Partnership (15 page)

Nancia, you'll have to protect yourself and Caleb if Jesen tries anything."

But they hadn't even lured Jesen into one shipboard meeting. He'd taken one look at Caleb's vidcom image, listened to Caleb's stiff delivery of the speech he'd been assigned to make, and burst out laughing.

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on," he taunted Caleb.

"And next time Central decides to send someone to investigate me, tell them not to make it an Academy boy with a Vega accent you could cut with a knife, in a brainship with a tarted-up central cabin. If you're High Families, I'll eat my..."

Nancia cut the sound transmission at that point.

"Perhaps," she said now, "undercover work is not our metier"

"I hate lies and spying," Caleb confirmed moodily.

"We should have refused this mission." He looked up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Unless... did you get anything?"

Nancia had used the brief minutes of the vidcom link to insert feelers into Jesen's private computer system, so private that it didn't even have a Net connection. Central had surmised he might have such a system in addition to the open accounts he maintained via Net, but nothing could be checked until they arrived planetside.

"Nothing," she told him. "I did get into his supply acquisition database, but all the metachips in the PARTNERSHIP

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records there show perfectly legitimate Shemali Base control numbers."

Caleb made a fist again. "Then you didn't get into the right records. Somebody's counterfeiting metachips, and Jesen could lead us to the source ...

could have led us. He must be keeping three sets of books. Do you think if I got him on vidcom again..."

An incoming transmission reached Nancia, and she activated her central display screen. Dorg Jesen's narrow face appeared. "Been doing a litde research of my own," he announced, almost pleasantly. "Got your Central ID now to add in to my report. CN-935, lift your Courier Service tail fins offplanet in fifteen minutes and we'll forget this episode ever happened.

Otherwise I'll file a formal complaint with CS, charg-ing you and your brawn with entrapment.''

"You can't win them all," Nancia tried to soothe Caleb when they were offplanet and on their way back to Central. "We do many things well. Lying doesn't happen to be among them, that's all." But fm lying, right now, by saying nothing. Nancia made an internal playback of the datacordings she'd made four years earlier, on her maiden voyage. There was Polyon, cheerfully announcing his plan to slip metachips past the SUM board and sell them to unauthorized operations like Dorg Jesen's feelieporn empire. If only Caleb knew what she knew, he could make a report to Central that would send them straight to Shemali.

Except... he wouldn't do it In the four years of then-partnership, Caleb had never once wavered or compromised his moral principles. He would never stoop to using a datacording made without the knowledge or con-sentofthe passengers. And he would neverrespectNancia again,oncehe knew whatshe'd doneon thatfirstvoyage.

Sadly, Nancia ended the replay and slapped five more levels of security classifications on the datacording. Caleb must never know. But there must be some 116

way to point Central's investigations towards Shemali, to stop them thinking in terms of counterfeit metachips and start them thinking about the prison factory.

Shemali, Central Date 2754:

Polyon

Polyon slapped the palmboard built into his armchair and activated a vidcom link with Bahati.

"Summerlands Clinic, Alpha bint Hezra-Fong, private transmission, code CX22." That would scramble his message so that only someone with the CX22 decoding hedron would be able to see and hear anything but gibberish. "Alpha, my sweet, you were just a tad premature in announcing that you'd finished your Seductron research. The free sample you sent up has one of my key techs too blissed-out to do any useful work. I've no idea when he'll stop contemplating his toenails, so you'd better find out—and fast Unless you want to be the next test subject." He smiled sweetly into the vidcom unit. "I can arrange it, you know."

The next message went to Darnell, using a similar scrambling technique. In a few words Polyon informed Darnell that IntraManager, the small commlink manufacturing company Darnell was presently trying to take over, was not to be touched.

"It's one of mine," he said pleasantly. "I'm sure you wouldn't have made a takeover move if you'd known that, would you now? By the way—did I show you the latest vids of the metachip line?" A tap of his fingers on the palmboard called up a datacording from the lowest circles of Hell: suited and masked workers toiling amid clouds of poisonous green steam. This was the last and most dangerous phase of metachip assembly, when the blocks between the polyprinted connection patterns were burned off with a quick dip into vats of acid.

