Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Then you use the cover to sabotage their ships? That's insanely risky," she said.

  "Hell no. Business. Think business. We're gonna shear the bastards like a fucking sheep. If we can swing it with the Indowy dock crews, we'll draw out the agony by making sure Gistar's loading and unloading gets expedited, and stalling Epetar after loading starts so they can't cut their losses and run. Ideally, we figure when they know they've been skunked out of Dulain, they'll skip Diess and go straight for Prall. But maybe not. If we can foist another pickup cargo on them at Prall or Diess, then we get to skin them twice. Or more."

  "So what if they don't take the bait and you get stuck with all these cargoes on your hands that you can't sell?"

  "No problem. We either ship them out piecemeal as filler around the edges of other shipments, or we sell them locally. Our people are supposed to scrape together things that are salable locally if it comes to that. Admittedly, it could take them a long time to sell off the inventory."

  "Yeah, well. Michelle says it's all about to fall apart." She brushed a hand at her hair impatiently. He remembered it as a Sinda trait that had stuck.

  "I hope not. I stuck my neck out setting it up. I'd sure like to know how she plans on 'helping' without being obvious about it. The stakes are pretty high."

  "You have no idea," Cally said. Her lips tightened as he looked at her curiously. "No, I'm not bringing you in on all that. Too bad. That's what you get for using what I said, anyway. Michelle and Clan O'Neal, respectively, have big personal stakes in seeing you succeed." She seemed impervious to the look he gave her. "No. I needed to know your plans. You don't have a need to know our reasons. You ought to just be thanking your lucky stars that when you got us caught it was Michelle, and that she needed something from you. Besides, I'm still pissed off."

  He moved closer to her and started kissing a particularly sensitive spot behind her ear.

  "Well, somewhat pissed off, anyway," she said, burying her fingers in his hair.

  "So let me kiss it away," he breathed against her neck, lifting a hand to her collar to begin undoing the snaps on the childish pajamas. "Let me wipe it away and wipe away the memories of all the jerks the job keeps hitting you with. Nobody here but us two," he was kissing downward, between her breasts, when she stiffened.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She shifted out from under him and sat up, staring at him.

  "Just that they don't matter. They don't matter a damn." He stroked her hair. "I don't blame you. I don't like your job, but I knew about it when I married you and I don't blame you at all, love."

  "That's nice. What 'they' are we talking about, exactly?" she asked icily.

  "Hey, calm down, Cally. Nobody in particular, just, well, anybody you have to . . . encounter . . . in your work. It's a tough job, and you've got nothing to be ashamed of," he reassured. "That's why I never, ever ask. And I won't."

  "You mean—" she broke off, pitching him aside and storming across the room, turning to face him. "I don't fucking believe this!" She ran a hand through her hair, breathing heavily, voice rising to just short of a screech. "I just don't—the whole time we've been married, you think I've been fucking other guys?! You do, don't you? Oh, my God." She sank down into the plastic desk-chair and stared off at the wall, unseeing. "I don't believe this."

  "What?" Stewart's face was a sickly ashen-gray. Aware that he had screwed up, badly, he hesitated. His normally quick mind felt like it had been stuffed full of fog. "Of course I—" he began, tapering off to silence. He held a hand out to her, but let it drop when she didn't respond. "You didn't—I didn't—oh, hell."

  When he would have walked over to her, she flinched away.

  "Oh, my God, Cally, I'm so sorry. I thought—I guess I didn't think." He tried to think of something else, anything else he could say that might make things better instead of worse. In the end, he just sat. After an eternity of her staring like that, refusing to talk to him, he stood and stuck his feet into his shoes. At the door he turned back. "I'd like to have breakfast with you," he said.

  "Fine." She didn't even look up as he stepped out and closed the door.

  In the morning, over breakfast, they made up. Then they proved the old adage that make up sex is some of the best sex of all. It was good, but there was something hollow in the pit of James Stewart's stomach as he saw her to her shuttle and watched it take off, saying goodbye to her for the umpteenth time in their marriage. Damn the risks that had kept them from being together.

  Monday, 11/22/54

  Gray cubicle walls didn't look any better when they were made from galplas instead of fabric, steel, and plastic. In fact, it was worse. The entire cube and desk had been extruded in place, defeating most of the purpose of modularity in the original design. The whole thing was the gray of cinder-blocks, rendered even more dismal by the absolute lack of texture—a feature of working directly for a subsidiary of a Galactic Group.

  Most of the workers in Human Welfare's personnel department did what they could within the company's policy of one plant, one still holo—usually of a spouse or partner, one dynamic wall image of dimensions less than point seven five square meters. There was scarcely room for more. It hadn't taken long after the advent of really efficient buckleys before some wonk had noted that no paper and no phone meant none of the files and office supplies that typically went to serve paperwork and phones. The modern worker needed little more than a chair, enough space for his buckley to project his current work, a place to rest his coffee cup, and a small drawer to hold data cubes. The time and motion study that followed ensured that there would be little more than that inside an individual's cubicle. The name had stuck, even though the shape was now more like a rectangular box stood upright than an actual cube. The divider walls were two meters high, to prevent each person's coworkers from presenting a visual distraction that could reduce productivity.

