Copyright 1992 by Jim Vassilakos
                      All Rights Reserved

     Permission is granted by the copyright holder to copy
      and distribute this work such that no commercial or
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---------------------------------------------------------------



                             Twenty



He liked the sound it made, twirling on the counter top, and the
way it made her hazel eyes open wide with glee.
   "Lemme see."
   Mike's first impulse was to clasp his hand into a tight fist.
She tried prying back his fingers one by one, but each time she
got one where she wanted it, she'd have to let it go to work on
another. "Dummy," he thought, as it would snap back down, and
she'd scream and then laugh, frustrated and easily amused.
   "Mike... please. I'm gonna tell mom."
   "Tell her what? I found it."
   "I just want to look at it."
   He held its edge between two fingers, its coppery color
reflecting the late afternoon sunlight. Some sort of profile lay
etched on the side, a man with a beard, all distinguished and
stately. She squinted, trying to make out the details as he
jiggled it back and forth, forcing her eyes to constantly
refocus. Finally giving up, she tried to grab it. "Slowpoke," he
thought as he felt a snickering smile form on his lips.
   "I have all. You have none."
   "Mike..." she started to whine.
   "Oh, don't cry baby. You want it?"
   "Yes."
   "I bet you do."
   She ended up chasing him around the flat, underneath tables,
through the shower, over their parents' bed, until she finally
cornered him at the balcony, hazel eyes deadly serious.
   "Gimmie it or else."
   "If you insist."
   He made as if to hand it forward, but just at her moment of
triumph, he flicked it backwards over his head. It was over
twenty stories down.
   "Mike... I'm telling."
   She never did, of course. She never told about anything, while
he would tell about almost anything, even the stuff he made up.
   "Mommy already knows you're a big fat liar."
   "Does not... uh.... Am not."
   He didn't know why she held her tongue. He never really
thought about it. He knew it was a good thing though. She'd
certainly collected enough dirt over the years to put him on
life-long restriction.
   "Where you going?"
   He froze, his lower torso hanging out the ventilation shaft.
It wasn't the first time she'd pretended to be asleep. He looked
down, uncertain.
   "Nowhere."
   "I'll tell."
   "Go ahead."
   He stopped once he reached the roof. She was at his heels,
hazel eyes shimmering faintly in the starlight. Mike scowled. A
tag-along was just what he needed.
   "Where do you think you're going?" he queried in his most
accusatory voice.
   "Where are you going?" she chirped in reply.
   "Nowhere."
   "I'm going nowhere too."
   He gritted his teeth, walking over to the old staircase. He'd
busted the lock on the door with his father's gun while nobody
was home to hear the noise. His dad never even noticed the bullet
missing.
   Mike told her to go back at least twenty times on the way to
the ground floor. It wasn't that she'd get him caught. Sneaking
past the security-bot wasn't a problem. The thing was stupid, and
he'd learned long ago how to distract it with a pebble. It was
just the idea of her company which irritated him.
   She walked behind him once they were outside, picking up funny
shaped stones or bits of metal. She even found a coin, probably
the one he'd tossed over the balcony. They ended up going into
one of the deserted buildings at her insistence. She wanted to
find something hard and flat to spin it on. Mike suggested her
head, which she didn't find funny.
   They must have sat there for hours while she twirled it with
glee and wouldn't let him touch it for all the false promises in
the world. He watched her, his eyelids growing increasingly heavy
as he reminded himself that they couldn't fall asleep. Without
her in the room, there would be nobody to cover for him in the
morning. Still, she seemed too happy to budge. She finally looked
up, waking him from his pseudo-slumber.
   "Remember Dana?"
   Mike looked at her and yawned, "Haven't seen her in awhile."
   "Mom said her family must've moved, but I went over the other
day, and her older sister answered the door. Said she wasn't
living there anymore."
   "Maybe she got the bug."
   That made her pause, but then she looked up again, "I don't
see how she could have. She hardly ever went out. Her Dad
wouldn't let her."
   Mike sat upright on the floor, crossing his legs.
   "Sounds almost like Jason."
   Lei twirled the coin again.
   "Yeah. Before his parent's moved, he said they were leaving
because of him and that I should go too. Because we were both
second-born."
   "Second-born?"
   "I know. I asked mom what he meant. She said they were really
leaving because his parents couldn't face their chores."
   A goo-spitter crept beside her leg while she was talking. Mike
flicked a string of pebbles at it until it got the hint and
crawled away. She didn't seem to notice and just kept twirling
the coin.
   "Mom said some people just hide from real life. Isn't that
weird?"
   "I guess."
   She was quiet for a while after that, and Mike closed his eyes
wondering what the big people were up to.
   "Mike. Wake up!"
   His eyes snapped open but saw nothing save for a blue dot in
the distance, jumping like the beat to a really slow song. His
mouth felt strange, almost swollen, and his body felt warm and
numb, as though he'd melted into the concrete. It took about a
minute before he realized there was something in his mouth. He
spat it out gently, feeling it brush by his arm several moments
