Sassinak

Chapter Five

“Ensign Sassinak requests permission to come aboard, sir.” Coming aboard meant crossing a painted stripe on the deck of the station, but the ritual was the same as ever.

“Permission granted.” The Officer of the Deck, a young man whose reddish skin and ice-blue eyes indicated a Brinanish origin, had one wide gold ring and a narrow one on his sleeve. He returned her salute, and Sass stepped across the stripe. Slung on her shoulder was the pack containing everything she was permitted to take aboard. Her uniforms (mess dress, working dress, seasonal working, and so on) were already aboard, sent ahead from her quarters before her final interview with the Academy Commandant after Abe’s funeral.

Her quarters were minimal: one of two female ensigns (there were five ensigns in all), she had one fold-down bunk in their tiny cubicle, one narrow locker for dress uniforms, three drawers, and a storage bin. Sass knew Mira Witsel only slightly; she had been one of Randolph Neil Paraden’s set, a short blonde just over the height limit. Sass hoped she wasn’t as arrogant as the others, but counted on her graduation rank to take care of any problems. With the other ensigns, they shared a small study/lounge (three terminals, a round table, five chairs). Quickly, she stowed her gear and took a glance at herself in the mirror strip next to the door. First impressions… reporting to the captain… she grinned at her reflection. Clean and sharp and probably all too eager… but it was going to be a good voyage… she was sure of it.

“Come in!” Through the open hatch, the captain’s voice sounded stuffy, like someone not quite easy with protocol. Fargeon. Commander Fargeon - she’d practiced that softened g, typical of his homeworld (a French-influenced version of Neo-Gaesh). Sass took a deep breath, and stepped in.

He answered her formal greeting in the same slightly stuffy voice: not hostile, but standoffish. Tall, angular, he leaned across his cluttered desk to shake her hand as if his back hurt him a little. “Sit down. Ensign,” he said, folding himself into his own chair behind his desk, and flicking keys on his desk terminal. “Ah… your record precedes you. Honor graduate.” He looked at her, eyes sharp. “You can’t expect to start on the top here. Ensign.”

“No, sir,” Sassinak sat perfectly still, and he finally nodded.

“Good. That’s a problem with some top graduates, but if you don’t have a swelled head, I don’t see why you should run into difficulties. Let me see - “ He peered at his terminal screen. “Yes. You are the first ensign aboard, good. I’m putting you on third watch now, but that’s not permanent, and it doesn’t mean what it does in the Academy. Starting an honor cadet on the third watch just ensures that everyone gets a fair start.”

And you don’t have to listen to complaints of favoritism, Sassinak thought to herself. She said nothing, just nodded.

“Your first training rotation will be Engineering,” Fargeon went on. “The Exec, Lieutenant Dass, will set up the duty roster. Any questions?”

Sass knew the correct answer was no, but her mind teemed with questions. She forced it back and said “No, sir.”

The captain nodded, and sent her out to meet Lieutenant Dass. Dass, in contrast to his captain, was a wiry compact man whose dark, fine-featured face was made even more memorable by light green eyes.

“Ensign Sassinak,” he drawled, in a tone that reminded her painfully of the senior cadets at the Academy when she’d been a rockhead. “Honor cadet…”

Sassinak met his green gaze, and discovered a glint of mischief in them. “Sir - “ she began, but he interrupted.

“Never mind. Ensign. I’ve seen your record, and I know you can be polite in all circumstances, and probably work quads in your head at the same time. The captain wanted you in Engineering first, because we’ve installed a new environmental homeostasis system and it’s still being tested. You’ll be in charge of that, once you’ve had time to look over the system documentation.” He grinned at her expression: “Don’t look surprised, Ensign: you’re not a cadet in school any more. You’re a Fleet officer. We don’t have room for dead-weights; we have to know right away if you can perform for us. Now. It’s probably going to take you all your off-watch time for several days to work your way through the manuals. Feel free to ask the Engineering Chief anything you need to know, or give me a holler. On watch, you’ll have the usual standing duties, but you can spend part of most watches with the engineering crew.”

“Yes, sir.” Sass’s mind whirled. She was going to be in charge of testing the new system? A system which could kill them all if she made a serious mistake? This time the flash of memory that brought Abe to mind had no pain. He’d told her Fleet would test her limits.

“Your record says you get along with allies?”

Allies was the Fleet term for allied aliens; Sassinak had never heard it used so openly. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. We have a Weft Jig, and several Weft battle crew, and that Weft Ensign: I suppose you knew him at the Academy?” Sassinak nodded. “Oh, and have you ever seen an adult Ssli?”

“No, sir.”

“We’re Ssli-equipped, of course: all medium and heavy cruisers have been for the past two years.” He glanced at the timer. “Come along; we’ve time enough to show you.”

The Ssli habitat was a narrow oval in cross-section: ten meters on the long axis, aligned with the ship’s long axis, and only two meters wide. It extended “upward” from the heavily braced keel through five levels: almost twenty meters. The plumbing that maintained its marine environment took up almost the same cubage.

At the moment, the Ssli had grown only some three meters in diameter from its holdfast, and its fan was still almost circular. Two viewing ports allowed visual inspection of the Ssli’s environment. The Executive Officer’s stubby fingers danced on the keyboard of the terminal outside one viewing port.

“Basic courtesy - always ask before turning on the lights in there.”

Sassinak peered over his shoulder. The screen came up, and displayed both question and answer, the latter affirmative. Dass flipped a toggle, and light glowed in the water inside, illuminating a stunning magenta fan flecked with yellow and white. Sassinak stared. It seemed incredible that this huge, motionless, intricate object could be not only alive, but sentient… sentient enough to pass the FSP entry levels. She could hardly believe that the larval forms she’d seen in the Academy tanks had anything to do with this… this thing.

Somehow the reality was much stranger than just seeing tapes on it. I wonder what it feels like, she thought. How it thinks, and -

“How did they ever figure out…?” she said, before she thought.

“I don’t know, really. Thek discovered them, of course, and maybe they’re more likely to suspect intelligence in something that looks mineral than we are.” Dass looked at her closely. “It bothers some people a lot - how about you?”

“No.” Sassinak shook her head, still staring through the viewing port. “It’s beautiful, but hard to realize it’s sentient. But why not, after all? How do you communicate with it?”

“The usual. Biocomp interface… look, there’s the leads.” He pointed, and Sassinak could see the carefully shielded wires that linked the Ssli to the computer terminal. “Want an introduction?”

When she nodded, he tapped in her ID code, asked her favorite name-form, and then officer crew: general access.

“That gives it access to the general information in your file. Nothing classified, just what any other officer would be able to find out about you. Age, class rank, sex, general appearance, planet of origin, that kind of thing. If you want to share more, you can offer additional access, either by giving it the information directly, or by opening segments of your file. Now you come up here, and be ready to answer.”

On the screen before her, a greeting already topped the space. “Welcome, Ensign Sassinak; my name in Fleet is Hssrho. Have been installed here thirty standard months; you will not remember, but you met me in larval stage in your second year at the Academy.”

Sassinak remembered her first introduction to larval Ssli, in the alien communications lab, but she’d never expected to meet the same individual in sessile form. And she hadn’t remembered that name. Quickly she tapped in a greeting, and apologies for her forgetfulness.

“Never mind… we take new names when we unite with a ship. You could not know. But I remember the cadet who apologized for bumping into my tank.”

From the Ssli, Lieutenant Dass led her through a tangle of passages into the Engineering section. Sassinak tried to pay attention to the route, but had to keep ducking under this, and stepping over that. She began to wonder if he was taking a roundabout and difficult way on purpose.

“In case you think I’m leading you by the back alleys,” he said over his shoulder, “all this junk is the redundancy we get from having two environmental systems, not just one. As soon as you’ve got the new one tuned up to Erling’s satisfaction - he’s the Engineering Chief - we can start dismantling some of this. Most of it’s testing gear anyway.”

Even after the study of ship types at the Academy, Sass found it took awhile to learn the geography of the big ship. Cruiser architecture was determined by the requirement that the ships not only mount large weapons for battles in space or against planets, but also carry troops and their support equipment, and be able to land them. Cruisers often operated alone, and thus needed a greater variety of weaponry and equipment than any one ship in a battle group. But to retain the ability to land on planet in many situations, and maneuver (if somewhat clumsily) in atmosphere, cruiser design had settled on a basic ovoid shape. Thanks to the invention of efficient internal artificial gravity, the ships no longer had to spin to produce a pseudo-gravity. The “egg” could be sliced longitudinally into decks much easier to use and build.

In their first few days, all the new ensigns took a required tour of each deck, from the narrow silent passages of Data Deck, where there was little to see but arrays of computer components, to the organized confusion of Flight Two, with the orbital shuttles, drone and manned space fighters, aircraft, and their attendant equipment, all the way down to the lowest level of Environmental, where the great plumbing systems that kept the ship functioning murmured to themselves between throbbing pump stations. Main Deck, with the bridge, nearly centered the ship, as the bridge sector centered Main Deck. Aft of the bridge was Officers’ Country, with the higher ranking officers nearer the bridge (and in larger quarters), and the ensigns tucked into their niches near the aft cargo lift that ran vertically through all decks. Lest they think this a handy arrangement, they were reminded that regulations forbade the use of the cargo lift for personnel only: they were supposed to keep fit by running up and down the ladders between decks. Main Deck also held all the administrative offices needed. Between Data Deck and Environmental was Crew, or Troop Deck, which had, in addition to crew quarters, recreation facilities, and mess, the sick bay and medical laboratory. When the ship landed on planet, a ramp opening from Troop Deck offered access to the planet’s surface.

Yet nothing, they were warned, was excess: nothing was mere decoration. Every pipe, every fitting, every electrical line, had its function, and the interruption of a single function could mean the life of the ship in a crisis. So, too, all the petty regulations: the timing of shower privileges, the spacing of the exercise machines in the gyms. It was hard for Sass to believe, but with the stern eye of a senior officer on them all, she nodded with the rest.

