“Then who? I hope you don’t think that I—”
“There’s an old Earth saying: ‘Everyone’s suspect but me and thee; and I’m none too sure of thee.’ I thought about you. But I don’t see how it could be. When we arrived here you were in pretty bad shape, and you went straight to the tank for remedial form-change work. You weren’t conscious until after this happened.”
“Your faith in me is touching. I wonder why you’re telling me now.”
The bait was taken. Time to reel in the line. Slowly. “Because I need your help, Leo. And I want your word that you won’t pass this on to anyone, unless we’ve discussed it first. And I mean anyone.”
“Not Sylvia? Not even Baker?”
“Especially not Baker. Can’t you see that if we’re logical, her office is the only place where the leaks can start? Don’t tell her anything, unless it’s at a meeting that I’ve arranged, in a place I arrange. I think we should talk to Sylvia and see how she responds to the idea of a spy in our group. Will you come with me, right now, and do it?”
“Under one condition.” Manx took back his blue folder and looked at it in a puzzled way. Somehow the whole conversation had headed off in an unintended direction.
“Anything reasonable.”
“Then you take a shower first. I don’t want Sylvia or anyone else we meet to think that smell is coming from me.”
“Is this the Leo Manx who dragged me out of Old City? All right. If you insist. Let’s go.”
Later, Bey would describe the shower as a wasted effort. As soon as he was scrubbed clean and dressed in clean clothing to Leo Manx’s satisfaction, they headed for Sylvia’s quarters.
But she was not there. No one knew where she was or when she would be back. Twelve hours earlier, Sylvia Fernald had requisitioned a high-g transit ship. She had headed inward, toward the edge of the Halo, traveling fast and traveling alone. She had told no one her mission, and no one on the harvester seemed to know her destination.
Chapter 19
“But empty space does a pretty good job of it.”
The training schedule was rigorous but reasonable. Four hours of theory in the morning, a food break at which all the trainees were expected to eat together and discuss what they had learned, four hours of practical work in the afternoon, and then the evening free, but with enough reading, interactive education sessions, and quizzes to fill at least another six hours before sleeping.
The program was scheduled to continue for seven weeks. Aybee kept his head down for the first couple of days, watched what the others were doing, and tried to fall nicely in the middle of the group when it came to tests and answering questions. That was not so easy. The rest of the trainees were a miserable, mismatched set who had apparently been dragged in from random sources. In Aybee’s not so humble opinion, none of them had the least idea of any kind of science, and a couple of them acted positively half-witted. They offered bizarre answers to the simplest mathematical questions—Aybee could not figure out how they came up with such odd replies.
On the third day he made his first request. He was not used to eating food with other people; it would be a lot less of a strain if he were allowed to take the midday break alone. Could he get permission?
Gudrun looked doubtful, but she agreed. There were twenty-four trainees, and Aybee’s absence would not make much difference to the discussions. “Remember, Karl,” she added. “If you hurt your progress because you can’t talk to others while what you’ve learned is fresh in your mind, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame. If the reason you’re doing this is that you find the work difficult and you’re embarrassed to talk with the others, come and see me. I’ll arrange personal coaching for you.”
Aybee/Karl nodded politely. He had gained an hour. The morning classes so far had covered routine general relativity material three centuries old, and he did not need to discuss that with anyone. More than that, he did not want to. The big danger was that he would reveal how much he knew about the subject.
The evening work was a joke. He did not need to do the reading, and he could handle all the rest of the assignments in the middle of the day. His next request to Gudrun was a little more risky. He handed in a perfect test, which he was usually careful to avoid doing, and went to see Gudrun that afternoon.
She beamed as he came in the door. “Well! Smart Karl. You don’t seem to be harmed by missing the midday sessions.”
“Hope not.” Aybee had the horrible feeling that he was her favorite trainee. She always looked at him in a special way. “But I’m not used to high gravity. Not like the farm. I sleep bad here. Wake up a lot in the middle of the night. If I’m all done with my work an’ that happens, could I look around the ship?”
He saw the danger signs. Her smile vanished, and she was staring at him suspiciously. “Look at what in the ship, Karl?”
“Dunno. Whatever.” He waved his arm vaguely around them. “Power supplies, maintenance shops. Anything.”
“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem. But only if you still do well enough in your training. Let’s see how you perform in the next few days.”
She was not worried about security—she was worried that he would take too much time wandering around and flunk! Aybee made fewer deliberate mistakes on the tests, and three days later he had his permission. He was fascinated to see what was off-limits: armories, main drives, and the areas where the suits and transit ships were kept. It made good sense for them to keep him out of there until they were absolutely sure about his loyalties. It was also no big loss. So long as they were steaming along to nowhere. Aybee did not like the idea of leaving the ship until he knew exactly where he was.
There was one big unexpected freedom. He would be allowed to go to the kernels and do what he liked there. Gudrun must have decided that he was not interested in suicide by fiddling with a power kernel and blowing up the whole ship. It also tended to confirm what she had said at their first meeting. When the training course was over, he would be working with the kernels.
The first night he had permission to wander, he could not use it. A formal evening meeting was scheduled for all the trainees. After a special dinner that Aybee did not eat, they were subjected to a four-hour session of live and recorded speeches, slogans, and arm waving.
Gudrun stood up and offered her version of system history. Between the millstones of the Inner and Outer Systems, the inhabitants of the Halo had been crushed for over a century. The Kernel Ring was a borderland, a dangerous region of scattered high-density bodies. As a result, all the travelers from Sunhugger territory bypassed it on their journeys outward. They were quite willing to exploit its energy supplies, but none of the wealth generated from the Kernel Ring’s resources was ever returned to it. That was unjust and intolerable. Finally, it was going to change. The balance of power had shifted. The Halo had a born leader, and the revolution had begun.
Jason came next, and he was worse: The Outer System is composed of oppressive tyrants! The Inner System is decadent! It supports an idle and growing population by the efforts of our people! Both federations deserve to fall! You are all part of a great reform that will achieve those ends—and soon!