"If we call the cops," I said, "it’ll raise merry hell. Don’t you care about embarrassing the Admiralty?"
"I’m not the one who brought on the embarrassment," Ramos answered grimly. "If the High Council authorized gratuitous criminal acts, they should get barbecued."
"Barbecued?" Oh-God snorted. "It’ll never happen, missy. The damned admirals’ll bribe everyone to keep this quiet." He patted my knee with a clumsy hand. "If you don’t know how much to ask for, I can recommend someone to be your negotiating agent." He winked. "I know people."
I hate it when Divian subspecies wink. With their eyelids moving from the bottom up, it doesn’t look sly, it looks creepy.
"Oh-God’s right," Ramos said. "Gouging money out of the Admiralty may be the only revenge you can get, Faye. Taking this mess public may sound attractive, but you’ll never touch the admiral who actually ordered this fiasco. The High Council are masters of deniability." She shrugged. "Still, your government could use this as leverage to wangle favors out of the fleet. Negotiate some lucrative naval supply contracts for local industry… if you don’t mind taking dirty money and addicting your economy to antiproductive Admiralty handouts. Anyway: you’re the victim here. It’s your choice how to play this."
I didn’t want to play anything — not till I understood what was going on. "You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here," I said. "Do you represent the Explorer Corps? Or the Admiralty? Or who?"
"She’s the Vigil is who she is," Oh-God replied. "Your basic steely-eyed watchdog. She’s what-you-call scrutinizing the fleet."
"Actually," Ramos corrected him, "I scrutinize the Technocracy. Admiral Seele scrutinizes the fleet." She gave me an apologetic smile. "Yes, it’s confusing. Half the time, I don’t know what I should be doing. But Oh-God is right; I do fill a role something like your Vigil."
I didn’t bother speaking; I could see she was already sorting things around in her mind, getting set to lay out a full explanation.
"Long before I was born," Ramos said, "two shrewd old admirals set up spy networks to monitor the Admiralty and all the planets of the Technocracy — to watch for trouble that the fleet or planetary leaders might try to cover up. This is a dangerous universe, Faye, and our settlements are more tenuous than we like to admit. Some of our most prosperous worlds are actually so hostile to human life, thousands could die from a single missed supply shipment. Someone has to take responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen. Someone has to root out any corruption or incompetence that jeopardizes our people."
"Doesn’t the Technocracy do that?" I asked. "And each planetary government?"
Oh-God made the Freep sound for disgust, half hiss, half whistle — the noise a Divian’s stomach makes just before throwing up. "Planetary governments? You’re spoiled here on Demoth, missy. Most other worlds have governments with their heads jammed nose high up their butts… or they’ve sold out to some blind-assed bunch of robber barons who think they can buy their way free of any problem. Here, you’ve got the Vigil for a sanity check. Out in the rest of the galaxy, there’s whole planets facing economic collapse, or ecological catastrophe, or coups and peasant rebellions, but the powers-that-be are dangling their dobbies in complete denial. Someone has to blow the whistle to tell the rest of the Technocracy when there’s a crisis coming; and that means us merry band of watchers. Old Chee’s spy network. Now working for our beloved Festina."
Ramos grimaced. "You’re such a suck-up. Did you treat Chee this way too?"
"Nah. I plied him with illegal booze and tobacco. In exchange for which, he funneled me some great military equipment. How do you think I outfitted this skimmer?"
"Good thing we’re constantly on the watch for corruption." Ramos turned back to me. "Chee was one of the admirals who founded this spy network. Two years ago, he died, and I inherited command. Part of a complicated deal with the High Council, aimed at appeasing the League of Peoples. I caught the council indulging in dirty tricks, and the admirals had to make an act of contrition to the League. Next thing I knew, I was elevated to Lieutenant Admiral and spymaster."
"Shows how much she had them over a barrel," Oh-God cackled. "Those pukes would far rather dismantle the network, or put some gutless flunky in charge, dancing to their own tune. But us intelligence operatives were mostly former Explorers, and fucked if we’d take orders from some Admiralty asshole. We’d turn independent first. So the council had to go with Festina and hope maybe they could control her more than old Chee. Fat chance."
He laughed snortingly, and the skimmer bobbed in time with his chuckles. Whisk, whisk, whisk, bushes brushing our underbelly. Oh-God, Oh-God, Oh-God, I thought.
"You’re driving is off tonight," Ramos observed.
"Gotta get me some gloves." He pulled both hands off the steering yoke and held them in front the dashboard’s heating vent. Ramos slapped his shoulder; Oh-God grumbled but took the wheel again.
"Anyway," Ramos said in a long-suffering voice, "I took over Chee’s spy network two years ago. Watchdogging planetary governments. I didn’t know the first thing about what I was doing, but Chee had acquired plenty of good deputies. They still run most of the show… which makes me feel guilty for letting them do all the work. I’ve stayed shackled to my desk for two full years, trying to learn how to be a backroom strategist; but it’s killing me." She ran a hand through her hair. "And it’s killing me to find I want to get out into unfamiliar territory again, poke my nose where it’s not wanted, feel that rush of adrenaline. I hated being an Explorer… and I hated how people saw it as an exciting profession when the whole point was to avoid the slightest hint of excitement." She sighed. Deeply. "But I miss it. I may be suicidally stupid, but I miss it."
She looked away from us all, off into the blackness of the night. "So here I am, doing the next best thing to Exploration. When I heard about your proctors getting murdered, I just blurted, I’ll investigate that myself… then barreled out of the office too fast for anyone to stop me. Which led to this mildly daring rescue, and putting my life in the hands of a Freep madman."
"Ahh, you love it, missy," Oh-God said affectionately. "And any idjit could see you weren’t suited to go planet-down on a desk. You’ve got Explorer deep in your blood."
"Not to mention written all over my face," Ramos muttered.
"So," Admiral Ramos said, turning brisk all of a sudden, "did the dipshits say how long they’d been on Demoth?"
"They told me…" My mouth still wasn’t going over all the hurdles. "They told me the local base commander had reported the Sperm-tube, and they were sent to check it out."
"That’s a possibility," Ramos agreed, "but who knows if they were telling the truth? Suppose they arrived earlier: before the assassinations."
"Suppose they did the assassinations themselves," Oh-God suggested. "They might have used Admiralty funds to buy robots and reprogram them… because those High Council pukes have some scheme going—"
"No," Ramos interrupted, "the High Council definitely can’t send a hit team to assassinate anyone. The League of Peoples has a flawless track record for preventing killers from traveling planet-to-planet. Flawless. The League never makes exceptions, and never makes mistakes. But if the High Council sent a team of not-quite-homicidal dipshits here on some mission and something unexpected drove them over the edge…"
She stopped and shook her head. "I don’t know. Dipshits are self-centered morons, but they’re trained to avoid murder. More than trained — they’re methodically indoctrinated. And what’s so important on Demoth that’s worth killing for?"