Solfleet: The Call of Duty (83 page)

“Humor me.”

“I’d bet a
year’s salary that he intends to report whatever he’s pieced together, Admiral.
And we have no way of knowing how much that might be.”

Hansen pulled
out the chair across from her and sat down. He rested his elbows on the table’s
edge and took a long, slow sip of coffee, then gently set his mug aside and
asked, “What about his stateroom? Is there any way we can determine how much he
knows from whatever he might have left behind?”

“He didn’t
leave anything behind, sir. At least, nothing of any consequence. Not even an
electronic trail. If he made any written notes, he took them with him. If he
contacted anyone before he left, he didn’t do it from there. He fed his search
program directly into the room’s terminal. Whether he programmed it by hand there
or pre-wrote it and then downloaded it from another computer, we haven’t been
able to determine yet. I’d sure like to know what kind of equipment he might
have at his disposal.”

“What about
Miss DeGaetano? Any indication he might try to meet up with her?”

Royer shook
her head. “She’s at her aunt and uncle’s house in Italy. We’re watching her
every move and tracing every call that she and her relatives make or receive.
We’ve even set up surveillance on everyone they’ve had more than casual contact
with. We’re spread pretty thin down there, but I can tell you with absolute
certainty that none of them have been in contact with the professor or anyone
else aboard this station in the last day and a half since she left. I’m
beginning to think the professor might actually be pursuing this matter alone.”

“We’re
talking about her fiancé, Liz,” Hansen reminded her. “Do you really think she’d
step away from it so easily?”

“She’s out
of the service, sir,” Royer reminded him right back. “She has no clearance and
no resources with which to pursue the matter.”

“True
enough,” Hansen acquiesced. He took another sip of his coffee, and then another
as he considered what to do next. On the one hand, Liz’s people could have overlooked
something. Whatever Min’para was planning to do in New York—and he agreed with
Liz that reporting whatever he’d uncovered was the most likely scenario—their
surveillance of Miss DeGaetano might yet reveal something...if the two of them
were working together. But on the other hand, Liz had just told him they were
spread pretty thin down there, and there was always a chance they might need
more manpower in New York at some point very soon if Min’para raised a real stink...whether
they were working together or not.

“All right,”
he said, having finally decided. “Terminate all surveillance on the DeGaetano
family and their contacts. Divert those teams to New York and put them on
standby.”

“Are you
sure that’s wise, sir?”

“To be
honest, no, I’m not. Not completely. But I think we have to risk it. Tell you
the truth, Liz, the more I think about it, the more I doubt that whoever the
professor is on his way to see will take his information seriously. But
according to regulations they’ll have to conduct at least a preliminary
investigation to determine whether or not there’s any merit to what he says. They
might want to talk to Miss DeGaetano and her family, as well as to anyone else
they
might have talked to. If we don’t call off the surveillance, then we run the
risk of its being detected.”

“I disagree
with you on that, sir,” she responded confidently. “Our people are the very
best at what they do.”

“Yes they
are, Commander,” he wholeheartedly agreed. “But surveillance techniques are
generally the same no matter what agency you work for. Our people might be the
best at employing them, but they aren’t the only ones who do it well.”

“Hm. You’re
worried about the possibility of counter-surveillance,” Royer concluded as her
mind started racing ahead.

“Possibility,”
Hansen confirmed, nodding his head. “Besides,” he continued, “didn’t you just
tell me you suspect the professor is pursuing this matter alone?”

“What I
said, sir, was that I’m beginning to think he might be. I’m not convinced of
that yet though, and until I am I think we should continue to assume he’s not.
But even if he is, I suspect that’ll change if you’re right about what the
authorities will do after he talks to them.”

“I am right.”

“Yes, sir. I
know you are.”

She took a
mouthful of coffee and swallowed. Twice. There was no point in delaying any
further. The time had come to revisit that forbidden subject. Too bad she
couldn’t put that psychological advantage she’d hoped for to use. If only he
hadn’t sat directly across from her, where the table blocked his view of her
legs.

