Sister Time-Callys War 2 (47 page)

"Now, Mr. Clarty, you have a choice. You can go to a distant planet and live out what remains of your days doing hard work for the eventual benefit of mankind and other decent races. Or you can be loaded on a ship full of 'volunteer' colonists and . . . not arrive."

"You're sick," Clarty said, his eyes wide. "I mean, I thought
I
was sick, but you're just nuts!"

"No, but I will admit the crew of the 'voluntary colonist' ship is," Kelly said. "So, whadayasay? Who are you working for?"

"Mission accomplished," Jake said, looking at the shuttle with the arriving Gistar personnel. The exercise had involved very little door kicking. None, really. Which had some of the DAG troops grumbling. But Jake considered it good training. DAG troops had to learn to be more flexible in his opinion. They were highly drilled and unquetionably lethal. But they were also used to straightforward door-kicking.

Sometimes kicking the door wasn't the best way to solve a situation. Sometimes the best way involved . . . elephants.

"Not that we got anything we can use," Mueller said. "This Winchon guy is in the States. We'll have to turn the information over to the Fibbies and by the time they build a real case he'll be long gone."

"If they get to build a case," Jake said. "Five gets you ten this was an intercorporate battle between two Darhel. Which makes us even more of whores than usual." He paused and looked at Kelly. "So, where'd you hear about that 'voluntary colony' ship and where, exactly, do we find that crew?"

"You'd be hard pressed," Kelly said. "I don't think anyone left beacons on the bodies."

"That was a real group?" Mueller asked, frowning. "I figured you made it up."

"No, it was a real situation," Kelly replied. "We didn't deal with it. Another . . . group handled it. When they found out. It had been suspected for some time that the Darhel were intentionally losing colony ships."

"Which is why nobody will voluntarily colonize anymore," Mueller said.

"As you say, Sergeant Major," Kelly replied.

"But that particular . . . crew was dealt with?" Jake asked.

"Yes, sir," Kelly said.

"By whom if I might ask?" Jake said. "Because I never heard about it."

"They were dealt with," Kelly said. "Not by us, I'll add. Pity, but it wasn't us."

"Well, let's see," Jake mused. "We're the pinnacle of the SpecOps hierarchy, at least when it comes to black ops and killing bad people quietly. The Fibbies sure as hell didn't do it because it would have been blasted all over the press. I'm not sure who that leaves. Nobody
I
know about. And there's not much I
don't
know about that's on the black side."

"As you say, sir," Kelly said.

"I'm waiting for you to say something like 'need to know' and then I'd wonder why my XO has need to know and I don't," Mosovich replied.

"That would be a good question, sir," Kelly said. "So I'd rather you didn't ask it."

Mosovich's face twitched for a moment. He looked over at Mueller then back.

"Consider it . . . unasked," the commander said. "But in retribution for not asking the question, you're in charge of clearing the compound of the elephants."

Tuesday, 11/23/54

Tommy Sunday knew something was wrong the minute George walked into the office he used whenever he worked on base. It was only "his" office in the nominal sense. Two strips of very small cubicles, and their associated chairs, occupied the office. A shielded hard line from the wall cabled up through the backbone of each strip of desks, ready for plugging into the back of clean AIDs or buckley PDAs for greater data security. This, of course, as he participated in breaking the encryptions on other people's data, which data would then be fed back into the Bane Sidhe's higher AIs for pattern searches and preliminary analysis. Tommy's office chair was his own. With his size, it had to be—a fact which had not endeared him to organizational bean counters. The chair simply migrated with him to whatever cube happened to be available when he was.

George Schmidt didn't often track him down at his desk, and didn't often wear a facial expression that seemed to be mixed in equal parts of bewilderment and anger.

"What's biting your butt?" the larger man asked.

"Cally. She—or rather, we—may have fucked up our surveillance covers. At least, I'm going to have to float a good story to cover the damage. Thing is, I don't know what the hell happened. I do not understand women," the assassin said, pulling up a chair from the wall, wincing at it's rickety wobble.

"Tell me," Sunday said.

"First, she caught me popping the booze pill at dinner. We were having good champagne, I know my limits, why not? Then it turned out she didn't even know about it and had basically never had alcohol before. So she practically insists and I give her one, expecting her to be sensible or at least not stupid.

