The D’neeran Factor (60 page)

“I didn't…” She had been very young when she visited Valentine. Every amusement known to humankind was there, wholesome or not. Not all her pleasures had been those “tolerated in a decent society.”

“That's where the informant comes in. He, or she, told the agent, for a price, that—I quote—‘somebody knows where the
Bird
will fly.' This seemed to be the extent of the informant's knowledge. He confirmed—I say ‘he' for convenience—that he was indeed talking about the Uskosian vessel, and specifically about its detailed course program. So,” Jameson said, coming back abruptly to the present, “the course must be changed.”

“Couldn't he find out more?”

“Could not or would not. He was encouraged to do so.
He has not been heard of since, although he was promised a rich reward. Or perhaps he tried, and asked too many questions. More murder is done on Valentine than comes to light.”

“You said I&S suspects someone—what about him?”

“Michael Kristofik? He disappeared from Valentine three weeks ago; another cause for concern. And he is protected, Hanna. He is very wealthy, and has become respected on Valentine, as such things go. He has been politely, adamantly sheltered. He is quite safe on Valentine—though he has not dared to set foot on a Polity world for fifteen years—not since his connection with the
Pavonis Queen
affair was discovered.”

“What was that?—I never heard of it.”

“It began the same way,” he said. “With a pirated program…”

He was silent for a moment. She saw him gather and pattern the threads of the story. Then he said, “The course was taken by a man named Ivo Tonson. He was a high official of the Polity, a member of the Exchange Committee. He had arranged all the details of the
Queen
's mission. That was to pick up from many worlds an enormous quantity of currencies of all sorts given up by governments, banking organizations, merchants based everywhere, in trade for equal value in the credit networks of the Polity. Nothing wrong with the money, though. No, it was spendable. No doubt some of it circulates still…I must talk with the inspection team.”

There was a reader near his hand. He picked it up and scrolled through the index. When he had found what he wanted he held it out to her. She got up, moving carefully because she was suddenly aware of the extra weight the
Bird
seemed to have piled on her shoulders. When she took the reader it was unexpectedly heavy, too, and she nearly dropped it.

“What is this?” she said.

“An eyewitness account of what happened. It is the report of the chief of security on the
Pavonis Queen.
”

“He survived it, then?”

“She did. All of them did, except one of the attackers Study it carefully.”

He got up, too. She did not look up at him; she looked at
the reader in her hand. She said, “What am I supposed to learn from it?”

“Whatever you can,” he said.

*   *   *

The first page the reader showed was an unintelligible mix of file codes. When Hanna tried to go on to the next, nothing happened; then the reader began talking. A woman's voice came out of it, cold, methodical, untouched by the twenty years that had passed since the statement was recorded. Hanna put the reader on a chair and settled on the floor in front of it. The voice said:

“My name is Honoria Hood. I have the rank of commander in the Interworld Fleet, and I am a specialist in the transport of sensitive materials. On ST July 21, 2822, I was assigned chief of the Interworld Fleet security team ordered to accompany the merchant
Pavonis Queen,
a civilian vessel which was under contract to the Coordinating Commission of the Interworld Polity for a one-time mission involving the transfer of negotiable currency.

“The mission schedule called for the
Pavonis Queen
to leave the Terrestrial stellar system on September 20, 2822, and to return to her point of departure on or about January 27, 2823. All security arrangements were approved and in place before the
Pavonis Queen
departed Earth. The vessel carried a civilian crew of twenty-six and a security force of ten. The
Pavonis Queen
was unarmed, but warships of the Interworld Fleet were to meet her at each berth and remain in sentry position for the duration of each stop on the itinerary. Precautionary measures were concentrated at all times on the
Pavonis Queen's
ports of call.

