Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) Page 20

  "I got...your message," he stammered, then added, "Since Switzer put me on the disabled list, I've been taking it easy, trying to rest."

  "Yeah, okay," Jackson said, walking around to his desk. "There was no need to come in person. You aren't going to get that ankle healed by doing a lot of unnecessary walking, you know."

  Bandicut nodded. "I see you've put me back on the job. What was the outcome of the inquiry—if you don't mind my asking?"

  "I don't mind. Why should I?" Jackson rocked back in his chair, sipping his coffee. "They gave you credit for the field repair, just like I said they should."

  Oh, Bandicut thought.

  Jackson added, "My people know how to do their jobs. I've always said that. So what you did was something neither more nor less than expected."

  Bandicut allowed a half-smile to cross his lips. Cole, if you knew...if you only knew...

  "So," Jackson said, eyeing Bandicut expectantly. "Are you going to be in shape tomorrow?"

  Bandicut suppressed a chuckle. "I doubt that Switzer will okay it so soon after the accident. He said five days. You know how these company quacks are—sticklers for medical detail—they like people to be at least half recovered before they put them back on the job."

  Jackson frowned and sat forward. "Well, you take care of the recovery, and let me handle Switzer, okay? Are you well enough to come in and do some desk work?"

  Bandicut shrugged. "I guess so, as long as I don't overdo it." He hesitated. "I notice we're redoing some of the original survey."

  That brought a scowl from Jackson. "Why the hell you think we're in such a hurry? Maybe now they'll start listening to me when I tell them the damn datanet is vulnerable to sabotage. I've been saying that all along."

  Bandicut kept a poker face. "Sabotage? You think someone...sabotaged...the system?"

  Jackson's face darkened further. "Why? Do you know something about it?"

  Bandicut shook his head, not trusting his voice. He felt his face going blank.

  /// What are you doing?

  Are you trying to draw suspicion

  to yourself? ///

  "No," he managed finally. "How would I know anything about it? I've been on the sick list." /Of course not. I just—/

  Jackson glared. "Bandicut, why are you looking like that?"

  He flushed. "Nothing. Just—the painkillers, I guess. I suppose I should go lie down or something."

  "That's what I just told you. Anyway, go see Switzer and let me know what he says. We need you out there. Now, get some rest, will you?"

  Bandicut rose and limped carefully from the room.

  Chapter 19

  Exoarch

  Dr. Switzer shook his head, chuckling. "Your boss called and said he wants you back at work tomorrow. I told him that was ridiculous. What does he think this is, anyway? I couldn't possibly approve sending you out in less than three days after a broken ankle. Now, if you'd taken the nanomed treatment like I told you—"

  Bandicut started to answer, but the doctor had already turned away to consult his computer screen.

  "Actually," Switzer said, returning, "you might have done the right thing, refusing that particular course of treatment. We discovered another batch with faulty programming just yesterday. Instead of bringing a fever down, it gave some poor guy chickenpox." He barked a short, harsh laugh. "I don't know why they can't quality-control the stuff better than that. Here, now, let's have a look."

  Bandicut watched, none too confidently, as the doctor hoisted his ankle and jacked a monitor into the fastract cast. "You been taking those pills I gave you?" Switzer asked.

  "I think I forgot once." Actually, he'd forgotten more often than he'd remembered.

  Switzer grunted, snapping a few switches. "Well, then, don't blame me." He glanced at Bandicut with a chuckle. "Here we go." His eyebrows contracted as he studied the machine. "You're not doing too badly here. According to this, your cast can probably come off in two more days."

  Bandicut nodded. "I guess Cole is going to have to be disappointed."

  Switzer scratched the back of his head. "Well, now—he did make it sound pretty urgent, didn't he?"

  "Not that urgent, I'm sure."

  Switzer seemed not to hear him. "I guess maybe we could work something out. As long as you're just going to be driving. I mean, you won't be getting out and stumbling around out on the plain, will you?"

  Bandicut stared at him, thinking, that's probably exactly what I'll be doing.

