Pathfinder

by Laura E. Reeve

  “The senator and his staff have carry-on—”

  A beefy hand settled on the man’s shoulder and startled him, as well as Oleander. She hadn’t noticed Senator Stephanos walk down the ramp, even though there was no mistaking his broad shoulders and barrel chest set on short stocky legs. Those legs, however, were steady under station gee.

  “Myron, these are AFCAW intelligence officers. They’re not baggage handlers.” The Senator’s voice was dry. The Feeds often described his craggy face, trimmed beard, and thick bushy hair as ursine. Stephanos’s politics had been described that way as well; he’d savaged many opponents on the floor of the Consortium Senate, and because of this, he purportedly always wore light, expensive body armor in public.

  “Fine. I’ll send a remote.” Myron looked as sulky as a ten-year-old. His hand started moving toward his other wrist, where his implant was installed.

  “Remotes aren’t allowed on the Pilgrimage,” Oleander said quickly.

  “What?” Myron’s eyes widened and for the first time, his gaze flitted around the slip bulkheads and focused on the larger docking ring corridor. Even though there was extensive foot traffic, he must have just noted the lack of remotes and dizzying displays fighting for space on walls and ceilings. On any Autonomist habitat, he’d be the focus of commercials touting any business vaguely connected to his spending habits. He’d have to pay for suppression of commercials, or privacy, but he didn’t have to worry about that on the Pilgrimage.

  “How do I call for baggage sleds or handlers?” He turned his wide dark eyes on Oleander. They expressed the harried look of a civilized man dropped suddenly into savage circumstances, but like a thin layer of oil sliding across water, his emotions disappeared. She saw nothingness, an empty shell. Suppressing a shiver, she turned away from Myron to look at the senator and his security detail of two brutish men.

  “Check in with hostel services.” Stephanos gently pushed Myron toward a kiosk on the main corridor bulkhead.

  After Myron left, Stephanos shook his head. “My sister’s grandson. All her careful work to ensure an original Colonist bloodline, and that’s what she gets.”

  There was no appropriate response for this comment. After a pause, Edones said tonelessly, “Welcome to the Pilgrimage Three, Senator. Lieutenant Oleander and I are available to assist you.”

  She stood straighter. Stephanos’s gaze flickered over her, checked her nametag and decorations. She nodded politely, but he’d already dismissed her, his attention back to Edones.

  “You’re a lucky bastard, Colonel.” Stephanos chuckled dryly. “I just put your superiors at the Directorate on the chopping block, but senatorial ire rarely descends to the O-6 level.”

  “Too low on the food chain?” Edones said.

  “You uncovered the theft of the weapon, but then, I’d have expected the Directorate to be on top of that in the first place.” Stephanos’s eyes narrowed, perhaps searching for sarcasm in Edones’s politic face. Oleander glanced at her commanding officer, noting his slightly pink ears. Edones was impossible to read, but she was sure of one thing: He wasn’t feeling lucky right now.

  Noise at the top of the airlock ramp distracted the senator. Oleander leaned sideways to look around the senator’s security bulwark of personnel and saw a handful of offloading passengers arguing with Pilgrimage officials. Small antigrav multi-cam-eye recorders, somewhat larger than remotes, hovered above the argument. They spun and whirred, jostling one another for the best views of the altercation.

  “The Feeds have released their hounds.” Stephanos looked over his shoulder. “I’ve had a lifetime of their complaints already on this trip. They’re not happy about having to travel personally to cover their news.”

  “Our security plan allows them one recording device each, which can’t go remote. Fortunately for us, the Pilgrimage doesn’t have the nodes to provide a continuous mesh network.” Edones gestured toward the main corridor. “If you’ll follow me, Senator, I’ll brief you on the security plans.”

  Oleander ended up at the tail of the procession, behind the security posse and beside the muttering Myron. Between Myron’s complaints about the lack of facilities, she heard scraps of conversation floating between Edones and Stephanos.

  “Our security plans will stand scrutiny by the Terrans,” Edones said.

  Stephanos mentioned Terran State Prince Duval. She craned to hear the colonel’s answer, but Myron poked her in the shoulder.

