Cats of War

by Carol Van Natta

  She tested the wall control several times, then turned to face him. “The door should work now. Try it from your desk.”

  He touched the controls. The door obligingly opened, closed, or locked each time. He smiled. “Yes, thank you.”

  She stepped over to the wallcomp. “Yeah, I see you, looking all innocent.”

  He chuckled. “Sly troublemakers, are they?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah. Either that, or they have swamp allergies, like us humans.”

  “Mold or spores, perhaps. The scientists complain about them.” He glanced at his percomp, then went back to reading. A faint rumble came from the direction of his stomach.

  He was probably hungry. It likely took a lot of concentrated protein and nutrients to keep his muscular body in such great condition. He made even the boring daily uniform look heroic. With his strong jaw and piercing blue eyes, he belonged in military recruiting holos. The bold geometric designs cut into the sides of his short brown hair offset his reserved demeanor, giving him an air of danger.

  Dangerous to her, anyway. Apparently, being tired and cranky made her vulnerable to nova-hot men. She would never have acted on her secret fantasy of pouncing on him, because it would have ruined their relationship and compromised them both. Besides, he seemed completely oblivious to even blatant sexual flirtation from women or men, at least from what she’d seen.

  Perhaps he needed an emotional connection with someone before becoming interested in getting physical. In which case, it was just as well he was leaving, before their friendly professional relationship had a chance to grow into anything personal. Loneliness made people do stupid things.

  The wallcomp’s small access door refused to open. She tried to pop off its decorative faceplate, but it clung to the bezel for dear life. When she finally pried it off, it slipped out of her fingers and landed on top of her foot, then bounced on the floor. “Ow!” She picked it up. “Sorry.”

  “Are you all right?” His concern seemed genuine.

  “Fine.” She fought off a blush. “I’m a certified non-adept. If this is the worst that happens, it’ll be a good day.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Swamp allergies are giving me weird flying dreams and waking me up, so I’m sleep-deprived, too. I’ve got a medic appointment in the morning.” And she was babbling to the pretty man. She gave herself a mental shake as she leaned the faceplate against the wall. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll assess all your tech now, then come back with the right parts.”

  He nodded. “As of now, my schedule is clear for the next ten-day.”

  His expression said he didn’t know how he felt about that. He was a decent man with a sense of humor hiding under his contained personality. She’d felt bad about lying to him during the intake interview, because he seemed like an ethical man, too.

  Oh, stop, she ordered herself.

  Tauceti probably fluxed her drives because she missed her ordinary life, when she’d had friends, and one or two more-than-friends for physical affection and comfort. That was before everything blew up, thanks to her no-good, dead-to-her, may-he-slowly-rot-in-transit-space twin brother.

  Those thoughts were a deeply-rutted, rocky path. “Move on, Barray,” she muttered to herself. She picked up the scanner and focused on the wallcomp.

  Twenty minutes later had her wishing she’d taken a backbreaking processing plant job instead of demonstrating a little tech experience during the skills assessment for restitution job placement.

  Every single tech device in Tauceti’s office, from his wallcomp, to his clock display, to his frelling portable fan, was infested with surveillance tech. Redundant, overlapping, interfering surveillance tech, some of which had been installed by rank amateurs.

  Telling him would reveal her expertise, which was far deeper than her official records hinted at. She should know, because she’d written them herself. Deactivating the tech would bring the same result.

  Also, if she’d misread Tauceti, and he deserved to be that tightly monitored, taking any action would expose the investigation.

  Despite what the crime and conviction record said that had gotten her to Argint d’Apa, she was not anti-social. She’d been keeping a low profile for safety and working off her self-imposed sentence for being mind-bogglingly trusting and desperately stupid.

  She needed more information on Tauceti before she could decide what to do. Her job meant she’d been in enough of the Argint d’Apa systems to know she could do some investigating of her own and not get caught. Her former specialty had been multi-node fractal meshes for financial systems, not processing plants that collected rare metals from the runoff that filtered through the swamp, but they had remarkably similar principles.

