There was no door to the lounge area. The corridor just opened straight into it. A variety of tables, chairs, comfortable benches and little alcoves dotted the place. It was designed to be all things to everyone. A utilitarian mess area, a quiet drinking hole, a comfortable relaxing zone. It all depended on where you sat.
The area was well occupied. Hamilton saw most of the dozen or so people he’d gone into cryo with. He also saw a number of the crewmen from the Ulysses. Most of them seemed content to keep to themselves, but a handful were sitting amongst Hamilton’s companions, chatting amiably.
Jones spotted him first and raised a shout. Soon, Hamilton found himself surrounded by his companions, each asking what he had said, how the interviews went and so on. All of his former crewmates were there with the exceptions of McDonald, Lewis and the Morebaeus survivor, King. Hamilton knew McDonald was dead from his conversation with Rames and King was little more than brain-dead after so long in the old cryo-tubes. It was no surprise that they weren’t there. But Lewis was another matter. The unhinged planetologist had no fondness for Hamilton. It wouldn’t have surprised him to find out she’d squealed on the whole thing and tried to cut a deal.
All of the Ulysses crew were present as well, barring Rames and the entire contingent of Marines. It seemed as if the inquest had quickly decided who was in charge of each group and had kept them back for longer questioning. Most of the rest had been interviewed just the once before being released into Q-section. The only exception was Klane, unsurprisingly, who had endured two full interviews and then a question session before she was allowed to rejoin the rest.
The Ulysses crew had already filled in Hamilton’s companions on his reanimation and questioning by Rames. None of them knew what had been said between the two men and they had no idea beyond the obvious interception of the freighter what was going on. Rames had told them to cooperate with the investigation fully and not hold anything back. Not that they knew anything to hold back.
That was one of the things that had set alarm bells ringing in Hamilton’s head during his questioning. Despite mentioning it himself, and no doubt the Ulysses senior officers saying as much, the interviewers had never asked him about his conversation with Rames in the med-bay. Not once. They were more interested in the cargo than in what the men might have said to one another.
Once exposed to the Ulysses crew, Hamilton’s shipmates had spun them the same fake story they had all agreed upon, just in case there were any further question sessions to come. Rames himself had suggested it, but hadn’t been happy about deceiving his own crew. But they all needed to sing from the same hymn sheet, as it were. Rames wanted his crew to be ignorant of the deception, in case it all went pear-shaped.
Once introductions had been concluded, Hamilton took Jones and Klane aside into one of the alcoves. A large number of fake plants had been arranged around alcove, cutting off the sight of anyone who might be watching. As Hamilton had attempted to do in his interviews, lip-reading was a possibility. Unlike Hamilton, however, the software that did it was far more accurate at working out what was being said. The plants precluded that possibility.
Jones produced a small tangle of wires and circuitry from his pocket and set it on the table. He connected up a couple of wires and a steady orange light began to glow from somewhere amid the tangle.
“Where did you get that from?” Hamilton asked. None of them had any possessions on them other than clothing.
Jones shrugged. “I made it.”
“Don’t tell me they have an electronics shop around here.” Hamilton joked.
Jones grinned. “Nah. But it’s amazing what components you can find lying around the place.”
Klane snorted. “They were only lying around after I put my foot through your room’s terminal.”
Jones nodded. “You’re big and scary, but you do have your uses.”
“Gee thanks!” Klane muttered. Despite the comment, she seemed to be pleased by the black man’s assessment.
“I see they did some repairs on your cybernetics.” Hamilton noted to Klane.
Jones groaned. “Oh! Now why did you have to go mentioning that.”
Hamilton frowned at Jones. But his attention was drawn back to Klane, whose expression had darkened towards anger.
“Look at this!” She complained, lifting a leg up onto the table and pulling the leg of her trousers up.
“Looks like a leg to me. What’s the issue?” Hamilton asked. He could already see, but Klane would vent no matter what he said. He might as well help her along with it.
