Devil to the Belt (v1.1) (37 page)

Payne hung up. The comp flashed up a new message:
Workers in Textiles 2B are demanding to be let go. There’s been some breakage, some pushing and shoving, manager’s scared and wants some help
.

And another from Crayton’s office:
Fleet Operations is recalling its personnel from liberty, stationing armed guards at two shuttle docks and at essential lifesupport and manufacturing accesses. We need immediate operations coordination
…

God, Salvatore thought, and a report from Wills came in:

Morris Bird had dinner reservations at the Europa, for five. It was a no-show.

He
wanted
the inhaler. He didn’t dare. “Call my wife at home,” he told his secretary. “Tell her to check on my daughter. Make sure she’s in the dorm.” He sipped cold coffee, trying to think who he could spare to liaison with the MP’s.

More messages crawled across the screen.
A man is having chest pains in Textiles 2B. Paramedics have been called
…

Wills again:
Brown’s turned up a witness in customs who thinks Meg Kady was in the core at about 2040h. He’s not sure on that, says he saw all of them come and go the last few days taking parts back and forth
—
they had a permit for that, a ship in refit. We do have a confirmation on a card access for Dekker up there at 1723h. No exit. No card use at all from Kady since a phone call at 1846, from The Black Hole to The Pacific. The owner at The Black Hole claims they all left about 1900. He thinks
.

Two people slipping a security gate on a borrowed card. Happened once or twice a week, usually for assignations.

The mast was a hell of a job to search, even under optimum conditions.

Textiles 2B reports a riot in progress. Manager requests additional security and paramedics…

Priority came through, bumped that:
Virus Alert: Technical level shutdown
.

Priority override:
A virus is copying an unauthorized file through the Belt Management System. Contents are illicit sector charts. Virus variation on
COPYIT.
Request computer crimes division to trace and erase proliferation through BM system
.

“…
cleared of all fault in the accident, which occurred as the result of a catastrophic equipment failure, and urges Mr. Dekker to contact the hospital immediately
…”

Bird gave the vid a look over his shoulder, shook his head and looked at Tim Egel. “You’re a good numbers man. You believe that line?”

“No,” Egel said. “Not the tooth fairy either. Shoved to the Well by a load. I’d like to see the math on that one.”

“They don’t teach physics in Business Ad.”

“Don’t teach math either, do they?” That was a tender-jock, in on it, beer in hand. “What kind of stuff is that they’re giving out?”

“They want Dekker back in hospital. They worked him over with drugs. But he remembered the numbers anyway. That’s what they can’t cover up. 79, 709, 12. There was a bloody great rock there. That’s what it was about. That ‘driver came down on them while they were tagging it. Now the ‘driver’s sitting out there stripping that rock to loads. I’d like to match those loads with the sample Dekker had in his sling.”

“Can anybody do that?”

“I got the sample. It’s on record in Assay.”

“This here’s Morrie Bird,” Egel said.”The guy that brought Dekker in.”

“No shit! I heard of you! You’re the
old
guy!”

Being famous got you drinks. Being famous could also get you arrested. He took a couple of swigs from the beer the guy insisted to buy him, and set it down, said, “If you’re curious, check the boards for a file named Dekker. With two k’s.”

“Dekker,” the jock said.

Egel said, in Bird’s diminishing hearing, “
I’ll
tell you what they’re up to, friend. They weren’t going to pay that rock out to any freerunner. Pretty soon they won’t pay it to a company miner either. Or the tenders. When the freerunners go, there go the perks
anybody
gets on the company ticket. When they don’t have to compete with independents like us…”

“They can’t do that,” somebody else said.

Time to leave, Bird thought. Getting a little warm in here. He set his drink down and slid backward in the crowd, faced about for an escape and saw cops coming into the place.

The cops waded in through the middle of the crowd yelling something about a closing order and residents only; and he stuck to the shadows until there was a clear doorway.

Outside, then. In the clear. But that was it—cops were getting just a little active.

“Where
are
they?” Meg asked the only live human being she could find in the place—no Mitch, now, just this pasty-faced guy at the desk with the phone, with no calls coming in that she’d heard. Nothing was coming in, that she could tell, not even the vid, for what good it might be.

