“Did they find anything on the security monitors?”
Olivia shook her head, her mouth puckering into a thoughtful pout. “No. Major Latimore says the only anomalies were Trelawney’s door opening and closing by itself about a half hour apart. Maintenance is going to give it a once-over. It seems he complained about his door self-activating a couple of times in the last few weeks, but all diagnostics come up empty. There’s no indication of anything wrong. The only print scanned was Trelawney’s, but…” She trailed off.
“But he couldn’t exactly have stabbed himself in the back of the neck, right?”
Olivia shivered. “Exactly.”
“So if he didn’t, then who did?”
She sagged to the floor, scooting up against the corner as if she needed the comfort of two solid walls at her back. “I don’t know. Everyone who had a motive didn’t have any opportunity, and everyone who had opportunity had no motive.”
Merrick frowned. “Okay, so let’s stop looking at who could have killed him. Instead, we need to ask why.” He shook his head and amended the statement. “Allow me to rephrase. I need to ask why. You need to get briefed on the complete details of the Terran request.”
She frowned. “How am I supposed to do that?”
He smiled. “You’re now the ambassador. The ambassador’s files are all yours to peruse. You have to call City Security and get a one-time emergency override. Once you’re in, you can change the code to whatever you want it to be. Then the files are yours and completely secure.”
“And what are you going to do, while I’m educating myself on everything there is to know about our diplomatic status with Terra?”
Pushing off the bed, he walked over to her and tousled her hair. He knelt beside her so his lips just brushed her ear and whispered, “I’m going to be as close as your own shadow until you go to bed.”
“And then?” He distinctly heard the note of anxiety beneath the words.
“And then I’m going to be even closer, if you’ll let me.”
Olivia turned and rewarded him with a brisk peck on the lips.
“Better let me work, then,” she said, pushing herself to her feet with only her legs. “Do you know the code for Security?”
He nodded. “Two six three oh four.”
* * *
She blinked at his nonchalant reply. “Is that the emergency or non-emergency number?” Even as she asked, she flinched at the stupid question. To reach Security in an emergency, one had only to enter the same number three times or input the sequence 12345. This made it much more simple to summon help quickly when it was needed, without forcing panicked people to try to remember a complicated contact code. “Never mind. Non-emergency.”
She picked out the code and was surprised when her holoscreen lit up with the visage of Major Latimore himself. “Oh, I’m sorry to trouble you, Major. I need a one-time emergency override passcode for Ambassador Trelawney’s files.”
Latimore smiled. “No trouble, Ambassador. I knew I’d be getting this call sooner or later, so I instructed the computers to auto-route any call from your code directly to me. Cuts down on the chances of anyone overhearing. Is that Merrick I see lurking in the background?” he asked, moving his head as if trying to peer around her.
She nodded. “It is. He is now my official bodyguard, by proclamation of the DDC. He’s assured me he won’t be any further from me than my own shadow.”
The security chief raised his eyebrows and brought one hand up to stroke at his close-cropped goatee. “Really? Then you feel secure with me reading off this code with him present, correct?”
“I do, Major. I accept full responsibility.”
“Very good, Ambassador. Sorry about that.” He chuckled, lapsing back into his more relaxed but still polite persona. “Protocol, you see. Keeps my ass off the hot seat as much as possible.”
She smiled. “Understood, Major. So what’s the code?”
“Alpha Seven Delta Four Eta Eight Sigma Three Chi Nine Zero.”
She read back the code dutifully for verification. He nodded.
“That’s the one. It’s good for fifteen minutes, after which you will be locked out of the files for thirty-six hours. If you want to read it back again, I’ll understand.”
She did so and he once again agreed she had it right. “If you need anything further, Ambassador, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“I won’t,” Olivia assured him. They chatted politely for a moment, and then she disconnected. Merrick watched her carefully as she entered the passcode. The screen flickered for a moment, and then lit up with the legend, “Welcome, Ambassador Trelawney.”
Olivia sighed sadly. “I guess this means I really am the Ambassador now.”
