Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  “Thank you, Chief. I appreciate your opinion on this.”

  “Colonel, you can have my opinion any time you want it. You may not always appreciate it, but you’re certainly welcome to it.”

  “Better get your equipment ready,” she said. This time he didn’t argue with her.

  As she watched Stanmorton cross the road and enter the orchard, Rasha’kean was annoyed by all the ambivalent feelings that were tangling her thoughts. Part of her was glad she had Stanmorton around, and part of her wished he was gone. Part of her was sure it would be a mistake to mention Dawson’s death to her troops, and part of her thought she should be honest with them. No matter what she decided about those things, she ken she would second-guess herself.

  With a shrug of her shoulders she followed Stanmorton, grateful that she did not have that kind of trouble when they were fighting the Ukes.

  24

  AS QUARTER-ADMIRAL ROCHMON scanned the preliminary investigation report, he had an odd feeling that something was missing. This report covered the same basic information that the last security investigation on Bock had covered. Date and place of birth, parents, grandparents, acquaintances, schooling, previous employment – it was all here, as neat and concise as the analysis reports Bock herself wrote fur Cryptography. Even the innuendos and hearsay comments fit neatly into a pattern.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe it was too neat, too concise. There should have been some evidence in here of Bock’s bizarre sexual appetites, not just rumors, and some indication of her unruly temper – but there wasn’t. Why? he wondered. Fleet Investigations should have been able to find something more than rumors about those things. It didn’t make any sense, and Hew Rochmon needed for it to make sense.

  Ever since the spitting incident, Bock had been acting in an unnaturally polite way. He could have accepted her new-found civility as evidence that she had taken his warning to heart, but he knew better. Bock was playing some game with him. Too many times before she had misled him, dragging him so far into her private game that by the time he realized what was going on, it was almost always too late.

  The first time had been the worst, because she had used him sexually and then invited him to a party with some of her more unusual friends. Only when the lights went out and the projector went on did he learn that the purpose of the party was to view a video recording she had made of their lovemaking. It still embarrassed him just to remember it. That incident taught him to be on guard against her, but she still tricked him in little ways after that.

  The problem, the damnable problem, was that she was a better cryptographer than anyone he had ever known. Even now, in the midst of this new game, she was making huge dents in the Ukes’s Q-3 code and with any luck would break it in the very near future. For that reason alone he would put up with more from her than he would from any ten other people.

  He sat up straight, took a deep breath, and as he let it out, flipped back to the first page of the report, ready to go through it one more time. He began reading slowly, looking again for some solid clue to what was bothering him.

  “Bock to see you, Admiral,” his aide said over the intercom. “Send her in,” Rochmon ordered, closing her folder.

  She was through the door and making straight for his desk almost before he finished speaking. It was obvious that she was very, very angry.

  “What is it, Bock?”

  “Hew Rochmon, you motherless son of a Castorian turd, I ought to walk out of here right now and let you break this stinking code yourself.”

  “Sit down, Bock,” he said steadily, “and tell me what you’re so all worked up about.”

  “You, you sneaking vermin,” she said, waving her arms. “You put the scabbing FID on me! I can’t go anyplace. I’ve got the damned MGs with me every hour of the day that I’m not right here in this section. Isn’t that enough? Did you have to put the FID on me?”

  “Not me, Bock. You put them on yourself.”

  “Like crap I did!” She glared hard at him. “You get them off me or I quit. You understand that?”

  “You sit down and listen to me,” he said calmly. “Now.” He waited until she finally seated herself before he continued. “You can’t quit. Remember? Stonefield said he’d put you back into the service and then court-martial vou. When will you learn, Bock? I’m not the one who’s been stirring up the goldsleeves. You are. You kick a beast, you expect to get bitten. What I –“

  “But I’ve been so nice,” she complained.

  “Yes, you have. But this current FID investigation started before your new nice game.”

