She paused for a moment, then made a big show of looking right and left, as if checking to make sure no one else was listening. It was kind of a code gesture the two of us used as kids — a "just between you and me" thing that meant Sam was going to say something really really important. She leaned back in toward the camera, her eyes bright and piercing. "Okay now, Edward, I want you to listen very carefully." Her words came out so slowly… had she always spoken to me like that? "The absolute most crucial thing now is that you get away from the navy. Understand? If people say they’re taking you home, don’t believe them. Escape, Edward; you have to escape. Don’t let them trap you, or hurt you, or put you under a microscope…"
Sam’s gaze dropped for a second, and she took a breath. Then she looked up again, and said, "I’m going to give you something very valuable, Edward: Dad’s special backdoor access code to the navy computer network. You can use it to pretend you’re an admiral, a High Council admiral, invoking Powers of Emergency. You’ll be able to give orders, look at confidential files, whatever you need. Don’t do anything crazy — if you draw too much attention, you’ll get in serious, serious trouble — but think smart, and make sure you escape."
Her eyes drilled into me for a moment more; then she relaxed and smiled. "Once you’ve got away, Edward, come back to me. To Troyen, to the high queen’s palace in Unshummin. Okay? Go straight to the palace, and I’ll be waiting. It’ll be safe and happy like old times. Queen Temperance was the last holdout against the new high queen; with Temperance gone, there’s nothing in the way of peace but a few leaderless troops. By the time you get here, Edward, we’ll be finished mopping up, and no one will ever have to fight again."
She lifted her fingers to her lips and kissed them, staring straight into the camera the whole while. "Come home, Edward. Come to Unshummin, to the palace. Please. This is where you belong. This is where you can do good. This is where you’ll be loved."
Samantha’s face stayed on the screen a moment longer… and even though she was smiling, there was something saddened about her, as if something hurt inside. Then the image went black and the ship-soul was informing me that the message carried attached data — the backdoor access code. I told the computer to save the code in a file, then slumped back in my chair.
For a long time I just sat there, chewing my knuckle.
24
HAVING A CHECKUP
Sometime later — I don’t know how long — a knock came at my door. Not a real knock, of course; the person out there had touched the REQUEST ENTRY plate and the ship-soul had interpreted that signal as knock-knock-knock. You could customize your door signal to anything you want: a bell, a buzzer, a dog barking, whatever suited your fancy. Sam always liked a real knock, soft and deferential, as if the person outside your door was a shy little servant begging permission to take a moment of your time. Naturally, if that was the signal Sam used, I wanted it too. Sort of. I couldn’t remember actually asking for the knock, but Sam had programmed it into my permanent navy records, assuming that’s what I’d want.
Um. All of a sudden, that bothered me. Maybe I should change the knock to a ding-dong. Or a chime. Or one of those frittery bird-chirp sounds. Except as I thought of all the possibilities, it seemed like a lot of work to choose something new when a knock was perfectly okay.
The knock came again. I looked at the peep-monitor and saw Tobit standing there, glowering into the camera’s eye. "Let him in," I told the ship-soul.
Tobit didn’t stop glowering as he entered, but he aimed the glare at the room rather than me. "Just like my cabin," he growled, "except you don’t have underwear strewn about the floor for convenience." He glanced my direction. "You settling in okay? Or do you want me to bug the quartermaster for some doodads to brighten the place up? He’s got some glass figurines that shatter real nice when you throw them against the wall."
"No thanks." I gave a sideways glance at the vidscreen on my desk, but it’d gone blank. Sam’s message must have automatically purged itself from the databanks after playing.
"Well," Tobit said, "if you aren’t busy, Festina wants you down in sick bay. Since you’ve done the do-si-do with hive-queen venom, she wants to make sure you’re all right." Tobit rolled his eyes. "I’m supposed to be your escort. In case the poison drops you into a writhing heap and you need to be dragged the rest of the way."
"I’m not going to drop into a writhing heap," I said.
"Glad to hear it," Tobit replied. "I’ve got a bum arm, and I hate heavy lifting."
He motioned me toward the door. It slid open in front of us… and I was just about to step out when Tobit grabbed me by the back of my shirt. With a yank that almost ripped the fabric, he jerked me back into the room and spun me around.
My fists came up of their own accord. Wild ideas dashed through my head — like the whole ship had been spying on me while I listened to Sam’s message, and now Festina and Prope and everyone intended to get me. I came a millisecond away from punching Tobit straight in his purple-veined nose… but he backed up fast and pointed at the floor outside my door.
The deck was covered with carpet — this part of the ship was all prettied up for visiting VIPs — and the carpet had a pattern of red jacaranda trees surrounded by multicolored swirls. For a second I couldn’t see anything where Tobit was pointing; but then, on one of the jacarandas closest to my door, I saw a little fleck of glowing crimson.
"Ship-soul," Tobit said in a strained voice, "turn off the lights in this corridor."
The passageway went dark-except for five patches of crimson spores twinkling up from the broadloom. They’d been planted right on five red jacarandas in the carpet’s pattern, where they’d be hard to spot and easy to step on.
"Um," I said, swallowing hard.
"Kaisho seems to be exfoliating," Tobit muttered. "I just caught sight of a flicker before you stepped down."
He flumped on the edge of my bed and lifted his feet to check the soles of his boots. No glowing red dots. "Either I was lucky where I walked," he said, "or the Balrog knew better than to bite into me. My bloodstream has enough liquor left over from my drinking days to pickle any damned fungus that tries to take root."
I just kept staring at the glowing specks: one straight in front of my room and two on either side, likely to get stepped on whichever way I turned. "Do you think Kaisho deliberately wanted… I mean, it’s my door…"
"York, buddy," Tobit said, "the fucking moss has a bone on for you. Or Kaisho does. Or both. If you try to buttonhole her, I’m sure she’ll swear it was only a ‘darling wee joke.’ Only teasing, the spores wouldn’t really eat you. Just lick you a bit, then let go… the Balrog’s way of flirting." He scowled. "Better watch your step, pal — you’ve got all kinds of conquests drooling over you."
He said that last with a grumbly sort of snappishness: like maybe there was a woman he was interested in, except she liked me better. But the only women on Jacaranda who’d even seen me were Prope and Kaisho and Festina…
Oh.
"Christ," Tobit muttered disgustedly, wiping his boots on my floor, even though the soles were already clean. "Let’s call a vacuum cleaner and get the hell out of here. People are waiting for us in sick bay."
I nodded quietly.
"We aren’t supposed to do this," the doctor said. Yet another navy kid — in his thirties, but that’s pretty young for an M.D. His name was Veresian and he’d just accessed my medical history. "There’s a note on York’s chart, NO MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS EXCEPT IN EMERGENCIES. Certified by the Admiralty. Certified."