He had no instructions how to play that one. He wasn’t a lawyer. He didn’t know whether Tanzer could legally do that. He wasn’t in charge of policy. He didn’t know whether he should use Fleet Security to guarantee access. It was down to that. The phone rang—thank God for two extra seconds to think while Tanzer jabbed a button and growled an irritable, “I’m not to be disturbed.”
“Sir,” the secretary said, on intercom, “your line.”
Unusual. Tanzer picked up the phone to listen in private and his expression smoothed out and went completely grim.
“When?” Tanzer asked; and: “Any other information?” And, “Find out, dammit, however you have to.”
After which Tanzer hung up, glowered at him and said, “Get yourself and your crew up onto the carrier. Right now.”
“Incoming?” A strike at Sol? Union missiles?
Tanzer’s fist slammed the desk. “Get your ass out of this office, lieutenant, and get it the hell up to the carrier where you’re supposed to be competent!”
Incoming was no time to stand arguing, and arguing with Tanzer was no way to get information through the carrier’s systems; but if it was Union action there was no way he was going to make the carrier’s deck before criticality. “Phone,” he said, and reached for the one on the desk. The colonel made to stop him, and he held on to it with: “Dammit, they need a go-order. —Carrier-corn,” he told Tanzer’s secretary. “Fast,” —after which the secretary muttered something and he heard the lighter, fainter sound of Fleet relays. “This is Graff,” he said the instant he had a click-in. “Status.”
“J-G,” Saito’s voice came back faintly. “You’re on a UDC line.”
“Yes.” Short and fast. “Colonel’s office.’1’ It wasn’t an incoming—he knew that in the first heartbeat of Saito’s remark about his whereabouts and he knew in that same second that UDC was a codeword on its own. Saito said, calmly: “Stand by,” and the phone popped and went to corn-noise.
“This is FleetCom Command. ECS4 ETA at Sol Two 2 hours 3 minutes. Command of Sol Two facilities has passed to Fleet Command. UDC personnel are being—“
The message went offline. Went on again. Somebody in the outer office had a nervous finger.
“—with Fleet personnel. This message will repeat on demand. Key FleetCom 48. Endit.”
He looked at Tanzer, who didn’t know. Who was worried, clearly. And mad. Tanzer’s secretary said, in his ear. “Lt. Graff, this is Lt. Andrews. The colonel has an urgent message. Would you turn over the phone?”
“For you,” he said, and passed the handset to Tanzer. Stood there watching Tanzer’s face go from red to white.
Number 4 carrier was incoming from Sol One, not at cap, but as much as they meant anyone’s optics to see at this stage. The captain?
“Get a confirm on that,” Tanzer said to whoever was on the line.
Tanzer wasn’t looking at him. He could ease things or complicate matters—here in this office. He could end up with what had happened in the messhall played out on dockside—at gunpoint, if he and Tanzer both wanted to be fools. He put on his blankest, most proper expression—was very quiet when Tanzer finally hung up and looked at him.
“I trust our messages were similar,” he said, with—he hoped—not a flicker of offense. “May I suggest, sir, we present this to personnel in a quiet, positive manner. I’d suggest a joint communiqué.”
Tanzer didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, with a palpable effort: “I’d suggest we keep this quiet until we can sort it out.”
“Colonel, I appreciate the difficulties involved. FleetCom is handling approach and docking. In the meanwhile my command has its own set of procedures, primarily involving dock access at this point. I’d suggest we move your security into a secondary position and move ours into supervision of debarkation facilities.”
“I’ve no authorization to do that. You’ll wait, you’ll bloody wait!”
“I’ll wait,” he said, trying to add up in his head what all the Alpha and Beta Points on this station were, and what he could do to secure records without creating an incident he was virtually certain FleetCommand didn’t want. “On the other hand, mat carrier will dock in a little less than two hours, by which time I have to have a secure perimeter, colonel, mat’s mandatory under our procedures.”