His thoughts crept closer. (May I share?)
She hesitated, afraid of being engulfed in the intensity of her feelings, afraid of diluting them if she opened the gates to another. But the fear dropped away as she thought of N'rrril's gentle kindnesses, and comforting ways, and she sighed and reached to him, in the periphery of the mind-net, and like a lover aching with loneliness, she entered him. And looked out through his eyes.
He stood in the central part of the asteroid, alone. Perhaps she had flickered here even as she joined with him. Together, she and he, they looked out over the tiny sea that filled the core of the Talenki world, gazed down into the crystal water, felt the gritty smooth bank beneath her feet. (A touch of home,) she thought wistfully.
(A touch of home,) he repeated, not entirely understanding. He, and she, started to walk along the banks of the sea. (Show me what you're feeling,) he said softly.
(I will,) she answered. (But first let me feel the water again between my toes.)
Singing softly, nodding, N'rrril turned and they waded together in the cool, clear shallows of the sea.
Chapter 60
Charles Horst was very quiet by the time Alvarest left the NASA lab chief's office; but Alvarest had secured an ally—and a promise of assistance, in the form of a discreet computer scan of military cargo manifests, in hopes of determining whether special equipment associated with the handling of nuclear warheads had been shipped to the station. It was, Horst had conceded, a faint hope; although cross-linkages existed between NASA's and the Space Forces' computers, it was questionable whether his people could intrude in the military's files without detection. Still, he was willing to try.
Alvarest had succeeded in alarming Horst—and himself. What was going on, that a man in Horst's position didn't know about something this vital?
"It would take a presidential order to put nuclear weapons on that ship, or anywhere in space," Horst said. "And it would be a violation—"
"Of international law?" Alvarest said. "Right. That's one thing. Another is, what's that ship's mission, anyway?" We both know it, he added silently as Horst looked away, but neither of us is going to say it. And if the president already knows about those bombs, what am I doing here?
Horst seemed to have forgotten Alvarest's presence. "The president shouldn't have given an order like that without going through the Committee," he muttered. "He should have—" Horst's eyes focused on Alvarest, and he abruptly changed the subject.
They talked about ways of learning the truth.
Alvarest wasn't bothered much by Horst's reticence about whom the President should have consulted with. He had already concluded that the "Oversight Committee" was an entity somehow less than and greater than the President, probably representing several nations. Probably that was whom he was working for. He was content to let it go at that; it wasn't his job to know the name of his client. But if someone in authority was pulling an end run around someone else, it was his job to learn the facts.
He floated down a tube to spin-section Alpha and a half-gee cocktail lounge. He settled into a seat at the bar, thought for a while, found a phone, called Spaceman Akins, and arranged for another guided tour. Then he returned to his seat and ordered a Scotch on the rocks.
He'd learned a few things from Horst, not about the military, but about the Tachylab group. The more he learned about John Irwin, the more he tended to put credence in the scientist's accusations. Respected by his colleagues for his pioneering work in tachyons, Irwin was also known to hold moderately radical political beliefs, which had gotten him blacklisted from the most sensitive work at Tachylab. It was also said that he'd been persecuted for alleged homosexuality. A cynic might conclude that the military would be eager to arrest such a man on conspiracy charges if there were even the slightest chance that he was leaking embarrassing information.
Why bother, Alvarest thought, unless there was something to be embarrassed about?
Alvarest carried his glass to the viewing wall. It was an odd sensation, bouncing along at half Earth-normal weight; turning as he walked felt odder still, as the Coriolis effect caused by the station's spin made him veer slightly from his intended direction. Handy feature for a cocktail lounge, he decided. No need to drink; walking sober was enough to make one stagger. The floor's curvature served as a reminder that he was walking on the inner surface of a spinning shell, and only a few meters of steel and shielding slag supported him against hard vacuum.
He sipped his drink and gazed out, down the station's axis toward the zero-gee docks. The docks appeared to be rotating, though he knew full well that it was he who was moving and not the docks. Small vessels hovered in the area. Where, he wondered, would weapons be loaded? Not there, surely. But looking around there might give him an idea of how things were done in zero-gee—might give him some notion of what to look for if he ever saw the real thing.
He would be wise to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. He'd managed to put off the general's aide for a day or two, but eventually Ogilvy would have to be dealt with.
He turned back to the bar. Where the devil was Akins, anyway?
* * *
"Sure, you can go up that way, Mr. Alvarest—"
"Well, then—"
"—but I can't take you now," Akins said. "I have to get back for duty."
"Oh." Alvarest peered out the porthole in disappointment. According to Akins, the outbound transfer docks—for spacecraft moving outward from geosynchronous orbit, whether to Luna or L5 or interplanetary space—most closely resembled the military deep-space docks, located some distance from GEO-Four. "You think I could find my way down there by myself?" he asked.
