Finally she heard various clicks and bangs from the hatch, and braced herself, not sure what she would do if she found enemies when it opened. But the first face she saw was familiar.
"Ensign Sassinak." Familiar, but not particularly welcoming. The captain himself had chosen to greet her, and behind him she saw both friendly and scowling faces. And a squad of marines, armed. Sassinak stood, saluted, and nearly fell as the hours of inactivity and fasting caught up with her all at once. "Are you hurt?" Fargeon asked when she staggered.
"Just a knock on the head," she said. "Excuse me, sir, but I must warn you—"
"You, Ensign, are the one to be warned," he said stiffly, that momentary warmth gone as if it had never happened. "Charges have been made against you, serious charges, and it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you."
Sassinak stared at him, momentarily speechless. Had he really believed Achael's (it must have been Achael's) accusations? Wasn't he going to give her a chance? She caught herself, shook her head, and went on. "Captain, please—it's very important that this pod be sealed, and all contents handled by forensic specialists."
That got his attention. "What? What are you talking about?"
Sassinak waved her hand at the pod's interior. "Sir, I've done my best to secure it, but I really don't know how. Someone knocked me out during evac drill, dumped me in this pod, jettisoned it, and planted it full of items I was supposed to handle, to incriminate myself. I believe those same items may carry traces of the perpetrator—" She nearly stumbled over the word, catching sight of Lieutenant Achael in the group behind the captain. His face was frozen in an expression of distaste. Then it changed to eagerness, and he leaned forward.
"That's exactly what she would say, sir. That someone tried to frame her—"
"I can see that for myself, Mr. Achael." Fargeon's expression soured even more.
"I could hardly have planted someone else's fingerprints on the interior of the console while disabling the beacon," Sassinak said crisply. Achael paled; she saw his eyes glance sideways.
"You disabled the beacon?" asked Fargeon, missing the point.
"No, sir. I realized the beacon was disabled, and also realized that if I made an attempt to repair it, I would destroy evidence pointing to the person who did disable it. That evidence is intact." She looked straight at Achael as she spoke. He flinched from her gaze, took a step backward.
Fargeon's head tilted minutely; she had surprised him with some of that. "There's a document missing," he said.
Sassinak nodded. "There's a classified document envelope, not quite sealed, in this pod. I found it when I woke—"
"Likely story," said Achael. This time the captain's response was clearly irritated, a quick flip of the hand for silence.
"And did you handle it?" asked the captain.
"No, sir, I did not. Although it's possible that whoever dumped me in there put my fingers on it while I was unconscious."
"I see." The captain pulled himself up. "Well. This is . . . unexpected. Very well; I'll see to it that the pod is sealed, and the contents examined for evidence of what actually happened. As for you, Ensign, you'll report to Sickbay, and then to your quarters. I'll want a full report—"
"Sir, I taped a report while in the pod. May I bring that tape?"
"You did?" Again this threw him off his stride. "Very good thinking, Ensign. By all means, let me have it now."
Sassinak picked up the tape, and started forward. Her vision blurred, and she nearly hit her head on the hatch rim. A hand came forward, steadied her arm. She ducked under the hatch, and came out into the chilly air of E-bay. It smelled decidedly fresher than the pod. Fargeon peered at her.
"You're very pale—are you sure you're not ill?"
"It's just not eating." The bulkheads seemed to shimmer, then steadied. She was conscious of having to concentrate firmly on the here and now.
"You—but surely there were emergency rations in the pod?"
"Yes, but—to make the air last—" She fought to stay upright, with a soft blackness folding itself around her. "I didn't—trust the coldsleep cabinet—if the same person had tampered with it—"
"Gods!" That was Cavery, she realized as she looked toward the voice. But the blackness rose around her, inescapable, and she felt herself curling into it.
"Don't forget the blood samples," she heard herself say, and then everything disappeared.
* * *
The medician's face hung over hers, suspended in nothingness. Sassinak blinked, yawned, and found the rest of the compartment in focus again. Sickbay, clearly. An IV line ran from her left hand to a bag; wires trailed across her chest.
"I'm fine," she said helpfully.
"You're lucky," said the medician, pinching back a smile. "You came close to the edge—you can't use Discipline like that and not eat."
"Huh?"
"Don't try to tell me you weren't using it, either—nothing but a crash from it would have sent you that far down. Here—have a mug of this." A flick of the hand, and Sass's couch lifted her so that she could take the mug of thick broth the medician offered.
"What did the blood samples show?" asked Sassinak between sips. She could practically feel the strength flowing back into her.
"You're lucky," the medician said again. "It was a coldsleep prep dose. If you'd hit the tank controls by mistake, you might have been in coldsleep immediately . . . or if you'd chosen to enter coldsleep early, the residual in your blood could have killed you. It didn't completely clear until the third day."
"The cabinet?" She remembered her fear of that featureless interior.
"Nothing: it was normal." The medician looked at her curiously. "You're in remarkably good shape, all things considered. That lump on the back of your head may still hurt, but there's no damage. You're not showing any signs of excessive anxiety—"
Sassinak slurped the last bit of broth and grinned. "I'm safe now. And not hungry. When can I get up?"
