The Burning Dark (18 page)

“I wouldn’t rely too much on that.”

Ida turned to King, standing behind him. “The crew scan?”

King nodded. “There’s a bug in the manifest. Crew tracking is a little flaky at the moment. That’s what Operator Jagger here was busy with, trying to locate and correct the error without having to reboot the entire ship-wide net.”

Ida frowned and scratched at the back of his head. He’d never heard of a manifest bugging. Keeping track of everything on board a U-Star was one of the provost marshal’s main responsibilities. Everything from pencils to protein sachets, from neutron missiles to the crew itself was traceable and trackable. Their current whereabouts could be called up instantly on the automated system, and any movement watched in real time from the security desk. Fleet personnel had subcutaneous ident tags that couldn’t be removed without a lot of blood and trouble—Ida’s had been removed when he retired, hence King’s requirement he wear an old-fashioned tag card on his belt.

“Huh,” said Ida, turning back to the console. The two largest rectangular computer screens were showing the results of his request, the left-hand panel an amber diagram of the section in which Ida had made his quarters, the right showing the camera feed from the passage outside his door.

Ida watched one, then the other, his eyes flicking between the two screens. He saw his green ID indicator on the schematic. It was mostly motionless—him listening to the recording in his cabin, he realized. But the manifest scanner only showed him in his cabin, not Izanami.

“I see what you mean about the manifest,” said Ida, glancing sideways at King.

The marshal raised an eyebrow but merely grunted in response.

The camera feed showed the half-lit passageway from the same three-quarters top-down view as it had before. The picture was almost entirely still, and if not for a few red and blue LED studs embedded in various wall panels that periodically flashed or changed color, Ida could have sworn the picture was on a freeze-frame.

“Wind them on together.”

The operator acknowledged, fingers moving over analog jog controls on the desk. The pulsing of the LEDs on the security feed increased, and Ida could see his own green indicator on the map wobbling a little as he shuffled around the cabin. But aside from that, nothing was happening.

“Fascinating, Captain.”

Ida turned to King. “Watch and wait,” he said. He turned back to the desk and saw his green indicator move quickly across the schematic diagram of his circular cabin.

“There!” Ida tapped the desk and the operator slowed the recordings to normal speed.

Ida’s green dot stopped by the door, and then moved forward. On the camera feed, he darted out of the now-open cabin door, fell into a crouch, and looked left and right in quick succession. Finally he straightened up and, fists clenched, walked back through the door and out of view.

Looking at the manifest scanner, Ida saw his green dot move back into the cabin a little before turning and leaving in a curved trajectory. On the camera, Ida reappeared briefly as he strode out of his cabin and headed to the bridge, walking under the camera and out of sight.

King sighed, and Ida felt a heavy hand clap him on the shoulder.

“Okay, Captain,” said King. He looked at the floor and then flicked his eyes up to meet Ida’s. “Thanks for the show. I’ll be sure to look out for the rerun. Now, next time you step onto this bridge, I’m going to have a demo droid dismantle you and pack you away in one of the kit boxes along with the section of the hub that your cabin is in. Do we have an understanding?”

Ida shook King’s hand off.

King stiffened, his eyes narrow and nostrils flaring.

Ida pointed at the two security screens, both now paused by the Flyeye. “You think I’m making this up? There was someone at my cabin. What? You think I’m seeing ghosts now?”

King clicked his tongue, then sighed and tapped the back of the operator’s chair.

“Run it back, just before Captain Cleveland left his cabin the first time. There. Pause. Now go slow.”

It was the same as before. Ida’s green indicator unmoving in his cabin, then jerking into life and moving to the wall beside the door before passing through it. On the other screen Ida watched himself jumping into the passage and looking left and right.

King pointed at the screen. “Take it back, just a little. Slow, slow.”

The Flyeye rotated the jog control, reversing the playback in ultra slow motion.

Bingo.
Ida knew it. He pointed at the screen and looked at King. “Told you.”

King looked at Ida, eyebrows knitted together over his nose. He looked back at the screen. “Operator, full manifest for that timestamp, please.”