  Switzer chuckled, as though they had just shared a joke. "Look, I'll tell you what—check in with me first thing in the morning, and I'll see what we can do for you."

  "You don't have to do anything special for me."

  Switzer chuckled and clapped Bandicut on the shoulder. "I like to keep my workers on the job. That fever of yours hasn't come back, has it?" When Bandicut shook his head, the doctor shrugged. "Okay, I guess we'll let sleeping dogs lie on that one. Come back tomorrow, and don't forget to take the rest of those pills."

  You don't like embarrassing mysteries in your office, do you? Bandicut thought, sliding off the table. He knew he should be glad that Switzer wasn't pursuing the question of the fever, but he couldn't help wondering what the old quack would say if he knew Bandicut was possessed by—or rather, was harboring—an alien.

  /// Thank you for that correction.

  It's going to remain an academic question,

  isn't it? ///

  /Does this guy look like someone I would trust to tell about you?/ Bandicut loped off down the corridor, his cast thumping lightly and rhythmically on the deck.

  /// Good point.

  Where to now? ///

  /To find Julie./

  /// Oh... ///

  /Prepare to hold your gorge, Mr. Xenophobe./

  There was no answering remark from the quarx, which suited him just fine.

  *

  The lounge was deserted. He thought a moment, then decided to try the exoarch group offices. If this was going to be his last day off, he wanted to make the best of it. Charlie seemed nervous as he made his way down to the lower level. Bandicut had the feeling that the quarx was afraid that he would blow their cover with the exoarch people, but was determined to demonstrate his trust by resolutely holding his quarxian tongue. The thought flickered across his mind that it would be interesting to see how far the quarx's trust could be pushed. He did his best to dismiss the thought.

  The exoarch department was marked with a hand-inked sign taped to an olive-drab door. He rapped twice, and entered when he heard a muffled voice from within.

  "Well, hi there!" said the voice, which turned out to be Julie's. He had to peer around a filing cabinet to locate her, sitting behind a narrow desk, with a computer console to one side.

  "Hi, yourself. All alone here, hard at work?"

  She waggled a hand noncommittally. "Alone, yes. Hard at work, maybe. I've already gotten everything restored that mattered. It was no big deal—I had good backups. But—" She hesitated, and suddenly looked embarrassed.

  "What?"

  Julie shrugged, chuckling. "Oh, I've just been toying with a crazy notion of mine, about the datanet crash." She glanced at her console monitor.

  "Oh yeah? What is it?" he asked, his heart quickening as he walked around the cabinet to her side of the room. "Can I peek?"

  She thought a moment. "Well—there's nothing to look at, really. But sure, okay." Julie flipped some pages of text and diagrams back and forth on the screen. "You'll think I'm nuts, but what the hell, so will everyone else. I might as well try it out on you."

  "Okay," he said, squinting across her desk at the screen. He couldn't quite read it from where he stood. "Come on now, it couldn't be any crazier than some things I've come up with."

  Her eyes sparkled. "I don't know about that. You tell me." She tapped the screen, then swiveled her chair to face him. He sat down in a chair directly across her desk from her. "Okay—now this is just an idea, and it's not even in my area of expertise
. I haven't got one shred of real evidence to back it up, okay?"

  "Okay." Suddenly he felt very nervous.

  /// Are you thinking what I'm thinking? ///

  /Mm./

  Julie nodded. "Okay—well, then—everyone keeps talking about how it could have been sabotage that made the datanet crash. But no one's found proof, and no one's been able to explain who would want to sabotage the net. It could be a competitor to MINEXFO, except that MINEXFO doesn't have any competitors."

  "Well," he pointed out, "there are some who would like to be competitors, back in-system. There's the South America group, and the Mars group. MINEXFO's monopoly doesn't last forever."

  Julie waved off the objection. "Sure, but I mean, there's no one else here right now trying to mine the turf. Okay, it's possible that someone here is a plant from one of those groups, I suppose—"

  "I've heard people say it could be the environment lobby, trying to screw up the system." He tried to say it in a jocular tone, but it came out sounding forced.

