The Human Division (5 page)

And it was then that Abumwe smiled, notably thin and humorless though it was. “Twenty hours.”

There was dead silence.

“You’re joking,” Fucci said. Abumwe gave him a look that clearly indicated she had reached the end of her patience with him for the day. Fucci wisely did not speak again.

“Why the rush?” Wilson asked. He knew Abumwe didn’t like him; it wouldn’t hurt for him to ask the question everyone else wanted to know but was too scared to ask.

“I couldn’t say,” Abumwe said evenly, looking at him briefly and then turning her attention to her staff. “And even if I could, the reason wouldn’t matter for what we have to do now. We have sixteen hours before our jump and then four hours after that before the Utche are scheduled to arrive. After that we’re on their schedule. They might want to meet immediately; they might want to meet in a day. We are going to go under the assumption they will want to begin negotiations immediately. That means you have the next twelve hours to get up to speed. After that, we’ll have planning sessions before and after the jump. I hope you’ve gotten enough sleep in the last two days, because you’re not getting any more for a while. Any questions?”

There were none. “Good,” Abumwe said. “I don’t believe I have to tell any of you that if these negotiations go well, then it is good for us. For all of us. If they go poorly, then it will go badly for all of us as well. But it will go especially poorly for whichever ones of you were not completely up to speed and dragged the rest of your team down with you. I need you to be crystal clear on that.”

They were.

“Lieutenant Wilson, a word with you,” Abumwe said, as the room began to clear. “You too, Schmidt.” The room cleared except for the ambassador, Hillary Drolet, Schmidt and Wilson.

“Why did you ask about why there was a rush?” Abumwe asked.

Wilson made a conscious effort not to let the thought
I’m being called on the carpet for that?
show up on his face. “Because everyone wanted to know, but no one else wanted to ask, ma’am.”

“Because they knew better,” Abumwe said.

“Except possibly for Fucci, yes, ma’am,” Wilson said.

“But you don’t,” Abumwe said.

“No, I know better, too,” Wilson said. “But I still thought someone should ask.”

“Hmmm,” Abumwe said. “Lieutenant, what did it say to you that we have twenty hours to prepare for this negotiation?”

“Are you asking me to speculate, ma’am?” Wilson asked.

“It’s rather obvious that’s what I’m asking,” Abumwe said. “You’re Colonial Defense Forces. You no doubt have a military perspective on this.”

“It’s been years since I’ve been anywhere near actual combat, ma’am,” Wilson said. “I’ve been with CDF Research and Development for years, even before they lent me to you and the
Clarke
as your tech consultant.”

“But you
are
still CDF, yes?” Abumwe said. “You still have the green skin and the computer in your head. I imagine if you dig deeply, you might still have the ability to look at things from a military point of view.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wilson said.

“Then give me your analysis,” Abumwe said.

“Someone’s humped the bunk,” Wilson said.

“Excuse me?” Abumwe said. Wilson noted Schmidt suddenly looked paler than usual.

“Humped the bunk,” Wilson repeated. “Screwed the pooch. Gone FUBAR. Insert your own metaphor for things going sideways here. You don’t have to have military experience to see that; everyone in this room had that thought. Whatever this Sara Bair and her team were supposed to do, they blew it, and for whatever reason the Colonial Union needs to attempt a salvage, so you and your team are the last-minute, last-chance substitute.”

“And why us?” Abumwe said.

“Because you are good at what you do,” Wilson said.

Abumwe’s thin smile returned. “If I want smoke blown up my ass, Lieutenant, I could have your friend here,” she said, nodding toward Schmidt.

“Yes, ma’am,” Wilson said. “In that case, I’d guess because we’re close to jump, which makes us easy to reroute, that you’ve had at least some experience with the Utche, and that if you fail, and you probably will because you’re the last-minute replacement, you’re low enough on the diplomatic totem pole that it can be chalked up to your incompetence.” Wilson looked over to Schmidt, who looked as if he were about to implode. “Stop that, Hart,” he said. “She asked.”

“I did indeed,” Abumwe said. “And you are right, Lieutenant. But only half-right. The other reason that they picked us is because of
you
.”