“Exactly!” She exclaimed. “It looks like a leg. That’s the whole problem!”
“I don’t get it.” Hamilton said innocently.
She scowled at him. “Sure you do. It looks like a leg. It acts like a leg. It even feels like a leg! That’s the issue!”
“At least you don’t have to have Carl lug you around anymore.” Hamilton observed.
Klane gritted her teeth. “It’s just a normal leg! Cybernetic, sure, but with no enhancements! I couldn’t kick my way out of a wet paper bag with this thing!” She backhanded it with her cybernetic arm, knocking the limb off the table.
“Shit!” She cursed. “It also has skin sensors built in. It hurts like a bitch whenever I give it any kind of punishment!”
“So now you feel pain just like the rest of us?” Hamilton asked.
She nodded angrily. “It’s less than useless.”
“You know,” Jones pointed out. “I did offer to adjust the settings. How hard can it be?”
“I doubt the servos can be cranked up to my requirements. Plus the myomer bundles are not mil-spec. They’d probably snap if you did that. And anyway, the access port, as I told you before, is on the inside of the thigh. You ain’t going anywhere near that!”
“Just as well,” Jones muttered. “One twitch from you and I’d end up with a broken neck!”
“Can it, you two!” Hamilton ordered. “We have more important things to discuss.”
Klane subsided, glaring at Jones, who scowled back at her.
“So what have you learned?” Hamilton inquired.
Jones sighed. “We all told the story we agreed upon, even to these guys.” He jerked a thumb at the Ulysses crewmen. “They – the officers, anyway – say you know their Captain?”
Hamilton nodded. “I met him years ago. Did a little job for Internal Affairs that turned into a major job. A lot of heads rolled. Unfortunately, in the aftermath, certain people were deemed to know too much and got shafted. Rames is one of them.”
“So he’s not too fond of you, then?” Klane observed.
Hamilton shrugged. “He doesn’t blame me. He blames the current top brass. You remember what it was like? Anything embarrassing gets swept under the carpet. Individuals mean nothing compared to showing a squeaky clean image. Rames is pissed at them, even after all these years. That’s partly why he agreed to help us on this.”
“Won’t he get in trouble if they find out?” Jones asked.
Hamilton nodded. “Court-martialed, almost certainly. Lose his commission and end up in a prison someplace. The rest of us the same.”
“No pressure, then.” Jones muttered.
“What are you worried about?” Klane grumbled. “You were a criminal, anyway!”
“An un-caught criminal!” Jones added. “I’d like to keep it that way!”
“Look.” Hamilton said. “If we stick to our story, they can’t prove anything.”
“Seems like a poor choice, to me.” Jones argued. “Either Walsh turns up and tries to kill us! Or he doesn’t and we get released and spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders.”
“I doubt we’ll get the second option.” Hamilton noted.
“You really think he’ll try and get to us in here?” Klane frowned.
“I don’t know what he might do.” Hamilton replied. “All I am certain of is that he looks upon humans as a child race. He doesn’t respect anything we’ve done, or what
we are. I wouldn’t put it past him to waltz in here and try to gun us all down personally. He has that much arrogance.”
“Well, we’re poorly equipped to defend ourselves if he does.” Klane observed.
“Five years is a long time for him to be around. There’s no telling how many people his kind have infected, or what systems he’s compromised.” Hamilton said, gloomily.
“What’s the worst case scenario?” Klane asked.
Hamilton mulled it over. He’d given it significant thought already.
“Worst case is he built a new ship and went back to that Humal world and freed his fellows. Worst case is that thousands of Walsh’s are walking around, in positions of power, each with god knows how many other humans slaved to them like Vogerian was slaved to Walsh. Worst case is that his kind are into all the major computer networks across human space. Worst case is, he can bring the Empire to its knees almost at will. Worst case is that we’ll all be dead in a few days.”
The pair were silent for a long time.
