The committee may well have mandated her smile too, and her overly modulated, almost sing-song tones as she replied, “It’s simply our procedures to ensure your health and well-being. Perfectly usual—what we do for everyone.”
“I’m not an everyone,” Kym said from the back of the chair. “I haven’t done nothing wrong. I don’t understand why I have to be here.”
“It’s not a question of having done anything wrong. It’s simply what’s normal—the way things are done.”
“So do ‘em different.” Kym glanced out through the room’s big front windows into the equally well-appointed lobby of Tycho Prime’s main rehabilitation and quarantine facility, staffed with women in equally sedate, committee-approved attire, at something that caught her attention.
“Be assured we do understand your feelings,” the woman purred, oblivious, “and as much as I empathize, I’m terribly afraid that, under the circumstances, that would not be—”
A commotion interrupted the formulaic answer, and the room’s door opened to reveal Kris in her glittering best, closely followed by another women in a most unusual and unwelcome state of agitation.
“Hi Kym,” Kris called out, ignoring both the agitated woman’s fluttering and the look on the black-haired woman’s face: a look that would certainly not have met with committee approval.
“Hi Kris!” Kym beamed while the agitated woman stammered, “Very sorry, ma’am! I told her—I insisted—”
“That’s quite all right, Emily,” the black-haired woman interrupted smoothly. “Kindly return to your station.” Her eyes shifted to Kris. “Who are you, please?”
“Midshipman Loralynn Kennakris,” Kris replied with equal smoothness, mentally calculating how long it would take Emily to return to her desk, call security and explain the situation, and for them to dispatch a detail. “There’s been a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“That’s right. This girl is under our protective custody. She should not have been released for processing—seems someone didn’t get the memo. I’ve orders to take her back.”
“Take her back?”
“Immediately. She’s a key witness.”
“Witness to what?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
“I can’t release a subject—”
“Her name’s Kym.”
“Of course—certainly. But I must have authorization.”
“You can take that up with Commander Huron.”
“Commander Rafael Huron?”
“That’s right.” Kris looked at Kym, who was grinning. “Let’s go, Kym.”
“Wait!” the black-haired woman cried; she’d noted the grin as well. “I must protest. This is highly irregular.”
With a badly suppressed sigh, Kris took out her xel, unfurled the display and tapped a code on it. A moment later she lifted it to her ear. “Commander, we’ve got a problem here. Yessir, I’m afraid so. Can you shoot me an official stinger? Thank you, sir. Wait one.” Kris dropped the xel with her hand over the display. “What’s your name?”
The black-haired woman swallowed rapidly. “Excuse me?”
“Commander Huron wishes to know your name.”
“Well, I—certainly.” She smiled with a shaky bob of her head. “I merely wished to confirm—protocol—you understand.”
“Perfectly.” Kris spoke again into the xel. “That won’t be necessary after all, sir. Yes, sir. All resolved. Reporting in ten, sir.” She furled the xel and motioned to Kym. “Okay. C’mon.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kym slid out of her chair, and as Kris opened the door for her, she surprised Emily on the other side. Emily ducked away and tried to peer around Kris and Kym as they stepped through.
“Oh, ma’am! The people—the gentlemen—they’ll be here any moment!”—with a hasty look towards the exit.
“Not necessary, Emily,” came the black-haired woman’s voice from within. “Please tell them not to bother.”
* * *
“Thanks, Kris,” Kym said as they entered the tube system.
“Don’t mention it.”
“You got my note, then?”
“I got it.” What she got was a text message saying: How are U? OK? Anyway, this place - R'hab - turned out jake. R U good? Call! Bye!
It had been ages since Kris got a message like that, but she knew almost at once it was in Match Code. That was what deck slaves called the code they used to privately communicate. It was similar in principle to the prisoner’s tap-codes of ancient times but used word length and punctuation, and most desk slaves could read it at sight. The real message Kym had sent was: Get me out!
