Hellburner (2 page)

The message dot flashed on the corner of the screen.

God, it could be the interview notice. His fingers were on the Mod and the 1 to Accept Mail and the Dv and the 3 to Print faster than he could think about the motion.

It said:

TECH/2 Benjamin J. Pollard CTVSS/UDC 28 DAT 2 0652JUN14/24 SN P-235-9676/MLR Report to FSO-HQ, 0900h/ref/Simons

Fleet Strategic Operations? Fleet Ops?

What in bloody hell?

MRL. Automatic log. No way to pretend he hadn’t gotten the message. No way to query the CO. Weiter would tell him it was a report-to, he didn’t have the answer, and he’d effin’ better answer it and find out what the Fleet wanted with a UDC lad, hadn’t he?

It wasn’t an interview. God, no. Fleet Strategic Operations didn’t need a UDC programmer tech/2 with a Priority 10 for economic/ and strategic/supply modeling. Did they?

Shit, no—the damn tight-fisted legislature insisted on trying to interface the UDC EIDAT with the Heel’s Staatentek system through the EC security screen, that was what. The Fleet Staatentek system tried to phone the UDCs EIDAT 4005 to ask for available assignees, and the 4005, behind the EC’s security cloak, spat up a UDC Priority One assignee for a Fleet data entry post—

But you couldn’t ignore it. You didn’t want to face the interviews with an interservice screw-up or a Disciplinary in your record. Damn the thing!

No second cup of coffee. He drank the half he had left while his fingers tapped up the station map and asked it where in hell FSO-HQ was on the trans system from his apartment in TI 12 for a 0930h appointment.

9:15 2 green to 14, blue to 5-99: pass required for entry.

Hell and gone from TI, and it was already 9 o’clock. Ten effin’ minutes to shave, dress and find his copy of his rating, which clearly said UDC Priority Technical/2, before the

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.

“Pollard,” the officer said, with no attention to the protocols in the rulebook. Or his face. Just the readout on his screen. “Benjamin J. You’re carrying electronics.”

“Reader.”

The officer held out his hand. Ben surrendered it and watched the officer turn it on and punch buttons.

“Fancy.”

Break his effin’ neck getting here and this cop-type stalled him playing games with a piece of expensive and delicate equipment. He said, “I’ve got an appointment at 0930.”

The guard said, “HQ,” and motioned with the back of his hand. “Lieutenant Jackson.”

Jackson, was it? Fleet Lieutenant. Which, in the much-argued and protested Equivalencies, was a rank just under Maj. Weiter’s; and one over his. Ben drew himself up with a breath, thinking, with part of his brain: Son of a bitch deep-spacer Attitude, and minded for half that breath to make an issue of interservice protocols; but the rest of his brain was still wondering if the Fleet could have any legitimate interest in him and hoping all he had was a pocket full of EIDAT-screwed orders. So he saluted, got a flip of the hand and walked to the inner door, that clicked open on a long bar of a desk and a sober-faced clerk who said (efficiency, at least) “Lt. Pollard?”

“Yes.” Manners. Finally. He took the offered escort to a side office. Jackson took the salute, offered him a seat. Young guy. Pleasant, serious face.

Better, he thought.

“Thank you, sir.”

Jackson folded his hands on the desk, “Lt. Pollard, —I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news: a friend of yours has been involved in an accident.”

“Friend of mine?” That was a complete mental shift. He honestly couldn’t think if he had a friend. Not lately. Bird was dead. Sal?

“Name of Dekker,” Jackson said and Ben all but said, Shit! before he remembered he wasn’t in the Belt and swallowed it.

“Fatal?”

“Serious. He’s asking for you.”

“For me?” He was vastly relieved it wasn’t Sal. Distressed if Dekker’d gotten in trouble. He didn’t hate Dekker. Not really. Dekker had enlisted with him, gone off into some secret pilot training program... real hot piece of equipment, Dekker had said.

Jackson said, “His doctors fee! it might be some help, a familiar face....”

He thought. Oh, God, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to see the guy again—I hate hospitals... I don’t like blood—

But there it was, the brass had made a humanitarian move, no way to explain all the old business between them—it could drag up too much he didn’t want on record; if Dekker had killed himself in some top-secret operation he was sincerely sorry, and if he was all Dekker could dredge up for a request—well, hell, the guy had saved his neck, sort of, back in the Belt—

And cost Bird’s life, damn him, however indirectly.

