Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck)

by Victory Crayne

Next came two levels of living quarters. As Stater walked the corridor, he looked into some of the side doors to see rows of bunk beds, three high. The noise level was quieter too. But most of the doors remained closed. “Why the closed doors?”

  “Those folks are sleeping.”

  “Where do they go to the bathroom?”

  He pointed to curtains over entrance ways, spaced along the corridor. Over each curtain was the silhouette symbol of female wearing a skirt and legs together, or male with legs apart.

  “How often do they bathe down here?”

  “Once a week, based on their last name,” replied his guide. “Water is rationed here.”

  Stater approached a men's room and slid the curtain aside. A half dozen men sat inside on wooden benches in various stages of dressing. Lockers surrounded them. A man came from another room on the side and when Stater peeked in, he saw several toilet seats. No doors. No privacy. The room reeked of feces and urine.

  They could use more air conditioning here.

  Next to the toilet room was a sink room.

  Just rows of seats opposite sinks. Another man came from an opposite doorway, his hair still wet, with a towel wrapped around his midriff, his hairy chest in plain sight. Stater could feel the high humidity.

  That must be where they shower. So today must be a water day, at least for this shift.

  They came to another large room below the cafeteria with the label “Recreation Level B.” It was the same huge size as the dining room. Stater saw hundreds of tables of six feet by four. At each table sat six to eight travelers. Some played cards, others played board games. Everyone appeared tired and bored. The same partition cut the room.

  He studied their faces as he walked by. Many stared back at him.

  Guess they don’t see many folks in suits from Second here. Especially when accompanied by a guard in a green uniform.

  Most of the men had scraggly hair, except the few who shaved the tops of their heads. Stater smelled a mixture of body odors.

  Like the partition one floor above, it had no doors and was painted the same color as the rest of the room.

  They exited by another door and walked down yet another flight of stairs.

  At the other end, they came to a door marked “Stairs.” When he got to the stairs, Stater felt the vibrations more and heard the noises grow. There was a regular beat. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The engine room was on the bottom level and he could feel the vibrations through the floor. On his own level in Second, he had not felt anything like this. A gentle vibration, yes, but not this easy to detect.

  His guide tapped him on the shoulder and signaled with his head that it was time to move on.

  Chapter 29

  As they proceeded along the hallway, several guards manhandled a man as they shoved him toward Stater. The man walked bent over with his hands in cuffs behind his back and one guard pressed down on his head. Two guards held his arms and the group walked fast.

  “I didn’t do nuttin’!” the man exclaimed but his guards kept their serious faces and continued the fast pace.

  Stater and his guide stepped aside to let them pass.

  “What was that all about?” Stater asked.

  “Someone must have gotten rowdy and disobeyed the rules. The guards are leading him to the brig down below.”

  “What’s in the brig?”

  “All depends on what he had done. If the infraction was serious enough, he could go into solitary right away. Otherwise, he could share a cell with three or four others. How many depends on how many we get.”

  “What happens if they break the rules twice?”

  His guide just shook his head.

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  With that, Stater stiffened his spine and raised his right eyebrow. He had heard that infractions in First or Second could result in the passenger being sent to Third for the duration of the trip. With a stern lecture, of course. And once in Third, a few got “spaced” if they broke the rules twice. Spaced as in a trip to the plasma converter. Then their atoms would be sent to outer space. Those passengers were listed as dead on arrival.

  He asked his guide, “Who decides when a passenger breaks the rules?”

  “We do.”

  Oh oh.

  “You some kind of reporter?” his guide guard asked as he looked at him.

  “No. Would it make a difference if I was?”'

  His guard didn’t respond but raised an eyebrow.

  “We don’t like reporters much. Watch them for breaking any rules. We know how to deal with reporters.”

  When they got to another stairs, his guide asked, “Seen enough?”

  Stater nodded.

  They made their way up the stairs and his guide stopped when they got to the portal to Second. Stater showed his right hand again to the scanner and in a minute entered the cleaner air of his own class.

  He made his way to his own cabin and lay on the bed as he recalled his visit to Third Class. Mentally he shook his head. Humans can treat other humans like dirt sometimes.

  After checking his comm he realized it was close to dinner time so he got up, took a quick shower, and changed his clothes. He didn’t want any odors from his visit to linger.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he needed to send a message to his boss about the partition.

  He sat at his computer and prepared a message to Mr. Johnnat Smithe, Aero Imports and Exports. That was the code name for messages to Acorn. After encrypting the message with the software on his comm, he transferred the message to a data disk and removed it from his computer.

  Then he stood and left his room.

  As he sat at the dining table, the waiter asked, “Can I get you something to drink, sir?”

  “Where’s the communications office?” asked Stater.

  “It’s in First Class. You can’t go there.”

  Not being one to accept simple rejections, Stater looked up the insignia for communications. Later, he approached an officer in a white uniform. Occasionally officers from First went to Second. This man had three stripes on his shoulders and below his name was the single word, “Communications”.

