The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 (19 page)

She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a start,” she said, then wheeled and left the room.

Chapter 26

Never mind
raising blood pressure — Drew’s next transmission to the EIS would probably give someone a stroke. That was assuming, of course, that the mission was still a go and that Townsend was around to lead it. At this point, neither was a certainty. Just thinking about all the different ways he might blow this assignment was enough to give Townsend permanent indigestion.

For example, suppose SISCO tired of his stalling and sent out another operative — a regular — to wrap up the murder investigation. This second agent would have to be intercepted and either turned or terminated. The EIS had been quite clear during his briefings — there were no other options. Or what if somebody at Data Management figured out that Earth’s entire database was being moved piecemeal into orbit around Helena, and raised the alarm? Bonelli would realize that the SPA on the Zoo was nothing more than a hacker’s data stash and would undoubtedly follow through on his earlier threat to board and occupy Daisy Hub at gunpoint. Naturally, the House of Trokerk would then have to avenge the honor of the station by annihilating the Rangers. All of them. Everywhere.

As well, just in case Townsend needed something else to stress over, appearances were so deceiving on this station. Every time he thought he’d gotten a handle on something, it dissolved into unanswered questions. They nested in the corners of his mind, waiting for him to let his guard down, then “made his brain itch”, as Ruby had put it.

Yoko.

Nestor Quan.

And Karim Khaloub, who posed the most troubling questions of all. If, as Ridout had told him, Khaloub couldn’t possibly be a spy, then why had the previous station manager needed Lydia to be his eyes and ears? And if the vic was, in fact, working undercover for one of the Earth Authorities, why hadn’t the EIS included that information in Drew’s mission briefing? It seemed inconceivable that they wouldn’t have known about it.

Chapter 27

Townsend waited
as long as he could to begin the meeting. Just as he had given up and was opening his mouth to call for silence, he spotted Holchuk exiting the tube car and slipping quietly to the back of the assembled group.

They all knew why they were there, or thought they did. Orvy Hagman, Jason Smith, Ruby, Lydia, O’Malley, the Doc, Gouryas, Singh, and Teri. All sat or stood gazing expectantly at their ‘fearless leader’, who had promised to answer their questions if they could just be patient until the Nandrian-elect had returned from
tekl’hananni
. And now Holchuk was back, and the moment of truth had arrived — and Townsend knew with terrible certainty that he couldn’t give it to them. He didn’t dare.

So, it was a good thing that the Hub crew saw a payoff in this mission for themselves — freedom from the threat of the alien field generator. And if Teri had been voicing the popular sentiment when she declared that it was better to get involved in a war than to waste the rest of their lives doing busy-work, then Townsend was just giving them the opportunity to do what they wanted to do anyway, right?

(It was flimsy, but he’d take it. One way or another, he had to face himself in the mirror each morning.)

“Okay, people, I trust everyone knows why I’ve called this meeting?” he began.

“The Meniscus Field generators,” piped up Jason Smith.

“So we’re finally going to do something about those beasts?” Hagman cut in, grinning.

“Yes! And Drew has a genius plan. Right, Chief?”

“Yes,” said Townsend, perhaps a little overenthusiastically, but at least it brought everyone’s attention back to the person running the meeting. “The techs and engineers have been working around the clock to figure out the molecular paintbrush,” he went on, making eye contact with Singh and Gouryas. “Gentlemen?”

“We still aren’t sure how the device works,” Gouryas apologized, “but Dev has figured out how to use it to turn metal transparent, and he’s been practicing.”

“I’ve calibrated the controls so we can target an area measured in hundredths of millimeters,” Singh continued, smirking as archly as ever.

“Measured in two dimensions, or in three?” O’Malley wanted to know.

“In three,” Gouryas replied. “We’re going to make a window in the casing around the field generator and take a look inside it.”

“That’s your wonderful plan?” demanded Holchuk, frowning. “You’re going to tinker some more with that device on our landing deck and maybe get someone else killed?”

“Actually,” Townsend corrected him patiently, “we’re going to practice with the generator aboard the Zoo first. Then, once we know exactly what we’re doing, we’re going to shut down the one on the Hub.”

