Timothy Zahn - Warhorse

No, it couldn’t be. Couldn’t be. A survey team couldn’t foul up so badly as to miss something as long-term deadly as a hive virus. It had to be just another pro-Tampy lie. Even if Roman himself genuinely believed it, it still had to be a lie.

But if it wasn’t…

And in the middle of his silent turmoil the door buzzer sounded.

For a single heartbeat Ferrol stared at the door… and then, in a sudden blinding flash of insight, he saw at last what they’d done to him. Roman’s invitation, designed to lure him off the bridge; the forged report, designed to keep him off it—

With the hiss of its released pressure lock the panel began to slide open; and with a single convulsive motion Ferrol jerked up half out of his chair, his right hand scrabbling beneath his tunic for the hidden needle gun. For an instant the barrel caught; then, as he slammed painfully down onto the chair again it came free.

Swinging it up, banging it once on the edge of the desktop as he did so, he brought it to bear on the doorway, squeezing it tightly in a two-handed grip. The panel finished its retraction into the wall—

And standing there, framed in the opening, was Kennedy.

The most dangerous person aboard the Amity, the Senator had once called her; and in that first, heart-stopping second Ferrol knew he’d been right. Standing motionless in the doorway, her hands hanging loosely and apparently empty at her sides, he watched as her eyes flicked from his face to the gun and back again without losing any of their icy calm. She was calm, cold, and professional.

And she had come to kill him.

It was another moment Ferrol had tried to prepare himself for… another moment for which, he saw bitterly, the preparations had been utterly inadequate. You’ll be able to handle her, the Senator had said with that infinite assurance of his; and Ferrol had nodded and believed him.

But no one had warned him what it would be like to look into someone’s eyes as he pulled the trigger.

Roman cleared his throat. “If you’re going to shoot her down in cold blood,” he said, almost conversationally, “you really ought to get it over with. If you’re not, perhaps you should put the gun down and invite her in.

Kennedy still hadn’t moved. “You can’t stop me.”

Ferrol warned her, his voice trembling with emotion, the taste of defeat in his mouth. If she would make just some move against him, something—anything—that he could justifiably consider an attack. But she just stood there. “Even if you kill me, you still can’t get help to the Tampies in time.”

Kennedy shot a quick glance at Roman. “I’m not here to kill anyone,” she told Ferrol soothingly. “Really.”

“Then why are you here?” he demanded. “I ordered you to stay on the bridge.”

Her eyes hardened. “As it happens, I came to try and keep you from making a fool of yourself. Obviously, I’m too late.”

Ferrol squeezed the gun tighter, determined not to be lulled. “I’m touched by your concern,” he said sarcastically. “And how exactly did you intend to do that?”

Roman stirred in his chair. “I think,” he said quietly, “that full introductions are in order.” He held a hand out toward Kennedy. “May I present Commander Erin Kennedy… formerly executive officer of the C.S.S. Defiance.”

Ferrol stared at her, the fingers wrapped around the gun gone suddenly numb. The Defiance … “I don’t believe it,” he heard himself say.

“Why not?” Kennedy asked. “Don’t think I could handle the job, or what?”

“I was warned that you were dangerous—” He broke off.

Roman nodded, as if reading his mind. “Warned, no doubt, by your Senate supporters,” he said grimly. “To whom the truth about Prometheus was indeed a touchy subject.”

Ferrol licked at his upper lip, dimly aware as he did so that he’d lowered the gun to the desktop. “Who would have known that? That you’d been on the Defiance, I mean?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Everyone who read that report, for starters,” she said, waving toward the folder lying open in front of him. “My name’s on half those papers—I was the officer in charge of the depositions and follow-up survey debriefings.”

Ferrol lowered his gaze to the folder, stomach tightening as he turned back a few pages to the stack of depositions. Interrogating officer’s name…

He looked up at her again. “It can’t be true,” he said, the words more reflex now than genuine conviction. “The survey team certified Prometheus clean of hive viruses.”

“They sure as hell did,” she nodded, face darkening with remembered anger.

“Certified it with such glowing recommendations that the Senate didn’t even bother with the legally required backup survey. Why the hell do you think everyone was so damned anxious to snowdrift the whole fiasco?”

Ferrol dropped his eyes to the folder again. The Senate. The whole Senate…

“You’re telling me that they knew all along,” he said. “That they… lied to me.”

“Is that so hard to believe?” Roman asked. “You would have been useless to them without your hatred of the Tampies.”

Ferrol threw him a sharp look. “If we’re going to talk about manipulation, what about you?” he accused the other, a spike of anger poking through the numbness.

“You knew about this all along—both of you did,” he added, shifting the glare to Kennedy. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Would you have believed us?” Kennedy asked.

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point,” Roman said, his voice hard. “If I’d shown you this folder when you first came aboard, you’d have dismissed the whole thing as nothing more than a highly sophisticated scam by the pro-Tampy faction.”

“So instead you played me like a puppet,” Ferrol said bitterly. “Danced me around on wires, surrounded me with lots of pro-Tampy types, made me liaison with the survey section to make sure I got lots of exposure to the damn aliens. The exact same thing the Senator was doing to me, except in reverse. So why should I believe you instead of him?”

“Because we have proof,” Kennedy said, gesturing at the folder.

“And what if it’s nothing more than a sophisticated scam, like the captain said?”

Ferrol countered.

“Oh, come on, Ferrol—”

Roman raised a hand to silence her. “Chayne, we can’t prove any of this to you,”

he said quietly. “We all know that. The indications are there, if you search your memory—the fact that the Tampies began the evacuation with the families of small children, for instance, who are classically the most vulnerable to hive virus accumulation. But that’s not proof, at least not the kind you’re looking for.”

“So what do you suggest I do?”

“You do what all the rest of us have to,” Roman told him. “In the absence of proof, you have to decide whose word you’re going to trust.”

Ferrol swallowed, his throat aching as he did so… but down deep he knew there was really no decision to be made. In his mind’s eye he could see the Senator: the aloof eyes, the smugly arrogant voice, the endless manipulation of people and events. He could see a year of serving with Roman: the unashamed Tampy apologist, often irritatingly simplistic in his view of the universe, risking his life to try and save Ferrol and Kennedy from that first shark.

And he saw Kennedy: the calmness of temperament, the competence of long experience… and, according to her psych profile, an absolutely flat-neutral attitude toward Tampies. A woman with no axe to grind, for or against anyone.

A woman with no reason whatsoever to lie about Prometheus.

He focused on Roman’s intercom, and for a brief moment it occurred to him that he was probably going to look and feel like a damn fool. But then, he’d never been much of one to care what other people thought of him. Tapping for general broadcast, he took a deep breath. “This is Commander Ferrol,” he said, keeping his eyes on the console. “I’m returning command of the Amity to Captain Roman. That is all.”