Ida folded his arms and took a step back, admiring the view on the two security screens as the operator and King busied themselves at the console.

The more he looked, though, the less he liked it. Ida began to feel a chill, and an odd, tight sensation in his chest, as the feeling of triumph over King abated.

The camera feed on the corridor was paused, a millisecond before Ida was due to make his exit from the cabin. The corridor was empty, except for a faint black shape. Hardly more than an outline, it was the size and shape of a man in an old-fashioned bulky spacesuit, complete with spherical helmet.

But even though the image was still, the form seemed to melt back into the shadows. In fact, the more Ida looked at it, the less it looked like anything at all, certainly less like DeJohn—the marine was a muscle-bound six feet, and the figure in the corridor was shorter, thinner. Ida squinted at the screen. It was a shadow, nothing more, maybe a simulacrum formed by the poor light of the passageway. He began to feel less and less confident.

But it was something, right? He was right. He’d seen something. Even if it meant he was jumping at shadows, this was proof it wasn’t all inside his head.

“No suits missing,” said King. He turned back to Ida. “Captain?”

Ida shook his head. He blinked and took a step back toward the console, where King was pointing at a smaller display set into the desktop. “No crew either,” said the marshal.

“I thought you said the manifest was bugged?”

King pressed his tongue into the side of his cheek. Then he nodded. “Better check it manually.”

He flicked the comms panel on the security desk. Nothing happened, and he flicked it again. Static popped sharply, making King jump.

“Problem?” asked Ida.

King whistled between his teeth. “No,” he said sharply. Then he swore. “Where the hell is DeJohn? Carter, report, please.”

“DeJohn isn’t showing on the manifest, and there might be a suit missing. That’s it, isn’t it? That guy’s been itching for me since day one.”

King squinted at Ida, then glanced down at the Ops seated beside him. “Get a security detail here. Now.”

“That’s more like it,” said Ida.

King stepped forward. There was something about his expression that Ida didn’t like.

“You’re right, Captain. It’s time we started doing this by the book.” King smiled a smile without any pleasure. “We’re entering lockdown for the arrival of our guest, and you are operating an unauthorized communications deck. You are to surrender it immediately.”

Ida almost took a step backwards. “Excuse me?”

The marshal placed his hands behind his back, now clearly in his element. “When I told you to take up a hobby, I didn’t say anything about breaking Fleet regulations. I am aware you have tuned your radio set to subspace, which is a prohibited frequency.”

Shit.
He knew. Ida’s mind raced. How? Clearly someone had told him—probably the same people who had broken into his cabin earlier. Ida wondered if anyone had been listening in on his radio chatter too. He wondered if anyone else had heard the strange message.

“Look, marshal,” Ida began. He was on thin ice here, and he knew it. He just hoped that with the operations on the station winding down, King would continue to be lenient. He opened his mouth to speak again when King held up a hand.

King nodded to someone just over Ida’s left shoulder. Ida saw King’s hand twitch just before a heavy hand enveloped each shoulder.

“Security, escort Captain Cleveland to his quarters and supervise the deactivation of his space radio set. Bring the confiscated equipment to me when you are done.”

The grip on Ida’s shoulders tightened.

“Captain Cleveland is to remain in his cabin until our VIP has departed.” King looked between the two marine escorts and seemed to choose one at random. “Ahuriri, remain outside the cabin. If the captain tries to leave, manacle him to something heavy.”

King’s eyes flicked back to Ida’s. The marshal was in his element now. Ida knew, after months stuck on a barely functioning station, he must have been itching for a chance to reestablish order and control.

“I’m under arrest now?” Ida’s voice was almost a whisper.

King regarded Ida and folded his arms. “You are a security risk, Captain. But believe me, I am doing you a favor. If you were on active duty, this would be much worse. Dismissed.”

The marines, each fully kitted out in the security detail’s helmet and body armor, pulled harder on Ida’s shoulders, and he knew if he didn’t comply, they’d lift him up and carry him by the armpits back to his cabin. He shrugged them off, holding both hands up in surrender, and turned and walked to the elevator column ahead of his escort.

