The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 (22 page)

Chapter 34

Not having
a private office to which he and Major Cisco could retire, Drew had opted for the caf. AdComm was out of the question — Lydia was there, listening for messages from the incursion team.

Hagman had hovered at Drew’s elbow until dismissed, a detail that hadn’t escaped Cisco’s notice. Now, as they sat across from each other at one of the caf’s round tables, he commented, “You seem to have whipped these people into fine shape, Mr. Townsend. My compliments.”

It was an unfortunate choice of metaphor. Remembering Bonelli’s battered features, Drew dropped all pretense of cordiality and got straight to the point. “We’re alone, Major — or should I say, Mr. Quan? — as you requested. Now, what can I do for you?”

“You don’t mince words. I like that,” Quan said with a mirthless grin. “I won’t mince words either. What you can do for me is surrender your rat.”

Drew nearly choked. “My what?”

But Quan was not amused. “Yoko. She is aboard Daisy Hub, and I want her.”

“I’m sure you’re aware that SIA protocol prohibits live animals aboard—”

“Townsend, you disappoint me. Does the name Alison Morgan mean anything to you?”

So, the worst-case scenario had happened after all. Playing for time, Drew sighed and pretended to jog his memory. “Morgan. Yes, I remember Miss Morgan,” he said at last. “A very ill-behaved child who spent almost her entire stay with us in Medical Services. She arrived here in a coma, in fact. Is she the one claiming that we have a rat on the Hub?”

At that moment, the caf door hissed open. “Mr. Townsend, there you are!” exclaimed the Doc, charging into the room. “We need to have a word about—” She pulled up short at the sight of Nestor Quan and screwed her already formidable features into an eloquent expression of distaste. “You! I should have known.”

If Quan was surprised to see her, he didn’t let it show.

“Doctor Ktumba,” said Drew, carefully measuring his words, “have you met—?”

“Unfortunately, I have,” she replied, her eyes shooting daggers at the unflappable man across the table from him. “So, you’ve finally weaseled your way onto the Hub. Under an assumed name, I would imagine.”

“How are you, Marion?” said Quan, as though greeting an old friend he hadn’t seen in a while.

“How can you ask that so casually, after what you did to Nayo?”

“It isn’t a crime to be a realist, Marion. A lucrative opportunity came up and I took it. End of story. In any case, should we be airing our dirty linen like this, in front of a stranger?” he said reprovingly.

The Doc paused, her expression morphing from disgust to determination. She turned to Drew and said, “Nayo and Quan were partners in a research laboratory. Nayo wanted the results of their experimentation to benefit all of Humankind. The ‘lucrative opportunity’ he refers to was an offer from a privately owned corporation to purchase all their research notes and patents. Instead of benefiting everyone, their discoveries would be reserved for those who could pay exorbitant prices. It was a betrayal of everything that Nayo valued.”

“May I remind you,” said Quan matter-of-factly, “that I’m not the one who unlawfully removed an entire experiment from the laboratory one night and concealed it? You see, Mr. Townsend, Yoko is not just any rat. She is the property of a major genetics lab in the Greater European Union, and they are very anxious to recover her.”

So, once again, Drew was in possession of stolen property? It figured. However, he was eighteen years older now, and there was so much more at stake than the anxiety levels of a European gene broker. The mission had to come first. No matter how much Drew wished he could simply kick Major Cisco and his shady dealings right off Daisy Hub, Quan had to remain, with all his men, until the end of Teri’s show.

Townsend swallowed the sour taste rising at the back of his throat and said quietly, “I see. And I sympathize, I really do, but—”

“You’re about four years too late,” cut in the Doc. “A previous station manager ordered Yoko spaced. The order is on record.”

Quan scowled. It was the first sign of real emotion Drew had seen on his face all evening. “Alison Morgan was on your station less than two intervals ago. There is a rat here!”

The temptation was almost too much. Drew had to bite his tongue to keep silent.

The Doc, however, declared, “You’re right, there is a rat. I made it myself out of an old exosuit, and Teri’s using it as a prop in her show. Come down to K Deck and see for yourself.”

“You seriously expect me to believe that Miss Morgan cannot tell the difference between a live rat and a replica?”

“No,” replied Drew, rapidly losing patience. “I expect you to understand that sometimes a spoiled brat will lie to punish someone who won’t give her what she wants. In short, if Alison Morgan filed a complaint against Daisy Hub, it was both frivolous and malicious. Now, how about keeping your earlier promise to be a good guest while you’re on my station? Your dinner is waiting for you on K Deck.”

