She shrugged. “That’s what my people heard.”
“What a coincidence.” The Bill raised his hands to his head like a man who meant to pull out his hair. “What a fucking coincidence.”
“That’s what I thought,” she returned shortly.
“I mean, look at it,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “First Davies Hyland plants the idea of an immunity drug. Well, he’s a desperate kid. He might say anything he could think of, just to make me reluctant to sell him. But still the idea is a provocative one. Naturally I want to learn the truth, so I ask you to get it for me.
“Then look what happens. A couple of spacers start talking about immunity drugs—and you. Entirely by accident, of course,” he snorted, “they do it where your people can hear them. Then they disappear.
“And then”—his teeth snapped at the air as if he wanted to tear it into hunks—“Davies himself disappears!”
“What?” For an instant Sorus couldn’t control her chagrin.
“Disappears!” the Bill repeated. “I mean literally. Right out of his cell. Leaving behind two dead guards, both of them apparently killed by lasers, and a burned door lock.”
Sorus couldn’t help herself: she was too badly surprised. “That’s absurd,” she protested stupidly. “You’re making it up.”
Full of vehemence, the Bill gestured for her to step inside his circle. “Come see for yourself.”
He typed in commands, as fast as scattershot, while she moved to join him. The instant she reached his side, he pointed urgently at two screens.
“The guards were wired, of course. This is what they saw.”
Both screens showed an empty corridor from slightly different angles. Sorus recognized the short hall outside the rooms the Bill used as cells. The indicators on the opposite wall told her a lift was on its way down.
The lift arrived: the doors opened.
Like the corridor, the car was empty.
There seemed to be an area of slight distortion, maybe a smudge, in the center of the images: she couldn’t be sure.
Abruptly a hand appeared in the air beside the smudge. It disappeared again.
At the same time lines of coherent light ran from the vacant lift to the guards. Both recorded images fell until they pressed against the floor. From their divergent angles, what little they could see of the corridor remained empty.
“And that’s not all,” the Bill said tensely. “I’ve got another dead guard. Outside that same lift on one of the upper levels. Apparently he was shot from behind. Another laser.”
Sorus felt pressure building in her chest. “What about the bugeye in the cell?” she asked tightly.
The Bill gave a disgusted snarl; keyed more commands.
The inside of the room appeared on one screen.
Davies stood there, poised and staring in shock. A voice said, “Shit. Shit. Shit,” but it obviously wasn’t the boy’s. His mouth was open, but he wasn’t swearing: he was screaming. Wild as a tormented animal, he flung his fist at the blank air.
Then the bugeye itself went blank. The screen picked up nothing but distortion: electronic white noise.
After a moment the distortion crackled away, leaving the monitor clear to scrutinize a room with no one in it.
“That,” Sorus breathed, “is not possible.”
“Did you see the smudge?” the Bill demanded.
She nodded dumbly.
“Operations is working on it. Preliminary analysis suggests it might be caused by a refractive jamming field. If that’s true, whoever did this had to carry their own power supply and emitter. And it must have been”—he gestured around him harshly—“about the size of all this. Even if it fit in the lift, it would have been hell to move. And moving it would have attracted a hell of a lot of attention. So that’s not possible either.”
Sorus shook her head, trying to clear it. Automatically, simply saying the first words that occurred to her, she suggested, “Unless the Amnion can do it. Their equipment has always been better than ours.”
“Do you suppose I haven’t considered that?” the Bill bellowed. “Do you think I’m so goddamn secure here I can afford to dismiss an idea like that?” Almost immediately, however, his voice frayed to softness. As if he were defeated, he muttered, “I asked them. They say they haven’t got him.
“They could lie, of course. But what would be the point? If they want him that badly, they didn’t have to steal him. They didn’t have to do me this kind of damage. All they had to do was pay for him.
“Sorus”—now he sounded like he was pleading with her—“all they had to do was give me the money they took away from Captain Nick. They were willing to spend it in any case. What does it matter if I get it instead of him? Stealing his merchandise doesn’t improve their position with him. Assuming they have a position they want to improve. It just lets him off the hook.
“Why would they do a thing like that? They’ve got him where they want him right now—they’re squeezing his balls dry, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
“I don’t know,” Sorus murmured, chewing her lip; thinking hard. As far as she could see, the Amnion had nothing to gain by snatching Davies. “Maybe there’s more going on here than we know about.” She didn’t have a theory: she was merely groping. “Maybe this story about an immunity drug is true.”
An intuitive frisson ran down her spine.
“I think,” she continued tightly, “we need to know who started that rumor about me.”
The Bill frowned at her, uncharacteristically puzzled. But he didn’t hesitate. “Where? What time?”
“A place called Paunchys.” She gave him her best estimate of the time.
At once he swung to another terminal and began running commands.
This kind of data retrieval was rapid. A heartbeat or two after he entered his instructions, the screens above the terminal flickered to life.
She recognized Paunchys easily: the bugeyes gave her several different angles on the room. Everyone sitting at the tables or leaning against the bar showed clearly.
Fortuitously the playback started just as her people left their table to head for Soar.
