The Outback Stars (39 page)

“Need to check Bowels,” Myell wrote several minutes later. “Don't trust Osherman.”

The man just never gave up. But Jodenny understood what he was trying to say. If the DNGOs were rerouting Team Space property into the towers for smuggling purposes then the DCS system was compromised. A visual inspection of the conveyance belts would confirm or deny it. She checked her watch. The towers destined for Warramala would start to be released at oh-five-hundred.

“No,” she wrote back. “Not your concern. Do not, repeat, do not, go to Bowels.”

She'd go herself, and keep Myell out of it. Because when all was said and done, Jodenny didn't know if she trusted Osherman either.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Hurry up,” Timrin said. “We don't want them to run out of beer before we get there.”

Myell reached into his locker for the gift he'd gotten Gallivan. It wasn't much, just something to help him kick off his new career as a civilian musician. His knuckles brushed something unfamiliar and he pulled out the jewelry box Dottie had slipped into his rucksack. He hadn't forgotten about it, but he hadn't taken it out since Mary River.

“Give me a minute,” Myell said. “I'll meet you in the lounge.”

Timrin went ahead, grumbling about prima-donna roommates. Myell set the box down next to Koo's empty terrarium and lifted the carved lid. The contents had been jumbled over the years, mixing earrings with necklaces and broken watches. Nothing triggered any memories. He fingered a blue-white stone pendant and a turquoise bracelet. Cheap stuff, nothing he'd want to give to anyone, especially maddening lieutenants. Her order to him not to investigate the Bowels still rankled. Couldn't she see how much trouble they could get in by
not
taking a look? A stone pendant drew his attention. He held it up to the light, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but there was no mistaking the design.

A snake eating its own tail.

An ouroboros.

He dug out the carved stone Ganambarr had given him. The color was the same blue-black, and the type of rock was similar if not identical. He didn't know enough to tell if both had been carved by the same hand, but they each had a small gouge on the bottom, as if the maker had left a mark.

The comm pinged. “Hurry up in there!” Timrin said from the lounge.

Myell put the jewelry box back and added his mother's ouroboros pendant to his dilly bag. Finding it was probably only a coincidence, but maybe it was a message. “You will have to choose,” the Wirrinun had said. And so he would. He would disobey Jodenny and go to the Bowels. But not before he said good-bye to Gallivan.

*   *   *

True to his word, Al-Banna came to dinner in the wardroom and brought his wife. Sayura Al-Banna was a tall, statuesque woman with jet-black hair and a warm laugh. Al-Banna nodded in approval at the wardroom's improved decor and atmosphere. “It's about time someone took charge and cleaned up this place,” he said as Ashmont served soup.

“It was Jodenny, sir,” Hultz said helpfully.

“It was all of us,” Jodenny replied. She had been slightly uneasy about Rokutan coming, but he was on watch. Francesco hadn't dined in the wardroom since the scandal broke, and she missed him terribly. But it was Quenger's absence that worried her most. He wouldn't miss a chance to rub arms with the SUPPO unless for a very good reason.

“You keep looking at the clock,” Hultz said, after dinner had broken up.

“Do I?” Jodenny asked.

“Come on, Lieutenant, play euchre with us,” Al-Banna said from a corner chair.

She partnered with Vu for one game only, then stood up apologetically. “You'll have to excuse me, sir. RT Gallivan's having a going-away party and I promised I'd show up.”

“Why don't we all go?” Vu suggested.

Jodenny couldn't think of a worse suggestion, actually, but within minutes almost all of them were traipsing over to the Rocks, dinner uniforms and all, to the bar where Gallivan's rock 'n' roll band was belting out standard classics. The place was large and crowded, with two levels stretching away into dark corners and a dance floor already jammed with military and civilians alike. Gallivan waved from the stage and Timrin came over to buy Jodenny a beer.

“Have you seen Sergeant Myell?” she asked him. “I have to ask him something about a COSAL.”

Timrin waved to a dark corner. “Back there somewhere. Having a good time for a change.”

