The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1

by Arlene F. Marks

  Chapter 38

  Drew went directly to A Deck from the caf, accompanied by as many of his crew as could fit into the tube car with him, and found Doc Ktumba already there. She had brought an anti-grav gurney and all the whole blood Bonelli’s stem cells had been able to generate, and was muttering impatiently under her breath as she waited for the archway doors to open.

  Finally, they parted. Drew and the others stayed back, allowing the Doc to board with her medical gear. Over the years he’d spent as a field investigator, Drew had seen plenty of broken bodies. When Smith and Holchuk emerged with Bonelli on the gurney and Ktumba right behind, Townsend knew, with dreadful certainty, that the Ranger was near death.

  So did the Doc. “Get this man to Med Services right now!” she snapped. Instantly, Hagman and Mossman stepped forward and took over propelling the gurney into the tube car.

  Moments later, Drew was barking orders and — miracle of miracles — watching his crew jump to follow them. “I want the mission team in AdComm for debriefing in half an hour and the rest of you either in your quarters or in the caf,” he decided. “Lydia, Ruby needs to park Devil Bug on the primary landing deck and join us in AdComm as soon as she can.”

  “I hear you, Chief,” called Ruby through the archway. “Okay, everybody out, shoo! And take your toys with you.”

  Singh and Gouryas emerged, laden down with gadgets and grinning from ear to ear. Clearly, the mission had been a success. Drew waved them impatiently toward the tube car door. O’Malley was the one he wanted to talk to.

  The ratkeeper was the last one out. Drew stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. “I need you to check something in the databases,” he muttered urgently. “It’s important.”

  Thirty minutes later, Drew was on his way to AdComm when his wristcomm bleeped at him again. “Drew,” said Lydia’s voice, “the Doc needs you in Med Services, immediately.”

  He’d been afraid of this. Bonelli’s face had been so pale, his uniform so bloodied…. Reaching for the override button on the tube car’s control pad, Drew replied, “Tell her I’m on my way.”

  “Finally, you’re here,” declared the Doc as Drew stepped into the Trauma Clinic. “Captain Bonelli regained consciousness once I’d infused him. Now he won’t let me anesthetize him for surgery until he’s spoken with you.”

  “Hey, Snooper,” said Bonelli, his voice barely a whisper. His color was a little better, but that was all.

  “Spike,” Townsend acknowledged. “You’re in pretty bad shape. What happened over there?”

  The Ranger essayed a grin. “The new commander arrived. His creds looked suspicious to me, so I checked them against the database. He didn’t like that. Used a lot of body language to make his point. Then you called to invite everybody to the concert. You asked for me, so I knew you had no idea this guy was coming, and you should have, if he was legit. Later, he caught me on the long-range comm, using that.”

  Too weak to point, Bonelli turned his head and stared at the tray beside his medbed. Drew followed his gaze and saw a familiar looking black cylinder with ridges along half its length. An EIS encryption device.

  “He ordered me to turn it over to him,” Bonelli continued, “and I refused. Then he mopped the floor with me.” Noticing the expression on Drew’s face, the Ranger added, “Hey, this was a major operation. You didn’t honestly believe they would send you out here all alone, without providing emergency backup?”

  Actually, that was exactly what Drew had thought. Correction — it was what he’d been led to believe. But Bonelli’s question was rhetorical, so he let it go and asked instead, “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Couldn’t. Orders. Your response to me had to be genuine. I have to tell you, kid, I had no idea you were still that angry.”

  “Make it fast, gentlemen,” cut in the Doc. “Captain Bonelli has serious internal injuries. I need to get him into surgery as soon as possible.” Drew glanced up, startled to realize that Ktumba had been standing there, overhearing their entire conversation. As though reading his mind, she informed him curtly, “Doctor-patient privilege, Mr. Townsend. Nothing you say leaves this room. Unless you talk him to death. Then all bets are off.”

  Drew faced Bonelli again and said urgently, “You set me up, Spike. Cost me five years of my life.”

  “I know. That was the plan. Ratting you out wasn’t my idea, kid. They wanted you off the street and completing your education. You were no good to them without your Eligibility.”

  “Them?”

