Sixty-two

 

DeRicci’s office was a hub of activity. Techs she barely recognized scanned information from every part of the office, sitting everywhere, including the edge of some of the planter pots. Flint stood at her desk, tapping away, looking stressed. That Earth Alliance investigator, Goudkins, bowed over some kind of pad, recording information or making notes or doing something during this time of silence. DeRicci wasn’t sure what, and at the moment, she didn’t care.

Goudkins couldn’t communicate with anyone. Hell, no one could communicate, and DeRicci hated that.

But she liked it, too. It meant that she didn’t have to worry about this Earth Alliance investigator for another thirty minutes or so.

Popova was in the other conference room with the remaining Earth Alliance investigator, trying to get him to take the afternoon off so he wouldn’t see what was going on. Eventually they would have to trust him, but DeRicci didn’t want to think about that right now.

In fact, all she could think about were the screens someone had lowered in the center of the room. Just before she left for the conference, she set up the screens to show law enforcement offices all over the Moon. She had opaqued the screens so they wouldn’t bother anyone else, but she wanted the screens working when she came back.

She looked at the blank screens. She hadn’t thought about her one, simple, important, order. Keep the links down. They were down now, and she couldn’t get information—at least not the information she wanted.

She wanted to know how well it was going. And she had no idea. Because all she could learn was negative right now. No one had reported an explosion, no one knew of a dome breach, no one heard of some Peyti going nuts on the street.

Or if they had heard, they couldn’t report to her.

She used to hate her links. Now she hated the silence. She wanted everything back to normal, but she had no idea what normal was any more.

She threaded her fingers together, took a deep sigh, and waited.

She couldn’t do anything else.