The Relativity Bomb

by Arlene F. Marks

  Mental alarms began to shrill.

  This wasn’t just a biowafer — it was EIS technology, keyed to Drew’s DNA. So, Earth Intelligence had smuggled another operative out to the Hub, carrying extremely confidential information for its station manager. Wonderful. As if Townsend didn’t have enough secrets to keep from his crew. Even worse, he had purposely made his reports to the EIS cryptic, since the last thing he wanted them finding out was that Daisy Hub had entered into an independent alliance with an alien race, effectively seceding from Earth.

  Obfuscating to the EIS had been much easier when they were a couple of hundred light years away. Now that Karlov was here, Townsend had a feeling that his life was about to become orders of magnitude more complicated.

  “I have an important message for you,” Karlov told him. “I was instructed to deliver it to you privately.”

  In addition to what was on the datawafer? Townsend glanced across the deck and saw Lydia slowly shaking her head. Hagman didn’t look too pleased either. But if Earth Intelligence had resorted to sending him a live courier, especially if he arrived by unconventional means and looked as though he’d had to fight his way onto the ship that had brought him here, the message had to be top secret and extremely sensitive. He couldn’t refuse delivery of it, regardless of what his instincts were telling him.

  “Lydia, take a java break. Hagman, go with her. I’ll let you know when we’re done here.”

  Reluctantly they headed for the tube car. When the door had closed behind them, Townsend stared into the face of the new arrival and demanded, “What’s the message?”

  Karlov leaned forward, beckoning to him to do the same. Then he stage-whispered, “You have friends back on Earth, Mr. Townsend, and they are concerned for your safety. There is information that you need to know embedded on that wafer. Your DNA has decrypted it. Anyone else’s will re-encrypt it. The playback device that accompanied you to this place is rogue technology. Take it somewhere private and use it to read the wafer. Then you’ll understand why I’m here and what you must do next.”

  — «» —

  “They’ve found out, haven’t they? Earth High Council has learned about our alliance with the Nandrians. That’s probably why they sent him out here — to throw a wrench into things. His eyes don’t match. Did you notice? One of them is darker than the other. It’s probably a visual recording device. I hate this. We’re sitting ducks. We can’t ask Trokerk to defend us without starting an interstellar war. And now the secret’s out and everything is going to hell.”

  Lydia and Hagman had bypassed the caf and gone directly to Med Services on H Deck. Still running tests on the black and white rat, Doc Ktumba had ordered them to wait in the triage area, where Lydia had immediately begun pacing back and forth and venting to no one in particular.

  Hagman watched her fret for a while, then said mildly, “So, Earth Council decides to infiltrate and sabotage us, and instead of simply posting their agent to Daisy Hub through the usual channels, they smuggle him onto an outbound freighter, with an artificial eye and an animal, no less? I don’t think they’re that stupid, Lydia. Unless they think we’re that stupid.”

  She swiped a stray lock of blond hair off her face. “Then who is he and why is he here?”

  Hearing the edge of concern on her voice, Hagman remarked with a knowing smile, “You’re worried about Townsend.”

  “Of course, I am!” She rounded indignantly on him. “Aren’t you? We just left him all alone with that Max Karlov character. If that’s even his real name.”

  Before Hagman could respond to this, the Trauma room door hummed open and the Doc stepped through it. Marion Ktumba was a large, dark-skinned woman with naturally stern features. At this moment, however, her expression was quite pensive.

  “Well?” Lydia prodded.

  “I just did a preliminary genetic analysis of our new rodent arrival. She and Yoko are definitely siblings, possibly even from the same litter.”

  Hagman gave her a dubious look. “That would make them about the same age.”

  “I know. And there’s something else they have in common — each of them is infected with a retrovirus. It appears to me as though someone has either duplicated Nayo Naguchi’s work or ended up with one of Naguchi’s long-lived rats.”

