Deep Indigo by Cathryn Cade

clinic?” Qwerx asked the two other investigators.
    “Diagnosed with depression. He received several weeks of psychic treatment. This cruise was suggested to, ah, cheer him. The family had the monitoring device placed because they were worried about him and wished to be able to check in on him.”
    The Orion crew commanders gazed at each other, the grim realization written on their faces of just how awry the family’s plan had gone.
    “So he was mentally fragile.” Navos struggled to maintain his usual detachment. “And something occurred last night that completely unbalanced him.”
    “This monitoring device,” Craig said. “We discussed it just hours ago. Commander Navos believes it may have been subverted somehow, to cause the boy to act in a deranged fashion. I’d like to understand it better. You said it can be used to monitor, say, a rapist. But what happens when he acts out? How do they stop him?”
    “The device can be used not only to receive, but to send a signal,” Gentian said. “It acts on the impulse center of the brain, to thwart the subject’s own suggestion and implant a new one. For example, if a rapist is about to take a new victim, the impulse would be triggered by his, er, excitement. It would immediately send an alternate signal. He would instead stand still and begin to recite his name, address and criminal record, over and over.”
    “Thus warning possible victims away,” Sirena finished with relish. “He wouldn’t be able to help himself. Talk about the perfect deterrent.”
    Craig nodded. “So there’s no need for law enforcement to arrive at star speed. They can take their time. Great idea, whoever thought of it.”
    “It was the outcome of research at the university on Indigon,” Skye said proudly. “Commander Navos was one of the founders of the project, were you not, sir?”
    Craig, Slyde and Sirena looked at him, all equally surprised. As he’d known they would be.
    “Only in the beginning,” Navos said curtly. He’d been one of the founders of the project, until his research had been stolen by his lover and used to open the very clinic where the boy had had the device implanted.
    All of which left him with the intuition that the ice spider had woven another web, one in which she intended to catch not only him, but the Orion .
    He met Craig’s eyes across the command console. “Commander Blaze is correct—this project has indeed been used to thwart many a criminal instinct. But now…unless I’m mistaken, it is being used for evil.”
    “How do you mean?” Craig looked preoccupied, as if he were still considering the new revelations about his second-in-command.
    “If I didn’t send that boy to his death,” Navos said, “someone else did. And I believe Dr. Tentaclar was correct when he surmised the device was used to do it.”
    Slyde nodded, his eyes narrowed.
    “Someone may have been controlling him from as far away as a planet, or even a nearby space station. They could’ve subverted the signal somehow—suggested to him he wanted to break into the core reactor. That he had to, or die trying.”
    Sirena gave a hiss of disgust and the IBI ops looked sharply at each other, then back at Navos.
    “Commander Navos, do you believe this?” the woman asked, her eyes wide.
    He nodded grimly. “I’m afraid so. I surmise someone in the Mazarin Clinic has been doing a great deal more research on the device, in secret. They’ve chosen now to unveil it.”
    “And aboard the Orion ,” Craig said with grim disgust. “This must be connected with the other attacks. It has to be!”
    “Yes, it doesn’t seem coincidental,” Slyde agreed. “And I’m afraid it means we must be on the alert for another attack.”
    “Which could happen at any time,” his wife added. “And if there are others on board with these devices implanted, there’ll be no warning, will there?”
    “Which means we’d better be ready for anything, anytime,” Craig finished. He shook his