Pathfinder (27 page)

“I’ve been trying to stay in the scientific research biz.” Her smile was slightly sad.

“This could shut down the ‘biz’ in G- 145. It’s that important.”

“The
Pytheas
has docked. A mass posting came out, saying the Minoans are sponsoring its next mission to the Builders’ solar system. They’re taking applications for crew. I can qualify for the copilot and sensors position.” She looked stubborn and signed in Martian patois,
Chance of a lifetime.

She’d named her “price” for coming back to staff work. He watched carefully, knowing her skills with
somaural
projection. Maria had worked for him since the end of the war and he’d never heard her talk about such a goal. However, he’d rather have her up on the station near him, than down on Priamos with Sergeant Pike and his AFCAW commandos. She’d be closer to Major Kedros, who certainly
was
running the Kressida op, but he knew how much bad blood came between those two women. Besides, Maria would be near two former lovers, him and Sabina, and that’d make her less of a “loyalty risk.”

“I suppose we could make that happen,” he said slowly. “What about your medical records? Will they be a problem?”

Her laugh sounded brittle. “They’ll never see them. I’ll be up on-station in four or five hours, SP.”

 

Ariane looked about Dr. Lee’s lab, noting the prominent birthing chambers bolted to the bulkhead, trying to ignore the question the older woman had asked. Unfortunately, Dr. Lee wasn’t so easily put off.

“You do realize you’re being used, don’t you?” Lee asked again. “The Minoans are trying to manipulate you.”

Ariane sighed, staring at the shiny chambers. They had placards covered with legible names, date of fertilization, and gender. She read them in turn: Nigel, Peter, and Charlotte Anne, all of whom would soon be a month into their development. Finally, she said, “Does it really matter?”

Dr. Lee, frail, yet oozing forceful opinion, came to stand beside her. “Of course it matters,” she said. She gestured toward the end chamber that held Charlotte Anne. “Abram said he needed
sons
, so I purposely misinterpreted his orders when I realized one fetus would be female. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Abram’s men considered him childless, or that they often murder first-born females. In the end, my assistant Allison paid
for my selfish decision
with her life.”

“So I’m making a selfish decision. Now who’s trying to manipulate me?” She turned to look at the doctor, thin and graceful, but with paper-thin skin and puffy white hair that showed her true age.

Lee only raised an eyebrow.

“Using hindsight, would you change your decision?” Ariane asked, pointing toward Charlotte Anne.

“Hindsight doesn’t help.” Dr. Lee smiled sadly. “An idealistic person might believe that dice are rolling randomly in their heads, so if they have a chance to make a decision again, they might go a different route. A practical individual, like me, would say I would never make a different decision, given my knowledge and emotions at the time.”

“You sound pretty confident of that. What if you can manage to be less cautious, more perceptive, or whatever?”

“How much
more
or
less
, of anything, would be required to change your decisions? Can you honestly expect things to be different if your basic nature doesn’t change?” The older woman’s words were clipped.

Her words also caused disturbing thoughts. Ariane had already run her second life off the rails, but what could she have done differently? According to Lee, she’d take the same route, in every time and in every world. Of course, Lee was speaking rhetorically. She didn’t know the woman standing next to her had
really
been given a second life, another identity, and a chance to start over.

Breaking the silence, Lee said quietly, “I’m guessing hindsight won’t give you any clarity.”

Ariane took a deep breath. “I know the Minoans are manipulating me, leveraging my guilt. They’re giving me a chance at reparation and redemption.”

“What—” Dr. Lee seemed taken aback. Whatever she expected, it wasn’t this. “What could you have possibly done?”

“You don’t know my past, Doctor.” Ariane’s voice was level and unyielding. “You’ve signed nondisclosure agreements, you know there’s secrets here. Many of them have to do with me, and why the Minoans chose me. You’re going to notice my biochemistry and cellular metabolism are enhanced, although I can’t tell you why.”

Lee’s jaw went slack. Then she closed her mouth with a snap and her dark eyes glinted. “That’ll teach
me
to stick my nose into somebody else’s psyche.” She straightened her lab coat with a snort and turned toward her lab equipment, beckoning Ariane to follow. “I totally missed the mark with you. Let’s get to work. I’ll need fluid and tissue samples from you.”

