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Chapter 24

"It's been a few months, now. Still having no problems?" asked Hughes. The Director of the HIA leaned back a little further in his chair. Since the swivel chair was something of an antique, it creaked a bit ominously.

Madeline shook her head. "That would be putting it too optimistically. On the positive side, everyone associated with NASA for any length of time takes it for granted that someone will be assigned to do security. So having me show up was expected, even though I think they're still sometimes startled at the extent of my authority. But that's probably working in my favor. I have a pleasant personality and knowing they don't have to wade through the usual security-inquadruplicate suits them just fine."

Hughes smiled. "'Pleasant personality.' So modest! Madeline, I believe I could drop you into a mob of devils in the Pit and you'd have them fawning all over you inside of a week. I assume the problems you're hinting at are coming from the non-NASA people. Of whom, unfortunately or not, we have a considerable influx. Many of them aren't even U.S. citizens, unlike the Ares crowd."

Madeline returned the smile. "Actually, the foreigners—so far, at least—are less cantankerous than some of the Ares people. A.J. Baker, in particular, has somewhat mystical notions concerning the spiritual essence of information."

"Ah, yes. The innate yearning for liberty possessed by data bytes. I've always wondered what Plato or Kant would make of that, from a philosophical standpoint."

"Plato would say that the actual information is a pale shadow of the Real Truth, so who cares if it gets suppressed? And if you can figure out two sentences of Kant, you're way ahead of me."

Hughes chuckled. "What about the other leading Ares figures? Friedet and Buckley, I mean."

"Friedet's practical enough. I've had no problems with him and don't foresee any. In any event, he won't be going on the voyage, so it almost doesn't matter. The real security problems will come after Nike reaches Phobos."

"True. That means Baker and Buckley. Baker is something of a given. I assume you've already figured out how to handle him if necessary."

Madeline nodded.

"And Buckley?"

"Joe?" Madeline considered. "He's less radical than his friend, but he's also the considered action sort. I think he's much more likely to follow along with rules so long as they don't violate some threshold of his, but if he decided to act would do so with a carefully worked-out plan. His apparent predisposition toward spectacular accidents appears to have made him more cautious when he does take action. Baker will act like the hero in a bad 'genius against wicked government' movie, which makes him easy to predict. I would actually be more concerned with Dr. Gupta."

"Due to foreign influence? Indian government ties?"

"Rather the opposite," Madeline contradicted. "He's certainly not someone who rejects his country of origin or its cultural traditions, but he seems firmly committed to his work and to the country he's become a naturalized citizen of since he emigrated. But his younger record is of a man with very techno-anarchistic leanings, and I do not think he has changed much in that regard. If he thinks information is being overcontrolled, he is not only capable of considering action, but as the chief designer and engineer of Nike, will be in a better position than just about anyone except possibly Baker to arrange information leakage without anyone catching him at it. Jackie Secord . . . I find her harder to read. Because of her longstanding and close association with Baker and Buckley, I have to keep her in mind as another potential risk. On the other hand, she's been with NASA for several years now and is accustomed to working under tight security restraints. And it's become clear to me that, at least on political issues, she doesn't share many of Baker and Buckley's attitudes. Especially Baker's."

"Do you think any of these people are security risks in general, or just risks of informational leaking?"

"Oh, the latter. I really don't think anyone on the project poses any sort of general security risk. The least enthusiastic people involved see it as a good job; the most enthusiastic are essentially religious about space travel. The problem isn't patriotism; not even with Baker, notwithstanding his penchant for making outlandish remarks on the subject. It's simply that—like most scientists—they chafe at the idea of knowledge being locked up. That problem is compounded, of course, with those of the scientists who aren't even American to begin with."

"Yes, naturally. What about Glendale?"

Glendale's addition to the staff of the Project had been something of a surprise, given that Helen Sutter had taken the xenobiological slot. "I was concerned about him at first, sir. We have little leverage of any legal sort we could use on him, especially with his reputation and high visibility. But, fortunately, it looks like he will be remaining on Earth, which means that he won't get access to the raw data at all. He will probably continue to be the project's science liaison—a position he's admirably suited for and which allows him to directly participate without going into space. Which he may be physically questionable for, even if he wanted to go, simply because of his age."

