by Vox Day
“That doesn't seem fair,” she told him, a little dishonestly.
In truth, she knew the policy made a considerable amount of sense. The top echelon of government, both military and civilian, was restricted to the Terran-born members of House Malhedron. While other Houses Major might hold provincial and planetary governments, they were not permitted control over to the true levers of galactic power, of which the Ascendancy's Navy was the most important. If the masters of Terra's Ascendancy were benevolent, as they were in many ways, she was also a greedy mistress when it came to the control of power. And yet most of its people were happy, prosperous, and content. A man could go as far as his ambition and ability drove him. Or almost as far. All in all, the Ascendancy was the largest, most durable, and stable government Man ever had known.
And yet there was no denying that under the rule of House Malhedron, Man's empire had become stagnant, perhaps even decadent. Once a behemoth that reached avidly throughout the galaxy, the Greater Terran Ascendancy had come at last to what histo-sociologists termed “the pause of centuries.” But nothing paused for long, she reflected. History showed that the pause was most likely prelude to a great retrogradation. She was no sociologist, but even she could see the signs.
Tregaski shrugged again. “I can't complain, though. The Navy's been pretty good to me. I wouldn't trade my life for no title on Terra.”
York changed the subject. “Does the Draco have any provisions for landing parties?” She saw the confusion in Tregaski's eyes and explained herself. “No, I know about the ship's marines and so forth, I'm thinking of unusual planetary surfaces, the type we possibly might encounter in an uninhabited subsector.”
“Oh, sure. We can put a man down on anything but a sun itself,” Tregaski asserted confidently. “Is that part of your research, investigating asteroids or comets or something?”
“My research?”
“Well, you're some sort of scientist, aren't you? The captain said something about you being a researcher from Terra.”
“Of a sort, yes. I'm a specialist. Now, I understand the Draco's primary mission is maintaining the blockade of the cyborg worlds?”
A quick look of caution flashed across Tregaski's face. For the first time, he hesitated before answering. “Did the captain say that?”
“I'm sure you recall where I boarded, Lieutenant. Everyone on Xigaze knows why the base is there.”
“The Navy patrols everywhere, Miss York,” Tregaski replied, a little lamely.
“Never mind that. It's not relevant to my research, I was merely making an observation.” As they walked along the central corridor, she noticed several recessed cabinets marked EMERGENCY MASKS and asked about them. A mask struck her as being insufficient in the event of an atmospheric event.
“They're mainly for entering compartments that have been deoxygenated, which is what happens when there is a flash fire,” Tregaski explained. “And it's not only masks in those compartments. They also hold soft pressure suits with built-in masks for landing on planets with low barometric pressure or insufficient oxygen.”
They soon came to a door marked with a familiar red medical cross. Tregaski slapped the panel and the door opened up to reveal the ship's doctor reclining with his feet up.
Dr. Benbow looked up from his tablet in surprise. “Why, hello, Miss York! I thought for a moment I was actually going to have a patient. You don't have indigestion again, do you, Lieutenant?”
“Not this trip, Doc,” the big man said. “I been laying off the glupas like you said.”
“Good man,” Benbow drawled. He looked at York. “Finally getting around to taking the grand tour?”
“It's like a world in miniature,” answered York. “I'm amazed.”
“Very compact, very efficient.”
“That's the way it has to be,” replied Benbow. “The men all think I'm dedicated to my job since I'm always here, but the truth is I have considerably more space here.”
Tregaski elbowed York, nearly knocking her off balance. “The doc should complain. His cabin is almost as big as the skipper's!”
“Thank God for digital texts,” Benbow smiled and waved his little tablet. He stood up and led them into his surgical and dental room, displaying the equipment with proud relish. “We have everything, or very nearly everything, that a base hospital has, although it is of course on a much smaller scale.” He waved toward a door. “I have a small office there, which doubles as confessional or poker club, as needed.”
“The probe room,” Tregaski explained.
“Probe room?” asked York.
“The doc's a head shrinker too. Start seeing space ghosts and he wires you up, flushes you out.”
“I wouldn't put it quite that way,” Benbow said, looking embarrassed.
Tregaski nodded at York. “Just stay out of there,” he warned her. “If you know what's best for you.”
She didn't bother telling him that she had absolutely no intention of permitting her head to be scanned by anyone, least of all the bright-eyed doctor. If there was one thing no intelligence operative would ever willingly undergo, it was a headscan.
“Miss York appears stable enough to me,” Benbow observed.
“Not too stable.” She grinned at both of them. “If I were, would I be here?”
Benbow stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, well, I suppose that goes for all of us.”
From the little medical ward, Tregaski led York through gleaming washrooms, sleeping quarters and into the crew's mess hall, which served as a recreational lounge when it wasn't being put to its primary use. Unsurprisingly, she attracted a good deal of attention when she walked into the hall; men were quick to sit up straight, brush off their uniform fronts, and run their hands over their uniformly short haircuts.
Tregaski introduced her to all and sundry as “Miss York, a scientist and military researcher.”
York saw the quick question that popped into their eyes. Tregaski noticed it, too, for later he explained, “Everyone is wondering what you're doing here on Draco.”
