The storeroom smelled of dust and grain and the faint ozone hum of clings. The spy was not wearing a helmet.
Lu Wai saluted. “Sublieutenant Relman, ma’am.”
The spy was half sitting, half lying on some sacks. Young. Short black curls. Round face that normally looked relaxed, but now reflected her physical discomfort.
“Sit her up straight,” Danner said to no one in particular. Kahn obeyed. Helen Relman, who worked under Captain White Moon. Who answered directly to Ato Teng. How far did this go?
“Lieutenant Relman, you are being held on suspicion of behavior likely to endanger fellow officers. You will be taken to an appropriate holding place and questioned. Do you have any questions of your own at this time?”
Tell me it’s all a mistake, Danner wanted to say. Explain everything.
Relman said nothing.
She was pumped up with adrenaline, with over‑oxygenated blood hissing through her veins; that silence was too much for Danner. “Goddammit, Relman!” She wanted to shake the woman until her teeth rattled, but settled instead for pacing up and down. “Why in hell did you do this? You think I’ve treated you badly?What?”
“You said I would be taken to an appropriate holding place before being questioned.”
“This is as appropriate as anywhere.” She hit the wall stud that darkened the windows, then folded her arms. “I’ve got all night.”
Relman appeared to think. “I would like my partner, Bella Cardos, informed of my whereabouts.”
“She’s involved in this?”
Relman looked startled. “No. But she’ll worry.”
Danner turned to Lu Wai. “Sergeant, find Cardos, bring her to an adjacent office. Tell her only that she is to be questioned in regard to an offense that may endanger the safety of fellow officers.”
“I told you she’s nothing to do with this.”
”I don’t believe you,” Danner said mildly. “You may choose, of course, to try and convince me otherwise with some pertinent information.”
No reply.
“We have all the time in the world,” Danner said, knowing it was not true, knowing that now that they had Relman, things would move very fast indeed. Relman’s cheeks were pale except for some broken blood vessels around her nose. Danner thought it made her look like she had a bad cold. The woman was just realizing what kind of position she was in.
“You have a choice, of course. Tell us everything, let us verify it; we’ll take that into consideration. Or you could keep quiet and hope that something happens, some miracle to change the situation in your favor.” Danner kept her voice steady, calm, reassuring. “That hope, in my opinion, is not only unreasonable but foolish. I don’t think you want to continue being foolish.” Surely the woman could not believe that the Kurstwould come down just for her.
“We’ve got nothing to tell you.”
“ ‘We’ ?”
Relman flushed, but said nothing.
Danner sighed. Stupid woman. “I don’t really know why you’re behaving like this. You’ve nothing to gain from it, and a lot to lose.” She looked around, found a folding stepladder made of slippery gray plastic, pulled it opposite Relman, sat down. “In all likelihood, you will never leave this world. None of us will. Think about that: we’re the only people you will ever see, ever again. And we’re not happy with you, we won’t forgive you. Not even Bella. And no one will forget. Is that what you want?”
Danner stopped. She was not getting through: Relman did not yet see the seriousness of her situation. She stood up. “I’ll be back, when you’ve had some time to think.”
Outside, the air was cold and wet and smelled of snow. Danner nodded to the women who were leaving Rec in ones and twos. Halfway back to her office, she called up Lu Wai. “Sergeant, I want you to take Relman over to sick bay and check her over. She might be suffering some shock. See that she gets something to eat. Don’t talk to her until she starts talking to you. When Cardos is found, explain to her what’s going on; if you can persuade her to help us, give them five minutes alone. Whether or not Cardos is cooperative, keep them both in sick bay. Separate rooms. Use the usual procedure for reporting sick personnel to their superior. Give out that both Relman and Cardos seem to have contracted some rare infectious illness, no visitors allowed. If Captain White Moon kicks up a fuss, refer her to me.”
Let Relman stew a little in her own juices.
Her outer office was dark. The lights came up automatically when she entered, but the room still felt dark around the edges, the way empty spaces always did. In her inner office, she stripped off her gauntlets, flexing her hands a couple of times. Her head ached.
She massaged the bridge of her nose and called Dogias.