Shipboard duty had none of the exotic feel the ensigns had hoped for, once they knew their way around the ship. Mira, away from the social climbers at the Academy, turned out to be a warm, enthusiastic girl, willing to be friends with anyone. Her father, a wealthy merchant captain, had set her sights on a career in space. She frankly admired Sassinak for being “really strong.” To Sassinak’s surprise, when it came to working out in the gym, Mira was a lot tougher than she seemed.

“We weren’t supposed to show it off,” said Mira, when Sassinak commented on this. “Mother wanted us to be ladies, not just spacer girls - she said we’d have a lot more fun that way. And then in Neil’s bunch at the Academy…” She looked sideways at Sassinak who suddenly realized that Mira really did want to be friends. “They always said there’s no use exceeding requirements, ‘cause the Wefts’ll get all the medals anyway. And Neil - Mother - sent me a whole long tape about it when she found out he was in the same class. She’d have eaten me alive if I’d made an enemy of him without cause.” She patted Sassinak on the shoulder, as if she weren’t a decimeter shorter. “Sorry, but you weren’t cause enough, and it was clear you could deck Neil any time you wanted to.”

“You’re - “ Sass couldn’t think of a good term, and shook her head. Mira grinned. “I’m a typical ambitious, underbred and overfed merchanter brat, who’ll never make admiral but plans to spend a long and pleasurable career in Fleet. Incidentally serving FSP quite loyally, since I really do believe it does a lot of good, but not ever rising to flag rank and not really wanting it. Deficient in ambition, that’s what they’d grade me.”

“Not deficient in anything else,” said Sassinak. She caught the wink that Mira tipped her and grinned back. “You devious little stinker - I’ll bet you’re a good friend, at that.”

“I try to be.” Mira’s voice was suddenly demure, almost dripping honey. “When I have the chance. And when I like someone.”

Sassinak thought better of asking, but Mira volunteered.

“I like you, Sass… now. You were pretty stiff in the Academy, and yes, I know you had reasons. But I’d like to be friends, if you would, and I mean friends like my people mean it: fair dealing, back-to-back in a row with outsiders, but if I think you’re wrong I’ll say it to your face.”

“Whoosh. You can speak plain.” Sassinak smiled and held out her hand. “Yes, Mira; I’d like that. ‘S long as I get to tellyou.”

And after that she enjoyed the little free time she had to share impressions with Mira. Meals in the officers’ mess were not as formal as those in the Academy, but they knew better than to put themselves forward. For the first month, Sassinak was on third shift rotation, which meant that she ate with other third shift officers; the captain usually kept a first-shift schedule. From what Mira told her, she wasn’t missing much. When she rotated to first-shift watch, and Communications as her primary duty, she found that Mira was right.

Instead of a lively discussion of the latest political scandal from Escalon or Contaigne, with encouragement to join in, the ensigns sat quietly as Captain Fargeon delivered brief, unemotional critiques of the ship’s performance. Sassinak grew to dread his quiet “There’s a little matter in Engineering…” or whatever section he was about to shred.

The shift to Communications Section gave her some sense of contact with the outside world. Fleet vessels, unlike civilian ships, often stayed in deepspace for a standard year or more. None of the cadets had ever experienced that odd combination of isolation and confinement. Sassinak, remembering the slave barracks and the pirate vessel, found the huge, clean cruiser full of potential friends and allies an easy thing to take, but some did not.

Corfin, the ensign who slipped gradually into depression and then paranoia, had not been a particular friend of hers in the Academy, but when she recognized his withdrawal, she did her best to cheer him up. Nothing worked; finally his supervisor reported to the Medical Officer, and when treatment slowed, but didn’t stop, the progression, he was sedated, put in coldsleep, and stored for the duration, to be discharged as medically unfit for shipboard duty when they reached a Fleet facility.

“But why can’t they predict that?” asked Sassinak, in the group therapy session the Medical Officer insisted on. “Why can’t they pick them out, clear back in the first year, or before - “ Because Corfin had been in the Academy prep school, and had a Fleet medical record going back ten years or more.

“He was told of the possibility,” she was told, “it’s in his chart. But his father was career Fleet, died in a pod repair accident: the boy wanted to try. and the Board agreed to give him a chance. And it’s not wasted time, his or ours either. We have his record, to judge another by, and he’ll qualify for a downside Fleet job if he wants it.”

Sassinak couldn’t imagine anyone wanting it. To be stuck on one planet, or shipped from one to another by coldsleep cabinet? Horrible. Glad she had no such problems herself, she went back to her work eagerly.

It was, in fact, a prized assignment. The communications “shack” was a good-sized room that opened directly onto the bridge. Sassinak could look out and see the bridge crew: the officer of the deck in the command module - or, more often, standing behind it, overlooking the others from the narrow eminence that protruded into the bridge like a low stage. Of course she could not see it all; her own workstation cut off the view of the main screens and the weapons section. But she felt very much at the nerve-center of the cruiser’s life. Communications in the newly refitted heavy cruiser were a far sight from anything she’d been taught in the Academy.

Instead of the simple old dual system of sublight radio and FTL link, both useful only when the ship itself was in sublight space, they had five separate systems, each for use in a particular combination of events. Close-comm, used within thirty LM of the receiver, was essentially the same old sublight microwave relay that virtually all technical races developed early on.

Low-link, a low-power FTL link for use when they themselves were not on FTL drive, brought near- instantaneous communications within a single solar system, and short-lag comm to nearby star systems. Two new systems gave the capability for transmissions while in FTL flight: a sublight emergency channel, SOLEC, which allowed a computer-generated message to contact certain mapped nodes, and the high-power FTL link which transmitted to mapped stations. Even newer, still experimental and very secret, was the computer-enhanced FTL link to other Fleet vessels in FTL flight.

For each system, a separate set of protocols and codes determined which messages might be sent where, and by whom… and who could or should receive messages.

“One thing is, we don’t want the others to know what we’ve got,” said the Communications Chief. “So far, all the commercials in human space are using the old stuff: electromagnetic, lightspeed-radio and stuff like that - and FTL link - really a low-link. Arbetronics is about to come out with a commercial version of the FTL sublight transmitter, but Fleet’s got a total lock on the high-link. Our people developed it; all that research was funded in house, and unless someone squeaks, it’s our baby. And the Fleet IFTL link even more so. You can see why.”

Sassinak certainly could. Until now. Fleet vessels had had to drop into sublight to pick up incoming messages - usually at mapped nodes, which made them entirely too predictable. Her instructors at the Academy had suspected that Fleet messages were being routinely stripped from the holding computers by both Company and unattached pirates. The IFTL link would make them independent of the nodes altogether. “Information,” the Comm Chief said. “That’s the power out here - who knows what? Now, ordinarily, in any disputed or unsecured sector, all crew messages are held for batch transmission, ordinary sublight radio, to the nearest mail facility. Anything serious - death, discharge, that kind of thing - can be put on the low-link with clearance from the Communications Officer, who may require the captain to sign off on it. The initiating officer’s code goes on each transmission. That means whoever authorized it, not who actually punched the button - right now you’re not booked to initiate any signals. The actual operator’s code also goes on it; whoever logs onto that system transmitter automatically gets hooked to the transmission. Incoming’s always accepted, and automatically dumped in a protected file unless its own security status requires even more. Accepting officer’s code - and that’s you, if you’re on duty right then - goes on it in the file. If it’s the usual mail-call batch, check with ‘Tenant Cardon; if he says it’s clear, then let the computer route it to individuals’ E-mail files.”

“What about other incoming?”

“Well, if it’s not a batch file message, if it’s a singleton for one person, you have to get authorization to move it to that individual’s file. If it’s a low-link message, those are always Fleet official business, and that means route to the captain first, but into his desk file, not his private E-mail file. We don’t get any incoming on high-link or SOLEC, so you don’t have to worry about them. Now if it’s something on the IFTL, that’s routed directly to the captain’s desk file. Pipe the captain, wherever he is, and no copies at all. Nothing in main computer. Clear?”

“Yes, sir. But do I still patch on my ID code, on an IFTL message?”

“Yes, of course. That’s always done.”

Some days later, Sassinak came into Communications just as the beeper rang off on the end of an incoming message burst. Cavery, who had already discovered the new ensign could do his job almost as well as he could, pointed at the big display. Sassinak scanned the grid and nodded.

“I’ll put it down,” she said.

“I’ve already keyed my code on it. Just the mail run from Stenus, nothing fancy.”

Sass flicked a few keys and watched the display. The computer broke each message batch into its component messages, and routed them automatically. The screen flickered far faster than she could read it. She liked the surreal geometries of the display anyway. It hovered on the edge of making sense, like math a little beyond her capability.

Suddenly something tugged at her mind, hard, and she jammed a finger on the controls. The display froze, halfway between signals, showing only the originating codes.

“Whatsit?” asked Cavery, looking over to see why the flickering had stopped.

“I don’t know. Something funny.”

“Funny! You’ve been here over six standard months and you’re surprised to find something funny?”

“No… not really.” Her voice softened as she peered at the screen. Then she saw it. Out of eighteen message fragments on the screen, two had the same originator codes, reduplicated four times each. That had made odd blocks of light on the screen, repeating blocks where she’d expected randomness. She looked over at Cavery. “What’s a quad duplication of originating blocks for?”

“A quad? Never saw one. Let’s take a look - “ He called up the reference system on his own screen. “What’s the code?”

Sassinak read it off, waited while he punched it in. He whistled. “Code itself is Fleet IG’s office… who the dickens is getting mail from the IG, I wonder. And quad duplication. That’s…”

She heard his fingers on the keys, a soft clicking, and then another whistle. “I dunno. Ensign. Some kind of internal code, I’d guess, but it’s not in the book. Who’re they to?”

Sassinak read off the codes, and he looked them up.

“Huh. ‘Tenant Achael and Weapons Systems Officer… and that’s Tenant Achael. Tell you what. Ensign, someone sure wants to have Achael get that signal, whatever it is.” He gave her a strange, challenging look. “Want me to put a tag on it?”

“Mmm? No,” she said. Then more firmly, as he continued to look at her. “No, just the receiving code tag. It’s none of our business, anyway.”