later. With considerable concentration, his hand found it
somewhere in the darkness. It was about the size of a walnut,
cold and metallic. He closed his hand into a fist as a beeping
noise rose somewhere in the distance. Then the lights came on,
and he squinted, barely able to see at all.
   "Good morning."
   It was a woman's voice, detached yet strangely familiar. She
sounded a little tired as her face blurred in and out of focus.
   "How are you feeling?"
   She wiped his eyes with some sort of sticky, gauze pad, and
Mike could see her short, dark hair as she leaned forward again,
looking into his eyes with an elongated, metal instrument.
   "Do you know where you are?"
   Mike thought about it.
   "No."
   "You're on the Crimson Queen... Royal Fleet passenger liner.
You're safe."
   She put something on his head and then pressed a few buttons.
A twisted red line appeared on the display, sparking to mind
images of floating bubbles, crimson and boiling. Mike blinked as
she turned back around.
   "Do you remember anything?"
   "Umm..."
   For some reason, he found himself imagining her with long,
white hair. Her eyes were light brown, like a tiger's. Not
silver, like Sule's. He blinked again as the memories came
rushing with neither heed nor invitation.
   "Do you know who you are?"
   "Mi..." he bit his tongue. "My head feels... kinda woozy."
   "It's okay. Just rest. If you need anything," she tapped a red
button beside his fist. "Lights dim."
   They obeyed, and she seemed to have to play with the door,
making it beep several times before it would open. A man wearing
a holster stood on the other side, smiling and sneaking a peek.
Then the door closed again, and Mike saw a small number pad
nested into the wall beside it.
   The object in his hand was metallic with two small holes set
into one face. A moon-shaped etching lay beneath them, making a
smiling face of the trio, and the words "try me" were carefully
etched along the adjoining side. Frowning, Mike raised it
carefully to his head, using his fingers to find the appropriate
jacks. His arm felt strangely disconnected, as though half the
nerves were deadened, and it took considerable fumbling before
the device agreed click into its proper place. The lights seemed
to stutter for a moment, and sitting somewhere within one wall,
he could see the pair of dancing yellow lanterns.
   "Cecil, what's going on?"
   "Speak with your mind, my friend. You are in the gravest
danger yet."
   Mike tried to shrug, but his shoulders barely responded, so he
just sat still as the lanterns continued to swirl, beckoning
attention.
   "The Imps believe you are working with ISIS. They think it is
you who summoned them to Sule's rescue. It is only a matter of
time before they learn the truth."
   "Where am I?"
   "The cage, the Crimson Queen's high security section of
sickbay."
   "Are we in hyperspace?"
   "En route to Tyber."
   Mike took a deep breath, "No wonder I'm having weird dreams."
   The lanterns halted their dance, mid-stride.
   "Dreams?"
   "Realistic, actually. Ever hear of delayed action re-play?"
   "Ah... understood."
   Mike sighed. Cecil knew him too well.
   "What's our ETA?"
   "Fifteen hours."
   "Anybody with you?"
   The lanterns danced again, "The whole team, Pooper-dumper
included."
   "Does anyone have any ideas for getting me out of here?"
   "Brain cells be burning over it. Trust in that."
   "Could you be more specific?"
   "Locks on doors, for starters. Codes to enter, unknown."
   Mike smirked, "Unknown? To the ultimate hack?"
   "Hack Cecil could, but not quietly. Not on this boat, and
certainly not concerning their prize jewel."
   Their prize jewel. Mike savored the sound of it as his smirk
decomposed itself into a sullen stare.
   "I'll get the combo. You guys figure out how to use it. Okay?"
   "Agreed."
   Mike disengaged the radio from his jacks, using several
minutes debating where to hide it. Precious little was sacred in
a hospital null, particularly one in which your every bodily
function was monitored by various medical gadgetry. Even a woman
doctor would have to get intimate from time to time. He finally
settled on wedging it beneath the upper-torso sheath between his
armpit and the castfoam, pressing the red button almost as a
after-thought. A young man entered the room a minute later. He
wore a white coat with snake insignia and had a soft, friendly
face.
   "Ah... Lieutenant Feso Sosrodjojo at your service."
   Mike tried to grin, "Lieutenant, I can barely move."
   "That's just the regen compound doing its work. It contains a
mild paralytic."
   "Take me off it."
   "Ah... I can't do that."
   "Lieutenant, don't make me pull rank here. Can you at least
take me off the paralytic?"
   He sighed, "If you don't mind pain, sure."
   Mike nodded, "I'd also like to see myself. If you have a
mirror somewhere..."
   "No problem. I'll be right back."
   A minute later, Mike discovered the nurse true to his word.
   "Why are you being so nice to me, Feso?"
   "Ah... you're Mr. Important, right? I see Lieutenant Torin
always asking about you. He's very tight with the Commodore, I
hear." He grinned knowingly, his eyebrows arching as if to say
"nudge nudge... wink wink." Then he smiled, sort of shyly. "No,
I'm always nice to the patients. It helps people heal, and you
need all the healing you can get."
   "What I need is to be able to move."
   "Ah... you can move your arm and head."
   "I want to be able to move my body. I want to be able to do my
own digestion and defecation instead of these machines. Can you
take me out of the body sheath?"
   "Ah... I don't think that would be such a good idea."
   "Please?"


