In the Company of Others (13 page)

The stationer shook his head, then rubbed one hand over his chin as though to emphasize the grizzled whiskers beginning to sprout here and there. “Look, it's bad enough you folks have me running double cycle. It's not done to interrupt someone's sleep, okay? You can't make it up later—someone else needs the bed.”

Now that Gail paid attention, Forester did look exhausted. Unhealthy-looking at best, now dark shadows stained the skin under his eyes and his skin was distinctly paler. “Your bed, too?” she asked skeptically.

“Of course,” he informed her, looking surprised by the question. “Your people keep asking for me by name, rather than consulting my office. I haven't made it back to my quarters for my assigned night since you arrived.” Forester smiled somewhat wanly. “I sincerely hope you'll be able to do without my services soon, Professor Smith, or I'll be of very little use to anyone.”

As if you'd willingly leave dealing with us to anyone else
, Gail decided, but said only: “My apologies, Administrator. We were not aware your staff would keep you from your bed simply to answer routine requests. Let my comm officer know whom to contact during your night cycle and we'll be sure to leave you in peace.”

“Don't worry. I wouldn't have missed all this,” he confirmed unnecessarily, tired eyes gleaming. “I'll catch a few winks, then get hold of Malley for you. My office?” Forester paused suggestively.

“Here,” Grant countered, before Gail could utter a word. His look to her wasn't asking permission. She nodded anyway.

After the station administrator left, Gail turned to the commander, anticipating his curiosity. “You want to know why I've asked to see this Malley.”

Grant, his posture subtly relaxed once the stationer was gone, tilted his head to one side, regarding her with a bland expression. “I trust you'll tell me what I need to know, Professor, when I need to know it.”

They'd learned a fair bit about each other on the trip here
, Gail said to herself, inclined to be amused. “Walk with me to the lab, Commander,” she said impulsively.

His agreement meant dismissing one of the two FDs standing guard outside her office. Normally, one would stay by the locked door while the other followed her. Gail had grown so accustomed to their unobtrusive presence, she still didn't know the names of more than a handful of the specialists in Grant's unit.

She still didn't know why she put up with their shadowing in the first place—especially on the
Seeker
—but the FD higher-ups had been quite clear. She was key to this mission's success, so she would be guarded even in a total lack of apparent threat.

Grant matched his longer strides to her impatient ones, their feet in syncopated rhythm as they headed down the main corridor.
Waste of precious time.
Gail begrudged the distance from her office to the lab—her quarters were midway, at least—but Tobo had insisted she keep herself close to the bridge. His reasons were sound enough, she had to admit, but the design of the
Seeker
hadn't been meant to accommodate a scientist who was also essentially in command.

No
, she thought,
her kind was supposed to keep aloof from the day-to-day running of the ship and in their place, aboard the science sphere.
The
Seeker
had been designed for a specific purpose: to conduct potentially hazardous research in space, most particularly, research into alien biologies and technologies, should such ever be found. From the outside, her structure was deceptively simple, a pair of asymmetrical spheres connected by a slender cylinder. Her translight drive protruded from the underside of the smaller, aft sphere, almost an afterthought jarring its graceful curve to an atmosphere-capable snout. This was the command sphere, containing the bridge, crews' quarters, cargo holds, and her office—in other words, the half of the
Seeker
responsible for getting them place to place.
And now perhaps more
, Gail thought, sliding her eyes sideways and up. From this perspective, Grant was a column of blue-gray uniform topped by the straight line of a firm jaw and black hair that was beginning to show a bit of curl as it grew out of whatever regulation length his former duty had required. Others in his unit were also letting their hair grow, which wasn't helping her tell them apart at any distance.

Gail didn't know them and she didn't know—yet—what they'd done to the
Seeker
during her orbits of Titan, beyond the fact that modifications had been made. Titan University had been grimly silent during the entire process and neither she nor Tobo asked for details. Gail had been reasonably sure any questions would have stopped not just the military's preparations but her mission itself.

After walking in mutual silence for several minutes, more because Gail wasn't going to start a conversation in any hallway filled with passing crew, they arrived at the first of two interior lockouts. One of Grant's people stood stone-faced by the doorway, but Gail ignored her as she entered the day's code then waited the interminable seconds as the door's sensor net compared its stored version of Gail Smith with the one trying to pass. The door talked to itself for a few seconds, then swung open.

The others believed they had equal access
, Gail thought with satisfaction, knowing better. One of her first tests of her military supporters had been the establishment of a new, hidden, level of clearance. She could now lock them all out, should the need arise. Especially Reinsez. Gail wasn't fool enough to think Grant's people hadn't done the same to her, but in this, she was willing to gain what leverage she could.

Past the door, they entered the automated walkway. Each took hold of a support bar along the wall as the floor shifted into motion, taking them through the
Seeker
's wasplike waist to the core of the larger stern sphere. That sphere held the research facility itself, currently home to the over sixty scientists and technicians working in the
Seeker
's maze of laboratories. Most of the space remained unassigned, waiting a purpose. They could build almost any device or tool they might need within it, then dismantle the parts when done to be ready for the next experiment.

The waist itself
, Gail thought as she and Grant stood still, yet sped along as the conveyor moved them,
could be much more than it seemed as well.
The semitransparent walls and ceiling were deeply corrugated, the only hint that this corridor differed in any way but length from others on board. The corrugation allowed the waist to be extended in stages. The first changed its interior into a gravity-free chute for emergency travel between the spheres. A further extension turned the chute into a narrow tether, little more than a housing for power and communications cabling, as well as holding the two parts of the ship together. The publicized reason for this feature was so the science sphere could be dragged through the upper limits of an atmosphere to conduct its research. The unstated reason was to contain any alien biohazard released within the sphere.

