Four
“I’m sorry; it seemed that the word arrest was a distinct part of your last sentence.”
Carrothead just glared at her. “The knife,” he said simply in a tired tone.
Blade considered him, and the circle of men surrounding her. The efficiency with which they handled their weaponry showed that they’d been training with them recently, but the looks in their eyes showed that this was their first live drill. Several of them were visibly jittery, all of them looked highly wound. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that they’d only gotten two hours of sleep sixteen hours ago, and had been on the go ever since. Clearly they were all running on empty, driven only by caffeine and hints of a secret, maniacal energy that seemed to be a dim flicker in the backs of their eyes. Looking in those eyes, she could instantly tell which ones were at heart afraid, which ones were zealous to confront and kill this intruder, and which were prepared to die a martyr doing so. And each passion, she saw, seemed linked to that vague spark of driven fervour lurking in their eyes.
Quickly she reached a decision about her hosts, and slowly (so as not to panic them) undid the leg strap on her scabbard, then unhooked the belt supporting it. It fell from her hips, and she handed it over by the buckle.
The officer accepted it silently, cast an eye disapprovingly down the length of the sheathe. He looked back at her, found her looking back at him with a threatening stare: touch me and I will hurt you.
“I have a simple solution,” Blade announced. “You don’t want me here, and I don’t want me here either. How ’bout you just send me back up to the station?”
Red-Head ignored her in favour of pulling out a small qommunicator.
“Dayv, I’m at the south airloq with a single intruder.” He released the button on the device, and a thunderstorm of white noise rose from the speaker. It dampened a reply already thick with accent, “Right. I’m on m’way in; take him to security, an’ Ah’ll meetcha there in two minutes.”
Carrothead smiled wryly at the instructions. He pressed the transmit button, and the white noise muted.
“It’s a her, actually.”
The white noise came back, along with the reply, “Say ’gain?”
“Our intruder is a Caandelenian female.”
“Ah,” came the reply, less garbled. He shut the radio off and motioned Blade out the airloq and into the passage beyond. Blowing out a breath, she made her way through.
“Can I at least know what the charges are?”
Carrot head followed along side her. Trailing behind were the four miners, their laser rifles aimed at random points on her body.
“You don’t have a visa, and it’s safe to say you don’t have a permit for this, either.” He brandished the bayonet, and guided her around a corner. “That’s two serious offenses right there.”
Blade wondered if this was a particularly bad flashback. The tunnel-like corridor certainly added to the surreal feeling that she was entering the rem stage of an anxiety nightmare. She recalled one morning back when Tom was living with her. She woke up thirsty, and didn’t discover that the night before Tom had whipped up a batch of cosmic kool-aid until he came out of the shower and saw her finishing off a particularly tall glass. When she started to react adversely to the fluorescent woodchucks scampering under the furniture, his advice to her was “just deal with it.”
So trunching down the corridor, she did her best to do so. In the mean time, she began plotting how to get out of this. By the fifth turn at an intersection, she had finally remembered the name of the lawyer that lived down the hall from her on Blackmoore II. She said four words to him in the two years she’d lived there: “Hi, I’m Blade,” when she first moved in, and “sure” when he knocked on her door eight months later to ask her to turn her music down. Well, it was better than nothing...
Just when she gave up trying to understand her way through the labyrinth she was being led through, she was ushered through airloq-style doors and into an octagonal room bustling with confused activity. People were doing everything from ransacking their desks to loading weapons to futilely pinning badges onto their mining uniforms. The last had thusfar produced two self-inflicted wounds, and a mad search for bandages.
Carrothead scanned the chaos, then looked up a short flight of stairs to the window of an office. The door was closed, the lights were out. Blade read the frown cross his face, and then his head began to bounce back and forth like someone watching a gravity tennis match. The two points of his attention were two other airloq entrances to the room.
After a full thirty seconds, he was rapidly becoming as nervous as Blade was. One of the headless chickens in the room came up to him, an id laminate hanging precariously from a pocket clip. From one ear dangled a headphone, which he was desperately trying to plug into a radio headset. Blade noticed with slight amusement that his difficulty lay in the two pieces were clearly not compatible.
“How many?” he asked, his attention divided between Carrothead and the uncooperative transmitter plug.
