Generation Warriors Page 11

  "You're sure he hasn't got the good stuff out of comp yet?"

  "Pretty sure." The mate's voice was even grimmer. "Security's got good tools, though. Give him all the time between here and Seti space, and he'll have not only the basics but enough to mind-fry the lot of us, all the way up to Lady Luisa herself."

  Dupaynil almost forgot his fear. Lady Luisa? Luisa Paraden? He had always been able to put two and two together and find more interesting things than four. Now he felt an almost physical jolt as his mind connected everything he'd ever heard or seen; including all the information Sassinak had gathered.

  As bright as a diagram projected on the screen of a strategy meeting, all connections marked out in glowing red or yellow . . . Luisa to Randolph, who had ample reason to loathe Sassinak. That had been Randolph Paraden's vengeance, through his aunt's henchman, a brainwashed Fleet officer once held captive on the same slaver outpost as an orphan girl. Dupaynil spared a moment to pity that doomed lieutenant: Sassinak never would, even if she learned the whole story. Luisa would never do something that potentially dangerous just for Randolph, though. It must have been vengeance for Abe's part in disrupting her operation, a warning to others. Perhaps fear that he would cause her more trouble.

  Abe to Sassinak, Sassinak to Randolph, Randolph to Luisa, whose first henchman partially failed. Where was Randolph now, Dupaynil wondered suddenly. He should know and he did not know. He realized that he had not ever seen one bit of information on Randolph in the system since that arrogant young man had left the Academy. Unnatural. A Paraden, wealthy, with connections: he should have done something. He should have been in the society news or been an officer in one of Aunt Luisa's companies.

  Unless he had changed his identity some way. It could be done, though it was expensive. Not that that would bother a Paraden. And why had they stopped with one attack on Sassinak? Dupaynil wished he had her file in hand. They would have been covert attempts, but knowing what to look for he might be able to see it. But of course! The Wefts. The Wefts she had saved from Paraden's accusations in the Academy; the Wefts who had saved her from death in the pod. Wefts might have foiled any number of plots without bothering to tell her.

  Or perhaps she knew, but never made the connection, or never bothered to report it, rules or no. She was not known for following the rules. He leaned on the wall of his cubicle, sweating and furious, as much with himself as the various conspirators. This was his job, this was what he had trained for, what he had thought he was good at; finding things out, making connections, sifting the data, interpreting it. And here he was, with all the threads woven into the pattern and no possible way to get that information out.

  You're so smart, he thought bitterly. You re going to your death having won the war but lost the brawl. He knew—it was in her file and she had confided it as well—that Sassinak still wondered about the real reason Abe had been killed. She had never forgotten it, never laid it to rest. And he had that to offer her, more than enough to get her forgiveness for that earlier misunderstanding. But too late!

  Thinking of Sassinak reminded him again of her experience in the escape pod. It had made chilling reading, even in the remote prose her captain had used. She had gone right up to the limit of the pod's oxygen capacity, hoping to be conscious to give her evidence. He shuddered. He would have put himself into coldsleep as soon as he realized what happened, and he'd probably have died of it. Or, like Lunzie, been found decades later. He didn't like that scenario either. He fairly itched to get his newly acquired insights where they could do the most good.

  Sassinak, now. What would she do, cooped in an escort full of renegades? He had trouble imagining her on anything but the bridge of the Zaid-Dayan, but she had served in smaller ships. Would she find a weapon (where?) and threaten them from the bridge? Would she take off in an escape pod before she was jettisoned, with a functioning radio, and hope to be found in time? (In time for what? Life? The trial?) The one thing she wouldn't do, he was sure, was slouch on a bunk wondering what to do. She would have thought of something, and given her luck it would probably have worked. The idea, when it finally came to him hours later (miserable, sweaty hours when he was supposed to be sleeping), seemed simple. Presumably they would have a ship evacuation drill as the occasion of his murder. The others would be going into pods as well, just to make it seem normal. They had found one of his taps, but not all (or surely they'd have blocked the audio so he couldn't hear). And therefore he could tap the links again, reset the evac pod controls, and trap them—or most of them—in the pods. They would not be able to fire his pod; he could fire theirs.