“Not gonna get into trouble, are ya?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You weren’t really talking to anybody on that thing—the thing in your pocket. What d’ya call it?”
“A xel?”
“Yeah. Weren’t, were ya?”
“Not this time.”
“Knew it.” Kym reached out and slid her hand into Kris’s. “Where we going?”
“My place.”
“So it’s gonna be okay, now? Really?”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Knew it.”
Kris badged them into her apartment on the fifty-third floor of the Galileo Complex. The CEF had assigned her quarters in Lunar 1’s BOQ, but Huron had finagled them an exemption, so using it wasn’t compulsory. Kym walked in and looked around intently.
“Jus’ you lives here?”
“Yeah. It’s only temporary.”
“It’s . . . big.”
Kris smiled indulgently, thinking when she’d felt just the same—a whole ten standard months ago. “Yeah. So what happened?”
“Well, they took me to that place and first they took some blood. Then they put me in this room with a guy and a bunch of junk and he asked me questions.”
“With a red light?” That would have been the start of a standard psycheval.
“Uh huh. Like that lady’s—sorta. He wanted to know ‘bout all sorts of stuff, but mostly ‘bout fucking. It was weird.” That sounded familiar too. “So when he let me go, I sent you that note.”
“How’d that work?” Rehab facilities were very strict about outgoing communications.
“They weren’t gonna let me. But I said I jus’ needed to tell you where I was and that I was okay. So this guy let me type it on his xel thing and sent it. I watched him send it.” Kym frowned. “He was nice. But then that other lady came and took me to that room and started talking and telling me how I had to stay there an’ everything. And she got mad at the guy who sent the note for me too. She was trying to hide it, but you could tell. That’s why I was afraid it would make trouble for you.”
And it might, Kris admitted inwardly, when she had to report to Huron in the AM. But he’d done almost exactly the same thing for her when she was stuck in Rehab back on Nedaema, so she thought—hoped?—he’d go along.
“It’ll be okay,” she said with as much conviction as she could decently manage. “Did you eat?”
“Yeah. That part was good.”
“Want anything?”
Kym shook her head, stirring the platinum blond hair around her young and absurdly pretty face—though somewhat less young and even lovelier, now that she was coming back into her own.
“I guess not.” She looked around the apartment again. “Is everything here like this?”
“Like what?”
“Not this, I mean, but out there. Everything’s metal. Like the inside of a ship—only bigger.”
“No, it’s not all like this.”
“Have you been lots of places?”
“Just Nedaema.” Kym might never have heard of it, so she added, “In the Pleiades.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s a water planet.”
“Oh. Are you from a water planet?”
Kris smiled at the thought. “No. There’s no surface water at all where I grew up.”
> “None at all? Where’s that?”
“Parson’s Acre. In the Methuselah Cluster.”
“Oh.” Kym drew her brows together. “Guess I ask too many questions, huh?”
“No, you’re fine. I’m gonna turn in though. Bunk’s through there.” She gestured towards the bedroom. “All good if you wanna stay up though. There’s a console, if you’re interested.”
“Thanks, but I’ll—um—turn in too. If that’s okay.”
“Fine.” And Kris ushered her into the bedroom. Taking off her uniform, she nodded towards the bed. “Right or left?”
“Your bunk,” Kym answered, stripping out of her government-issued cream-and-pewter jumpsuit. “You pick.”
“Right, I guess.” Kris pulled back the sheets and got in on that side, while Kym slipped in on the other. Kris dimmed the room lights and settled back against the pillow. But her eyes hadn’t been closed a minute when she felt a light touch on her hand.
“Hey?”
“Yeah?”
“Could I, um”—Kym’s small, warm hand slid up to her arm—“Would’ja mind?”
“No.” Kris stretched her right arm out to circle Kym’s torso. “It’s jake. C’mere.”
Kym snuggled in close and pillowed her head on Kris’s shoulder. The silk-fine hair washed against her ear and down her neck, tickling.
