by Ben Bova
The schedules and check routes of each maintenance tech were switched at random, and he could never be certain what day he would be at this particular monitoring station, but it was a fairly simple matter to arrange to be here at the same time whenever the name Bodisee came up on the roster to check corridor nine, level six, starboard. Each time he was here he would linger as long as he felt safe until he saw the IPC man, noting carefully his appearance, clothing, gait, and anything else he could discern about him. In turn, the agent came to know and recognize him.
He had selected this IPC man carefully, and had considered himself lucky that his body size matched the other man’s as nearly as it did. As it was, he had been forced to fast almost the entire trip to insure that his weight matched the man’s even more closely.
He had arrived early enough that he already had the panel removed when the IPC agent rounded the corner and approached his position. As always, he felt the man’s eyes almost dissecting him as he worked, but he only smiled the man’s way before turning back to the monitoring station’s open access hatch.
He waited until the man was barely two meters away before touching the button of the tiny explosive charge he had secreted in the cuff of his left sleeve. The charge carried little impact, but generated a satisfactory noise and just the right flash of light and amount of smoke. Deftly tucking the spent charge casing back into its hidden pocket in the cuff, he threw himself sharply against the opposite wall, acting dazed and disoriented, and allowed himself to crumple to the floor.
It pleased him that the IPC man had not made an effort to instantly come to his assistance, but had instead dropped to a defensive position, a previously hidden firearm now held steadily, unerringly in his direction.
“Freeze!”
He feigned confusion and, although he made no moves the IPC agent would consider threatening, he did not obey the man’s order. “Wha—what happened?” he offered weakly, and made a show of trying to sit upright. He stared at his hands, blackened from what he knew would look to an unsuspecting observer like an electrical burn, and blurted, “My hands! God, it hurts!”
The man lowered his weapon slightly. “Listen carefully. I’m going to help you. I’m going to approach you slowly, but my weapon will be on you at all times. Do you understand?”
“Please!” he begged, giving the act everything he had. “Help me!”
There was a moment’s hesitation as the man made a decision ; then his hands moved quickly to put his firearm away, so quickly that it wasn’t immediately apparent where he had hidden it. “Look, I’m going to help you stand up,” he said, moving to his side. “I want you to put an arm around my shoulder and I’ll get you to the end of the corridor. There’s a terminal there and I can get you some help. Do you understand?”
He nodded vigorously, teeth clenched in a visage of pain. He was pleased, again, at the IPC man’s trained response: Anyone else would have left him here and run unencumbered to the nearest terminal for help and then returned to his side, but the man’s indoctrination demanded that in a potential danger situation such as this, he could not leave him here unattended and, more importantly, unguarded.
The man helped him to his.feet, and as he threw his arm around the agent, he let his thumbnail drag sharply across the back of the man’s neck.
They had taken only a few unsteady steps down the corridor when the IPC agent stopped abruptly in midstride. The man gasped sharply, painfully, and pushed himself away from him, his eyes wide in bewildered panic, and tried desperately to steady himself against the corridor wall. He fumbled uselessly for his weapon with hands gone suddenly clumsy; then, as his gyrations became even more intense, he clawed frantically at his chest, knocking his ID badge off and sending it skittering across the smooth floor. His futile efforts lasted but a few moments before his movements halted and he slumped into a lifeless heap on the floor, his face frozen in horrified shock.
The man known for the last three weeks as Bodisee went to work instantly. There wasn’t much chance of being discovered—not in this corridor, not at this hour; he already knew that from weeks of careful observation—but he hurried nonetheless. He stripped off his shirt and pants, then removed the dead man’s coveralls and put them on. The fit was snug, but passable. He carefully adjusted the collar.
“Hello, Check, check, check.”
He applied a little more pressure on the collar, then, “Check. Check.” He nodded, satisfied that the tone-shifting electronics of the collar made his voice match that of the IPC man. The new voice pattern would not fool a system scanning for a specific ID, he knew; but then, the IPC agent’s natural voice patterns would certainly not be in the system anyway. On the other hand, the voice match would be more than good enough for human ears.
That taken care of, he took a last careful look at the man’s face, then ran his fingers through his own hair—which he had gradually changed in the last week and a half to match the IPC agent’s light brown—to part it on the other side. He had already altered his eye color and skin tone.
Done, he thought, then crossed to the still-open access hatch, where he retrieved a zippered pouch about the size of the palm of his hand, and took from it a small pair of metal heat cutters and a thin bag. He shook the flimsy bag open and pulled it over the body of the IPC man, wrestling him inside; then, removing the ID badge and slipping it into a pocket, he tossed in Bodisee’s discarded outfit. Just before sealing the bag he reached inside with the cutters, flicked the heat switch and neatly snipped off the man’s right thumb. There was no blood—the tool’s heated cutting edges instantly seared the wound closed. He dropped the severed thumb into the pouch, sealed it and slipped it into a pocket; the cutters he tossed inside with the body. There was a wafer pad located at one of the upper corners of the bag, and he squeezed it between thumb and forefinger until the bag began to shrink, opaqueing as it did. The man who just a few moments earlier had been William Bodisee watched, arms folded before him, completely unaffected by the grisly sounds emanating from the lump at his feet as the constricting bag grotesquely drew the body into a compact, shapeless bundle.
