April (29 page)

"Yes but several people have been in and out of your office since then."

"But all of them work here. None of them have been visitors."

Eddie looked at him like he was daft.

"OK, I know you're right, but sometimes you seem a little over the line with the secrecy. I mean, what could possibly get us such close attention?"

"I'm not sure Jon. But if it's not especially sensitive, then you can just call ISSII up on the regular phone circuits and nobody should bother to listen in. A normal encryption program should be plenty good enough."

Jon suspected, if the USNA sent a space plane and operatives to M3, they were mighty interested. They might pay Mr. Singh a visit at the other station also.

"Eddie, Jeff Singh's dad is at the conference at ISSII until Friday and then from what he says, he intended to stay and consult with lawyers for the Rock investors. I have no idea if he is in any danger of having his hotel room invaded there, like his apartment here. They didn't leave anything to harm him, but they might change their mind, or they might hurt him by misadventure. He could even just walk in on them by accident, because black operations do get screwed up. Especially when you don't have enough people and you have young hot shots like this SEAL working on it."

"So you want their security people to be made aware he might be bothered and make sure he gets back on the shuttle OK?"

"Basically, yes, but I wanted a presence there to make it happen, even without their help and it's not going to happen now. I had six carriers refuse a charter and I don't have any way to declare an emergency and commandeer a vessel. But  beyond Singh's return, I'd also like to know what this Swiss guy's assessment of the whole problem with the Rock is and if he knows anything about
what
is going on with spying on Ajay Singh. I'm hoping we might get some cooperation from him, if he sees it in his interest from the view of the Europeans and as a fellow spacer who understands the exposure we have living up here."

"Boss man, I hate to remind you, but you are part of the USNA authority, as far as this guy is concerned. Your superiors think so too. In fact if you are having any problems with the limits of your authority you should probably be real careful what you say around here, much less to a European Union security man."

"The Feds might view your trying to share information with him as a bit outside your legitimate sphere of influence. I'd say they'd inform you your jurisdiction ends right at the airlock, unless you are clipped on with a line. And we don't have one long enough to reach ISSII. They might get a bit testy about you independently asking a foreigner anything, instead of them."

"You know what they'd tell me if I ask about the guy who jumped to the plane?"

Eddie smiled. "You hallucinating again? If you keep seeing things you'll probably need some psychiatric treatment. The government has been real generous lately, helping you folks who see stuff which doesn't officially exist. You'll have a nice cell behind the heaviest security. Seriously Jon, you can avoid talking openly about it, but what they are trying to do with the Rock is wrong. I can't in good conscience enforce confiscation of everything some of these people own. I'd resign first."

"When it comes down to where you have to declare your loyalty are you going to have the nerve to risk everything? Because it isn't right to use your people to edge closer and closer to treason and then chicken out down the road yourself. You had better know what you are going to do and you better know if there are any of the crew who are not going to go along with you, or you might just have armed both sides of an ugly little civil war, by dispersing our weapons."

"Eddie, if they come in here like the jumper did, armed and undeclared, putting my people, I mean all of M3 not just our crew, at risk, I have to oppose them. Sneaking in the back door with a gun, is not how I was trained to conduct law enforcement. If they make a public announcement they are using eminent domain on the Rock and conduct an open occupation of it, I would advise the investors to let it go."

"Do you know, we're calling every shuttle coming in and talking to someone we know on the passenger list, because we are worried we might have a real military invasion? I am actually worried they would make a commando style raid, without trying to talk first and kill a bunch of our civilians," Jon told him.

"Thank God. I didn't know if you realized how crazy they are." He looked relieved and slumped like he could finally show his fatigue. "We're totally in agreement then Jon. They'll come in shooting whether they need to or not, because it's just how they do business now. Now that I know where you stand, tell me what you want and you'll have my support. But you need to go through the crew one by one and make sure you have all their support. Soon."

