Lord Banshee- Fairy Dust

by Russell O Redman

  “Most assuredly, I did,” I replied, “in detail and naming names. Several of the individuals and corporations I named were the subject of legal actions, although most of the cases died when the Incursion began.”

  “Something is rotten in Denmark,” she commented. “I have read all of your reports that ExA, MI, CI and LE have on record, yet I have never read any such detailed reports from that era.”

  We looked at each other. Many of the records from my period as the Ghost were still considered so militarily and politically dangerous that even senior people in MI could not access them. My earlier work was not. Even Leilani had read those reports. “That I cannot explain, Senior Minister. I could access all those records as recently as two years ago. When did you first start looking?” I looked to Leilani, “Agent Pinter, can you still access those reports, say the report from 2340-07-28 on the Argyric Mumbai Lakshmi Family Mine Bombing?”

  Leilani looked vacant for a moment. “The connection is slow, possibly because we are on the Mao and not in my former office, but I can still see the file. Should I fetch it and pass it to the Senior Minister?”

  Leilani had never worked with senior government officials in a time of war, and was not familiar with the paranoia that characterized their staff. Although she did not know it, I had. If I were in charge of Senior Minister Singh's security, I would arrest anyone who attempted to pass a potentially dangerous file directly to the minister. “I doubt we are authorized to pass anything directly to the Senior Minister, but if you could fetch it we can examine it later today together. Would that be acceptable, Senior Minister Singh?”

  “Yes, thank you Agents Douglas and Pinter. I am intrigued and will have to ask my own staff why I did not receive this file when I first asked for it.” She checked the time. “That will probably be much later today. I see from the time that I must attend the Minister's meeting that General Molongo has been arranging in just a few minutes. I expect there will be fireworks. Agent Douglas, I will pass the floor to you now.”

  She moved gracefully over to the door, clearly someone who had spent a part of her youth in space. Her injuries were relatively light and did not impede her motion significantly, but the marine who had brought her met her just outside the door, scooped her up and carried her off to her next meeting.

  Most of us had limited mobility due to our injuries, which justified the use of marines to carry us around, but I suspected that was just an excuse to prevent us from wandering through the ship on our own. If the Mao's captain had taken my warning seriously, the officers were probably still concerned about contraband drugs and weapons, contaminated supplies, and enemy spies amongst the crew. Even beyond the usual concerns of civilians on a military ship, the last thing they needed was a gaggle of civilians wandering lost in the corridors.

  2357-03-02 19:30

  Meet and Greet

  I moved slowly and carefully onto the podium. “Welcome to the Fairy Dust Investigation Team. I am Senior Agent Brian Douglas, and am the team lead for this investigation. I apologize for the somewhat Spartan quarters and for the abrupt change of venue. We are in a briefing room not normally used as a living space, but I notice that there are clips for fifteen frames around the walls. The frames unfold into flat sleeping frames like those that many of us were attached to when we arrived, or can fold into chairs like we are sitting in right now. I have no doubt that they are stored in a closet hidden behind the narrow door in the corner opposite from the entrance.

  “It seems quite likely that we will be here for a few days, possible even a couple of weeks. While here, I recommend that we all work on the same shift as the ministers, early shift for the crew of the Mao. That would give us breakfast in an hour and a half, although I expect most of us feel more like lunch or dinner. If they are not too filled with outrage to eat, the ministers should be having a light meal right now, which will keep the kitchens busy, so we may be best off waiting for breakfast. There is nothing official in our schedule for the rest of today, which means I will set a schedule for the next few hours to answer our need to meet each other as a team, to exercise, to eat, and to begin to consider our still very nebulous mission.

  “I propose that we set a time for exercise, as soon as is practical for a group this large. It is mandatory in space for everyone who wishes to return to the Earth to do two hours of heavy exercise each day if they are physically capable. Is there anyone in here who believes they should not take part in the exercise today?”

  Almost everyone looked around at their doctors, who appraised their condition and huddled briefly. Doctor Marin apparently drew the short straw. “Everyone should participate. Some should restrict their activity to half an hour, and all of you need to be under medical supervision while exercising. Agents Douglas and Pinter were due to start physiotherapy this afternoon. I have no idea if the Mao even has a physiotherapist on board. If you will excuse me, I will see if the exercise facilities are available to us.”

  She headed over to the door, stuck her head out, and quickly came back in with a pleased if slightly incredulous smile. “We have access to the officer's exercise room just across the hall. They were anticipating this request, so it can be made available in half an hour. I have asked one of the marines to inquire about physiotherapy for those who were injured. If need be, both Doctor Valentino from Law Enforcement and I can supervise your efforts. I expect that my other colleagues may need to attend to their ministerial patients soon.”

  “Excellent,” I replied. “I propose we take half an hour for a meet and greet, then get some exercise before breakfast. I further propose that we reconvene this afternoon to work out how we intend to organize ourselves.”

  I left the podium and immediately cornered Chou. “It might be good for your career if you can locate the early reports I filed and download copies locally. Can you see the one I mentioned?”