  “If the Feed correspondents are allowed remotes, then why can’t I operate one?” Myron asked.

  After she finished explaining that cam-eye platforms had to be kept near enough to be controlled by the correspondent’s equipment, which didn’t really qualify as remote operation, the conversation between Edones and Stephanos had moved on.

  “They won’t like being barred from the classified sessions, but we’ve got no alternative.” Edones jerked his thumb toward the mayhem they left behind at the docks.

  “As long as net-think believes these men are getting fair trials. If I hear even a whiff of a rumor of railroading, I’m making it the Directorate’s business to stamp it out.”

  “We can’t affect net-think.”

  “Perception is everything.” The senator paused, and their procession bunched up and stuttered to a halt. Stephanos looked sharply at Edones. “Those correspondents are the only senses net-think has in G-145. They must show a cooperative Terran-Autonomist-Pilgrimage Tribunal giving this isolationist scum their due process of interstellar law. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Edones said.

  Myron poked Oleander in the shoulder again and she tried not to grit her teeth. It was going to be a very long morning.

  At the infirmary desk, the medical technician on shift glanced at Warrior Commander before firmly averting her eyes. The Minoan hung back, staying a couple of meters behind Ariane, who had almost forgotten its presence.

  “The sergeant’s monitor says he’s awake.” The technician looked at her console. “Yesterday, he was only conscious for an hour or so. He made a supreme effort to speak with his family, using head shot only, of course. His wife might suspect the extent of his injuries, but his kids don’t.”

  “I’m sure that was his purpose.” Ariane smiled. She’d never met Joyce’s children and only met his wife once.

  “He collapsed afterward. But early this morning he looked good enough to move him out of critical care.” The technician frowned. “Comm to the room is down. That node has to be replaced—just like everything else.”

  “It worked this morning.” Ariane shrugged in sympathy. This was why generational ships had a year or two of downtime after hauling a buoy to an unexplored solar system. They spent ten to seventy years at sub-light speeds, and when they arrived to set up the buoy, allowing faster-than-light (FTL) travel to that system, their technology was dated. The Pilgrimage III was being retrofitted with new ComNet nodes, as well as other enhancements.

  “Go ahead, while I call maintenance. His room’s around that corner and at the far end.”

  She walked in the direction the woman pointed and found a long corridor with an exit beside Joyce’s room at the end. The technician wasn’t correct in assuming he was awake, because he didn’t answer her chime. After two tries, she opened the unlocked door and peeked in.

  Something was wrong. Joyce lay in an awkward position, obviously unconscious, amid rumpled bedclothes. Even though the monitor beeped quietly and cheerily at the foot of his bed, his breath was shallow, his skin was pale and had a light sheen of sweat. She stepped to the foot of the bed and examined the monitor, started tracing the leads under the top sheet to where they connected to—

  The monitor leads disappeared under the bed frame, instead of plugging into Joyce’s implants. A whispering sound at the door made her look around; Warrior Commander stood there with a slightly cocked head, as if homing in on a sound beyond human senses.

  A frigid breeze brushed her and she stepped backward. The Minoan was
suddenly kneeling beside the bed, reaching under it. When Warrior Commander stood, it held out its gloved hands. On the right hand rested a tiny sensor pad that connected via a thin wire to a small cylindrical device in the left hand. Her throat tightened: a Terran antipersonnel grenade, smaller than Warrior Commander’s palm. An old but reliable device used by TEBI during the war, designed to maim and wound. A device that couldn’t be separated from its sensor without causing detonation.

  She whispered, “Don’t break the wi—”

  Warrior Commander closed long inhuman fingers over the two devices and pulled. She heard the wire snap as she threw herself on the bed to cover Joyce.

  CHAPTER 4

  The establishment of an interstellar criminal tribunal (ICT) for some horrendous happening in G-145, muffled like a government cover-up, has net-think focusing upon the roots of interstellar criminal law. Als are scurrying to index this history, relegated to the obscurity of late-twentieth-century pre-Terran Earth. . . .

