She continued, “You help us, and we will help you with your trial.”
I laughed in her face, but it was all bravado.
She added, “I wouldn’t laugh at the woman who can get the charges dropped, Dunne.”
There was a long pause. I felt my breath struggling in and out, my feelings turning over. Staring at her, wanting to believe, but I knew we were talking about the Service.
And thinking, too, that I didn’t want another run-in with Ferguson. Not now, not ever.
“No way.”
She said, “We want you. And we’ll make it worth your while.”
It was too much like the Greaves business. “You want me because they already think I’m nuts. Nothing to tie anything back to you.”
“You think you know what we’re after?”
“I might be nuts, but I’m not stupid.”
She allowed a small curl of a smile. “So what are we talking about?”
“Ferguson.” I wanted to spit his name.
“What about him?” she asked.
“You want me to kill him. Do I get the prize?” I didn’t want to think about the idea. My knees weakened. My guts churned.
She said, “What if we did?”
“I — you can’t … I can’t. Doesn’t matter what you offer. I couldn’t.”
“Perfect crime, James. Everybody wins.”
“No such thing, ma’am. Little fish always get eaten by the big fish.”
“Dunne, we’ve got it all set up for you. You’ve seen that. My records are perfect. They’re immaculate. They show you’ve been in the Brig for ages. You’ll be there the rest of the voyage. You’ve got nothing to lose but your death sentence!”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
She eased off my throat. Immediately my legs buckled. She eased me into a chair and pulled up another. “After what he did to you?”
A voice leapt up inside me, wanting to deny anything happened, to say he wasn’t such a bad guy. But I said, “That’s … that’s why I can’t.” Big, swamping feelings surged around me. It felt like I was drowning, and starting to panic, taking gulping breaths. I wanted to get out of this room. It was too hard to deal with all this. I wanted her to go away and leave me be.
But I was also thinking about what she offered: charges dropped. No disgrace. No execution.
Just a life of knowing what I did. Maybe I’d convince myself I acted for a higher purpose. Rationalizing could be a merciful thing. I felt a tidal pull towards the idea. I wouldn’t have to face my sister, shamed and broken. I wouldn’t have to think of letting down my father.
But Ferguson?
“I couldn’t, ma’am…” I wanted to. I felt that deep in my guts, the urge to hurt him, fill him with gibbering terror. But that was a dream. There was no way I could tackle him, face him down, and hold my ground.
Because, in the back of my mind, there was the terrifying thought: what if he did it again?
“Do you want him to gain control of this ship in a combat situation? The way he is?”
“I can’t murder another man!”
She said, leaning close, “The charges will be dropped, James. Think of it!”
“I am thinking about it! I am!” I yelled at her, wishing to God she could see what she was asking of me.
“We don’t have long, James. We need the right command team before we enter battle — you do understand that, don’t you?”
And all the while, I was trying to motivate myself by trying to think back to that night. Thinking about everything that had happened so far. About Sorcha’s sacrifice, and the thought of her enduring torture.
The annihilation of an entire race of life forms despite evidence suggesting their sentience, their intelligence: cities underground, artifacts, space travel.
And that look on my father’s face, when I couldn’t stop crying about Mom leaving, the same look I saw for years: his disgust, his contempt, for his weak son, a very poor substitute for Colin. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, in school after school after school, always trying to be Colin for Dad, and all I ever saw was that look of disappointment on his face. And, not that he had ever said this in so many words, I could never escape the feeling — one with which I had long struggled — that if I’d just done better, been a better kid, been more like Colin, Mom wouldn’t have left.
It took Riordan a long time to settle me down. She said, at one point, rubbing my back, talking to me in a soothing voice, “Do it for yourself, James.”
“That’s very trite,” I sniffed.
“So the Service has let you down. Boo-bloody-hoo! It’s let us all down. And it’s going to go on, just as it is now.”
“Unless the Asiatics wipe us out, that is.”
“One thing at a time. If we’ve got the right team on the bridge, we might have a better chance. Do this one thing for us. I guarantee I will get your charges dropped in return.”
I said nothing. My brain felt like it was drowning in fear. It was all I could do to think straight. There was nothing in my head but a white noise of terror.
After a while, though, I found my voice. It was tiny and quiet. I had never felt more like a mouse. Something was shifting around in my head, making room for a sense of fatalism. In all probability, I was going to die when I got court-martialled. It was also fairly likely we wouldn’t survive this war. So what did I have to lose?
“Tell me again why Ferguson needs to go.” It was worth hearing the argument again, I supposed, though I knew as soon as I said that that I had just decided that I would do it. All the rest was formality. Besides, I didn’t have the strength to argue. I thought I’d humor her.
