Hot bunking caused problems for saboteurs like myself because it meant that the ship never slept. There would always be men at the helm and in the engine rooms. So what could I accomplish? I toyed with the idea of slipping a cable into the broadcast engines, but I did not feel like committing suicide.
Feeling like I needed a better disguise than these coveralls, I followed the hall toward the center of the ship. Old as this ship was, it was still of a Unified Authority design. The basics were the basics. I knew that the landing bay would be on the bottom deck and that I would have to go to another deck to find what I wanted—a gym. Fifteen minutes and two decks later, I found one.
I began unzipping my jumper even before I entered the locker room, and had it off my shoulders by the time the door closed behind me. Training did not appeal to these sailors by the look of things. The locker room was nearly empty. I heard someone in the shower and a couple of men with towels around their waists discussed the battle at New Columbia in front of the mirrors.
Both men were Japanese. I noticed that quickly. They had black hair, narrow eyes, and bronzed skin. One man stole a casual glance in my direction while his friend spoke. Had this gym been for Japanese only, I might have been caught. But a moment later, a blubbery man with white skin turned the color of rare roast beef stepped out of a steam room. The man did not have a towel. Drops of water splashed from his flabby legs as he walked.
I grabbed shorts and a shirt from a shelf and tossed my coveralls into a locker. A moment later, I walked out to exercise, the mediaLink shades hidden in my pocket. And things continued to go my way. There was only one other person working out. He did not look at me as I climbed on a stationary bike, dropped the shades over my eyes, and began pedaling.
Now that I had changed to exercise clothes, I blended in. What I needed to do next was contact Huang or Freeman; but with another person in the room, I did not want to hold a conversation.
In this case, I went the old-fashioned route and composed letters, customizing a form letter by choosing words and phrases from a menu and optically typing words when needed.
On my own shades, I had a menu of people I contacted on a regular basis. It was a short list that included only the late Bryce Klyber and Ray Freeman. The boy’s shades had a different list. Using optical commands, I typed Freeman’s address on a virtual keyboard that was always present at the edge of your vision when you composed letters.
Freeman and I swapped emergency codes so that we would always be able to locate each other in situations like this. There may have been multiple Ray Freemans in the galaxy, but he was the only one who received messages sent with this code.
Optical typing was a slow process. When I switched from the keyboard to the context-sensitive letter, it was a relief. I selected an urgent document. The default letter that appeared was a request for financial assistance; but every word was interactive and as I changed words at the front of the letter, the rest of the document composed itself.
Ray,
I have stowed away on a GCF ship. I believe Warren Atkins and Amos Crowley are on this ship. Contact Huang and let him know that I will transmit the location of this ship as soon as I have it. I will call when it is safe.
Harris
I mailed the letter. When I removed the shades, I discovered that a new crop of people had entered the gym. Four men stood in the weight lifting area, joshing with each other as they pushed levers and pulled handles. Their weights clanked loudly as they lowered them. I climbed off of the bicycle.
“Buddy, you mind tossing me a towel?” one of the men called.
“Sure,” I said. I picked up a gym towel and tossed it to him. He snatched it out of the air and turned back to his weights without thanking me.
I went back to the locker room and stripped for a shower. The goal now was to remain inconspicuous as I killed time and waited for the right change of clothing. I needed something I could wear on the upper decks without attracting attention. So I went in the shower room and soaped and showered, peering out whenever I heard people entering or leaving the locker room. More than an hour passed before the man I was waiting for arrived, and I counted myself lucky that he had come so soon.
I heard the door close and rinsed myself off. When I looked out of the shower, I saw a crewman walking around the floor picking up a few sopping towels that had been discarded and tossing them into the laundry cart.
Drying myself off as quickly as possible, I listened as he emptied bins filled with dirty gym clothes into his cart. As he left, I pulled on a fresh pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt.
Stepping out into the corridor, I saw the crewman moving away slowly. He stood hunched over the laundry cart, his head turning to follow everyone he passed. He turned down one hall and then another before reaching his final destination.
Capital ships had more than one laundry facility. Chances were, there was a special facility on the upper decks just for cleaning officers’ uniforms; but this laundry would do.
I approached and the door slid open.
“What do you want?” the crewman asked as I stepped into the room.
“My clothes,” I said, doing an impersonation of a peeved officer. “You hauled off my uniform in one of your laundry carts.”
“Sorry,” the man said in a flat voice. He went back to sorting dirty clothes and did not look back in my direction. Such insubordination. I was an officer. He was an enlisted man. Okay, I was a spy pretending to be an officer, but he didn’t know that.
I had at least thirty carts to choose from. In the third cart, I found an officer’s work uniform.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I went to the emptiest room on any battleship—the chapel. There I could speak freely.
“Who is Derrick Hines?” Freeman’s face appeared on my MediaLink shades.
“Never heard of him,” I said.
“You’re using his Link address,” Freeman said.
“Oh, him,” I said. “He was a crewman on a GCF ship.”
“Confederate or Mogat—?” Freeman asked. He had no interest in Hines’s fate.
Freeman was on a communications console. I could see his face. It was as impassive as ever. Judging by his nonplussed expression, you might have thought that I had called from a bar in Mars Spaceport.
“No idea,” I said. “I think it’s their flagship.”
“How did you get on?” Freeman asked.
“I followed Colonel Wingate, the commander of Fort Clinton.”
“That was the Army base that got destroyed on New Columbia,” Freeman said. “What’s he doing on a GCF ship?”
“He swapped sides,” I said. “Turns out he was using Fort Clinton as a surplus outlet and the Mogats were his favorite customers. Think he’s worth much?”
As I thought about it, I had plenty of reasons to hate Batt Wingate. He would have sold me out without a second thought when I was regular military. He’d certainly sold out enough other clones. He must have helped William Patel smuggle bombs into Safe Harbor. Did he know that I would be there or was he just after Jimmy Callahan? I would gladly kill the man myself if I got a chance.
“He’s worth something,” Freeman said. “The Mogats routed the Navy at New Columbia. They shot down twenty-three U.A. ships and destroyed all three military bases. The pundits are saying that Washington is desperate.
“Have you got a location on the Fleet?”
“No,” I said.
Freeman waited for me to say more.
“Ray, this is too big for us. We’re going to need to bring Huang in on it. Keep this channel open. I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but I will get you a location. Once I have something, you’re going to have to turn it over to Huang.”
He agreed.
“Where are you now?” I asked.