Fire with Fire: Chapter Ten

ODYSSEUS

    Caine, alone on the observation deck of the interface liner Tyne, had to admit that there wasn’t any concrete evidence that the new second engineer was actually an assassin.

    Indeed, the image on Caine’s bug-linked palmtop showed the bridge crewman merely carrying out the same routine duties he had been performing for five days now. If anything, he sat his post more easily than ever, pitched back in a casual slouch, checking monitors, occasionally glancing toward the starboard viewport.

    Caine stole a starboard glance of his own: the Tyne’s gallery window framed a craft shaped like a cubist kraken of deep space. She was the shift carrier Commonwealth, her mile-long keel capped by a boxy sleeve that resembled the mantle of a giant squid. However, this mantle was rotating and comprised of four long panels: habitat nacelles. Less than fifty meters aft of the slowly spinning mantle, hundreds of cold-sleep modules — or “cryopods” — were clustered as tightly as the facets of an insect’s compound eye, staring at him with bone-white pupils: the pod doors.

    He forced himself to return their stare, and thought: there’s no way I’m going to use a cryopod again. Not now; not ever. Common sense countered: You may have to. If there is an assassin on this ship, a cryopod may be your only chance. So, you choose: pseudo-death — or the real thing?

    The rotation of the Commonwealth’s habitation nacelles was slowing: that meant the end of spin-gravity and the start of docking preparations. Soon Caine’s hab module would be transferred to the shift carrier and he’d be another step closer to Earth. Which is probably why I’m so nervous: because I’m almost home. So not only am I starting to see danger everywhere, but beginner’s paranoia is adding to the problem, spawning false threats. So calm down: the second engineer is just a second engineer. You can go back to your module, strap in, relax –

    The negation was swift: no, you can’t — not until you’re sure. And if Caine couldn’t be sure, then he might have to initiate an escape plan that bordered on lunacy, and depended entirely upon the contents of his shoulder-bag.

    He zipped open the bag: a big-handled aluminum Thermos, a multi-tool, a bottle of antidiarrheic tablets, and his shipboard transponder. He dug out the transponder: the silver-gray face of the metal card flashed at him, and he thought: If you bail out, you have to leave the transponder behind. If he didn’t, the second engineer would certainly use its signal to locate him, track him down. So don’t take any chances; drop it here, now.

    But Caine held the silver card tight. Dropping the transponder was the final step. It meant he was committed — at least symbolically — to executing an escape plan that had to — had to — conclude with him reentering a cryopod. Except this time will be even worse. Because — unlike thirteen-and-a-half years ago — you won’t be cold-celled by someone else. This time, you’ll have to do it to yourself.

    The speakers toned twice. “All passengers: please return immediately to your staterooms. Counterthrust will end in fifteen minutes.” On his palmtop, Caine saw the XO snap off the shipwide, nod to the junior flight officer: “Prepare to rig for zero-gee operations.”

    Caine watched the second engineer closely: the end of thrust meant the end of pseudo-gravity on the Tyne. If the new second engineer was an assassin, he would have to start after Caine soon: movement about the ship was “at need only” during weightlessness.

    But the second engineer’s only movement was a hand raised to cover a yawn.

    Caine checked his watch. He doesn’t have enough time to get to me anymore — not before my hab module and I are transferred to the Commonwealth. Whether he’s an assassin or not, I’m safe now — but Caine felt his stomach rise up: no; something’s still wrong.

    As he left the observation lounge, a quick double-tone signaled another general announcement. “Attention. Counterthrust will terminate in thirteen minutes. All personnel and passengers must be secured in acceleration couches.” A brief pause, then: “Passenger Riordan, please proceed immediately to hab module DPV 6, or summon a steward if you are in need of assistance.” Caine swallowed, checked his palmtop yet again. If the second engineer was an assassin, that had to get him moving: in addition to killing Caine, he’d now have to find him first.

    Smiling slightly, the second engineer snapped a toggle with his left forefinger. Clearly, the only possible reason that the engineer did not move to pursue him was because he had no intention, and therefore no reason, to do so.

    Caine felt himself lean toward that comforting thought, but fought back. No: the answer you like the most is the one you should trust the least. Go over the evidence one more time: be sure you haven’t missed something.

    Downing had warned Caine to be watchful when he started back to Earth, and had provided special tools to help him watch: six near-microscopic AV bugs and the palmtop that also served as a receiver for the bugs’ signals. However, as on Dee Pee Three, what Caine found the most useful was his official security classification — the highest level of clearance among the nations of the New World Commonwealth bloc. Perhaps because Caine had never been conditioned to obey the unwritten rules of the intelligence community, he discovered a novel use for his access: locating and tapping dozens of covert operating funds. On every ship, the ample cash quickly made him a favorite with the bartenders, waiters, and restaurateurs in each hull’s ubiquitous core concourse, which was the only place where passengers from different hab mods were permitted to mingle. It also made the concourse the most logical site for an assassin to access a target — and therefore, a site that Caine had to watch closely.