Still, she couldn’t quite put it out of her mind. It wasn’t unknown for the IG to pull a surprise inspection - and not unheard of for a junior officer to be tipped off by a friend ahead of time. Or someone - presumably ‘Tenant Achael - might have made a complaint directly to the IG. That also happened. But she couldn’t leave it at that. She was responsible, whenever she was on duty, for spotting anything irregular in the Communications Section. Two messages from the IG’s office - two messages sent to the same person by different routes, and with an initiating code that wasn’t in the book. That was definitely irregular.

“Come in. Ensign,” said Commander Fargeon, seated as usual behind his desk. She wished it had been some other officer. “What is it?” he asked.

“An irregularity in incoming signals, sir.” Sassinak laid the hardcopy prints on his desk. “This came in with a regular mail batchfile. Two identical strips for Lieutenant Achael, one direct to his E-mail slot, and one to Weapons Officer. The same originating code, in the IG’s office, but repeated four times. And it’s in code…” She let her voice trail off, seeing that Fargeon’s attention was caught. He picked up the prints and looked closely at them.

“Hmm. Did you decode it?”

“No, sir.” Sass managed not to sound aggrieved: he knew she knew that was strictly against regulations. She hadn’t done anything yet to make him think she was likely to break regs.

“Well.” Fargeon sat back, still staring at the prints. “It’s probably nothing. Ensign - a friend in the IG’s office, wanting to make sure he’d get the message - but you were quite right to bring it to my attention. Quite right.” By his tone, he didn’t think so - he sounded bored and irritable. Sassinak waited a moment. “And if anything of a similar nature should happen again, you should certainly tell me about it. Dismissed.”

Sassinak left his office unsatisfied. Something pricked her mind; she couldn’t quite figure it out, but it worried her constantly. Surely Fargeon, the most rigid of captains, couldn’t be involved in anything underhanded. And was it underhanded to be receiving messages from the IG? Not really.

She mentioned her inability to feel comfortable with Fargeon’s attitude to the Weft ensign, Jrain.

“No, we don’t think he’s bent,” was Jrain’s response. “He doesn’t like Wefts, but then he doesn’t like much of anyone he didn’t know in childhood. They’re pretty inbred, there on Bretagne. A bit like the Seti, in a way: they have very rigid ideas of right and wrong.”

“I thought the Seti were pretty loose,” said Sass. “Vandals and hellraisers, always willing to start a fight or gamble it all on one throw.”

“They are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own rules. Did you know Seti won’t do any gene engineering?”

“I thought they were primitive in that field.”

“They are, but it’s because they want to be. They think it’s wrong to load the dice - genetic or otherwise. But that’s beside the point: what matters is that Fargeon is straight, so far as Wefts can tell. Even though he doesn’t like us. Wefts choose to serve on his ship, because he is fair.”

Only a few shipdays later, they had their first break in routine since leaving Base. The cruiser had orders to inspect a planet in the system which had generated conflicting reports: an EEC classification of “habitable; possibly suitable for limited colonization” and a more recent free scout’s comment of “dead - no hope.”

From orbit, the remote survey crews backed up the free scout’s report. No life, and no possibility of it without major terraforming. But Fleet apparently wanted a closer investigation, some idea of who had done it - the Others, or what? Commander Fargeon himself chose the landing team: Sassinak went as communications officer, along with ten specialists and ten armed guards.

It was her first time since the training cruise at the Academy in fall protective gear. This time, a sergeant checked her seals and tanks, instead of an instructor. The air tasted “tanky” as they put it, and she had to remind herself where all the switches were. Carefully, very aware that this was no training exercise, she checked out the main and backup radios she’d be using on the surface, made sure that the recording taps were all open, the computer channels cleared for input.

She didn’t see the planet until the shuttle cleared the cruiser’s hull. It looked exactly like the teaching tapes of dead planets. Sassinak ignored it after a glance and ran another set of checks on her equipment. Although the planet had once had a breathable oxygen atmosphere, sustained by its biosphere, it had already skewed towards the reducing atmosphere common to unlivable worlds.

Besides, whatever had been used to kill its living component might still be active. They would be on tanks the entire time. She had hardly cleared the shuttle ramp on the surface, and felt the alien grit rasping along her bootsoles, when the landing team commander called a warning.

At first Sassinak could not judge the size or distance of the pyramidal objects that seemed to grow, like the targets in a computer simulation game, from nothing in the upper air. Certainly they didn’t follow the trajectories required by normal insystem drives, nor did they slow for the careful landing the shuttle pilot had made. Instead they hovered briefly overhead, then sank apparently straight down to rest firmly on the bare rock.

Sassinak reported this, hardly aware of doing it, so fascinated was she by the display. Half a dozen of the pyramids now sat, or lay, m an irregular array near the shuttle. Theks, the landing party commander had said; apart from teaching tapes, she had never seen a Thek and now she saw many in person, if such designation was accurate for those entities.

Another member of the landing party beeped the LPC and asked, “What do we do about them, sir?”

The LPC snorted, a splatter of sound in the suit corn units. “It’s more what are they going to do about us. For future reference, this looks to me like the beginnings of a Thek conference. Meanwhile, look your fill. Not many of us ephemerals get a chance to see one forming.”

His suit helmet tilted; Sassinak looked up, too. More of the pyramids appeared, sank, and landed nearby.

“If that’s what they’re doing,” LPC said after a brief silence, “we might as well go back in the shuttle and have something to eat. This is going to take longer than we’d planned. Inform the captain. Ensign.”

More and more pyramids arrived.. -. and then, without sound or warning, the ones already landed rose and joined the others to form a large, interlocking structure of complex geometry.

“That,” said the LPC, sounding impressed, “is a Thek cathedral. It’s big enough inside for this whole shuttle, and it lasts until they’re through. The Xenos think they’re linking minds. Humans who have been in one don’t talk about what happened.”

“Humans get drawn into one of those things?” someone asked, clearly unsettled by the notion.

“If a Thek calls, you come,” replied the LPC.

“How would you know a Thek wanted you?”

“Oh, there’s evidence that the Thek recognize individual humans from time to time…”

“Their time?” a wise guy quipped.

“It does look a lot like the Academy Chapel right now,” said Sassinak softly. She didn’t think this was a time to be clever but people reacted differently to something they couldn’t quite understand.

“Most people think that. You’re lucky to see one, you know. Just try to keep out of one, if you’ve got the option. No one says ‘no’ to one Thek, let alone a whole flotilla.”

“Does anyone know more about them than the Academy tapes?”

“Did you take Advanced Alien Cultures? No? Well, it’s not that much help anyway. An allied alien race, co-founders of the Federation, we think. Wefts are one of their client races, although I don’t know why. They’re mineral, and they communicate very… very… slowly… with humans, if at all.” Although they were back in the shuttle now, the LPC kept his voice low. “Have a taste for transuranics, and they’re supposed to remember everything that ever happened to them, or a distant ancestor. Live a long time, but before they dissolve or harden, or whatever it is they do that corresponds with death, they transmit all their memories somehow. Maybe they’re telepathic with each other. For humans they use a computer interface or modulate sound waves. Without, as you can see, any mouth. Don’t ask me how; it’s not my field, and this is only the second time I’ve seen a Thek.”

Hours later, the Theks abruptly disassembled themselves and flew - or whatever it was - back into the darkening sky. The landing party, now thoroughly bored and stiff, grumbled back into action.

Sass followed them to the outcrop that had been chosen for primary sampling. They set to work as she relayed their results and comments back to the ship. Worklights glared, forming haloes at the edge of her vision as the dust rose, almost like smoke-haze in a bar, she thought, watching suited figures shift back and forth. Suddenly she stiffened, wholly alert, her heart racing. One of them - one of the helmeted blurs - she had seen before. Somewhere. Somewhere in a fight.

It came to her: the night of Abe’s murder, the night of the brawl in the bar. That same bold geometric pattern on the helmet had then been on the jacket of one of the street gang. That same flicking movement of the arm had - she closed her eyes a moment, now recognizing something she had never quite put together - had aimed something at Abe.

Rage blurred her vision and thought. She opened her mouth to scream into the corn unit, but managed to clamp her teeth on the scream. Abe’s murderer here? In a Fleet uniform? She didn’t know all the landing party, but she could certainly find out whose helmet that was. And somehow, some way, she’d get her revenge.

Through the rest of the time on planet, she worked grimly, determined to hide her reactions until she found out just who that was, and why Abe had been killed. She wondered again about the mysterious duplicated message to ‘Tenant Achael. Could that be part of the same problem?

Back on the ship, Sass made no sudden moves. She had had time to think about her options. Going to Fargeon with a complaint that someone on the ship had murdered her guardian would get her a quick trip to the Medical Section for sedation. Querying the personnel files was against regulations, and even if she could get past the computer’s security systems, she risked leaving a trace of her search. Whoever it was would know that she was aware of something wrong. Even asking about the helmet’s assigned user might be risky, but she felt it was the least risky… and she had an idea.

Partly because of the Thek arrival and conference, the LPC had permitted more chatter on the circuits than usual, and Sass had already found it hard to tag each transmission with the correct originating code, as required. She had reason, therefore, to ask the rating in charge of the helmets for a list of occupants, “just to check on some of this stuff, and be sure I get the right words with the right person.”

The helmet she cared most about belonged to Tenant Achael. Gotcha, thought Sass, but kept a bright friendly smile on her face when she called him on the ship’s intercom. “Sorry to bother you, sir,” she began, “but I needed to check some of these transmissions…”

“Couldn’t you have done that at the time?” he asked. He sounded gruff, and slightly wary. Sass tried to project innocent enthusiasm, and pushed all thought of Abe aside.

“Sorry, sir, but I was having trouble with the coded data link while the Theks were there.” This was in fact true, and she’d mentioned it to the LPC at the time, which meant she was covered if Achael checked. “The commander said that was more important…”

“Very well, then. What is it?”

“At 1630, ship’s time, a conversation on the geochemical sulfur cycle and its relation to the fourth stage of reseeding… was it you, sir, or Specialist Nervin, who said ‘But that’s only if you consider the contribution of the bacterial substrate to be nominal.’ That’s just where the originating codes began to get tangled.” Just as she spoke, Sass pushed the capture button on her console, diverting Achael’s response into a sealed file she’d prepared. Highly illegal, but she would have need of it. And if the shielded tap she’d put together didn’t work, he’d hear the warning buzz on her speech first. He should react to it.

