The Outback Stars

CHAPTER


TWENTY-FOUR





A

s Jodenny made her way down the aisle of the H-Deck am-phitheater, wondering just how many hundreds of hours of her career had been lost to boring meetings, David Quenger grabbed her arm.



He demanded, “What’s this bullshit about you blaming Chiba for Myell’s accident? If you can’t run your division right, if you can’t pre-vent a simple accident, then you should resign your position right now.”



Jodenny kept her voice low and calm, though her instinct was to outshout him. “Chiba has a history of threatening Myell.”



“F*ck that.”



“You want to defend him, you talk to Security,” she said, and pushed past him. Danyen Cartik waved her toward an empty seat and she sat blindly, blood rushing past her ears.



“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look like you could kill some-one.”



She rubbed the spot on her arm where Quenger had touched her.

“It’s nothing.”



“So you say. How’s your sergeant? The one that almost got flat-tened?”



“He’s back to work.” He was also unfailingly polite and profes-sional, as if they’d never taken a trip among the stars together, as if they were nothing more than lieutenant and sergeant. In most ways his attitude relieved her. In others—well, she had gotten what she wanted, no use crying over it.



Senga took the podium. “Warramala’s a lot more diverse than our last stop. The wild woolly frontier, or so they like to think of themselves. Big believers in life, liberty, and the pursuit of fortune. We’ll have shuttles running to two ports: Katherine Bay and Waipata. Katherine Bay’s a big resort on the east coast of the southern continent—”



Jodenny scanned her queue as Senga talked. She remembered Katherine Bay fondly from her last stop. Excellent scuba diving there. Good opportunities for shopping. And a set of Spheres just a short flight away, where maybe she could jaunt to strange new worlds. But as she went through her imail she saw her leave chit had come back marked

“Disapproved.”



“See me,” said Al-Banna’s attached note.




Jodenny had already approved her own division’s chits, but as she combed through the records she saw that Myell’s had also been bounced back.



Senga said, “The biggest problem you’re going to run into in Katherine Bay is sunburn. Waipata’s got a lot more red-light districts, and with the Warramala World Cup game starting a few days after we arrive, you can imagine the possibilities for trouble.”



“Go East Enfield!” someone shouted, followed by a ripple of laughter.



“We’re also going to be arriving in the middle of Gagudjun Corroboree. They’re expecting thousands of people for that. Add in thou-sands more of drunk soccer fans—” Senga made a sour face. “It doesn’t get more exciting than that.”



On the way out of the meeting Jodenny caught sight of a familiar face and cornered Francesco. “A. J.! I’ve been trying to reach you.”



“I know.” The strain of the scandal showed on his face. “Sorry.”



“You don’t return my calls, you moved over to transient berthing—”



“I know,” he returned, more forcefully, and Jodenny realized they were standing in the middle of the passage, the most public of places.



“Let me buy you some coffee,” she said.



“I can’t.” Francesco made a show of checking his watch. “I’m working temporarily over in Safety and I need to get back.”



“Then let me take you to dinner tonight.”



“I’ll call you,” Francesco promised.



“A.J.—”



“What?”



Jodenny’s question stalled in her throat. Francesco grimaced and said, “Yes, I did it. Yes, I’d do it again. She’s worth it.”



“Make sure you call me,” was all Jodenny could say.



Jodenny trudged over to the Flats to find Al-Banna, but he was stuck in his own meeting. Wildstein said, “He disapproved your leave because Rokutan and Zarkesh already put in for time off and Vu’s go-ing to be tied up with her annual inspection. Someone’s got to stick around.”



“What about Sergeant Myell’s chit, ma’am?”



“He’s not cleared medically.”



“I believe he is,” Jodenny said, but she didn’t press the issue. If Myell was stuck on the ship, there was no chance he’d go traipsing off to a Mother Sphere to investigate without her. And there was less chance Chiba could, say, run him off a mountain.



Master Chief DiSola caught her in the passageway. “I talked to your AT Lund the other day. He says you’re mother-henning him.”



“AT Lund is terribly sick,” Jodenny said. “I want him to rest.”



“I don’t suppose his sudden interest in returning to work has any-thing to do with the broken entertainment system in his cabin? And his malfunctioning gib?”