“Letitia, I need that conversation as soon as you can get it to me. Don’t send it over the net. Bring me a disk by hand.”
“If you can’t protect the net, what makes you think you can protect your system? I’ll transfer it to audio disk and wipe my comm. Your office in twenty minutes.”
Dogias was infuriating, but right as usual. Twenty minutes. She went through the empty outer office to make herself some tea.
A four‑year‑old memory superimposed itself behind her eyelids: the smile of victory on Helen Relman’s face as she stood straight while Danner attached the sub’s shoulder pips. What had Relman been thinking that day? Danner sighed. She doubted she would ever get the same pleasure from a promotion ceremony again.
She would probably never hold another promotion ceremony.
Her eyes stung. She rubbed at them impatiently. She had better things to do than indulge in old memories.
Back in her office, tea steaming in front of her, she punched in Sara Hiam’s code. “This is Danner. We have a woman called Helen Relman. Sublieutenant. She’s not talking, but there’s at least one other person working with her. Name or names unknown. Dogias will have the tape to me in just a few minutes; that might help.” She took a sip of her tea. “Or it might not.”
She put down her tea, rubbed at her forehead. “Sara, what if this woman won’t talk?”
“Make her,” Hiam said bluntly. “There are several drugs available to your medics that are efficient and painless.”
“I don’t like the idea of drugs.”
“Who does? But do you have the right to not use them to get information that might be vital to the survival of hundreds of people, just because of your squeamishness?”
Danner sighed. This was the last thing she needed.“I thought you might be a little more sympathetic, both to me and to Relman.”
Sara laughed, a flat, ugly laugh. “Sympathetic? Danner, I’m feeling too damned scared to be sympathetic. Every time I’start to fall asleep I imagine the gunnery officer aboard the Kursthitting the trigger by mistake. When I do sleep I dream about never waking up. Drug the woman, find out what you can.”
“I may not have to.”
“Maybe not. But don’t spend too long trying it the other way.”
Over the next day, Danner tried everything she knew: threats, cajolery, sympathy. Relman stayed silent. Time was running out. She decided to give Cardos, who seemed to understand the danger of Relman’s situation better than Relman herself, one more try.
When Danner brought Cardos over from her secured room in the medical wing, Kahn stood up from her chair outside the glass‑paneled sick‑bay door and prepared to go in with Cardos.
“Stay here, Anna. Let her go in alone.” Danner gestured for Cardos to go on in,
“Ma’am?”
“We’ll just wait out here.” Danner refused when Kahn offered her the chair.
Time passed slowly. The sealed skin patch in Danner’s pocket felt larger than it was. She brushed it with her fingertip. Don’t make me use this, Relman.
When Cardos came back out, she was shaking her head. “Nothing. I could try again.”
“Would it do any good?”
“I…No.”
“Officer Kahn will escort you to your room.”
“Sh
all I call Sergeant Lu Wai here first, ma’am?” Kahn asked.
“That won’t be necessary. And when you return, take a position at the other end of the corridor.”
Kahn looked surprised, Cardos scared. “You won’t hurt her?”
“No.” She would not have to. She stepped into sick bay.
The room was small, low‑ceilinged; the walls were a soft spring green. It held two beds, a screen, and a framed print on the wall opposite the door. There were no windows. Relman was clinged to the nearest bed; she looked better, not the awful pinched white of the evening before.
Just you and me, Relman.
“One last time, Relman. Tell me what I need to know.”
Relman ignored her.
“This isn’t a game, Lieutenant, and my time and patience have just run out. I don’t want to drug you, but I will.”
This time Relman looked at her. “No, I don’t think so. Using drugs against another’s will is illegal and unethical. I know you, Danner, You won’t do it.”
Relman really believed that, Danner thought, and then was angry: with Company, with Hiam, with Relman herself for forcing her to do this.
“God dammit, Relman. Listen to me. Really listen. Forget what you know about fair play and employee rights. Right now, above our heads, people aboard the Kurstare trying to decide whether or not to kill us all or simply abandon us. I need what you know. Hundreds of lives may depend upon it, and that supersedes all my notions of right and wrong. Believe me, I will use drugs.”