The walk back to his cabin took nearly ten minutes from the bridge, but Ida barely noticed. Instead his mind was racing. He’d got off easy, for sure, and he should have known not to dabble in the forbidden subspace frequencies, even if he’d found them accidentally in the first place.

But without the radio, he wouldn’t have the message, the recording. Which was exactly what needed to happen—provost marshal aside, Ida had to get the damn thing out of his head.

None of which made Ida feel any happier about losing the ghostly, crackling voice of the woman who had died long ago.

“You going to open this door or what?”

Ida’s head snapped around, and he looked at himself in the reflection in the marine’s helmet. They were standing outside his cabin.

Ida nodded and, glancing up at the security camera on the bulkhead, tapped the entry code into the door panel.

19

Carter swore and slid
off Serra’s body. She sighed and kicked at the tangle of damp sheets at her feet. He laughed.

“What?” she asked.

Carter helped push the bedding off onto the floor with his feet. They lay together, heat radiating off their slick bodies.

“You,” he said. “Aren’t girls supposed to sigh delicately and pull the sheets up to their chin when they’re done?”

Serra laughed now and stretched her arms above her head. Carter’s eyes were fixed on her breasts as they were pulled taut against her rib cage.

His lip curled and his hands moved over her body. Serra giggled and moved in to kiss him, then jolted under his grip, pushing herself up the narrow bed quickly. Carter snarled and poked his tongue between his teeth, but his grin quickly vanished when Serra said
“coño”
and then “fuck,” and knocked his hands away.

“What is it?”

Serra looked past him, her eyes searching the cabin, but it was dark, twilight-normal, empty. Carter craned his neck around.

“There was someone looking in.” Serra pointed at the door as Carter rolled over and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. She sat up and leaned over, scrabbling for the bedsheets so recently discarded.

Carter sat on the edge of the bed, elbows locked as he pressed backwards on the mattress, ready to spring up. After a few seconds his shoulders relaxed and he turned back to Serra.

“There’s no one there. You okay? You’re pretty edgy, you know?”

Serra frowned and pulled the sheet tight against her chest. It was getting cold in the cabin. She could hear the environment control kick in, faintly roaring like a distant sea.

Carter was right; that was the thing. Serra wished that she’d gone with the other psi-marines instead of Lafferty and met up with her lover back on Earth, later. Life on the
Coast City
was fucking her up.

Carter sniffed and looked back toward the door, apparently oblivious of the dropping temperature. “You think we got a Peeping Tom?”

Serra nodded. She wanted to say more, to tell him about the voices, to tell him about the purple light in her dreams, to tell him that she felt an almost constant presence now, tailing their every move around the station.

But she just pressed the sheet against her chest with her left forearm crossed protectively over it. Carter stared at her, his own face expressionless. But there was something in his eyes. She knew he trusted her instincts. That was her job, after all. He was a frontline marine, one of the best. That was
his
job.

Carter sighed and he pushed himself off the bed, padding over to the door. Placing his hands on either side of the square window, he pressed his nose against the panel and looked left and right as best he could. Serra shuffled on the bed behind him.

“I must have imagined it,” she said.

“Huh,” said Carter, still trying to look down the passageway outside the cabin without opening the door. “Y’know, if we’ve got a peeping perv, I have a feeling there’s only one person on this boat that it’ll be.”

“DeJohn?” Shit. It wasn’t a surprise. They’d given up trying to find him after nearly two hours of chasing shadows around the hub, Carter finally calling it and reporting back to the marshal. If DeJohn was playing a game, it was a fucking tiresome one.

“Yep. Prick.” Carter turned from the door. “You’ve seen how he’s been lately. He’s high on engine juice most of the time. This tour is seriously screwing him up.” Carter gave one more glance out the window. “Anyway, looks like we’re alone now. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was your imagination. Now,” he said, turning and advancing toward the bed, a wicked grin on his face. “Where were we, exactly?”

Serra relaxed, letting the sheet slacken as Carter leaned forward to grab it off her. They both laughed, and Serra braced herself for a tug-of-war. Jerking forward, Serra glanced over Carter’s shoulder, toward the door.