Planet Pirates Omnibus Part 62

121.

Chapter Eight.

FedCentral, Fleet Headquarters "And that's the last of the crew depositions?" Sa.s.sinak asked. The Tenant behind the desk nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. The Prosecutor's office said they didn't need anyone else. Apparently the defense lawyers aren't going to call any of the enlisted crew as witnesses either."

So we've just spent weeks of this nonsense for nothing, Sa.s.sinak thought. Dragging my people up and down in ridiculous civilian shuttles, for hours of boring questioning which only repeats what we taped on the s.h.i.+p before. She didn't say any of this. Both the Chief Prosecutor's office and the defense lawyers had been furious that Lunzie, Dupaynil, and Ford were not aboard. For one thing, Kai and Varian had also failed to appear for depositions. No one knew if the fast bark sent to collect them from Ireta had found them on the planet's surface for no message had been received on either count.

She herself was sure that Ford and Lunzie would be back in time. Dupaynil? Dupaynil might or might not arrive, although she considered him more resourceful 120.

than most desk-bound Security people. If he hadn't made her so furious, she'd have enjoyed more of his company.

She would certainly have preferred him to Aygar as an a.s.sistant researcher. True, Aygar could go search the various databases without arousing suspicion. Anyone would expect him to. The Prosecutor's office had arranged a University card, a Library card, all the access he could possibly want. And he was eager enough.

But he had no practice in doing research; no background of scholars.h.i.+p. Sa.s.sinak had to explain exactly where he should look and for what. Even then he would come back empty-handed, confused, because he didn't understand how little bits of disparate knowledge could fit together to mean anything. He would spend all day looking up the genealogy of the heavyworlder mutineers, or baring after some interest of his own. Dupaynil, with all his smug suavity, would have been a relief.

She strolled back along the main shopping avenues of the city, in no hurry. She was to meet Aygar for the evening shuttle flight. She had time to wander around. A window display caught her eye, bright with the colors she favored. She admired the jeweled jacket over a royal-blue skirt that flashed turquoise in s.h.i.+fts of light. She glanced at the elegant calligraphy above the glossy black door. No wonder! "Fleur de Paris" was only the outstanding fas.h.i.+on designer for the upper cla.s.ses. Her mouth quirked: at least she had good taste.

The door, its sensors reporting that someone stood outside it longer than the moment necessary to walk past, swung inward. A human guard, in livery, stood just inside.

"Madame wishes to enter?"

The sidewalk burned her feet even through the uniform shoes. Her head ached. She had never in her life visited a place like this. But why not? It could do no harm to look.

"Thank you," she said, and walked in.

Inside, she found a cool oasis: soft colors, soft carpets, a recording of harp music just loud enough to cover the street's murmur. A well-dressed woman who 122.

came forward, a.s.sessing her from top to toe, and, to Sa.s.sinak's surprise, approving.

"Commander . . . Sa.s.sinak, is it not?"

"I'm surprised," she said. The woman smiled.

"We do watch the news programs, you know. How serendipitous! Fleur will want to meet you."

Sa.s.sinak almost let her jaw drop. She had heard a little about such places as this. The designer herself did not come out and meet everyone who came through the door.

"Won't you have a seat?" the woman went on. "And you'll have something cool, I hope?" She led Sa.s.sinak to a padded chair next to a graceful little table on which rested a tall pitcher, its sides beaded, and a crystal gla.s.s. Sa.s.sinak eyed it doubtfully. "Fruit juice," the woman said. "Although if you'd prefer another beverage?"

"No, thank you. This is fine."

She took the gla.s.s she was offered and sipped it to cover her confusion. The woman went away, leaving her to look around. She had been in shops, in some very good shops, with elegant displays of a few pieces of jewelry or a single silk dress. But here nothing marked the room as part of a shop. It might have been the sitting room of some wealthy matron: comfortable chairs grouped around small tables, fresh flowers, soft music. She relaxed, slowly, enjoying the tart fruit juice. If they knew she was a Fleet officer, they undoubtedly knew her salary didn't stretch to original creations. But if they were willing to have her rest in their comfortable chair, she wasn't about to walk out.

"My dear!" The silver-haired woman who smiled at her might have been any elegant great-grand-mother who had kept her figure. Seventies? Eighties? Sa.s.sinak wasn't sure. "What a delightful surprise. Mirelle told you we'd seen you on the news, didn't she? And of course we'd seen you walk by. I must confess," this with a throaty chuckle that Sa.s.sinak could not resist, "I've been putting one thing after another in the window to see if we could entice you." She turned to the first woman. "And you see, Mirelle, I was right: the jeweled jacket did it."

Mirelle shrugged gracefully. "And I will wager that if

123.

you asked her, she'd remember seeing that sea-green number."

"Yes, I did," said Sa.s.sinak, half-confused by their banter. "But what..."

"Mirelle, I think perhaps a light snack." Her voice was gentle, but still commanding. Mirelle smiled and withdrew, and the older woman smiled at Sa.s.sinak. "My dear Sa.s.sinak, I must apologize. It's . . . it's hard to think what to say. You don't realize what you mean to people like us."