  “And sent her here? That makes no sense,” said Lydia. “I mean, the European gene broker that took over Naguchi’s patents must know by now that we have Yoko. So, what are the odds of a second stolen Überrat turning up here for safekeeping?”

  “Unless it isn’t stolen and wasn’t sent here for safekeeping.” On the tail of her thought, Hagman had had one of his own. “Doc, the man who brought this animal aboard the Hub claimed to be carrying an important message for Townsend. Is it possible the rat could be part of it?”

  Doc Ktumba paused, visibly debating with herself and then arriving at a conclusion. “Clear out, both of you,” she commanded. “I’ve got work to do.”

  — «» —

  From the age of five, Drew Townsend had had a recurring nightmare about coming home from school to discover that his family had moved away, leaving no forwarding address, not even a trail of bread crumbs for him to follow. When he was twelve, that nightmare came true. One evening there was a funny aftertaste to his milk. The next day he woke up with a headache, all alone in an empty house, and another family was waiting impatiently for him to pack up his few personal possessions and leave so that they could move in.

  When he’d lost his Eligibility, his parents had been deeply disappointed. It wasn’t the first time he’d let them down, so he figured they would get over it. Olivia had tried to warn him how serious this was, but he’d paid her no mind. He simply refused to believe that the people who loved him could turn their backs on him, even under extreme duress.

  But they did, that day when he was twelve.

  Years later, after learning how heartless the Relocation Authority could be, Drew was finally able to find a measure of consolation for himself, and forgiveness for his parents and sister. They hadn’t really wanted to abandon him. The Relocation Authority had coerced them. The Relocation Authority was the villain of the piece.

  Except when it wasn’t. If the datawafer Karlov had brought him was credible — and that was a very large if — Olivia hadn’t died out in space all those years ago, despite what the population database said. Instead, she had chosen to be dead to him, and to consider him dead to her as well. And then she had changed her name and gone on living her life on Earth, climbing the ladder of influence under the tutelage of the most powerful man she could find. Eventually, she had even stepped into his shoes. Olivia was the boss now of not only the Earth Intelligence Service but also the Urban District of New Chicago. Whatever she wanted got done, and nothing was done without her approval. But it still wasn’t enough for her.

  According to the datawafer, Olivia was planning to take over the world. In two years at most, Daisy Hub would become the lit fuse for a planetary coup d’état. Earth’s government would fall and the EIS would move in to fill the power vacuum, with Olivia Townsend — or rather, Juno Vargas — at the helm. As for the station’s crew, well, what were pawns for except to be sacrificed?

  There had been a lot more information on the datawafer. That everyone on the Hub had been purposely placed there by the EIS, he already knew, thanks to Steve Bonelli. That at least one member of his crew was taking orders directly from someone at the EIS and wasn’t actually under his command at all, he’d suspected for a while. The rest was almost too much to process, but it all boiled down to this:

  First by the Kings and then by Bruni Patel, Drew’s life from the age of twelve had apparently been shaped and directed to suit the purposes of one man — Olivia’s highly-placed mentor, since deceased. And now, with curious timing and for some undisclosed reason, someone with EIS connections had chosen to reveal this to him. More curious still was the wa
y the data had arrived, raising all sorts of red flags on the Hub, as though the sender wanted Townsend to distrust it. So maybe there was more to this message than just the data on the wafer. Maybe Karlov and the rat needed to be decrypted as well.

  Or maybe the whole thing was a con, like Nestor Quan’s bogus assignment to command the Ranger detachment on Zulu. Either way, Drew reminded himself savagely, any attempt to manipulate him by playing the family card was doomed to fail. Tommy Novotny and six years on the streets had taught him well. Drew Townsend had no family, not anymore. His parents had abandoned him. Olivia was dead to him. Bruni Patel had been brutally murdered. The only people he cared about now were his fellow residents on Daisy Hub. And Juno Vargas, if she existed, and if she saw him and his crew as nothing but future collateral damage, could count herself damned lucky to be two hundred light years away from him right now.

