Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5)

by Scott Rhine

  For the first time in her life, Laura had something other than her mother to lose, and it scared the hell out of her. That Samoan guard had almost ruined everything tonight with his big mouth. “We have to move up the timetable.” She had a narrow window of opportunity if she could seduce Stewart tonight.

  ****

  Laura’s entourage had arrived at Stu’s apartment at eight only to find him gone. After a few calls, she strode into the secure ward of the hospital with special permission from Lena Maurier. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  “Corporate security is claiming I said those things because I have a fever. I still mean every word!” Grumpy, Stu sat on the bed in his thin, blue gown and no pants.

  Easy access, she thought.

  Dr. Maurier whispered, “He does have a low-grade fever, and we’re keeping an eye on it. Did he come in physical contact with anyone recently other than Mo? We’ve spent the last half hour clearing his closest guards.”

  Biting her lower lip, Laura admitted, “Me, briefly. But I have weekly inoculations for all the latest viruses.”

  “How long since your latest treatment?” the doctor demanded.

  “The day before my flight to LA,” Laura replied. “I could schedule another tomorrow.”

  “The damage has already been done. I need to narrow the list of possible contagions if we’re going to treat him before primary symptom manifest. Would you submit a sample of your blood and allow us to perform a contact graph?” The doctor held out a clipboard with a place at the bottom for a thumbprint.

  Everyone stared at her. A contact graph would use public and Fortune video logs to trace every person she had touched or breathed close to since her last clean bill of health. This procedure was standard for tracking and treating new diseases. Laura stalled. “Stewart, have you eaten dinner yet? I brought everything with me in warming trays.”

  Stu smiled. “I’d like that.”

  His doctor shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’d have to run an analysis on everyone who handled the food as well.”

  That would be the kitchen crew and delivery staff from three restaurants. Damn. “Mother’s not here to sign her permission because she didn’t have clearance. We’ll just order hospital food.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Stu grabbed her badge, “Zeiss? Your last name is Zeiss?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, pulling the badge back.

  “Like the commander?”

  Laura wanted to run out of the room. This was not the way she wanted him to find out. “We can talk about where my name came from over dessert.” When I’ve had you alone for a while.

  The doctor shoved the clipboard at her again. “Time is of the essence.”

  To eliminate the pest, she thumbed permission and said, “Point me to your lab, and I’ll give the blood sample.”

  “No need,” the doctor said, producing a vial and microsyringe. Since Laura’s shirt had no sleeves, Lena gripped her left wrist and told Stu, “Distract her. It’ll be over in a moment.”

  Stu held her right hand. “What does the S stand for in your middle name?”

  “My grandmother’s idea of a joke. Ouch.” The needle stung because the sample was removed so quickly.

  The doctor slapped a sterile patch over the red mark. “All done.” She brought up a wall projection. “Priority one to every search request for this patient for the next four hours.”

  “Come on,” Stu cajoled. “It can’t be worse than Angus. My friend Joan couldn’t pronounce it and called me ‘Anus’ for two years.”

  He pulled her hand close to his heart, and she melted. “Gran thought wicked names added character and gave the press something to gossip about.”

  “The press follows you, too? I didn’t know lawyers were stalker bait, even ones as beautiful as you.”

  A cluster of primary contacts appeared on a timeline, working back from the present. Bodyguards, lawyers, and family filled the screen. Tree diagrams immediately formed from each of them. Because they all had the courtroom in common, each tree ended in a common clump.

  Stu stroked her face, distracting her. “I’m sorry I blew the meeting with your mom and put you through the vampire treatment. I’ll try to make it up to you later.”

  Oh, you will. Laura actually licked her lips. Earnest young men were the best. Their adoration made her feel like a goddess. “Anything you need, I’m happy to provide.”