“Just her,” he replied, and tipped his head at Blade. The young man turned to her, and became fully aware of her for the first time. The surprise was obvious on his face. Blade quite often got that look, though usually under other circumstances. As always, it forced a chuckle out of her, and it did not go over well with Carrothead.
Recovering quickly, the young miner, who Blade noticed had corporal’s chevrons on his sleeves, turned back to his superior.
“Do you want me to contact Throhn?”
“Not yet,” Carrot replied, and then a loud commotion came from one of the airloqs, and several of the miners quickly scampered out of the way to make way for the Mighty Man.
Dayv strolled into the room, an automatic rifle gripped securely in the gloved hand of his atmosphere suit. Only the helmet was off, and his exposed head looked directly at Blade for one brief moment. Neither had ever met, but in an instant Blade knew him. His heavy eyes said it all.
This guy was gone.
He may be able to function with what passed for rationality and appear normal, but the force burning behind those squinty half-slits was not sane. In an instant, Blade knew this. She also saw his own death in his eyes. She just knew that this man would be dead very soon. And that he would be taking out a lot of people with him.
The dark stare of his piercing blue eyes and grim twist of his wan lips stated only too well that he too knew that soon he was fated to die violently, and that he anticipated its approach with holy frevour.
What the Hell have I gotten myself into now?
He strode up to Carrot with a cross between purpose and arrogance.
“Are y’sure there’re no others?” he drawled thickly.
Carrot nodded, though rather defensively. “She was the only one who got out of the shuttle.”
Dayv stared at him, then looked at his atmosphere suit with anger. “Do a complete sweep of the outside,” he ordered, obviously irritated that he was not there to coordinate it personally.
The corporal materialized at Carrot’s side, and asked, “Have you seen the adapter for this?”
Dayv’s piercing gaze alone sent him scampering away as Carrot issued the orders into his radio. The moment he finished Dayv asked him, “Okay, who is she?”
Carrot remembered scrutinizing her id card, but between here and the airloq the vitals had become lost in the confusion. After struggling for several moments, Blade announced “My name is Asmodeus...”
Dayv whipped his head to scrutinize her for the first time, his expression showing disapproval. He hadn’t given her permission to speak.
“...and I take it you’re the geek in charge of this headless hen coup.” She met his stare evenly, though inwardly shuddered at the whisps of dark homicidal smoke burning behind his dilated specs. They locked with hers, and assaulted her with condescension. After a moment it became obvious that a staring contest was about to start, so he blew out a breath of disgust and looked over at Carrot.
“Put ’er in holding until the perimeter’s secure.” he snarled, and then stalked up to the unlit office at the top of the stairs, his rifle still clutched tightly in his hand.
Blade watched the retreating figure until Carrot gained her attention by motioning toward one of the airloq exits. Blade looked at him, and saw that he was visibly nervous. She turned and began maneuvering through the crowd of miners, all of whom were now fully armed and completely without any idea what to do. Most looked expectantly at Carrot, who was too busy minding his albinic charge to acknowledge them.
Again through a small maze of corrugated hexagonal tunnels to a small wing relatively isolated from the rest of the compound. Door tags identified this as a storage area.
“In here,” Carrot said from her side, and gestured toward closed electric double doors. A card loq had been installed on the side, a forest green light indicated that it was inactive. Carrot reached out and prodded the large black bar at the bottom, and the doors parted with a fair hum of electric motion. Beyond, a small room full of metal shelves cluttered with half-open cartons of office supplies. He beckoned her inside, followed her in, and the doors rejoined with more straining electrical mechanics. A moment later, the light on the door loq went from forest green to fire red.
An older man sat attentively behind a desk on the left side. Across from him was another electric double door, card-loqed in softly glowing red.
“Hi, Art,” the man said to Carrot as he stood up from behind the desk. Blade noticed that he was packing a pistol and an albedo field.
“Phran,” Carrot replied, nodding to the man, then stepped up behind Blade. He was studying the artwork shaded onto the back of her jacket. A student of Kabbalah, he recognized parts of the imagery in the charcoal abstracts. Just as he could discern Daleth Aleph Lamed Beth (equals... uh... ...thirty-seven?) he peripherally discerned Yod, cunningly concealed in the corner of the monochrome swirl. Glancing at the other corners, he found the tetragramaton, then realized they were stationed on a twelve-sided Wheel of Fortune. Looking inward, be began to discern lilies shaded along the spokes, and thus realized that she had spent an enormous amount of time on this.
