Iron Sunrise

TOO MANY CHILDREN

“You—” Rachel swaged on her feet. The girl shook her head violently, looking spooked, and muttered something inaudible. Then she glanced over her shoulder. “Are you Victoria Strowger?”

Wednesday’s head whipped round. “Who wants to know?”

Her shoulders set, she was clearly on the defensive. “Calm down,” said Rachel. “I’m Martin’s partner. Listen, the ReMastered are going to be all over us in a couple of minutes if we don’t get the hell out of the public spaces. All I want is to ask you a couple of questions. Can we take this up in my suite?”

Wednesday stared at her, eyes narrowing in calculation. “Okay. What’s going on?”

Rachel took a deep breath. “I think the ship’s being hijacked. Do you know where Frank is?”

“I — no.” Wednesday looked shaken. “He was going to go back to his room to fetch something, he said.”

“Oh dear.” Rachel tried to keep a straight face; the kid looked really worried at her tone of voice. “Are you coming? We can look him up later.”

“But I need to find him!” There was an edgy note of panic in her voice.

“Believe me, right now he’s either completely safe, or he’s already a prisoner, and they’ll be using him as bait for you.”

“Fuck!” Wednesday looked alarmed.

“Come on,” coaxed Rachel. “Do you want them to find both of you?” A sick sense of dread dogged her: if Martin was right, Wednesday and Frank were romantically entangled. She cringed at the memory of how she’d once felt, knowing Martin had been taken. “Listen, we’ll find him later — get to safety first, though, or we won’t be able to. Switch your rings off right now, unless you want to be found. I know you’re not on the shipboard net, but if they’re still emitting, the bad guys may know how to ping them.” Rachel turned toward the main stairwell. It was filling up with people, chattering hordes of passengers coming out to see what was going on, or heading back to their rooms; a handful of harried-looking stewards scurried hither and yon, or tried to answer questions for which they didn’t have any answers.

“You know what’s going on, don’t you?”

Rachel concentrated on the stairs, trying to ignore her shaking muscles and the urge to shiver whenever she thought back to what she’d seen in the D-con room. Six flights to go.

“What is going on?”

“Shut up and climb.” Five flights to go. “Shit!” They were nearing D deck, and the crowd was thinner — there were fewer staterooms — and there was the first sign of trouble, a man standing in the middle of the landing and blocking the next flight of stairs. His face was half-obscured by a pair of bulky low-tech imaging goggles, like something out of the dawn of the infowar age; but the large-caliber gun he held looked lethally functional.

“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.”

Steffi’s face was white. Shit! I have to warn Sven! We’ve got to get out of here! “Max went to the flight deck to find out what was going on! I let him—”

“Don’t blame yourself. They’ve got the bridge, drive engineering control, damage control, sentries on the main stairs, and passengers under lock and key in their rooms. This was a well-planned operation.” Rachel glanced at Wednesday. “Bet you they’re turning over your suite right now. And yours,” she added, looking back at Steffi. “They made a big mistake, missing you.”

“But I, I—” Steffi stopped. She looked horrified.

“It’ll take them time to check on us in here,” Martin said slowly, thinking aloud. “When they do, we want you well hidden. You’re probably the senior line officer on the ship. We’ll need you around for your pass codes and retinal print if we’re to stand a chance of taking back control.” He glanced at the cupboard. “Once we arrive where they’re diverting us to. If we get there without them tagging us in a search. Ever heard of a priest’s hole?”

“A what?” Steffi looked dazed. “What are you talking about? I’m just a trainee flight officer! I don’t have clearance—”

Martin walked over to the trunk containing the military fabricator. “You’ll be the ranking line officer on the ship once this is over,” he told her. “Rache, can you clear everything out of the walk-in? I’m going to need some basic tools, some supports, and a load of paneling to fit. Plus any special toys you can have the fab turn out in less than half an hour that won’t show up as weapons on a teraherz scan. Bet you they’re working on a ubiquitous surveillance mesh already. Need clothing for you, me, and the kid; it’s in the deception and evasion library. Steffi, have you got a rebreather mask? We’ll need a couple of buckets, some cushions, something to cover one of the buckets with—”

“Rebreather mask?”

“We’ve got maybe an hour,” Martin said impatiently. He pointed at Wednesday. “You’re going to be Anita. You—” he pointed at Steffi — “are going to be Anne — Anne Frank. Rachel, run the kid through the Anita background while I get our stowaway stowed. Steffi? You and I are going to build a false back to the wardrobe, and I’m going to wall you in until we get wherever we’re going. The name of this phase of the game is hide-and-seek, and the goal is to stay out of custody for now. Once we know which way the wind’s blowing we’ll see about taking back the ship.”

“If you can hear me, blink twice.”

Blink blink.

“That’s good. You’re Frank, aren’t you? Blink once for yes.”

Blink.

