Wandering Star

by Steven Anderson

  Marcus was standing in the kitchen sipping a cup of tea. “The problem,” he said, “is that nothing she just said is at all crazy.” He looked into his cup, considering the problem. “There is a place not far up the mountain where there’s a network of small caves. We could get there even in this storm and it would be safer than staying here.”

  “I know the area,” Alice said, brightening. “We could take the samples with us, do the analysis after the storm passes and we aren’t so isolated and vulnerable.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading.

  “No,” I replied. “Well, OK, there’s no reason you two can’t go, but I have to stay. If we don’t get at least some of the analysis done in the next few hours it won’t matter if we ever do. Once the shooting starts no one will care what started it.”

  Marcus was looking at Alice, visualizing spending the next two days alone with her in the back of a cave. “Fine, we’ll all stay then.”

  “Yes, yes of course, that’s the right thing to do. Marcus, may I have a cup of tea now?” Alice had stopped shaking, which I hoped was a good sign.

  I moved my display pad closer. “Star, have you been following all this?”

  “I have, although I should mention that the link is slightly degraded due to the jamming coming from your end.”

  “Really? Can you isolate the location?”

  “Somewhere near the quarry southwest of you I should think. It is not a serious concern. Their systems are not as sophisticated as I am.”

  I smiled at the sound of pride in her voice. “Star, I’m going to connect the microscope into the display pad so you’ll see what we see. Please track everything for us. Keep me updated on who else is online too, please.”

  “I have notified everyone that you are back and ready to begin.”

  “Let’s get the textile analysis out of the way first,” Marcus suggested. “The soils are going to take forever for us to find anything meaningful.”

  “Agreed. I think we’ve already shown that Monroe’s uniform is not OP standard issue. Let’s see what it does match. Do you have anything the same weight as the PFS uniforms, Marcus?”

  “Even better. They issued one to me when I first got here. I think it’s somewhere in my closet. Never wore it of course.”

  He returned with it and held it up for us to admire. Alice giggled. ”Definitely not you.”

  “What? You don’t think it goes well with the beard?” He pulled out his knife and cut a section off one cuff. “At least I finally found a use for it.”

  I placed the samples on the microscope stage one at a time, adjusting light settings and rotating the analyzer for each as Star looked on. “The birefringence looks the same to me,” I commented. I slowly adjusted focus to move from the top to bottom of each sample, looking at the halo line move next to each fiber in the matrix showing the refractive index. “And the Becke line on the matrix looks close. What are you seeing, Star?”

  “Based on what you have so far, I would conclude that the materials used for each sample are the same chemical composition. Slight variations in fiber diameter and form factor indicate that they were produced on different machines but using similar techniques. Also, Angela Dawkins, Hannah Weldon, Jake Barton and Mr. Mahajan are now on line.”

  The lights flickered out again for several seconds as the cabin was shaken by a strong gust, the structure creaking as it adjusted to the wind load. I looked at Marcus in the glow from the display pad.

  He shrugged. “It’s survived worse.”

  “Hannah? Have you had a chance to listen to the recording I posted for you?”

  Hannah moved closer to the screen and I could see she was dressed for work. Her current research project meant spending the evening in a nice night spot somewhere in the city listening to the language around her. I couldn’t help thinking that the shoulder that her dress left bare was at risk of getting cold in the Palma Sola winter.

  “I have, but I’d like to have time to do a proper interview. I think she is not a native of the OP but I can’t tell how much of the way she sounds is due to her injuries. I would say maybe a seventy-five percent chance she’s faking the accent? Maybe?”

  “Thanks, Hannah. I’ll let you know if we get an opportunity to talk to her again. Angela, do you want us to continue work to quantify the fiber analysis and determine actual values or is this good enough for now?”

  Before she could answer Wandering Star interrupted. “You should be aware that the nature of the jamming signal has changed and has increased in strength. You should assume that the unknown actors creating the jamming are aware that your signal is still getting through and that they cannot stop or interpret it.”

  I looked at Marcus who was silently mouthing the word caves and at Alice who was slowly curling into a ball again. “Angela, can you do anything with the limited data we have provided so far, the fiber analysis and voice recording?”

  She turned to Mahajan. “What are you hearing in the legislature?”

  Mahajan shook his head. “It’s volatile right now. It could go either way.”

  “What do you want to do, Theodore?”

  I looked at the sample bags we had spent a long hot afternoon collecting lined up along the floor waiting for analysis and the irreplaceable uniform and soil samples and microscope we had stolen. And the survey charge. How could we just walk away from it?

  Star made up my mind for me. “Good news,” she reported, “the jamming has stopped.”

  I heard Alice whimper from somewhere inside her blanket.

  “We’re leaving.” I detached the display pad and propped it up on the kitchen counter, partially hidden behind cans and containers. “Angela, I’m leaving the pad running and muted from your end. You’ll be able to hear and see anything that happens here and they won’t be able to see or hear you.

  Angela and Jake both replied. “Be careful, Ted.”

  I turned to Marcus. “The caves, is that really our best option?”

