Mutineer's Moon

“Good morning, sir.” A guard touched the brim of his cap as he bent beside the window. “I’m afraid this is a restricted area. Public access is off Fountain Boulevard.”

“I know,” Sean replied, glancing at the man’s neat NASA nameplate. “Major Simmons is expecting me, Sergeant Klein.”

“I see. May I have your name, sir?” The sergeant raised an eyebrow as he uncased his belt terminal and brought the small screen to life.

“I’m Sean MacIntyre, Sergeant.”

“Thank you.” Klein studied his terminal, comparing the minute image to Sean’s face, then nodded. “Yes, sir, you’re on the cleared list.” A raised hand beckoned to one of his fellows. “Corporal Hansen will escort you to White Tower, Mr. MacIntyre.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Sean leaned across to open the passenger door for Corporal Hansen, and the guard climbed in and settled his compact assault rifle carefully beside him.

“You’re welcome, Mr. MacIntyre,” Klein said. “And may I extend my condolences on your brother’s death, sir?”

“Thank you,” Sean said again, and put the car back into gear as Klein touched his cap once more.

The remark could have been a polite nothing, but Klein had sounded entirely sincere, and Sean was touched by it.

He’d always known his brother was popular with his fellows, but not until Colin “died” had he suspected how much the rank and file of the space effort had admired him. He’d expected a certain amount of instant veneration. It was traditional, after all—no matter how klutzy a man was, he became a hero when he perished doing something heroic—but Colin had been one of the varsity.

Colin’s selection as the Prometheus Mission’s chief survey pilot had been a measure of his professional standing; the grief over his reported death, whether it was the loss felt by his personal friends or by men and women like Sergeant Klein who’d never even met him, measured another side of him.

If they only knew, Sean thought, and barely managed to stop himself before he chuckled. Corporal Hansen would not understand his amusement at all.

The corporal guided Sean through three more checkpoints, then down a shortcut through the towering silver domes of Shepherd Center’s number two tank farm, where vapor clouds plumed from pressure relief valves high overhead. The distant thunder of a shuttle launch rattled the Bushmaster’s windows gently as they emerged on the far side, and White Tower’s massive, gleaming needle of mirrored glass loomed before them. Clouds moved with pristine grace across the deep-blue sky reflected from its face, and not even the clutter of communications relays atop the tower could lessen the power of its presence.

Sean parked in the indicated slot, and he and the corporal climbed out.

“Take the main entrance and tell the security desk you’re here to see Major Simmons, sir. They’ll handle it from there.”

“Thanks, Corporal. Are you going to get back to the gate all right?”

“No sweat, sir. There’s a jitney heading back in about ten minutes.”

“Then I’ll be going,” Sean said with a nod, and strode briskly through the indicated entrance and its metal detectors. A trefoil-badged holo sign on the wall warned of x-ray sca

The security desk passed him through to Major Simmons. Sean and the major had met before, and Simmons shook his hand, his firm grip a silent expression of sympathy for his “loss,” and handed him a clip-on security badge.

“This’ll get you up to Captain Yamaguchi’s office—it’s good anywhere in the Green Area—and she’s already pulled Colin’s personal data for you. Do you know your way there, or should I assign a guide?”

“No, thank you, Major. I’ve been here a couple of times; I can find my own way, I think. Should I just hand this—” he touched the pass “—back in at the security desk as I leave?”

“That would be fine,” Simmons agreed, and Sean headed for the elevators. He walked past the first bank, and punched for a car in the L Block, humming softly and wishing his palms weren’t a bit damp as he waited. A musical tone chimed and the floor light lit above the doors. They opened quietly.

“Here we go, kid,” Sean murmured sotto voce. “Hope it works.”

Colin lay back on his brother’s bed, hands clasped behind his head, and his unfocused eyes watched sun patterns on the wall. He hated involving Sean—and hated it all the more because he’d known Sean would agree. The odds were tremendously against anyone noticing the sca

It was a strange sensation to lie here and yet simultaneously accompany Sean. There was a duality to his senses and his vision, as if he personally rode in his brother’s shirt pocket even as he lay comfortably on the bed.

His implants reached out through the disguised relay, probing and peering, exploring the webs of electronics around Sean like insubstantial fingers. He could almost touch the flow of current as the elevator floor lights lit silently, just as he could feel the motion of the elevator as it climbed the hollow, empty-tasting shaft. Security systems, computers, electric pencil sharpeners, telephones, intercoms, lighting conduits, heating and air-conditioning sensors, ventilation shafts—he felt them about him and quested through them like a ghost, sniffing and prying.

And then, like a bolt of lightning, a fiery little core of brighter, fiercer power surged in his perceptions.

Colin stiffened, closing his eyes as he concentrated. The impression was faint, but he closed in on it, tuning out the background. His immaterial fingers reached out, and his brows creased in surprise. It was a com link, all right—a fold-space com, very similar to the implant in his own skull—but there was something strange about it…

He worried at it, focusing and refining his data, and then he had it. It was a security link, not a standard hand com. He would never have spotted it if Dahak hadn’t improved his built—in sensors, but that explained why it seemed so similar to his implant. He insinuated his perceptions into the heart of the tiny device, confirming his identification. Definitely a security link; there were the multi-dimensional shift circuits to bounce it around. Now why should the mutineers bother with a security link? Even in a worst-case scenario that assumed Dahak was fully operational, that was taking security to paranoid extremes. Dahak could do many things, but tapping a fold-space com from lunar orbit wasn’t one of them, and no one on Earth would even recognize one.

He considered consulting with Dahak, but only for a moment. None of the mutineers’ equipment could tap his link with the computer, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t detect it. The device he’d found had a piddling little range—no more than fifteen thousand kilometers—and detecting something like that would be practically impossible with its shift circuits in operation. But his implant’s range was over a light-hour, and that very power would make it stand out like a beacon on any Imperial detector screen on the planet.

He muttered pungently, then shrugged. It didn’t really matter why the mutineers had given that particular com to their minion; what mattered was that he’d found it, and he concentrated on pi

Ahhhhhh yesssssss… There it was. Right down in—

Colin sat up with a jerk. Cal Tudor’s office?! That was insane!

But there was no doubt about it. The damned thing was not only in his office but hidden inside his work terminal!