by Titan Books
The trouble was that everyone he had spoken with over the course of the past month had been—incomplete. There were superb tactical fighters who struck him as all too ready to shoot first and analyze later. Folks with impressive records who were intellectually overqualified. Empathetic electronic warriors who would fail in hand-to-hand combat with a macaque.
There was the sizable contingent of applicants who wanted to leave Earth for all the wrong reasons. A busted relationship, a failing marriage, dissatisfaction with a job, a desire to leapfrog the chain of command. Some were ex-military who feared civilian life, but what did they think a colony was about, anyway? While many appeared to be supremely qualified, they had the wrong motivations.
Or they were lacking in other areas, physical or technical. With only one position left open on his team, Lopé could afford to be choosy. Yet the time factor was beginning to weigh on him.
Swiveling in his chair he leaned against a cushion of air that held his back a couple of centimeters away from the seat back itself. Lopé gazed through the one-way oval window that allowed him to see from the interview room into the outer waiting area. The applicants couldn’t see him, though—anyone looking in his direction would see only a panosolve, cycling images of landscapes designed to brighten the otherwise sterile exterior lounge.
Visually, the current group of applicants was reasonably impressive. All physically fit, of course. Mostly young, with a couple of middle-aged aspirants sprinkled in among them. That had been the case every day since he had started doing the interviews. Yet thus far, no one had satisfied every one of his personal requirements.
If nothing else, they would be glad to wait inside one of the city’s monumental buildings. In contrast to the grime-splattered, smog-smothered, rain-soaked world outside, the sterilized interior of the Weyland-Yutani tower was spotlessly clean, its air continuously scrubbed of contaminants. He almost hated to have to turn them out, one by one, into a world that had long since ceased to be inviting to human beings.
He looked forward to being back on board the Covenant. He missed Hallet. He looked forward to finishing the task at hand. Which, he reminded himself, would never happen if he didn’t keep at it. Reluctantly, he spoke to the thick, transparent, intelligent slab of sentilite that formed the desk in front of him.
“Send in the next victim.”
VI
As the door slid aside, he was assailed by the buzz of inconsequential chatter coming from the waiting area. The woman who made her way into the interview room was strikingly attractive—tall, with red hair mowed in a buzz cut on the left side of her head and shoulder-length matching strands on the right. She had steady blue eyes, a small mouth, and a distinctively aquiline nose. She wore no makeup and nothing extraneous save for a single silver orb earring that floated an infinitesimal distance away from her left earlobe. Her jump pants and matching long-sleeve blouse were devoid of insignia, though, interestingly, he could see where several patches had been removed. He reminded himself to, in the course of the interview, ask her why the identification had been excised. Was she not proud of where and in what unit she had served?
He would find out soon enough.
Beneath the pants and blouse her figure was trim and tight. What he could see of her forearms suggested someone who continued to exercise hard and regularly, even if not on active service. All very promising, he told himself, but then, appearances often were. It was not that they were deceiving; only that they were usually insufficient.
He waved a hand in the general direction of the desk’s integrated projector. What he had been viewing earlier was replaced by a rotating image of the young woman who stood before him. It was accompanied by a three-dimensional list of stats that scrolled up or down in concert with the movement of his pupils.
“Meryem Tadik,” he said. “Nice to meet you. I am your interviewer, Sergeant Carl Lopé.”
“Thank you for seeing me, Sergeant Lopé.” She smiled in response. It seemed forced, but that was to be expected. All genuine applicants were nervous, at least in the beginning. Those who weren’t often found themselves disqualified due to overconfidence.
He continued to read aloud from the display, reciting her educational background, service experience, and awards.
“Not married. One long-term relationship, terminated approximately two years ago.” He glanced at her. “Given your life experience, age, and appearance, I find your continued lack of a mate surprising.”
She shrugged, shifting in her chair. “Given my life experience, age, and appearance, I’ve had a hard time finding someone able to measure up to my standards.”