  Julie rolled her eyes. "If I, as an admitted wacko environmentalist, wanted to screw up the system, I sure wouldn't do it by bringing down my only avenue for getting news and propaganda out, and support in. That makes no sense. And anyway, the disruption was so temporary, what would it have accomplished?"

  "What if you were an incompetent, wacko environmentalist?"

  Her eyes twinkled. "I think we left all of them at home."

  "Ah." He cleared his throat. "So that leaves plain old system malfunction through shoddy design and poor workmanship. Right?"

  She shrugged. "Maybe." Despite his unease, he couldn't keep from meeting her eyes. He suddenly, intensely, wanted to kiss her. "Or," she said softly, her voice a throaty murmur, "it could have been interference from an outside agency. An agency that no one has even considered, despite the fact that we're all here for the purpose of excavating the remains of an alien technology. Have you ever thought about that?"

  He cleared his throat again, more energetically. Steady, boy. Think before you answer.

  /// John—don't! ///

  /I'm not—/

  "No answer?" she said, with a quizzical smile. "Is that because you'd never thought about what you think I'm thinking, or because you're deciding that you've just dropped in on a fruitcake?"

  He laughed nervously. "I admit, I hadn't thought about it...in quite that way. I mean, I suppose it is...possible." He swallowed. "But you said yourself, there's no evidence, right?"

  She rocked forward, resting her elbows on her desk, and gazed thoughtfully at a point just over his shoulder. He stared at her, at those intense eyes lost in thought, and wondered frantically what he was doing here. She turned back to her screen. "Not real evidence, no. But there is one thing I found in the report..." She glanced at him. His heart was racing. "It has to do with a deflection in the comm beam from Triton Orbital to the surface."

  "Uh—?" he croaked.

  She brushed her hair back from her eyes. "The transmission beam was deflected slightly, just before the datanet came down. It was re-aimed about seven kilometers to the northeast of us, out beyond navpoint Wendy on the charts. We have no explanation for that."

  "Uh—part of the datanet failure?"

  Julie shrugged. "Could be. But it seems kind of odd to me. Nobody's been able to explain how that particular thing could have happened. It appears to have been done by a software command, but no one's been able to trace the source of the command."

  /// Thank God for that. ///

  Bandicut nodded impassively, trying to look curious.

  "But that doesn't mean it couldn't yet be traced," Julie continued. "Of course, it's just a wild idea. But it seems to me that if you're investigating alien remains, and weird things start happening, it at least makes sense to consider the possibility—" She interrupted herself in midsentence to cock her head at him. "Wait a minute. I've been wishing I had some way to trace the datanet records myself. But someone like you could do it. Someone who can link right in."

  He swallowed hard. "I can't...do that, anymore. I mean, I've...lost my neuro capability."

  She looked puzzled. "But I saw the records of people connected to the net at the time it went down, and you were on the list."

  His heart skipped. He felt Charlie squirming in fear. "I, well, yes—I can connect to a very limited extent. But I mean limited, compared to what I used to do be able to do. Say—" his voice caught, and he tried to make it a laugh "—you don't suspect me, do you?"

  She smiled disarmingly. "Of course not. I suspect aliens, I told you. I'm just looking for someone who can...look for evidence, where I can't."

  He suddenly wished he hadn't walked into this room; he wished he could take Julie home with him; he wished he could—

  On a sudden impulse, he glanced quickly around the room, making sure there was no one else here. He hitched his chair close to her desk and leaned forward, biting his lip. "Listen, do you—do you want to—?" His voice caught, and her eyes blinked, and the corners of her mouth turned up as she leaned toward him. His heart hammered. "Do you want to go get some din—do you mind if I kiss you?"

  /// John!

  You aren't really going to— ///

  /Clear out, ether-brain!/ He felt Charlie twitch away, and his heart stopped as he waited for Julie to react.

  Her eyes widened, but when she moved, it was to lean farther across the desk toward him. She closed her eyes, and he rose to meet her halfway, and their lips touched, brushing lightly. He smiled against her lips; she smiled back against his. As her breath sighed out, he pressed just a little harder, and her lips met his more urgently. His heart was beating full tilt now, and he felt Charlie squirming and contracting into a ball as his blood grew hot with arousal.

