by Vox Day
She laughed. “Aside from the gentleman who tried to gas me.”
“Why do you think you'll be leaving the ship? And, perhaps more pertinently, how is that possible?”
“There may be another ship in the vicinity soon.”
“And this concerns you?”
“It does if I'm not on it. There are advantages. There might not be Dai Zhani agents trying to kill me. Or cyborgs, for that matter.”
“Might not?” the doctor asked.
“You never can tell. It could even be a third party. House Mokole, House Antoninus. It's not likely, though, as Li-Hu stirs up more trouble than all the other Great Houses combined.”
“What about an alien player? Surely they resent the Ascendancy more than any human party.”
York laughed, trying to envision a 2-meter tall Basattrian thumping its way down a ship's corridor. “No, doctor. No chance of that. The only way an alien will ever set foot, or whatever passes for its foot, on a Navy ship is in a sealed and quarantined cargo hold.”
“That's probably true.” Benbow sipped his coffee. “Who concerns you more?”
“The cyborgs. The Dai Zhani are active, but I understand what they're doing. Also, they're amateurs. The Singularitans, on the other hand, are harder to predict and understand. That makes me nervous.”
“Why?” He clarified. “I mean, what makes them harder to predict?”
“They have some very unique operatives, one in particular, who is running true to form.”
“Which is what?”
“This particular operative is advertising herself with every move,” York explained. “She's leaving a path that a blind man could follow, strewn with corpses, and killing people by some very public and showy means.”
“I don't know much about your profession, or how that could possibly be connected to your presence here, but that seems highly counterproductive to me.”
“It is. That's why I say she's running true to form. The behavior is so strange, so seemingly unproductive, that it renders her unpredictable. There is no logic, or rather, the observable logics contradict.”
“It sounds very confusing. They want you to jump in all directions. Is that it?”
She smiled grimly. “It is. But fortunately, Director Karsh is very, very good at cutting through the confusion. He has excellent instincts.”
“Karsh must have a great deal of confidence in you,” the doctor commented.
“I can honestly say that I've never let him down.” She changed the subject. “Speaking of keeping me on the scene, are you making any headway in your little investigation?”
“Frankly, I'm puzzled,” admitted Benbow. “The gas was cyanic, as you suspected. I've confirmed that, and I've also confirmed that we don't use it aboard ship, don't store it, and it can't be produced from anything we do store. Nor do we store the type of canister that was used in the attack. Everything was spirited aboard.”
“Doesn't surprise me,” she commented.
“No?” the doctor asked sharply. “That raises some questions. If the gas bomb were brought aboard, as apparently it was, then it presupposes a knowledge of what was to happen, how it was to be used. That's worrisome, Miss York, especially if the incident were related to whatever your mission happens to be.”
“Which it is,” she replied calmly.
The doctor studied her. “How could anyone, even the captain, have known that Draco would be sent out here? No one could have known that!”
“Well, I seem to have figured it out in time to catch a ride. Remember, Draco was by far the closest available ship of its class to this subsector, or it was until the Admiralty brought the Cetus out of the shipyard.”
“But why this subsector? Have we not yet reached the time you spoke of before, when our reason for being here would become apparent?”
“Not yet.” She exhaled heavily. “And if I transfer to the Cetus, it will never arrive.”
“And leave my curiousity unassuaged? You wound me, Miss York, you really do!” The doctor grinned and indicated her mug. “More coffee? I have to say, of all the various theories presently circulating through the crew, I favor the abandoned alien ship theory.”
“An alien ship?” she handed him the mug. “Interesting. And what is the reasoning behind that notion?”
“You've practically confirmed it, actually. An object deep in uninhabited space. A mysterious signal. The Admiralty and AID want it. House Dai Zhan wants it. The Singularitans want it, although I can't see how they have a hope in Hell of obtaining it, being blockaded as they are. Who knows what technological miracles await the first to arrive and claim it?”
“That makes sense,” she admitted.