“G’nite, Kris.”
“‘Nite, Kym.”
Chapter Seventeen
CGHQ Main Annex
Lunar 1, Tycho Prime
Luna, Sol
“Kris. . .” Huron smoothed the hair over his temple in one of the few distracted gestures he had. “There are limits to the authority midshipmen have. They may be a little vague, but I assure you they do exist.”
Kris looked down, sullen and dogged. She hadn’t expected this interview to be pleasant, but— “They were fuck’n with her. And after . . . I promised they wouldn’t.”
“I understand. But you could have checked in first. There are ways to handle these things. You don’t always have to go one-on-one with the universe out there.”
Like fuck. Biting the inside of her cheek, she kept her eyes on her boots and off the large expanse of windows behind his desk. As Admiral Sabr’s staff operations officer, Huron had officially been seconded to the GS3 section at the General Staff Headquarters Main Annex, where they’d given him the corner office of a senior captain who was on a long leave. It certainly had plenty of elbow room and a great view, if you liked craters.
“So whatcha gonna do?
He opened the letter he’d gotten early that AM from the director of Tycho Prime’s rehab facility, and checked the addressee list again. He was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be the only letter in his in-box, come early afternoon. “It appears you told them Kym is in a witness program?”
“She is a witness.”
“And she’s at your place?”
A stiff-necked nod.
Well, maybe he could sell that as ‘undisclosed location.’ He didn’t have the authority to add Kym to a confidential source list, but as DSI-PLESIG, Trin did. Talking her into it was another matter . . .
With an inaudible sigh, he closed the letter. “Alright, we’re gonna have to take this one on the volley. I think I can get us some top cover, though.” His frown deepened, showing the lines around his mouth. “But keep your goddamn head down after this, okay?”
“Yessir.” She raised her eyes. “Then you’re not—not gonna send her back?”
“No.” A flat, final syllable. Fishing in his desktop, he brought up several more files. “Now what’s the status of that report you’re working on?”
Kris blinked. Was that it? All of it? She hadn’t really expected him to send Kym back. She had expected him to leave with her ass in his briefcase.
“I—ah . . . I haven’t gotten through that last data pull yet. I think I can by tomorrow though.”
“You think you can get me a draft by the middle of next week?”
“Yes, sir.” That is, she hoped she could—but this was no time to temporize.
“Good.” He pushed the files across to her. “These are the prelims on three of the subjects.”
Meaning the preliminary interrogation reports on three of the slavers she’d flagged. Skimming them, she saw Reid’s name on the top one.
“Take a look at them. We need to know if we go farther or if they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
“By when?”
“ASAP. As in this PM. Doable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Those are summaries. You’ll find additional info under my sig-file. I expect the others day after tomorrow. So finish up with that data pull as soon as you can and get me your highlights. Nothing fancy—I don’t care about your grammar. And check in with me by 1400 on those prelims.”
“Yes, sir.” She brought out her xel and used it to copy the files to her secure workspace.
“That’s all.” Dismissing her with a nod.
Kris stood, sketched an awkward salute, and turned to the door. Reaching for the entry pad, she glanced back, but Huron had his head down, scanning some report on his desktop. Holding in a breath, she tapped the panel. The door opened and she stepped quickly through.
“I see your protégé takes after you.” Commander Wesselby’s gimlet eye was perfectly discernible on the calling card’s display. Huron allowed the barb. He hadn't expected Trin to be overjoyed.
“It’s plausible, Trin. She is a source—that’s a matter of record at this point. And she’s an émigré, strictly speaking, not a repatriated slave. That alone should qualify her, if there are questions.”
“Not trying to have it both ways here at all, are we?” Referring to the Placement Assistance and Repatriation Settlement Exception Decree they’d applied for on Kym’s behalf.
“Trin, we make ex gratia payments to émigré sources all the time.”
“Not all the time.”
“Some of the time.”