Thoroughly confused now, Sa.s.sinak murmured something indistinct. Did famous designers daydream about flying s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps? She couldn't believe that, but what else was going on?

"I am known to the world as Fleur," the woman said, sitting down across the table from Sa.s.sinak. "Fleur de Paris, which is a joke, although very few know it. I cannot tell you what my name was, even now. But I can tell you that we had a friend in common. A very dear friend."

"Yes?" Sa.s.sinak rummaged in her memory for any wealthy or socially prominent woman she might have known. An admiral, or an admiral's wife? And came up short.

"Your mentor, my dear, when you were a girl, Abe."

She could not have been more startled if Fleur had poured a bucket of ice over her. "Abe? You knew Abe?"

The older woman nodded. "Yes, indeed. I knew him before he was captured, and after. Although I never met you, I would have, in time. But as it was . . ."

"I know." The grief broke over her again, as startling in its intensity as the surprise that this woman-this old woman-had known Abe. But Abe, if he'd lived, would be old. That, too, shocked her. In her memory, he'd stayed the same, an age she gradually learned was not so old as the child had thought.

"I'm sorry to distress you, but I needed to speak to you. About Abe, about his past and mine. And about your future."

"My future?" What could this woman possibly have to do with her future? It must have shown on her lace, because Fleur shook her head.

124.

"A silly old woman, you think, intruding on your life. You admire the clothes I design, but you don't need a rich woman's sycophant reminding you of Abe. Yes?"

It was uncomfortably close to what she'd been thinking. "I'm sorry," she said, apologizing for being obvious, if for nothing else.

"That's all right. He said you were practical, tenacious, clear-headed, and so you must be. But there are things you should know. Since we may be interrupted at any time-nafter all, this is a business-first let me suggest that if you find yourself in need of help, in any difficult situation in the city, mention my name. I have contacts. Perhaps Abe mentioned Samizdat?"

"Yes, he did." Sa.s.sinak came fully alert at that. She had never found any trace of the organization Abe had told her about once she was out of the Academy. Did it still exist?

"Good. Had Abe lived, he would have made sure you knew how to contact some of its members. But, as it was, no one knew you well enough to trust you, even with your background. This meeting should remedy that."

"But then you ..."

Fleur's smile this time had an edge of bitterness. "I have my own story. We all do. If there's time, you'll hear mine. For now, know that I knew Abe, and loved him dearly, and I have watched your career, as it appears in the news, with great interest."

"But how . . ."As she spoke, the door opened again, and three women came in, chattering gaily. Fleur stood at once and greeted them, smiling. Sa.s.sinak, uncertain, sat where she was. The women, it seemed, had come in hopes of finding Fleur free. They glanced at Sa.s.sinak, then away, saying that they simply must have Fleur's advice on something of great importance.

"Why of course," she said. "Do come into my sitting room." One of them must have murmured something about Sa.s.sinak, for she said, "No, no. Mirelle will be right back to speak to the commander."

Mirelle reappeared, as if by magic, bearing a tray with tiny sandwiches and cookies in fanciful shapes.

"Fleur says you're quite welcome to stay, but she

125.

doesn't think she'll be free for several hours. That's an old customer, with her daughters-in-law, and they come to gossip as much as for advice. She's very sorry. You will have a snack, won't you?"

For courtesy's sake, Sa.s.sinak took a sandwich. Mirelle hovered, clearly uneasy about something. When Sa.s.sinak insisted on leaving, Mirelle exhibited both disappointment and relief.

"You.will come again?"

"When I can. Please tell Fleur I was honored to meet her, but I can't say when I'll be able to come onplanet again."

That should give Sa.s.sinak time to think, and if she hadn't made a decision by the next required conference, she could always go by a different street. Outside again, she found herself thinking again of Dupaynil, simply because of his specialties. She wished she had some way of getting into the databases herself, without going through Aygar, and without being detected. She would like very much to know who "Fleur de Paris" was, and why her name was supposed to be a joke.

In his days on the Zaid-Dayan, Dupaynil would have sworn that he was capable of intercepting any data link and resetting any control panel on any s.h.i.+p. All he had to do was reconfigure the controls on the escort vessel's fifteen escape pods so that he could control them. It should have been simple. It was not simple. He had not slept but for the briefest naps. He dared not sleep until it was done. And yet he had to appear to sleep, as he appeared to eat, to play cards, to chat idly, to take the exercise that had become regular to him, up and down the ladders.

He had no access to the s.h.i.+p's computer, no time to himself in the compartments where his sabotage would have been easiest. He had to do it all from his tiny cabin, in the few hours he could legitimately be alone, "sleeping."

And they had already found one of his taps. It frightened him in a way he had never been frightened before. He was good at the minutiae of his work, one of 126.

die neatest, his instructors had said, a natural. To have a but like Ollery find one of his taps meant that he had been clumsy and careless. Or he had misjudged them, another way of being clumsy and careless.