  Two hours after sequestering himself in his quarters with the playback device, Townsend returned to AdComm, his jaw so tightly clenched that it was aching. Despite his determination not to let anything on the datawafer get to him, just a quick read-through of its contents had given him a powerful urge to put his fist through a wall. Meanwhile, the mantra Bruni Patel had taught him played and replayed on a loop in his mind: Never trust appearances. Get all the facts. Then and only then, take action.

  It sounded like a plan.

  As Drew exited the tube car and settled in behind his desk, Ruby and Lydia shared a meaningful look.

  Ruby was nicknamed “Mom” for a reason. Not only was she old enough to be the mother of nearly everyone else on the Hub, she also tended to take a maternal interest in their lives. Now she approached Townsend, stopping at the edge of the blue carpet to ask, “Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Chief?”

  “Where’s Max Karlov?”

  “Hagman parked him in the caf, where I’m told he’s been drinking cup after cup of Jensen’s famous sludge. He likes it — says it’s robust,” she replied, then tried again. “What’s going on, Drew, and how can I help?”

  “You can get O’Malley up here. Then you and Lydia can give us the room.”

  She nodded wordlessly and spun away.

  A couple of minutes later, Robert O’Malley — the Hub’s resident hacker and official caretaker of Yoko, the Überrat — dropped into the chair facing Townsend’s. Ruby and Lydia stepped into the tube car, looking concerned as the car door slid shut in front of them.

  Although in his thirties, the ratkeeper had the face and demeanor of someone half his age, making it hard not to think of him as a kid. Right now, the kid was wearing a cocky expression. “What can I do for you, boss?”

  “The database you copied from Earth onto our local net goes back to the last pandemic, correct?”

  “It goes back a lot earlier than that, but it’s complete and up to date from 2320 C.E. to the present.”

  “Can you tell whether a record has been altered?”

  “Altered how, exactly?”

  “For example, a name added to a ship’s passenger list once the ship has departed.”

  “Hard to say. Adding a name is the easiest fudge in the book, but depending on who makes the change and when, it can be the most difficult one to detect. The system is set up for retroactive entries so that children born on distant colonies and unregistered passengers on deep-space transports can be made official whenever the data reaches Earth. Did you have a particular ship in mind?”

  “The Gloria Terrae, carrying settlers and supplies bound for a colony in the Draconis system. The transport never even made it to deep space. It lost atmosphere and crashed in the asteroid belt in 2374.”

  O’Malley let out a low whistle. “Yeah, there would have been a full investigation of that one. All evidence should have been immediately frozen in the system, meaning anyone changing data after the fact would have left a trail. It’s doable, boss. Give me a name and I’ll try to find out whether the information was planted.”

  “One condition — you have to keep this strictly to yourself.”

  O’Malley leaned forward, wide-eyed and attentive. “Understood.”

  “Olivia Townsend. Five of the bodies were never recovered. One of them was supposedly hers.”

  “Townsend,” O’Malley echoed. “She was your relative?”

  “My sister. And that’s all you need to know.”

  The ratkeeper grinned and sat back in his chair. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “And there’s something else. You can’t talk about this either. It’s been niggling at the back of my mind for a while and I just want to know for sure.”

  O’Malley’s expression became quizzical. “About…?”

  “Harry Mintz.”

  “Mintz. As in, Teri’s ex-husband?”

  “She once told me that Harry Mintz has big, important friends, and that he pulled strings to get her detoured to Daisy Hub because he wanted to ruin her singing career. It sounded strange to me then. It makes even less sense to me now. I think there’s more to this story, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, boss. I’ll start looking into it right away.”

  A moment after O’Malley had pressed the call button for a tube car, a second door opened and Ruby stepped out.

  She marched up to Townsend’s desk and asked, “So, what now?”

  “You said Karlov is in the caf. Is he alone?”

