In Enemy Hands

by K S Augustin

  No, she revised as the two approached, more than that. The Republic’s representative was quite a bit shorter than she was expecting.

  “Dr. Thadin, this is Consul Moises.” Savic was bent almost double, gesturing between the women. “She’s here to help get your project, um, back on track.” There was no hint on Savic’s face that he had been involved in any backstabbing moves, no words to indicate that he placed the full blame for the experiment’s failure on her shoulders. If it hadn’t been for what followed, Moon thought she might have imagined the entire late-night altercation, ending with the attack from the anonymous soldier. Maybe, she thought cynically, Savic had already completed the character-assassination part of his mission on the walk over. But here, in the clear light of her laboratory, all was sweetness and courtesy. She was forced to attempt an answer in kind.

  Moises lazily extended her hand and Moon took it, noting that the proffered hand was presented as if by royalty, palm down. She couldn’t help herself—she rotated the hand, shook it, then let go.

  A spark lit in Moises’s blue eyes—amusement and a sense of languid cruelty. Moon realised that, despite outward appearances, she faced a very dangerous woman indeed. She would have to remember not to be fooled by the consul’s kindly looks. Behind them lay a viper.

  “Dr. Thadin, the Republic wants to thank you for the work you have done so far.” Her voice was thin but commanding. Oh yes, this woman was used to being listened to. “I’m hoping my presence here can help facilitate a favourable reaction to your research.”

  Lies, all lies. A more naive person may have been taken in by her warm tone and kind words, but warning bells were going off in Moon’s head, almost drowning out the words she was hearing. Moon didn’t know if Moises was deliberately sending out mixed messages, blending courtesy with threat, but the subtext was clear.

  She didn’t—couldn’t—reply to the false statements, so she just nodded. She was never so grateful for Hen Savic’s presence as that moment when he bustled forward, coaxing her away and over to his trophy.

  “Let me introduce you to the other member of the team. Srin Flerovs.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice.

  After a last lingering look, Moises let herself be led away. Moon’s shoulders slowly sagged. Day-One Srin was so transparent that Moises wouldn’t find anything, even if she was looking straight into Srin’s open and guileless grey eyes. Why would anyone suspect that their prized mathematical savant was more than they thought? That he retained not only vestiges of memory that he methodically put together every two days, but also the knowledge that he had been deceived for years and a deep desire to escape the clutches of the Republic? Savic himself, his booming voice rumbling over Moises’s quieter tones, didn’t have a clue, content to take everything at face value and believe his own flimsy theories of misplaced self-image to explain Srin’s lack of curiosity.

  Moon took a half step to one side and surreptitiously watched the trio through the clearboard. Savic’s back was to her and Moises was on an angle, but she had a clear view of Srin’s face. True to her conjecture, he didn’t give anything away. His expression was calm and bland, friendly yet distant, and he remained attentive but a little distracted, as if he didn’t really understand the significance of Moises’s position, or her visit. And perhaps he didn’t. The man he was—young and with memories intact—would not have had much to do with such a powerful representative of the Republic.

  Moon was too far away to make out the individual words, but she caught the charm in Moises’s voice and her eyes narrowed. Was this one of the investigator’s normal methods of operation? Lull everyone into a sense of security before striking? Moises’s voice had been friendly enough when speaking with her, but there was added timbre when she addressed the men. Moon knew she’d do well to remember the contrast.

  She returned focus to her equations, methodically working her way through the start of her extensive second-stage calculations. She breathed an audible sigh of relief when she saw Moises and Savic heading for the exit. Then the woman stopped and spun around, a couple of short steps from the door.

  “Dr. Thadin?” Moises’s voice carried across to Moon, who was trying hard to notice nobody and nothing beyond her work.

  Moon dropped a finger slowly from the board and peered through it. “Yes?”

  “If I may, I’d like a word with you in my quarters. How does tonight, after dinner, sound?”

  Moon nodded. “Very well, I’ll be there.”

