"Ross, what's going on?"
Ross came to attention. His voice boomed.
"I'm sorry, sir. I ordered the weapons crew into the mess. I came on duty thirty minutes ago, and when I did I conducted a routine inspection of the weapons bay. I found this."
He raised his hand, and in the center of his palm was a tiny electronic component, about an eighth of an inch across. John took it, held it up close.
"It was on the floor just down here."
Ross indicated the space below the weapons diagnostic system.
"What is this?" John asked.
"It's from the weapons diagnostic system. It's a bridge. Nothing fancy, it just conveys information from one spot to another. But without it, the information won't get where it's supposed to go."
John returned the component to him.
"I thought there might have been some repair work done while I was off duty, so I checked the logs, but they showed nothing. So I opened up the diagnostic system and ran some checks to see if everything was in order. It turns out the information pathway regarding the optics was interrupted. A bridge had been removed. The optics were reading green on the diagnostic system because no other information was reaching it. So when I put in a new bridge, I got the actual status of the optics, which is, as you can see, in the red."
"How serious is the damage?" Ross shrugged.
"It seems to be limited to the primary mirror, but I can't really tell without getting in an EVA suit and going up to the tube."
The optics were in the red, and the one system that would have warned them of the failure was missing a key component. If Ross hadn't found it, John would have issued a warning to the Homeguard cruiser, revealing the Agamemnon's presence. They were both thinking the same thing, John knew. That was why Ross had sent the weapons crew out of the room.
"In your opinion, Lieutenant, how did this happen?"
Ross slid the bridge nervously across his huge hand as he spoke.
"These components don't just fall out, though I would have said it happened as a fluke if I'd replaced the bridge and everything had stayed in the green. But the fact that this specific bridge prevented information about a critical failure from reaching us suggests" -he looked up at John- "it was taken out on purpose. And that perhaps the optics were also damaged on purpose."
John nodded.
"You were right to order the others out of the weapons bay. Tell me, who would have the knowledge to carry out this type of sabotage?"
"The gunners service the optics, so most of them would be able to do some kind of damage there. But the diagnostic system . . . the weapons officers are really the only ones fully trained. I suppose it would have to be one of us."
"Or more than one," John said.
"When was the last time you were on duty?"
"I got aff last night at zero hundred."
"And do you think that you would have spotted this bridge if it were on the floor last night?"
Ross squared his shoulders.
"I'm positive, sir. I ran the same inspection last night that I did today."
"So if we assume that this was done sometime between zero hundred last night and sixteen hundred this afternoon when you came on duty, who had the opportunity? Who was on those other shifts?"
"Watley had the first watch, sir, and Spano the second."
John let out a breath.
"All right. I'm going to put a guard on this door with instructions to admit no other weapons crew but you. And I'm going to have your fellow weapons officers questioned. Good work so far, Ross. Now I need you to get into an EVA suit and get out to the tube. I need your repair estimate ten minutes ago. We have to be able to fire before that cruiser reaches the jump gate."
* * *
"They're obviously all dead."
Favorito's voice was quavering.
"We've got no life signs, no locator beacons. If they were alive, they would be here or they would have contacted us."
"Not necessarily," Razor said, fiddling nervously with his comp-pad.
"With the dust from the storm interfering with communications, they could be unable to reach us. And our scanners could be unable to pick them up."
Favorito pounded with the flat of his hand on the conference room table.
"That doesn't explain what happened to them."
"I'm afraid we're out of our depth here," Standish said, chewing on a fingernail.
He'd been white as a ghost since they'd gotten back.
"If we could only repair the com system, we could consult with..."
"Good news," Captain Hidalgo proclaimed from the doorway of the conference room.
"The com system is repaired."
He was filled with false good cheer. He didn't have to worry about Chang sending his message to IPX anymore, but Anna knew, from all the questions he'd asked her, that he was worried about losing Donne and his fat payoff.
"With this storm, the signal probably can't even penetrate the atmosphere," Favorito said.
"Then we can just leave the atmosphere and send a message," Standish said, "on our way home."
This touched off another round of arguing.
"We're not leaving," Anna said, quieting the others.
She sat at the head of the table, feeling very out of place in Chang's seat.
"We don't have time. Those EVA suits our missing crew are wearing only have enough oxygen for ten more hours. We're going to spend every minute of that ten hours searching for them. After that, we'll have all the time in the world for going home. Before that, every minute is precious, and I want every member of the crew involved."
"But some of my crew aren't trained for EVA activity," Hidalgo protested.
"I want them all out there," Anna said.
She wouldn't put it past Hidalgo to take the ship up while they were out searching.
"Those who aren't trained can use breathers. The atmosphere's safe for them and we don't have enough EVA suits anyway."
"That violates protocol."
"Losing forty-five people violates protocol too. Look, I'm going to use a breather myself. They're perfectly safe."
To avoid further argument, she changed the subject.
"Razor, have you been able to get any additional information from the ship's scanners?"
"There are still no life signs and no beacons showing, but I am reading an energy source of some kind from the cave site where you were today."
"I'm not going back into those caves," Favorito yelled.