  “Last time I checked, Hagman was with him. He was still smiling after a dozen cups of Jensen’s brew. Either his stomach is lined with titanium or he’s going to be in Med Services later on with enough heartburn to propel a shuttle to Zulu. Lu and Singh have set up a betting pool and are requesting that you delay spacing Karlov until we have the results.”

  There wasn’t even a twitch of mischief on her face.

  “You’re serious,” said Townsend, his voice rising in disbelief. “Why would I space our newest crew member? Why would they even think that?”

  “Well, let’s see,” she began, counting on her fingers. “There’s the alliance with the Nandrians, the cloaking field, the shipments of lemon juice that keep arriving here, Yoko the Überrat and her clone…”

  A memory flashed across Drew’s mind then, something Bonelli had said the first time they’d met on Zulu: Why worry about hypothetical threats to security? If a real one arose, I’d say we’re equipped to handle it ourselves.

  Yes, they were. Someone in his crew had already disposed of one “outside influence” and wouldn’t hesitate to act again if the need arose, or if a kill order were received from Earth. Just thinking about that last possibility made Drew restless. Somewhere a clock might be ticking down. He needed answers and he needed them now.

  “If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be in the caf,” he told her, and got to his feet.

  Arms crossed, Ruby watched him head toward the tube car. “You know, eventually you’re going to have to talk to me,” she informed his retreating back.

  “Yes, Mom,” he replied wearily.

  — «» —

  The newest crew member was sitting alone at a round table in one corner of the caf. After more than twelve cups of java, the man was caffeinated up to his eyeballs, one of which was visibly a replacement part. A hastily prepared replacement part, Townsend amended, noting as he took the chair across from Karlov’s that the artificial iris was shades of blue darker than the organic one. Interesting. And troubling. Someone had been in a hurry to get this man off-planet with the rat and the bioencrypted datawafer in his possession; and despite the use of EIS technology to create the wafer, it was almost certainly not an EIS-sanctioned operation.

  For starters, if Earth Intelligence had wanted Townsend to have this information, they wouldn’t have bothered with a courier. They would have simply transmitted the encrypted data to him via established secure channels. But if for some reason they had chosen
to send it by courier, they would have used their considerable resources to ensure that this individual attracted no undue attention. Among other things, that meant making damned certain both his eyes were the same color, no matter how short the notice. So, the question was: Who did Drew know on Earth with access to EIS encrypting technology who might have sent him a questionable datawafer, a large one-eyed man, and a rat?

  It sounded like the opening line of a joke.

  “I have a few questions to ask you,” said Townsend, keeping his voice conversational.

  “So ask.”

  Karlov was tall and muscular, with a hardness around his mouth and a vaguely menacing air. Even when relaxed and smiling, he was evidently someone not to be trifled with. The last time Townsend had sat across a table from someone who looked like this, they’d been in a precinct interrogation room and the other man had been in shackles after his arrest for mass murder. Security officers tended to categorize people, and the relationship between the cop and the killer in that room had been well defined. Knowing whom he was dealing with, Drew had also been able to gauge how much danger was present. Now he was on Daisy Hub, where nobody fit neatly into a category and the jeopardy level had already shot off the scale. But the detective inside him still clamored to know: Was Max Karlov an ally, or was he a threat?

  There was no point in prolonging matters by beating around the bush. Townsend slammed his hand down on the table and declared, “Okay, let’s begin by ditching the cover story. You said when you arrived here that you’d been posted to the station. We both know that isn’t true. Who sent you, and what are your actual orders?”

  Karlov reacted twice. His features were schooled, but Townsend was practiced at spotting tells, and Karlov’s were in his eyes — or rather, in his one good eye. Drew saw surprise, followed closely by acceptance. A conscious decision to cooperate? He certainly hoped so.

  “My orders. To bring the rat and the datawafer to Daisy Hub. To deliver the message I was given for you, word for word. After that, to do whatever job you assign me to the best of my ability while making sure you come to no harm.”