Fleet grabbed him and stuck him at Mars Base doing data entry in Supply.
He burned the beard off, pulled on his dress blues: never wear fatigues to an interservice glitch-up. He had to talk to officers, no question, before this one was straightened out, maybe all the way up the effin’ C/O/C in the UDC and the Fleet. It could be a long day.
Envelope from UDC Technical at Geneva in the briefcase, where it belonged. He put it in his breast pocket.
Never a friggin’ situation without a last friggin’ minute complication. God, he didn’t know why things like this happened to him. His interview appointment could come through at any hour, he didn’t want Meeker to grab the first slot—first effin’ thing he was going to do if they gave him Geneva was put the shove on that damned EC Software.
He checked his watch. 0908. Five minutes to walk to the trans. Orders in his pocket. Yes. And out the door.
Trans was packed. A whole wide-eyed batch of shiny new C-l’s with their entry tags and their hand-baggage occupied all the seats, and Ben clung with an elbow about a pole and punched buttons on the hand reader, running down the applicable rules on interservice transfer apps.
Wasn’t any reason to sweat it. Couldn’t be. Weiter’d shoved him through three levels in a year…. He was Weiter’s fair-haired baby, best Weiter had ever had in the department. Him and Meeker, neck and neck all the way. No way Weiter wouldn’t go up the chain for him.
Green 14. He made the transfer and lost the C-l’s—thank God. He got a seat, sat down and read.
Right of appeal. Ref: Administrative Appeal, Sec. 14…. Through chain of command in service of origin.
In service of origin. Which meant the United Defense Command, which wasn’t, never mind Fleet Captain Conrad
Mazian’s performance at the UN, going to let the Fleet get its hands on whatever it wanted.
Blue line now. Institution blue. The walls outside the spex in me doors grew skuzzier and skuzzier and the air that sucked in when the doors opened was cold and smelled of oil.
Descent into hell, Ben thought. Like R2 all over again. He sat in his dress uniform and watched the scenery, dark tunnel and grim flashes of gray-blue panels and white station numbers as the trans shot past stops without a call punched. Thump of the section seals. He could almost smell helldeck, all but hear the clash of metal and the hard raucous beat of the music echoing down the deck. He smelled the peculiar taint of cold machinery and kept having this most damnable feeling of—
belonging in the dark side, living on the cheap, getting by, scamming the Company cops and knowing he could always slip through the system, knowing far more about the company computers and access numbers than the Company thought he’d learned. Him and Bud. —And Sal Aboujib.
Damn.
Helldeck wasn’t a place you’d miss. He was someone else now. Spiff uniform and a tech/2’s collar phi. Clean fingers—in all senses. He didn’t do a thing illegitimate with the computers he worked with. He didn’t know anybody who did, no, sir, didn’t even dream about that h-word near the Defense Command computers.
He’d got away with it. Was still getting away with it. He’d dumped the card on R2, and it had never surfaced; he’d gotten his security clearance. He’d gotten his rank. Nobody was going to screw that up. Nobody could have found anything to screw him now…
The sign outside the doors said:
SECURITY AREA.
RESTRICTED.
SHOW PASS.
He got up and got out in a beige, plain hallway, warmer here, thank God, it wasn’t going to freeze his ass off or have him shaking when he was talking to the desk. He straightened his coat, clipped his fancy-tech reader onto his belt and walked up to the only door available, under a security array that was probably reading his respiration rate and taking notes.
He put his card in the slot: the door clicked and opened. Reel Security occupied the solitary desk in the foyer; beyond it was a potted silk palm, an abstract picture, and another beige windowless door.