    So, furnished with all the friends that government monies could buy, Caine had made daily circuits around each ship’s concourse. After surreptitiously planting a micro-bug at each compass point of the main promenade, he slowed his pace, checking the palmtop’s screen for a figure that moved with him. Caine acquired no such shadow during the first shift to CD-49, nor at Epsilon Indi. Even upon arrival in Junction, Caine saw no suspicious repetition in the churn of new eyes, faces, profiles. He had begun to dismiss Downing’s warning — that Junction was the most likely point of intercept — when he sensed the first shadows of a threat stretch toward him.

    A week before they were scheduled to transfer to the Commonwealth, the Tyne’s captain — an amiable Scot named Burnham — got on the shipwide at 0400 hours, apologized for waking everyone up, and then ordered everyone to strap in. Minutes later, acceleration cut out; the ship did a 180-degree tumble and initiated a day of unscheduled counterthrust in order to rendezvous with the Euro clipper Schnellwind, which was already stern-chasing the Tyne, sometimes at a punishing five gees. But the clipper’s passengers turned out to be a meager group of very shaken and very junior executives — whose jobs clearly did not warrant such high-speed transport — and a second engineer whose dossier was still “in transit” from his last posting. That last bit of information sent a cool fingernail of warning down Caine’s spine.

    As if to confirm Caine’s worst fears, the second engineer appeared in the Tyne’s concourse soon after. Using the pre-positioned bugs, Caine watched the new bridge crewman trail him through two complete circuits of the crowded promenade, never closer than fifteen meters, never further than thirty.

    Caine countered with a few calls to his fellow passengers on DPV 6. Ten minutes later, a convivial group had gathered at Le Café Viennese. The endless stream of champagne overcame (as Caine knew it would) one of his more susceptible neighbors: a jovial, undersized accountant returning to Earth from Zeta Tucanae. A ship’s steward was called to escort the revelers back to their hab mod, along with one member of the security watch, a Gold Coast Aussie by the name of Digger Mack. Caine remained at the center of this knot of unknowing rescuers until he was safely back in his suite. The next day, he bought a tour of Captain Burnham’s bridge with carefully underplayed flattery and complimentary bottles of Bollinger, and left behind another of his spy-eyes/ears, wedged in a crevice between two access panels. Then he holed up in DPV 6 and watched the second engineer cycle through his daily duties. And saw nothing even vaguely suspicious for five dull days.

    Nothing even vaguely suspicious, Caine recited to himself as he entered the module access tube. Forty meters away, the watch officer manning the security checkpoint into hab mod DPV 6 waved for Caine to hurry. A closer look revealed the officer to be none other than the ever-affable Digger Mack. Caine took a final look at his palmtop. The second engineer continued in the casual execution of his tedious duties. The only unusual feature was his faint, unnervingly persistent smile. But what did that prove? Nothing. And besides, he can’t reach me anymore. So just accept that you are not going to see any danger signs — because there are none to be seen. Caine fished the transponder out of his shoulder bag. He slipped it back into his pocket, slightly horrified as he reflected upon the plot he had been prepared to carry out: how utterly bizarre, to save yourself by being ready to virtually kill yourself –

    He froze. Kill himself? Kill himself? What if the second engineer is on a suicide mission? Logic rebutted quickly: Another human being ready to die just to kill me? Me? Besides, how can he do it? He’s bridge crew; he doesn’t have access to the fuel tanks or the power plants or the drives –

    The drives. During docking. That was it. As they prepared to dock with the Commonwealth, Burnham would give a shut-down order, requiring the engineer to access the Tyne’s drive-control programming. And what if there is an “error” when the engineer shuts down the pulse fusion engines? What if, say, the magnetic containment cuts out a split second before the fusion ignition system does? If the interlock safeguards are rigged for simultaneous deactivation, orchestrating that mishap is simplicity itself: a brief stutter in one of the ultraconductor coils and…The explosion would vaporize the Tyne — and anything else nearby.

    But the Tyne would not shut down her engines until she had come right alongside the Commonwealth. And at that range –

    Caine discovered that he had stopped breathing: the two ships, including crew, were carrying almost seven thousand people. Caine glanced at the bridge feed on the palmtop, then at his transponder, trying to think the way Downing had taught him. If the second engineer is on a suicide mission, then the only way I can be certain of surviving is to drop the transponder here. As long as my transponder is aboard this hull, he’ll think I am, too — so he’ll just wait for the Tyne to come alongside the Commonwealth, sabotage the engine shut-down, destroy both ships. And miss me, because I’ll be long gone.