  The tiny desk areas had a single, unintentional benefit. A worker had only to slide back his chair to talk to the guy next to him. Samuel Hutchins now did so.

  "Hey, Juice. Do you have a couple of people who maybe came in with some . . . new friends and family . . . and are open to returning the favor?"

  "What, got some people you're trying to get on? Didn't know you were low on cash."

  "If I can." He shrugged, "You know how it is."

  "Sure," she said, scribbling down a couple of names. "You're always good about returning your favors."

  "I try to be," he said. Hutchins had been most particular about returning his favors all his life, which was mostly over now. At fourteen, he had been right at the upper age limit of children considered for shipment to Indowy worlds. If his father hadn't been the leader of the loyal opposition in Parliament, he wouldn't have been sent at all. On Adenast, he had frequently wondered whether that wouldn't have been for the best. He was just too old to adapt. He had no talent for languages, and so never became fluent in any Indowy dialects. He had taken sedatives for claustrophobia every day of his time living among the Indowy. Ordinarily, that would simply have been his lot in life. Nobody paid to ship humans from some other world back to Earth, and he had no talents for jobs that would have made enough fedcreds to pay for passage—and would have been constrained by contracted debts to remain on Adenast if he had. Michelle O'Neal, bless her soul, had somehow managed to obtain him a cabin job on a freighter leaving Adenast for Earth thirty years ago. The job was another he had no talent for, resulting, as she had no doubt intended, in his employment being terminated and him being booted out the door on Titan base. Earning further passage to Earth, part paid in cash, and part paid in the most disagreeable of ship chores, he had found difficult, but possible.

  His debts, of course, had dictated that he seek his employment through Darhel firms. Nothing else paid enough to service the interest. Hence his present situation, at long last, in a position to return the single biggest favor he'd ever owed a living soul.

  So here he was in his sixties, not juved and never lik
ely to be a candidate for such, working in a position where, until now, the greatest job benefit was the blessed, however fake, solitude of his workspace. Handsome and agile in his youth, Sam now sported arthritic knees, a large bald patch, and a bad comb-over. His own grandfather, who Sam knew he resembled, had worn his hair just the same. The younger generations would never understand loss the way the war babies did. It could make you do funny things, sometimes. Maybe his near-fanatical dedication to paying debts, monetary or favors, somehow came out of his shuffled teen years. Maybe the repayment of favors was just the one bit of Indowy culture that took. His common sense, however, was all wisdom acquired from age.

  When Miss O'Neal asked her favor, that common sense had made him sit on any personal curiosity, or any heroic tendency to volunteer for more than she asked. He had a feeling that whatever she was planning, if he stuck his nose in it, the only place he'd be was in the way.

  This part of the favor was simple enough. In personnel, they did it all the time. The boss was Indowy raised. The Darhel were more used to employing Indowy laborers than Human. Indowy always placed great emphasis on clan connections in hiring. The idea that nepotism could be a bad thing was totally alien to their species' nature. Humans applying for jobs in facilities like this one sometimes had relatives on the job already. When they didn't, friends on the job were the next best thing. The bosses liked everybody's relationships interlinked—it bought organizational loyalty when many of the acts that organization perpetrated were grossly illegal. That, along with very large salaries. Personnel grunts like himself, faced with the impossible requirement of finding employees connected with other employees in a disorganized post-war world, managed by "people" whose understanding of Human nature was sketchy, did what any good paper pushers would have done. They made friendships and kinships up wholesale and greased the palm of the right employee to make the "relationship" pass casual inspection. Employees who had gotten their job by this process were universally willing to supplement their salaries in exchange for passing on the favor to someone else. As a system, it was a bit nuts, but it kept everybody happy. He now had enough names in hand to make all his target applicants look desirable to the bosses, and would owe Juice a return favor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The first thing George noticed about his interviewer was her legs. They were legs to die for. Long, slim, perfectly shaped, leading up to a fiery red skirt that could have doubled as a wide belt. The skirt was literally fiery, done in a shifting pattern of hot coals and flames. Those were two-dimensional, as holographic clothing tended to detract from the wearer's assets.

  She had her legs crossed and turned away from him as she stood to shake his hand. He would have completely missed her name if they hadn't already told him who he'd be interviewing with. He thanked God that he'd long ago formed the habit of leering only discretely. Still, he got the feeling that she didn't miss much, which reminded him that dying for those legs would be a genuine possibility.

  She ran her fingers through long, black hair streaked and tipped with glowing metallic red as she resumed her seat, crossing her legs deftly to preserve what modesty she had left by the barest margin imaginable.

