“Not nice people at all,” Rafe said. “I found what I thought was a simple one, plain walls with just a few pinups easy to ignore, but the instant I lay down on the bunk, the sound system came on. It left me in no doubt that whoever had that cabin was someone I do not want to know except over a weapon.” At Ky’s look he nodded. “Gone now. Flushed it. I figure you have enough on these people without that recording, and it was the only way to get it to shut up without dismantling the bunk. Which I was too tired to do.”
“I put some things in the recycler myself,” Ky said. “And I’m tempted to flush the bedding, too.”
“Oh yes,” Lee said. “In fact, I did. I’m not sure any cleaning cycle would take care of what was on those sheets.”
“Well, on our next long cycle with nothing much to do, we’ll get all that cleaned away. There’s plenty of crew space; we won’t be bored next transit.”
“I suppose disgust is better than boredom,” Sheryl said. “And it’s better than excitement, too,” she added. “I’ll get on it; there’s nothing for me to do before rendezvous. Unless you’re hungry and want a meal.”
Hands went up.
“I just hope I don’t find Selenki worms or something in the galley,” Sheryl said as she left the bridge.
Within the hour, she reappeared with trays; the smell of fresh-baked bread preceded her. “The galley’s fine,” she said. “And the supplies are… what I suppose pirates can afford. Prepacked from Escalion Catering, their gold-standard rations. I had to bake the bread, that was all. This is like that stuff the luxury liner had, remember?”
It seemed a lifetime ago that there’d been a fuss over gold-eye raspberries. “Yes,” Ky said, around a mouthful of warm fresh bread spread with something sweet and crunchy.
“I suppose we should share this with the others,” Lee said, smearing his bread with a different spread, this one a rich purple.
“Already done,” Sheryl said. “I called ’em. That silence you hear is people eating rather than talking.” She started on her own meal, and silence covered the bridge, too, for a few minutes.
“Better than Aunt Gracie’s fruitcake,” Ky said, when she came up for air. She had not realized how hungry she was. “We can save it for another emergency.”
“Which I hope doesn’t come too soon,” Lee said, stretching. “Ah… that’s good.”
As soon as they were close enough, Gloucester sent a pod to pick up Rafe so he could work on the system ansible. While he was gone, Johannson called Ky.
“We have another problem,” he said. “It’s your ISC agent, so called.”
“Rafe? What now?”
“We’ve been running analyses of events since we left Lastway. It looks to us that Mister Whoever-he-really-is has to be the one who set up that trap. We’re going to bring him back here when he’s done with this ansible, and have a look at his implant.”
“You can’t think that,” Ky said. “He’s been fixing ansibles—he led us to the ISC conspirators at Lastway.”
“It’s not unknown for conspirators to sacrifice some of their people for long-term gain,” Johannson said. “To gain your confidence, to gain ours—”
“And then he helped us survive the attack,” Ky said.
“You say… I’m not sure you’re competent to judge that, Captain Vatta. How else could Osman have known which system we’d be in? Nobody at Lastway knew that. How else could he have contacted his allies so easily? I believe Rafe is—or was—associated with ISC in some sensitive position, but the evidence is clear that he’s using some kind of clandestine communications device.”
“You can’t just invade his implant,” Ky said, all too aware that they could do just that. “He’s my crew; he’s under my protection.”
“I’m afraid we must disagree on that, Captain Vatta. Your safety, and the safety of others in the convoy, is our primary mission. We believe he compromises that safety. I appreciate your sense of honor where your crew are concerned, but we can’t risk it. We don’t intend to harm him; we’ll just check out his implant—”
Rafe would suicide first. Ky knew that, even though he’d never said it in so many words. He was not about to let anyone get access to his implant, or to that implant-mounted ansible. Yet she knew that telling Johannson that Rafe would suicide might convince him all the more that Rafe was one of the villains. After all, would an honest man commit suicide just to conceal the fact that he was honest?
“Rafe has told me things about his background,” Ky said, trying to think what argument might work. “There is… sensitive material, things that I agree should not be widely known.”
“We aren’t planning to publish it, Captain Vatta. Just find out if he’s part of the conspiracy. If you wish, I can promise to wipe the record, provided he’s innocent.”
What would he consider innocence? A bad boy, a remittance man, a rogue company spy masquerading as a petty criminal—a smuggler, a gambler, whatever else Rafe had used for cover? Hardly.
“Do you think I’m part of the conspiracy, Commander?”
“You?” That had clearly stopped his train of thought. “No, of course not. Young, inexperienced, foolhardy perhaps… but not a conspirator.”
“Fine. Then perhaps you will let me examine Rafe’s implant, rather than your people.” If Rafe would let her.
Johannson looked flustered. “Captain Vatta… I don’t mean to belittle your integrity, but… you’re a young woman, and this Rafe is a good-looking man.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Ky said, falling back on one of Aunt Gracie’s expressions. “I am not a silly teenager, Commander. Yes, Rafe is handsome. So is my pilot. So is one of my junior engineering techs. I’m not romantically involved with any of them.”
“You have no… attraction to him at all?”
“Of course not,” Ky said. “He’s too old for me, and anyway he’s not my type.”
“Well… I’ll talk to the captain.”
Minutes went by. Lee glanced at her. “Handsome, am I?”
“You know you are,” Ky said. “In a rugged, sturdy kind of way.”
Lee grinned. “And which adventure vid are you quoting from?”
“None that I remember,” Ky said. “Though I watched plenty of them in my school days. But I’m sorry, Lee, you just don’t do anything for me otherwise.”
“Nor expected to,” Lee said. “I’m even older than Rafe.” He sobered. “You know, though, some of us did worry. Stella was certainly smitten.”
“I am not Stella,” Ky said. “And Stella’s over it, she told me.”
“Maybe,” Lee said. “But he is a charmer, when he’s not being an arrogant, sarcastic—”
“He likes to tease,” Ky said. “Get a rise out of people, if he can.”
“You’re defending him?”
“Against what Mackensee suspects, yes. You were there; you know how he was in the crisis. If he’d wanted us to lose to Osman, he could have done us a lot of damage.”
“Captain Vatta—” Johannson was back onscreen. “Are you willing to come aboard the Gloucester when we bring your man in for questioning?”
“Absolutely,” Ky said.
“No promises, but the captain’s willing to hear your argument.”
“Thank you,” Ky said. “You’ll send a pod?”
“For you, we send the pinnace,” Johannson said, smiling. It seemed to have no edge to it, but Ky wondered.
Rafe was under guard in sick bay, strapped into a recliner, when Ky, Johannson, and Captain Pensig came in. He looked pale and stubborn.
“Your captain argues for you,” Pensig said. “I’m not persuaded that a young female, even one with her background and experience, isn’t liable to influence from someone like you.” Someone like a mess to be scraped off one’s shoe, said his tone.
“I have no romantic interest in her,” Rafe said, not meeting Ky’s eyes. “She’s too young, too naïve, and entirely too priggish. And—no insult intended—she does not meet my standards of beauty.”