“That's understandable enough,” she commented. But she wasn't about to say more. Tregaski waited a moment, then shrugged and shook his head. Obviously he knew better than to press her.
She followed him down a ladder and into a small compartment. A crewman rose at their entrance. “This is the air-purification and circulation room,” Tregaski explained. “Jona Norden, our maintenance chief. How's the air today, Jona?”
“Fine, Lieutenant. Pure for the pure of heart.” He laughed, showing even rows of flashing teeth that appeared all the brighter for his narrow, sallow face.
“I should hold my breath,” Tregaski grunted.
“Is this the control center for all the air in the ship?” asked York. She looked Norden up and down, wondering if he might be Dai Zhani. His eyes were dark, but there was no slant to them. He was only a little taller than she was, and his build was slight, but that was common enough among the men who went to space in these compact little worlds.
“It's distributed from here and returns here,” answered Norden. His eyes, curious, searched York's face. “We're continually taking in air and analyzing its content, then purifying and recirculating it. It's a continuous cycle.”
“It's an important job,” York commented. “Not much to breathe outside, I'm told.”
The two men both laughed.
“It's the most important job on the ship,” Norden said. “Saving the captain's.”
“Nah, I'd say the navigator,” Tregaski disagreed. “Don't matter if you can breathe or not if you fly into a star.”
“Do you have much help?” York asked.
“I have a crew of ten,” he answered. “We usually have two men overseeing the system at all times. I'm alone now because Ensign Henchose is patching a minor leak in one of the storage bays.”
They bade him goodbye and continued through the underdeck. Passing through one of the engine compartments, York saw two men huddled over a Krabacci board, a
game she knew to be popular on the planets of House Dai Zhan. Looking closer, she saw they were both enlisted men, and based on their appearance, were very likely Dai Zhani.
“Beating him, Wong?” Tregaski called to them.
The younger of the two, a dark, slender man with a shaved head, glanced toward them with a bright smile. “No one beats Singkai, Lieutenant.”
“Just keep at it, Wong.”
“I have been, for two years,” Wong remarked wearily. As they passed from the room, York noted that the man called Singkai had never lifted his eyes from the board. She mentioned it to Tregaski.
“He has the concentration of a stone,” Tregaski told her. “Krabacci's like a religion to him. The ship could explosively decompress, and he wouldn't look up, not when he's in the middle of a game.”
“They're good men?”
“They wouldn't be on the ship if they weren't. Most of our engineers are smart, but Wong is a wizard with the nucleonics and Singkai can sense disharmonics before the instruments even pick them up.”
York nodded, as if in appreciation. But she was thinking that a highly intelligent engineer with a strategic mind and a strong sense of intuition would make for a formidable intelligence agent.
Once the tour had ended and Tregaski returned her to her cabin, York took the time to carefully scroll through Draco's personnel records. Hull had been reluctant to provide her with them, and York had scant doubt that he would have refused were it not for the message from the Admiral of the Galactic Seas. She quickly realized that she had only been given access to the records belonging to the enlisted personnel, as there were 384 records on her list. She debated going to the captain and demanding access to the remaining 28 records belonging to the officers, but she decided to let it pass for the moment. Right now, the most important thing was Hull's full and voluntary cooperation.
From what she had learned of him, the destroyer's captain could make an implacable enemy if handled indelicately. He was suspicious of her and slightly uncomfortable around her, less because she was Intelligence than because she was a woman intruding upon his masculine domain. If she gave him an excuse to shut her out, there was a chance he would take it no matter what any admiral ordered. The lieutenant, Tregaski, was of a similar caliber, a hulking, formidable man who blew hot and cold according to the captain's moods. Even the doctor, for all his friendliness and charm, was a potential problem. What the captain and the lieutenant missed, he would notice.
No, any confrontations were best avoided. She needed to make the officers see her as an ally in a difficult situation, a useful resource, not an irritation.
She went over the records painstakingly, studying each one methodically. Every so often she marked a record for closer review. She glanced over the next few names on the list: Dexter, Lambda, Wulf, Carson. The Draco's crew was composed of men from every corner of the galaxy, from core to spin. She wondered if that was an accident or the result of a deliberate policy adopted to prevent too heavy a concentration from any one system or Great House. If the latter, it was a sensible policy. She noted, too, that there were no Terrans among the Draco's enlisted crew. That also made sense. The outer rim was not for the Terran-born. When they ventured from Man's ancestral planet, it was generally to relax or to rule. Although Terrans staffed many of the Ascendancy's wide-ranging administrative bureaus and the upper reaches of its military echelons, their birth put them above such duties as the Draco had to offer.
It took nearly half the day, but finally, she finished and reviewed the names she had selected. Char Wong, engine technician: born in Chufeng on the planet Pehling, second of the sun Kang. Wong was twenty-seven standard years old, had a technical education, had enlisted four years before. He had been on the Draco for slightly over two years. His merit ratings were high. There was nothing suspicious that caught York's eye except for the fact that Pehling was governed by House Dai Zhan. She went on to the next name on the list.