  In the meantime, the people at the other end of the surveillance feed might find it suspicious if she didn’t at least make a token attempt at her job. “Could I borrow your guest chair again? I’ve got time to fix your clock before I go.”

  “Of course.” He watched as she carried it over and stepped up onto it, then went back to his deskcomp display.

  Knowing the various spy eyes were watching, she fumbled around in the clock systems, as if improvising. Which she would have been, when she first arrived. Luckily, she knew how to read schematics and she’d learned quickly. Once she paid her debt, she’d need a new career, but it wouldn’t be a repair tech. Her experience in Argint d’Apa proved they only saw grumpy people.

  Surreptitiously, she overpowered her multi-tool, then touched it to the offending, power-grabbing module that contained a spy eye and who knew what else. She jumped when it actually sparked. Frelling amateurs. “Sorry, little clock.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Fine.” She isolated the fried module but left it in place. “Just a bad connector.” She traced the other connectors to make sure no other vampire tech was stealing power. “I think I’ve got it fixed.”

  She stepped off the chair and carried it back to its place.

  Just as she picked up the handles to her bag, his office door opened to admit a knee-high cleaning bot. It raced into the room, zoomed by her feet, and banged itself into the south wall. It backed up and did it twice more.

  On the third run, Ferra intercepted it. “Come here, you.” She grunted as she lifted the heavy bot and turned it on its side. Tri-treads spun in place, like a turtle trying to right itself. She opened the concealed access plate and used the handle of her multitool to kill the power. “Does this happen to you a lot?”

  “Are you talking to the bot or me?” Tauceti was suddenly close and looking down at her.

  She covered her surprise with a laugh. “Both. You go first.”

  “No. Bots don’t usually go berserk in my office.” A twinkle in his eye belied his serious expression.

  “Wonder why it’s out in daytime.” She patted its shell. “If it’s still here when I come back tomorrow, I’ll find out—”

  “What are you doing to that bot?”

  A woman stood in the doorway, arms crossed. Her digital name tag proclaimed her to be E. Calderosh, Facility Maintenance, and tailored work clothes confirmed her to be regular staff, not an indenturee. She looked mid-thirties, but could have been five times that old if she’d had regular maintenance or a full-body makeover. A crown of frizzy gold and silver braids kept her hair in place. Her expression made Ferra feel like a teenage miscreant.

  “The bot malfunctioned,” said Tauceti firmly. “Barray turned it off.”

  Calderosh’s suspicious look cleared. “Oh, well, that’s all right, then. I’ll take it.” She left for a moment, then came back in the room with a gravcart that had the sorry remains of another cleaning bot on it. She looked at Tauceti. “You haven’t seen any other bots, have you? Some of these big ones and a bunch of the smaller ones are missing.” She shaped her hands as if to hold something the size of a sports ball.

  He shook his head. “No.” Even standing casually, he looked like a vid star. No wrinkles, no dust, not a hair out of place.
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br />   Ferra stood and moved away from the bot, only to stumble over her own equipment bag and land on her ass. Her multitool went flying and bounced off the bot, then off Tauceti’s shin.

  “Sorry.” She picked herself and the multitool up off the floor. She hid her embarrassment by bending over to seal and pick up her bag, allowing her loose, wavy hair to hide her face.

  Clearly, she was a menace. For safety, she sould go straight to her room and stay there until the bad-luck chaos cloud moved on, except she still had things to do.

  He glanced at her. “No harm done.”

  “At least the damn dogs didn’t try to eat this one.” Calderosh lifted the bot onto the cart with ease. “I have a feeling some of the bots got past the outer fence and are trying to clean the swamp.” She rolled her eyes. “My boss will probably want me to go out and retrieve them.”

  Ferra laughed. “Because they’ll smell so good when you get them back.”

  “Exactly,” said Calderosh. “If you find any, turn them in. The plant manager posted a restitution bounty for them.”

  Surprised at the woman’s friendliness, Ferra smiled. “Good to know.”

