Alex allowed himself the brief indulgence of a visualisation in which he booted Barney’s backside so hard that the man bounced from one end of the ship to the other. Nothing mattered to him but what he wanted – he was a taker, a user, and someone who would always, but always, find a way to excuse selfish exploitation as him doing it for his victim’s benefit, really.
‘But I will give you the data,’ Barney went on virtuously, ‘if you think you can make any use of it.’
‘We will,’ Alex said, ‘do our best.’ It was clear from Barney’s tone that he considered they’d struggle to work out which way up to hold the data, with zero chance of being able to make sense of it. ‘And I will leave it to the Second,’ said Alex, ‘to take the matter of the falsified application up with you.’
Barney looked shocked. ‘You wouldn’t tell them!’ he exclaimed.
Alex stared at him. He didn’t even know where to begin responding to that, it was such a ludicrous statement on so many levels.
‘I invite you,’ he said, ‘to consider who you’re talking to. If you think for one moment that I would be party to deceiving the Second as to the nature and intention of your research then you know nothing about me at all. And you have, moreover, I should point out, just made a public on-record statement admitting that you never had any intention of upgrading our Naos system.’
Barney looked around the command deck, encountering several hostile looks and one steadfastly averted one – Very Vergan, holding the watch, was set-faced but conscientiously pretending not to be aware of the discussion.
‘But we were just talking,’ he protested.
‘You were advised before you came aboard and during your orientation that the command deck is under continuous filming and that that record, together with the log, is copied to the Admiralty, the Senate Sub-Committee and the Diplomatic Corps,’ Alex reminded him.
‘Yes, well, they can’t watch every minute of it, can they?’ Barney objected. ‘They only watch the bits they think are important from entries in the log.’
Alex wondered who had told him that – later, he discovered that it was something other members of the Second had decided was most likely, based on no better evidence than common sense.
This, however, took no account of the extraordinary scrutiny the Fourth was under. The Diplomatic Corps was monitoring progress with both Shion and Silvie as active exodiplomatic missions and they had a team of people employed to watch the command deck footage, analysing every interaction which took place there involving either Silvie or Shion. The Senate Sub-Committee had a team of thirty four people whose task it was to watch all that footage, too, some of them making notes about time and resource management, others about mission-related discussion and decisions. Eventually, this would be packaged into a one-page precis report of how the Fourth had been spending their time, but the team would also flag any incidents of particular note or concern to the committee.
At the Admiralty, there were two teams – the First Lord had a unit in the Statistics division which did nothing else but record and analyse how the Fourth had achieved their results, and that included monitoring of the log and associated footage. And Third Lord Cerdan Jennar, too, had an Internal Affairs team which monitored it for even the smallest hint of any breach of regulations.
Of these, even if Alex himself made no further comment about it whatsoever, both the committee and Dix Harangay would certainly alert the Second to the fact that one of their researchers had misled them about the nature of his research. The Diplomatic Corps and Admiral Jennar might well do so, too, the Corps as an inter-agency courtesy and the latter as an opportunity to find some fault with Fourth’s operations. The likelihood that all four would fail to notice it or fail to pass that information to the Second was so remote that it was a dead certainty that they would be informed, even if Alex himself chose not to make a direct report about it. But that was a technicality, anyway, since he had every intention of reporting it to them himself.
‘Even if that was true,’ said Alex, ‘which it isn’t, I will be logging my concern that you never had any intention of fulfilling your research brief and copying that to the Second with a record of this discussion.’
‘Oh, come on, Alex,’ Barney was wheedling, now. ‘Don’t be like that. You can see how important it is, can’t you? It was only the teensiest of little exaggerations,’ he held up finger and thumb virtually pressed together, ‘teeny weeny. You will get your upgrade, after all – and you wouldn’t dob me in, would you?’
There was an awed silence on the command deck.
‘This is not,’ said Alex eventually, once he’d found his voice, and the words, ‘a school playground. How far you misled the Second and whether they would have funded your research if they’d known the truth are matters for them to decide. And, as I said, I will refrain from comment on your professional ethics. But I will and must report my concerns to them – I would do the same for any agency with concerns about possible wrongdoing, as that is my duty, but the Second are our partners in the Fleet, a sister unit with which we have a very close relationship of trust and mutual support.’ He said that deliberately, hoping that it would be some consolation to the Second. ‘I couldn’t…’
‘You can’t call it wrongdoing,’ Barney interrupted, with high indignation. ‘It isn’t! It’s just slide.’
