CHOP Line

by Henry V. O'Neil

  She recognized the attendant standing outside Mira’s quarters, one of the few Steppers who didn’t turn to stone every time Ayliss approached. The woman was obviously waiting for her.

  “I’m sorry, but Mira can’t speak with you right now.” Ayliss studied her open face, trying to glean some indication as to why the all-important post-Step questioning of Olech’s daughter would be canceled.

  “That’s all right. I’m not feeling particularly well.” The words rose up on their own, her political upbringing kicking in. “I’ll be in my quarters.”

  Her mind went back to the dream, and Ayliss found her hand opening and closing as if searching for the charm from her childhood. As usual, nothing in the dream made any sense, and normally she would have dismissed the whole thing. This time, however, the experience lingered in a way she didn’t understand. It was like the aftermath of a heated argument that she couldn’t put out of her mind, and Ayliss knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it from Mira.

  A trio of Steppers stood close together outside the hatch leading into the ship’s mess, but they didn’t notice her at first. There was something unusual about this gathering, something furtive that caught Ayliss’s attention. No matter how disappointing they might have found their attempts at communion with the entities, the Steppers were a loud bunch. One of them was whispering rapidly and, even though Ayliss couldn’t quite hear the words, she knew it was important news.

  She stopped without meaning to, causing the trio to look in her direction. Expressions of mild surprise turned into the standard rude dismissal, and they disappeared inside the mess. Ayliss stared after them for a few moments, intrigued that they hadn’t stood their ground. That was different, and she decided it meant that whatever they’d been sharing was more important than staring down their unwanted shipmate.

  Ayliss was still pondering her dream, and the strange Stepper behavior, when she punched in the code to access Ewing’s communications center. The hatch closed just as she realized that the figure at the console was too tall and too bald to be Ewing.

  Margot Isles swung around in the chair, a winsome smile directed at the door. Fright jumped into her eyes when she recognized Ayliss, but she extinguished it. She stood up with a loud sigh, and made a show of straightening out her robes.

  “You startled me, Ayliss. I was looking for Christian.”

  “I’m sure he’s in there somewhere.” Ayliss pointed at the console’s main monitor, where a blizzard of data was racing by.

  “Oh, that? I think that was running when I got here.” Margot turned and bent over, pretending to scrutinize the blurry text. Her robes almost hid the movement when she reached for a rectangular device jutting from the machine. Ayliss had spotted it already, and snatched it from its mooring.

  “This yours?” The rectangle was flat and silver. “But it couldn’t be. Unless I miss my guess, this is some very sophisticated gear for cracking encrypted systems. Very expensive. And you Steppers don’t own anything.”

  “Then it’s probably Christian’s.”

  “Sure. He’d need something like this, to break his own codes.” Ayliss pocketed the instrument. “You thought I’d be speaking with Mira, right? Couldn’t hack Ewing’s gear remotely, so you decided to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “You may not know this, being such a pariah, but your man’s quite popular. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You’re not his type. He has a thing for long hair.” Ayliss took a step closer. “Now why don’t you save both of us some effort, and tell me who you’re working for?”

  “I don’t work for anyone.” Margot didn’t budge, her eyes on a level with Ayliss’s. “I’m a dedicated Step Worshiper. But I’m also a loyal daughter—unlike you—and my father is very curious about your activities.”

  “Why? Did I cost him some money on Quad Seven?”

  “He sits on the Zone Quest board, and you cost them an entire planet loaded with valuable ore. All while your father was busy getting himself killed messing up the Step. So you can understand his concern about what you’re doing on this ship.”

  “I think Mira’s going to be more concerned about what you’re doing on this ship.”

  Ayliss saw the blow coming, and was already stepping back when the Stepper swung. Margot’s arcing right fist hit only air, twisting her torso in a billow of fabric that left her solar plexus wide-open. Ayliss punched in and up, just as Blocker had trained her, concussing the woman’s diaphragm. Margot grunted in pain, but then the robes billowed and a backhand swung toward Ayliss’s eyes. She caught a glimpse of the short knife as it passed, missing her nose by millimeters, and then both of her hands were locked on the wrist that held the blade. Ayliss twisted around to hyperextend the Stepper’s arm, all her attention focused on the weapon.