Merrick couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
He wasn’t even sure there was anything
to
say to that.
* * *
Elsewhere in Galacia, the assassin watched as the passcode flickered into ghostly life. The lag on the new ambassador’s communications was a handicap, but not an obstacle.
Touching a control stud launched the worm that would allow unrestricted access to Olivia’s computer and any files she viewed. While there would be a slight delay, one could learn much just by watching and listening. There was no need for more intrusive measures.
Yet.
The holoscreen abruptly flickered to life again. The pale text against the blue backdrop read, “Welcome, Ambassador Trelawney.”
The assassin clenched a fist in triumph. Once everything that needed to be known was known, Olivia would become dispensable. Her bodyguard might prove problematic, but even the most alert and ferocious watchdog had to sleep sometime.
For now knowledge, not action, was the key to power.
Settling into the comfortable
hruczek
-leather chair, the unseen voyeur propped chin on hands and studied the holoscreen intently, eyes flicking over the lines of text as they appeared. Speed-reading was a useful hobby, but occasionally annoying: the visible screen was consumed quickly, necessitating a wait while the next screen was brought up. The worm made it possible to assume full control of the system and analyze the data at will, but that was much too dangerous for this early phase of the proceedings.
If there was anything the assassin understood it was the value of patience.
The next screen appeared with agonizing slowness.
“Interesting,” the assassin muttered, eyes darting over a key point in the text. “Very interesting indeed.”
It seemed that dispatching Trelawney had not been as necessary as initially thought.
Unfortunate. He was a talented lover. I suppose one really can teach an old dog new tricks
…
But there would be other lovers in due course. For now, the task was to watch, wait, and learn.
A task the assassin was uniquely well-suited to.
“
Captain Silva, you have a superluminal communication. Captain Silva, you have a superluminal communication
.”
Pete snarled and pulled the covers over his ears, turning pointedly away from the strident voice of the holoscreen. He had only managed about half an hour’s sleep, after being all up until nearly dawn by his internal clock. Between pacing about, digesting his orders, and trying to learn everything there was to know about Dusk, he was in no shape to take a faster-than-light call. The only reason someone would go to the trouble and expense of tightbeaming the call instead of sending an electronic message was if something truly dire had occurred.
That thought brought him fully awake and more than slightly pissed-off. What the hell was he doing gallivanting out toward the Rim? He didn’t have any business running an op like this!
“Captain Silva --”
“Patch it through, voice only.”
The holoscreen gave a shrill electronic bleat and then a familiar male voice barked, “Silva! Are you there?”
“Yes, General, I’m here.”
“Did I wake you?”
“No, sir,” he lied, glad Neville couldn’t see his sleep-drawn features.
“Good. We have the kind of fucking mess that can end careers on our hands.”
Oh, that’s just what I needed to hear at oh Christ thirty in the morning
, Silva groused. Aloud he said, “What’s that? Did someone die?”
“That’s not at all funny, Colonel,” Neville snapped. “As it happens, yes, the Dusk ambassador was assassinated about four hours ago, Dusk time.”
He glanced at the chronometer. According to the readout, when the ambassador snuffed it he’d been doing his fifth set of sit-ups, trying to get his mind off this grotesque situation.
“Have they named a replacement?”
“That’s the other reason I’m calling. The new ambassador is a woman named Olivia Gunnarson. I’m sending everything we know about her to you now. She’ll be the one you’ll work with the most often, so I expect you to do whatever it takes to keep the ambassador happy, pliant, and willing to conduct business with us. Is that understood, Colonel?”
She’s probably a hundred and eighty-three, weighs in at four hundred kilos, and has skin like a Rigelian sand worm
, Pete thought.
Just what I want to get tangled up with
. “Of course, General. I will accommodate the ambassador in every possible way.”
“See that you do,” Neville huffed. “This fucking sideshow has already gotten out of hand and the curtain just went up on it. I’d better not hear reports of any waves from Dusk, Silva.” The warning tone of the general’s voice all but shouted that if there was so much as one ripple, Pete could expect to spend the rest of his short-lived Marine career cleaning latrines with his own toothbrush.