    Caine shuddered. Yes, he’ll miss me — but no one else on the Tyne or the Commonwealth will survive. Unless, that is, Caine took the transponder with him when he bailed out. The second engineer would hear Security report that Caine — his transponder fading — was clearly abandoning ship. That would compel the assassin to act immediately, prematurely. With luck, Burnham would notice and intervene, but regardless, the second engineer would have to attempt to blow the engines early — meaning that the Tyne would not be close enough to the Commonwealth to catch her in the explosion. But the Tyne itself –

    The other options were scant and unpromising. Caine could attempt to convince Burnham to relieve the Second Engineer — but how, with only a few minutes left and no evidence? And if Burnham didn’t listen, or didn’t believe…

    And then, the memory of Downing’s measured voice and somber face intruded: “You must not, under any circumstances, reveal your mission. You may have to make decisions which cause others — many others — to die, so that you can get the information back to us and keep it secret.” Downing would tell him that he should leave the transponder. That the Tyne, the Commonwealth, even seven thousand lives were all “acceptable losses.” That Caine must not risk himself or the data. That he must choose the safe, the smart option: to drop the transponder. Right now. Yes, that’s what Downing would want.

    Fuck that. Caine jammed the transponder back down into his bag, clenched his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, and reactivated the insane escape plan he had just abandoned.

    He retrieved the bottle of pills from the carry-all, popped the cap, tumbled a few into his palm. Ten meters to go, and Digger Mack was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. Caine smiled what he hoped was a sickly grin, ground his molars behind it: poor, trusting Digger. Raising one weak hand in greeting, Caine began his carefully orchestrated performance with a cool self-detachment: what a son of a bitch I am.

    Digger was frowning. “Here, mate, where’ve you been? Look worse for wear, you do.”

    Caine inhaled: point of no return. He held up the tablets, swayed a little. “Got some bad food. Or somethin’. Went to the dispensary.”

    Digger’s sympathetic tone contrasted sharply with his hurried movements. “‘Kay then, Caine. Let’s get through the check and then into the couches. You know the drill; bag on the scanner.”

    Caine laid the bag down, fumbled to put the pills back in the bottle, failed, juggling unsuccessfully as they fell and skittered in every direction.

    “Ah –” began Digger, and then, apparently suppressing a string of expletives, he bent over to help scoop up the pills.

    Caine straightened, reached into the carry-all, got the Thermos by the handle. He brought it out and up in a single arc, and then swung down. Hard.

    Caine felt the shock of the blow from his wrist to his pectoral, restrained a sudden urge to retch as he heard the dull impact of the lead-lined Thermos against the base of Digger’s skull. Digger went down with a choking groan. Caine dropped the Thermos, yanked the stun baton from Digger’s belt, brought it down against Digger’s left jaw hinge and thumbed the activation button.

    Digger made a shuddering hnnnhhhh sound, back arching — but he was not unconscious. Caine felt for the selector switch, snapped it to max, laid the baton across Digger’s twitching cheek, closed his eyes and held down the button.

    Digger made two quick gagging sounds and then was silent, his body quaking spasmodically. Caine cast the baton aside, stowed the Thermos, and pulled out the multitool, peripherally noting that Digger was still alive. And will hopefully live to hate my guts.

    Caine backtracked down the corridor, stopped at a ceiling-to-floor panel outlined in yellow-and-black caution striping, located the release bolts.

    “Five minutes to zero-gee. Mr. Riordan is to report his whereabouts immediately by any means possible.” The intercom went silent, but Caine heard Captain Burnham’s follow-on orders over the palmtop: “Damn it, where is he? Harris, I say three times, breach the privacy protocol and locate Mr. Riordan’s transponder. This has gone far enough.”

    “Breaching privacy protocol on your order, sir.”

    Caine undid the last bolt: the panel swung down.

    And revealed a white door. Caine swallowed, so loud he could hear it. A cryopod — or, more accurately, a lifepod: the newest means of abandoning ship in a hurry, and in deep space. Once inside, you surrendered control. The machine’s expert system would make all the decisions. Would do away with his clothes, his consciousness, and maybe his life, with cool impersonal efficiency.

    He knelt down before the white door and began — inexpertly, and with the aid of a “how-to” program — to override the control protocols. And if I’m really lucky, I won’t cut the wrong wire and pre-launch the pod — and myself — into hard vacuum. As Caine started clipping wires — and dripping sweat — he heard the predictable exchange begin on the bridge:

    “Captain?”