Time, he decided, she would have better put to use learning manners in front of superiors. He was amazed that Dayv had tolerated her attitude. Well, when he finally got around to talking to her one-on-one, he’d squash her like a grape. The Lord knows that Dayv’d come down on him enough to know what she was in for. He’d probably get a reaming anyway for the total chaos at her arrival Knowing the Mighty Man, he’d probably chew him out first as an appetizer to get speed up for this insolent alien bitch. He could feel rage building up in him as he stared at the two lilies on the horizontal spokes. Suddenly he realized that they formed an inner yin-yang. He looked at it, thinking of dualistic harmony and the Tao of redemption, and his spontaneous anger simmered off. Calmer, he became aware for the first time how much time he had spent daydreaming at the back of her jacket The time she spent making this collage was poorly spent, but so is the time I spend devoting attention to it. He forced his eyes away from the encrypted artwork, turning his attention to the various black zippers and buttons along the white seams.
“Empty your pockets,” he said at last, and pointed toward the table Phran the older man was standing behind. He had not noticed the awkward art interim because he was looking over his desk for something. While Blade went pocket fishing, he began looking around the room. With relief, his tired eyes fell on a clipboard resting atop one of the storage shelves, a styrofoam cup of creamed coffee on top of the sheaf. He reached over, picking it up by the side, and transplanted it onto the desk. He moved the coffee over and put a plastic pen in its place.
Slowly, Blade pulled out the stainless steel stiletto from inside her jacket, and placed it on the table. Carrot scowled, both at the weapon and the fact that she’d had it on her until now. Phran dutifully recorded the item on his sheet, followed by the clump of keys and her everflame.
“Name?” Phran asked her, as she failed to produce anything else.
“Asmodeus comma Gretta M” Blade replied with distaste.
Phran looked up from the form, a faint smile about him. “What’s the ‘M’ stand for?”
“Mindyerownbusiness.”
“Ah,” Phran said, but Art met her eyes levelly. “You got yourself a serious attitude problem, woman.”
Blade shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s how I react to stupidity.”
“Boy, you just don’t know when to quit.”
“It’s part of a calculated strategy: I be really annoying so you send me back to the station just to make me go away.”
Levelly, Carrot told her “If Dayv wants to make you go away he’d more likely send you toward the sun in a body bag. Now shut up and empty your pockets.”
Blade didn’t take threats too kindly, but she always took them seriously. She decided to leash her tongue, and patted her pockets one final time. This revealed a small pill container, which Carrot quickly opened.
“These are?” he asked intently.
Blade glanced in, to check her stash. “The white are analgesic, the blue are short-term sterilics.”
Carrot understood. “Birth control,” he said coldly. “That’s illegal here.” Phran put the pills off to the side, with her knives.
Lastly, Blade undid the rubber band and deposited both it and her watch on the pile. “That’s everything,” she said with a straight face, indicating the meager offerings on the table. Phran had already recorded the sparse items on the sheet, one of which was her credit card that Carrot had confiscated. From that he had copied her personal id number to the line at the top, and was continuing with the form questions.
“Where are you from?”
“Caandelen’s Star,” she replied in a soft tone, which he wrote down, spelling the first word wrong. Carrot was powering up a portable scanner.
“Address there?” Phran politely inquired.
Blade gave the address of the house she was born in, hoping to mask her equivocations with a tone of submissiveness. Apparently it worked: Phran dutifully recorded the horrendously outdated information while Carrot concentrated on the scanner’s screen. A green outline of her appeared, devoid of any other colours. Absence of other colours meant an absence of anything with a power base, including most weapons, explosives, and eavesdroppers. Carrot wasn’t surprised; she seemed to prefer edged melee weapons. Considering that, he ran a base metals reading to see if she had any more sharp surprises. Her stiletto remained anonymous against her thigh. It was crafted of a hydrogen-heavy titanium alloy that wouldn’t show up on a scan unless you specifically looked for it.
“What’s the reason she’s being detained?” Phran asked, having reached the pertinent line.
