Rather than sit through them all and then reply individually, he set his screen to record, and said: “Joshua Bennett… Thanks for calling. Sorry I was unable to speak to you personally. You’re welcome to attend my father’s funeral, on the twenty-sixth at three p.m. at the Mojave Grave Gardens. Thank you again.” He sent the recording as a one-off shot to all the callers, then sat back.
He hadn’t eaten since early that morning, but he didn’t feel all that hungry. He was about to take a cold beer out on to the veranda when the screen chimed with an incoming call.
Another of his father’s acquaintances? Or perhaps Julia, calling to initiate a second round of abuse? He pressed the secrecy decal on the touch-pad and the image of a uniformed man in his forties flooded the screen. Belatedly, Bennett recognised Matheson, the flight manager up at Redwood. Only then did he remember his promise to get a report on the accident to Control.
He accepted the call and sat up.
“Bennett?” Matheson stared out at him, his expression uncompromising.
“Bennett here. About the report—I know, but I’ve had a few personal matters to sort out down here.”
“Forget the report, Bennett. As of now you’re on indefinite suspension. I want you up here in four days, noon western seaboard time, to face disciplinary charges.”
The effects of the beer slowed his response. “Disciplinary charges? What the hell… ?”
“Don’t look so goddamned surprised, Bennett.” Matheson leaned forward, staring at him. “The Viper debacle, remember? The accident? The starship you nearly decommissioned?”
Bennett shook his head. “Hey, hold on there. We weren’t at fault. It was a glitch in the Viper’s sub-routine. The ship rejected Ten Lee’s rewrite and—”
“Listen up, Bennett. Your reaction time was sloppy, no matter what your excuses. Have you any idea how much your incompetence cost Redwood? The bill for the repair of the Viper and the starship? You’re lucky we can’t sue you for it. You’ve no damned excuses.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you at noon on the twenty-sixth, Bennett. Out.”
The screen died. The twenty-sixth was the day of his father’s funeral.
He sat back, angry at the injustice. Suspension without pay, a fine or demotion at best. He wondered if Redwood had enough evidence of incompetence to fire him. But Ten Lee had been running systems checks constantly that flight, and the rejection of her rewrite should not have happened.
The screen chimed again, this time with an incoming pre-recorded message.
Bennett pressed accept.
A chunky, belligerent-faced man with grey curling hair began a fast, rapid-fire delivery. Bennett watched in a daze, catching none of it. The man was sitting behind a desk, a logo on the wall to his right: a stylised letter M shot through with an arrow. Encircling the logo was the legend mackendrick foundation.
He played the message again from the beginning.
“Mackendrick here, Bennett. I’m a busy man and I can’t waste time chatting one to one, hence this shot. Heard about your little bust up with Redwood—don’t worry about it, pal. You know what those Vipers are—pieces of shit. It was a systems error the Viper should’ve picked up, and we all know that. Look, I won’t waste your time or mine: I’m in LA tomorrow and recruiting. I need good pilots for an upcoming project. Don’t worry about the bastards at Redwood—I’ll sort them out. I’ll be in my offices at the shipyards from noon. See you then, pal.”
The screen went blank.
Bennett replayed the message, doing his best to assimilate what Mackendrick was telling him.
He was being exonerated from blame by a stranger—Mackendrick of the Mackendrick Foundation—told to forget Redwood, and offered a possible job on some “future project’.
He wondered if this was someone’s idea of a joke.
He reached for the touch-pad and accessed GlobaLink. He typed in “Mackendrick Foundation’, and two seconds later the message flashed up on the screen: “Three thousand articles re. Mackendrick Foundation. State specific area of interest.”
He typed “Mackendrick Foundation: summary’.
Seconds later text filled the screen: “Mackendrick Foundation, formed 2102. Extra-Expansion exploration company. Primarily concerned with discovery and exploration of new worlds beyond already charted space. [See: worlds discovered.] Fourth largest such company in Expansion. [See: business prospects.] Director: Charles Mackendrick. [See: Mackendrick: biography.]”
There was more, but Bennett had seen enough for the moment.
He fetched a beer from the cooler, stepped out on to the veranda, and watched the sun going down over the desert.
6
Ezekiel Klien stood before the wraparound screen of the security tower and stared out across the simmering expanse of Calcutta spaceport.
As the chief of security at the port, and king of his domain, Klien felt invincible. He had been at the port for thirteen years now, thirteen lucky years, working his way up from lowly security officer to his present lofty position.
His communicator buzzed. “The captain of the freighter is in the interrogation room, sir.”
“I told you I wanted his name and the name of his ship, Frazer.”
“Yes, sir!”
For the past five years, as chief of security, he had ruled with absolute and unwavering authority. He knew that his team hated him, but this only served to assure him that he was doing his job with clinical efficiency. His orders had to be obeyed to the letter and anyone who showed less than one hundred per cent dedication to Klien and his objectives would find themselves out of work.
“Ah…” Frazer said, “he’s Vitaly Kozinsky and his ship is the…’ Klien could almost sense Frazer’s panic as he checked his com-board. “The Petrograd.”
“Very good. I’ll be down immediately.”
He cut the connection and stared through the viewscreen at the squat, toad-like shape of the Russian freighter sitting on the tarmac. The ship had violated Indian airspace, phasing in without warning or clearance and claiming main drive failure. Klien had authorised landing and scrambled his team. In all likelihood the captain’s claim was genuine and the ship was damaged, but Klien was taking no risks.
He stepped into the elevator and rode to the ground floor. He smiled at his reflection in the polished steel door. Physically and facially he bore little resemblance to the young man who had left the world of Homefall almost fourteen years ago. He had lived indulgently over the years, dined well and overfed himself with the express purpose of gaining weight and radically changing his appearance. His face was padded with fat and he wore his hair in black, shoulder-length ringlets. He had taken bromides for the past ten years, both to suppress his sexual urges and so allow ultimate concentration on what was important in his life, and to change his appearance further. His team called him the Eunuch. He knew this because he had planted surveillance devices in their changing rooms. There was very little that happened at the port of which Ezekiel Klien was not aware.
Frazer was waiting for him outside the interrogation room.
“Have you got the crew out of the ship?”
Frazer nodded. “They’re waiting in quarantine, sir.”
“Good. Keep them there until I say so. And get the team aboard the Petrograd. I want the ship stripped and a full report in my terminal in one hour. Also, I want the flight program examined and relayed to me. That will be all.”
“Yes, sir.” Frazer saluted, something like fear and hatred in his eyes.
Klien’s draconian regime had paid dividends over the years. Security at the port was the envy of business organisations and governments. National and even colonial concerns had tried to lure him away from the job, tempting him with talk of fabulous wealth, but he had refused all offers. He had joined the port security staff with one aim in mind, and he did not intend to be distracted from that aim.