“The itinerary of the
Queen
included Nestor, Lancaster, and D'neera, along with twelve lesser settlements. The last port before the
Pavonis Queen
returned to Earth was Alta. We left Alta on January 4, slightly ahead of schedule. The final leg of the journey was Common Route Gamma between Alta and Earth. This route uses one hundred twenty Jumps, and for a ship of the
Pavonis Queen
's class the usual time in transit is five-point-five to six-point-five days.

“The
Pavonis Queen
completed Jump Number Fifty-five at oh-two-hundred hours on January 6. At approximately oh-three-hundred hours I was awakened by First Officer Philip Seal, who told me that upon completing Jump Number
Fifty-five the
Pavonis Queen
had picked up a mayday from a vessel identifying itself as the freighter
Pastorale
out of Colony One. I met on the bridge with Mr. Seal and Captain Karsh. At that time we were in position near Relay Number 18.09.232, through which the mayday was being transmitted. The
Pastorale
's reported position was also in the vicinity of the relay. According to the mayday, a reactor malfunction had rendered the
Pastorale
unfit for habitation, and the crew had abandoned ship in lifeboats. Of the crew of fifteen, five men were said to be suffering acute radiation poisoning, and rescue was urgently needed.

“After discussions with Captain Karsh and Mr. Seal, I approved their request to proceed to the aid of the
Pastorale.
I made the decision at oh-four-thirty hours after discussions with Colony One, Intelligence and Security, and my Fleet superiors. My opinion of the authenticity of the mayday and the minimal security risk involved was based on the following facts as they were reported to me. One, the owners of the
Pastorale
had reported her out of contact twenty-two hours previously. Two, search efforts already were underway—not at Jump Number Fifty-five, however, but at Jump Number Sixty-one, her last reported position. Three, the
Pavonis Queen
was three hours away from the point of contact, whereas all other vessels were no less than ten hours away. Four, the reported condition of the ill crewmen made early rendezvous essential. These are the reasons I agreed to Captain Karsh's request to undertake the rescue, with the approval of my superiors.

“We made audio contact with the
Pastorale
at once. A transcript of Captain Karsh's and Mr. Seal's communications with the presumed captain of the
Pastorale
is available. They were marked by the highest degree of tension on the part of the presumed Captain Weng. We were told that the sickest of the crewmen was aboard Captain Weng's lifeboat, and background sounds bore this out. Crewman Durand was said to be—well, never mind. They had invented a history for this imaginary man. It's still hard to believe there isn't a Crewman Durand with a sick mother and a very young wife. It was impossible not to be concerned about him. This was meant to keep our attention engaged, and it worked.

“Visual contact with the supposed
Pastorale
followed at
oh-eight-hundred hours. It was definitely radioactive. There were three lifeboats, each said to have one or more toxic patients aboard, and Captain Karsh ordered all three to be onloaded at once. The men in them did not come out immediately, even when the docking bay was fully pressurized and all the
Pavonis Queen
's people were waiting, with the medics at the front. I believe they had a scanner and were studying the dispersal of the persons aboard the
Pavonis Queen.
Everyone was in the docking area except myself, Captain Karsh, and Communications Officer Alves on the bridge; two persons in the engineering section; and two members of the security team, who were standing their regular watch at the internal entry to the cargo hold. Three members of the security team were on standby in the docking bay staging area, with a clear view of the bay itself. The others were inside with the
Pavonis Queen
's crew, having reported to offer assistance.

“After approximately two minutes, the men inside the supposed lifeboats attacked without warning. A large quantity of sleepygas was released from all three vessels. None of the persons in the docking bay escaped; all were unconscious in less than half a minute. Simultaneously with the release of the gas, the personnel in the vessel nearest the hull fired on the inner pressure seal of the
Pavonis Queen
's docking bay, damaging but not disabling it. The attackers threatened to vaporize the inner and outer seals, which would have resulted in the deaths of all the sleepygas victims, if the guards in the staging area did not lay down their arms. I ordered them to comply. Immediately upon entering the bay, they also were overcome by gas. At that time the attackers finally emerged from the lifeboats. There were four of them; I do not know if others remained inside the vessels. They were dressed in utility spacesuits, so no physical description of them is available, and by sight they were indistinguishable. There were now only seven able-bodied persons free to defend the cargo—myself, Captain Karsh, Mr. Alves, the guards by the cargo hold, and two members of the engineering staff. I advised the civilians to remain where they were, although I am told that Captain Karsh later disregarded my order and was stunned for his trouble. Note that the attackers did not at any time use lethal weapons, only sleepygas and, later, stunners.

