He sounded sure of himself: patronizing and impregnable. His face belied his tone, however. Instead of looking at her, he flicked his eyes around the room like a man searching out enemies. His cheeks had lost color, as if his blood had run gray. He held his head cocked slightly toward the PCR in his ear. Concentration clenched the corners of his mouth.
Before Koina could reply, one of her techs murmured, “Director,” and thrust a small communications board into her hands. Apparently the tech didn’t want to chance being overheard. Instead she pointed at a message on the board’s readout.
Instinctively Koina held it so that Cleatus couldn’t see it. Blinking hard to focus her eyes, she read the transmission.
It was from UMCPHQ Center.
It reported that Punisher had arrived.
Resumed tard not far from UMCPHQ and Calm Horizons.
With Ensign Morn Hyland in command. In command—?
The readout also stated that Hashi Lebwohl had stepped down as Acting Director in Warden Dios’ absence. Still aboard Punisher, Min Donner had taken his place.
Acting Director Donner had ordered the shutdown of Earth’s vast scan net.
In command—?
None of it made any sense. Min Donner was Acting Director? Even though she was stuck aboard a ship she didn’t command? And she wanted the scan net shut down?
Somehow Morn had—?
Koina couldn’t begin to guess what it all meant.
Nevertheless it explained why Cleatus didn’t want her to answer Maxim’s questions. The fact that Morn Hyland was here—and in command of Punisher—must have appalled Holt Fasner. She was dangerous to him; far more dangerous than Koina herself. In Warden’s absence, Morn was more dangerous than anyone.
Fasner knew he’d lost control of the UMCP. Cleatus knew.
They knew they couldn’t trust Koina.
And without the scan net, HO—like UMCPHQ—had to rely on its own instruments. To that extent, the Dragon had been blinded. He could no longer see everything that happened.
“Director Hannish,” Maxim rasped sternly. “We’re waiting.”
At once Koina rose to her feet. As if she were as sure as the FEA, she answered, “I’m ready, Special Counsel.”
That was a lie. She wasn’t ready. Without evidence, she would never be ready. Yet she accepted Igensard’s demand as if he’d challenged her to personal combat: a test of honor.
Warden had given her his orders. And Cleatus Fane wanted her to remain seated; silent. Now that the crisis was upon her, she had no difficulty choosing between them.
HASHI
Freed from his responsibilities as Acting Director, Hashi left Center and headed for Lane Harbinger’s lab.
Despite his shambling gait and his air of distraction, he moved quickly: by his own standards, he was running. In the past hour crises had multiplied around him at an alarming rate. Quantum uncertainties expanded in chain reaction. At the same time—and by the same logic—the window during which he could hope to help shape events shrank. Endorphins and necessity burned in his synapses: his blood felt rich with urgency. He had work to do.
UMCHO had charged its guns. However, they were pointedly not aimed at Calm Horizons. The great worm in his lair wished Marc Vestabule to know that he was prepared to defend himself, but that he would not treat the huge defensive as an enemy unless he was forced to do so.
Time had become exquisitely short.
In subtle ways this pleased the DA director. Lesser men and women, lesser minds, had already been left behind by the burgeoning emergency. Now only genius might suffice to fend off ruin.
Hashi Lebwohl was eager to prove himself equal to Warden Dios’ vast and dangerous intentions.
Lane’s lab was several levels and several hundred meters away from Center. Lifts and service shafts shortened the distance, however, and Hashi knew them all. He reached her workroom scant minutes after confirming Min Donner as Acting Director.
But when he entered the lab—a large space by the constricted measure of an orbital platform—he stopped in surprise.
Lane was alone. Apart from the complex clutter of tables and terminals, instruments of all kinds, sterile chambers and autoclaves, retorts and flasks, probes and sensors and keypads, packets of stim and hype, pots of coffee, bowls overflowing with ash and butts, the room was empty. The numerous aides and techs he’d assigned to her were gone—sent away, he assumed, since he declined to believe that any of his people would have abandoned a project so vital.