  Another faint quirking of Bonelli’s lips. “You were hand-picked. So was I. So was everyone on the Hub. And the Zoo. They just don’t realize it. On the shuttle, I overheard things. They’re good people, Townsend. They’ve earned the right to know the truth. Tell them what they’re doing out here. Then figure out a way to get that ninja off Zulu. Lieutenant Rodrigues is my second. A good man. He’ll work with you until the EIS can send a replacement.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” said the Doc. “Mr. Townsend, I believe you’re late for a meeting…?”

  As he walked out of Trauma and toward the tube car, something that Bonelli had said stuck in his mind — for an important operation, there had to be backup. As well, as Townsend had pointed out earlier to Holchuk, tests had to be overseen, experiments observed.

  The Meniscus Field generators had been placed on Daisy Hub and on Zulu to be tinkered with. Earth Council had to have placed someone on the Hub to monitor the activities of the engineers and techs. So who was it? If both entire crews had been hand-picked by the EIS, who did that leave? The station manager. And who had arrived on Daisy Hub at the same time as the field generator was being installed?

  Karim Khaloub. So the ‘unlikely choice’ had been working undercover after all. That explained why he’d needed Lydia’s surveillance skills.

  Bonelli had known from the beginning that Drew Townsend was a fellow EIS operative. Drew went back over everything the Ranger had said to him, recalling:

  “If a real threat to security ever arose, I’d say we’re equipped to handle it.” He hadn’t been talking about security around the Meniscus Field generator installation. He’d been talking about anyone who came to the station who wasn’t cleared by the EIS.

  Pieces were falling into place now. Khaloub’s death might have been an accident, but it was a happy accident. Or was it? The entire system was watchdogged — but there was someone aboard Daisy Hub who could get past the watchdogs, who had practiced in the SPA room.

  Did Robert O’Malley have an EIS encryption device too?

  And if everyone aboard the Hub was there because Earth Intelligence had put them there, and the EIS had ordered the hit on Karim Khaloub, then what about Gavin Holchuk? The Chief Cargo Inspector had spent years blaming the Relocation Authority for his wife’s death and his daughter’s disappearance. What if the tragedy had actually been engineered by Earth Intelligence?

  Ugly questions. They left a distinctly bitter taste in Townsend’s mouth. It was too late to ask Bonelli about any of this — the Ranger would be in surgery for some time. Even if he weren’t, he might not have the answers Drew needed, since the EIS kept its operatives on a need-to-know basis. Maybe, for the sake of his mission and the ongoing security of Daisy Hub, Townsend should do the same. Bonelli had been right about one thing — it was time to tell the crew of Daisy Hub why they were there. How they had gotten there was another matter, something Drew would just have to keep to himself for now.

  Chapter 39

  Drew and Ruby stepped out of tube cars on opposite sides of AdComm, and O’Malley joined them a couple of minutes later. Somebody had gathered all the chairs and arranged them in a semi-circle in front of the station manager’s desk. As expected, none of the mission team were sitting yet. Drew glanced around, feeling momentarily buoyed by the sight of their beaming faces. Well, most of them. Holchuk stood off by himself, arms cros
sed, his expression inscrutable. Townsend could feel the Chief Cargo Inspector’s eyes on him as he rounded the row of filing cabinets and took his seat.

  “Everyone, please sit down,” Drew invited them, “and let’s begin the—”

  Lydia’s voice interrupted him. “Drew, I’m getting a commburst from Zulu. It’s Major Cisco. He’s speaking very quickly and his pronunciation is atrocious, but I’m getting the gist of it. He definitely isn’t happy. Something about a missing officer. He’s coming back here as soon as possible to search for him. And he keeps repeating the word ‘purple’.”

  “Purple?” Drew echoed. On cue, Gouryas unrolled a bundle he’d brought with him to the debriefing. It was a PLS suit and it was bright purple, right down to the glove fastenings. Drew had to suppress a smile. “You painted Zulu purple?” So much for sneaking aboard and away undetected. No wonder Ruby had referred to the team’s technology as ‘toys’.

