I started to get frightened then, really for the first time since I'd been rescued.
There was no way to finesse this that I could see; my fate, and the fates of many other people, were in the hands of strangers. It was a feeling of utter powerlessness.
I got an attack of the shakes, sitting there in that small, quiet room, in that moderately comfortable upholstered chair.
They had me now, these Fleeties.
They could prosecute me for any number of unforeseeable violations of the law, or turn me over to the Handshake, well-and-truly happy to be rid of a problem. They could make me disappear -- a practice I was always ready to attribute to huge, faceless organizations with a lot on the line. A lifetime's worth of bad news could fall on my shoulders from this job, and it was enough to put me into a full-blown panic attack. Again.
I worked through the jitters, but not the fear -- that would be by my side for the entire duration.
OOOOOOOOOO
sixteen
* * *
"That's really weird," was Stinna's only comment.
Apparently, the Sensor Specialists had picked up a confidential inter-office memorandum between Brand and VP Bailey, basically thumbnailing the plan to plant Kwon Ti and myself in R&D.
When I called Shady Lady after work to inform Dieter I was now outside the electrical closet, on watch, our ML immediately jumped on the line and demanded details about the new position. I had signed NDA's about secrecy, though.
"Before you say anything more," I cautioned, with Chris just shaking his head in my eye-view in wonder and disgust, "the answer is no."
"Of course it is," he growled, then cut his feed malignantly.
"I'm coming back down now," Dieter said then.
"What's up with Mavis?"
"Tomorrow's my day off, so I can stay up late tonight. Let's hit the pub, and we'll talk there."
"I want to hit the pub," SS2 stated, and just stared at me.
"Me too," John put in morosely.
"Uh...sorry," I offered. "Bye."
Stinna stared, John looked away, and they cut the call.
In about fifteen minutes, Dieter informed me he was ready to exit the closet. I had him wait for a small group to pass, then he was out and we were walking away, free and clear.
"So...?"
"Mavis? Well, she's still out cold. John and Stinna think it's a software issue with the cerebral cortex interface in one of her neural implants. She's seemingly stuck in a REM sleep cycle. She appears to be dreaming sometimes, but it's hard to say. She doesn't respond to any outside stimulation at all. Near as we can figure, the sensory centers of her brain are completely shut off. She can't see, hear, smell, taste, or feel."
"She's in a coma?"
"Something like one." He walked broodingly, eyes lowered, his features set in a hung-over funk.
"You don't think this is accidental, do you?"
He gave me a sidelong glance, but didn't otherwise change his preoccupied aspect.
"I don't know. There was a subtext I couldn't pick up on. Or maybe it's just a feeling."
I smiled hello at a couple people passing by whom I knew, then replied, "If she's in danger, whether it's an accident or not, we need to take her out of there, and get her some help. Criminal charges are one thing, but a person's life is another."
"I agree. But I'm not sure what's going on. I'm no cybernetics spesh, Ejoq. That's a whole different ball of wax from shipboard systems. Heck, there isn't even a specialist for it on-station, that I know of: I looked through the medical directory."
"Team has personnel with neural implants, so they'd have people who could help Mavis."
"Yes," he agreed, thinking it over. "The others put her on fluids and nutrients, but to be honest, I don't know if she even needs them. Either way, the next step would be to put her back on ice."
"Makes sense," I continued, feeling devilish and advocational, "but on the other hand, if she's actually been...what? Sabotaged? Hacked? I don't even know the word..."
"Let's say, um, rendered unconscious -- it's less charged."
"Okay. If she's been rendered unconscious, then it was by those three back there. And a software problem means John or Stinna."
"To what end? What does stranding us gain them?"
"Maybe it's about delaying us."
"Well, it's a poor effort then," he replied quietly and reflectively. "Chris is a qualified starjump pilot."
"He's a pilot? That...never came up even once in the prep meetings -- or since, for that matter. How do you know?"
"With my clearance, I was able to look at complete crew bios, back on Circlet."
"Okay," I said, letting that one slide for the moment. "But only the captain can get us out of here unseen. I'm sure he knows it...I mean the trip here was like a slow miracle. No, they'll keep us on-mission until they get what they want. Then she'll make a miraculous recovery, and we'll all fly off into the sunset, fortunes secured."
"They? You think it's all of them?"
He looked deeply troubled, but not at all shocked. The gulf between the known and the suspected wasn't so wide that this leap was hard to make. It didn't render the effort less frightening, though.
"Seems likely," I concluded. "Our ML couldn't knock her out by himself, and neither Sensor Spesh could pull it off without the other one figuring it out."
We walked in silence the rest of the way to Samples. Barney and the gang weren't there yet, but they probably would be soon. I actually looked forward to an evening of congenial company, free of plots and duplicity. I did so like an addict does a fix.
Though Shady Lady was within walking distance of any spot on the station, this was no longer a comfort. Yes, it was the finest, most advanced small vessel I'd ever been signed to. It represented the highest, most prestigious contract I'd ever landed; yet, like a cold, dead weight, it was tugging at my conscience. What was necessary and expedient was beginning to feel wrong.