“The only thing that doesn't make sense is the attempt on your life. Why the bomb?”
“I was the unpredictable element. There's always an unpredictable aspect to these situations, you know.” She paused, recalling how searing pain had poured down her throat and into her lungs, and shuddered at the memory. “My arrival panicked someone. He lost his head and decided to get rid of me. By doing so, he tipped his hand. And now I'm beginning to get the picture. A rather fantastic one, to be sure.”
“Alien fantastic?” Benbow said suggestively. “You know, I was thinking that you might not actually be a Directorate agent. You might be a xenologically-trained diplomat operating under the guise of an intelligence operative.”
“You have a vivid imagination, Doctor.”
“Comes with the profession. It just occurred to me that an intelligence operative wouldn't be expected to be caught with her pants down.”
“Literally,” she admitted. “Look, we're not superhuman, you know.”
“But are you what you say you are? That's really the question, isn't it?”
“Do any of us really know who we are?” She rose and accepted the mug from him. “I'm afraid I shall have to leave such questions to you and your fellow neuropsychologists, Dr. Benbow. Thank you for the coffee. May I take this with me?”
“By all means, Miss York.” The doctor made an ironic little bow as she smiled at him and departed.
Leaving the medical suite, York felt curiously invigorated. If Benbow enjoyed playing the devil's advocate, she found the exercise to be stimulating too. His notions concerning the possibility of an alien ship were amusing, but they weren't actually all that far off. What was the difference, in the end, between the desire of Terra's rivals to acquire the sunbusting technology and unknown alien technologies. In any case, their goal was to end the Ascendancy.
She wondered if Benbow would be disappointed if and when he learned the true situation. Well, they'd know soon enough. If only she could be certain of getting on-board the Cetus! She knew Director Karsh would be doing his best to get her to the stricken cruiser, but the introduction of this unexpected uncertainty so close to the crucial nexus made her nervous.
The strain was making her impatient. The waiting had been endless, unproductive tedium disrupted only by the clumsy attempt on her life, but now they were deep inside the Gelhart system, speeding toward the planet that the Rigel likely orbited. She could feel the climax gradually building, that moment when competing plots and plans and actions would come to boil, when the devious machinations of Prince Li-Hu and Dr. G and Director Karsh would be put to final test.
And the stakes? Contemplating them, she felt a sense of historical awe at the possibilities that lay before Mankind. If August Karsh triumphed, the Terran empire would go on as before, sprawling, benevolent, a far-flung, placid galaxy in which all men were as equal as they could reasonably expect to be. Even without the name, the Ascendancy was Man's greatest empire, which God in His star-spanning benevolence had somehow miraculously seen fit to grant an authoritarian class which ruled more or less justly and without undue harshness. The Greater Terran Ascendancy would continue to grow slowly, corroding into decadence even as it expanded down the long galactic corridor toward the magnificent spiral nebula in the constellation Andromeda, an accidental empi
re propelled by the inertia of two thousand years rather than through grandiose dreams.
If Prince Li-Hu won, the Empire would be divided. The restless hordes of the Dai Zhani suns, fretting and impatient, would burst forth undeterred by the terror of Shiva, carving out new kingdoms and violently tearing worlds from the flesh of the Ascendancy's planetary corpus. Such a division would end Man's galactic empire; like all past empires faced by an energetic barbarian foe, it would retreat behind impregnable defenses before succumbing to decline and eventual oblivion. Or else it would be torn by vast wars of a scale too terrible to contemplate as House Dai Zhan sought to tear off the yoke of House Malhedron and assert their ascendancy. That was the deadly outcome which must be avoided above all else, at all costs.
And if Dr. G won? A new race, a new form of posthumanity would spread through the stars. Small in number, they would first infiltrate the seats of galactic power, infusing Man's vast empire with new energy and new visions, perhaps even inhuman ones. But the children of Man and Machine would do it slowly, over time, so that Man, per se, would never realize that he had been supplanted. He would never know that a new being was rising from the ashes of the old.