                          *     *     *


Erik knew he'd overslept even before he was moderately conscious.
He'd woken at his usual time several hours earlier, and recalling
the previous night's excitement, promptly closed his eyes. It was
a nice change, he decided, though a little too habit forming.
   "Computer. Reinstate program wake-me."
   "Done. You have messages waiting."
   "Say messages, list."
   "Commodore's quarters. Medical department, check-in desk.
Custodial department, laundry section. Done."
   "Laundry?"
   "Illegal command ignored."
   "Say messages, all."
   "Lieutenant, I am eagerly awaiting a report concerning you-
know-who. Make sure I am fully briefed by the time we arrive at
Tyber."
   He groaned.
   *Blip*
   "Hi. Lieutenant Torin, this is Sosrodjojo over at sickbay. In
case you haven't gotten word yet, I figured I should let you know
before my shift ends. That patient of yours has woken up, and he
seems completely cognizant as far as I can determine. You know,
because the first thing they do usually is to start complaining.
Anyway, I just thought you'd want to know as soon as possible.
Bye now."
   *Blip*
   "Hello. This is Chief Ater. We had an interesting time
removing those seal-it patches off the fleximesh you sent us. I
just wanted to let you know, Lieutenant, that there was a
Draconian service insignia underneath. Showed up on the computer
as external intelligence branch. I took the liberty of forwarding
a memo up the chain of command, but I figured I should at least
clue you in as well. Oh, and by the way, we figured out that we
can't repair it on-board, but I'd like to shuttle it down to
Tyber when we arrive and see what we can do with it on planet."
   *Blip* "There are no more messages."
   "Erase messages, all."
   Erik crawled out of the null tube and showered, whipping out
his clearance badge as he entered the cage's guard room scarce
minutes later.
   "Hold it there, Mister."
   Hunter's hair was slicked back from perspiration, and Erik
guessed that she probably just finished her mid-morning workout.
Rumor had it she kept a pair of grav-weights in her desk, and
though he'd never confirmed it one way or the other, he'd read
that some of the new-school, hands-on surgeons were taking up
martial arts for their nerves. Either way, she looked pumped-up
enough to belt him one.
   "Where do you think you're going?"
   He put on his best smile, "Where's it look like I'm going?"
   "It looks like you're trying, rather foolishly I might add, to
sneak into the cage."
   "How observant of you."
   "Don't even think it. I have a patient in there who needs his
sleep."
   "Doctor, this will only take a moment. Open the door."
   "Don't open it. Lieutenant, the answer is emphatically no."
   The guard looked between them, obviously befuddled. Erik knew
she out-ranked him, but he also knew that he had the power of God
to call upon for all the guard was concerned. He pulled the writ
from his shin pocket.
   "You see this?"
   "Yes sir."
   "You see the seal?"
   "Yessir."
   "You recognize it?"
   "Yessir!"
   "Open the door."
   Dr. Hunter stood behind, her mouth gaping open with a string
of saliva ready to spill to the floor.
   "Nobody ever told me that ISIS was involved!"
   "You never asked, and keep your voice down."
   The guard began punching in the access number once they
reached the cell.
   "The door can only be opened from this side. The number is
two-four-one-five-three. You key it in from the other side, and
it'll tell me that you've entered it correctly. Then I key it on
this side, and the door opens."
   "Keep it open until I say otherwise."
   "Yessir."
   The cell door slid into the wall, and Erik entered, followed
by a pair of irate footsteps. Her patient was reclining
diagonally in the gravitic null, his body sheath laying along the
wall behind him. A short, folded chair rested against the near
corner, a mirror propped against one of its legs, and another
chair, unfolded, sat facing him directly as though he were fully
expecting the intrusion. He smiled, his head jacks gleamed in the
eerie, turquoise light.
   "Lieutenant Torin, I take it."
   Erik sat down, Hunter preferring to stand and look
threatening.
   "Why are you out of your body sheath?"
   The patient shrugged, a pained wince traveling the length of
his face, "I no longer required it."
   "I'll be the judge of that. I can't believe Feso didn't tell
me he did this. Has he been administering the regen compound?"
   "More or less."
   "More or less?"
   She examined the playback for all of two seconds.
   "What happened to the paralytic?"
   "I needed to move."
   "Moving is exactly what you don't need. Mister... Mister Doe,
you have been shot several times."
   "Twice. Only two got through."
   "Only two?! Look Mister... whoever the hell you are! If you
