“Last impressions stick. I wanted to make sure I gave him a good one, so he and the conspirators thought I was truly nothing to worry about. I want them to feel at ease going into the round-up.”
“You could have warned me. I’ve never seen you do the little boy thing before. I almost lost character.”
“Even if you had laughed, he would have taken it as the permissive mommy laughing at her little charge. Honest reactions are best. But I am glad to be done with that.”
“Me, too,” Childers said. “It’s so out of character for you, it was like dealing with another person.”
“Now you know why theater is a recommended minor in the intelligence track. Some people are good at it, and Intelligence Division wants to train that resource.”
“And were you in theater at the Academy?”
“Oh, yes. Wait until you meet Phil Samples.”
There were a couple of days yet before Patryk Mazur would leave orbit. In his own cabin, down the hall from Childers’ on the flag bridge deck, Campbell got ready to go down to Bliss with the last shuttle. It paid to take advantage of being in orbit about a fleet base, and there were maintenance people aboard testing and tweaking and refreshing systems throughout the ship. The last of them would leave just before Patryk Mazur left orbit, and Campbell would go down on that shuttle.
The first thing Campbell did when he got aboard Patryk Mazur was pull out the controller, connect it to the electrocast, and turn the cast off. It took several minutes to become completely limp again, and he rolled it down his arm and returned it to its pouch. He replaced it in his equipment case. He hated the things – they itched like crazy – but they had their uses.
He put a new, and different-colored, canvas bag on his equipment case so it wouldn’t look the same as the one Bill Campbell had been seen with. This one had SAMPLES on the name tape sewn to the bag. He packed a spacer’s duffel with Phil Samples’ other things, including shipsuits, senior chief petty officer’s badges and stripes, identification, civilian clothes, and toiletries. But Bill Campbell’s officer uniforms, Intelligence Division, Senior Captain, and Inspector badges, and identification were staying aboard Patryk Mazur.
After breakfast Saturday, the day before Campbell was to go down to the surface, he started working on his character. He first shaved off his beard entirely. He used clippers to cut his hair to a half-inch long, then used the clippers without the comb to follow the curve of his forehead up and around the top of his head in a new, balding, hairline. He shaved the top of his head. He then dyed his remaining light brown hair black, after which he added gray at the temples.
He pinched the edges of his eyes vertically to make crow’s feet, and used a hypodermic syringe filled with contact cement to make them permanent. Using the same technique, he deepened the creases at the corners of his mouth and center of his brow, and added a slight scar across the jaw line on the left side of his jaw, as if someone had split the skin there with a well-placed punch years ago. He put in dark brown contact lenses to hide his distinctive pale green eyes.
Campbell put on the midnight-blue shipsuit and attached the senior chief petty officer badges and stripes, and the SAMPLES name tape. He assessed himself in the mirror, then touched up one crease at the corner of his left eye. There. That ought to do it.
Childers was in her office, adjacent to and connecting with her cabin, reviewing reports from the ships in her division. When the door buzzer sounded, she pushed the open button on the desk and called out, “Come in.”
A senior chief petty officer came in to her office.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Admiral, but I’m transferrin’ to Bliss tomorrow, and I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed servin’ under you, Ma’am.”
Childers was popular below decks, and it wasn’t unusual for NCOs transferring out of her command to stop by her office before they left. She rose instinctively to reach out to shake his hand.
“It’s been great to have you, Senior Chief Sam–“ She stopped dead as she read his name tape, her eyes went wide, and she took in the man before her. “Oh, my God,” she said softly.
“Ha! Gotcha!” Campbell said in his normal voice.
Childers sat heavily in her chair. She just stared at him, then started and pushed the button to close the door. As she stared, she began to tick off the changes.
“Looks like you added about ten years,” she said.
“Yup. Just coming up on my twenty-four.”
“The eyes.”
“Have to hide those,” Campbell said.
“The hair and beard.”
“Which is why I always let them grow out. Quickest disguise in the world is to cut them off. Not that I have much of a beard anyway, but losing it is a big change.”
“And the voice,” Childers said.
“And the lingo. The below-decks patois. The voice change itself comes with practice. At the Academy, the theater group had us develop an alternative voice with a voice teacher, then practice it by using nothing else for an entire semester. You actually have to work to get your normal voice back, but after that you can switch voice any time you want.”
“It’s amazing. That’ll fool anybody.”
“Not quite,” Campbell said. “Facial recognition software will give me trouble if someone gets a good shot of me and thinks to run the software. Voiceprint, same thing. And my thumb swipe is the same. Has to be, if I’m going to access my own accounts. And somebody like an Enshin sparring partner would know it was me just by my moves if I tried to spar with him. But it withstands casual scrutiny, which is the requirement.”
“Well, it fooled me.”
“Which is a good sign. Supper and breakfast brought in to your cabin tonight and tomorrow, so I don’t out myself on ship, then I’m off with the last shuttle tomorrow morning.”
Return To Bliss
Campbell and Childers were in her office the next morning after breakfast.
“Well, that’s it. I’m all packed and good to go,” Campbell said.
