Orion Arm

by Julian May

  When we weren't working on Ollie, we'd grill Jim Mat-sukawa with considerably less tenderness.

  Matt and I had lunch, then returned to the wardroom where we transmitted the results of Ollie's first session to Eve. Then we prepared a list of topics for Gala's Dagasatt duty officer. Among the most crucial:

  1. Are the Haluk planning to wage war on the human race?

  2. Why are the Haluk producing humanoid demiclones?

  3. What does Galapharma know about demiclone production?

  4. Where are the other demiclone facilities located?

  5. Are you a Haluk demiclone?

  6. Who else among the high-ranking Galapharma agents and executive personnel are Haluk demiclones?

  7. How many humanoid demiclones exist and where are they?

  8. Do the Haluk possess starships capable of a pseudo-velocity in excess of seventy ross? How many? What armament do they carry?

  9. What was happening on the Haluk planet Artiuk a few days ago, when the Servant of Servants of Luk met with representatives of Galapharma's trading associates?

  10. Who was the fourth person Jim called in Toronto, when the Dagasatt facility was attacked by me?

  When we had the answers, we were going to forward them to Eve immediately. Even though she intended to delay her show-and-tell with Efrem Sontag, I wanted Jim's data safe in her files. With a possible traitor aboard the starship, plus God-knew-what waiting for us at Torngat, there was a real risk that we might not make it to Earth.

  Unlike the evidence from Schneider, which pertained to a civil suit and had to be personally validated by the interrogators—Matt and me—in order to be legally admissible, information about an alien plot against humanity was "intelligence." Once Sontag had it in hand, it would be evaluated with the utmost diligence even if all of us aboard Chispa died, and Alistair Drummond destroyed Rampart. At least I hoped that's what would happen... When we were ready to begin on Matsukawa, Matt called Ivor on her intercom and asked that he and Mimo bring the prisoner forward. After a few minutes' delay, Ivor replied. "I'm sorry, Matt, but Jim appears to be ill." She and I exchanged glances. I asked, "How so?" In his meticulous, pedantic fashion Ivor told us. "His hands are cold and clammy, his forehead is covered with cold perspiration, and he complains of nausea, weakness, and excessive production of saliva."

  "Bring him here anyhow," I ordered. Then I told Matt, "Go get one of those diagnosticon gadgets from sick bay. We'll find out if Jimbo is faking."

  "Maybe he's terrified," Matt suggested, heading for the door.

  "If that's all it is, we're okay. But if the guy's caught a genuine bug, we'll have to put off the interrogation. Even human sickees give anomalous responses to the machines."

  She nodded and went out, leaving me to consider some other technical aspects of the torturer's art.

  If Matsukawa really was an alien, it could pose problems in psychotronic interrogation. Darrel Ridenour, the presumed demiclone guard, had reacted atypically when I questioned him with the drug penverol, falling into what seemed to be a coma. Penverol was supposed to be less damaging to the mind than probing, but perhaps the Haluk were abnormally sensitive to any sort of psychoactive messing about. Their mutated genes might be largely human, but that didn't mean their mentalities were. In a mature individual, personality traits and general mental function are only minimally controlled by DNA—as any parent of identical twins, or cloner of racehorses, can attest—which is why the demiclone masquerade was feasible.

  I wondered if it might be more prudent to postpone Mat-sukawa's questioning until we reached professional facilities on Earth. On the other hand—

  A chime from the wardroom door.

  I opened it and Ivor and Mimo came in, supporting the Galapharma duty officer between them. Matsukawa shuffled along listlessly, seeming uninterested in his surroundings. He did not look frightened. His face was a livid greenish-gray and his black hair and T-shirt were soaked with sweat. Ivor and I sat him down in the barber chair and removed the hand and leg restraints he'd worn. I held off strapping him to the chair and attaching the various sensors.

  "Feeling under the weather, Jim?" I inquired in a friendly fashion.

  "Yes. Maybe I picked up something on Cravat."

  "Not very likely, what with all the precautions they have in place. You want to tell me what seems to be wrong? When did you first feel sick?"

  By way of response he gave a throttled gulp, bent forward and vomited between his spread legs.

  I muttered, "Shit," and summoned a cleanerbot with my wrist intercom.

