Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

But I can’t leave her here. I am not happy with this “guild.” She’s been in the thick of this mess the run’s started, but she risked her ranking, name of God, she risked her whole livelihood to get us to help, that’s clear. She felt the spark of anger glowing inside her again. She remembered Dobbs, tired and overtaxed, doing her best to complete her tasks, not just to deliver the AI to the Fool’s Guild, but to keep the Pasadena’s crew safe and sane.

Brooke came out of the bathroom with a small bag of toiletries in his hand. Al Shei stood up.

“After everything we’ve been through, I’m going to want to run a few extra checks on the feeder lines. We should be ready to leave in four hours. If, after that, it turns out there’s a stowaway aboard, well, that becomes my problem, doesn’t it?”

Brooke, unsmiling, nodded and sealed the satchels. He slung the strap of the first bag across his shoulder. Then, he hoisted the mirror and the memory boards up under one arm and the second satchel under the other. Al Shei left the bare cabin behind him and let the hatch cycle shut.

“I trust you can find your way to the airlock,” she said as they both climbed down the stairs to the data hold. “I’ve got a lot of work to do around here.”

“I understand.” He stopped in front of the hatch and bent reflexively into the Fool’s exiting bow. He caught himself about halfway down and straightened up. He gave a clumsy nod instead.

Al Shei left him and started down for the engineering deck. After a moment, a hatch cycled open and the echoes of Brooke’s footsteps faded to silence. She glanced up and down, the dropshaft was empty.

She leaned across the outer railing to reach a memory board and took out her pen.

Zubedye,she wrote. You need to brush up on maritime law concerning stowaways. I particularly need to know what the captain’s discretionary powers are.She coded it for Resit’s cabin and added the send command. After a couple of seconds, the message faded away.

I’ve heard of more graceful resignation plans, Dobbs, thought Al Shei as she started down the stairs again. But never of one that was more effective.

Dobbs paced around the hospital cabin. There were no windows or books, and, of course, no access boards. The one set of cable jacks had their lids locked down. Pacing was better than just sitting still and thinking. Not much better, but a little.

A flash caught her eye. The door light blinked from red to green. The hatchway opened a moment later. Cohen slipped inside and cycled the hatch shut immediately.

Dobbs’s heart leapt, but whether it was from joy or fear she couldn’t tell.

She ran up to him and grabbed his hand. “What’s going on?”

Cohen squeezed her hand briefly. His face had gone pastey grey. “Dobbs, I’m getting you out of here.”

She tried to pull back. “Cyril…thanks for the thought, but I’m in enough trouble for ten. I don’t want you to…”

Cohen held onto her hand, squeezing it almost to the point of pain. “Dobbs, I know what you pulled out of the personnel files. I touched it as it went by.” She knew he saw the shock in her eyes. “I had to, Evelyn. I had be sure you weren’t the one who was lying.” That hurt, but she couldn’t blame him.

He swallowed hard and his grip relaxed a little but he still didn’t let go. “Evelyn, I eavesdropped on the Guild Master’s session about you. They…they decided to take you apart.”

Dobbs’s heart stopped dead in her chest. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

Cyril’s eyes were wide and full of turmoil. “Your body is going to be taken apart for the useable material, and you’re not going to be allowed to leave before they do it. They’re going to manufacture an accident for the records.”

Dobbs felt her knees begin to give way. She groped for the bed and sat down heavily. “No. They wouldn’t. Not even for what…for what I’ve done. You’re wrong.”

“I wish I was.” Cyril spread his hands. “I spent an hour trying to convince myself I’d misheard. Maybe I’d gotten garbled data. Anything.” He shook his head. “You’ve got two hours left before the Pasadena leaves. I had Brooke pass a message to Al Shei. If you turn up as a stowaway, she’ll treat it as a personal matter.”

Dobbs pressed her hand against her forehead to try to calm the spinning in her head. She’d already assembled a list of what she had told herself was the worst the Guild could do to her. Lock her up until her body died of old age. Put her on-line under supervision until she was a hundred years old.

Now Cohen, who she’d known since he came to the Guild, was telling her that her masters, their masters, were going to kill her. She couldn’t believe it, and she couldn’t not believe it.

Finally, she raised her head. “And how am I going to stow away?” Her voice had gone hoarse. “Fly through the bulkheads?”

Cyril reached into his pocket and drew out a familiar flat, black box. “Brooke is going to say that he didn’t find this when he packed up your gear and that you must have it on you. You are going to be found without a pulse. The assumption will be that you must have overdosed yourself.”

Dobbs shook her head. “You’re crazy, Cohen. They’ll never believe I’m dead. They’ll know its a set-up.”

“They’ll believe it if they find you’re transceiver smashed on the floor beside you.”

Dobbs swallowed. His face was absolutely serious. “And if my transceiver is smashed, how am I going to get back into my body?”

“Lonn’s already gone to get your back-up out of storage.”

This was ridiculous. This was impossible. There was no way this could work. “What if the Guild Masters go for my back-up to try to revive me?”

Now it was Cohen’s turn to shake his head. “Dobbs, after what they were planning to do, do you really think they’re going to try to revive you?” Neither one of them said anything for a moment. “At most they’ll mount a guard on the Drawbridge, just in case,” Cohen went on, finally. He held out the box.

Dobbs’ hands were sweating as she took it. “All right, we stage the overdose. Then what?”

“Then, Brooke and Lonn get your unguarded body out of the surgery, into a maintenance cart and then onto the Pasadena , while I go on-line and help smuggle yourself out of the Guild Hall network.”

Dobbs stared at him. His words were taking a long time to sink in. “Why would any of you do this?”

“Same reason you’ve done what you have,” said Cyril. “Something’s gone really wrong with some of the Guild Masters. We have to get you clear and then we have to figure out who we can tell about all of this.” He swallowed. “It isn’t you that’s jeopardizing the Guild security. It’s them.” He glanced towards the door. “You’ve got to do this now, Dobbs. I’ve got to be able to smash your transceiver and tell everybody you’re dead.”

Dobbs’s head felt light. “The cable jacks are locked.”

Cohen gave her a small, lopsided smile. “Not for me, they’re not.”

“Right.” Dobbs swung her legs up onto the bed and pulled the transceiver and the hypo out of the box. “I’m going to need a new supply of juice, Cyril. I’m running low. And make sure Brooke gets the back-up transceiver to my body.” She held up the transceiver and cable briefly before she jacked it into her implant. “I’d like to be able to find my way home again.” The transceivers were individually constructed for each Fool and served as the gateway back into the physical body, allowing for restimulation of the individual synaptic patterns that the anesthetic blocked.

She watched while Cohen undid the catches on the jack cover beside the bed. She plugged her cable in and measured out eight hours on the hypo.