"I trust you had no problems with qualifying?"

"No. My official tolerances are well within range. I did my own orbital this week, in fact."

"What sort of indications do we have on what we might expect out of the venture? Anything more concrete?"

"Several things. Some of the materials the aliens used are clearly superior to ours in a number of areas. We're trying some reverse engineering, but if it's microstructure more than composition that makes it work we probably won't be able to actually derive the formula by remote sensors. Baker is confident that we'll get better stealth and screening materials, at least. Possibly stronger alloys for some purposes, and a number of nanotechnological hints which could be very useful. Their larger equipment he's not sure of. It will depend on how well we can study it without breaking something."

"What about the weapon?"

"The side arm was a disappointment. It isn't really all that different from our own weapons. But perhaps there are some things in which applying higher technology is mostly a waste."

She glanced through the notes showing in her VRD. "Overall, I would say that our original assessment holds. There is so much potential to learn in that base that we will almost certainly find something there which is of military significance. More likely many things."

The director sat up straight. "All right. All in all, everything sounds like it's going well, to me. Anything else to raise? Any other possible problems?"

"No, not that I can think of."

Madeline spent most of the flight back to Albuquerque staring out the window. Pointless, that, in a way, since night had already fallen and there was nothing much to see beyond the moon over cloud banks. But she found staring at nothing helped her focus her thoughts.

Doing her work while they were still here on Earth had been easy for her. It was going to be a lot harder in space. The most difficult task she'd face would be finding a method to arrange secure control as well as secure communications on a ship where there would be limited space, limited supplies, and every resource supposedly accounted for. That was going to require a number of tactics, all of which carried some element of risk.

She wasn't, of course, concerned about physical danger. Her mission wasn't likely to run into that level of threat. Even if it did, she had no doubt she could handle the matter. She was simply concerned at the risk of failure itself.

At first, she had thought it might turn out to be simple. The initial crew had all been American and, as such, subject to American laws. More important, in practice, was that half of them were military and the other half were civilians long accustomed to working in NASA's normal high-security environment. Unfortunately, with Nike being drastically enlarged, various political forces both at home and abroad had seen the opportunity to either enhance the international reputation of the United States or take advantage of it. Or both, for that matter.

Most of the expansion had involved bringing in scientists who were not in the least accustomed to considering security as an aspect of their work—a paleontologist, two linguists, several planetologists, and so on and so forth. Even many of the engineers added had been, from a NASA standpoint, outsiders. The military component of the crew was now fairly small—probably not more than one-fifth, when all was settled. Fortunately, those would all be Americans except for the Australian pilot, Bruce Irwin.

To make the situation still more difficult, a number of slots on the crew, about thirty percent, had been allotted to scientists or engineers to be selected from other countries. These people, obviously, were not subject to following the United States' rules and procedures with respect to security. Some of them, in fact, would be doing their level best to send as much information as possible back home.

That was only to be expected. But it made it impossible to cover the whole project with a blanket of secrecy. All the more so because these foreign nationals were, as a rule, well-acquainted with their colleagues from America. All of them would expect to carry on long, involved, and detailed conversations about anything and everything during the voyage and the later exploration.

Madeline had to find a way that she, personally, could control the communications from Nike—even in the face of considerable argument or resistance from other members of the crew. The worst part, she realized—with a sensation not far from shock—was that she didn’t want to get into a quarrel. The problem was that these people weren't terrorists, spies, criminals—the sort that she usually dealt with. These people were astronauts and scientists and engineers, all of them trying to do their best. Their only potential failing was in a belief in a better world than really existed; one where you really could just tell everyone anything and there would be no political problems. A world where lunatic extremists wouldn't take advantage of new methods of destruction and blow people apart to make a statement.

But there were people like that. She almost shivered, remembering. Madeline knew that many of the HIA's other agents wondered— though they never asked—why she was so fanatical about her firearms and martial arts training, when her usual tactics on assignments were designed to minimize the chance of violence. A few of them probably guessed; and Director Hughes knew, of course.