  “Twenty-one hours, then.”

  With Savic hovering around her like an oversized bee around a petite flower, they exited.

  Moon again let out her breath in a noisy exhalation, ignoring Srin. She walked to the lunch table, as far away as she could get from the doorway and still stay in the lab. There, the scientist leant against the table’s edge and folded her arms, chewing the inside her cheek.

  “Who exactly is she, Dr. Thadin?” Srin asked, crossing the room to her. “Hen mentioned she’s a consul, and I gathered that was an important title, but I’ve never heard of it before.”

  Moon looked at him. What she wouldn’t give at this moment for just a sip of Srin’s clockwork amnesia, to help settle her nerves?

  “Consul Rosca Moises is the voice of the Republic,” she answered, her gaze snapping back to the lab’s entrance. “From what I hear, they’re assigned issues and are given every authority to solve them. In whatever way they wish.”

  “You don’t like her.” It was a statement.

  Moon shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t.”

  “Hen told me she’s here to help us.” Srin’s voice was matter-of-fact, made bearable by the tinge of irony that coloured it. “That you’ve been having some trouble with how the project is progressing and she’s here to allocate the appropriate resources to get the job done.”

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” she replied dryly. “And when did Dr. Savic tell you this?”

  “Over breakfast.” His gaze followed hers to the doorway. “She seems nice enough.”

  “Yes,” Moon answered. “Doesn’t she?”

  “But I don’t trust her.”

  Moon looked at him, startled, and watched a smile slowly break over his face.

  She echoed the move. “No,” she added happily, “neither do I.”

  She was starting to turn into Kad, a smooth surface covering a roiling boil of traitorous thoughts. Worse, she was starting to feel like the traitor they had accused her of being. Moon, eating a solitary dinner in the privacy of her cabin, finished her meal with a reluctant swallow. She felt like a victim of imminent execution, consuming her last dinner.

  The conspiratorial camaraderie of the afternoon was gone. It had slipped away over the hours, leaving scant comfort in its wake. Ahead was only apprehension and anxiety over what Moises would say, and what she might threaten.

  Maybe things weren’t as bad as she thought, she tried to reason to herself. After all, there had been no explicit threats so far. Maybe she was being too sensitive. Although she knew it would be difficult concentrating with someone constantly peering over her shoulder, it could be done. Research was often like that, especially with private financial backers.

  Moon wiped her mouth with the napkin and rose, straightening her clothes.

  Yes, that was probably the best way to approach the meeting, to look at Moises as nothing more than an extremely rich and particularly demanding sponsor. It wasn’t as though she could remove Srin, or even send them both to a detention centre. If the project was as important to the Republic as a consul’s appearance seemed to warrant, then it would be counterproductive for her to harm their two prized workers. Threats of incarceration or violence would not work. So, what was left?

  Moon took the tray and placed it on the shelf that ran the length of her cabin, trying not to remember what she and Srin had done on a similar shelf in his quarters. With her tenuous self-control barely in hand, she couldn’t afford the distraction of thinking abou
t him now. Taking a breath, she walked to the intercom and pressed the call button.

  “Yes, Dr. Thadin?” an anonymous male voice asked. She had used the ship’s intercom before to contact the chef, request supplies and ask for cleaning help after the Differential’s hyperspace accident. It was a safe and comfortable way of obtaining information without confronting any soldiers directly.

  “Where are Consul Moises’s quarters?” she asked.

  The hesitation was an answer in itself, a harbinger of the words to come. Moon’s eyebrows shot up at the reply. “The consul has been assigned to Captain Jeen’s quarters.” Unwilling to extend the dialogue, the intercom clicked off.

  An important woman, then, and obviously not one to hide her authority behind a mask. Moon ran suddenly cold fingers down the side of her face, but knew she couldn’t put the moment off forever. It was time to find out exactly what Moises had planned to say.