He would not have lived this long had he really been clumsy or careless, but he had depended on the confii-sion, the complexity, of large s.h.i.+ps. Fear only made his hands shake. Coldly, he considered himself as if he were a new trainee in Methods of Surveillance. Think, he told himself, the nervous trainee. You have die brains or they wouldn't have a.s.signed you here. Use your wits. He set aside the odds against him. Beyond "high," what good were precise percentages? He considered the whole problem. He simply had to get those escape pods slaved to his control.

A crew which had spent five years together on a s.h.i.+p this small would know everything, would notice everything, especially as they now suspected him. But since they were already planning to s.p.a.ce him, would they really worry about his taps? Wouldn't they, instead, sn.i.g.g.e.r to each other about his apparent progress, enjoy letting him think he was spying on them, while knowing that nothing he found would ever be seen? He thought they would.

The question was, when would they spring their trap, and could he spring his before? And a.s.suming he did gain control of the escape pods, so that they could not eject his, and he could eject theirs, he still had to get them all into the pods. They would know-at least die captain and mate would know-that the evacuation drill was a fake. So there was a chance, a good chance, that they would not be in pods at all. But thinking this far had quieted the tremor in his hands and cured his dry mouth.

Wiring diagrams and logic relays flicked through his mind, along with die possible modifications a renegade crew might have made. His audio tap into the captain's cabin still functioned. Listening on a still operative tap, he learned diat the one that die mate had discovered had fallen victim to a rare bout of cleaning. As far as he knew, and as far as they said, they had not found any of

127.

the others. On the other hand, he had found two of theirs. He left them alone, unworried.

The personal kit he always had with him included the very best antisurveillance chip, bonded to his shaver. Through his own taps, he picked his way delicately toward control functions. Some were too well guarded for his limited set of tools. He could not lock the captain in his cabin, or shut off air circulation to any crew compartment. He could not override the captain's control of bridge access. He knew they were watching, suspecting just such a trick. He could not roam die computer's files too broadly, eidier. But he could get into such open files as the maintenance and repair records, and find that the galley hatch had repeatedly jammed. As an experiment, to see if he could do it widiout anyone noticing, Dupaynil changed die pressure on the upper hatch runner. It should jam, and be repaired, widi only a few cusswords for die pesky thing.

Sure enough, one of the crew complained bitterly through breakfast that the galley hatch was catching again. It was probably diat double-d.a.m.ned pressure sensor on die upper runner. Hie mate nodded and a.s.signed someone to fix it.

On such a small vessel, the escape pods were studded along eidier side of die main axis: three opening directly from die bridge, and the others aft, six accessed from the main and six from die alternate pa.s.sage. Escape drill required each crew member to find an a.s.signed pod, even if working near another. Pod a.s.signments were posted in both bridge and galley.

Dupaynil tried to remember if anyone had actually survived a hull-breach on an escort, and couldn't think of an instance. The pods were there because regulations said every s.h.i.+p would carry diem. That didn't make them practical. Pod controls on escort s.h.i.+ps were die old-fas.h.i.+oned electro-mechanical relays; proof against magnetic surges from EM weapons which could disable more sophisticated controls by scrambling die wits of their controlling chips.

This simplicity meant that the tools he had were 128.

enough. Although, if someone looked, the changes would be more obvious than a reprogrammed or replacement chip. Fiddling with the switches and relays also took longer than changing a chip, and he found it difficult to stay suave and smiling when a crew member happened by as he was finis.h.i.+ng one of the links.

The final step, slaving all the pod controls to one, and that one to his handcomp, tested the limits of his ability. He was almost sure die system would work. Unhappily, he would not know until he tried it. He was ready, as ready as he could be. He would have preferred to set off the alarm himself, but he dared not risk it. He played his usual round of cards with Ollery and the mate, making sure that he played neither too well nor too badly, and declined a dice game.

"Tomorrow," he said, with the blithe a.s.surance of one who expects the morrow to arrive on schedule. "I can't stand all this excitement in one night."

They chuckled, the easy chuckle of the predator whose prey is in the trap. He went out wondering when they'd spring it. He really wanted a full s.h.i.+ft's sleep.

The shattering noise of the alarm- and die flas.h.i.+ng lights woke him from the uneasy doze he'd allowed himself. He pulled on his pressure suit, lurched into die bulkhead, cursing, and staggered out into die pa.s.sage. There was the mate, grinning. It was not a friendly grin.

"Escape pod drill, Lieutenant Commander! Remember your a.s.signment?"

"Fourteen, starboard, next hatch but one."

"Right, sir. Go on now!" The mate had a handcomp, and appeared to be logging die response to die drill.

It could not be diat The computer automatically logged crew into and out of the escape pods. Dupaynil moved quickly down the pa.s.sage, hearing the thump and snarled curses of odiers on their way to die pods. He let himself into die next hatch but one, die pod he hoped was not only safely under his control, but now gave him control of the others.