Those were the stakes. And the outcome, as had so often been the case in previous millennia, would depend on a small and insignificant action in a remote corner of the galaxy. The might of the Ascendancy and its Navy meant nothing. All its lethal star cruisers would count for nothing here in Subsector Zero Seven Zero Two, because the ultimate path would be decided by a handful of men and women whose names would never appear in the history books: herself, the Dai Zhani, and, somehow, Myranda Flare. They were on a collision course to determine the fate of a two-thousand year old empire. She wondered if Hull had the ability to appreciate that. Benbow, on the other hand, surely would.
She wondered which man she would prefer as a lover. Corden Hull was the more attractive of the two, there was no doubt of that. He was rugged, hard, and commanding. He was mentally inflexible, but far from dull. But she found Benbow's lively mind more intriguing, and much preferred his company. Ah well. It didn't matter anyhow. There was no chance of any sort of relationship with either man, not even if she stayed on Draco.
Still sipping at her half-full coffee, she was just passing a corridor crossing when she felt her scalp prickle, and her instincts screamed a warning in her mind. Reacting without thought, she hurled herself forward and simultaneously felt a wave of unnatural heat sear just over her head. Her coffee went flying as she landed on her stomach, but as she scrambled frantically forward to get out of the shooter's line of sight, another heat wave seared her left calf. Once clear, she rolled over and drew her Ruger Mini-LCB, thumbing off the safety to blast her assailant if he came up the corridor and around the corner.
No one appeared. Cautiously, still holding the Ruger in the direction of the crossing, she pushed herself to her feet. Her leg felt as if she'd dropped a curling rod on it; it was a minor burn indicating a relatively low-power laser. Dammit, she'd been careless, wandering around the ship without Osborn or one of the other regular guards that had been assigned to her.
Shouts came down the corridor as she crouched low and stepped out into the crossing, pointing the Ruger in the direction the shots had come. A faint stink of ozone was in the air, confirming what she already knew. Laser. Despite the footsteps pounding towards her, she didn't wait for reinforcements to arrive, but instead ran in the direction she surmised the would-be assassin had gone.
Her ion blaster drawn and her nerves on edge, she raced down the corridor. But it came to a dead end, with no sign that anyone was there. She cursed and whirled around, wondering what she had missed. She hadn't run past any cross corridors or open doors, had she? No, that wasn't possible. She retraced her steps, and the second door she opened revealed a ladder that provided access to the maintenance and engine compartments below. Descending rapidly, she burst through a doorway and stopped abruptly at the sight of half a dozen crewmen gathered around a Krabacci game.
Jona Norden, the maintenance chief, glanced over at the sound of her entrance and his eyes widened momentarily in alarm. He raised his hands. “Ah, Miss York. What brings you here? And why are you breathing so hard?”
The chief was certainly a cool customer, she found herself thinking even as she surveyed the room. Norden didn't so much as mention the fact that she was practically pointing a blaster in his face.
“Training exercise,” she answered noncommittally as she holstered the Ruger. She looked over the players and those watching the game. Singkai, stolid and still as a statue, sat on one side of the board across from a slender younger Chinan whose soiled work uniform marked him as a member of the engine-room crew. Char Wong was there, the engine technician who came from the planet Pehling, second of the sun Kang. She also noted David Apgar, Korin Paulson, Innis Coulter, and Waylan White.
None of them looked to be breathing hard or concealing a weapon.
“Who's winning?”
“Song Jiang has put up a noble resistance, but Singkai will win.” Norden lowered his hands. “Your leg has been burned.”
“I must have scraped it against something.”
“Life in space can be dangerous,” Norden commented with an enigmatic smile. “Particularly for a woman.”
York couldn't decide whether or not she sensed any deeper threat behind his words. The maintenance chief's expression was unreadable, and his refusal to say anything about the weapon she'd been brandishing only made her more suspicious. She looked again at the game. She didn't know much about it, but she knew enough to see they had been at it for at least two kilosecs.