  "Hello, Mark. I'm pleased to meet you. I'm a very brief interviewer. One way or the other, I make up my mind quickly. Your statistics credentials are impeccable for our needs," she said. "Why do you want to work here?"

  "I like living on Earth. The money and your company's status goes a long way towards making sure I won't end up swept onto a slow boat to Dulain," he answered. "And, candidly, you pay well."

  The nails of one hand tapped on her knee. He noticed idly that they were black tipped with a masterful illusion of dripping blood. She was certainly intent on making a specific impression.

  "The primary reason I'm interviewing you has to do with a job that isn't on your resume. You worked at Celini and Gorse Consulting from 2048 to 2051. You've done a nice job of covering it. You were one of the few accountants who managed to come out of that without prison time and without speaking a word ill of your employers or any of your coworkers—and especially of the investors. You don't run off at the mouth. We handle highly confidential business, so we prize that attribute. You're a practical, goal oriented man. I like that," she smiled. It was a charming smile that did reach her eyes. It gave no indication of the cold psychopath he knew lived behind those warm, brown, feline orbs. She was good; highly dangerous even to him. He smiled back with what he hoped was the right degree of polite avarice.

  "You do your homework," George, aka Mark said. "Your own investors, of course, have no lack of resources when they want something. It reassures me that I can trust your organization's ability to meet its generous commitments. I like to be able to trust the people I work for."

  "Mutual trust, backed by natural situational guarantees, is essential to our corporate mission. We can certainly offer you better job security than any other offers you might have. No worries about getting fired if your dirty little secret comes to light. We know, and consider your discretion an asset." She pressed a couple of buttons on her PDA. "I see here that Joseph Espinoza is your cousin?" she asked.

  "Yes. We spent a lot of time together growing up."

  This smile was predatory rather than charming. Even though he was sure it was calculated to the nth degree, a finger of ice prickled on the back of his neck.

  "If he's your cousin, I'm your mother," she said. "Relax." She waved a hand as he fought the sweat trying to emerge on his upper lip. "You just passed another of my little tests. You're resourceful, and you go along with the system instead of getting your briefs in a twist the first time you have to bend a rule. Apparent kinship links keep the investors happy. See, I can be pragmatic, too." Her playful grin, though perfect, put him in mind of a piranha.

  She stood, perforce drawing him to his feet as well. "As long as you never break any of my rules, we'll get along fine. The first of which is that from this moment onward, you will never, ever lie to me. In return, I will never ask about anything you did before you worked here. My rules are simple, reasonable. I expect loyalty and obedience. Which constitutes doing your job competently, unquestioningly, and keeping your mouth shut. From your record, that should be easy enough." She cupped his cheek with one hand. He could feel her nails against his jawline and had to think of least squares graphs to avoid embarrassing himself, amazingly. "Breaking my simple, easy rules is a termination offense. Understand?"

  He nodded, swallowing—staying in the role. He wouldn't have thought it was possible for anyone to look coldly sociopathic and gleeful at the same time. One or the other, but not both, not that charmingly terrifying way. It was an expression he might have to practice. It could be useful for interrogations.

  "Great. Still want the job?" she asked cheerfully.

  Her mercurial moods were frightening to a professional. The best swordsman doesn't fear the second best. He fears the tyro who knows just enough to be dangerous. He vowed to interact with her as little as possible, and to handle her as carefully as a crate of Tennessee antimatter balls.

  "Yes, definitely," he said.

  "Can you start Monday?"

  "No problem."

  "Then we're all set. Give your salary requirements to personnel on your way out. As long as they're reasonable, they'll be met. If they're not, we'll give you our own offer on Monday." She put a hand on the small of his back, ushering him out the door. He didn't flinch.

  "Got any plans to celebrate tonight?" she asked.

  "Dinner with my girlfriend."

  "Been seeing each other long?" Her teeth were a glaring white against the retro red lipstick.

  "We're pretty serious. She's applying for a reception position." He shrugged at the raised eyebrows. "For a liberal arts major, your live reception jobs are one of the best paying gigs on offer."

  "I see. Thank you for telling me. In spite of all our fictional interlinks, we do try to get real ones when we can. You just gave your girlfriend an edge. I hope she'
s appreciative." Now her grin contained a distinct air of sexual predation.

  He wordlessly conveyed a certain opportunistic interest, eliciting an extra sparkle from the brown eyes. "I'm sure she will be."

  "Until Monday." Prida Felini turned and walked away, offering him a stunning rear view which he took open advantage of, deciding a leer was in character after all.

  Cally tucked a strand of her shining black bob behind one ear. Despite Harrison's edict of "no more color changes," he had managed to find her a temporary hair color that she could wear for a month or two before it washed out naturally, with no further damage. He claimed it was protein nourishing, moisturizing, and shaft-reconstructing, whatever that meant. All Cally knew was that he had made her swear to God she'd brush a hundred strokes, four times a day, with a boar-bristle brush. Whatever. She'd do it because he knew his stuff. He could worry about the damn details.