saw yourself yesterday dripping in blood..."
   Erik broke in, "Doctor! Please."
   "Lieutenant..."
   "Doctor, this is a very unusual patient. Please allow him a
moment or two of insanity. I can assure you, it comes with the
territory."
   "I will not put up with..."
   "Due to security matters, I'm going to have to ask you to
leave."
   "What?!"
   "I am asking, Doctor. Please, don't force me to go further."
   Tiger-eyes glared down on him, "I don't care what kind of
connections you have, Torin. This is coming around. You hear me?"
   "Fine. Get her out of here."
   She left before the guard could muster the courage, and Erik
made a toothy grin, the sort he used to practice in front of a
mirror just to break up his buddies during oral exams.
   "Guard, you can close the door now. So..."
   "So..."
   "How was Calanna?"
   Mike frowned, "Difficult."
   "Really. I would never have guessed."
   "Lieutenant, why am I being locked up?"
   "Precautions. For your own safety, mainly. After all, how
often do we get a genuine ISIS operative on board? And that's not
even considering the valuable information which you carry...
yes?"
   Mike nodded, "Yes, but you may be under a misconception. I'm
not an operative."
   "Who are you?"
   He took a deep breath, hoping his scratchy, wounded voice
sounded convincing.
   "The name's Mikaelis Caiton. I was originally one of John
Clay's men."
   "DSS?"
   "No. Far from it. I was working only for John. He brought me
over from Tizar to keep an eye on Ambassador Kato, but somehow
one of your operatives, her name was Sule... no last name, I
guess... somehow she found out about me and basically made an
offer I couldn't refuse."
   "What sort of an offer?"
   "Initiation into ISIS."
   "She doesn't have that authority, Mr. Caiton."
   "Call me Mikaelis."
   "She lied to you."
   "I'm not surprised. Do you want to hear the rest or not?"
   "Please."
   "First, what are you willing to offer me?" Mike grinned, his
question a little too direct. Erik grinned back.
   "Look, Mikaelis. If I wanted to, I could just burn the
information from your brain."
   Mike dropped his grin, "Well, if you put it that way... I
started working as a liaison between Clay and your people and
managed to escape when things eventually went down on Calanna."
   "What happened?"
   "Clay turned triple agent on us. He sacrificed his own life in
that nuclear incident you no doubt heard about and managed to
kill Erestyl and destroy the ISIS headquarters in a single,
calculated strike."
   Erik sat back, utterly befuddled.
   "How did you escape?"
   "Luck. Sule dumped a copy of our mind scanner readings to
crystal. I then accompanied her to the starport to deposit them
into an interstellar postal envelope. She doesn't like to take
chances; that's one thing I liked about her."
   "How did you get wounded?"
   "Two of Clay's goons tried to make short work of us at the
starport. They were locals. Real temporary hires. They didn't
even know their source of income had already reduced himself to a
jumble of sub-molecular particles. Really tacky way to go, if you
ask me."
   "And what about Sule?"
   "She was wounded also. We managed to get to a starship, but
its occupants weren't too crazy to have us there. She fought
well, but..."
   Erik took a deep breath, trying to digest the story as quickly
as Mike had made it up.
   "Where's the envelope addressed to?"
   "If I tell you that, what keeps you from just killing me?"
   Erik shrugged, "Nothing. You're going to have to trust me."
   "I don't think so."
   "Perhaps you should. It could be your last opportunity... to
think I mean."
   Mike nodded, "I'll take you to it, but not until I have a
chance to at least introduce myself to your superiors. If you
find that unreasonable, then take your chances with the mind
scanner, and I'll take mine."
   Blue light shifted along the Lieutenant's features as he
considered the offer. He finally stood up.
   "I should warn you that insolence is not tolerated in ISIS."
   "Neither is stupidity," Mike countered, "at least according to
Sule."
   Erik keyed in the combination as he reached the door,
oblivious to the shift in his prisoner's gaze. After the door
closed again, Mike stumbled over to the folded chair, taking the
mirror and placing it flat against the metal deck. Amidst all the
gleaming silver, it had either gone unnoticed or been disregarded
as trivial. He took a deep breath and re-attached the radio. It
took a minute before Cecil's dancing, yellow lanterns returned.
   "Greetings."
   "Greetings yourself. I got it. It's two-four-one-five-three."
   "Copy that. You'll be out in no time."
   The lanterns disappeared, and Mike disengaged the radio from
his jacks, hiding it again while wondering how long "no time"
would take.


