The Omega Egg [A Fictionwise Round Robin Novel]

by Mike Resnick;Various Authors

  Chapter 6: The Da Vinci Code

  by Laura Resnick

  Sitting in his temporary office on MacDougal II, Commander Kendell Spencer leaned forward and, with great deliberation, started banging his plastic-plated head against his desk.

  Alerted by the noise, perhaps, Patsy Klein stuck her head in the door a few moments later and asked, “Is there a problem?”

  The diminutive yet formidable Ramon Boganda looked up at her from his chair in the far corner of the drab, windowless room and said, “We're having a little trouble interpreting Plibix's message.” He blew gently on his java and took a sip.

  “'Master intelligence.'” Spencer banged his head on his desk. “'Scrambled eggs.'” Bang. “What does it mean?” Bang!

  “Okay, enough of that,” Ramon said. “That plastic head plate cost SpaceOp a bundle, you know. Don't even get me started on how bloated our medical expenses are for this fiscal year, and we're not even halfway through the second quarter yet.”

  “Maybe Plibix's message is in code,” Patsy suggested.

  “Of course it's in code!” Spencer snapped, wondering why he had ever described this woman to Ktonga, back on Goldmeadow, as tough and smart. Was the apparent disappearance of Patsy's brains, like so many other recent anomalies, due to the strange effects of the phenomenon Ramon had postulated of various dimensions rubbing against each other like continental plates and leaking into each other? And, if so, was it only a matter of time before Spencer himself was no longer the best agent that SpaceOp had to offer, but merely some middle-aged, dim-witted schmuck with a lot of fake body parts? “My God, the galaxy really is going to hell in a hand basket!”

  “I told you it wasn't hyperbole. I even told Ktonga,” Ramon said. “The very foundations of the galaxy, man. That dead garrison officer wasn't exaggerating.”

  “Ktonga...” Spencer muttered, rubbing his aching head as his thoughts drifted to the Admiral.

  Now that Ktonga was dead and the Service headquarters on Goldmeadow was in rubble, would SpaceOp's grand charade continue? For five years, many of SpaceOp's agents had pretended to continue working for the Service, taking orders from Ktonga and reporting back to him. They'd done so for the same reason Spencer had pretended to allow Ktonga to force him back into the Service for this assignment. SpaceOp was new and under-funded; it needed the Service's resources—which its agents used, manipulated, and even acquired and turned over to SpaceOp, all under the guise of working for the Service. (And, really, it was downright amazing how many surface-to-space missiles could go missing without the Service getting suspicious.)

  The SpaceOp agents had remained closely connected to the Service for another reason, too, one which the Service itself had taught them in their covert-ops training: Hide in plain sight. They couldn't very well investigate this case on MacDougal II, for example, let alone attempt to infiltrate Leonardo, without being noticed by Service operatives in the field, as well as by standard satellite surveillance. So they made sure the Service thought they were supposed to be investigating such cases—by getting themselves assigned by the Service itself to do this work.

  It was all Lindsey Parapara's idea, of course, and typical of her twisted yet practical mind.

  As soon as the garrison officer on Leonardo had been killed after leaving that cryptic message, Parapara had ordered Boganda to get himself assigned to the case by the Service. After Boganda confirmed that something was indeed rotten on Leonardo—potentially rotten enough to affect the fate of the whole galaxy—SpaceOp had mobilized to get two more of its most important operatives on the case right away. It still amazed Spencer that Admiral Ktonga hadn't been suspicious that three of his best agents had been careless enough to disappear without a trace, one right after another, on a dangerous mission; but then again, the career staff officers of a bloated, bureaucratic, interstellar organization like the Service were rarely the sharpest knives in the galactic drawer.

  The more SpaceOp investigated the garrison officer's death, the more the agents realized this case was complex beyond belief and truly galactic in its implications. So Parapara had reluctantly ordered Spencer to abandon his top-secret deep-cover operation, which had required him to pose for years as a contented civilian and family man, and get on board the Leonardo mission. He was one of the few SpaceOp agents who had on-the-ground experience on Leonardo, and his practical expertise in running ops on that planet was crucial for SpaceOp's success there. So Parapara had engaged a plan to bait Ktonga into “coercing” Spencer back into the Service for the specific purpose of working this mission.

