MICHAEL HAD WATCHED as Crisler talked to someone through inscape, but he couldn't hear the dialogue or see the other person. That damnable military inscape was clouding his senses again. Finally Crisler's lips finished moving, he turned, and Michael found he could hear again.
"I suppose you know why you are here?" said Crisler. He had an expression of distaste on his face, as though Michael's mere presence offended him.
"Yes, I've written up a full report about my discovery in Lake Flaccid—"
"That's not what I mean." Crisler smiled grimly, and Michael felt his confidence evaporate. He had just spent the last few hours locked up with Rue's crew— with no explanations or apologies from the marines who guarded them. He had assumed some kind of overall quarantine was in effect.
There were other reasons why Crisler might take an interest in him, though.
The admiral was waiting. Michael cleared his throat. "Are you presuming some… involvement on my part in this explosion?"
"Bombing," said Crisler. "It was a bombing. We found traces of a chemical explosive."
"But why assume one of our people? I hate to say it, but the halo-worlders have the best reason for wanting us gone—"
Crisler shook his head. "The explosive was tagged."
"Tagged? What do you mean?"
"Everything's tagged," said Crisler. "From tables to starships. The tags are molecular-scale. It's impossible to get them out of a manufactured object without destroying that object. This bomb had tags, ergo it came from the R.E. and not the halo."
"The rebels."
"A rebel." Crisler leaned over his desk. "Maybe this rebel."
Michael's past was far behind him, but he still shifted uncomfortably under Crisler's gaze. "I had a brief flirtation with the rebels when I was a kid," he said. "So did a lot of people."
"Maybe. But you have also maintained illegal religious activities ever since." Michael must have reacted, because Crisler laughed. "Yes, we knew about your NeoShinto activities all along. Tolerated them, because you were useful. But you must admit it looks bad for you: a known connection with the rebels; current membership in a secret order that seeks to undermine the R.E. through religious proselytizing."
Michael's defensiveness gave way to anger. "I'm just continuing an old tradition, a tradition of my homeworld. A tradition your people destroyed."
"My people? Interesting turn of phrase." Crisler sat back, steepling his hands. "Of course, I don't have any proof it was you. Just supposition. But one slip-up this far into deep space, and we're all dead. So I can't afford to take any chances."
"What are you going to do? Put me into cold sleep for the remainder of the trip?"
"I actually thought of doing that. But Professor Herat has told me that he'll go on strike if you're put down. Anyway, I don't need to lock you up. Not if you wear this." Crisler tossed something small across the table. Michael picked it up.
It was a little earclip, with a beadlike lens on it. "Wear that at all times," said Crisler. "We'll be monitoring you through it. Take it off, and we'll find you and shoot you. That is all."
Michael's face burned with fury and shame. He fumbled to clip the damnable monitor to his ear, then stood.
He had just put his hand on the door switch when Crisler said, "Oh, I nearly forgot!" Michael turned.
The admiral waved a hand and an inscape window appeared above the desk. "Have you ever seen this man before?"
Michael glanced at the picture, then looked again. He put his hands behind him to hide a sudden tremble. With difficulty, he kept his voice steady as he said, "No."
"Hmm. Too bad. And quite surprising, given that this man Jason Errend was the rebel leader who headed the failed insurrection on Kimpurusha. We thought he'd changed his allegiance, and we trusted him for a while. Now he's disappeared again. Think about it, Bequith. If some memory comes to you of this man, please don't hesitate to come see me. My door's always open." Crisler smiled pleasantly, as though they'd been making lunch plans.
Michael lurched out the door, thoughts and emotions whirling in confusion. He couldn't help but feel the weight of the little traitor on his earlobe; it made him want to avoid meeting the gazes of the people he passed.
It was all too much to take in— particularly the shock of seeing Errend's face again, after all these years. Michael had always believed Errend had betrayed the resistance— had turned in his fellows on Kimpurusha. Michael included. Yet Crisler said he was still an active rebel leader.
Michael had trusted Errend, and the trauma of betrayal had driven him into the arms of the NeoShinto brothers.
Had he been wrong?
He went directly to his stateroom, but when he entered he saw that someone had been here. His Mark 820 datapack, in which he had stored illicit kami during his travels with Herat, lay on the bed. It was an open invitation for him to pick it up and access it. He knew that if he did, someone would be watching through the clip on his ear. They would see if he discovered the pack had been wiped clean of its illegal contents. They would see the kami if he accessed the pack to see if the files were still there.
He sat and stared at the black case— unable to pick it up, unable to ignore it.
He did not leave his stateroom for the remainder of the day.
RUE ARRIVED BACK at the Banshee the next morning, and Crisler immediately called a general assembly in the ship's round gymnasium. The science team was there, and Rue brought her people— all except for Max, who couldn't be bothered to move today, damn him. The small space barely held everyone; Rue ended up perched atop a piece of exercise equipment.
"The news is pretty grim," the admiral said as soon as the last stragglers arrived. "We have enough oxygen and food to maybe keep everybody going for a few days. If Dr. Bequith's discovery pans out, we may have resources we can use on the Envy." Rue smiled at Bequith, but he stood with his head down, eyes fixed resolutely on the floor. Odd.
Dr. Katz nodded vigorously. "We could put excess personnel in cold sleep after we find out how well we're supplied."
"Then what?" asked Crisler. "We can't complete the surveys here if we're understaffed."
Rue stood up on her bench. "But we're in the halo now. If we can get enough food stacks going to keep at least a skeleton crew alive for a few months, we can drop a rendezvous ship on the Colossus beam. We buy some new stacks from Colossus and we're back in business."
Crisler scratched his chin. "Can we do that? We'll be passing Colossus at near light-speed. If we stopped there, the Envy would be… maybe years away before we got back to it."
"There are ways," she said. "It takes a dangerously high-g arrival and departure. You only get a few days of stopover before you have to leave. Then you have to accelerate to a higher velocity than the cycler just to catch up, then slam on a braking magsail and match speeds. It's punishing and expensive, but my people have being doing it for centuries."
"It might just work. The alternative is to return to Chandaka for supplies and that'll cost us a good year— though if your skeleton crew turns out to be too small, R— Captain Cassels, then we don't gain anything, do we? If we can't explore the rest of the Envy in the meantime…"
"Well, let's work out our minimums," she said. She knew they were surrounded by uncertainties, but it wasn't the first time for her. They had to stay focused on the critical issues or let the whole expedition collapse.
"This scheme of visiting Colossus seems highly risky," said Katz. "What have we got to buy new stacks with at Colossus? These things don't come cheap."
Rue had thought of that. "We can sell our preliminary findings, or passage on the Envy to its next stop, if the passengers bring their own stacks."