sofa and two chairs in dark blue leather were ranged around a central low table of dark colored wood. A large cabinet of the same wood stood against the wall. The room’s deep pile carpet was a few shades
lighter than the chairs. A couple of tasteful prints—scenes from worlds she didn’t recognize—hung on the walls. Through a door to the right she glimpsed a large double bed. On the other side, another doorway led to an office. It contained a desk with a HV unit, a swivel chair and no doubt all the access required for the IS.
A bath, a change of clothes and some food. She dropped into an armchair in the spacious living room
feeling drained, empty. Music. She needed music. She asked to hear Orrensaa’s third concerto. Its
plaintive strains echoed her mood.
She’d go home; home to Shernish, to her house on the hill. The pain would fade. Brad Stone’s face
would become a half-remembered sketch. She squirmed with embarrassment whenever she thought
about how gullible she’d been, how easily he’d duped her. And how little she really knew about him. Not that she cared; of course she didn’tcare . But there wasn’t anything wrong with a bit of curiosity, was there?
“What do you have on Admiral Saahren?” she asked the ship’s IS.
The IS gave her an illustrated run-down of the man’s military career, starting with him receiving an award for coming top of the course at the military academy. He looked very young, tall and gangly, yet to fill out the width of his own shoulders. But the eyes were the same. Maybe not quite so hard.
The documentary moved on, listing the ships he’d served on and in what capacity. He had collected two decorations for bravery. The first time as an ensign he led a party sent over to inspect a ship that turned out to be carrying contraband. The crew turned nasty when they realized they’d been caught. Although
he was wounded and one of the team was killed, Saahren had taken control of the ship. The second
time, he risked his own life to rescue crew trapped in a damaged compartment. He’d been a lieutenant, in his mid twenties. He had filled out, no longer a gangly kid and his face had acquired the stillness, that trade-mark authority that was so evident in him now.
Arcturus moved on to Saahren’s first command (a patrol ship) then a frigate, then a cruiser. Promoted to captain, then to admiral—
“I want to know abouthim ,” Allysha interrupted. “Where was he born? What’s his birthday? Where
does he live? Is he married? How many kids?”
“I’m sorry ma’am, all of those things are classified as private. I’m not permitted to divulge private information.” The regret in the IS’s modulated voice sounded genuine.
She gritted her teeth. She could go and find out anyway. Saahren hadn’t realized she didn’t need the
techpack if she had direct access to a data point. But if she did that and he found out? After a moment’s hesitation, she tossed her head. What if he did?
Allysha sat down in the chair behind the too-large desk in the suite’s office and concentrated on the data point in the bulkhead, linking her implant to the data highways. She swayed as the sheer size and
complexity filled her mind with colored lines, interfaces, logic gates. Wow. The security was impressive; nothing like she’d ever seen before. Just as well she had the tricks she’d learnt from the InfoDroid on Tisyphor. A challenge. How to get in without anybody knowing. First things first; what security layers were there, and who could do what?
Chapter Thirty Seven
Saahren dealt with the necessities first. He had his implant reset and took back command of the fleet from Admiral Valperez. He gave his senior staff a brief explanation of the events on Tisyphor and what had happened subsequently. That included Allysha’s presence, of course, and while he described her
remarkable talents with information systems and all things ptorix, the private part of their relationship he kept to himself. He had an uncomfortable feeling that one or two of them deduced a little more than he told them. But they were guessing. He fielded a few questions, then raised a hand.
“That will do for now, gentlemen. I wish to see if our guests are comfortable.” He returned the salute automatically, choosing to ignore a few barely-swallowed smirks.
Tyne and Grallaz would be fine and his body double had been moved and confined to quarters for the
trip to Malmos. Allysha. He hesitated at the door of her stateroom. He hadn’t expected such vehemence from her over the techpack. But he’d done the right thing. Of course he had.
Arcturus announced him and he stepped inside. She sat on the sofa dressed in the grey pants and shirt ordinary crew members wore, bare feet propped on the coffee table. He longed to settle down beside
her, take her in his arms. But her eyes raked over him, her lips set in an unwelcoming line.
“Are you comfortable? Is there anything you need?”
She shot him an almost contemptuous glance and looked around the room. “Yes, I’m comfortable. It’s
just like a hotel suite. How couldn’t I be comfortable? Is your swanky apartment in Malmos like this or is it better?”
Her words slammed into his mind. “How do you know I have an apartment in Malmos?”
She shrugged, pretending defiance but her eyes flickered. “You must have mentioned it.”
“No. It means nothing to me. I rarely use it.” She’d seen the data; she must have. But how?
“Well, it’s a reasonable guess.”
She’s lying. She’s lying to me.A tendril of anger rose from his gut. “No, no, Allysha. You’re not
guessing. How do you know?”
“I must have seen it somewhere.” She looked away, refusing to meet his gaze.
He stepped closer. “Did you see it on the IS?”
She tossed her head. “Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“If you saw it on the IS, you must have seen it on my personnel file. That’s restricted. Maybe two or three people on this ship can see my record.”
She swallowed and the skin around her eyes tightened a little.