  He was partway through the reprogramming of the pod controls when he realized why this was not such a simple solution. Fleet had a name for someone who took illegal control of a ship and killed the captain and crew. An old, nasty name leading to a court martial which he might well lose.

  I am not contemplating mutiny, he told himself firmly. They are the criminals. But they were not convicted yet, and until then what he planned was, by all the laws and regulations, not merely mutiny but also murder. And piracy. And probably a dozen or so lesser crimes to be tacked onto the charge sheet(s), including the things Sassinak might say about his tap into her com shack. And his present unauthorized reprogramming of emergency equipment. Not to mention his supposed orders to proceed into Seti space: faked orders, which no one (after he pirated a ship and killed the crew) would believe he had not faked for himself.

  What would Sassinak do about that, he wondered. He remembered the holo of the Zaid-Dayan with its patched hull, with the scars of the pirate boarding party. She had let the enemy onto her ship to trap them. Could he think of anything as devastating? All things considered, forty-three years of cold sleep might be the easy way out, he thought, finishing off the new switching sequences.

  Sassinak's great-great-great might complain but a little time in the freezer could keep you out of big trouble. His mind bumped him again, hard. Of course. Coldsleep them, the nasties. Drop the charges to mere mutiny and piracy and et cetera, but not murder (mandatory mindwipe for murder), and he might merely spend the next twenty years cleaning toilet fixtures with a bent toothbrush.

  Of course it still wasn't simple. For all his exercise up and down the ladders, he had no more idea than a space-opera hero how to operate this ship. He'd had only the basics, years back; he'd flown a comp-desk, not a ship. He could chip away at that compartment of water ice and not die of thirst, but he couldn't convert it and take a shower. Or even get the ship down out of FTL space. Sassinak could probably do it, but all he could do was trigger the Fleet distress beacon and hope the pickup ship wasn't part of the same corrupt group. He wouldn't even do that, if he didn't quit jittering and get to it.

  Chapter Seven

  Diplo

  Zebara led her through the maze of streets around the university complex at a fast pace. For all his age and apparent physical losses, he was still amazingly fit. She was aware of eyes following them, startled glances. She could not tell if it was Zebara himself, or his having a lightweight companion. She was puffing when he finally stopped outside a storefront much like the others she'd seen.

  "Gin's Place," Zebara said. "Best chooli stew in the city, a very liberal crowd, and a noisy set of half-bad musicians. You'll love it."

  Lunzie hoped so. Chooli stew conformed to Federation law by having no meat in it, but she had not acquired a taste for the odd spices that flavored the mix of starchy vegetables.

  Inside, hardly anyone looked at her. The "liberal crowd" were all engrossed in their own food and conversation. She smelled meat, but saw none she recognized. The half-bad musicians played with enthusiasm but little skill, covering their blats and blurps with high-pitched cries of joy or anguish. She could not tell which, but it did make an effective sonic screen. She and Zebara settled into one of the booths along the side, and ordered chooli stew with figgerunds, the green nuts she'd had at the reception, Zebara explained.

  "You need to know some th
ings," he began when the chooli stew had arrived, and Lunzie was taking a first tentative bite of something yellowish.

  "I heard you were head of External Security," she said quietly.

  He looked startled. "Where'd you hear? No, it doesn't matter. It's true, although not generally known." He sighed. "I can see this makes it more difficult for you. . . ."

  "Makes what more difficult?"

  "Trusting me." His eyes flicked around the room, as anyone's might, but Lunzie could not believe it was the usual casual glance. Then he looked back at her, "You don't, and I can't blame you, but we must work together or. . . or things could get very bad indeed."

  "Isn't your involvement with an offworlder going to be a little conspicuous?" She let a little sarcasm edge her voice; how naive did he think she was?

