ship.
First of all, thereâs Captain Santamaria. Obviously heâs ex-military, probably OSS, maybe even intelligence. How did he end up working for the agency? What is he doing for the agency while captaining a civilian cruise ship? And why did Paul put me here, on Santamariaâs ship?
Then thereâs Ellie Gavilán. Also possibly ex-military; where else would she have worked on ionwells before Dejah Thoris ? The technology was only declassified on Earth after the war. And thereâs no way an Earth corporation would make a Martian citizen chief engineer on their newest flagship.
My interest in both of these people is purely professional. Absolutely professional. I am clearly in the middle of something here, even if it only turns out to be Paul pulling a prank on one of his old drinking buddies, and I will get to the bottom of it. It has nothing at all to do with Ellieâs shapely body inside her form-fitting jumpsuit. Or her sparkling personality. Or the way she squeezed my shoulder.
This is business. Iâm a spy. This is what I do. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but the Kangaroo loves legwork.
The most efficient way I know to get the best information is to plug into the agencyâs data warehouse. If youâve ever passed through the sight line of a security camera in a public place anywhere in the Solar System, we know about it, and I can look it up and tell you to the millisecond when you were there.
Unfortunately, I didnât board Dejah Thoris with most of the special equipment I would carry on a live op. I donât have the long-range antenna relay I need for my shoulder-phone to bounce a secure signal off military navigation relays. And hacking into the cruise shipâs telecom system is sure to attract unwanted attention.
Fortunately, I do have a few items in the pocket that I always carry for emergencies.
I spend the next few hours planning my own little operation. I need the time because I donât have my usual tactical support team of Equipment and Surgical in my ear, telling me what to do and how to do it. I donât want to screw this up.
After Iâve figured out the shift changes for shipâs security and found the blind spots in their camera coverage, I sign up for one of the scheduled after-dinner spacewalk excursions. I pretend to be nervous and flustered as a crew member helps me into my spacesuit. I ask about all the different parts of the suit and all the âfunny-looking equipmentâ so I can surreptitiously scan everything, find the locator beacon thatâs hidden in the radio, and measure its broadcast frequency. I also note the length of my tether cable when Iâm outside, and go as far as I can around the circumference of the ship without arousing our chaperoneâs suspicions.
Theoretically, Dejah Thoris could do passenger spacewalks all the time. There isnât day or night when youâre hurtling through the void. But the human body evolved in a diurnal cycle, and it gets first confused, then sick, if you disrupt its natural rhythms for too long. So all passenger vessels operate on a twenty-four hour day, and Dejah Thoris âs meal times and activity schedules reflect that.
The last spacewalk of the night ends at 2100 hours. Itâs two hours later when I sidle up to the excursion area, bypass the door lock, and step inside.
Itâs dark. I leave the lights off and blink once, then look right, left, right, and blink three times. The night vision implants in my left eye come to life, magnifying the dim light sneaking in through cracks in the doors and walls and showing me the spacesuit storage locker.
I set my shoulder-phone to jam the suitâs locator beacon. I know from my earlier scans that it wonât start transmitting until I power up the suit, so I donât need to worry about interfering with other, expected radio traffic. If any crew are outside, theyâre on an entirely different frequency.
It
First of all, thereâs Captain Santamaria. Obviously heâs ex-military, probably OSS, maybe even intelligence. How did he end up working for the agency? What is he doing for the agency while captaining a civilian cruise ship? And why did Paul put me here, on Santamariaâs ship?
Then thereâs Ellie Gavilán. Also possibly ex-military; where else would she have worked on ionwells before Dejah Thoris ? The technology was only declassified on Earth after the war. And thereâs no way an Earth corporation would make a Martian citizen chief engineer on their newest flagship.
My interest in both of these people is purely professional. Absolutely professional. I am clearly in the middle of something here, even if it only turns out to be Paul pulling a prank on one of his old drinking buddies, and I will get to the bottom of it. It has nothing at all to do with Ellieâs shapely body inside her form-fitting jumpsuit. Or her sparkling personality. Or the way she squeezed my shoulder.
This is business. Iâm a spy. This is what I do. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but the Kangaroo loves legwork.
The most efficient way I know to get the best information is to plug into the agencyâs data warehouse. If youâve ever passed through the sight line of a security camera in a public place anywhere in the Solar System, we know about it, and I can look it up and tell you to the millisecond when you were there.
Unfortunately, I didnât board Dejah Thoris with most of the special equipment I would carry on a live op. I donât have the long-range antenna relay I need for my shoulder-phone to bounce a secure signal off military navigation relays. And hacking into the cruise shipâs telecom system is sure to attract unwanted attention.
Fortunately, I do have a few items in the pocket that I always carry for emergencies.
I spend the next few hours planning my own little operation. I need the time because I donât have my usual tactical support team of Equipment and Surgical in my ear, telling me what to do and how to do it. I donât want to screw this up.
After Iâve figured out the shift changes for shipâs security and found the blind spots in their camera coverage, I sign up for one of the scheduled after-dinner spacewalk excursions. I pretend to be nervous and flustered as a crew member helps me into my spacesuit. I ask about all the different parts of the suit and all the âfunny-looking equipmentâ so I can surreptitiously scan everything, find the locator beacon thatâs hidden in the radio, and measure its broadcast frequency. I also note the length of my tether cable when Iâm outside, and go as far as I can around the circumference of the ship without arousing our chaperoneâs suspicions.
Theoretically, Dejah Thoris could do passenger spacewalks all the time. There isnât day or night when youâre hurtling through the void. But the human body evolved in a diurnal cycle, and it gets first confused, then sick, if you disrupt its natural rhythms for too long. So all passenger vessels operate on a twenty-four hour day, and Dejah Thoris âs meal times and activity schedules reflect that.
The last spacewalk of the night ends at 2100 hours. Itâs two hours later when I sidle up to the excursion area, bypass the door lock, and step inside.
Itâs dark. I leave the lights off and blink once, then look right, left, right, and blink three times. The night vision implants in my left eye come to life, magnifying the dim light sneaking in through cracks in the doors and walls and showing me the spacesuit storage locker.
I set my shoulder-phone to jam the suitâs locator beacon. I know from my earlier scans that it wonât start transmitting until I power up the suit, so I donât need to worry about interfering with other, expected radio traffic. If any crew are outside, theyâre on an entirely different frequency.
It
Similar Books