“For actionable results. Which we don't yet have.”
“Look, how many times did Kris pull our nuts out of the grav-furnace in the Hydra?”
“This isn’t about Kris.”
“It is. She gave the girl her word. You know what that means.”
Trin moved her jaw restlessly, and he could feel, though not see, her fingers drumming on her desktop. “Alright. You win. I’ll add her to a Class-C list and send a code you can reference. You can explain why you sent a midshipman instead of going through proper channels.”
“Going through proper channels would have called undue attention to a confidential source.”
“Knew you’d think of something.”
“Thanks, Trin.”
“You’re welcome. This time. But, Rafe”—her tone changed and she caught his eye—“that girl of yours is starting to run up quite a tab. Are you sure she can handle it when the bill comes due?”
Chapter Eighteen
Tycho Prime
Luna, Sol
“Gotta go soon, don’cha?”
They were eating in the kitchen alcove, where Kris had been introducing Kym to the wonders of xel-enabled food prep. Those wonders were of a dubious character, as far as Kym was concerned. In her opinion, food could be more than adequately prepared with just a variable heat source and some pot and pans. Kris had not seen a pot or pan since she was eight, when in the course of one of her father’s disastrous marriages, it was decided they should try ‘traditional’ cooking. Kris’s tradition, however, involved eating ration packs more than ninety percent of the time, and the cuisine afforded by an automated kitchen was a huge improvement over that.
In fact, Kym did not seem much impressed with technology in general. She grasped it quickly enough but thought it mostly unnecessary and even a trifle boorish. This Kris learned from the almost unending flow of talk Kym subjected her to. She’d never met anyone who talked as much as Kym, and she was at a loss to explain why she didn’t find it profoundly irritating. Maybe
her voice? She was really coming to like Kym’s voice: the sweetness of it (though inclined to be chirpy); the unaffected gaiety in it when she was happy, which was much of the time. Whatever it was, Kris would just sit there, smiling behind her hand now and then, while Kym went on, as cheerily as a nightingale.
She was also as inquisitive as a ferret, interrupting herself to get up and explore, inspect and question. Yesterday, Kris had found her on her knees in the bathroom, face by the floor, peering into a recess between the ultrasonic shower and tub. She was plainly about to use one or the other, and as Kris entered, she’d looked back over her upraised hips with a suspicious frown and asked, “What’s in here?”
Kris had no idea, but it turned out to be a maintenance hatch. Kym had noticed the cover and decided it needed to be investigated. (Just how she’d gotten the cover off was an unsolved mystery.) Satisfied, she was about to hop into the shower when Kris suggested she might like a bath instead. Kym considered the tub, studied the water ration, smiled, and elected to forego the extravagance. The whole episode had struck Kris as bizarre until it occurred to her that Kym had been stashed under a shower unit just like it, and spotting the hatch cover, wanted to make sure this one was safe.
It was odd, it was endearing, and it was unpredictable. Kris was getting used to that. Kym seemed to have no reserve at all: her feelings were painted across her mobile features as plainly as neon. Kris recognized it as a survival skill—Kym’s pout could unarmor the most adamantine heart—but it relied on being genuine. Her moods could change quickly too, especially when she talked about her past, which she did a good deal. Her family’s farmstead had been more ranch than farm: they grew a variety of subsistence crops, but made their living off of herd animals, especially a dwarfish sort of buffalo. They also raised goats, which were genetically modified to produce a protein in their milk that could be processed into a special type of silk. Kym had adored the little goats and missed them much more than the buffalos, who tended to get mean.
There were also these things called moa, a native predator. Kris gathered they were sort of like a large flightless bird, except they didn’t have feathers or anything, which made them look more along the lines of big weird lizards. They ran in flocks and preyed on the buffalos, but they were ‘good eatin’ (according to the locals) and hunted for their flesh and to keep them in check. Kym had learned to set snares for them when she was a little kid.
Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks Page 34