Childers gave him a hug and a lingering kiss.
“You be careful. I worry about you,” she said.
“Oh, and when you’re out gallivanting about, playing beamer tag with some Outer Colony fleet, I don’t worry?”
“I didn’t say that. Be careful.”
“I will.”
One more quick kiss and he picked up his duffel and the equipment case. Childers went around her desk and pushed the door button, and Campbell was once more Senior Chief Samples, Childers once more Rear Admiral Childers.
“Thanks again, Ma’am, and good spacin’ to you.”
“Good luck to you, Senior Chief.”
Campbell went up-cylinder to the ring corridor and joined the queue for the last shuttle down to Bliss. When he got up to the door, the loadmaster and his assistants were stowing bags. He handed off his duffel to one, then held out the equipment case to another.
“Careful. It’s heavy.”
“Oof. Boy, I’ll say, Senior Chief.”
“Maintenance.”
“Ah.”
Everyone in maintenance built up a set of specialized tools and fixtures they acquired or made over their career, and they carried with them from assignment to assignment. For a senior chief with twenty-three years of service stripes, it was expected to have quite a kit.
Campbell was pointed to a seat and he took it and strapped in. It was a big planetary transfer shuttle. Short-legged, it was meant just for the hop to orbit and back, and that left lots of interior room for passengers and cargo. The shuttles Patryk Mazur carried in her normal complement had to have longer ranges, and that crimped the passenger and cargo space a bit.
When the shuttle unlatched from the Patryk Mazur and began its descent to Bliss, he had left all of Bill Campbell behind. Only Phil Samples went to Bliss with him.
The shuttle settled down on the pad at Bliss Fleet HQ. Campbell queued to get off the shuttle. By long tradition, deference to his rank among the enlisted didn’t ex
tend to transfers between assignments. Everyone queued together.
Outside the shuttle, he queued again for distribution of baggage. As all CSF had name tapes sewed to their duffels and kit, the loadmaster’s assistants called names as they pulled bags.
“Samples.”
“Here.”
After two calls, one for his duffel and one for his equipment case, Campbell headed toward the three buses waiting clear of the pad. One had an “NCO Housing” sign in the windshield, and he got on that one. He put his equipment case on a seat next to the windows, put his duffel on the floor in front of it, and then sat in the seat on the aisle.
The bus was about half full when it was clear all the passengers from the shuttle had boarded buses. The driver got up and faced back down the bus.
“Everybody here bound for NCO Housing? All right, then.”
The driver took his seat again and they set off across the base.
At the reception area in the NCO Housing office, there was a line for chiefs and senior chiefs, and two lines for petty officers. Campbell got in the short line for chiefs and senior chiefs. A chief petty officer was serving his line.
“Good morning, Senior Chief.”
“Good morning, McCoy.”
Chief McCoy read Campbell’s name tape and searched his display.
“Samples. Samples. Ah! Here we are. Unit 5-29. That’s going to be in Building 5, second to the east heading out the door there. You have your own mess between Buildings 5 and 6, or you can use any enlisted mess on base.”
He pushed a thumb-swipe toward Campbell, and Campbell swiped it with his left thumb.
“Right one’s all scarred up. Doesn’t read.”
“Ah. Well, that worked,” he said, checking his display. He marked Samples as checked in. “You’re all set, Senior Chief.”
“Thanks, McCoy.”
Campbell walked over to Building 5 and went to unit 29. He swiped his left thumb on the door scanner, and the door unlocked. He went in and looked around. CSF bachelor NCO efficiency apartment, per regulations, one each. It had a tiny kitchenette in the corner, which he might actually need for this assignment, an eating table that looked suspiciously equally suited to playing cards, a comfortable double bed – in case of company, he guessed – a closet, and a bathroom big for his needs, but probably small for a woman’s. The CSF’s idea of perfect compromise.
Campbell checked the time. Coming up on 12:00. Might as well check out the chief’s mess.
After lunch, Campbell walked over to the Planetary Operations Headquarters. He swiped into the building with his left thumb. On assignment to Admiral Rao’s office, Phil Samples had access to the building. He went down into the secure basements, where he had given Samples access to Campbell’s class 2 secure workspace. He swiped in with the Marine guard using his left thumb.
“That’s an old picture,” The guard said, checking his display and eyeing him carefully.
“Yeah, they need to fix it, but Personnel keeps makin’ excuses. Admiral Rao’s secretary said she’d take care of it, so maybe it’ll happen now.”
The guard nodded and waved him down the hall.
Once in his workspace and logged in as Campbell, he updated the picture in Samples’ Personnel file with the picture he took this morning.
Campbell accessed the news feeds for the Joy social calendar. He wanted to see what consulate parties were coming up in the next two weeks.
After that he checked his mail and input/output taps. He found some amusing things there.
Schenk: On vacation AGAIN?
Acheson: Yeah, and this time he took his crayons.
Schenk: Ha, ha.
Acheson: I’m not kidding.
And this one.
Schenk: ANOTHER vacation?
Acheson: No. He broke his arm on vacation, so Admiral Mommy took him home to her ship. Gone two weeks.