“No visa, carrying weapons without permission, possession of birth control, and bad attitude.”
Phran looked up at her and winced. “Ohhhh, a ’tude. Girl, ’round here that can get you five to life.” Blade smiled obsequiously. He turned to Carrot: “Hey, do we still execute for jaywalking, or has it been reduced to cutting off a foot?”
This actually made Blade laugh. She could tell that under other circumstances Phran was probably a likable old guy, and the two were using that in a straight-forward Good Cop Bad Cop.
“If there is a line on your form, I would like to make a statement.”
Phran looked back at her. “You just did,” he said, smiling slightly.
“May I please make a statement?” Blade asked cutely.
“That was a question,” Phran pointed out smugly. “Do you want to make a statement or ask a question?”
“Yes.”
As Phran wasn’t very familiar with the form (understandably, Sk'Gdadda Thirteen had a very low crime rate) he had to scan it over several; times. He found that there was no entry for a statement on the form, only a slot where the subject had to sign. He handed it over to her, along with the pen.
Blade looked at the form. At the top was a moderate logo blurred from poor photocopying. The words Concordance Overture were large and visible, and print seeming to read MOSAIC CORNERSTONE circled a geometric logo. A dried coffee ring blurred part of her name, which was misspelled. She read the information with a straight face, and loopily signed Greether Asmuchasthis.
“All done; can I go home now?”
Instead, Carrot pointed to the door panel on the other side of the room. Warily, Blade went over to it, and Carrot slipped his id through the scanner. The stale hiss of decompression, and a short hall appeared. On either side, a row of three ten-by-ten vestibules. The ones to her left had a soft blue veil of static-filled light where it opened into the hall. Her nose instantly caught the perfume of ozone. Carrot motioned her into the cubelet immediately to her right. She turned, and walked into the little chamber. Brain gray walls lined with barren shelves. One of them had a thin mattress on top and several cartons shoved under it.
Behind her she heard a soft humm, and turned to find Carrot standing behind a blue curtain of light. She smiled: Carrot’s hair was now an outrageous shade of purple. The comic effect had the effect of boosting some sadly sagging spirit and morale.
The Purple Carrot picked up something along those lines from her smile and inwardly sighed. She is far from broken. She has much passion and spirit. If she could direct it toward a positive goal (such as his, of course) she would be...
“If I’m going to be whiling away time in this deluxe storage suite of yours, might I trouble you for some reading material? I would think a copy of your legal codes would be an excellent suggestion...”
Carrot blinked at her, then said simply “Dayv will deal with you shortly.” With that, he turned and left. Blade saw the door to the outer room slide shut with a suction kiss. She was alone.
A deep breath, slow exhale.
“Tzo’ah,” she murmured, a Caandelenian slang for excrement, especially when it is piled up to your navel.
What the phuq’s going on here?
They clearly weren’t expecting her, and clearly didn’t want her there. Everyone went spaz and pulled out guns. That boy at the information desk wasn’t kidding—tourism is not the forte of this little mining town. So what are they afraid of?
Or, what are they protecting?
Blade began pacing rapidly, hoping that rapid physical activity would stimulate rapid mental activity. She needed to think, and fast.
After a few minutes, the shock began to wear off and events sank in. She began to analyze them in an attempt to understand why this was happening. If she could figure that out, she could figure out her other pressing problem: what the phuq am I going to do now?
* * *
The outer door hissed aside, and in walked Carrot and Phran to see the blue lady beyond the wall of light with a devious smile on her lips. Carrot read the expression and shuddered. This one’s just going to be trouble.
They had left her alone for a half hour before seemingly reviving interest in her. Clearly she had put the time to better use than they had. She had calmed down and pondered her predicament, and the smile indicated some progress toward gnosis. Neither of the two men could make such a claim.
“Dayv’d like to have a word with you, so we can sort this all out,” Phran said in a reassuring voice. On his belt was a holster, an HSI nestled inside. Carrot was likewise packing a Hylystyx Standard Issue laser, which he kept at the ready. He reached to the wall and deactivated the blue force screen to the storage unit serving as her cell. She turned white, he turned red. She turned to exit, he turned to make room for her. Phran turned the lights out when they left.
After all, power was rationed.
