This was Warden’s doing. If he hadn’t changed the rules the PR director lived by, Godsen’s career and his ambitions and his existence would be safe. Deliberately—Godsen was suddenly sure it was deliberate—Warden had forced him to choose between the UMC and the UMCP.
The UMC owned the UMCP, for God’s sake! That was the only clear thought in Godsen’s spinning head. Of course he should do what the Dragon wanted, and damn the consequences. Otherwise everything he’d ever done or suffered was wasted.
But in his weighted stomach he believed, knew, that Warden Dios didn’t kill the people he was sworn to protect.
If a kaze could get into the Members’ wing of the GCES complex on Suka Bator to attack Sixten Vertigus, no one was safe. Godsen Frik had to ask himself which he distrusted more, Warden’s self-destructiveness or Holt’s consuming disdain.
His ten minutes were almost up when he finally summoned the courage to chime his secretary.
“Communications must have recorded the conversation I just had with Holt Fasner,” he said to her. “Tell them I want a copy of it on Director Dios’ desk immediately. Tell them to flare it. I want him to look at it right now.”
His voice didn’t shake. In fact, he sounded more dignified than he would have thought possible.
That small victory gave him the fortitude to begin looking at his messages from Len, Igensard, and Carsin so that he could figure out how to answer them.
MIN
in Donner had also received orders.
Like Godsen’s, hers made her feel strangely misused, as if she’d been cheated or thwarted in some way; neutralized or disenfranchised.
Like him, she sat in her office and chewed them like gristle, trying to imagine what they meant.
Unlike him, she knew what to do about them. And she wasn’t scared. She was angry. She was battered and tired, stretched too thin to react with anything except anger.
She’d recovered her hearing: that was the good news. Except for a small high-pitched whine far back in the audible spectrum, sounds and voices reached her without distortion. But everything else—
Her whole body ached from the force of the kaze’s bomb. For a while that pain had settled into a dull, steady throb: noradrenaline and serotonin had made it easy to ignore. But now it was growing stronger, more acute, as her body demanded attention for its needs. Her shoulders and hips felt arthritic, nearly immobilized. The corners of her jaw hurt as if she’d been grinding her teeth hard enough to dislocate the joints. Her mind felt muzzy and numb, packed with polypropylene insulation. At unpredictable, infuriating intervals, fresh blood dripped from her nose, demonstrating her weakness for anyone to see.
If she’d stopped to think about it, she would have realized that she hadn’t slept since before Warden had briefed Angus Thermopyle and Milos Taverner; hadn’t eaten since the crew of the shuttle to Suka Bator had given her a sandwich. She didn’t have time to think about such things, however.
By itself the attack on Captain Vertigus would have been enough to consume all her attention. But in addition she needed time as well as emotional space to consider the implications of her conversation with Warden.
Unfortunately those weren’t her only responsibilities—
She also had a disaster of staggering proportions on her hands.
Godsen Frik was dead. Less than twenty minutes ago, he’d been blown to pulp and splinters by a kaze.
Men and women still ran and shouted in the corridors; clearing away wreckage and a few bodies; making way for damage control workers and investigators; hunting for more kazes.
Too late, all of UMCPHQ was on defense alert.
She felt that she could still hear the explosion, even though she’d been too far away to distinguish anything except an impalpable shock through the muffling walls and infrastructure. The whine in her ears seemed more like an echo of Godsen’s death than a residue of the attempt on Captain Vertigus.
She was Min Donner, director, UMCP Enforcement Division. Her domain included UMCPHQ Security. She couldn’t blame herself if a kaze got into the Members’ wing of the GCES complex; but there was no one else to hold accountable for Godsen’s murder.
And how many more of them were on station? Who or what would they destroy next?
Her people had already reconstructed the attack as well as they could. Godsen’s secretary had been injured by flying debris, but she remained alive—still conscious. She’d been able to tell Min’s Chief of Security that a communications tech had come to her and asked to see the PR director. The request was an odd one, so she’d checked both his id tag and his communications credentials. Both had looked good. More to the point, both had passed routine verification by the Security computer. So she’d chimed Godsen. The PR director had told her to admit the tech.
Five seconds after the door closed, the kaze had set himself off.
She did her job, the Chief of Security reported. Can’t blame her.
I don’t, Min snapped. I don’t even blame you. I just want to know how it happened.
I want to know if it’s going to happen again.
It happened, the Chief explained, because she did a routine verification, not a full background. Everybody in the chain did the same thing. Dock security did a routine verification when he got off the shuttle. Before that, port security did a routine verification when he boarded. Before that, GCES Security did a routine verification before they let him into the port.
Wait a minute. GCES Security? You mean this kaze came from Suka Bator? From the GCES complex?
That’s right.
The Chief of Security waited while she swore to herself. Then he continued.
His id was legit—all the correct verifications, all the right pass codes—everything written in the CMOS chip was right. He had orders from GCES Communications to report to UMCPHQ Center. They’re legit, too, even though GCES Communications denies issuing them. As long as no one got suspicious—as long as no one ran a full background—he could have gone anywhere once dock security let him in.
