We shared a laugh and ate some more salad. It became apparent that Steph made Angela nervous. I rather bluntly asked her about it.
"You keep glancing at my friend," I said. "Does she make you nervous?"
Angela stifled a choke and avoided Steph's eyes as she said, "Uh, well... Yeah, a little. She hasn't moved since we came aboard and she looks at us all the time."
Steph said, "I didn't realize that I was upsetting you, Angela. Would you rather that I look elsewhere periodically?"
Angela looked at Steph, then at me, and asked, "Is she making fun of me?"
I shook my head. "Nope. She's absolutely serious."
Steph raised a placating hand toward Angela and said, "I'm still learning how to interact with humans, Angela. I'm..."
"You're what?"
"I'm still learning..."
"I heard you. I'm trying to figure out what you're talking about."
"I'm not human," said Steph.
Angela took a hard look at Steph, still uncertain whether she was being teased. Steph appeared to realize that Angela needed further explanation.
"Ed," she asked, "Should I disappear and reappear for her?"
Angela asked, "Do what?"
I said, "Sure, ma'am. That might help."
Chapter Forty-Five
Steph disappeared. Angela just about fell off her seat and over another one as she quickly stood and retreated a couple of paces. Steph reappeared where she'd been.
"You okay, Angela?" I asked. "Want me to hold that plate for you?"
"No," she said sharply. "Just stay right where you are for a minute. You too, lady. Somebody tell me what's going on. Now. Why'd you bring me here?"
"Nothing's going on," I said. "We were just talking. This woman is the flitter's computer and pretty good company, so take it easy. Sit and finish your salad."
"Why'd you bring me here? What do you want from me?"
Steph said, "We don't want anything from you, Angela. Ed invited you aboard as company. Ed, if you'd like, I could leave for a while."
I shook my head. "Nope. You're my friend. She's a guest; someone I barely know. If she can't handle having you here or if she's afraid of you, she can leave."
Angela lost her spooky look and seemed to puff up a bit even as she stiffened. Nobody likes being called a chicken; not even almost being called a chicken.
"I'm not afraid," she said, "Just cautious. Most people I know can't disappear."
"I can," I said. "You saw me do it. Now you know someone else who can, too. You can sit down and eat your salad or you can run for your life, whichever seems more appropriate, but if you decide to run, leave me your plate, okay?"
I forked up my last carrot stick and munched on it as I looked up at her. Angela just stared at me for a moment, then sat down and stabbed a piece of celery. As she crunched it between her teeth, she gazed directly at me. I swallowed and spoke.
"You're gonna make me make another trip to the salad bar, right?"
She nodded. "Yeah."
Steph said, "Ed, I can bring some or all of the food over here."
"We could even go over there," I said. "Nobody told us we had to park here."
"Indeed so," said Steph. "Shall I move us?"
"Sure. Is there room behind the tables?"
"There will be."
Angela snickered at Steph's matter-of-fact tone, then stiffened again as we began moving past the rows of sleeping people. Steph lifted the tables and moved them forward a few feet, then set down behind them. I used my implant to field some salad items onto another plate, then brought the plate and the dressing bottle aboard the flitter.
Presenting the plate to Angela, I said, "Untouched by human hands, ma'am. Grab what you like."
At that moment, the CQ came running out of the office, heading straight for the rows of bunks. I stood up, leaned through the side of the canopy, and whistled softly to get his attention. He stopped, then approached us. Angela remained seated, waiting to see what would happen.
The guy looked puzzled. He could only see my head and shoulders poking through the apparent 'hull' of the flitter.
"Why is this flitter over here?" he asked.
I gestured at the tables and said, "This is where the food is."
"Well, move it back with the others."
"Nobody told us where to park. Or not to park. Be nice or go away."
"I'm telling you," he said. "Move it."
I looked at him for a moment, then asked, "You got a stunner?"
He ignored my question and said, "I said, move it."
I let him see my stunner and said, "You keep messing with us or wake anyone up and I'll zap you," I said. "Go away."
"You keep saying 'us'. Who is 'us'?"
Angela stood up and leaned out beside me. "We are us, so leave us alone, Ted. We aren't hurting anything over here."
"I'll have to report this," said Ted.
I grinned and Angela giggled as she said, "I think everybody will probably notice a flitter sitting behind the tables, Ted. It's kinda big."
"Damned good point," I said. "You're probably right about that, ma'am."
Ted abruptly turned and steamed back to the office. Angela watched him go for a moment, then turned to me.
"Would you really have stunned him?"
"Yup. Sleep is too hard to come by when you're in service. Doesn't matter what service it is. Besides, we're up and the night will be over in a little while."
She looked at her watch and said, "Oh, damn. It's already almost four. Look, I can still get a couple of hours. Can we talk later?"
"Sure you want to? Your boyfriend might not like it."
"You mean Ted? He's not..."
"No, I don't mean Ted, I mean your boyfriend."
"You just want to know if I have one, don't you? I don't. I'm kind of between boyfriends right now."
I grinned as I said, "Oh, that's downright tragic, ma'am. You have my sympathies."
She grinned back and said, "Save them for somebody else. The last guy was a power-tripping creep."