  Tauceti raised an eyebrow. “Has anyone tried turning the same one in multiple times?”

  Calderosh chuckled. “A few of usual chiselers tried, but I hid asset tracers in the returned bots.”

  A lock of hair fell in Ferra’s face. When she went to brush it back, the pass-tracker cuff on her wrist suddenly fell off and bounced on the floor in two pieces. She must have hit it when she fell. She scooped up the two pieces with a sigh. Her supervisor would probably charge her for printing a new one, since it would be her third.

  Calderosh dug into one of the bellows pockets in her vest. “Here. Glue it with this until you can get it fixed.” She produced a tube and held it out with a smile. “Locktight water sealer. Handiest stuff on the base.”

  Ferra shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t know how to use it.”

  Calderosh pointed to the blue end. “Put the paste on the broken ends, hold them together, then zap it with the microcharger on the top. Hardens in seconds.”

  The bracelet-style percomp around Calderosh’s wrist began blinking. She touched her earwire and subvocalized. As she listened, her expression transitioned into annoyance.

  She blew out a noisy breath and grabbed the gravcart’s control bar. “An indenturee named Healey sabotaged the kennel doors before her unauthorized departure, so of course, I’m the only non-indenturee in the whole facility who can let the damn hellhounds out.” She handed the tube to Ferra. “Leave it with the subcaptain when you’re done.”

  Calderosh stomped out with the gravcart trailing her like a child’s wagon.

  Ferra looked at the tube, then put it on Tauceti’s desk. “I’ll leave this with you right now. Considering the day I’m having, I’d probably seal my fingers together.”

  His expression softened as he glanced at the broken pieces in her hand. “Want me to try?”

  “Sure.” She put them on the desk, then backed away. “I’ll just stand over here, in case clumsiness is communicable.”

  He deftly applied dabs of paste on each broken piece. “You’re not clumsy.” Pushing the ends together right the first time, he held the cuff together with one hand and touched the microcharger tip to the joins. “You’re just tired.” He leaned over his desk to examine the joins under the bright lamp.

  “Yeah, that too.” A violent, wet sneeze took her by surprise. She barely had time to cover her face with her elbow. “And allergic.”

  Good thing she wasn’t trying to impress Tauceti, because otherwise, she’d be thoroughly mortified by the whole visit and have to avoid him for at least a ten-day.

  “The medics have chems for that.” He handed her the repaired pass-tracker.

  Ferra laughed. “I’m pretty sure no chems in the galaxy will cure clumsiness.” She slipped the tracker onto her wrist. “Besides, I avoid any drugs if at all possible. If there’s an obscure side-effect that’s worse than the disease, I’m guaranteed to get it.” She hitched the bag’s strap higher on her shoulder. “I’ll get out of your orbit so you can go eat.”

  He nodded and glanced at his percomp. “What time will you be here tomorrow?”

  “Assuming no front-office emergencies, nine-hundred-ish. Maybe earlier if the medic clears me fast.”

  “I’ll be here.” He went back behind his desk. “Get some rest.”

  She felt like she ought to salute or yes-sir him, even though she wasn’t military. “Uh, thanks for fixing my cuff.”

  “No problem.” He sat and turned on his deskcomp display.

  For a moment, she thought he looked lonely, sitting in his perfect uniform, in his perfect office that had nothing personal to relieve the generic sterility.

  She shook her head as she left his office. Move on, Barray.

  3

  Kedron had unexpected free time after his quick cafeteria dinner. Argint d’Apa’s security chief had canceled their regular meeting, likely because the guards hadn’t yet recaptured Healey, even after deploying the genetically modified hellhounds. The shady pet trade had originally designed them as status symbols for the wealthy; the military found them useful and expropriated the patents. Argint d’Apa security got them as part of their deal with CRIO. The dense biomass of the swamp and the types of metals in the mountain runoff water made ordinary tracers and trackers next to worthless outside the plant compound’s perimeter.