She proceeds to get trashed out of her gourd, which I guess is partly my fault—" he interrupted himself as Tommy gave him a skeptical look. "Okay, it's my fault. I should have insisted her first drinks not be in the field. I knew alcohol, and she didn't. Fine. Then she proceeds to make bedroom eyes over the table and climb all over me on the drive back to the apartment, where she's supposed to stay over."

"Wasn't she supposed to be your cover's girlfriend?" Tommy was finding it hard to be sympathetic.

Yeah, Cally was hot as hell, but George was supposed to be a professional with sense, too. Unless his lack of sense meant he was getting involved. Ordinarily, Tommy would have cheered—to his certain knowledge Cally hadn't seriously dated anybody since James Stewart's shuttle blew up seven years ago.

If he was getting the hots for Cally, George's timing was horrible. It could complicate the mission. And it was awful hard to feel sympathy for a guy just for having a hot woman climb all over him.

"Well, yeah, but usually there are limits to how far you act it out," the discomfited man said. "I doubt our tails had cameras looking down into the seats of the car and doing a hand check. And don't look at me like that. She's drunk and she's damned lethal—as if I'm going to piss her off and risk an incident."

"Wah," Tommy commiserated. "I can guess what's next and you get no sympathy from me for your poor lost innocence. Or for having to face Papa."

"We didn't screw, she ran out on me. Knocked me on my ass for no reason and ran out on me, that is."

The bewilderment had taken over George's face.

"Ah, now we see what you're really upset with." Then, quirking an eyebrow at the other man. "There's got to be more than that. What did you do, what had just happened—there's something you're not telling me." Tommy leaned back, threatening to tip over the chair if he hadn't had excellent balance honed by regular hiking and boating.

"Just something stupid. She said she hated my carpet. It makes no damn sense."

"Well what's the damn carpet look like? Is it nasty, or what?" the cyber asked impatiently.

"It's gray and dingy, but not grimy or anything. No bugs or nasty smells. Besides, white shows dirt. It's pretty ugly, but not—"

"White?" Sunday interrupted him. "What kind of white carpet?"

"What's it matter? Matted down shag. It still makes no damned sense. Why throw a fit and jeopardize a cover over a stupid rug? Is she crazy?"

The big man sat up, burying his face in his hands for a few long moments before looking up at the other guy. "You are so lucky to still be breathing it isn't even funny. White shag carpeting. Holy fuck. She had a bad experience," he explained, shaking his head. "George, I'll make it real simple for you. Do not get Cally O'Neal drunk. That woman has more land mines in her past than you ever want to risk stepping on.

Didn't you ever think there might be a reason nobody had volunteered himself as the one to introduce her to real liquor? And get a decorator in there. Today."

"Why the hell would a guy about to move redecorate? Hello? Cover?"

"If it were me, I'd do it and think up an excuse." The code cracker looked at his skeptical colleague and sighed. "Fine, ignore me. It's your funeral."

"This is an odd place to meet." Michelle was wearing a get-up that looked almost like a parka and mukluks to the ice rink Cally had given her as a rendezvous location. She looked dubiously at the white figure skates she was expected to don in place of the tan, furry boots. "These look cold," she said.

"They're not," Cally replied, as she finished lacing her own, wrapping the long laces twice around the top for ankle support before tying them.

Michelle copied her, even though the standard size white boots were lumpy inside and a bad fit for her feet. Self-discipline or no, there were limits. She fixed them. They were still all Earth-tech materials and so forth. Nobody would ever notice. Besides, she only changed them a small amount.

Her sister handed her a bag of red and white candies from her purse before shoving her gear in a rental locker. The bag had "Star-Bright" blazoned across the front in italics.

"Oooh. Peppermint gears!" the mentat exclaimed, delighted. "Thank you!" At a loss for what else to do with them, she tucked a couple of them in the top of one boot before shoving the rest of the bag into her own locker.

On the ice, after an initial stumble, Michelle glided like a dream, if only like a dream that had discreet puppet strings assisting her balance. She regarded her sister's rusty fumblings with tolerant amusement.

The great assassin. How cute.

It took 3.2 minutes, more or less, for Cally to get her ice-legs back. She had obviously done this before, and done it a great deal.