    “Yes, Trilling?”

    “Sir, I have a red light on portside escape pod aught-five. Systems indicate that the pod is no longer in the command loop.”

    “Damn; as if we didn’t have enough problems. Run a diagnostic.”

    “Sir, we can’t. The pod is entirely nonresponsive.”

    “Bloody hell. Have security check it, then. Have them pull the damn thing’s plug if they must.”

    Caine stared at the recessed handle in the center of the white door. You have to do it. You have to do it to yourself. And you have to do it now.

    “Sir, no response from security in that sector.”

    “What the –? What sector, man?”

    “Section B3: portside module pylon, just near hab mod DPV 6.”

    A long pause, then Burnham’s voice — firm, decided — rapping out orders: the chance events — Caine’s truancy from his suite in DPV 6, the pod’s malfunction, security’s failure to respond in that same area — were all coming together. “Security, all available personnel to section B3, portside pylon. Detain Mr. Riordan on sight. Engineering, prepare for new orders –”

    Caine saw the second engineer glance up sharply at that command, then look uncertainly toward his control panel.

    Time to leave. Caine pulled the handle in the center of the white door. The oval hatch opened with a pop and a sigh; the emergency klaxon shrilled at him. He made sure the transponder was in his bag, then jumped into the closet-like interior of the life pod.

    From there on, everything happened with unnatural speed. The door slammed shut behind him with a breathy squeal: hermetically sealed. Straps closed down around him and pulled him tight into an acceleration harness. There was a deafening yet hoarse blast and a sudden full-body sledgehammer of five gee acceleration: the jettisoning charge was kicking the lifepod free of the Tyne.

    The sound and image on the palmtop were starting to break up. One of the bridge officers — Sensor Ops, probably — called out: “Sir, secondary array indicates we have a pod away.”

    “Engineering, confirm.”

    “Unable to confirm, sir. It’s either away or no longer drawing power.”

    That was when the pod’s real rockets kicked in: a less intense, but steady pressure on his chest pinned him down. Using the armrest controls, Caine snapped on the pod’s small external viewscreen while watching the last seconds of clear transmission from his bug aboard the Tyne’s bridge.

    “Sir,” — the sensor officer, again — “we’ve located Mr. Riordan’s transponder signal — but we’re losing it.”

    “Losing it?”

    “Yes sir; best guess is that he’s –”

    “Aboard the pod. Yes, of course. Engineering, clear your board for an emergency counterboost. Communications, hail the Commonwealth and –”

    But Caine didn’t hear the rest: over the captain’s shoulder, he saw the second engineer frown and pull a microdisk out of his breast-pocket. He slipped it into his station’s dataport and grazed his index finger across the control panel before anyone even noticed.

    Still visible in the pod’s viewscreen, the Tyne’s massive engine decks flickered unevenly, flashed, then erupted into a burgeoning sphere of blue-white plasma that whited out the screen.

    The buffeting hit as the image of space came back; Caine tried to resist a sudden wave of nausea, most of which was not due to the rough ride. He hadn’t saved the Tyne or its eight hundred passengers and crew. He himself wasn’t going to be in much better shape: even now there were enough rads sleeting through him to cost some hair, and the pod was tumbling out of the Junction system’s ecliptic. But Caine’s burgeoning pangs of guilt and misgiving froze, paralyzed by the ominous hum of cryogenic suspension machinery coming to life all around him: the gurgling of the blood exchange system, the slow hum of the unfolding catheters and colonic cleansing waldos, the snipping of the disrobing shears, the sigh of the approaching hypodermic. His body would be subjected to a gruesome variety of IV violations, but only after an initial dose of synthetic morphine had drifted him off into a dreamless sleep.

    The needle slid efficiently but sharply into his left forearm. As Caine felt the opiating warmth leap along his veins, he let himself look outward and flow into the stars, carried along by a sudden, drugged impulse toward the poetic: From our small green island in the heavens, we steer our ships into black depths. And as we veer and tack from one star to the next, we have chased a question as old, as fundamental, as our fascination with the night skies: “Are we alone?”

    And he, Caine, homeward bound to his island in the archipelago of systems now navigated by humans, was returning with the answer to that question.

    Unfortunately, Downing and IRIS might never have the opportunity to extract that answer from Caine, or from the data crystals in his shielded Thermos. It was, after all, entirely possible that the assassin’s allies would be the first to reach his tumbling lifepod. If anyone ever did.

    Which was, Caine conceded as he slipped deeper into the unnatural calm of a morphine haze, a most unsettling prospect.