Starbase Human

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “What are you doing?”

  Gomez jumped, startled. Simiaar stood in the doorway of the exercise room, arms crossed.

  “I needed to make a decision as to how to proceed with that clone factory,” Gomez said.

  “You could have discussed it with me.” Simiaar spoke softly, then looked over her shoulder, obviously trying to see if anyone was coming down the hallway.

  “This is a decision I needed to make myself,” Gomez said.

  Anger crossed Simiaar’s face. She stepped deeper into the room and pulled the door closed.

  She said, “It’s not just you on this trip, you know. We all get a vote. And I’d like to think I’d get more than one vote.”

  Gomez felt her cheeks warm. She and Simiaar had been friends forever, and sometimes more than friends. On this trip, they’d managed to spend time together that had nothing to do with a case or with the Alliance or with the FSS.

  “I know,” Gomez said, feeling a little guilty that she had shut Simiaar out. “But I wanted some time alone first. And if I had decided to go down to the factory, I would have discussed it with you, and then we would have presented it to Neal.”

  “You might not go?” Simiaar sounded surprised. “I thought this was our last stop before Armstrong.”

  “It is,” Gomez said. “I think we go in clean. The attacks were six months ago. Nothing else has happened. The authorities in Armstrong are probably ready to investigate now. We can help them, maybe figure out what’s going on next, and—”

  “We end up in the same place,” Simiaar said. “You won’t be able to return to the Stanley any more than I will. There’s still a war out there.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to use that term,” Gomez said. “Your decision. You said a war scared you.”

  “It still scares me,” Simiaar said. “And we’re pawns in it. We can’t just go back to the Frontier and pretend like nothing has happened.”

  Gomez stared at her. Simiaar hadn’t done nearly as much on this trip as she had thought she was going to. They had used the lab to analyze the materials they brought from the ship on Ohksmyte, and then they had used it for little else.

  Was Simiaar feeling useless now? Feeling like she hadn’t been doing enough? Was that why she was surprised Gomez wasn’t going to the surface?

  “I think,” Gomez said slowly, “it might be better if we give the folks in Armstrong our information, and then we all decide how to proceed. We don’t know what they know and don’t know. We are only guessing.”

  Simiaar frowned. “Tell me one thing, Judita. If you had on this trip alone, like you had planned, would you be going to the surface tomorrow?”

  “Without Neal,” Gomez said, “I’m not even sure I would have made it this far. I might have gone into the prisons to find out what happened to TwoZero and his colleagues.”

  Simiaar’s frown grew deeper.

  “I’m not sure I would have survived that,” Gomez said softly.

  Simiaar sighed and shook her head. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I meant are we holding you back? Are you failing to take a risk you would have taken on your own?”

  Gomez’s hands were still behind her back, right hand around left wrist. And like earlier, the fingers on her left hand were starting to go numb.

  She was a lot more tense than she realized.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing has gone as I planned. Still, we have information for the people on Armstrong, and I want to deliver it in person. I would have wanted that even if I traveled alone.”

  “You’re afraid you won’t survive a trip to that factory,” Simiaar said.

  “I’m afraid that they’re going to come after us,” Gomez said, “and there’s good chance we won’t make it.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Simiaar asked.

  “That’s the one question we can’t answer yet, and it frustrates me,” Gomez said.

  “Maybe we should poke ‘them’ and see what happens,” Simiaar said. “Maybe they’ll reveal themselves.”

  “And maybe we’ll all die,” Gomez said.

  “Wasn’t that the risk all along?” Simiaar asked. “Are you, of all people, getting cold feet?”

  “What does that mean, ‘of all people’?” Gomez asked.

  “Judita,” Simiaar said. “You walk into alien cultures with only cursory knowledge of their laws. That’s suicide, according to most humans inside the Alliance. You have—by yourself—negotiated truces between cultures, invited the strangest beings into the Alliance, and managed to maintain relationships with some of the most frightening creatures in the Frontier. And now you’re afraid that the Alliance will come after us, maybe kill us?”

  Gomez nodded. Simiaar knew her well. Better than Gomez liked to think anyone knew her.

  “We’re trying to bring information to the Moon,” Gomez said. “We can’t do that if we’re dead.”

  “You underestimate Neal. I’m sure he could figure out a way to send something in the middle of this ship exploding or whatever,” Simiaar said.

  Gomez’s heart was pounding. Whenever she had gone to the surface of some new place in the Frontier, Simiaar had remained on board the Stanley. The ship, with its huge weapons system and the might of the Alliance behind it, had orbited above, with a full complement of crew.

  Gomez had risked dying on those missions, but she had never risked her entire team.

  “I don’t see what we gain,” Gomez said quietly.

  “Maybe nothing,” Simiaar said. “Maybe we find the one piece to the puzzle that we all need to stop this thing. You can’t know until you investigate.”

  Gomez leaned against the nearby holochamber. Normally, she would have said that to a new crew member.

  “We signed on knowing we could die,” Simiaar said. “You even had the crew sign waivers that absolved your estate should anything happen to them. You made sure they had valid wills, for God’s sake. This isn’t like you.”