                          *     *     *


It was just a little blinker. To anyone else on the bridge, it
would have been beneath notice, but Tabor knew what it meant.
He'd just barely finished re-configuring his display for that one
little light. His personal message board began scrawling letters
almost immediately. "There. See that?"
   He opened a channel to engineering. Nakaguchi was talking on
the other end even before the line opened.
   "...just like I said. Did you catch it?"
   Tabor smiled, "I see it," though he had to admit to himself
that he could scarcely believe it. "What do you think is causing
it?"
   "You're the communications genius. You tell me."
   Tabor imported the section of hyperfield fractometer readings
which his configuration had obligingly saved narrow seconds
before they would have been consigned to electronic oblivion with
the rest of the computer's standard erasures. With a few key
strokes, he converted the data to a graph, and his eyes grew wide
at the puzzling image. Nakaguchi was right. It was pure chaos,
except for those few seconds where a series of peaks and troughs
appeared with perfectly equidistant delays.
   "You see it?"
   "Yeah. I see it, alright. I just don't know what it is."
   "I do."
   "What?"
   Nakaguchi laughed, "It's the slogs of space."
   "You're doing this, aren't you? This is a joke."
   "A sick and dangerous joke."
   "Well, somebody's doing it. This does not happen naturally."
   "That's what I've been telling you. You should have seen it
last time. It went on for more than a minute. I wish I was ready
for it. I would of saved it."
   Tabor nodded, "I wish you had. A few seconds isn't much to go
on. I'll get back to you if I figure anything out."
   "You do that."
   The line closed with a fitful pop, and Tabor began running the
standard code-cracker routines. Lish looked up, yawning
contagiously. They'd both got on duty less than an hour ago, and
her sleepiness had been infectious until now.
   "What's up?"
   "Got a little mystery."