  —Dr. Net-head Stavros, 2106.052.22.04 UT, indexed by Heraclitus 17 under Flux Imperative

  Ariane landed lengthwise on the bed, covering Joyce’s torso and head. She waited, tensely, for the deafening explosion and the pain of molten metal piercing her back and legs. She winced at a muffled pop and crackle.

  “You are safe, Breaker of Treaties.”

  She raised her head to look at Warrior Commander and cleared her throat. “What happened?”

  “Please make your emergency call.”

  Right—the Pilgrimage had to be warned. She pressed her implant mike. “Emergency, nine-one-one. We need an explosive ordnance disposal team in infirmary room three-two-seven. This is Major Kedros.” The traditional emergency code should be routed to the control deck, by any means possible. She heard warning alarms start in the corridor. Her message went through, so the node in Joyce’s room really did work, at least for processing base- level emergency directives.

  The Minoan warrior had its hands tightly closed, held carefully away from its torso. Slowly, its hands uncurled to show the sensor pad in one and a molten mass of metal in the other. A strange and unpleasant smell filled the room, partly caustic explosive, and partly—what? The Minoan gloves, apparently, weren’t made of leather.

  When she reached to touch what had once been a grenade, Warrior Commander stepped back and said, “It will burn your skin.”

  “Room three-two-seven, this is Pilgrimage command deck. Major Kedros, are you there?” The voice, carrying over the alarms, came from the comm panel next to the door. “A damage assessment team is on its way, and we’ve called for explosive ordnance disposal personnel from the Bright Crescent.”

  The medical technician bustled in, checked Joyce, and called for support. More medics pushed their way to the bed and fussed over Joyce. Then, as if there weren’t enough people in the room already, the AFCAW Explosives Ordnance Disposal team showed up. She convinced Warrior Commander to hand over what was left of the grenade to the EOD team. There wasn’t any space to move, particularly with everyone trying to keep a safe distance from Warrior Commander. The medics noticed this also, and demanded that all nonmedical personnel get out of the room.

  She quickly complied, followed by Warrior Commander, and found a crowd had formed outside Joyce’s room. People started appearing from nowhere. She saw Lieutenant Oleander appear with a thin sallow man.

  Captain Doreen Floros, another Directorate golem, was suddenly at her elbow and remarked, “You seem to attract explosives, Major Kedros.”

  “What happened?” asked Benjamin Pilgrimage.

  Then it got crazy—rather, crazier. Feed correspondents showed up, with their platform cam-eyes and bright lights. Everybody who was anybody seemed to be squeezing into the infirmary hallway, shouting questions at Ariane. She started edging into the no-man’s zone around Warrior Commander, a perimeter of about one meter, just to get space to breathe. Against her back, she felt cold air stirring those black robes. Once, when she glanced down and behind her, she glimpsed a writhing darkness within a fold of the robes, whereupon she suppressed a shudder and kept her gaze forward.

  “Clear this infirmary. Now!” This came from the Chief Medic, who persevered with a loud voice. Pilgrimage security came to her rescue, breaking up the crowd.

  “Thank you for saving our lives,” Ariane said quietly, directing her words over her shoulder.

  Warrior Commander’s head dipped in acknowledgment.

  “Research is in shambles, SP, particularly the programs for the Builders’ buoy.” Maria Guillotte was conferencing in from the surface of Priamos. Her image showed the upper half of her body for somaural communication.

  “That’s good. We want to replace those contractors with Terran companies,” Ensign Walker said.

  A typical response from a young Terran Space Force officer, and State Prince Isrid Sun Parmet gave him a tight smile, adding a subtle flourish with his fingers that said, You still have much to learn. Ensign Walker’s jaw tightened.

  Maria, who had worked for Isrid for many years in TEBI and then as his personal aide, explained. “We can’t just move in on other contracts or leases, Ensign. The Consortium’s S-triple-ECB requires an organized, and unfortunately bureaucratic, process.”

  “Who owns those leases?” Walker was apparently familiar with the Consortium’s Space Exploration, Exploitation, and Economics Control Board, or SEECB.

  “Aether Exploration,” Maria said.

  “Oh.” Walker’s eyebrows went up.