“I beg your pardon?” Wilson said, now thoroughly confused.

“Sara Bair didn’t fail at her task, she disappeared,” Abumwe said. “Along with the whole of her diplomatic mission and a CDF frigate called the
Polk
. It and them, gone. No trace.”

“That’s not good,” Wilson said.

“You are once again stating the obvious,” Abumwe said.

“How do I matter here, ma’am?” Wilson said.

“They don’t think the
Polk
just vanished, they think it was destroyed,” Abumwe said. “And they need you to look for the black box.”

“Black box?” Schmidt asked.

“A data recorder,” Wilson said. “If the
Polk
was destroyed and the black box survived, then it could tell us what happened to the ship, and who killed it.”

“And we couldn’t find it without you?” Schmidt asked.

Wilson shook his head. “They’re small and they don’t send out a locator beacon unless they’re pinged with an encrypted signal, specific to that ship. It’s a military-grade cipher. You need a very tall security clearance for that. They don’t just hand those out to anyone, and not to anyone outside the CDF.” He turned his attention to Abumwe. “But they don’t just hand them out to random lieutenants, either.”

“Then we are lucky you are not just a random lieutenant,” Abumwe said. “I am told that in your history it seems that you once had a very high security clearance.”

“I was part of a team doing research on BrainPal security,” Wilson said. “Again, it’s been years. I don’t have that clearance level anymore.”

“You didn’t,” Abumwe said. She nodded to her assistant, who once again pressed on her PDA. Wilson immediately saw a ping light for his queue in his peripheral vision. “Now you do.”

“Okay,” Wilson said slowly, and scanned the details of the security clearance. After a moment he spoke again. “Ambassador, I think you should know this security clearance comes with a level of executive authority that technically means I can give orders to the
Clarke
’s crew in the furtherance of my mission,” he said.

“I would suggest you not try to exercise that privilege with Captain Coloma,” Abumwe said. “She hasn’t put anyone on the wrong side of an airlock, but if you gave her an order, she might make an exception for you.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Wilson said.

“Do,” Abumwe said. “In the meantime, as you’ve no doubt read by now, your orders are to find the black box, decode it and find out what happened to the
Polk
.”

“Got it, ma’am,” Wilson said.

“It’s been implied to me by my own superiors that your finding the black box is of equal or greater importance to me actually successfully concluding these negotiations with the Utche,” Abumwe said. “To that end I have detailed you an aide for the duration.” She nodded to Schmidt. “I don’t need him. He’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Wilson said, and noted that he’d never seen Hart look more pained than just now, when he had been deemed inessential by his boss. “He’ll be useful.”

“He’d better be,” Abumwe said. “Because, Lieutenant Wilson, the warning I gave to my staff goes double for you. If you fail, this mission fails, even if my half goes well. Which means I will have failed because of you. I may be low on the diplomatic totem pole, but I am sufficiently high enough on it that when I push you, you will die from the fall.” She looked over to Schmidt. “And he’ll kill you when he lands.”

“Understood, ma’am,” Wilson said.

“Good,” Abumwe said. “One more thing, Lieutenant. Try to find that black box before the Utche arrive. If someone’s trying to kill us all, I want to know about it before our negotiating partners show up.”

“I’ll do my best,” Wilson said.

“Your best got you stationed on the
Clarke,
” Abumwe said. “Do better than that.”

V.

“Please stop that,” Wilson said to Schmidt, as they sat in the
Clarke
lounge, reviewing their project data.

Schmidt looked up from his PDA. “I’m not doing anything,” he said.

“You’re hyperventilating,” Wilson said. He had his eyes closed, the better to focus on the data his BrainPal was streaming at him.

“I’m breathing completely normally,” Schmidt said.

“You’ve been breathing like a labored elephant for the last several minutes,” Wilson said, still not opening his eyes. “Keep it up and you’re going to need a paper bag to breathe into.”

“Yes, well,” Schmidt said. “
You
get told you’re inessential by your boss and see how you feel.”

“Her people skills aren’t the best,” Wilson agreed. “But you knew that. And as my
assistant,
I actually do need you to be helpful to me. So stop thinking about your boss and think more about
our
predicament.”

