"Because, Bulwark of Constancy said, 'Change is Wrong.'"
Hannah turned toward Jamie and grinned. "That's why," she said. "That's why the hatch position mattered. Trevor was worried about a second search. And he knew Bulwark was sure that Change is Wrong. If they had come in through the nose hatch the first time, then they would do it that way the second time, and the third, and the fourth, and forever. Because the other side of that rule is 'Do Everything the Same Way.' They would always come through the nose hatch, and the nose hatch would always have to stay open the whole time they were on board."
"That's a stretch," Jamie said. "Sooner or later they would have to work out that the lower-deck hatch would be easier for them--but yeah, I understand the logic." Jamie looked up at the docking hatch--the door to the heavens--with a gleam in his eye. "But the Irene Adler is alone right now, and the hatch is closed, and that's the best time to see--who knows what?"
At that moment, another audio alert sounded. Hannah and Jamie both checked the nav plot--and both of them saw what had caused the alert.
Bulwark of Constancy's ship had changed course yet again.
It was headed straight for them, straight as an arrow for a bull's-eye.
"How?" Hannah demanded, her blood running cold. "How did it lock in on us? What could the booster debris have told it?"
"Nothing," said Jamie. "It's just a little slow on the uptake. My guess is that her detectors did pick up our radio command--but Constancy didn't pay it any attention or understand what it meant at first. It just got really smart just a little late in the game and triangulated back from the direction of the radio signal source and the booster's start position." Jamie stared at the nav plot for a moment. "I've got an idea," he said. "It's going to take some timing and luck, but I've got an idea. You go take a look at that hatch."
"But--"
"Do it," Jamie said. "If you find it fast, we might still have a chance to radio in the key sequence before Constancy gets in range. I think I can keep us alive at least that much longer."
Hannah looked at her partner and saw that there was no time or reason to argue. If she was going to trust his judgment, this was when to do it. "All right," she said.
She reached for the ladder again and scrambled up to the hatch. Hannah knew in an instant that whatever Trevor had done, he had done in zero gee. She remembered what Jamie had spotted in the logs. The Adler's gravity had been kept at three-quarters of a gee--except for a two-hour period when it was cut to zero. She had just figured out what those two hours had been for.
With the stanchion pushed back on the rails away from the hatch lip, there was a hell of an overhang between the top of the ladder and the hatch proper. In zero gee, inspecting the closed hatch would be an utterly simple task. But with the gravity system cranked up to one-point-two-one gees for the benefit of Taranarak's delicate stomach, it bordered on the impossible.
"I beg of you, be careful!" Taranarak called out as Hannah leaned out from the ladder to grab on to an awkwardly positioned handhold on the side of the hatch.
"Calm yourself, Taranarak," said Hannah in Lesser Trade. "Or, better still, don't watch." But Taranarak's fright did serve to remind Hannah that there was a long straight drop to the lower deck if she let her hand slip. And breaking her neck would be every bit as fatal as a dose of Bulwark of Constancy's long-range weapon.
Hannah found a spot to keep her right foot on the ladder's top rung while wedging her left foot on top of a cable conduit and keeping a grip on the handhold. It wasn't exactly comfortable, and it was going to turn intensely painful if she stayed in that position too long, but it got her face up close to the inside cover of the nose hatch and left her with one hand free.
Even with her eyes no more than thirty centimeters from the hatch, even knowing that she was looking for a circular hull patch twenty centimeters in diameter, painted to match the grey-blue of the ship's interior, it took her a while to find it. At last she spotted it--aligned exactly over the hatch's centerpoint, painted to a smooth and perfect finish.
She reached up with her free hand and got the edge of a fingernail under it. Obviously, the patch hadn't been stuck down with the normal adhesive, or else she wouldn't have been able to get it free with a crowbar. She worried her fingernail under it a bit more and got enough of it clear to poke her fingertip under it and give it a gentle tug. A moment later, she was peeling the whole patch off. She got it free, managed to roll it up one-handed, then tucked it into the breast pocket of her coveralls. She needed both hands to get herself back over to the ladder before she lost all feeling in the foot that was wedged into the conduit.