Most of the nearby tables were vacant. From where her people had been sitting, they could only have overheard one particular pair of spacers: a man and woman talking alone with their heads together as if they were telling secrets.
On one screen, the man looked nervous. A streak of dirt on his upper lip may have been a mustache. From another angle, the woman appeared grim and competent, as if she could have had her companion for breakfast.
Sorus didn’t know either of them.
She pointed them out to the Bill. Swiftly he stabbed open an intercom to Operations.
As soon as the duty officer answered, the Bill demanded, “I want id on a man and woman. They’re sitting together lower right.” Distinctly he recited the location, time, and monitor codes displayed on the bottom of his screen.
“Give me a minute,” the duty officer replied.
“Do it faster than that,” the Bill retorted. “I haven’t got a minute.” Snapping off the intercom, he glared at Sorus. “What is this going to prove?”
“How should I know?” she countered. “You know more about what’s going on here than I do.”
His scowl made him look murderous as he turned to peer at the screen again. “God knows I’m supposed to,” he muttered. “Right now I’m not so sure.”
The Operations intercom chimed almost immediately. The Bill toggled it hard. “Yes?”
“I have id,” the duty officer reported. “The man is Sib Mackern, data first, Captain’s Fancy. The woman is Mikka Vasaczk, command second, also Captain’s Fancy.”
Brandishing his teeth as if he were inarticulate with rage, the Bill silenced the intercom.
Sorus’ guts knotted. “So it was Succorso.” She spoke softly, controlling her desire to curse. “I told you he was dangerous.”
But she couldn’t do it; couldn’t con
tain her visceral panic and anger. She should have killed him when she had the chance. The satisfaction of cutting him, humiliating him, hadn’t been worth what it was going to cost her.
“Goddamn it!” she raged, clenching her voice between her teeth, “I told you he’s up to something!”
“Sorus—” The Bill seemed to flinch away as if her ferocity frightened him. “It wasn’t him. Whatever else is going on here, he didn’t snatch that brat.”
Still shouting, still clenched, she demanded, “How do you figure that? Didn’t you tell me he seduced one of your wires so he could find out where Davies was being held? Didn’t Davies tell us Succorso has an immunity drug? Didn’t he say Succorso and Hyland are in this together? It all fits!
“Succorso and Hyland are working some UMCP plot. They let you have Davies to plant the idea of an immunity drug. Then they took him back. Now they’re starting rumors about me. For confirmation. And to make me into a lightning rod, so when the blast hits, it’ll be aimed at me.”
The Bill overrode her. “No. That’s not it. He was here. Captain Nick was right here, trying to talk me into restoring his credit, at exactly the same time Davies Hyland was taken.”
Sorus opened her mouth; closed it again. For a moment her brain went numb.
Succorso was here? He couldn’t have done it?
What in hell was going on?
“Then”—she took a deep breath so that she wouldn’t shudder—“it must have been Angus Thermopyle. Him and that Com-Mine Security asshole, Milos Taverner. Where did they go from Ease-n-Sleaze?”
“I’m glad you asked that.” Manic and conspiratorial, hiding his fright, the Bill beckoned her to another terminal, another bank of screens. “I’ve been trying to make sense out of it myself.
“They had rooms.” His long fingers were unerring on the keys; he could have run his command center blindfolded. “After they talked with Captain Nick in the bar, they went up to Captain Angus’ room. It’s all recorded.”
Fighting to shove the confusion out of her head so that she could concentrate, Sorus stared at Angus Thermopyle and Milos Taverner in a hopeless little room which could have been in any bar-and-sleep that fed on the less affluent prey of the cruise.
Angus sat in a chair tilted back so that it leaned against the wall. “Make yourself comfortable,” he mumbled like his mouth hurt. “We haven’t got all night, but you can probably count on at least an hour. You’ve got that long.”
Smoking furiously, Milos checked the room’s data terminal. Then he took the other chair and sat down beside Angus.
“You know something about this, Angus,” he said. “Something you haven’t told me. Maybe something you heard from Dios.”
He didn’t appear concerned about being overheard.
“I know a lot of things I haven’t told you,” Angus retorted. “I know a lot of things I haven’t told myself. I wouldn’t share them with you if I could.”
“Well, let me try to guess,” Milos replied. “Saying we’re here to destroy the Bill is just a trick.” The Bill’s hand shook as he pointed an accusing finger at the screen. “The real reason is because of me. And Morn Hyland. That doesn’t sound very plausible—until you think about what she and I have in common.
“She’s been to Enablement. To the Amnion.”
Angus’ voice was strangely thick. “Don’t guess. It just shows you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, I know what I’m doing, all right,” Milos promised. “Open your mouth.”
While Sorus stared, Milos dropped his burning nic into Angus’ mouth.
Angus chewed and swallowed it. His face was black with rage and nausea, but he didn’t refuse or resist.
“Shit,” Sorus breathed involuntarily.
“Listen,” the Bill hissed.
“It’s my neck in the noose,” Milos continued, “and I’m not going to let you or anybody else hang me.
“I suppose you really can’t tell me what you know. And what you know probably isn’t much anyway. You’re just an incidental victim. From that point of view, you’re worse off than I am.
