Hellburner (12 page)

He plugged in his personal reader—never use a TI card in an unsecure device—and keyed up playback.

TECH/2 Benjamin J. Pollard

CTVSS/UDC 28 DAT 2

CURRENTLOC: UDC SOL2B-HOS28

1719JUN20/24 SN P-235-9876/MLR 1923JUN20/24

TRANSFER TO: ACTIVE DUTY: UDC SYSTEMS TESTING

RANK: TECH2/UDC SOL2D-OPS/SCAN G-5: PILOT RATING C-3 WITH 200 EXPERIENCE HOURS LOGGED.

REPORT TO: 2-DECK 229, BARRACKS C: JUN21/24/ 0600h: ref/ CLASSIFIED: OUTSIDE COMMUNICATION SPECIFICALLY DENIED.

He sat down. He had that much presence of mind. He punched playback again with his thumb, and the same damned thing rolled past.

Transfer? Systems Testing? Pilot rating?

Shit!

The committee wanted another go. Immediately. The shuttle was two days on its way from Sol One, due in at maindawn, and, informed it wouldn’t be held, senatorial demands notwithstanding, the committee decided to keep going through maindark, if that was what it took. You didn’t snag a senator for a five-day to Sol Two—no famous restaurants, no cocktail lounges, no ‘faculties1 the way they legendarily existed downworld: the senators had important business to do, the senators wanted out and back to Sol One and down to Earth and their perks and their privileges, and they’d talk with the company reps over gin and tonic the whole way back.

Graff had hoped, for a while, after things went to hell, that some few members of the committee might want to ask him questions over gin and tonic, if they had the clout to ask him in for a go-over; or rec-hall coffee, if they had the clout just to get past Bonner. He’d kept his phone free. He’d hoped until he got the notification of the resumption of the sessions—the committee wanted a chance to review testimony and wanted certain individuals to ‘stand by’ a call.

Demas and Saito weren’t on the list. Much and Jamil certainly weren’t. No audience. No guarantee mere would be any questions Bonner didn’t set up. Graff sat there tapping a stylus on the desk and thinking about a fast call to Sol One via FleetCom; but that was still no use—if the captain hadn’t noticed a shuttle-load of senators, contractor executives, and UDC brass headed to Sol Two’s B Dock, there was no hope for them; and if the captain hadn’t known something about the character and leanings of said senators and contractors and Gen. Patrick Bonner, Fleet Security was off its game. So the lieutenant was still left out of the lock without a line, and the lieutenant had to get his butt out there right now and give the senators what they asked as best he could.

So the lieutenant in question put his jacket on, straightened his collar, and opened the door.

“Mr. Graff.”

Face to face with Tanzer.

“I’d like a word,” Tanzer said as he stepped into the hall.

“About my testimony?” He didn’t have an Optex, didn’t own one and it wasn’t legal for a private conversation; but he hoped Tanzer would worry.

Tanzer said, “Just a word of sanity.”

A trap? A smear, if Tanzer was carrying a hidden Optex. He could refuse to talk; he could tell Tanzer go to hell; but he had to face Tanzer after the committee was long gone. “Yes, colonel?”

Tanzer said, quietly, “You could screw this whole project. You’re a junior, you don’t know what you’re walking into. And you could lose the war—right here, right in this hearing. I’m advising you to answer the questions without comment—no, I’m not supposed to be talking to you, and no, I can’t advise you about your testimony. By the book, I can’t. But forget that business in the office. We both want that ship. We don’t want it canceled. Do we? —Can we have a word inside your office?”

No, was his first thought. There were aides milling about down the hall. There were potential witnesses. But not knowing what Tanzer wanted to tell him could be a mistake too. Bugs, there weren’t, inside. Not unless the UDC was technologically one up, and he didn’t think so. He opened the door again, let Tanzer in and let the door shut.

Tanzer said, directly, “The companies aren’t going to support finding a basic design flaw; that’s money out of their pockets, do you understand me? That’s not what we’re going to push for.”