"OK, I'll start on it today, but what are we going to do about Singh?"

"I think I need some vacation. Maybe go over to New Las Vegas and play Black Jack, plunge in the flesh pots a bit."

Jon's eyes narrowed at him, waiting for the punch line. This story was patently fiction, because Jon knew Eddie for a bit of a prude, who he'd never seen make even a small casual bet.

"Then, maybe I'll mosey over to ISSII and visit a bit. I believe you can trust me to explain our concerns to your counterpart on ISSII. After all, I am very familiar with how people in our line of work think. I'll take along an abundant supply of one-time pads, say 500 of them on a chip, for your fellow there and he can delete them as he uses them. It's the only way you'll ever be sure your communication is not being spied on. Except of course you have to worry your pads might be stolen by the other side."

Jon nodded.

"Besides leaving a supply with your Swiss buddy, I'll take a set for myself to report in and if needed I can perhaps help a bit, if Singh runs into any complications."

Jon was touching his open pad on his desk instead of using the big screen. "There is a shuttle leaving at 0300 in the morning. Do you think you could be ready that fast?

"Sure, I want to get over there, before he tries to come back on his own."

  "What else do you need?" Jon wanted to know.

"Well you can be using the additional time to find a backup ride, for us to get home. You didn't get a ride this morning, but if I don't get support from Security over there, or run into a Federal presence come to grab the good Doctor, there are limits to what I can do. I'm not going to try to hijack a ride to get him home. So consider this as exercise buying you some more time to get us a ride, instead of assuming I'll get him on a commercial flight. I just don't think that's very likely now."

"There's one possibility I can look into," Jon admitted.

"See? I know you'll think of something. And Jon? Don't do the loyalty interviews yourself. You're not near a good enough liar. Tell Margaret what you want done and have her talk to the crew. She's splendidly devious," he said with unabashed admiration.

Chapter 16

Eddie forced himself to slow down. He needed to project the relaxed, happy look of a man who had finally gotten time for a little break and was going to savor it. He wore a loud loose shirt which proclaimed - I'm a tourist - and had no bulky business traveler equipment.

Fifteen minutes before the posted 0300 departure, the orbit to orbit shuttle was not loading yet. There were seats by the loading port that filled with an odd assortment of people. It was the Off-Shift so traffic was lighter in the corridors. The thin screen above the gate listed M3 time arrivals and departures for Tuesday, October 12, 2083 and the time differential if any to other ports. ISSII officially ran on Greenwich time instead of Pacific for political reasons. There were only three flights for the whole day with no layovers.

Some of his fellow passengers were probably going to NLV to gamble and looked much like him in better casual clothing, not sweats or work wear. Some, in business attire, were probably selling supplies or services to the casinos. A few were probably dealers, servers, or entertainers returning to work.

There had been a lunar shuttle in today and some were probably transferring from it to reach NLV. One thin fellow with a shaved head had the tight clothing and moon boots which were becoming the custom there and didn't seem to be one of the pretty boys who wore such outfits as a show, even if they'd never been to the moon. He also seemed comfortable in zero G. He was reading a book on a pad floating free in front of him, while he ate nuts from a bag he kept in his lap. Letting loose of a pad so it stayed in one place and didn't turn or drift long enough to read a page, was the sort of thing you didn't do easily without a lot of hours in zero G.

One beautiful young woman seemed slightly better dressed than any of the rest. And her poker face made him think she was the other category of entertainer, some went to NLV to hire. People like her were part of the reason Eddie had not gone into the family business Earthside, but moved away and made his own way in the world. He was cursed with a conscience.

 Finally, the pilot team showed up, walking with Eddie's coworker in Security, Skip and told the small crowd they were ready to board. The younger pilot unlocked and went in the shuttle right away and the lights came on through the hatch. There was no tube extended, like a big Earth shuttle would use and the hatch was shaped completely different to seal right on the station. He could feel the familiar thumps and change in background noise as the man disconnected the vessel's utilities and went to internal power.