She was down the ladder and back on the flight deck in a matter of moments. "Got it!" she cried out. "I've got it."
Jamie looked up at her, grim and worried. "We might not get to keep it long. Constancy's headed our way fast."
Hannah pulled it from her pocket and unrolled it again. There was a whole sheet of paper from an investigator's notebook stuck to the back of the patch, and every square centimeter of the paper was covered with Greater Trade Writing symbols in what appeared to be an entirely random sequence.
"So there it is," said Jamie. "The key that will unlock it all."
"I'll grab a camera from the evidence kit and photograph it," said Hannah. "You get ready to transmit the image file to Center."
"Right. I'm as ready to deal with Constancy as I'm ever going to be. I figure we've got about eight or ten minutes."
"That's not long," said Hannah.
"It's long enough to win," said Jamie with a tired, defiant smile. "Time enough to force Bulwark of Constancy to face some changes. Go take that picture."
Hannah went down to the lower deck--and saw Learned Searcher Taranarak. "We have it," said Hannah in Lesser Trade. "We have it. Here it is." She laid the patch with the sheet of paper still attached to it on the table and allowed Taranarak time to look upon it, to touch it, to understand that her goal, that the future of her people, was in reach.
Hannah grabbed the evidence camera and took the picture. She took multiple shots of it, then, working very carefully, she peeled back the paper from the patch itself, and confirmed that other side of the sheet was blank. After all they had been through, she had no interest in transmitting only half the decrypt key.
She rushed up the ladder and handed Jamie the camera. He dropped it into the proper slot on the control panel. "We're set to transmit," he said. "But I'm going to hold off just a little bit. Sending the decrypt key this way won't be exactly secure, after all--and maybe the stunt I've set up will actually work."
"Don't cut it too close, Jamie." She stood just behind where her partner sat, slightly hunched over the control panel. She checked the displays and watched him work the controls.
"I won't," he said, and glanced at the nav plot clock display. "Here we go," he said, in a tired, tired voice. "It's been a pleasure to serve with you, Agent Wolfson."
"Very much likewise, Agent Mendez," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. She was glad that at least the two of them were going to go out together, in the moment when it was all about to end. Hannah suddenly realized that she had absolutely no idea what Jamie had cooked up. "What's going to happen?" she asked. "Are you going to use the Sholto to try and decoy Constancy away from the Adler?"
"What? No. Just the opposite," he said. "The Adler is going to decoy Constancy away from the Sholto."
She had just time enough to look at him in horror when the Adler lit her engines. "What?"
"We're going to blow right past the Stability," Jamie said. "Don't worry, we'll be out of range of her particle beam. I think. But the main thing is to get her turning in pursuit of us and away from the Sholto."
"Jamie! We only have about twenty minutes of boost power left on this bird--and Constancy's ship outguns us."
"One way or the other, twenty minutes will be enough," he said, watching the nav plot. "And I worked the vectors pretty carefully. The Stability's going to have to sacrifice abou
t sixty percent of her effective thrust just making the turn and coming about to the right course heading. She won't gain on us. Or the Sholto. There!" he pointed to the nav plot. "The Sholto's going into her suicide run. Right up the Stability's thrust plume. The Stability's own energy wake will blank out her aft sensors--if Constancy's even bothering to keep watch. It didn't know we had three ships."
Hannah watched in astonishment. She could see it. She could absolutely see it. He had put the Adler on a course vector that forced Bulwark of Constancy to put on the brakes, hard, before she was able to come about to fly in pursuit--and the same course put the Sholto directly behind Constancy, where Constancy could not possibly see it--and Sholto was boosting fast.
And Gunther's crew had put a very big and powerful new self-destruct system aboard the Sholto just before mission departure. Hannah watched as the Sholto entered Bulwark of Constancy's energy wake. Another stern chase, but this one would be mercifully short. The Sholto closed the distance even as Constancy was actually drifting slowly away from the Adler.
