The Seeds of Time (5 page)

Meres interrupted. “What did the instrumentation show?”

“It showed Crippen’s moon, fifteen thousand kilometers below us, and a body approximately three hundred kilometers wide moving in fast on the ship.”

“And that’s when you took evasive action.”

“Yessir.”

“Describe what those actions were. If it’s not too much trouble, Lieutenant.” This last, heavy with sarcasm.

“Yessir. There wasn’t time to do more than bring the ship around and hit the engine for a fast burn. The blast struck the asteroid’s surface, which was mostly ice, and we got hit with an eruption of superheated water vapor.”

“That would have put the ship within thirty or forty meters of the asteroid’s surface, is that right, Lieutenant?”

“Yessir.”

“Close. I’d call that close. Wouldn’t you, Lieutenant Finn?”

“Yessir, pretty close, sir.” Clio’s tongue was so dry it clicked when she talked.

The sound of Meres’ pencil scribbling across his papers filled her ears. He glanced up. “How long would you estimate before the asteroid would have made contact with the ship. From the moment you first observed it?”

“Fifteen seconds, sir.” Clio remembered the great ball of ice, hurtling on its path around the moon, ready to mow down
Starhawk
and anything else in its path. Moments before, she had been out cold. She woke to see her impending destruction. She hit the thrusters, her reactions kicking in so fast they left her mind meters behind. Out cold.

Any they can’t prove it
, she reminded herself.

Meres laid down his pencil and rubbed his eyes, sighing with apparent fatigue. “Do you realize, Lieutenant Finn, how remote, how minuscule, are the chances, on a Dive of four hundred thousand years, that you will come up on a planet, or a moon, or a planetesimal, or an asteroid, or a body of any size,
that close?
Close enough to hit it?” He arched his eyebrows and peered at her.

“Yessir, pretty remote.”

“Remote? It’s rotting near impossible!”

Clio blurted out, “Well, we
were
aiming for it. Sir.” This seemed to her somewhat funny, so that she started to smile, then wiped it.

“There’s another explanation, of course.” Meres started through his papers again.

Clio waited, cocking her head slightly.

He glanced up. “That
Starhawk
had been sitting in orbit around that moon for quite a while before you woke up.”

“That’s not how it was, sir.”

“Well, what else are you going to say?” Meres snorted, shaking his head.

They don’t have anything
, Clio thought. He’s just trying to make me squirm. BTM hearings have a reputation to uphold, he’s gotta make that bitch squirm.

Brisher now joined in. “Clio. Lieutenant Finn. Biotime
will support you if you’ve got a problem. Biotime stands by its own. You know that.”

“Yes, Mr. Brisher. And I appreciate that. We all do.”

Meres closed his files, keeping out one sheet of paper. “You took a blood or urine sample?” This to Russo.

A trickle of acid eroded down Clio’s insides.

“Yes. Standard procedure. That’s the lab report, that you have there.”

Meres scowled. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? And everything looks in order on paper.”

Clio kept her face under control with a supreme effort. Lab report?
In order
, did he say?

“That being so, you might not object to drawing a confirming sample.” His eyes clicked up to meet Clio’s.

Russo’s voice was quiet, gracious.
“I’d
object to that.”

Meres swung on her. “I don’t think I understand what your objection might be, Captain Russo.”

“It impugns the good-faith effort Lieutenant Finn has made in cooperating with this investigation. Until there’s reason to suspect her veracity, I’d object to the test as giving the appearance of wrongdoing.”

“The only effort Lieutenant Finn has made to cooperate with this investigation is to give blood while she was unconscious and show up for this hearing.”

“Which is all she’s required to do, under her contract,” Russo said.

Brisher chimed in. “Technically, that’s true, Gerry.”

Meres swung his head to look at this attack on his flank.

Russo was busy taking notes, not looking up, most pointedly not looking up.

Clio watched this tableau with astonishment. She was going to win. They were making a stink over the blood test, a simple blood test, that any innocent person would be happy to provide.

Brisher heaved his shoulders up in a shrug. “That’s the way of things sometimes, Gerry. Accidents happen. Hard to blame the crew. Just doing their job, you know.” Brisher smiled as he said this, always a bad sign.

Then she had it. Brisher was scared. He was so sweet and polite, seemed like his shit didn’t stink. Biotime wasn’t giving BTM any handholds on the Crippen mission. Everyone was going to stick together, so that nothing stuck to Biotime. Russo too, Russo was in it up to her tits.