A calculating look darted across Quan’s face. “I could order my men to search the Hub. However, in the interests of maintaining friendly relations between your crew and mine, I will refrain, for this evening. Yoko isn’t going anywhere. I can always come back for her. And, by the way, your friend Bonelli…?”

Drew stiffened in his seat. “What makes you think he’s my friend?”

“It turns out that Captain Bonelli is not what he claims to be.”

“Really? And just what is it that you think he is, Mr. Quan?”

Quan smiled, evidently feeling that he was on solid ground once more. “Once I have Yoko, I’ll be taking Bonelli back to Earth with me as well, to stand trial for treason and espionage. I realize that your invitation was intended for every man on Zulu, but under the circumstances, I’m sure you understand why I couldn’t allow him to join us this evening.”

Chapter 35

Holchuk cursed
under his breath. They were fried. Of all the people who could have stayed behind on Zulu!

“Answer me, dammit! Say something!” There was an edge of panic to the words that not even five millimeters of high-density plexi could filter out.

With a sigh, Holchuk stepped away from the rest of the team and removed his bubble helmet. “Bonelli?” he called out. “Where are you?”

The Ranger’s reply sounded breathy and distorted. “Landing deck control room,” he said. “You’ll have to come get me. I’m hurt.”

This did not smell right. Not right at all. Holchuk turned and looked into Jason Smith’s worried face. He was mouthing the words
private channel
and pointing to the comm flap on his sleeve. Holchuk nodded understanding. He put his helmet back on and switched his comm to the pre-arranged frequency.

Once they were certain Bonelli could not overhear them, Smith said urgently, “What if it’s a Ranger trap? What if he stayed behind to spring it on us?”

Holchuk shook his head. “We still can’t leave him here. I’m supposed to be the only witness. You go ahead with the team — I’ll take care of Bonelli.”

Smith opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and nodded sharply.

As he watched Smith hustle the others back into motion, Holchuk recalled what Townsend had told them at their final briefing: there had been a change of command on Zulu. If Bonelli was actually hurt, it had probably been the result of a mutiny. The Doc had earlier expressed concern over the Rangers’ discovering that their field generator had been tampered with. Now they would be returning to discover their former captain missing. Not even Townsend would be able to explain that away.

Of course, it could all be moot if the Rangers currently visiting Daisy Hub were a gang of mutineers.

“A miracle,” he muttered to himself as he turned and began walking toward the access door nearest the control room. That was what they needed right now and what he had come along to see; instead, everything was falling apart at the seams.

It was a good thing Holchuk had spent time studying Zulu’s floor plans, because whoever had designed the station had clearly not wanted to make it easy for intruders to find anything. Just past the access port, he turned right, down a short corridor that dead-ended at an unmarked door. It was not that door but the one to its left, also unmarked, that led to the landing deck control room. Beyond the door stood a flight of metal stairs with just enough bent-pipe handrail to conform to safety protocols. Placing his feet carefully, Holchuk climbed half a floor, stopping before yet another featureless door. He could feel sweat popping out on his scalp and sliding down his cheeks and forehead. It wasn’t just the exertion that was making him perspire: PLS suits had been designed to withstand the cold of space. They weren’t meant to be worn at room temperature.

Holchuk paused to remove his helmet again. “All right, Bonelli, I’m here. Open up,” he called, making no effort to disguise the irritation he felt.

Slowly, the door slid aside. Holchuk stepped through and halted just inside the threshold, staring at what had apparently been the scene of a violent struggle. Most of Zulu was made of metal and riveted in place. Consoles, monitors, and storage compartments all stood around the small oblong control room like chrome-plated guards refusing to desert their posts. Meanwhile, everything that was not permanently attached in the room had apparently been thrown, hard, at something that was, at least once and probably more. A surveillance screen spiderwebbed with cracks sat at an awkward angle on its mount. There were fist-sized dents in the console cowlings, and several of the pressure-sensitive surfaces were shattered. The floor was littered with datawafers, small gadgets with their guts spilling out, and a variety of maintenance tools. Holchuk saw blood spatters all over the room. Someone had definitely been injured here. But where was Bonelli?

“I’m down here.”

The voice was faint and thready. Holchuk bent slightly and saw Bonelli, lying on his side in a puddle of red and grimacing in pain, beneath the far console. He was partly concealed by an overturned metal chair, which he was now unsuccessfully trying to push out of the way. He looked as if a wall had fallen on him.

