Trial by Fire - eARC (4 page)

Heather leaned back with a frown. “So the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“That what you know is worth killing for.”

“The Pearl,” Barnard’s Star 2 C

Martina Perduro turned away from her commplex with a sigh. “Damn it. I didn’t even know we had half that many reporters in the civilian sector. And of course we just happened to send Riordan right out into the midst of them.”

Trevor watched the monitors, tracking the progress of the blip that denoted the private maglev car which had whisked Caine away from the journalists and protesters. “Don’t worry, Admiral. Riordan can handle the press.”

“Handle them? He was one of them, wasn’t he?”

“No, ma’am, not really.” Trevor tapped the monitor as the interactive maglev-system diagram flickered uncertainly, then reasserted. “He just took some freelance reporting gigs to make ends meet in lean times.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“Different things. Worked for
Jane’s Defense Weekly
as an analyst for a while, then wrote books. Consulted, too. Defense and intelligence: all the major three-letter agencies. A few others, besides.”

Perduro made a huffing noise. “I know those consultancies and their fees. How ‘lean’ could the times have been?”

“Pretty lean, because Caine has a serious flaw when it comes to working for the government.”

“Which is?”

“Well, he has this real bad habit of telling the truth.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. So he had an irregular career because he was always willing to wonder out loud about the so-called experts’—and his own—methods of analysis, and about the conclusions derived from them.”

“So he got in trouble for doing his job properly?”

“Yep, particularly when his observations ran afoul of Ancient Agency Traditions. One time, he pointed out that age stratification in the intelligence organizations was crippling their counterintelligence analysis. Specifically, the generation gap had senior experts unaware that contemporary ciphers were incorporating pop-culture memes and semiology—which the under-thirty junior analysts could have recognized and decoded in their sleep. Caine wound up getting two supreme recognitions for that discovery.”

“Which were?”

“Well, first he got a huge consultancy bonus.”

“And the second?”

“They let him go. Never hired him back. Buried the files and findings.”

“So he was the proverbial prophet, unwelcome in his own land.”

“Well, there’s that—but frankly, he’s also not your typical beltway type.”

“How so?”

“Admiral, have you ever worked with a polymath? A
real
polymath?”

Perduro smiled. “I served under Nolan Corcoran—remember?”

“Touché. But Dad—well, he liked managing people. Not Caine.”

“Strange. He doesn’t seem antisocial.”

“He’s not, Admiral, but, well, you know how artists don’t work best in groups?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of how Caine works, too. He’s a team player, but he often does his best work independently. Probably because he doesn’t think like most of the team.”

Perduro picked up a hardcopy report printed on the light blue letterhead of the Med-Psych section. “‘Subject Riordan evinces unusual balance between right and left lobe thought; demonstrates real-time syncretic problem-solving. Does not alternate between data intake and revision of situational contexts, but engages in both processes simultaneously.’”

Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am, if you had all that psych-eval data on Caine already, why ask me for my extremely inexpert assessment?”

“For the reason I indicated before, Captain: to get a human perspective that isn’t all numbers and graphs and psychobabble. Thankfully, what you just shared confirms most of what the so-called experts have observed.”

Trevor shrugged, turned to check the real-time rail system diagram for the progress of the private maglev car that was carrying Caine—and jerked forward to scrutinize the screen. “Admiral—” he started.

“I see it, Captain. Where the hell did that other car come from? Where’s its transponder code? And what in blazes is it doing on the same track?”

And then the screen went dead. A moment later the security monitor feed blacked out also—followed by every light in the room.

Perduro punched the button to call the Duty Officer just as he came through the door and the red emergency lighting began to glow. “Admiral, we’ve got a widespread blackout on all—”

The power came back up, the lights flickering sharply before their luminance stabilized.

Perduro rounded on the hapless D.O. “Mr. Canetti, what the hell is happening on my base?”

“Ma’am, I don’t know.”

“Admiral,” murmured Trevor. As Perduro turned toward him, he pointed to the security monitors and the maglev tracking screen. They, alone of all the electronic devices, were still dark.

“Son of a bitch,” Perduro breathed.