"This is a favorite leisure activity for you. Am I correct?"

"Yeah, but it's my first time back on the ice this winter. Hey, that looks fun." The operative looked no more than sixteen as she swung a hand towards two girls who were spinning like a two-kid top, toes turned out, holding hands, leaning back. They were laughing with an innocence only a little kid could have. The blond one's braids swung straight out behind her.

Cally's face lit up. "Lets!"

It was only the engineer's abilities and instantaneous comprehension of the mechanics involved that kept the shorter woman upright as her sister spun around in front of her, grabbing both her hands and whirling her into a matching spin.

When she recovered from her surprise, the Mentat noticed that there was a data cube squashed between their joined palms. The mechanics of intrigue involved pleasant toys, but she wondered when, or if, her sister would grow out of them.

Later, as the two sipped hot cocoa in a corner too isolated for the tastes of the child patrons, Michelle sighed, "It was truly unwise of Pardal to try to murder one of us."

"Which, an O'Neal or a Michon Mentat?" Cally asked over the soft swishing of a conversation silencer that badly needed servicing.

Michelle placed her palm over it and it quieted. "Yes," she said.

"I could eliminate that problem for you. Very permanently," the assassin offered. When her sister either didn't understand or pretended not to, she spelled it out. "I could kill him. It wouldn't be hard."

"So you think. It is fortunate that the more elevated of your fellow intriguers keep you on—I believe the idiom is, 'a short leash,' " she said.

"Whatever. It was just an offer." The fourth most dangerous O'Neal couldn't help appearing affronted, though she tried.

"Besides, even if I were murderously inclined, which I am not, that would violate an agreement between your employers and the Darhel. A certain Compact."

"I don't take it as a rule. More of a guideline. I never get to have any fun." She made a pouting moue.

"Besides, if I drove him into lintatai, it wouldn't be killing him. Letter of the Compact. Don't think I haven't thought about it. The Compact was written back before we knew about lintatai and it wasn't like the Darhel were going to tell us by negotiating for it."

"As I said, you need to be kept on a leash, and I for one am glad your employers at least have a modicum of sense. It is not as easy to drive an adult Darhel into lintatai as you think, by the way. The ones vulnerable to losing their heads generally do not make it out of adolescence."

"Yeah, but every time I turn around folks are telling me how much I piss everybody off. Gee, they split a millennia old underground conspiracy apart, all for me." There was an element of self-derision in her cornflower blue eyes. For a moment, Cally O'Neal looked every year of her age.

"Perhaps you could, but please do not kill Pardal. He
is
odious, but that external restraint on your killer instinct, do not call it a leash if the term offends you, protects you as much as anyone else. I know we Indowy raised appear detached, but I do love you. Please try to avoid
unnecessary
dangers of that sort."

The softening of Michelle O'Neal's expression was fleeting, quickly covered by a return to a more appropriate demeanor.

"Thank you for your assistance. I will admit this one thing. There is more room for intriguers of one's own clan to counterbalance dangerous intriguers elsewhere than I had thought for many years. A very little more room," she added, lest the assassin take encouragement from such a small, polite concession.

Her sister, of course, would never know that this entire meeting was a mere formality, a concession to Cally's quaint Earther modesty. Michelle was sorry to have eavesdropped, but, in this instance, proper timing was so critical she could not justify the extra risk. Wisdom often had to override people's personal preferences.

Friday, 11/26/54

John Earl Bill Stuart, more generally known as Billy, sat cooling his heels in Erick Winchon's plush office.

Impatiently. Even this many years into his employment under the Darhel Tir Dol Ron, the opulent surroundings gave him a feeling that was half greed, half offended contempt. Growing up poor, losing his wife too young to an illness that money could have cured just fine, it pissed him off to see money wasted on the fancy marble and crap in the lobby of the building. The Tir's excesses affected him, too, but he hid it well. Oh, he liked the money just fine. It brought good bennies like health insurance for his daughter, who wasn't so little anymore. It let him trick her out in expensive enough clothes and stuff, and afford a personal trainer, to put her in the popular cheerleader set in grade school. Every time he went to a basketball game and saw her on the sidelines jumping up and down with her ponytail and pom-poms, he teared up and had to hide it, thinking how proud her Momma would have been.