Tanzer and a 4-star? Politicking with a Fleet j-g? What in hell was going on at Sol One? “I wasn’t under the impression that was seriously at issue.”

“You don’t understand me. Those companies don’t want the blame. They’re perfectly willing to put the accident off on the service. To call it mishandling—“

Oh-ho.

“A control redesign, existing technology—that, they’ll go for. As long as it’s our design change, out of our budget. You listen to me. This is critical. We’ve got some Peace-nows kicking up a fuss—they want to grab that appropriation for their own programs. They’re talking negotiation with Union. Partition of the trade zones. They’ve got some tame social scientists down in Bonn and Moscow talking isolation again.”

They’d talked it off and on for two hundred years. But Union was very interested in Earth’s biology. Very interested.

“They won’t get it.”

“They can dither this program into another five-year redesign with political deals. The Earth Company can end up deadlocked with the UN. We need the AI on top to let us get some successes with this ship—make it do-able, so we can go public as soon as possible. The thing can have another model, for God’s sake, build the old design and lose ships to your heart’s content, after we’ve got the first thirty out of the shipyards and trained pilots who know its characteristics. Prove your point and have your funerals, it’ll be out of our hands, but let’s get this ship online.”

“The effect will be training your pilots to pull it short—to worry when they’re taking a necessary chance. Combat pilots can’t have that mindset; and you can’t train with that thing breathing down your neck.”

“You’re not a psychiatrist, lieutenant.”

“I’m not an engineer, either, but I know the AI you’ve got won’t accommodate it, you’re talking about a very complicated software, a bigger black box, and that panel’s already crowding armscomp, besides the psychological factors—“

“Cut one seat. One fewer tech. The tetralogic’s worth it.”

“That’s ten fewer objects longscan can track, and that’s one damned more contractor with an unproved software and another unproved interface to train to.”

“That’s nothing getting tracked if the ship doesn’t get built, lieutenant, come down to the point. You’re not going to get everything you want.”

“If you want to cut a deal, you need to talk to the captain, I’m under his orders.”

“What are his orders?”

“To keep that ship as is.”

“Or lose it? You listen to me. You don’t have to agree. Just don’t raise objections.”

“Talk to my captain. I can’t change his orders.”

Tanzer was red in the face. Keeping his voice very quiet. “We can’t reach your captain.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know why. We think he’s in committee meetings.”

“Go to Mazian’s office, colonel, I can’t authorize a thing.”

“We’ve been trying to reach him, lieutenant, and we’ve got your whole damned program about to destruct on us, out there—you’d better believe you’re in a hot spot, and I wouldn’t take you into confidence, you or your recruits, but we can’t afford another shouting match for the committee. We’re trying to save this program, we’re not arguing the value of human hands-on at the controls: you know and I know there’s no way Union’s tape-trained clones are any match for real human beings—“

“They’re not that easy a mark. Azi still aren’t an AI with an interdict.”

“They’ll crack. They’ll crack the same as anybody else. Their program’s going to have the same limitations.”

“They won’t crack, colonel, they’re completely dedicated to what they’re doing, that’s what they’re created for, for God’s sake—“

“You listen to me, lieutenant. I was in charge of the program that put your Victoria out there and I don’t need to be told by any wet-behind-the-ears what a human pilot is worth, but, dammit! you automate when you have to. You don’t hold on to an idea til it kills you—which this is going to do if you screw up in there. You can lose the whole damned war in that hearing room, does that get through to you?”

“Colonel, in all respect to your experience—“

“You go on listening. Yes, we had to have a show, yes, I subbed Wilhelmsen. Your boy Dekker’s got problems. Serious problems.” Tanzer pulled a datacard from his breast pocket.

“What’s that?”

“A copy of Dekker’s personnel file. It’s damned interesting reading.”

Damn, he thought. And hoped he kept anxiety off his face. It couldn’t be Reel records—unless mere was a two-legged leak in the records system.