  “If I paid you five hundred sols,” said Stater, “could you get a message sent to Earth?”

  The man stared at him for five seconds.

  Ah, he was considering it.

  “Let me see the color of your money.”

  Gotcha.

  Stater pulled out the five hundred from his jacket and handed it to the officer, along with a small data disk with his encrypted report of the rumor of military men.

  “Let me see what I can do. I can’t promise anything.”

  “If you can’t send it, I’ll look you up and you won’t like the result.”

  The officer squinted. “Oh yeah?”

  Stater glared and towered over the man, whose eyes opened wider.

  Stater looked at the name plate over the man’s right breast pocket. “Mr. Carl Rydner. I know where you can be found.”

  Stater knew he risked getting sent to Third, maybe even solitary. But Acorn had to learn of the guys behind the partition. Every day might count.

  The officer swallowed and replied, “I see what you mean.”

  With that he left.

  Stater smiled.

  Good ol’ intimidation. Coupled with bribery, it can still work wonders.

  A day later, the officer came up to Stater while he was eating lunch. He didn’t say anything but made sure no one could see him before he winked.

  “It’s done. There’s no need for rough stuff,” he said before he turned and walked away.

  Inside, Stater beamed from ear to ear. Outside he nodded.

  Mission accomplished.

  At lunch two hours before his transport ship arrived at the jump gate, Stater avoided eating and popped a motion sickness pill. Acorn said he might experience extreme vertigo, maybe even throw up.

  When the time to jump came, the ship maintained
its slow speed as it approached the jump gate. From the computer animation on his monitor, Stater saw a fast transport went through just before his larger ship.

  The passengers in First and Second Class stayed in their quarters and lay on a bed. The poor folks in Third had to experience the vertigo wherever they happened to be. There were too few beds in Third to accommodate all of them.

  Loudspeakers everywhere announced, “The jump will happen in fifteen seconds.”

  Stater had never gone through a jump.

  That same loudspeaker said, “Ten. Nine. Eight.”

  After his ship passed through the dark portal, at first he wondered if something had gone wrong. His monitor showed the stars were still there. But wait! They were in new positions.

  The loudspeaker in his room announced, “We have completed the jump. You may return to whatever you were doing before.”

  He waited to see if he had any vertigo. But there was none. Dizziness, yes. Vertigo, no. Maybe the motion sickness pill helped.

  Piece of cake!

  After the jump, Stater faced more boring days as his ship approached Rossa. He had reserved this time to catch up on documentaries on the planet as he sat in the theater. Most emigrants in Second watched them while they were still in the Solar System. He didn’t want to join a crowd in the theater. He could have watched it in his room but the walls were pressing in on him. He had to get out. He was not surprised to find most of the seats vacant in the theater.

  #

  Sometimes, spies have to wait. It’s hard for sure. But sometimes it’s necessary. Nothing much happened for two days.

  Then I got a message from Acorn that was forwarded from Stater. My new helper had found a way to send a message before he left the Solar System.

  This one was a doozy. No wonder Acorn forwarded it.

  Stater wrote, “I heard rumors that a large group of military men had boarded this flight and were contained behind partitions in the sleeping and dining quarters of Third Class. I visited Third and saw the partitions. They’re real. Something is going on. Rumor has it that behind the partitions were soldiers from Eastern Europe. They spoke a Slavic language.”

  That was interesting.

  Why would the military of any nation on Earth send troops to Rossa? Especially in secret?

  To my suspicious mind that spelled trouble.

  The United Space Force had sent ships through the Solar gate several times. So why had troops been sent without those military ships? Maybe the rumors were false. Stater also reported the rumor that the mysterious travelers were employees of a new firm being set up on Rossa and they didn’t want their competition to know they were coming. That didn’t make much sense either. Sounded like a cover story.

  Acorn added, “Stater will arrive in eight days. Can you pick him up at airport and take him to center?”

  I sat back. The rumor of military men coming to Rossa so soon after the prime minister had been assassinated was too much coincidence. And I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  My comm vibrated again. Vincent sent an encrypted tag.

  “I’ll be there in thirty.”

  He must have something to report that was best said in person.

  When my favorite hacker finally arrived in blue slacks with a white dress shirt and a blue suit jacket over his weapon, he sported a big grin.

  I had on a simple blue jeans pants and T-shirt today with my Snap readily visible in its holster. I bought the T-shirt at a discount place. Cheap at ten sols for five shirts.

  My Snap used a .22 caliber bullet, but since it left the gun with a high muzzle velocity it did a lot of damage.

  “It took me long enough, but I finally cracked into the YSA computer. After reading several messages to learn the correct sequence of steps, I asked their personnel database for any records where the job classification was ‘contractor.’ A hundred records came back. I compared them to the number of people working in each department. One came back that was unusual.”

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “His name is Ben Nguyen. The interesting thing is his salary. It’s way beyond the kind of work he does. About two hundred thousand sols beyond.”

  “Oh. That’s interesting.”

