The Iron Admiral: Deception (27 page)

“What can I do for you, Chaka?”

****

The same woman who had answered Tepich’s call the previous day escorted Allysha into a small room fitted up for training. Allysha tried a bright ‘good morning’ but the woman gave her a look of disdain and said not a word. Cheerful individual. Allysha noticed the robe had a pocket which bulged, just a little.

 

Galen popped up from his seat in front of a computer terminal and bobbed. “Good morning, Miss. So happy to see you. Should I have Agnita bring us kaff?”

She grinned. He reminded her of a puppy, anxious to please. She sat down on the only other seat. “Kaff would be nice, yes.”

Agnita bowed and left the room, appearing to float in her wide robe.

“Well, Mister Galen, what can I teach you?”

“The matter is to do with security, Miss Marten, as you would have gathered from Mister Tepich.”

Galen summoned the modern InfoDroid hovering in the corner and set it to connect with the terminal.

“This is one of the latest units, I’m told. I would very much like to know how I can circumvent its interventions.”

“You have to learn to think like an InfoDroid,” she said.

Agnita floated in with kaff, bowed and floated out again.

The aroma filled the room, giving it at least a little character. She sipped. It was good. This was going to be a lesson just as she’d given to her team in Malmos. “Let’s finish our kaff, first.”

****

The day passed quickly, as busy days in anonymous surroundings so often do. Galen bobbed and nodded, frowned and asked questions, doing that hand-wringing thing when he wasn’t keying or holding a cup. But he was smart; no doubt about it. Especially when you bore in mind that he didn’t have an implant. Allysha had to draw pictures, wait while he copied things, even repeat herself over some of the more difficult issues.

 

Galen was the one to call a halt. His narrow shoulders sagged and he sighed. “I shall need some time to assimilate all you have told me, Miss Marten. It is… what can I say? Not complicated, more a different way of thinking.”

“That’s correct.”

They joined Tepich for dinner in his private suite again. Galen, tired and thoughtful, nevertheless enthused about what he had learned. The big man was jovial, pleased with progress. And Allysha was no closer to

understanding what this was all about. She monitored all the comms traffic, of course. But what little she heard was routine.

The following morning Agnita once again took her to the same room. This time, bland and silent as ever, she brought kaff without being asked.

Galen looked tired, his halo of hair standing around his crown like wire. “I have done my best to apply my new knowledge and I feel I understand what you have taught me.”

She tested him, asking him to modify a series of functions she’d written for her training team. It felt a little strange, teaching the enemy what she’d taught the Fleet but at least he couldn’t use this knowledge to modify weapons systems. That required a specialist InfoDroid. She wondered if Galen knew that. If he didn’t, she wasn’t going to tell him.

The days passed in identical fashion and still she was no nearer to understanding what this was all about.

Maybe itwas just training in the latest techniques. But no; they could have hired someone for that. It didn’t need her.

A morning came when Galen finally gave her a first glimpse of what he was trying to do and why he needed her help. He sat down at a terminal and loaded a function.

“This is a security module. How would you overcome it?”

She stared at a many-layered beast of a complexity she’d never seen before; not even in the Fleet.

“Wow. What does this protect?”

“A database, Miss. This is top secret, of course. The database belonged to a doctor, an expert in exotic diseases. He was quite possessive about his research so he contrived a means of preventing anyone from

gaining access to his results. You see it here.”

“You speak as if this person is dead?”

“Yes. Of an exotic disease, of course. We have had an outbreak of serious illness on one of our planets and we hope that perhaps Doctor Harvid had discovered a cure or any sort of notes to help us.”

Galen was wringing his hands again, rolling them over and over. And his eyes had kind of hooded over.

Still, what he’d said sounded plausible in a paranoid society like this one.

“May I see this database? It’ll be quicker if you just give me access to it and let me do the job.”

“No no no no.” Galen’s head swung from side to side in time with the words. “That is not possible.

Besides, I wish to learn how to do this myself.”

A trickle of unease slipped down Allysha’s spine. “Okay, so what is it you wish to do?”

 

“I wish to break through this barrier and interact with what is behind it.”