Meres tapped his pencil, looking from one to the other. “You may be right, Ellison.” He looked at his watch. Then began pulling his papers into a stack. “I’m going to close this file—for now—and I hope I don’t see any of you around this table again for a long time.” He looked at Russo. “Think you could arrange that, Captain?”

Russo took time to stare blackly at Meres. “Could be arranged. Yes.”

“Good.” Meres rose. “Time for dinner, I think.”

Clio almost laughed out loud, in relief, in disgust. Her ass was saved. But three good men were dead, and nobody was going to own up. And meanwhile, Meres was standing there, shaking hands all the way around, accepting Bio-time’s gratitude with a smirk of pleasure.

Clio stumbled to her feet. The last light of the day hovered for a moment in the elm tree. The room was so dark she could hardly see. Clio hurried to catch up with the others before they latched the door behind them.

As they all filed out of the hearing room, Teeg jumped up, his face almost falling off. He scrambled to catch up to Clio, already halfway down the hall. “Jesus, Clio, what about my turn?”

Clio shook her head, flashing him her most motherly smile. “Looks like they just forgot you were out here, Teeg.”

In the bathroom, Clio bent over the sink, pulling handfuls of cold water to her face until her skin stung. Braced her hands on the sink and stared into the mirror. Short red tendrils of hair clung to her face like seaweed. She flicked the water off her face and made her mouth smile. Ran her fingers quickly through her hair to quiet it down. It was time to head to town.

When she came out, the halls were empty. The bureaucrats had gone home hours ago. But when she hit the street,
Clio saw Teeg waiting for her. Shit. Not going to be easy to sneak off and make a deal; maybe not possible at all. She headed in the opposite direction from him.

Teeg caught up, matching her stride.

“Get lost, Teeg,” she said without looking at him.

“What’d they do in there, chew you out?” Teeg was cheerful, eager to talk.

“No, Meres tried coming on to me so I had to slap him around a little.”

“Guess you just don’t like guys, huh?”

Clio spied a lamppost where she could pick Teeg off, if he didn’t watch where he was going.

“If you’ve got a lady lover, Clio, can I at least watch?”

Clio angled for the lamppost, Teeg went around it, not even noticing her maneuver. She stopped cold, wiping the greasy film of city rain out of her eyes. “I’m meeting Hillis, OK? You’re real nice company, Teeg, but will you please get lost?” A gaunt figure out of the crowded sidewalk collided with her, staggered to regain himself, cursing. Clio turned, moving with the press of people. Keep moving in the city, Clio told herself. You don’t stop unless you got business—or want trouble. Finally Teeg shrugged and turned back. Clio bit her lip, sorry now to be so rough on him. Teeg wasn’t so bad sometimes, and he was desperate for all the things he couldn’t have, same as she.

She was headed down Second Avenue, deep into the area called the Regrade. The neon glare of bars, eateries, and chapels wavered in the gross mirrors of the pavement, wet with eighteen hours of rain. Eyes followed her. Hungering, she figured, after her shirt, her boots, her body. A woman with no hair spat on the sidewalk as Clio passed, marking her territory. DSDE couldn’t clean up the Regrade; didn’t try. Those with the Sickness stayed under cover, Clio knew. And the cops, they pretty much left you alone, as long as you didn’t kill somebody on the sidewalk, try to deal drugs.

Up ahead, Clio saw the dancer in the window at Zebra’s. He wore a yellow chiffon dress and swayed to the screeching roar of a null pop tune piped out to the sidewalk.
She pushed her way into the crowded bar, through the wall of beery smoke. She grabbed a stool and looked for Zebra. A stranger—a big-boned white woman with mounding curls of iron grey hair—was tending bar, made eye contact. She was wearing a real fur dress, marking her as an anti-Green, and a flower in her hair in what might have been a touch of irony. Clio ordered a beer. She hated beer, but it was safer than water, and she was thirsty.

“Where’s Zebra tonight?”

“Gone.”

“Gone?”

“You gonna pay for the beer?”

Clio paid. The woman in fur stared at her.

“I had business with Zebra. Personal business.”