"Sure."
"I don't want to go out an airlock by mistake."
Akins chuckled. "Don't worry. Just read the signs." He described the route, advising Alvarest to ask further directions when he got there.
Alvarest nodded. "Right. Well, thanks for getting me this far."
"Give a call if you need anything else." The young enlisted man saluted cheerfully and departed.
I wish I could, Alvarest thought. He could use another ally. But he dared not involve Akins further, or tell him what he was really looking for. Sighing, he turned and continued on his way.
* * *
There was a gallery window in the main passageway overlooking the hangar area. Alvarest watched a Space Forces patrol cutter leaving. Service arms pulled back from the craft like implements of some sort of alien dentistry. A pair of slender mooring retainers held the craft as its bay doors slid closed, and two workers in bulky servo-suits jetted clear. The retainers swung back, and the craft drifted slowly away from the dock. Four small thrusters sparked and glowed intermittently, and the cutter slowly dwindled, a white painted bird being swallowed by the enormity of space. When its main engines glowed to life, it scudded out of sight like a puppet on a string.
In the main hangar, no one was visible. The workers in servo-suits had disappeared. Alvarest drifted down to the end of the passage. A bored-looking guard glanced at his Defense Department I.D. and waved him inside. He paused to establish his bearings.
Along one side of the hangar was a catwalk, edging a thick-windowed wall dividing the shirtsleeve environment from the hard-vacuum docking bay from which the cutter had departed. Below the catwalk was an open work area, filled with moving equipment and zero-gee storage racks. The outer wall was punctuated by airlocks of various sizes and entrance tubes to one-man servo-suits docked on the outside. Alvarest moved along the catwalk. Both the outer and inner hangars were deserted.
He gazed down at the silent equipment. It all looked normal enough, though he wondered if he would know something out of the ordinary if he saw it. Conveyor tracks led from storage areas on the right to the main airlocks; winches and manipulating equipment were locked in position at the far ends of the tracks. He dropped easily from the catwalk to take a closer look at the machinery. It was surprising how lightweight the equipment appeared. In zero-gee,
even massive loads, properly handled, could be moved with relatively little brute force. He stopped to peer into one of the large airlocks. More equipment.
He heard a whining noise behind him. Turning, he lost his grip momentarily and foundered against the airlock door. As he twisted around, he was horrified to see a winch sliding along its track toward the airlock, its latching mechanism arrowing straight for his head. He struggled to flee from its path, and found himself hanging in midair, swinging and kicking. At last he got a grip on the hatch behind him, and shoved sideways. The winch abruptly clanked to a stop, and a voice rasped through an intercom, "Who's that in there?"
Carried by his momentum, Alvarest hit a structural beam with his left arm and shoulder, and rebounded in slow motion. By the time he turned, a man was sailing out of one of the rear doors toward him.
"You okay?" the man asked, swinging to an easy stop beside him.
"Yeah," Alvarest managed. "I slammed into that beam."
"Man, you were really spinning around there," the worker said. "I didn't see you till you were about to be flattened." He squinted. "You sure you're okay? Jesus, it's a good thing I looked out when I did. I thought nobody was out here. Shit." He scowled toward a window in the rear wall, beyond which was apparently a control room.
"I bunged my elbow pretty good," Alvarest said, wincing as he straightened his arm. "It works, though. I guess I didn't break anything."
The worker shook his head. "Man, I was sure there was nobody out here! What are you doing here, anyway? This is no place for a groundheader to be wandering around on his own."
Alvarest reddened, but didn't protest the characterization. "I'm with Defense," he said. "Just looking over the facilities."
"Oh, well, why the hell didn't you come to us and ask? We'd be glad to show you around—but you go poking on your own, you're gonna get hurt."
"Yeah. Guess I was a little stupid." Alvarest looked around. "Mind if I ask what you load here?"
The man shrugged. "You name it. Food, cargo, hardware. Not fuel, that's at the depot down by Delta section."
"Just for the military?" Alvarest asked casually.
"Oh, no—anything the government flies. And commercial stuff."
"How about ordnance. Do you load that, too?"
"Oh, hell no." The man looked at him curiously. "That's done at the ordnance depot. I'm surprised you don't know. We wouldn't have it in here. That stuff scares me."
"Yeah, me too," Alvarest said. "Listen—thanks." He reached for a handhold to shove off from. "I'd better get on going. Sorry to mess up your work. I'll ask for a guide next time."
"Hey, take it easy," the man said.
Alvarest flexed his arm cautiously as he floated along a handrail toward the door. Yes, indeed, he had better get a guide. But how could he do that, except through channels?