“Came in to tell you about those systems in particular,” Ensign Canetti blurted into the silence after her profanity. “Those systems went down first. And they went down hard.”

“Okay, so get the techs on it. What went wrong, and where?”

“That’s just it, Admiral. We don’t know. The whole maglev tracking system—and the station and platform monitors—just seem to have, well, disconnected.”

Trevor looked up sharply at the young ensign.
The system had just “disconnected?” Where had he heard
that
before?
Trevor jumped out of his chair, made for the doorway in the long, gliding leaps made possible by Barney Deucy’s low-gee environment.

“Trevor, where the hell are you going?”

“Admiral, we don’t have a lot of time. That kind of ‘disconnection’ is exactly what happened when the airlock on Convocation Station failed and almost sent Caine and one of the friendlier exosapients into hard vacuum. Similar electronic failures enabled a number of the other assassination attempts made against Caine, like the one at Alexandria.”

“So where are you going?”

“To the last station stop on the maglev line.” He looked at the D.O. “Do you have the main comms back yet?”

“Only the hard-wired system, sir.”

“As soon as you can, get a message to the Shore Patrol to meet me at the last station on the civilian branch of the maglev line.”

Perduro stood, frowning. “Why there?”

“Admiral Perduro, correct me if I’m wrong, but the track into the civilian section only extends a dozen meters or so beyond the final station. And they use that extension as a kind of shunting track: they leave cars there, or send them back the other way.”

Perduro’s frown deepened. “That’s true.”

“Then it’s also like a dead-end canyon. Once there, the only way out is to come back along the stretch of track that the rogue car has already entered.”

Perduro swallowed. “Putting Riordan between a speeding rock—”

“—and the very hard place at the end of the tunnel, Admiral. So with your leave—”

“Get the hell out of here, Captain. I’ll have the SPs meet you at the last station if I have to find them and drag them there myself.”

Off-base sector, Barnard’s Star 2 C

Heather reclined again. “So, Caine, about these secrets of yours—”

Riordan looked out the windows, saw three amber lights pass in quick sequence. “Stop the car. Now.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Caine, and I—”

“Stop the car now or you won’t hear another word from me.”

Heather frowned, modulated a control on her palmcomp’s screen. The car began to slow. “And I won’t hear another word if I let you out, either.”

“I’m not getting out. Ensign Brahen is. Those yellow lights we just passed mean we’re within a few hundred meters of a maintenance siding. She’s getting out there.”

“Not exactly the safest place to leave an innocent child, Caine.”

“Any place is safer than here with you,” Riordan snapped back, waving down the ensign’s inarticulate sputtering.

“Sir!” Brahen finally shouted, “I’m not going to leave you with this—”

“Ensign, there’s only one thing you’re going to do, and that is to follow my orders.”

“But, sir—”

“Don’t argue with him, little princess,” cooed Heather, who smiled broadly when Ensign Brahen’s fists balled up. “The grown-ups are going to talk about secrets, now. Secrets that would complicate your poor little life if they entered your poor little ears at this early stage of your poor little career.”

Some combination of the taunting tone and probable truths coming out of Heather’s mouth caused Marilyn Brahen to turn very red. “Ma’am, when I get back to the Pearl, I am going to make it my personal quest to find anything—
anything
—irregular or illegal in your actions while on Barnard’s Star Two C. And if I find something, heaven help me, I’ll—”

Heather brought the car to an abrupt stop. The ensign almost fell face down on the floor of the car. “Oops! So sorry! You were saying? Oh, but wait—you have to leave!” She pushed another control on her palmcomp; the maglev’s door hissed open. A grimy, half-meter-wide access shelf, lit by a single blue-white LED lamp, was revealed. “Out you go, sweetie!” Brahen did so, fists still clenched, eyes hard. Heather pushed the control. The door shut and the car began moving again. She tossed her bangs, surveyed Caine for a long moment. “Well, well, alone at last. Time to spill your secrets.”

Caine shook his head. “I promised to keep talking, Heather. Nothing more.”

“Oh! A challenge! But not a very hard one. Because if you don’t give me the leads I want, I will locate your old friends, ask them what they know.”

