsters until it’s too late,” he said. “We can’t claim we didn’t know about this one.”
“But there’s always another one to take their place, Vaz,” BB said. “And I think Naomi would be happier if you weren’t serving life for blowing Halsey’s brains out.”
Vaz paused for a good ten seconds, hating himself for hesitating when he knew this woman was probably never going to face real justice. What did he have to lose? No kids, no family. Not half as much as the colonists whose lives she’d wrecked.
“Vaz— leave her to Parangosky. ” BB’s tone was firmer now. “She’s much more proficient than you at making people suffer. Go find Naomi. Go on. ”
Vaz felt as if he’d suddenly sobered up. It didn’t stop the anger or the seething hatred, but he felt both stupid and justified, which was hard to handle.
BB was looking out for him, though. That was what friends were for.
“Thanks, BB.” He rubbed his face with both hands and started walking away. Coward, a voice said inside him. Coward. “Yeah, I’l do that. I hope I never have to regret this.”
“You know you already do,” BB said. “Now go press your best pants. We hand over Halsey, and then we go home for the memorial ceremony.”
Vaz had plenty of people to commemorate. It stil seemed pretty lavish to slip back to Earth in the middle of a mission. “They real y need us there?”
“Yes. The Arbiter’s attending.”