12. Karnac
12
KARNAC
W ithout the storm, it wasn’t even hard to find the station. I spotted the flashing red light of the antenna tower and made my way towards it. On the way I watched for the fallen body of Torgek but I couldn’t identify the place we’d fought with any confidence, and the snow was deep enough that I might have walked past the corpse and not known it was there.
No time to waste searching, either. I pushed Torgek from my mind and climbed the slope towards the ultrasonic fence, Molly in my arms.
Crossing it, I relaxed slightly. Foolish, of course: the real danger was a pack of Prytheen, and they wouldn’t stop for the fence any more than I did.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Allison’s voice, full of rage, greeted us before we reached the station. “You idiots went out in a fucking blizzard, do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What a headache you left me with? I was trying to work out how to send search parties looking for you because I can’t call home for help. How could I? Both my idiot technical experts are missing, probably dead.”
“I checked the weather forecast before I left,” I said, putting Molly down with great care. “The storm was a surprise.”
Allison rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, well, you try to do one without satellites or any other kind of modern tech. I’m not having an easy time of it, and now I’ve made a mistake that nearly got two people killed.”
Her anger deflated and she slumped forward.
“If it’s any consolation,” Molly said, “I knew that the report wasn’t accurate, I just didn’t realize how bad it would get, or how fast. I had to warn Karnac.”
Allison shook her head, snarled something, and gestured to us. “At least you’re alive. Now come on in, there’s another storm on the way and I don’t want to risk losing you to this one now that you’re back.”
She turned and strode away, and we followed. I caught up with Allison easily, Molly panting behind us. I didn’t like leaving her struggling to keep up, but my message for Allison could not wait. “There is something more you must know, and urgently. You have a traitor in your midst, someone in your station is the ‘ghost’ and they’re selling to the enemy.”
Allison laughed, shaking her head. “Come on, Karnac. What enemy? We’re way up a mountain, and close to the Joint Colony. No enemy would dare.”
“Unless they planned on attacking the Joint Colony, in which case this is a good place to gather intelligence from,” Molly gasped, making Allison pause. I watched her carefully, looking for hints that she was the traitor.
“That’s ridiculous, Molly,” she said. “An attack on the Joint Colony? There are too many people there, humans and Prytheen…”
Her words trailing off, Allison looked back at me and frowned. I nodded, seeing the realization creep across her face. “A human attack would fail, the Wandering Star and the Joint Colony around it are too well protected. But my fellow Prytheen? Who knows which side’s they’ll choose? Auric became Alpha of the colony by challenging Zaren. If another challenged him and won, they’d switch sides. And some might already be sworn to the attacker, if they are led by a different Alpha-Captain.”
Allison’s pink lips compressed into a thin line, and I made my judgement. She knew nothing about this, she was thinking through the implications for the first time.
“So the failures are no accident, if what you’re saying is true,” she said, and I saw the cool, cold calculation in her eyes. “Whoever is doing this has cut us off from the colony which means they’re planning on doing something soon. Tulla, be a darling and book me a recording station. I think we’re going to have to interrupt this morning’s cartoon hour with something a little livelier.”
A helpless giggle from Molly got us both to turn to her. She waved a hand apologetically. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just the image. All the kids in the colony having their Sally the Spacegirl episodes interrupted by you announcing an incoming attack.”
Allison winced. “I’ll bear the likely audience in mind, I assure you.”
Turning to look at her AI tarantula, she frowned. Tulla displayed a floating page, colored lines marking something I didn’t understand.
“For heaven’s sake, Harmon, how much recording do you think you have to do in one day? Well, I’ll boot you out for a few minutes and you’ll just have to live with that.”
She turned and hurried toward the station, and this time we didn’t rush to catch up. Molly leaned into me and spoke softly. “I don’t think it’s her, but it could be any of the others, right?”
I grimaced. “As far as I can tell, yes. But we can work on eliminating suspects. Whoever the traitor is, they have to have enough free time to get their goods down to the fence. They need to be willing to take the risk and have a motive. Is there anyone who couldn’t have done it?”
We reached the door to the station and paused our conversation to wordlessly appreciate the warm air inside. Molly whispered a prayer of thanks and we hurried down to the maintenance bay, wanting to be alone for this discussion.
And perhaps for other things, but those would have to wait.
As soon as we arrived, I flopped down on the marvelous piece of furniture that the humans called a ‘bean bag’ and grinned at the ceiling. I’d done it. I’d brought my khara back home safe. That we’d discovered useful intelligence was merely a bonus.
Molly went to her chair, looked at it for a moment, and then shrugged as if to say fine, I know where this is going.
Instead of sitting down, she jumped into my arms and held me tight as I grasped onto her. The beanbag made an alarming crunch, but the seams held.
“So the top suspect would be me,” she said, snuggling into my shoulder. “I’m technical staff which means I have access everywhere, so I can steal the stuff. I work all hours, so I can get stuff down to the fence while no one’s watching. Logically, I’m the best choice.”