  Ivor, our ad hoc medic, held Jim's head while he retched and yielded up what was left of his breakfast. In anticipation of the grilling, we hadn't allowed him any lunch. His digestive juices smelled human.

  After a while the heaves turned dry. I got him a glass of water from the wardroom dispenser and he sipped it weakly before slumping back in the chair. If he was malingering, he was a thespian genius.

  Matt came back into the wardroom, carrying a small instrument and looking grim. "The diagnosticon's broken, Helly.Takealook."

  I checked the thing. It wouldn't even power up. "Maybe somebody did a number on it, maybe not."

  "I can try to fix it," Mimo offered. "Joe is also handy at repairs."

  Ivor said, "Sick bay has a Doc-in-the-Box computer that controls the treatment couch. If we feed his symptoms into it—"

  "Aagh!" Matsukawa was suddenly writhing in Ivor's grasp. "Toilet—quick—for chrissake!"

  Ivor said, "Whoa! Hang in there, man!"

  He scooped the officer up in his mighty arms like a baby and dashed down the corridor toward the nearest John, narrowly avoiding a collision with a small janitorial machine that came trundling along to deal with the mess.

  Mimo said, "What shall I do? Clean the chair?" The bot had started mopping the floor.

  "I'll take care of that. You help Ivor get Jim into sick bay. Both of you stay with the prisoner at all times until he's back under restraint." Mimo went away and I said to Matt, "I'll search Jim's cell in the brig and you go replay the surveillance holovid and see what he's been doing over the past twelve hours or so. This sudden illness is mighty damned convenient."

  We separated, securing the wardroom after us. I went aft to the new lockup facility that had been fitted during our brief stay on Cravat. It was very simple. A block of four small cabins had been segregated from the other passenger accommodations by means of two gates across the main corridor. Any crew member could unfasten the gates. Each cell was a little over three meters square and could be unlocked only by a live iris-scan of Matt, Mimo, or me. All the cell furnishings had been removed except for a bolted-down cot, chair, and table. An entertainment unit was mounted on each cell wall. There were no cabinets or other places where items might be concealed. The prisoners' clothing and effects were stacked on a shelf under the table. An adjoining doorless bathroom held a toilet, an open shower, and a washbasin with a shelf for personal care items. A barred observation window had been cut into the outer cell door. The interior was under constant surveillance from a fish-eye camera and a respiration-rate detector inset in the ceiling opposite the bathroom.

  Since we had only two prisoners, the extra cabins had their sliding doors left wide open. The third cell was set up as a sort of lounge for the convenience of crew members pulling guard duty. The fourth served as a temporary holding area while the occupied cells were cleaned or inspected. When Garth Wing Lee joined us at Torngat, we'd just toss him into the empty pen.

  I checked out Jim Matsukawa's cell meticulously and found no contraband whatsoever. His e-books were undamaged and so was the game control unit, so he hadn't poisoned himself by eating toxic bits of electronic circuitry. The toiletry containers he'd been furnished with were still nearly full. He hadn't consumed quantities of shave-gel, skin cleanser, shampoo, mouthwash, or pit sauce. I made a mental note to replace the items, just in case the Fungus Among Us had concealed poison in any of them.

  As a preca
ution, Matt had set up the "day shift" guard duty roster to include two people. Joe and Ildiko were never paired. Only Matt, Mimo, and I would pull solitary watches, during the prisoners' sack time. We could sleep while the respiration-rate sensor monitored the inmates, set to wake us if somebody began breathing atypically—or not at all. It wasn't a perfect security setup, but it was the best we could manage under the circumstances.

  Matt came along with a holoviewer just as I was winding up my search. I said, "Find anything? I'm coming up with a big fat zero."

  "The surveillance record shows nothing unusual on a quickie preliminary scan," she said. "Matsukawa seems to have had trouble with his bowels this morning. It was probably the beginning phase of his illness. During the twelve-hour period he ingested the meals given him, water from his own sink. . . and occasional plastic cups of coffee or pop pushed through the cell bars by people on guard duty."

  "What?"

  "Guards and the two prisoners, all drinking from the same coffee pot. And the soft drink thermoses were sealed before the contents were poured into cups. I suppose the crew thought there was no harm in sharing."

  "Rats! Who passed drinks to Jim?"