                          *     *     *


"Well, it's no mystery to me. I know how men are. Oooh, you think
you're tough, don't you?"
   Carla retaliated with a full round kick, knocking Hunter back
at least four feet. The doctor didn't even seem fazed.
   "I'm telling you, it was infuriating."
   "Well, don't take it out on me, sister."
   "Why not?!"
   Carla had to duck and then some, finally retreating to her
safe corner.
   "Alice you bitch, you are in a bad mood."
   "Don't call me that."
   "Hey, it's okay. I'm one too. I freely admit it. Now if only
we could get all men to admit they're assholes, the universe
might be an honest place to live."
   "No... I mean don't call me Alice."
   "It's your name, ain't it?"
   "Stop gabbing and fight."
   Carla kept to the defensive. She could tell her favorite
karate student was out for bloody, no-holds-barred aggression,
and it was a beautiful sight.
   "You keep on like this, and I'm gonna have you in the
tournament. Talk about focus. The only problem is that you're so
pissed, you aren't thinking."
   She dished back just what the doctor ordered, except that
Hunter didn't know it until she was already on the floor, dazed
and with Carla's foot scrunching down on her nose.
   "Damn."
   "Ha! And you thought you had me. Didn't you?"
   Hunter stood up, rubbing the leg which took the brunt of the
take-down.
   "For maybe half a second."
   "Longer than that. You were getting wicked, woman."
   "I have good reason to be wicked."
   "Yeah, well... you have to think and be wicked at the same
time. Once you have that down, all men better run and hide."
   Hunter smiled. It had taken a while, but Carla was finally
getting to her. She always knew the doctor's weak spots.
   "I didn't say all men."
   "No, but that is what you mean. C'mon girl. You don't have to
pretend different. I know."
   Hunter shrugged, picking up a towel, "It's just that they're
so stupid."
   "Ain't that the truth."
   "They refuse to listen to reason. They're pig-headed."
   "I heard that right. Hey, where's that come from, anyway?"
   "What?"
   "Pig-headed."
   "You never heard of pigs?"
   "No."
   Hunter started to laugh, except that she was too angry and
couldn't sustain it, so it just came out like all wrong, like a
pig's snort. Carla watched her, a hurt scowl crossing her cheeks.
   "What's that supposed to mean? I'm stupid or something? Listen
girl, just because not everybody goes to college for ten
years..."
   "No... I didn't mean it like that. Pigs are proto-slogs.
That's just the sound they made."
   Carla looked at her again, that strange sort of smile forming
along her lips like she figured she was being lied to for the fun
of it.
   "I can do that. Listen..." *snort* "Hey, this is great."
*snort* *snort*
   "You're a real natural."
   "I've always been able to make that noise. That's a pig
noise?"
   Hunter nodded, "I friend of mine was doing her dissertation on
some of the old DNA samples. They were supposedly brainy animals
for their time."
   *snort* *snort*
   "You should have been a science major, Carla."
   "I'll pass on that. The closest I ever got to science was a
psychology class they made me take. It was real cheesy. For the
final project, we had to find some sort of phenomena and explain
it, okay?"
   "Uh oh..."
   "So, this guy in our co-op, he was my subject, except he
didn't know it. See? Every time he got hungry, he would go over
to the cold food locker, open it up, and just sort of stare
inside like some meal was going to jump out at him all of a
sudden and make itself. You ever see men do this?"
   "Not really."
   "Well, they do. If you ever bothered to just watch people, you
will notice a lot of men exhibiting this sort of behavior. And it
wasn't like it wasn't his food. It was everybody's food."
   "Okay. So what was your explanation?"
   "The cold."
   "Huh?"
   "The cold air hitting his stomach caused it to shrink, and so
by standing in front of the thing while it was open, he actually
reduced the amount of free space in his stomach. How ya like it?"
   Hunter smiled sympathetically, "What grade did you get?"
   "It went down as an incomplete. The professor advised me to
forget about the sciences and take some trig to cover the slot.
Can't say I'm sorry. I'm pretty damn good at what I do."
   "When do you use trig?"
   "When is your friend ever gonna meet a pig?"
   Hunter pondered Carla's eccentric sort of logic on the way
back to sickbay. It was already an hour into her sleep shift, but
she felt determined to immobilize her patient even if it meant
chaining him to the wall and whipping him with warm squash, and
ditto for Lieutenant Torin if he was unfortunate enough to still
be loitering in the general vicinity. Her thoughts were cut short
by the door, however, or more specifically, by it's remaining
closed as she tried to walk through it. She picked herself off
the floor, holding her bruised nose in one hand as she looked
around to see if anybody had witnessed her comedic display of
dexterity.
   Sickbay was never locked. She slid her ID through the scanner
slot, but the door refused to budge, defiant and imposing as
never before. She considered kicking it, but buried the notion in
her list of unspent aggressions.
   She finally hit the white comm-switch on the right.
   "Can somebody open the door, please?"
   The security button beckoned. She hit the white switch again,
closing the line and hit the red switch with an angry jab of her
thumb.
   "Security?"
   The door slid compliantly into the wall, and a tall, lanky
figure stood before her. Behind the black face mask, soft blue
eyes seemed to rotate within their sockets. She didn't even feel
the two darts hitting her stomach until a pair of gloved hands
caught her fall and carried her gently inside.
   "Who... what..."
   The doorway began to spin and blur, and as the walls closed
quietly upon her, she heard a grainy voice reverberate somewhere
in the hazy distance.
   "This is security.... Please identify yourself. Hello?"