Before the medician could answer, a voice from the corridor said, "That's Sass, all right! I can tell from here."
"Not yet," said the medician to Sass. Then, "Do you want visitors? I can easily tell them to let you rest."
But Sassinak could hardly wait to find out what had happened so far. Mira, all trace of fashionable reserve gone, and Jrain, almost visibly shimmering into another shape in his excitement, were only too glad to tell her.
"I knew," Mira began, "that it couldn't have been your fault. You aren't ever careless like that; you wouldn't have hit the wrong button or anything. And of course you, of all people, wouldn't cooperate with slavers or pirates."
"But how did you find me without the beacon?"
Mira nodded at Jrain. "Your Weft friends did it. I don't know if Jrain can explain it—he couldn't to me—but they tracked you, somehow—"
"It was really the Ssli interface," Jrain said. "You know how they can sense other vessels in FTL space—"
"Yes, but I wasn't in FTL space after the pod went off, was I?"
"No, but it turns out they can reach beyond it, somehow. Doesn't make any sense to me, and what Hssro calls the relevant equations I call gibberish. The pod is really too small to sense—like something small too far away to see—but we knew exactly when you'd been dumped, and the Ssli was able to—to do whatever it does in whatever direction that was. Then we Wefts sort of rode that probe, feeling our way toward you."
"But you said—"
"Because you're alive, and we know you. We had to go in our own shapes, of course—" He frowned, and Sassinak tried to imagine the effect on Fargeon of all the crew's Wefts in their own shape, clinging, no doubt, to the bulkheads of the Ssli contact chamber. Or on the bridge? She asked.
"He wasn't pleased with us," said Jrain, a reminiscent smile on his face. "We don't usually clump on him, you know: he doesn't like aliens much, though he tries to be fair. But when it came down to risking the loss of your pod, or giving in to Achael's insinuations—
"
"Kirtin changed right there in front of the captain," put in Mira. "I thought he was going to choke. Then Basli and Jrain—"
"Ptak first: I was the last one," Jrain put in.
"Whatever." Mira shrugged away the correction and went on. "Can you imagine—this was in the big wardroom, and there they were all over the walls! I'd never seen more than one Weft changed at a time—" She quirked an eyebrow at Sass.
"I have. It's impressive, isn't it?"
"Impressive! It's crowded, is what it is, with these big spiky things all over the walls and ceiling." Mira wrinkled her nose at Jrain, who grinned at her. "Not to mention all those eyes glittering out at you. And you never told me," she said to Jrain, "that you're telepaths in that shape. I thought you'd use a biolink to the computer or something."
"There wasn't time," said Jrain.
"But what about the rendezvous with the EEC ship? Did we miss that?"
"No. What we decided—I mean—" Mira looked sideways. "What the Wefts decided, was to let that go on, and then pick you up afterwards. It seemed risky to me—the further we went, the further away you were, the harder to find. It was a real gamble—"
"No," said Jrain firmly and loudly. Mira stared at him, and Sassinak blinked. He took a long breath, and said more quietly, "We don't gamble. We don't ever gamble."
"I didn't mean like a poker game," sald Mira sharply. "But it was risky—"
"No." As they looked at him, his form wavered, then steadied again. "I can't explain. But you must not think—" an earnest look at Sassinak "—you must not think we gamble with your life, Sassinak. Never."
"I—oh, all right, Jrain. You don't gamble. But if one of you doesn't get all this in order and tell me what happened, and where we are, and where Achael is, I'm going to crawl out of this bed and stuff you in a pod."
Jrain, calmer now, sat on the end of her bed. "Achael is dead. That evidence you spoke to the captain about—remember?" Sassinak nodded. "Well, the captain had it put under guard. The pod, and the items removed, like the blood samples. Achael tried to get at it. He did get into the med lab, and destroyed one test printout before he was discovered. Then he broke for the docking bays—I think to steal a pod himself. When the guards spotted him, and he knew he was trapped, he killed himself. Had a poison capsule, apparently. The captain won't tell us, not all the details, but we've had our ears open." He patted Sass's foot under the blanket. "At first the captain wanted to think that you and Achael were co-conspirators, but he couldn't ignore the evidence . . . you know, Sass, you really did cram that pod with evidence. You did such a good job it was almost suspicious that way."
"Fleet Intelligence is going to get the whole load dumped on them when we get back to Sector HQ," Mira put in. "I heard Fargeon won't even trust the IFTL link."
"We'd better go," said Jrain, suddenly looking nervous. "I think— I think the captain would rather you heard some of this from him . . ." He grabbed Mira's arm and steered her away. Sassinak caught his unspoken thought . . . And he's had quite enough to put up with from Wefts already this week.