* * *
"You're not on Earth now," Ogilvy snapped irritably. "And this isn't your cozy pad in the Cube." His eyes darted, reminding Alvarest of a small, feral animal. "We do things a little differently here. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Alvarest rubbed his arm unconsciously. "I'm not sure I do."
"Does it have to be spelled out?" Ogilvy said, eyeing him. "You're here at the general's pleasure. If you don't support him, you're against him."
"Excuse me," Alvarest said. "But I work for the Defense Information Bureau. I'm not working for the general, and I'm not under—"
"Don't make too many assumptions about your standing here," Ogilvy said, scowling. "This little trip of yours to the loading dock—"
"Who told you about that?"
"We got a call from the dock supervisor, saying they had a man from Defense wandering around unescorted, getting in the way, and almost getting himself hurt. I notice you're favoring your left arm."
"All right, I should have asked for assistance," Alvarest conceded.
"You were there without authorization in the first place."
"Was that a secure facility? If so, it wasn't marked."
"That's not relevant." Ogilvy frowned at his clipboard. He spoke without meeting Alvarest's eyes. "You're here on a limited fact-finding assignment—pertaining only to a specific criminal prosecution. Those loading docks have nothing to do with your assignment."
Alvarest stared at him impassively. "That's a matter of interpretation. I may need to tour other facilities, as well."
Ogilvy squinted uneasily. "For what purpose?"
"Fact gathering. I'm not sure yet what I'll require," Alvarest said calmly. "I'll keep you informed."
"Will you, now? It may interest you to know that Spaceman Akins is already on report for taking you on that last little joy trip."
"That was my responsibility," Alvarest protested. "Akins was simply complying with my request."
"When we want you to take command of our personnel, we'll let you know," Ogilvy said with quiet sarcasm. "In the meantime, please confine yourself to investigations that have been cleared through this office."
Alvarest cleared his throat. "I have a mandate—"
"Your mandate doesn't mean shit to us," Ogilvy snapped. His calm had broken and his eyes strained and flicked to and fro as he struggled to regain control. "It may surprise you that we don't bow down to every little mandate from Earthside. You may find us a little harder to get along with than what you're used to."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Ogilvy shrugged. "You're an intelligent man. I'm sure you can understand."
Alvarest pinched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. "I see. Well, Lieutenant, in that case it's been a pleasure, but I have work to do." He turned, and with a single kick, floated out of Ogilvy's office. His movement was graceful until he reached the corridor, and then his anger got the best of him, and he caromed painfully against a wall as he attempted to change directions.
Chapter 61
For Alvarest, the next two days were filled with frustration. Hours spent on a terminal with one of Horst's computer wizards produced no results; if there was any proof to be found, it was not accessible from the outside. Horst offered to arrange a visit to Tachylab, for interviews with some of the other scientific personnel; but there were security clearances involved, and it would take a few days to set up. In the meantime, Alvarest studied briefs and talked again with the attorneys and the defendants. He sorted through several months of news files, searching for evidence of actual leaks—that being the alleged goal of the conspiracy. If any news reports qualified, Joe Payne's did; but even his were fairly vague, and could well represent supposition rather than leaked information.
Alvarest wrote a second report to his Earthside control, indicating his belief that Aquarius was an illegally armed craft—and admitting that he had no more proof than before. The next day, after considerable deliberation, he called Ogilvy and asked for a tour of the military ordnance depot, preferably with the attorneys in attendance. Ogilvy agreed to arrange a private inspection, but balked at allowing the attorneys. Would tomorrow be satisfactory? Alvarest agreed—surprised, and more than a little suspicious.
He discussed his suspicions with Horst. "I don't trust him—but how else am I going to learn anything? Do you think he may have decided that it's just easier to play along?"
"Well," Horst said, "Aquarius has been gone a couple of weeks now. That's plenty of time to remove incriminating evidence." He pressed his lips together. "I'm still shocked that this could happen—either without the President's knowledge, or maybe what's worse, with his knowledge." He shook his head. "Either way, we could be in a sticky position."
Alvarest looked at him carefully. "Yeah," he said. "Listen. You don't suppose that there's any danger in my going on this inspection thing alone, do you?"
Horst arched his eyebrows. "I don't think Armstead's a killer, if that's what you mean—though I've heard him called a lot of other things. Still, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be cautious."
Alvarest gazed at him with a cold feeling.
He tried to sh
ake the feeling later, as he returned to his quarters. He sent a short advisory to his control, indicating his plans. Then, locating paper and a clipboard, he jotted down some of the thoughts that were swirling in his mind—in a letter to Stanley Gerschak—and requested that the astronomer pass the information on to "their mutual friend."
When he was finished, he read the letter over, hesitating a long time, and finally sealed it and went to the central postal exchange, where he paid the premium GEO-to-Earth rates and watched the envelope disappear into a mailbag. Then he returned to his quarters, where he tried, with little success, to sleep.
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