It was late in the evening when the commander cut short their speculations on Zoo, stood up, snapped the belt flash from its ring and flicked it experimentally. “We could all use some sleep,” he decided, with the smile of a young father at his men, some of whom were older than he. “Mr. Locklear, we have more than enough room. Please be our guest in the Anthony Wayne tonight.”
Locklear, thinking that Loli might steal back to the cabin if she were somewhere nearby, said, “I appreciate it, Commander, but I’m right at home here. Really.”
A nod, and a reflective gnawing of Stockton’s lower lip. “I’m responsible for you now, Locklear. God knows what those Neanderthals might do, now that we’ve set fire to their nests.”
“But—” The men were stretching out their kinks, paying silent but close attention to the interchange.
“I must insist. I don’t want to put it in terms of command, but I am the local sheriff here now, so to speak.” The engaging grin again. “Come on, Locklear, think of it as repaying your hospitality. Nothing’s certain in this place, and—” his last phrase bringing soft chuckles from Gomulka, “they’d throw me in the brig if I let anything happen to you now.”
* * *
The taciturn Parker led the way, and Locklear smiled in the darkness thinking how Loli might wonder at the intensely bright, intensely magical beams that bobbed toward the ship. After Parker called out his name and a long number, the ship’s hatch steps dropped at their feet and Locklear knew the reassurance of climbing into an Interworld ship with its familiar smells, whines and beeps.
Parker and Schmidt were loudly in favor of a nightcap, but Stockton’s, “Not a good idea, David,” to the sergeant was met with a nod and barked commands by Gomulka. Grace Agostinho made a similar offer to Locklear.
“Thanks anyway. You know what I’d really like?”
“Probably,” she said, with a pursed-lipped smile.
He was blushing as he said, “Ham sandwiches. Beer. A slice of thrillcake,” and nodded quickly when she hauled a frozen shrimp teriyaki from their food lockers. When it popped from the radioven, he sat near the ship’s bridge to eat it, idly noting a few dark foodstains on the bridge linolamat and listening to Grace tell of small news from home. The Amazon dam, a new “mustsee” holo musical, a controversial cure for the common cold; the kind of tremendous trifles that cemented friendships.
She left him briefly while he chased scraps on his plate, and by the time she returned most of the crew had secured their pneumatic cubicle doors. “It’s always satisfying to feed a man with an appetite,” said Grace, smiling at his clean plate as she slid it into the galley scrubber. “I’ll see you’re fed well on the Wayne.” With hands on her hips, she said, “Well: Private Schmidt has sentry duty. He’ll show you to your quarters.”
He took her hand, thanked her, and nodded to the slightly wavering Schmidt, who led the way back toward the ship’s engine room. He did not look back but, from the sound of it, Grace entered a cubicle where two men were arguing in subdued tones.
Schmidt showed him to the rearmost cubicle but not the rearmost dozen bunks. Those, he saw, were ranked inside a cage of duralloy with no privacy whatever. Dark crusted stains spotted the floor inside and outside the cage. A fax sheet lay in the passageway. When Locklear glanced toward it, the private saw it, tried to hide a startled response, and then essayed a drunken grin.
“Gotta have a tight ship,” said Schmidt, banging his head on the duralloy as he retrieved the fax and balled it up with one hand. He tossed the wadded fax into a flush-mounted waste receptacle, slid the cubicle door open for Locklear, and managed a passable salute. “Have a good one, pal. You know how to adjust your rubberlady?”
Locklear saw that the mattresses of the two bunks were standard models with adjustable inflation and webbing. “No problem,” he replied, and slid the door closed. He washed up at the tiny inset sink, used the urinal slot below it, and surveyed his clothes after removing them. They’d all seen better days. Maybe he could wangle some new ones. He was sleepier than he’d thought, and adjusted his rubberlady for a soft setting, and was asleep within moments.
He did not know how long it was before he found himself sitting bolt-upright in darkness. He knew what was wrong, now: everything. It might be possible for a little escort ship to plunder records from a derelict mile-long kzin battleship. It was barely possible that the same craft would be sent to check on some big kzin secret—but not without at least a cruiser, if the kzinti might be heading for Zoo.
He rubbed a trickle of sweat as it counted his ribs. He didn’t have to be a military buff to know that ordinary privates do not have access to medical lockers, and the commander had told Gazho to get that brandy from med stores. Right; and all those motley shoulder patches didn’t add up to a picked combat crew, either. And one more thing: even in his half-blotted condition, Schmidt had snatched that fax sheet up as though it was evidence against him. Maybe it was . . .
He waved the overhead lamp on, grabbed his ratty flight suit, and slid his cubicle door open. If anyone asked, he was looking for a cleaner unit for his togs.
A low thrum of the ship’s sleeping hydraulics; a slightly louder buzz of someone sleeping, most likely Schmidt while on sentry duty. Not much discipline at all. I wonder just how much commanding Stockton really does. Locklear stepped into the passageway, moved several paces, and eased his free hand into the waste receptacle slot. Then he thrust the fax wad into his dirty flight suit and padded silently back, cursing the sigh of his door. A moment later he was colder than before.
The fax was labeled, “PRISONER RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES,” and had been signed by some Provost Marshal—or a doctor, to judge from its illegibility. He’d bet anything that fax had fallen, or had been torn, from those duralloy bars. Rust-colored crusty stains on the floor; a similar stain near the ship’s bridge; but no obvious damage to the ship from kzin weapons.
It took all his courage to go into the passageway again, flight suit in hand, and replace the wadded fax sheet where he’d found it. And the door seemed much louder this time, almost a sob instead of a sigh.
Locklear felt like sobbing too. He lay on his rubberlady in the dark, thinking about it. A hundred scenarios might explain some of the facts, but only one matched them all: the Anthony Wayne had been a prisoner ship, but now the prisoners were calling themselves “commander” and “sergeant,” and the real crew of the Anthony Wayne had made those stains inside the ship with their blood.
He wanted to shout it, but demanded it silently: So why would a handful of deserters fly to Zoo? Before he fell at last into a troubled sleep, he had asked it again and again, and the answer was always the same: somehow, one of them had learned of the kzin records and hoped to find Zoo’s secret before either side did.
These people would be deadly to anyone who knew their secret. And almost certainly, they’d never buy the truth, that Locklear himself was the secret because the kzinti had been so sure he was an Interworld agent.
* * *
Locklear awoke with a sensation of dread, then a brief upsurge of joy at sleeping in modern accommodations, and then he remembered his conclusions in the middle of the night, and his optimism fell off and broke.
To mend it, he decided to smile with the innocence of a Candide and plan his tactics. If he could get to the kzin lifeboat, he might steer it like a slow battering ram and disable the Anthony Wayne. Or they might blow him to flinders in midair—and what if his fears were wrong, and despite all evidence this combat team was genuine? In any case, disabling the ship meant marooning the whole lot of them together. It wasn’t a plan calculated to lengthen his life expectancy; maybe he would think of another.
The crew was already bustling around with breakfasts when he emerged, and yes, he could use the ship’s cleaning unit for his clothes. When he asked for spare clothing, Soichiro Lee was first to deny it to him. “Our spares are still—contaminated from a previous engagement,” he explained, with a meaningful look toward Gomulka.
I bet they are, with blood, Locklear told himself as he scooped his synthesized eggs and bacon. Their uniforms all seemed to fit well. Probably their own, he decided. The stylized winged gun on Gomulka’s patch said he could fly gunships. Lee might be a medic, and the sensuous Grace might be a real intelligence officer—and all could be renegades.