I laughed, squeezing her gently. “Is that a confession? I would be the better suspect: all the same advantages apply to me, and I’m a Prytheen. If this is a competition to look most guilty, Molly, I’m afraid I have the advantage.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t here when the ghost started stealing things,” she pointed out, resting her head against me. “Can’t be you. Could be me.”
“Tsk, well that gives us somewhere to start,” I said, smiling and enjoying the pressure of her body against mine. “Who else hasn’t been here that long.”
Molly’s grin lit up my soul. “Good question! Let’s see, Alf is too new, anyone else? Glitch?”
The hologram coalesced overhead and hung there for a moment before letting out a yeowl and tumbling down to land on me. He hissed but unfurled the requested data with a wounded pride.
I’d have sorted it out given a bit of time, but I didn’t even try. This was Molly’s data, and she tore through it, sorting and refining. “Okay. Alf’s out, so is Zeng. Neither of them were here when the ghost started.”
“I assume you tried monitoring the stock?” I asked. Glitch separated into two halves, drifting apart and howling in distress. I winced at the noise, something like an aggrieved siren, while Molly spoke soothingly to him. After a few heartbeats, he pulled himself together and licked himself clean.
“Sorry, he’s not usually so distracting.” I waved off Molly’s apology, gestured for her to continue. “Well, yes, we set up cameras to watch the stores, but they never spotted anything. Which would be a decent reason to blame Alf, he’s the visual effects guy, if anyone could fake the video it’s him. Other than that, I had access, and Allison has access everywhere. I don’t know who else could have pulled it off.”
“I do not believe it was Allison,” I said. “But that might only mean that she’s a good liar.”
Molly frowned and reluctantly shook her head. “I can’t see it, can you? She always looks perfect — at least if you like bubblegum pink. Imagine her rolling a cable spool down the slope to trade it for whatever.”
It seemed unlikely, though sometimes people went to extreme lengths to cover their tracks. Between Molly’s objections and my own, though, Allison seemed too unlikely a suspect. So who else was more likely?
A loud hiss snapped my attention down to floor level, and Molly tensed in my arms as we looked for the source of the sound. It didn’t take us long to see Glitch chasing his tail.
Many animals do that, so why shouldn’t Earth’s cats? But I’d never seen it done this way before. His tail swam majestically through the air, always one move ahead of the rest of Glitch as he chased it around the room.
“What’s gotten into him?” Molly wondered, frowning. “It’s like he’s looking for attention, but he’s not that much like a cat. Or at least he never has been.”
With a jarring shudder through his simulated body, Glitch vanished for a second and then reappeared floating in front of us. With his limbs tucked in under him, Glitch looked more like a loaf of bread than a mammal.
“You are trying to get our attention, aren’t you?” Molly said, leaning forward. An irrational feeling of jealousy came over me as she focused her full attention on the cat and examined the data he presented.
I will not show this weakness, I promised myself. Of course she loves the little beast, he’s a wonderful companion. I like him too, even if he steals Molly’s attention away from me.
Stroking her back, I tried to turn my thoughts to the mystery at hand. Having an enemy agent in our small pack would take the fight from difficult to impossible. So which of the remaining humans could it be? I almost regretted spending so much of my time with Molly now, because I didn’t know any of the others well. Almost.
“Mother fucker,” Molly said in a quiet, intense voice. She sat up straight, almost vibrating. “No wonder.”
I straightened too, looking over her shoulder. Whatever caused my khara such distress, I hoped it was a problem I could punch.
A floating display showed an interwoven chain of data of which I understood hardly anything. There were names, there were ID numbers, a timeline… I couldn’t make sense of it.
Molly’s fingers danced with the data, pushing it this way and that until various bits lined up. The result must have made sense to her. “Got you.”
“Got who?” I asked, shaking my head at the incomprehensible lists of data. Molly grinned, twisted around to kiss me on the lips, and then explained.
“It’s the booking system for the studios. All of it’s meant to go through Allison, so most of it’s booked by Tulla — but look, Studio Two gets booked in these long slots, like six hours, and if we line up those with time of the thefts…”
I saw it now. Room bookings, the thefts, fence ‘failures’ all on a timeline. And, yes, looked at together they fitted like a glove.
“So, who’s booking the studio?”
Molly smiled. “Allison, it looks like, for her weather reports. But that’s bullshit, right? Her reports aren’t that long, and you saw how annoyed she was about Studio Two being booked out.”
“Yes. So if that’s not her…”
We finished the sentence together: “… it has to be someone with access to her system.”
Neither of us needed to speak his name. Harmon. Close enough to Allison to get her codes, desperate to keep his place close to her, and he always did massive recording blocks for his poetry shows.