“Oh - “ He sounded less tense. ‘That was Nervin - he was telling me about the latest research from Zamroni. Apparently there’s some new evidence that shows a much greater contribution from the bacterial substrate in fourth stage. Have you read it?”

“No, sir.”

“Really. You were involved in installing the new environmental system, though, weren’t you? I’d gotten the idea that biosystems was your field.”

“No, sir,” said Sassinak firmly, guessing where he wanted to go with this. “I took command course: just general knowledge in the specialty fields. Frankly, sir, I found most of that environmental system over my head, and if it hadn’t been for Chief Erling - “

“I see. Well, does that give you enough to go on, or do you need something else?”

Sassinak asked two more questions, each quite reasonable since it involved a period with multiple transmissions at a time when her attention might have been on data relay. He answered freely, seemingly completely relaxed now, and Sassinak kept her own voice easy. He was still willing to chat. Then she cut him off, making herself sound reluctant. Did she want to meet for a drink in the mess next shift indeed!

I’ll drink at your funeral, she thought to herself,and dance on your grave, youmurdering blackheart.

Chapter Six

Sassinak wondered how she could get into the personnel files without being detected. And could she find out anything useful if she did? Certainly Achael wouldn’t have “murderer” filling in some blank (secondary specialty?), and since she had no idea who or what had marked Abe for death, she wasn’t sure she could recognize anything she found anyway. Still, she had to do something.

“Sassinak, can I ask you something?” Surbar, fellow ensign, was a shy, quiet young man, who nonetheless used his wide dark eyes to good advantage. Sassinak had heard, through Mira, that he was enjoying his recreational hours with a Jig in Weapons Control. Nonetheless, he’d given her some intense looks, and she’d considered responding.

“Sure.” Sassinak leaned back, in the relaxed atmosphere of the second watch mess, and ran her hands through her hair. In one comer of her mind, she considered that it was getting a bit too long, and she really ought to go get it trimmed again. Tousled was one thing, but a tangled mass - which is what her hair did every chance it got - was another. The difference between sexy and blowsy.

“D’you know anything about Tenant Achael?”

Sassinak barely controlled her reaction. “Achael? Not really - he was on the landing party, but I was too busy with all my stuff to talk to him. Why?”

“Well.” Surbar frowned and scratched his nose. “He’s been asking about you. Lia wanted to know why, and he said you were too good-looking to be running around loose. Thought you might be related to somebody he’d known.”

Sassinak made herself chuckle casually. Apparently it worked because Surbar didn’t seem to notice anything. “He’s one of those, is he? After every new female on the ship?”

Surbar shrugged. “Lia said he made eyes at her, but backed off when she said no. Then he started asking about you - so I guess maybe he is that kind.”

“Mmm. Well, then, I’ll be sure to stay out of airlocks and closets and other closed spaces if Mr. Lieutenant Achael is around.”

“Meaning you’re not interested?” Surbar gave her his most melting look.

“Not in him,” said Sassinak, glancing at the overhead and then letting her glance slide sideways to meet Surbar’s. “On the other hand…”

“Lia’s coming to play gunna tonight,” said Surbar quickly. “Maybe another time?”

Sassinak shrugged. “Give me a call. Thanks, anyway, for the warning about Achael.” On her way back to her compartment, she thought about it. Achael had enough seniority to cause her trouble, and as Weapons Officer he had high enough clearance to access most communications files. If he wanted to. If he thought he needed to. She wanted him dead, if he was Abe’s killer, or in league with Abe’s killer, but she didn’t want to ruin herself in the process.

The next shift, Sassinak had her first IFTL message to process. Muttering her way through the protocol, she logged it, stripped the outer codes, and got it into the captain’s eyes-only file without help. Cavery nodded. “Good job - you’re doing well at that.”

“Wonder what it’s about.”

“Ours not to know - they say your eyes turn to purple jelly and your brain rots if you peek at those things.”

Sassinak chuckled; Cavery had turned out to have quite a sense of humor. “I thought ensigns didn’t have brains, just vast pools of prediluvian slime - isn’t that what I heard you tell Pickett, yesterday?”

“Comes from trying to decode IFTL messages, that’s what I just said. Keep your mind, such as it is, on your work. You can’t afford to lose more.” His grin took all the sting out of it, and Sassinak went on logging in routine communications for the rest of the shift.

That night Fargeon announced in the wardroom that they were to intercept an EEC craft and pick up reports for forwarding. He spent a long time droning on about the delicate handling necessary to rendezvous in deep space, and Sassinak let her attention wander. Not so far as some, though, for Fargeon’s rebuke fell on a Jig from Engineering, who had been doodling idly on her napkin. For some reason, Fargeon chose to interpret this as carelessness with classified information, and by the time he’d finished reaming her out, everyone in the room felt edgy. Of course deep-space rendezvous were tricky, everyone knew that, and of course the EEC pilot couldn’t be depended on to arrive at a precise location, as the cruiser would do, but this was no different from any other time, surely. If the EEC ship fouled up badly enough, and they all made a fireworks display that wouldn’t be seen anywhere for fifty years or so, too bad.

Since everyone came out of dinner disgruntled, Sassinak didn’t pay much attention to her own mood. But the next morning she found that Lieutenant Achael had the bridge: Fargeon, Dass, and Lieutenant Commander Slachek were, he said, in conference. Sassinak glanced around the bridge, and ducked into the communications cubby. It was empty. A scrawled note on the console said that Perry had gone to sickbay: Achael had cleared it. Sassinak frowned, wondering if that’s why Cavery was late - perhaps he’d gone with Perry to sickbay. But communications hadn’t been uncovered long; the incoming telltales showed nothing in the queue in any system. Odd - they’d been getting regular bursts last shift, relayed position checks on the EEC ship. Sassinak pulled up the last entries in the incoming file, to check the log-in times - if they hadn’t had anything coming in for awhile, it might mean trouble with the systems.

She was so intent on the idea of a systems failure that she almost didn’t recognize her own initiation code when it flashed on the screen. What? Her nose wrinkled in concentration. She’d just gotten there, and yet her code was time-linked to a file query five minutes before. It couldn’t be - unless someone had entered her code by mistake… or for some other reason.

“Hey - sorry I’m late.” Cavery slid into his seat, took a look at the display, and recoiled. “I thought I told you not to go poking around in the incoming message files.”

“You did. I didn’t. Somebody used my code.”

“What!” After that first explosive word, his voice lowered. “Don’t say that, Sassinak. Probably every comm posting in the universe has snooped one time or another, but lying doesn’t make it better.”

“I’m not lying.” Sassinak laid her hand over his on the console. “Listen to me. I wasn’t here at the time that was logged; I came in right on time, not early as usual. Someone logged my code five minutes before I was here.”

“What’d Perry say?”

“He’s in sickbay. Nobody was here when I got here, just a note - “ She handed it over. Cavery frowned.

“Hardcopy, not on the computer. That’s odd. Who’s got duty -?” He craned to see around the angle, and snorted. “Oh, great. Achael. Where’s Fargeon?’

“In conference, Achael said. But Cavery, the thing is - “

“The thing is, your code’s on there, telling the whole world you were snooping in the IFTL files, and if you say you’re not either you’re a liar, which is one problem, or someone else is, which is another. Damn! All we needed, with the captain the way he is right now, is a Security glitch.”

“But I didn’t - “

Cavery looked at her, hard, then his mouth relaxed. “No, I don’t think you would. But with your code on the file, and - what the dickens is that?” He pointed to the realtime display, which was filling with the outgoing batch message for SOLEC transmission. “I don’t suppose you put your code on that one either?”

Sassinak looked and saw the other anomaly that Cavery had missed. “Or that quad code for the Inspector General’s office, either - it’s the same thing we had before, only outgoing, and using my code as originator.”

“That one, I will strip.” Cavery froze the display, keyed in the ranking codes, and displayed the message itself, along with its initiating and destination sequences, Sassinak noticed that he was copying all this into another file, sealed with his own code. He sat back, clearly baffled by the message.

“Subject unaware; no suspicious activity. Assignment coincidental. Will continue observation.”

Cavery looked over at her, brows raised. “Well, Ensign, are you keeping someone under surveillance, or is someone keeping you under surveillance?”

“I - don’t know.” Achael, she thought. It has to be Achael, but why? And who’s behind it?

“Well, I know one thing, and that’s where all this is going: straight to the captain.”

“But - “ Sassinak stopped herself; if she protested, he’d have reason to think she knew more. Yet she wasn’t near ready to accuse Achael of involvement with Abe’s death… how could she? No matter how it came out, she’d lose: ensigns don’t get anywhere accusing lieutenants of murder months back and somewhere else.

Cavery waited, his expression clearly daring her to object.

“I know,” she said finally, “that Captain Fargeon has to be informed. But he’s not on the bridge, and I don’t… really… want to involve any more officers than necessary.”

“I remember whose number was on those quad-coded messages. Ensign Sassinak - “ Cavery nodded toward the main bridge area. “You needn’t try to be obscure.”

“Sorry, sir. I wasn’t trying to be obscure, I was just - “ She paused, as near waving her hands in confusion as she’d ever been. Then inspiration hit. She saw by Cavery’s expression that her own had changed with her idea. “Sir, if all this ties together, right now is a bad time to go charging out of here to the captain, isn’t it? And if it doesn’t, it would still… confuse things, wouldn’t it?”

Cavery leaned back fractionally, considering. “You have a point.” He sighed, and cleared the display. “I can’t see that it would hurt to wait until midwatch break, anyway, and maybe later. Depends on the captain’s schedule.”

Sassinak said nothing more, but settled to her work. Thank whatever gods there were she hadn’t meddled with the Personnel files or the message banks: Achael didn’t know she suspected anything. Assignment coincidence? What else could it be, when she had no powerful family to pull strings for her… or had that been Abe’s secret, perhaps? More than ever, she needed to see Achael’s file, but how was she going to do that?