And Lane herself was sitting down. In itself that was profoundly uncharacteristic: Hashi wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her in a chair of her own volition. As a rule she consumed enough stimulants of all kinds to make a block of wood hyperactive. Yet her condition was worse than uncharacteristic. She sat with her legs sprawled gracelessly in front of her as if she had no further use for them. Her head hung down, unclean hair dangling before her face: he couldn’t tell whether she’d glanced at him; whether she’d noticed his arrival at all. Only her mouth moved as she sucked, arrhythmic as a limping heart, on one of her foul nics. Smoke curled up into her face and filtered away through her hair as if she were exhaling her life.
For a moment Hashi was stunned. He lacked Warden’s talent for responding to the emotions of his people. Indeed, he seldom cared to let them distract him. By nature he was unprepared and ill equipped to deal with any woman in a state which resembled catatonia.
He had no time for Lane’s despair; no time at all. Yet he knew instantly, intuitively, that he would be unable to reach her unless he attended to it. Without warning he discovered that he would be lost unless he could prove himself Warden’s equal in completely unexpected ways.
“My dear Lane,” he asked softly, “what on Earth has gone wrong?”
She didn’t react. Smoke seeped out of her hair as if the mind under it had been burned to the ground.
Before he could decide how to approach her, the lab intercom chimed. “Director Lebwohl?” a voice asked nervously. “Director Lebwohl, are you there? This is Center. Director?”
Hashi swallowed an arcane curse. Briefly he forgot where Lane’s intercom was. The voice from Center seemed to arise from a source he couldn’t locate. Then he remembered that the console where she usually worked held her pickup and speaker.
Four vexed strides took him around a worktable to her terminal. With a jerk of his thumb, he toggled the pickup.
“Director Lebwohl,” he announced like a wasp. “Did I mention that I’m busy?”
“Sorry, Director,” the nervous voice replied quickly. “I have a flare for you. From Director Hannish. At the emergency session.”
Hashi wanted to retort, I know where she is. I stepped down as Acting Director. I wasn’t fired for incompetence. But he restrained himself. He didn’t have time to indulge his ire. Instead he drawled, “Then perhaps you should tell me what it says.”
“Yes, Director.” Hashi heard the sound of keys. “To DA Director Hashi Lebwohl,” Center reported. “From PR Director Koina Hannish. ‘I’m running out of time here.’ That’s all.
“Any response, Director?”
Hashi flapped his arms. The urgency in his blood needed an outlet. At the same time he couldn’t justify covering a mere communications tech—or Koina herself—with his exasperation.
“Inform Director Hannish,” he said brusquely, “that I do not wish to be disturbed.”
At once he silenced the pickup and turned back to Lane.
Past her hair he caught the glint of one eye. Her nic had been smoked out. She dropped it to the floor beside her, produced another from somewhere, lit it with a small magnesium torch hot enough to start a fire which would gut the station.
He concealed a thin sigh. Not comatose, he thought. Not unreactive. So much was encouraging.
On impulse he reached up, removed the glasses he wore for obfuscation, folded them carefully, and dropped them into a pocket of his labcoat. A feigned absence of pretense was the easiest stratagem he could d
evise on short notice.
“Lane, I can’t afford this.” He filled his voice with a vibration of sincerity. “I need you. Director Hannish needs you. You heard her message. It would be impossible to overstate how sorely you’re needed.
“I have no time to play therapist for an autistic child.”
At first he feared she wouldn’t answer. And what if she didn’t? What then? He could log on to her terminal, access her notes and records, attempt to reconstruct her results. But such a task might require hours. Even if he accomplished miracles of celerity, it would take too long—
Fortunately she’d heard him. She may have been overwhelmed by despair—or perhaps just utterly exhausted—but she was possessed by a mind which had always responded to the demands he’d placed on it. Her voice seemed to ache with reluctance as she murmured past the screen or her hair, “I failed.”