"I configured it for detonation at a range of one kilometer," said Jamie quietly. The fear and anxiety had drained from his face. He could see it was going to work. "That ought to be close enough."
"Yeah," said Hannah. "It ought to be." She looked at her young partner and was glad for what she saw in his calm face. This was the moment when he would pay the debt, balance the books. The Unseen being who had killed Special Agent Trevor Wilcox III was about to die--but it would not be revenge, or bloodlust, or an eye for an eye. It would be self-defense, a law officer using deadly force to protect himself and others from harm. Whatever shadows the necessity of killing might cast on Jamie's soul, they would not be the far darker and crueler shadows made by taking pleasure in killing. Bulwark of Constancy had put Trevor Wilcox under sentence of death with a squirt from a bottle. Constancy had killed Hallaben, and put the whole Metrannan race under sentence of premature, useless death. But that sentence, at least, was about to be overturned.
The United Human Government Ship BSI 3369 Bartholomew Sholto crept, unseen, closer and closer to her target, until she was seen no more, altogether lost to the view from the Irene Adler's instruments.
Until, in a brilliant flash of light, the Sholto flared up into view for one moment--in the act of bringing final and permanent change to Bulwark of Constancy.
"'Out out, brief candle,'" Jamie whispered.
And the light faded out. Constancy had lost its Bulwark.
THIRTY
HIDDEN IN MIND
Commander Kelly had kept her word. There was in fact a rescue ship on standby, and relatively close--but the Irene Adler wasn't exactly on a standard approach vector by the time the recovery ship made radio contact. It was going to be a while before the pickup got made.
That was almost all right with Hannah, Jamie, and Taranarak. Somehow, without the fear of pursuit, with the decrypt key safely in hand, with the knowledge that they were going to live through the flight, the idea of the three of them being cooped up for another thirty-seven hours on a one-person ship seemed a lot more endurable. They read. They ate. They slept.
And they talked. Pickup was only a few hours away when Jamie remembered one thing he had been puzzling over. Maybe one of his fellow inmates would have an idea.
"What I can't understand is why Trevor felt he had to rehide the decryption key," said Jamie as the three of them sat around the table, dawdling after breakfast.
"What do you mean?" Taranarak asked.
"Well, obviously, Constancy's Metrannans didn't find it the first time they came aboard, so wherever the key was at that point had to be at least a fairly safe place to stash it. But then, unless we're reading the whole thing wrong, Trevor went through this huge and elaborate effort to rehide it after they were gone."
"That bothered me too," said Hannah. "Why fix what isn't broken? Why move it from a hiding place that worked?"
"Ah! I see. You have a wrong assumption there," said Taranarak. "He did not need to hide it for the first search. Hallaben did not give him a physical object to conceal. Hallaben gave Wilcox a sequence of Greater Written Trade characters to memorize. The key was hidden inside his head. Just incidentally, my research has led me to believe that Hallaben did create a backup of the decrypt key. Based on various hints I found among Hallaben's papers, I am morally certain that he asked a trusted associate with a superb memory to remember the same character sequence.
"Plainly, once Agent Wilcox realized he was dying, he felt the need to transcribe the decrypt key before he died, or before his memory started to fail--and, as you say, he hid it and set out clues for finding it that would greatly increase the chances that a human, and especially a BSI agent, would find it, while greatly reducing the odds that a Metrannan would succeed."
"Wait a second," Hannah protested. "If you knew about this trusted associate knowing the key, why didn't you speak up? Why didn't you just go to the trusted associate and ask for the character sequence?"
"Because I only reached that conclusion a day or so before your arrival--and because trust can be misplaced. Based on what you have told me of your work, it would seem that the trusted associate in question killed Hallaben almost immediately afterward, and probably deliberately purged the character sequence from its own memory store. Bulwark of Constancy was no pinnacle of trustworthiness."