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The burn-off process released a gaseous form of Ganglicide into the atmosphere. Before Polyon's time, this phase had been handled — rather badly — by automated servos that misjudged the depth and timing of the burnoff phase, dropped metachip boards, and quickly self-destructed in the poisonous atmosphere. Expensive and wasteful. By contrast, prison workers in protective suits could process more than three times as many metachips in a session, and only a few of them were lost each year to leaks in the suit sealing.

"See the third man from the left, Darnell?" Polyon spoke into the vidcom while the images unreeled. "He used to be High Families. Now he's a Shemali assembly worker. How are the mighty fallen, eh?"

He cut the connection on that — an implied threat was ever so much more effective than a specific one.

Actually, Polyon had no idea who the masked workers on the line might be. They were the scum of the prison system, the expendables who had neither tech training nor business sense to justify keeping them in the safer areas of design and preprocessing. And while there was indeed a High Families convict on Shemali, the man had been sent there for a particularly revolting series of crimes involving the torture of small children. Polyon didn't really think he could frame Darnell for something like that and make it stick; anybody would see the rich boy didn't have the guts to torture anybody.

But I won't need to, will I? The threat witt be enough to keep old Darnell in line.

The last call was to Fassa. He was lucky enough to catch her in person. Polyon enjoyed the sight of Fassa's eyes widening while he explained in detail just how unhappy he felt about the collapse of his new metachip assembly building, how personally hurt he was to discover that Polo Construction had supplied 118

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the substandard materials used in the building, and exactly what he might do to assuage his sense of loss and betrayal. The only trouble with the live connection, Polyon thought, was that he didn't get to finish outlining the list of things he could do to Polo Construction as a company and to Fassa personally. Before he was half through, she was stammering apologies and practically begging to be allowed to rebuild the assembly facility. Free of charge, naturally.

Polyon graciously accepted the offer.

Just one more item ofbusiness to clear up. "Send in 4987832," he commanded.

A few minutes later, a pale-faced man in the prison uniform of green coveralls came into the office. He gave Polyon a confident smile. "Thought it over, have you?"

"I most certainly have," Polyon agreed. He smiled and shrugged with palms outspread. "Can't say I'm altogether happy about the idea — but I see you leave me no choice. You're a clever fellow, 4987832- Who were you, before?"

^ames Masson," the prisoner said. "Head of research for Zectronics — you've heard of them? No?

Well, it's a large galaxy. But it so happens I personally directed the metachip design effort there. That's how I happened to recognize the changes you've introduced in the chips."

"My hyperchips will be fester and more powerful than die old metachips by at least two orders of mag-nitude," Polyon said. "They'll revolutionize the industry. It didn't take any genius to recognize that.

The genius was in figuring out how to do it."

"And that's not all the hyperchips will do, is it, de Gras-Waldheim? Industry isn't the only thing about to suffer a... revolution."

Polyon inclined his head slighdy. "YouTI have a glass of Stemerald with me, to celebrate our arrangement?"

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Masson's eyes widened and he licked his lips. "Why, I haven't tasted Stemerald in — in — well, it must be ten years! Not since I came here! I must say, de Gras-Waldheim, I didn't think you'd take our little arrangement so well."

Polyon's back was to Masson as he poured out the Stemerald into two sparkling globes from OG GUmware.

"A lot of men would be petty about cutting me in on the profits," Masson babbled on, accepting his globe and draining it between words, "but that's you High Families type, you know how to accept defeat graciously. And after all, giving me a small cut isn't much when you think of what it would do to your plans if I told Governor Lyautey about all the hyperchips'

programming." He swallowed the last drops of Stemerald, ran his tongue round his lips once more to savor the taste, then sat back with the slightly dazed expression of a man who'd just had his first strong drink in ten years.

"As I said," Polyon repeated, "you leave me no choice in the matter." He frowned quickly. "You have honored your end of the agreement, haven't you, Masson? No word to anyone else?"