  “What do you mean, game? I’m just doing what you told me to do – treating people with courtesy.”

  “Bock, if I believed that, I’d be the stupidest man in the Service. I’ve watched you in action too many times to believe what I see on the surface. Something’s working in your head, something I’m sure I’m not going to like.”

  Arms folded, she leaned back in her chair. “I want them off of me, Hew. I want them off of my past and out of my life.”

  “Talk to Stonefield. He’s the only one who can stop them now,” Rochmon lied. “Or learn to live with the fact that someone in FID is going to know everything there is to know about you.” To his surprise, he thought he saw a flash of concern cross her face. “Does that worry you?”

  “No. I have nothing to hide. It’s the intrusion I hate.” She paused as she stood up. “Do you have to make the appointment for me to see Stonefield, or can I make it myself?”

  “Either way. But I don’t know why you’re bothering. You know he isn’t going to stop it.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no, but...Hew, just what is it they’re looking for, anyway? I don’t understand.”

  “Sins, Bock. All your sins. You have committed a few sins, haven’t you?” Again he saw a flash of concern alter her face for a second.

  “It’s my parents, isn’t it?” she asked slowly. “They’re looking for some mistake my parents made, something with the right hint of scandal that they can use against me. Admit it.”

  “Not as far as I know,” Rochmon said. “It’s your mistakes they’ll space you for, not your parents’.”

  “My parents didn’t do anything like that. My father had the bad luck to die when I was very young. My mother worked hard, kept me fed, and educated me as best she could to prepare me for school. Then she married my secondfather and got another chance at happiness. She hated the investigation that got me my clearance, and she hated last year’s even more. Now the FID snoopers are asking all her friends questions again, all because of me.”

  “Can’t be helped. You’ve angered Stonefield. You’ve angered Gilbert, who used to defend you. And you’ve angered almost every senior commander attached or assigned to Cryptography. You can’t anger that many powerful people and not expect to catch some flak for it, Bock.” He shook his head. “Why can’t you understand that?”

  “And you don’t think Stonefield will call it off?”

  “I know he won’t. Just ignore it. Tell your parents that it’s all routine and let it go. FID’ll stop sooner or later.”

  “They damn well better or I’m going to give the goldsleeves something to really get angry about.” She turned on her heels and left his office.

  Another act, Rochmon thought to himself, but frayed around the edges this time. Sooner or later she was going to say or do something that would give her game away, and he only hoped he was there to see her fall.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Marshall Judoff’s back,” Melliman said, “and she’s raging through the building like the Terminator of Texnor.”

  Frye smiled. “Amazing. One thing about her, she never ceases to amaze me. What possible good does she think a temper-tantrum is going to do her? And why in public? Why not save it for the Bridgeforce meeting?” Looking at Melliman standing there in her sharply pressed uniform made him feel good. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m ready for anything, including the Mad Marshall.”


  He put his hand on her arm and pulled her to him. Giving her a quick kiss, he released her with a wink. “Were you ready for that?”

  “No. I thought you said-”

  “Just wanted to make your day more interesting.”

  “You did it. Too bad we don’t have more time to-”

  “Not while we’re on duty, Clarest.”

  “That’s what you said about kissing.”

  Frye winked again. “Pardon my momentary lapse in military decorum, AOCO. I assure you it will not happen again.”

  She gave him an exaggerated pout as she picked up her briefcase. “Now I’m really disappointed, sir. I request that you reconsider.”

  “Let’s go face Judoff,” he said. “We’ll discuss this later ... in a more appropriate setting.”

  Her face brightened. “Yes, sir.”

  As they left the office, Frye didn’t know why he was feeling so playful, especially when he had a set of serious problems, including Judoff, to look forward to. But for some reason he wasn’t in the mood to get serious yet today.

  When they entered the Bridgeforce meeting room, his playful mood evaporated. Judoff was already there, giving Meister Hadasaki a rapid-fire lecture about the impropriety of splitting her fleet. Hadasaki was listening stoically, refusing to respond to her anger.