  The corridors were mostly vacant. Normally, Moon would have been happy for the emptiness, but what had reassured her before now took on an ominous air. Eventually, she was forced to shrug her shoulders as she neared Drue’s quarters, to get her mind back to a more balanced setting. Moises was a woman, just like her. What could she possibly do?

  She entered the quarters when directed to with her head held high, sparing only a quick glance to have a look around, but the interior looked unchanged. There were none of the consul’s personal touches evident, no hint that the captain had been completely displaced. Just a military tidiness and the cool, flat air of a spaceship.

  “Thank you for being so prompt, Dr. Thadin,” Moises greeted from behind the cabin’s desk. “Please sit down.”

  The front of Moises’s hair had been pulled back and pinned, but she still looked harmless, especially with small errant curls escaping the long dark clips. She looked more like a favourite aunt rather than a high-status investigator. Except for the cold blue chips of her eyes.

  Moon sat and, hidden by the desk, pressed the open palms of her hands against the tops of her thighs.

  “I just want to start by saying that we both want the same thing, Doctor—a successful outcome for the Republic. I’m not here to harm you or throw you in jail.” Moises looked as though the thought had never even crossed her mind. “I’m here mostly as a facilitator for your government.”

  “Of course,” Moon murmured, noting how the Republic had suddenly become her government.

  “So there’s no reason for us to be at odds with one another.” She tilted her head slightly. “Is there?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Good. I’m glad we can agree on that.” She smiled and moved her attention to a monitor on her right. Its silvered back was to Moon so she couldn’t see what was illuminated on the screen.

  “The detention you went through was an…unfortunate event.”

  Moon stiffened. She had been expecting Moises to concentrate on the present and the future, not start digging back into the past.

  Moises kept scanning, her attention ostensibly on the screen’s output. “Kad Minslok was your research partner. Not anyone too important, not one of the kingpins of terrorism against the Republic, but a nuisance nonetheless.” Her gaze swept back to Moon. “Do you have any idea how he escaped the Phyllis Centre?”

  “N-no.” Moon looked surprised. “I—he knocked me out.”

  “Yes, so I’ve read. But he didn’t tell you anything about a hidden chamber, or unknown door leading to another building, beforehand? No hint that there was another secret exit somewhere?”

  “N-no.”

  “It didn’t have to be on that day itself. What about in the months leading up to it? Didn’t he give you any inkling of any plans or knowledge out of the ordinary?”

  “He didn’t trust me,” Moon answered bitterly.

  And it was true. What she refused to dwell on was the fact that perhaps, up until this very moment, she couldn’t have been trusted.

  “That must have been galling for you,” Moises said sympathetically. “Working beside him year after year, only to discover that he had been keeping an entire life secret from you.”

  Moon stared at the wall behind the captain’s desk. “Yes. Yes it was.”

  “Did he ever mention any family? Friends? Places he visited on holiday? Even some place he was thinking of visiting?”

  “No.” That was as much her fault as Kad’s. She really hadn’t been interested. All that mattered to her was stellar-forming and stellar mechanics. Everything else in life was irrelevant.

  “Maybe someplace special he had already visited that he might’ve liked to visit again?”

  “We only spoke about work,” Moon insisted.

  “He never gave you anything? A keepsake? A trinket?”

  “We were never that close.” Then she remembered the small token still hidden in the depths of her satchel. She turned her gaze to the woman opposite, hoping she hadn’t betrayed a hint of fear or shock on her face. “The Security Force did a full investigation of my involvement, Consul. And I was in a medium-security detention centre for two years. I was under the impression I was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

  “Forgive me, Dr. Thadin, but your profile, even before we begin talking about the work you’ve done on the Differential, is intriguing. Despite all our precautions, Dr. Minslok managed to get away from us and remains at large. As a result, the investigation remains open. And, of course, we’re still wondering how he did it.”

  “In that case, you’ll have to find him and ask him yourself.” Moon’s voice was short.

  “And I’m sure we will, in the fullness of time. Which brings us to the present—and to the failure of StellMil One.”