“Are they both not working?”



“Stopped right after we left Mary River,” DiSola said.



“How unfortunate,” she said. “I’m sure he’s called in a service re-quest. Lieutenant Commander Zarkesh will no doubt make sure it’s properly addressed.”



The corner of DiSola’s mouth turned up. “No doubt.”



Jodenny trammed over to T6’s loading dock and took Ysten into the bowels. The Direct Conveyance System that moved inventory over to Mainship was able to pinpoint every smartcrate’s location at any given moment in its journey, but it required maintenance and quarterly inspections. More equipment provided umbilical services to the Towers—power, atmosphere circulation, heat, and water—and the same services to the shops and restaurants on the Rocks. The air stank of grease and the rumble of machinery made casual conversa-tion difficult.



“What exactly are we looking for?” Ysten asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.



“Any obvious safety hazards.” Jodenny flashed her torch over the equipment as they followed the narrow passage. “Check the fire sup-pression equipment, the sprinklers, the medbots.”



“Where do those other belts go?”



“The other towers.” Jodenny took a long sip of water from the bottle on her hip. “If you needed to move inventory from Underway Stores to, say, T4, you’d have Core redirect the system.”



“Why would we want to give stuff to other towers?”



“Temporary storage, or if one of the civilian colonies purchased supplies from us.” Jodenny’s gib vibrated and she read a text message.

“Oh, crap. I don’t have time for this.”



“What’s the matter?”



“Sweet test. My number came up.”



“Go ahead. I’ll carry on down here.”



Jodenny hesitated.



Ysten gave her a stubborn look. “I told you I was going to do better.”



“I know. Just be careful—it’s easy to get turned around down here, and even easier to slip or hurt yourself.”



“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but without rancor, and maybe there might be hope for him yet.



She climbed back up to the ring and trammed back to Mainship. The drug tests were run out of a small office near the Security De-partment. Several dozen sailors were already waiting in line, but offi-cers and chiefs were sent to the front of the line. Jodenny stepped up to the desk, verified her identity with a retinal scan, and let a young tech swab the back of her hand. She verified her identity again, per procedure.



“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the tech said. “You’re all set.”



While she was in the neighborhood she decided to stop by Com-mander Picariello’s office. He didn’t look happy to see her, but he said, “Here’s a hard copy of the final report on Sergeant Myell’s acci-dent. The Safety Department’s report is attached.”



Jodenny flipped through the pages. “This says it was an accident. There’s nothing about Chiba or the fight in the gym.”



“They’re not pertinent to what happened in T6,” he said. “The Safety Department concluded that the dingo’s programming was corrupt. You can see it right there.”



“But, sir—” Jodenny said.



“An accident, Lieutenant. That’s all there is,” he said, and she knew that tone. It was an official, bureaucratic, listen-to-no-common-sense tone, dictated by someone higher than him or by the needs of Team Space; it was a parasteel wall, and she had run into it before with Commodore Campos. She didn’t know enough about Picariello per-sonally to appeal to his human nature, and the differences in their rank meant she couldn’t appeal to him as a peer.



“Yes, sir,” she said.



She read the reports in the passageways as she walked back to her office. Twice she nearly walked into people or into a bulkhead. There was no blame for Myell or any of her sailors, which she supposed was good news. But Picariello’s abrupt disinterest in exploring other explanations, on the heels of what had seemed like genuine enthusi-asm, left her cold.



* * * *



E

verything okay, Sergeant?” Caldicot asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”



“I’m reading.” Myell scanned the reconciliations that Amador had forwarded. The June inventory had come out at a ninety percent ac-curacy rate, lower than April and May, but Jodenny was going to have to live with it. Circe was missing a chunk of data and another DNGO, Athena, had gotten herself stuck and couldn’t be retrieved until the Safety Department authorized the resumption of operations in T6. In the subreport he saw five hundred records had been reconciled by hand. He tried pulling up the individual records, but he didn’t have the necessary clearance in his new position.




He visited Faddig later that morning and said, casually, “If you want me to compile the reconciliations, I’ll need to access your agent.”



