Shades of Empire (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  When he came out, Maddy was fully clothed and waiting for him. There was still a weapon in her right hand, but this time it was a nonlethal stun gun.

  “Come here,” she ordered, “and stand perfectly still, or I’ll shoot you and have you carried to the brig.”

  Thaddeus advanced until he was quite close and then waited, wondering what she would do. Maddy stepped up to him, put her left hand on his neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him.

  Thaddeus obeyed her injunction not to move and kept his arms limply at his sides, but the kiss was still intensely passionate.

  “Damn!” Maddy said finally. “I haven’t felt like this in years, and it has to be with a ThreeCon spy!”

  Thaddeus lifted his eyebrows. “You think I wanted to fall for a gun-running smuggler with a goddamn list of men she screws regularly?”

  Maddy flushed an angry red, but her eyes had a pleased gleam as she stepped back and called out. “Khan, Mahler! Come in and take him away.”

  • • •

  “What?” Alexander said in amazement.

  “He’s a ThreeCon spy,” Connie Krupin said as she handed him a new pair of boots. The first pair he had been issued had proved to be just tight enough to bother him. “Mahler and Khan locked him in the brig on the skipper’s orders.” Connie gave him an inviting stare. “Looks like you’ll be in need of a new roommate.”

  “I guess so,” Alexander said absently.

  “I’m available.”

  Alexander came alert as he realized what she was suggesting. “Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but I’m not really in shape for anything like that yet.”

  Connie must have had heard stories; she looked sympathetic. “You know where I am if you need a warm body next to you at night.”

  “Thanks,” Alexander said again. Her offer seem to call for a gesture on his part, so he leaned over the counter and kissed her cheek delicately.

  Connie looked pleased and watched him go with a tender smile.

  Alexander decided that the best source of information on the ship had to be the captain. He checked the bridge, but she wasn’t there, so he went to her cabin and knocked on the door.

  The door opened.

  “Come,” Madeline’s voice called.

  When Alexander stepped inside, she was sitting at her desk making notations on her monitor. She dropped the stylus and swiveled her chair around to face the door.

  “Yes?” she said, looking up at him. “What’s up?”

  “I want to know if it’s true about Thad,” Alexander said, coming straight to the point.

  “It’s true he’s a ThreeCon spy.” Madeline gave him a searching glance. “Or did you know that already?”

  “No. I knew he wasn’t the idiot everyone thought he was, but I didn’t know he was ThreeCon.”

  “And you never thought to mention it?”

  Alexander shrugged. “I read the rules very carefully. Nowhere does it say you have to report your roommate if you find out he’s a lot smarter than he pretends to be.”

  She twisted her lips in a sour grimace. “But it does say having a second job is against regs. I won’t have divided loyalties on my ship.”

  Alexander didn’t answer. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t annoy her even more.

  “How did you find out?” Madeline asked abruptly. “That Thad wasn’t as dumb as he pretended to be, I mean.”

  Alexander hesitated, but decided that since Thad had already told her about his nightmares, he had nothing else to hide. “I was screaming in my sleep. Thad was too compassionate to keep up the act in those circumstances. It was pretty obvious the man who was calming me down wasn’t the moron who was always staring vacantly off into space.”

  “I see. So you felt too grateful to him to report it?”

  “I suppose that was part of it.”

  She got up from her chair and glared at him. “I’ve got a good mind to throw you in the brig, too.”

  He debated about saying that he never accepted any money from Thad, but decided against it. She continued to study him.

  “Tell me something, Napier,” she said suddenly. “Most straight guys jump at the chance to be on the list when they hear about it—even Niels did until he hooked up with Carmela. But you didn’t. Why not?”

  He met her gaze levelly but cleared his throat before he answered. “It was nothing personal. It’s just that I don’t even want to think about anything like that right now, let alone do it. The Corps doesn’t encourage having emotions; if anything they work on blunting your feelings. Feeling sorry for Celia was the closest I’d come in years to truly connecting with another human being.”