“Their generator
is
identical to ours,” Smith agreed. “All we have to do is infiltrate the Ranger station wearing PLS suits and taking the paintbrush with us, and—”

“Hey! Whoa!” said Hagman, looking the way the adult lion always did in the vidclips when an overexuberant cub stepped on his tail. “All this secret agent stuff — is this on the level, Townsend?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Hagman.”

Now Hagman was looking more like someone who went rock-climbing, white water rafting, and extreme skateboarding in his spare time. “So, we sneak over to Zulu, screw around with their field generator, maybe flash-freeze the whole rotten bunch of them? Sounds like it could be fun.”

Indignantly, Ruby leaped to her feet. “Drew, you’re not seriously considering—”

“—murdering fifteen people? No, of course not. I have a plan to get all the Rangers off Zulu at the same time.”

Into the silence that followed his words, Ruby ventured, “Off Zulu to where, Chief? And how?”

Keeping one eye on the station’s resident wildcat, Drew explained, “To here. We invite them over here for a concert.”

Nine jaws dropped at once. The tenth, Teri Mintz’s, began rising defiantly. He’d known she wouldn’t like it. With luck, however, the first installment of her bribe had already arrived on the station.

“You’re joking,” said Ruby.

He shook his head slowly.

Doc Ktumba had been standing quietly near the tube car door. Now she lowered her head and charged through the crowd, stopping just short of colliding with him. “You are out of your mind,” she stated, “if you think this flawed plan of yours is going to work.”

Expecting nothing less from her, Drew stood his ground. “Flawed how, Doc?”

“All right. ‘Never darken our doorstep again,’ you told them. Suddenly you’re inviting them over for tea. Bonelli is bound to be suspicious.”

“So, I’ve had a change of heart, realized I was wrong and want to make up.”

“While I’m certain you’ve had a lot of practice at apologizing, you don’t strike me as the sort of man who grovels well, Mr. Townsend. And Bonelli will want to see you on your knees, holding an olive branch, before he accepts this invitation of yours.”

“Not if the featured act is Teri Martin. You should have seen the way he looked at her when we stopped over on the Zoo.”

“He’s right, Marion,” said Ruby thoughtfully. “We’re not asking them to come here for amateur night. People used to pay upward of 100 credit units for tickets to her shows. And we’re charging nothing. They’ll all want to be here, every last one of them. They’ll mutiny if Bonelli even tries to assign any of them to duties that shift.”

“And Teri has agreed to this?” the Doc wanted to know.

He glanced over at the wildcat just as O’Malley bent to whisper something in her ear. Suddenly, her face lit up, eyes sparkling with barely contained joy. Townsend nearly sighed with relief. U-Town had arrived on Daisy Hub, and not a moment too soon.

“Ask her yourself,” he suggested. But the Doc had caught the byplay and deduced what was going on. She shook her head disapprovingly.

“Excuse me, Mr. Townsend, but what’s the timing on this mission?” Smith now inquired.

“If we’re able to coordinate the incursion team’s approach to Zulu to coincide with the Rangers’ approach to Daisy Hub, then you’ll have the length of Ms. Martin’s show, probably two or three hours, to complete the mission and start back home.”

Doc Ktumba uttered an impatient syllable. “That’s all well and good,” she cut in, “and I’m sure Teri will be a smash success, but aren’t you forgetting something? Won’t the Rangers notice when they return to Zulu that something has been done to their field generator?”

“Perhaps,” Drew told her. “But if they can’t actually pin anything on us, they’ll probably let the matter drop. In the first place, there is reason to believe that the field generator on the Zoo has already acted up, causing an accident very similar to the one that killed Khaloub.”

“Reason to believe?” The Doc’s face was the image of skepticism. “And what reason might that be, Mr. Townsend?”

“Something Bonelli said to me the day that I arrived here,” he replied, warning her with a look not to interrupt him again. “In the second place, assuming that he was telling me the truth, Bonelli is a cop. His knee-jerk reaction when there’s a clear and present danger is to restrict access to it. So it’s possible that only a handful of Rangers have even seen what the field generator looks like. Any who have, and who happen to notice that it looks different now, will probably assume that the device acted up again, during their absence.”

“And you’re willing to risk their lives and ours, on a probability?” the Doc challenged him. “A supposition?”

