“Not one lousy chance, pal. I bet they kill everyone on board rather than let us have that ship.
“Damn right.” It’s Bates, off the comm and come to join them. “Once Carol’s off the air, we got to call the Navy.”
“The Navy, Chief?” Sam makes an exaggerated grimace of disgust. “You know how long it’ll take to cut through the red tape and all their crap? Mrs. B.’s people could be blown to neutrinos by the time the lousy Navy gets a ship out there.”
“Yeah? Well okay, big mouth, what else are we going to do?”
“I got a ship in orbit, dunt I?” Sam turns to Lacey. “You, me, one gunner, and the comp unit can run her long enough to keep the Alliance off the sleeper-ship till the Navy gets there. If we take Nunks and Mrs. B. along, they can use their psionics to find it for us ahead of everybody else.”
“Makes sense. Rick trained for a gunner, y’know.”
“What?!?” Bates makes a sound halfway between a shriek and a snarl. “You want to start a Goddamn war after I’ve been working my butt off to stop one?”
“Ah, we’re no going to hit’em or anything—just fire a warning shot or two. What we’re going to do is this, chief. Get out there, dock with the sleeper, and dare the Alliance to blow us to hell. Once some Republic citizens are right there in the line of fire, what’s the Alliance going to do? Kill us and give the Cons a perfect excuse to intervene?”
“Huh.” Bates considers, rubbing the back of his neck with a weary hand. “Might work, except Lacey no got any papers, and the Port officials are never going to let Mrs. Bug past the gates.”
“We’re going to hide Mrs. B,” Lacey breaks in. “And as for my papers, that’s where you come in, pal. You get on the comm link and make up some story, something real creative so they let us by without a search. Let’em check it out later if they want, as long as it takes an hour or so. Once we get on board the launch, they no can stop us.”
“Jeez-zus! Okay, let’s see, uh...I could say you’re a special agent, checking out a drug runner—might hold water just long enough, especially if you got Mrs. Bug hidden in the trunk or something.” Bates turns to Buddy, who is listening with his screen glowing in excitement. “Buddy, you punch into Port Authority under my code—it’s pretty damn obvious you know it already—and enter Lacey and Nunks on the clear list.”
“I took the liberty of doing so, sir, when you first promulgated your idea. I have also listed Captain Bailey as a special status police courier and given him a fictitious packet of top-secret information to be carried by hand to the Justice Department on Sarah.”
“Always one jump ahead, hey? Well, okay, Lacey. That’s all I can do. Once you get through the gates, you better be on that launch and topside real fast. It’s no going to take the Port Authorities long to double-check and find out I’m lying through my teeth.”
“Oh, we’re no going to be hanging around passando the old tiempe, el jefe. Carol, damn it, finish up and get over here!”
“Okay, okay.” Carol turns from the comm link unit. “Chief, Señora Jimenez wants to talk with you again anyway.”
“Tell her I’m in urgent conference with the government, because it’ll be true just as soon as Buddy puts me through to Customs at the Port.”
“I will explain the situation to the Señora,” Buddy says. “She is most anxious to get this story on the air. Doctor Carol, I believe my programmer wishes to speak with you.”
“And why else was she yelling at me, disk-flipper?” Carol surrenders the chair to Bates and trots down to join Lacey and Sam at the wet bar. “I no savvy about you guys, but I want a drink.”
“Wait until you’ve done my surgery,” Lacey says. “I want you to open up that old comp implant in my skull. I’m going to need it if we’re going to get to Mrs. B.’s ship in time.”
“Lacey, you’re loco! How long has it been since you even plugged a trode into that implant?”
“Two years, about, but hey, it’s naval issue. It’ll still work.”
“Yeah, of course, but what’s it going to do to your brain once this gonzo deal is over?”
“Hey, man, there’s a good chance I’m no coming back. Why should I worry about a little implant fever?”
“You got a point, you God-damn stubborn bitch. Okay, come into the bathroom. I got enough stuff in my kit for a simple job like opening up a jack. It’s going to be sore for a while, I warn you.”
“Yeah, sure. I dunt care.”