“So be able to see and read?”

“Yes, and make changes if I wish.”

She met the man’s eyes. She didn’t like this; she didn’t like it at all. Why would he want to modify the database of results left by a dead man? Oh, she could think of a few; claim credit was one, change the recorded results was another. Exotic diseases? The virus that killed all the Tors on Tisyphor was an exotic disease, too. Maybe that was what they wanted? Well, whatever it was, if she didn’t go along with

it, she’d learn nothing. And Galen wanted to know, wanted to learn. She was sure he wasn’t telling her the whole truth but his motivation seemed genuine enough. At least as far as this module was concerned.

It truly was the most complicated, unforgiving, well-thought-out construction she had ever seen.

She accepted the challenge of the code.

Hour upon hour, for days, Allysha tried attack after attack, directing Galen’s efforts. She would have loved to have forged on alone, reveling in the thrill of the chase. But Galen would not allow it, constantly interrupting with questions and demanding explanations. So she worked at his pace. They stopped only to eat and go to the washroom and, for a brief time, sleep.

Galen’s caper of pure joy when the final defense lay behind him was a wonder to behold. Allysha thought he was going to hug her but she stepped away and he settled for taking her hands and shaking them violently. “Well done, Doctor,” she said. “Well done.” Certainly she shared his elation.

“And now… and now I can test…” His words trailed away with his glee. His eyes hooded again. “We must fetch Mister Tepich. Yes.” The little man lifted his comm unit.

Tepich arrived in record time. Had he run? He’d certainly hurried, puffing a little as he eased his bulk into the room. This must be an important victory.

“Well?” he asked, eyes on Galen.

“We have succeeded, Mister Tepich.” Galen’s eyes glittered, his body tense with excitement.

A slow smile spread across Tepich’s face as he drew in a deep breath. “Excellent. Will you need Miss Marten for anything else?”

“No. We will need to test—”

“Of course. I’ll make arrangements.” He spoke quickly, as if to stop Galen from saying more. “If you will come with me, Miss Marten. I can see you’re exhausted. Thank you for your efforts. I will see that you’re on your way home shall we say tomorrow or the day after? With your contract payment, of course.”

He positively hustled Allysha out the door, while her nerves prickled. A test. So this was it, this was what they wanted her for. Tepich took her to her room. “I’ll send Agnita along for you when dinner is ready.”

The door locked behind her, as usual.

 

She grabbed her techpack just in time to intercept Tepich’s call. ‘Deliver the subjects. As soon as you can. How long?’

‘I can have them on a ship in half an hour.’

‘Good.’

He’d called the El Dorado space station. Subjects, eh? So much for a database. Yet try as she might she could not imagine what that impressive security model was designed to protect. It was almost organic, changing and blocking her moves until she began to see how its designer had thought. Ah, well.

Chief Werensa’s humorless voice spoke in her mind.If there is truly nothing you can do, prepare yourself for the time when you can. She reviewed the base layout on her implant, made sure she could enter any module without being detected, then set to calm her mind, center herself. Breathe… in… out.

‘Ship’s approaching. Prepare for docking.’

Allysha roused at the words on her implant from the station controller’s office. This must be the subjects.

She watched the controller’s view screen as the shuttle approached. The airlock was empty. The other ship must have been moved to make room for the new arrival. It slowed and nosed gently forward between the cavern doors. Arms extended from the sides of the bay to catch the vessel and hold it steady. That done, the doors closed behind the stern. A green light lit up as soon as the seal was made and air began to flow into the vacuum.

The hatch opened.

Six soldiers wearing the drab brown uniform of the GPR climbed out, weapons in hand, and deployed to cover… what?

The first man out must have been important. He wore an elaborate robe and the soldiers saluted him.

Behind him came a number of other folk, animated and excited. They disappeared into the base but the soldiers remained.

People stumbled down the ramp. She counted. About ten? A mixture of ages a mixture of sexes. A couple of children, wide eyed and frightened, clutched the hands of adults. Their parents, probably. An older couple? It was hard to tell, sometimes, with Confederacy people. Were they Confederacy?