He put facts together in his head, that feeling he had when she concentrated that she wasn’t physically there, the way she sometimes seemed to know things before she pulled the techpack off her belt. “You
haven’t been completely honest with me, have you?”
He waited but she didn’t say anything. His lips tightened. She’d fooled him. Him. Idiot. He’d let her get past his defenses. Love is blind, they say.
“No? Well, let’s see if I can work it out. You need the techpack in places where there is no data point.
Perhaps a non-technical person like me could call it a pocket InfoDroid. You can connect directly with an IS through a data point but you keep that secret, pretending to use the techpack. Am I right?”
Allysha folded herself up in the chair and pressed her fist to her mouth.
Rage exploded in his chest. He strode two steps across the room and stood over her. “Answer me.”
She jerked as though he’d struck her. “Yes.”
The anger evaporated like mist. Stupid, stupid. He sank down into a chair and rested his chin on his fist.
He was being unreasonable. He had no right to bully her, she had only protected herself. And what to
make of this—it was unexpected. If he’d been concerned about the safety of the systems on his flagship if she had the techpack, what now? And she’d proved she could get into anything she wanted. He could
bet her incursion wouldn’t show up in the logs.
“It’s easier with the techpack. It has functions I can use, tools. But I can do without it if I have to.”
She’d unwrapped herself a little but her tone was hesitant. “I was curious. I just wanted to find out about you.”
He leaned back and put his arms on the armrests. And now he’d bullied her. How could he repair that?
“You could have asked. You have only to ask.”
“I want
ed to know if you’d lied to me. Besides, aren’t I allowed to know where you live?” Some of the defiance was back.
He shook his head wearily. “I’ll take you there. You can live there.”
She frowned and rubbed one arm with her hand, up and down, up and down. “No. No, you won’t. I
just want to go home. I wish none of this had ever happened. I wish it would all end, or that I’ll wake up and find out it was all a horrible nightmare.” Her lip trembled and her eyes were brilliant. “What are you going to do with me now? Put me in a cell? Yes, I can get into any of your warship’s systems. I won’t. I found out what I wanted to know.”
“That’s my choice, isn’t it?” he said softly. “Either I trust you or I lock you away.”
He could have the IS in this suite physically disabled but if he did that, she would have no access to entertainments, news, communication. He might as well put her in a cell. And if he did that, what chance that she would co-operate with him, let alone anything else? He’d been a fool, a pompous idiot driven by the need to appear unbiased, even to himself.
“All right,” he said at last. He took the techpack from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’m sorry. Of course I trust you.” He grunted. “I’m even a little disappointed that you didn’t tell me about this
astounding talent before.”
He saw the look on her face, the lifted eyebrow, the slightly curled lip. “Well, not me; Brad Stone. I thought you rather liked him, trusted him.”
“He never existed. He was a dream. And I trusted him as much as you trusted me.” Her eyes glistened
and she turned her head away.
He took a deep breath. “If you want to talk about dreams, think about nightmares, think about your Tor friends who died on Brjyl, or think about what van Tongeren wants from you, or the rioting and
bloodshed between Tors and humans. Please, put any perceived animosity behind you. Let’s get this
crisis ended.”
She caught him with her brilliant green laser stare. “Did my data help?”
He smiled. “Oh, yes. It certainly did. It proved the argument quite conclusively. Here; let me show you.”
He sat down on the sofa next to her and asked the IS to load the evidence.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Arcturus’sIS woke Allysha from forgotten dreams. “It’s nearly time to go, Allysha.”
She sat up and stretched cramped muscles. “Go? Where?”
“You’re to join Admiral Saahren on the trip down to Malmos in half an hour.”
“Malmos? Are we in Melchior orbit?”
“We are. You have time to shower and change.”
“Flip. Guess I’d better.”
She headed for the shower, shedding clothes as she went. The hot water revived her and she squirted some shampoo into her hand.
“Do I have time to pack?” she said as she lathered.
“Your belongings will be packed for you. Would you like some food before you leave?”
Allysha rinsed her hair. “If there’s time. Just a sandwich and some kaff.”
She switched on the drier and turned her body to catch the warm air. Half an hour, wasn’t that typical of men? “Fancy leaving me with only half an hour to get ready.”
“Admiral Saahren thought it best to let you sleep for as long as possible.”
She snorted. “Huh. Just shows what he knows about women.”
She was ready when Saahren came, but only just. “You could have given me some warning.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I gave you half an hour.”
She sniffed. “You’re lucky I made it.”
He led her to the transit, down to the battle cruiser’s hangar bay and into an airlock where another officer waited beside a shuttle.
“This is Senior Commander Butcher, my adjutant,” Saahren said. “Butcher, Miss Marten.”
Allysha nodded and smiled at a man about Saahren’s age, not so tall, pale skinned, with a chunky build and brown eyes. She wasn’t sure what an adjutant was but this man had a lot less gold on his shoulder boards. She followed Saahren up the ramp into a carpeted passenger compartment. Ten comfortable seats stretched down either side of a central passage. Saahren directed her to sit across the aisle from him in the front row, with Butcher behind him. She sat quietly as the cabin went into the familiar routine for take-off. Who’d have thought a few months ago that space travel would become second nature to her?