The shattering clamor of the emergency alarm brought her upright. Fast as she was, Cavery’s hand almost covered hers as they shut the console down for normal use and flicked on the emergency systems. After the first blast of noise, the siren warbled up, down, up twice: evacuation drill.

“Stupidest damn drill in the book,” grumbled Cavery as he fished under the console for the emergency masks. “Here - put this on. Nobody ever evacuates a cruiser; as long as it takes to get everyone in the shuttles and evac pods, whatever it is will have blown the whole place up. Now remember. Ensign, you close the board when you leave, and that’s not until the duty officer clears the bridge.” His voice was muffled, now, through the foil and plex hood and mask. Sassinak found that hers cut off all vision to the side and rear. As she fastened the tabs to the shoulders of her uniform, Cavery grunted. “Ah, good: Fargeon’s taken the bridge. Soon as this damn drill’s over, we can get this other taken care of - “ His voice sharpened. “Yes, sir; communications secured, sir.”

Although Cavery’s acid comments implied that pirates could have boarded the ship and flown it to the far side of the galaxy before their turn came, Sassinak thought it wasn’t long at all before she was jogging forward along the main portside corridor from the bridge to the transport bays where the shuttles and evac pods were docked. A stream of hooded figures jogged her way, and another jogged back; once you were logged into your assigned evacuation slot, you had to return to your duty post. It did seem illogical. She looked again at the strip of plastic giving her assigned pod: E-40-A. Here, along a side corridor, through a narrow passage she’d never explored. Bay E: someone in full EVA gear glanced at her assignment strip and waved her to the right; section 40 was the last one at the end. Someone else, also suited up, pointed out Pod A, one of a row of hatches still dogged shut. Sassinak struggled with the hatch lock, checked to see that the telltales were all green, and pulled the heavy lid open. Inside the little brightly lit compartment, she could see the shape of an acceleration couch, shiny fittings, a bank of switches and lights.

She ducked her head to clear the hatch opening. Suddenly a sharp pain jabbed her arm, and when she tried to turn it felt like the weight of the whole cruiser landed on her head. She could do nothing but fall forward into darkness.

Commander Fargeon in a rage was no pleasant sight. His officers, ranged around his desk at attention, had no doubt of his mood. “What I want to know,” he said icily, “is who dumped that pod. Who sent it out there, and what’s that ensign doing in it, and why isn’t the beacon functioning, and what’s all this nonsense about communications security leaks.”

Eyes slid sideways; no one volunteered. Fargeon barked, “Cavery!”

“Sir, Ensign Sassinak had reported an incident of duplicate transmissions with unusual initiation codes - “

“I know about that. That’s got nothing to do with this, has it?”

Cavery wasn’t sure how far to go, yet. “I don’t know, sir: I was just starting at the beginning.” He took a breath, waited for Fargeon’s nod, and went on. “Today she reported that someone had used her initiation code to attempt access to a restricted file - “

“Ensign Sassinak? When?”

“Apparently it happened about five minutes before she came on duty. She reported it to me when I arrived - “ Cavery went on to explain what had happened up until the drill alarm went. Fargeon listened without further comment, his face expressionless. Then he turned to another officer.

“Well, Captain Palise: what did you see in E-bay.”

“Sir, we logged Ensign Sassinak into E-bay at 1826.40; she logged off the bridge on evac at 1824.10, and that’s just time to go directly to E-bay. As you know, sir, in an evac drill we have personnel constantly shifting about; once someone’s logged into the bay, there’s no way to keep watch on them until they’re into their assigned shuttle or pod. When the hatches are dogged, then they’re logged as onboard evac craft, and they’re supposed to return to duty as quickly as possible. Within two minutes of Ensign Sassinak’s bay log-in, we show fifty-three individuals logging into the same bay - about what you’d expect. Eight of them were in the wrong bay - and that’s about average, too. We had two recording officers in E-bay, but they didn’t notice anything until Pod 40-A fired.”

“Very well. Captain Palise. Now, Engineering - “

“The pod was live, sir, as they always are for drill. We can’t be shutting down the whole system just because somebody might make a mistake - “

“I know that.” It had been Fargeon’s own policy, in fact, and the Engineering Section had warned more than once that having evac drills with live pods and shuttles while in FTL travel was just asking for trouble. Fargeon glared at his senior engineer, and Erling glared back. Everyone knew that Erling had taken to Sassinak in her first assignment. Whatever had happened, Erling was going to pick Sassinak’s side, if he knew which it was.

“Well, sir, activation would be the same as always. If the hatch is properly dogged, inside and out, and the sequence keyed in - “

“From inside?”

“Either. The shuttles have to be operated from inside, but the whole reason behind the pods was safe evacuation of wounded or disabled individuals. Someone in the bay can close it up and send it off just as easy as the occupant.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” said Fargeon repressively. “My interest now is in determining if Ensign Sassinak hit the wrong button out of stupidity, or did she intend to desert the ship?”

Into the silence that followed this remark. Lieutenant Achael’s words fell with the precision of an artisan’s hammer.

“Perhaps I can shed some light on that, sir. But I would prefer to do so in private.”

“On the contrary. You will tell me now.”

“Sir, it is a matter of some delicacy…”

“It is a matter of some urgency. Lieutenant, and I expect a complete report at once.”

Achael bowed slightly, a thin smile tightening his lips. “Sir, as you know I have a cousin in the Inspector General’s office. As weapons officer, I have particular interest in classified document control, and when that directive came out two months ago, I decided to set up such a test on this ship. You remember that you gave your permission -?” He waited for Commander Fargeon’s nod before going on. “Well, I had three hard copies of apparently classified documentation on the new Witherspoon ship-to-ship beam, and - as the directive suggested - I made an opportunity to let all the newly assigned officers know that they existed and where they were.”

“Get to the point. Lieutenant.”

“The point, sir, is that one of them disappeared, then reappeared one shift later. I determined that three of the ensigns, and two Jigs, had the opportunity to take the copy. I handled the copy with tongs, and put it in the protective sleeve the directive had included, for examination later at a forensic lab. And I reported this, in code, to my cousin, in case anything - ah - happened to me.”

“And you have reason to believe that Ensign Sassinak was the person who took the document?”

“She had the opportunity, along with several others. Forensic examination should show whether she handled it. Or rather, it would have.”

“Would have?”

“Yes, sir. The document in question, in its protective sleeve, is missing from my personal safe. We have not only a missing pod, and a missing ensign, but a missing document which might have identified someone who had broken security regulations. And a non-functioning beacon on the pod. I scarcely think this can be coincidence.”

“Not Sassinak!” That was Cavery, furious suddenly. He had had his doubts, but not after the pod ejected. If Sassinak had wanted to escape, she wouldn’t have called herself to his attention that very morning.

“As for the outgoing message with her initiation code, I believe she may have been reporting to whomever she - er - worked with.”

“The destination code was in the IG’s office,” said Cavery. “The same code as your incoming message.”

“You’re sure? Of course, she might have done that to incriminate me - “

“NO!” Erling and Cavery shouted it together.

“Gentlemen.” Fargeon’s voice was icy, his expression forbidding. “This is a matter too serious for personalities. Ensign Sassinak may have been ejected accidentally. Or, despite her high ratings in the Academy, she may have been less than loyal. There is her background to consider. Of course. Lieutenant Achael, it’s one you share.”

Achael stiffened. “Sir, I was a prisoner. She was a slave. The difference - “

“Is immaterial. She didn’t volunteer for slavery, I’m sure. However, her captors would have had ample time to implant deep conditioning - not really her responsibility. At any rate. Lieutenant, your information only adds to the urgency and confusion of this situation.” He took a long breath, but before he could begin the long speech they all knew was coming, Makin, the Weft Jig, spoke up.

“Begging the captain’s pardon, but what about retrieval?”

Fargeon became even stiffer, if possible. “Retrieval? Mr. Makin, the pod was ejected during FTL flight, and we are en route to a scheduled rendezvous with an EEC vessel. Either of those conditions alone would make retrieval impossible - “

“Sir, not impossible. Difficult, but - “

“Impossible. The pod was ejected into a probability flux - recall your elementary physics class, Mr. Makin - and would have dropped into sublight velocity at a location describable in cubic light-minutes. With a vector of motion impossible to calculate. Now if the beacon had functioned - which Engineering assures me it did not - we would be getting some sort of distorted signal from it. We might spend the next few weeks tracking it down, if we didn’t have this rendezvous to make. But we have no beacon to trace, and we have a rendezvous to make. My question now is what report to make to Fleet Headquarters, and what we should recommend be done about that ensign.”

When Fargeon dismissed them, he announced no decision; outside his office, the buzzing conversations began.

“I don’t care what that sneak says.” Cavery was beyond caution. “I will not believe Sassinak took anything - so much as a leftover muffin - and if she did she’d be standing here saying so.”

“I don’t know, Cavery.” Bullis, of Admin, might not have cared: he argued for the sheer joy of it. “She was intelligent and hardworking, I’ll grant you that, but too sharp for her own good. If you follow me.”

“Not into that, I won’t. I - “ He paused, and looked around at Makin, the Weft Jig, who had tapped his arm.

“If I could speak to you a moment, sir?”

Cavery looked at Bullis and shrugged, then followed Makin down the corridor. “Well?”

“Sir, is there any way to convince the captain that we can locate that pod, even without a beacon on it?”

“You can? Who? And how?”

“We can because Ensign Sassinak is on it - Wefts, I mean, sir. With Ssli help.”

Cavery cocked his head. “Ssli help? Wait a minute - you mean the Ssli could locate that little pod, even in normal space, while we’re - “

“Together, we could, sir.” Cavery had the feeling that the Weft meant something more than he’d said, but excitement overrode his curiosity for the moment.

“But I don’t know what I can do about the captain,” he murmured, lowering his voice as Achael strolled nearer. “I’m not going to get anywhere arguing.”

“Cavery,” Achael broke into their conversation. “I know you liked the girl, and she is attractive. I’d have spent a night or so with her gladly.” Cavery reddened at that insinuation. “But the circumstances are suggestive, even suspicious.”

“I suppose you’d suspect any orphan ex-slave?” Cavery meant it to bite, and Achael stiffened.