Allysha

used the techpack to poll for implants. Yes. One young woman carried a baby. What was this? What would they want with ordinary folk? A worm of alarm uncurled itself in her stomach.

The soldiers herded the people along like cattle, prodding them with what must have been nerve sticks.

One of the younger men tried defiance. A guard jabbed him and he staggered, lips stretched in pain. A couple of the soldiers laughed.

They pushed them along the corridor and into that strange, shielded room. Allysha shifted her surveillance to a sensor in the room above, the one with the transparent wall that offered a view down into the sealed room. Galen stood there, with Tepich and a group of other people, some the excited, animated folk who’d arrived on the ship. She scanned, matching faces to names. Senior engineers, doctors, all talking together. Even Tepich, who stood apart with the important new arrival, a man named Lomas Frensberg, fairly quivered with anticipation.

 

She split her vision between the observers and the participants. The people, the test subjects, gathered together in the sealed room, looking about them. The fear was almost palpable and if she was any judge, these folk had already been maltreated. They looked thin, exhausted, ragged. Where had they come from? How were they collected, like specimens for an experiment?

The babble from the control room overlooking the subjects died away. “Now is the proof. Now we see if we have succeeded,” Galen said. With exaggerated care, he pressed a button.

For a second, nothing changed. Then the people in the sealed room stiffened, eyes wide. Something had happened to them; all of them. Their legs crumpled and they fell to the floor, writhing and screaming. The screams ended abruptly. Ten contorted corpses lay on the floor, the faces twisted in pain. The baby looked like a broken doll, its tiny hands curled into fists. Allysha closed her eyes and forced down bile.

What had they done? How had they done it?

She searched the data flows, flicking through the functions. Here was the button. Push that and… she followed the logic. Here was the code she had created with Galen to circumvent that wonderful, complex

security. Here was the function to be inserted; triggers to overload the nervous system.

The horror slammed into her, a massive blow that had her gasping for air. That security function protected the implant in a human brain. She’d just taught these… these… fanatics how to circumvent it.

She broke the connection, their jubilant back-slapping and whoops of joy the last thing she heard.

ChapterThirty-One

Allysha clutched her stomach.Don’t be sick… don’t be sick . Her throat filled with acrid, burning vomit but she swallowed, forcing it down. No use to be sick. She had to think… think. She sagged, trembling, onto her bunk. A weapon to use against people, the Confederacy ‘machine men’. What a horrible irony, to use their advantage against them. But even so, how could they use such a weapon? Where? A crowded mall to cause a terrorist incident? Chaka had said they were terrorists. Or maybe they could sell

this thing to the ptorix? She dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came into her mind. No. They hated the ptorix even more than the Confederacy.

She had water in her room somewhere. With shaking hands she raised the bottle to her lips. Some dribbled down over her chin but she swallowed enough to wash away the foul taste. She had to know more. One more deep breath and she slid her mind back into the computer system.

The men in the laboratory—the observers—were still congratulating each other. She could hardly see Tepich’s eyes in the great rolls of skin that bunched up when he beamed. Galen stood next to Frensberg, introducing the other people; Professor this, Doctor that, all members of his team. Oh, yes, he assured Frensberg, he’d learned his lessons from the woman well. And he’d be sure to pass on his knowledge.

She squirmed. What had Chaka said? Don’t blame the death on the gun, it was the man who fired the weapon. Somehow it was a small consolation.

In the sealed room, attendants in isolation suits piled the bodies onto sleds. Just throwing them on, like dead animals. Men, women. The baby. Heads flopped, arms dangled. She wondered what they’d do with them.

Frensberg was speaking; she increased the sensitivity of the monitors.

“Now, how do you intend to deliver the…” he chuckled, “I suppose we could call it a death ray. I assume we’re not intending to herd victims into a closed room.”

A ripple of polite laughter. Laughter. She bared her teeth.

“We’ve devised a test, Your Excellency,” Tepich said. “The remaining subjects have been isolated in an uninhabited part of Buena Suerte. We have a geostationary satellite orbiting above the camp. Professor Doling has just left in the ship to test his broadcast procedure. If all goes according to plan…”