"I will not listen to any of this! I want you off my station, Dosantos! I want out of my star system!"
"After such distinguished service, you're willing to let it bog down now in piddling ledger discrepancies? Because even I believe that's all this amounts to. But Accounting won't care. As a senior officer, they'll make an example of you. They have to. They'll strip you to the bone. They'll find out about every transaction you've ever paid for, Nine -- and every one you didn't. It'll be a pathetic bureaucratic ending to a stellar career. I can help you now, but that window is closing. I can be an asset, instead of an enemy, if let me do my job."
"I cannot have an independent intelligence organization running around my post. Period."
"You don't have a choice. Period. If it isn't me, it'll be someone else...someone you won't see coming. At least I'm the devil you know."
That gave him pause. It gave all his toadies pause, because he was seeming thoughtful suddenly, and they were only there to follow his lead.
"What do you want?"
The question came out as a challenge, as a fishing line with unimpressive bait. I bit anyway.
What did I want?
"First off, take the surveillance AI off my back."
Maelbrott's eyes grew wide in surprise, and he looked to one of his people in particular, but spoke to me. "How do you know about that?"
"Secondly, I want my on-station clearance raised. I'm being balked by locked doors with sentries. I need to pursue leads throughout all the Departments."
"Assuming your promotion goes through without a hitch," he replied, "that shouldn't be a problem."
"Rank and clearance aren't the same things, and you know it. I don't care about ordering people around. If I'm going to find the enemies operating on this station -- and elsewhere -- I need a free hand."
He was scowling at my tone and insolence, but clearly thinking about my proposal.
"Finally, get Hull Design to drop their bid to take over the rest of R&D."
"I have no say in that..."
"Can we put aside pretense? Just for a moment? Get them to stand down, and I'll make the audit go as far away as possible. Between your service history, and my recommendations, it won't amount to more than a form letter."
He was still thinking, but didn't reply on this point. Instead, he focused on the details.
"You say elsewhere. Where, elsewhere?"
"I think you know. At least partly. I have the same suspicions. And make no mistake, this spy ring is real, and it stretches a long way beyond 216-11B."
"I haven't seen any reports out of you," he complained. "What do you have, that's concrete?"
"Nothing, but I'm rather sure we're looking for Churchspace operatives."
"It's Papal? Where do you get that?" So I told him what I knew about the code family used by Laydin. "We've been a little frustrated with that. How did you narrow it down?"
"I'm not without my own resources, Nine. Go through the Papal codes that you have on record in fine detail. This one is different than anything we've seen before, but that's where it's coming from. I'm sure of it."
Two of his Offs made notes of the information, then left the room with a nod from Maelbrott.
"And you want to just stroll along like this from now on?" he asked accusingly, after they'd gone. "You don't want to be held accountable for your operations on this station. You don't want to fill out reports. You want to be the lonesome cowboy, shooting from the hip."
"I've seen that kind of shooting," I replied bitterly, before turning to go. "And so has Branden Ursga."
"I haven't given you permission to leave...!" he bellowed, but I was already out the door.
As I walked along, I fumed, mostly at myself, feeling stupid and mouthy. Like usual.
A boss calls me on the carpet, and it just gets my hackles up. Every single time!
Had I had the perfect argument ready, and the perfect plan in place to get that man and his Department on my side, I still would have botched it when my temper flared. They just had a way about them -- officers did, managers did -- and it plucked at my patience.
Yet peevishness was an expensive luxury right now. I knew that. I repeated it over and over to myself as I trudged down the street, until it finally got through.
Perspective.
Yeah...okay.
If he gave me some space to maneuver, and the clearance I asked for, I wouldn't begrudge Maelbrott a single one of his curses or complaints. I'd accept them all with a hangdog look that would make him grin.
Because time was running short. I couldn't shake the fear that something was going to happen.
And it was going to happen soon.
* * *
"He loves you," Floy laughed. She lay next to me in my bunk. It was a tight squeeze, but very much worth it.
We had gotten together later that same night, after work for me, and after whatever running around she was still doing, regarding the R&D shakeup.
"I haven't given him much reason to," I agreed, less mad at myself by now. In fact, I was feeling oddly satisfied. "But if Maelbrott's instinct for career survival is strong enough, it'll all work out. I'm sure I'm right."
"Said every great screw-up in history," she inserted, and I gave her a bite on the shoulder. She squeaked, and then hee-hawed like a mule.
I wanted to include her in everything. I wanted to tell her about Shady Lady, and even about Barney and my dealings with what seemed like all the undercover operatives in the galaxy. But those weren't my secrets to tell. I couldn't reach so far with my heart as to put the others, or the mission, into danger.
But it sure did stink. Because I wasn't sitting on my hands this time; I wasn't taking this relationship for granted. Sure it might end badly. Probably it would. It had come out of nowhere, and would doubtlessly go back at some point. But for the moment, it mattered.
And because it did, it was one more reason to keep my secrets.