  "Of course. That doesn't matter." He ate a few bites while she digested the implications of that statement. It could only "not matter" if policymakers knew and approved. When he looked up and swallowed, she nodded at him. "Good! You understand. Your name on the medical team was a little conspicuous, if you'd had any ulterior motive for coming here . . ." He let that trail away, and Lunzie said nothing. Whatever motives she had had, the important thing now was to find out what Zebara was talking about. She took another bite of stew; it was better than the same dish in the research complex's dining hall. "I saw the list," Zebara went on. "One of the things my department does is screen such delegations, looking for possible troublemakers. Nothing unusual. Most planets do the same. There was your name, and I wondered if it was the same Lunzie. Found out that it was you and then the rocks started falling."

  "Rocks?"

  "My . . . employers. They wanted me to contact you, renew our friendship. More than friendship, if possible. Enlist your aid in getting vital data offplanet."

  "But your employers . . . that's the Governor, right?" Lunzie was not sure, despite having read about it, just where political power was on this planet.

  "Not precisely. The Governor knows them, and that's part of the problem. I have to assume that you, with what's happened to you, are like any normal Federation citizen. About piracy, for instance."

  His voice had lowered to a muffled growl she could barely follow. The half-bad musicians were perched on their tall stools, gulping some amber liquid from tall glass mugs. She hoped it would mellow their music as well as their minds.

  "My ethics haven't changed," she said, with the slightest emphasis on the pronoun.

  "Good. That's what they counted on, and I, in my own way, counted on the same thing." He took a long swallow of his drink.

  "Are you suggesting," Lunzie spoke slowly, phrasing it carefully, "that your goals and your employers' goals both depend on my steadfast opinions, even if they are . . . divergent?"

  "You could say it that way." Zebara grinned at her, and slightly raised his mug.

  And what other way, with what other meaning, could I say it? Lunzie wondered. She sipped from her own mug, tasting only the water she'd asked for, and said, "That's all very well, but what does it mean?"

  "That, I'm afraid, we cannot discuss here. I will tell you what I can, and then we'll make plans to meet again." At her frown, he nodded. "That much is necessary, Lunzie, to keep immediate trouble at bay. We are watched. Of course we are, and I'm aware of it so we must continue our friendly association."

  "Just how friendly?"

  That slipped out before she meant it. She had not meant to ask that until later, if ever. He chuckled, but it sounded slightly forced.

  "You know how friendly we were. You probably remember it better than I do since you slept peacefully for over forty of the intervening years."

  She felt the blood rushing to her face and let it. Any watchers would assume that was genuine emotion.

  "You! I have to admit that I haven't forgotten you, not one . . . single . . . thing."

  This time, he was the one to blush. She hoped it satisfied whoever was doing the surveillance but she thought the actual transcript would prove deadly.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he said "Don't worry! At this stage they're still letting me arrange the surveillance. We're relatively safe as long as we don't do something outside their plans."

  Their plans or your plans, she wondered. She wanted to trust Zebara: she did trust the Zebara she'd known. But this new Zebara, this old man with the hooded eyes, the grandchildren he wanted to save, the head of External Security, could she trust this Zebara? And how far?

  Still, when he reached for her hand, she let him take it. His fingers stroked her palm and she wondered if he would try something as simple as dot code. Cameras might pick that up. Instead, a fingernail lightly drew the logo on the FSP banner, then letter by letter traced her name. She smiled at him, squeezed his hand, and hoped she was right.

  The next day's work at the Center went well. Whatever Bias thought, he managed not to say and no one else asked uncomfortable questions. Lunzie came back to her quarters, feeling slightly uneasy that she hadn't heard from Zebara but her message light was blinking as she came in. She put in a call to the number she was given, and was not surprised to hear his voice.

  "You said once you'd like to hear our native music," he began, "There's a performance tonight of Zilmach's epic work. Would you come with me?"

  "Formal dress, or informal?" asked Lunzie.

  "Not formal like the Governor's reception, but nice."