Drew paused. The answer was yes, of course. That was his job. But the Daisy Hub crew didn’t know that, and so the decision couldn’t be his alone. Ruby had told him when they first met that the crew of Daisy Hub was considered expendable. He’d disagreed with her then, and he disagreed with her now. In his mind, there was only one expendable person aboard the station, and that was Drew Townsend himself.

“Mr. Townsend, I’d like to volunteer for that mission,” said Jason Smith.

One by one, others stepped forward as well.

“Me too, Mr. Townsend.”

“Count me in, boss.”

“I’m with you, Chief.”

“Let’s do this.”

The Doc looked around at their resolute faces and sighed. “You’re all out of your minds. However, if you are determined to go ahead with this, then I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Even if the Hub fills up with Rangers?” Ruby teased.

“Hey, we outnumber them three to one,” Hagman pointed out. “They’ll mind their manners. My boys will see to it.”

Townsend took his first full breath in several minutes. “Okay, then, the mission is a go. Teri has already begun putting the show together. Lydia, you’ll have to watch it from AdComm. You’ll be up here with me, coordinating the operation.”

“There’ll be other shows, Lydia, I promise,” Teri reassured her.

“Now, the incursion team…” He paused, letting his gaze sweep the assembled volunteers. “…will consist of: Ruby, who will be piloting the shuttle; Mr. Singh and Mr. Gouryas, who have familiarized themselves with the alien device we’ll be using; Mr. O’Malley, because of his technical expertise; and Mr. Smith, who has Fleet Academy training and will be leading the mission.”

“Wait a minute,” Holchuk cut in. “You’re going in blind? What about the watchdogs on the landing deck? Have any of you even seen a schematic of Zulu?”

“That’s why O’Malley is on the team,” Townsend told him. “He’s getting us the access codes, landing deck authorizations, deck plans — the whole package.”

Holchuk turned reproachful eyes on his fellow cargo inspector. “So, in spite of what we discussed, you’re going to hack Zulu?”

“I’ve already done it,” O’Malley informed him, then crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, grinning like the fool that Holchuk seemed to think he was. That Townsend would have thought he was too, if the ratkeeper hadn’t presented him earlier with a
fait accompli
.

Holchuk cursed under his breath. “I want to go on this mission, boss man.”

Drew understood the request, even sympathized with it; however, “What could you do on Zulu, Holchuk?” he sighed. “Besides, now that you’ve been adopted, you may need deniability if this little excursion goes sour.”

“And you may need a witness that the Nandrians will trust,” the other man pointed out.

Townsend had been afraid of this. He had purposely picked four people besides the pilot so that they’d be able to run mission sims in the SPA room. Four was the limit, now that Lydia and the ratkeeper had filled most of its memory with stolen data. One extra body could blow that secret sky-high.

As though reading his mind, Lydia said, “I can program an observer into the sim, Mr. Townsend, no problem.”

Against his better judgment, Drew relented. “All right, then, Holchuk, you’re in. I’ll want to meet with the incursion team in three hours, to work out the details of the mission.”

Chapter 28

“You can’t
be serious.”

Sitting across the desk from Townsend, O’Malley shrugged helplessly and replied, “I’m afraid I am, boss. There’s no record of anyone named Bruni Patel in Earth’s population database. We’ve got all of it, dating back to the last pandemic, and he isn’t there.”

Drew’s thoughts had already begun to race. The population database had been the first one the ratkeeper copied, years earlier. Original biofiles popped up on the system anytime there were changes or discrepancies contained in updated information. That was how Townsend’s cover had been blown earlier. If there was no current record of Bruni Patel, that meant that there had never been anyone born with that name. If Bruni Patel were a shell identity, the organization he worked for would have given him a full set of creds, including a verifiable biofile. So the name had to be an unrecorded alias.

“Check again. The man I knew was a correctional officer at Dearborn Detention Center, Block C, from 2380 to 2385. His real name could have been different than the one I knew him under.”

O’Malley worked his compupad for a couple of minutes, then handed it across the desk so that Drew could inspect the seven biofiles he’d sifted out of the database. None of the images was the face of his friend. Not one was even close. And if the murder victim couldn’t be identified using Earth’s databases…

“What about the murder investigation?”

“The file wasn’t as fat as you were hoping it would be,” O’Malley apologized, handing him a datawafer. “No snaps, just the Medical Examiner’s report, a membership list for a group called Earth for Terrans, and an order from District Council to halt the investigation, dated three days after your departure from Earth.”