  Margot clawed at her scalp from behind, but her free hand was caught in the garment and slid right off. Grunting with effort, Ayliss pushed the resisting arm toward the console. Expecting to have her wrist slammed against its hard edges, Margot planted both feet and leaned back with all her weight. Schooled in using her opponent’s moves to her advantage, Ayliss suddenly reversed course while still gripping the knife arm. Driving her backside into Margot, she slammed the Stepper into the hatch with a satisfying crash.

  The knife fell to the floor, and the bald woman sagged to the deck.

  Picking up the weapon, Ayliss backed away until she was against the far wall. Reaching up with a trembling hand, she squeezed a small disc pinned under the collar of her fatigue shirt. Wherever he was, Ewing’s version of the transmitter would start emitting a low, intermittent beep. It went on for several seconds, and then the link opened from Ewing’s end. He didn’t speak, but Ayliss could hear the strains of a woman moaning in pleasure.

  “Ewing! Answer me.”

  There was a pause, and then she heard the redheaded Stepper speaking with annoyance. “Chris. I think it’s your mother.”

  “Ewing,” he mumbled, and then cleared his throat. “I’m here. What is it?”

  “Get back to the commo room.” Ayliss held up the device she’d taken from Margot. “I’ve got something I need you to look at.”

  “Right now?”

  Ayliss grinned, shaking her head. “Go ahead and finish. But get here right after that.”

  Lying near the door, Margot groaned. Ayliss gave her a frosty glance, and then hefted the woman’s knife. The weight seemed to speak through her palm in a dark, seductive language. It would be so easy. The hatch was locked shut, and Margot had been trespassing before attacking her. Whatever Ayliss told the Steppers would have to be accepted as the truth, because she’d be the only one describing what happened. The thought brought a warm glow to her insides, a sensation that she sorely missed.

  For once, reason overrode the compulsion. If she killed Margot, there’d be an investigation that might relieve her of the codebreaker. Ayliss needed to know what the Stepper had been after, and Ewing would need time to crack into it.

  “This is your lucky day, party girl.” Ayliss punched a button on the console, and she flicked the blade at the hatch when it opened. “Get out of here. You come near me or Ewing again, I’ll tell Mira you’re a spy. That is, if I don’t decide to carve you up myself.”

  “I’m sorry for the late notice about your canceled interview.” Mira took Ayliss by the hand and led her to the couch.

  “It’s all right. I needed to speak with Ewing.” Ayliss’s concerns about meeting with Mira had vanished, driven away by the brief fight. Feeling warm and relaxed, she settled into the cushions. “I heard bits and pieces of some happy conversations on my way here. Good news?”

  “You could say that.” Mira’s shoulders jumped minutely, and a joyous expression blossomed across her features. “A marvelous thing has happened, Ayliss. This last Step. I’m almost certain I was contacted.”

  Ayliss remembered her vibrant dream encounter with Lydia, and wondered for an instant if the two experiences could somehow be linked.

&nb
sp; “That’s marvelous. What was it like?”

  “I’m sorry, but I learned long ago not to share the substance of my experiences with anyone. My dreams are quite unusual, and describing them can influence others.” Her excitement returned. “I know in my heart that communication has been reestablished.”

  Ayliss gave Mira an encouraging smile. True or not, this might provide an opportunity for her and Ewing to leave the Delphi. Perhaps Mira would now decide that her unproductive dreams were of no value, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Margot Isles might not be the only enemy aboard, and an unidentified opponent might succeed where she had failed. The redhead who’d lured Ewing away was a possibility . . . perhaps Lee should look into that. Ayliss almost gasped.