The shuttle dropped down into the atmosphere and toward the cloud-shrouded city. The upper floors of the taller towers looked like the stacks off the coast near the cliffs at Shernish, vapor surging around the buildings in the same way that waves crashed around the rocks.
“I expect it’s raining under there,” she said, more to distract her mind than for any other reason.
Saahren grunted. “Not where we’re going.”
Their destination showed on the view screen, the top of one of the tallest buildings, towering above the clouds. Her stomach squirmed. She, Allysha Marten, system engineer from Shernish, was on her way to the Galactic Confederacy’s parliament building to meet the Confederacy’s president. She ran a hand through her hair and instantly regretted the gesture. She’d have to comb her hair again. She rummaged for a comb as the ship slowed and slipped into the hangar. A quick flick would have to do.
As soon as the harness had retracted, Saahren was on his feet waiting for the external door to release.
Allysha made a last minute adjustment to the scarf around her neck and wished she could have done without it. The bruises had faded a little but they were far from gone. Butcher hung back and gestured for Allysha to go first. He gave her a reassuring smile as she stood.
A detachment of Fleet troopers crashed to attention and presented arms when Saahren appeared. He returned the salute. Allysha felt very small and insignificant following in his wake. She hung back with Senior Commander Butcher as Saahren was greeted by a middle aged man in a beautifully cut business suit.
“Alonso Vetch, the president’s adviser on ptorix affairs,” murmured Butcher for Allysha’s benefit.
“If you’ll come this way.” Vetch gestured to the doors at the back of the hangar.
Allysha kept pace with Butcher behind Saahren. She gazed around, taking in simple elegance, even in the transit car. Where the ptorix would have decorated everything, the human taste was plain, with neutral colors like white, beige and cream. But the fittings and fixtures were beautifully designed and superbly finished. When the car stopped, Vetch led them along a corridor carpeted in green and hung with portraits, mainly of older men in suits.
“The Confederacy’s past presidents,” Butcher said.
Finally Vetch ushered them through a waiting room—a clerk nodded respectfully—and into what Allysha assumed must be the inner sanctum. The room oozed understated luxury, with soaring ceilings and muted, indirect lighting designed to highlight the no doubt expensive art hanging on the walls. A massive desk and matching chair stood in front of a window that took up an entire wall. The turbulent cloud tops rolled past like an ocean, eddying around a few other towers that protruded so far into the sky. On a clear day, the view would be spectacular.
“Admiral Saahren, Mister President,” Vetch said.
Ten comfortable chairs surrounded a low table in a corner of the room. The four men sitting there all stood up as Saahren approached. One of them stepped forward, hand outstretched, a smile creasing his rather heavy features. He was the only one Allysha recognized from the news broadcasts onArcturus .
President Galbraith.
“Admiral, so good to have you back.”
Saahren saluted. “Thank you, Mister President.”
Galbraith’s eyes narrowed as he dropped his hand to his side. “I think you know Oldric Frykes, who’s taken over as Minister for Defense and Foreign Minister Hardrid Singel.” Saahren gave a military bow
from the neck to the two men. “And of course you’ve met Dermuid McKinley.”
“My adjutant, Senior Commander Butcher and my advisor on ptorix matters, Allysha Marten,” Saahren said. “For Miss Marten’s benefit, Mister McKinley is the leader of the opposition in the Confederacy Parliament. He is, if you like, the alternative president if Mister Galbraith’s government were to fall.”
Allysha’s eyes flicked from man to man. All of them had immediately dismissed her as decorative but irrelevant. Galbraith was curious and defensive. He hadn’t liked what Saahren had said about McKinley.
McKinley seemed a little bit excited; Singel was nervous, Frykes belligerent and Vetch impassive. They mirrored what Saahren had told her as he briefed her in the shuttle. McKinley had everything to gain; the other politicians had the Government to lose. Allysha didn’t really care about any of them. She had Carnessa to lose. She went over the evidence again in her mind, reviewing what Saahren had shown her and told her. Surely there was enough.
“It’s a pity we couldn’t see your evidence before the meeting with the Qerrans and the Khophirans, Saahren.” Galbraith’s voice held a note of reproach, as if the admiral should have known better.
Saahren frowned. “I am here in my capacity as an Admiral of the Fleet, Mister President. Please address me as Admiral.”
Galbraith blinked. “Er, sorry, Admiral.”
Allysha suppressed a smile. That was the tone of voice Saahren used when he was displeased. It seemed Galbraith was as susceptible as everybody else.
“Perhaps it’s time we gathered in the conference room, gentlemen,” Vetch said.
Galbraith, Singel and Frykes moved as a group, pleased at the intervention. McKinley hesitated, a hint of smile on his lips and exchanged a few quiet words with Saahren. Butcher and Allysha followed.
****
Vetch ushered everyone into an austere, business like chamber. A massive blackwood table surrounded
by matching chairs almost filled its space. The Confederacy coat of arms, a galaxy in three quarter view on a black field with the motto ‘justice for all’ in gold letters below it, hung on the wall at the far end of the room.
The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy Page 22