by Lee Killough
Four females passed them.
Mama frowned. “I understand the public datanet preserving the security of sensitive areas. But why won’t the security level displays the lower rings?”
It did seem strange, but . . . “All we need to know is whether those rings have a corridor like this. I repeat . . . ask Athena.”
“Athena, do Levels Eighteen and Twenty have a corridor circling the central shaft?”
“That data is not available.”
Mama sighed. “Authorization sigma-two-delta-zero-three-gamma-eight. Do Llevels Eighteen and Twenty have a corridor circling the central shaft?”
“You must enter a construction code.”
Mama grimaced. “If she were human I’d accuse her of stonewalling us. You know what this means.”
“Go to Doubrava and see his reaction to being asked about our ghost using another portal?”
“No. It means we have to take a look for ourselves.”
That jolted like a Thor needle. “What!” Irritation boiled up in her. She should have expected something like this from him sooner or later! She forced her voice down as more people passed them. “No! It’s a construction zone. Access restricted. You saw the barrier rays. Remember what happened at the lab portal?”
He shrugged that off. “We have an authorization code.”
She snorted. “Which didn’t give us the ring schematic. Why expect it to pass us through the security barrier?”
Mama pursed his lips, then shrugged again. “If it doesn’t work, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Set off alarms that bring all of Security and the wrath of Geyer down on us for being somewhere we have absolutely no reason to be! Get us jailed, or at least confined to quarters until we’re shipped home in disgrace. Where Paget will ream us for disgracing the department. If he doesn’t put us back in uniform. Did his command Tread lightly not register with you! Instead of acting brainbent, let’s question Doubrava, or . . . quit for the night and follow the crowd to the musical event they appear to be heading for. You like concerts.”
Mama shook his head. “No. I have to go, even if you don’t feel you can back me up.”
Damn him. She ground her teeth. Damn him! He would play the partner card! “All right. I’ll go with you. But if we set off alarms instead of being passed through, there’s going to be a second murder here.”
“Trust me, Bibi.”
Not famous last words, she hoped.
Chapter Nine
Before heading down, they returned to their quarters to leave their guide cuffs . . . to reduce the chance of being ID’d as guests at the security point.
“You do realize leaving them means if we’re caught we can’t claim to be innocently exploring,” Janna said.
“So we’ll do our best not to get caught.”
She understood about the cuffs, but suspicion rose when he dug into his duffle for the winter jacket he wore to Forbes.
“Why the jacket?”
“Remember the remark about Eighteen being ready for heat and power? That suggests it’s dark and cold. But it ought to have the same configuration as Twenty and there’s less chance of meeting anyone inside.”
Good point. “We don’t have to go inside . . . only verify there’s a corridor.”
“I just want to make sure it connects all the portals.”
Just? No. He had something more in mind. She considered not going with him after all. On the other hand, her presence had a chance, however slight, of deterring him from something truly brainbent. With many misgivings, she unpacked her jacket, too. And for good measure, changed into the heavy winter socks she had taken off once aboard the shuttle.
He did agree to use the elevator rather than attract attention by riding the cable with winter wear bundled under their arms. Even in the elevator, though, she tensed and forced herself not to turn away on passing Level Ten, where a blue-uniformed male and female on the B platform turned to look at the elevator. The key to avoid looking suspicious was projecting an attitude of legitimate purpose in one’s location and actions. Still, the three males boarding at Level Eleven provided a welcome screen.
Plus, they ignored Mama and her, intent on their conversation . . . conducted in computerese, with the rare intelligible phrases consisting of: “and then . . .” and “if we . . .” Whatever the subject, it had them so excited they all talked at once, almost yelling. One of the group in a body suit of jagged yellow lightning spears on a dark red background kept bouncing so vigorously on his toes he lost contact with the deck twice and rebounded off the roof of the car. With their departure on a blue level, the silence made Janna feel almost deaf.
Mama grinned. “It’s good seeing people enthusiastic about their work.”
Janna liked seeing that with each level down, the number of people in the shaft decreased. No one at all appeared below the warning beams. They must be between shifts.
Leaving the elevator on Level Seventeen, they took the walkway to the D platform, then edged down the handrail by it toward the warning beams.
As they neared, the beams began pulsing. “Warning,” came Athena’s voice . . . loud enough that Janna winced, sure it must be audible all the way up the shaft. “Come no farther. This construction site is restricted. For your safety, turn back. Be advised that attempted entry by unauthorized personnel triggers alarms and physical restraint.”
Physical restraint? Janna pictured the humiliation of being entangled in a something like a stickynet. “We don’t need to go farther. There are four threshold platforms, just like the greenhouse rings.”
“Depending on the purpose of these rings, that’s no guarantee. We need to verify.”
“Warning.” The beams turned orange.
Shit. “Well if you’re going to, you’d better do something before alarms and physical restraints are deployed!”
“Authorization sigma-two-delta-zero-three-gamma-eight.”
The voice went silent. Though the beams remained orange.
Seconds passed while Janna held her breath, braced for a fast retreat.