“Sorry,” Schmidt said. “I’m also not entirely comfortable with this assistant thing.”

“I promise not to ask you to get me coffee,” Wilson said. “Much.”

“Thanks,” Schmidt said, wryly. Wilson grunted and went back to his data.

“This black box,” Schmidt said a few minutes later.

“What about it?” Wilson asked.

“Are you going to be able to find it?” Schmidt asked.

Wilson opened his eyes for this. “The answer to that depends on whether you want me to be optimistic or truthful,” he said.

“Truthful, please,” Schmidt said.

“Probably not,” Wilson said.

“I lied,” Schmidt said. “I want the optimistic version.”

“Too late,” Wilson said, and held out his hand as if he were cupping an imaginary ball. “Look, Hart. The ‘black box’ in question is a small, black sphere about the size of a grapefruit. The memory portion of the thing is about the size of a fingernail. The rest of it consists of the tracking beacon, an inertial field generator to keep the thing from floating down a gravity well, and a battery powering both of those two things.”

“Okay,” Schmidt said. “So?”

“So, one, the thing is intentionally small and black, so it will be difficult to find by anyone but the CDF,” Wilson said.

“Right, but you’re not
looking
for it,” Schmidt said. “You’re going to be pinging it. When it gets the correct signal, it will respond.”

“It will, if it has power,” Wilson said. “But it might not. We’re working on the assumption the
Polk
was attacked. If it was attacked, then there was probably a battle. If there was a battle, then the
Polk
probably got torn apart, with the pieces of it flying everywhere from the added energy of the explosions. It’s likely the black box probably spent all its energy trying to stay mostly in one place. In which case when we signal it, we’re not going to get a response.”

“In which case you’ll have to look for it visually,” Schmidt said.

“Right,” Wilson said. “So, again: small black grapefruit in a search area that at this point is a cube tens of thousands of kilometers on a side. And your boss wants me to find it and examine it before the Utche arrive. So if we don’t locate it within the first half hour after the skip, we’re probably screwed.” He leaned back and closed his eyes again.

“You seem untroubled by our imminent failure,” Schmidt said.

“No point hyperventilating,” Wilson said. “And anyway, I didn’t say we
will
fail. It’s just more likely than not. My job is to increase the odds of us succeeding, which is what I was doing before your labored breathing started to distract me.”

“So what’s my job?” Schmidt asked.

“Your job is to go to Captain Coloma and tell her what things I need, the list of which I just sent to your PDA,” Wilson said. “And do it charmingly, so that our captain feels like a valued part of the process and not like she’s being ordered around by a CDF field tech.”

“Oh, I see,” Schmidt said. “I get the hard part.”

“No, you get the
diplomatic
part,” Wilson said, cracking open an eye. “Rumor has it diplomacy is a thing you’ve been trained to do. Unless you’d like
me
to go talk to her while
you
figure out a protocol for searching a few million cubic kilometers of space for an object the size of a child’s plaything.”

“I’ll just go ahead and go talk to the captain, then,” Schmidt said, picking up his PDA.

“What a marvelous idea,” Wilson said. “I fully endorse it.” Schmidt smiled and left the lounge.

Wilson closed his eyes again and focused once more on his own problem.

Wilson was more calm about the situation than Schmidt was, but that was in part to keep his friend on the right side of useful. Hart could be twitchy when stressed.

In fact, the problem was troubling Wilson more than he let on. One scenario he didn’t tell Hart about at all was the one where the black box didn’t exist. The classified information that Wilson had included preliminary scans of the chunk of space that the
Polk
was supposed to have been in; the debris field was almost nonexistent, meaning that either the ship was attacked with such violence that it had vaporized, or whoever attacked the
Polk
took the extra time to atomize any chunk of debris larger than half a meter on a side. Either way it didn’t look good.

If it
had
survived, Wilson had to work on the assumption that its battery was thoroughly drained and that it was floating, quiet and black, out in the vacuum. If the
Polk
had been nearer to one of the Danavar system planets, he might have a tiny chance of picking up the box visually against the planet’s sphere, but its skip position into the Danavar system was sufficiently distant from any of that system’s gas giants that even that “Hail Mary” approach was out of the question.