Crossways (31 page)

“Lorin?”

“That's the one.”

“Hilde will scare her off.”

“I don't think so. You'd be surprised at Hilde out of uniform. She cleans up well and looks as though she's got a few thousand credits to spare. Lorin responded to bribery last time, right?”

He nodded. “Though Crowder will be operating off-record, so I don't know what Lorin can find.”

“She doesn't have to find anything. Hilde's going to bribe her to introduce an anomaly bug into the system. Mother Ramona has a backdoor analyst who claims she can find where the holes are in accounts and see where things aren't. That's where you're likely to find the things Crowder's hiding.” She sat forward. “Once we've got likely areas of search we'll go in via the normal shuttle routes. Just a small team. Me on comms, Lewis Bronsen as Finder, Archie Tatum and his bots. We'll rendezvous with Tengue, Gwala, and Hilde for muscle. A six-man team—”

“No!” Ben pushed his voice and it came out sharper than he'd intended.

Cara jumped visibly. “What do you mean, no?”

“There are too many people to get hurt. I should—”

“Oh, yeah, right. What did we just say about overprotective?” Cara jumped up, paced toward the window, pivoted around and leaned on the foot of the bed, arms stiff. “You should just get out of your sickbed, make an instant recovery and do it all your fucking self. Again. Well, fuck that!”

Ack! Was it what he'd said or the way he'd said it? It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just didn't want to put her—or anybody—in any danger. A good commander shouldn't send other people out to do what he wasn't prepared to do himself.

She flushed with anger and then swallowed whatever she'd been going to say. The flush faded to normal and then beyond, to pale. She took a couple of deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and then
straightened up. “Try it if you like, but if you leave me now, don't expect me to be here when you get back.”

And then she simply turned and walked out.

Ben felt as though someone had doused him in ice water.

“Cara,” he called after her. “Cara!”

But she just kept on walking without looking back.

Oh, shit, he'd done it now. She'd taken it as a slight on her competence. In truth it was a good plan, a lot better than the one he'd had, which was to get Rion to start screaming to the news networks and watch Crowder to see where his key people were concentrating their efforts. His hand hovered over the comm unit, ready to pick up and send a message. What could he say that would make it any better?

At that moment Civility Jamieson arrived with an entourage of young student types and proceeded to ignore Ben completely while he explained the barrage of tests that he was going to conduct and which student would be assisting with which test.

“Now?” Ben asked, surprised by the haste.

“You're a very interesting case, Commander Benjamin. As Miss Carlinni reminded me, quite forcibly, this station owes you a debt of gratitude which medical attention can hardly begin to repay. Now, Nine, here will make notes on everything you can remember, while—”

“Nine? That you?” Ben turned to a moon-faced kid who barely looked old enough to be out of school.

She nodded, shyly.

“Got a name?”

“Vina. Vina Daniels.”

“Well, Miss Daniels, your job is easy. Just write down CRAFT.”

“Craft?”

“Can't. Remember. A. Fucking. Thing.”

“Commander Benjamin,” Jamieson said.

“Yes, you're perfectly correct, Doctor. I shouldn't be rude to your students. I guess you never are.”

“Oh, I'm rude to them all the time. They're hardened to it. Just don't get in my way while I connect this.”

He came at Ben with an electrode and a tube of snot glue.

Half a day later Ben had been hooked up to four different machines, had had a succession of scanners pointed in
his direction and had been tested eight ways from Sunday and still Vina Daniels sat waiting patiently with her recording pad.

“All right, Miss, Daniels. What do you want to know?”

“Everything you can remember.”

“Hmm, well, okay. I was half-dressed from the shower when a team of bastards I think I recognized tried to blow me and my ship to atoms without much care for station safety. I sprang the ship for the air lock and straight into the Folds before she blew. While in foldspace, I floated through the hull of my ship, had my wrist crushed, breathed vacuum for hours and rode a void dragon to peel off four limpets. Then I ran out of luck, and air, and warmth. I managed to get to safety through an emergency hatch, whereupon I crawled back to the flight deck and let the ship find an exit point back into realspace.”

“Commander Benjamin.” Civility sounded anything but civil. “If you're not going to cooperate, please don't insult my student's intelligence. She's got marks riding on this assignment.”

“You're perfectly correct, Dr. Jamieson. Sorry, Vina. Just put that I exited the station air lock, made the jump to foldspace as soon as it was safe to do so and passed out almost immediately. I must have fallen awkwardly on my wrist. The ship must have depressurized and repressurized while I was out cold. When I came to, I managed to find an exit point and came home.”

“Thank you, Commander Benjamin.”

“You're welcome, Vina . . .” He turned to the student and whispered, “Believe which explanation you like best.”

“What happened to the limpets?” she asked softly.

