Robot Blues (22 page)

The doors opened,
slid shut. Jamil and the Colonel, the Major and the Marines entered a corridor
that was sleek, carpeted, quiet. They could talk normally now.

“Where are you
taking me, Colonel?” Jamil asked, figuring he knew the answer but thinking it
was about time somebody said it.

“To meet with
General Hanson, of course,” Ponders said, looking surprised that Jamil would
even ask. “She’ll be briefing you on the Katchan case.”

“Oh, ah, I see,”
Jamil said, just for the sake of saying something.

He was starting to
wonder if he’d slipped through a worm hole and had ended up in an alternate
universe where he really
was
a colonel. He tried to think of what might
be a logical question to ask that would clarify this bizarre situation, but he
was so confused that nothing came immediately to mind. He was like an actor in
a play who’s not only forgotten his lines, he’s forgotten the plot as well.
Fortunately, Ponders was the gossipy, sociable type, who carried on without
prompting.

“Yes, I’m afraid
it looks bad for the lieutenant colonel. Katchan must have stolen some pretty
sensitive material. I guess you can’t tell me what he was working on, eh?”

“Well, actually,
uh, n-no. I can’t say,” Jamil stammered. “Security, and ... all that.”

“Right, right. I
understand. It must be top-level, though.” Ponders glanced over his shoulder. “These
two Marines have orders to accompany you wherever you go. General Hanson’s
direct command.”

“I see,” Jamil
said, eyeing the Marines, who were regarding him with the impassive detachment
of men who have been ordered to shoot to kill. Jamil experienced an odd sense
of relief. This—at least—made sense!

“I sure would like
to know what this poor bastard Katchan did. You two in some sort of Special
Ops? No, don’t answer that.” Ponders raised his hand. “Listen, when the General’s
finished with you, give me a call on the comm and we’ll go grab a bite in the
Senior Officers’ Wardroom. A pity we can’t get you something to eat now, but I’m
supposed to take you straight to your briefing.”

Jamil glanced at
the Marines and the eyes of one man flicked over to meet his. The eyes were
cold, did not blink. Jamil could have sworn he saw the man’s hand on the beam
rifle tighten.

“Sure thing.
Thanks,” Jamil said, and accompanied the colonel down the corridor. The Marine
guards marched behind.

Three times he,
Ponders, and the Marines had to stop, identify themselves, show ID cards, and
submit to retina scans, all before proceeding to the next level of the gigantic
cruiser. Jamil’s ID card stated he was Colonel Jatanski, his retina scan
matched that of Jatanski—all thanks to Darlene Rowan and her skill at breaking
into computers. Security passed him without a murmur. The Marines proved a
comfort. They continued to give him the fish-eye.
Someone
on this ship
knew Jamil was Jamil and not Jatanski. At least he hoped so. He was starting to
doubt it himself.

Ponders talked the
entire time, trying to elicit information without really trying to elicit
information. He was either a very good actor, truly endeavoring to make Jamil
incriminate himself, or he was what he appeared—a gregarious man who made
himself popular on board ship by spreading the latest rumor, dishing the latest
dirt.

They passed
through a fourth set of guards, who stood with their backs against yet another
set of closed blast doors, and again they all presented their ID cards. The
blast doors opened onto another corridor. Ponders walked up to a door, punched
in a code. The door slid open.

“Here’s where I
leave you.” Ponders said regretfully. “Good luck with Katchan. It sounds like
he’s in one hell of a mess. Give me a call later—we’ll do that dinner.” He
nudged Jamil. “You can fill me in on everything then. After your meeting with
the general.”

Ponders left.
Jamil entered the room. The door slid shut behind him.

He might have been
in the waiting room of the office of some high-priced attorney. The room was
small but well furnished, with expensive-looking leather-upholstered chairs,
carved wooden end tables, a coffee table with a few slick mags arranged
artfully upon it. Ambient lighting from the ceiling softened the fact that the
room had no portholes. A smaller door opened to his touch, turned out to be the
head. He made good use of it, studied himself in the mirror, did what he could
to smooth out the rumples in his uniform, then returned to the waiting room.
There were even a few paintings—spacescapes by Gutierrez. Jamil was impressed.
Someone who designed this room had good taste in art.

