There were no images left of Bruni Patel, not even in O’Malley’s data stash. Patel had been wiped from Earth’s database shortly after his murder, and the only face that came to Drew’s mind now was the lifeless, mutilated one he’d seen on a fellow investigator’s compupad. Had Bruni died quickly? Drew hoped so, although the wounds on his forehead and temples and the way his eyes had been removed hinted at torture…
…or the clumsiest barber in creation.
Townsend inhaled sharply, then filed the thought away. Later, he promised himself. There were more urgent matters to take care of right now, but once things had calmed down—
“You need a shave, boss man,” said a voice behind his right shoulder. A moment later, Gavin Holchuk dropped into the chair across from him. “I’m serious. The Nandrians don’t understand facial hair. They think mustaches are contagious.” When Townsend failed to respond, Holchuk frowned and added, “Have you memorized both your speeches?”
“I know them inside out.”
“Let’s hope it never comes to that. Ruby wanted me to tell you that all the work has been completed with hours to spare, and Soaring Hawk has declared everything fit and tight and ready for a trial run. They’re just waiting for you to come up to AdComm to oversee the operation.”
“We can’t,” Drew told him. “Not yet. We don’t dare separate the Hub until both rats are found. If anything happens to Yoko, the Nandrians will open fire on us. If anything happens to her sister, Karlov will probably go hartoon and take the station apart, and what’s worse, the Doc will never forgive us.”
A high-pitched shriek erupted from the kitchen area, followed by dead silence. For a second, both men froze in place, staring quizzically at each other. Then Nora Duvall poked her head out the galley door and bawled, “Get these animals out of my pantry! Now!”
“Ask and ye shall receive, boss man,” said Holchuk with a faint smile.
CHAPTER 21
Holchuk had not been exaggerating. As Townsend stepped out of the tube car on C Deck, he thought he heard seven people let out a collective sigh of relief.
The main console was back together, he noticed, with Lydia at her own station presiding over the monitoring and recording of the practice session. Presumably, Ruby was already outside in Devil Bug.
“Who’s on A Deck?” he asked.
“DeVries,” replied Jason Smith. “He scored the highest on the simulator.”
“We’re monitoring the video feed from Devil Bug to the light screen on the auxiliary control panel,” Lydia explained. “Since the docking archways will be sealed until the Hub is back in one piece, there’s no need for anyone but the operator to be present on A Deck during the procedure.”
“This is a dry run, using minimal fuel,” added Soaring Hawk. “Out half a klick and then back.”
“How far away will DeVries have to go to meet the Nandrians?” Townsend asked.
Lydia paused and looked up from her console. “Rodrigues’s short-hopper tripped the invisibility cloak at a distance of seven klicks, so to be safe, we’re sending A Deck ten kilometers ahead of the rest of the Hub. When the Nandrian ships have docked, DeVries will reverse his thrusters for a couple of seconds, then adjust the rotation of A Deck to match ours when the rest of Daisy Hub catches up. That’s what he’s been practicing, at least,” she added. “We’ll have to see how well it works in real space.” She pressed the comm button on her panel. “You’re a go, Will. Separation in sixty-four seconds.”
The air in AdComm was charged and expectant. Not a syllable was uttered, not even a breath exhaled as everyone stood staring intently at the light screen on Lydia’s console. Meanwhile, Ruby kept Devil Bug hovering abeam the juncture just below B Deck, focusing her forward viewcam with machine-like steadiness. It appeared that “Mom” had been practicing as well.
Drew could feel tension seeping into his neck and shoulder muscles, making them ache. Waiting around, even for just a standard minute, was definitely not one of his favorite things to do. It gave him time for self-doubt, for second-guessing his decisions. That was probably what the people around him were engaged in right now. Mentally reviewing every step they’d taken over the past few hours, wondering what they might have missed, what they should have done differently. It didn’t help that the image on the screen showed a nearly solid expanse of outer bulkhead. It revealed a seam in the metal, but nothing that even remotely resembled a latching mechanism.
The tube car door hummed open and shut, and a couple of seconds later Holchuk joined the group.
“Sorry to be late,” he said. “After dropping the rats off with the Doc, I had to talk Teri out of marching into the SPA room and meddling in O’Malley’s con. You can thank me later, boss man.”
“You found Yoko?” asked Singh.
“Yeah,” Holchuk replied distractedly. “She and her sister were in the kitchen, having a late-night snack. Nora nearly threw a fit when she saw them half in and half out of her cookie bin.”
Holding up a hand for silence, Lydia counted down. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now, Will.”
“Unsealing the sections,” said DeVries.
The Hub shuddered. It made a groaning noise that raced up and down Drew’s spine, chilling and unnerving him. For a moment, he could swear that the stressing of metal bulkheads sounded just like a cry of pain, as though the station were a living creature that could feel itself being ripped apart. When silence fell again, a sense of dread hung in the air, and uneasy looks crisscrossed the room. There was a reason that separation was not meant to be an everyday occurrence.
“Thrusters forward full, five seconds,” came DeVries’s voice again.
“There she goes,” murmured Soaring Hawk, and all eyes returned to the light screen.