"This planet..."
"Dr. Favorito," Anna said.
"If you're suffering from claustrophobia, I'll put you in another group."
Favorito went to rub his forehead and knocked the reading glasses from his head. He was ready to crack, and Anna couldn't let that happen. If the others knew there were living natives on the planet, it would very likely push them over the edge. As archaeologists, they weren't used to dealing with unknown dangers. They were used to dealing with the unknown, as long as it hadn't moved in a couple of centuries, and they were used to dealing with dangers, as long as they were familiar-cave-ins, falls, mechanical accidents. A situation like this was totally unprecedented. Anna had no idea how to handle it either. She was just taking one step at a time.
"We will search an area centered on the major pillar, extending for a radius of five miles."
She called up a map on the monitor.
"Razor, you take Captain Hidalgo and search sector one, the area of the pillar. You may need to investigate the crevasse Dr. Morden and I described to you. Favorito and Standish, take sector two, which includes some low mountains and many stone blocks. Morden and I will take sector three, which includes the cave site, and we'll investigate the energy source you're reading."
The search already seemed destined for failure. Razor seemed steady, but Hidalgo couldn't be trusted. But he couldn't be left on the ship either. Favorito and Standish-God knew how effective they would be, left to their own devices. She would have put Mor
den into one of the other groups, except that the secret of what they had found in the caves had to be preserved, as long as possible. She wondered if she was turning into Chang now, keeping a secret from her own team, a secret that might endanger their lives.
"Each group will include thirty techs. Standish, I want you to set up a group of techs as runners, with multi-terrain vehicles, in case our communications are cut off."
Standish seemed to snap out of a paralyzing meditation at the mention of his name.
"Can we at least try to send a message home?"
"It will take us a half hour to prep the EVA suits and organize our teams. If it can be done in that time, we'll do it. Standish, I want you on the runners. Razor, can you work with Captain Hidalgo on sending out a message?"
Razor nodded.
"If we can just get our message to the orbiter, we can order the orbiter to retransmit from there. I'll need your code to access the orbiter, unless you want to do it."
"Shouldn't we be armed," Favorito asked, tapping his glasses against the table,
"against-whoever killed Dr. Chang?"
Anna could see Favorito with a PPG, shooting at anything that moved.
"I don't want to give arms to a group of people who aren't trained to use them. We'd end up with a lot more shootings that way. If you feel you want a weapon, bring a tool or a piece of equipment that you know how to use."
Anna took a deep breath, let it out. She wished for John, wished it with a depth she'd never felt before. She wasn't trained for this sort of situation. She didn't want anyone else to die. They were all depending on her.
"I want your teams briefed and ready to go in a half hour. No later. Our team members are counting on us to find them. We have to come through for them. Go."
As they filed out, she realized Morden had not spoken through the entire meeting. His features were relaxed, an unfamiliar peace in them. She wished she could feel so calm. She approached him. He was wearing the necklace, had been since she'd given it to him.
"Can you brief our team and meet me in my quarters in twenty minutes?"
"Do you need me for anything else?"
"Just keep an eye on . . . everyone."
He nodded, left.
Razor remained, waiting for her access code. He had refastened his comp-pad to his belt and stood as if at a loss. She told him the code.
"I'll record the message right now and send it up to you on the command deck. Let me know if you're able to get through to the orbiter."
Razor nodded and started to squeeze past her.
"Wait," Anna said quietly, lowering her head.
"I'm sorry to be sending you with Captain Hidalgo. If there was another way I could break the team up, I would."
Razor had been struck silent by her tone.
"He can't be trusted," Anna said.
"He made an agreement with Donne to smuggle artifacts for Psi Corps. Chang found out about it, and Hidalgo took the com system off line so Chang couldn't report him."
She reached into the pocket of her baggy sweater.
"I want you to have this."
She laid the PPG in his callused hand, closed his fingers around it.
"Chang gave it to me."
"And look what happened to him," Razor said with a weak exhalation of a laugh.
His lost-dog eyes looked up at her.
"Shouldn't you keep this?"
"I'll be with Morden. I won't need it."
"You sure?"
"Take it. I feel guilty enough sending you off with Captain Cutthroat as it is."
He pocketed the gun.
"A razor beats a cutthroat in any poker hand."
And then she was alone. She made the message brief.
"Mr. Galovich, Dr. Chang is dead. He was shot by a PPG. We don't know who shot him, though it appears to be a member of his party. The remaining members of his party-Doctors Churlstein, Scott, and Petrovich, Ms. Donne, and forty techs-are missing. The egg artifact that Dr. Chang was investigating is also missing. Conditions on the planet are interfering with communications and scanners. We can read no life signs and are picking up no locator beacons from their links. We are going out to search for our missing crew in twenty-five minutes.
"Given that IPX, as well as other organizations, has a high interest in Alpha Omega 3, and given that you have much more information about this planet and its technology than you have shared with us, perhaps you would send us the information we need to do our jobs, or send people whom you would entrust with that information.
"I have encountered life on this planet, and I have reason to believe it may be hostile, that it may be responsible for our missing crew. But that may not surprise you."