All in all, it was
a comfortable waiting room and only the fact that the paintings were bolted to
the wall and the furniture was bolted to the floor gave any indication to Jamil
that he was on a ship of war, which might be called to go into action at any
time.

He sat down in a
leather chair, fidgeted, stood up, fidgeted, sat down, flipped through a mag.
He stood up again, walked over to the door. A touch of his own on the keypad
and the door slid open. The two Marines stood there, one on either side of the
door.

Colonel Jatanski
had every right to leave. Jamil, confidently, stepped out.

Two beam rifles
snapped up in front of him so fast they nearly clipped him in the nose.

“Sorry, sir.
General Hanson’s orders,” said one of the Marines.

“It was a long
flight,” Jamil said in iced tones. “I have to use the head.”

“In there, sir,”
said one of the Marines. “Touch that panel on the wall on the far side.”

Jamil muttered and
stalked back inside. The door slid shut behind him.

He now knew all he
needed to know. Sitting on the couch, he picked up one of the mags—this one on
golf, his favorite game—and settled down to read how to improve his putting.

Some of these
minimum-security prisons had pretty good golf courses.

He had just
finished the article and was on his feet, an imaginary putter in his hand,
testing what the author had said about wrist action, when the door opened. One
of the Marines looked in.

“They’re ready for
you, sir.”

Jamil was about to
make some suitable remark, but his throat was dry, he suddenly couldn’t talk.
He was surprised. He hadn’t thought he was nervous. He drew in a deep breath,
stepped into the corridor. Another officer was waiting for him, a black-skinned
human male who said something—Jamil didn’t hear for the blood pounding in his
ears.

The officer led
Jamil into yet another room. This room was plush—carpeting wall to wall. A
large round wood table stood in the center of the room. Crests of all the ships
serving in the fleet the
King James II
commanded lined the bulkheads. A man
and a woman sat on the opposite side of the table. The officer saluted smartly.

“Here is the
prisoner, my lord. Jamil Khizr, of Mag Force 7.”

“Thank you,
Commander,” said the man behind the table.

Jamil stared,
sucked air.

The commander made
introductions. No need. Jamil knew one of these people by sight.

“General Irma
Hanson, commander of the Second Armored Drop Corps. Lord Admiral Sir John
Dixter, commander-in-chief of the Royal Military.”

“Holy shit,” Jamil
said softly.

“You could say
that, Khizr. And—holy or unholy— you’re into it up to your armpits.” Dixter
issued orders. “Tusk, reseal the doors. Post the guard. No one without
authorization has entered this room since we did the last security sweep, have
they?”

“Yourself, myself,
General Hanson, and the prisoner are the only three to be admitted. The
prisoner was scanned, my lord. He’s clean.”

“Fine, carry on.”

Tusk saluted,
turned on his heel, walked out the door.

The prisoner—that’s
what they’d termed Jamil.

He cleared his
throat. “My lord, General Hanson, it is an honor to meet you both.”

Dixter grunted. “An
honor I’ll wager you wished had been deferred, right, Khizr? Or perhaps I
should address you as ‘colonel’?”

Jamil felt his
face grow warm. “My lord, I can explain—”

“And you will,”
Dixter said gravely. “General, hand me the file.”

General Hanson
passed over an electronic file viewer. Dixter took it, instructed it by voice
to bring up the information on Mag Force 7.

“You may be
seated,” he told Jamil, adding dryly, “This could take a while.”

A chair had been
placed for him in the center of the room. Jamil sat, hunkered down, and waited
for the barrage to start.

“First,” said the
Lord Admiral, reading from the file, “there was the raid on a company known as
Olicien Pest Control, the theft of a spaceplane belonging to that company, and
the deliberate drugging of the employees by the admittance of a sleeping gas
into the air-conditioning system,”

Jamil shook his
head. “My lord, I’ve never been near—”

“We have positive
IDs,” Dixter said. “That job could get you twenty years. Next file,” he told
the computer.

“The assault on
RFComSec, a secret naval base. Disguised as exterminators for Olicien Pest
Control, you and your accomplices lied your way onto the base. Once there, you
sabotaged the robots designed to rid the base of its flea infestation. You then
proceeded to kidnap a Naval officer, one Darlene Mohini, and take her off the
base, meanwhile disrupting base communications and its computet system, putting
at risk the entire Royal Navy, not to mention the people of the galaxy, whom we
are responsible lor protecting. Again, we have positive IDs.”

