“The jump system is fine,” stated Baile from the command couch. His silver hair glinted, as though it were almost blond, and his face was unlined and composed as he reached for the red jump button.
Van flipped off his harness and lurched to grab the commander’s hand, but he was too late.
“No!”
Pain red flared across him.
Abruptly, he sat up in his too-wide bunk, sweating.
Once more, the nightmare had seemed all too real. He sat there in the bunk, blotting the sweat off his forehead, trying to cool down and dry off.
The Joyau was on the outer leg of the outbound transit to the jump zone—the part above the ecliptic and well away from the inner planets of the Korkenny system—and Van was trying to get some sleep, with the system set to wake him if the monitors detected anything remotely within range.
Absently, he linked to the ship, but the Joyau was still three hours from the earliest possible jump point, and there were no ships in the outer part of the system, except for a handful of belt miners, and they were a quarter of the way around the system and inward.
Van blotted his forehead again.
Why was he having nightmares about the Fergus—and Commander Baile?
Abruptly, he stiffened, finally recalling what had eluded him before. Baile had said he was from Weathe. Was that important? His subconscious seemed to feel it was, but the more rational side of his mind couldn’t say why.
He stretched out on the bunk once more in the darkness. There was something else about the dream…but he couldn’t place that either.
After a time, he drifted back into an uneasy doze.
Chapter 61
Just before heading out into Weathe orbit station one, Van stood by the ship lock and looked at Eri. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If you don’t hear from me in two days, seal the ship and send the emergency message.”
“I won’t have to do that.” Eri’s look was somber. “Do not stay planetside too long.”
“I hope I don’t have to. I’m not going as me, and I’m not announcing my presence in advance.” Just before leaving the Korkenny system and jumping to Weathe, Van had retuned the drives of the Joyau to Argenti standard, then called up the matching registration. The Joyau had become the Palabra, registered out of Silvium.
“Good,” Eri replied.
Van made his made along the gray corridors of Weathe orbit station toward the shuttle. No one paid him much attention, and even with his implant he could detect no unusual communications around him. As in the case of Korkenny, his news searches had revealed little at all, except that membership in the Christos Revivos was increasing and that the Economic Security Act was also in place in Weathe, but from the general sources, Van couldn’t possibly tell to what degree it had affected IIS.
As he had told Eri, Van had not sent word ahead. At two o’clock in the afternoon, local time, he just appeared outside the small office off Marquis Boulevard and walked in, past the bored attendant in the main lobby.
The woman inside the IIS office looked up as Van stood there. “How did you get in? We’re closed.”
Van reached out with his implant, and froze the entire system, except for the comm net. “I’m Director Van Albert, from IIS headquarters.” Trystin didn’t call it that, but Van had already discovered that it helped. “I’m looking for Jameson Pettridge.”
“Ah…Mr. Pettridge…he isn’t here. He won’t be back today.”
“Can you reach him?”
“Ah…”
“I left the communications link open. Tell him I’d very much like to see him. Now. I’ll wait in his office.”
Pettridge had added a protocol to his door locks, but they were simple enough that Van only stood there for a moment before the door opened. He could overhear the woman.
“Mr. Pettridge…there’s a Director Albert here…has to be him. He took control of the entire system…doesn’t look too pleased, I have to say.”
Van wasn’t pleased, although he hadn’t yet discovered whether Jameson Pettridge was someone with whom to be pleased or displeased. He settled into Pettridge’s chair and unfroze the system, beginning to search through the records.
By the end of the first client record—that of Weathe Mercantile—Van was nodding, especially after he noted Pettridge’s successful thwarting of a proposed acquisition by—once again, DIS. Van had to wonder who was behind DIS, relatives of the military cabal under Marshal Eamon? Or was the Ministry of Economic Security just trying to consolidate as many multis as possible to simplify oversight and control?
Van had just started on the records for ForCom when he sensed someone entering the office. He stood and walked to the door.
“This is Mr. Pettridge,” offered the assistant whose name Van did not know.
Pettridge was a thin, earnest-looking man, neither young nor old, wearing a conservative blue singlesuit.
“Van Albert.”
“I’d hoped someone would come,” Pettridge offered, “but I got no response…”
“How did you send it?”
“Standard interstellar, encrypted. I’ve sent one almost every week with updates.”
“If you’d show me.” Van gestured toward the office, closing the door behind them.
Pettridge called up the comm files, and Van ran through them, projecting a holo of each as he read them. Then he looked over at the younger man. “Very thorough. The only problem is that we never got any of them. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“You think…the government…?” Pettridge shook his head. “I knew they were pushing for nationalization of outside assets. They aren’t calling it that, but that’s what it amounts to.”
“That was when you tried to send the first message.”
“I sent it.” Pettridge frowned, then fumbled through the office net to the accounts. “There.” He projected the communications billings. “We were billed for each of them.”
Van nodded. That was something that Pettridge was unlikely to have been able to fake, and Van had the feeling that the man was truly honest. “So you’ve opposed these efforts?”
“I’ve managed to throw up every legal block that