She said, sighing, “Eclipse is an explorer ship — light military capability. Ferguson wishes we were a frigate, a full-blown warship. He wants to go to war, he wants all guns blazing. He told me this once, over drinks at a bar. I thought he was this rakishly interesting older man, I even kind of fancied him. Until he started talking about his destiny. He actually used that word. Destiny. He said he was destined to die in battle, a great warrior.” She coughed up a bleak laugh. “He never expected he’d be stuck on Eclipse so long. Figured he’d move up to a warship of some kind. But he was already too old. The Service left him to rot here with us until retirement. But now he’s got this big chance, a final shot at his glorious destiny. It’s pretty bloody pathetic, if you ask me.”
I had no idea about any of this, but it made a certain sense. “You really think he might freak out?”
She nodded. “Our main value to the fleet is as a sensor platform. We have fantastic sensors. But we’re not all that fast. Our power plant coolant isn’t what it could be, so we’ve got too much of an IR profile, despite all that nano stealth crap on the hull. Ferguson doesn’t care. He would love to break out of the Battle Group and target the enemy, any enemy!”
“And he said he’d kill anybody who tried to pull him off duty?”
She looked sad and tired. “I could play you the recording I made.”
“Which is where I come in, right?”
She didn’t smile. “Check your personnel maps; he’s not in his quarters right now. He’s with Rudyard.”
I nodded, feeling too weak now to protest. “I could wait for him.” I could find his personal sidearm. The gun he had made me clean and polish so often. And I knew where he kept it.
“What happens,” I asked, facing the real fear, “if it goes bad, and he … and he…” Still I couldn’t say it. So scared.
“What’s this? A change of heart?” A faint hint of wry smile.
“Look, I’m too tired to argue. What happens if…?”
“Then we bust him for murder, and accidentally kill him while he’s in custody.”
“How do I know I’m not
bait for exactly this scenario?”
She rubbed at her tired eyes. “If you do the bloody job right the first time, we won’t need that scenario — and besides, doing it right the first time means fewer awkward questions later.”
I sat and thought about this, and tried not to think about how easily I had agreed to be an assassin. Then again, it’s one thing to agree to do it; quite another to follow through on it. And quite another again, to kill Ferguson. I felt a cold shudder just thinking about it. “I can’t decide this now. I need more time.”
Riordan grabbed my face in her hands. She said, “We hit the tube back to Ganymede in four hours, Dunne. We just don’t have time for you to sit on your precious little thumb and ponder your navel fluff.” She pushed me back, looking like she was losing patience.
“If I say no?”
Riordan stood, paced around. “You wouldn’t like what happens in that option, Mr. Dunne.”
“I want that guarantee in writing.”
She stepped over to her desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small sheet of Paper; she handed it to me. It contained a fixed document, signed and sealed, laying out the deal. “That’s the only copy there is, too. And you’ll note the offer is only good tonight.”
The acceptance square was highlighted, flashing, waiting for my thumbprint and signature. I skimmed over terms indicating that I would promise, should I survive, that I would not divulge any of the details of the operation to anybody, ever, on pain of harsh penalties left unspecified.
“I can’t believe my Service career — hell, my whole miserable life — has come down to this.”
“Just sign the damn thing,” Riordan said, sitting on her desk, looking pretty disgusted herself.
“Give me a bloody stylus.”
She handed one over. There were cold flutters in my gut as I took the thing. “What am I doing?”
“Fighting back. Giving this ship and this crew a chance.”
Killing Ferguson. It was hard to imagine. I couldn’t see it — couldn’t see myself raising a weapon against him.
My hand shook.
Riordan was chewing the nails on her left hand, looking tense.
“But—” I said.
She said, “Do it.”
I signed. Of course I signed, though it felt like someone else was in my body, driving my hand. The same force caused my thumb to leave an imprint in the flashing pixons. A notice came up, acknowledging my ID. Riordan took the document, looking it over. She sighed. “I’m really sorry, James. You’ve got no idea how sorry.”
I quirked the corner of my mouth. “Uh-huh.”
She let me out, to go and do my duty.
Twenty-Five
The first priority was to check Ferguson’s location. Riordan’s headware showed him still in the captain’s quarters with Rudyard. They were probably going over tactical plans, conferring with the Queen Helen people, and getting ready for the tube.
The second thing was to set out for Ferguson’s quarters on Deck D, port side. It felt like a long way. I don’t remember what I thought about, walking over there, feeling numb with disbelief. The air was stuffy and dark. When other officers passed, I squeezed up against the wall so they could get by, and I don’t remember saluting, but then neither did anybody call me on it. Everyone was in a huge hurry.
All the way there, I kept the personnel map running, so I could track Ferguson’s movements. I kept remembering Riordan’s image of him as a rogue elephant stampeding through the ship, trumpeting his fury. It made me smile.
I was walking up the passageway to his door when I noticed the Ferguson-icon move. Swearing, trying not to panic, I stood there frozen, watching him. He visited a nearby head, did his business, then moved quickly away. Watching his movements, I began to get a bad feeling about where he might be heading. He got in a lift, heading down.
Focus, just focus! I was close to his door. Interrogating the door and finding it locked, I used Riordan’s access to open it.