Then to her relief, the beams faded back to blue. “Authorization accepted.”
They quickly hauled themselves down the rail through the beams, the light washing over them as they passed. On the platform below Mama moved close to the portal and pulled on his jacket.
On with her jacket, cap, and gloves, too. “Now let’s hope the portal accepts the code, too.”
“Ye of little faith.”
She peered around for anyone entering the shaft. “Me of wanting to do this and get the hell back where our presence is legitimate.”
“By the Book Brill,” he sighed, and responding to her bared teeth with a grin, recited the authorization code.
The portal slid open.
From the rush of icy air through it and total darkness inside, it might have opened on space itself.
“Holy crap!” she gasped.
Seemingly oblivious, Mama stepped inside, where he pulled out his cell and activated its beam.
Playing the beam around showed them a corridor like that in the greenhouse.
Confirmation of that brought relief. “Hallway verified. The ghost could leave by another portal. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She found herself whispering. This darkness, so deeply black it felt like physical pressure, swallowed the cell’s normally bright beam. Sound became abnormally loud . . . their footsteps rasping on the deck like sandpaper. Breath hissing like steam engines. Becoming steam, a great cloud around Mama’s head turned into a halo by the light from his cell’s beam. Around her head it stung her face and frosted her eyelashes.
Instead of leaving, Mama started along the corridor. “It’s best to be absolutely sure. This will only take a minute.”
Crap. Thank goodness for her thick socks. Even so, moccasins made poor footwear in this cold.
Slowly she became aware of another sound — not made by her or Mama — faint and rhythmic. Th
e air system. Must be. But so easy to imagine as the breath of some great animal lurking out in the darkness.
Janna shook herself. Get a grip, Brill. You’re not a two-year-old afraid of boogeymen under the bed. Which she never was. The dark had not bothered her then. She refused to let it do so now and focused on counting portals and shafts as the beam found them.
To her surprise, she realized she saw a portal before the beam picked it out. A greenish glow emerged from the darkness, outlining the portal, the shaft opposite, and the edges of the deck leading up to and beyond them. The same glow she remembered seeing in the morgue hall when it went dark. Nothing pleased her more, however, than spotting the fourth portal.
“We’ve come full circle. Let’s go.”
Unbelievably, he headed the opposite direction, for the radial shaft.
“Mama! What the hell! No!”
“I want to see what the secrecy is about here.”
She hissed. The son of a bitch. “That’s the real reason you wanted to come down here, isn’t it?”
“Secrets make me itch.”
She itched to slug him and walk out. “This one isn’t ours to uncover.”
“How do we know it isn’t related to Chenoweth’s death?”
She sighed. Why fight him? The faster they did this, the sooner they could leave and thaw out. “Lead on Macduff.”
Mama jumped into the shaft. His cell’s beam flashed on a cable lift like the one in the greenhouse. Motionless. By the light’s bobble knew Mama pulled himself along the loops with his free hand. She pulled off a glove long enough to dig out her own cell and activate the beam to let her find loops, too.
“Everyone gets that quote wrong,” Mama called over his shoulder. “It’s actually: ‘Lay on, Macduff.’ A fight challenge, not a request for escort.”
Too bad he was farther ahead than she could swing to kick him.
At the bottom of the cable they held loops for stability. Despite her socks, cold seeped into Janna’s feet . . . which did not keep her from recognizing the lack of tug underfoot on the rim’s deck. Of course. Why lay a magnetic path with simulated gravity intended to provide secure footing.
Their beams revealed nothing unusual . . . a corridor down the center of the deck, curving up in both directions. Portals scattered along both sides. An emergency capsule hanging on the wall opposite the cable. Whatever the ring’s secrets, they must lie behind those portals. Some had small windows.
Mama pushed off from the cable. She followed him with her beam. He headed for the nearest portal with a peep hole and holding the portal’s rim, shined his cell’s beam in the window.
“Those are one way glass,” came Doubrava’s voice above them.
Janna’s start nearly lost her grip on the cable loop. At the same time, she whipped her cell’s beam up, where it found Doubrava on the cable in a dark red anorak and gloves at the junction of shaft and rim.
He shielded his eyes with the arm not holding a loop and tut-tutted, breath coming in a great cloud from under the arm. “You two. I couldn’t believe it when Athena alerted me to you using my code at the security barrier. I told her to let you through . . . though if Geyer learns about this, she’s likely to feed me my guts.”
He let them through. “Why do that, then?”
He shrugged. “I was curious why you wanted down here. Why did you?”
Mama said, “To check whether these rings have a circular corridor that let our ghost leave by another portal. We couldn’t find out on the datanet, even using a security code.”
“You could have asked me. And I’d have told you he did leave by another portal, still wearing his Maintenance guise.”
Suspicion shot down Janna’s spine, colder than the ice biting into her feet.
She realized silence met Doubrava’s statement when he snorted, blowing out steam. “You think I’ve withheld that information? I didn’t have it until leaving you in the park. Up in the ring hall I suddenly realized the air locks down here were dismantled weeks ago. I went straight to the office to review surveillance and was in the process of tracking our jon up through the station when Athena interrupted me with news of your field trip.”