  Lena Maurier gasped and muttered a curse in French. One of the nodes on the screen turned bright red. So many connections formed that the tiny bubbles were unreadable. Only the splotches of exotic colors were visible. “Half of these people are carriers. Confirm the source of this link.” Seventeen stalker cameras reported the same image—Laura grabbing a shirtless man’s behind the first night of the trial.

  “You kissed him with tongue. Anything he had, Stewart may have been exposed to. You’re worse than Typhoid Laura.”

  “Derek has nano treatments more often than me,” Laura blurted.

  “Why is that?” asked Lena.

  “His job.”

  Stu was frowning at the enlarged image of Laura groping and deep-kissing the man on the screen. “What does he do?”

  “I’ll call him and find out when his last cleaning was,” Laura said, accessing the private link on the back of her badge because she had no sleeves available.

  The impatient doctor found a channel with subtitles. “Derek is a stripper and registered sex worker. Do you realize the danger you’ve put the ambassador in? We need to quarantine both of you until we sort this out. I’ve only gone back three days, and already the hospital grid has run out of computing power. With five hundred people per show, we’ll be tracking possibilities for a week.”

  Laura could feel Stu’s disappointment through their touch. Like he just lost his best friend.

  “Derek will come in and give blood, too. Everything will be all right,” she said, hitting the call button.

  “I trusted you,” he whispered.

  “You won’t get sick,” Laura insisted. “The doc won’t let you. I’ll pay for everything.”

  He glanced at the loop on the wall—her kissing the half-naked sex worker and slipping a tip into his pocket. “I don’t care about the disease. I thought you were … that you liked me. Mo called you awful names, and I defended you. It looks like he was looking after my interests after all.”

  “It’s not like that,” Laura said.

  Tapping the wall, the doctor said, “Search sexual partners for Laura Zeiss.”

  Her heart dropped through her stomach. “Please. No.”

  Bubbles filled the wall almost as fast as the stripper’s contagion analysis until the computer crashed.

  Stu dropped her hand and placed his over his chest. The headlines were as damning as they were florid.

  “I can explain,” Laura said weakly.

  Pale, Stu pointed at the one name that appeared in every story—Mori. “You’re what they warned me about. You were sent to spy on me and kill me.”

  Tears poured from Laura’s eyes for the first time since she was eight. “I’m not a killer.”

  “Just a spy then?” he asked. He swallowed hard. “Madam, your services will no longer be needed.”

  Chapter 15 – Confrontation

  While his guard escorted Laura Zeiss out of the hospital, Stu disconnected his IV and went for a walk down the hall. His mood was so dark that he ignored the ringing of the first two phones he passed. The third phone, he answered, “Llewellyn.”

  Oleander replied, “Thank God. When your monitors flat-lined, we panicked. Joan says your aura is very dark.”

  His teammates had been monitoring him with their Out-of-Body talent. “Someone got too close and infected me with something nasty. The doc caught it in time.” Stu strained to keep the grief out of his voice. If I had been under Laura’s spell for an hour longer, I might have kissed her even with the chance of death. “I’ll be in perfect health for the execution.”

  “That’s not
funny,” Oleander said.

  “What did you find out about the attack?”

  “The communication array was legitimate. We went over the schematics and checked the manufacturer specs for every part. Someone put a Trojan horse in the controls,” Oleander replied.

  “Why would it use synchrotron radiation?” he asked, stumbling over the large word.

  “Officially? It can be used to probe the nexus to get a better picture, like the scientists did for the artifact during the first star-drive test. It could also be used to detect an arriving starship, like sonar.”

  “Who knew this type of radiation was Sanctuary’s weak spot?”

  “No idea yet. We’re following several leads. Commander Zeiss says an analyst could have reverse-engineered our flight path to deduce it, but the person would need to have the Simplification talent and Quantum Computing. We need a list of people who watched the telescope data.”

  “Right. I might have an idea for that. What are the other leads?” White spots dotted the walls, probably afterimages from the lights.

