CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Doomsday minus 516 Earth days.

Lydia was late for her shift on AdComm. This wasn’t like her. Seated at his desk, Drew was keeping one eye on the tube car doors and the other on his computer screen. Not until he stood up to peer over the top of his filing cabinet wall did he see the light flashing on her console. He hurried across the deck to respond to the incoming message.

“This is Daisy Hub Control. Station Manager Townsend speaking.”

“This is the Marco Polo. Please stand by for Captain Takamura.”

A moment later, Takamura was on the comm screen, informing him, “It’s been an interesting couple of days, Mr. Townsend, but we must resume our patrol. We are ready to depart as soon as you release the docking clamps. I also wanted to thank you and your crew for the hospitality they’ve shown us, and advise you that we will be remaining in your vicinity for the next several days, just in case our friend Odysseus should return. And…” Takamura paused briefly. “Considering what lies ahead, I don’t know whether we shall have the opportunity to speak again, so I also want to wish you the best of luck in the coming year.”

“Thank you, Captain. And the same to you.”

Both men took a step backward and bowed toward the screen.

Drew closed the commlink and released the star cruiser. Then he spun on his heel, intending to return to his desk. He was brought up short by the sight of Ruby McNeil standing in front of the tube car door with her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

“Did you tell O’Malley that he could dig up bodies?” she demanded.

Townsend spent a couple of heartbeats groping for words. What the hell was getting into people today?

“Well? Did you?” she repeated, taking a determined step forward.

Ruby looked like a bull about to charge. Drew raised a placating hand and asked, “What are you talking about? He’s not actually exhuming corpses, is he?”

“Figuratively, he is. He’s been sifting through the population database, looking for the dead relatives of crew members. When I challenged him about it, he swore to me that you’d given him the assignment.”

Townsend searched his memory and came up with a match. “About a year ago, I asked him to find out whether my sister’s death notice was genuine, and he did it. End of story. Is he claiming I gave him instructions—?”

“To keep going? Yes. As it happens, the most recent body he investigated belongs to Walt Garfield. I don’t know about your sister’s death notice, but O’Malley was able to confirm that Walt’s was bogus. Lydia’s husband, whom she has been mourning for the past six standard years, is alive and well, it turns out, and living under another name on Earth. Our large-mouthed hacker delivered the news himself. He thought she would be pleased to hear it, and was astonished when she took a swing at him instead.”

“I know a lot about grieving,” Lydia had told Drew with a catch in her voice when he was still reeling from the loss of Bruni Patel. Now, recalling her words put a lump at the back of his throat.

He thought for a moment. “O’Malley came to me after breaking the news about my sister. He told me the assignment had piqued his curiosity, and that he’d continued data mining. Said he’d learned that nearly everyone on the crew had lost a family member around the time they’d been posted to the Hub, and wasn’t that an interesting coincidence. He wanted to keep digging. But by then Karlov was aboard and I needed O’Malley to help me distract him, so I instructed him…”

When the recollection surfaced, it made his head recoil as though he’d just been slapped. “Damn!”

Ruby said nothing, just kept staring disapproval at him.

“I told him first things first. He must have thought I meant, ‘Okay, once the more important job is done’.”

“Of course.” She walked over to Lydia’s chair and collapsed onto it. “I should have figured it was something like that. O’Malley’s a nosy one. He doesn’t need much encouragement.”

No, he didn’t, Drew thought ruefully. “Where is Lydia right now?”

“In her quarters, yelling and throwing things at the bulkheads. I’ll finish her shift on AdComm, give her some time to calm down.”

He thought for a moment. “Ruby,” he ventured, “did you lose someone just before coming here?”

A sadness stole into her eyes. “If we survive the Corvou attack, I’ll tell you the whole story, Chief, I promise.”

—— «» ——

Doomsday minus 513 Earth days.

“We just received a message from Zulu, Chief,” Ruby called across the deck. “They’ve picked up the Endeavor on medium-range scanners. Two Human life signs aboard, and ETA Daisy Hub in approximately five hours.”