There was also this exchange off the commercial server, gleaned from the input/output stream. Campbell’s software substituted names for the aliases.
(Schmitt): They don’t give morons inspector badges.
(Schenk): Exception proves the rule. They sure did this time.
(Schmitt): Perhaps. I don’t like it. Keep your heads down.
So John Schmitt was smart enough to worry about him. Campbell would have to play it smart, too. Cat and mouse.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the one thing you can say about a cat is that they are the most patient animals in the world. They can crouch completely still and watch a mouse hole for hours, just waiting for their one opportunity to spring.
Time to go watch the mouse hole.
Campbell had supper in the chief’s mess, then changed into civvies and took a bus into town.
He got off the bus at a stop in a poor area not far from the diplomatic district. There were always poor areas in big cities, and cities in the Commonwealth were no different. People fell on hard times, or did not have the capacity or the motivation to escape living on the margins. He looked around, found a slightly more upscale building in the area with rooms to rent by the week, and paid two weeks in advance.
Campbell asked the desk clerk about where he might buy used clothes, and she directed him to a thrift store a couple blocks over. He walked over to the thrift store and picked through their bargain bins to find what he wanted. He bought everything a size or two too large. While he was there, he picked up a canvas bag that had seen better days and a few nicer shirts and pants that fit.
He went back to his room and donned another disguise – a disguise over his disguise. He had brought along some darker shades of makeup from his equipment case. He darkened his skin just a touch, then used the darkest makeup here and there to make himself look dirty. He changed into the more decrepit clothes he had bought, put on a watch cap, and assessed himself in the mirror.
Good enough. Especially at night in the city.
There were refuse cans at intervals along the sidewalk that fronted the big park across the street from consulate row. Campbell worked his way down the line, stopping at cans and rummaging for things that might be sold, or hocked, or still eaten. Once he found the biggest part of a hamburger, only half eaten and still warm. He munched it absently while he rummaged, putting his new-found treasures in the canvas bag.
The cans were of a classic decorative design, spaced vertical slats flaring out at the top, hiding the actual container within. There were two cans near the Duval consulate, one east and one west, both with good views of the front portico of the building, which was accessed by a U-shaped drive off the street. The building wasn’t very far back from the public sidewalk, just the width of the drive and a shallow lawn with a sign, “Consulate of Duval.” The angle from either refuse can was about thirty degrees off the front wall of the building.
Campbell noted all this while never aiming his head directly at the building. He rummaged in each can in turn as he moved on down the line. Once he was a block from the embassy, he walked into the park and took up a position in the darkness of the edge of some trees and watched the consulate.
After midnight, he meandered across the park and back to his room, where he washed off the make-up and changed back into his original civvies. He walked to the adjacent nightclub area and rode back to the base on one of the special late-night buses for spacers on liberty heading back to Bliss Fleet HQ.
On Monday morning, Campbell walked over to the Planetary Operations Headquarters. He swiped into the building with his left thumb. The Marine guard checked him against the picture on file, which was the one from yesterday, then nodded and waved him down the hall.
Once in his workspace and logged in as Campbell, he sent a message from the secure account to Captain Ramona Karim, asking her for a meeting in his Class 2 secure workspace at her earliest convenience. He got an immediate message back – “On my way.” He marked her as a visitor for this morning on this workspace’s access list – which, as the assigned owner, he controlled – so she would be approved by the guard.
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It was about ten minutes before there was a knock on the door. Campbell opened the door to find Captain Karim standing there.
“Oh. I’m sorry. This must be the wrong room,” Kim said.
“No, you’ve got the right room, Ma’am. Please come in.”
Campbell waved her to one of the guest chairs on the other side of the desk.
“If the Captain would allow, I need to show you somethin’.”
Campbell reversed the display so she could see it. He swiped his left thumb, and the terminal brought up the picture and personnel file of Senior Chief Petty Officer Phil Samples.
“Now watch this, Ma’am,” Campbell said.
He swiped his right thumb on the pad, and the terminal brought up the picture and personnel file – the front, false personnel file – of Senior Captain Inspector William Campbell.
“That’s a cute trick,” Karim said.
She sat back and eyed him carefully.
In his own voice, Campbell said, “Sometimes I can’t be me and get done what I need to get done, Captain.”
“That’s a very effective disguise, Sir.”
“Thanks. There’re only three people who know. Admiral Rao, Admiral Childers, and now you. I couldn’t figure out how to accomplish my mission without letting you know. But no one else needs to know, Captain, including your people.”
“Can you tell me your mission, Sir?” Karim asked.
“No Sirs. Just Senior Chief. I don’t want you to get used to it and say the wrong thing in the wrong place. In broad terms: there is an active espionage ring on this planet, operating within Bliss Fleet HQ, including in Intelligence and Operations. We’re going to neutralize it.”
“Neutralize it.”
“Yes,” Campbell said. “We are going to arrest the CSF individuals involved, in a sweep. We are going to do that at a propitious time for our other goals. I’ll let you know. I’m still gathering information.”
Campbell- The Problem With Bliss Page 12