“You. Stop. Who are you and where are you going?”
Rachel stopped. She could feel Wednesday a step behind her, shivering — about to break and run, if she didn’t do something fast. “I’m Rachel Mansour, this is my daughter Anita. We were just going back to our suite. It’s on B deck. What’s going on?” She stared at the gun apprehensively, trying to look as if she was surprised to see it. Ooh, isn’t it big! She steeled herself, prepping her military implants for the inevitable. If he checked the manifest and realized -
“I’m with the shipboard security detail. We’ve got reason to believe there’s a dangerous criminal loose aboard ship.” He stared at them as if memorizing their faces. “When you get to your rooms, stay there until you hear an announcement that it’s safe to leave.” He stepped to one side and waved them on. Rachel took a deep breath and sidled past him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Wednesday was still there.
After a moment’s hesitation the young woman followed her. She had the wit to keep quiet until they were round the next spiral in the staircase. “Shipboard security my ass. What the fuck was that about?”
“Network’s down,” murmured Rachel. “They’ve probably got a list of names, but they don’t know who I am, and I lied about who you are. It’ll last about five milliseconds once they get the ship’s systems working for them, but we’re in the clear for now.”
“Yeah, but who’s Anita?”
Rachel paused between steps to catch her breath for a moment. Three flights to go. “Anita’s been dead for thirty years,” she said shortly.
“Oh — I didn’t know.”
“Leave it.” Rachel resumed climbing. She could feel it in her calves, and she could hear Wednesday breathing hard. “You get used to letting go and moving on. After a while. Not all of them die.”
“She was, your daughter?”
“Ask me some other time.” Two flights to go. Save your breath. She slowed as they came up to the next landing, emergency pressure doors poised like guillotine blades overhead, waiting to cut the spiraling diamond-walled staircase into segments. But there was no checkpoint. They don’t have enough people, she thought hopefully. We might get away with this.
“My suite. Can’t go. Back?”
“No.” One more flight. “Not far now.” They paused at the top of the next flight. Wednesday was panting hard. Rachel leaned against the wall, feeling the hot iron ache in her calves and a burning in her lungs. Even militarized muscles didn’t enjoy climbing fifty vertical meters of stairs without a break. “Okay, this way.”
Rachel palmed the door open and waved Wednesday inside. The kid glanced at her for a moment, her expression troubled. “Is this—”
“Talk inside.” She nodded, and Rachel followed her in. “Sit down. Got some stuff to do.”
“Stuff?”
Rachel was already leaning over her trunk. “I want — hmm.” She raised the lid and stuck her finger in the authentication slot, then rapidly scrolled through items on the built-in hard screen. She glanced at Wednesday. “Come over here. I need to know what size clothing you take.”
“Clothing? Earth measurements? Or Sept—”
“Just stand up. Your name’s Anita and you don’t exist, but you’re down on the passenger list. So we’ll just have to make sure you don’t look like Victoria Strowger when they get the passenger liaison net back up again, all right?”
“What’s going on?”
Rachel straightened up as the trunk began to whine, holding a small scanner. “I was hoping you could tell me. That jacket’s programmable, isn’t it? You’ve made them panic, and they’re springing a trap. Can it do any colors other than black? Prematurely, I hope. Quick, they could be calling any minute. Why don’t you tell me how you got in this mess—”
There was no knock on the door. It swung open, and two figures leapt inside. But then one of them kicked it shut — and by the time Rachel finished turning around Martin was leaning against the door, his eyes half-shut, breathing deeply.
“Martin—” She glanced sideways as she stood up, knees wobbly with relief. “I was beginning to think they’d grabbed you.” They met in the vestibule and she hugged him, then looked past his shoulder at the other arrival. “Aha! Glad you could make it. Martin, which plan were you thinking of using?”
“Plan B,” said Martin. “We’ve got that spare ID you put on the manifest.”
“Uh-oh.” Rachel let go of him, turned, and stared at the bathroom door. “We may have a problem.”
The bathroom door opened. “Is this what you wanted?” Wednesday asked plaintively. Rachel blinked at her. In the space of ten minutes her hair had turned blond and curly, the stark black eyeliner had vanished, and the black leather jacket with the spiky shoulders had been replaced by a pink dress with layered puffball underskirts. “My ass looks huge in this. I feel like a real idiot!” She noticed Steffi. “Oh, hi there. This isn’t about the other night, is it?”
Steffi sat down hard on the end of the bed. “Just what are you doing here?” she demanded, a hard edge in her voice.
“Um.” Rachel fixed Martin with a steely gaze. “We seem to have a slight problem. Can’t really have two Anitas running around, can we?”
“No—” Martin rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Shit! What a mess. One false set of ident tags, and two people to hide. Looks like we’ve got a problem, folks.”
“Can I just wear a flowerpot on my head and pretend I’m a tree? I know the idea is to look different, but this is just plain embarrassing.”
“Somehow I don’t think that would fool them for long.” Martin scratched his chin. “Steffi?”
“Let me think.” She leaned her chin on one fist. “I feel so useless right now. I should really be trying to link up with the bridge crew or D-com—”
“Your attention, please. This is your acting Captain speaking.” Everyone looked up instinctively at the voice emanating from the emergency comm panel beside the door. “There has been an accident on the bridge. Captain Hussein has been incapacitated. In her absence I, Lieutenant Commander Fromm, am in charge of this vessel. For your safety and comfort you should remain in your rooms until further notice. Passenger liaison facilities will be re-enabled shortly, and if you need anything, your needs will be attended to. In view of the crisis, I have asked for volunteer help. We are lucky to be carrying a group from Tonto, and I have enlisted these people to provide assistance in this critical period. Please comply with any instructions they issue. I will make further announcements when the situation is fully under control.”
“Uh-oh,” said Wednesday.
“He’s gone crazy!” Steffi exploded. “The skipper would never do that, she’d—” Her eyes were wide. “It’s a hijacking, isn’t it? But why is Max cooperating?”
“I hate to break it to you,” Martin said gently, “but that wasn’t Lieutenant Commander Fromm you were listening to. It was his voicebox, but not him talking.”
“What do you mean?” Steffi stared at him, trying to figure out how much he might know.
“The ReMastered have made something of a specialty out of brain mapping and digitization,” said Rachel, her tone dispassionate. “They can save minds to off-line storage and reincarnate them later — at great expense — by building a new body. But mostly they use the technique to turn living bodies into puppets. Zombies, zimboes with the illusion of self-awareness, whatever.” She clenched her hands together. “That’s how they take planets. They acquire some key government officers, destabilize the place by exploiting local political tensions, declare a state of emergency — using their puppets — and move in.”