  Lee Selkirk. Her lover. Killed on Quad Seven, on a mission that she’d prompted. Absent from her dreams, and seldom in her thoughts. Never eager to ponder that, Ayliss struggled to concentrate on the conversation.

  “Did any of the others have a similar experience?”

  “No. Unless you did.”

  A ruse abruptly came to mind. “I’m not sure. I saw someone very important to me, and they seemed troubled.”

  “Was their problem something new, or something that happened in real life?”

  “Something new,” she lied. “An unexpected journey.”

  “That could be quite significant. Who was this loved one?”

  “Dom Blocker. In the dream we were in his quarters on Larkin Station, and he was having trouble packing his belongings.” Ayliss took Mira’s hand. “Do you think we could schedule that side trip to visit him now, so I could check up on him?”

  On Larkin Station, Dom Blocker stared at what appeared to be an enormous window. Although he knew it was just a flat bulkhead, the projections of numerous exterior cameras showed what was happening beyond the barrier. The blackness of space was broken up by a series of crane-like robot arms, veined with cables and festooned with tools for the repair of small spacecraft. One such ship, a luxury shuttle owned by a wealthy ore dealer, rested in the frame of the maintenance dock while the robots worked on its communications array.

  The chores being carried out didn’t interest Blocker at all, but the technician standing next to him was supervising the work with great care. His name was Jerticker, and he spoke to Blocker while punching commands into a small keyboard wrapped around his forearm.

  “Rittle’s shuttle will come to this bay for maintenance once it drops him off at Med Wing. His examinations don’t take all that long, but then he heads off to meetings with the ZQ bigwigs. Most of the time, he spends at least forty-eight hours here.”

  “All the work on his shuttle is done by machines? Anybody help you manage this?”

  “Come on, Sarge. You ever know me to work well with others?”

  “When we made you, yes.”

  “What I mean is, they gave me this job because it’s solitary. Me and the ’bots. No pain-in-the-ass supervisors, no good-for-nothing helpers. Your man’s shuttle is all mine while it’s here.”

  “What about the cameras? Anybody monitoring the feed?”

  “Station security, supposedly.” Jerticker snorted. “But I can show them old footage whenever I want. I do that sometimes, when I need to break a rule to get the job done.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” More commands, and the arms raised the shuttle before going back to work. “I never got the chance to thank you for getting me out of that mess. I might have been in real trouble, if that went to court-martial.”

  “Might? They were going to find you guilty—which you were—and then they were gonna polymer-glue your ass to a deep-space probe and launch it. But you’d kept all our stuff working, under tough conditions. I owed you one.”

  “I could have beat that rap.”

  “Don’t see how. Your partner confessed, and they’d even tracked down some of the guns you sold.”

  “Parts. Gun parts. All damaged. They were going to turn most of them in for scrap.”

  “Shh.” Blocker pointed at the dock, where a tiny black rectangle had just opened on one of the stanchions. A dark insect seemed to emerge from the hatch, pushing off and gliding toward the shuttle. Floating free, it elongated into the arms, legs, and torso of a human being.

  “What’s she wearing? Special ops infiltration suit?”

  “No,” Blocker answered, concentrating on Tin as she somersaulted over one of the moving robots. “Banshee scout suit. Lighter, and more maneuverable than the combat armor. Perfect for this.”

  Gliding forward, Tin reached out and caught one of the handholds on a passing repair arm. She used it to slingshot her body in a different direction, and then went into an acrobatic tuck that seemed to send her spinning out of control. She slowly unwound from the ball, legs extended and pressed together, bringing her upper body around just in time to catch hold of the shuttle’s aft emergency hatch.

  “She’s good.”

  “She’s the best. But she’s also been practicing.” Blocker watched Tin go hand-over-hand up the side of the craft. She stopped at the outlet for one of the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters, and detached a small box from her belt. Pressing it to her chest with her elbow, she flipped two switches before sliding the device into the outlet.

  “Nobody inspects the work, once it’s done?”