                          *     *     *


The Commodore leaned back, seemingly impressed with the story,
and Erik hoped she wouldn't ask about specifics. He was still
fuzzy on the details, himself.
   "Let me get this straight. He wants an interview?"
   Erik shrugged, "He wants into ISIS... or so he purports."
   She frowned, glancing at the wall image of Roxanne's Palace on
Tyber. Computer generated banks of orange, acid smog blew past
the structure's summit, somehow clouding her eyes with memories
of the sunrise on Calanna.
   "Commodore?"
   "Even had I the clout, I wouldn't use it. It's not like the
Navy. ISIS doesn't take applications. Besides, he's too attached
to Clay, who already proved himself a traitor after we had
trusted him."
   "According to Caiton."
   "The more I think about it, the more difficult I find it to
believe this Mikaelis Caiton. Why did Clay expose his entire
network on Tizar if he was never with us? As a sacrifice?"
   Erik nodded, "Perhaps."
   "No. Even were they all discards, what did he have to gain by
risking Erestyl?"
   "He managed to destroy the operation of Calanna."
   "A minuscule victory entirely beneath mention. He won nothing.
This prisoner would have us believe that he sacrificed his life
and risked Erestyl for nothing. Preposterous."
   "Maybe Clay had second thoughts. That's the only explanation."
   Reece cast him a cool stare, "There is another. He could be
making the whole thing up."
   "Too many pieces fit. He knows a great deal. He must have been
on the inside."
   She nodded, "That is all he has told us. Nothing more."
   "Still, given the possibility that he's telling us the truth,
shouldn't we at least humor him?"
   "Yes. We should. Regardless, I do want to meet him. If nothing
else, a more thorough questioning might serve to reveal who he
really is."
   *Beep*
   "Reece here."
   "This is Dunham. There's been an incident at sickbay. Your
John Doe has escaped."
   Reece looked up, eyes cold as ice.
   "On my way."


           _   /|
           \`o_O'          Jim Vassilakos
             ( )     <---  jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu
              U            ucsd!ucrmath!jimv (uucp)
           Aachk!

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