  “Both Earth First and the array’s launch facility are in Brazil,” Oleander explained.

  “How much longer do you need me to provide this diversion?” Stu wiped perspiration from his forehead. The beads of sweat were running into his eyes and blurring his vision.

  “Get to Brazil as soon as you can. We’ll follow you at a distance to make sure you stay safe. If we send a contact, they’ll use the name of your teddy bear.”

  Admiral Woolsey. “I need access to … contraband to convince the jury, though.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He told her and suggested a drop location in the sign above a courthouse bench. “Put it in the letter ‘o’ under the bird’s nest.”

  Oleander hung up abruptly, warning him that natives were nearby.

  Security found Stu soon after, flat on his ass by the gift shop. He informed the unseen Joan, “Have to visit my mom’s house after I see the unicorns. Deliver all the presents to good children. Don’t let the witch kiss me.”

  “He’s delirious,” the guard concluded.

  He dreamed that the witch tied him to a throne and turned his arm to ice. The frost slowly spread over his entire body. When her plastic lips covered his, he could breathe again. Soon, her scent and heat meant more than the air. He only felt alive under her touch.

  He awoke Wednesday wearing an oxygen mask, longing for the witch of his dreams.

  ****

  Thursday morning, in the jury room, the prosecutor greeted him as Ambassador Llewellyn for the first time.

  Stu asked, “Why the change of heart?”

  “In three days, we couldn’t disprove your claim,” Isaiah Parrish said with polished charm.

  “So why am I here? You want me to juggle again?” Because that’s what this is—a circus.

  Parrish shook his head. “Perhaps our job would be easier if you told us one thing that no one outside Sanctuary could know.”

  “Nice try. Any technology must be shared with everyone at once. Nobody gets a head start. However, I posted something to my fan site on the way in today.”

  The jurors wasted no time bringing up the site on their sleeves and knees. The bailiff used the wall screen to display a series of seven photos from Stu’s baby album. The last photo was of a five-year-old on his father’s shoulder, in front of one of the giant space-habitat windows. The cracked surface of Labyrinth loomed in the background. Young Stewart had his arms spread wide as if he were flying. His mother, Mercy, gazed up at him, proud but a little worried. “Yuki snapped it for us. A small handful of people on your planet had access to the Labyrinth images from our telescope. They can confirm the authenticity of the topographic features visible in this picture.”

  The prosecutor frowned and ducked into his office. They waited for ten minutes while he made a call.

  Hopefully, Oleander can find out who was on the access list to see our Labyrinth orbit. Stu didn’t know how she planned to collect the data, but people in sneak suits generally had their ways.

  Parrish returned, tucking a small notebook into his chest shirt pocket. “Very well. We’ll move on to the weapons charges.” After swearing him in, the prosecutor asked Stu, “Why did your people try to destroy this planet with an Icarus device? Revenge?”

  “What Icarus device?”

  “In your shuttle.”

  “Ascension was destroyed. Do you mean my escape pod, the one that you shot down last Friday?”

  “In self-defense. Yes.”

  “You should question whoever told you there was an Icarus device in my escape pod. If he’s an expert, and honest, I can make him recant.”

  Parrish peeked at his pad. “Three experts testified to the existence of the device yesterday.”

  “As Lincoln said, ‘You can call a tail a leg, but that doesn’t make it one.’”

  The prosecutor ignored him. “Were you sent to get revenge for the court-martial of the Zeisses, the alleged destruction of your shuttle, or some other political agenda?”

  “None of the above.” Stu addressed the jury directly. “If I can’t wreck the testimony of all three of those so-called experts, I’ll sign a confession.”

  “This is not a trial. You have no right to cross-examine,” Parrish insisted.

  “Can any of those experts fly a starship or even tell you what powered my pod?”

  “There wasn’t enough of it left.”

  “So, no,” Stu concluded. “This process is about finding the truth. You aren’t asking the right questions to find that. Let me question the three witnesses, and I’ll prove it.”