He suppressed a smile. “Crew and colonists have to ship as couples. Security team members do not—but you already know that, or you wouldn’t have bothered applying.” A finger indicated a blue line on the hovering readout. “There’s a brief entry concerning an M’ba Ashoki. What happened with him? Why didn’t that work out?”
“I caught him with someone else.” Her reply was a polite monotone. “Later he tried to apologize. From his hospital bed.”
Lopé nodded understandingly and moved on. In response to a double blink of his left eye, the infoscroll obediently froze. “Says here he drifted away from you because you were becoming involved with too many interests outside of your active duty assignments.”
Her lips firmed ever so slightly. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it or, noticing it, they would have paid it no mind. Not Lopé. As with any finalist, he had been watching her closely from the moment she had entered. Now he began watching her intently.
“I don’t see what bearing my private life has on my application,” she said, a little less under control. “My past becomes moot when I leave Earth forever.”
He leaned forward slightly. “But you’re not leaving your fellow humans forever. You’ll be in a position to watch over them, and may eventually be called on to settle disputes between them. That requires a certain degree of empathy.”
One long leg crossed over another, then back again. They were shapely, Lopé thought. They were also moving around too much.
“I passed all of the psychological tests.” Some of her initial aplomb returned. “I must have, or I wouldn’t be sitting here in front of you now.”
He nodded. “Having taken those tests, you’d also know that a final interviewer is permitted to ask whatever questions happen to come to mind, however unnecessarily intrusive or seemingly irrelevant they might happen to be.”
“Sorry.” A wide smile this time. “It’s just that I know this interview is make-or-break for me, and I’m more than a little nervous.”
“I’m allowing for that.” Using his eyes, he moved to another portion of the readout and enlarged it. “That would explain why your heart rate is so high, why your blood pressure is up, and why your neural patterns show evidence of prevarication.”
One neatly up-curled eyebrow twitched. “Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Who, me?” Lopé made a show of looking offended. “Not me! I’d never do such a thing.” He indicated the floating readout. The display facing him wasn’t visible to her. She shifted in her seat, fighting to control her outrage.
“I’m not going to sit here and be insulted,” she said tightly. “Certainly not by a program whose origin and results are unknown to me.”
“That’s perfectly understandable, and easily corrected.” He waved his left hand, and the floating display instantly showed a mirrored image of itself to the applicant. “Program doesn’t say you’re lying.” His voice hardened. “You said that. Program suggests that you’re being evasive. Evasions are not lies. They are, however, suspect. If you’re not lying about something, then it’s likely you’re hiding something.” He leaned forward, over the edge of the sentilite desk, and lowered his voice.
“What are you hiding, Ms. Tadik?”
“I am not hiding anything!” Despite an evident effort to maintain control of herself, she couldn’t keep her voice from rising. “What good would it do me? I coul
dn’t hide anything from Weyland-Yutani if I wanted to. No one can. Not even you!”
He sat back. “You wouldn’t know that unless you’ve already tried to do so, and failed at it.”
Angry and exasperated, she rose from the chair. “Forget this. I’ve had enough.” Turning, she nodded in the direction of the nearby outer office. “There must be thirty, forty finalists still waiting out there. Pick one of them. I’m through with this nonsense.”
“That’s your choice to make.” The sergeant started to rise. “But I’m not quite through with you, Ms. Tadik. There are one or two additional questions I think I need to ask you.” He smiled pleasantly. “Just to conclude the record of this interview. If you don’t mind?” Standing now, he indicated the chair she had just vacated.
“But I do mind,” she snapped back. “You’ve trashed quite enough of my reputation, Mr. Lopé. I’m not going to let you denigrate me any further.”
Trashed? All he’d done, Lopé reflected, was ask the same kinds of questions he’d put to previous applicants. Partly to resolve questions of character, partly to clear up inconsistencies in personal histories, but also to see how each applicant would fare when pressured about personal matters. Some had lied, some had hemmed and hawed, a few had taken umbrage, but most had answered calmly and as truthfully as they were able, regardless of how embarrassing the questions might be.