The big woman smiled, lips parting over teeth way too big for her mouth. “A lotta people had business with Zebra.” She got busy, leaving Clio with her mind racing in neutral. What to do? Clio was a foreigner here, a spacer with no networks, no contacts. Zebra was her only link with her pills, her medicine. Clio looked up. Fur woman was grinning at her again, from the other end of the bar. She made the smallest gesture: follow me. Clio swung around on the stool, threaded her way into the pack of regulars. Somebody felt her up. She stuck out her elbows and swung, hoping to cuff somebody. Missed.

Fur woman was waiting for her in the can. She leaned against the door so no one else could come in. “Whatcha lookin’ for, hon?”

The acrid smell of urine churned her stomach, unless it was sheer panic. “Where’s Zebra?” Clio asked.

“You been gone a long time if you don’t know what happened to Zebra.” The bartender sized Clio up a moment. “Honey, she got quarried a long time back.” She studied her glowing nails. “Dangerous business. Hope you can pay good. Now, whatcha lookin’ for?”

Clio countered, “You set me up, I got friends who’ll be disappointed, you know?”

The bartender rolled her eyes in mock terror. “Yeah, I
know. So I’m scared. Now whatcha lookin’ for, I got bar to tend.”

“Dexichloromine. At least fifty tabs.”

Fur woman raised one painted eyebrow. “But you’ll take what I got, right?” Her lips rolled back off her teeth again, and she dismissed Clio with a wave. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Clio grabbed her by her fleshy upper arm. “No. It’s got to be dexichloromine. You understand me?”

“Well my, my. A discriminating junkie.” She pulled her arm free. “You wait in the end stall.”

Clio waited a minute, then peered from the door out into the din of the tavern. The bartender had disappeared, but there through the large front window she thought she glimpsed a long, armored van. Jesus, DSDE. Clio ducked back in the can, her mind lurching. She spun around, looking for escape. No windows. Finally she sat in the end stall, shaking, waiting for them.

The bathroom door opened. Then the stall next to hers.

Fur woman’s voice came from next door. “I got forty hits. Five hundred dollars. I don’t haggle.”

“You freeping bitch, you set me up! That’s DSDE out there.”

A laugh erupted from the next stall. “Yeah? And I’m your father in drag! Godalmighty, that van’s the TB wagon, making its fucking rounds. You want the tabs or not?”

“Let’s see them,” Clio said. From the other side of the partition a doughy white hand extended a blue tab, sealed in glasswrap.

Clio opened the wrap, crushed the tab, smelled it. Like lilacs, yes. She counted out the money, shoved it under the partition.

The rest of the tabs were shoved into a swath of urine by Clio’s feet. She grabbed them up, wiped them quickly with toilet paper, then thrust them in her pocket. Slowly opening the stall door, she saw the bartender washing her hands, wiping them on her fur belly. She was shaking her head.

As Clio headed for the door the woman said, “Honey, you better quit. You ain’t got the nerves for it.”

Out on the street it was raining again, a light, drifting rain that soon coated her face with a greasy film. It was too far to walk to the hotel, but she started moving, hoping for a cab, here in this place where cabs never came. She felt conspicuous. She wore black Chinese cotton pants stuffed into skinny boots, and a black rain jacket. Even these cheap items were drawing stares. People watched her. In particular, one man watched her. He was following her, had been waiting for her outside Zebra’s, probably. A man, a trenchcoat, the Regrade: a cartoon setup for DSDE making a nab, making the world a cleaner, safer place.

She turned to confront him, get it over with, scare him off. It was Teeg.

He caught up to her. “I’m not following you, honest. It’s just that I’ve been in a few bars, and now here you are again.”

“Yeah, here I am.” A ripple of suspicion hit her. She looked into Teeg’s boyish face, searching for treachery.

“I thought you were meeting Hillis,” he said.

And he kept track of her business, yes. Our boyish Teeg.

A black van moved down the street at a crawl. Paused as it came parallel with Clio and Teeg. Not the TB wagon. DSDE. Its darkened windows stared at the streetscape like the multifaceted eyes of an insect.

What to do. Keep talking to Teeg? Start walking? Clio dragged up a smile for Teeg, pulled on his arm quietly with a trembling hand. Started walking.

Teeg looked at the van, barely reacting, then focused back on Clio. “I know you don’t need any company, but this is rough territory. I can walk you to where you’re meeting Hillis … or I’ll just leave. Up to you.”

“OK, but it’s a long walk.” Clio remembered to breathe. It helped.

A flicker of surprise on his face; then he was on her arm, taking command. “This place is getting rough. They’d gut you for the change in your pocket.”