“Wise,” he said, and took another sip of his tea. “So at the Academy, it didn’t bother you not to have an implant?”
“No… well, a bit at first, like all those who’d had them. But I’d had only a child’s model. My parents wanted to upgrade mine at sixteen, but I knew by then the Academy required us to train without, so I refused. Thought it would be easier for me, and I think it was.”
“You probably don’t know this,” he said, “but I’m Miznarii. We don’t use any artificial aids.”
His voice was relaxed, but Ky noticed the little muscles around his eyes tightening.
“I noticed you didn’t have an implant,” she said, trying for the same relaxation of voice and posture. “But some people just don’t, one reason or another. A friend’s father had neurological damage from trauma and couldn’t use one.”
“It’s true Miznarii aren’t the only ones without implants,” Marek said. He seemed completely relaxed now. “I suppose, as much as you’ve traveled in space, you’ve met some?”
“Yes,” Ky said. “Though more who are opposed to more advanced humodification techniques, as well as those who use them.” She took another sip of her tea. “I’m sure you know about my departure from the Academy; I can assure you that I do not blame all Miznarii for the actions of one or a few.”
“I’m glad to know that,” he said. “I didn’t think you would, but—it’s reassuring.”
So was the unease she’d felt a reflection of his concern that she might distrust him for being Miznarii? Or something else? She wasn’t sure. She needed to be sure.
Ky left the kitchen ahead of Marek and went to the women’s section of the toilets. He went to the men’s section; she heard a flush and then his steps moving back out. She sat there, her thoughts running in circles to no useful conclusion, and then went back to her own quarters, nodding at Marek who was in the watch office entering something on the computer. She was even more awake now. It could not be—could not be—that a senior NCO in Slotter Key Spaceforce was a traitor. Someone in a lower grade, maybe, but Marek was so completely the good NCO, the responsible, competent senior on whom young officers and junior enlisted could depend. She could not believe he was anything else.
And yet. Facts, not belief, were needed here. She reviewed everything she knew and had observed of him from the moment she’d met him, pulling up details from her implant yet again. Nothing, no clue at all, in his demeanor when she met him first, or in the way he acted after the passenger module landed in the ocean. He hadn’t objected to her taking command, though he’d questioned it briefly. He’d been competent with the hatch and the slide, with the launch of the first and second rafts. Nothing at all to show he had been involved in the sabotage of the shuttle. Nothing in those first days in the rafts… a few times he’d disagreed, suggested something she hadn’t approved, but he’d accepted her decisions, and such single incidents weren’t unusual between an officer and a trusted senior NCO. And there her memory snagged on a detail.
The puffer fish and its spines… yes, it had come up under the other raft, the one with Marek and Jen in it. But in all the chaos that followed, why hadn’t he launched the spare raft until she yelled at him, and why had he inflated it inside the raft, where it blocked those who needed to get supplies and themselves into it before their own raft fell apart? He’d been talking to Jen—but once it was clear they were in danger, why didn’t he go on and act? Why didn’t he push the spare over the side before pulling the inflation ring?
The inflated spare and its canopy had cut off her view of most of the other raft; she’d heard Marek calling orders from the other side of it, but until Chok was able to drop the canopy, none of the wild throws at the spare raft accomplished anything. Surely Marek hadn’t intended that. Unless he wanted them to fail in the end. And that would include him; it would be murder and suicide.
And the secret of this base would have been secure.
Her implant brought up that one brief view she had of the gap in the raft’s floor, before the inflating spare raft blocked it. The outer layer hung down from a ragged tear that might have been the shark’s attack on the puffer; the inner layer showed a long, clean cut, as if made with a very sharp knife by an experienced hand. Had Marek or someone else panicked and cut the floor to let the fish free before it took the raft down? Who had actually made that cut? Why hadn’t Jen said anything?
Assume for the moment it was Marek. Why would he do that? And later—she went over the whole thing again, more slowly than before, querying her implant for details. That first narrow gash in the cliff wall, where he’d suggested they land: the rocks guarding the entrance to it had been clearly visible, the danger obvious. Granted he wasn’t from a sailing family, he’d said, but—he had been competent with knots, throwing hitches as fast as she could. Particularly in the aftermath of losing a raft and some supplies to—supposedly—the puffer-fish spines, why would he suggest trying to land there? Did he want them all to die?
He had argued briefly for continuing north, but had cooperated when she’d insisted on landing in that wider bay. He had not been the one pilfering rations—the evidence was clear that Vispersen and Lanca were to blame. Though—they’d had only three ration packets with them, and ten more had been missing. Yet she could not see Marek deliberately hastening the death by starvation of others.
But he’d been opposed to her exploration inland, even though it was clear they would run out of food where they were. Yes, dividing their forces to look for something better would have been foolish if they hadn’t already exhausted the resources they had. And yet… suppose he had known about the base. It would mean he was involved in some conspiracy within Spaceforce. If he’d been coerced into it, it could mean he—even his family—was at risk of retaliation if he didn’t prevent its discovery by others.
And since she’d told him about using the Rector’s code to get into the huts, he could have changed the code to keep them out of the main base. It could explain his stated concerns about the dangers of entering an unknown facility; it could explain his repeated suggestions that he—as an experienced hunter—should take her sidearm to go hunting one of the animals they’d seen. For that matter, how had he known she had one? Jen could have told him, maybe. His treatment of her aide, which had led Jen to praise him so often, could be an attempt to divide the two remaining officers.
But this was still all speculation. That he was a Miznarii didn’t disturb her; her family had no real bias against them. Saphiric Cyclans, whose beliefs were considered “weak” even by Modulans, regarded other religions as cultural elements, not threats. Vatta had Miznarii employees, both on ships and planetside. She had never blamed all Miznarii for that Miznarii cadet’s request or the trouble it caused her, even after learning he had been acting on orders from other Miznarii.
Every religion, she’d been taught, had some bad people in it. Even in Saphiric Cyclans, the religion of her childhood. Some distant cousin of her mother’s had made a fortune selling harmless but also useless extracts of a particular fungus as a cure for a half dozen conditions, all the while performing the Cyclans’ minimal rites with great devotion and precision.
But having met some violent anti-humods now, she had to admit concern about a Miznarii NCO whose behavior was more than possibly… odd. Troubling. Suppose this was a secret installation, and he was in on it. Suppose he was willing to breach it, or let others breach it, to save some of them… but not all. Who would be in the not all but the officers, especially the foreign, offworld officers, over whom he had no real influence?