Jodenny sat at the bar and sipped at her beer. She resisted Zeni's entreaties to dance and instead watched couples grope and shimmy to the beat. She didn't see any sign of Myell at all. After an hour she made her way to the head and slid out a side exit. The air on the Rocks was cooler than it had been inside, but the crowds watching the final quarter of Talofofo vs. Lake Eerie were just as lively. Jodenny made her way through the throngs to T6's access ring and went down to the loading dock, where all was blessedly quiet. She dug through a supply locker until she found a spare jumpsuit and boots and changed into them, grateful to be out of her skirt and heels. Armed with a flashlight and her gib she climbed downladder and almost immediately stepped on Myell's shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, and got out of her way. He too was wearing a jumpsuit but had obviously dressed in a hurry, with the zipper stuck halfway. She caught a glimpse of his bare chest and tore her gaze away.

“Me?” Jodenny demanded. “Why do you insist on ignoring my orders?”

“Why do you give me orders you know I won't obey?”

She glared at him. He was entirely unperturbed. “Fine,” she said, and flashed her light down the passageway. The mag-lev belt ran along the starboard bulkhead, protected by a clearshield. Smartcrates delivered by the DNGOs were humming along toward Mainship. They followed the crates to where the mag-lev met the Rocks and settled down to see if any diverted off to any of the branch lines. Tram noise from overhead, coupled with water, power, and sewer sounds, made casual conversation difficult.

“How long should we wait?” Myell asked.

Jodenny shrugged. “Give it an hour or two.”

The air was dripping with humidity and smelled like machine oil. There wasn't much room to sit on the deck but they wedged themselves between air-conditioning units. Jodenny decided she was crazy to be sitting alone with Myell. Her leg inadvertently pressed against his, his bulk solid against her right hip. If she were a good lieutenant she'd put a halt to their amateur investigation and go back up to the light and crowds. As it was, they could do just about anything they wanted to down here and no one would be the wiser. Jodenny glanced at Myell. His cheeks were flushed.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. “Hot down here.”

Ninety minutes later their watch paid off. A set of pushing gear came alive and knocked aside three crates so that they were no longer destined for Mainship but instead for some other tower. Jodenny and Myell tried to follow, but the mag-lev was faster than they were and soon the crates were out of sight.

“It doesn't matter,” Jodenny said. “The only towers to be released are T14, T16, and T19, and these belts run to even-numbered towers. T14 is the prison colony. What's in T16?”

“Trains and bridges, I think.”

She wiped sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and wished she'd had the foresight to bring water. Myell took the lead and had to bend over to pass beneath jutting ducts. He helped her over a patch of something dark and foul on the floor. The noise from the tram system receded, and the air got a little cooler.

“More legends,” he said. “People who hitchhike on ships and live under the Rocks.”

Jodenny had heard that one. “They ride the circuit for years and years, living so long in the dark that they go blind.”

The belt abruptly descended down through the deck. They climbed downladder into a passage that was narrower, dirtier, and darker than the one they left behind. Jodenny could almost feel the grime sinking into her pores and blood. “Here comes another one,” Myell said as a smartcrate overtook them. “Greedy bastards, aren't they?”

They were getting close to T16 when lights flickered in the passageway and voices echoed against the bulkheads. A maintenance crew from Tower Operations, she told herself, but she stopped walking and shut off her torch. Myell stood beside her, so close she could feel his body heat.

“I hear Chiba,” he whispered.

Silver-white light scorched across Jodenny's line of vision. The mazer charge threw Myell back against the bulkhead. The next charge stabbed through Jodenny's side to her spine and sent a skewering pain up to the base of her skull. She'd never been mazered before, although once at the academy she'd been punched so hard in a boxing ring that she saw stars. She saw them again now, bright lacy pinpoints falling like snowflakes, and as all her limbs went numb she pitched forward helplessly, unable to brace herself as the deck slammed up under her face.

A moment or two of blackness, not much at all. She came to her senses prone on the deck, her right arm pinned beneath her, drool down the side of her face. With blurred, doubled vision she saw Quenger and Chiba looking down on her with contempt.

“Now, Jo, Jo, Jo,” Quenger said. “Look what you've done to yourself this time.”