“That's the question, isn't it?”

“Ahem!” Jamieson cleared his throat like a bad stage actor. “I've collated the test results. I believe we can fit a new implant, an upgraded CC22, but it's not without risk. I'm slightly puzzled as to why the pathways that hosted your first implant are still open, so though it's a little unorthodox, I believe that this implant should be fitted without anesthetic. If anything's going to go wrong I need instant feedback to minimize damage.”

“What kind of damage?” Suddenly Ben was glad his croaky voice could be attributed to his lungs.

Solar Wind
was hoisted up on the repair dock, crawling with techs and bots. Cara was only allowed on board because she agreed to wear a high-vis jacket and protective headgear.

“I need my stuff,” she'd explained to Garrick's chief engineer at the top of the ramp. “I live here, at least I do when it's not a crime scene or in the repair shop. Is there a lot of damage?”

“Not as much as there would have been if those limpets had blown.”

“Four limpets, right?” she asked.

“You can see where they were clamped on and wrenched off again. Those babies aren't meant to be removed easily.”

“Would they have to have been detached manually, from the outside?”

“Oh, yeah.” The engineer removed his helmet, scratched underneath it and put it back on again. “Not an easy task in a pressure suit.”

“Quite. Might Commander Benjamin have had to remove a glove to detach a limpet?”

“Only if he wanted to lose the hand at best, at worst die horribly in a depressurized suit.”

“That's what I thought. Thanks.”

She let the cabin door slide closed behind her and breathed a sigh of relief.

Ben's buddysuit top was still draped casually across the bed, its functions hibernating. She picked it up, folded it in half and hugged it to her chest like a long-lost child.

“Cara.” The door opening startled her.

“Ronan. I see they've got a good supply of hi-vis vests. Yellow's not your color, though.”

She rolled the buddysuit top swiftly and stuffed it into her bag, then started to gather her underwear and sleepsuit.

“You and Ben had a disagreement?” Ronan asked.

“He's a stubborn bastard.” She kept packing.

“He's Ben.”

“That's what I said.” She swallowed before her voice cracked. “I only just got him back and now he wants to dump me and go off on his own to be noble. He's not even on his feet yet, and already he's trying to fling himself between me and trouble. Between anyone and trouble. Stupid
white knight. He thinks he's invulnerable and he's not. He's going to get himself killed and . . .” She dropped the bag on the floor and kicked it. “And then I'm going to have to go through this whole dead thing again, only next time it will be real.”

She hadn't meant to say it aloud, hadn't even realized she had until Ronan put his arms around her and she found herself leaning into his shoulder, sobbing as though it was the end of the world.

“Silly bloody man,” she managed between sniffs and gulps. “I could kill him myself.”

“He won't be going anywhere for quite a while. Whatever he thinks, he's not fit yet. Besides, the test results are in. Jamieson's getting ready to fix him up with a new implant.”

“Is that good? I mean, will it take?”

“There are problems—anomalies. Jamieson needs to do the implantation with Ben conscious. No anesthetic.”

“What? Is that even possible?”

“It's irregular. He needs to be able to abort the operation if it's not going well.”

“Define not going well.”

“The implant's a seed, it grows through the brain organically.”

“Implant 101, Doc.” Cara tapped her own forehead.

“The tests showed Ben's neural pathways from the first implant are still open—there's just no implant there. The new implant should grow along the lines of least resistance, the old pathways. If it doesn't, if it tries to forge new pathways . . .” He shrugged. “Jamieson doesn't know what damage it might do.”

“He's explained all this to Ben and Ben's willing to go along with it?”

“Yes and yes.”

“He doesn't have to do it, especially not for me. Psi-tech or not, he's still Ben.”

“I think you should tell him that yourself. Go now. There's not much time.”

R
ICKY HAD LOST TRACK OF TIME. HE'D BEEN trying to mark off days by the number of meals and number of sleeps, but with nothing much to do all day except read or play yet another pointless round of Braintease on his handpad, he'd been dozing more and more and sleeping through the night less and less.

He'd never read so much in his life before—not all at one time. The choice of books on the slate was an odd one, mostly fiction, and not for kids either. Minnow's wife had chosen them. He wondered what she was like. Her taste in books was certainly strange. There were a lot of books about crime.

He'd always got the impression that the police on Chenon generally didn't have much work to do. The crime rate was low and, except at the ports, which had more crime than all of the rest of Chenon put together, mostly consisted of misdemeanors, some fraud, and the occasional murder, more shocking for its rarity. Everyone had enough for their needs, which cut down on them trying to take whatever someone else had.