“I’m not the one who brought up her ancestry,” he pointed out.

“No, but you have to admit, if it’s a matter of access, you were in the same place at the same time. Maybe someone twisted your mind. Curious you never saw her, hmm?”

Achael glared at him. “You’ve never been anyone’s prisoner, have you? I spent my entire time on that miserable rock locked in a stinking cell with five other members of theCaleb’s crew. One of them died, of untreated wounds, and my best friend went permanently insane from the interrogation drugs. I hardly had the leisure to go wandering about the slaveholds looking for little girls, as she must have been then.”

“I - I’m sorry,” said Cavery, embarrassed. “I didn’t know.”

“I don’t talk about it.” Achael had turned away, hiding his face. Now he spun about, pinning Cavery suddenly with a stiffened forefinger. “And I don’t expect you, Cavery, to tell everyone in the mess about it, either.”

“Of course not.” Cavery watched the other man stalk away, and wished he’d never opened his mouth.

“You notice he never answered your question,” Makin said. At Cavery’s blank look, he went on. “You’re right, sir, that during that captivity an enemy had a chance to deep-program Lieutenant Achael… and nothing he said makes that less likely. A friend who went insane from interrogation drugs… perhaps Achael did not.”

“I don’t - like to accuse anyone who went through - through something like that - “

“Of course not. But that’s what they may have counted on, to cover any lapses. Now, about the pod and Ensign Sassinak - “

Sassinak’s supporters barely crammed into Cavery’s quarters. Wefts, other ensigns, Erling from Engineering. After the first chaos, when everyone assured everyone else that she couldn’t have done any of it, they concentrated on ways and means.

“We have to do it soon, because those damn pods don’t carry much air. If she’s conscious, she’ll put herself in coldsleep - and amateurs trying to put themselves in are all too likely to make a fatal mistake.”

“Worse than that,” said Makin, “we can’t track her if she’s in coldsleep - it’ll be like death. We’ve got to get her before she does that, or before she dies.”

“Which is how long, Erling?” Everyone craned to see the engineer’s face. It offered no great amount of hope. He spread his hands.

“Depends on her. If she takes the risk of holding out on the existing air supply as long as she can, or if she opts to go into coldsleep while she’s alert. And we don’t even know if the person who ejected the pod sabotaged the airtanks or the coldsleep module, as well as the beacon. At an outside, maximum, - if she pushes it,

hundred-ten to hundred-twenty hours from ejection.” Before anyone could ask, he glanced at a clock readout on the wall and went on. “And it’s been eight point two. And the captain’s determined to make the rendezvous with the EEC ship tomorrow, which eats up another twenty-four to thirty.” His glare was a challenge. The Weft ensign Jrain took it up.

“Suppose we can’t convince the captain to break the rendezvous - what about going back afterwards? He might be in a more reasonable frame of mind then.”

Erling snorted. “He might - and then again he might be hot to go straight to sector command. To go back - hell, how would I know? You tell me you can find her, you and the Ssli, but I sure couldn’t calculate a course or transit time. Even if we hit the same drop-point as the ejection - if that’s not a ridiculous statement in talking of paralight space - we’d have no guarantee we’d come out with the same vector. They found that out when they tried dropping combat modules out of FTL in the Gerimi System. Scattered to hell all over the place, and it took months to clean up the mess. But again, assume we can use you as guides, we still have to maneuver the ship. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t.”

“We have to try.” Mira rumpled her blonde hair as if she wanted to unroot it. “Sassinak isn’t guilty, and I’m not going to have her take the blame. She helped others at the Academy - “

“Not your bunch,” Jrain pointed out.

“So I grew up,” Mira retorted. “My mother pushed me into that friendship; I didn’t know better until later. Sassinak is my friend, and she’s not going to be left drifting around in a dinky little pod for god knows how long…”

“Well, but what are we going to do about it?”

“I think Jrain had a good idea. Let Fargeon get this rendezvous out of his head, and then try him again. And if he doesn’t agree…” Cavery scowled. No one wanted to say mutiny out loud.

Chapter Seven

When Sassinak woke up, to the dim gray light of the evacuation pod, she had a lump on her forehead, another on the back of her head, and the vague feeling that too much time had passed. She couldn’t see much, and finally realized that something covered her head. When she reached for it, her arm twinged, and she rubbed a sore place. It felt like an injection site, but… Slowly, clumsily, she pawed the foil hood from her head and looked around. She lay crumpled against the acceleration couch of a standard evac pod; without the hood’s interference, she could see everything in the pod. Beneath the cushions of the couch was the tank for coldsleep, if things went wrong. She had the feeling that perhaps things had gone wrong, but she couldn’t quite remember.

Slowly, trying to keep her churning stomach from outwitting her, she pushed herself up. It would do no good to panic. Either she was in a functioning pod inside a ship, or she was in a functioning pod in flight: either way, the pod had taken care of her so far, or she wouldn’t have wakened. The air smelled normal… but if she’d been there long enough, her nose would have adapted. She tried to look around, to the control console, and her stomach rebelled. She grabbed at the nearest protruding knob, and a steel basin slid from its recess at one end of the couch. Just in time.

She retched until nothing came but clear green bile, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. What a stink! Her mouth quirked. What a thing to think about at a time like this. She felt cold and shaky, but a little more solid. Aches and twinges began to assert themselves. She pushed the basin back into its recess, looked for and found the button that should empty and sterilise it (she didn’t really want to think about the pod’s recycling system, but her mind produced the specs anyway), and turned over, leaning against the couch.

Over the hatch, a digital readout informed her that the pod had been launched eight hours and forty-two minutes before. Launched! She forced herself to look at the rest of the information. Air supply on full; estimated time of exhaustion ninety-two hours fourteen minutes. Water and food supplies: maximum load; estimated exhaustion undetermined. Of course, she hadn’t used any yet, and the onboard comp had no data on her consumption. She tried to get onto the couch and almost passed out again. How could she be that weak if she’d only been here eight hours? And besides that, what had happened? Evac pods were intended primarily for the evacuation of injured or otherwise incapable crew. Had there been an emergency; had she been unconscious on a ship or something?

The second try got her onto the bench, with a bank of control switches ready to her hand. She fumbled for the sip-wand, and took two long swallows of water. (The recycling couldn’t be workingyet, she told her stomach.) A touch of the finger, and she cut the airflow down 15%. She might not tolerate that, but if she did it would give her more time. Another swallow of water. The taste in her mouth had been worse than terrible. She felt in her uniform pocket for the mints she liked to carry, and at that moment the memory came back.

The drill… E-bay… ducking to enter her assigned pod… andsomething, had jabbed her arm, and landed on her head. She rolled up her sleeve, frowning. Sure enough, a little red weal, slightly itchy and sore. She’d been drugged, and slugged, and dumped in a pod and sent off - As suddenly as that first memory, the situation on the cruiser came to her. Mysterious messages, someone usingher comm code, and her belief that Achael had had something to do with Abe’s murder. If she’d had any doubts, they vanished.

With the wave of anger, her mind seemed to clear. Perhaps Achael or his accomplice had thought she’d die of the drug - or maybe they meant to force her into taking coldsleep, and intended the pod to be picked up by confederates.

You have such cheerful thoughts, she told herself, and looked around for distraction.

There, on the control console an arm’s length away, a large gray envelope with bright orange stripes across it. Fleet Security, Classified. Do Not Open Without Proper Authorization. The pressure seal hadn’t quite taken; the opening gaped. Sassinak started to reach for it, then stopped her hand in midair. Whoever had dumped her in here must have left that little gift… which meant she wanted no part of it.

It might even become evidence. She grinned to herself. A proper Carin Coldae setup this was, and no mistake. Now what would Carin do? Figure out a way to catch the villain, without ruffling one hair of her head. Sassinak rumpled her own hair and remembered that she’d been planning to cut it.

Moment by moment she felt better. She’d suspected that something was going on, and she’d been right. She’d felt in danger, and she’d been right. And now she was helplessly locked into an evac pod, which was headed who knows where, and even with the beacon on no one was likely to find her until she’d run out of air… and she was happy. Ridiculous, but she was. A little voice of caution murmured that it might be the drug, and she shouldn’t be overconfident. She told the little voice to shut up. But just in case… she found the med kit, and figured out how to lay her arm in the cradle for a venous tap. Take a blood sample, that should do it. If she had been drugged, and the drug proved traceable… the sting of the needle interrupted that thought for a moment. Beacon. She needed to check the beacon.

But as she had already begun to suspect, the beacon wasn’t functioning. She looked thoughtfully at the control console. The quickest way to disable the beacon, and the simplest, required a screwdriver and three or four minutes with that console. Lift the top, giving access to the switches and their attached wiring. Then, depending on how obvious you wanted to be, clip or crosswire or remove this and that. She was not surprised to see a screwdriver loose on the “deck” of the pod.

And her first impulse would normally have been to check out the beacon, using that screwdriver to free the console top. After she’d picked up the envelope with Classified all over it. Her fingerprints, her body oils, would have been on the tool, the envelope, the console, even the switches underneath, obscuring the work of the person who’d put her here.

Sassinak took another long swallow of water, and rummaged in the med kit for a stimulant tab. This was no time to miss anything.

In the end, the med kit provided most of what she needed. Forceps, with which to lift the screwdriver and put it into a packet that had held headache pills. It occurred to her that while she was unconscious, her assailant might have pressed her fingers against the envelope, or the screwdriver, but she couldn’t do anything about that. She found the little pocket scanner that was supposed to be in every evac module, and shot a clip of the envelope as it lay on the console. When she had all the evidence secured, she suddenly wondered how that would help if she were in coldsleep when she was found. Suppose her assailant had confederates, who were supposed to pick her up? They could destroy her careful work, incriminate her even more. That gave her the jitters for awhile, and then she remembered Abe’s patient voice saying “What you can’t change, don’t cry over: put your energy where it works, Sass.”

Right now it had to go into prolonging her time before coldsleep.