The Brig was on Deck E. If he ran from the lift, he could get there almost immediately. The lift dropped him at Deck E. He took off, and it looked like he was running for the Brig. What else was down on that level that would warrant running in the middle of the night — except maybe the Officer’s Mess? It was hard to imagine anyone in a hurry for space chunder. On the other hand, I remembered that Ferguson loved his space chunder. Could he be just in a hurry for a midnight snack?
I called Riordan. She answered right away, no doubt watching Ferguson, too. “What’s he doing?”
She said, “I don’t know, but I doubt he’s taking an evening constitutional.”
“Is he getting the feed from ShipMind showing me in the Brig?”
“Yes.”
“Is anybody else in the other Brig cells?”
“Nobody.”
“So it seems likely he wants a word with me?”
He came to an intersection. The Mess was aft; the Brig was forward. Ferguson took off forward.
Riordan said, “I think yes, he wants to pop by for a visit before the shooting starts.”
“Stall him!”
“I have an idea,” she said.
He was nearly there. One more turn, up a side-passageway…
“Make it quick.”
He was there.
Riordan said, “Done!”
I said, “What?”
“I changed the door access there. His keys won’t open the door.”
The Ferguson-icon was standing at the door of my cell. On Riordan’s headware an alert flashed that Ferguson was trying to unseal that door without the correct authorization.
The phone rang. Riordan went to say, “Don’t—” but it was too late. I answered. “Yes?”
Riordan hissed, “Shit!”
Ferguson said, “Lily? Is that you?”
I gasped. Of course — I would get Riordan’s phone calls!
She stepped in, coughing a little. “Mr. Ferguson, good morning. How can I help you?”
“Listen, love. I’m just down here at the Brig. I thought I’d have a word with our Mr. Dunne…” His voice was oily, full of phony goodwill.
“Uh-huh,” she said, betraying no secrets in her tone.
“But I can’t seem to unlock his cell door. Do you think you can shed some light on this, my dear?”
She affected a yawn. “Oh I’m sorry, sir. I just recently authorized a routine key-change program. Did you not get my note about it?”
“Not that I recall, but we have been rather busy just lately. Hmm. It’s just that I need to speak to Mr. Dunne for a few minutes.”
“You don’t think,” Riordan said, keeping cooler than I ever could, “you’ve caused that boy enough grief?”
Smoothly, missing only one beat, his voice dropped a tone, “Excuse me, dear, I don’t follow your meaning.”
“Mr. Ferguson, look. It’s the middle of the night. I’m sure you can wait until after we hit the tube to bother poor Mr. Dunne. Let him have a bit of rest from your attentions, okay? You wouldn’t want rumors to get around, would you?”
His voice changed. A nasty edge cut through his words. “Rumors, love?” He paused, muttering something I couldn’t make out. “Just open the bloody door for me. Now.”
“You threatening me, Mr. Ferguson?”
He killed the link. On the personnel map, I watched him leave the Brig area, heading back for the lift.
Riordan said, “I wouldn’t waste any more time, James.”
I took a big breath, fought down my nerves, and ducked into Ferguson’s quarters. I didn’t die on entry, as I had feared. Standing there, breathing hard, I felt strange: sort of dizzy, scared and exhilarated at the same time, like I was committing the worst sin in the universe, violating the holiest of holie
s, I was sure that God — Ferguson — would catch me and make me pay. And pay. For a long moment, I stood paralyzed, unable to breathe, let alone to get on with the task at hand. Those shelves full of the tawdry, cheap souvenirs from his travels, memories of places defiled, of sexual conquests — it was all huge and sticky and heavy with pain and noise and lurid colors; it gave off a choking sense of sleaze. The stuff was everywhere. I saw pictures of Ferguson with friends, most of whom were very young, and half-dressed. There were no disposables present, either.
Oh God. Feeling sick, disgusted and furious, I was starting to see how he might have felt frustrated stuck on such a boring ship, but it looked like he made up for it on shore leave.
The personnel map reported that he was in the lift, going up. As I watched, he reached Deck C, got out, and started running for Riordan’s quarters. At the same time, I saw Riordan leave her quarters heading for a side-passage, perhaps hoping to intercept Ferguson with a surprise.
There was no time for daintiness — I trashed Ferguson’s quarters. Before anything else, I swept the souvenir shelves, and then I remember jumping, stomping on things, yelling incoherently, feeling cheap ceramics and plastic crunch under my boots.
And then I remembered what I was doing here. His gun, the Proddi bimodal ten-millimeter. He kept it under his mattress.
Somehow I had so far managed not to look at the bed.
I felt my bowels weakening. Bending over, hands on my knees, I had to stop and take big gulping breaths. The room was closing in on me. My head wouldn’t turn to face the bed. Sweating now, I was cold and clammy all over and starting to remember that which I’d tried so hard to forget, the things that had happened in the dark and the pain, and the taste of the standard-issue Service blanket as I bit down on it…
Trembling with panic, I felt my mind skittering, wanting only to leave. Primitive responses were rising up, ready to take charge…
On the personnel map, Ferguson ran into Riordan. She piped me a feed.
Eclipse Page 30