"Ensign Sassinak." Captain Fargeon's severe face was set in slightly friendlier lines, Sassinak thought. She was, however, immediately conscious of every wrinkle of the bedclothes. Then he smiled. "You had a very narrow escape, Ensign, in more than one way. I understand you've been told about the drug that showed up in the blood samples?" Sassinak nodded, and he went on. "It was very good thinking to take those serial samples. Although normally—mmm—there's nothing to commend in a young officer who manages to get sandbagged and shanghaied, in this case you seem to have acted with unusual intelligence once you woke up. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. I know Lieutenant Cavery looks forward to your return to duty in Communications Section. Good day."
Following that somewhat confusing speech, Sassinak lay quietly, wondering what Fargeon did think of her. She had been expecting praise, but realized that to the ship's captain her entire escapade was one big headache. He'd had to leave his intended course to go looking for her, even if the guidance of Wefts and Ssli made that easier than usual. He'd had to worry about her motives, and the presence of unknown saboteurs in his ship; he'd had to assign someone else to cover her work; when they got back to Sector HQ, he was going to have to fill out a lot of forms, and spend a lot of time talking to Fleet Intelligence . . . all in all, she'd caused a lot of trouble by not being quicker in the evacuation drill. If she'd managed to turn and drop Achael with a bit of fancy hand-to-hand, she'd have saved everyone a lot of trouble. She shook her head at her own juvenile imagination. No more Carin Coldae: no more playing games. She'd done a good job with a bad situation, but she hadn't managed to avoid the bad situation. She'd have to do better.
So it was that Fargeon's annual Fitness Report, which he showed her before filing it, startled her.
"Clear-headed, resourceful, good initiative, outstanding self-discipline: this young officer requires only seasoning to develop into an excellent addition to any Fleet operation. Unlike many who rest on past achievements, this officer does not let success go to her head, and can be counted on for continued effort. Recommended for earliest promotion eligibility." Sassinak looked up from this to find Fargeon's face relaxed in a broad smile for the first time in her memory.
"Just as I said the first day, Ensign Sassinak: if you realize that you can't ever start at the top, and if you continue to show your willingness to work, you'll do very well indeed. I'd be glad to have you in my command again, any time."
"Thank you, sir." Sassinak wondered whether to strain this approval by telling him what she suspected about Achael and Abe's death. "Sir, about Lieutenant Achael—"
"All information will go to Fleet Security—do you have something which you did not put in your tape?"
She had included her suspicion that Achael had murdered Abe, but would anyone take it seriously? "It's in there, sir, but—about my guardian, who was killed—"
"Abe, you mean." The captain permitted himself a tight smile. "A good man, Fleet to the bone. Well, this is not for discussion, Ensign, but I would agree with your surmise. Achael was a prisoner on the same slaver base where you and Abe were; the most logical supposition is that Abe knew something about his conduct or treatment there which would have been dangerous to Achael. Perhaps he was deep-conditioned, or something. He killed Abe to keep his secret, and suspected that Abe might have told you something."
"But what might be behind Achael?" asked Sass. But with this question, she had gone too far. The captain's face closed again, although he did not seem angry.
"That's for Security to determine, when they have all the evidence. Myself, I suspect that he was merely protecting himself. Suppose Abe knew he had stolen from other prisoners—that would ruin his Fleet career. I would be willing to wager that the final report will conclude that Achael was acting in his own behalf when he killed Abe and attempted to incriminate you."
Sassinak was not convinced, but knew better than to argue. As Fargeon predicted, Fleet Security agreed with his surmise, and closed the file on the murder. Achael's attacks on Sassinak, and his suicide, made a clear pattern with his years as a prisoner: too clear, Sassinak thought, too simple. When she was older, when she had rank, she promised herself, she'd find out who was really responsible for Abe's death, who had set Achael on his trail. For now, she'd honor his memory with her own success.
BOOK THREE
Chapter Eight
The striking, elegant woman in the mirror, Sassinak thought, had come a long way from the young ensign she had been. She had been lucky; she had been born with the good bones, the talent, the innate toughness to survive. She had had more luck along the way. But. . . she winked at herself, then grinned at that egotism. But she had cooperated with her luck, given it all the help she could. Tonight—tonight it was time for celebration. She had made it to Commander, past the dangerous doldrum ranks where the unwanted lodged sullenly until retirement age. She was about to have her own ship again, and this one
a cruiser.
She eyed the new gown critically. Once she'd learned that good clothes fully repaid the investment, she'd spent some concentrated time learning what colors and styles suited her best. And then, one by one, she'd accumulated a small but elegant wardrobe. This, now . . . her favorite rich colors glowed, jewellike reds and deep blues and purples, a quilted bodice shaped above a flowing, full skirt of deepest midnight, all in soft silui that caressed her skin with every movement. She slipped her feet into soft black boots, glad that the ridiculous fashion for high heels had once again died out. She was tall enough as it was.
Her comm signal went off as she was putting on the last touches, the silver earrings and simple necklace with its cut crystal star.
"Just because you got the promotion and the cruiser doesn't mean you can make us late," said the voice in her ear, the Lieutenant Commander who'd arranged the party. He'd been her assistant when she was working for Admiral Pael. "Tobaldi's doesn't hold reservations past the hour—"
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