  “Yes,” he replied, “but the system is slow. There seem to be fifty files, no, forty-nine. I have started the transfer. Now there are forty-eight... seven... six... Someone is deleting the files as I am watching. I have twelve of them and there is now only thirty-three remaining.” After a few moments he said, “I have twenty-four, but now I cannot find any of them. I am very disturbed that official files are being deleted, and puzzled that it took so long to happen. Judging from the delays, it was as though someone was deleting them individually from somewhere on the Moon.”

  Leilani looked over. “I also tried to download them all, but only got thirty. Now they have completely disappeared. Which ones did you get?”

  Chou looked vacant, then surprised. Finally, he said, “Not much overlap. Between the two of us we saved forty-one of them.”

  Leilani looked thoughtful. “I expect at any moment to receive an explicit order to delete our copies. I believe that to destroy such records just as they become important to our investigation would be an act of treason, regardless of who gave the order. We need to put these onto an external storage medium that can easily be concealed. I have lots of tabs available in my old office, but nothing here.”

  Another agent that I had not met came over. “Hello, since we are meeting and greeting, I am Chandrapati from the Agency in Law Enforcement, specializing in corporate fraud. Did I hear that you have need of external storage? Even here, I never travel without them.” He pealed back a flap of skin on his arm and tapped one of a series of small tabs. “If you can send me the files through these very nifty comm units, I think I can record them on this tab. I have been playing with the comm unit all afternoon, but did not expect to find a real application so soon. Hey, did either of you ever play Fleet Maneuvers? The interface to the comm unit seems very familiar.”

  Leilani ogled the tabs embedded under his skin. “I gotta get me some of those. How well do they pass through the scanners?”

  I left them discussing the virtues and drawbacks of bio-fitted memory tabs. Since I had declared this to be a meet and greet, my immediate job was to meet my new team, so I started working the roo
m, memorizing faces and building a list:

  Brian Douglas: Military Intelligence / Illicit Drugs and Weapons of Military Significance

  Leilani Pinter: Commercial Intelligence / Illicit Drugs and Weapons of Military Significance

  Chou Sergei: Extraterrestrial Affairs / Political Analyst specializing in Martian Factions

  Chandrapati: Law Enforcement Agency / Corporate Fraud

  Evgenia Ashura: Law Enforcement / Corporate and Political Corruption

  Raul San Diego: Military Procurement / Counterespionage, Advanced Systems Development

  Katerina Tipu: Ministry of Negotiators / Conflict Resolution

  The medical staff were:

  Virginia Marin: Military Intelligence / Trauma Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery

  Brett Valentino: Law Enforcement / Weapons Injuries and Transmissible Diseases

  Nguyen Tran: Extraterrestrial Affairs / Trauma Surgery and Radiation Induced Diseases

  Luciana Toyami: Commercial Intelligence / Trauma Surgery, Psychiatry and Nutrition

  We agents agreed amongst ourselves that personal names were appropriate for most occasions, but surnames were necessary for more formal occasions, such as when Council members were present. The medical staff requested that surnames were most appropriate, Doctor Toyami commenting that they would have to hurt us in the performance of their duties and the extra formality reminded everyone that this was not personal.

  These agreements were important, because excess familiarity and unwanted formality were both offensive when dealing with people from such different backgrounds. I truly missed the easy familiarity of my days as a simple crew member on a freighter, but such is the price of promotion.

  Sergei and I were the only ones with personal experience on Mars, Sergei as part of the Governor's administration. Leilani, Raul and I had all started our careers as spacers. Chandrapati and Sergei had visited the earth stations a few times, but still regarded spacer culture as perverted. Katerina had never been in space and looked physically upset despite her meds, but at least regarded spacers as less deviant than many of the peoples she had encountered in a career spent negotiating cease-fires and peace treaties amongst the hostile regional governments. Evgenia had considerable legal training and seemed stiffly formal as though afraid of personal contact.

  In my previous investigations and as an undercover agent on Mars, I had assembled my own teams. I anticipated that this group would cause me considerable stress, but would at least be interesting.

  Only Leilani and Chandrapati had played Fleet Maneuvers before (I did not count the few games she and I had played), nor were any of us familiar with the new comm unit, so we organized a tournament in the afternoon to help us all get some practice with the interface.

  Just before we left for exercise, the anticipated command arrived ordering Leilani and Sergei to delete the files they had downloaded. We noted that the order came from the office of Very Senior Minister Morris. They both complied without hesitation. No such order arrived for Chandrapati, who smiled serenely and said nothing.

  Exercise was slow and painful, as might be expected with a roomful of people recovering from a variety of injuries and surgeries. Leilani and I did better than I expected, which was a measure of my very low expectations. As anticipated, Doctors Valentino, Tran and Toyami were soon called away to assist the Ministers, leaving the exasperated Doctor Marin to supervise six moaning agents plus Chou, who clearly enjoyed being able to show off his superb physical condition and tried unsuccessfully to flirt with Marin.