  “That’s not all. His supervisor is listed as someone stationed in La Seille.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Knowing you might like more info on him, I looked up his residence. It’s in Corey.”

  Corey was a suburb of Zor on the southeast side where Gancha lived.

  I sat back.

  “Well, well. You may have just found Getner’s axman.

  “I have another assignment for you. Stater Gong, whom you may remember from your BIS training, is headed this way. He reported a partition in Third Class and thinks it may hide some troops. I want you to check how much food was eaten versus the passenger manifest. You might also check on the fuel consumption. This will be one way to check if the ship carried more people than were listed.”

  “Good ideas. I’ll get on it right away,” replied Vincent.

  After Vincent left, I tagged Andy.

  “I’m happy to see you decided to stay with BIS. After you inherited Jake’s shares in Mourtan Security, I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to join us.”

  “I couldn’t quit. Elsie would kill me if I did. She gets a thrill out of my involvement.”

  My eyes opened wider.

  “You talk with her?”

  “Only the highlights and always restricted to my part,” he replied. “She’s proud of me. And you.”

  Elsie was his grandmother and worked as a receptionist at Mourtan. Her last name was Mourtan, the same as the firm’s name. She told me many times that her investment in her grandson’s business was the best investment she had ever made.

  “What wife are you working on now?”

  “The second, Laura. It finally got through what you and grandma said. I needed to stop playing around. Besides, BIS is all the excitement I need.”

  Chapter 30

  Ambassador Gliituk sat in his large office at the mercon embassy.

  He pondered who had knowledge of this agreement with Dani. He had spoken to only Jake and Ron, and since both were killed, maybe nobody else in the Binger community knew he had promised Jake he’d make arrangements for Jake to visit the mercon colony in Ensam.

  Wait. I know another!

  He sent an email to the only human guest who had ever lived in the embassy. Alena Dani.

  “Do you know anyone in BIS?”

  After sending this short message into the airways, Gliituk sat back.

  A stab of pain from his back alerted him to his nyteen, the mercon equivalent of the human spinal arthritis.

  Time for another pill of the human pain killer.

  After he took the pain pill with a sip of Durran wine, he thought of what he would do when he retired. But he didn’t want to leave his successor with too many problems, especially the unresolved ones.

  Might reflect back on me.

  While the pain pill took its time becoming effective, he read the report from Tettar, his head of intelligence, on the growing unrest on Ensam. The bemanders, the more liberal party, were arming themselves for rebellion against conservative skolanders, of which Gliituk was a member.

  As a member of the Matton secret society, along with Picka’tor and T, the ambassador knew of the tendency of mercons to have many cycles of buildup, revolt, and peace. During the peaceful times, most mercons falsely believed that by erasing memories of past revolutions they could prevent another.

  Here we go again.

  He worried about the effect of having more Bingers on the western edge of the same island as Ensam on the east.

  It all depends on the humans in Campbell.

  The population of mercons had grown to two hundred thousand, mostly because of the mercon reproductive rate. Mercons usually had twins or triplets, sometimes quadruplets, at birth. Most children were raised with the same political beliefs of their
parents. He wondered if this was true of humans also.

  But many of the younger set of mercons, of college age, preferred the political philosophy of the bemanders, the more liberal of the two parties.

  Maybe my days as ambassador are numbered.

  His spies in Telmot City, the largest city on the western edge of Braco, reported that Bingers seemed everywhere. At least most of the adult residents were larger people and came from Earth. The city council of Telmot had passed a law that it was illegal to discriminate against Bingers or mercons in housing or employment. But in Campbell, the largest city on Braco, the opposite seemed to be true. Bingers and mercons were not welcome there. As a matter of fact, they were often discriminated against. As in beaten, denied jobs, and denied housing.

  Tension had grown between the three sections, the Bingers on the western edge, the full humans in the center of the island, and the mercons on the eastern edge.

  Gliituk suspected the Bingers would not stop at getting part of Braco. He took a deep sigh.

  I’m so tired. Maybe this is one problem I can leave to my successor.

  The spy master Tettar reported a growing animosity among the bemanders. With the election of the mercon Eaatan coming up, the bemanders were expected to win. If by some chance, that didn’t happen, then the bemanders were prepared to go to war.

  Gliituk sighed.

  The old civil war again.

  Gliituk sent a message to his twin brother, Geetride, who worked in the mercon post office. He might already know of the rising tensions, since he saw a lot of emails every day.

  “You had better prepare a hiding place for our family. Civil war could break out any day.”

  In other encrypted emails, Gliituk had discussed the pending civil war. The ambassador would get down to Ensam as best he could.

  Gliituck read Tettar’s report of the preparations. Most of it was spotty, as Tettar had few spies inside the bemander camp. But many of the more liberal voters had personal weapons and showed them to what few spies he had.

  Being under human control meant the mercons in Ensam had to keep the heavier pieces of their armory inside the temples. Human inspectors seldom ventured into the religious houses.

  But one thing was clear. Human inspectors would be the first to go. The leading skolanders of the conservative party would be next to face death.