Ariane sat on a stool beside her and couldn’t contain her curiosity. “How did you miss the mark?”

“I’m a bit embarrassed.” Lee’s eyes slid sideways to look at her. “I thought you were doing this for Matt. I’ll need a good amount of blood, so stick out your arm.”

“Really? But, why—when Matt’s so devoted to Diana?” She thoughtfully watched the doctor check her implant, before using it to sample blood.

“Yes. Well.” Lee looked away and changed the subject. “I’ll also take tissue samples, about biopsy size. These tests are similar to evaluating which of these tissue types, if artificially propagated, your body would accept in a graft or transplant.”

“The military already did those tests; I can accept most of my vat-grown tissues.”

“But they weren’t checking to see if you could accept one of
these
.” Dr. Lee leaned across the lab bench to tap a command on what looked like an oven or incubator, and a display of the interior incubation chamber appeared on the side.

Ariane gulped. “That’s what they call
implants
?”

The display showed a flat nutrient dish, with a length scale beside it. Inside the dish lay what first looked like two thin columns of muscle tissue approximately thirty centimeters long, which made them about as long as her forearm. The tissue columns narrowed to filaments at the ends, so they looked like complete muscles from—well, from a human, except the fluorescent yellow streaks and olive green blotches indicated the contrary. The yellow streaks bunched and twisted at two distinct bulges midway on each length of tissue. But the worst, most gruesome aspect that made her brain gibber was that they
moved
, undulating slowly in the thick nutrient broth, leaving rippled impressions that slowly faded as the liquid leveled.

“Reevaluating your motives?” Lee asked dryly.

“Ah.” For a moment, her mouth wouldn’t form words. “It’ll take more than a
few
tests to convince me to put one of those in my body.”

Lee chuckled as she sealed and removed the bag of blood from Ariane’s arm. “I’m impressed. You took that pretty well. David Ray, my sweet hero, nearly fainted when he saw them. Matt became positively ill.”

“Are they
alive
? Why two?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the things in the display.

Lee shook her head. “Those are only our test models. I’m going to use grafts to see how compatible your tissues are with one; leaving the other as a control. The Minoans will examine them after I’m through. As for whether they’re alive? I don’t know. I’ve asked that masked, horned mystery to give me more documentation.”

“Contractor Director, you mean?”

“That’s the one. I was sent a hefty file that looked like an operating manual, but they might be instructions for assembling a glider, for all I could understand.” Lee strode across the room to put the blood in a storage unit. “I told the emissary I needed something better. It said,
You need simplification, Physician of Pilots?
and I nearly decked it, regardless of its big bad bodyguards.”

The thought of Dr. Lee punching out Contractor Director distracted her, and she was still chuckling as Lee came back with a row of big biopsy needles on a tray.

“You’ll have to lie down on the cot over there. Let me get the topical anesthetic.” Dr. Lee pointed to the curtained area in the corner. “I have to get samples big enough to graft onto the sample—er, equipment—and view the results.”

“I understand. And please, please make sure we understand how it works.” Ariane tried not to shudder as she took a last look at the wiggling implant.

“Don’t worry. We’re in uncharted territory and nobody’s putting this thing into your body until we do every test we can think of—and some we’ve never thought of before.”

After Dr. Lee had used what seemed like every needle and knife in her lab, she declared she had enough samples. Granted, she had a skillful touch, but Ariane still felt like a pincushion when she was finished. As she pulled her coveralls on, the doctor made a comment that sounded shrewdly casual. “Before you volunteer, remember that we’re all concerned for you. Especially Matt. He’s twisted up with worry.”

“I think he’s more excited than worried. After all, exploration is his calling.” Ariane glanced over her shoulder. She saw Lee’s ramrod-straight back, as the doctor fussed with samples at her bench.

“Well, he’d do
anything
to ensure your safety or your happiness. Remember, he’s known you far longer than Diana.” The doctor turned to look at her.