Finally! A lot might happen to a shuttle in five standard hours, but Townsend couldn’t help feeling as though a heavy weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. Paul and Ajda were returning home after a six day absence. That meant the meeting with the high speaker for Trokerk couldn’t have gone too badly. Feeling emboldened by this bit of good news, Drew decided to press his luck:

“Any word from Gouryas and Singh yet about our alarm system?”

“’Fraid not, Chief,” she replied with a shrug in her voice.

Perhaps it was too much to expect all at once, he reflected, but as Bruni had repeatedly told him, if one never asked, the answer would always be no.

Rising from his chair, he announced, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the caf. And let Lydia know that if she’s ready to resume talking to me, she’s welcome to join me there.”

Drew felt Ruby’s gaze follow him into the tube car.

Work shifts had become staggered lately, along with meal times. Making his way through the caf to his customary corner table, Townsend passed crew members eating everything from toast with jam to Jensen’s version of meat loaf and potatoes. They were clearly enjoying their food. Drew envied them. Even foods that he liked had been picking fights with his stomach lately.

As he sank wearily onto a chair, Jensen appeared and placed a steaming mug and a small bowl in front of him.

“What’s this?” Townsend demanded.

“Hot bouillon and chilled yogurt,” the chef replied. “Well, not exactly yogurt. It’s Ajda’s special recipe. There’s no dairy product in it, but it’s loaded with calcium and other nutrients, and it’s great for coating the stomach lining.”

Drew pushed the bowl to the center of the table. “I don’t like yogurt. Or yogurt surrogates.”

“How do you feel about ulcers, then? Because you’ve been living on java for the past five days, and that can’t be good for your digestive tract.”

“You’ve been talking to Doc Ktumba, haven’t you?”

“More like she’s been talking to me,” said Jensen. “She’s worried about you, Mr. Townsend. You’re under a lot of stress, and it’s only going to get worse. What if I mixed something into the yogurt, gave it a flavor that you like? Would you eat it then?”

Drew paused, hard pressed to think of anything that would make the white stuff sitting in front of him any easier to swallow.

“How about chocolate?” said Lydia, suddenly appearing from behind Jensen’s rotund form and sliding onto a chair. “Everyone likes chocolate.”

Bruni Patel had especially loved it. Stifling a sudden twinge of loss, Townsend said, “I saw applesauce on several plates over there. Is there any left?”

“I can probably scrape some up. Be right back.” Looking extremely pleased with himself, Jensen snatched up the bowl and spun away.

Maintaining a calm outward appearance was taking a toll on Lydia. Weariness was written behind her eyes and around her mouth. Drew leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “How are you feeling? Better?”

“I’m over the shock, at any rate. Now I’m trying to decide who to strangle first, the lying bitch who told me my husband was dead, or my husband, for not finding a way to let me know he was alive.”

Recalling his own recent revelation about Olivia, he asked, “Do you remember the lying bitch’s name?”

“I never got her last name, but her given name was Angeli. She claimed to be the executive assistant to Juno Vargas, one of the junior District Councilors at the time.”

“Claimed to be?”

She shrugged. “If she lied about Walt being dead, she could have been lying about that too.”

So Olivia had been playing with people’s lives for at least the past nine Earth years. Dennis Forrand had apparently taught her well.

“I think I can help you, but I need to hear the whole story. If you’re comfortable telling it, that is.”

“Sure. Why not?” she said dully. “Walt was an inventor, and communications technology was his specialty. So, during the day he ran a comm shop, and at night he would go down to our basement to tinker with his gadgets. That’s what he called them. He kept everything offline for security reasons. Didn’t want anyone stealing his ideas before he had a chance to patent them. One evening after dinner, Security came knocking on our door. They took my husband away, emptied out his workshop, and charged him with computer hacking and possession of rogue technology.”

“Somebody informed on him?”

“No. That’s the thing, Drew. He’d already filed patents and turned several upgrades and working prototypes over to the authorities. They knew what he was doing. It was a bogus arrest.”

Like his own, for possession of stolen property, he reflected grimly, and probably for the same reason. “Go on,” he prompted her.