What did the full background show?
Nothing. He doesn’t exist. I mean there’s no record of him. His id tag and his function id were never issued to anyone. The tag was real—I mean it fit him, its data matches what the lab has gleaned so far from blood and tissue in Frik’s office—but it was never issued.
Min wanted to demand, Then who was he really? You’ve got gene id—who was he? She didn’t bother, however. The Chief of Security would pursue that inquiry as a matter of course—and would probably learn nothing. On Earth thousands of people every year avoided id processing. Most of them lived in guttergangs and had no reason to desire any of the so-called benefits of being an identified member of human society.
Instead she asked a different question.
So have we suddenly become stupid around here? She made no effort to tone down her fury. Don’t we learn from experience anymore? It’s only been a few hours since a kaze tried to kill Captain Vertigus. His id was legit. He passed routine verification. But a full background would have caught him. Didn’t it ever occur to any of us that there’s no such thing as one kaze? If there’s one, there can always be more. Why weren’t we doing full backgrounds on everybody who sets foot on this station?
The Chief of Security was ashamed of himself. Nevertheless he didn’t flinch.
Because I didn’t think of it. Ten minutes after the attack on Captain Vertigus, I advised GCES Security to do full background on everyone they let past any checkpoint on the island. But then I assumed anyone who came here from there had already been screened. And I guess I assumed one attack on a GCES Member meant more attacks in the same place. The Chief shrugged grimly. Dock security would have run full background if he’d come from anywhere except Suka Bator.
Simply because she blamed herself more than him, Min offered the Chief a way to soften his shame.
So GCES Security let us down.
By which she meant that someone in GCES Security had been suborned; had
deliberately let the kaze through to the UMCPHQ shuttle.
Treachery was spreading.
How many kazes were already loose on station?
Director, the Chief said hesitantly, I don’t understand. If whoever did this has the resources to make kazes and equip them with legitimate id and send them here, why waste all that on Protocol? Why bother? What’s so important about Godsen Frik? Why not you, or Director Dios? Why not Center, or Communications, or Data Storage—why not something vital, something that would really damage us?
Min had no idea. Unlike Captain Vertigus, Godsen would have done everything in his power to oppose a Bill of Severance.
What was Godsen doing? she asked.
He had a call from Holt Fasner about ten minutes before the kaze hit. That’s all I know.
The Dragon, she thought bleakly. Godsen’s mentor and nemesis. How had the PR director failed to understand that dragons always devoured their servants?
Everyone in UMCPHQ would be devoured if they didn’t start defending their own better than this.
Chief, I want you to—
Trying to recover some of his self-esteem, the Chief of Security interrupted her.
I know. Full background on everyone who’s arrived by shuttle, starting with the past twenty-four hours and working backward for at least a month. My people are already running it. And from now on no shuttle gets within twenty thousand k until we have full background on everyone aboard. Nobody gets into any sensitive part of the station without being absolutely checked.
It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. Min was too angry to say anything else, so she sent him back to work.
She was angry at herself for a number of reasons. Pain was one—the mortality which inhibited her when she needed to be at her best. A sense of failure in her duty was another. She should have seen the necessity for the precautions which her Chief of Security had missed. And she recognized one more: she was glad Godsen Frik was dead. That unctuous weasel had done the UMCP incalculable harm by serving the Dragon more than Warden.
Because she was angry at herself, she would have pursued the investigation of these kazes with every gram of tenacity, intelligence, and bloody-mindedness she had in her.
But she wasn’t given that choice. She had orders—
They lay in front of her as she sat at her desk, wrestling with fatigue, pain, and confusion as if they were her personal furies. Warden’s instructions had been cut with a precision which hadn’t been necessary between her and the director for a long time. Clearly and effectively, they prevented her from doing her job as she saw it—from uncovering and rooting out the treachery which had sent kazes against the GCES and the UMCP.
Instead she was forced to leave the investigation as well as the aftermath to her Chief of Security; and to the strange young woman Hashi had sent over from DA. All of Hashi’s people were good: Min admitted that. And this one was an expert—so he claimed—in tracing CMOS chips, presumably by identifying where, how, and when they were manufactured. That might prove invaluable—assuming, of course, that any recognizable particle of the kaze’s id had survived the explosion. Nevertheless Min hated being barred from the investigation; hated trusting it to subordinates for whom she felt responsible and to experts she couldn’t trust because they shared Lebwohl’s involuted priorities.
Now, of all possible times, she hated being sent away from UMCPHQ.
Was Warden trying to protect her by getting her out of the way? Trying to keep her alive so that she could succeed him as UMCP director?
Or was he getting her out of the way for a completely different reason? Perhaps because he feared that she might actually be able to track these kazes to their source?
The orders themselves gave her no answer.
They were superficially simple. The stark hardcopy required her to take command of the first available UMCP warship and proceed immediately to the asteroid belt served by Com-Mine Station. Using the belt to cover her, she was instructed to watch for and respond to developments from the direction of Thanatos Minor.