Ariane looked away.
Old busybody—she’s trying to make mischief, mess up my working relationship with Matt
. He was her employer, making him the civilian equivalent of her commander. Besides, he was crew. She knew, from experience, how fast romance or sex could break up a crew. In fact, she was reminded of this every time she saw the Leukos Industries logo.

She left Lee’s lab quickly. It seemed inevitable that her feet would lead her by the Stellar Shield. She’d kept away from bars and hadn’t had even one drink since Matt had retrieved her on the
Pilgrimage
. She walked in.

Forget Major Kedros! My vote for hero of the millisec- ond (the average net-think attention span) is Master Sergeant Alexander Joyce. The man went head-to-head with Abram and took a full flechette blast in his side. He’s been through transplants, tissue grafts, and surgeries as they’ve rebuilt half his abdomen. Today, he testified from his clinic bed. . . .

—
Dr. Net-head Stavros
, 2106.059.14.30 UT, indexed by
Heraclitus 5
under Conflict Imperative

 

 

 

A
riane was intent upon controlling her drinking that evening, and circumstances helped her. Hal, her usual drinking buddy, wasn’t in the Stellar Shield. When she looked around, a group of maintenance workers hailed her, but she declined with a smile.

The cheerful noise in the bar bothered her, seeming overbearing and artificial. Her mind kept repeating Lee’s words, and she wanted that
stopped
. She drank a beer at the counter, but it didn’t make her feel any better and it didn’t stop her thoughts. Where did Lee get the idea she was attracted to Matt? Well, “attracted” was the wrong word—“smitten,” perhaps? “Infatuated?”
Impossible
. He now had Diana: young, beautiful, smart, and
unburdened by demons
. There was no way she’d mess that up for Matt—no matter what. She decided to order a pint of liquor to take with her.

The bartender looked skeptical. “Ms. Kedros, you know we don’t carry good stuff in pints. We’ve got the tasteless and odorless rotgut—leastways, that’s what I call it. Then we’ve got two others, called ‘rum’ and ‘whiskey,’ but you got to be wasted to believe those names.”

She ordered a pint of rotgut, because it had the highest proof. The bartender looked away with a vague expression as she slid the pint into the pocket of her coveralls. It came in an unbreakable zero-gee container so it could be sipped almost anywhere. She wasn’t the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last person to buy this sort of comfort on a rough, lonely, frontier outpost like Beta Priamos Station.

When she came through the airlock on
Aether’s Touch
, she asked Muse 3 whether Matt was on board. Now that he’d initiated the licensing process, Matt had taken to leaving Muse 3 enabled. However, Muse 3 had strict instructions on whom it could initiate speech with, or answer.

“No, Ari. Matt said he will be on the surface of Priamos moon until next first shift.”

“The entire night? Sorry, let me rephrase that. Does he intend to spend his sleep cycle down there?” Being planet-born, what Matt called a “grav- hugger,” Ariane often reverted to planetary rotation terms. Even her phrase of “down there” could be misleading, but at least Beta Priamos Station orbited Priamos.

“Yes. Matt is staying in Visitors Quarters and will return to the ship around zero eight thirty.”

She immediately pulled out the pint, popped the top with her thumb, and took a deep swig. It burned like hell going down, but she loved the warming calm she felt spreading from her stomach. As she walked past the control deck and checked status panels, she took a few more sips. By the time she climbed down to the galley and her quarters, the sound of unraveling was gone from her head.

There was a message from Joyce in her queue. She lay down on her bed and played it, hoping there’d be good news about the audit of the
Bright Crescent
. Joyce only indicated it was still in progress; he spent more time on the investigations into Tahir’s murder and the explosives.

Joyce was brutal about
Pilgrimage
security.
They can’t even qualify as a clusterfuck, Major, with so many blind groping the blind
, was his deadpan and dead-on assessment. She smiled as she sipped her pint. It was good to see his face and hear his voice, even if it was only a recording. His irritation proved he was getting better.

Joyce had a right to be vexed. They’d given up on finding Tahir’s cause of death and Joyce managed to get Tahir’s body sent to Hellas Prime, where he hoped he could convince Pilgrimage HQ to call in forensics experts. Inquiry into the explosive attacks had hit an even thicker wall.