Relman paled a little. “Then go ahead. I’m not telling you anything.”
Stupid, stupid woman.
Danner took the foil package from her pocket. When she tore it open, it released a faint antiseptic smell. Use a pre‑op patch, Hiam had said, a muscle relaxant. She’ll stay awake for twenty minutes or more, and she won’t care what she talks about. I’ve had people tell me the weirdest things while they’re under.
Danner rolled up Relman’s right trouser leg and slapped the patch harder than necessary behind her knee. She could have saved herself this, Danner thought fiercely, it was in her hands. I’m not to blame. I’m not. But as she waited, she wished she were a thousand miles away.
After two minutes, Relman began to hum. Danner recognized the tune as one that had been popular on Gallipoli about eight years ago.
“Did you know, Hannah,” Relman said conversationally, “that clings are erotically stimulating? Something to do with the electricity, I think. Makes all my nerves feel alive, and my body–”
“I don’t want to know about your body. I want you to answer my questions. Who is the other spy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you–” She would try another way. “Is there another spy?”
“Oh, yes.” Relman nodded. “Oh yes, yes, yes.” She could not seem to stop nodding.
“How do you know?”
“She talks to me. On my comm.”
“Is she someone you know?”
“I don’t think so. The voice is all funny–comes through a digital coder. But I always know it’s her because she uses a code number.” Relman smiled brightly, eager to be helpful.
“How often does she contact you, and why?”
“Now and again. To tell me who to listen in on, stuff like that. I have to do what she tells me, but not only what she tells me. I called the Kurston my own initiative. I thought, ‘Why should Danner be able…’”
Relman’s voice trailed off, and she frowned. There was a sudden stink of feces. She giggled. “Oops.” Then she smiled again, as though it was a tremendous joke that she was incontinent and incapable.
Danner gritted her teeth. It was not her fault; she had needed this information. She had had no choice. Relman had.
“Why did you do it, Relman?”
“Well, ma’am, you didn’t seem quite right.” Relman grunted; urine pooled on the bed, dripped slowly to the floor. “First of all, you sided with SEC and the natives against Company. Then it, well…” She trailed off, smiled at nothing in particular. Danner waited. “We’ve been here almost five years, and the last four all we’ve done is mark time: no serious exploration, no mining. And then there’s the mods. The mods the mods the mods.”
Danner waited. “The mods?”
“You know, officers and technicians are decorating them. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. Disturbing. Yes. Disturbing, disturbing, disturb–”
“Why?”
“And you’ve been reducing the guard complement. And Mirrors wear armor less and less, and off‑duty civvies are handmade. Think of that, a Mirror wearing handmade clothes…” Relman suddenly seemed to focus. “And when I heard you’d ordered the fence down, what was I supposed to think?”
“You could have come and asked me.”
Relman went on as though Danner had not spoken. “It just seemed to me that you’ve been undermining us, ma’am. Gradually making us seem less and less different to the natives.” Her words were slow now, and slurred. ”Maybe you want us to be natives. But we’re not. We’re not. Only this bit of the world’s ours. And you wanted to take down the boundaries, muddle it all up, let them in. We are who we are, but you’re letting it all get confused. We don’t know why we’re here any more.”
Silence.
“Relman?”
“So confused…” The words trailed off into a snore.
Danner stepped closer, looking down at her officer. Relman, who had seemed so young, so eager. Whom she had led to this. So confused…
Danner did not want anyone else to see Relman like this; she rolled up her sleeves.
When she left, the clings were at her belt, and Relman, clean and naked, was covered by a light sheet, sound asleep. Danner dropped the used pre‑op patch in a receptacle and used her command code to lock the door. When she reached the end of the corridor, Kahn stood to attention, face carefully bland.
“Relman’s locked in. Check on her visually in about twenty minutes, then join us in the convalescent room.”
We don’t know why we’re here any more. Was Relman right? she wondered as she turned down another cheerfully painted corridor to meet Lu Wai and Dogias.