  She studied him more intently. “You’re not going to go nuts on me, are you, Napier? I really don’t need that, not after watching Gobeh jump off the deep end.”

  “No,” he said, “a least I don’t think so.”

  She sighed. “Was there anything else?”

  “Can I see Thad?”

  She looked surprised. “You like him?”

  Alexander nodded. “He’s a friend.”

  She tilted her head. “Just a friend?”

  He smiled when he understood what she was asking. “Yes. Just because I can’t bring myself to go to bed with a woman at the moment, doesn’t mean I want to go to bed with a man. And if you want to know the truth, Thad has a terrific case of the hots for you.”

  As soon as he said it, he knew it was no surprise to her. Something in the smug lines of her smile hinted at what must have passed between the Captain and his erstwhile roommate.

  “So you knew that, too, did you?” she said.

  “Yes. There was no way Thad could hide it. Whenever I mentioned the list, he practically turned purple and had a fit.”

  Her smile bordered on triumphant. “Did he?”

  “Yeah, he did. Can I see him?”

  She hesitated for about two seconds and then nodded. “All right. I’ll call Khan and tell him to let you talk to Thad, but you can’t go inside the cell.”

  Alexander thanked her, but her reply was absent-minded, and he left after she put through the call.

  The brig of the Queen Bee was a series of three tiny cells, even smaller than the standard two-person cubbies. They all opened off a larger room that served as an office for whoever was on security duty that day. The brig cells each had a large window on the side facing the office, so that the security officer could see into them. As soon as he entered the office, Alexander could see Thaddeus Jenner lying down on the bunk in the first cell.

  Luong Khan sat behind the desk. He looked up when Alexander came in and nodded at him. “The skipper said you were coming. You can talk to him, but don’t get too close or try to touch the window.”

  After Alexander agreed to comply with these regulations, Khan allowed him to approach the cell. Alexander pressed the speaker button on the wall next to the door.

  “Hello, Thad.”

  Thad opened his eyes and looked up in surprise, then sat up on his bunk. “Hello, Alex. I’d ask you in but there isn’t room.”

  Alexander smiled. “I can’t come inside anyway. This is the most the skipper would allow.”

  Thad nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

  Alexander studied him, curious about what Madeline Palestrino had told him. “So you’re ThreeCon?”

  “Yeah.” Thad leaned back against the wall. “Hard core. I’m on my second enlistment.”

  Alexander was curious. “Is it true you only have to sign up for ten years at a time?”

  “Yeah, it’s true. Anywhere else in the galaxy they say ‘ten years’ as if it were forever, but since the Emperor demands twenty, I suppose ten seems reasonable to you.”

  Alexander snorted. “Of course it’s reasonable. They ask you instead of just taking you away.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Thad said. “Will you do something for me, kid?”

  “What is it?”

  “If Maddy lets you come again, bring me
my book reader. I’m already going crazy in here with nothing to do.”

  “I’ll bring it, but I don’t know if they’ll let you have it.”

  “We’ll see.” Thad gave Alexander a compassionate glance. “I hope you do all right tonight, kid. You may miss me more than I miss my own bunk.”

  “I know,” Alexander said, well aware that Khan was listening to their conversation. “But I haven’t had any problem the last three nights. I’ll be okay.”

  Thad lay back down on his bunk. “Thanks for coming, Alex. Don’t forget about the reader.”

  “I won’t. How long do you think the skipper will keep you locked up?”

  Thad sighed. “At least until she decides which airlock to use.”

  Chapter Five

  Alexander wasn’t entirely surprised, on returning to his cubby, to find that Madeline Palestrino had had someone turn out every drawer in the place, as well as turning the mattresses and emptying the locker. Alexander’s few belongings were draped over his bunk, but everything Thad owned was gone.

  Alexander sighed and began to put away his things. He didn’t have a book reader, so he supposed he would see if he could borrow one tomorrow.