  2357-03-02 21:00

  Beer for Breakfast

  At the appointed hour, we returned across the hall for breakfast. Our marines brought menus from the Officer's Mess. Most of the items were unavailable because the Mao had only been part way through its resupply when we had to button up and leave. Doctor Marin recognized a developing crisis and intervened. “I have a few recommendations for those unfamiliar with the customary diet of spacers. We have caught the kitchens on the Mao unprepared and will be eating military rations until the resupply can be completed. These are extremely nutritious and do not violate the dietary laws of any of the major religions, but they are bland, intended as comfort food for warriors in the stress of battle. There are condiments that can spice up the flavour, but they are different from what you will find on the Earth. The meal will be served in two courses. The first will contain all the medications you need that can be taken orally. If you are still hungry, you can fill up on the second course.

  “Unfortunately, our beverage choices are very limited because tea, coffee and soft drink concentrates were amongst the supplies we left behind. I must warn you that caffeine is addictive, and is therefore illicit in space. None of those beverages will supply you with the expected pick-me-up unless you explicitly ask for stims. I strongly recommend you have beer or wine with your meals. Don't worry, neither contains alcohol, which is also an illicit drug in space. They do taste sort of like real beer and real wine, but are an excellent way to acquire the water-soluble meds. The meds do not have strong flavours, but few people like them in straight water.

  “Since you are all under medical supervision, I will have to check your selections anyways. I will come around to offer any assistance you need.”

  She sighed and murmured, “Two years pre-med, four in med school, three as an intern, five years in space, and I am back to being a waitress.”

  I wanted to say, “Is that not the spacer way?” but I refrained. On a freighter, everyone trained constantly to do everyone else's job because a meteor strike could kill any of us at any time. Cooperation and mutual service were basic and obvious virtues. Life on the stations was different and still permitted pride in social distinctions. I suspected the entire medical staff would agree with Doctor Marin.

  A while later, our marines arrived back with our lunch. I have rarely been served with such grace and courtesy, even in some of the best restaurants on the Earth. From all I have heard, the life of a marine consists of training, eating, training, study, training, and sleep after which they start the cycle again. They may well have considered service to us as a welcome break. I knew these guys would kill me without blinking if their officers ordered them to do it, but for a while I felt like somebody important.

  I sat next to Sergei, who looked at me and commented, “Good thing Singh gave us the briefing and not Morris. You saw his temper. Following that little incident, even the suggestion that his summary had missed an important point would have been grounds for immediate firing. Telling him you could have him arrested was a mistake, even though it was true and justified. Still, I greatly admire the man and he is very good in his position. The quick temper is accompanied by a quick understanding and a firm will. He makes clean decisions and rarely needs to change his mind. He is also proud as a lion, from an aristocratic family with Mughal roots in India, in spite of his name. Rich enough already in land and honours, he seems to have no interest in wealth, and is as nearly incorruptible as any man I have ever seen. He gets on well with the Lunar Government and has held friendly and productive discussions with delegations from the Belt. He sure hates Martians, though. If we are going to arrange a reconciliation between you, that might be the angle to play.

  “Singh actually was a spacer once in her youth. I think she feels at home up here, as though this is still the kind of place she can speak freely with her companions and never worry about the consequences. She is the driver behind this team and the new department, but I do not think Morris trusts her. I expect that is why he is here, to ensure that Singh does not compromise the larger issues at stake.”

  That struck me as insightful in a way I had not considered. My normal suspicion had faded in the face of her open and collegial approach. I had used the same approach when interrogating uncooperative spacers. I knew how they thought, and could worm my way inside their defences before turning on them. In the good cop/bad cop game, I could be a wicked bad cop. If that was what she was doing, she had played me skillfully.
In politics, crime and war, the first law of survival is always the same: Never Trust Anyone.

  If she was right that the Martian Imperium based its philosophy on imperial China, it was worth wondering if they intended to revive the ancient policy of exterminating the entire family of an enemy to the third degree of relations. Just by raising my work for the Governor on Mars in front of the whole room, she had made me and my few surviving relatives targets for Martian spies. And that was without worrying about the Ghost. I would have to ask her to be more cautious.

  Sergei took a swig of his beer and grimaced. “No alcohol, huh? I think it would take twenty percent to make it worth drinking. Is it all this bad?”

  “Guaranteed no alcohol in space, doubly so on a warship, triply so when the warship is on alert. Mine is probably worse than yours because I have more meds. Marin was right to warn against water, at least in the first course. Also, on a ship, we are required to have the mood stabilizers. Beware that they will make you more agreeable, less argumentative. I deliberately postponed our organizational meeting until after we had eaten so we could benefit from that, but it can also be a liability. If you believe something is wrong, or that an idea will be vetoed by your superiors, you will need to make an effort to say so.”

  Sergei almost spat out his last sip. “You mean we are taking mind altering drugs and you did not warn us?! Damn you!”

  “Relax, they are mandatory on board a ship. Did no one ever tell you that?” I was puzzled because Sergei seemed so comfortable in space. “If you did not know that, I bet no one ever told our other Earth-based members, either. That had better be one of our first items of business this afternoon. In any case, they are mandatory. If you refuse to eat or drink them, you will either be forced to accept an injection or confined to quarters for the duration of our stay on the Mao.”