by Timothy Zahn
“About seventy minutes,” she said, not looking back.
Giving them just under an hour to destroy a section of webbing and get out of the way before the sharks arrived. Should be adequate. “Very good,” he nodded.
“Rrin-saa also said they’d like to know why we’re going there,” she added.
“Tell them we’re helping them do the honorable thing,” he growled. “Let them figure it out from there.”
Beside him, Roman stirred. “Commander, I wonder if I might see you in my office for a moment,” he said quietly. “When you have the time, of course.”
Ferrol frowned up at him, a ripple of suspicion running through him. “Anything you want to say to me you can say right here,” he told the other.
Roman shook his head, his face unreadable. “What I have to say is strictly confidential.”
Ferrol gnawed his lower lip. Confidential, hell—Roman was up to something, and they both knew it. But what? Some kind of attempt to overturn or get around the Senate directive? By having Kennedy secretly Jump them back to the Cordonale, perhaps, and getting someone there to countermand the directive via tachyon?
Or did Roman have something else in mind? Something more direct, perhaps?
“You realize, I trust,” he said quietly, “that if anything happens to me, the Amity will be trapped here. I doubt very much the Scapa Flow will clear out the vultures’ optical net unless the order to do so comes from me.”
He held his breath, wondering if Roman would sense that the warning was at least fifty percent bluff. But the other merely cocked an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting,” he asked mildly, “that I might engage in mutiny against a legally appointed commander?”
Ferrol glared at him, the uncertainty curdling in his stomach…but there was only one way to find out for sure what the other had in mind. “Kennedy, you have command of the bridge,” he said, unstrapping himself and standing up carefully against two gees’ worth of weight. “I’ll be in the captain’s office; continue our course, and alert me of any change in the situation with the sharks.”
“Acknowledged,” she said, not turning around.
Ferrol turned to Roman, and for a moment the two men eyed each other. Then, Ferrol raised a hand, gestured toward the door. “After you, Captain.”
And besides, nothing Roman could do now would make any real difference. Whatever happened to Ferrol or the Amity, the Tampies had already lost.
“You won’t mind, I trust,” Ferrol said as the office door buzzed and slid open, “if I sit at the desk.”
Roman cocked an eyebrow at him. “So that you can watch the door?”
“So that I can watch the helm repeater,” Ferrol corrected shortly, circling the desk and dropping into the chair. Keeping an eye on Amity’s progress really was his primary concern, he told himself firmly. The fact that this way Roman would be between him and any unannounced visitors was purely coincidental. “So. What’s this confidential news you need to tell me?”
Roman sat down across from him, and for a moment studied Ferrol in silence. “That Senate directive of yours is dated over a year ago,” he said at last. “You’ve had it ever since you first came aboard the Amity.”
“That’s right,” Ferrol nodded. “It was my guarantee that you wouldn’t rig things so as to snowdrift the data from our wonderful mixed-crew experiment.”
“But you didn’t use it then,” Roman pointed out.
“There was no need,” Ferrol snorted. “The experiment was a disaster, and everyone knew it. If Pegasus hadn’t come out of left field with that calf, Amity would have been decommissioned and you’d have been sent back to the Dryden. We’d have become a footnote in some obscure Starforce report somewhere, and that would have been the end of it.”
“Agreed; but that’s my point. If the data so overwhelmingly supported the anti-Tampy viewpoint, and you were so afraid I’d hide it, why didn’t you take command when we first returned to Solomon after our mission?”
Ferrol opened his mouth; closed it again. Somehow, the question had never even occurred to him. “I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I suppose…well, I suppose I’d decided I could trust you to be honest.”
Roman nodded, an oddly intense look on his face. “And that’s what it ultimately boils down to, isn’t it? Trust. None of us can ever truly know everything, at least not in the sense of personal, firsthand experience. Our knowledge, our opinions, even many of our deepest beliefs—all of them hinge on the reliability of other people.”