Jona Norden, maintenance. He was the one she had met in the air-purification compartment, the slender man with the flashing teeth and the ready smile. His record explained the racial characteristics which had puzzled York at the time. Norden's mother was from Pehling, his father was a native of one of the minor planets of Spica, which was governed by House Antoninus. Education, service record, and merit ratings were all good, though unexceptional.
David Apgar, a deckhand born on Fengpu. Like Norden, he was a half-breed, but with little in the way of education. He'd been in the Navy ten years without progressing much beyond the lowest rating. There was nothing incriminating, and certainly his lack of intelligence and indication tended to rule him out.
Lu Singkai, a maintenance technician born on Ling, fourth of the sun Wansu. York recalled the ascetic figure bent over the Krabacci board and the impression of calm intensity he'd conveyed. She read his record carefully. Like Wong, he had a technical education, but hadn't progressed far in the ranks despite twenty-two years' Naval service. Older than he looked at forty-eight, he'd served on cruisers and destroyers across the galaxy. He'd first boarded Draco four years ago and his merit ratings were excellent.
There were two more deckhands, Sam Wee and Li Sun, both Dai Zhani and both with pedestrian service records. Beyond the circumstances of their birth, there was absolutely nothing that justified even a glimmer of suspicion.
York closed the reader and shut down the screen with the feeling that she was getting nowhere. Six men in all had some connection to House Dai Zhan, but with the exception of Wong and Singkai, none of them were bright enough to even get an initial interview with Ascendancy Intelligence. Nothing in any of their records hinted at any intelligence training or any background that might be relevant to the Shiva technology. She shook her head at herself. What had she been expecting, that a lowly deckhand would turn out to hold a doctorate in hypertransitional physics from a leading Dai Zhani university? On the other hand, she knew well that the most dangerous operatives were those whose records said nothing of interest.
Since the records had produced nothing of use, she decided to go in search of artificial stimulation. In the wardroom, she found Doctor Benbow taking tea. At his invitation, she joined him and listened as he spoke of his home planet. The doctor had come from Omar, fourth of the yellow sun Pollux, and he spoke longingly of it.
“A lovely world,” he told her. His eyes took on a distant look. “It's been a long time. I suppose much has changed since I last saw it.”
“How long have you been away?”
“Twenty-five years. Most of my adult life, as it happens.”
“Haven't you ever been back?”
“Only in my memories.” The doctor set down his cup and looked at York. “I passed on the request you made to the captain.”
“Oh?” She cocked her head and waited for him to say more.
“He has no objections. He instructed me to assist you in any way I could. Within reason.”
“I appreciate that.”
“You realize that he is unhappy over your concerns about the crew.”
“Yes, but unfortunately, the nature of my work demands a certain amount of cynicism.”
“You're too young and attractive to be so cynical, Miss York. I am very curious what drew you to your present occupation. Revenge or a broken heart would be the cliched explanation, but the more I get to know you, the more cold-blooded I observe you to be. So, whatever it is, I doubt it relates to passion.”
She saluted him with her tea cup. “I am impressed, Doctor. You're correct. Neither revenge nor romantic passion drove me into the arms of my employer.”
“I don't wish to pry.”
“Of course you wish to pry, Doctor!” She grinned at the expression on his face. “I should be very offended if you did not. I would hate to think I interested you so little. After all, the instinct to pry is an integral aspect of both our professions.”
“I stand corrected,” he said, and they both laughed. “Perhaps I should say that I don't wish to offend.�
�
“You won't offend me. I think you'll find I'm unusually good at not answering questions I don't wish to answer.”
“Is your motivation a question you don't wish to answer?”
She thought about it for a moment. “No, but to tell you the truth, it's a question I've never asked myself. I don't think I can answer it because I don't know the answer myself.”
“Interesting,” the doctor mused, studying her through narrowed eyes. “Such a non-answer is an answer in its own right, of course. Not the most informative, granted, but better than nothing.”
“How well do you know the crew, Doctor?”
“I've talked with most crew members on and off, at one point or another. For the most part, they are like young spacemen anywhere. They're steady and dependable on the job, wild and irresponsible when in port, if I'm to judge by the cuts and broken bones I have to deal with when they return to the ship.”
“Are there any crew members that strike you as anomalies?”
“In what way?” the doctor asked, puzzled.
“Incongruities. A low-ranking man with an advanced degree. An uneducated man with a vocabulary betraying his nonexistent education.”
“I see.” The doctor nodded slowly. “It appears you are hunting your own kind, and on this ship, no less! That's a little frightening, I have to say. I will think about it, Miss York. Are there any specific attributes that might be of particular interest to you?”
York hesitated a moment before deciding an intelligent ally would be worth taking a risk. And besides, Benbow was from a House Trafalgar world. “Yes. I am particularly interested in any connections to House Dai Zhan, personal or professional.”
Benbow frowned. “House Dai Zhan? Is this on a political or ethnic basis?”
“The former.” York spread her hands. “To the extent they can be separated.”
“May I ask why?” The doctor's expression indicated that he really didn't expect an answer.