(I am aware of that, thank you.)
“You ought to be comfortable here,” Tracy-Ace was saying.
“Thank you.” He struggled to find words, and hoped she wasn’t reading his thoughts. “I guess—it’ll take time to learn my way around. And to figure out—I don’t know—what I’ll be useful for.” It was starting to hit him all over again how alone he was here. With the unraveling of the Narseil plan to get in, get info, and get out, it was really all up to him. Suppose he couldn’t contact the underground. What then? Sign on to another ship, and try to broadcast a message in flight, before they killed him? H’zzarrelik would wait out there for fifteen days before heading back with their prisoners. Once they were gone, there would be nobody to broadcast to.
“You’ll learn fast,” Tracy-Ace said, touching his arm. “I’m going to set you up with some study programs, to get you oriented.”
He’d felt an electric tingle at her touch, and was trying to pretend he hadn’t.
“We’ll find things for you to do, don’t worry.”
He forced a nervous smile. “Okay—what’s next, then?”
“What’s next is I go back to work. And you—you look like you could use some sleep. When you’re ready, here’s where you can call up the study programs.” She stepped over to the desk and showed him the controls. “Why don’t I come back later to show you around?”
He nodded, covering his surprise. He couldn’t deny being pleased by the personal attention. “I guess I could stand to sleep a few hours.” He was exhausted, actually, and the adrenaline was starting to wear off. “What time is it? When do you sleep?”
Tiny lights sparkled at the corners of her eyes. “It’s third-quarter evening. A lot of people will be on sleep cycle during the next six or eight hours. I’ll be working, myself; I don’t need much sleep. My programs handle REM processing right in the node, so I can pick up sleep functions while I work.”
Legroeder didn’t know whether to be envious or sympathetic.
“I’ll be free in about ten hours. Will that give you enough time? We have to confine you to quarters until your case has been reviewed. But if you get hungry, you can call up some snack pantry items on the com here. Anything else you need?”
Yes, he thought. The com address of the underground. “I guess not. Is it okay if I play with the com system a little?”
She gave him a look. “As long as you don’t try to access anything that it wants you to stay out of.” She touched his arm and moved toward the door. “Bye, then.” He couldn’t answer; he was mesmerized by the tingle. “Oh—if you need to reach me, use this code.” She turned to the desk com and placed an index finger on the reader-plate. “There, it’s stored for you.”
As she went out and the door opaqued behind her, he felt a pang of self-recrimination at the pleasure he’d just felt. She’s the enemy, remember? What the devil are you thinking?
Sighing, he tossed his bag off the bunk and lay down. He had no idea how long it had been since he had last slept, but he knew it was way too long.
Sleep, however, did not come easily. When it did, it was a troubled affair, blurred with wakefulness. It felt as if his brain were continuing to fire at a scattergun pace—his dreams and the activities of the implants intertwined with one another, synaptic impulses rocketing up and down in a frenetic series of discharges. Even asleep, he was aware of the intense activity… dreams coming silently and escaping again, pushed out by the next, and the next, in an unending cascade. Images from the flicker-tubes, from his long-ago past, from battle, from the gazing crystals…
He awoke at one point, exhausted but unable to keep his eyes closed. Without thinking about it, he stumbled to the desk and switched on the com. He glanced briefly at the study programs, but found he was too groggy to concentrate. He idly began running searches. After noodling aimlessly for a few minutes, he narrowed his search. Prisoners… Narseil… Freem’n Deutsch… He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for; he just wanted to know if there was reason to hope for their safety.
The implants flagged him briefly, asking if he really wanted to proceed. He brushed the caution aside irritably; he didn’t know why the Kyber trusted him, but Tracy-Ace had said it was okay to play around.
He wasn’t making much progress; but somewhere into his third attempt, he finally woke up to what he was doing. Dear God, what an idiot. Was he giving himself away, showing his concern about the Narseil? He sat back, feeling sick.
The implants spoke up. // Our monitoring did not show you betraying any incriminating data. //
(Except my doing the search in the first place. Why didn’t you stop me?)
The answering voice was clearly meant to be soothing. // Our programming does not include interference in personal activities, barring clear and present danger. //
And I assured you it wasn’t dangerous, he remembered, rubbing his forehead. What the hell time was it now? Fourth-quarter two. What the hell did that mean? He didn’t understand the time-keeping system here.
// If you like, in the future we will note such activities as dangerous… //
(Fine.) He reached to turn off the com.
The implants stopped him with: // You have a message waiting. //
(What? Where?)
And then he saw it, a tiny dingbat at the corner of the comspace. He blinked at it, and it expanded, and he heard Tracy-Ace’s voice saying, (Sorry, Rigger Legroeder, that com-search is off limits. But I’ll tell you what you need to know, next time I see you. In the meantime, if you can’t sleep, why don’t you give those study programs a try.)
For several heartbeats he sat absolutely still, neither moving nor breathing. And then he realized that she hadn’t sounded angry or suspicious. Maybe, after all, it was okay for him to wonder what had become of his former shipmates—even if they theoretically were the enemy.
Tracy-Ace wasn’t done. (Someone I know’s going to want to talk to both Deutsch and the Narseil crew, by the way. So don’t worry about their being executed in the near future.) She chuckled. (Now, get some sleep.)
The message dingbat closed.
Legroeder stared in dumb amazement at the com for a full minute. Then he sighed, rose, and went back to the bunk to try to follow her suggestion.
It was no use, he thought after a half hour of tossing fitfully in the bunk. Once more, he went to the com console. This time, he brought up the orientation programs, and sat for over an hour listening to droning voices and watching images of station layouts and command hierarchies as the workings of everyday life and lines of authority were explained to him. He was aware, as he followed in a semi-daze, that much more was being conveyed through the augments, and that they were going to be even busier digesting the new load of data than any of them would have guessed possible.
As he threw himself back onto the bunk for one more attempt at sleep, it occurred to him that he had just been given, with almost no effort on his part, some of the very information he had come here hoping to steal.
Amazingly, he did sleep, though not peacefully. He dreamed of mysterious machineries relentlessly thrumming, surrounding him and filling him with incomprehensible activity.