Very wrong.
* * *
Admin supervisor CPM06 Jacob Hammerhülse looked up from the datapad in his hand to pinion me with his eyes. He had an impressive scowl that reached out like a slap from a broad face set in a permanent state of distaste. He didn't seem mad at me, especially, just mad -- as if the universe as a whole failed to live up to even one of his expectations.
"Nice to have you in R&D, Ejoq," he said, offering his hand with a mild friendliness that completely threw me.
"Uh...thanks! I'm happy to have a chance to help out."
"We're in a transitional stage at the moment," he explained, as if I'd asked. "There won't be much hands-on for some time. A couple of our people hit their contract durations, and chose to leave the project. I thought I knew everybody in-system with gunnery experience. Where were you hiding?"
"Just a small ship assigned to support duty. I can't go into exact details, of course. You know how it is."
"Right. Well, you come highly recommended by HR, and your background is good. There will be a tonne of weapons testing and calibration to do in the next couple of quarters, but right now, we're in an assessment phase. How much do you know about the last test? Were you around for that?"
The tone of the question was ever-so-slightly more smooth and off-hand than anything else he'd said, which rather flagged it for me: if I had come in after the test, then I might have come in on someone's orders, and was sniffing around for problems.
"I actually arrived just before the test. In fact, our ship wasn't even in place yet to participate in any secondary tracking when we were told to stand down. I found out a little later that something had gone wrong, but that's about all."
He thought for a bit, then grunted.
He was a big fellow, round and tall -- a bit like Barney, but he didn't carry the weight so well. And his perpetual frown was a mask that couldn't have been hiding anything festive. I'd been briefed on this man. He had a reputation for being difficult to please -- less because he was a perfectionist than because he was a jerk.<
br />
The likely source of his civility now was distrust. The two people he mentioned, who'd left the project, had been secretly bought off by VP Bailey via some discretionary funds available to SpecSign. Those folks would still be watched and interrogated elsewhere, but the holes they left in R&D allowed for this opportunity. Their sudden departure was not something a man like Jacob Hammerhülse would accept at face value, but neither was he a deep thinker who could piece it all out.
Or so I'd been assured.
To me, he was looking more like an engineer searching for production flaws in a newly-delivered piece of hardware. I'd have to be inspected closely, test-fitted, and then watched critically. I might be just perfect for the job. I might be the wrong part entirely. I might, in fact, be a damaging piece sent deliberately by R&D's detractors in order to hurt them. Time would tell, and right now, he had the time to take.
"Well, lets give you a tour of the shops," he stated after more dour musing. "Then I'll get you settled in with Ghazza Mattor. She's Lead Tech for Onboard Defense, and you'll be on her SpecTeam."
"I'm sorry...SpecTeam?"
He had been standing then, and just threw me a look that was equal parts puzzlement and irritation.
"Specialist Team...?" He asked it with unrestrained disgust.
"Oh. Okay. I've never worked in R&D before. Your terminology is unfamiliar."
He just shook his head, as if he'd found his first flaw.
Kwon Ti had started a day-and-a-half before, over in Hull Design, which was the biggest single Sub-Department within Research & Development. He had already reported back to Branden that he was getting the cold shoulder. That was hardly a surprise, considering the circumstances and the man's personal style. I'd have thought he would make an effort...but perhaps he was.
Seeing aspects of Siddel in him had been wishful thinking. It was becoming clear that the Man of Mystery nonsense wasn't really a show, yet nor was it real: it was the guy's lifeline, a reflection of who he wanted to be. In the end, though, Kwon was just a techie egghead like the rest of us, and, like the rest of us, he had no undercover training at all. Place him in a skittish crowd like this one, with his poker face, monosyllabic replies, and silly sunglasses, and all he did was raise red flags.
Hull Design was on this floor in a section all its own. That would have made contact between us feasible, except that Kwon and I didn't have compatible shifts. That was just as well, since there wasn't much either of us could do to help the other. And if he was stumbling right out of the gate, I sure didn't need him looking my way for support.
Jacob and I walked out of his small, messy office, and down the companionway to a set of armored double doors. There were no guards, but I recognized the heavy installation above the entranceway as an integrated autogun. In appearance, it was just a long black, glassy-looking box above the top frame. Inside was a dedicated AI, cameras and other sensors, and a weapon system of some kind (which could have been anything). In addition to the embedded full-body scans throughout the station, anyone going further inside R&D had to pass muster with this thing.
"Do not approach this door without that badge," Jacob instructed, tapping the rounded metal rectangle that hung from my neck. It bore my face and name. He wore a tag just like it, as did everyone else I'd seen walking around here. In direct contravention to what I'd been told back on Shady Lady, badges were, in fact, required in this section; they were picked up at the automated security desk at the outer entrance to the Department, and turned back in upon leaving. The badge codes were then changed and re-keyed to the individual when they returned -- whether that person was going on vacation or just to lunch.