“We all need somebody who’s worse off than we are. Or who can be made worse off.”
After that both men fell silent.
Milos went on smoking continuously.
Angus ate each of his nics as he finished it.
Sorus watched him in a state that resembled horror. Dios, she thought numbly. Warden Dios. Saying we’re here to destroy the Bill—
Suddenly she believed everything Davies had suggested about Succorso and Hyland.
“That goes on for about an hour,” the Bill commented. He hit a key to speed up the playback. “Just like Captain Angus predicted. Then the chronology gets interesting.
“In another room Captain Nick finishes browbeating my wire. He gets what he wants out of her. After that he sends a message to his ship—coded so I can’t crack it. Then he leaves, goes back to Captain’s Fancy. Eventually he comes to see me.
“But at the same time—well, almost—we have this.” He returned the playback to normal.
Thickly, his mouth full of pain, Angus abruptly said, “Try it now.”
As if he rather than Angus were in command, Milos got up and went to the data terminal.
“What’s he doing?” Sorus asked. “Talking to Succorso?”
“No such luck,” the Bill returned. “He’s retrieving messages from Trumpet. Coded, of course.” Answering her next question before she could ask it, he went on, “We don’t have any way of knowing if Captain’s Fancy and Trumpet talked to each other.”
Almost sadly Milos murmured, “Looks like it’s here.”
Despite his characteristically bloated expression, taut with malice, Angus looked sallow and defeated as he said, “You’re the one who knows the code. Is it time to go?”
Milos studied his message for a moment before he replied, “I guess.”
“And that’s it,” the Bill announced. He blanked the screen. “They pick up their messages—by some wild coincidence just a few minutes after Captain Nick sends a message to Captain’s Fancy—and then they leave.”
“Where do they go?” Sorus inquired as if her head were full of chaos.
“They don’t. They vanish.”
She blinked at him idiotically.
“I mean they manage to lose themselves.” The Bill made a hawking sound of disgust. “I mean we lose track of them. Once they get out into the cruise and the lifts, the recordings are so full of people that the computers haven’t been able to focus on those two. I don’t have any idea where they are.”
“Then,” she said slowly because she didn’t know what else to suggest, “they could have snatched Davies.”
“I thought of that myself,” the Bill sneered. “I’m not completely comatose yet. But if they did, they didn’t take him back to Trumpet. That I would know.”
“Unless they have a refractive jamming field and got past your bugeyes.”
“Which isn’t possible.”
New ideas: she needed new ideas. Nothing made any sense; but if she didn’t stop floundering soon and begin to understand she was going to be sucked down.
Clutching at straws, she offered, “Or unless they have the kind of help that lets them get into the infrastructure”—which also didn’t make sense because it failed to account for the way the guards were killed—“and from there go EVA to their ship.”
“What kind is that?” the Bill countered trenchantly. “Captain Nick and Captain Angus have just arrived. What kind of help do you think they could organize in the amount of time they’ve been here?”
He didn’t add, Unless they’re getting help from the Amnion. He didn’t need to.
“How should I know?” Sorus objected. “I’m just guessing. A portable refractive jamming field isn’t possible. Neither is sneaking into the infrastructure, killing your guards without being seen, and going EVA back to Trumpet.”
Grimly she glared at the Bill. “I don’t know where th
e Amnion stand in all this—but I also don’t know where else to look for answers.”
He blinked back at her. For a moment his long face was stretched with loss.
“In that case,” he said softly, “we’re all finished.”
Not me, she gritted in return. If you think I’m going down with this ship, you’re out of your goddamn mind.
To cover her silent promise, she asked, “Are you watching for Taverner and Thermopyle?”
“Sure.” The Bill sounded as frightened as a boy. “Of course. The guards have orders to report but not accost.” He swallowed so hard that his larynx jumped. “Just in case the Amnion are involved. I don’t want to give Calm Horizons an excuse for a surgical strike.”
“And where,” she pursued, “is Succorso now?”
He snorted. “You’ll love this. He’s on Trumpet. God knows why—he’s there alone. But he went there from here. Apparently Captain Angus gave him the codes to let himself aboard.”
Sorus felt pressure writhing like nausea in her abdomen. To herself she growled, Aboard Trumpet. That makes perfect sense. Why didn’t I think of it myself? But she’d come to the end of what she could endure without taking action. If the Bill wanted to stand here and dither while his world crumbled, he would have to do it without her.
Pulling away abruptly, she left the circle of equipment and strode into the dimness toward the door.
As she moved she said over her shoulder, “Tell Operations I’m leaving dock.”
“No, you aren’t.” The Bill’s tone was as soft as the slither of a snake. His fright was gone, sloughed away. “Not until you tell me where you’re going. And why.”
She swung back to face him. “I’m going to get us some answers. First I’m going to put Soar in firing range of Calm Horizons. Just to remind them they’ve got something to lose. Then I’m going to make them talk until I start believing them.”
Bright as an auto-da-fe in the concentrated light, the Bill studied her for a long moment. When he finally spoke, he sounded as fatal as a fanatic.
“Good.”
The word was a threat as well as a commandment.
Before she could turn away, one of his intercoms chimed.