Down the long tunnels, Blade noted the change in atmosphere. Every door was closed, and not a soul about. The only sounds were the humm of heavy machinery and the soft echo of their shoes. Slowly, Blade began to alter her stride so the rubber soles of her hightops would make squeaky noises when she walked. After several intersections she had just the right pitch at just the right pace, for just the right low-annoyance effect. By the time the trio reached the command centre, even Phran was on edge from the shrill squeak instep.
The command center was still bustling with activity, but everyone clearly took pains to make sure that it was—or at least seemed—orderly and productive. One would almost have thought that they had calmed down except that they were still all sporting ordinance. Wryly, she noticed that the place smelled like a locker room (not that she knew what a locker room smelled like, of course, especially that of a pennant-winning gravity grenade team on Laampwyche...) You could tell from the smell what it was: a nervous sweat, like when you suspect some tzo’ah you’ve desperately been avoiding is on the verge of dumping real nasty. It was the sweat of the oh shit, I was caught with my pants down phase of shock. She could almost hear the echo from the sigh of relief when they realized that the tzo’ah had yet to strike.
Blade ascended the short flight of stairs up to the office in the side. She waited for Carrot to open the door for her (it was unlocked; she just wanted him to open the door for her) and walked in, managing to get a faint squeak on the shabby, coarse carpet. Blade wondered if she could conduct enough static electricity to zap the next person she touched.
Dayv sat smugly behind a desk whose neatly organized surface was now disarrayed. He had changed out of his atmosphere suit into heavy mining fatigues which bore his rank and the geometric logo she had seen on her arrest report’s letterhead. A copy of that report rested amid the clutter of Dayv’s desk. Next to his qomputer was his rifle, placed so it was out of the way but instantly accessible. The Mighty Man looked her up and down, disapproving of every single thing. He detected her spirit and bravado, the cockiness in her smile, and it soured him. Clearly, she was arrogant enough to think that she was in charge.
Carrot and Phran filed in, and Dayv turned his attention to the elder.
“How are your inquiries coming along?”
“I’ll go and check right now,” Phran said, excusing himself hastily. He did not want to see what was going to happen next, and shut the door on his way out.
Blade took a seat, one of two worn upholstery chairs set before the desk. She contemplated the man sitting an arm’s reach across the desk from her. His thin lips were curled; he hadn’t given her permission to sit down. Wild strands of sandy blonde fell into his face, helping mask two fried eyes. The whites were burned out, but the blue pupils smouldered on. She saw in them the pyre he was building for himself. Seeing that hollow look in his eyes again reminded her starkly that this was a man who isn’t phuqing around with things like sanity or mortality. She remembered Carrot’s comment about sunbound in a space baggie. That grim stare and expression made it seem a very real possibility. There was clearly some bad juju going on here, and she was very likely on the wrong end of it. She’d have to behave herself.
“Okay, Asthmadeuce,” came the thick drawl, and inwardly she groaned. “Who the hell are ya?”
She shrugged. “Hey, I am who I am.”
Carrot shot a look at Dayv, and found he wasn’t taking that response too kindly. The gloom factor increased by ten.
“What the hell are you doin’ here?”
With a straight face, Blade said “It’s all part of a contest. I won a free vacation to the Middle of Nowhere. The brochure said I would get free travel and deluxe accommodations in a five-star storage closet while I enjoyed the marvelous sunsets over the strip-mines of Z-nofobe IC. It’s actually a scam to get me to buy into a timeshare condo. The rules said I would have to attend a ninety-minute presentation on why I should buy one of their condos; I assume that’s why I’m here now. Well, to save time, let me say that while I would normally love to invest in your rustic little villa-by-the-crater, I’ve also got my eye on a piece of property on Solar Primus. So if it wouldn’t be too inconvenient, you can just send me back, and I’m sure my travel agent will refund your money.”
It was times like this that Blade wished the word satire would appear beneath her, for Dayv read metric tons of allegory and innuendo into her story. How much of it he believed was another matter.
“So,” he hissed, “you workin’ for the Bug?”
Blade had been anticipating such a question. “I really don’t think Mr. Jn'Tonx would appreciate you calling it such.”
Dayv was surprised. It was common knowledge that Tonx would airloq anyone who called it that name; he was referring to the Saladrin station CEO, Kl'Kitt. He wondered if she was diverting attention or divulging information.