  “Not intentionally,” Singh explained. “The paint job appears to be a side effect. The paintbrush was obviously set for purple, and—”

  “I didn’t want to risk turning part of the Ranger station into acrylic by trying to reverse it, so I left it painted,” said Gouryas. “We were only on the landing deck, anyway—”

  “—which Cisco now thinks you vandalized for fun while rescuing Bonelli,” concluded Drew. “But you said it was a side effect. What was the main effect?”

  The two engineers exchanged a conspiratorial look. “An invisibility field,” announced Singh. In an instant, they were competing to tell the story. Their excitement grew as they relished each new detail, making them sound more like hyperactive children than trained professionals. Drew listened in bemusement, his eyes widening as they swung back and forth. Then, abruptly, the recitation was over. Gouryas and Singh sat back in their chairs, grinning smugly and waiting to be congratulated.

  For several seconds, Drew was speechless. He’d sent a team to Zulu to figure out how to shut down a dangerous piece of equipment, and they’d managed instead to turn it into a defensive advantage. And that was a good thing, he told himself. Daisy Hub was an outpost, weaponless and vulnerable. Anything that could protect the Hub and its crew from as yet unknown enemies had to be considered a valuable gift, even one that had come from the Nandrians with some assembly required and no instruction manual.

  It wasn’t an oversight. The Nandrians loved riddles and puzzles and knew that the Humans did too. So, they’d given Daisy Hub the invisibility field generator in pieces, evidently anticipating that the crew would enjoy figuring out what it was. That meant the security protocols were probably just an empty threat, which would in turn mean that Drew’s earlier suspicion was correct — Khaloub’s death had been murder, made to look accidental by the only man aboard the Hub who could have arranged it. Drew’s report to SISCO had stated categorically that the station manager’s death had involved no foul play. If the EIS hadn’t ordered this hit, they were all in deep trouble.

  Carefully composing his features, Drew turned to meet Holchuk’s steady gaze. “Do you have anything to add, Mr. Holchuk?”

  The other man shook his head. “Just that the Nandrians will expect the courtesy of a thank you. There’s a generosity appreciation script. The next time Nagor boards the station, you’ll have to meet him on A Deck and…” He let his voice trail off. “You okay, boss man?” asked Holchuk with a faint grin.

  Another speech at swordpoint. Terrific. “I’ll let you know,” he muttered, then gathered himself and announced to all present, “So, we’re now in possession of a stealth cloak, which Earth Council knows nothing about. And the first time we use this field, it’s going to paint the Hub purple?”

  “Or green, or orange, or whatever the setting on the paintbrush happens to be,” Singh informed him.

  “Yellow’s nice,” Ruby chimed in helpfully. “It’s a cheerful color.”

  “Actually,” said Gouryas, “we don’t know for sure that that effect has to happen. I left the casing open when I activated the field generator and it spray-painted the landing deck. Maybe there’s a setting on the paintbrush we haven’t found yet. Or maybe we need to keep the generator in a small, enclosed space. We’ll need some time to experiment with the invisibility field and figure out how it works.”

  Drew sighed inwardly. Experiment where, precisely? They couldn’t just stage a show for the Rangers each time they needed to borrow Zulu. And what about the damage that had already been done to the bulkheads on the Hub? Twenty-five soft spots, hull integrity dropping — never mind what the effect of painting the shuttle deck purple might be!

  Holchuk’s harsh voice brought him back to the moment. “Time will be a problem if we can’t do something about that ninja over on the Zoo,” the Chief Cargo Inspector was pointing out. “He nearly killed Bonelli. Now he knows that we’ve been there and that Bonelli is over here. And from what I’ve seen, his hands and feet really are lethal weapons.”

  Fortunately, Townsend had already thought of that. “O’Malley? What were you able to find?”

  “I checked out Major Cisco, boss, as you requested. Bottom line, Cisco’s creds are definitely bogus. And they’re crude. There’s minimal backstory, with no cross-referencing to speak of. Clearly, it’s a rush job, and that’s not how the Authorities operate. They keep a closet full of ready-made shell identities that their agents can step into and out of. Impeccably crafted.”

  “You’ve seen them?” Ruby joked.