“No word yet,” the Shepherd said—guy in his thirties, serious longnose, busy with the com-plug in his ear—
not
liking real rab on his clean club carpet. He focused for a moment, lifted a manicured hand to delay her. “Ms. Kady—go a little easy on the whiskey.”

She’d started away. She came back, leaned her hands on the desk. “I’m all right on the whiskey, mister. Where’s Mitch? Where’s my partner?”

“We have other problems.”

“What?”

A wave-off. A frown on the Shepherd’s face. He was listening to something. Then not.

“Look. I hate like hell to inconvenience you guys, but I have a seriously upset guy in there who’s damned tired of runarounds. So am I. Suppose you tell me what’s going on.”

“A great many police is what’s going on. They’re still holding 2-shift.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t be an ass, Kady.—That door’s locked.”

“Then open it!”

“Kady, get the hell back to the bar—get that kid back in there.”

“Meg?”

She turned around, saw Dekker in the foyer. “Dek, just be patient, I’m trying to get some answers.”

“There aren’t any answers, Kady, just keep the kid entertained.”

She saw a flash of total red. Bang, with her hand on the counter. “Listen, you son of a bitch—where the fuck is my partner?”

“I don’t know where your partner is. If she followed orders she’d be here.”

“She doesn’t know we’ve got him! She’s not on your network!”

“I don’t know where a lot of people are, right now, Kady—we’ve got a lot more problems than your—” The Shepherd pressed his earpiece closer, held up a hand for silence.

“What?”

“They’re bringing that warship’s engines up, over at the ‘yard. They want us out of here.”

“They. Who, ‘they’?”

“The
Hamilton
. There’s a shuttle on the mast. But we aren’t getting com with it.
Hamilton’s
saying it can’t raise it. That’s our contingency sitting up there.”

“Shit! This is going to hell, mister!”

“Shut
up
, Kady!”

Message from CCrimes:
Ordering immediate shutdown of the banking system. The virus has entered 2-deck bulletin boards, spreading on infected cards with each use
…

The man in Textiles 2B had died. There was a broken leg in a fall off a catwalk, there was damage to the machinery, a woman had gone into labor—Salvatore had a view from an Optex and it was a mess. They had the phones stopped on 2, but the damn chart had proliferated from the bulletin boards to the card charge system, sent itself into every trade establishment on R2, and they didn’t know if it was into the bank databank itself.

He washed an antacid down with stale coffee, and tried to placate Payne. Payne said he had to go to a meeting. Payne said his aide LeBrun was handling the office.

Damned right there was a meeting. There had better be a meeting real soon now. With some faster policy decisions. Salvatore’s hands were shaking, and he didn’t know who he could trust to handle emergencies long enough for him to get to the restroom and back.

“Sir,” the intercom said, “sir, a Lt. Porey to see you.”

He didn’t have any Lt. Porey on his list. He started to protest he wasn’t seeing anybody, but the door opened without further warning, and a Fleet officer walked in on him,
with
his aide. “Mr. Salvatore,” the man said. African features. An accent he couldn’t place. And a deep-spacer prig Attitude, he’d lay money on it, expecting stations to run on
his
schedule.

He got up. A second aide showed up, blocked his secretary out of the doorway. And shut the door.

“Mr. Porey.” He offered a grudging hand to a crisp, perfunctory grip, all the while thinking: We’re going to discuss this one with Crayton. Damned if not.

“Mr. Salvatore, we have a developing situation on 2-deck. Rumor is loose, and some ass in your office is referring FleetCom to PI—”

God, a
pissed-off
Fleet prig. “That’s the chain of command.”

“Not in
our
operations. I want the files on this Dekker and I want the files on the entire Shepherd leadership.”

“I’m afraid all that’s under our jurisdiction, Mr. Porey: you’ll have to get an administrative clearance for that access. I can refer you to Mr. Crayton, in General Admin—”

Porey reached inside his coat, pulled a card from his pocket and tossed it down on his desk. “Put
that
authorization in your reader.”

