Be careful, Demas had told him last night. Don’t succeed too conspicuously.
“Mr. Dekker.”
A breath. “Yessir.”
“Coincidence in this instance is remotely possible.
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t believe it.”
“No, sir. I absolutely don’t.”
“You’re probably asking yourself why you were so lucky— why I pulled you from tests.”
Another breath. Maybe Dekker hadn’t gotten that far. Maybe Dekker was still tracking on the past, pulling up damaged memory—maybe Dekker was thinking of revenge, or Porey, or the multitudinous accesses corporate connivance could infiltrate that a Fleet pilot wasn’t educated to suspect…
“The reason I did pull you—we found a bias in the Aptitudes. I’m telling you something that’s classified to the hilt, understand. If it gets to the barracks the wrong way, with no fix, it could affect performance. Fatally. You understand me? We’re on a knife’s edge here, right now. We don’t need loose talk. On any topic.”
A worried glance. “Yessir.”
“I’m telling you this because I suspect one of your crew made the discovery and communicated it to me, secretly, which is also not for general consumption, and when the commander briefs you, don’t let him know you know either—how I heard could bring one of your crew before a court martial, do I make myself absolutely clear on that?”
“Yessir.” Dekker’s voice was all but inaudible.
“The public story has to be mat, having experience with this ship, we’re going to be re-evaluating certain crews for reassignment—“
“Break crews? Is that what we’re talking about?”
Damnable question. Touchy question, considering the Wilhelmsen disaster. He paused in the corridor short of the marine guards outside Percy’s office, outside their audio pick-up, he hoped, or their orders to eavesdrop on an officer. “Not by fiat. I’m asking for any crews who might want assignments re-evaluated—in the light of new data. No break-up of existing crews unless there’s a request from inside the crew. We recognize, believe me, we recognize the psychological investments you have.”
“Why in hell—“ Dekker caught a breath, asked, in bewildered, betrayed tones: “Why didn’t you catch it before this?”
“Mr. Dekker, when we began this program, in an earlier, naive assumption of welcome here, we trusted the UDC to know Sol mindsets better than we did. We were absolutely wrong. We didn’t understand the prejudice involved, against the people we most needed. And your crew is the most foreign to their criteria. More so than Shepherds. Maybe that explains how it turned up with your group. But what I’ve told you can’t go any further. Hear me?”
Dekker drew a shaky breath. “Yessir.”
“I have to take your word, Mr. Dekker. Or, understand me—court-martial Ben Pollard.”
“I’m giving you a two-day stand-down, Mr. Dekker,” Porey said, the friendliest Dekker had ever seen the man, me quietest he’d ever imagined him. It still didn’t include warmth. “I don’t want you near the labs for forty-eight hours.”
Graff said, from the side of the room, “I’d recommend longer.”
Frown from Porey, who rocked back in the desk chair. ‘’We haven’t got longer. You have a mother a great deal in the news… which you know. You may not know there’s a special bill proceeding through a JLC committee, that requires the military to surrender personnel indicted for major crimes, are you aware of that, Mr. Dekker? —Does that concern you?”
A complete shift of attack. Another assault on memory. Sometimes he thought he lost things. “My mother, sir,…”
“He’s not gotten the headlines,” Graff said. “His schedule’s been non-stop for days…”
“Your mother, Mr. Dekker, has a battery of very expensive peacer lawyers, your mother is a cause that’s burned a police station in Denmark and gotten a MarsCorp chartered jet grounded in Dallas on a bomb threat—do you know mat?”
No, he didn’t. He shook his head and Porey went on,
“The whole damned planet’s on its ear, there’s a lot of pressure on the legislative committee, and you’re essential personnel, mister. Your crew is an essential, high-tech experiment that through no particular fault of yours, has taken a direct hit from a damnably persistent woman and a nest of lying political fools in the UDC, who are in bed and fornicating with the politicians who appointed them to their posts, the same politicians who are fornicating with the shadow parliament and the peacers in Geneva. That bill is a piece of currency in this game. We have to avoid you becoming another piece of currency in this affair, a damned media circus if they extradite you, and that means getting anything done with this project has assumed a sudden certain urgency, do you follow me?”