“I was beginning to think Townsend hadn’t understood my message,” he said, enunciating with obvious difficulty. Then, noticing that Holchuk hadn’t moved since entering the room, he added, “This
is
a rescue operation, right? You’re not here just to finish me off?”

The thought had crossed Holchuk’s mind — and Jason Smith’s as well, come to that — but there could be no honor in killing a helpless prisoner. “You weren’t number one on our to-do list today, Captain, but I think we can squeeze you in. Can you stand?”

Most of the blood on the floor had come from a nasty gash on the Ranger’s arm. Bonelli had been applying pressure to the wound. Now his shirtsleeve was stuck to his skin with dried blood, and he winced with pain as Holchuk pulled him to his feet. He winced again as he tried to walk, limping badly on his left leg. Noticing that he and the Ranger were about the same height and mass, Holchuk fastened his helmet to his utility belt, then propped himself under Bonelli’s left arm, wrapping his own arm around the other man’s waist.

“Take it slow,” gasped Bonelli.

Holchuk nearly laughed. “Have you ever tried to hurry in one of these suits? Just don’t pass out on the stairs or they’ll have to come rescue both of us.”

It was a painful journey in more ways than one. Bonelli did his best not to be dead weight, but his left ankle was visibly swollen, and it seemed to take forever to get him down those dozen steps and onto the landing deck. By then, his wounds had opened up again. The two men left a crimson trail on the deck as Holchuk half-dragged, half-carried Bonelli toward
Devil Bug
. Then they had to climb that narrow ramp. By the time he was able to deliver the Ranger to Ruby inside the shuttle, every muscle in Holchuk’s body was aching, and his exosuit was a motley of silver and red. ‘Mom’, however, focused her sympathy and attention on the one who was actually bleeding.

“My gawd, Stevie, you’re a mess,” she fussed, giving his wounds a quick inspection before pulling out the medkit. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say somebody tried to kill you.”

He managed a faint grin. “Somebody did. If it hadn’t been for that Teri Martin concert, he would have succeeded, too.”

“He? One man did this to you?”

Bonelli nodded.

“He also inflicted some serious damage on the control room,” Holchuk added.

“That is one scary little man,” Bonelli agreed. Holchuk couldn’t help noticing how shallowly the Ranger was breathing. He looked as though he was having difficulty keeping his eyes open. “I couldn’t fight him. He was too quick… too strong. Blocked every move. All I could do was dodge… not too successfully. Finally found something that was harder than his fists… tried to keep it between us.” He sighed. “He left before killing me… didn’t want to miss the concert.”

Ruby’s hands moved quickly and skillfully, closing the gash on his arm, along with several other lacerations Holchuk hadn’t noticed, and clamping the regen unit onto his ankle. When she glanced up from her work, there was a worried expression on her face.

In a perceptibly weakening voice, Bonelli continued, “That little ninja… disabled the long-range comm panel before he left. Warned me not to try calling for help. Said he could deal with me when he got back… since I wasn’t going anywhere. Boy, is he in for a surprise.”

He wasn’t the only one, thought Holchuk sourly. To Ruby, he said, “Listen, I have to go join the others. Play nice, you two.”

By the time he’d crossed the landing deck and rejoined the incursion team, Holchuk had broken another sweat and was disgusted beyond words. When they got back to Daisy Hub, he decided, he was going to suggest that the boss man spend a few hours in a PLS suit — just in case Townsend had any other crazy plans inside his head.

The four men had all removed their helmets and were standing around the field generator in various poses of indecision. Holchuk’s was evidently the deciding voice, for his arrival seemed to unpause the scene.

“I’m glad you’re here, Gavin,” said Singh. “We have a— good grief! What happened to you?”

Smith cut in before Holchuk could reply. “That’s Bonelli’s blood,” he told them. “Stay focused, people, and remember what we practiced. We’re on a tight schedule here.”

Holchuk looked over the engineer’s shoulder and saw the top of the Meniscus Field generator. At least the paintbrush had worked according to plan. The generator’s upper casing was completely transparent, revealing a tangle of glowing tubes, and a row of mechanisms that might be switches. And in the middle, an empty space, surrounded by connection nodes. “There’s a component missing,” he remarked to Singh. “But the Meniscus Field—”

“—worked exactly as we expected it to,” Smith agreed. “So the Rangers haven’t removed anything. This must be the way the generator was delivered to them — and to us.”