  “Like I told you, Sarge. I’m all alone out here. Nobody’s gonna see a thing.”

  “Reena! May I speak with you?”

  Reena Mortas cringed at the voice. She should have known that Timothy Kumar was nearby; the busy grounds of Unity Plaza turned into ghost towns when the Celestian refugee was out and about. Like Olech before her, Reena enjoyed walking around the manicured lawns and exchanging small talk with members of the enormous staff. Unfortunately, Kumar spent so much time complaining about everything, from the food to the lodgings, that Unity’s personnel had learned to avoid him.

  “Timothy.”

  The tall man wore the dark tunic that had been the mark of Horace Corlipso’s personal advisers. His insistence on wearing that outfit, and on calling Reena by her first name, was all calculated to remind everyone that he had once been somebody—and would be again.

  “I was horrified to hear about Gerar. What a tragedy.”

  “He blamed himself for Olech’s disappearance. And I understand he recently lost a grandson serving in the war.” Reena glanced up at the sun, wondering what Kumar wanted. As Step physicists, he and Woomer had been colleagues for many years, but she knew they’d never been close.

  “I know. He mentioned the boy at least once every time we talked. Was it in combat?”

  “No.” Why was he lying about his relationship to Woomer? What was he after? “He was in a quartermaster assignment, on a planet far from the fighting. Apparently there was an accident.”

  “That must have pushed poor Gerar over the edge.” They continued walking, and Renna didn’t respond. “I heard he took poison.”

  “That’s what the report said.” Kumar was usually smoother than this, and Reena decided to push him. “I’m a little busy today, Timothy. Is there anything else?”

  “No. No.” The Step scientist refused to meet her gaze, but then recovered. “I suppose there is. I don’t want to sound like some kind of ghoul, but if you’re in need of someone to assume Gerar’s duties, I’d be honored to help.”

  “That’s very considerate of you. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “All right.” The eyes flashed around some more, and then Kumar took a step backward. “I’ll let you go now. Do keep me in mind.”

  She watched as he strode off down the walkway. Quickly at first, but then making himself slow down. Even managing to wave at a passing staffer, a young man who frowned and then stared at Kumar’s back as if having seen something inexplicable.

  “Don’t look so worried, Timothy.” Reena spoke to the air. “I will keep you in mind.”

  Chapter 6

  “His name? He’s a new gu
y. Doesn’t have a name.”

  The gruff answer satisfied the soldier at the gate, and he waved at someone to raise the barrier. Rolling through the opening, Hugh Leeger studied the squat blockhouse through the passenger side window. The perimeter fence was dotted with them, and they reminded him of the turrets he’d seen in paintings of ancient castles.

  Leeger turned in his seat to look out through the hardened windshield. Although it was late at night, the vehicle’s night vision showed him the rutted road that twisted away into the darkness. He shifted around, already itchy from the paint that had been sprayed on the Human Defense Force fatigues. This part of Celestia was home to numerous mines, and the fighting had spewed an orange dust up from the planet’s insides that now clung to its surface for many miles. Camouflage uniforms were in short supply, so the troops in the region had taken to spraying their uniforms with stripes of orange paint.

  Not that he was with actual soldiers. The armored mover belonged to one of the many mercenary outfits attracted by the civil war, and the man driving it looked the part. Black-and-orange camouflage adorned his uniform, armor, and rifle. A dark beard jutted out from his jaw, and a black bandanna covered his head. The latest development in combat goggles hung from his neck, atop a throat mike that looked brand-new.

  “The rest of my troop is waiting for us in a laager a few miles short of the target area.” The man’s name was Worthel, and Leeger had sent him to Celestia weeks before. “I was a little surprised to hear you were going to pay us a visit. I thought you were trying to keep our connection secret.”

  “I am. That’s why I’m disguised as a replacement. Nobody’s supposed to know I’m here.” Leeger caught the microscopic twitch at the corner of Worthel’s mouth, but pretended not to have seen it. “Your last report said you’d picked up a trail.”