"He's a busy man," Laydin injected with mock gravity, as she passed by with a tray of drinks for another table.
That was a good one! I laughed with them all. Maybe hardest of all.
After I left, I took a walk.
I bought a coffee at the kiosk, and drank it quietly, sitting at one of the tables. I etched a note into a piece of packaging fished from the trash receptacle, using a spork I'd palmed from the pub. I dropped the piece inside the cup, and trotted over to set it in that dark little nook. Then I walked home, and went to bed early for a change.
Around twenty-three hundred, Laydin called on my ring. I was in bed, but still awake.
"Swinging by?"
"Not tonight."
"You aren't mad about before, are you?" She sounded shocked, and looked it too in my eye-view (it wasn't easy, but I'd figured out how to integrate the cheap device into my personal comm network).
"No. Just tired. Early day tomorrow."
My idiotically-short responses were noticed, but she didn't seem willing to get into it just then.
Or maybe ever. And maybe I didn't care.
She saw that, too.
"You are one incredible piece of work, Ejoq Dosantos," she pronounced, bitterly, and closed the line.
Barney came in from practice soon after this, but I just lay there, listening to him shower, then settle in. Finally, I fell asleep.
Two hours later, I got a text message that flashed in my eyes until I woke up enough to read it.
ALL GREEN
I deleted it, rolled over and dropped off once more.
* * *
The fallout from Kwon being caught never blew back on me, or anyone else that I heard about. It seems he was netted during the re-hiring round, and simply let go. We'd never spoken while in R&D (never even saw each other, actually), and had barely spoken back in SpecSign. I felt more isolated than ever, though. And twice as much once Team had cleared out all the previous hardware and equipment. Word came down, after a day or two, about what the newly-christened Weaponry Sub-D would now be responsible for.
I looked over some specs projected from Ghazza's wobbly Tri-D (she'd been able to patch it up somewhat). It sat on a card table she was using as a desk. Her new office would be ready by the end of the week, she was assured. Several more standing partitions closed us in now, way back there in our little staked-out spot in R&D General. A drop cloth had been hung between two of these to stand in for a door.
Six other people had been added to our ranks -- all of them Team officers, all of them young, and all with other duties until we were up and running for real (another thing we were assured would be happening soon).
"Why does Team want this?" I asked about the specifications, utterly confused. "Show me the integration plans."
"There aren't any," she stated, a slight touch of exasperation in her voice.
"It says right there," I emphasized, pointing to a spot in the hologram that rippled around my finger, "Reference: Cross-Capacity Design, 1.0. That's got to be in the library, right?"
"No, it's just a placeholder. We're supposed to come up with all the integration stuff."
I blinked at that.
"Is that a joke? It's fresh off the drawing board. How are we supposed to know any of that stuff yet? It's terra incognita!"
"This is why Onboard Defense was restructured into Weaponry, and expanded. They want military-class weapons controlled by a civilian style interface. I don't know why that's important to them, but we have to define the thing's parameters ourselves. Their thinking will have to be made clear, but they obviously intend the ship to be crewed by civilians -- at least, sometimes."
"It's not that simple," I replied, shaking my head.
If the project requirements remained unchanged, then the challenge here was a mighty one. Hardware issues aside, just putting together a control surface that a civilian gunner like myself would find familiar and usable, yet which could, nonetheless, monitor, control, and fire the kind of military weaponry found on modern fightercraft, would be like...well, like nothing I'd ever heard of. There was no precedent, which meant we'd be far more mired in hit-and-miss research than in actual engineering. There was no way this was going to happen in lock-step with the other Sub-D's, or their timetables.
"If it was simple," she countered, "someone would have done it by now. Every usability study I've ever read has concluded that the four major civilian gunnery interfaces available on the market all have lower embedded learning curves, and higher degrees of flexibility, than their military counterparts -- when, in fact, any kind of counterpart even exists. New civvie weapon systems that hit the catalogs have control formats that usually follow one of the standards, allowing OEM's to integrate them into their new products with speed, and relatively few incompatibilities."
"Oh, I could argue that!" I laughed.
"Only because you aren't a Team Gunnery officer...or a Fleet one, in your case. In the military, every new weapon gets a new interface! It's always been like that. Sure, in the short term, it allows the manufacs to charge for complete packages, thereby increasing profits. But in the long term, it causes budgetary overruns and stagnation in upgrades, because Team can't afford to swap out entire weapon systems willy-nilly, just to get the latest versions of things. It's a real problem."
"They have the same issues in the Alliance," I replied, nodding, "and even worse ones in the Empire. Those Guilds over there resist any sort of standardizations, afraid it will cost jobs or market share. And don't even get me started on the Papals! From what I've heard, being a gunner on a Churchspace ship represents job security for life, whether Civilian or Flotilla. Every weapon system is scratch-built, and therefore completely different to identically-rated ones on identical ships! Quality people are irreplaceable over there."
"I know. This move is the first attempt by any military body to try and make a truly universal standard. It may not work, but it's a worthy goal."
