University [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 6] Page 7

  “Heleen?” Bain asked in a whisper. When she didn't answer, he moved around her so she could see him. “What was on those shelves?"

  “Samples of all the Mashrami viruses, and all our anti-virus cultures,” the woman whispered.

  “This is Security Prime,” the woman head said, talking into the communications pack in her wristband. “Seal all the domes. No one goes from one to another without a full scan, biological and metallic. We have a possible plague situation on our hands. Alert medical to break out all the Mashrami vaccines they can get their hands on.” She closed her eyes, swallowed hard, then opened them to look at Heleen. “Anything else you recommend, Doctor?"

  “No. That ought to take care of it. He can't have been gone very long.... “She shuddered and wrapped her arms tight around herself. Bain waited, wanting to help. All he could think to do was rest his hand on her shoulder, just to let her know he was there. Then Heleen steadied and took a deep breath. “We should go back to the Council and tell them ourselves what happened, Bain. If you need us—"

  “I'll be able to find you with no problem.” The head of security nodded and stood back for them to leave.

  Then Bain thought of something else. He looked through the door from the lab into Dr. Frurin's living room. It gave him a clear view up at the tangled mass of sticks and cloth sitting on the highest shelf. It was still there, but empty as far as he could see. He tried to look everywhere, but saw nothing amid all the mess.

  “What is it, Bain?” Heleen asked.

  “Joobi. Where is he?"

  “Oh, my.... “She pushed away his support and hurried into the living room. “Joobi?"

  Bain followed her. The security head followed more slowly and stood in the doorway as they moved aside toppled piles and looked in the other rooms of the suite.

  “That's Dr. Frurin's pet you're looking for?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. There's no way Ian could be attacked and Joobi wouldn't try to defend him. Please, Fi'in, don't let him be dead,” Heleen murmured. “That would hurt Ian more than losing all the cultures."

  In ten minutes, they had searched the apartment and still couldn't find any sign of the furry little skimmer. The security head insisted they go back to the Council and report in person what had happened. Bain supported Heleen down the stairs because the lifts had been frozen during the security alert. Until the smoke had cleared and the investigative team had finished in Dr. Frurin's lab and quarters, the security alert would remain.

  Lin waited for them outside the building—the security alert had kept her and everyone else outside. She hurried to meet them as they came out the door, and added her support to Bain's. Heleen was calm but pale and her voice stayed even as she softly explained to Lin what had happened.

  “Well, Bain and I have been inoculated for every version of Mashrami virus discovered,” Lin said, when the woman finished. “I'm not worried about either of us. I assume you two remembered to take all precautions, working with that nasty stuff like you were?"

  “Of course. We're not quite that single-minded.” Heleen actually smiled a little. The expression didn't reach her eyes, but it did put a little color back into her cheeks.

  “Let's see—everybody has to walk in this dome and all of the next two layers of connecting domes. You weren't gone that long before Bain went after you, and he had Ganfer call the alert only five or six minutes after he left the Council chamber ... everything shut down maybe four or five minutes after that.... “Lin nodded, lips pursed as she considered all the factors and calculated the distances. “I'd say whoever stole the cultures is still pretty close. With the lock-down at all the airlocks, it won't be too long before the thief is caught."

  “It should be pretty easy to spot him,” Bain added. “If Joobi attacked him, he'll have torn clothes and probably some scratches. Joobi could even be following him, right?"

  “Joobi can be just as single-minded as Ian or I,” Heleen said, nodding. She winced a little and reached up to touch the back of her head. “I wouldn't be surprised to find that's what he's done. He probably saw the man hurt me in the doorway, then he went looking for Ian and saw him.... “She whimpered, then swallowed hard and forced herself to go on. “We'll probably get a security alert soon, about a little brown skimmer attacking a man."

  “Any minute now,” Bain agreed.

  “Definitely,” Lin said, her voice soft.