The ranking pilot was an older lady, with a head of wooly hair cut in a short natural style. Almost like a helmet it was so uniform. He couldn't tell if she was on life extension therapy, or if she just had the very healthy skin some black people have, which doesn't seem prone to wrinkle. He was fairly sure he had seen them both before but couldn't remember her name. She stayed at the entry to visually check each of her passengers as they boarded, as if their station security was all fine and good, but she was responsible for her vessel. Which was true to some degree, but Eddie wondered why he had to get a hard case when he was carrying contraband.

Thankfully, she had decided the moon man needed an extra hard examination so he had her attention. Some people didn't care for their odd culture. Skip unlocked the terminal cabinet by the hatch and folded the shelf down, exposing the screen and touch pad. The most eager passengers pressed forward to swarm past Skip. There was such light orbital traffic in and out of M3, that nobody was assigned to shuttle security permanently. Eddie hung back and allowed about half of the people ahead. He didn't want to be among the first or last, who get greater scrutiny. Eddie had done this security duty enough times himself, but if the pilots remembered him they didn't show it.

That was a problem in trying to be secretive off Earth. There were so few people above the atmosphere you could be remembered too easily. Then there was a fear of being open with security Earthside, that might rub off on people's attitudes up here too. Everyone heard the horror stories, but he didn't want to believe people might be afraid of him that way. Every passenger came up to the terminal, offered their passport to be scanned and put his hand on the taster board to check against the passport data.  Logging off the station computer, they pushed off for the port. Skip was cool enough not to greet him, or show any different reaction at all when he laid his hand on the pad and handed his passport back without comment.  It was good as he didn't want the crew to have any reason to scrutinize him if they really didn't remember him.

The only one to make a fuss was the moon man, who not only requested Skip wipe the board before he touched it, which meant a re-boot, but still washed his hands on an antiseptic wipe after logging out, just like several of the others. Even with both precautions it was obviously distasteful to him and he pulled gloves back on so shear Eddie had not even noticed them. They seemed to wiggle on by themselves the last little bit. It was creepy. Skip did a double take too, so it wasn't just him seeing things. He wasn't sure though what he'd seen. Moon dwellers seemed to have a lot of small technologies they didn't share quickly with anyone – even other spacers – and that little habit didn't seem to depend upon which country's base they called home.

There was no need to check the passengers with a wand or anything, because the sensors in the boarding hatch theoretically checked for contraband as well or better than a hand held. He resisted the urge to fluff his shirt away from his holster because he was thinking about it. It was body molded and stuck on with a sticky sheet and the gesture itself would be more revealing than the thin shape.

The twenty seats were mostly filled. It was a comfortable little boat and the seats were separate pods where you could watch vid or play music and had a little separation and privacy from your neighbor. You could even pull down a partial hood and recline to sleep if you wished. He clipped his bag on under his seat, strapped himself in loosely and reclined part way.

The bin for the emergency p-suit was overhead and had the usual bubble head logo and warning that if you broke the seal without authorization there would be a fifteen hundred dollar inspection and re-pack charge. He hard plugged his own spex in the front of the armrest and was happy to see the crew offered a cockpit view and turned it on ghosted 70% over his cabin view. Some crews offered it and some didn't want anyone looking over their shoulders. The copilot was seeking departure clearance.

The local controllers on M3 acknowledged their departure and reported they notified NLV they would be arriving. If there was any problem at the other end NLV would tell them now not to undock here, rather than arrive there and be unable to exit. So their affirmative was a prior OK for entry.

The controller on M3 said, "You are clear Earthside," which sounded simple, but meant a whole chain of regional and national defense networks had been notified a large vessel was doing an orbital burn, even though it looked nothing like a missile sprinting to bring destruction down on them. They would watch anyway, to see its trajectory matched flight plan, but it saved everyone an adrenaline moment when something started to move.