"If they succeed," I countered, angry, suddenly, "not a single civilian gunner I know will be able to find work. I mean, who would hire someone like me, when they can get a retired military officer with deep-action combat experience? Right now, Civilian and Military are like apples and oranges. If our part of this project succeeds, we'll be making a system anyone can learn to use. Forget the freejump tech, forget the new power-plant -- that, alone, could impact economies."
"Freejump? The new stardrive you mean?"
My heart skipped a beat. That had been Shady Lady's private little term. I'd been careful not to use it before, so as to avoid confusion, or sounding confused, or worse...sounding sure of myself.
I didn't respond.
"I like it," she concluded, then said it again a few times. "They're looking for new terminology right now, and Hull Design put forward the word gravmotor, which stinks on every level. I'll submit freejump, if it's okay? I'll give you credit."
I just smiled.
"I'm thinking about a change," I said evenly.
"Oh, no, no, no! Don't tell me you want out!" she moaned, looking instantly crestfallen. "You can't leave me here with Jacob, and all these buzzcuts. I'll lose my mind!"
Branden Ursga would have been losing his mind if he could have seen me then. Chris Giordano, too. Getting in on the (new) ground floor of R&D was a golden opportunity for an undercover agent -- but that was exactly the problem. If Team was cleaning house, just how many pieces of the incompetence puzzle that was Jaybird's destruction were going to be left for me to find? This was looking more impossible than ever.
The surreptitious aspects were nipping at my heels, as well.
Spy-guy coffee codes?
Chubby hat guys shadowing me?
Branden and Christmas could go stark raving mad, for all I cared!
"This secrecy, Ghaz...all these Team kids..."
"But you just got here!"
"Yeah, I know. Better to walk out before you come to count on me."
"Look, I know we haven't really gotten anythin
g done, yet, but you and I have had some very productive conversations. I've passed on several of your observations to Floyeen...Seven Nuellan. She's really happy you're here!"
"She didn't look happy to me," I replied, flippantly.
"Who could, with Team brass breathing down her neck? Come on...give us a shot. The project has to be compelling to you."
"Of course it is," I confessed. "Very much so. But this new direction they're going in...a freejump fighter? I'm a civilian spacer. I was hoping to someday serve on a cargo vessel with one of these engines. Now, it's looking like a military monopoly -- just like always."
"It's a national security issue, Ejoq. You have to see that."
"Oh, I do! If the first ships that Corporate rolls out are military ones, the galaxy will jump into an arms race -- every nation compensating for being outpaced on this front by building up their other assets of war. If Corporate produced merchant vessels, though, we'd see an economic boom, with every company treading vac lining up to license the tech. Nutty paranoic spending, versus incredible revenue? That's the kind of thinking you'd expect from some syphilitic warlord over in Noblespace!"
"You talk like you're reading tea leaves!" she countered, shaking her head. "Of course Team wants to see what the miltech potential is: it's what they do. But who's to say this is the only plan in the works? Other branches of the Corporation might well be drawing up designs for your freejump cargo ships as we speak. If it seems like a profitable idea, you can bet someone is looking into it."
I opened my mouth to argue back, but I couldn't.
She was right.
That was something Corporate could easily do, and the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
"I'll stick it out for a while," I announced, after a bit.
She smiled, looking relieved, which I genuinely appreciated.
* * *
I took a pass on the pub that night. Too much drama, too many distractions.
Instead, I took a walk, deciding to do a complete circumnavigation of the space station. That was a touristy thing to do, but this was hardly a tourist town, so I wasn't self-conscious about it.
I hadn't spoken with Dieter for a couple of days, so I called him on my commring while strolling along. He had been sleeping, and I felt guilty waking him up.
"No, no...it's okay," he responded to my apology. "I've been meaning to chat. Our whaling ship parts have been ordered. They have a low priority, so it's going take a while. Where are you?"
"Um...just passing that discount clothier's on Centerline. I'm going to ring this place tonight."
"Sounds like you have a lot on your mind."
"Well, shouldn't I?"
He just humphed.
"I talked to our friends," he supplied. "They put Mavis back in the freeze. Otherwise, no updates to report on her condition."
"They aren't holding up well, are they? I mean, no one would, even if they didn't have guilty consciences."
"Are we really sure about that part?"
"We aren't sure about anything -- except that we're not alone in having, ah...hobbies aboard this station."
"The encrypted signal? Is there news?"
"All I can say is that steps are being taken on that front. Don't ask. Look, I'll let you get back to sleep. I just wanted to check in."
He said he was happy that I did, pressed me to enjoy my walk, and closed the call.
I found a couple of new fruit stands at one point, all in a row. Beautiful apples and citrus fruits, vegetables and fresh herbs. It was a surprise -- even a joy to see! I was tempted to buy up arm-loads of stuff, but I really wasn't a cook, and rarely home anyway, so it would probably just go bad. It was all very expensive, too, since there weren't any hydroponic gardens on-station that I knew of.
I came to a relatively large gadget outlet after this. It had all sorts of electronic doodads and devices. I might have replaced my wristcomp right away, after the mugging, if I had known about it. It was tempting to pick one up, in fact, but I was really in a looking mood, more than a buying one.