“If you’re wondering if my directive is valid—”
“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Roman assured him. “Perhaps your former sponsors would repudiate it now, but by the time we’re in a position to ask them our activities here will be a fait accompli. We both know that.”
“Then if you have a point, I’d appreciate it if you’d get to it,” Ferrol growled, the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to tingle. This was it: Roman was about to launch his countermove.
“The point,” Roman said, “is in a black envelope in my desk. Bottom right-hand drawer.”
“You have a Senate directive of your own?” Ferrol asked, trying for a sardonic tone even as a shiver ran up his back.
Roman shook his head silently.
For a moment Ferrol eyed him. Then, steeling himself, he reached down, making sure to keep Roman in his peripheral vision at all times, and keyed open the drawer. The envelope was large and thick and—especially in two gees—remarkably heavy.
And across its flap was plastered a blood-red TOP SECRET label.
He frowned at Roman. “What is this?” he demanded.
“Open it and find out,” Roman told him.
Ferrol looked down at the envelope, wondering vaguely what the penalty was for unauthorized entry. But Roman was hardly the type to pull something so petty as trying to get him into minor bureaucratic trouble this way. With a quick slash of his hand, he broke open the seal and pulled out the folder inside.
And on its cover…
He looked sharply at Roman, a sudden pain shooting through his heart. “Yes,” Roman said quietly. “It’s the official report on the Prometheus colony. I thought it was time you knew the truth.”
Chapter 29
FERROL STARED AT THE other across the desk, heart thudding painfully. “Where did you get this?” he demanded, his voice sounding strained and hoarse in his ears.
“From the Senate records,” Roman said.
“From your pro-Tampy friends, you mean,” Ferrol bit out. His hands were beginning to tremble; viciously, he jammed his palms against the edge of the desktop to silence them. “So what exactly is it?—Just very heavily slanted in their favor, or a straight out-and-out forgery?”
Roman cocked an eyebrow. “You seem awfully vehement,” he said calmly, “for someone who doesn’t even know what’s in the report.”
Ferrol clenched his teeth, the ghosts and memories of Prometheus twisting through his mind and gut. “My parents’ hopes are in there,” he gritted. “Their hopes, and their dreams, and their lives. I know what happened on Prometheus, damn you.”
“Then read it for my sake,” Roman said. His voice was still calm, but there was a hard glint in his eyes. “So that you can enlighten me as to where I’ve been lied to.”
Ferrol held the other’s gaze a moment longer; then, slowly, lowered his eyes to the folder. What was he afraid of, anyway? He knew what the Tampies had done to his world, and no snowpile of propaganda—cleverly packaged or not—could ever change that.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the folder.
From its weight he’d known there was a lot of paper inside; what he hadn’t expected was the sheer variety of types and forms that were represented. Depositions, official colony records, extracts from several of the C.S.S. Defiance’s logs, transcribed interrogations of some of the Tampies, logistics sheets, descriptions of the evacuation of the colonists, documents and memos written on fancy Senate alter-proof paper, and scientific and medical reports.<
br />
A lot of scientific and medical reports.
“There’s an overall summary,” Roman said, “at the beginning.”
Ferrol nodded silently, fingering the pile of medical reports. The top one was for the colony’s director, taken afterwards aboard the Defiance; and as he skimmed through it—
He looked up sharply. “Here’s lie number one,” he told Roman, jabbing his finger down on the report. “This medical report on Billingsham is a complete fraud. He couldn’t possibly have been diagnosed with hive viruses—it’s one of the first things they check for before they clear someone for a new colony.”
“I know,” Roman agreed soberly. “And you’re right, he couldn’t have brought anything like that to Prometheus. No one could have.”
Ferrol stared at him, something hard and cold settling into his stomach. “No,” he said. “No—just forget what you’re thinking. There’s no way he could have picked it up on Prometheus—we were totally clean of hive viruses.”
“Are you sure?” Roman asked quietly.