Faddig still had not grasped the jargon of his new job. “Do I want you to do that, or is it something I should do?”



“You could do it, Chief. I’ll show you. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”



Faddig blinked. “My agent’s name is Dooley. He’ll be expecting your call.”



Back at his gib, Myell enlisted Dooley’s help to scan the records that Hosaka and others had adjusted by hand. The principal perpe-trators of faulty data were all Class III DNGOs built back on Fortune. Still using Faddig’s agent, he traced Circe’s upsynchs for the previous six months. Until the deployment, her accuracy rate had been nearly dead perfect. Only after leaving Fortune did she begin to have all those crazy errors. He checked the maintenance logs. There, just af-ter leaving Fortune, he had sent her to Repair for routine mainte-nance.



He checked Hera as well and saw her problem had started earlier, during the last deployment. She had gone in for routine maintenance a few days before her first faulty upsynch.



“New batch of F-789s just came in,” Caldicot said. “Do you want them, or should I do them?”



“I’ll do them.” He shunted a copy of the DNGO reports to his pocket server. Reconciliation reports were no longer his problem, re-ally, so why couldn’t he stop poking at the puzzle? Because Circe had nearly killed him in a bizarre accident? Anybody else might consider that a strong incentive to mind his own business.



Just before lunch, Jodenny returned from taking a random Sweet test. She went into her office and called him inside a few minutes later.



“These are the final reports on your accident,” she said, handing over a file. “Circe’s programming was a mess when they opened her up. She never acknowledged the lockdown order from Core.”



He skimmed the pages. “Core should have caught that and sent a warning.”



“The Data Department is investigating why that didn’t happen.”



Myell’s gaze caught on his own name. It was odd to see himself de-scribed as taking part in events he didn’t remember. “So there were two technical glitches? Circe didn’t respond to the lockdown, and Core didn’t notice the lack of a response?”



“Three, actually. She still doesn’t show any record of hitting you.”

Jodenny focused on him. “Everyone’s concluded your accident really was an accident.”



He wasn’t going to comment further until he had studied the whole thing. “Can I have a copy of this?”



Jodenny glanced toward the clock. “I’ll have Caldicot make you one. Time for you to log out and go rest. Dr. Lee was pretty explicit on your medical chit.”



“I still have another half hour. And today’s a big day. I get to go to the pool.”



She frowned. “It’s not too soon?”



“I’m only going to swim a few laps.” Myell tried not to think of Jodenny in a bathing suit, water beading off her shapely legs. “By the way, have you seen my leave chit?”



She cleared her throat. “Commander Al-Banna doesn’t think you’re medically cleared.”



“But I am. The medical chit says I can go.”



“Maybe going down to the planet alone isn’t such a good idea.”



Myell leaned against the hatch. “Alone?”



“I have to stay onboard.”



“So?”



“So it’s not a good idea for you to go where you’re thinking of go-ing.”



Myell said, “You don’t know where I’m thinking of going.”



“I know where I would go,” Jodenny said. “To see if it would hap-pen again.”



“That’s you, Lieutenant,” he said, and ignored the small weight of the dilly bag in his pocket.



Caldicot pinged to tell Jodenny that Lieutenant Commander Rokutan had arrived. “I’ll be right out,” Jodenny said. She switched off the comm and gave Myell a pointed look. “We’ll talk about it later, Sergeant.”



Rokutan was in the outer office, bending over a stack of files he’d knocked to the floor. Myell knew him in passing, had heard of his sports reputation at the academy, and was well aware of how many young sailors had a crush on the handsome officer. Rokutan peered up at Jodenny and offered her a crooked grin. “I hoped that you might want to do lunch before the Garden Committee meeting.”



Jodenny returned Rokutan’s smile in a way that made Myell in-wardly cringe. She said, “Sure. RT Caldicot, I’ll be back later.”



After they were gone Caldicot asked, “See how she looks at him? I think they’re dating.”



Officer courtship rituals. Meetings, coffee, secret late night ren-dezvous in officer berthing. Myell stood up, certain that he wasn’t go-ing to wait around for someone to walk him to the pool. “I’m leaving. See you tomorrow.”