“Do you play?” Norden asked.
“No, afraid not.” She shook her head.
“It's a challenging game of wits.”
She smiled and played dumb. “Then I'm certain it's not for me.”
“I believe you'd be very good at it,” Singkai murmured unexpectedly. Then he returned his attention to the board, settling back into his imperturbable silence.
The others stared first at Singkai in surprise, then at her. They seemed more surprised that Singkai had interrupted his game than at the way in which she'd burst in upon them. Norden shrugged and made a slight nod towards the ladder. Clearly, she was being dismissed. Fighting back the urge to demand that each of them submit to a search, she gave up and climbed back up the ladder.
Ensign Michaels was there in the corridor, along with two big crewman. Together, the four of them quickly checked the other doors in the vicinity. Two were dead ends, but the third one concealed another ladder to the deck below. York couldn't figure out how the shooter had gotten to it without her spotting him, unless she'd waited longer to go after him than she thought she had. But it seemed obvious that he hadn't descended the first ladder, not without running into the men watching the Krabacci game.
Four of the eight men present at the game were connected with House Dai Zhan. That looked suspicious, but only superficially so. Krabacci was a Chinan game, after all and it would have been the rare Dai Zhani who did not possess at least a mild interest in it, especially on board a ship where the entertainment options were limited. She was certain that Lu Singkai hadn't wielded the laser which had almost cut her down. The man could never have clambered below so quickly nor composed himself so completely. As for the others, four of them came from worlds ruled by other Houses, they held other loyalties. Why would they help shield a Dai Zhani killer?
Her cheeks were nearly as red as her burned calf as she limped towards the medical chambers, accompanied by the ensign, deeply chagrined. What would Benbow have to say to this one?
Corden Hull's weathered face was full of rage. He had arrived in Benbow's suite along with Lieutenant Tregaski a few hectaseconds after the doctor called him. His pale blue eyes glinted angrily. “We never had anything like this happen before you came aboard, Miss York!”
“Did you ever have a cruiser stolen before?”
“I'm talking about Draco!” Hull sh
ot back.
“The Draco, the Rigel,” she shrugged, “It's all part of the same story, Captain.”
“Why weren't you with Osborn?”
“I'm sorry, Captain, I just got careless. I was speaking with the doctor and I figured I could make it back to my cabin from here without incident.”
“It's at times like these I wish we could bring back the lash,” Hull declared without making it clear if he was speaking of her, Osborn, or Doctor Benbow. He looked over at Tregaski, who had taken his customary position by the door. “I want every inch of this ship searched immediately, Lieutenant. I won't countenance any illegal weapons.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Tregaski said.
“I'd prefer you didn't,” she interrupted.
“You'd prefer what?” Hull looked as if he was about to strike her. “I don't recall asking you for permission, Miss York.”
York stared him down and shook her head slowly. “You know the stakes, Captain. I know you're angry. I know you have every right to be. And I was careless. But you can't react like this. The risks are too high.”
“How?” Hull demanded coldly. He was still in a rage, but the fire had rapidly turned to ice.
“I am increasingly convinced that the key to the current emergency lies aboard this ship,” she answered calmly. “Be logical, Captain. If you search the ship, you'll undoubtedly find weapons, but you probably won't discover who intended to use them, or when. They may be amateurs, but they're not idiots. The weapons won't be able to tell you who the killers are in your crew, or how they intend to link up with their allies.”
“So how do you expect to find them?” demanded Hull.
“By waiting until they are ready to act.”
“By waiting!” Hull slapped the desk. “Why not shut them down before they can put their plan into effect? Why take that risk, York? How many more risks can you afford to take?”
“Right now you could never prove a thing,” York pointed out. “Not even the two runs they've made at me. Anything less than absolute proof is failure, because they only need one operative to evade your dragnet in order to succeed.”