  “They are unless you want to walk up the street to the barracks and turn ourselves in.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what we should do,” Alice said. She stood and folded the blanket over the back of the chair. She seemed to have conquered her fears, at least for the moment. “I should be with the soldiers anyway and it’s the safest place for the two of you as well.”

  “How’s that?” Marcus asked.

  “If everyone is in on this conspiracy we won’t be able to run fast enough or far enough to get away. They will chase us down in the mud.” She paused, took a couple of deep breaths as that scenario replayed itself in her mind again, and then continued. “Instead, we will go to where all the soldiers are, just like we belong there. Which we do. We will ride out the storm with them.”

  Marcus had been stuffing cans of food into his bag. He dumped them out and put in a bottle of scotch, thought about it a moment and added a second bottle.

  “It’s going to be a long night and those boys and girls get thirsty.”

  “Do you have ponchos or something to keep the rain off us?” I asked. Marcus looked at me like I was stupid. “Sorry, dumb question.”

  “I’ll go fetch them. What do you want to do about all this?” he asked, gesturing at the kitchen table.

  “Leave it. We’ve done all that we could do.”

  A minute later we were ready, ponchos on, stepping off the porch and being pushed by the storm toward the lights of the barracks.

  Marcus leaned close to Alice and me as we staggered up the street, his face very serious. “You had better be right about this, Alice. If you’re not, I will have wasted two bottles of scotch.”

  I started laughing and that got the other two laughing as well. Marcus pushed his hood back, laughing at the rain water streaming down his face and beard. “First round’s on me, then. But you, Mr. RuComm, you still owe me a beer.”

  For t
he first time since arriving on Dulcinea I realized I was not worried about anything. We had made our final play, and now we would wait and see if the last domino would fall or not.

  CHAPTER 5

  REDEMPTION

  WE STUMBLED UP THE STAIRS of the barracks, the wind almost strong enough to lift Alice off her feet. A guard was waiting for us at the top, arms crossed and resting on the buttstock of his slung rifle.

  “Corporal Bantoo, whose ass did you forget to kiss to pull this duty?” Marcus greeted him.

  Bantoo nodded, a smile just barely touching his lips. “Marcus.” He nodded to Alice, who had pushed her hood back and was staring at him eye to eye. “Chaplain.” He looked away, his glance sliding past me and back to Marcus. “A little wet out for an evening stroll isn’t it?”

  “Well, the truth is,” he rummaged in his bag, pulled out one of the bottles, “I needed someone who could keep up with me and these two were unequal to the task.”

  Bantoo smiled. “Well, I’m off duty in about half an hour and we’ll see if I can’t match you.”

  “Excellent. Anyone playing poker tonight?”

  “Always.”

  Marcus reached around the Corporal and opened the door. “I’ll be waiting for you inside.”

  Bantoo moved back a step and touched his cap as Alice walked by, “Ma’am.”

  We hung our ponchos in the foyer. To the left and right long hallways led to the dorm rooms. In front of us was a good sized common area where several of the soldiers were sitting talking, eating, playing games or looking at display pads. Lieutenant Jeffers was sitting by himself, intent on whatever his pad was displaying.

  “Lieutenant,” Marcus said, sitting down opposite him. “How are things?”

  Jeffers put the pad on the table face down before answering. “Better now that comms are mostly working again. We deployed several patrols and I don’t like being out of touch with them for so long. What about you? You look about drowned. What brings you up here?”

  “Lonely. Bored.” He glanced over at where Alice and I were standing, tipping his head in our direction as if our presence was answer enough. “Who’s running things with you here at the barracks?”

  “McKellar, Pruitt and Meyrick volunteered for the first shift. I’ll be back down there at 0200 to relieve them.”

  “And Monroe?”

  “Better, I guess. She was chatty all afternoon, complaining about being in restraints, claiming she was attacked, that she’s the victim, blah, blah, blah. I had the medical AI increase her pain meds and she went back to sleep.”

  Jeffers eyes kept drifting back to his pad. “I have a few things to finish up before I go down there and I’d like to try and get a couple of hours of sleep…”

  “Of course.” Marcus stood, grabbed several plastic cups from the food counter and walked over to where three soldiers were playing cards. He sat down without waiting for an invitation and passed out the cups. Alice had settled into a comfy looking chair next to the food and was busy doing chaplain things. I followed Marcus.

  “Mr. RuComm, come join us!” he called, waving me over.

  “I really can’t. I promised a friend I wouldn’t play poker while I was here.” Marcus pulled a chair over and shoved it at me. I sat.

  “Really? Who? Your girlfriend on the display pad this afternoon? She’s cute.”

  “No, she’s just a friend, my best friend’s girlfriend, actually.”

  “That’s not good. He’s going to kill you when he finds out.”

  “Finds out what?” I responded, speaking slowly.

  “That you’re in love with her.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Your voice changes when you talk to her, the look in your eyes, the speed of your breathing and about three other things.” Marcus smiled.

  Everyone around the table was smirking at me, apparently having seen Marcus do this trick before.

  “Now, how about playing poker with me?”

