Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

“So, as the new secondary comm officer, the trainee’s duties now include maintaining the communications logs, running readiness checks, and monitoring enemy communications, correct?”

“That is correct.”

And still Olsirkos does not see the connection. “Has your new second communications officer brought any unusual enemy communications to your attention?”

Olsirkos frowned. “No, Fearsome Srin.” This time, Olsirkos put extra emphasis upon the word “fearsome.”

“So, shall we presume that he failed to notice this?” Shethkador pressed a stud on his belt-com. Behind him, communications records from twelve days prior rose up as a holoflat. Shethkador had flagged one of the entries in red.

Olsirkos scanned it: a footnote appended to the report of an informer aboard an Aboriginal cargo ship, the RFS Ladoga . Her master, Captain Ludmilla Privek, had hurriedly submitted an exhaustive report concerning the last known whereabouts of a senior-grade cargo worker. This worker, Agnata Manolescu, had been officially missing for ten weeks. However, it seemed probable that her disappearance occurred earlier and that Privek had avoided drawing attention to it, hoping to resolve the matter independently and save face.

Olsirkos’ frown deepened. “Potent Srin, I fail to see—”

“Read every word, seek every nuance. Why, after the worker had been officially missing for over two months, was the master of the ship suddenly compelled— compelled —to submit a complete report, at the direct and confidential order of Lord Admiral Halifax himself?”

Olsirkos scrolled back through the Aboriginal communications traffic. He stopped at an entry dated five days prior to the submission of Privek’s report. “This must be it. The Aboriginals found the cargo worker’s body adrift in space.” His frown returned. “It was not discovered near any currently used orbital track. Why did they even think to look for it?”

Shethkador wondered if Olsirkos’ future might not merely include demotion but an appointment with the cull-master. “Logic dictates that we must return to the beginning of the incident: the first, internal record of Manolescu’s disappearance. Her last known location on the Ladoga was in a cargo bay during a high-priority transfer of cold cells, and you will note their destination.”

Olsirkos’ voice was dry — or possibly strangled with anxiety: “The cold cells were being transferred to the Slaasriithi vessel.”

“Yes. This tells us how the Aboriginals found Agnata Manolescu’s body. Logically, since she disappeared from the bay where the transfer took place, the Aboriginals determined which lighter effected that cargo transfer and then checked its flight recorder data. They performed close sensor sweeps radiating out from its flight telemetries and discovered Manolescu’s corpse spinning slowly away from the lighter’s prior path. The subsequent question is, obviously, why would the person overseeing the transfer of the cargo from the Ladoga be killed?”

Olsirkos’ frown was replaced by wide-eyed revelation. “The cryocells loaded on the lighter were not the ones it had been sent to transfer. Some of the cargo was switched.”

Well, there is some hope for you after all. “Correct. According to our informers in the Aboriginal military structure, two of the coldslept personnel chosen to accompany the legation into Slaasriithi space were never removed from the Ladoga . Their cold cells were later found ‘misfiled’ in the same cargo bay.”

“So, the two coldsleepers who went in their place are infiltrators, sent to sabotage the Aboriginal envoy to the Slaasriithi?”

“Likely, but impossible to determine without investigating. Which we should have been doing for the past ten weeks.”

Olsirkos sounded like he wanted the change the topic. Desperately. “It is strange that the Aboriginals have not detained the crew of the lighter and questioned them.”

“More persistence in reviewing the data would have shown you that they tried and failed.” Shethkador changed the file displayed on the holoflat to a secure bulletin calling for the apprehension of two missing persons of interest: the Aboriginal female and male who had crewed the lighter.

“It is not conceivable that they could remain undetected on one of the fleet’s hulls,” Olsirkos asserted. “So where are they?”

Shethkador brought up a holograph of the interstellar region surrounding Sigma Draconis. He pointed into it: the red star closest to Sigma Draconis flared in response. “The two renegades are almost certainly here: system V 1581. We know that Visser, one of the human Consuls, and a significant intelligence chief named Richard Downing commenced transit to Earth aboard the prize ship Changeling the same day that the Slaasriithi departed. I suspect that the two fugitives, furnished with false identities, were already aboard Changeling when she shifted out to V 1581. So, we must journey there and intercept them before they can flee to Earth: they are the only remaining clues to the rest of the plot.”

Olsirkos was lost again. “The rest of the plot?”

Shethkador rose. “I must recontact the Autarchs. They require an update.” He stared hard at Olsirkos. “The rest of the plot is obvious, or should be. The two who operated the lighter could not have had longstanding orders to switch the cold cells on the Ladoga . Only three days earlier, the Slaasriithi had not even arrived in Sigma Draconis, much less invited the Aboriginals to visit their homeworld. So if you find the persons who signaled the lighter’s crew to switch the cold cells, you will ultimately find the persons who were ready to launch this plot in a matter of hours.” Shethkador brought up the communications logs. One entry was flagged in red. “The day that the Slaasriithi departed, there was a routine communications test, to assess mechanical readiness. Read who oversaw the test.”

Olsirkos stared, swallowed, managed to get out the words: “It was the recently promoted trainee, the one who killed the former second communications officer in a duel.”

Shethkador nodded, walked to the hatchway, exited, made briskly for the Sensorium, Olsirkos trailing behind. “I will make my Reification to contact the Autarchs swift. I will explain that we must return to V 1581 to recover Red Lurker . In actuality, we shall be following the path of the crew of the lighter and whoever contacted them and is behind this plot. You have half an hour to quietly detain and interrogate the communications trainee who won the duel. In the interrogation, presume that you will have to use drugs and extreme measures. Presume that the subject is not a knowledgeable part of the greater plot. Discover how he used the communications testing routines to send the necessary message to the lighter crew, who gave him that message, how he knew where to send it and when.” Shethkador paused before the threshold of the Sensorium. “Impress me by succeeding in this, and I shall overlook your signal failures in detecting this plot from the outset,” he lied.

“I am my Srin’s right hand,” Olsirkos breathed with a low bow.

“Yes,” Shethkador muttered. Which would make me half a cripple, if it were true.

Shethkador wasted no time entering the Sensorium and only partially infusing the essence of one Catalysite. Left undrained, it would hopefully regenerate: they were a finite resource, so far from home. Once on the cushions, he brusquely pushed himself into the entangled particularities of time and space that defined the symbiot’s natural state of sensory awareness. The Autarchs felt the summons and responded with extraordinary speed. Tlerek Srin Shethkador smiled: he might not be well liked, but he was evidently well respected. Or feared.