  So did Isrid’s assessment of Ensign Walker. He’d hoped to get an experienced officer to manage security on Beta Priamos Station, but at least Walker had read his classified background briefings. The ensign would know the delicate difficulties: Isrid had coerced Aether Exploration, in the person of Major Ariane Kedros, into signing leases over to Terran interests. Ensign Walker might also know more classified details, such as Kedros’s being kidnapped by Maria, then tortured by Nathanial Wolf Kim, both of whom were Isrid’s aides. However, Isrid hoped Walker was oblivious to the most recent reason Kedros might hate him: His co-wife Sabina had taken out her revenge and her rage, physically, upon an inebriated Kedros. That seemed so long ago, although it happened only a day before Abram’s aborted takeover.

  “We can petition for contractor reassignment, but I doubt Aether Exploration will consider it.” Isrid’s co-wife Garnet showed her usual efficiency, making a note on her slate.

  When Pilgrimage HQ contracted Isrid and his staff to manage the station, Garnet took over administrative work in the scramble to continue Priamos research and development after Abram’s short reign of terror. Abram had killed off almost a fifth of the civilian contractors because they “worked for Minoans.” Specifically, they’d worked for an Autonomist company named Hellas Nautikos that was majority-funded with Minoan capital.

  “Don’t bother petitioning,” Maria told Garnet. “Every contractor and lessee will submit rebuttals; they’ll hold their leases tight, even if they can’t afford to work them right now. The problem is the Autonomist banks and insurers—they’re the ones who won’t take the risks.”

  While the others brainstormed solutions for the research gridlock, Isrid sensed a presence in an alcove by the far doors. The yellow-green froth of her aura, smelling like pines, gave Sabina away. Unexpectedly, he’d started sensing auras even when he wasn’t deep in trance—ever since Abram had pumped him full of pain enhancers and psychotropic fear inducers.

  The meeting agenda turned to security. Ensign Walker’s current roadblock was convincing Pilgrimage HQ to change their position on background investigations. “We’re still trusting research contractors to screen their own personnel.”

  “You won’t get Pilgrimage to budge on that, since Abram’s converts didn’t come from any R and D contractors,” Garnet said.

  “But his moles in station maintenance did more than enough harm,” Walker shot back. “And they were the result of lax background investigations.”

  Isrid stopped the d
eveloping squabble with a gesture. “What about expanding ComNet coverage?” he asked. “It would improve station security, as well as help the Autonomist contractors.”

  “ComNet says they can’t afford hazard pay and insurance premiums for workers in G-145.” Walker shook his head. “Ironically, we’ve got two of their best installers in lock-up for helping Abram. Neither had a criminal history, before this.”

  “Can we use prisoner labor? Those two installers could extend our coverage.”

  “Pilgrimage HQ will probably require they volunteer their skills,” mused Walker, obviously feeling his way through a morass of unfamiliar regulations. “And I’m sure there are plenty of Autonomist legal hoops to jump through.”

  Likewise, Isrid had no authority over non-Terran assets or personnel, other than what Pilgrimage HQ and the Consortium’s SEEECB allowed him. Besides, what was there to control? Right now, some bored troops rattled around Beta Priamos station, frozen midconstruction, while the station’s upkeep overwhelmed the remaining maintenance staff. The research facilities on Priamos’s surface were understaffed as well.

  Ensign Walker finished his report, adding nothing new. After Isrid adjourned, the ensign left as quickly as polite-ness allowed.

  Garnet’s gaze rose from her slate and fixed on the dark alcove near the far doors. “Looking for entertainment, Sabina? Can’t find any drunks to roll?” Her voice carried an uncharacteristic streak of annoyance.

  Isrid’s curiosity was piqued as he watched his wives. Garnet was usually indifferent to Sabina’s tempestuous behavior but not this most recent sulk. His wives hadn’t come through Abram’s crucible unchanged, and neither had he, proven by the haze of aura he caught in the corner of his eye when he looked away from people. Everyone knew the body emitted an electromagnetic field; Autonomists transferred data over it and Terran somaural masters claimed they could be seen via meditative trance—but this wasn’t normal. Should he see a doctor? Whom could he trust, here in G-145?