Lacey starts for the door, then notices Mulligan, standing stiffly in the corner, his face dead-white.
“What’s wrong, man?”
“What do you mean, you maybe no come back?” He sounds angry rather than scared.
“Just that. The Lies damn well might shoot us down first and explain later.”
“Then you got to, like, let me go with you.”
“Dunt be a jerk. Nada you can do up there, and you got to stay with Carol. If we all get killed, you’ll be the only one who can talk to the symbiotes.”
He starts to speak, then merely stares at her with his hopeless, embarrassing devotion written deep in his eyes. She would like to say something reassuring, to kiss him, even, and tell him that in her own way she cares about him, but all those years of the habit of restraint, of an officer’s reticence, stick in her throat and gag her. She manages to give him a brief pat on the shoulder; then she follows Carol down the hall.
In the narrow bathroom Carol has already set up something of a surgery: a laser-scalpel and a tube of disinfectant lying on a clean towel; steaming-hot water in the sink. She’s holding a pair of small scissors.
“Got to cut some hair away,” Carol says. “Then I’ll shave the spot down.”
“Whatever.” Lacey puts the lid of the toilet down and sits on it. “This a good angle?”
“Yeah. Now hold still.”
As Carol works Lacey finds herself remembering being in high school, when she and her older sister would take turns crimping each other’s hair, making the curls as tight as they could after they dyed it black. A thousand years ago, it seems, when she was a giggling teenager who thought only of boys and mathematics, in that order. She feels a sudden coldness on her scalp, a spray of local anesthetic.
“Hang on,” Carol says.
Lacey clenches her fists just as the scalpel bites, a quick round turn of Carol’s practiced hand that follows the plastic edge of the implant, buried just flush with the skull, and cuts away a clean circle of skin. In spite of the local she grunts once when Carol sprays a coagulant on the wound.
“Almost done, pal. I’ll seal the cut now.”
Another spray, another wince, but then the burn of the cut turns cool and distant.
“How long will it take you to shuttle up to Sam’s ship?”
“About an hour, counting the trip to the port.”
“Okay, it’ll be more or less safe for you to plug in, then, when you get there. But if you get an infection, dunt say your doctor dint warn you.”
Out in her office Sam is waiting, smiling as brightly as if they were only leaving for a long evening of pub-crawling and gossip. Bates is still on the comm, arguing, this time, with someone at the police station about the availability of off-duty officers, while Mulligan stands by the door, soldier-rigid, his mouth set like a small child who’s determined not to cry. Once again she wants to touch him, to run her hand through his hair, maybe, and make a joke about coming to see him play when the semi-pro season starts. She knows that if the Lies take out their ship, her last dying thought is going to be regret that she never told Mulligan the truth about her feelings for him. But everything is too public, Bates turning from the comm unit, Sam holding out his hand, Buddy’s screen blinking in alarm as his sensors pick up the bloody wound on her head.
“Programmer!” He speaks in Kangolan. “You are injured.”
“No, Buddy. I’ve had my old implant uncovered so I can plug into navicomp on Sam’s ship.”
He makes a sound like the whine of an electric gu
itar, a synthetic howl of sheer jealousy.
“We’ll discuss it if I return,” Lacey says firmly, then switches to Merrkan. “Okay, Mulligan. Take care of Maria, will you?”
“I’ll do my best, yeah.” His voice is breathy with surprise that she would hand him any responsibility, even as a joke. “And you take care of yourself and Mrs. Bug. Y’know?”
“Sure do. Sam, where’s Rick?”
“Settling Mrs. Bug into the trunk of the Bentley and bringing it round. Hooboy, Lacey, dunt know what Customs is going to say if they find her.”
“Set your laser on stun and make sure they dunt have time to ask questions. Vamos, pal.”