“Of course I’m sure,” he snapped. “I’ve read the survey team’s report—”
The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat. “No,” he breathed. “No. It can’t be. Prometheus was certified for colonization. It was certified, damn it.”
Roman nodded, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “Certified, approved, and commissioned. And three thousand colonists sent there…over two hundred of whom have died since then from hive virus accumulation.” He hesitated. “If the Tampies hadn’t gotten you off when they did, it could have been all of you.”
Ferrol’s heart was starting to pound again. “I know what you’re going for,” he snarled. “What you and your pro-Tampy friends are trying to do. But it doesn’t hold together. If there was a hive virus there that the original survey team didn’t pick up on, how the hell could the Tampies have done it? They don’t have any bio-analysis equipment worth dirt—damn it all, they’d been on Prometheus less than two months when they stole the planet and threw us off.”
Roman held out his hands, palms upward. “I don’t know how they figured it out,” he admitted. “I’m not sure anyone does, really.” He nodded toward the folder. “The follow-up committee’s best guess was that their attunement with natural patterns somehow let them deduce the viruses’ presence. Maybe something like the way Llos-tlaa knew that those creatures on Alpha weren’t going to attack the landing party, even though he couldn’t tell us why. And as for stealing the planet—” he shook his head. “They’re just as susceptible to hive viruses as we are. Prometheus has been abandoned for the past nine years…and is likely to stay that way.”
Ferrol bit hard at his lower lip, uncertainty twisting through him like a helical saw. No, it couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. A survey team couldn’t foul up so badly as to miss something as long-term deadly as a hive virus. It had to be just another pro-Tampy lie. Even if Roman himself genuinely believed it, it still had to be a lie.
But if it wasn’t…
And in the middle of his silent turmoil the door buzzer sounded.
For a single heartbeat Ferrol stared at the door…and then, in a sudden blinding flash of insight, he saw at last what they’d done to him. Roman’s invitation, designed to lure him off the bridge; the forged report, designed to keep him off it—
With the hiss of its released pressure lock the panel began to slide open; and with a single convulsive motion Ferrol jerked up half out of his chair, his right hand scrabbling beneath his tunic for the hidden needle gun. For an instant the barrel caught; then, as he slammed painfully down onto the chair again it came free. Swinging it up, banging it once on the edge of the desktop as he did so, he brought it to bear on the doorway, squeezing it tightly in a two-handed grip. The panel finished its retraction into the wall—
And standing there, framed in the opening, was Kennedy.
The most dangerous person aboard the Amity, the Senator had once called her; and in that first, heart-stopping second Ferrol knew he’d been right. Standing motionless in the doorway, her hands hanging loosely and apparently empty at her sides, he watched as her eyes flicked from his face to the gun and back again without losing any of their icy calm. She was calm, cold, and professional.
And she had come to kill him.
It was another moment Ferrol had tried to prepare himself for…another moment for which, he saw bitterly, the preparations had been utterly inadequate. You’ll be able to handle her, the Senator had said with that infinite assurance of his; and Ferrol had nodded and believed him.
But no one had warned him what it would be like to look into someone’s eyes as he pulled the trigger.
Roman cleared his throat. “If you’re going to shoot her down in cold blood,” he said, almost conversationally, “you really ought to get it over with. If you’re not, perhaps you should put the gun down and invite her in.
Kennedy still hadn’t moved. “You can’t stop me,”
Ferrol warned her, his voice trembling with emotion, the taste of defeat in his mouth. If she would make just some move against him, something—anything—that he could justifiably consider an attack. But she just stood there. “Even if you kill me, you still can’t get help to the Tampies in time.”
Kennedy shot a quick glance at Roman. “I’m not here to kill anyone,” she told Ferrol soothingly. “Really.”
“Then why are you here?” he demanded. “I ordered you to stay on the bridge.”
Her eyes hardened. “As it happens, I came to try and keep you from making a fool of yourself. Obviously, I’m too late.”