So much for Romero’s promise. Using Drew’s ID as a starting point, Gluckstein’s search of the databases would have hit the same dead end as O’Malley’s did. And Truman and Lupo’s investigation records had either been wiped from the system or prevented from reaching it.

That left Earth Intelligence. Patel was supposedly an EIS operative, but the only commitment that organization had made was to look into the activities of Earth for Terrans. If the EFT could be turned and exploited, Patel’s death would probably be written off as nothing more than the cost of doing business, regardless of who had actually killed him. This was possible only because Drew Townsend, with his thoroughness and his tenacity and his passionate desire to get justice for his friend, was now safely tucked away out of sight and out of mind on Daisy Hub.

Checkmate.

Townsend exhaled noisily and leaned back in his chair. “Thanks, O’Malley,” he sighed.

“I can put a watchdog on this, boss,” the other man offered. “The Hub’s net can alert us if Patel or the murder get mentioned in any future updates.”

“I’m pretty sure they won’t be. Thanks for your trouble — I appreciate it.”

O’Malley opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. With a nod of acknowledgement, he got to his feet and left Townsend sitting alone, staring at the datawafer as though by concentrating hard enough he could read it with his naked eyes.

He was still at his desk, reading the M.E.’s report and regretting his decision to open the file, when the sound of the tube car door signaled that he was no longer alone.

Wordlessly, Lydia dropped into a chair across from his and stared at him until the silence together with the feeling of eyes boring into the side of his face became too much to ignore, and he finally turned his attention away from the screen and met her sympathetic gaze.

“We’re worried about you,” she said. “Rob told me about your friend. What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

Leaning forward, she informed him in a low, urgent voice, “You’ve just lost someone twice — first when he was murdered and again when he was wiped from the InfoCommNet. Nobody on Earth is lifting a finger to find out who killed him and you’re stuck out here with no way to do it yourself. Drew, I know a lot about grieving. Trust me, you are
not
fine!”

Inwardly, Townsend cursed. This was not the time to be revealing weakness. “Okay,” he snapped. “You’re right — I’m not fine. I’m feeling angry enough to punch a hole in the bulkhead with my fist. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“It’s a start. We’re not bits of data in a computer, Drew, and we’re not defined by the labels assigned by monolithic organizations like the Relocation Authority. We’re real, warm-blooded Human beings, with emotions, and when we suffer a terrible loss, we need to allow ourselves to feel it so that we can accept it and get on with our lives. Bruni Patel meant a lot to you. Maybe you need to stop looking for answers on that datawafer and start finding them inside yourself.” And without saying another word, Lydia got to her feet and left.

Drew glanced at the M.E.’s report — ID inconclusive, cause of death inconclusive — and felt something sharp and warm rising in his throat. Lydia was right. Bruni Patel was nowhere on that document. Townsend would have to look for him elsewhere.

***

A box of tea, a jar of curry powder, a tin of chocolate paste, vacuum-sealed bags of dried figs and shredded coconut, a bottle of amber-colored maple syrup — this was all that remained of Bruni Patel. As Drew gently removed each item from his trunk and placed it on top of the dresser in his bedroom, he tried to conjure a remembered image of his friend’s face. But all he could see in his mind’s eye was the ruined features of a pale and eyeless corpse.

Bruni Patel had been his best friend, maybe even his only friend. He had shown an angry young man what was possible and had helped him to reach it. Drew owed him everything that was good about his life. Now Bruni was gone, and nobody seemed to care. And, worse, Drew was having trouble visualizing what he looked like before he was murdered. It was like losing him for a third time, and that was just too much to bear…

At last, in the privacy of his quarters, Townsend sat on the edge of his bed, dropped his face into his open hands and let his tears flow. When they finally ran dry, the heavy weight he had been carrying around inside his chest felt much lighter, and he was able to see the foodstuffs lined up along the top of his dresser for what they really were. Drew gathered them up and carried them to Fritz Jensen in the caf.

At dinner that evening, there was a special dessert: chocolate layer cake with fig jam filling and coconut frosting, enough to serve every member of the crew a generous portion. When asked where the ingredients had come from, Jensen simply pointed in the direction of Townsend’s table. It was probably just his imagination, but the resulting smiles and waves of gratitude seemed to fill up an empty space inside him.