  While Kedron wouldn’t miss the Argint d’Apa facility, he would miss the swamp. He’d disliked it at first, the same way most staffers still did, but it had grown on him. He’d spent time studying its ecology and gone with the biodiversity scientists on a few sample-collection expeditions. Living so close to untamed nature made it easier to understand how everything, from the majestic giant trees to annoying clouds of gnats, had a place. Maybe he did, too, even if he couldn’t see it.

  He put away his uniform and decided to walk laps on the campus’s wide perimeter walkway, rather than spend another evening alone in the gym. Regulations restricted it to military personnel, and he’d never seen the CPS representative use it.

  As much as possible, he kept his interactions with her in virtual space. As a mid-level telepath, she could read thoughts, and as a low-level sifter, she could affect brain chemicals, detect lies, and sense the use of active minder talents. Military personnel caught with minder talents earned an immediate, permanent transfer to the CPS’s Minder Corps.

  Kedron’s minder talent wasn’t much, just an ability to use seemingly unrelated information to find things of interest, but he’d rather direct traffic for a city of half a billion or be an indenturee than work for the Minder Corps. Too many private family stories warned of how badly the Minder Corps treated its personnel. He’d learned to hide his talent well enough to beat the CPS Testing Center for mandatory age twelve and seventeen tests, and random ones since, but some sifters were better than the testing equipment. Fortunately, minder talents in the patterner class were hard for even high-level sifters to detect.

  He pulled on pants and a specially treated long-sleeved top to ward off biting insects. Last, he stepped into one of his few indulgences—custom-tailored, waterproof, adaptive boots. Even with myriad modern transportation options, Ground Div gunnin, from the lowest ranker to High Command commodores, spent a lot of time walking, running, and marching. Good boots made all the difference.

  He looked out the north-facing window of his quarters to check the weather and the path. Non-essential indenturees were on lockdown, and half the staff was busy, so he wasn’t surprised to see it deserted. The tall perimeter fence’s horizontal power lines beyond the road-glass pathway glowed faintly as reminders of their presence. The overhead and glass path lights blinked on and off erratically, then stayed off. Twilight and mold sometimes messed with the sensors.

  Shadowed movement caught his eye. Someone carrying a shallow, rectangular crate stepped off the path toward the exterior pow
ered fence. The figure knelt right in front of the fence and set the crate down. After furtive looks left and right, the hunched figure slid something under the fence.

  Instead of zapping the person into insensibility or setting off the alarm, the visible bottom three fence lines between the two posts raised like a curtain, leaving a torso-height gap. The figure quickly extended a pole to push the crate outside the fence as far as possible, until it butted up against the big rock outcropping. He or she retracted the pole and picked up the device from the dirt. The fence line sank and straightened to its usual position.

  The lights flickered on briefly. The figure pulled on a hood and hunched forward, but he’d already recognized the face. Ferra Barray.

  She stepped onto the path and headed west. The lights came on and stayed bright. He watched until she vanished.

  Protocol said to report anything unusual to the security chief, but Kedron had repeatedly been told, politely but sternly, to stick to his own star lane.

  He wished he could come up with a more probable theory than suspecting that Barray was dealing contraband. A non-indenturee confederate would likely pick up the goods. Chems, pilfered equipment or tech, and stolen raw metals were all likely candidates.

  He wouldn’t have tagged her for a thief. She’d been convicted of crashing a friend’s air-racing yacht into a Central Galactic Concordance government launch hangar that housed military orbiters. When she couldn’t pay the court-ordered restitution, the CGC arbiter remanded her to the CRIO system. The record implied she’d been chemmed to the gills.

  That didn’t sync with her comment earlier that day about avoiding drugs of any sort, but everyone did stupid things now and again.

  He wanted Barray to be the person he thought she was, but his experience with the theft ring situation taught him not to be swayed by what he wished to be true, and to look at the actual facts. He needed to know what was in the crate.

  Crossing to his closet, he pulled out a dark jacket and wrist lights, plus a bigger floating light.