I came across a tiny thali restaurant, the sign for which was in some unreadable Terran language, and I suddenly realized I was famished. I was one of several customers, and enjoyed a preset meal of curried chick peas; a type of flat bread I couldn't name but greatly enjoyed; spicy greens; some amazing potatoes; and a dollop of cardamom-laced custard, very sweet, and very good. It was all served on a single, battered metal tray, and I washed it down with ice cold water from an equally battered cup. If I'd discovered the place sooner, I'd have been eating less scobble, I can tell you!
Eventually coming upon more familiar territory, I stopped at my little coffee kiosk. I sipped slowly as I walked, without any thought of the nook, or secret messages. And I didn't want to look over my shoulder. It was nice to be solitary and wandering.
No, this wasn't really outer space (to a spacer, anyway), but it was movement and discovery, however small and circular. It was a scent of freedom dancing through fumes of obligation.
It was an evening of no one, not even me.
This place was very nice. The Mylag line included other such vessels as this, only outfitted for colonial use. True residential stations. I liked the layout and simplicity. I liked how it was constructed -- with an open, airy feel through some clever counter-bracing of the support struts, rounded bulkhead corners, and the liberal use of tensegric cabling instead of load-bearing girders where ever possible. It made the place quite liveable, even pleasant.
Granted, it did have a strong utilitarian feel, with offices, labs, and security posts galore. But there were also shops and restaurants; apartments and some decent tract-housing for the management types. And this was all just on Centerline Avenue! There were two, narrower roads that paralleled it: Port and Starboard Streets. Not much imagination in the names, maybe, but it was hard to get lost. And in between the roads were alleys and small lanes, with more shops, more offices, more apartments.
The station was a massive product, built and tailored to a customer's exact needs. One settlement among many...tens of thousands in space, housing billions of colonists -- and an unknown number of clandestine operations like this one.
Mylag Vernier was a speck of dust that I was occupying for a millisecond.
One moment in my life.
That was good to remember.
I stopped and took deep breaths of reclaimed air, and a sip of coffee made from reclaimed water.
This mission was just temporary, like an inhalation, like a taste of creamy bitterness in the mouth. What I was doing was important, it mattered...but only for now.
That perspective made me smile. Standing alone, I grinned like a fool, but it was genuine and filled with relief.
I watched the pedestrian traffic go by. Even though it was nearly thirdshift, many projects were staggered in such a way to keep them running all day and night (especially since those were artificial concepts here), and some support services were scheduled the same way. This meant people were as numerous right now as they ever were -- especially in the middle of a shift as it was, which would have counted as lunch time.
A tram trundled by. Small rollers with one or two people cruised along. A tik-tik cab buzzed passed. Folks dashed out to grab a bite, or to run errands while they had a chance: assistants and line workers; clean room techs in full garb, Team johnnies looking rushed. They sailed along ahead, behind, and beside me -- focused or chatting or laughing or grim. A regular shift.
It was because I was actively watching all this that I saw the roller approaching.
It was a bright yellow Cherrymoore one-seater, open to the air, and fully autonomous -- one of hundreds, leased by the Corporation for the duration of the project. A purely mundane vehicle, unremarkable in every way.
A bulky figure in a radiation technician's suit, just fabric and folds, was leaning half-in/half-out as the vehicle approached. The face was covered in a reflective shield, like they always wear when on the job. Something was in
the figure's gloved hand.
I tossed my coffee at the car and ducked at the same moment, going to one knee, while a sizzling/snap barked from the figure's stunner. The cup had missed my target entirely, sailing right through the Cherrymore's cab, but it had made the attacker duck or flinch or something, and the shot had not found me.
The roller was only moving at jogging pace, so the rad tech unfolded from it and hopped out, stumbling a bit, tiny weapon still clenched in a black-gloved fist. Someone behind me shouted or screamed, having witnessed what happened, what was still happening. I tried to get up and run in a single movement, and only succeeded in tripping and going down on my stomach.
There were running sounds, more shouts, more shots, but I still wasn't hit for whatever reason, so I got up and ran. I didn't look back, I didn't look at the people gawking, I didn't slacken my pace until I was winded (which didn't take long, but it put me a few dozen meters away). I ducked into the next alley I came to, and stumbled over to Starboard Street. Then I went right, and kept walking. When the public tram rolled up behind, I signaled for it and got on.
A text came in from Seven Ursga, super-imposed upon my eye-view.
YOU OKAY?
I whispered into my fist, barely above a breath, but the ring picked up the words, converting them to text, and sending them off in reply.
"Yeah. Get him?"
NO, HE HAD ANOTHER ROLLER WAITING. DROPPED HIS GUN. A RAMP-UP.
That stopped all thought. A flash of panic galloped through me -- a delayed reaction from the attack.
"He wanted to kill me?"
Ramp-ups were modified stunners with extremely high charges. Illegal everywhere, they could fry an unprotected person's central nervous system with one shot. They didn't look any different from regular stunners -- not even the relatively safe kind that ordinary people sometimes carried for self-defense.
Risk Analysis (Draft 04 -- Reading Script) Page 26