“Air locks?” Janna said.
“Adding a module puts a hole in the side of the station. A ring module, four holes. Before breaching the shaft, the station is protected by attaching a collar around the outside — which becomes the ring hall — with air locks where the entry portals and radial shafts will be. The air locks remain in place until there’s no longer danger of depressurizing the station.” He paused. “Wanting to establish there’s a ring hall is one thing. It doesn’t explain what you’re doing down here in the rim.”
“Seeing why the rings are such secrets,” Mama said. “What’s behind the portals?”
After a pause, Doubrava shrugged. “It can’t hurt to tell you since it’ll be public knowledge on Friday. Apartments. Living quarters for station occupants — with their families if they choose — while their old quarters are re-purposed into labs.”
Apartments? With families? “Why does that need secrecy?”
“Because — would you mind pointing that beam somewhere else, Brill?”
Janna aimed it up . . . and found the light reflecting off the upper bulkhead created dusk around them.
It let her make out Doubrava lowering his arm enough to see over it as he continued, “Lanour is turning the station into a pure research facility, where anyone with a theory is invited to develop it and run their experiments.”
“Hence the secrecy,” Mama said. “If that leaked to the board, they’d do everything possible to prevent it.” He frowned. “But why reveal it on Friday? The board will use the stockholder meeting to oust Lanour, then axe everyone up here they think abetted him.”
“They can’t. As the stockholders will learn from Lanour in a broadcast from here — he’s arriving tomorrow — this station is no longer the property of Lanour-Tenning. It’s his. The first man in history to own a space station.”
Janna blinked. “What? How’s that possible?”
“Stealth and skullduggery and millions in dd’s spread around, I expect,” Mama said. “What a coup.”
“Or he’s shot himself in the foot. The Q’s will be free to work without the pressure of producing profits for stockholders’ dividends, yes, but . . . can the station support itself that way? What are the chances that without being prodded for results, the Q’s will just tinker forever.”
Mama’s brows lifted. “You don’t have faith in Lanour? His gambles have been paying off for half a century.”
“It’s still a legitimate concern.”
“And maybe a motive for the smuggling,” Janna said. “Creating a financial parachute.”
Mama said, “Which means our smuggler has known Lanour’s plans for months.”
Doubrava frowned. “Are you still thinking of Fontana?”
“He’s not the only one with that knowledge.”
“Maybe Nakashima. Geyer and I weren’t told until a couple of weeks ago.”
Mama blew out a plume of steam. “You never had a hint of Lanour’s plans before then?”
“Never. Look, while this isn’t as cold as open space, I suggest we move the discussion somewhere that’s actually warm.” Doubrava pulled on the loop he held, sending himself up the cable.
Amen to that. Janna’s legs and feet felt frozen.
Mama pushed off from the portal, followed his cell’s beam to the cable over her head, and disappeared up the shaft. “Also where we can track the ghost and learn who he actually is.”
“That too,” came Doubrava’s voice.
Janna fumbled her cell into a jacket pocket and pulled up the cable after Mama, finding loops where she needed them by the light of his cell reflecting off the sides of the shaft.
The beam showed Doubrava reaching the top of the shaft, where he turned and disappeared behind a light he shone down at them. “Don’t dawdle. I’d like you back outside the security b
arrier before construction crews start arriving for the shift change.”
A very good . . .
The thought went fuzzy.
Then came the attack. Out of nowhere. A thousand teeth sinking into her from all directions in utter blackness.
Not teeth, Janna realized moments later. Savage cold. Shivers wracked her, teeth chattering hard enough to crack them.
Hugging herself found no jacket, no gloves. No cap. Nothing within reach of her arms. Slapping her pockets found no cell. No, she had put it in a jacket pocket. But her slate had gone from the scabbard pocket, too.
What happened? She had been in the radial shaft, then . . . here, floating, freezing. How?
Janna struggled to think, her brain feeling numb as her feet and hands. Recognizing that brought the realization of a more urgent need . . . to get out of here before she froze. Wherever here was.
She fought not to panic while shuddering with the cold. Think, Brill. Think!
Preserve heat first. Unroll the neck of her turtleneck and pull it up over her face and ears to her eyes, pull her sleeves down over her hands, and flail arms and legs to keep her circulation going.
Now test the nature of the space around her.
Lowering the turtleneck to her mouth, she shouted, “Hello!”
No echo. But the space had to be large enough to float in without touching any surfaces. The rim? Had to be.
She peered around, and — Yes! Thank you! — beyond her feet a pale green line stretched right and left above an oval outline. Twisting her head found another green line behind her. She lay crosswise in the rim’s central corridor, facing its deck. Stretching her arms over her head, resistance met her fingertips. A wall. Half the menace of the dark disappeared.
A push with her fingers sent her drifting to the wall at her feet, where she reached down and caught the portal rim. From here she could propel herself to a cable. But which direction to go? Or did it matter? Both must lead to—