She had several ideas for how they might save time with the cable-pulling the Emergents required. Benny was nodding, taking notes.
Then Qiwi was on a different topic. “I hear we’re gonna have new people in the temp.”
“Yes—”
“Who? Who?”
“Emergents. Then some of our own people, I think.”
Her smile blazed for an instant, and then she forced her enthusiasm down with a visible effort. “I—I was over at Hammerfest. Podmaster Nau wanted me to check out the coldsleep gear before they move it to
Benny said, “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll… Things will be okay for both your mom and pop.”
“I know. That’s what Podmaster Nau told me, too.”
He could see the hope in her eyes. So Nau was making vague promises to her, becoming poor Qiwi’s lifeline. And some of the promises might even be true. Maybe they would finally cure her father of their damn war disease. But armsmen like Kira Pen Lisolet would be terribly dangerous to any tyrant. Short of a counterambush, Kira Lisolet might sleep for a long, long time… Short of a counterambush.His glance flickered across to Benny. His friend’s stare was completely blank, a return to the earlier opacity. And suddenly Ezr knew that there really was a conspiracy. In a few Msecs at most, some among the Qeng Ho would act.
I can help; I know I can.The official coordination of all Emergent orders passed through Ezr Vinh. If he were on the inside… But he was also the most closely watched of all, even if Tomas Nau had no real respect for him. For a moment, fury rose in Ezr. Benny knew he wasn’t a traitor—but there was no way he could help without giving the conspiracy away.
The Qeng Ho temp had escaped the ambush without a scratch. There had not even been pulse damage; before they maimed the local net, the Emergents had a great time mining the databases there.
What was left worked well enough for routine ops. Every few days, a few more people were added to the temp’s population. Most were Emergents, but some were low-rank Qeng Ho released from coldsleep detention. Emergents and Qeng Ho, they all looked like refugees from disaster. There was no disguising the damage the Emergents had suffered, the equipment they had lost.And maybe Trixia is dead. The “Focused” were kept in the Emergents’ new habitat, Hammerfest. But no one had seen any of them.
Meantime, conditions in the Qeng Ho temp slowly got worse. They were at less than one-third the temp’s design population, yet systems were failing. Part of it was the maimed automation. Part of it—and this was a subtle effect—was that people weren’t doing their jobs properly. Between the damaged automation and the Emergents’ clumsiness with life-systems, the other side hadn’t caught on. Fortunately for the conspirators, Qiwi spent most of her time off the temp. Ezr knew she could have detected the scam instantly. Ezr’s contribution to the conspiracy was silence, simply not noticing what was going on. He moved from petty emergency to petty emergency, doing the obvious—and wondering what his friends were really up to.
The temp was actually beginning to stink. Ezr and his Emergent assistants took a trip down to the bactry pools at the innermost core of the temp, the place where Apprentice Vinh had spent so many Ksecs… before. He would give anything to be an apprentice forever down here, if only it would bring back Captain Park and the others.
The stench in the bactry was worse than Ezr had known outside of a failed school exercise. The walls behind the bio-weirs were covered with soft black goo. It swayed like old flesh in the breeze of the ventilators. Ciret and Marli retched, one barfing inside his respirator. Marli gasped out, “Pus! I’m not putting up with this. We’ll be just outside when you’re done.”
They splashed and spattered their way out, and the door sealed. And Ezr was alone with the smells. He stood for a moment, suddenly realizing that if he ever wanted to be completely alone, this was the place!
As he started to survey the contamination, a figure in goo-spattered waterproofs and a respirator drifted out from the filth. It raised one hand for silence, and passed a signals unit across Vinh’s body. “Mmph. You’re clean,” came a muffled voice. “Or maybe they just trust you.”
It was Jimmy Diem. Ezr almost hugged him, bactry shit and all. Against all odds, the conspiracy had found a way to talk to him. But there was no happy relief in Diem’s voice. His eyes were invisible behind goggles, but tension coiled in his posture. “Why are you toadying, Vinh?”
“I’m
“That’s what… some of us think. But Nau has laid so many perks on you, and you’re the guy we have to clear every little thing with. Do you really think you own what’s left of us?”
That was the line that Nau pushed even now. “No!Maybe they think they’ve bought me, but… Lord of Trade, sir, wasn’t I a solid crewmember?”
A muffled chuckle, and some of the tension seemed to leave Diem’s shoulders. “Yeah. You were a daydreamer who could never quite keep his eye on the ball”—words from familiar critiques, but spoken almost fondly—“but you’re not stupid and you never traded on your Family connections…. Okay, Apprentice, welcome aboard.”
It was the most joyful promotion Ezr Vinh had ever received. He stifled a hundred questions that percolated up; most had answers that he shouldn’t be told. But still, just one, about Trixia—
Diem was already talking. “I’ve got some code schemes for you to memorize, but we may have to meet face-to-face again. So the stink will get better, but it’s going to continue to be a problem; you’ll have plenty of excuse to visit. A couple of general things for now: We need to get outdoors.”
Vinh thought of theFar Treasure and the Qeng Ho armsmen in cold-sleep there. Or maybe there were weapons caches in secret places aboard the surviving Qeng Hoships. “Hm. There are several outside repair projects where we’re the experts.”
“I know. The main thing is to get the right people on the crews, and in the right job slots. We’ll get you some names.”
“Right.”
“Another thing: We need to know about the ‘Focused ones.’ Where exactly are they being held? Can they be moved fast?”
“I’m trying to learn about them,” more than you may know, Crewleader. “Reynolt says they’re alive, that they’ve stopped the progression of the disease.” The mindrot. That chilling term was not from Reynolt, but the slip of tongue he’d heard from an ordinary Emergent. “I’m trying to get permission to see—”
“Yeah. Trixia Bonsol, right?” Goo-sticky fingers patted Vinh’s arm sympathetically. “Hmm. You’ve got a solid motive to keep after them on this. Be a good boy in every other way, but pushhard on this. You know, like it’s the big favor that will keep you in line, if only they’ll grant it…. Okay. Get yourself out of here.”
Diem faded into the shrouds of odiferous glop. Vinh smeared out the fingerprint traces on his sleeve. As he turned back to the hatch, he was scarcely conscious of the smell anymore. He was working with his friends again. And they had a chance.
Just as the remains of the Qeng Ho expedition had its mock “Fleet Manager,” Ezr Vinh, so Tomas Nau also appointed a “Fleet Management Committee” to advise and aid in its operation. It was typical of Nau’s strategy, coopting innocent people into apparent treason. Their once-per-Msec meetings would have been torture for Vinh, except for one thing: Jimmy Diem was one of the committee members.
Ezr watched the ten troop into his conference room. Nau had furnished the room with polished wood and high-quality windows; everyone in the temp knew about the cushy treatment given the Fleet Manager and his committee. Except for Qiwi, all ten realized how they were being used. Most of them realized that it would be years, if ever, before Tomas Nau released all the surviving Qeng Ho from coldsleep detention. Some, like Jimmy, guessed that in fact the senior officers might occasionally be brought out, secretly, for interrogations and brief service. It was an unending villainy that would give the Emergents the permanent upper hand.
So, there were no traitors here. They were a discouraging sight nevertheless: five apprentices, three junior officers, a fourteen-year-old, and one doddering incompetent. Okay, to be honest, Pham Trinli didn’t dodder, not physically; for an old man, he was in pretty good shape. Most likely, he’d always been a goofball. It was a testament to his record that he was not being held in coldsleep. Trinli was the only Qeng Ho military man left