It seemed a primitive security method, and superfluous to boot, but I found out later that the badges contained tiny tags manufactured from a material that could be given specific molecular resonances that were then assigned to individual biological profiles. The sensors on the door looked at different physical criteria in people than the standard devices in the rest of the station (the exact nature of which was classified, naturally). This information was then instantly used by the AI as the basis for a cipher. The key to this cipher was the resonance of the badge. If the key didn't match the cipher, the door remained locked, security was alerted, and maybe the individual so failing got perforated by an autogun.
Badges, therefore, were useless to anyone except the people they were issued to, nor could they be forged, since it was unknown what the bio-scanners were actually looking at when a cipher key was being tested.
Despite (or rather, because of) this imposing system, the double doors moved aside silently for us, and, after a short walk through an alcove, the hallway opened up on a very large open space, like a metal cavern. Ambient light was kept low, but certain areas had overhead spots and directed floods focused on them. An echoing voice that sounded artificial announced a set of numerical readings for a particular system check, with stately, ponderous solemnity. Workers welded something big in the shadowed distance, offering up moments of bright, burning illumination that flared and vanished at random. People scuttled back and forth along the deck, along a catwalk above, and along temporary scaffolding that webbed a huge object in the center of the cavern -- a machine not so obscured that I couldn't recognize it with a sudden visceral imperative.
It was a freejump...just like the one I'd killed.
"Wow!"
"Wow, is right," Jacob affirmed. "You're playing with the big kids now, Ejoq. Stay focused, follow instructions, and you'll be part of the greatest tech achievement in modern times. Screw up, and you won't be able to get a job begging in the streets. This way."
We walked over to a set of cookie-cutter offices, all in a line. These, I found out, were for the various Sub-Department or SpecTeam leaders, and we stopped at one that had a raven-haired woman inside, with skin nearly the same color, standing with her back to us. The door was open. She was studying a Tri-D projection of some circuitry which flickered in the air over a table.
"Here's the new guy," Jacob said without preamble, and overly-loud, I thought. The woman must have thought so too, because she jumped like she was stuck with a pin.
"God! Will you please stop doing that?!"
He grunted again.
"Don't have your back to the door, then."
"I told you," she countered, losing an effort to compose herself, "my display needs calibrating. I can't see it from any other direction. Look at this!"
"Didn't you tell Tom?"
"Yes, several times. And I filed a maintenance request. He keeps saying he'll get to it."
"Then he'll get to it. You don't have an exclusive on repairs, you know. There are other people in line. And you know how I feel about pointless requests, Ghazza. If you can just ask for something, then ask. Don't clog up the system with paperwork. This is Ejoq Something-Or-Other. What is it again?"
"Uh, Dosantos," I supplied.
"Yeah. He's replacing Rudy. He needs the tour. I'm busy."
Then he turned and walked away without another word.
She watched him leave with venomous eyes, then welcomed me in with a handshake.
"CPT06 Dr. Ghazza Mattor," she said. "Call me Ghaz."
"Doctor?"
"Of Engineering, yes. The only respect you'll get around here is the kind you take. That was our friendly supervisor. Do you like him? We all like him. We love him. You can see why."
Then she sighed and looked to the floor for a moment.
"My apologies, Ejoq. I shouldn't let little things bother me. Certainly not in front of others."
"No problem at all. If there's anything I can do...?"
"Thank you. Okay, so, the tour? I could use a break. Let's go."
Ghaz was dressed in a long white smock, almost like an apron, over a nice greenish dress suit and matching shoes. Her black hair, now that I could see it up close, was lightly streaked with silver, and tied into a large bun on top of her head. It made her look studious and stately at the same time. In other circumstances, she'd
have been a striking woman. Right then, she just seemed frazzled and tired and grateful for a few minutes away from major concerns.
She led me over to a set of doors further past the offices, and these opened on to another large room, this one dedicated to micro-fabrication and repair. It was filled with hundreds of discreet machines and tool sets, and the dozen or so people in there using them were making a tonne of noise.
"This is the Machine Shop." Ghaz just about had to shout to be heard. "Our SpecTeam, Onboard Defense, has a crystal focusing rod for the the ship's neupac array extruding right now." She pointed to a large gray box in the far corner. "It won't be ready for at least three more days. Hull Design is furious! The other formulator is down, but we were here first!"
She laughed, then moved us on.
"I thought work was at a halt right now," I commented, after we'd left the noise behind. Ghaz started up the steps to the catwalk, but spoke over her shoulder.
"We're never at a halt. The testing schedule has been thrown out, but we have to keep focused. When all the investigations are through, we can't afford to be behind: Corporate is screaming for results. As it is, I have another round later this shift with LPM...uh, Local Project Management - that is to say, the Admin meat puppets for Upper Management on Interstar. I might have to turn you over to someone else at some point, I'm sorry."
"Oh, sure, whatever's easiest."
She gave me a appreciative nod when she got to the top, and directed my attention to the wide expanse of the project bay. The view was quite a thing, with the curve of the station's radius clearly visible.
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 21