Ferrol squeezed the gun tighter, determined not to be lulled. “I’m touched by your concern,” he said sarcastically. “And how exactly did you intend to do that?”
Roman stirred in his chair. “I think,” he said quietly, “that full introductions are in order.” He held a hand out toward Kennedy. “May I present Commander Erin Kennedy…formerly executive officer of the C.S.S. Defiance.”
Ferrol stared at her, the fingers wrapped around the gun gone suddenly numb. The Defiance… “I don’t believe it,” he heard himself say.
“Why not?” Kennedy asked. “Don’t think I could handle the job, or what?”
“I was warned that you were dangerous—” He broke off.
Roman nodded, as if reading his mind. “Warned, no doubt, by your Senate supporters,” he said grimly. “To whom the truth about Prometheus was indeed a touchy subject.”
Ferrol licked at his upper lip, dimly aware as he did so that he’d lowered the gun to the desktop. “Who would have known that? That you’d been on the Defiance, I mean?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Everyone who read that report, for starters,” she said, waving toward the folder lying open in front of him. “My name’s on half those papers—I was the officer in charge of the depositions and follow-up survey debriefings.”
Ferrol lowered his gaze to the folder, stomach tightening as he turned back a few pages to the stack of depositions. Interrogating officer’s name…
He looked up at her again. “It can’t be true,” he said, the words more reflex now than genuine conviction. “The survey team certified Prometheus clean of hive viruses.”
“They sure as hell did,” she nodded, face darkening with remembered anger. “Certified it with such glowing recommendations that the Senate didn’t even bother with the legally required backup survey. Why the hell do you think everyone was so damned anxious to snowdrift the whole fiasco?”
Ferrol dropped his eyes to the folder again. The Senate. The whole Senate…“You’re telling me that they knew all along,” he said. “That they…lied to me.”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Roman asked. “You would have been useless to them without your hatred of the Tampies.”
Ferrol threw him a sharp look. “If we’re going to talk about manipulation, what about you?” he accused the other, a spike of anger poking through the numbness. “You knew about this all along—both of you did,” he a
dded, shifting the glare to Kennedy. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Would you have believed us?” Kennedy asked.
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point,” Roman said, his voice hard. “If I’d shown you this folder when you first came aboard, you’d have dismissed the whole thing as nothing more than a highly sophisticated scam by the pro-Tampy faction.”
“So instead you played me like a puppet,” Ferrol said bitterly. “Danced me around on wires, surrounded me with lots of pro-Tampy types, made me liaison with the survey section to make sure I got lots of exposure to the damn aliens. The exact same thing the Senator was doing to me, except in reverse. So why should I believe you instead of him?”
“Because we have proof,” Kennedy said, gesturing at the folder.
“And what if it’s nothing more than a sophisticated scam, like the captain said?” Ferrol countered.
“Oh, come on, Ferrol—”
Roman raised a hand to silence her. “Chayne, we can’t prove any of this to you,” he said quietly. “We all know that. The indications are there, if you search your memory—the fact that the Tampies began the evacuation with the families of small children, for instance, who are classically the most vulnerable to hive virus accumulation. But that’s not proof, at least not the kind you’re looking for.”
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“You do what all the rest of us have to,” Roman told him. “In the absence of proof, you have to decide whose word you’re going to trust.”
Ferrol swallowed, his throat aching as he did so…but down deep he knew there was really no decision to be made. In his mind’s eye he could see the Senator: the aloof eyes, the smugly arrogant voice, the endless manipulation of people and events. He could see a year of serving with Roman: the unashamed Tampy apologist, often irritatingly simplistic in his view of the universe, risking his life to try and save Ferrol and Kennedy from that first shark.
And he saw Kennedy: the calmness of temperament, the competence of long experience…and, according to her psych profile, an absolutely flat-neutral attitude toward Tampies. A woman with no axe to grind, for or against anyone.