"No word," Masson agreed. He spoke more slowly now. "I wouldn't... want... anyone else .., cutting in ..." His eyes glazed over and he sat staring into space with a blissful smile on his face.

"Very good. Now, Masson, I have a special task for you." Polyon leaned forward. "Hear and repeat! You will go to the dip chambers."

"I... will... go... to... the... dip ... chambers,"*

Masson droned.

"I want you to make a surprise inspection. You will not announce yourself."

"... not... announce... 'self."

"You do not need a protective suit."

Masson nodded and smiled. All the intelligence had 120

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left his face now. Polyon felt a twinge of regret. The man had been brilliant; would be again, if the Seductron wore off. He could have been a useful subordinate if he hadn't made the mistake of trying to blackmail Polyon. But as it was ... well, there was no point in waiting, was there? Damn Alpha. If she'd only developed the controlled Seductron she kept promising, with doses ranging from ten-minute zaps to a state of mindless, permanent bliss, there would be no need for this last distasteful step.

Polyon finished his orders to Masson and snapped a dismissal. "Go. Now!"

Masson stood unsteadily and left Polyon's inner office. Polyon sat back and began sketching a metachip linkage plan with one forefinger, tracing glowing paths across the design screen.

Five minutes later, his vidcomm lit up to show the face of the afternoon shift supervisor. "Lieutenant de Gras-Waldheim? Sir? There's been a terrible accident.

One of your designers just... the man must have gone mad, he walked right into the dip room without a suit... if only he'd knocked they could have kept him waiting in the outer lock until the gases were cleared out... they didn't even know he was there.... The room was filled with Ganglicide in gaseous form, he didn't have a chance...." Screams sounded in the background. "Oh, sir, it's terrible!"

"A most distressing accident," Polyon agreed.

"Begin the paperwork, 567934. And don't blame yourself. Sometimes it just takes them like that, you know, the lifers. Better any death than a lifetime on Shemali, they think, and who knows? Perhaps they're right. Oh, sorry, 1 forgot — you're a lifer too, aren't you?"

He didn't start laughing until the connection was broken.

• CHAPTER SEVEN

Spica Base, Central Date 2754:

Caleb and Nancia

Nancia limped into Spica Base on half power, dependent on Caleb for reports on the lower deck damage where her sensors had self-destructed to preserve her from shock when the asteroid struck them.

"Freak accident," commented the Tech Grade 7

who came out to survey the damage in person.

Nancia mourned the sleek gloss of her exterior finish, now pitted and gouged around the torn metal shreds of the entrance hole. "Ishould have takena different route."

"Freak ship." The tech snapped his IR-Sensor gog-gles down, hiding his eyes behind a band of black plastifilm. "Ain't natural. Ship talks, pilot don't."

"The correct terms, as I'm sure you are aware, are

'brainship* and 'brawn,' " Nancia said frostily. "Caleb is... it's none of your business. Just leave him alone, okay?" She'd seen him plunged into these unreason-ing depressions before, whenever one of their missions was less than one hundred percent successful. He'd retreated into himself without speaking for a week after the disastrous undercover assignment with Dorg Jesen, while Nancia tried to tempt his appetite with fancy dishes from the galley and interesting tid-bits of news picked up from the gossipbeams.

"I'll need somebody at the other end to help me link the hyperchips into the ship's system," the tech protested. "Somebody who knows the ship. My guys are good, but this is a small base. They ain't never 122

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worked on a talking ship before. And nobody's got that much experience with hyperchips. They might not in-terface with these sensor setups just like the old metachips did."

"Then," said Nancia, "perhaps you should explain to them that a talking ship can, in fact, talk. There's no need to trouble my brawn for information; 111 manage the installa-tion myself" She didn't feel nearly so cheerful and carefree as she tried to sound; the thought of some dolt like this tech fooling around with her synaptic connectors made her feel sick and weak. But she did not want him bothering Caleb.

One thing she'd learned in the last four years of partnership was that Caleb only stayed depressed longer ifhe was forced to talk to people before he was ready to.