Maintaining the compartments of my life was still a necessity. I'd only opened up to Barney because he hadn't given me a choice. The fact that I needed him and his pals was secondary.
What took the lead, then?
The original mission. Investigating suspected irregularities in an international agreement had to take center stage.
Yet, it was more than a treaty verification. It always had been.
Spies? Assassins? Attacks out in the black, and in the streets?
What was United Humanity up to? Were they, in fact, up to anything?
If it ever got out that they'd maintained freejump's secrecy, it would be inflammatory, even if they'd been doing it in support of their self-appointed mandate to keep the peace. And if there were any UH operatives still aboard station, other than those of us from Shady Lady, were they, in fact, one and the same as the Churchspace group?
It didn't make sense! What was I missing...?
"Where was Maelbrott stationed before coming here?" I asked Floy. She held off on her answer, because, just then, I got a charlie horse in my leg from being curled into a weird position for so long; I jumped up, grabbing my calf and cursing. She tried to comfort me, hooting the whole time. It was not romantic nor attractive nor anything else a woman like her merited. But people rarely get what they deserve in life, which I find both both tragic and comforting.
"I don't know where he came from. Some other duty post. Does it matter?"
"It might. Can you find out?"
"Sure. But can't you? Unless it was a classified detail, it should be public information."
"I can find out what's in the records, but they might not show it all, and I don't know anyone in Team, other than you."
"What are you looking for?"
"I want to know who he directly worked under, and who might have had a reason to want him placed here."
"You're assuming there were other candidates," she said. "There might not have been. His qualifications could have made him uniquely suitable."
"His certifications, maybe. So far, I
haven't seen many qualities. Every break he's gotten here has come from other people's efforts."
She was up now because of my painful dance, and was getting dressed. "He's not the brightest officer in the service, certainly, but that doesn't mean he's some kind of foreign agent."
"No, it argues the opposite, in fact. It also argues against him even having this post to begin with...yet here he is."
"You think he's being used?"
"Yes, but not directly. Team required a smart, inquisitive person who could dig through the problems here, plug all the holes, and get this project back on track. Instead they put Maelbrott in charge. He's here precisely because he's not the best for the job.
"I wouldn't say he's an idiot," she argued, fighting with her boots. I stooped to help. She had told me she'd gotten her Team-issued footgear sized and tailored by a cobbler back home. They looked great, but were hard to get on without a shoehorn; all I had was a spork, which might have been painful.
"No, an idiot would be too obvious," I continued. "He's just smart enough to know what needs to be done, but not smart enough to actually do it. In a way, that really is a specific set of qualifications."
"I can't follow half of what you say," she confessed, taking out a small plastic bottle from a breast pocket. Carefully, she squeezed out two clear drops into each eye. I must have looked curious. "Just a pick-me-up; no time for coffee. I have a meeting with Bree Burdot from Hull Design at nineteen-hundred, and have to run back to my quarters, shower, and change into a fresh uniform."
"How'd you manage it?" I inquired, "I've been trying see that guy for days now."
"I asked him to dinner, and he accepted. Perks of the gender."
"If Maelbrott comes through for me, we won't need Burdot, even if he's besotted with your charms."
"And they are prodigious. Running late, now."
At least I got another kiss out of it.
* * *
I had to talk to my crewmates on Shady Lady about Barney, but, of course, that represented a problem. How could I get them to trust old StaSec officers, who were, technically, breaking the law just as we were? (Actually, I saw the stealthship as sort of skirting the law, but whatever.)
It would take a leap of faith on their parts to trust my judgement in this, and my judgement had, more than once, been in question up there. But we had no choice if we wanted to help Mavis and get out of here. It was a gulf, and it was approaching.
I went to R&D, hoping for distraction. There wasn't any. The entire Department was at a standstill because of Hull Design's lowering clouds.
I learned that three young bucks in Weaponry had put in for transfers, apparently seeing their chances to shine under this part of the project rapidly disappearing. I couldn't blame them. Actually, I didn't care: there were two other kids in the Sub-D that were sharp and real assets; the rest were just dead weight -- hungry to rise, but not especially worthy of it.
Jake had left for the day, and Ghazza was about to, even though her shift was supposed to go to twenty-one hundred.
"Today's a bust," she said, sounding bitter and exhausted, walking away.
The Team kids looked to me for instructions, since they were shy any leadership at that point, but I was hanged if I'd take on that job too!
Instead, I just focused on satisfying the power nodule imbalances we were seeing in the schematic. This wasn't especially hard work, but it was exacting, and took some math I didn't want to trust solely to computers right away. The blueprints only allowed for addending known, archived weapon models -- which ours certainly weren't: there was no way to sim what we were doing in advance of actually building prototypes and testing them out.
Two of the Team Officers helped me. You can guess which ones. The others wandered off, and they weren't missed. I took a moment to note this in a memo to Ghazza. That much I could do, anyway.