  "Wait one sec while I check again." She looked into the viewer eyepiece and played with fast-forward and reverse for a few minutes. "Mmm. Everyone seems to have done it except me and thee. Even Mimo." She shook her head as she turned off the viewer. "They were all briefed on the possible presence of a Galapharma ringer among us and the need for extreme caution."

  I gave an exasperated sigh. "What's done is done, but it better not happen again. Chew 'em out later. Let's get on to sick bay now and see what the Doc-in-the-Box has to say."

  Ivor and Mimo had placed Matsukawa on the treatment couch. He was lying with his eyes shut, breathing regularly. His skin had returned to a near-healthy sallow hue.

  "He said he felt much better," Ivor said, "then dropped off to sleep."

  I studied the vital-signs monitor above the couch. His body temp was nearly normal and his heartbeat just a tad fast. I didn't know how to interpret the blood pressure and other data, so I entered all the symptoms Ivor had described earlier, plus vomiting and diarrhea, and ordered the computer to provide a diagnosis.

  The machine said, Blood sample, please.

  "Anybody know how to do that?" I inquired.

  Mimo shrugged. Ivor consulted an e-book of medical procedures he was evidently familiar with, gently lifted Matsukawa's hand out of a little trough at the edge of the gadget-laden couch, and frowned.

  "There should be a sampling unit plugged in here. A device about the size of a deck of cards. But it's gone."

  "Beautiful," I grumbled. "Don't bother searching. I have a feeling it's ascended to the great recyling bin in the sky."

  "Can't you simply prick his finger?" Mimo wanted to know.

  "Our sick bay has no equipment to analyze blood that's outside a patient's body," Ivor said.

  I addressed the computer. "No blood sample available. Deliver the diagnosis."

  Probability two percent that the patient suffers from a psychosomatic disorder. Probability eleven percent that the patient suffers from a disability induced by a deleterious microorganism. Probability fifty-nine percent that the patient suffers from poisoning. A list of 726 possible toxic compounds and bioagents that may be implicated appears on the display.

  Everyone except snoozing Matsukawa let out groans of frustration.

  "Treatment?" I asked.

  No specific treatment can be recommended aside from bed rest and ample intake of fluids. The patient's condition at this time is not serious.

  "Just bad enough to preclude interrogation," Matt said to me in a low voice. "Somebody slipped him a mickey. Or he took it himself."

  Mimo said, "We'll have to monitor his food and drink from now on."

  I nodded. "Well, if he's not seriously ill there's no reason why he can't go back to his cell. Matt, let's you and me collect Ollie Schneider and bring him to the wardroom. We'll have another go at him and save old Jimbo for tomorrow, when he feels better."

  But early next afternoon, just before we were about to attempt interrogation again, Matsukawa's symptoms returned with a vengeance. He collapsed moaning onto his cell floor, dripping with sweat. Then he went into convulsions.

  Joe and Matt, pulling guard duty at the time, rushed him to sick bay. Ivor and I came running. The patient had a feeble pulse, his breathing was fitful, and his pupils had shrunk to pinpoints. We plugged him into the Doc-in-the-Box and waited for its verdict with dismal foreboding.

  The medical computer ordered us to give Jim several medications. Then it said: You are advised to transport the patient to the nearest hospital without delay. His condition is critical.

  Chapter 13

  It is Alistair Drummond's perverse idea to go horseback riding while he receives the latest progress report, undeterred by the fact that it is August in Arizona, and on most days the air temperature in the unsheltered regions around the Phoenix Conurbation approaches 40 degrees Celsius. However, the Galapharma CEO has taken it into his head to view the Sky Ranch from afar and refuses to be dissuaded. Besides, he says, it should be much cooler in the high country.

  So he is forced to make the arrangements, utilizing a guide service having longtime ties to Rampart, with personnel who are experienced and discreet. The booking is done anonymously; the service knows only that he is a Rampart executive of high status with an eccentric guest to amuse.