“And that
brings up another point,” she said as she leaned back in her chair and put her
feet up on the corner of the chair to her right. At best, he could maybe see
her knees, if he even bothered to look. No advantage there. He’d seen her bare
knees a million times.

“That point
being?” he inquired.

“It’s almost
certain that if they do talk to Miss DeGaetano, they’ll conclude that whatever
the professor will have told them does, in fact, have merit. Therefore, sir...”
She hesitated, but only for a second, “I really think it would be in our best
interest to make sure the professor never reaches his destination.”

Hansen set
his mug down somewhat less gently than he could have, spilling a little coffee
on the table, then sat back and glared at her. “I told you, Liz...”

“I haven’t
forgotten what you told me, sir.”

“Good. Then
I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

“Sir, it’s
the only way...”

“I said
no
,
Commander!” he barked angrily, slapping a hand down on the table and making her
jump as coffee sloshed from both of their mugs.

Royer
sighed. “Admiral,” she said calmly, “there’s far too much at stake here. This
goes way beyond our careers. You’ve got to authorize the use of lethal force if
absolutely necessary. You’ve got no other choice at this point. You must see
that.”

“You listen
to me, Commander, and you listen good,” he said after a moment, glaring at her
while at the same time doing his best to reflect her level of calmness, “because
I’m not going to repeat myself again. I’ve made a lot of extremely difficult decisions
over thirty-five years of service. I’ve violated some of the highest laws of
our world. I’ve committed crimes and orchestrated cover-ups and conducted
unauthorized investigations, all in the name of planetary security. Now I’m
bordering on treason by acting against the president’s orders, and I might be standing
on the wrong side of that border already. But I absolutely will
not
authorize or be party to the coldblooded murder of anyone, for
any
reason.”

When Royer
didn’t respond, Hansen stood up, stepped away from the table, and pushed his
chair back underneath it. “Do whatever you have to do, Commander,
short
of that.” Then, as he started backing toward her living room, he added, “Terminate
all surveillance operations on the DeGaetano family and all related parties.
Then get some rest.”

“Yes, sir,”
she said as he turned and walked away. Then, after he’d gone and the door had
closed behind him, she quietly added, “Whatever you say, sir.”

With one
last quick jolt that pressed Min’para forward against his harness, the
spaceplane finally came to a stop adjacent to a gate and powered down. The
professor looked out through the small window beside him to see the aerobridge extending
toward the fuselage. Then, relieved that the stomach-churning flight was
finally over, he unfastened the harness, stood up, and drew a deep breath as he
gladly stepped into the line of passengers collecting their carry-on luggage
and filling the aisle, waiting to disembark. It hadn’t really been that long a
flight—actually, the word ‘drop’ probably described it more accurately—but susceptibility
to mild motion sickness had always been his one unconquerable weakness, so it
had
seemed
like hours. He’d started to perspire, heavily, but at least
he hadn’t vomited.

As he followed
the other passengers off the plane, up the gently sloping ramp through the fully
extended accordion-like aerobridge’s subdued amber light, and out through the
security scanner toward the significantly warmer and brighter gate G-27 waiting
area, he started feeling better. He stepped aside as soon as there was room
enough and allowed those few stragglers who’d exited the plane behind him to
pass, and to his dismay, the suspicious gentleman in the finely tailored gray
suit was among them.

How could
that be? He’d been so careful to make sure no one followed him to the other
gate. When could he possibly have boarded the plane?

According to
the agent who’d changed his reservation for him, it was rare for even
one
person to show up in need of a reservation change at the last minute. Especially
for one of the early morning flights. Early morning passengers usually took
care of those things the day before. And yet right there in front of him was
the
second
passenger to apparently have done that this
morning—he
being the first one himself, of course. Even more than his bizarre behavior
back at the station terminal, that made Min’para very suspicious of him.

He was
beginning to feel a little like a protagonist in one of Earth’s famous spy
thrillers and was actually beginning to enjoy it, despite the perceivable
danger. Perhaps he should...how did the Terrans like to put it?...‘turn the
tables’ on him and follow him for a while.