Jones blew out his cheeks. “So, why hasn’t he done that already? Brought the Empire down, I mean.”
Hamilton shrugged. “Maybe he’s changed his plans. Maybe the role of puppet-master appeals to him. Maybe he wants humans as hosts for more of his kind. Who knows?”
“Maybe he didn’t get back here at all?” Klane said, optimistically. Her face said she didn’t believe it though.
“So what’s our next step?” Jones asked.
“We wait.” Hamilton told them. “That’s all we can do right now. Rames and I have some plans in place, depending on what happens in the next few days. Until, and unless, Walsh shows his hand, all we can do is wait.”
*****
Rames showed up a few hours later, looking irritated and tired. He went and spoke to Grimes and Anderton, then the three of them joined up with Hamilton, Klane and Jones and retired to the ‘quiet’ alcove. Outside, the crew began to make more noise than usual to help cover any sounds of talking the six made in the booth.
Hamilton introduced Klane and Jones. Typically, Klane’s red prosthetic eye gained concerned looks.
Jones, seeing the reaction, leaned across to the other two and whispered. “Don’t stare at her eye…it drives her crazy!” He got an elbow in the ribs from Klane as he sat back. Clearly she had heard him.
The other two were introduced by Rames as his Executive Officer Grimes and Chief Medical Officer Anderton.
“You can trust them.” Rames told them.
Hamilton had met both men, but Rames had kept everyone else away from him. Other than doing typical medical tests, Anderton had said little during the trip back to Tantalus Station. He seemed content to let his Captain call the shots.
Hamilton reminded everyone, in brief, of what was going on.
There were questions from Rames and his two men, of course. That was inevitable. Hamilton had already filled them in as best he could, but there was too much that he didn’t know about Walsh to be of much help in answering their questions. The hardest part for any of them to get their heads around seemed to be the fact that they couldn’t do anything until Walsh showed his hand. Waiting around for the enemy to attack was not in their nature as military men.
Anderton frowned at them. “There must be some way we can use to detect who is one of these ‘possessed’ people, and who isn’t? Some sort of brain scan, perhaps?”
Hamilton nodded. “Probably. I doubt these aliens would give off the same sorts of results as a human would. The problem is, they aren’t going to line up to be scanned.”
Anderton nodded. “Hmmm. We’d need some sort of passive, quick scan. Something that could be attached to a fixed point and scan people as they passed by, without their knowledge.”
“Maybe something that could be built into existing weapon scanners at ports?” Grimes offered.
“Perhaps.” Hamilton allowed. “But that would require cooperation from the authorities. If we go public on this, Walsh and his allies will probably go into a sterilization mode, destroying everything and everyone they come across. At the moment, for whatever reason, he hasn’t done that. If we show ourselves as a threat, he’ll have to act.”
“It’s a big risk, just sitting here like this.” Rames stated. “There’s nothing to stop him simply flying a ship past the station and blowing the hell out of Q-section.”
Grimes scowled. “But that would mean his death, too. Any aggressive act towards the station would result in overwhelming retaliation by the Tantalus’ defenses.”
“It wouldn’t be him, as such.” Hamilton pointed out. “Remember, he controlled Vogerian through some sort of implant. If he decided to go down that route, the ship would be crewed by such people. But don’t worry, he won’t do that.”
“How can you be so sure?” Rames asked. “It’s what I’d do, if I were him. Didn’t you say he threatened to nuke you from orbit on that planet?”
“That was different. He pulls a stunt like that here and all kinds of people are going to get suspicious. Questions will be asked, people will start poking around. As I already said, for some reason he wants his presence to go unnoticed.”
“So you think he’s going to just walk in here for a face-to-face?” Grimes looked skeptical.
“No. But he’ll want to talk. It’s part of his arrogance. He’ll hack into the comms network, or send a slaved human in to talk. Something like that.” Hamilton replied.
“All we can do is wait?” Grimes didn’t look happy.
