Judging by the size of her cabin, Diana must have been the captain. It was a stateroom, a complete luxury suite with facilities Wayne Norton had never imagined. There was no need for a gravity switch when she wanted to lie down. Her bed was three times the size of Norton’s cabin.
“You’ll be safe here,” she said, as she treated his finger. “Or safer.”
“Why wasn’t I here from the beginning?”
“Strategic reasons, John.”
“Why are you calling me ‘John’?”
“Because I know your name isn’t Julius.”
“Shouldn’t you call me ‘Sergeant’?”
“Like when you called me ‘Major’?”
“Yeah. And do I call you… er… ‘sir’?”
“Call me what you want.”
“Can I call you ‘Diana’?”
“That’s the name I told you. Would you prefer me to have another?”
Norton shrugged.
“You’re not John Wayne,” said Diana.
“I am.”
“And you’re not Julius Winston. In our line of work, names and identities are the fastest things to change. Even faster than biofixing a finger.”
The tip of Norton’s finger was still missing, but there was no sign of any injury. His index finger now had no nail and was half an inch shorter than before.
“It’s as if it was always like that,” he said in amazement.
“It’ll grow back. Unless you start shooting again.”
“But how did I shoot? And what did I shoot? Is there an ammo clip in my wrist?”
“You shot because you needed to. An instinctive reaction. The DDD seems to have worked well, even if it wasn’t non-lethal.”
“Why shouldn’t it have worked?”
“Experimental gadgets sometimes go wrong.”
“Experimental?” Norton stared at his hand. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Life is dangerous.”
“Yeah, but why make it more dangerous?”
“What’s life without risk?”
“Longer.”
“Hasn’t yours been long enough?”
Norton glanced at Diana and saw she was smiling.
“You want a coffee?” she asked.
He hadn’t had a cup of coffee for three hundred years, and he wondered if this was a trick question.
“You told me I couldn’t have one,” he said. “And you even reminded me I couldn’t have one.”
“That was when you were a passenger,” said Diana. “That was when you were alive.”
“Which means…?”
“The Sham wanted you dead, so let’s pretend you’re dead. There’s a corpse in your cabin, so it could be you.”
“But it’s an alien corpse. It doesn’t look human.”
Norton tried to remember how it did look, but without much success. That must have been another disguise technique of the Sham’s: it was a hideous creature which could make itself anonymous.
“Who cares?” said Diana. “It’s dead. It’s in a passenger cabin. It’s your cabin, so you’re dead. And if you’re dead, you’re safe. Safer.”
“Safer?” asked Norton, noticing it was the second time she’d used the word.
“They know you’re on board.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“The ones who sent the Sham, the ones who want to kill you.”
“Why do they want to kill me?”
“Because you’re on a secret mission.”
“How can it be secret if they know?”
“Do you know what your mission is?”
“No.”
“Which means it’s secret.”
“It shouldn’t be a secret to me.”
“It should. Because when you’re tortured, you can’t tell them what your mission is.”
“Tortured?”
“Don’t worry. It seems they only want to kill you. But it could be worse.”
“How?”
“It could be me they wanted to kill,” said Diana. “Now, about this coffee?”
“You’re ordering it from a steward?”
“I am a steward.”
“But you’re really the ship’s security officer, aren’t you?”
“No, John, I really am a steward.”
“That isn’t your cover, a stewardess?”
“What’s a ‘stewardess’?”
“A girl, a female steward.”
“In your era, they had different words for a woman and a man doing the same job?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“So a female doctor was called a doctoress, a pilot was a pilotess, and I’d have been a copess?”
“No, girls were policewomen.”
“Not policegirls?”
“No.”
“Or policesses?”
“No.” Norton shook his head.
“As I said, call me what you want. I’m a steward, I’m a stewardess, and that’s my job on board. Unlike you, I have to work during the voyage. I’ll fix the coffee.”
Diana reached into what seemed to be a solid wall and pulled out an oval box. A hatch slid back, and she took out two cups without handles. She tilted the box over the first cup and a measure of brown crumbs poured into it. Norton moved closer so he could watch.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Coffee granules.”
He took one of the cups, examining the contents.
“Freeze dried,” said Diana. “Like you.”
Norton crushed some of the granules between his fingers and they turned to dust. He sniffed the powder, then licked it. It was instant coffee.
Diana pressed the cup into a recess and it filled with water. Cold water. She handed it to him. He was about to ask for boiling water when he saw the surface begin to ripple and steam to rise above the rim. The coffee was hot, the cup remained cold. It was instantaneous coffee.
“Lightener?” asked Diana. “Sweetener?”
Norton shook his head. Black, no sugar, that was the way he’d taken his coffee three centuries ago.
So much had happened to him since then, so much that was strange, very, very strange. But Norton had accepted it all, let it happen, because what else could he have done?
Sitting and drinking coffee with Diana was the most normal thing that had happened since his resurrection, and yet he felt very distant and removed from what was going on.
“Are you listening?” said Diana.
“Yeah.”
“What did I say?”
“When?”
Diana took the medpak, found what she wanted, and stepped toward Norton.
“Open wide,” she said.
“No,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“Not your mouth,” she said, grabbing at his knees and pulling his legs apart, then slapping her right hand down on the top of his left thigh.
“Ah!” he yelled.
Diana removed her hand from his leg and slid something from her hand. “Didn’t feel a thing, did you?”
“What was it?”
“You’re in shock. It’s not every day you get attacked by an alien assassin.” Diana sipped her coffee. “But maybe you should get used to the idea.”
“What?”
“Next time, I’ll be there faster. I hope.”
“So do I,” said Norton. “Next time?”
“From now on, I won’t let you out of my sight. I had some doubts about you at first, John, but I was very impressed with how you dealt with the Sham. I was delayed, some stupid passenger asking me to…” Diana paused. “Might have been a deliberate tactic. I’ll have to check it out.”
Norton had been sitting up, but now he felt himself sink against the back of the chair. As he did, the seat wrapped itself snugly around him.
“You’re here to keep an eye on me?” he said.
“Yes. We have to protect our investment. A flight across space is very expensive, and we could only afford to pay for one ticket. That’s why I’m a steward; I’m working my passage.”
It was true what Norton had been told when he first joined the police, that no one saw the person inside the uniform. He must have seen Diana on numerous occasions while he’d been on the ship, but he hadn’t recognised her. All he noticed was the uniform, that she was a steward. Or stewardess.