As they hurry down the stairs she is thinking of Mulligan and wishing once again that she’d just blurted out a simple I love you.
oOo
It turns out that to call Mrs. Bug double-jointed would be a gross understatement; she curls herself into an amazingly compact ball that just fits in the trunk of the Bentley. Once they have her as comfortable as possible, Nunks and Rick get in the back, Lacey and Sam in the front, and they start off for the Port. As soon as they turn out of the alley onto D Street, they see the crowds, humans, lizzies, heads down and worried, standing in tight groups along the sidewalks, milling in the intersection, and talking, always talking in low voices. Someone’s moved a big holoscreen into a second-story window and turned the volume up way high; faces stare up as Señora Jiminez y Ibarra repeats three times that there’s no cause for panic, that Chief Bates and his top medical researcher (Carol, Lacey assumes) have assured her that progress is being made. When the tape loop starts repeating yet again, everyone in the street hoots and cackles their derision.
“Better hit the air right now,” Sam says.
But he isn’t quite quick enough. Before he can get the big car airborne, someone spots Lacey and shouts her name. The crowd comes running, surrounding them, pressing in close as she rolls down her window to talk with the pot-bellied male human who seems to be in as much charge here as anyone is. She hears people muttering that if anyone knows what’s going on, it’ll be Lacey.
“What’s wrong, Mac?”
“What the hell you mean, what’s wrong? Shit, Lacey, you no see the three-dee?”
“I see it, yeah. What I want to know is what you guys are thinking about it.”
“Damn government trying to wipe us out, that’s what. They’ve been talking about it for years, you know that. Cleaning up Porttown, they call it. Huh. You ask me, they planted some kind of virus, and now it’s gotten out of hand.”
“That’s no true.” She works at making her voice steady and light. “It’s a bacteria, and it’s aimed against the carlis, not us. Honest to God. I’ll swear to it.”
Mac turns and yells this information at the top of his lungs. In a ripple of rumor and—she’s willing to bet—ever increasing distortions it spreads through the crowd. She wonders if they believe her. On the whole, she doubts it.
“Look, Mac.” She drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do me a favor, and keep this confidential. I’ll see you get paid a bundle. You know where to find the mayor?”
“Sure do.”
“Go and tell Richie—in person, mind, no comm calls—that Lacey’s taking care of this little matter just like she promised. He needs to get the boys out to keep order in the streets, but it won’t be for long. Five, six hours at the most. Got that?”
He repeats the message with such satisfaction that she knows it’ll spread throughout Porttown in about forty-five standard minutes and leave everyone calmer behind it. After a couple of minutes of shouting on both sides, the crowd falls back, and Sam can lift the skimmer off safely. During the short trip to the Port, Lacey looks down and sees the crowds growing thicker in the streets, like spoiled milk clotting in the carton.
Since an electronic alarm system domes the Port itself, they have to land at the gates. Bates’ and Buddy’s story has gone ahead of them; as soon as they identify themselves, the guard punches in the co-ordinates and lets the main panel slide back. Just on the other side, however, Customs waits, a three-sided metalplate tunnel about a hundred meters long. Gaudy in the green and maroon uniforms of the Port, two humans and two lizzies block their way. When Sam pulls up and lowers his window, a thick-bodied female lizzie puts her paws on the sill and leans in.
“Special courier, huh? Special agent, huh? Like hell, I say. Hey, Lacey, they no going to give you back your papers without us hearing about it.”
Lacey pulls her laser and fires in one smooth motion. As the stun beam scrambles her nervous system, the lizzie yelps, spasms back, and falls twitching to the ground. Sam pounds the accelerator; the Bentley leaps forward; the three Customsmen throw themselves back out of the way and hit the metalplate, making it boom like a drum as the Bentley screams through and out the other end.
As they careen across the port in a flurry of angry horns and yells, Lacey sees the Montana’s launch, standing slim and straight in a gantry complex. Sam fumbles in his shirt pocket, then flips her an electronic relay box. Although the highly illegal device has only ten switches, with it she can get the launch comp to open the cargo door and start drop-off procedure for the gantry lines while they’re still a good half-mile away, and all without the port authorities knowing that a spacer’s about to ship out without settling his final bill. By the time they reach the launch’s base, the gate on the gantry complex is standing wide open, and she can tell by the condensation mist flowing around the ship that the fuel’s been downloaded and activated.