Which meant, she remembered unhappily, no eating. Digestion used energy, which used oxygen. No exercise, for the same reason. Lie still, breathe slow, think peaceful thoughts. You might as well spend the time in coldsleep, she grumbled to herself, as try to act as if you were in coldsleep. But she took the time to clean herself up as well as she could, using the tiny mirror in the med kit. The slightly overlong hair could be tied back neatly, the stains wiped from her uniform. Then she lay down on the couch, pulled up the coverlet, and tried to relax.

She had not been hungry like this since her slave days. Her empty stomach growled, gurgled, and finally settled for sharp nagging pains. She chivvied her mind away from the food fantasies it wanted to indulge in, steering it into mathematics instead. Squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, visualizing curves from equations, and imagining how, with a shift in values, the curve would shift… as a loop of hose shifts with changing water pressure. Finally she slipped into a doze.

She woke in a foul mood, but more clear-headed than before. Elapsed time since ejection was now 25 hours, 16 minutes. Clearly the cruiser hadn’t stopped to look for her, or hadn’t been able to find her. She wondered if the Ssli could sense such a small distortion in the fields they touched. Or could the Wefts detect her, as a living being they’d known? But that was idle speculation. She gave her arm to the med kit’s blood sampler again; she remembered being told that each drug had a characteristic breakdown profile, and that serial blood tests could provide the best information on an unknown drug.

For a moment, the pod seemed to contract around her, crushing her to the couch. Had some unsuspected drive come on, to flatten her with acceleration? But no: the pods had the same artificial gravity as the cruiser itself, to protect injured occupants. She knew that; she knew the walls weren’t really closing in… but she suddenly understood just how Ensign Corfin might have felt. She couldn’t see out; she had no idea where she was or where she was going; she was trapped in a tiny box with no way out. Her breath came fast: too fast. She fought to slow it. So, this was claustrophobia. How interesting. It didn’t feel interesting; it felt terrible.

She had to do something. Squares and square roots seemed singularly impractical this time. Could she figure out a way to ensure that the evidence couldn’t be faked against her? Any worse than it already was, she reminded herself. That brought another chilling thought: maybe the cruiser hadn’t come looking for her because Commander Fargeon was already convinced she was an enemy agent and had absconded with the pod.

Her stomach growled again; she set herself to enter the first stages of control Abe had taught her. Hunger was just hunger; in this case, nothing to worry about. But she did need to worry about her career.

In the long, lonely, silent hours that followed, Sassinak spent much of her time in a near-trance, dozing. The rest she spent doing what she could to make tampering with the evidence as hard as possible. If the pod were picked up by enemies, with plenty of time at their disposal, none of her ploys would work… but if a Fleet vessel, her cruiser or another, came along, it would take more than a few minutes to undo what she’d done and rework it to incriminate her.

When the elapsed-time monitor read 100 hours, and the time to exhaustion of her air supply was less than five hours, she pulled out the instruction manual for the coldsleep cabinet. Evac pods had an automated system, but she didn’t trust it; what if the same person who had sabotaged the beacon had fiddled with the medications? She pushed aside the thought that sabotaging the entire coldsleep cabinet wouldn’t have been that hard. If it didn’t work, she’d never wake up, and that was that. But she had to try it, or die of oxygen starvation… and the films they’d been shown at the Academy had made it clear that oxygen starvation was not a pleasant way to go.

She filled the syringes carefully, checking and rechecking labels and dosages. With the mattress off the acceleration couch, she looked the cabinet over as well as she could. Ordinarily, cold sleep required only an enclosed space; she could go into it using the whole pod as the container. But for extra protection in the pods, the reinforced cabinet had been designed, and was strongly recommended. She looked into that blank, shiny interior, and shuddered.

First, the protocol said, program the automatic dispenser, and then have it start an IV. But she wasn’t doing that. Her way would mean getting into the cabinet, with the syringes in hand, giving herself the injections, pulling down the lid, turning the cylinder controls, and then… then, she hoped, just sleeping away whatever time it took before someone found her.

Nor could she wait until the last moment. Oxygen starvation would make her clumsy and slow, and she might make fatal mistakes. She set the medication alarm in the medkit for one hour before the deadline. The last minutes crept by. Sassinak looked around the pod interior, fighting to stay calm. She dared not put herself in trance, yet there was nothing to do to ease her tension. There was the tape she’d made, her log of this unplanned journey with all her surmises about cause and criminal. In the acceleration couch mattress was a handwritten log, in the hope that redundancy might help.

When the alarm sounded, she snatched the syringe and reached for the alarm release. But it didn’t work. Great, she thought, I’ll go into coldsleep with that horrible noise in my ears and have nightmares for years. Then she realized it wasn’t the same buzzer at all - in fact, it wasn’t time for the med-alarm - she had fifteen more minutes. She looked wildly around the pod, trying to figure it out, before her mind dredged up the right memory. Proximity alarm: some kind of large mass was nearby, and it might be a ship, and they might even have compatible communications gear.

Only she had carefully set up the console to trap additional evidence while she was in coldsleep, and if she touched it now she’d be confusing her own system.

And what if it wasn’t a Fleet vessel? What if it was an ally of her assailant? Or worse, suppose it wasn’t a ship at all, and the pod was falling into a star?

In that case, she told herself firmly, you still don’t have to worry; you can’t stop it, and it’ll all be over very quickly. She found the override switch for the proximity alarm, and cut it off. Now it was a matter of deciding whether to ride it out blind, or try to communicate. She decided to save her careful work, and then realized this meant she wouldn’t know if whatever it was could rendezvous before her air ran out. It wouldn’t take much error, on either side: ten minutes without oxygen would do as well as four days.

Ten minutes left. Five. She had left herself that safe buffer: dare she use it now? Zero. Sassinak looked at the syringe, but didn’t pick it up. She’d feel silly if she lost consciousness just as someone came through the door. She’d be flat stupid if she died because she cut it too close. But she could - and did, quickly - tape an addition to her log.

Now she was using her safe margin. Minute by minute went by with no clue from without, of what was happening. She had just picked up the syringe, with a grimace, when something clunked, hard, against the pod. Another thump; a loud clang. Sassinak put the syringe down, lowered the lid of the coldsleep cabinet, and sat on it. She could not - could not - miss whatever was going to happen. What happened first was total silence as the blower in her oxygen system went out. She had a moment to think how stupid she’d been, and then it cut in again; the readout flickered, and shifted to green. “Exterior source” it said now. “Unlimited. Tanks charging.” It smelled better, too. Sassinak took a second long breath, and unclenched her fingers from the edge of the cabinet. Other lights flickered on the control console. “Exterior pressure equalised” said one. She didn’t trust it enough to open the hatch… not yet. “Exterior power source confirmed” said another.

Finally she heard various clicks and bangs from the hatch, and braced herself, not sure what she would do if she found enemies when it opened. But the first face she saw was familiar.

“Ensign Sassinak.” Familiar, but not particularly welcoming. The captain himself had chosen to greet her, and behind him she saw both friendly and scowling faces. And a squad of marines, armed. Sassinak stood, saluted, and nearly fell as the hours of inactivity and fasting caught up with her all at once. “Are you hurt?” Fargeon asked when she staggered.

“Just a knock on the head,” she said. “Excuse me, sir, but I must warn you - “

“You, Ensign, are the one to be warned,” he said stiffly, that momentary warmth gone as if it had never happened. “Charges have been made against you, serious charges, and it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

Sassinak stared at him, momentarily speechless. Had he really believed Achael’s (it must have been Achael’s) accusations? Wasn’t he going to give her a chance? She caught herself, shook her head, and went on. “Captain, please - it’s very important that this pod be sealed, and all contents handled by forensic specialists.”

That got his attention. “What? What are you talking about?”

Sassinak waved her hand at the pod’s interior. “Sir, I’ve done my best to secure it, but I really don’t know how. Someone knocked me out during evac drill, dumped me in this pod, jettisoned it, and planted it full of items I was supposed to handle, to incriminate myself. I believe those same items may carry traces of the perpetrator - “ She nearly stumbled over the word, catching sight of Lieutenant Achael in the group behind the captain. His face was frozen in an expression of distaste. Then it changed to eagerness, and he leaned forward.

“That’s exactly what she would say, sir. That someone tried to frame her - “

“I can see that for myself, Mr. Achael.” Fargeon’s expression soured even more.

“I could hardly have planted someone else’s fingerprints on the interior of the console while disabling the beacon,” Sassinak said crisply. Achael paled; she saw his eyes glance sideways.

“You disabled the beacon?” asked Fargeon, missing the point.

“No, sir. I realized the beacon was disabled, and also realized that if I made an attempt to repair it, I would destroy evidence pointing to the person who did disable it. That evidence is intact.” She looked straight at Achael as she spoke. He flinched from her gaze, took a step backward.

Fargeon’s head tilted minutely; she had surprised him with some of that. “There’s a document missing,” he said.

Sassinak nodded. “There’s a classified document envelope, not quite sealed, in this pod. I found it when I woke - “

“Likely story,” said Achael. This time the captain’s response was clearly irritated, a quick flip of the hand for silence.

“And did you handle it?” asked the captain.

“No, sir, I did not. Although it’s possible that whoever dumped me in there put my fingers on it while I was unconscious,”

“I see.” The captain pulled himself up. “Well. This is… unexpected. Very well; I’ll see to it that the pod is sealed, and the contents examined for evidence of what actually happened. As for you. Ensign, you’ll report to Sickbay, and then to your quarters. I’ll want a full report - “

“Sir, I taped a report while in the pod. May I bring that tape?”

“You did?” Again this threw him off his stride. “Very good thinking. Ensign. By all means, let me have it now.”

Sassinak picked up the tape, and started forward. Her vision blurred, and she nearly hit her head on the hatch rim. A hand came forward, steadied her arm. She ducked under the hatch, and came out into the chilly air of E-bay. It smelled decidedly fresher than the pod. Fargeon peered at her.

“You’re very pale - are you sure you’re not ill?”

“It’s just not eating.” The bulkheads seemed to shimmer, then steadied. She was conscious of having to concentrate firmly on the here and now.

“You - but surely there were emergency rations in the pod?”