It took a grunted effort to lift/drag the plastic-enshrouded body, but he managed to move it to the open hatch, where it was then a simple matter to slide it into the recess behind the wall and replace the access panel. He would remove the body later at his leisure, but for now this would suffice.
He checked the corridor for any signs of a struggle, being especially mindful to check the spot where the man had died, but found nothing, other than the agent’s ID badge on the floor several meters down the corridor, to indicate that anything had happened. There was still a faint odor of smoke in the air from the tiny explosive charge, but that would be gone soon enough.
He glanced at the timepiece on his wrist, pleased to see that less than three minutes had elapsed since he had taken the monitoring station off-line. The normal check routine took between five and six minutes, so no alarm would be raised in the central system by the station at corridor nine, level six, starboard.
Bodisee would not be missed. At the duty shift’s end the maintenance tech supervisor, checking the Kiska’s computerized duty logs, would find that William Bodisee had been transferred to life support. The supervisor wouldn’t mind, since Bodisee’s work had been neither good nor bad, merely average. Bodisee had been close to no one, no crew member had become his friend; he had spent most of his time, in fact, blending himself inconspicuously into the background during the voyage to Tsing. It was doubtful if anyone aboard the jump ship would even remember him at all if questioned, much less recall anything of the intimate details of his appearance, his habits, or his lifestyle.
Not surprising, since he had never really existed in the first place, but it had still been a great deal of work to live under a false persona in the underbelly of a busy, crowded starship.
But he was an IPC agent now, a person who, almost by definition, did not exist. It would be even easier now, for once the Kiska had departed Lu
na, the four IPC agents assigned to the voyage had blended into the crew and passengers with established IDs and job descriptions unknown even to their fellow agents, IDs that would stand up under any scrutiny, unlike Bodisee’s had he been anything but exacting in his efforts to hide in plain sight.
Quickly finishing his check of the monitoring station, he put it back on-line with his plastiskin thumbprint when he was done, and took one last look around the corridor. He retrieved the agent’s ID badge and glanced at it, noting that he might want to alter the picture slightly to match his own face more closely. Reading the name on the badge, he almost chuckled out loud. Hanson, he thought, an easy name to remember—it almost matches my own. Then he turned and calmly walked in the direction of the lift that would take him to the crew level.
There, the grisly item inside the pouch he now carried in his pocket would admit him to his new quarters.
The Kiska’s lounge was a spartan facility, more a multipurpose gathering area than the intimate restaurant-like atmosphere she had seen on other ships. The lighting was too bright, the scattered tables offering little seclusion for crew and passengers desiring a quiet moment alone together. The decor, such as it was, was minimal and almost sterile. There was no music, although it would have been easy enough to ask the room system to provide it. The room lacked an overall sense of warmth, lacked the feeling of friendliness that should be central to the only place of relaxation offered the passengers.
It’s almost like a military vessel, Adela told herself. The only thing missing is that everything’s not tinted the same color.
The room was large enough, with seating at the long circular bar and the tables that could easily handle a fair-sized crowd. Maybe that was the problem; maybe if the room was smaller or partitioned in some way into separate seating and dining areas, a feeling of intimacy would lend itself naturally to the surroundings as they were.
“I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking.”
Adela turned, startled, to find the man at the next table staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him. “What did you say?”
He stood and raised his eyebrows in a way that asked “May I join you?” as he picked up his glass and moved toward her table.
Adela felt a sudden rush of uneasiness sweep over her as he approached, and looked around the room at the other patrons, thankful for the first time that the light levels were too high. Among them must certainly be one of the damned IPC deathguards Eric had assigned to watch over her. She had hated the thought of them coming on this trip, even after they had blended themselves in among passengers and crew. The fact that they had all adopted new identities upon boarding, and that she no longer recognized any of the four people who had embarked with her, made it even worse—she frequently found herself gawking in unnecessary suspicion at total strangers, trying to determine if they might be the ones following her, the ones watching her every move.
But now, with this man standing here, weaving slightly from side to side after obviously having had too much to drink, she found herself hoping that someone at one of the closer tables might be looking out for her welfare right now. A few people had heard his remark or had seen him walking over, and had turned their way out of idle curiosity. But among those who were staring back at her table now, all wore high-collared coveralls or tunics; there was no clue for her there.
“I said that I know what you’re thinking,” he continued, snapping her attention back to him. “My name’s Zaklin, but everyone calls me Zack. May I?” Not waiting for an answer, he pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. “You’re wondering why everyone in here is so boring. And why it’s so damned quiet in here. You’d think there’s some kind of funeral ceremony going on in here, huh?”