With or without the dead wood, we were a solid, productive group, I realized. The other Sub-Departments had stopped all work because of this Hull Design thing, or so I'd heard. But Weaponry was still swinging the pickaxe, breaking the rocks.
Okay, that metaphor was a little mixed -- R&D wasn't a prison. No one else was trapped in this place, always on the edge of being discovered for a fraud or enemy. They were all patriots, or at least loyal to the Company.
I was loyal to the job.
But which job? Gunnery? Investigations? Building a warship?
Wasn't it just possible I could be invested in them all? Care about them all?
Everyone, even Maelbrott, had said nice things about my commitment to whatever it was they happened to think I was doing.
No, not think I was doing, was doing.
Sure, I was stretched to the limit, and slowly growing paranoid -- justified though that illness had proven itself to be in recent days. But work was progressing. Shady Lady was nearly ready. Barney and I (well, Barney and his people, and I) had bagged a foreign agent. Weaponry, here in R&D, was making great strides, and pushing forward when all the other Sub-D's were at a stand-still.
It was a dance. I was in the spotlight. And I was owning the ballroom floor. All of it. It was mine. I could spy, and catch spies. I could defend a ship, and build one.
And they didn't know! No one had any idea what the whole picture looked like.
It was all me, and all motion.
And...
It couldn't go on forever.
It was amazing it had gone on at all, let alone for this long.
I was seeing it through a fractured lens or prism: these colors and images floating and circling each other; touching, rubbing shoulders, but never merging, never resolving into a single picture.
A single life.
Sometimes the conviction and dedication to our escape was all-encompassing. A passion! A quest!
Other times, it was an abstract thought...all vague, like a piece of dusty philosophy, or a painting composed of random pigments and spatters. When I felt like that, it took focus just to have an opinion.
And God help me, sometimes I even forgot about it completely: playing smackball; drinking beer and laughing; sipping nice coffee; making love to a woman who thought she knew me...
Doing all this as if my whole world wasn't about to implode. As if the galaxy wasn't poised to change forever.
It couldn't sustain itself anymore -- the dream, the dance. There had to be movement.
After work, I decided.
Today, after work.
||||||||||
I didn't know anyone was out there until they banged on the hull.
One. Two. Three thumps.
The comm panel showed incoming hails, but it wouldn't respond to my touch. I tried to get my companion to listen, and to unlock systems, but that was no more productive than before.
SOP regarding the rescue of dead, unresponsive vessels did include tapping the hull to see if there was a reply. This was only of value, of course, when a specialized vibration sensor was placed against the polynium plates outside, so as to pick up any responding vibrations. My commring, though dead, could still communicate this way, and I smacked the hatch with the flat of my hand so that the ring tap-tapped against the metal. There was a pause, then two more thumps, followed by a single one. I mimicked the beat so they'd know I was a real person, and not just an engine process making periodic clangs in a pattern of threes.
Without a proper airlock, we had to be taken fully aboard the Fleet tug. This was a relatively small ship, but a very powerful one, designed to go out and pick up stranded vessels. It had lots of link-up hardware on all sides for hauling large ships and boats, but also a modest bay on the top, expressly for stalled-out fighters, dead couriers, broken shuttles, and other small craft.
Ship recovery techs carefully attached portable thruster units to the freejump's hull. I heard this activity inside as a bunch of heavy clangs and bangs. They operated the units remotely, and in a few minutes, had us aboard the tug, safe and sound -- but locked away inside a dedicated quarantine sectio
n of the bay. That was a little excessive, but probably just standard procedure: from their point-of-view, ours was a ship of no known configuration. We could have been anybody, coming from anywhere, bringing home any kind of trouble.
Emergency medicos wearing airtight suits brought me out, and strong-armed me directly into a decontamination unit. I warned them that the other man was in bad shape, and might not survive being unplugged. This wasn't their first go-around with cyborgs, apparently: when they handed him down through the ships' hatch a few minutes later, he was was still out cold, but his face was back in its proper place, and the seizure seemed to be at an end. They hustled him off to the med bay.
Though I learned an awful lot about my jump companion in the weeks and months to come, whether from deep-delving background checks by a small army of intelligence researchers, continual status reports, and various medical, mental, and bio-mechanical assessments, that one glimpse of the guy, lying in seemingly perfect repose upon the back of a medico roller retreating through the companionway, would be the last time I ever set eyes on him.
I also told the doctors that I'd been hit with a radiation burst of unknown strength or composition for at least several seconds time. For my honesty, I got a blisteringly-hot shower and complete scrub-down with stiff brushes all over my body -- even those places a stiff brush should not touch. I didn't complain. They then confirmed that their med sensors were showing some systemic cell damage consistent with moderate neutron exposure.
They gave me a goopy-looking anti-rad concoction, with a long needle to the thigh. That hurt a lot, and it gave me terrible diarrhea that first day, but neither of those things were as bad as internal bleeding or organ failure, so I still didn't complain. The medicos assured me, in fact, that I would be perfectly fine within a week or so, and they turned out to be right.
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 39