  “And you!” she said when she spotted Charltos. “You’re the one behind all this, and you’re the one who’s going to pay the highest price for what you’ve done. AOCO,” she snapped at Lieutenant Oska, “give me the Confederacy Papers.”

  “Greetings, Meister,” Frye said to Hadasaki, “and good day to you, sha. It’s nice to see that you’ve returned safely from the auction you were so excited about.” He walked past her and took his place at the head of the table. “Did you get that little weapon you went after?”

  “Yes.” She took the bound papers from Lieutenant Oska and shook them in Charltos’s direction. “I’m going to burn you with these, Charltos.”

  “Why don’t you save your histrionics until the remainder of Bridgeforce arrives? I’m sure they’ll be as interested in your little performance as I am. How is the March Cluster this time of year?”

  “How did you know I went to the March Cluster?” she asked as she shot a sideways glance at Oska.

  Frye knew he shouldn’t have said that, but he recovered quickly. “Bridgeforce has a vital interest in your welfare. Do you think we would let you wander off without keeping a watchful eye on you?” As he spoke, the remaining six members of Bridgeforce filed into the meeting room with their aides and translators.

  “I demand an official roll call,” Judoff said, “so that future historians will have no doubt about whom present at this was meeting.”

  “Very well,” Frye said. “By rank and seniority, according to the rules. Meister Hadasaki?” Ally, Frye added in silent evaluation of the most important part of this roll call.

  “Present and ready to fight,” Hadasaki said with a grin.

  “Vice-Admiral Lotonoto?” Sympathetic, swing vote. “Present.”

  “Meister Baird?” A liberal ally with kyosei sympathies. “Present and concerned,” her translator said.

  Frye did not hesitate. “Marshall Judoff?” Bitch.

  “Present, of course,” Judoff said with a sneer.

  “Marshall Langford?” Isolationist with debts to kyosei.

  “Unh,” Langford grunted. “Why is time wasted on this ritual? Are we at loss for better things to do?”

  “It was Marshall Judoff’s request, sir, and by the rules we must respect it. Vice-Admiral Drew?” The most conservative of the kyosei, Frye thought, but also the fairest of them.

  “Present,” his translator said.

  “Vice-Admiral Charltos, present,” Frye said with a smile.

  “Force Meister Toso?” The only kyosei liberal.

  “Present.”

  “And Commander Gamer?” Even more party-line kyosei than Judoff.

  “Present.”

  “Noted and recorded that all members are present, I believe that our first order of business should be some new business that Marshall Judoff wishes to present us with. Marshall?”

  Judoff gave him a nasty smile, then rose to her feet. “According to the Confederacy Papers,” she said, holding the copy up for all to see, “this body has committed a grave error by reassigning portions of my fleet to various other commanders. I read Section a, Rule Seven-Seventy-One. ‘In the normal pursuit of balance and alignment of forces, all auxiliary fleets must be treated as singular units unless a division of forces is agreed to by the fleet commander and the governing military –‘”

  “We rescinded that rule,” Hadasaki said, “and for an unusual change the Amarcouncil publicly endorsed our –“

  “You what? You had no right to do any-”

  “The vote, I believe,” Frye said gently, “was seven in favor and one opposed.” It was a joy to see her defeated this way.

  Judoff stared at them for a long second, then slowly turned to look at Oska. “Why was I not informed of this, AOCO?” she asked her face bright with anger and humiliation, her fists clenched at her sides. “And who told them I went to the March Cluster? You, Oska!” she screamed.

  Before anyone realized what was happening, she was charging him with her short ceremonial dagger in hand. “Traitor!”

  Oska tried to ward off the blow, but she struck home, shoving the dagger up under his ribs. As Judoff pulled back for a second strike, Melliman threw herself between them. Frye scrambled to get to Judoff, but Marshall Langford grabbed her first and pinned her arms to her side. Lotonoto wrenched the knife away from her.