“Yes, but - to make the air last - “ She fought to stay upright, with a soft blackness folding itself around her. “I didn’t - trust the coldsleep cabinet - if the same person had tampered with it - “

“Gods!” That was Cavery, she realized as she looked toward the voice. But the blackness rose around her, inescapable, and she felt herself curling into it.

“Don’t forget the blood samples,” she heard herself say, and then everything disappeared.

The medician’s face hung over hers, suspended in nothingness. Sassinak blinked, yawned, and found the rest of the compartment in focus again. Sickbay, clearly. An IV line ran from her left hand to a bag; wires trailed across her chest.

“I’m fine,” she said helpfully.

“You’re lucky,” said the medician, pinching back a smile. “You came close to the edge - you can’t use Discipline like that and not eat.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t try to tell me you weren’t using it, either - nothing but a crash from it would have sent you that far down’. Here - have a mug of this.” A flick of the hand, and Sass’s couch lifted her so that she could take the mug of thick broth the medician offered.

“What did the blood samples show?” asked Sassinak between sips. She could practically feel the strength flowing back into her.

“You’re lucky,” the medician said again. “It was a coldsleep prep dose. If you’d hit the tank controls by mistake, you might have been in coldsleep immediately… or if you’d chosen to enter coldsleep early, the residual in your blood could have killed you. It didn’t completely clear until the third day.”

“The cabinet?” She remembered her fear of that featureless interior.

“Nothing: it was normal.” The medician looked at her curiously. “You’re in remarkably good shape, all things considered. That lump on the back of your head may still hurt, but there’s no damage. You’re not showing any signs of excessive anxiety - “

Sassinak slurped the last bit of broth and grinned. “I’m safe now. And not hungry. When can I get up?”

Before the medician could answer, a voice from the corridor said, “That’s Sass, all right! I can tell from here.”

“Not yet,” said the medician to Sass. Then, “Do you want visitors? I can easily tell them to let you rest.”

But Sassinak could hardly wait to find out what had happened so far. Mira, all trace of fashionable reserve gone, and Jrain, almost visibly shimmering into another shape in his excitement, were only too glad to tell her.

“I knew,” Mira began, “that it couldn’t have been your fault. You aren’t ever careless like that; you wouldn’t have hit the wrong button or anything. And of course you, of all people, wouldn’t cooperate with slavers or pirates.”

“But how did you find me without the beacon?”

Mira nodded at Jrain. “Your Weft friends did it. I don’t know if Jrain can explain it - he couldn’t to me - but they tracked you, somehow - “

“It was really the Ssli interface,” Jrain said. “You know how they can sense other vessels in FTL space - “

“Yes, but I wasn’t in FTL space after the pod went off, was I?”

“No, but it turns out they can reach beyond it, somehow. Doesn’t make any sense to me, and what Hssro calls the relevant equations I call gibberish. The pod is really too small to sense - like something small too far away to see - but we knew exactly when you’d been dumped, and the Ssli was able to - to do whatever it does in whatever direction that was. Then we Wefts sort of rode that probe, feeling our way toward you.”

“But you said - “

“Because you’re alive, and we know you. We had to go in our own shapes, of course - “ He frowned, and Sassinak tried to imagine the effect on Fargeon of all the crew’s Wefts in their own shape, clinging, no doubt, to the bulkheads of the Ssli contact chamber. Or on the bridge? She asked.

“He wasn’t pleased with us,” said Jrain, a reminiscent smile on his face. “We don’t usually clump on him, you know: he doesn’t like aliens much, though he tries to be fair. But when it came down to risking the loss of your pod, or giving in to Achael’s insinuations - “

“Kirtin changed right there in front of the captain,” put in Mira. “I thought he was going to choke. Then Basil and Jrain - “

“Ptak first: I was the last one,” Jrain put in.

“Whatever.” Mira shrugged away the correction and went on. “Can you imagine - this was in the big wardroom, and there they were all over the walls! I’d never seen more than one Weft changed at a time - “ She quirked an eyebrow at Sass.

“I have. It’s impressive, isn’t it?”

“Impressive! It’s crowded, is what it is, with these big spiky things all over the walls and ceiling.” Mira wrinkled her nose at Jrain, who grinned at her. “Not to mention all those eyes glittering out at you. And you never told me,” she said to Jrain, “that you’re telepaths in that shape. I thought you’d use a biolink to the computer or something.”

“There wasn’t time,” said Jrain.

“But what about the rendezvous with the EEC ship? Did we miss that?”

“No. What we decided - I mean - “ Mira looked sideways. “What the Wefts decided, was to let that go on, and then pick you up afterwards. It seemed risky to me - the further we went, the further away you were, the harder to find. It was a real gamble - “

“No,” said Jrain firmly and loudly. Mira stared at him, and Sassinak blinked. He took a long breath, and said more quietly, “We don’t gamble. We don’t ever gamble.”

“I didn’t mean like a poker game,” said Mira sharply. “But it was risky - “

“No.” As they looked at him, his form wavered, then steadied again. “I can’t explain. But you must not think - “ an earnest look at Sassinak “ - you must not think we gamble with your life, Sassinak. Never.”

“I - oh, all right, Jrain. You don’t gamble. But if one of you doesn’t get all this in order and tell me what happened, and where we are, and where Achael is, I’m going to crawl out of this bed and stuff you in a pod.”

Jrain, calmer now, sat on the end of her bed. “Achael is dead. That evidence you spoke to the captain about - remember?” Sassinak nodded. “Well, the captain had it put under guard. The pod, and the items removed, like the blood samples. Achael tried to get at it. He did get into the med lab, and destroyed one test printout before he was discovered. Then he broke for the docking bays - I think to steal a pod himself. When the guards spotted him, and he knew he was trapped, he killed himself. Had a poison capsule, apparently. The captain won’t tell us, not all the details, but we’ve had our ears open.” He patted Sass’s foot under the blanket. “At first the captain wanted to think that you and Achael were co-conspirators, but he couldn’t ignore the evidence… you know, Sass, you really did cram that pod with evidence. You did such a good job it was almost suspicious that way.”

“Fleet Intelligence is going to get the whole load dumped on them when we get back to Sector HQ,” Mira put in. “I heard Fargeon won’t even trust the IFTL link.”

“We’d better go,” said Jrain, suddenly looking nervous. “I think - I think the captain would rather you heard some of this from him…” He grabbed Mira’s arm and steered her away. Sassinak caught his unspoken thought… And he’s had quite enough to put up with from Wefts already this week.

“Ensign Sassinak.” Captain Fargeon’s severe face was set in slightly friendlier lines, Sassinak thought. She was, however, immediately conscious of every wrinkle of the bedclothes. Then he smiled. “You had a very narrow escape. Ensign, in more than one way. I understand you’ve been told about the drug that showed up in the blood samples?” Sassinak nodded, and he went on. “It was very good thinking to take those serial samples. Although normally - mmm - there’s nothing to commend in a young officer who manages to get sand- bagged and shanghaied, in this case you seem to have acted with unusual intelligence once you woke up. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. I know Lieutenant Cavery looks forward to your return to duty in Communications Section. Good day.”

Following that somewhat confusing speech, Sassinak lay quietly, wondering what Fargeon did think of her. She had been expecting praise, but realized that to the ship’s captain her entire escapade was one big head- ache. He’d had to leave his intended course to go looking for her, even if the guidance of Wefts and Ssli made that easier than usual. He’d had to worry about her motives, and the presence of unknown saboteurs in his ship; he’d had to assign someone else to cover her work; when they got back to Sector HQ, he was going to have to fill out a lot of forms, and spend a lot of time talking to Fleet Intelligence… all in all, she’d caused a lot of trouble by not being quicker in the evacuation drill. If she’d managed to turn and drop Achael with a bit of fancy hard-to-hand, she’d have saved everyone a lot of trouble. She shook her head at her own juvenile imagination. No more Carin Coldae: no more playing games. She’d done a good job with a bad situation, but she hadn’t managed to avoid the bad situation. She’d have to do better.

So it was that Fargeon’s annual Fitness Report, which he showed her before filing it, startled her.

“Clear-headed, resourceful, good initiative, outstanding self-discipline: this young officer requires only seasoning to develop into an excellent addition to any Fleet operation. Unlike many who rest on past achievements, this officer does not let success go to her head, and can be counted on for continued effort. Recommended for earliest promotion eligibility.” Sassinak looked up from this to find Fargeon’s face relaxed in a broad smile for the first time in her memory.

“Just as I said the first day. Ensign Sassinak: if you realize that you can’t ever start at the top, and if you continue to show your willingness to work, you’ll do very well indeed. I’d be glad to have you in my command again, any time.”

“Thank you, sir.” Sassinak wondered whether to strain this approval by telling him what she suspected about Achael and Abe’s death. “Sir, about Lieutenant Achael - “

“All information will go to Fleet Security - do you have something which you did not put in your tape?”

She had included her suspicion that Achael had murdered Abe, but would anyone take it seriously? “It’s in there, sir, but - about my guardian, who was killed - “

“Abe, you mean.” The captain permitted himself a tight smile. “A good man. Fleet to the bone. Well, this is not for discussion. Ensign, but I would agree with your surmise. Achael was a prisoner on the same slaver base where you and Abe were; the most logical supposition is that Abe knew something about his conduct or treatment there which would have been dangerous to Achael. Perhaps he was deep-conditioned, or something. He killed Abe to keep his secret, and suspected that Abe might have told you something.”

“But what might be behind Achael?” asked Sass. But with this question, she had gone too far. The captain’s face closed again, although he did not seem angry.

“That’s for Security to determine, when they have all the evidence. Myself, I suspect that he was merely protecting himself. Suppose Abe knew he had stolen from other prisoners - that would ruin his Fleet career. I would be willing to wager that the final report will conclude that Achael was acting in his own behalf when he killed Abe and attempted to incriminate you.”

Sassinak was not convinced, but knew better than to argue. As Fargeon predicted. Fleet Security agreed with his surmise, and closed the file on the murder. Achael’s attacks on Sassinak, and his suicide, made a clear pattern with his years as a prisoner: too clear, Sassinak thought, too simple. When she was older, when she had rank, she promised herself, she’d find out who was really responsible for Abe’s death, who had set Achael on his trail. For now, she’d honor his memory with her own success.