  Eyes twinkling, O’Malley leaned toward her and intimated, “Seen them? I created some of them.” Then, serious once more, he continued, “The only reason I can think of for a government agency to send someone off-planet with creds like this would be to get rid of him. He’d be outed the first time he tried to access a credit account, and people would be lining up to hit him with a baseball bat.”

  “Except that he knew his creds wouldn’t stand up,” said Townsend. “That’s why he attacked Bonelli — he was checking Cisco out on the database.”

  “Then the major didn’t come from any branch of Earth’s government,” O’Malley concluded. “He’s a freelancer, and I think I know what brought him here.” A pause for dramatic effect, then, “You asked me to check for an arrest warrant? There was one issued for Captain Bonelli, time stamped the same date as those creds were entered in the system, but three hours earlier.”

  “Bogus as well?”

  O’Malley shook his head. “I’m not sure. The warrant is thumbprinted by some big-hat on Earth’s High Council, but that could have been his secretary doing a favor for someone. It’s illegal, but a lot of those high officials get stamps made of their thumbprints so someone else can do the real work while they’re off at the sports complex. According to the warrant, Bonelli is wanted by the Space Installation Authority for treason and espionage.”

  ‘The people we both work for,’ Quan had said.

  Townsend swore under his breath. “It’s bogus, O’Malley. Cisco had another reason for coming out here, and it’s nothing to do with the SIA.” He paused, debating briefly with himself. They were good people, Spike had said. They deserved to know the truth. Yes, they did, Drew decided, and the sooner he started telling it, the better: “He wants Yoko. Alison Morgan must have filed her complaint the second she stepped aboard the long-hopper taking her home. That’s how Cisco knew to come here.”

  “He knows about Yoko?” O’Malley demanded, stiffening in his seat.

  Ruby pursed her lips tightly, saying nothing.

  Drew nodded wearily. “He knows all about Yoko, and he’s apparently promised her to a Greater European genetics firm. The arrest warrant was his ticket to Zulu, and the detachment at Zulu gives him something to threaten us with if we refuse to surrender her to him. Needless to say, even if the warrant turns out to be genuine, we are not handing Bonelli — or Yoko — over to that sadistic little privateer.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Smith
. “What’s so special about a cloned white rat?”

  Drew opened his mouth to answer, then shut it again. Deserving to know the truth was one thing; breaking the Doc’s confidence while she was elbow-deep in Bonelli’s innards was another.

  Then O’Malley leaned toward Smith and told him in a stage whisper, “Jason, she’s not cloned.”

  Townsend wanted to smack him. Ruby was sitting closer to him — she stretched out a leg and kicked him, hard, in the calf. But it was too late.

  “Oh,” said Smith. A moment later, as the meaning of the words sank in, his eyes opened wide and he repeated in amazement, “Ohhh!”

  Drew got to his feet. If he moved quickly, the situation could still be contained. “Yes, boys and girls,” he announced, “Yoko really is the Überrat. And that knowledge, which until a minute ago was a closely-guarded secret, is not to be repeated to anyone outside this room. Is that understood?” he concluded sternly.

  Everyone replied at once:

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Absolutely, Drew.”

  “Understood, Mr. Townsend.”

  “Mum’s the word.”

  “Of course, Chief.”

  “Not a word, boss.”

  Holchuk said nothing, just began to smile and nod emphatically. Drew had never seen him like this. Evidently, neither had anyone else in the room.

  “Gavin, what’s the matter?” demanded Ruby.

  “We’re a House!” he declared. “And Yoko is our living staff!”

  “And what precisely is a living staff?” Drew asked wearily.

  “It symbolizes the power and longevity of the House,” Holchuk replied, then explained, “According to legend, Nandor was not the original home world of the Nandrians. When they left it to explore the galaxy, they wanted to bring with them the sacred tree of their ancestors, but it refused to be transplanted. So, each House took a cutting from the tree. The Nandrians believe that the cuttings are still connected to the tree in some mysterious way, and that’s why each living staff continues to put out leaves and branches, centuries later. They also believe that if even one staff were to be destroyed, the entire tree back on the original home world would die; so, protecting its living staff — its tseritsa — is every House’s sacred obligation.”