"Oh. Well, then... Hey, do you like poetry?"
"Poetry? Uh, well... Not much, I guess, or I'd know some."
"I write poetry now and then. Want to hear a short one?"
She pointed at her watch and asked, "How short?"
"Real short. It's called 'Smart Women'."
I cleared my throat and recited:
Young men tend to rush headlong
Through every given task;
They often rabbit to an end
When they should stop and ask...
They hasten in some sort of race,
Unknown to slow or linger,
When she'd prefer her curves be traced
By gentle, loving fingers...
Smart women look for older men,
Who know, yet will learn new,
Those things each time,
As if the first,
To please her
They should do...
My motto is a question
That's oft survived strong tests;
"My Lady, what would please you most?
Do tell; I'll do the rest!"
Angela gazed intently at me for a moment, then asked, "You wrote that?"
Deliberately smugly, I said, "Yes, I did."
"Really?"
"Really. It's been on my website for years. Got some artwork up there, too."
With renewed surprise, she asked, "You have a website?" Shaking her head, she amended herself with, "What I mean is, how many spooks have websites?"
Yeah, right. She was looking at the gray in my eyebrows when she asked that.
"At least one," I said, "Want to see it sometime?"
She eyed me for a moment, then said, "Yeah. I want to see it."
I wrote my URL on a napkin, then she handed me her plate and said, "When I get back to my room, I'll check it out on my laptop."
I nodded. "Good enough. Sleep tight, and all that."
As Angela hopped
off the flitter and headed for her bunk, Steph used my implant to say, "Ed, you're involved with Selena and Toni. Doesn't protocol require that you at least consult with them before involving yourself with Angela?"
Her tone held no disapproval; only curiosity.
"Angela isn't likely to grace my bunk anytime soon, Steph. She was quick to trip over our age difference and surprised as hell that someone my age had a website, even though she tried to cover it with that spook comment. She's also very conscious of how her boss, Wallace, would view matters."
"Then you're cultivating her interest only for reasons of friendship?"
"Friendship would be fine. Her interest would be fine, too, if it was in me and not in who I know within the company. Beyond my companionship, what would she get out of a relationship with me, Steph? A possible link to Linda's offices?"
"I see. Is that what you think, Ed? That she has an ulterior motive in making a connection with you?"
"Could be. She's the assertive, ambitious type or she wouldn't be on a mission team. It could be that she's really interested in a 52-year-old guy she just met. It might even be true that she didn't just make the most of an opportunity to catch me alone for a chat. At three in the morning. If so, fine. I can always use another friend. If not so, also fine. I can use an info link into Wallace's group, too."
I put the paper plates and plastic utensils in the trash and noticed that the bags inside the plastic cans were the red ones with the biohazard symbol on them. When I reboarded the flitter, I asked Steph to move us back by the other flitters so that poor old Ted would have to rewrite his flitter report, then I stretched out on a field and slept until Steph woke me.
"Ed, Linda said to wake you and ask if you plan to sleep all day."
My watch read eight-fifteen. I poked the call button on my watch and said, "Well, Linda, I might have if you hadn't wakened me to ask me that. What's up?"
Linda said, "Two guys in biosuits brought us some breakfast in sealed containers. Actually, they just opened a door long enough to shove the containers inside. I guess they didn't get the memo."
I combed my hair and said, "Guess they didn't." Grabbing my mug and thermos, I asked, "Steph, are you coming with us?"
"No, Ed. I have something to do."
Huh? Something to do that she couldn't do with ten percent of her capacities? Or just an excuse to let everybody eat breakfast without the computer-lady present?
"Okay, then," I said. "Pop in anytime, if you want."
"Will do, Ed. Thank you."
On the way to the food line, I told Linda about my encounter with Angela, then said, "If you want, Steph can play it back for you and you can draw your own conclusions, if any."
Linda glanced at me while loading her tray.
"And if I think she's playing you, Ed? What then?"
As I filled my mug and thermos with coffee, I said, "Then we play her back and see what she's trying to accomplish. I don't think Wallace had anything to do with her contact with me, but it could be that she's looking for ways to curry some extra favor with her boss."
Linda gave me a somewhat longer glance and asked, "And what if she's just fond of older men, Ed? Some women are, you know."
"Then I'll count my blessings and never tell her that I had any suspicions about her motives, of course."
Linda grinningly asked, "Did anyone ever tell you that you think like a spy, Ed?"
"Yeah, once. Some ol' girl I knew back in Germany, I think. She looked a lot like you, as I remember. Tall, brunette, beautiful in an officious sort of way..."
As we sat down at one of the tables, she said, "Hey, watch it. No qualifiers. I'm either beautiful or I'm not."
I nodded. "Oops. Right. Sorry. Done forgot my place again, ma'am."
"You do that a lot. Stop talking about me and dig in."
"Yas'm. Want to talk about Wallace, instead?"
"Not particularly, unless it's business."
"Might be. I think he's going to be a problem for you if you don't let him know up front and between the eyes that you keep your office and personal lives separate."
Linda stopped eating and looked at me.
"Ed, Wallace is my problem, not yours."