She wasn't arming herself against the future, but against the past. She remembered being helpless and terrified. She remembered being subject to the whims of someone powerful, capricious, and insane. She made herself dangerous to keep the nightmares at bay. Now, sometimes, in her dreams, when he came back, she wasn't a helpless child any more, and she could fight. But usually the nightmare only really ended when the helicopters landed and the gunshots went off, and the soldiers came and made her safe.

She looked at her reflection in the airplane window, suddenly-haunted eyes staring back. Madeline shook her head and forced the grim past away. She was no longer ruled by that, and her job was to stop things like it from ever happening again.

And maybe, if she was lucky, she wouldn't have to do anything drastic. Hopefully, the critical people would understand what she had to do, or at least go along with it. She knew she was good at being persuasive. That was the only thing, besides her attractive appearance, that she'd inherited from her biological parents.

The minute the plane taxied up to the gate, Madeline felt more cheerful. Whatever problems she'd run into, the truth was that she liked this assignment. Even, with a few exceptions, liked all the people she worked with.

Early the next morning, as was her usual practice, Madeline headed for the gym. To her surprise, A.J. was there already. While he was clearly a man in good condition, she'd figured he usually either worked out in his own rooms or at odd hours of the day. She'd never actually seen him doing anything requiring physical effort greater than lifting a bottle of soda.

Today, A.J. was dressed in a gi and running through katas. Off to the side, the physical trainer was watching with a well-educated eye. Sergeant Skonicki was also the NASA installation's martial arts expert.

While Madeline warmed up, she studied the blond imaging specialist's movements. His file had mentioned that he did some aikido and some Shotokan karate, although apparently he hadn't been attending formal classes in some years.

He was quite good, she thought. The smoothness of his movements, the precision of the strikes, blocks, and counters, were something a novice, or even someone of intermediate skill, wouldn't be able to emulate. He wasn't a true master, but the source of his evenly-muscled build was now evident.

A.J. finally noticed her watching him. "Hey, Madeline. What's up?"

"Just coming in for my own exercise. Got to keep in shape."

To his slight credit, A.J. managed to restrain some comment involving shapes. While Madeline was skeptical of classifying people into types, she couldn't help doing so in some cases. A.J. was clearly the type of young man easily distracted by pretty women. True, that was a large class of males, but A.J. was of the subclass "geek" which meant that he was perfectly safe for the woman to be around, aside from the annoyance factor. And, as a rule, could be easily manipulated into following said woman's directions.

Sometimes it's just too easy, she thought wryly. A.J. wasn't the type of man whom she found attractive. But keeping him distracted played perfectly into her plans.

She did feel slightly sorry for him, but not much. There were at least two other women on the Nike project who evidently did think he was their type, and he didn't appear blind to them either. So any damage to his ego would be temporary.

"You into the martial arts, too?" he asked.

"For a few years now, yes. Care to do some sparring?"

"Sure."

At that point, Joe and Helen entered. Joe had recovered quickly from his misadventures in Chinook, and was getting back up to his normal form. Seeing A.J. and Madeline facing off, he sighed. "A.J., I see you've still got it all wrong. The expression 'hit on the girls' is not supposed to be taken literally.”

“Oh. I knew I kept confusing things." A.J. turned to Sergeant Skonicki. "You want to call it, Stash?"

"Sure." He cocked his head, considering. "Okay. Madeline, you're going to be aka; A.J., you are shiro. I'll be using Shotokan rules, sorta—I mean, we don't have an official setup here. That okay, Madeline?"

"I can live with it. What about throws and such?"

"I'll count those as full points, if either of you gets one. Try to avoid rude blows, but you can take whatever targets you think you see; we won't force you to just hit the chest. First to three points wins. We set?"

Skonicki waited for both to acknowledge him. "Okay. Enter the ring area, please. Bow to the judge. Bow to each other. Ready . . . Hajime!"

Maddie sidestepped, watching A.J. critically. He was smooth, but cautious. He wasn't stupid. He didn't come charging in thinking that his size would automatically be an advantage. It would be, used correctly, but men against smaller women often made the mistake of using it incorrectly.

