"Good idea," Harper said, turning and working his way out of the cockpit. "I'm looking forward to hearing your story."
"I'm sure you are," Jack said, following him out. "Almost as much as we're looking forward to hearing yours."
CHAPTER 6
Alison had just unwrapped a pair of ration bars when the receiver she'd set in her ear picked up the sound of a door opening and an indistinct murmur of human voices. "Hold it," she said softly, gesturing to Taneem. "We've got company."
The K'da stepped to her side, pressing her ear to Alison's just as the muttering voices began to resolve into words. "—hell were they thinking?" Neverlin was snarling.
"What do you want me to say?" Frost bit back, sounding every bit as angry as Neverlin. "This isn't a field operation with enemies just across the mortar zone, where you double- and triple-check everything. This is supposed to be a secure operations base. You get an order, you assume it's legit."
"An order to abandon your post?" Neverlin countered acidly. "An order to leave a guard station unmanned? Maybe your troops need to hear a lecture on basic security technique."
"Trust me," Frost said darkly. "They'll definitely be hearing a lecture."
There was a soft thump, the sound of flesh slapping against metal. "Well, at least he didn't get it open," Neverlin muttered.
"How do you know?" Frost countered. "Kayna got hers open without blowing off the door. How do you know Mrishpaw didn't use the same trick she did?"
"I don't know," Neverlin said. "But I intend to find out."
The voices fell silent. "Mrishpaw?" Taneem asked quietly.
"That was the other order I logged from Neverlin's office," Alison told her. "I sent a message to Mrishpaw to report to Frost at the aft sensor room. Naturally, Frost wasn't there."
"But why do they suspect him of trying to get into the safe?" Taneem asked. "They must realize both orders were false."
"And they also realize both were for the same purpose," Alison agreed. "But their assumption will be that someone wanted to sneak into the office, not out of it."
"But Mrishpaw went to the aft sensor room, not the office," Taneem said, clearly still confused.
"Yes, he did," Alison agreed. "But since most of the rest of the ship was asleep, probably no one saw him. That makes it his word against Neverlin's suspicions."
"Suspicions of one who is an ally."
"True, but remember these people are allies purely from common interest," Alison reminded her. "They don't especially even like each other. They certainly don't trust each other."
"Ah—Mrishpaw," Neverlin said. "Come in. No, no—over here, by the safe."
The hidden needle picked up the thud of Brummgan footsteps crossing the room. "I must congratulate you," Neverlin went on. "You and the Patri Chookoock both. You must have seen something Kayna did when she opened that other safe. Something the rest of us missed."
"Sir?" Mrishpaw asked. Brummgan voices were hard to read, but Alison had no trouble hearing the bewilderment in this one.
"The safe, Mrishpaw," Neverlin said. Another slapping of flesh on metal. "Tell me, how exactly did you get it open?"
"Sir?" Mrishpaw asked again. With his molasses mind in a swirl of confusion, he was clearly having trouble coming up with anything new to say.
"You can drop the innocent act, Private," Frost said tartly. "You know, Mr. Neverlin, it's just occurred to me that the only really solid report we have of Morgan's K'da being on the Chookoock estate also came from Private Mrishpaw. Yet we know now that both Morgan and his K'da were actually on Semaline at the time."
"No," Mrishpaw protested, finally finding his tongue or his brain or both. "It was on the estate. It attacked Sergeant Dumbarton and me."
"So you reported," Frost said. "However, Sergeant Dumbarton himself doesn't remember seeing anything but a blur."
"It attacked other guards, too," Mrishpaw said, sounding puzzled. "The ones who fought the slave riot. They saw it, too."
"Oh yes—the big impressive K'da warrior attack," Neverlin said contemptuously. "Leaving—let me see—three Brummgas knocked unconscious, none dead, and the rest escaped without so much as a scratch. Must have been his day off."
"Panjan Gazen was also killed," Mrishpaw said. His confusion was starting to edge into alarm now as he finally saw where the conversation was going.
"By slaves armed with sticks," Neverlin said contemptuously. "The fact is that every report of a K'da being on Brum-a-dum came from you or one of the Patri Chookoock's other people."
"You're here, Private," Frost said. "The Patri Chookoock is a long ways away, where he can't hear. If you have anything to say, this is the time to say it."
"Panjan Gazen was also killed," Mrishpaw repeated, sounding thoroughly miserable. He was being railroaded, and he knew it. But he was all muscle and stamina, and he couldn't think of anything to say in his defense.
Alison could almost feel sorry for him. But then she thought back to the Chookoock estate, and how Mrishpaw had accepted without protest Frost's order to kill her in cold blood, and her sympathy faded away.
"Very well," Frost said. "Pending further investigation, you're confined to quarters. Dismissed."
Again there was the thud of Brummgan footsteps across the office floor, followed by the sound of a closing door. "Unless you'd prefer I have him executed?" Frost asked.
"I don't know," Neverlin said. During the confrontation there had been no hint of hesitation in his voice. Now, though, Alison could detect both doubt and suspicion. "In point of fact, we don't actually know the K'da was on Semaline with Morgan. We only have Langston's statement on that."
"I was thinking the same thing," Frost agreed slowly. "On the other hand, those false orders definitely came from somewhere inside the Advocatus Diaboli. Langston isn't here. Mrishpaw is."
"Mrishpaw and eleven other Chookoock family Brummgas," Neverlin rumbled. "By the way, speaking of Morgan, it seems he's slipped through our fingers again."
"What?" Frost demanded. "You said the police had picked him up."
"They did, and were holding him as ordered," Neverlin said grimly. "Unfortunately, someone calling himself Springer showed up at the Chookoock estate claiming to be one of my men. He convinced the Patri that Morgan and the K'da were already working on escape and volunteered to take a couple of Brummgas to the station and get them out."
Frost swore under his breath. "Idiot. Why didn't he check with you first?"
"Springer apparently had him convinced that Morgan was already halfway to the jail block door and there wasn't time," Neverlin said. "The Patri decided instead he could check with me while the others went off to fetch the prisoners."
"And?"
"Suffice it to say the police station now has a brand-new hole in the tenth-floor wall, three dead Chookoock soldiers, and one prisoner and one visitor unaccounted for."
"How convenient for Morgan," Frost said. "You think the Patri might have deliberately helped him to escape?"
"One would hope the Patri is smart enough to know what it would mean to try changing sides at this late date," Neverlin said contemptuously. "No, I think he simply got conned by this Springer character. I'm leaning toward him being someone sent by your friend General Davi to retest the waters."
"One would hope General Davi is smart enough to leave well enough alone," Frost growled. But Alison could hear the half-hidden discomfort in his voice. "More likely he's one of Braxton's people, still trying to track you down. That, or else the Internos government has finally started to take notice of all this."