"But why didn't you tell us about Trevor memorizing the key?"
Taranarak touched her inner closework hands to her outer strongwork hands, the Metrannan equivalent of a shrug. "We never did get much time to talk," she said. "Besides, you never asked."
Once they got back to base, Jamie learned another important truth. It turned out that saving the world involved an amazing amount of paperwork. Jamie was stuck in his cubicle in the BSI HQ Bullpen for most of his first morning back on duty, filling out the forms justifying the destruction of the booster and the Bartholomew Sholto. Once that was done, he had to file another report on the destruction of all their other hardware in the gondola explosion. Hannah poked her head into Jamie's cubicle. "You still at it?" she asked.
"Almost done," he said. "Just filling out the last of it."
"Come on," said Hannah. "Hurry it up. Kelly's waiting to brief us. Rush assignment."
"All right, all right," Jamie said, moving fast to get things shut down and neatened up. "I just need a second." He signed the last of the forms and dropped them in his out-box. "You know, if we keep losing ships and hardware on these little missions of ours, Commander Kelly is going to start taking them out of our pay."
"Keep quiet about that," said Hannah. "I wouldn't want you to be giving her ideas."
Kelly's voice barked from both their pocket comms. "Agents Wolfson and Mendez. My office. Now."
"Okay, okay," Jamie said, standing up. "Can't she cut us a little slack? I mean, doesn't it count with her at all that we probably saved the human race last week?"
Hannah grinned. "Yeah, we probably did," she said. "But that was last week. Let's go."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roger MacBride Allen was born September 26, 1957, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He is the author of twenty-one science fiction novels, a modest number of short stories, and two nonfiction books.
His wife, Eleanore Fox, is a member of the United States Foreign Service. After a long-distance courtship, they married in 1994, when Eleanore returned from London, England. They were posted to Brasilia, Brazil, from 1995 to 1997, and to Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2002. Their first son, Matthew Thomas Allen, was born November 12, 1998. In September 2002 they began a three-year posting to Leipzig, Germany, where their second son, James Maury Allen, was born on April 27, 2004. They returned to the Washington area in the summer of 2005, and live in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Learn more about the author at www.rmallen.net, or visit www.bsi-starside.com for the latest on the BSI Starside series.
NOVELS BY
Roger MacBride Allen
The Torch of Honor
Orphan of Creation
The Modular Man*
The War Machine (with David Drake)
Supernova (with Eric Kotani)
Farside Cannon
The Ring of Charon
The Shattered Sphere
Caliban
Inferno
Utopia
Ambush at Corellia*
Assault at Selonia*
Showdown at Centerpoint*
The Game of Worlds
The Depths of Time*
The Ocean of Years*
The Shores of Tomorrow*
BSI: Starside: The Cause of Death*
NONFICTION
A Quick Guide to
Book-on-Demand Printing
The First Book of Hazel: A Quick Guide to the
Hazel Internet Merchandizing System
*Published by Bantam Books
OUT OF CONTROL...
The universe turned flaring bloodred with light that blasted in through the viewport, illuminating every nook and cranny of the Sholto's interior in blinding bright crimson. Jamie covered his eyes and gritted his teeth, bracing himself for whatever else might happen. But nothing else did. Not so bad this time, he told himself. Just a little light show. As long as the light didn't leave them dazzled or blinded--and as long as there wasn't some other invisible, nastier sort of radiation along for the ride--they ought to be all right.
There was nothing left to do but wait it out. It was almost impossible to predict how much subjective time a transit-jump would take, but usually it was no more than a few seconds, or a minute.
It was only after about twenty seconds that Jamie sensed the vibration, the rhythmic shudder, that seemed to be coursing through the ship, fading out, and then reappearing, a little more powerful each time, each pulse coming faster and with greater intensity. The structure of the ship began to creak and moan. The interval between periods of vibration shrank until the shaking was nonstop. The noise was getting worse as well.
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