  “Two-faced bastard! I’ll kill you!” Judoff screamed. “Let me go,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let me go.”

  Langford and Lotonoto dragged Judoff from the room. Hadasaki called for the medics, while Baird, Toso, and Garner huddled with Melliman and Frye over Oska’s bleeding form.

  Hours later Melliman came back to the office from the hospital still wearing her bloodstained uniform. “He’s in stable, but critical condition,” she said. “Judoff punctured his lung and cut an artery, and he had a lot of internal bleeding.”

  “What do they think?” Frye asked. “Will he make it?”

  “They’re not sure…How could she have done that, Frye? How? And why?” Melliman asked, with tears suddenly running down her face. “Madame Tashawaki asked me how Marshall Judoff could act so uncivilized, and I couldn’t give her an answer.”

  Frye took Melliman into his arms. “Because Judoff’s crazy, Clarest,” he said as he held her tightly. “The woman lives in an insane reality occupied only by her and a few of her most devoted followers – like Kuskuvyet. Insanity is the only way you can explain something as irrational as public murder.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “You will no longer be dealing with me, Glights,” Leri said, “and that does not displease me. Within this season Historian Weecs will become the new Proctor, and I shall retreat from the affairs of Cloise. You may stay and witness his investiture if you wish.”

  “I do not understand, Procter Leri. How can you do this?”

  “With joy and pleasure.”

  “Then you are about to die?”

  Leri wasn’t sure his translator had correctly phrased the question. “No,” she said, “I am nowhere near death. Why do you ask that?”

  “Because, Proctor, as I understand it, only death or foreknowledge of death can end a leader’s rule.”

  “On Castor, perhaps. Here we are more sensible.”

  “I see no sense in disposing of a perfectly capable leader in the midst of a crisis and installing a new, untested one.”

  “What you see does not matter, Glights. Ah, here is Weecs now.” As Weecs slithered into her chamber – soon to be his chamber – she thought he already showed signs of the burden of office. His red-and-yellow stripes seemed somehow duller, the black stripes separating the red and yellow somehow shading toward brown. “I
have explained to Ambassador Glights that you will soon be Proctor, but he is not impressed with your worthiness to serve.”

  “Proctor, I never meant –“

  “No reason he should be,” Weecs said. “I’m certainly not impressed or even convinced that this is anything but madness.”

  “Both excellent qualities in a proctor,” Leri said, “modesty and a self-assessment of limited abilities. You will make an excellent Proctor, Weecs, if you can keep those things.”

  “This is not funny, Leri,” Weecs protested. “I neither want nor am prepared to accept this responsibility.”

  “The Council has chosen. The ceremony will shortly begin. Will you deny Cloise your services?”

  “Of course not, but perhaps this should be delayed so that I might spend time observing you more closely in order-”

  “I had no such luxury,” Leri snapped. “I was made Proctor with no experience in the midst of a crisis. You, at least, know a great deal about the workings of this office. Do not beg special consideration from me, Weecs. Complain to a Confidante – or to the Verfen when they arrive, if they arrive with their so-called protection. Leri was shocked by how deep her anger at him was. “Complain to Glights the Castorian or to our human mercenaries who allowed Ranas to be killed. But do not complain to me.”

  “He certainly has rationale to complain,” Glights said.

  “Shut up, Castorian. Or leave if you cannot control your clacking,” Weecs said before turning back to Leri. “I am sorry, Leri. I had no intention of angering you.”

  “Then accept your responsibilities and do what you must.”

  “Yes, of course. My shortcomings are my own problem.” Loud hissing whistles filled the chamber.

  “It is time,” Leri said. “Good-bye, Glights. Good-bye, Weecs. Trust your judgment, and do not neglect the Confidantes when you are in need.” She slithered off the dais and quickly moved to the back wall where she coiled in wait of the Council.