Ricky had been learning about crime on Chenon from a series of Adam Perry books on Minnow's slate. Adam Perry was an ex-Monitor turned private security cop, one of the
fully licensed ones. Though crime was low, Adam Perry seemed to solve most of it together with his partner Jane Cox, who was smarter than Perry. Perry was a short-range Telepath and a Psi-4 Empath who often jumped to conclusions that were always good guesses. “Trusting his gut,” he called it. Cox had been a local police cadet who'd exposed a corrupt superior and had been bought off with a pension, but she hated herself for taking the payoff and tried to be better than the best cop. She worked everything out logically. Between them they were a good team, though sometimes Perry made guesses that were nothing short of magic. Ricky kept going back over earlier chapters to see if there were clues that he'd missed. How did Adam Perry do it? Ricky took to reading bits out loud to Nan, hoping that she could hear him. He was worried that the drugs they'd given her would addle her mind permanently.

They'd kept up the bone regeneration treatment. After six sessions the fracture sleeve had been removed in favor of a smart-stocking. He'd heard an argument between a med-tech and Danniri. The med-tech said the old lady needed to put some weight on the leg now, Danniri had said to keep up the medication and told him to put Nan back on the bed.

Ricky had to find a way of stopping them giving Nan all the stuff that made her dopey. He understood it was so she didn't contact anyone. Nan was only a short-range Telepath, but she still had friends from the old days, from her time working for the Five Power Alliance on Earth, who contacted her regularly. He wondered if any of them were starting to worry. If he managed to get her a reprieve from the drugs could she send a message out?

He thought hard about it and came up with a plan. It wasn't a good plan, and it was going to hurt, but it was the best he could do.

He pushed his folding bunk against the wall and sat down behind Nan's bed with his back to the camera eye. He pulled off his right shoe and sock and put his shoe back on. He figured out where it might rub him if he walked without his sock and then he took off the shoe again and, using the sole, started to rub at his heel.

Oww, he was right, it did hurt, but he kept on rubbing anyway. Then he put his shoe back on and started to pace.
By the time Minnow came to deliver dinner and Nan's nightly meds the nasty blister he'd started had flowered and burst, but he was still pacing the length of the cell smacking the wall and pacing to the other end. Smack and turn. Smack and turn.

“What you doin' now?” Minnow asked as he balanced the tray on the table and gave Nan her usual shot.

“What's it look like I'm doing? I'm exercising. How many days have we been here? I'm going to lose the use of my legs if I don't make them work. Owww!” He sat down on the floor and pulled off his shoe, making sure Minnow could see the blister. “See. I've gone so soft, my feet are blistering.”

Minnow bent over to look.

If I were Adam Perry I'd jump right up and hit Minnow under the chin with my head and escape, Ricky thought. But he wasn't Adam Perry and he wasn't going anywhere. He'd tried that already.

“Nasty blister.” Minnow tapped his pockets. “Got no skin gel, but I'll bring some tomorrow. In the meantime, if you've got to walk, do it barefoot.”

“Okay, thanks,” Ricky said meekly, shuffling sideways to get out of Minnow's way and trying not to let the big man see that he'd dropped the empty blast-pack on the floor when he'd checked his pockets.

Mine. Ricky casually placed his hand over the fallen pack. He wasn't sure what he could do with it, but something, surely.

The following morning Ricky was suitably grateful to Minnow for the tiny tube of skin gel. When he figured it was close to time for Nan's evening shot he squeezed out a centimeter and smoothed it on the side of her neck. Chameleon-like, it darkened to her wind-weathered skin tone and looked like any patch of normal skin.

It wasn't Minnow who came that night, it was the small wiry guard whose name Ricky didn't know. Ricky held his breath, but the guard didn't suspect. He slapped the blast pack onto the skin gel patch and left.

Ricky jumped up and wiped the film of the drug off the gel with a corner of wet towel, making it look as though he was wiping the old woman's face.

“Nan,” he whispered, close to her ear. “Nan!”

But it took several hours before the residue of the drug leached out of her system.

“Ricky.” Nan's voice was little more than a whisper in the darkness of the night, but Ricky rolled to his knees immediately and put his head close to hers.

“Nan, hush, there's a camera. I don't know what they can hear.”

He jumped up and felt his way to the spigot, turning it to full so that the sound of running water filled the room, then made his way back to the bedside.

“You've been asleep, Nan. You don't even really wake when they put food in your mouth.”

She made a kind of guuurrgh noise and then managed, “How long?”

“About eighteen days . . . I think. I may have missed one or two.”

“Where?”

“I worked it out. I think we're under the grapple arena, the De Barras Stadium.”

“Good boy. You're going to be like your Uncle Reska.” Nan didn't question him or ask what his reasoning was. “My leg . . .” she said.

“You broke it when they captured you, I think. They've been treating it. Six bone regeneration sessions and now it just has a smart-stocking on.”