  Copper Mountain, 2,071 meters elevation and some eleven kilometers south of the spread, provides the only vantage point unlikely to be under close surveillance by ranch security forces. The ride is a popular one for tourists in spring and fall—although not in the furnace heat of high summer. Numbers of people are intrigued by the famous Frost domain, which combines the elements of a working modern cattle operation with those of a deliberately archaic family retreat. Traveling the slightly hazardous Copper Mountain Trail on horseback not only provides the curious with a long-range view of the Sky Ranch, but also affords an outing in a beautiful high-desert landscape and the opportunity to poke around a romantic old abandoned gold mine.

  Is this oddly chosen day-trip just another control ploy on Drummond's part? He is certain that the Gala CEO doesn't

  give a damn about southwestern scenery, and wonders apprehensively whether information about the prospectus offer to Macrodur might have reached Drummond in spite of the heroic efforts at secrecy organized by Eve and the others.

  God help me if Alistair knows about that, he thinks. The news I'll have to give him about Katje's quarterstake is devastating enough. Why, the crazy bastard might just kill me on the spot!

  There are dark rumors of such things having happened many years ago, when Drummond was a young site manager working on Galapharma worlds far from Commonwealth oversight. Still, the Chairman and CEO of an Amalgamated Concern would hardly resort to personal violence nowadays, would he? Most especially not on a difficult mountain trail, with a local guide as a witness.

  No, he thinks. My neck is safe. For now, at any rate. So whoopee-ti-yi-oh! I'm off to play cowboy with one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy...

  Alistair Drummond has said he will provide his own transport to the rendezvous. He rents a Toyota four-wheeler for himself at Scottsdale Municipal Airport—he is too well known at Sky Harbor—using a blind-draft Rampart EFT card, and drives 120 twisty kilometers to the trailhead. It is in the middle of nowhere, on a dirt track east of the quaintly named hamlet of Punkin Center. Understandably, he has never taken this particular ride, but the country surrounding the Sky Ranch is familiar enough and he arrives without incident at 083 5 hours.

  At the trailhead, an arid flat surrounded by forested mountains of moderate height, he finds an empty Mercedes sport utility vehicle—an obvious rental—parked beside a big lemon-yellow Dodge Ram pickup with a matching horse trailer. A sign on the trailer says ampersand guest ranch— payson, az. Three horses, saddled and ready, are hi
tched to the pickup's bumper. Two men sit inside the truck.

  The morning weather is mercifully overcast and cool. He gets out of his four-wheeler and settles a broad-brimmed straw hat onto his head. He wears a featherweight Allison jacket with environmental controls, faded old Levi's jeans, and scuffed low-heel boots.

  The pickup truck doors open. A pleasant-faced young cowboy, lean as a desert grasshopper, emerges and gives a cordial wave to the new arrival before coming over to greet him. Alistair Drummond also climbs out. He remains near the horses, sipping from a plastic coffee cup.

  "Mornin' Citizen Jones," says the young man. "I'm Randy Herrero, your guide." His eyes flicker approvingly over the client's garb. "Guess you've ridden before."

  "A little. You can call me Scotty. I hope you haven't had to wait long."

  "No problem. Me'n Citizen Smith have been going over the route. It's pretty steep in places, but we've got good strong mounts. I reckon we should reach a suitable lookout point in two, three hours. You do your sightseeing, we have lunch, then ride back by the long and scenic route if you like. I don't think we'll have to worry much about heat today."

  The two men walk back to the truck and the horses. Randy Herrero does a final check of the cinches and the gear. Alistair Drummond gives a curt nod of greeting to "Scotty Jones" but says nothing. His glacial eyes are hidden behind wire-rimmed sun goggles.

  In honor of the occasion, he has outfitted himself with brand-new Western wear: black jeans, a black shirt with white piping, a white neckerchief, and a black straw hat. With his tawny hair, chiseled features, and regal bearing, he resembles a parody of an ancient Western movie hero. Drummond has made the common tenderfoot mistake of buying premium-priced high-heeled boots with very pointed toes, virtually impossible to walk in with any comfort until they are well broken in.

  Good!

  Each saddle has a global navigator, a phone, a powerpoint to plug in envirogear and other effete accessories, two enormous canteens, and a cantle-pack for emergency equipment, food, and personal items. The guide also carries a cased blaster carbine and wears an Ivanov stunner of unusual design on a traditional gunfighter's belt. He has informed the clients that the pistol will coldcock any sort of hostile critter from a blacktail rattler to a cougar and leave them none the worse for wear.