  "How's your ankle?" she whispered, brushing her lips over his cheek and then his temple.

  "My...umm...fine," he whispered back, suppressing a little shiver. "It's the rest of me that—"

  "Shhh," she said, drawing away a little and putting a finger to his lips. "Not here." She peered into his eyes. "Do you want—?"

  "Dinner?" he croaked.

  She grinned and looked at the clock. "At noon? How about lunch?"

  "Oh—"

  "We could take it back to...my place. I have a private—"

  "Let's go," he murmured huskily.

  *

  They slipped down the corridor like a pair of thieves, strolling casually whenever anyone else was in sight, and hurrying with suppressed excitement when the way was clear. They darted into the cafeteria and loaded a takeout tray with sandwiches and drinks, and hurried away.

  He felt suddenly awkward as they crept into her dorm compartment and slid the privacy-curtain closed. Julie seemed to feel it as well, but when she put the tray down on the tiny desktop, and turned, and he put his arms around her in a prolonged hug, the awkwardness didn't seem to matter anymore. She pressed her hands against his chest and whispered, "I know this is crazy. But you made my toes curl, the other night. Will you do that to me again? Please?"

  /// John... ///

  There was a note of desperation in the quarx's voice.

  He ignored the voice. He struggled to find words. Julie answered the silence by stretching up and kissing him...

  *

  "Julie?"

  It was the longest, deepest, throatiest kiss yet, tongues and lips dancing, breath whispering, hands moving over half-unfastened shirts, bodies lurching in the one-thirteenth gravity.

  "Julie, are you in there?" The voice was female, and sounded concerned.

  "Damn—!" Julie whispered. She broke from the kiss and slumped against him, arms holding him limply. For a moment, they were silent and still together. Then Julie raised her head and called out, "Yes! What is it?"

  "Can I come in? It's Georgia."

  Bandicut groaned softly and straightened up. He began to refasten his shirt front, but Julie stayed him with one hand. "What is it? I'm—" Julie gulped "—not feeling...too well. I'm, uh, trying
to take a nap." She looked at Bandicut and grimaced, then hiccupped with suppressed laughter.

  "I need to talk. It's about John. It won't take long."

  About John? he thought.

  Georgia rattled the curtain fastener, and it popped open. She started to step in. "Ohh—" she croaked in sudden mortification. "I, uh—"

  "I thought I locked that thing!" Julie snarled, hurriedly readjusting her clothing. She looked apologetically at Bandicut, and he shrugged silently. He glanced at Georgia, and caught her hiding a grin. He blushed and averted his eyes.

  "Sorry—!" Georgia murmured, backing out of the doorway.

  "Oh, hell, you might as well tell me what you wanted," Julie sighed. She cocked her head. "You said it was about John?" She glanced at Bandicut.

  "My John. Not you, Bandie," Georgia said wryly.

  "Ah," said Julie.

  "I, uh—it can wait. I'll talk to you...later." Coughing politely, Georgia added, "I'm sorry...you're not feeling well." She closed the curtain again, but Bandicut thought he heard her chuckle.

  Julie sighed deeply. She wrapped her arms around Bandicut's chest, and finally turned her eyes up to his. "Well—how's that for a mood-breaker?"

  He grunted, and managed a grin. "What do you suppose are the, uh...chances of...getting the mood back?"

  Julie pressed her lips together fretfully. "You could ask me to...dinner," she suggested.

  Bandicut turned his head to peer at the tray of food. "Want to have dinner at a gourmet restaurant?" he squeaked. "Or—" his voice deepened again "—do you want to kiss me again?"

  She smiled. "It's not dinnertime yet. But I like the second idea." She leaned back toward him.

  *

  The comm buzzed once, and they ignored it. It buzzed again, insistently. This time when they broke from their embrace, they were both cursing. Julie snarled and pressed the talk button. "Yes?"

  "It's Kim. Can you come down to the office right away? We've got something from the latest scans that you've got to see."