“He was planning to kill the admiral. He tried to kill the admiral. You don’t think that’s bad?” Inyatta sounded both amused and annoyed.
“Of course I do. But you wouldn’t catch the admiral falling for a bit of flattery, now, would you? Her aide did. Of course her aide was older, getting to that age—”
“She was the same age as Marek.”
Droshinski shrugged; the shrug carried into her voice. “That’s different. She was single; remember when she said so? All prim and stiff, the way she was, as if however she lived was the one right way to live.”
Inyatta laughed. “You didn’t like her because she came down on you for unprofessional conduct, you and Haz.”
“She came down on me because she was a stuffed prune from Cascadia,” Droshinski said. “I wasn’t doing anything with Haz but letting him worship my aura. She’d have known that if she’d had any sense. But you notice she didn’t bother once she was getting sweet words from Marek. And then once he’d gotten her on his side, she started poking around, seeing what we said about the admiral, undermining her, trying to get us to agree she wasn’t any good. There’s unprofessional conduct, if you like!”
Ky, overhearing this from outside the mess, agreed with Droshinski’s final statement, but enough was enough. She stepped through the doorway, and that broke up the conversation. Droshinski and Inyatta stood up. Ky greeted them. “And now for the usual daily inspection, which I’m sure you’ve prepared for.”
“Yes, sir,” they both said. “Kitchen’s all squared away.”
“Come on, then.” They followed Ky into the kitchen, where the counters, sinks, and cooktops gleamed, stools were pushed neatly under the main workspace, all equipment was off, cords coiled, all pots and dishes clean and put away. Ky had expected that; this pair worked well together. She found nothing amiss; when she’d finished gave them a nod and “Well done.” The day’s menu was posted on the cabinet nearest the cooktop. “So we’re having—what is this?”
Inyatta spoke up. “So far we’ve just had steamed rice or steamed barley to put stew over. I found enough farlo meal in the pantry for maybe ten meals, so I wanted to use it. We use it at home a lot. Ishbani is a stew served over it; I’m going to use one of the dehydrated packets for that, and steam the farlo. It’ll be spicy—” She gave Ky a questioning look.
“Nice change,” Ky said. “We had something similar at home but called it mother-in-law; my parents always laughed when they said it. It took all morning; my mother had everything made from scratch.”
Droshinski laughed. “Mother-in-law stew? Whose mother-in-law?”
“I have no idea,” Ky said. “Apparently someone back in the families.”
Ping.
“Did you hear that?” Inyatta put a hand to her head and looked back and forth from Ky to Droshinski.
Ky nodded. “I did indeed.”
“So did I… It’s my skullphone but it can’t be.”
“Mine’s greenlined now,” Inyatta said, grinning. “I can call—home, I guess—” She looked at Ky.
“Wait,” Ky said. “Didn’t Marek tell you—?” Her mind whirled. Of course he hadn’t passed on her order. Nor Jen. “Listen—don’t use your phones, any com device. I know—I’ll explain later—that the com block was intentional and someone lifted it, hoping to find out who’s here. We have to tell the others—nobody call home, or anywhere else.”
“You’re worried about the people who kept this a secret? Staff Sergeant Marek’s friends?” Droshinski frowned.
“Employers, I suspect, but yes.”
“But if we can call our friends, they can help us. Stop them—” Inyatta looked from one to the other.
“Our friends don’t know who the bad people are any more than we do.” Droshinski raised her brows at Ky. “You want us to wait? What if the others are already calling home?”
“They may be,” Ky said. “Need to find out.” She headed out into the main passage. Anyone with an implant had probably heard the ping and very shortly figured out what it meant. Her next thought was that she wouldn’t have to find a safe outlet and secure time alone to contact Rafe. Much safer for them both if she could use ordinary communications, even though the ansible-implant connection was the most secure. Her implant gave her an analysis of the available connections, public and private, carried by the repeater satellite now in range.
“Admiral!” That was Gossin, in the duty office as usual this time of morning. “There’s a signal in my implant—”
“I know—it just pinged me, too,” Ky said. “And Droshinski and Inyatta, so it’s a general one. I’ve asked them not to call anyone yet—we need to locate everyone and find out if someone’s been hasty.”
“Showing initiative,” Gossin said, grinning.
“That’s right,” Ky said. “But I’m hoping for some impulse control, and a chance to contact the Rector first. We do have enemies.”
“I’ll go find them—or I could just call—” She looked at Ky.
“Better not. Anyone tracking might listen in. Know how many we are.”
“Right.” Gossin hurried out the door calling for an assembly. Ky checked the barracks—no one there, this time of day. No one in any of the smaller rooms, or in the showers; Gossin, she saw, had brought people out of Stores and Maintenance. And here came Ennisay down from the upper entrance. “We’ve got a signal!” he yelled, before seeing Gossin and the group in the passage. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing yet,” Ky said. “Assembly in the mess, right now.” She turned to Gossin. “Riyahn—we don’t want him calling, either.”
Gossin nodded. “Understood, Admiral. He doesn’t have an implant, so no skullphone, and we made sure he had no pocket com on him when we locked him in. There’s nothing in that closet he could make one from, either.”
“Good,” Ky said. “But bring him along.”
When they were gathered, she laid out the situation as she saw it. “We don’t know why the communications shutdown was cleared at this time, or who did it. We do know the shuttle was sabotaged and Master Sergeant Marek was associated with whoever runs this secret establishment. We know they’re not friendly to anyone being here.”
“Wish we had an aircraft or something.”
“So do I,” Ky said. “But we don’t. So I don’t want anyone calling home until I’ve seen if there’s a way to make contact with the Rector—”
“Are you sure she’s not involved?”
“If Aunt Grace wanted me dead, she’d make me eat a whole fruitcake,” Ky said. A few chuckles, probably from those who didn’t like fruitcake. “But seriously—if she wanted all of us dead, including the Commandant, she’d have had the shuttle blow up above atmosphere. Failproof, simple, complete.”
A few nods, this time.
“So: some of you have probably heard that I’m acquainted with Ser Dunbarger, the current CEO of ISC—” Nods. “Before he took over that organization, he was a passenger on a ship I captained—my cousin Stella brought him aboard and he was going under an assumed name—”
“I heard he was a criminal,” Ennisay said. “Is that true?”
“All I know is that he helped two of my cousins escape from assassins during the widespread attack on Vatta family members,” Ky said. “He was helpful as well while aboard my ship. And what is useful now is that he taught me a way to shield a skullphone-to-ansible connection from interference or a data-suck.” She had promised Rafe not to reveal the internal ansible, but this—she hoped—was a suitably disguised description of what she wanted to do.
“You can do that?”
“I hope so,” Ky said. “I’ll need to input more power into my skullphone; I’ll be using a powerjack. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”