“I’m sorry, Zack, but I really don’t feel like company right now.” She smiled at him, hoping he’d take the gentle hint and go away, but no longer felt so afraid of him. Now that she had a closer look at the man and had a name to hang on him, she decided he was harmless, and she could simply get up and leave if she needed to. She felt foolish for the apprehension she’d experienced only a few seconds earlier.
Zack grinned at her response, and seemed about to try another approach when a surprised look of recognition spread over his features.
“D—Dr. Montgarde!” he sputtered, nearly toppling his drink as he jumped to his feet. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was you!”
“It’s all right,” she replied calmly. This wasn’t the first time her identity had caught someone off guard, and it wouldn’t be the last time she wished her celebrity had not made it so difficult to just be herself. “It’s just that I’m a little tired, and I’m afraid I really wouldn’t be much company. But thank you for—”
“The lady asked you to leave.” The newcomer had his hand solidly on Zaklin’s shoulder. “I think it’d be in your best interests to do just that.”
“Everything’s fine,” she assured him, rising. “He was already leaving.”
“I was! I was leaving!” He wriggled free of the man’s grasp and retreated hurriedly to the other side of the big room, looking over his shoulder repeatedly to make sure he wasn’t being chased.
“Are you all right, Doctor?”
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling gratefully. “He really was leaving. But thanks anyway.” She looked the newcomer over. He was tall, clean-shaven, with curly light brown hair that fell just short of the high collar on his duty uniform—the ever-present coveralls favored by the crew. He must have just come off duty, as he still had his ID badge clipped to his pocket. The name next to his picture read HANSON, KAL. The color coding on the bottom of the ID badge was bright orange, indicating he was a member of ship security. Just what she needed, another bodyguard. At least this one was off-duty.
He smiled warmly back at her. “I hope I didn’t scare him too badly.” There was an amiable chuckle underlying his words, and she got the impression that he had been a little unnerved himself by his actions. Apparently, aiding damsels in distress was not something he did every day. “I don’t think he’ll bother you any more tonight, though. And judging from the condition he was in, he probably won’t even remember this tomorrow.” He looked in the direction in which Zack had disappeared, then back to Adela. There was an awkward silence as he searched for something else to say.
“Would you like to join me?” she asked, sparing him further embarrassment.
His smile returned, and she admired the warmth in his face.
“Oh, uh … No, thank you. I wasn’t fishing for an invitation,” he said, almost bashfully. “I, uh, just heard the commotion over here and wanted to be sure you were okay. Good night.” With that, he nodded politely and turned away, threading his way through the scattered tables and chairs. Looking past him, Adela could see that there was an empty table in that direction with a single unattended dinner, barely touched.
She watched him as he sat at the table with his back to her and resumed his meal, thinking, If I had to choose someone to watch over me, it would be someone more like him, and not those damned mercenary IPCs.
“I don’t want them following me, Eric!” Adela shouted into the holoframe at her son. “I feel like I can’t make a move, can’t do anything without trying to find that one face among the people around me who’s a trained killer, ready to open fire at a moment’s notice.” She turned her back on the holographic image of her son and paced frantically across the floor of her plush stateroom. “I’ve researched them, gone through the files. The IPC doesn’t hesitate to murder innocent bystanders right along with an assailant if it’s the only way to stop an attack on their assigned … ‘dependents.’”
“I’m not going to dismiss them, Mother,” the Emperor countered. “It’s for your own safety.”
“I don’t care!” She stopped pacing, and spun around to face Eric. “I feel like I might as well lock myself into this room. How about if I ask Darrly to have the door welded shut for the duration of the trip to Tsing? Wou
ld that please you?”
Eric exhaled heavily, searching for the right words. “I am not going to remove them,” he reiterated, his voice indicating the finality of his decision. He stared silently from the screen for several moments, his image distorting slightly in the real-time tachyon link. He started to speak, but his words and the slight movements he made slowed to molasses thickness until the computers could correct the signal and alert him to begin his sentence again. “When you were on Pallatin—when I was still a boy, long before I ever met you—do you remember the long recording I sent telling you about how Javas had taken me to Earth to protect me against an assassin? About how the very man responsible for murdering a close associate of Father’s rode happily along with us on our own shuttle, without our knowledge? I won’t let that happen to you. If you truly reviewed the files on the history of the IPC and their purpose, then you can understand why I personally created them when I became Emperor.”
Adela stood facing the holoframe, arms dangling limply at her sides, and said nothing for a moment. Then, bluntly, her voice almost a whisper: “Don’t you understand? I feel like I’m suffocating.”
Eric sighed again. “Once you’ve arrived at Tsing I’ll discuss with Lewis—based on their own post-jump reports—the need to continue IPC surveillance. Not before. I’m sorry that you disagree, Mother.” His patience worn thin on the subject, he stared obstinately from the holoframe. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”
The room fell suddenly cold and silent.
“No,” she replied emotionlessly. “I don’t think there is.”