“What,failed? You?” Deliberately he stifled the avuncular tone he normally used in times of stress. Nor did he reveal his relief. Despair was in some sense unanswerable—a neurochemical wound which no words could heal. Mere failure was an altogether simpler issue. Perhaps she experienced something akin to the shame he’d felt when he’d realized that Warden’s game was far deeper than he’d imagined: the wound to his self-esteem. “Forgive my doubt. You could only fail by trying to answer the wrong questions. If you appear to have failed, it must be because I have misnamed your assignment in some way.”
After a moment she shook her head—the only movement she’d made except for those required by smoking. “I can’t find any proof,” she murmured listlessly. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that what you need?”
If she’d been any other woman—even Min Donner—he might have believed that she was on the verge of tears.
Her vulnerability sparked a reaction in him which he hardly recognized. It may have been that his heart went out to her. Slumping on the heels of his old-fashioned shoes, he moved toward her until he was near enough to touch her. With both hands he eased her head back, then parted her hair away from her face so that the smoke of her nic was no longer trapped in her eyes.
“Do I need proof?” he answered. “Assuredly. But it’s an ambiguous notion at the best of times—which these are not. Don’t trouble yourself with what I may or may not need, Lane. Tell me what you’ve learned.”
She didn’t meet his gaze. Her attention was fixed on a landscape of pain he couldn’t see.
“I found the hollow tooth. Where they stored that apoenzyme.” Nathan Alt’s chemical detonator. “He bit into it and blew up. But I can’t prove that. I can’t prove some other trigger wasn’t destroyed in the blast. I can’t tell you who did it to him.”
“We expected that,” he murmured to encourage her. “Go on.”
A small tightening that might have begun as a shrug seemed to pull her in on herself. “I tried to locate the original research.” Smoke and grief made her voice husky. “Somebody must have developed that apoenzyme. Made it. It didn’t just happen in his body. But whoever came up with it has done a better job than usual of keeping it secret. Or my clearance isn’t high enough. Or it came from the Amnion. I can’t find it.”
Hashi let his mouth twist with regret. He would have been delighted to learn that the research had been done by some subsidiary of the UMC.
“The code engine is current and correct,” Lane continued dully. “I told you that. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“No,” he assented. “But it is fascinating. And it serves to eliminate”—he fluttered a hand—“oh, any number of misleading possibilities.”
Apparently his reassurance meant nothing to her. She pulled herself tighter.
“I did a complete readout of the chip.” Her tone hinted at weeping. “Took a long time. My last hope.” She discarded one nic, lit another. “But it didn’t tell me anything we didn’t already know. Alt’s retinal signature wasn’t superimposed on Imposs’ credentials. Nothing was superimposed. That’s not Imposs’ id tag. It’s a new one. An authentic forgery. Designed to be exactly the same as his. Except it says Alt is him.”
Between one beat and the next, Hashi’s pulse accelerated. A new one. Excitement began to throb like hope in his bloodstream. An authentic forgery. She’d told him that earlier; but at the time he hadn’t entirely grasped its significance. Now it rejuvenated him.
“That doesn’t prove anything, either,” she went on.“Whoever did this has resources the native Earthers would kill for. So we can ignore them. But you knew that already, too.
“I don’t have anything for you,” she finished as if she’d reached the end of her strength. “We need to trace that chip.”
Perhaps he should have sustained his mask of sincerity for a few more moments. To some extent, however, he’d already forgotten her distress. Excitement carried him elsewhere. Unselfconsciously he snatched his glasses from his pocket, slapped them back onto his face.
“Then we will,” he announced like an affectionate uncle.
His sudden rush of confidence must have struck her as smug, condescending. She flinched as if he’d struck her; recoiled so hard that she nearly lost her seat. Then her despair ignited to fury with such brisance that it staggered him.
She flung herself at him; bunched her fists in the lapels of his labcoat; drove him backward.
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” she yelled into his amazed face. “My God, what do you think I’ve been doing here while you flit around smiling at everybody and pretending to know everything?” When she’d pushed him as far as the wall, she held him there. “What do you think I’ve been tearing my heart out about?”
Hashi blinked at her in confusion. “Do you mean you’ve been unable to identify the id code for that chip?”