  “It’s just like me,” Gomez said. “I’m used to going in with authority. I’m not used to being a rogue investigator.”

  “Excuses,” Simiaar said. “I agreed with you when you decided not to go into the prisons. I believed you were right when you said that we couldn’t get any more from Uzven. But we have a clone factory down there, one that doesn’t look right, and that ship—the ship that went to Epriccom with clones on it—traveled from here. From here, Judita. If you don’t investigate this, you’re going to force some poor schmuck from the Moon to investigate, and they won’t have the experience you do or the ability you have. Nor will they have your rank. They won’t get the same kind of access.”

  Gomez studied Simiaar. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed. She seemed to believe each word she was saying.

  “You surprise me, Lashante,” Gomez said.

  “Why? Because I think we need to finish this thing? Because I think we’re the best suited for it? Or because I’m willing to risk our lives?”

  “Because you’re willing to risk our lives,” Gomez said.

  Simiaar made a rude, bleating noise. “If you’ve been paying attention, I’ve been willing to risk my life since I joined you on this harebrained mission. And so has Neal. The only one unwilling to risk lives is you. Time to change, Judita. Because this is our best shot, and you have to take it.”

  Gomez sighed. She had underestimated all of them. Or maybe she had just realized how much she cared for them. She didn’t want them to die.

  But they were risking their lives. And what they did with their lives was their choice.

  Not hers.

  “All right,” she said. “We need a really good plan. And before I do anything, we have to talk to Neal. Our information has to get to the Moon, even if we don’t.”

  Simiaar grinned at her. “There she is. Marshal Gomez, I’ve missed you.”

  Gomez felt a surge of annoyance mixed with affection. “God, you’re sarcastic.”

  “Yep,” Simiaar said. “Brilliant, sar
castic, and right. Admit it, you love all those things about me.”

  “I do,” Gomez said—and that, in a nutshell, was the problem. “I really do.”

  THIRTY

  AT FIRST, NUUYOMA wasn’t going to tell Verstraete what the man—One Of One Direct—wanted. But Nuuyoma couldn’t keep the discussion to himself.

  He waited until he and Verstraete were out of the area of space the starbase claimed for itself. Whether or not it actively patrolled that part of space, he had no idea. But he was taking no chances.

  He set the shuttle on a meandering path, not because he thought anyone was following them, but because he planned to return to the base the following day.

  And it was that thought that convinced him to tell Verstraete about the full discussion. She needed to know why they were heading back.

  He told her in the lounge. The shuttle had a relaxation area filled with wall-to-wall entertainment, yet he’d never used any of it. He liked the lounge because it had the best furniture, and it also had a small, hidden, cockpit-control panel, in case something went horribly wrong.

  Verstraete rarely came into the lounge, but she agreed to when he asked her. She sat across from him, wearing her usual off-duty white, hands clasped together over one knee.

  He expected her to disapprove of his choice to make a deal with One Of One Direct.

  Instead, she said, “How come he can’t get this information himself?”

  “Maybe he’s tried,” Nuuyoma said.

  “It would seem like it would take very little effort to find out what happened to this woman,” Verstraete said. “What are you thinking?”

  Because he worried that somehow their communications had been compromised even inside their shuttle, he sent a message along their encoded private links, New. Ping.

  Which was the Stanley crew’s code for a new, encrypted, private link that was about to open. This far out away from the starbase, no one could hack the links. At least, he didn’t think so, not if the person wasn’t already on board.

  He knew he and Verstraete were alone on the shuttle.

  But that didn’t mean someone couldn’t have hacked them before they left. At a place like Starbase Human, he would expect such activity would be routine.

  He had searched the shuttle for any trackers or hacking equipment. He’d found some, but only those that the base had installed. He hadn’t found anything else, and rather than reassure him, it had simply made him even more cautious.

  Verstraete nodded once, a sign that the ping he had sent her worked.

  So he sent a message along the new encrypted link. Got this?

  Yes, she sent back on the link.

  “Maybe I’m not thinking,” he said, answering the question she had asked aloud. “I’m going to consider this some more.”

  But he didn’t move, and neither did she. Instead, he sent along the new link, I’m thinking that we find the information. If this woman’s deep inside the Alliance, we send someone to help her, protect her, move her, whatever it takes.

  Seems risky, Verstraete sent.

  It is, Nuuyoma sent. But what if One Of One Direct truly does have information that will help us find whoever is behind the Anniversary Day attacks?

  And what if the information is worthless? Verstraete sent.

  It’s a risk, Nuuyoma sent.

  A risk we might be jeopardizing one woman’s life for, Verstraete sent.

  If she’s even still alive. If she’s in the Alliance. If she exists at all.

  You think this might be a test? Verstraete sent.

  I don’t know what it is. I think this man is taking advantage of a situation we’ve presented to him. He has the chance to find out information he hasn’t been able to find out. Or he’s just trying to see if we’ll negotiate in good faith.

  Verstraete stood. She wandered around the room, as if she were looking for a window. It seems odd to me that he’s willing to give us the information. Why hasn’t he come forward before this? What does he have to gain?

  We could capture some of his DNA, Nuuyoma said, see if those claims are true.