Last, and not least, the science sphere could completely detach. This option had two purposes: first, the sphere could be left in orbit around an interesting world for prolonged research, while the mobile command sphere went for supplies or to gather other data at a distance. The other?

If a deadly alien pest, such as the Quill, contaminated the science sphere, it could be destroyed.

Gail was fully aware that Titan U expected her to keep their precious new ship in one piece. She had a tiresome pile of memos reminding her that retracting the tether and reconnecting the spheres was prohibitively expensive and risky. Of course it was—since reattachment required crew working from outside, let alone the downtime before the
Seeker
could move safely.

She was also aware that the waist, because of its versatility, was the only area of the ship guaranteed to be free of vids. Robotic sweepers automatically scoured every foreign molecule from its interior following any use. A most convenient cleanliness.

“Holding,” Gail warned Grant as she twisted her hand on the bar to pause the walkway.

They were approximately midway, the waist stretching to almost points in both directions, the opaque surface of walkway and hand bars exaggerating the effect. The transparent walls and ceiling formed a black arch overhead, presently shaded against Thromberg's tiny sun. Gail always found it strangely claustrophobic, unsure if her discomfort was because she knew her hand on the wall was mere centimeters from vacuum or because of the small red switch on the bridge that could instantly negate even that protection.

So the place made her queasy—it remained ideal for her purpose.
“I've reason to believe this stationer, Malley, can get a message to Pardell.”

Grant raised one eyebrow. “Progress, then.”

“I hope so,” Gail said, perhaps more fervently than she'd intended. “We'll see if Forester's cooperation extends far enough to be useful. In case it doesn't, I want your people to be ready to do some digging . . . now that we finally have a name which appears in their database.”

Grant's eyes brightened.
No doubt he had to listen to complaints from his missionless and bored experts
, Gail thought with some sympathy. “A name makes a difference,” he admitted. “A big one. Are you sure you want us to wait, Professor?”

She frowned, but not at Grant. “We both agree this is a volatile situation. They were faster picking up your probe than expected—and their reaction wasn't pleasant. I daresay the same could hold true for any type of intrusion.”

A nod. “A reasonable conclusion. When—if—you want us to proceed, be assured we'll take extraordinary precautions.”

What those might be, Gail didn't want to know. What she did need was extraordinary cooperation. “I'll be blunt with you, Commander,” she warned, seeing his eyes narrow ever so slightly in anticipation that here was likely the real reason for her invitation.
Good.
She liked working with people who tried to predict her. It made so many things easier. “There's no if. Before we undock, I want you to grab as much information as you can from Thromberg's systems about Malley, about Pardell—because I don't trust Forester's explanations—and two other names. Aaron Raner.” She paused.

Grant didn't hesitate. “The man who requested the adoption papers for Pardell. No problem. The other?”

Gail reached across the narrow corridor of the waist to tap Grant ungently on his broad, hard chest. “This information comes to me, and me alone, Commander Grant. Are we clear?”

He didn't salute, but there was something of the intention in his eyes. “Yes, Professor. My people and I are fully aware of the chain of command.”

Satisfied, Gail let herself smile. “The last name—for the moment, at least—belongs to a Royce/Douglas freighter, Pica-class, originally registered out of Earth and transferred to Thromberg twenty-three years ago. The
Merry Mate II.
Her reg code was AJST 866 C1066.”

There was nothing subservient in the look this gained her. “So,” a shade too polite, “despite all the protests, you wanted the probe out there. To look for this ship.”

She
did
like working with Grant. Gail arched one brow, then twisted the handle to start the conveyor moving again. “What I want is a shorter distance to my lab, Commander, but we each have to deal with what we have, don't we?”

NOT smart.
Pardell didn't need to imagine Rosalind's dry voice in his helmet to know her opinion. Part of him shared it.

But what was he supposed to do? Sit alone in the
'Mate
? Wonder what was happening on-station? Worry that his only chance for a better life was preparing to undock?

After Rosalind had left—without promising more than to
consider
heading up to the docking ring—he'd thought it over from every side until his brain ached. If the
'Mate
still had a comm system, he could have contacted the
Seeker
himself. A joke suited to his mood. Oh, there was a panel marked “comm ops” on the ship's bridge—with nothing left behind it but the ends of connectors. Currency, long spent.

But there were other comm systems.

Pardell slowed his descent along the cable by twisting the hook to add friction, reaching the station plate with virtually no force left to send him back up again. He flipped on the mags to lock down the soles of his boots before releasing his hold.
Habits.
There were none to guide him in dealing with strangers.

This air lock was in poor shape. Hardly anyone used it these days, preferring to walk the longer route through Thromberg's air-filled corridors. Truth was, Pardell told himself, there was little need anymore to avoid moving through the station. Rosalind and her cohorts might deny it, but he could see a time coming when, if nothing changed, the station would quietly accept all who were left outside—if only to replace those lost within. How long after that Thromberg's population could continue to survive, he'd no idea. They shouldn't have lasted this long, but people were stubborn that way.

Pardell's lips twitched in what was close to a grin. He probably had a little too much of that stubbornness himself.

The warped outer door still held tight, but Pardell waited until he was through the inner one and it locked behind him, before removing his helmet and looking around. No one in sight—not that this far corner of the abandoned ring was ever popular. Too much debris blocked line of sight and there was too little in the way of alternatives if one was trapped here. He was one of the few who routinely used this air lock, something only he and Malley knew. They had a secret place nearby—one of those things kids did who played together without the complete approval of adults.