The gray seam had become a crack. As they watched, the gap widened, forcing Ruby to zoom out in order to keep both sides in view. Deck A kept moving until it was nearly a Hub’s-length away. Then they heard DeVries say, “Reversing thrusters and braking.”
Like a liner many times its size, the top section of the Hub gradually slowed its forward movement, finally gliding smoothly to a halt.
“Perfect,” breathed Singh.
“We’re not done yet,” Soaring Hawk reminded him. “He still has to fit the pieces back together and lock them down.”
“Ruby, you’re on,” said Lydia.
The angle on the screen shifted, revealing color-coded markers that the engineers had placed on both sides of the gap. Using these as guides, DeVries would attempt to match the severed ends of the tube car shafts exactly, thus bringing everything else into proper alignment as well.
Drew mentally crossed his fingers.
“Adjusting attitude,” DeVries reported.
Townsend caught a flash at the corner of his right eye. It was the comm light on Ruby’s console. An incoming message. Of course. With his luck, it was probably a Nandrian ship, letting him know that they were just around the corner and would be arriving momentarily. Reluctantly, he tore himself away from the group and crossed to the main comm panel to take the call.
“Townsend,” barked Rodrigues’s voice, “what are you and your merry band of lunatics up to now?”
“Just trying to avert the outbreak of interstellar war, Captain. And how is your day going so far?”
After a moment of ominous silence, Rodrigues growled, “We’re seeing Daisy Hub in two pieces on our screens.”
Drew couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, we broke the station. Sorry about that. But don’t worry, Paul — we’re putting it back together.”
He could practically hear the steam escaping from Rodrigues’s ears. Drew let himself enjoy the moment. Then his common sense cut in. Twitting the Ranger commander was not the best way to secure his cooperation.
“Okay, Paul, listen. Our plan is to have the Nandrians dock outside the range of the sensor field so they w
on’t have to shut down their weapons. They’ll be here in about eight to ten hours. What you’re seeing on your screen is a dry run. We’re making sure everything will work.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. They won’t get insulted, and we won’t need protection. But we do appreciate your readiness to provide it.”
“Promise me you haven’t damaged the Hub beyond your crew’s ability to repair it.”
Once again, the urge was irresistible. “Damaged it?” Drew declared. “Hell, no! We’ve improved it.”
Rodrigues muttered something in Euranglo under his breath. “All right. It goes against protocol, not to mention my better judgment, but I’ll stand my men down and let you handle this on your own. Call me back when it’s over. Make sure you’re sober. We need to talk.”
With perfect timing, Drew severed the commlink with Zulu as applause burst out behind him. Evidently, the reconnection had gone as planned.
“One hour before the Nandrians are scheduled to arrive, we send him back out there,” said Soaring Hawk. “And we hope that having two Nandrian ships attached to A Deck doesn’t make a difference to the operation. We’re out in space, so it shouldn’t, but…”
There was no need for him to complete the thought.
— «» —
Eight hours.
Every time Drew let himself consider the possibility that Bruni Patel might have been an alien, like Karlov, his brain began to itch. What if Karlov had been telling the truth earlier about government agents coming after Bruni and then himself, only the government in question had been the Directorate on Stragon? That might explain why the New Chicago Security investigation into Patel’s murder had been so quickly and thoroughly shut down: alien-on-alien violence would have been considered none of the Earth High Council’s business. And if Karlov’s purpose in being sent to Daisy Hub had truly been to protect — which could well be the case, judging by his reaction to discovering that the black and white rat was missing — then Townsend had just made a tactical error of monumental proportions.
He knew he ought to get some rest, but his thoughts kept running in ever-tightening circles, making it impossible for him to fall asleep. As soon as he’d arrived in his quarters, Drew pulled the playback device and encrypted datawafer out of their respective wall compartments and settled down to read. There had to be an answer on that wafer, something that he’d missed before, or that his mind had simply balked at taking in because he’d been so furious — at Olivia for abandoning him, and at Rex Regum for tearing open old wounds and making him ache and bleed all over again. Well, Olivia had made her choices and Drew had survived them, and the bleeding would have to stop now.
Because this wasn’t just about Drew Townsend anymore. It was about Daisy Hub, and possibly also about Earth itself.
— «» —
Six hours.
“Drew?”
Townsend’s eyes snapped open. He was sprawled on his back in bed, with the playback device lying beside him. He’d been dreaming, something about running around with a net, trying to capture fragments of his homework assignment after Olivia had laughingly torn it up and tossed the pieces into the air. A second later, the details had slid off the edges of his memory, leaving him with nothing but a residual feeling of betrayal.
“Drew? Are you awake?” Lydia’s voice over the wallcomm sounded small and tentative. “You know I wouldn’t bother you if it weren’t important.”
“What’s the matter? Are the Nandrians here already?”
“No, it’s — it’s Rob. You’d better come down to Med Services right away.”
O’Malley was in Med Services?
In an instant, Townsend was on his feet and heading out the door.
