Tyson looked over to the image of his assistant floating in the air just outside the window. “Paris, could you leave us for a moment, please?”
“Of course, sir.” She faded away. Naturally, she hadn’t actually gone anywhere, and would continue to see and hear everything that happened in the penthouse office, but it would make Elsa more comfortable.
Tyson gently grabbed Elsa by the elbow and locked with her eyes. “You did marvelously. They heard exactly what they needed to hear, and took your competence and integrity as a given. That’s never assured at this level of play.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. I also have one other question before you go. What can you tell me about the people who engineered the bacteria?”
“Well, nothing. I have no idea who they are. I’m not even ready to say it was engineered as a bioweapon without more evidence. That’s not how science works.”
“Extrapolate. Give me an educated guess. Let’s try this another way. How many people in your field could have uncovered the tampering? Not realize something was weird, but actually find fingerprints of the programming?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t be modest. The woman who demanded the attention of a transtellar CEO on the sidewalk isn’t modest.”
“Fine, a few dozen, probably.”
“And how many people could have done the programming?”
“The same few dozen.”
“At how many labs?”
Elsa started to nod along. “Maybe ten universities on Earth have the necessary equipment and experience. A few military black labs I know nothing about. Maybe another half dozen out in the colonies.”
“And the heads of these programs. How many of them did you study under, or go to school with? Work with once you graduated?”
“A lot of them. Maybe even most.”
It was Tyson’s turn to lean on the desk. “I’ve heard enough. You’re working directly for me, now. You’ll continue with your other duties, but you’re going to start making discreet inquiries among your colleagues about these bacteria and try to narrow down the point of origin. Can you do that?”
“I don’t have any idea. I’m a scientist, I’m not trained for espionage.”
“That’s no problem at all, because this is counter-espionage. Totally different thing. You’ll start tomorrow, first thing. But tonight, I want you to go home and rest. Or go home and get drunk. Whatever your coping mechanism of choice happens to be.”
“Am I really getting a raise?”
“Yes.”
“A fifty-percent raise?” Elsa asked hopefully.
“Thirty. You had your chance. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
“Thanks, but I think I can find the way.”
“There’s still guns in the elevator.”
“Right.”
TEN
As the meeting stretched into its third hour with no relief from the endless droning of Grendel’s governor in sight, Susan’s eyes threatened to go cross. A half-drunk pot of square dog took up space on the mess hall table among a flotilla of half-nibbled sandwiches. If she had to spend another five minutes sealed off in the compartment listening to Honshu’s prattling, she would either scream or start shooting.
“… which is not to say that our sensors or telescopes are nearly as sensitive as those on a military vessel, but my astronomers nonetheless have assured me that they detected three distinct gamma bursts consistent with fusion plant detonations in the vicinity of the Red Line. So I have to ask again, Captain, what was the source of those explosions? Who were you engaged with? Corsairs? The Xre, heaven forbid?”
Susan stretched her arms across the table like a cat, trying to keep them from cramping up after the aggressive pace she’d set during her endurance swim a few hours earlier. “Margo. May I call you Margo?”
“Of course, Susan.”
“Great. Here’s what I’ve learned from the last one hundred and eighty-three minutes locked in this room with you. You have a nearly limitless capacity for rephrasing the same question and presenting it in new ways. But what you haven’t deduced yet is I have a finite number of responses. Indeed, only one response. Which is ‘I can neither confirm nor deny the specifics of our mission.’ We could’ve saved each other a lot of time if I’d just recorded that sentence and let you replay it whenever you stopped talking long enough to take a breath.”
Honshu’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I care for your tone, Susan. I’d remind you that I’m the ranking official in this system and I must insist on your respect.”
“You are the ranking civilian official in this system. I do not dispute that, and I’m glad, even eager to be of whatever help to your efforts here that I can, so long as it’s within my authority to do so. And believe it or not, I do recognize the challenging position I’m putting you in, here. I’m sorry for that, but I’m the ranking military officer on station, and I can’t break operational security on just your say-so. This is a military matter, and I couldn’t tell you jack shit even if I wanted to. When Fleet Com gives you clearance, then I’ll be only too happy to open the logs to you. But until that happens, you’ll just have to wait.”
Honshu slapped her hands down on the table and shot to her feet. “It’s my duty to defend the lives of every man, woman, and child on Grendel’s surface and in orbit, Captain.”
Susan remained seated, but her voice inched up and her tone sharpened. “Oh, my apologies, Governor. I was running under the impression that was why I was here with my giant warship. What with the hundreds of megatons of nukes in our silos and all, I must have gotten confused.” She took off her top cover and handed it up to the fuming woman. “Here, do you want to make the transfer of command official right now? Otherwise, you’ve wasted a trip, and you’re officially wasting my time.”
Honshu spun around to face Nesbit. “Javier, you’re her corporate liaison,
