“He’s gone crazy!” Steffi exploded. “The skipper would never do that, she’d—” Her eyes were wide. “It’s a hijacking, isn’t it? But why is Max cooperating?”
“I hate to break it to you,” Martin said gently, “but that wasn’t Lieutenant Commander Fromm you were listening to. It was his voicebox, but not him talking.”
“What do you mean?” Steffi stared at him, trying to figure out how much he might know.
“The ReMastered have made something of a specialty out of brain mapping and digitization,” said Rachel, her tone dispassionate. “They can save minds to off-line storage and reincarnate them later — at great expense — by building a new body. But mostly they use the technique to turn living bodies into puppets. Zombies, zimboes with the illusion of self-awareness, whatever.” She clenched her hands together. “That’s how they take planets. They acquire some key government officers, destabilize the place by exploiting local political tensions, declare a state of emergency — using their puppets — and move in.”
Steffi’s face was white. Shit! I have to warn Sven! We’ve got to get out of here! “Max went to the flight deck to find out what was going on! I let him—”
“Don’t blame yourself. They’ve got the bridge, drive engineering control, damage control, sentries on the main stairs, and passengers under lock and key in their rooms. This was a well-planned operation.” Rachel glanced at Wednesday. “Bet you they’re turning over your suite right now. And yours,” she added, looking back at Steffi. “They made a big mistake, missing you.”
“But I, I—” Steffi stopped. She looked horrified.
“It’ll take them time to check on us in here,” Martin said slowly, thinking aloud. “When they do, we want you well hidden. You’re probably the senior line officer on the ship. We’ll need you around for your pass codes and retinal print if we’re to stand a chance of taking back control.” He glanced at the cupboard. “Once we arrive where they’re diverting us to. If we get there without them tagging us in a search. Ever heard of a priest’s hole?”
“A what?” Steffi looked dazed. “What are you talking about? I’m just a trainee flight officer! I don’t have clearance—”
Martin walked over to the trunk containing the military fabricator. “You’ll be the ranking line officer on the ship once this is over,” he told her. “Rache, can you clear everything out of the walk-in? I’m going to need some basic tools, some supports, and a load of paneling to fit. Plus any special toys you can have the fab turn out in less than half an hour that won’t show up as weapons on a teraherz scan. Bet you they’re working on a ubiquitous surveillance mesh already. Need clothing for you, me, and the kid; it’s in the deception and evasion library. Steffi, have you got a rebreather mask? We’ll need a couple of buckets, some cushions, something to cover one of the buckets with—”
“Rebreather mask?”
“We’ve got maybe an hour,” Martin said impatiently. He pointed at Wednesday. “You’re going to be Anita. You—” he pointed at Steffi — “are going to be Anne — Anne Frank. Rachel, run the kid through the Anita background while I get our stowaway stowed. Steffi? You and I are going to build a false back to the wardrobe, and I’m going to wall you in until we get wherever we’re going. The name of this phase of the game is hide-and-seek, and the goal is to stay out of custody for now. Once we know which way the wind’s blowing we’ll see about taking back the ship.”
“If you can hear me, blink twice.”
Blink blink.
“That’s good. You’re Frank, aren’t you? Blink once for yes.”
Blink.
“All right. Now listen carefully. You are in big trouble. You have been kidnapped. The people who are holding you have no intention of releasing you. I’m one of them, but I’m different. In a moment, I’m going to give you back control of your vocal cords so you can talk. They’re only going to leave me alone with you for a couple of minutes, and we may not be able to talk again, so it’s important that you don’t scream or give me any trouble. Otherwise, we’re both as good as dead. If you understand, blink once.”
Blink.
“Okay … say hello?”
“He — hell — ack.”
“Take your time, your throat’s probably a bit sore. Here, try to swallow some of this … better?”
“Who’urr ooh?”
“I’m one of your kidnappers. But I’m not entirely happy about it. You’re here because you’re important to someone we’re interested in. A girl called Wednesday. You know her?” Pause. “Come on, I’m not the one who wants to get at the contents of her head.” Pause. “All right. Let me explain.
“Wednesday knows … something. I’m not sure what. She’s somewhere aboard this ship, don’t know where, and the other — kidnappers — are trying to find her before we arrive where we’re going. When we get there, they’re going to use you as a hostage to try to make her tell us everything she knows. Trouble is, once she gives them the — the information, her usefulness will be at an end. Yours, too. You’re both witnesses.
“Now, two or three things could happen. They might just shoot you, but I don’t rate that as very likely. More probably, you’ll end up in a reprocessing camp. Or they’ll just pith you and turn you into a meat puppet. None of these options are very good for you, are they?”
“No fucking way.” Pause. “What do you want?”
“I happen not to agree with the others. But if they find out what I really think, they’ll kill me — I’m a traitor. So I need to find a way out that, uh, doesn’t give them what they want. So they don’t get the, the immigration records. Or the go codes. Or the weapon test reports. In fact, I want them to go out the airlock. And I want to vanish, see? I don’t want them to find me, ever again. And I figured you could help me do that. They don’t know I’m here, talking to you. Between us we can fool them. They’ve hijacked this ship, but they haven’t done the job properly. If you help me, we can regain control and turn everything over to the surviving ship’s officers, and I can disappear and you’ll be free.”
“What about Wednesday?”
“Her, too.”
Pause. “So what do you want me to do?”
“For starters, you can look after this diamond for me.”
The clown died with a grin on his face and a warm gun in his hand.
Franz had tracked him down to H deck, where the comms sergeant had said he was working on a “birthday party.” Gun in pocket, Franz walked down the stairwell to give himself time to think about how to do the job. It wasn’t as if hits were his specialty; on the contrary, you only did wetwork in Septagon if your cover evaporated and you needed to clear out fast. Sparrowfart surveillance was deliberately absent there, but as soon as the body count began rising it would come down like a suffocating cloud. Franz shuddered slightly, thinking about the risks Hoechst’s team had run, and checked the schematics in his inner eye one more time. Radial four, orange ring, second-class dining area — there were four entrances, two accessible from passenger country. Not good, he decided. Even with the ship under the thumb of the ReMastered, a chase and shoot-out could result in a real mess. It wasn’t a good idea to underestimate the clown. He was a slippery customer.
At D deck Franz hit the checkpoint. Strasser stared at him coldly as he came down the stairs. “What do you want?” he demanded.
“Check with control,” Franz grunted. “Are you free yet?”
“What for?”
“Got a job. Loose end to take care of. I need to cover three exits—”