  If she had sent Spencer into action without taking this precaution, even the Space Intelligence Service (an oxymoronic title if ever there was one) might eventually have noticed that one of its most-decorated retired operatives was interrogating suspects on MacDougal II and running around Leonardo in search of answers.

  “Interrogating suspects...” Spencer muttered.

  “Pardon?” Patsy said.

  “That's what I should be doing,” Spencer said. “Interrogating suspects. Not trying to decode the semi-mystical utterances of a dragon apparition.”

  “Do we have any suspects?” Patsy asked.

  “No.” Spencer rose to his feet. “But we do have a lead.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes. And we're in the right place to investigate it.”

  Ramon gazed at him. “Ahhh. Of course.”

  “'Of course’ what?” Patsy said.

  Really, it was as if she'd left her brains in a bucket back on Goldmeadow.

  “The bell wallflower,” Spencer said.

  “The what?”

  “Uh, the blue bellflower,” he amended. “Bellflowers don't grow anywhere but MacDougal II. They can't survive anywhere but MacDougal. So what was that flower doing in the hand of a dead man on a planet half a galaxy away?”

  “Oh.” Patsy shrugged. “I told you. The guy in the office next to mine is working on that.”

  “What guy?”

  She shrugged again. “Some guy.”

  “Since when does SpaceOp let ‘some guy’ investigate crucial leads in missions of galactic import?” Spencer demanded.

  “Well, probably whoever assigned him to it knew his name,” Patsy said. “And his qualifica—Hey! Where are you going?”

  “Show me this ‘guy.'”

  “What? Wait!”

  Following Spencer out the door, Ramon said to Patsy, “Humor him. Trying to figure out Plibix's message has made him a little cranky.”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” Ramon said, dragging her along with them as they headed towards her office. “Now where exactly is this guy?”

  “Um, I don't...”

  “Oh, for God's sake,” Spencer said. “You can't even remember which office he's in?”

  “Stop! You can't just—”

  He flung open a door.

  “You shouldn't do that!”

  Spencer stood stock still and stared into the office.

  “Wrong door?” Ramon asked.

  “No,” Spencer said. “No, I'd say this is definitely our guy.”

  “Oh?” Ramon looked through the door, too. “Oh.”

  “Dead,” Spencer said.

  “Murdered,” Ramon said.

  “I admire your keen observant eye,” Spencer said.

  “They'll never get all that blood out of the carpet,” Ramon said. “Especially not now that it's started drying. Believe me. Our carpet cleaning bills at SpaceOp—”

  “This was a messy killer,” Spencer noted.

  “An amateur?” Ramon guessed.

  “Or someone in a panic,” Spencer mused. “This was a risky hit. What had this guy found out that made someone whack him on impulse right here?”

  “Hmmm.” Ramon nodded. “Good point. Patsy, your office is right next to his. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”

  When she didn't respond, Spencer looked over his shoulder at her. “Patsy? Did you, uh...?”


  “Let's all stay very calm,” Patsy suggested in a cold voice, pointing a sub-decibel particle-imploding laser gun at her two colleagues. “I discovered earlier today—in fact, only a meter from where you're standing right now, Spencer—that this thing has a hair-trigger. If I even give a tiny little involuntary reflexive flinch, you'll both die. Pretty messily, as you can see.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Back slowly into the office,” Patsy ordered.

  “So you can kill us in relative privacy?” Spencer said. “Think again.”

  “I don't really want to kill you.”

  “Then put down the weapon.”

  “You've forced me to this point, Spence!”

  Ramon said, “Er, look, if this is a private sexual matter between the two of you—”

  “Oh, he wasn't that bad in bed,” Patsy said dismissively.

  “Bad? In bed?” Spencer blurted.

  Ramon said, “I'm just saying, it's none of my business, so I'd like to be left out of any repercussions or—”

  “Me?” Spencer said. “Bad in bed?”

  “This has got nothing to do with the sex,” Patsy told Ramon.