  Something in her tone caught Bain's attention. He looked around Heleen and caught Lin looking intently at the woman. She wore that speculative look that meant Lin's mind had raced through dozens of subtle clues and come to a conclusion it would take everyone else another month to reach. Bain felt a moment of frustration—Lin had picked up something from Heleen that he had missed entirely.

  Then they reached the Council chamber. Lin and Bain stayed right next to Heleen. The day's moderator insisted that Heleen sit down as she made her report and Bain admired the woman for that. He had seen many instances where protocol was more important to some people than the distress and discomfort of others.

  After Heleen made her report, the Council conferred quietly for only a few minutes. Lin and Bain stayed next to Heleen, waiting.

  “Until Dr. Frurin recovers and the viral cultures are either returned or destroyed and the man who stole them is caught and his accomplices discovered, these hearings are postponed,” the moderator announced. She touched the bell that always signaled the beginning and end of each day's session. Then her shoulder slumped. “Captain Fieran, Apprentice Kern, thank you for your help in this situation. We might not have discovered this heinous crime for a while yet."

  “We've had close contact with the Mashrami plagues, Madame Moderator,” Lin said. “We'll be safe from infection, if you need our help in the future."

  “It's not the Mashrami viruses that worries us, Captain,” a tall, white-haired man said from the far left end of the table. “It's the anti-viruses Dr. Frurin and Dr. Goran were developing. They're far from ready for use. Some of them are more prone to kill Humans than protect them."

  “Unfortunately,” Heleen said, “that's true."

  Where, Bain wondered, was Joobi?

  Chapter Eight

  "Yeah, I know what Joobi looks like,” Gorgi said when Bain joined him for lunch the next day. “He rides on Dr. Frurin's shoulder and comes to classes with him. Dr. Frurin lectures us once a week on security procedures when we're investigating ‘alien phenomenon'. What that means is, if we see something that doesn't look right, assume it's a new kind of Mashrami plague bomb and get someone else to investigate it.” The older boy's grin faded back into seriousness. “I still can't believe anybody would attack him. He's friends with everybody."

  “It's somebody who doesn't care about that. What's really dangerous is—” Bain glanced across the table at the nearly empty restaurant. The boys had waited until the lunch hour had passed before finding a place to eat and talk. “Heleen doesn't really care about the Mashrami viruses. We have vaccines for all of them, and everybody is supposed to report if they start feeling sick, and everybody who was anywhere near the dome that day automatically got inoculated. It's the anti-virus that's scary."

  “Anti-virus.” He shook his head. “I haven't read that far into the biology and the gene restructuring theories, but even I know that's dangerous stuff. You program a virus to work against itself, to reverse all the damage it did and protect the area, maybe the entire planet, against the same thing happening in the future."

  “If it works, it'll be great.” Bain sighed. “But Heleen says they aren't anywhere near finishing it. The anti-virus is even more dangerous to us than the original viruses."

  “Why would anybody steal it?"

  “I heard Lin talking with some people—I think they were in Security and a bunch of other offices I can't even keep straight. They said there are people who want the Commonwealth to break up and join the Conclave."

  “Now that's the stupidest suggestion I've heard in years,” Gorgi said with a s
nort. “Who'd want to become part of that league of pirates? Every planet for itself, and if your profit hurts someone else's world, that's just tough for them."

  “I know. Some people think it's better for a few people to be rich, than to make sure everybody gets enough food and shelter and protection."

  “You think the Conclave is part of this?"

  “Could be.” Bain picked at his plate of vegetables in a sweet-sour green sauce. “They think some agents for the Conclave found out what Dr. Frurin was working on and sent someone in to spread the anti-virus while it was still dangerous. They think the Conclave really doesn't care if the Commonwealth's planets join them. The Conclave just wants the Commonwealth falling apart, crippled, so we won't attack them someday."

  “That's stupid. We're too busy defending ourselves and taking care of our own people to go attacking them.” Gorgi picked up his tumbler of fruit juice and took a big gulp. He wiped his mouth, then froze. “It'd be easy to take out the Conclave, wouldn't it? If they don't work together, they can't mobilize nearly fast enough to defend against the Fleet."

