Kill Ratio

by David Drake

  You couldn't hang out on the slideways or watch the UN dignitaries in their cars here and not realize that it was just a little Earth up here, no better, no worse, and certainly no less factionalized.

  Yates would never forgive her, but she was going to put Taylor in the picture. Swear him to secrecy, of course, but let him know where she was going, and why. Taylor McLeod wouldn't forbid her; he knew her too well for that. He'd give her some help if she asked for it, though. And he'd make sure that if something happened to her, what she and Yates and Yesilkov knew didn't die with them.

  That was the most important thing, the thing she couldn't seem to make the security officers understand. All they could think about was the effect of certain incidents on their own careers. They couldn't believe there was anyone they could trust with this. They couldn't see the larger picture.

  But Ella could. And Taylor McLeod could.

  She thumbed the dialer on her handset, and when the ticket agent answered, booked herself on a shuttle flight to Sky Devon.

  It left in three hours. That gave her plenty of time to talk to Taylor, or record a message for him if she couldn't. It also gave her enough time to saunter down to the gym and slip the bodyguard's surveillance. If she was going to need help on Sky Devon, it wasn't the sort that Yesilkov's patrol officers were trained to provide.

  Chapter 24 - DAMAGE CONTROL

  It seemed somehow appropriate to Kathleen Spenser that when she entered Director Sutcliffe-Bowles' office, speakers were blaring Wagner's Naziesque mysticism from the Ring cycle. Wagner would have been right at home with the Plan.

  Sutcliffe-Bowles swung his chair around and tapped the remote on its arm which lowered the volume. Abruptly there was silence, a stagey, ominous silence in which Sutcliffe-Bowles glared at her, his normally pink and pudgy cheeks reddening even more.

  All planned, she realized, for effect - the overblown, self-important music full of braying power; the huge executive chair turned away from her when she entered; the swiveling and the ensuing silence in which the director glared at her like some great horned owl wearing rouge.

  “Damage report, Kathie, is that what this is?” Sutcliffe-Bowles finally said when she didn't react in any discernable fashion.

  She was standing before the director's composite desk, her hands dangling at her sides so that her fingers could have brushed the desktop. “Damage control,'' she corrected firmly. “Damage limitation. I reported a possible - by no means certain - release of microorganisms in my work area. Clearing and sealing the lab is simply a precaution, Director.”

  “Hrmph,” said this man who ought to be wearing tweed as he took tea in some Stratford-on-Avon garden, not sitting behind a New British Empire graphite desk in Sky Devon, getting ready to take her to task with all the insufferable tact of his kind. “What, Kathie, do you perceive as the difference? After all, the lab is ... sensitive. We're looking at a scandal here, if word - “

  “Sir,” said Spenser, suddenly experiencing a secondary onslaught of symptoms she'd thought she'd shaken off. “ 'Word,' as you say, won't be a problem. Unless someone on your staff gossips, we've got it well in hand. I'm working with Maintenance, under the table, to sterilize the area without a scandal.” The symptoms shouldn't be recurring, and that made them worse: she was dizzy again, a legacy of the gas and the antidote. She was dizzy enough that she'd interrupted Sutcliffe-Bowles in mid-sentence.

  And that, as much as her veiled threat that any leaks and subsequent embarrassment would bring scrutiny upon his office, made Sutcliffe-Bowles stare as if he'd never seen Kathleen Spenser before.

  She didn't have time for this fool, not the way she was feeling. It was all she could do to keep her hand from going to her forehead, or to the desk where she could lean for support. She didn't know that her shoulders hunched or her neck outthrust as she stared back, but they did.

  Very slowly and very precisely, she enunciated, “So, Director, if you wish to keep this incident from turning into a disaster which comes home to roost, I suggest you get about the process of issuing a gag order that will muzzle your staff. If one word of this leaks to the press, you're going to be explaining how it happened for the rest of your life.”

  Sutcliffe-Bowles knew what Spenser wasn't saying: on a space habitat like Devon, fear of contamination was second only to fear of depressurization. After what had recently happened on the Moon, people were even more skittish. Sky Devon needed its research facilities to function and to prosper. The agrihabitat ran on the products of its labs as much as its pens and tanks: without faith in its products, Sky Devon would be a multibillion-pound ghost town in months.