Hamilton nodded. “All we can do is wait.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The waiting lasted two more days. During the wait, the automated systems kept them supplied with food and drink and the facilities kept them occupied. But two days waiting for the hammer to fall wore on them.
Lewis did not appear, leading to further speculation that she had sold them down the river and worked a deal of her own with the authorities. Whatever the reason for her absence, it was too late for them to worry about it now.
Eventually, however, Walsh made his move. It came not as any of them had expected. As they sat around, discussing the situation at hand, or old times, a computerized voice warned them all to stand clear of the entryway.
Seconds later, a man in a protective biohazard suit entered, looked around and, seeing nothing untoward, lay a small package down on the ground. The speaker in his suit announced that there was a “delivery for a Mr. Hamilton, from a Mr. Walsh.” Then the man turned and stepped back through the Q-section door into the decontamination corridor beyond and was gone before they could ask any questions.
Hamilton and the others approached the package warily.
“Do you think it’s a bomb of some sort?” Jones asked.
Rames shook his head. “Explosives wouldn’t get past the port scanners.”
“No explosives we know about.” Klane added.
“No.” Hamilton frowned. “It’s not his style. Not right now, anyhow.”
“Why let us know it was from him?” Grimes inquired.
Hamilton shrugged. “He has a sense of theater, or drama. It seems to be the way he does things.”
“We could just ignore it.” Jones suggested.
“No, that’s exactly what we can’t do.” Hamilton said. He bent down and picked up the box. It was a standard transport carton, in use all across the Empire. The difference was that it had no transit markings of any sort. Whatever it contained, the box had originated on the station. Which meant that the deliverer probably had something to do with Walsh.
Or he could just be some patsy paid a few credits to deliver it. Hamilton thought. He walked back over to the comfortable lounge area with the box and sat down. The transit seals were still in place on the box.
The rest of the two ship’s crews followed and sat around him, eager to know what it was. Rames had told his crew a little more over the last two days. Not the truth about Walsh, but just that he was a dangerous individual that they were trying to catch.
Hamil
ton snapped the seals and lifted the carton’s lid, revealing a small, dark gray box several inches square. Hamilton reached in and removed it, then cleared the carton from the table he sat at and placed the box in front of him. There was an obvious button on the top of it.
Hamilton hovered a finger over it. “Just in case, you might want to stand back a bit.” He advised the rest. They moved away a little, but not that much. Hamilton prodded the button with a finger.
The box began to change shape then. Parts slid aside and flipped. Other areas rotated. Some pieces even folded over onto themselves via some manner. It quickly became apparent what the device was turning into.
“It’s a communicator of some sort.” Klane observed.
The box was becoming a communicator. The sort that was frequently used by anyone in human space. Essentially a box-like base with a few controls and a flip-up screen. Quite why the box was making such a meal of the opening procedure was beyond Hamilton.
“It’s a little ostentatious.” Rames scowled.
“I did say he liked drama, didn’t I?” Hamilton muttered.
After what seemed like minutes the device finally stopped moving and the communicator sat ready. Unlike the units everyone was familiar with, this one had only a single button, marked “communicate”.
Hamilton looked around at everyone, then shrugged and pressed the button.
Almost at once a man’s image appeared on the little screen. Hamilton had never seen him before, but there was no mistaking the smug look that he gave Hamilton.
“Hamilton! Dear boy! I’m so glad to see you again!” The Walsh-that-did-not-look-like-Walsh said.
Hamilton scowled. “Walsh. I see you made it to human space in one piece.”
Walsh smiled. “No thanks to you! I don’t know what you did to my ship, but it caused no end of problems.”
“Glad I could help out.” Hamilton muttered.
“Ultimately, your exploits caused delays, nothing more.” Walsh explained. “As you people say, ‘the fly in the ointment’. An annoyance, but nothing more. Once you pick it out of the ointment and flick it away, it might as well have never existed at all!”
A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) Page 5