  It didn’t take Alexander long to stow away the few items of clothing he owned. Soon afterwards, he climbed up into the top bunk, resisting the temptation to sleep in the lower one as being somehow disloyal to Thad. He fell asleep very quickly, and while his sleep was troubled by dreams, they had the advantage of being fanciful projections of his subconscious—ramblings in which Thaddeus Jenner was really a secret member of the Gaullian nobility, while he himself was a simple farmer—rather than remembered events from his past.

  All in all, Alexander passed a comfortable night, and if he spared a conscious thought for his friend and roommate, he did no more than wonder how long Madeline Palestrino would keep him confined to the brig.

  • • •

  Thaddeus was having very similar thoughts the next morning as he pushed aside his breakfast tray, lay back on his bunk, and studied the pattern of the ceiling tiles of his cell. After only a half an hour of introspection, Luong Khan opened the door.

  “Okay, Thad,” Khan said, “you can come out now.”

  Thaddeus sat up in surprise.

  “The skipper wants to see you,” Khan went on, “right now.”

  Thaddeus got to his feet and waited. When Khan stepped back to allow him to go first, Thaddeus stepped out of his cell and paused before proceeding. There was no one else in the brig; presumably Maddy trusted Khan to ensure his compliance with her orders.

  “Move along,” Khan said. “She’s in a mood. I wouldn’t keep her waiting if I were you.”

  He walked behind Thaddeus and followed him into the lift. Thaddeus noted how the other man slapped the control to go to level two as if the device were being recalcitrant.

  “Something wrong?” Thaddeus asked. “You seem a little touchy this morning.”

  Khan gave him a sour look. “Touchy? I’m damn mad is what I am. It was my turn, and you cut in line. Now who knows how long it’ll be before the skipper gets around to me.”

  Thaddeus glared at him. “If you’re trying to get your face broken into little pieces, just keep it up.”

  Surprisingly, Khan merely grinned at Thaddeus and shook his head despairingly. “So it’s true! Not only are you smarter than you look, you’ve got a major case for the skipper.”

  “Shut up, will you?” Thaddeus said in a pained voice.

  Khan laughed as the lift doors slid open, and he nudged Thaddeus forward. “Good thing for you no one else on the Bee is qualified as an astrogator, because if the skipper dumps the list, there’s going to be twenty-six guys on this ship hot for your blood.”

  Did he have some reason for thinking Maddy was going to do away with the list? Even if it was only a rumor, Thaddeus found it encouraging. He didn’t say anything to Khan. No sense in feeding the rumor mill.

  Khan pressed the buzzer for Maddy’s door, and then shoved Thaddeus through the doorway when it opened.

  “Here he is, ma’am,” Khan sang out.

  Thaddeus stumbled inside. Any hopes he had harbored that Maddy might want another romantic interlude were thoroughly shot down. The captain of the Queen Bee stood by the small table in the middle of the room while the head of her engineering staff sat beside her. Spread across the table top in front of Soulange Chao were the disassembled parts of a book reader, a portable terminal, and a small holographic camera set.

  Maddy looked up as Thaddeus came near, and smiled a tight, cynical smile. “Hello, Thad. Care to explain what these things are?”

  Thaddeus looked down at the remains of his belongings and gave vent to his feelings. “Shit! Do you have any idea how much that stuff costs?”

  “Yeah,” Soulange said. “About as much as I make in a year.”

  “Twice as much as I make in a year,” Thaddeus said. “God, you were thorough. Couldn’t you just have opened the case on the reader?”

  Soulange shook her head. “Nope. I wanted to see how it worked. I couldn’t figure out how an interstellar-range com could function without a much larger power supply.”

  “Well,” Thaddeus said, “now you know.”

  “Yup,” she said with satisfaction. “It was really neat the way they fitted the reactor chip in there and then shielded it with the back of the monitor screen.”

  “Yeah,” Thaddeus agreed, with no enthusiasm.

  “But the truly impressive thing,” Soulange said, warming to her theme, “is that the thing not only looked like a book reader, it actually worked as one.”