  The color drained from Sutcliffe-Bowles' face as Spenser watched with light-headed satisfaction. Then the director said, his words clumsy because terror had dried the spittle in his mouth, “Kathleen, I want your personal assurances that this matter can be handled without . . . publicity. That there' s nothing here that you' re not telling me. Nothing ...” Sutcliffe-Bowles sat back, his pupils dilating as she watched.

  “Nothing virulent, you mean?” she said sharply, unable to contain herself. For the first time she had this miserable, posturing, inbred aristocrat where she wanted him. “Nothing life threatening, like they had on the Moon? I can assure you, Director, that it's nothing like they had there. And if you do your job, it won't threaten your life, your lifestyle, or your livelihood, which is all you're worried about. But I'll need your full cooperation. ...”

  “You'll have it. You have it now,” Sutcliffe-Bowles promised, meek as even Spenser could wish.

  “Fine,” she said with a curt nod. “I'll be back when I have something further to report. Meanwhile, keep your people out of my way and your qualms to yourself.''

  There was nothing like the possibility of an epidemic to put the fear of God in people, even people like Sutcliffe-Bowles.

  Chapter 25 - PRISONERS

  Jan de Kuyper, hauling the big security officer into the “abandoned” lab, was puffing with the strain. Yates was a big man, that was all; that, and all the stress and the degree to which de Kuyper's muscle tone had degenerated in low gravity.

  That was all it was, he assured himself, not wanting to think about the other reasons he might be short of breath. If he was coming down with something, if the burning in his lungs meant anything more ominous than simple battle fatigue, de Kuyper was going to kill Kathleen Spenser very slowly, with his own hands.

  If the woman had booby-trapped him somehow, the way she'd booby-trapped herself with that damned phial she wore around her neck, she wouldn't live to gloat.

  Gloom was settling over de Kuyper as the situation became more complex. Not fear of failure, but simple pragmatic distaste for the unavoidable dangers ahead, some of which weren't even clear. When he'd done with this lot, he still had Piet van Zell and his bumblers to deal with. The Plan left no room for fuckups, or for fucker-uppers.

  With one final jerk on the unresisting dead weight of the man he'd been dragging into the lab, de Kuyper let the body go. Supervisor Samuel Yates' head hit the floor with a satisfying thump.

  Over at the air locks one of Spenser's flunkies closed the doors. Having done that, he then begged to leave. There was sweat on the man's thinning pate and sparkling beads of it on his brow. He was a doctor, someone Spenser had detailed to this duty, someone she either suborned or otherwise controlled. But the look on the man's face said that he'd nearly reached his limit.

  Scornfully de Kuyper said, “Yes, go on. Go. Go to your quarters. Spenser will contact you.” Jan de Kuyper had no limit to reach. He had only the Plan and his determination to stand on the veldt, free to roam as far as his eye could see, and never encounter a nigger with a gun.

  Once Spenser's boy had gone, de Kuyper made a mental note to make sure the flunky didn't outlive his usefulness. Then he turned to Yates, still unconscious. He manhandled the trussed prisoner into Spenser's office and slapped the lock plate behind him.

  Now it was just de Kuyper and these fish he'd
given up Ella Bradley to catch. One way or another he was going to make the trade-off worth his while.

  Before he dragged Yates any farther, de Kuyper checked to see that everything was as he had left it. It was. Yesilkov was still insensible, lying on the floor in disarray. He lifted both her eyelids and stuck his hand between her legs, probing with his finger to make sure. If she were faking, the intrusive touch would have, startled some reaction out of her. For a moment longer than was necessary, he probed there at the woman's crotch.

  Then he rose, grinning. Touching the woman had given him an idea. But first he must make sure they wouldn't be disturbed. He checked the panel he'd detached from the wall behind Spenser's desk, even sliding behind it. All clear.

  He rummaged through the desk, making certain that no recording equipment was on, no intercom engaged. Then and only then did he drag the sedated Yates to a spot opposite Yesilkov, propping the man's unresisting body against Spenser's desk.