The pastel‑toned room with its huge picture windows was empty. She watched the snow falling outside. We don’t know why we’re here any more. She had not been able to answer that at the time, but now, watching the snow, the alien sky just beyond the fragile glass of the window, she could. They were here to survive.
“Any way we can,” she murmured, as the door behind her opened.
“Any way we can what?” Dogias swung off her jacket, began to brush the melting snow from her hair.
“Survive.” Danner turned back to the window. She saw Dogias’s reflection sling her jacket over the back of a chair.
“Well, survival’s always a good place to start.” Dogias combed through her hair with her fingers. “Why do they keep these places so hot?” She wiped her wet hands down her hip shawl. “So, did our caged bird sing?”
“Eventually.”
Dogias gave her a hard look. “But?”
Danner sighed. “But I hated it, Letitia.” She would not tell Dogias about the drugs. That was between her and Relman. “What she said disturbed me. She thinks that what I’ve been doing, all the sensible precautions like reducing the guard duty–because who needs guards when the natives just want to stay away?–like letting things relax a little because we’re going to be here for… well, a long time at least… She thinks all my orders are designed to undermine us. To demoralize and confuse everyone. I’m beginning to think she might be right.”
“Well, I’m not confused.”
“No, but…”
“But what? Everything yo’ve done has made sense to me.”
“But is it the kind of thing another commander would have done?”
“Who cares? You’re the only commander w’ve got. You can have my opinion, if it matters to you. I think you’ve done much better than any other commande
r I can think of. After all, you’ve learned on the job; you’ve got the right skills; you haven’t tried to apply irrelevant rules to an extraordinary situation. You’ve put common sense and compassion before policy. The way I see it, that makes you a superb commander for the people here on the ground. It might not look too good to those who aren’t here. To Company hierarchy.” Dogias raised an eyebrow. “But we kind of knew that already.”
Danner’s smile was halfhearted. “I always thought that what I was doing was for the best. Relman’s a good officer. I wouldn’t have promoted her otherwise. But she doesn’t like what I’ve been doing. It scares her. How many others does it scare?”
Dogias tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The situation scares us all. Those who are less brave than others will look to something, someone, concrete to blame. Which means you: you’re the one giving orders that won’t let them hide behind the idea that this is like any other tour of duty. But some of us are brave, or at least brave enough not to blame you for everything.”
Dogias had a point, but there was more to it than that. “Everything I’ve done I’ve justified with logical‑sounding reasons. But I’m beginning to suspect my own motives.” She took a deep breath. “I think, deep down, I wanted this to happen. I wanted to stay here, on Jeep.”
“You think you’re the only one?”
Danner did not know what to say to that.
Lu Wai and Kahn came in together, “I’ve been thinking,” Danner said abruptly, before they could do more than nod in Letitia’s direction. “We have a sublieutenant out of action. She needs to be replaced. Lu Wai, you are now promoted to sublieutenant, effective immediately.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Lu Wai stole a glance at Dogias, who shrugged.
“Officer Kahn, you are to assume the duties, rights and responsibilities of sergeant. Also effective immediately.”
Kahn nodded. “Ma’am.”
“Both of you will report directly to me, until I say otherwise. Your immediate superiors will be informed.”
Danner said nothing about formalities. They did not ask.
Given Company’s recent actions a ceremony, with its pledges of loyalty, would mean nothing.
“Sit down, please. All of you.” They did. Danner felt momentarily lost. Company doesn’t matter anymore; my commission means nothing. She took a seat among them: Letitia and Lu Wai sitting close together, Kahn picking something out from under a nail. Good women. Her silence lengthened. “I trust you,” she said eventually. “I hope you trust me.” Another pause. “I need… I need your help to make some decisions.” Danner waited for the looks of pity or contempt–decision‑making was her job, her burden, no one else’s–but their attentiveness did not waver. She wondered why she was finding this so hard. Trust them, she thought. Just trust them. “Dr. Hiam, on Estrade, and her two crew need to be brought down from orbit. I thought that between us, we could find a way to do it safely–without anyone on the Kurstbeing any the wiser. It goes without saying that the longer we can keep things here looking normal, the longer we have to organize ourselves before Company does whatever it is they’re going to do. Every extra day helps.”
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