“You work for Jn'Tonx, then?”
“No.”
“You arrived on what we suspect to be one of his shuttles.”
Suspect, wondered Blade. She began looking around the room. A presentable hologram of Dayv and presumably his wife and daughter, framed certificate of indeterminate type, and a display with several military citations. A vidibooq lay on top of the IN basket.
“Well?” Dayv inquired after it was clear he had lost her attention.
“Daffodils!” she said, the first word to come to mind.
Because he was getting such mixed signals, he decided to try again. If going with is gut instinct and spacing her turned out to be the wrong move, Throhn would see to it that he joined her.
“Did Jn'Tonx send you?”
“Your suspicions may be confirmed; I arrived on one of its ships.”
“Why?”
“You’d have to ask it that. I asked to go to the station, but it sent me here instead.”
Drone monotone: “Why?”
“Near as I can tell, it thought I was someone else, somebody from your colony, and mistakenly sent me here.”
Dayv stared at her dumbly. Since there were no Caandelenians in either Concordance Overture or Mosaic Cornerstone, it seemed absurd that she would be confused for anyone here, so he reasoned the truth to be a very bad lie. He gave her the is that the best you can do? look, and she knew it would be pointless to press on.
“Why did Jn'Tonx send you to us?”
“Ask it.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I already gave you my theory, but you didn’t seem too impressed.”
“Okay, just who does it think you are?”
Exasperatedly, “I don’t know. Like I said, ask it. And while you’re asking it, ask if it can get me out of here.”
“So you do work for it,” Dayv declared with a shrewd smile, pleased he’d caught another contradiction. Blade frowned. He elabourated, “Why else would you call on it to get you out of here.”
“Hey, I will call on anyone who can get me out of here. I have a dentist’s appointment on Thuviasday, and they charge extra if I’m late.”
“But you want to go back to Tonx?”
“Actually, I want to go straight home to Caandelen’s Star, if that can be arranged, but I’d settle for a ride up to the station.”
“The Station!” Dayv repeated, surprised. Suspicions of the Bug crawled underneath his skin.
“So Tonx did not send you here with a message,” Dayv stated. He studied her reaction (shake of white bangs: no) and believed it. This made things easier: if she was not a courier, she was a spy.
“What was yer assignment?”
“Sorry?”
“What’s your mission like?”
“Oh, the traditional flat-on-back, legs spread wide, pillow-under-head routine, just like everyone else’s.”
Carrot’s face turned as red as his hair. Dayv merely growled. He asked his next question directly: “Are you here to look for something, or sabotage something.”
“Well, as near as I can tell, I’m conducting a tour of your storage facilities. If there’s time, I understand there’s an awesome janitor’s closet down on level 8...”
Dayv snapped “What do you know about level 8?”
“Only that you have one.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Well, you just told me.”
“But you knew it was down.”
“I suspect most mines dig in that general direction, yes?”
“What do you know about what’s going on down there?”
“Only what you’re telling me.” She smiled sweetly. After a long pause of silence on both sides, she said, “Your serve.”
About this time, Dayv was really regretting his kicking a pack a day habit. He fidgeted with his fingers, remembering the nervous nicotine satisfaction. Throhn had ordered him to quit. He said smoking was an unconscious placebo for a mother’s nursing breast. Throhn insisted that the miners of Mosaic Cornerstone were beyond the stage of sucking at their mama’s teat, and punished transgressors. Dayv figured (correctly) that Throhn knew more psychology than he did, so he trusted his superior’s judgment and obeyed his command to quit the cancer candy canes. He made due with fondling a silver-plated pen as he tiredly continued, “look, you’re here without a visa. That’s serious shit.”
This helped sober Blade up: it was the truth.
When this produced no response, he charged, “Do you know who you’re phuqing with?”
“Always, unless the lights are off.”
That did it. “Look, bitch, right now your ass is mine. Keep it up and I’ll make you disappear down to the molecular level.”
“Hey, I’ve already told you the truth, but you didn’t want it. What’s left but imagination and sarcasm?”
“Nothing will be left if you don’t give me straight answers.”
Shrug. “Ask, and ye shall receive.”
“Why were you sent here?”