Her voice was beginning to shake, and this message had gone on far longer than she had intended.
"You sent us in with no warning, knowing that this race, thousands of years more advanced than us, might still be alive. You didn't want to confront them, so you sent us in as pawns."
She forced herself to stop. There was no point to this, and no time. She let out a breath.
"I'm attaching Dr. Chang's last message to you. End."
She sent the message up to Razor, then headed for Donne's quarters. She had to know if Donne had killed Chang, and why. Donne's quarters were identical to Anna's: bed and narrow closet on the left, dresser/desk combination on the right, narrow passage in between leading to the tiny bathroom at the back. Donne's possessions were minimal, and organized with military precision: several black suits, shoes, identicard, a credit chit, toilet-ries, a pair of pajamas, several pairs of gloves, socks, underwear, the small lead box with the mouse fragment inside. The only personal touch appeared to be a photograph in a simple frame on her dresser. It showed a man and a woman standing outside the door of a house.
They were both in their thirties, both blond, the man's harsh face carrying a strong resemblance to Donne's. From the style of the clothes-the man's shirt had a wide collar, the woman's skirt was short and neon-pink-she guessed the picture had been taken about twenty years before. She turned the frame over and opened it in the hope that someone had labeled the back of the picture. But it was blank. Anna refastened the frame and turned it back over.
The woman's smile seemed about as natural as Morden's, and she had raised a hand as if waving- hello or good-bye?-to someone. With her bright clothes and teased hair, she looked as if she were trying very hard to present a cheery exterior. The man had grabbed the woman's other hand and held it up against his stomach as if preventing her from moving. His whole body seemed stiff. He had the same wide shoulders as Donne, the same hard jawline. The man's expression was closed, clenched. They must be her parents, Anna thought. It seemed odd that Donne would bring their picture with her, perhaps because Anna had never thought of Donne as actually having parents.
It seemed especially odd that Donne would choose this picture, which didn't seem to show her parents in the best light. Anna returned the picture to the dresser and continued to search the room. It was a small room, with few potential hiding places. The bed was made tightly, precisely -the military mind-set again. That was why she was so surprised when under the pillow she discovered a satin lingerie roll. Anna couldn't imagine Donne ever wearing lingerie.
It seemed so totally opposed to what she was, and to everything else in the room. The roll was a soft, glossy turquoise, about eighteen inches long and five inches thick. In disbelief, she untied the delicate turquoise string, let the roll unroll. It formed a rectangle approximately eighteen inches by thirty, the rectangle broken up into smaller rectangular pockets of varying sizes, their covers transparent silk so their contents could be seen. At first Anna didn't recognize what she was seeing. Inside was an odd assortment of items, not lingerie. A lock of hair, a signet ring on an odd ring post. Anna dropped the roll and jumped back. The satin slipped into an iridescent pool on the floor.
It was a finger. A finger, in the lingerie roll. In the next pocket over was a dark, shriveled item that looked
almost like a leaf. She took a step closer, bent tentatively toward the roll. Curving lines of contours ran in a semicircular shape. Her fist went to her mouth. It was an ear. As if her mind had clicked into a new mode of sight, she quickly recognized the rest of the items: a toe, a dark lock of hair, a nose, an eye from a Nam, a piece of tendon, the shapes repeated, the sizes varying. Several pockets remained empty. Along the bottom row were nestled a series of cutting tools, and in the last, corner pocket, a small insignia, about one inch across. Anna took it for a Psi Corps insignia, but when she leaned closer, she saw that it was similar, but that in its center was a black square.
She'd never seen one like it before, and she was sure that the insignia Donne wore did not have the black She sat on the bed, looking down at the sat ingle, her mind simultaneously racing and blank. This wasn't what she'd expected to find. At last she remembered to check her watch, found that only a few minutes had passed. She still had five minutes before she had to meet Morden.
She stood up, determined to pull some information from this room. This was her job. Study the artifacts left behind, deduce the culture of those who had left them, reconstitute their behavior, recapture their thoughts. The precision of the creased, identical suits in the tiny closet, the mirror-polished shoes below, the socks rolled and lined in neat ranks-it all spoke of a military training. Anna had thought Donne looked more like a soldier than a telepath when they'd first met.
The insignia must belong to a special unit of Psi Corps, perhaps a unit with military training of some kind, like the Psi Cops, but not dedicated to tracking down rogue telepaths, instead dedicated to . . . eliminating threats to telepaths?
Donne appeared to be an expert killer. Was that what she had been trained to do? Anna began to pace in the tiny space, carefully avoiding the satin roll. Donne's killings could be her own-hobby- unrelated to her position in Psi Corps, but the inclusion of the insignia in the pouch suggested a connection. Why would Psi Corps have sent an assassin on the expedition? Donne had made some kind of arrangement with Hidalgo. He was going to smuggle artifacts for her. But what artifacts? As Chang had wondered, had she expected to pocket them under the science team's noses and sneak them back to the Icarus? Or had she planned to sneak catalogued items out of the hold and expected no one would notice?
Babylon 5 07 - The Shadow Within (Cavelos, Jeanne) Page 16