Salvatore picked up the card with the least dawning apprehension they were in deep, EC-level trouble, and put it in the reader slot.

It said,
Earth Company Executive Order, Office of the President, Sol Station, Earth Administration Zone
.

To all officers and agents of Security and Communications, ASTEX Administrative Territories:

By the authority of the Executive Board and a unanimous vote of the Directors, a state of emergency is deemed to exist in ASTEX operations which place military priority contracts in jeopardy. ASTEX Security and Communications agencies and employees are hereby notified of the transfer of all affected assets and operations to the authority of EcoCorp, under ASTEX Charter provision 28 hereafter appended, and subject to the orders of EcoCorp Directors…I hereby and herewith order ASTEX company police and life services officers to place themselves directly under the order of UDC Security Office in safeguarding records and personnel during this transfer of operational authority.

Salvatore sat down and read it again.

“Effectively,” Porey said, “your paycheck comes directly from the EC now. You’re a civilian law enforcement officer in a strategically sensitive operation, subject to the rules and decisions of the UDG, the UN and the EC officers and board. I’m directing you to turn over those files.”

“You can’t have gotten an order from the EC—you haven’t had the time to get a reply.”

“Good, Mr. Salvatore. You are a critical thinker. There were triggering mechanisms. The transfer document has lain on my commanding officer’s desk for some few days. But I’d think again about destroying files, or advising your former administrators of your change of loyalties. You have a long career with the EC in front of you if you use your head. I can’t say that about all your managers.” A second card hit the desk. “That goes in a Security terminal. It will make its own accesses. Can you trust your secretary?”

“I—” He saw the guns—automatics. Explosive shells. Not riot control gear. And not ASTEX any longer. “I think I’d better explain it to him,” he said, and thought about his wife, about his daughter. He took the card, slid it into the computer and pressed ENTER.

The screen went to Access, and came up again with a series of dots. Porey folded his arms and watched it a moment, looked his way then with the tilt of a brow.

“The
Industry
file. Purge it, among first things.”

“
Purge
it?
Erase
it?”

“It’s become irrelevant. Personnel have already been transferred. Certain questions won’t be asked beyond this office. That’s official, Mr. Salvatore. Your career could rise or fall on that simple point. Take great care how you dispose of it.—Mr. Paget.”

“Sir!”

“
Find
Paul Dekker and escort him to the dock.”

“So what’s the new plan?” Meg asked, she thought with great restraint, standing between Dekker’s temper and some fill-in Shepherd data-jock with a rulebook up his ass who persisted in trying to get contact with a shuttle that was probably—

The Shepherd said, “They’re still not getting through to Mitch—they’re jamming us.”

“So what do you expect? It’s not just the company anymore, it’s the soldiers, for God’s sake, and you can’t
hide
on a station—”

“You can’t hide a ship, either, Kady. I’m not sure how long my ship can hold position out there—”

“Then let’s get up to the dock. Play it by ear for God’s sake!”

“This isn’t a game, woman, we don’t know if the lifts are working—”

“Sit on your ass a little longer and we won’t know what
else
won’t be working when we need it.”

“I’m the only contact our people
have
on this station—I have my orders—Mitch is—”

“
Mitch
isn’t answering, you’re not contacting anybody out there, the phones are down, the soldiers are all up and down the ‘deck, for God’s sake—let’s get the
hell
up to the dock, if that’s our option!”

“It does us no good to get to the shuttle, our pilot’s out there on the ‘deck!”

“Is
that
your problem? Well, you’re in luck, mister! You’re up to your ass in pilots.”

“C-class, Kady, not a miner craft—”

“Earth to orbit, ship to station,
Bl
, anything you can dock at this hellhole. Let’s just get the hell up there.”

“Kady, there’s police out there. There’s armed police in front of our door. D’ you have a way we’re going to get past them?”

Good
question.

A whole squad of soldiers passed, going somewhere in a hurry. Ben found sudden interest in a bar window, in a crowd of exiting patrons. They
were
shutting the bars, dammit. At least closing the doors.

Serious time to get somewhere. Bird might have headed back to The Hole, Bird might have been arrested by now, God only where he was.