“It’s too damn small!” Lane shouted; tried to howl.“Haven’t I told you that? If I dropped it in your mouth, you couldn’t find it with your tongue. It doesn’t have a source or a drain, and it doesn’t have a goddamn id code! I can’t produce evidence that isn’t there!”
Abruptly he understood her.
He made no physical effort to pull away. That wasn’t necessary. Instead he said gently, kindly, “Forgive me, Lane. You’re speaking of the SOD-CMOS fragment you recovered from Godsen’s office. Naturally you were unable to identify its id code. I didn’t intend to imply otherwise.
“I was referring to Captain Alt’s id tag.”
Her mouth fell open. With a visible effort she closed it. Her breath came in ragged gasps. As if she’d just become aware of what she was doing, she let him go and stepped back.
“Well, shit, Hashi,” she panted. “Of course I traced it. I’m still not stupid. But it doesn’t prove anything, either.” Gradually her respiration slowed. “It was part of a routine shipment delivered to UMC Home Security three weeks ago.
“I suppose you could say that’s incriminating. I mean, how did an HS SOD-CMOS chip end up in a GCES Security id tag? But it isn’t evidence. It just indicates UMCHO isn’t exactly secure, that’s all. Which is something else we already knew.”
“Lane, Lane.” He waved his arms generously, distributing reassurance in all directions. “As I say, proof is ambiguous. If you could have asked yourself the right questions, you would have seen that you’ve already found a strand of evidence.”
And enough strands made a rope.
At the same time, however, he berated himself in silence for not having foreseen this. A routine shipment to Home Security. He could have saved time if he’d guessed that the trail would be so direct; could have taken advantage of his brief tenure as Acting Director—
Perhaps he was no match for Warden Dios after all.
Yet the pressure of the situation left no space for self-recrimination. Without pausing, he remarked, “Three weeks ago, forsooth. And yet the illustrious Cleatus Fane asserts that Nathan Alt was fired twice that long ago.”
“Fired?” Lane asked quickly.
“From his position as UMC Security Liaison for Anodyne Systems,” Hashi expl
ained.
While she absorbed this information, he went on, “The fault for your misapprehension is mine. You were inadequately briefed. I have been distracted with other duties.” Other people’s emotions. “Despite my failings, however, you have commenced the work we must do.” The work which had to be done before Koina ran out of time. “You have begun to trace that chip. Now we will go further. Perhaps we will find strands enough to weave a noose.”
As he spoke, Lane appeared to regain her mental poise, her focus, by measurable increments. “How’re we going to do that?” she asked sharply. Only the trembling of her hands as she extracted and lit another nic betrayed the strain she felt.
In response Hashi allowed himself to resume his accustomed avuncular manner.
“My dear Lane, it has perhaps not come to your attention that I have placed ‘screaming red’ security locks of the very loudest sort on all Anodyne Systems’ logs and records. In addition, I have covered much of UMCHO with similar seals.
“Here.” Hurrying now, he moved to her terminal, opened a DA authorization query screen, and tapped a flurry of keys. Then he pointed a thin finger at the readout. “I have entered the codes which will grant you access to Home Security records.”
“That won’t help,” she objected. Her hard eyes studied him as if she wasn’t sure she could trust him. “They’ve had plenty of time to edit anything. Or cover it up.”
He shook his head. “Doubtless that’s true. Nevertheless I suspect they have not done so. From their perspective, it was inevitable that Captain Alt’s false id would be destroyed in the blast. Therefore no one would ever inquire into its provenance.” He shrugged. “More recently, of course, both the great worm and his prime spawn have been too heavily occupied to undertake the challenge of tampering with Red Priority locks.
“I believe you will be able to determine the use Home Security recorded for that chip.”
For a moment Lane scrutinized him warily. Something in her apparently wanted to hold back. She was too tired: too much had been asked of her. Or she’d seen through his pretense of concern—and didn’t like what she saw. Yet her gaze seemed to slide of its own accord away from him to the terminal. The lure of the investigation tugged at her. Almost against her will, she moved toward the keypad.
The Gap Into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die Page 38