“That indentation is exactly the same size and shape as the paintbrush,” said Gouryas. “And the connection nodes correspond precisely. Clearly, this device is meant to fit inside the generator. The problem is, we don’t know what will happen if we actually put it there. Remember what Townsend said, about this potentially being a lethal weapon? We have only a rudimentary understanding of how the paintbrush works. We don’t even know how to reverse what it’s done to the bulkheads on Daisy Hub. What if it turns the Meniscus Field into a molecular disruptor field? What if it turns all the metal on Zulu into acrylic?”

“But what if it gives us full manual control over the Meniscus Field?” Singh countered hotly. “What if it lets us shut down the failsafe and make the modifications we were discussing earlier? Isn’t that what we came here to learn how to do?”

“Dev’s right. We have to try,” Smith told them. “It’s why we’re here. If anything goes wrong, we’re all wearing PLS suits, and Ruby’s safe inside the ship.”

O’Malley broke in then, his voice half an octave higher than usual, “But what if it changes the atomic composition of our exosuits? What if it turns
Devil
Bug
into plexiplast?”

“All right,” Smith decided. “We’ll do it this way: everyone get into the shuttle and remove to a safe distance from the station. I’ll wait until you’re out of range, then I’ll open the casing and slip the device into the generator, and we’ll see what happens.”

“No, I’ll do it,” sighed Gouryas. “We need an expert observer inside the station. No disrespect, Jason, but I’ve already hooked up my recording gear, and I’ve spent more time studying the paintbrush than you have.”

“Are you sure about this?” Smith demanded. “It’s alien technology, remember. Against all logic, it could blow up in your face.”

“In which case, we’re all equally expendable, aren’t we?” Singh pointed out drily.

“All right, then,” said Smith with a grim nod. “Gouryas, it’s your show. The rest of us will fall back to the shuttle.”

Ruby watched them file back up the ramp and into
Devil Bug
, then wordlessly closed the hatch and lay down at the controls, preparing to leave the docking bay.

“As soon as we’re clear of the gravity field, open a comm channel to Gouryas’s suit,” Smith instructed her.

Still wearing their exosuits, the rest of the team sat down at the viewport and fastened their restraints. Then Holchuk remembered Bonelli. He glanced backward and saw the Ranger’s motionless form, tethered to the deck at the rear of the cabin. He was unconscious. That wasn’t good. He’d lost a lot of blood, and they wouldn’t be returning to Daisy Hub for several hours. Any threat that Earth had posed to the Hub in the past would be nothing compared to what they’d have to deal with if a Ranger captain died on their shuttle, especially if the Authority ever found out what they’d been doing on Zulu in the first place.

Monkeys with typewriters. Nandrian tests.
Tekl’hananni
. The words spun and blurred together inside Holchuk’s head as he stared at the Ranger station through the viewport. Gavin ban Samuel had already passed his Nandrian test. Now, all he could do was watch as the others took theirs. He mustn’t share what he suspected, what he knew, what Nagor had told him. Cheating on a test would bring dishonor to both their Houses.

The mushroom wearing an overcoat was revolving lazily in space, looking more and more like a chunk of scrap metal trapped in orbit. Whatever happened now, whatever Zulu became, it would be what the Nandrians wished for Daisy Hub; and what the Nandrians wished, Daisy Hub didn’t dare reject.

Gouryas was wearing his bubble helmet. His voice echoed slightly as he replied to Ruby’s hail, “I hear you,
Devil Bug
. I’m about to lift the lid of the generator casing and insert the paintbrush. Recording devices are active. Let me know if you see anything interesting out there.”

In the silence that followed his words, Holchuk kept his gaze fixed on the viewscreen. So did everyone else. Nothing.

Abruptly, Gouryas gasped with surprise. “Hah!” the engineer crowed. “Hey, out there, are you seeing this?”

“Seeing what, Spiro?” asked Jason Smith.

“The emitter gave off a flash of purple light, and now the entire landing deck is purple. Deck, bulkheads, everything. It’s as though the paintbrush has become a paint sprayer. If
Devil Bug
were parked right now, she’d probably be purple too.”

Singh’s lips were moving. At first, Holchuk thought he was praying. Then he realized that the other man was counting down: three, two, one. Right on cue, the image of the station on the viewport went gray and grainy, then began to waver… And before their eyes, Zulu seemed to burst into purple flame before abruptly winking out.

The Zoo had disappeared.

O’Malley was in shock. “Oh, my gawd,” he breathed.

Singh sat grinning happily at the space on the viewport screen where Zulu had been.

“Son of a—!” Smith reached over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Was that what I thought it was?” he demanded. “Has the paintbrush just made Zulu and everything on it transparent?”