  Normally for this kind of interrogation one positioned a light to shine in the captive's eyes - as much for psychological effect as to prevent him from identifying you. You only worried that he might identify you if you were still considering the possibility that the captive might survive.

  But de Kuyper was not considering that possibility. He wanted Yates to realize this. And he wanted Yates to have a good view of Yesilkov, in case the woman proved to be an avenue of control over the man. You never could tell what might work.

  Jan de Kuyper didn't care what he had to do to find out what he needed to know. He simply needed to know it. Having a little fun with Yesilkov at Yates' expense would be amusing, but it wasn't uppermost in his mind. It was merely easier than beating the information out of the two of them.

  Content with his plan, he bent over Yates and slapped the big man with an antidote injector. Then he rolled Spenser's wheeled armchair over to a spot between the two bound captives on the floor and settled down to wait.

  He watched Yates carefully, committing to memory the different states of the man's face. The planes of it in relaxation would change drastically as Yates came to consciousness. The onslaught of realization would tighten muscles, and by that means de Kuyper would have a referent for the helpless fear he meant to engender.

  Waiting watchfully to see the facial expression that he must recreate in Yates before he could believe that anything confessed was the truth, de Kuyper estimated dreamily that in other circumstances the two men might have been friends. Yates was pale, blond, some combination of Norse and Slavic bloodlines, or perhaps German. The high, wide cheekbones, the protruding ridge over slightly slanted eyes, the Netherlands nose - none of these softened the Teutonic mouth and chin sufficiently for de Kuyper to be fooled. This man was of good blood, and hard nature.

  In other circumstances, a compatriot. Now, an enemy not to be underestimated. Jan de Kuyper had dragged Yates too far not to have judged the power in the barrel chest of his captive, or in those long limbs so recently arrived from Earth. This man still had his Downside strength.

  But de Kuyper had been very careful with Yates' bonds, even injecting him a second time when he'd gone back for the supervisor, whom he'd stashed near the air lock. Yates' credentials said only that he was UN Security, Entry Division. But there had to be something more, or Yates wouldn't have been here.

  Therefore, those credentials were only cover. Yates was more than he appeared. An agent of the opposition, clearly. But which faction of the opposition? From what office? What government? How many others of his kind, back on Earth or the Moon, knew he was here? And what kind of forces would come after him, looking for their agent and revenge upon his attackers, once Yates was declared missing in action? How long would that take? How -

  “You work for Spenser,” said Sam Yates with some difficulty, his enunciation slurred and his voice scratchy.

  Jan de Kuyper took a taser from his belt and sat forward in his chair, elbows planted firmly on his knees. Playing with the taser so that Yates' eyes couldn't help but fix on it, he answered lazily, “Ah, we're awake, goodfellow? About time. Look around you, take your time. What do you see?”

  Yates' eyes never left the taser, never flickered to Yesilkov's prostrate form. Well, Yates knew she was there; he could not have failed to notice her.

  The security officer said, “I see some fool who works for Spenser. Spenser's ass is grass, buddy, whether I call the shots myself or not. It's too late - “

  “I do not work for Spenser.” From de Kuyper's mouth, the words roared unbidden. He was furious that this man should assume he would be in the employ of that prune-faced spinster whose female parts were probably the dark lair of spiders, if anything at all. “I 'work' for no one, only the Plan, the return to Earth of my people, and an Africa cleared for settlement by human beings. Spenser is nothing, a cog, a crazy woman. Only a crazy woman would wear around her neck a phial of virus. A bead that, if she jerks it off its chain, will be shattered by electrical means. And then, for the next ten minutes, the virus is lethal to any man - “ And de Kuyper caught himself then, shutting his mouth with an audible snap of his jaws.

  Spenser is crazy, goodfellow. And so are we all. He wondered what had prompted him to say those things to Yates, and then realized it was because Yates must comprehend how desperate the situation was - how desperate for all of them.

  De Kuyper knew now he'd made a mistake: Yates must think that his life hung in the balance, as well as the woman's. He must be given the idea that he might survive. He must . . .