“I asked Mr. Jn'Tonx to return me to the station, but the pilots got lost.”
“What is your relationship to Jn'Tonx?”
“I am not having a relationship with Jn'Tonx.”
He looked at her sternly, causing her to shudder but giving her time to make up something.
Dayv flatly asked, “What is your purpose?”
“Actually, I’ve always believed it is to be a sculptor,” she started off truthfully, but suddenly Dayv looked like she’d slap her.
“I suppose you’ll be telling me your father’s dead next,” Dayv sneered. Blade frowned at him; to her it sounded like unfunny sarcasm. Carrot understood the allusion to the widow’s son.
It is truly fortunate that Blade decided against telling them that her father, who happened to be named Hiram, was dead (fell down three flights of stairs and had no dying words.) However, a knock came at the door. Dayv looked up and saw Phran standing on the other side, looking in expectantly. Seeing that the interview was going nowhere, he waved the older man in.
Phran entered and immediately noticed the smile on the woman’s face and the scowl on his superior’s. Dayv must be losing his touch. Which means he’ll take it out on us. He went up to the side of Mighty Man’s desk and waited for him to nod.
“Jn'Tonx is currently in a meeting, and I have reason to believe that it’s with Kl'Kitt.” Dayv’s mood worsened, and he cast a dark glance at the light woman before looking back to Phran to continue. “The people I talked to have never heard of her. Neither had the people on the station. She’s not registered at any hotels, and she’s not on any passenger manifests. I also checked with Caandelen’s Star. The village she gave as her address was destroyed by an avalanche...”
Hearing this, Blade melodramatically gasped “Oh no!”
“...three years ago,” Phran finished, and three sets of eyes turned to her.
“Thank god I haven’t been home in a while,” she said with a relieved look.
Phran produced a thin slip of paper. “The only reference I could find was in Who’s Who.” He handed it to Dayv, then summarized, “she’s a sculptor.”
Dayv looked at the slip, and read the scant three lines of biography. The paper fell to his desk, the only sound in the room for several long moments.
“Lock her up,” he said at last.
“Oh goodie!” replied Blade with enthusiasm.
Carrot moved to her side, but Dayv made a motion for him to stay. “Get an escort,” he told Phran, who promptly stepped outside to do so. Finding flunkies in that place was simple, and had two armed miners waiting before Blade had gotten out of the chair.
“Ta,” she said with a smile, and headed for the door. Phran and the two miners took her away, and Dayv’s office darkened noticeably. Carrot shut the portal behind her, and looked at Dayv.
The Mighty Man was several moments before speaking.
“Remarkably cool under pressure, wouldn’t you say?”
Carrot nodded. “No one’s that cool unless they got an ace up their sleeve.”
Ironically, that would literally be true within the hour.
Dayv nodded. “That’s what’s worryin’ me.” Indeed, it was why she was still alive.
“Jn'Tonx?”
“This isn’t Tonx’s style, simply because it’s so poorly set up.”
“Kl'Kitt?”
Dayv managed a weak laugh. “Because it’s so poorly set up, it has to be The Bug.” He let that sink in.
“Why? Test our defenses?”
Dayv reached under his desk and pulled up the envelope holding her possessions. He emptied them on the desk.
“No qameras or copiers,” he observed. “That rules out surveillance.”
Carrot reached over and picked up the bayonet. Pulling it out of its sheath, he studied it. “This is a nasty knife,” he said, eyeing it distastefully. “You could kill someone with this.”
Dayv eyed him curiously, then remembered Carrot was a geologist, not a soldier. Dayv had done two tours with the Nubrion Regulars; he’d caught the tail end of the Rathgian war, and had seen first hand what those honed pieces of metal could do.
“You think she was here to off one of us?”
“If the Bug wanted us all dead, he’d drop a bomb on us.”
“So what’s left,” asked Carrot. “Sabotage? What can you do with an over-sized toothpick?”
“Cut all the hoses on our atmosphere suits.”
That sobered Carrot up. “This is true.”
There was a long silence, broken only when Dayv realized he was fidgeting with the pen again. He tossed it harshly on the desk.
“Get Throhn on the line.”
“You think he’ll want to talk to her?”
“Naw, I just wanna find out if he’s got a problem with me pushing the bitch out of an airloq.”