“Soul of the Void, this is unfair,” I grumbled, lifting Molly from my lap and standing. She wriggled delightfully until I set her down. “I wish more than anything I could stay here with you, but there is no time to lose. If we can prove his guilt, we can keep him out of the way when the Prytheen attack. I do not want him free to sabotage our defenses.”
And with that, I rushed from the room, seeking Studio Two.
The shouting led me there. Allison wasn’t shouting, she spoke clear and direct. Harmon, though, Harmon bellowed wildly, impossible for my grasp of human language to follow. Both fell silent as we rounded the corner, turning to look at us.
“Excuse me,” I said as I walked toward the doorway. Harmon snorted and crossed his arms. A grin plucked at my lips and I didn’t slow down.
Harmon was big for a human. He was used to shoving people aside easily, but that had been before he met the Prytheen. Not even bothering to shove him aside, I walked through the door.
It’s a credit to his bravery that Harmon didn’t stand aside. It’s less flattering to his intelligence, though. Big as he was, he weighed less than I did and more of his weight was fat. My chest struck his, and he bounced back, tumbling to the floor and shouting at me.
I tuned him out, ignored Allison’s questions too, and searched the room. There wasn’t much in it, just a desk with an audio editor program floating above it, a swivel chair that sagged to one side, and a shelf of books. I ignored them all, focusing on the soundproofed walls.
There. A panel didn’t quite match up with its neighbors, and it came away freely when I pulled at its edge. The cavity behind it was like a miniature treasure trove, and the humans gasped as I tugged it out into view. Loops of cable, some tools, a datastore…
“He’s been trading them to the Prytheen,” Molly explained to Allison. Other humans were gathering now, angry murmurs breaking out, and I heard the nerves in Harmon’s voice as he tried to twist the truth and escape blame.
“Preposterous. I have done nothing of the sort,” he blustered. “I didn’t know that hiding place was there, but he had no trouble finding it. It’s probably his stash of stolen goods, which he trades to his own people.”
“Right,” Molly said, and I could imagine her eye roll without needing to look. “Karnac’s not been here long enough to be the ghost, and some of that stuff went missing months before he arrived. What, were you holding out for a better price for the datastore?”
“How dare you accuse me, young lady,” Harmon began, volume rising with each word. He got no further before I crossed the studio and grabbed him by the throat. He spluttered and choked and fell silent.
“Prytheen gems and jewelry,” I said, holding up a padded box in my free hand. “He’s been selling to your enemies, Allison.”
“Not… true…” Harmon choked out. Molly and Allison looked inside the jewelry case and gasped at what they saw. Allison turned to glare at him, and he slumped in my grip.
“Did it… for you,” he tried now. I shook my head and let go of him, wiping my hand clean on the padded wall. Harmon sucked a deep breath in before continuing, his voice a little rougher now. “Allison, you must believe me, I did it for you. Once Vindar is in charge, it will be much easier for us if we helped him. And he will win, with or without us.”
“Oh?” Allison’s sweet voice dripped venom. “And here I thought you were an honorable man, a brave soul — but no, you’re happy enough to sell us out for gems and for a chance to be, what, a court poet to the new Alpha? I suppose I can see that, but it’s a disappointment.”
“I have risked everything for you.”
“You didn’t have the guts to talk to me about this first. You knew I’d say no, so you didn’t ask. Don’t hide behind that feeble excuse.”
Molly cleared her throat and interjected. “This is all important, but it isn’t urgent. Right now, our biggest issue is that Vindar will be here sooner or later and we need to prepare. So what can you tell us, Harmon?”
The big human glared around at us, but he knew we’d caught him. He looked down, collapsing in on himself as he admitted defeat. “Fine. They have at least a dozen warriors, not counting Vindar himself. All well-armed. And they’ll be here with the storm. Look, let me go and I’ll speak on our behalf. They want a working vid broadcasting system, that’s all, they’d rather not hurt any of you — of us.”
“How did you fool me about the storms?” Allison demanded.
“Oh, that. Darling, you made it too easy for me to find your passwords, and I cobbled together a program that would alter the data you get from the other colony pods. Rather clever, I thought.”
Allison took one step forward and slapped him. The hard crack of her skin on his filled the studio and Harmon’s head rocked back, a red palm print rising on his cheek.
“We could have died,” she hissed, too angry to shout. “Two of us almost did. All so your alien friends would have a storm to attack under?”
“I…” Harmon swallowed and tried again. “I wanted to keep things off balance, and I had no way of knowing how strong the storm would be. Look, look, we can work something out here, I know the Alpha…”
His sniveling desperation made my fists itch. Worse was the fact that he’d committed this treason without caring about the people who’d be hurt. He could have killed Molly and didn’t care. Harmon was still talking, but I didn’t hear him over the sound of my pulse thumping in my ears.
“Enough,” I growled. My fist caught Harmon under the chin, lifting him off his feet. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. “His worthless words won’t help us. We must prepare to fight.”