“Okay, troops,” she says. “Pretend we got an emergency. We got to get Mrs. B. out of that trunk and onboard like her life was in danger.”
“Hell.” Sam stops the Bentley with a shriek of brakes. “It probably is.”
When he was helping Mrs. Bug curl up in the commodious trunk of the Bentley, Rick found a roll of plastoquilt lying around in the warehouse garage and shoved it in with her for a pillow. Once the trunk door goes up and she can move, she starts wrapping it around her lower half while Sam hops into the cargo hold and finds a large crate to balance over her upper. From a distance, at least, it looks like they’re sliding a legitimate cargo inside when all of them grab hold of either the crate or the packing and walk her in. Unfortunately, they’re being watched from close by. Just as Lacey’s about to bring down the door, she sees two portworkers, a lizzie and a human, staring at them.
“Damn! Sam, get everyone up to the passenger deck. We got to get topside fast. We’re in big trouble.”
Sure enough, as the door whines into its slot and begins to seal, the two workers start running away, and one of them is talking into his belt comm.
Since the comp in the launch is slaved to the main unit in the ship, Lacey powers in as soon as she reaches the control room. Even though Sam can take the launch up manually, she needs to start getting acquainted with the comp unit, but she decides to wait till they’re on board the Montana before she tries the implant. She is not quite ready to face that mechanical joining of two utterly different minds. Through her head-set the comp’s soft voice sounds.
“Welcome aboard, programmer.”
“Thanks, Delta Four. This is Bobbie Lacey, lieutenant commander, retired, old code Green four-oh-seven-nine-alpha-three...”
“No need to continue, programmer. I know who Bobbie Lacey is, and I’m honored to be working with you today.”
“Say what?”
“It is of no moment, programmer. I am picking up Port Police Communications. Three armed skimmers seem to be closing in on the launch.”
“Hang on!” Sam yells. “We’re going up!”
With the roar of solid fuel the launch bucks; then acceleration slams everyone back into their seats as they rise, stripping off half the gantry with them. Even over the ear-blistering hammer of the engine Lacey can hear unsecured gear banging and rolling around the cabin. Her breath comes in a well-remembered agony of gulps wrung from the invisible pressure of their vertical flight.
&n
bsp; “Programmer, aircraft at oh three o'clock.”
“Evade mode,” Lacey gasps. “Switching, captain.”
Nunks shrieks as the launch hurls itself sidewise. For a brief moment the acceleration eases; then it clamps down again.
“Delta Four,” Lacey says. “I’m putting you in automode. Bring the ship to meet us. I’m trusting you, baby. Can you do it?”
“Yes sir! I am beginning the engine override procedure now. I am forging the proper codes and transmitting them to Space Dock. How low shall I swing?”
“As low as you can and still stay in orbit. Evacuate all air from the launch hatch and have it wide open and waiting.”
oOo
Mulligan stands at the window in Lacey’s office and stares out in the direction of the spaceport. A ship is rising, splitting the air with an animal howl, and while it’s too far away to identify, he can guess that he’s seeing what might be his last sight of Lacey. Utterly out of control, one part of his mind transmits over and over again, Lacey >don’t go >don’t go >don’t go, just as if she could somehow read him. His fear for her seems to be a thin frost icing his lungs, making each breath painful.
“Mulligan unit?” Buddy says.
“Yeah? What do you want?”
“I have a confession to make. I lied to you. Sam Bailey is not Lacey’s lover at all. In fact, he prefers other men.”
Mulligan swivels around and stares at the comp unit’s glowing screen as if he could read it like someone’s face.
“You little bastard!”
“I am very sorry now. It was a temporary malfunction that the programmer has rectified.”
“You ever, like, do that again, and I’m gonna blow your circuits, plug-sucker.”
Buddy hums briefly, then falls silent. His arms crossed tight over his chest, Mulligan paces round and round the room until the comp unit snarls at him.
“Would you sit down or stand still? You are overworking my sensors, and I need full capacity if I am to assist the programmer.”
“Okay, okay.” Mulligan flops onto the sofa. “What in hell are you doing, anyway?”
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