“Reckless proceeding and wrongful death.” Tanzer pocketed the card again. “You want the reason I subbed him? There’s a grieving mother out there that’s been trying to get justice out of that boy of yours. Rape and murder—“

“Neither of which is true.”

“I had, if you want to know, lieutenant, specific orders to pull Dekker off that demo, because Dekker’s legal troubles were going to surface again the minute his name hit the downworld media—and it would have.”

“On a classified test. He lost a partner out in the Belt. The incident isn’t a secret in the Company. Far from it. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that, if you’ve got that record.”

“The name was going to surface, take my word for it. He’s politically hot, too damned hot to represent this program— that’s why I pulled him from that demo, lieutenant, and you had to ignore my warning. Stick to issues you’re prepared to answer and leave Dekker the hell out of this. Cory Salazar. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“ASTEX politics murdered Salazar.”

“Tell that to the mother. Tell that to the mama of the underage kid Dekker seduced out there.”

“That wasn’t the way it happened, colonel.”

“You want to tell Salazar’s mother that, —lieutenant? You want to tell that to a woman who’s on the MarsCorp board? I couldn’t put him in front of the media. I had to pull him off that team. You understand me? I’m trusting you

right now, lieutenant, with a critical confidence, because, dammit, you’ve raised the issue in there and you’d better have the good sense to back off mat point, waffle your way out of it and come into line if you want to keep your boy , inside these walls. If he gets to be a media issue, he’s dead. You understand that?”

“I understand Wilhelmsen died, I understand a whole ciew died for a damned politicking decision—“

“You mink I don’t care, Lieutenant? Your boy Dekker’s got a political problem and a mouth. And we’ve got a ship mat kills crews and somebody’s mother breathing down our necks, wanting your boy’s head on a platter. You hear me? I didn’t screw Dekker. Your captain put him in that position, I didn’t. Damned right I pulled him from what was scheduled to go public, and damned right I shut him up before he got to the VIPs we had onstation.”

“By shoving him into a pod unconscious?” “No, damn you. I didn’t.”

Not lying, if he could rely on anything Tanzer said. Which he was far from sure of. “You told him why you pulled him?”

“Trust that mouth? No. And don’t you. Hear me? He got into that pod on his own.
 
Leave it at that.
 
Attempted suicide. Who knows? I won’t contest mat finding. But you shut it down with that. I know he’s popular with your emits. I know you’ve got a problem. But let’s use our heads on this and you quieten matters down and get off that issue.”

Damn and damn. Call the captain, was what he needed to do. But they weren’t sure the UDC wasn’t eavesdropping. And if Keu was currently caught up in committee at Sol—

Ask Tanzer if FleetCom was secure? Hell if.

“We’d better get in there,” Tanzer said and opened the door and walked out.

Son of a bitch, Graff thought, what do I do? Demas is on board, Saito’s on her way up there....

He walked out, shut the door. Tanzer was down at the corner of the hall with Bonner, the two of them talking. He looked at his watch. One minute from late, the committee was about to convene. He could no-show, he could send Bonner word he was going to be late.

They could say any damned thing without hindrance then, finish the meeting without him in the time it would take to get FleetCom, let alone confer with the captain.

He’d faced fire with steadier nerves. He’d made jumpspeed decisions easier with a ship at stake. There was no assurance Tanzer had told him the truth, or even half of it. There was no assurance they had ever tried to get Keu, or Mazian, mere was no assurance it was anything but a maneuver to silence him and ram something through, and there was not even absolute assurance they’d told the truth about political influence stalking Dekker, but if it was, God, somebody had found a damned sensitive button to push. If the Fleet didn’t back Dekker, if the Fleet let Dekker take a grenade—the likes of Mitch and Jamil wouldn’t stand still for it, there’d be bloodshed, no exaggeration at all, the Belters would take the UDC facilities apart first and work their way over to Fleet HQ. Betray them—and there was no trusting them, no relying on them, no guarantee the metal and the materials were going to go on arriving out of the Belt, and damned sure no crews to handle the ships.