  Before de Kuyper could reopen the conversation, Yates said, “Fine, you don't work for Spenser,” and de Kuyper saw there the facial expression he'd been waiting for: Yates looked exactly as he had when he'd first come to consciousness.

  “I will ask the questions,” said de Kuyper flatly. “You will answer them.” He stood up, still holding the taser whose poles shot forty thousand painful volts through any flesh they touched, and approached Yesilkov.

  Beside the bound woman on the floor was her briefcase, open. She'd been fumbling with it before the gas took hold. Bending down to examine it as he hadn't had time to do previously, de Kuyper forgot momentarily about Yates.

  “Wait!” said the security officer urgently. “Look, let's talk about this.”

  Jan de Kuyper realized that Yates had thought the Afrikaner was bending over Yesilkov to apply the taser. Yates wasn't aware, then, that the woman was still doped and unconscious.

  Interesting. Without showing that Yates' words had had any effect, de Kuyper continued his motion, hunkering down between the woman and her briefcase. He fingered the case and then looked over his shoulder at his prisoner. “Who are you, really, Supervisor Yates? On whose behalf are you here?” He fingered the Security seals on Yesilkov's briefcase. “I will find out eventually.” He reached into her blouse pocket and came up with a knife whose blade he snapped out, still looking at Yates. “Speak.”

  “I don't know what you mean,” said Yates levelly, a crosshatch forming over the bridge of his nose. “I'm Entry, she's -

  “I'm checking on you, back where you came from. You'll be explaining many things to me, other things, also. Do this before, and not after, the goodlady suffers in your place.”

  When Yates only stared at him, de Kuyper reached down with his knife hand and began cutting away at Yesilkov's pants. When he'd slit the crotch seam and slid the knife up and around, exposing the woman's upper thighs and pubic hair and soft belly, Yates said, “Wait a minute, man.”

  But by then the game was getting interesting and de Kuyper was busy trying to decide whether he'd use an antidote injector to wake the woman or whether the taser, judiciously applied, would be sufficient to the task.

  Chapter 26 - LADIES FIRST

  Ella Bradley had never been to Sky Devon before. If it hadn't been for the nice young man who met her at the docking hub and said, “Ting sent me to help out,” she'd never have found her way to her destination.

  Ting was a nickname Taylor McLeod hated, one
that had been given him in childhood by his parents, a derivative of Huntington, his middle name. When she'd met his family one Thanksgiving, when Taylor had brought her home to Bedford, she'd found out about the nickname and teased him unmercifully: the only people who dared to call him that to his face were his black nanny and his DAR-president aunt from Atlanta.

  So the use of his nickname in this place that smelled of pig feces and worse was better than any standard code word they might have determined between them on the groundlink and that might have been overheard. It was absolute identification. Bless Taylor's quick thinking. His young man was perfectly mannered, even-featured, short-haired, impeccably groomed, and more importantly, devoid of questions.

  “Anything you need, Doctor, we'll be happy to provide. Anything,” said the fellow, who gave her a business card on the back of which he wrote priority com numbers.

  Meeting the eyes of the young man she assumed was USIA, she found only calm competence. And a cool amusement, coupled with a genteel hardness one saw in a certain type of man who worked for Taylor.

  It was entirely possible that this thirtyish fellow who'd whisked her through customs without the opening of even her purse was not USIA, but something more sinister. One didn't ask. One assumed that a helper of this sort was exactly the right man for the job.

  The single job she'd asked of the fellow was to escort her to one Dr. Kathleen Spenser's apartment.

  “That's it there, the third door on your left,” said the fellow whose card said Peck Smith and who had only the tiniest trace of an Oxford accent. “You're certain there's nothing more we can do?”

  “Not unless you can let me in the lady's door if she's not home, so that I don't have to wait in the hall.” It was a joke, said with a smile.

  “My pleasure,” said Taylor McLeod's man, with a smile of his own. Then, after peering elaborately in both directions and placing a finger to his lips for silence, he strode up to Spenser's door, knocked, waited a minute, and bent to the lock.