The Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin Page B

during the trial. God knows how many others that were never made public.
When the trial was over, Dalin Rowan walked out of the courtroom and was never
seen again. The bureau gave him a new identity.”
    Xris frowned,
thinking. “What about Armstrong?”
    “Like you, he was
trying to track Rowan down. Obviously, he succeeded. He was probably the one
who led the agency to Rowan, who was already in bed with the Hung. Nice and
convenient.”
    “And instead of
blowing the traitor’s head off, the bureau uses him!” Xris took the twist out
of his mouth, leaned forward. “What have you got? A name, a planet? That’s all
I need. Give that to me and we’ll call it a deal. I’ll take it from here.”
    “Ah, this is where
I enter a moral and legal dilemma,” Wiedermann stated sonorously.
    “Fuck it!” Xris
swore. “I’m paying you enough to get over your moral and legal dilemma. I want
to talk to him, that’s all.”
    Wiedermann studied
Xris, gazed at him long and intently.
    The cyborg could
see his own metal body reflected back to him in the detective’s pale and watery
green eyes.
    “Having heard your
story, I would say that you are entitled to that much,” the detective conceded.
“If anything goes amiss—”
    “You won’t be
involved.”
    “Damn right, we
won’t be,” Wiedermann snapped. “I’ve already established that you lied to us.
Our lawyers have indicated to me that we’ll be in the clear—”
    “Clear for what?
You worried about the bureau? Hell, this was almost nine years ago. We’ve gone
through a major change of government since then. FISA’s still around, of
course, but I doubt if anyone’s left in the department who remembers—”
    “Not the
bureau,” said Wiedermann shortly. “I’ll bring up the file.”
    He swiveled in his
chair, rolled the chair over to one of the computers, and placed his hands on
the keyboard. Data and a blurred picture scrolled rapidly past Xris’s vision. A
printer whirred. Hard copy slid out into a tray, including—Xris could see from
his vantage point—a color photograph. Xris waited with ill-concealed impatience
while Wiedermann examined the documents, collated them, tapped them into neat
order on the desk, then handed them over to Xris.
    The photograph was
on top.
    Xris looked at it,
looked up at Wiedermann. “Who’s this?”
    “Dalin Rowan. Not
his real name now, of course.”
    Xris frowned, eyes
narrowed. “What is this? A joke?”
    “I never joke.”
    “Neither do I.”
Xris rose to his feet. Hinging the photo and the rest of the data onto the
desk, he leaned over it, leaned into Wiedermann’s face. “I paid you—paid you
damn well—to get information for me. As for what I do with that information,
that’s none of your goddam business! You—”
    “Please, sit down,”
Wiedermann said.
    “Not until you
give me my information! The real information!” Xris clamped his metal hand over
Wiedermann’s collar, bow tie and all, and twisted. The tie crumpled into a wad.
Wiedermann tilted his head back; his Adam’s apple bobbed up over Xris’s
fingers.
    “That is the information,” Wiedermann croaked, remaining calm. “Read it, if you don’t
believe me. Frankly, I didn’t believe it myself. But when you think about it—”
    Xris let loose,
shoved Wiedermann backward. The cyborg remained standing a moment longer,
glaring, deciding what to do.
    Slowly, he
relapsed back into his chair and, grudgingly, picked up the data, including the
photograph. He looked at it again.
    Dalin Rowan had
been two meters tall, with dark hair, slender build, brown eyes, and a wide and
infectious smile. Above all, Dalin Rowan had been a he.
    The picture Xris
held was of a she.
    Most definitely—a
she.
    “You have to
admit,” Wiedermann said in admiration, “it’s the ultimate disguise.”
     

Chapter 6
    On ne nait pas
femme: on le devient.
    One is not born a
woman: one becomes one.
    Simone de Beauvoir, Le deuxieme sexe
     
    “Darlene