“I left Captain Karsh to call for assistance and ran to the docking bay after obtaining a gas filter and a handheld colloidal disruptor. I could not enter the bay because Captain Karsh had sealed off the area to trap the attackers in the bay. However, the main cargo hold on the
Pavonis Queen
backs onto the docking bay. For this mission the connecting entryway had been sealed with a security wall. But the attackers removed a heavy-duty laser cannon from one of the lifeboats and brought it to bear on the interface between the bay and the cargo hold.

“I therefore proceeded through the interior of the ship to the alternate entrance to the cargo hold. I had the combinations for the locking mechanisms of all three of the intervening doors, but the sequence was so long, and included so many halts for identification, that several minutes were required to effect an entrance. We found that the attackers had entered the hold and were using the
Pavonis Queen
's own equipment to move the cargo. My personnel were armed with disruptors, and all of us began firing as soon as the last door was opened. One of the attackers fell at once. I believe a clean hit was scored in the chest and that he was killed immediately.

“We continued to direct heavy fire at the attackers. At one point more sleepygas was dispersed, but Mulready and Serlio also had filters, and none of us were affected. The attackers were unable to proceed with the transfer of cargo to the lifeboats as long as they were under fire, and it was my intention to harass them until, one, all were dead or disabled, or, two, help arrived. However, they took cover behind the largest of the cargo pallets. These were antigravity pallets, and the one they chose was solidly packed to a height of four meters and was opaque to the disruptor beams. They activated the pallet and began to move it into position in front of the entryway, making it necessary for us to enter the hold to avoid being trapped outside. We therefore came into the hold, at which time Ms. Serlio was stunned. Mr. Mulready and I reached the barrier. I waved him to the left of the pallet, intending to rush the attackers from the right myself. That is the last thing I remember. Mr. Mulready told me later that just as I fell he was conscious of a movement overhead, and was then stunned also. I believe
one of the attackers had scaled the barrier from the other side, and fired on us from above.

“I was unconscious for six hours. When I awoke, the
Joyeuse
out of Willow was on the scene, and I was in its sickbay. The cargo of the
Pavonis Queen
was gone.”

*   *   *

The voice ended, impersonal and didactic as it had been at the start. The reader did not make another sound. Hanna's cheek was pressed against the smooth covering of the chair, and her eyes were closed. At the beginning and the end the voice had belonged to the quintessential bureaucrat, but in between there had been pictures in its hesitations, its stilted formality and the lapses from that, its confidence in the recitation of numbers and dates, the omissions on less sure ground. Everything had been so neat out there. Everything had been planned. Even the urgency of an emergency in space could be handled, there were procedures; then the unexpected entered, the men and women falling in heaps, a man dead with his heart turned to jelly…

Jameson said close by, startling her, “What do you think of it?”

“I'm sorry for Honoria Hood…”

“Oh, it didn't ruin her. It was a long time between promotions, but she's still with Fleet. What else?”

Hanna opened her eyes finally, and straightened. “How could they do it?” she said. “How could anybody know ahead of time that the real
Pastorale
would be out of contact?”

He smiled at her. It was a particular smile which she recognized; it meant she had said something naive.

“They arranged it,” he said.

“Arranged it?”

“The
Pastorale
's communications system was sabotaged. The damage was repairable, but it took a day or two. The man responsible had been hired to do only that, he knew nothing of the plot, and he was not punished very severely.”