Lydia sat curled up in one of the chairs in the Doc’s triage area, hugging her knees to her chest and looking even paler and more distraught than she’d been the first time they’d met. He eased himself down beside her and asked, “What happened?”
Her eyes welled with tears. “It’s my fault,” she said, choking on the words. “Karlov’s avatar lit Rob’s avatar on fire.”
“How is that your fault?”
“I’m the one who set the sensory output values for the program. Rob wanted the U-Town experience to be as realistic as possible, so I boosted them to the same level as the other SPA activities. When Karlov shoved Rob into the flames—” Her face crumpled into a portrait of misery. “He felt everything. He was screaming. I got to him as soon as I could, but—”
Townsend went cold all over. “O’Malley’s dead?”
“Mr. O’Malley is sedated and resting comfortably in the Trauma unit,” said the Doc, stepping into the triage room to join them. “He went into pain-induced shock when Karlov’s avatar burned him — or rather, his avatar — alive. If we can use that term when discussing avatars,” she added, frowning.
Tears were flowing freely now down Lydia’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “You warned him that Karlov was dangerous. I should have realized something like this could happen. I should have reduced the sensory intensity levels. But he was having so much fun!”
Townsend and the Doc exchanged a look of understanding. It was always fun, until somebody got hurt. Thankfully, in this case only the pain had been real.
A sudden thought occurred to him. “Where’s Karlov now, Doc?”
“He’s snoring peacefully in the bed beside O’Malley’s,” she replied. “Lydia had to abort the program, so I gave him another massive sedative injection.”
“Any idea why Karlov tried to kill him?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure you might have one,” she replied tartly.
In fact, he had two. First, O’Malley must have tried too hard to pull information out of Karlov, outing himself as a plant. And second, Karlov must have figured out that their consciousnesses were still inside their bodies, and that he could terminate the interrogation by forcing an end to the SPA program.
“Doc, how long can you keep Karlov unconscious?”
“For as long as you require. Can I assume that you would prefer not to have to think about him again until after the Nandrians have left the station?”
“At least until then. And I’ll want to debrief O’Malley as soon as he’s sufficiently recovered to talk.”
“It may be a while, Mr. Townsend,” she warned him. “The counselor has already begun working with him, but he’s been badly traumatized.”
Drew looked at Lydia, still resting her chin on her knees and looking as though a casual touch might break her into a thousand pieces, and thought, He’s not the only one.
— «» —
Two hours.
The prolonged waiting was taking its toll. The atmosphere on C Deck was taut, almost to the snapping point. Drew had given up on the idea of returning to his quarters to rest and now sat at his desk, mentally reviewing his speeches. Ruby was at her console, occasionally breaking into a little dance step when standing still became too difficult. And, ignoring the Doc’s advice, Lydia had arrived a few minutes earlier and taken her place at the monitors as well.
Privately, Townsend was glad, and not just because her presence would be needed in AdComm once the separation process began. Seeing the redness around her eyes took him back to the day he’d arrived on the Hub, shortly after Karim Khaloub’s death. She’d blamed herself then and she was blaming herself now; and even though O’Malley, unlike Khaloub, had survived and would eventually make a full recovery, the fact that he was a personal friend could only worsen the guilt she was feeling. This was not a good time for Lydia to be alone with nothing else to occupy her thoughts.
A light began blinking on the main console. Ruby pounced. A second later she called out, “I’m receiving a signal from the Krronn, Chief. ETA in one and a half hours.”
— «» —
It was show time.
The separation and reconnection had gone like clockwork, without so much as a flicker from the invisibility field. Now came the hard part.
Drew stood in the middle of A Deck, his gaze shifting between archways 4 and 8 as a cold sweat tattooed his skin. The Nandrians had complied with his carefully worded request and had docked with the separated portion of the Hub, but he had no idea what their mood would be when they came through those portals. The last time he’d been in a situation like this, there had been a phalanx of dock workers at his back. Today, all he had was Holchuk, Ruby, and the Überrat. Twice he’d tried to pick up Yoko — it was customary for the highest-ranked member of a House to be holding the tseritsa whenever a first contact was made — and twice she’d bitten him and slithered frantically out of his arms to take refuge in her cage on the deck.
“Yoko,” he muttered darkly, “your timing stinks.”
“You know, she’s always been uncomfortable around you, boss man,” remarked Holchuk. “Maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t.”
“It’ll be all right, Chief,” Ruby assured him. “A live animal can’t be expected to be as obedient as a stick of wood.”
Holchuk took instant exception. “Their tseritsa is a living staff,” he corrected her sharply, “a branch from the sacred tree on their original home world.”
“If you say so,” she replied, rolling her eyes.
Rodrigues was right. The Humans on this station were crazy. The rats were the only ones showing any common sense.
At the sound of a docking portal unsealing, Ruby and Holchuk spoke together:
“It’s number 4.”
“It’s number 8.”
Townsend’s jaw dropped. It was both of them. Six huge aliens lumbered through the archways, three to either side of him. The Chief Officer of the Nannssi was even taller than Nagor, and half again as broad in the chest. And wafting on his breath was a distinct aroma of citrus.
The Relativity Bomb Page 24