Jamil settled into
his chair, maintained silence. The shells were falling thick and fast, the flak
was flying. He had one small bit of hope to cling to in his exposed position,
and that was the fact that he was sitting here, right now Ordinary prisoners
headed for the disrupter were not brought before the Lord of the Admiralty to
heat their eases reviewed. This barrage was simply clearing the way for the
main advance. He had only to endure it, wait it out.

“Then,” said Sir
John, referring back to the file, “There is the attack on an unarmed research
vessel known as the
Canis Major.
You were acting under the belief that
one of your comrades was being held prisoner aboard that vessel. As it turned
out, you were correct in your assumption. The
Canis Major
was afterward
proven to belong to the terrorist organization known as the Knights of the
Black Earth. But,” Dixter added, his voice cold, “you had no way of knowing this
at the time. You look the law into your own hands. No positive IDs on this one,
but that’s only because the knights are no longer around to press charges.

“To continue.
There is next the matter of the hijacking of an Army Special Forces drop ship
from a NOROF rebuild and overhaul facility. Not only do we have positive IDs on
this, your leader, Xris, actually had the nerve to send me a message. As for
the rest of your adventures after that, they were recorded and broadcast by
every news station in the galaxy!”

“Yes, my lord.”
Jamil was on secure ground here. “I assume Your Lordship is referring to the
time we saved His Majesty, King Dion Starfire, from the assassin. And, my lord,
may I respectfully point out that we
did
give back the drop ship.”

He’d meant that as
a little joke. Neither the Lord Admiral nor General Hanson was amused. Dixter
put the file down, folded his hands on the desk, and regarded Jamil with an
intense gravity that was more disturbing than the previous accusations. It was
like the period of eerie silence which comes when the artillery barrage has
ceased and you know that the enemy is preparing to advance. Jamil braced
himself.

“Jamil Khizr,”
said the Lord Admiral, “I have, right here, warrants for the arrest of”—he read
the list— “Xris, a cyborg, Harry Luck, Dr. Bill Quong, Raoul de
Beausoleil—which, by the way, is just one of his aliases—a being of unknown
origin known as the Little One, Tycho, a ‘chameleon,’ and you, Jamil Khizr.”
Dixter taped his hand on the computer. “I can issue these warrants in a single
second, by simply pressing ‘Enter.’ The charge is murder.”

“Murder, my lord?”
Jamil shrugged. “If you mean the assassin, yes, I admit we were responsible for
his death, but—”

“You saved the
life of His Majesty. I’m well aware of that,” Dixter said coolly. “And that is
not it.”

“Then what?” Jamil
was truly puzzled.

The Lord Admiral
was grave. “Jamil Khizr, you and all the rest of the people previously
mentioned are charged with the kidnapping and murder of Naval officer Major
Darlene Mohini.”

Crime like virtue
has its degrees.

Jean Racine,
Phedre

The bombshell
landed squarely in Jamil’s foxhole, burst above his head. He was stunned from
the concussion, could only gape at the Lord Admiral, while trying to gather
together the scattered bits and pieces of his brain.

“The game’s up,
Khizr,” said John Dixter. He lowered the file, looked over the top at Jamil. “We
have you on vid at RFComSec. We have vids of Xris and Major Mohini together;
Xris is holding the major hostage at gunpoint. That was the last time anyone
ever saw Major Darlene Mohini alive. An excellent case, don’t you agree, Khizr?
Men have gone to the disrupter on less.”

Jamil leaned an
elbow on the armrest, shifted his weight in his chair. He crossed one leg over
the other, tapped the fingers of one hand lightly on his knee. All the while,
he kept his gaze fixed on Lord Admiral John Dixter. The dust had settled. Jamil
had to figure out now how to escape from the wreckage.

He didn’t see much
hope. In fact he was in one hell of a mess.

The major picked
up me alone, Jamil reminded himself. They left Xris behind. They ordered him to
“carry on.” They wouldn’t have done that if they seriously thought we’d
murdered someone. They’re after something, but what? How should I answer this?