In this case, the “first available UMCP warship” happened to be Punisher, a Scalpel-class cruiser which had just arrived in UMCPHQ’s restricted gap range after nearly six months harrying pirates out beyond Valdor Industrial. Min’s command would be a battle-scarred and ill-provisioned vessel with an exhausted crew.
She and Punisher were supposed to get as close as they could to Thanatos Minor without violating forbidden space and then just sit there, hoping that they could react appropriately when something happened.
No doubt subsequent communication would make clear what constituted an appropriate reaction. Nevertheless it galled her that these orders didn’t spell out the answer. Was she being sent to rescue whoever survived Joshua’s attack on Billingate? Or was she supposed to make sure there were no survivors?
Was Warden trying to protect her by wasting her in this way, or did he have some better use in mind?
The idea that his only purpose might be to spare her from sharing his doom made her want to howl with fury.
Is that all he thinks I’m good for? Picking up the pieces after he’s gone?
Rubbing her sore, red eyes and her throbbing temples, she called him to demand an answer.
Despite her anger, she was taken aback when she reached him immediately. His readiness to face her questions and challenges nonplussed her.
“I got your orders,” she said unnecessarily; then she faltered. As soon as she heard his firm, sure voice, her ability to focus her ire at him began to dissolve.
“Good.” He sounded brisk and unreachable through the speaker on her desk. “How soon can you and Punisher be on your way?”
Her eyes blurred for a moment; she couldn’t rub them clear. “They’re decelerating now. As soon as they brake enough, they’ll head back toward the gap range. I’ll be on a shuttle in fifteen minutes—I should be able to catch them in two hours. Once I’m aboard, all we need is enough velocity, and we can go into tach.”
All we need is a reason that makes sense—a reason I can believe in.
“Good,” he said again.
For a moment he was silent. Then he said gently, “That isn’t why you called, Min. You might as well say it now. You may not get another chance for a while.”
A new trickle of blood tickled her upper lip. She scrubbed it away with the back of her hand. Her anger had suddenly become grief. She didn’t know how to cross the gulf between her and the man she served.
Swallowing harshly, she answered, “The whole time we were planning this operation, you didn’t say anything about sending me or any ship out there.” The next kaze may be aimed at you. It’s my job to protect you. “What’s changed?”
“Nothing yet,” he replied promptly. “But it will.”
Almost immediately, however, he amended, “I don’t mean that literally. What I mean is that nothing has changed where Thanatos Minor is concerned. Things are changing here, obviously. I didn’t expect kazes”—hints of his own anger showed in his voice—“and I definitely didn’t expect to lose Godsen.
“Also,” he continued without pausing, “there’s one other change I ought to tell you about.
“We’re expanding our communications web out where you’re going. Every gap courier drone and listening post we have or can get is being sent to intercept transmissions from Thanatos Minor. In fact, I’m trying to expand the web enough to cover several cubic light-years in that quadrant—I’m covering as much sheer space as I can, and still be sure messages and data get back here in a matter of hours. You should be able to stay in contact.”
This information seemed to leave her numb. She had no idea what it meant. “Warden”—why was she so weak in this situation, when she desperately wanted to be strong?—“we spent months getting this operation ready. If you wanted a bigger communications web, why wait until now to do something about it?”
“Because,” he replied succinctly, “I’m not the one who wants it. This is the Dragon??
?s idea. In fact, he was talking to me about it when that kaze hit Godsen.
“Now there’s a coincidence for you,” he remarked almost casually.
“Anyway, he thinks we’re too exposed in this operation—he’s worried about containing the damage if something goes wrong. So he wants to maximize our ability to find out what happened in time to do something about it. He ordered me to put everything we have into the web. On top of that, he’s giving us access to UMC communications resources.”
Still casually, Warden concluded, “I think he’s trying to dissociate himself from the things I told the GCES.”
Min nodded to herself. Of course. Expanding the web was Fasner’s idea. Suppressing the mutagen immunity drug had been his idea. He’d talked to Godsen shortly before Godsen was killed. He was talking to Warden when Godsen was killed.
She was beginning to think that neither she nor the UMCP director existed. They were both figments of the Dragon’s fevered and acquisitive imagination.
“Warden, listen to me.” It couldn’t be put off any longer: it had to be said. “I’m your bodyguard. That’s part of my job. What can possibly change on Thanatos Minor that’s so important you have to send me to deal with it, instead of letting me stay here to fight those kazes?”
He was silent for a long time; so long that she thought he might have walked away from the intercom, leaving her alone with her speaker’s empty circuits. But then past the thin constant whine of neural feedback she heard him sigh.
“You’re going to think this is strange.” He sounded so distant that she imagined she was overhearing a conversation with someone else; perhaps with himself. “I’m not going to explain it. But I have reason to think”—he stumbled momentarily, as if he already regretted his decision to speak—“Morn Hyland may survive what’s happened to her. She may even get away alive.
“If she does, I want someone to make sure she stays alive, someone I can trust. That means you.
“Good luck.”
Her speaker clicked clearly as he silenced his intercom.