  “I’m glad I was able to impress you suitably,” Thaddeus said, with as much sarcasm as he could manage. “I don’t suppose you can put everything back?”

  Soulange looked down at the components scattered over the table and shrugged. “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “Sorry about the terminal,” she added. “I couldn’t believe it was really just a terminal until I got it all the way apart.”

  “So I see,” Thaddeus said.

  “Quit complaining,” Maddy interrupted. “You came aboard to spy on us, so you shouldn’t be surprised at this. If you’re not careful, you’ll get what spies deserve.”

  “And what’s that, Maddy?” Thaddeus said. “A few quick words of farewell and a long trip out a short airlock?”

  “Maybe,” she said, tight-lipped, “if you make me mad enough.”

  Thaddeus folded his arms across his chest. “What happens now?”

  She glared at him. “Nothing for a little while. You go back on duty and check out our position. We’ve been running on automatic since eleven hundred hours yesterday, and I don’t like to go that long without a check. Besides, we’ll need to end spatial fold soon, and I want to come out of it right where we’re supposed to be.”

  “All right,” Thaddeus said, relieved to hear he wouldn’t be spending months in a tiny cell in the brig.

  Maddy waved a hand to the door. “That’s all, Soulange. You can go.”

  The engineer stood up and started to leave with a straight face, but she flashed Thaddeus a wink as she headed for the door.

  Thaddeus waited until the door closed behind her before he spoke.

  “Well?” he said with arctic courtesy. “Was that all, skipper?”

  “No,” Maddy said. “No, it’s not all, damn you, Thaddeus Jenner! I hardly slept at all last night because of you.”

  She really was a piece of work. “You can’t imagine how distressed I am to hear that. I, of course, enjoyed a restful night in the peace and comfort of the brig.”

  She glared at him wrathfully. “You’ll sleep there again—tonight and every night. I need to make sure you don’t wander around and cause trouble.”

  He bowed his head to acknowledge her authority, but said nothing.

  “Unless of course,” she said, staring straight at him, “you’d prefer to sleep in here with me.”

  The offer surprised him, but not enough to make h
im forget his grievances. “What happened? Did I roll doubles and get a second turn?”

  She let out an angry exclamation and advanced on him as if she meant to strike him, but then she changed her mind. “I suppose that crack wasn’t entirely out of line, considering the circumstances.” She glared at him. “I have to be able to keep an eye on you, Thad. I can do that by keeping you close, or I can do it by keeping you in the brig. It’s your choice.”

  Part of him wanted to say yes right away, but he needed to make his position clear. “I told you how I feel about the list, Maddy. I may have lost my head for a few minutes yesterday, but what happened between us hasn’t changed my attitude.”

  She looked as if she wanted to argue, but instead she gave a slight, convulsive shrug of one shoulder. “I’ve suspended the list. I already told Niels to spread the word.”

  Amazed, Thaddeus stood studying her for a moment. How sincere was this change of attitude? Well, for Maddy, this action was pretty drastic. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “I suppose I can accept that as a compromise.”

  “Then you’ll sleep here?”

  He hesitated for several seconds before he answered, trying to decide if what she was proposing conflicted with his duty to ThreeCon. “Yes,” he said at last.

  “Good. You go back to work. Khan or Pringle or someone will keep an eye on you all the time until you come here at night.”

  “I see. You really don’t trust me?”

  “About as far as I could throw you. I’d put Napier on you—he’d be perfect for it—except I can’t rely on him not to feel more loyalty to you than to me.”

  “Alex didn’t know I was ThreeCon,” Thaddeus said.

  “No?”

  “No. He knew I wasn’t an idiot, but that was all.”

  “That was enough. If one of the others had found that out, they’d have told me right away.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe not. How can you know?”

  She waved a hand in irritation. “I’m tired of talking about it. Go back to work and make sure we don’t slide back to regular space straight into a black hole, or something.”

  Thaddeus smiled at this implied danger. “There are no black holes anywhere in this sector.”