“Heard, understood, and acknowledged, General. Will there be anything else?”
Neville paused. “No. Just get this done without any more what-the-fuckery for me to have to clean up after, explain, or otherwise deal with.”
“I will, sir.”
Silence fell over the room. After about fifteen seconds, the holoscreen said, “Communication has been terminated.”
He grunted. “Display electronic message from General Neville, Fritz O., to Colonel Silva, Pedro A.”
The screen lit up again with a standard electronic dossier. He leaned forward, studying the tri-vid image with interest.
The young woman on the screen stared out with a severe expression. Although her hair was pulled tightly back, the clean, noble lines of her face and her particle-beam eyes appealed to him greatly. He treated himself to a brief fantasy of “working closely” with the new ambassador, and found to his delight that he wasn’t the least bit disgusted at the thought.
He scanned her CV, noting interests, hobbies, and education. From the look of her file, she had been groomed for the position her entire life. Even better, she was a member of the Dusk Citizens’ Militia, which meant she was trained in keeping herself and others alive by making those who wanted to change that state of affairs dead.
According to the file Olivia Gunnarson was twenty-eight Terran years old, but had been elected to the top slot utterly unopposed. This told Silva she was either extremely popular or overwhelmingly unpopular, either well-loved or a marked woman. She was reported to have a love interest named Merrick Joyner, another man on the DDC, but this last bit was noted as “speculation based on best information.”
In other words
, thought Pete,
we don’t fucking know, but you’re going to find out
. He rolled his eyes. If she did have a lover, persuading her by means of humanity’s oldest method was going to be difficult, but not impossible.
For a Marine,
nothing
was impossible.
He realized he hadn’t thought to ask Neville about Kozlowski. For some reason, the large warrant officer still troubled him. Kozlowski’s determination that Pete call him for whatever he needed suggested he was being politely and unofficially encouraged to stay in his quarters and not mingle, not ask questions, not do anything that might lead to him learning something.
The feeling this realization aroused in him was one he disliked intensely. It reminded him a little too clearly of the briefings he’d received just before arrival on Regina IV. Those briefings had been a complete and utter joke, and he’d lost too many good people because of them.
Not this time
.
Since he was awake anyway, he dialed the code that linked him to Kozlowski. To his surprise, the warrant officer looked just as fresh and crisp as he had the day before.
“Can I help you, Colonel?” Kozlowski asked without even glancing at the screen.
The hair on the back of Pete’s neck stood up. He hadn’t left his quarters since he finally got here, afraid of getting lost all over again and subjecting himself to further embarrassment. As a result, there was no reason for Kozlowski to know that he’d just been promoted unless his orders told him so. If that was the case, the warrant officer had just become less of a valet and more of a warden.
“Breakfast,” Pete said. “And I want to know exactly what you know.”
“I can help you with breakfast, but not the other, Colonel,” Kozlowski replied, this time looking directly out from the holoscreen.
“And why is that, exactly?”
Kozlowski glanced up and to the right nervously. “Because my orders say you don’t have a need to know them, Colonel. You may lodge a complaint with General Neville if you wish, but I doubt it will do you much good. My orders bear his thumbprint and specifically contain the line, and I quote, ‘If Colonel Silva presses you about why you’re assigned to him, you are to tell him it’s none of his damned business.’ So, it’s none of your damned business. Sir.”
“I don’t like being stonewalled, Warrant.”
“That’s not my call, Colonel. You’re more than welcome to take it up with General Neville, but I can’t do or tell you anything more than I already have. All you need to know is I’m here to make your life go more smoothly.”
He nodded sullenly. “Am I confined to quarters?”
Kozlowski’s face rearranged itself into an expression of genuine-looking surprise. “No, sir! Why would the colonel think that?”
Pete scowled. “Because the colonel thinks he’s getting mushroomed by the people he’s counting on to watch his back.”