Not this Meryem Tadik. What she was doing, albeit slowly, was preparing to bolt. He didn’t need a program to tell him that. He could see it in her eyes, in the way her muscles were tensing up. He could just as easily have let her go and moved on to the next applicant, but his military curiosity was piqued. He would have felt more comfortable about the confrontation had she simply cursed him out. That kind of response might not even have prevented him from hiring her. But she was being defensive as well as evasive.
Why?
“Just another quick question or two, Ms. Tadik,” Lopé insisted. “Please note that I haven’t ruled you out as a candidate.” As he started to come around the desk he again indicated the chair. “If you’ll just sit back down…”
“No.” She moved away from him and toward the door. “I don’t think I will. I told you, I’m done. I’ll leave you to harass someone else.”
He shook his head regretfully as he approached her. “Asking a routine set of questions hardly constitutes ‘harassment.’ None of those who have already entered into the service ever used that description, regardless of the line of inquiry.” Reaching out, he gently grasped her right forearm.
Its density startled him.
She shook him off. “Leave me alone, Sergeant. Find somebody else.” As the door opened he moved again to restrain her, and she kicked out. A rising side kick, delivered fast and hard. His training allowed him to drop an arm to block it, but the impact was enough to send him stumbling back toward the desk.
“Stop!” His shout followed her as she bolted through the outer office lounge. Disappointingly, not one of the waiting applicants thought to try to intercept her.
“Hey! Hold on there!” Seated candidates looked startled as the sergeant came sprinting out of the interviewing room. Standing ones found themselves shoved aside.
Lopé lost sight of her, and he pulled up short in front of two opposing lines of lift stations at the end of the hallway. Company employees eyed him with a mixture of disquiet and bewilderment.
“Tall woman, split red hairdo, late twenties,” he barked. “Which way?” A dozen stunned workers gaped back at him. “Somebody tell me something, goddamnit!”
An elderly woman dressed as a senior executive, the last member of the cluster Lopé expected to hear from, spoke up.
“That way, I think.” She pointed to her right.
Stairs. The automatic door barely had time to open as the sergeant rushed the portal. Once through he flew downward, descending the steps two and three at a time. The absence of a fire chute was a blessing. Had one been available, Tadik would already have reached the ground floor and disappeared into the roiling, snarling pedestrian tide that ebbed and flowed against the tower’s exterior.
As he swung around a stairwell, his feet off the floor, something pinged against the wall just to his left. There was a flash of light, a crackling sound, and a brief but intense whiff of ozone. Had the positively charged plastic shell struck him, it would have flashflared his nervous system, resulting in momentary paralysis. Unable to control his muscles, he would have toppled head-first down the stairs and into the next landing. Some such charged shells were powerful enough to induce a myocardial infarction, and could kill him.
Plastic charge and battery wouldn’t necessarily show up on the building’s security systems, he knew. Especially if they had been brought inside camouflaged in a purse or bag. Later, he would have a few choice words for tower security. Assuming he didn’t get himself shot before then.
As he continued to descend, a second round struck so close to his head that his right ear and cheek went numb. If he ate anything over the course of the next six hours, he would probably drool. But by now he didn’t care about anything except catching up to the uncooperative Ms. Tadik. Plainly, she was distressed about something considerably more significant than a few inconvenient questions involving her love life.
He slowed slightly. She was armed, he was not, so he’d have to be careful in picking his spot to try to take her down. It would have to be soon, too. Her height and hairdo were distinctive, but not exceptional. If she succeeded in slipping outside and into the torrent of pedestrian traffic, he could lose her entirely.