On his way to the lift he found Dr. Ng from Space Sciences wan-dering around in puzzlement. Myell remembered him only vaguely from the night he’d broken up the attack on Olsson. “Can I help you?” Myell asked.



“Is Lieutenant Scott’s office this way?” Dr. Ng asked.



“She’s not in. Is there something you need?”



Ng held up a sealed envelope. “Could you just give her this? It’s for her eyes only.”



“Sure,” he said.



He spent a moment wondering why Jodenny would need any kind of paperwork from Space Sciences. No good reason came to mind. None that related to Underway Stores, at least. As her aide, wasn’t he required to screen out crank mail or irrelevant material? With no sense of guilt whatsoever, he broke the seal. The two-page report in-side was the results of an analysis on a pair of standard-issue boots that would have no trouble matching Jodenny’s foot size. The soles had contained samples of mud, silica, mold, spores, and trace miner-als, none of which was flagged as unusual.



Myell hurried down the passage, one hand pressed against his aching ribs. “Dr. Ng?” he called out, and was relieved that Ng was still waiting for the lift.



Ng scowled at the open envelope. “That wasn’t for you to read, Sergeant.”



“Sorry. It’s just—well, the lieutenant hasn’t dragged you into her nutty theories, has she?”



Ng’s expression became guarded. “Which theories are those?”



Bold with suspicion, he dropped his voice. “Interplanetary travel. Being magically transported from planet to planet. She acts like it’s a big secret, a conspiracy. We’re all worried about her.”



The lift doors opened. Ng boarded stiffly “Thank you, Sergeant.”



Myell stuffed the report in his pocket. The throbbing in his ribs made him contemplate skipping the gym, but he went anyway. He changed into swimming trunks, hung the dilly bag in his locker, and eased into the large, mostly empty pool. Getting a soil analysis of her boots was a good idea, but Jodenny should have told him. Myell was pondering what to do about it when the swimmer in the next lane, a woman with short hair and a pert nose, splashed him.



“Sorry,” she said.



“No problem.”



She flashed him a grin and took off down the lane with a powerful backstroke. Myell bobbed up and down, admiring her strength. She made the return trip and hung off the edge of the pool. “I’m Eva,” she said.




“Terry.”



Again that bright smile. “Myell, right? I saw you on the news. You nearly got killed.”



If she watched the news or listened to gossip, she had probably heard about Ford as well. Myell braced himself, but Eva’s gaze was clear and untroubled.



“How long have you been onboard?” he asked.



“Not long enough to eat at Minutiae,” she said. “Ever try it?”



Minutiae was one of the nicer restaurants on the Rocks. “Never,” he said.



“Are you free tonight?”



He was, in fact, completely free that evening.



“Good,” she said, and climbed up the ladder. Eva was as lithe as Jodenny, her hips a little smaller, her neck long and delicate. “Nineteen hundred okay? I’ll see you there.”



The pool seemed colder and less therapeutic after she was gone. Myell stuck it out for another fifteen minutes and moved over to the spa, where hot water made his muscles much more relaxed. When he returned to the locker room, Chiba was waiting for him.



“I’m not here for trouble,” Chiba said.



Myell’s pocket server and gib were both far away in his locker, and he felt terribly vulnerable in only a bathing suit and rubber sandals. “Then what are you here for?”



Chiba folded his beefy arms. “There’s a lot of nasty rumors going on, so let’s get this straight: I had nothing to do with what happened to you in the tower. It was an accident.”



“Maybe I don’t believe you.”



“You know my style, Myell. Think it through.”



Myell did know Chiba’s style. But he also knew that DNGOs that had been to Maintenance and Repair were consistently showing glitches, and Chiba was the boss of all the people who could have messed with their insides.



“What do you care what I think?”



Chiba snorted. “I don’t care what you think. I care what the captain thinks. There’s too much attention focused on this department. You let everything get nice and quiet and we won’t have any more problems.”



Myell considered the request and promised reward. “I’ll think about it.”



“Do more than think,” Chiba said. “There’s still a lot more time left on this deployment, and things could get much, much worse.”



Chiba sauntered off. Myell made sure he was gone before he sat on the nearest bench and tried to towel off goose bumps that had noth-ing to do with being cold.



* * * *