  “That's probably what they're afraid of, but they're still too stupid and stubborn to start working together. They want the Commonwealth dead, that's all. They'd attack us if they were united like us. Some people are so stupid, they think everyone thinks and acts just like them."

  “Well, when the war with the Mashrami is over, maybe we would be a threat."

  “We could be a threat in a few years, from everything I've been hearing,” Bain said, nodding.

  “It's still stupid, attacking Dr. Frurin like that."

  “The thing is, where's Joobi? If we find him, I bet we find whoever broke into the lab and stole all the cultures."

  “So, I'm free this afternoon.” Gorgi grinned at Bain. “Want to go hunting?"

  Bain grinned back.

  * * * *

  “Oh, you're the lad who called Security,” the guard at the door of Dr. Frurin's building said. He nodded and stroked his curling red beard. “I'd really like to help you, but this building is off-limits until the investigation is over.” He nodded and bent down a little and lowered his voice. “It'd be my hide, boys, if anything happened to you. You and your captain are in very good odor with the Council, and you,” he added, nodding to Gorgi, “are too important to the Rangers."

  “We've had all our shots,” Bain said. This was the sixth obstruction he and Gorgi had run into since trying to start their investigation. “We won't get sick, even if we fell into a whole vat of virus culture."

  “That may be, but rules are rules. If we make an exception for you, we have to make an exception for everyone, and then what use would the rule be?"

  “Can I talk to Dr. Goran, then?"

  “She's not here,” the guard said. He winked. “She's been with Dr. Frurin since yesterday. Never saw a woman cling so tight to a man's hand. Have you, Bayle?” he asked the woman guard who approached the doorway.

  “Everybody knows she's been sweet on Dr. Frurin for years. He's just been too busy with his work to notice and she's been too busy helping him to press the matter.” She shook her head and nodded to the boys. “Something wrong here?"

  To Bain's chagrin, the door guard explained who he and Gorgi were, and that they wanted to explore the building to help with the investigation.

  “He's kin to the doctor, after all. It's natural he wants to help,” the man finished up with a shrug.

  “If she says she thinks it cute that we want to help out,” Gorgi whispered, leaning close enough to Bain his breath tickled the younger boy's ear, “I'll throw up."

  Bain nodded, caught between laughter and frustration. Several other women had remarked on how ‘precious’ or ‘cute’ it was that the boys wanted to help the trained investigators. As if they were little children, not two nearly grown young men with dangerous experience behind them.

  “Thanks anyway,” Bain said, before the woman could start in on a repeat of the same speech they had heard six times already.

  He nudged Gorgi and the two boys walked down the path from the building. As soon as they were around the corner, Bain pointed and they darted across the mossy lawn, into a little contemplation garden hidden in the corner between two buildings. A tiny trickling pool surrounded by tall, yellow-green saplings made a nice place to talk, with an illusion of privacy.

  Gorgi perched on the single bench at one end of the pool, and Bain crouched on a boulder overlooking the water.

  “All we want to do is try to figure out how he got out of the building after attacking Dr. Frurin,” Gorgi muttered. “Wouldn't it help to have as many brains working on the problem as possible?"

  “They only want old brains.” Bain gasped and sat up straight—and nearly lost his balance to fall into the pond. He touched his collar link and grinned as the idea unfolded in his mind.

  “What is it?” his friend demanded. “You got one of those ideas again, didn't you?"

  “Brain.” He nodded and stroked his collar link. “Ganfer is tied into the University's computer system, and through it into the Council's, so he can testify and provide data for the investigation. What if he can get the building schematics for us?"

  Gorgi laughed. He stopped laughing after a little while, but he grinned wide enough to make Bain's face ache in sympathy. Both boys grinned as they made their way through all the renewed Security checkpoints and went out to Sunsinger to talk privately with Ganfer.

