“What?”
“They’re bringing that warship’s engines up, over at the ‘yard. They want us out of here.”
“They. Who, ‘they’?”
“The Hamilton. There’s a shuttle on the mast. But we aren’t getting com with it. Hamilton’ssaying it can’t raise it. That’s our contingency sitting up there.”
“Shit! This is going to hell, mister!”
“Shut up, Kady!”
Message from CCrimes: Ordering immediate shutdown of the banking system. The virus has entered 2-deck bulletin boards, spreading on infected cards with each use…
The man in Textiles 2B had died. There was a broken leg in a fall off a catwalk, there was damage to the machinery, a woman had gone into labor—Salvatore had a view from an Optex and it was a mess. They had the phones stopped on 2, but the damn chart had proliferated from the bulletin boards to the card charge system, sent itself into every trade establishment on R2, and they didn’t know if it was into the bank databank itself.
He washed an antacid down with stale coffee, and tried to placate Payne. Payne said he had to go to a meeting. Payne said his aide LeBrun was handling the office.
Damned right there was a meeting. There had better be a meeting real soon now. With some faster policy decisions. Salvatore’s hands were shaking, and he didn’t know who he could trust to handle emergencies long enough for him to get to the restroom and back.
“Sir,” the intercom said, “sir, a Lt. Porey to see you.”
He didn’t have any Lt. Porey on his list. He started to protest he wasn’t seeing anybody, but the door opened without further warning, and a Fleet officer walked in on him, withhis aide. “Mr. Salvatore,” the man said. African features. An accent he couldn’t place. And a deep-spacer prig Attitude, he’d lay money on it, expecting stations to run on hisschedule.
He got up. A second aide showed up, blocked his secretary out of the doorway. And shut the door.
“Mr. Porey.” He offered a grudging hand to a crisp, perfunctory grip, all the while thinking: We’re going to discuss this one with Crayton. Damned if not.
“Mr. Salvatore, we have a developing situation on 2-deck. Rumor is loose, and some ass in your office is referring FleetCom to PI—”
God, a pissed-offFleet prig. “That’s the chain of command.”
“Not in ouroperations. I want the files on this Dekker and I want the files on the entire Shepherd leadership.”
“I’m afraid all that’s under our jurisdiction, Mr. Porey: you’ll have to get an administrative clearance for that access. I can refer you to Mr. Crayton, in General Admin—”
Porey reached inside his coat, pulled a card from his pocket and tossed it down on his desk. “Put thatauthorization in your reader.”
Salvatore picked up the card with the least dawning apprehension they were in deep, EC-level trouble, and put it in the reader slot.
It said, Earth Company Executive Order, Office of the President, Sol Station, Earth Administration Zone.
To all officers and agents of Security and Communications, ASTEX Administrative Territories:
By the authority of the Executive Board and a unanimous vote of the Directors, a state of emergency is deemed to exist in ASTEX operations which place military priority contracts in jeopardy. ASTEX Security and Communications agencies and employees are hereby notified of the transfer of all affected assets and operations to the authority of EcoCorp, under ASTEX Charter provision 28 hereafter appended, and subject to the orders of EcoCorp Directors…I hereby and herewith order ASTEX company police and life services officers to place themselves directly under the order of UDC Security Office in safeguarding records and personnel during this transfer of operational authority.
Salvatore sat down and read it again.
“Effectively,” Porey said, “your paycheck comes directly from the EC now. You’re a civilian law enforcement officer in a strategically sensitive operation, subject to the rules and decisions of the UDG, the UN and the EC officers and board. I’m directing you to turn over those files.”
“You can’t have gotten an order from the EC—you haven’t had the time to get a reply.”
“Good, Mr. Salvatore. You are a critical thinker. There were triggering mechanisms. The transfer document has lain on my commanding officer’s desk for some few days. But I’d think again about destroying files, or advising your former administrators of your change of loyalties. You have a long career with the EC in front of you if you use your head. I can’t say that about all your managers.” A second card hit the desk. “That goes in a Security terminal. It will make its own accesses. Can you trust your secretary?”
“I—” He saw the guns—automatics. Explosive shells. Not riot control gear. And not ASTEX any longer. “I think I’d better explain it to him,” he said, and thought about his wife, about his daughter. He took the card, slid it into the computer and pressed ENTER.
The screen went to Access, and came up again with a series of dots. Porey folded his arms and watched it a moment, looked his way then with the tilt of a brow.
“The Industryfile. Purge it, among first things.”
“ Purgeit? Eraseit?”
“It’s become irrelevant. Personnel have already been transferred. Certain questions won’t be asked beyond this office. That’s official, Mr. Salvatore. Your career could rise or fall on that simple point. Take great care how you dispose of it.—Mr. Paget.”
“Sir!”
“ FindPaul Dekker and escort him to the dock.”
“So what’s the new plan?” Meg asked, she thought with great restraint, standing between Dekker’s temper and some fill-in Shepherd data-jock with a rulebook up his ass who persisted in trying to get contact with a shuttle that was probably—
The Shepherd said, “They’re still not getting through to Mitch—they’re jamming us.”
“So what do you expect? It’s not just the company anymore, it’s the soldiers, for God’s sake, and you can’t hideon a station—”
“You can’t hide a ship, either, Kady. I’m not sure how long my ship can hold position out there—”
“Then let’s get up to the dock. Play it by ear for God’s sake!”
“This isn’t a game, woman, we don’t know if the lifts are working—”
“Sit on your ass a little longer and we won’t know what elsewon’t be working when we need it.”
“I’m the only contact our people haveon this station—I have my orders—Mitch is—”
“ Mitchisn’t answering, you’re not contacting anybody out there, the phones are down, the soldiers are all up and down the ‘deck, for God’s sake—let’s get the hellup to the dock, if that’s our option!”
“It does us no good to get to the shuttle, our pilot’s out there on the ‘deck!”
“Is thatyour problem? Well, you’re in luck, mister! You’re up to your ass in pilots.”
“C-class, Kady, not a miner craft—”
“Earth to orbit, ship to station, Bl, anything you can dock at this hellhole. Let’s just get the hell up there.”