He crouched beside her and ran his fingers across her cheek. Jodenny wanted to recoil, but her body felt distant and unreal, as if it belonged to someone else. In a deceptively mild tone Quenger said, “Couldn't mind your own business. Couldn't keep your hands off everything. Stealing the division officer job wasn't enough, is that it?”

Chiba said, “Oh, fuck her and Myell. Let's be done with this.”

Quenger's expression brightened, as if he truly was considering peeling away Jodenny's clothes and raping her on the deck. She wouldn't be able to stop him. Chiba and Quenger both could do whatever they wanted. Then a third person drew near, and Jodenny's pulse soared with recognition. The lying, double-crossing son of a bitch—

“We don't have much time,” Osherman said. He gazed down at Jodenny dispassionately. “Leave them here. We're never coming back, anyway. By the time anyone finds them we'll be long gone.”

“Leave them alive?” Chiba lifted his mazer again and aimed it at Jodenny's head. “No. No witnesses.”

So this was it. They were going to die in the filthy, rotten Bowels and it was Jodenny's fault for not discouraging Myell from his speculations. So stupid. She'd been so stupid.

Quenger stood up. “So do it already. We've only got a few hours.”

Chiba scowled. The mazer lowered a few centimeters. “Why don't you get your hands dirty on this one? You never do the hard work.”

“I could do it,” Quenger blustered. “You don't think I can?”

“Wait. What's this?” Osherman crouched down to the deck. He picked up a small cylindrical object, some kind of computer equipment. “Looks like a pocket server.”

Chiba said, “They've been fucking recording us—”

The mazer struck again. Jodenny knew nothing.

*   *   *

The sound of a hatch slamming shut brought Myell around. At first he thought he was back in Sick Berth after the accident in T6, but that couldn't be right unless the staff had turned out the lights and lowered the thermostat by several degrees. He strained to make out his surroundings but saw only a blurred red glow moving a few meters away. It took several moments for him to realize that the light was an exit sign and that he was the one who was moving about.

He tried to drag himself upright, but there was no upright to be found. The gravity had disappeared while he was unconscious. He twisted in midair and grasped for any available handhold. His fingers scraped the soft, fine strands of a woman's hair.

“Jodenny,” he croaked out, but she didn't answer. Myell pulled himself closer. He touched a shoulder, a possible breast, another breast, and there, the belt of her jumpsuit.

With one hand firmly around her belt he tried again for a handhold on the deck or bulkheads. He attempted to drift toward the red light, but he had no real maneuvering ability. When his icy fingers touched a flat surface he twisted around to get his feet against it. He pushed off toward the emergency light and the hatch beneath it.

Myell slapped the exit control but nothing happened. His chest began aching as he considered the possibilities of where they might be. “Medbot, activate,” he mumbled. He repeated it again, louder. A green light lit up on the opposite bulkhead as the unit flew toward the sound of his voice.

“Environmental conditions unsound,” the medbot said. “Initiating emergency protocols.”

An air vent hissed. Myell turned toward the stream of cold oxygen and gulped in deep breaths. The backup atmospherics would last only about ten minutes, depending on consumption. By the light of the medbot's headlamp he could see he was floating near the ceiling of T16's command module. The control panels were all powered down. Beyond the plastiglass windows, the tower shaft was pitch-black. The scant heat and air that had come in when their attackers had shoved them inside were already dissipating.

“Jodenny, wake up.” He pulled her limp body close to his. Her face was shockingly pale, but her lips weren't blue. Yet.

“Contacting Emergency Services,” the medbot said.

Myell wrapped his legs around her to anchor her. Still clinging to the emergency light, he used his free hand to slap her cheeks. Her hair, loose from its braid, rippled like seaweed.

“Unable to make contact,” the medbot announced.

Of course not. T16 was unmanned and disconnected. In just a few hours it was going to be let loose into Warramala's orbit and picked up by escort tugs.

“Jodenny.” Myell resisted the impulse to therapeutically kiss her and force some air past those pretty lips. She was unconscious but breathing. The medbot had reached its own diagnosis.