“Must be almost healed, then. It aches. Help me up.”

“No, they'll realize you're awake. Stay still.”

“No strength, anyway,” she said.

“Door's locked. We couldn't just walk out even if you could. Walk, I mean. Can you call anyone? You know . . . telepathically.”

There was a pause. “Uh, no. Shut down, mentally. Whatever they've given me there's reisercaine in the mix. How come I'm awake now?”

“I faked a blister. One of the guards brought me skin gel. I put it on your neck. Don't have much, though.”

She put her hand up to the side of her neck. “Clever boy.”

Ricky felt himself smiling. Nan's approval had to be earned.

“And I got outside the door a couple of times.”

Carefully he described the corridor: double doors at one end, an emergency stair, and antigrav shaft at the other. “The staircase goes both up and down, so we're not on the lowest level. I'm not sure whether the grav shaft is turned on or not.”

“Have they asked any questions, about Reska or . . . anything.”

“No, nothing. I'm sorry, Nan, this is all my fault. If I hadn't . . .”

“Hush, boy. You made it easy for them, but they might have come after us anyway.”

“What next?”

“Wait. Watch. Be ready. If they don't want anything from us, we're bait in some kind of trap they've set for Reska. That means he'll be coming.”

“You're sure?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Can't we get in touch? If I use the skin gel again, how long will it take for the reisercaine to wear off?”

“A day or two, maybe, but my Telepathy range is too short. The people who could help are worlds away.”

“Uncle Ben?”

“Reska may try to contact me via Cara. I have to listen. Listen and be ready to respond.”

“Should I use the gel every day? I'm not sure how long it will last.”

“Every day, night and morning for three days until the reisercaine wears off. I need to see if someone is trying to contact us. Have you got enough for that?”

“I think so. I wish I had an implant.”

“You will, eventually.”

If we ever get out of here, Ricky thought. But somehow talking about normal things made it seem more possible.

“Will Dad be really upset if I do?”

“Well, he won't like the idea, but he'll get over it.”

“Is it just the idea of space?”

“He was a bit younger than you when your grandparents died in the Folds. He never developed a taste for space travel after that.”

“Uncle Ben did.”

“Reska was three years younger than Rion, always a bit more adventurous.”

“I want to be a psi-tech and explore like Uncle Ben.”

“It sounds more glamorous than it is, take my word for it. There are wonders out there, but there's an awful lot of nothing between them.”

“You used to work in space.”

“Not exactly. I used to work on planets, mostly, but that meant traveling between them.”

“I always wanted to work for the Trust, but now . . .”

“There's more places than the Trust if you want to be a psi-tech. Your great-grandfather has connections.”

“My great-grandfather is still alive?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You never talk about him. I just thought . . .”

“That's what I always let people think. Even Rion and Reska have never met him. Listen, Ricky, if anything happens to me you need to contact Malusi Duma and tell him everything you know.”

“Malusi Duma, do you mean
that
Malusi Duma, the president of African Unity.”

“That Malusi Duma. Yes. Just tell him who sent you.”

Ricky and Nan talked on and off through the night until the light level in the room rose to indicate a new day. Nan lay on the bed as still as if she were drugged again. Ricky turned off the spigot and climbed into his narrow bunk, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep.

Minnow appeared with a breakfast tray just as Ricky drifted off.

“Not reading this mornin'?” Minnow asked. “Or exercisin'? You all right?”

“Tired. Water spigot's faulty. Kept me awake.”

Minnow put down the tray and turned the spigot on, then off again. “Seems all right.”

“It does now. Thanks for checking.”

Ricky sat on the edge of his bunk.

Minnow pressed the controls that raised the head end of Nan's bed so she was sitting upright. Ricky had described carefully how this part of the day went and Nan stared resolutely ahead and swallowed the mush Ricky spooned into her mouth while Minnow watched.

When they were done Minnow took a blast pack from his right pocket.

Always the new one from his right pocket, the spent one goes into his left, Ricky noted, fingering the spent one in his own left pocket. There was little difference between a new one and a spent one if you didn't look closely at the telltale.

Also it meant that Minnow had the blast pack in his right hand, so he always applied it to the left side of Nan's neck. Ricky remembered reading in his Adam Perry book that regular habits could get you into trouble. He began to take note of Minnow's regular habits.

Crowder finished the holo-vid call to his daughter, Tamsin. It was his monthly ritual. They'd been estranged for half her life, but she'd taken the initiative to get in touch when Nini was born and he'd grasped the opportunity eagerly. He'd never held his granddaughter in the flesh, they were worlds apart physically, but seeing her grow from a baby to a bright toddler had been an intense pleasure. Nothing was allowed to interrupt and he liked a moment or two after each call to reflect on the joys of being a grandfather.