  He responded, “So you weren't sleeping with, you know, the dead guy, too?”

  “No!”

  “But you did kill him, right?”

  “You're saying the sex wasn't good?” Spencer said. “Is that what you're saying?”

  Ramon asked Patsy, “So none of this is personal?”

  “Strictly business,” she assured him.

  “Then...” Ramon gestured to the laser. “Then, why?”

  “Because I will do anything—anything!—to protect the secrets on Leonardo!”

  “What exactly did you think was wrong with the sex?” Spencer demanded.

  “Spence,” Ramon said, “could we please focus here?”

  “Into the office,” Patsy ordered them. “Now.”

  “Wait a minute!” Spencer said, pulling himself together. “You're saying you know the truth behind what's happening on Leonardo?”

  “And you will never find out what it is!” she cried.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I believe I've already asked that,” Ramon muttered.

  “I don't understand, Patsy,” Spencer said. “You're one of us!”

  “I'm doing this because—” Her eyes bulged at the same moment that Spencer heard a strange hissing sound, as if someone had just fired a super quiet weapon. Then Patsy keeled over.

  She must have given a tiny little involuntary reflexive flinch, because her laser blasted a hole in the wall the size of a small family transport vehicle. Spencer and Ramon dived for cover. Unfortunately, the only available cover was through the open doorway to their left and into the room where the messy corpse lay. Upon hitting the carpet in there and covering their heads, they discovered that the blood hadn't really dried that much after all.

  “Damn, and I just bought this shirt!” Ramon said.

  A moment later, a woman called from the hallway, “Okay, all clear! It's safe to come out.”

  Spencer frowned. That voice sounded awfully familiar. In fact, it sounded exactly like ... “Patsy?”

  Patricia Kelvin appeared in the doorway of the murdered man's office. “Patsy?” she repeated. “Hey, that homicidal fanatic with the brains of an over-bred poodle may let you call her ‘Patsy,’ but I never have. And I never will.”

  “Huh?”

  Spencer stared at her in perplexity. She was dressed differently than she had been only seconds ago. Now wearing sensible khakis and sturdy boots, even her hair was different—a little longer and starting to fall out of a pony tail. And she was heavily armed. As the two men stared at her, she efficiently disabled the laser that had been pointed at them.

  Spencer glanced at Ramon. His companion shrugged and shook his head, just as bewildered as he.

  Patricia tossed the now-useless laser aside, then looked at them. “Sorry I cut your covert interrogation short. That was a shrewd strategy, pretending to let her get the upper hand so she'd spill her guts to you. But she looked way too jumpy to me. If she wasn't kidding about that hair-trigger, I thought it would cause your deaths in another five seconds.”

  “Huh?” Spencer said.

  “What's wrong, Spence?” she said. “You're not suffering from shock just because of a bloody corpse, a laser blast, and a near-death experience, are you? Did that civilian deep-cover I.D. make you go soft or something?”

  “Huh?” he said again.

  Ramon said, “What are ... Who is ... Where did...?”

  Patricia studied their expressions for a moment, then her eyes flew wide open. “Oh, my God! Don't tell me ... You mean, you weren't just playing along with her to learn all you could before eliminating her? You actually thought she was me?”

  “She? You? Huh?” Spencer wondered if he'd been banging his head against his desk way too hard. “What's going on?”

  “Come on, guys.” Patricia beckoned them back out into the hallway. “Have a look at this.”

  They rose to their feet and, covered in the dead man's blood, did as Patricia asked. Together with her they looked down at, well ... her. Patsy Klein was breathing, and her eyelids started to flutter.

  “You didn't kill her?” Spencer asked blankly.

  “Kill a lead before she's talked?” Patricia frowned at him. “Did you leave your brains in a bucket back on Goldmeadow, or something?”

  “Oh. Um. Right.”

  “She'll come round in a moment, and we'll start getting some answers.” Patricia kicked her captive in the ribs to speed up the process. Patsy groaned.

  “Who the hell are you?” Ramon asked Patricia.

  “Who the hell is she?” Spencer gestured to the woman lying at their feet.

