“The cargo transport? Not to disappoint you, but I won’t be able to get into that investigation without raising some flags,” he said. “I can give you what has been released so far, but that’s about it. I’m sorry.”
I nodded. “I understand. I figured it was a long shot to ask.”
“We’re done here, then,” said the security guard, who extended his hand as a farewell. “Mind yourself, Mister Pennington. If I were offering advice, I’d say let us take a look at Mister Chung’s situation from our end. And please keep me posted.”
I was puzzled. “What happened to ‘I don’t know you and you don’t know me’? “
“I told you things weren’t that easy,” Ginther said. “I still owe you one.”
11
As pleasant as a walk through Fontana Meadow could be, there were times that I found myself caught in a pattern of journalistic scrutiny that took much of the fun and mystery out of it all.
The meadow was what we called the green space blanketing the floor of a massive terrestrial enclosure that flourished within Vanguard. To the senses—the look, feel, and smell of it all— Fontana Meadow was in all ways natural. Grass and soil gave way under my stride with no physical indication to my feet of what my mind was acutely aware—that a few meters underneath it all lay cold metal deck plates to separate me from a set of docking bays, each one big enough to house comfortably a Constitution-class starship. In the distance, one could see groves of trees as well as structures for living and working nestled into rolling hills. My mind, however, was yanking me from the fantasy of that stretching horizon with the reminder that it was an optical illusion created by earthen berms and architectural trickery intended to keep me from seeing the walls rimming the enclosure. More than fifty meters above me stretched the dome itself, capping the enclosure and protecting us from the vacuum of space. But I knew it was merely camouflaged by paint and holographic projections to render the illusion of an actual sky as I walked along underneath it.
Then I let myself be reminded that despite the natural appearance of this environment, its behavior over time was anything but. Our temperature remained constant at a degree deemed most tolerable and pleasant by the majority of visitors to and residents of Earth. Weather was no real issue, as winds never blew beyond a pleasant breeze, rumbling thunderstorms never threatened, and blistering heat never baked. Ambient light in the enclosure artificially brightened during waking hours and dimmed during restful ones to account for the natural rhythm of light and darkness experienced on Earth as the planet spins on its axis. Its journey around the sun, however, was not approximated, as Fontana Meadow never experienced a seasonal change. No fall breezes swept shed leaves into small vortices to scoot down the street. No cycle turned grasses green then brown then green again as time passed. No sense of promise of what was to come ever was carried by budding trees and opening flowers.
Sometimes, the more technology accomplished to make the frontier seem like home to everyone else, the more reasons I found to make me miss it.
I was feeling a little wistful and maybe a little old as I then crossed the meadow into Stars Landing. While I was bemoaning my inability to just give up and appreciate the splendor of my surroundings—artificial as they may be—I also cursed my current struggle with the approach I was taking these days to my job. When I had started as a reporter, I likely would have paid little heed to anyone—friend, law enforcer, editor—who cautioned me against personal risk when it came to getting the story. Pointing a finger, righting a wrong, blowing a whistle—these felt like praiseworthy goals when I chased the news in my youth, ones worth the personal risk. Before Jinoteur, I felt as though my stories were being parceled out to me by authorities who dictated what and how I wrote them. Before Reyes had cut me free from his own restraint, I had forgotten what it had been like to write something capable of upending the world even a little bit.
So as I turned the corner toward Café Romano and spotted Amity Price sitting in its “outdoor” seating area, I could not help but feel a spring to my step with a renewed rush of my youthful vigor toward collecting the news. She was onto something, and while it might not have been big, I sensed it might have been just the thing to get each of us feeling good about why we do what we do.
“How about that for a night?” Amity said and smiled.
“Yeah, how about that. When you left me a message to meet here, I didn’t know whether I was going to show up to give you a hug or a beating.”
“Aw, you can be a little gracious about it. Had I told you what was going on, I was afraid I couldn’t count on you showing up.”
“Oh, I would have showed up,” I said. “But it might have been to forcibly escort you out of that place.”
“And yet you didn’t.”
“I’ll admit to a mild curiosity as to what might happen next.”
“Can I be curious about whether you’re going to sit down?”
“I wasn’t done admonishing you,” I said, letting myself smile a bit before I pulled a chair away from the table and settled into it comfortably. “Now, I’m done.”
“A little better?”
“A little. It does help that you chose for us to meet at my second-favorite spot on the whole station.”
“Oh, yeah?” Amity said. “Mere coincidence.”
“No reason at all?”
“Well, I always have a reason for doing something. I’m just not ready to tell you yet.”
I looked at Amity until she held my gaze. “I do hope you are ready to tell me a lot more than you have so far.”
“I am. You have been very kind to help me out, and I’m not trying to be secretive about anything.”
“That part I understand. You want to do this yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“But, Amity, I need to tell you that more than one person has cautioned me against trying to pull a fast one on Ganz and his people. He is a resourceful and dangerous man, and he will let nothing get in the way of his business and his plans for controlling trade in the Taurus Reach.”
“Are you telling me to quit?”
“I, well, I don’t know.” I paused as a server stopped at our table to deliver a pair of iced teas that Amity evidently ordered. “I was told to wave you off, yes.”
“And?”
“I want to know what you know and what you’re planning.” Amity took a drink from her glass. “You know I am pretty new to Vanguard, but it didn’t take long for me to get the sense that whatever is happening between this station and that ship just isn’t right.”
“I can’t fault you for your observations, but amicable relationships between Starfleet and fringe elements in frontier territories is nothing new. It’s a necessary evil that can reduce friction among locals and maintain the established ways of doing things until Starfleet gets in a position to truly control a territory.”
“Tim, I’m all about going along to get along. But this is a lot more than our guys occasionally looking the other way while their guys run past with a few cases of contraband. What I’m seeing is profiteering and exploitation of the situation by Starfleet personnel.”
“What you’re seeing, or what you’re expecting you’ll see? You’ve been here for all of, what, three weeks?”
“What of it? I certainly think you’re smart enough to come into a new situation and assess what’s right and what’s wrong pretty quickly.”
“So you have proof of Starfleet officers violating their duties, Starfleet regulations, or Federation law through their activities with the Orions?”
She paused. “No, but I think I’m close.”
“Well, the truth is that you may very well be close.”
Amity’s eyes widened and she rocked forward in her chair. “What do youknow, Tim Pennington?”
I laughed a bit at her intensity. “With the help of station security, I did a little cross-checking on the man to whom you introduced me last night. And you were right about him being in Starfleet. He is in a position that would greatly benefit Ganz were he to be compromised.”
“Compromised? Let me tell you, he is plenty compromised,” she said. “He has regular meetings, um, ‘behind closed doors’ meetings if you follow me, with a woman who works with me. Their meetings are like clockwork.”