His options were limited. If he raised a ruckus in the lobby, there was a real risk of inducing general panic among the hundreds of employees and visitors who would be milling about. Security personnel posed a problem, as well. Though none of the building’s guards were armed with lethal weaponry, a wrong takedown burst from a crowd control device could still do serious damage, especially to the weak or elderly.
In a sense, he was running the same mental simulations as he would have on a battlefield, except in this case there were only two combatants, and one of them was unarmed. That didn’t mean Lopé was defenseless, though—far from it—but the best-trained hand-to-hand combatant couldn’t defeat an armed opponent, no matter how weak. And whatever else she might be, the fleeing redhead hadn’t struck him as weak.
The question that kept him pursuing was: why had she bolted from the interview? Had she seen that his suspicions were aroused? Lopé’s interest was invariably piqued whenever someone shot at him. Usually his adversaries’ motivations were known, though. He badly wanted to know what was motivating Tadik.
He had a bad moment when he broke out on the second floor mezzanine and didn’t spot her. Fortunately, it was a spacious area and not especially crowded. Most visitors and workers were either on the office floors above or in the faux-marbled main atrium below. The haptic gold-toned banisters and swirled metal walls gleamed around him, polished to a high luster by silent, busy Weyland-Yutani drones. Scattered among the touch-responsive, flowing metal, organics stood out.
There she was, heading for one of the two wide, curving stairways that led down to the main floor. She was walking fast; not quite running, not wanting to draw attention to herself. While there was no sign of her plastic pistol, he doubted she had abandoned it. She was trying hard to blend into the crowd. Maybe she thought in the course of the stairwell descent she had outdistanced her pursuer. Maybe she thought that, having been shot at twice, he had given up the pursuit. Maybe she thought he had taken a wrong turn, or stopped to call for help.
If so, she didn’t know him very well. No individual became Chief of Security on a colony ship because they were prone to giving up.
Making use of oblivious workers to provide intermittent cover, he slowly made up the distance between himself and his quarry. Once, when she looked back to see if anyone was following her, he just managed to duck behind a pillar, concealing himself behind the curving screen that gave the support
ing column the appearance of a silent cylindrical waterfall. As soon as her attention turned to the curving stairs that beckoned just in front of her, he slipped out again and resumed his stalk.
Unless she panicked and broke into a run at the last minute, he would catch up to her just before she reached the building’s Security station. There was no exit security, of course, but at that point he would be able to grab her while simultaneously identifying himself to the diligent personnel, and avail himself of their assistance.
No one gave him a second glance as he followed her down the sweeping stairway. It was wide and glistening and fashioned after a much smaller staircase in an ancient movie. He was maybe twenty feet behind her when she stepped off the last step and onto the main floor. Another few seconds and they would be near the main entrance to the tower. He felt confident he could grab and disarm her, even if she tried to pull a hidden weapon.
All his planning was interrupted as a commotion erupted off to his left.
Near the center of the main entrance, just beside the huge Weyland-Yutani symbol that was inlaid in the floor in marble and multi-colored industrial glass, two figures were grappling.
The woman was short and tanned, with wide eyes and full lips, while her adversary was lean and clad in the rumpled attire of a construction worker. His mien didn’t go with his clothing—he looked like someone who had spent fifteen years at university to no apparent benefit.
Lopé’s gaze widened slightly at the sight of the sonic impeller the man held. As an industrial tool, it wouldn’t be subject to the usual security checks. Using sound, the device could move and position large pieces of stone or metal. It could also, he knew as it went off with a reverberant crack, cleanly remove someone’s head from his neck.
He dove to the floor.
Despite the industrial-strength muffler that surrounded it, the impeller emitted a loud sonic burst when it went off. Providentially, the shaped circular burst missed everyone in the atrium as it blew a hole in the base of the transparent, four-story high exterior wall. The panic Lopé had feared ignited anyway as workers and visitors scattered screaming in all directions. To their credit, several members of the security team drew their weapons and started in the direction of the shooter. They were prevented from reaching him by the chaos that quickly enveloped the main floor.