“Sorry to drop this on you,” Jackson said.

“Not a problem. Truth is, we weren’t friends. —But I guess I owe him to drop over there.”

“I’ve got a travel voucher for you.”

“Travel voucher.”

“B dock.”

“Oh, now, God, wait a minute—“ B dock wasn’t on Sol One, it was on an auxiliary station three and more days out, on Sol Two. Ben reached for his pocket, right then. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry. This is a priority rating. There’s an agency officer coming for an interview this week. I can’t leave.”

Jackson laid an envelope on top of his. “There’s a B dock shuttle leaving at 1205. That’s your travel voucher and your leave. It’s already signed and cleared.”

“Sir, —that’s six days even if I get a same day turnaround,” He gingerly eased his letter from underneath and laid it gingerly to the side, in Jackson’s view, where the United Defense Command logo showed. “This is from HQ Geneva. It says I’m a military priority.”

“This one’s from Captain Keu, in this office. On a classified priority. You’re going.”

“Dekker isn’t a friend of mine!”

“He’s listed you as next-of-kin.”

“We’re not related! God, —he’s got a mother right here on the station, Astrid, Ingrid, something like that. Talk to her!”

“He’s in a classified program. Only certain people are approved for contact in a next-of-kin emergency. You’re it. You’re not to call anyone. You’re not to talk to anyone. Your CO will be advised simply that you’re on humanitarian leave—“

“I’m UDC essential personnel!”

“Show me an assignment.”

Shit!

“So you’re going.”

“What about my interview?”

“That’s not my information flow. I’ll log it as a query.”

“Look, this is important. If I miss this slot I could wait six months!”

Jackson shrugged. “We all have our hardships, lieutenant.”

“Look, this is a screw-up. It’s an absolute screw-up. God, Dekker and I don’t even like each other.”

Cold as a rock. “I don’t have that information. Transport will pick up your baggage at your quarters. Just leave it. Report to the shuttleport by 1145.”

“It’s near 1030 right now. It’s twenty minutes to quarters—“

“I’d be on that shuttle, Lt. Pollard. When you get to B • dock, report directly to the FleetOps office on the dock, give them this pass and they’ll see you get straight to the hospital. Don’t mistake that instruction.”

“Listen, —sir, you know what happened—Dekker wrote me in as a joke. He never thought they’d be using that information. It’s a damn joke!”

“If it is, I’m sure they’ll straighten it out at the other end. I’d be moving, lieutenant.” Jackson stood up and handed him the two envelopes as he rose. “Good luck.”

“Yes sir,” Ben said, took his papers and his orders, saluted the son of a bitch and left.

Collected his reader from the front desk, and made a fast, desperate consultation of the trans schedule while he was walking to the doors.

Twenty minutes to his apartment, thirty to the shuttle dock, ten to pack. If he risked a phone call to Weiter to request a rescue, it was a 90% certainty that Weiter couldn’t do a damned thing against FSO before 1145 or later and he’d be screwed with Weiter for putting him in a Position. You didn’t crack a security screen. Not if you hoped to keep your clearance in UDC computer tech.

They’d get him back in maybe six days?

Hell. Six days too late if he was on humanitarian leave on ‘ B dock when the UDC filled the Stockholm post. He’d get the scraps, the cold left-overs after Meeker got posted; and Hamid; and Pannelli— The next best choice he had was to appeal to Weiter when he got back and hang on as staff til something else came through, oh, six months, seven, eight months on, who knew?

Dekker had screwed up, the Fleet was evidently about to lose its investment in him—and, not in his most copacetic state, Dekker had asked for him?

Ben thought, with every thump of the trans on its homebound course: I’ll kill him when I get my hands on him, I’ll fuckin’ kill him.

DEN hated institutions, hated hospital smells and institution colors and most of all he didn’t look forward to this, in his first hour on B dock. He felt like hell, he’d slept in a damn cubbyhole of a berth hardly larger than a miner-ship spinner, his feet had swelled, he’d had sinus all the way: he’d spent too long in the null-g hi his life and his body had a spiteful overreaction to the condition. They didn’t issue pills and stimsuits for a three-day shuttle trip, no, that prescription’s not on your records, lieutenant, sorry... If you’d just checked with medical—