Alex was not familiar with that particular jargon, but it was readily understandable – sliding something past the authorities, getting the better of them with some clever manipulation of the rules. He had come across similar euphemisms, such as ‘greasing the wheels’ for corruption. Whatever kind of behaviour such idioms described, the reality was conduct which would not stand the light of exposure. To Alex, Barney’s actions looked like nothing more or less than conning the Second out of funding, and through them, conning the Fourth, too. His ‘end justifies the means’ defence wasn’t scoring any points with Alex, either. He’d had to make some EJTM decisions in his time – a damn great hulking monster of one, indeed, when he’d decided to use a fake artefact and cooperative historian to go public with the true history of Novamas. The difference was that the relevant authorities had known exactly what he was doing when they had agreed to that and funded it. It was inconceivable that he would ever falsify claims on Admiralty funding or obtain any benefit from anywhere by making untrue declarations or promises. The only excuse Barney could offer was that his belief in the importance of his research justified him lying to get the funding for it.
‘This is not,’ Alex said, and for a moment allowed his distaste for the other man to appear, ‘open to discussion. You’ve admitted that you misled the Second and intended throughout to pass the work for which you’re being funded to somebody else to do for you. I am going to report that as a concern and it will then be up to the Second to take that up with you as they see fit. I won’t even say ‘I don’t have a choice’, though I don’t, because even if I did have a choice I would do the decent thing by a partner agency. My duty and loyalty is to them, not to you.’
Barney looked as if he wasn’t quite sure whether to burst into tears or stamp his foot. His emotional immaturity was so obvious it was really embarrassing. It wasn’t really surprising, though, at least not to Alex. He’d met several graduates of the League’s Gifted Child programme and not one of them had been what he’d consider normal, well rounded individuals. There was Simon Penarth, for one, so brilliant yet utterly incapable of forming a solid loving relationship, and Kate herself, who’d come aboard such a mess of nerves and shyness that she’d needed an officer to speak on her behalf during her first few weeks aboard. She had quite literally hidden behind him at first, unable to even make eye contact with the skipper. And now there was Barney, who had evidently learned young that acting helpless got people doing things for him, and had never outgrown that child who thought he was being clever by getting other kids to do his homework. Now, finding that someone in authority was not going to make allowance for his genius, he’d tried coaxing a
nd persuasion, and now that had failed, had nowhere to go but childish temper.
‘I don’t think you’re nice at all,’ he told Alex. ‘You’re supposed to be fun and up for a laugh but you’re not¸ you’re a miserable jobsworth and a grass, too, call that honourable ‘cos I don’t. And I’ll tell you this, too,’ a finger pointed at Alex’s nose, ‘you can whistle for the data – not that you’d have any clue what it means anyway but I wouldn’t give you gum off the pavement!’
‘All right,’ Alex responded, steadfast and ever so slightly bored by this. ‘We will honour our side of the commitment to assist with your research, in the slight hope that it may enable the completion of the project. And we will ask the Second, when we reach Serenity, for access to your files.’
Barney was turning red, not with embarrassment but with rage. He was due to leave the ship at X-Base Serenity anyway, as were two other teams who’d only been allowed these few weeks for their projects. The Second maintained a lab at Serenity, too – quite an extensive one, in fact, since its location at the edge of the Gulf was important for quite a lot of astronomical, astrophysics and other research. They would be picking up an exobiology team there who’d be coming to Quarus with them. More importantly for this situation, there was a Second’s Administrative Officer at their lab there, too. Admin Officer didn’t sound very important but in fact they had executive authority over all the projects on their patch, the Second’s equivalent of a Port Admiral. The Second was entitled to inspect the progress of Barney’s research at any time and the Admin officer could certainly authorise the Fourth to access the data gathered using their systems.
‘Well I won’t give it to them either!’ Barney declared petulantly. ‘And don’t think you can hack them either because they are encrypted.’ His tone made it clear that this was an encryption devised by himself which he did not believe that anyone in the galaxy could crack.
Alex remained unmoved. For one thing, he knew that Barney was merely venting and would think better of it before they reached Serenity, and for another, if it did come to that, he’d back his computer people to whip through any encryption Barney might have come up with.
‘We would not attempt to access your files without authorisation,’ Alex said.
‘Well you’d better not!’ Barney was on his feet now, red faced and almost trembling with the force of his emotions. ‘And don’t you think you can threaten me by saying you’d stop my research, either, you’ve got to do it, you’re being paid to do it and if you ruin it I’ll see that you’re court martialled for dereliction of duty and sue you for breach of contract. Now I’m going to direct from the Lab, and you…’ another stabbing finger towards Alex, ‘will just do as you’re told.’
He stalked off, not omitting the final cliché of snarling ‘And who are you looking at?’ at the rating on comms.
When he’d gone, everyone looked at the skipper, who looked resigned.
‘Gifted Child,’ he said, and there was an immediate release of tension as that defined the situation and set the tone for reacting to it. ‘We will continue,’ Alex told Very, who was looking at him enquiringly, ‘to honour our side of the research agreement, irrespective of whatever attitude or behaviour Professor Barnholdt exhibits.’
‘Skipper,’ Very confirmed, and when a course direction was signalled from the Lab a couple of minutes later, he passed it on to the helm without comment.