  The jury voted to recall the first witness, the man who made initial contact on the radar screen.

  ****

  Two hours later, the naval NCO responsible was on the stand, an African American by the name of Ensign Freeman. Stu sat on the table atop a stack of office paper. He had scribbled messages on each. He now stared at the ensign. “Skin is fascinating. I have a Maori friend and one from India, but neither is as dark as you, Mr. Freeman. Yet all of you would be called black by some ignorant racist.”

  Bristling, the ensign said, “Is there a question, sir?”

  “Why are you so bigoted?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why did you shoot at my craft? I was broadcasting ‘friend’ on UN Space Agency frequencies.”

  “We received a high-confidence tip that an Icarus attack was imminent.”

  “From whom?”

  When the ensign said, “Above my pay grade, sir.”

  Stu held up a piece of paper for the jury. “Above my pay grade = I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  He continued. “Is it fair to say that as far as you were concerned, an anonymous source told you where and when I would be arriving?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That you were ordered to use lethal force on someone who had never shown hostile intent.”

  “You had an Icarus field, sir. That’s grounds.”

  “Circular logic,” Stu declared. “How did you know I had a field?”

  “The cloud blew up, sir. The ground crew confirmed the signature afterward.”

  “You have precognitive talents?”

  “Sir?”

  “How could you tell this fact at the moment you shot at me, before either confirmation occurred?”

  The ensign squirmed in his seat. “The jets on patrol had a visual on an unusual glow, sir.”

  “From how many kilometers away?”

  “Maybe five miles.”

  “Still haven’t converted to the metric system? Oh, dear. My craft was smaller than a Volkswagen bug,” Stu stated. “Could you see the engine in a VW at five miles?”

  “It glowed, sir.”

  “What happens to the bottom of a capsule when it enters Earth atmosphere?” Stu held up the answer “I don’t know” to the jury an instant before the ensign echoed the phrase.

  The man in the jury who
had enjoyed the juggling trick laughed.

  “Basic aeronautics, Ensign: any fast-moving craft entering the atmosphere will light up like a meteorite.”

  “You appeared out of nowhere,” the naval officer asserted.

  “In science, each effect has a cause. Past the age of two and peek-a-boo, we all learn that things don’t stop existing when we can no longer see them. If I were hostile and invisible, why did I appear two miles off your coast and broadcast my presence?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “What field strength did your Icarus detectors register?”

  “There wasn’t enough time.”

  Stu nodded. “How long would a sympathetic field triangulation have taken?” He held up a sign to the jury that said “128 seconds,” together with a citation from a twenty-year-old textbook.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe three minutes.”

  The jury mumbled.

  “You didn’t get A’s in your field theory class, did you?” Stu asked.

  “I never took a theory class.”

  “Part of my responsibility on Sanctuary is repairing live drive units. I’ve had extensive theory and practice to underwrite my Page talent. Several people have testified to this.” Turning to the witness, Stu asked, “Have you ever even seen an Icarus field, Ensign?”

  “No, but I know what one looks like on the detector.”

  Stu held up a sign that said, “I’ve seen one on TV.” Almost all the jurors smiled or chuckled.

  The prosecutor said, “No more signs, Ambassador.”

  Holding up his empty hands, Stu said, “So to summarize, you have no qualifications, and you didn’t see anything you testified to. You couldn’t have known my intent or the existence of a field of any kind. Therefore, you operated in direct contravention of international law.”

  Pleading to the jury, the ensign said, “He was moving so fast, LA would have been destroyed if I didn’t fire as soon as radar painted him.”

  “No further questions,” Stu said, dismissing him. “The second alleged witness?”

  ****

  The second witness took longer to locate. The jet pilot arrived in a dress air force uniform, and Stu suspected she had been prepped extensively. She had auburn hair and freckles. “Captain Enright,” Stu read. “Sounds Irish.”