  She was sure he was laughing underneath at her interest in clothes. But she agreed to be ready in an hour without commenting on it. Dinner before the performance was at an obviously classy restaurant. The other diners wore expensive jewels in addition to fancy clothes. Lunzie felt subdued in her simple dark green dress with the copper-and-enamel necklace that served her for all occasions. Zebara wore a uniform she did not recognize. Did External Security really go for that matte black or did they intend it to intimidate offworlders? He looked the perfect foil for Sassinak. She let herself remember Sassinak in her dress whites, with the vivid alert expression that made her beautiful. Zebara sat there like a black lump of rough stone, heavy and sullen. Then he smiled.

  "Dear Lunzie, you're glaring at me. Why?"

  "I was thinking of my great-great-great-granddaughter," she said, combining honesty and obliqueness at once. "You have grandchildren, you said? Then surely they cross your mind at the oddest times, intruding, but you'd never wish them away."

  "That's true." He shook his head with a rueful smile. "And since mine are here in person, they can intrude physically as well. Little Pog, the youngest, got loose from his mother in my office one time. Darted past my secretary, straight through the door and into my conference room. Set off alarms and thoroughly annoyed the Lieutenant Governor and the Chiefs of Staff. He'd grabbed me by the leg and was howling because the alarm siren scared him. He made so much noise the guards were sure someone was really hurt." His smile had broadened; now he chuckled. "By the time I had peeled him off my leg, found his mother, and convinced the guards that it was not an exceptionally clever assassination scheme using a midget or a robot, none of us could get our minds back on the problem. Worst of all, I had to listen to a lecture by the Lieutenant Governor on the way he disciplines his family. What he didn't know, and I couldn't tell him, was that his eldest son was about to be arrested for sedition. This is, as you might suspect, the former Lieutenant Governor, not the one you met the other night."

  The revelation about his job did nothing to quiet Lunzie's nerves. Anyone who could pretend not to know that someone's child was about to be arrested had more than enough talent in lying to confuse her. She forced herself to concentrate on his feelings for his children and grandchildren. That, at least, she could understand and sympathize with. "So what happened to little . . . Pog, was it?"

  "Yes, short for Poglin. Family name on his mother's side. Well, I counseled leniency since he'd been frightened so badly by the alarms and the subsequent chaos, but his mother felt guilty that he'd gotten away from her. She promised him a good th
rashing when they got home. I hope that was mostly for my benefit. She's very . . . aware of rank, that one." It was obvious that he didn't like his daughter-in-law much. Lunzie wondered if he'd meant to reveal that to her. "And have you caught up with all your family after your long sleep?" he was asking.

  Lunzie shook her head, and sipped cautiously at the steaming soup that had appeared in front of them. Pale orange, spicy, not bad at all.

  "My great-great, Sassinak, gave me Fleet transport to Sector Headquarters. She's an orphan. She's never met the others."

  "Oh. Isn't that unusual? Wouldn't they take her in?" His eyelids had sagged again, hiding his expression. Lunzie suspected he knew a lot more about her and her family, including Sassinak, than he pretended.

  "They didn't know." Quickly, she told him what little Sassinak had told her and added her own interpretation of Sassinak's failure to seek out her parents' relatives. "She's still afraid of rejection, I think. Fleet took her in. She considers it her family. I had one grandson, Dougal, in Fleet, and I remember the others complaining that he was almost a stranger to them. Even when he visited, he seemed attached somewhere else."

  "Will you introduce her?"

  "I've thought about that. Forty-three more years. I don't know who's alive, where they are, although it won't be hard to find out. But she may not want to meet them, even with me. I'm still trying to figure out whose she is, for that matter. I haven't really had time." At the startled look on his face, she laughed. "Zebara, you've been with your family all this time. Of course nothing is more important to you. But I've had one long separation after another. I've had to make my connections where and when I could. The first thing was to get my certification back, get some kind of job."

  "Surely your great-great, this Sassinak, wouldn't have tossed you out to starve!"