It was not, of course, as simple as that. Alex had known immediately that the other Second’s teams in the Lab would be even more outraged than he was himself, and that they certainly were. They’d already been indignant over the realisation that Barney had made fools of them, having them fetch his food and tidy his cabin, even to pick his dirty clothes up from the deck and launder them for him. The discovery that he had got his placement by misleading the Second about what he was actually going to do would go off in that lab like a grenade. Alex, in fact, called Buzz and asked him to go there in anticipation of the need to mediate and calm things down. Buzz was there for nearly two hours, and though he did manage to get everyone to stop what was starting to look like an all-night row and go to bed, he told Alex to expect some further fallout in the morning.
Sure enough, there it was – a request for a meeting from the researcher who had the misfortune to be Senior Representative and an impassioned demand from Barney for somewhere else to work.
‘I’m not going to work on the command deck with all you lot glaring at me,’ he declared, ‘It puts me off. And I can’t work in the lab, they’re even worse. I need somewhere to work, I insist on somewhere quiet I can work!’
Alex did not attempt to argue the matter. Barney had been allowed eight days for his research and there were only three of them left. The important thing really was that he was provided with a workspace where he could concentrate.
‘You can use my daycabin,’ Alex said, at which Barney’s mood changed as rapidly as that of a grizzling toddler handed a lollipop. Gratification appeared on his face and he drew himself up taller as if he actually felt that this was Alex acknowledging that he, Barney, was more important than the captain himself.
‘Right,’ he said, and went off to claim his new territory.
In fact, the new daycabin was used far more by other people than it was by Alex himself, anyway. The refit work and the moving of the ballast tank had necessitated shifting the skipper’s quarters further aft. Technically he now had more room – something the Port Admiral at Therik had insisted on when Alex had intended to take a smaller cabin for himself and define the other as a general purpose meeting room. He was already, as she pointed out, occupying quarters smaller than a captain was entitled to and a lot of questions would be raised if he moved to something even smaller. He had, therefore, now got quarters appropriate for his rank.
In reality, though, the cabins had been split either side of a corridor, with the one to port his daycabin and the one to starboard his private quarters. These were set up as a lounge/dining room during the day, with the sofa flicking over into bunk-mode at night. Alex had already settled into using this cabin almost exclusively, only using the other for meetings involving more than two people which could not for some reason be held on the command deck. His official daycabin was used as he had intended, as a general purpose meeting room and quiet workspace, and not just for officers either but for any member of the crew. For Barney, though, it felt almost as if he was being handed command of the ship.
Alex, meanwhile, was assuring the Second’s Senior Representative that this was not the case and that allowing Barney to use his daycabin was really not a problem.
‘Well, if you’re sure…’
The role of Senior Representative had been instituted after the Ignite team debacle. It was unique to the Fourth, as nowhere else in any research facility were there likely to be several small teams packed into a very confined space. The protocol was that whenever there was a team change, they were obliged to hold a meeting and elect one of their number to be the Senior Rep, and that person would then hold a managerial authority over the lab as a whole, settling minor disputes amongst themselves without recourse to the Fourth. It was not a role many of them wanted, more a case of finding someone who could be persuaded to do it than to choose between competing applicants. In this case they’d dumped the responsibility onto Dr Zandro on the unarguable basis that she was heading up the biggest team.
Dr Zandro was not particularly happy about this. She had enough on her hands with her own project, the installation and testing of the prototype siliplas extrusion and recycling unit. She had no previous experience of working with the Second, either, or with the Fleet. Her team, Filarnex Industries, was a corporate R&D facility. That was her world, the business R&D environment which she’d joined straight from university and worked in ever since. They’d been working on the new-generation siliplas unit for eight years now, as a commercial development targeting both specialist groundside applications in areas where space was at a premium, and for starship use
. That aspect of the R&D, use for starships, had stalled four years ago over the discovery that the unit had a tendency to malfunction aboard superlight ships. It had come as a considerable surprise to all of them when the Second had approached them and suggested that they might inject funding and consultancy on the basis of developing the unit for use aboard Fleet ships. Filarnex had been just about to pull the plug on funding for that aspect of the research, so they’d been delighted when the Fleet, via the Second Irregulars, had picked up paying for it. With no real progress since, though, and five failed field tests later, they had been afraid that even the Second was going to pull out. Instead they had been offered the opportunity to field trial aboard the Heron, all expenses paid.
Oti Zandro was still not sure even now whether this was the most fabulous experience of her life or a nightmare. She was loving her time in the Fourth in almost every way. The only problem was that she was expected to go back to Filarnex with the extrusion plant working, and right now that seemed on the far side of impossible. And now there was this, major ructions in the lab which she was expected to deal with.
‘Yes, it’s fine,’ Alex assured her. ‘We have it in hand, Oti, you don’t need to do anything and you certainly don’t need to worry about it.’
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