"Nope. Mine, too. He let me know last night that he plans on seeing me gone, Linda. The only way he can do that is through you or by going over your head. Since he knows that going over your head would piss you off, I'm thinking that he'll set it up so that someone else gets the credit."
Without batting an eye, she said, "So make sure he doesn't get what he needs to make a case for firing you."
"You've been here before, Linda. You know that 'find a way or make one' people usually wind up making the way just to save a little time. If you get in his way, he'll resent you. If you don't get in his way, he'll think you're a dummy or a doormat."
Linda sighed and let her fork rest on her plate for a moment, then said, "Ed, you and Emory dislike each other intensely. How can I simply take your word for what he supposedly said to you after I left last night?"
"Steph will play it back for you if you want, Linda. All I'm asking you to do is keep an eye on Wallace and watch for games. Verify everything independently."
After a moment, she nodded and began eating again.
Chapter Forty-Six
Linda finished eating and said that she'd see me later. I finished a second helping of breakfast, then went back to Stephie to learn a bit about networking with datapads.
Lo and behold, the first thing that I learned was that Wallace already had a snooper network in place and that my phone and my first pad -- the one issued to me when Ellen had been staying with me -- had been included in his surveillance net for months.
"He must wonder why I don't use that pad much," I said, "How about Linda's pad, Steph? Is hers on his list, too?"
"No, Ed."
I sipped coffee from my mug and nodded.
"That figures. She'd tear him a new one if she caught him at it. Well, that simplifies matters, Steph."
"How so, Ed? If we establish a network, his system will discover it."
"I don't need the net now, Steph. People will believe what they think they've overheard a lot quicker than something they're told directly. We'll just use my old pad to send Linda a note when we get back to the house."
"Elkor could deliver the pad to you here, Ed."
"Yeah, and you or Elkor could activate the pad and dictate a message through it for me, but the GPS signature would make him suspicious. I'll wait until I'm back in Florida, Steph. I want to think about what to say."
"I can alter the GPS signature to match our current location, Ed. Speaking of Captain Wallace, he's approaching the flitter."
I turned to look. Wallace was halfway across the hangar on a bee-line toward us, tapping his datapad off and tucking it under his arm. When he arrived, he almost tried knocking on the hull before he realized that it might not be solid. Instead, he reached to touch it first. His fingers sank into the field and it briefly occurred to me that it might be fun if Steph solidified the field at that moment, but that might have exacerbated matters somewhat.
I leaned to poke my head through the soundproof field long enough to say, "Permission granted, Captain. Come on aboard."
His head poked in and he looked around once before stepping up to the deck. He chose a seat and sat down, looking first at Steph, then at me.
"We just got word that we'll be released this afternoon," he said.
"Good of you to let me know. Am I supposed to go anywhere in particular after they let us out of here?"
He shook his head. "Don't know. You'll have to see Linda about that. Look, Ed, I just came by to see if we can get past last night. For Linda's sake."
An olive branch? Coated with what kind of poison?
"Excuse me for asking, Wallace, but why the sudden change of heart?"
He looked so sincere as he said, "We were both on edge last night after all that happened. Maybe we both should have said a lot less than we
did."
What the hell. If he was sincere, fine. If not, no change.
"Yeah," I said. "Maybe we should have. We still don't have any good reason to be at odds, Wallace. She's your girl and my boss and we aren't likely to have to work together because of that. That's the whole story as I see it."
There was an awkward silence. Either Wallace was unfamiliar with signing truces or he hadn't planned for an easy agreement. After some moments, he stood up and stuck out his hand. I took it because that's how those games are played.
"Well," he said, "Good enough, then. That's all I came here for." He tapped his datapad and said, "I'm still filing everybody's debriefing reports. Guess I'll get back to work now," then he stepped off the flitter and headed back to the others.
I looked at Steph, then sat down and sipped my coffee.
"You're still skeptical of him, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yup. Get any readings on him?"
"His bioscan was inconclusive, Ed. The only small spike occurred when he said, 'for Linda's sake'."
"Was it a truth spike or a lie spike?"
"If I knew that, the results wouldn't be inconclusive."
I chuckled. "No. I guess not. Thanks, Steph. You know, maybe it wouldn't hurt to send a message from the old pad now. Got a link to it?"
"I do now. Why not compose the message on your newer pad for your own convenience, Ed? I can simply send what you show me through the other pad."
"Sounds good. Thanks again, miLady."
My message to Linda read: 'Just a quiet note to let you know that Wallace dropped by the flitter. He didn't quite offer an apology, but he didn't ask me for one, either. Could be he's finally realized that I really wasn't bullshitting him. Gonna give him the benefit of the doubt for a while and see how things go.
If I can ignore the fact that he's sleeping with you, he should be able to ignore the fact that I'm working for you. Did you tell him what you've always told me about not messing around with your minions?'
As an afterthought, I added, 'PS: I've always hated that policy.'
"What do you think, Steph? Is it candid enough?"
"It's quite possibly more candid than Linda would like in her padmail, Ed."
"She's tough. This is a bid for peace in our time, Steph. Gotta be frank. Send it whenever you're ready."
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 3 Page 33