What in the
fires of the underworld was he thinking? These people were dangerous!

Common sense
had already won out when, just moments after he’d nearly lost all sense of
reality, his suspicions were laid to rest. A number of the other passengers had
stopped here and there to exchange handshakes or hugs with those who’d been
waiting to greet them. The gray-suited man had maneuvered around them all and
was making his way toward the corridor, looking about in all directions when a
young woman with long brown hair, wearing a silky white blouse and a short
black skirt—too short, in the professor’s opinion—appeared out of nowhere and
threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him to the floor.

“Welcome
home, Daddy,” the professor heard her say. Then, when the two of them finally
separated, they looked at each other and smiled just long enough for Min’para
to notice the family resemblance. Then they headed down the corridor,
arm-in-arm.

Min’para laid
his hand over his handcomp, despite knowing that he couldn’t possibly lose it,
even if he wanted to—he’d wrapped it in the electronics packaging and sewn into
his coat’s liner—then drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly to relax. “You’re
getting a bit paranoid in your old age, Professor,” he mumbled quietly to
himself. “Calm down now.”

He repeated
the breathing exercise several more times, then crossed the waiting area and approached
the large tinted windows that looked out over the next gate in line, where a
sleek atmospheric airliner with four distinct engines mounted on wide-spanning wings
appeared to be in the process of boarding. The morning sun shone brightly through
the thick transluminum pane—its light shone a bit more yellow than Caldanra’s,
he noted—and felt like a warm compress against his face, and he could just make
out the low drone of that airliner’s idling engines. Finding the combination of
those two sensory stimulants to be oddly soothing, he folded his hands behind
his back, raised his face toward the sun, and closed his eyes.

He stood
there, quite relaxed, long enough for the waiting area to empty, then made his
way to the nearest exit as quickly as he could without drawing attention. He
hoped.

The heavy
southwesterly breeze hit him like a sudden blast from a wind tunnel’s engine the
moment he stepped outside, blowing his thinning desert-gray hair in whatever
haphazard manner it chose and carrying with it a myriad of interesting scents.
Some of them were familiar, others not so much. The aromas of a variety of
foods blended into a mouth-watering bouquet. The smells of the sea, both good
and not so good were present as well. There was even a hint of jet propellant,
though that particular odor proved quite difficult to discern. Thank the gods the
Terrans had stopped burning fossil fuels decades ago. Otherwise that dreadful
odor would likely have overwhelmed all the others.

The breeze
itself didn’t surprise him at all. Aerospaceports everywhere always tended to
be windy. But December marked the end of autumn in Earth’s northern hemisphere,
so he’d expected the air to feel bitterly cold, the way it had all those years
ago. Especially in New York. And yet the day was already surprisingly warm. Not
warm enough to prevent him from feeling a little chilly as he stood there, but
warm nonetheless.

The weather
patterns on this world certainly could be unpredictable at times.

He turned up
his collar and gathered it tightly around his neck, then hurried up the spiral
ramp to board the free skytram for the city. He chose a sun-side window seat
near the front of the car and sat down. That way, not only would he stay as
warm as possible during the ride, he’d also be able to get off quickly when
they reached his stop.

Several
minutes ticked by, during which time a number of other passengers boarded the
tram. Min’para reached out to each one of them in turn with his mind as they
walked by, trying to touch their thoughts—trying to get a sense of any hidden
agenda that might be lurking there. But he was a touch telepath, as all Cirran
telepaths were, and he simply couldn’t do it.

One thing he
did notice, however. A fact that was no doubt painfully obvious to telepaths
and non-telepaths alike. As far as the Terrans were concerned it was a warm day
in New York City. Without exception, everyone he’d seen since his arrival had
either dressed in anticipation of a sweltering afternoon or had begun to remove
whatever superfluous outer clothing they could do without. Those in business
attire, males and females alike, had either left their suit coats behind or
were carrying them over their arms. Shirt and blouse collars were open—some of
them, particular some of the women’s, were more open than others—and sleeves
were rolled up.