  She shook her head. You know what I don’t like? I don’t like the way all of these clones of PierLuigi Frémont like to play games.

  Hereditary trait? Nuuyoma sent. Or something trained?

  That’s for the scientists to figure out. She sat back down. You want the information.

  Don’t you? he sent.

  Gomez would. Verstraete stood again. I keep wondering why we have to gamble with people’s lives.

  Aren’t we gambling if we could learn something and didn’t? Nuuyoma asked.

  Her pacing sped up. It seemed almost frantic. I didn’t join the FSS to make these kinds of decisions.

  He smiled. Sure you did.

  Verstraete stopped and looked at him in surprise.

  If you wanted an easy berth, he sent, you would have joined a security service inside the Alliance. You would have been monitored daily, filled out reports, and reprimanded if you didn’t follow the rules. You wanted the freedom of the Frontier.

  You seem to know more about me than I do, she snapped, if, indeed, he could describe almost silent communication that way.

  Tell me I’m wrong, he sent.

  Verstraete sighed. If this woman dies because of us…

  He nodded. They would feel bad. They would feel worse if the information they got from One Of One Direct was no good. But if the woman died and the information solved the most devastating crime in recent Alliance history? Then he might not feel as bad as he wanted to believe.

  We get paid to make the hard choices, he sent.

  And to keep them off the record, Verstraete sent as she left the room.

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE NARROW STRIP of land that held the entire human population of Hétique was billed as temperate, but to Gomez, who spent most of her time aboard ships, the area seemed unbearably warm.

  The air was thick with humidity. She could taste it as she made her way from her hotel to the clone factory’s industrial park.

  She had piloted her own shuttle to the surface, not wanting anyone else involved in this plan. If she got caught, she had only to worry about herself.

  Hétique City, nearest the factory, had been the first human city built on the planet. Initially designed for the factory workers, the city had expanded to include all kinds of Earth Alliance facilities, many of which were unmarked, leading Gomez to believe they had some connection to human intelligence services.

  She couldn’t tell if those services were attached to the Security Division or if they were part of the military, and she didn’t want to investigate while she was here.

  She was still trying not to call attention to herself.

  The hotel she stayed at was approved for Earth Alliance workers. She registered using her badge and her main personal account. Since she was going into the factory without hiding her identity, she wanted to make certain that her behavior remained consistent throughout.

  She had even stayed overnight before going to the morning meeting. It felt odd to stay in a hotel. She hadn’t done that in a long time, especially one as spartan as this one. It made her long for her suite aboard the Green Dragon.

  And the food made her long for Simiaar’s cooking.

  The distance from the hotel to the industrial park was less than a kilometer. She walked it easily, the air so thick that it caught in her throat.

  It had rained just before she left—a passing thunderstorm, the concierge told her—and that made the air seem more humid rather than less. The moment she stepped out of the hotel, her blouse stuck to her skin as if it had been glued there.

  Her clothing was thin, but professional. Loose-fitting pants, a loose-fitting blouse, open-toed shoes, and no jewelry. Simiaar had thought she should have worn her uniform, but Gomez had vetoed that, reminding Simiaar that she was on leave. The uniform just wasn’t appropriate.

  Simiaar had said that she wanted Gomez to impress them, but Gomez had th
e sense that Simiaar really wanted Gomez to remind them that she was law enforcement in the wild Frontier and knew how to handle herself.

  Gomez felt that her job spoke for itself.

  Simiaar didn’t agree, but Apaza did.

  And Gomez needed Apaza on her side. He had to concentrate on setting up information dumps that would go directly to the Moon government—or what remained of it—should anything happen to Gomez.

  The three of them had spent too much time debating just how to do that. Simiaar had wanted the Green Dragon to proceed to the Moon, even if something happened to Gomez.

  Gomez wanted Simiaar to change ships as quickly as possible. Charlie Zamal could help them find one. No one would know that the three of them were involved with Gomez.

  Apaza wanted a multi-pronged strategy. If Gomez was detained, he believed that Zamal should pilot the Green Dragon elsewhere, while Apaza and Simiaar traveled separately to the Moon to give the information they had gathered to the surviving government there.

  If Gomez were injured, killed, or never heard from again, then Apaza wanted to send the information to the Moon and vanish himself, maybe even officially Disappear.

  If someone or something attacked The Green Dragon, Apaza wanted to send the information to the Moon as the attacks began.

  And all of them agreed that there should be some kind of failsafe built into the Dragon so that if it exploded, the information would be sent automatically.

  Apaza had said that was the easiest thing for him to do, and he set it up.

  But the other plans were harder to agree on.

  Gomez didn’t want Apaza or Simiaar involved if something happened to her, but she got outvoted on that. Apaza and Simiaar would travel to the Moon separately if Gomez were detained.

  If Gomez disappeared or got killed, then Simiaar would go alone, and Apaza would send the information, heavily encoded, once he had gotten somewhere safe.

  Neither Simiaar nor Gomez felt that sending the information as the Green Dragon was being attacked was a good idea. Both of them believed that any attacking ship would be prepared to download whatever communications a ship under attack would send out—and maybe even trap that information.