  The Corporal sitting to my left placed the cards in front of me to cut. “Don’t let it bother you, Marcus reads all of us. As long as he’s buying the booze,” she tapped her still empty cup, “it’s still a worthwhile game.”

  Marcus filled the cups while she dealt and over the next hour my brain grew fuzzier and my weekly salary drained away to the other players. Corporal Bantoo joined us at some point and did his best to keep up with Marcus. It really was a pleasant way to spend the evening even with the barracks shaking from time to time as the hurricane moved across the island.

  “How is it that they let you drink like this?” I asked, noticing that my cup had been magically refilled again. “What if you have to go on duty?”

  The Corporal next to me, Carotti was her name, placed a small red bottle on the table, about the size of a shot glass. “Nox. One sip of this and your body will forget about every drop of alcohol floating around in your bloodstream. You don’t have that were you come from?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Probably not,” Marcus said. “Don’t ask what it does to the rest of your body. Knowing Earth, it’s probably illegal there.”

  A couple of hands later another gust shook the building, causing the lights to flicker and everyone to look up from what they were doing to make sure the roof was still intact.

  “I don’t think that was—” Bantoo started to say before being interrupted when an alarm started sounding. “How crazy does the OP have to be to try something in the middle of a hurricane?”

  Carotti looked very sad as she unscrewed the lid of the Nox bottle and took a sip. “Waste of a perfectly good buzz.” She handed it to me and I hesitantly tried it. The effect was immediate and wonderful. I felt awake and alert, as though I had not spent the past hour with a never empty cup of scotch.

  Marcus and I went back into the foyer and Alice came up behind me and put her arms around me. We tried to stay out of the way of the soldiers busy gathering weapons and foul weather gear. Marcus yanked the blinds on the front window open revealing his cabin to be fully engulfed, the flames reflecting off the sheets of rain and muddy road.

  “Oh, god dammit,” he swore.

  I reached around him, trying to grab my poncho so I could join the soldiers running down the road. Marcus blocked me, physically pushing me backwards into Alice.

  “Ted, will you ever not try to run toward the point of greatest danger? Go call your RuComm buddies and find out what the hell happened to my home.”

  “Yeah.” I looked back out the window. “Is that a body in front of your cabin?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  I located one of the communal display pads and sat down in an old overstuffed chair, Alice perched on the arm next to me. Wandering Star put me through to Angela, who seemed to have most of the team with her in the hotel conference room as well as several people I did not recognize.

  “Angela, Marcus’ cabin just exploded into flames. Did you see what happened?”

  She nodded. “About half an hour ago—“

  “Here, let me brief him.” Major Kilpatrick interrupted, sliding in next to her. “I was keeping notes as it transpired. I see you have Ms. Vandermeer with you too; that’s excellent.” He continued, referring to a small pad on the desk in front of him while Angela leaned back looking unhappy. “At 2042 local, Sergeant McKellar, Corporal Pruitt and Private Meyrick entered Marcus Wright’s cabin. We could see and hear everything that was said in the kitchen and living areas through Theodore Holloman’s display pad.” He looked up from his notes and gave me a fleeting smile. “Very clever to have concealed it there, by the way.” He looked back to his notes, skimming through a couple of pages. “Sergeant McKellar was very agitated and repeatedly expressed the urgency of ‘destroying all the evidence’. He was particularly upset by the presence of the microsco
pe and uniform samples in the cabin, knocking the instrument to the floor and kicking it.”

  “I really liked that microscope,” I whispered to Alice, making her smile.

  “And he was upset that Marcus, Theodore and Alice were not present. He also mentioned several times that Fiona Monroe’s sacrifice would not be forgotten. Pruitt and Meyrick searched the cabin while Sergeant McKellar remained in the kitchen area. He took the survey charge from the table plus two others he had brought with him, removed the safeties and adjusted the timers. He showed the timers to Pruitt and Meyrick saying they had fifteen minutes to finish up and get out. McKellar then stepped out of the cabin onto the front porch, remaining visible through the front window. Five minutes later, while the others were still completing a final sweep of the cabin, the charges went off,” Kilpatrick looked up from his notes, “and the transmission was lost.”

  Angela leaned forward reaching for the display pad, but the field of view suddenly rotated before she could touch it and Alice and I found ourselves looking at General Barrows.

  “Ms. Vandermeer, Mr. Holloman, so good to see you. Mr. Wright and Lieutenant Jeffers are not there with you?”

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice. I heard Alice make a small sound like she had been punched in the stomach.

  “That’s all right, I’ll catch up with them later. But let me tell the two of you now, how much we appreciate all you have done helping to investigate this terrible attack on the Palma Federated States. While we may never know who was responsible, knowing that the OP government was not involved, at least not directly, will prevent a lot of bloodshed, a lot of bloodshed. The four of you are true heroes in my book and I will make sure you are recognized as such. And Ted, what a fantastic example you are of our legacy of mutual respect and cooperation between the Reunification Commission and the PFS. Your superiors should be very proud of you, very proud indeed. I want you to know that I have personally arranged for transportation for all of you once the weather clears.”