Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

She shouldn’t have said that, because it allowed her to wonder what would really happen if she were caught. There were no non-guild Fools. There were on-line members, field members, and station members. That was all.

Except maybe it wasn’t.

Lipinski moved the scan gently to the next sector. The counter flicked off the numbers as the scan commenced. The screen display stayed steady. The bottom row of stats flashed green.

“Got it,” breathed Dobbs. “All right. We’re looking for anybody who made an emergency return here, or who doesn’t have a code in the current activities entry.”

“What do you guys do when somebody dies?” Lipinski steered the searcher to a different sub-sector.

“Fools don’t die,” she said and Verence’s memory squeezed her heart.

“You just fade away?” Lipinski cocked an eyebrow towards her.

“Something like that, yes.” Her index finger hovered over the FREEZEcommand, but the screen stayed steady.

Thank you, Cyril. Thank you.

The board beeped once. Success.

“Finally.” Lipinski wrote a new set of coordinates and a new speed on the display. Dobbs opened her mouth and closed it again. Lipinski was preparing to leave as slowly as they had entered.

Ground-side pilot, she chided herself.

The screen flickered twice. Dobbs stabbed her finger on the FREEZEcommand. The display stopped dead. Dobbs’ heart filled her mouth. She pictured the Fool inside circling the strange signal, lifting it up, reaching inside it to see what was there, and finding something totally unfamiliar, and totally unauthorized.

But the screen stayed steady. Dobbs wished fiercely that she was in there. She should have gone in. She could lie in there. She could fast talk the other members. She’d know who that little flicker was. Cohen, or Brooke, Guild Master Havelock, or a total stranger. She could reach into them and make them understand…

I could get spotted and chased out in three seconds, she reminded herself.

“Okay.” She squeezed Lipinski’s shoulder. “Try it.”

Lipinski re-wrote the travel commands and the signal started its slow glide back to them.

After another eon, the display wrote COMPLETED across itself. Dobbs let out a long breath and felt all the strength in her knees run away like water.

“Damn, we are good!” Lipinski squeezed her hand where it rested on the counter. Dobbs hesitated just one second before she pulled her hand away and used it to fish out her pen and tap the READOUTselection on the open menu.

Their slow, nerve-wracking search had found five answers. Four of them were hospital level admissions; one for injuries, three for illness. The last entry was for a Fool that did not have a current location or assignment.

Theodore Curran. Registry number; five.

Five? Dobbs’s mind almost refused to process the number. Five? The missing Fool was one of the Guild founders? A sick sensation crawled into her stomach. Cohen had said the stranger was somebody fast, somebody old.

How long has he been gone? What’s he doing out there? Did they let him leave? Did he run away? What’s he doing out there? Why didn’t they say anything? Tell anybody?

Why am I thinking of the Guild like I’m separate from them?

The sick sensation reached up for her heart.

“Evelyn?” said Lipinski quietly. “Are you going to be okay?”

Her shoulders drooped all on their own. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

He reached towards her but she stood up and moved away before he could touch her. “Erase that file, Rurik, and the system records. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if anyone found out I showed a Houston how to crack the network. Not even Cohen would forgive me for that.

She let the stair hatch slam shut behind her and realized she didn’t have the slightest idea what she was going to do next. She leaned against the wall and pressed her palm against her forehead. The Guild was always the final answer. If there was a question, or if she was afraid, or in too deep, she went back to the Guild. That was the way it was. The Guild was what pulled her out of the war she had started with her birth. It gave her coherence and purpose and guidance. Where did she go now that the Guild wasn’t safe anymore?

Dobbs straightened up. She couldn’t let anybody see her like this.

It’s not the whole Guild, she told herself as she descended the stairs. It’s a few of the Masters, at most. We’re just proving we can be as stupid and paranoid as Human Beings, that’s all. Cohen will have some idea who we should go to with this. Maybe Brooke will have some ideas too. As soon as this is out in the open, it’ll all get sorted out. It just needs to get brought out. That’s all.

A small, irrational surge of anger ran through her as she climbed the stairs. Verence, why aren’t you here to help me? Which Guild Master do I trust without you around?

She let herself out into the Guild Hall. Her name on the entrance memory board caught her eye.

MASTER OF CRAFT EVELYN DOBBS, REPORT TO GUILD MASTER MATTHEW HAVELOCK IN CONFERENCE TWELVE.

Dobbs took a deep breath and forced her feet to move in the right direction. It was only a matter of time before she’d have to see him again anyway. It might as well be now. Once Guild Master Havelock was done with her, she could get back into the network and she and Cohen could figure out what to do next.

No escort this time, at least. She mused as she crossed the park. Dinner time was approaching and except for herself, the plants and the birds, the place was deserted. There were seldom more than three hundred Fools in the Hall at one time, so finding even one of the parks empty was not too unusual. This time though, it emphasized her isolation and made Dobbs shiver.

Get this over with, she told herself. Get back to the Pasadena and get back into the net. Tell Cohen what’s going on. He’s Hall staff. He’ll know who will listen to us, who’ll get this all out in the open.

She passed through the bulkhead to the conference module. This was one of the few areas of the Hall that actually looked like a space station. It was a narrow, curved, low-ceilinged hall with hatchways set at regular intervals.

There was still nobody else visible.

Conference Twelve was the sixth hatch from the entrance on the left-hand side. Dobbs didn’t want to give herself any additional time to get nervous. She palmed the reader immediately and strode inside as soon as the hatch cycled back far enough.

The conference room was full of chairs and tables on tracks so that they could be slid into different configurations as the meetings required. One long table had been assembled in the middle of the room. Its broad side faced the hatch. On the far side sat Guild Master Havelock and five others. Dobbs could only put names to three of them, but they all had the Guild Master’s star hanging from their necklaces.

Dobbs throat began to close. There was nowhere for her to sit down. The hatch cycled shut behind her. Her hands opened and closed on nothing but air.

What is going on?

Havelock stood up and rested his fingertips on the table top. “Evelyn Dobbs, you have violated Guild security and policy, you have disobeyed direct orders and have placed all of us at risk. Do you deny any of this?”

Dobbs staggered. What had gone wrong? How had they spotted her? Where was Cohen? Did they know how he had helped her? She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe. She was facing down six of the twenty-four Guild Masters and being accused of treason. Treason that she had in fact committed, but for a long, chaotic moment she couldn’t even remember why she’d done it.