“Which is less than nothing.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that. But I also know that you’d probably do just about anything to protect them. And according to what you’ve said, a well-publicized research visit from me could be almost as unhealthy for them as if you had contacted them yourself.”

Caine made himself remain calm. “I always knew you were a hard-nosed investigator, Heather. But when did you add extortion to your bag of tricks?”

“One has to be ready to use any leverage available. Particularly when it comes to you, Caine. You don’t leave many loose ends.” She paused, became sly, but no less serious. “And I’m sure that’s why you were recruited to begin with.”

“‘Recruited’?”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Caine. It’s more than just an aversion to publicity that still had you sitting on the full story of what happened at Dee Pee Three and dishing out ‘no comments’ like they were party favors. After which you and a bunch of world-class movers and shakers disappeared into thin interstellar air for about a month. And now here you are on Barney Deucy, but not a hint of your high-profile pals. So I’ve got to wonder, what were you all doing, light-years away from where you belong?”

Caine didn’t change his expression, couldn’t afford to.
She may not have been told about the Convocation, but she’s on the scent. Careful, now.

Heather leaned forward. “I know you’re not alone in this, Caine, that you’re not an independent actor. You’re covering for someone. But I’ll disappear—right now, forever—if you just tell me who they are.”

Damn, she was a manipulative monster, but she was good. Caine raised one eyebrow, “‘They’?” he echoed. “There is no ‘they.’ I’m just a researcher doing my job.”

“And I’m the Tsarina of all the Russias. Look, even if you can’t tell me what’s really going on, don’t insult me with that ‘I’m just a researcher’ bullshit.” Heather seemed genuinely frustrated, now. Her Northern New Jersey accent and diction was starting to bleed through. “Honey, they yanked you out of an icebox that you never agreed to enter, sent you on a top-secret research assignment almost twenty light-years from Earth, and then put you up as the main attraction at the Parthenon Dialogues—all achieved despite numerous attempts to kill you. And you want me to believe that you’re still just a ‘researcher,’ no permanent strings attached? Horseshit.”

Caine smiled. “You were ever the charmer, Heather.”

“And you, Caine, still don’t know who your real friends are.”

His smiled widened. “You mean, ‘friends’ like you?”

“You could at least show me a little gratitude. I
did
rescue you from those underemployed hacks back at the maglev station.”

“Rescue me? From those ambulance chasers who you fed an ‘anonymous tip’ so that they’d accost me as soon as I emerged from The Pearl? So that I’d feel some subconscious gratitude, and be more pliable, when you serendipitously ‘came to my rescue’? Nice try. Better luck next time.”

“Knowing you, probably not.” Heather leaned forward. “But I’m not depending on luck. I have facts. For instance, fact: you had twenty-four/seven access to both Nolan Corcoran and Arvid Tarasenko.”

“So, having a close professional association with those two men automatically makes me—what? Their devoted servitor?”

“I’m not sure what it makes you, Caine. But you’re more than just a researcher when your employers start hiding your work behind some pretty dark curtains of secrecy.”

“Well, that’s hardly surprising, Heather. After what I discovered on Delta Pavonis, they had to give me pretty high security clearances. At least until Parthenon was over.”

Heather smiled. “No, that’s what you’d
like
me to believe. But you’re telling the tale a little bit backward, aren’t you, Caine?” She leaned forward. “They had to give you those clearances and bring you into their shadowy world
before
sending you to Dee Pee Three. You needed access to classified files, rank equivalents, and actual authority to get the job done there. All of which indicates that you were some kind of operative for them. And you’re still working for whoever is in charge now.” Heather frowned, thinking. “I’d bet a week’s salary that Tarasenko’s primary successor is Richard Downing. Some say he was the one who summoned that group of VIPs to Mars, where he just happened to be attending Nolan Corcoran’s memorial service. Coincidence?”

“Why don’t you ask Downing?”

“I would have, except, by the time I arrived, he’d been on a preaccelerating Earth-bound shift-carrier for two weeks, the one that finally shifted out a few days ago. But here’s what I
don’t
understand, Caine. Why should you be so loyal to them—to Downing, Corcoran, Tarasenko, whoever—given what they’ve done to you? And taken from you?”