  “Which one of you is the real one?” Ramon asked.

  “Possibly,” she said crisply, “the one who can remember that her name is Patricia Kelvin.”

  “So the name Patsy Klein wasn't a reality shift due to leaking dimensions?” Spencer asked.

  “What? No,” Patricia said, “it was just faulty intel. She was sent to take me out of the picture and replace me, in order to sabotage SpaceOp's mission. But her organization got a few details wrong.”

  “What is her organization?”

  “That's one of the things we've got to find out,” Patricia said. “Who's she working for? And what's their ultimate goal? Why did she risk exposure by killing that guy in there? What's the secret on Leonardo that could shake the foundations of the galaxy? And just how deeply has SpaceOp been infiltrated?”

  It hit Spencer like a metric ton of plutonium. “The plasma bomb on Goldmeadow!”

  “Precisely,” she said. “It hit two targets with one blow: SpaceOp and the Space Intelligence Service. Both of which are trying to find out the truth about the secrets concealed on Leonardo.”

  “Her organization detonated it?”

  “Yes.” Patricia kicked Patsy again. “Come on, wake up. I didn't shoot you with that heavy a dose.”

  Studying the unconscious woman, Ramon noted, “The resemblance is amazing. I had no idea it wasn't you!”

  “Me, neither.” Spencer looked at Patricia in surprise. “So I haven't really been sleeping with you.”

  “You've been sleeping with her?” Patricia said. “For God's sake, have you lost all sense of professionalism?”

  “Well...” He shuffled his feet. “You really came ... I mean, she really came onto me, and I, uh—”

  “I would never come on to you, Spencer.”

  “Why?” he pounced, recalling Patsy Klein's comment about their sex life. “What have you heard?”

  “What have I heard?” she repeated. “Well, hmm, let's see. Oh, yeah, I heard that you're married.”

  “Oh! Oh, that.”

  “Married with children, you philandering jackass,” she added.

  “That reminds me! My wife is missing. Disappeared right in front of Ramon. It's very mysterious.
I don't suppose you know anything about it?”

  “Missing? Gosh,” Patricia said, “it couldn't possibly be because she found out you've been boffing a co-worker, could it? No, of course, not. The mother of your young children is bound to be very understanding about adultery, isn't she?”

  “Hey,” Ramon said, “I never thought of that. That's a good point! Maybe Carol's left you, Spence.”

  “So, okay, you've got a thing against married men,” Spencer said to Patricia. “Fine, some women do. Patsy liked me, but—”

  “'Patsy’ was sleeping with you to monitor your every move, cloud your judgment, and sabotage the mission.”

  “That's one interpretation,” Spencer conceded. “Another equally valid one is that she fell for me.”

  “Oh, Spencer, Spencer...” Patricia sighed and shook her head. “Okay, I'll lay it on the table. You're fifteen years older than me, you have all the charm of a rock, and you're no Adonis. And yet you never once wondered why ‘I’ suddenly jumped into bed with you on this mission? Look, it's not my call, Spence, but I think maybe it's time for you to retire from the field. You had an obvious imposter right under your nose, and you never even suspected her!”

  “Well, I—”

  “How could you have possibly thought that this—” she kicked Patsy again “—was me? Have you lost all grip on reality?”

  “It was wishful thinking, I guess.” He was by now feeling very, very sorry that Patsy Klein wasn't the real Patricia Kelvin. And equally sorry that the real one had rejoined the mission.

  “Actually,” said Ramon, “in fairness to Spencer, reality is becoming increasingly hard to hold onto. Due to the leaking of one dimension into another.”

  “Hmm. That's the second time you've mentioned leaking dimensions,” Patricia said. “So that's the theory we're going with then? That's what's threatening the foundations of the galaxy?”

  Ramon nodded. “And the key to this dimensional mess is on Leonardo.”

  “And she says she knows what it is.” Patricia looked down at their captive. “Come on, wake up! The fate of the galaxy is at stake!”

  Patsy's eyes opened. She looked up at Patricia, and horror clouded her expression. Spencer understood exactly how she felt. Then Patsy clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.