The Quiet Pools

examiner. Christopher Alan McCutcheon, subject.”

Christopher’s mouth suddenly went dry, for he understood the references, if not the reason. Clause 29 was the Non-Disclosure section of his employment contract—a comprehensive collection of thou-shalt-nots Keith called the Twenty-nine Commandments. Clause 33 was the Corporate Property and Enterprise section—or, more simply, the theft and sabotage clause.

“This is about Malena Graham, isn’t it? It wasn’t my fault, I thought you knew that. I thought the company was on my side.”

“The purpose of this interview is to help determine whether grounds exist for termination, civil prosecution, or both,” Lange went on, ignoring the question. He was looking at the slate, and his words had a scripted ring. “Lying to an examiner, or refusing to answer, is itself sufficient for termination-for-cause, with forfeiture of the full probationary bond and all pension and insurance rights. Answer the questions as completely and truthfully as you can.”

“I want to know where we’re going,” said Christopher stubbornly.

Lange looked up. “You’re in a company aircraft, on company time, involved in company business. That should be enough for now.”

“To hell with your compliance interview. I resign,” Christopher said. “I want out of here.”

“You have a ten-day notice provision in your contract,” Lange said. “Sorry.”

“The hell—you kidnapped me, you son of a bitch.”

“Was force used against you? Were you threatened?”

“No—”

“Suspend,” said Lange. He flipped up the eyecup and leaned forward in his seat. “Look, if you want to cut your own throat, that’s fine with me. But if we’d already decided you were dirty, we’d just toss you. Answer the questions, and if you’re clean, you’ll be okay. As for where we’re going, Mr. Dryke, the head of security, wants to talk to you. But I can’t tell you where he is, or they’ll have me in that chair on the way back. So what’s it going to be?”

Christopher didn’t know how much of what Lange was saying he believed. Not many people came back from compliance interviews—a CCI notice looked a lot like a termination notice dressed up in due process.

But it would be hard enough finding a civilized position fresh from being fired by Allied Transcon. If he blew away the bond in the process, he’d be locked out of virtually all of the frontline openings. No one with a multimillion-dollar data investment to protect was going to let an unbonded librarian near a password.

And besides, he knew he was clean.

“I’m sorry,” Christopher said, his face pickling as he said the words. “Ask your questions.”

Lange nodded. “Resume.”

But Lange did not want to know about Malena.

That fact wasn’t immediately clear, because Lange started there. Had he ever met Malena Graham? Whom did he know in Nassau Bay? In Training? In Selection? Had he taught any tutorials to the Block 1 pioneers? How many times had he been to Wonders? What had he told Bill Wonders about his job? About Allied Transcon? About Malena Graham? What had he told Evan Silverman?

After every question, Lange would pause, as though reading the voice analyzer’s judgment in the eyecup display. Try as he might, Christopher could not read Lange’s face. His expression never changed, never betrayed what he was seeing.

But it was not hard to read the changing focus of the questions. What do you know about communications processing? Data storage structures? System security? Have you ever hacked a net to which you did not have legitimate access? Created a private gateway to a net on which you were working? Broken a transmission cipher? Designed a virus?

It was hard to answer some of the questions, and more than once Christopher’s hesitation showed. No systems jockey with any curiosity escaped technical adolescence without taking a look under the hood now and then, and he had enjoyed a perfectly healthy curiosity.

Before settling on data structures and information archaeology as his specialty, he had tried or mastered most of the hacker’s rites of passage—cracking private family files, remotely switching on a friend’s or neighbor’s or interesting girl’s videophone, sending “ghost” messages on the net. And he had used that knowledge more than once in his professional life to make an end run on an intractable systems administrator or a witless structures engineer.

Everyone did it. Everyone. But he hesitated, because he knew how the truth would sound to ears tuned to suspicion. And then he told the truth, because he knew that a lie would sound still worse.

Whether coincidence or not, from that point onward Lange started fishing for a confession. What do you think of Jeremiah? Are you a member of Homeworld? Do you know anyone who is a member? Do you know anyone who you think might be sympathetic to their cause? What about Bill Wonders? Loi Lindholm? Deryn Falconer? Daniel Keith? William McCutcheon?

Those questions Christopher fielded more easily. His opinions of Jeremiah were less than passionate, and a series of increasingly amused repetitions of “No” did for the rest. He did not try to tell Lange he was fishing in sterile waters.

Then, just as Christopher was beginning to feel comfortable, things took a nasty and surprising turn.

“How often did you discuss your work with your father?”

“Almost never,” Christopher said.

“What did your father want to know about your work?”

“As I just said—”

“You said you talked about your work sometimes. What did you talk about?”

“All he wanted to know is if I was happy with what I was doing, and if the work was going well.”

“On May 7, you traveled to Oregon and stayed two days at your father’s house. What was the purpose of your trip?”

Christopher allowed his incredulity to show. “A family visit.”

“Why?”

“Because he invited me. Don’t you ever go home?”

“What did he want to talk about that weekend?”

Christopher frowned. “The Twenty-ninth Amendment. Serai stages. The mean annual rainfall of northwest Oregon. We went hiking,” he added by way of explanation.

“Did you talk about Homeworld activities?”

“No.”

“In August, your housemate Loi Lindholm went to Europe for five days, visiting Brussels, Paris, and Geneva. Why did she make that trip?”

“August? Ah—she had a commission debut and went to some business-card kiss-and-snack parties,” said Christopher.

“What did she take there for you and whom did she deliver it to?”

“What?” His face wrinkled in puzzlement. “Nothing. Her trip didn’t have anything to do with me.”

Lange rolled on, undeterred. “Five times in November, your father left messages for you on your personal account. What instructions did he give you?”

“Wait a minute,” Christopher said warningly. “Wait just a minute. All that means is I didn’t want to talk to him.”

“But then you took a call from him at your workstation in Building 9. Was that because you needed to warn him about the Munich gateway?”

The picture suddenly snapped into focus, and Christopher stared at it with a collision of horror and helplessness, astonishment and rage. “What are you saying? Those are all just things that happened.” He clawed at the safety restraint, but it would not release him. “This is crazy! What are you saying?”

Lange sat back in his seat and watched Christopher’s futile struggle, listened, but was unmoved.

“I’m not saying anything,” he said lightly, pulling off the headset and closing the slate with one finger. “I’m just asking questions.”