  “Srin and I are working through all our calculations again,” Moon said quickly. “We’re currently in the middle of an extensive review. We haven’t found any flaws in the model yet.”

  “Yes, yes, Mr. Flerovs. He’s an interesting character, isn’t he?” Moises’s eyes blinked slowly as they stared at her.

  Moon lifted her hands from her legs and clenched them under the desk. “What do you mean?”

  Moises laughed, and it was a pleasant, tinkling sound. The kind most people would find attractive, Moon thought. “Well, he’s brilliant, for a start. And not that bad-looking. It’s just a shame about his memory. Dr. Savic told me he discussed that with you.”

  “Yes, he did.” Moon felt her stomach twist into a hard, cold knot. Had Savic told her about their arguments, her insults? Her reluctant cooperation? They couldn’t replace her, she thought desperately. What she was trying to do was as much art as science. They had to realise that someone else would need years to get as much of an intuitive grasp of the mechanics involved as she had. And she had been doing it all of her working life. She forced herself to be still as her face grew hot. Small beads of sweat formed on her upper lip.

  “And you have no moral qualms about working with someone like Srin Flerovs, Dr. Thadin?”

  How was she supposed to answer that question? Yes I have, so why not throw me in prison right now? Or, no I haven’t, I’m as much a ruthless bitch as you are. “W-what do you mean?”

  “Some might say we’re depriving Mr. Flerovs of a meaningful life.”

  Yes you are.

  “He seems happy enough,” Moon commented carefully.

  “Well, with a talented astrophysicist warming his bed occasionally, I’m sure I would be too.”

  The smile was as guileless as the laugh, but Moon felt a shiver run up her spine from the frozen pit in her belly. Suddenly, Moises’s straight white teeth resembled the half-bared fangs of a sleek, silent predator.

  “We don’t care what you do with your temporary assistant, Dr. Thadin. Or what our drug-controlled resource does with you. As long as it gets us the results we want. And it will get us the results we want, won’t it?”

  “Y-yes. O-of course,” Moon stammered.

  “You see, Doctor, the Republic has already poured tens of millions of credits into your projec
t. To us, it looks as though—just as we seem to be on the verge of an important breakthrough—something happens. First it was Kad Minslok, and now it’s the failure of the first live experiment. We’d like to think this is nothing more than a coincidence—” she shrugged, “—but how can we be sure? If this experiment of yours keeps failing, you’re going to force me to go to drastic lengths.”

  “Such as?” Even though it was little more than a whisper, Moon was surprised by her temerity to even ask such a question.

  Rosca Moises didn’t even look offended. The expression of kind and sincere reasoning on her face didn’t change.

  “One thing I would be forced to do is authorise a deep search of everyone you’ve had contact with.” Moises moved one hand languidly in the air. “That would, of course, need to include Captain Jeen himself and every crewmember on this ship, as well as the friends you’ve made and people you’ve worked with throughout your illustrious career. They’ll be confused and angry, I’m sure. But when they’re told the basis for our investigations—that we believe there is an element of conspiracy in your work—I’m sure they’ll understand. And if that doesn’t bring results, well, I would hate to have to resort to more permanent solutions. But I will, Dr. Thadin. That’s how important this project of yours is to the future of the Republic.”

  It was like starting a fire with a thermonuclear detonation. Didn’t Moises realise there was no need to threaten her with thoughts of a possible future? Or was this just another demonstration of the power she wielded? There was already enough in Moon’s past to hold over her head. Suddenly a different, yet equally compelling, vision of the years ahead loomed large. She pictured a life like Drue’s, eternally held in the Republic’s suspicion due to a transgression generations old. And that was only if she was lucky. The Republic wasn’t a person. It didn’t grow old or forget. Its infowebs were full of data on suspicious people, and Moon, along with any descendants, would be forever on their list. Just the fact that she had spoken to a consul was enough to guarantee that. Weave in the actual threats that Moises was speaking, and her imprisonment or execution seemed a foregone conclusion.