“I was frantic. I tried to hire an advocate, but nobody would take the case. I started making it myself. I explained things to Security, even paid a visit to the Head of Security, but they all told me I was wasting my time. So I went up a level, to the District Council, and from there to the Regional Council. The head of the Regional Council finally agreed to meet with me.”

“That would be Supreme Adjudicator Dennis Forrand?”

She gave him a strange look. “Yes, that was his name. He was the one who referred me to Juno Vargas. He said he acted through her sometimes, and he would instruct her to do whatever was possible to help Walt, but there might be a cost for her assistance.”

“You made a deal with him?”

“With her. She got the capital charge dropped. Walt was sentenced to five years in detention for possession of rogue technology. And I took a time-limited posting to Daisy Hub — a three standard year contract. It was a price I was glad to pay to save my husband’s life. The best part was that we’d both be released at about the same time and could resume our life together.”

Pieces were clicking into place now. Townsend didn’t like the picture they were making. “But Walt never made it out of detention.”

“No. At least, that was what Angeli told me. She said he’d been fatally beaten in a fight with another detainee. It happened eight months before he was due to be discharged. She offered to send me a snap of his body, but warned that his face would be unrecognizable. I should have been suspicious right away, but I was overwhelmed with grief. Just the thought of returning to Earth and living there without him … it was too painful.”

“So, you never actually saw proof of death?” She shook her head. “And out of compassion, Angeli suggested that you extend your contract on Daisy Hub. How much longer does it run?”

“Indefinitely.”

“Of course. And that was probably Juno Vargas’s idea as well,” he remarked sourly.

Lydia’s eyes widened. “You’ve dealt with her before?”

“Oh, yes,” he told her. “She and I go way back. In fact, Juno Vargas is why I’m part of the resistance.” He pressed the button on his wristcomm.

“AdComm.” There was laughter in Ruby’s voice. “Name your pleasure, whoever you are.”

“Townsend speaking,” he replied sternly. “I’m glad you’re having fun up there. Meanwhile, tell O’Malley I want to talk to him in the caf, right now.”

She sobered instantly. “On it, Chief.”

Lydia was staring a question at him.

“I wouldn’t be too hard on your husband, Ms. Garfield. The same people who lied to you most likely lied to him as well, telling him that you were dead. And the longer you remained on the Hub…”

“…the more convinced he would have become that it was the truth,” she supplied bitterly. “Now I really want to strangle someone.”

Robert O’Malley came through the door of the caf a couple of minutes later. He slowed his steps when he saw Lydia sitting at Townsend’s table and, keeping wary eyes on her face, halted a good meter away.

“Sit down, O’Malley,” Drew ordered him impatiently. “She’s not going to bite you.”

Still looking unconvinced, the ratkeeper complied.

Townsend leaned back in his chair. “Ruby tells me that you’ve been investigating possible bogus death notices. Is that right?”

“Yeah, boss. You said I could.”

“That’s debatable but irrelevant, because I’m giving you the assignment now. Earth Council has made a point of cutting us off from our families — telling us they’re dead, telling them we’re dead — and I’ve decided that we’re not going to let them get away with it anymore. Especially when there’s a good possibility we may not survive the Corvou attack. So, the first thing I want you to do is locate Walt Garfield and put him and Lydia in contact with each other.” Her face instantly brightened. “I know it won’t be easy,” he continued. “Find a way to make it happen. Then I want you to do the same for every other member of the crew. Hagman’s mother, Holchuk’s daughter … they’re out there somewhere, I’m sure of it.”

O’Malley thought for a second. “It’s doable, boss. I’ll have to clone the Rangers’ server and hijack a comm relay or three. You know Rodrigues will dump all kinds of hell on us if he twigs to this.”

“If he does, I’ll take the heat. But I very much doubt that he will. I’ve seen what you can do, and I have complete confidence in you,” Drew assured him. “And when you’ve succeeded, it will be the first official subversive act of the Daisy Hub resistance movement.”

The ratkeeper sat tall and declared, “Yes, sir!”