A.J. was waiting for her to move. She had to come past his reach, which was quite noticeably greater than hers, in order to get to him. She stepped up and tried several combinations, but A.J. blocked and countered quite efficiently, nearly nailing her once.

Time for a different approach. If he was thinking in Shotokan mode, especially Kumite . . .

Suddenly Madeline dropped to the floor, extending her body outward and sweeping A.J.'s legs completely out from under him. "Whoa!" she heard Helen say involuntarily.

A.J. fell poorly, having been caught completely off-guard. She rolled and hit him with a (checked) elbow smash before he could gather his wits.

"Yame! Aka, first point!" Skonicki called out. "She suckered you on that one, A.J."

The imaging whiz nodded, getting to his feet. "She sure did."

The two bowed to each other again. "Hajime!"

This time A.J. came in for the attack, starting with a kick-punch kick combination. Madeline blocked them easily enough, but when she tried to turn the second kick into a catch-and-throw found that A.J. had anticipated the move and barely evaded having her head kicked.

She was getting his measure, now. One advantage she did not enjoy was chivalry. A.J. might be easily distracted by her good looks normally, but in the ring he apparently didn't care who you were or what you looked like. He wasn't pulling his punches any more than he had to, so to speak.

Fair enough. She spent the next few moments surviving a barrage of attacks, measuring his patterns. Then she slipped inside his guard and punched hard.

The result was that she found herself flipped around and landing hard despite a reflexive tuck and roll, and heard Yame! called out. "Ring out! Shiro, point!"

Some schools didn't do points for ring-outs, but she wasn't going to argue. In real life, if you could take control of your opponent enough to arrange a ring-out, you could probably arrange something more painful.

Once more they faced off. "One point all. Hajime!"

A.J. scored again, this time with a kick that concluded a five-attack string which was designed to trick the opponent into thinking it was a four-attack string. The impact staggered her back but didn't hurt much. A.J. clearly didn't mean to hurt anyone, and had good control.

The next face-off was critical. If A.J. scored again, he'd win. Madeline focused carefully this time, and the next flurry of blows ended when her high side kick rapped A.J. (gently) in the head.

"Last point. Good fight so far, people, let's have a good finish. Hajime!"

By then, they had gathered something of an audience. Ken Hathaway had come into the gym, along with half a dozen other people.

Madeline was pleased. Perfect. I won't have to spread the story myself.

The two combatants circled each other. Madeline knew precisely how skilled A.J. was now, and he'd definitely gotten a healthy respect for her at this point. Exploratory jabs and kicks, attempts at throws and holds, nothing quite getting through.

All right, time to finish this.

She let a slight opening show, let A.J. take it and then dropped down to take out his legs with a different move.

But this time A.J. wasn't having any of that and his legs weren't there; one of them was in fact trying to deliver a foot to her face. She rolled gracefully away and blocked another kick and punch as she came to her feet, then drove in on the attack.

Once more the smooth, circular motion of aikido sent her sailing gracefully out of the ring.

"Ring out! Shiro, victory!"

A.J. and Maddie exchanged bows. He grinned at her. "That was a hell of a match. We have to do that again sometime!" His breathing was heavy and a slight whistling tone could be heard, but he wasn’t exhausted yet. Despite the damage to his lungs, the man was in such good physical shape that he could maintain even something this strenuous for a fair period of time. A few more minutes of it, of course, would start taking a real toll.

"Definitely. I'll have to practice more, though. I didn't see that last one coming.”

“Well, I am considered pretty fast. Still, that move relies on you coming in to me. You can avoid it if you watch carefully.”

“I certainly will. You won't get me the same way twice."

A.J. laughed. "I wouldn't expect to.”

“Well, I'd better get to my real exercises," Maddie said, sighing. "This was good, but I have to run through the boring routine." Sergeant Skonicki came over to help her set up the weights. "Nice dive," he murmured. "Top security," she murmured back. "Need to know—and you don't."

Skonicki chuckled. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, that's me. Though I would enjoy being there if he ever discovers what's what."

She shook her head. "Hopefully, this will all be a waste of effort."

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