  An hour later, Ganfer accessed the schematics for the building that housed Dr. Frurin's lab and living quarters, as well as the drainage system and Security tunnels for the entire dome and the contiguous domes. Bain and Gorgi settled down in the galley booth on Sunsinger and examined each one. Ganfer joined in, offering suggestions or answering questions about structural design and notations the boys didn't understand.

  Bain was amused to note that all during the long afternoon of study and discussion and theorizing, Gorgi never hesitated about addressing Ganfer.

  Working on what Bain knew about the security system of the building, he and Gorgi agreed that whoever attacked Dr. Frurin and trashed the laboratory had entered the building by some route that circumvented Security. Every person who went in and out was duly noted and watched by the Security computers. Until Dr. Goran saw the man and the smoke started to fill the laboratory and apartment, the computer system hadn't known an intruder was in the building. Bain had to find out that information from Ganfer, accessing the Security computers, but he had already guessed it. If the computer Security system had sensed and sighted the man who attacked Dr. Frurin, it would have identified him as an intruder, pinpointed his movements and alerted the guards—and he would already be in custody.

  Therefore, that man knew how to circumvent the Security system and enter the building by some other means.

  There were quite a few means. Bain was surprised, and then dismayed to note all the tunnels that went from one building to another, through the rock of the asteroid that made up Centralis. They were redundant access passages, left over from the days when most of the inhabitants lived underground, until the domes had been established and stabilized. They were left open against any unforeseen damage to the dome. The airlocks on the buildings would automatically close if that happened, and travel from one building to another would only be through those tunnels.

  Security tunnels, for speed of movement. Sanitary sewer access tunnels. Air reserve tunnels. Water reservoirs currently left dry and empty. Custodian tunnels.

  “Think Security knows about this?” Bain finally said, after he and Gorgi went through each printout.

  They had marked every tunnel as either a possibility or an impossibility, depending on the accessibility of the tunnel. After all, the ones that were only a few centimeters wide were too small, and the ones currently in use for sewer duty or with regular traffic could be discounted. One was too smelly and messy for someone trying to stay unnoticed; the other had enough traffic to provide witnesses.

  “If they do
n't, that means they're falling down on the job. If they do, and they haven't done anything about it, that means they're either crooks or they're stupid.” Gorgi yawned. “If they do know and they're already doing something about it, only we don't know it, then we just wasted the day working on this."

  “No.” Bain shook his head. That made the dull ache behind his eyes turn sharp. “As long as we're doing something, trying to help, it's not wasted."

  “Is that what you're going to teach your Scouts?” his friend asked with a weary smile.

  “Yep. Our Scouts. You're going to be the scientist and the tactical leader, and I'm going to be the pilot. Do you want to join the Scouts, Ganfer?"

  “I will need to know more about them, but I believe the principles are admirable,” the ship-brain responded.

  When the boys finished laughing, they realized two things. They were tired, and they were starving.

  “Ganfer, will you contact Lin for me?” Bain asked. He decided he didn't want to leave Sunsinger just yet. He felt comfortable back on board. It was almost easier to think and plan here, with the smells, textures and furnishings that were familiar.

  “Channel is open,” Ganfer responded in a moment.

  “You're not planning on running away, are you?” Lin asked with a chuckle. Her voice came over the bridge speaker system, not through the collar link as Bain expected.

  “No. Lin, Gorgi and I have been here all afternoon working on some ... some ideas to help find the man that broke into the lab. Is it all right if we make dinner here and keep working?"

  “I might join you. The testimony sessions are on hold until Ian is out of the clinic, but you wouldn't believe the number of people who keep cornering me and asking all sorts of questions.” Lin sounded tired, now that Bain thought to listen. “Maybe I should sleep on board for a few nights, until people stop appearing from around every corner and ambushing me."

  “Is it really bad?"

  “No.” She sighed. “I'm just so frustrated with all the dead ends everybody keeps running into. Ian is having trouble sitting up. His injury has created pressure inside his brain, affecting his inner ear and his vision. It's going to be a long, uncomfortable road back for him. Thank Fi'in Heleen is here. He's clinging to her like the only stable rock in a stormy sea."