“All right. Now listen carefully. You are in big trouble. You have been kidnapped. The people who are holding you have no intention of releasing you. I’m one of them, but I’m different. In a moment, I’m going to give you back control of your vocal cords so you can talk. They’re only going to leave me alone with you for a couple of minutes, and we may not be able to talk again, so it’s important that you don’t scream or give me any trouble. Otherwise, we’re both as good as dead. If you understand, blink once.”

Blink.

“Okay … say hello?”

“He — hell — ack.”

“Take your time, your throat’s probably a bit sore. Here, try to swallow some of this … better?”

“Who’urr ooh?”

“I’m one of your kidnappers. But I’m not entirely happy about it. You’re here because you’re important to someone we’re interested in. A girl called Wednesday. You know her?” Pause. “Come on, I’m not the one who wants to get at the contents of her head.” Pause. “All right. Let me explain.

“Wednesday knows … something. I’m not sure what. She’s somewhere aboard this ship, don’t know where, and the other — kidnappers — are trying to find her before we arrive where we’re going. When we get there, they’re going to use you as a hostage to try to make her tell us everything she knows. Trouble is, once she gives them the — the information, her usefulness will be at an end. Yours, too. You’re both witnesses.

“Now, two or three things could happen. They might just shoot you, but I don’t rate that as very likely. More probably, you’ll end up in a reprocessing camp. Or they’ll just pith you and turn you into a meat puppet. None of these options are very good for you, are they?”

“No fucking way.” Pause. “What do you want?”

“I happen not to agree with the others. But if they find out what I really think, they’ll kill me — I’m a traitor. So I need to find a way out that, uh, doesn’t give them what they want. So they don’t get the, the immigration records. Or the go codes. Or the weapon test reports. In fact, I want them to go out the airlock. And I want to vanish, see? I don’t want them to find me, ever again. And I figured you could help me do that. They don’t know I’m here, talking to you. Between us we can fool them. They’ve hijacked this ship, but they haven’t done the job properly. If you help me, we can regain control and turn everything over to the surviving ship’s officers, and I can disappear and you’ll be free.”

“What about Wednesday?”

“Her, too.”

Pause. “So what do you want me to do?”

“For starters, you can look after this diamond for me.”

The clown died with a grin on his face and a warm gun in his hand.

Franz had tracked him down to H deck, where the comms sergeant had said he was working on a “birthday party.” Gun in pocket, Franz walked down the stairwell to give himself time to think about how to do the job. It wasn’t as if hits were his specialty; on the contrary, you only did wetwork in Septagon if your cover evaporated and you needed to clear out fast. Sparrowfart surveillance was deliberately absent there, but as soon as the body count began rising it would come down like a suffocating cloud. Franz shuddered slightly, thinking about the risks Hoechst’s team had run, and checked the schematics in his inner eye one more time. Radial four, orange ring, second-class dining area — there were four entrances, two accessible from passenger country. Not good, he decided. Even with the ship under the thumb of the ReMastered, a chase and shoot-out could result in a real mess. It wasn’t a good idea to underestimate the clown. He was a slippery customer.

At D deck Franz hit the checkpoint. Strasser stared at him coldly as he came down the stairs. “What do you want?” he demanded.

“Check with control,” Franz grunted. “Are you free yet?”

“What for?”

“Got a job. Loose end to take care of. I need to cover three exits—”

“Wait.” Strasser raised his bulky phone. “Maria? Yeah, it’s me. Look, I’ve got U. Bergman here. He says he’s running an errand and he needs backup. Am I — oh. Yes, all right, I’ll do that.” He pocketed the phone and frowned. “What do you want me to do?”

Franz told him.

“Okay. I think that’ll work.” Strasser looked thoughtful. “We’re spread thin. Can we get this out of the way fast?”

’Yes, but I’ll need two more pairs of hands. Who do you suggest?”

“We can collect Colette and Byrne on the way down. I’ll send them round the back while I cover the red ring entrance. I’ll message you when we’re in position. Sure you want to do it this way?”

Franz took a deep breath. “I don’t want to alarm him. If we scare him, he’ll lash out, and there’s no way of knowing what he’s carrying. Remember, this guy has carried out more hits than we’ve had hot meals.”

“I doubt it. I’ll make sure we’re in position in not less than six minutes and not more than fifteen. If he leaves, you want us to abort to Plan B and take him in his berth. That right?”

“Right.” Franz headed for the stairwell. “Get Colette and Byrne in the loop, and I’ll brief them on the way there.”

Eight minutes later Franz was walking through the orange ring corridor, past smoothly curving walls and doors opening onto recreational facilities, public bathrooms, corridors leading to shared dormitories. Second class was sparsely furnished, thin carpet barely damping out the noise of footsteps, none of the hand-carved paneling and sculpture that featured in first and Sybarite.

“Coming up on the entrance now,” Franz murmured. “I’ll blip when I’m ready.” He rang off and held his phone loosely in his left hand. There was a racket coming from up ahead, round the curve, high-pitched voices shouting. What’s going on, some kind of riot? he wondered as he headed for the door.

Turning the corner he witnessed a scene he’d never imagined. It was a riot, but none of the rioters were much taller than waist height, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely: either that or they were souls in torment, judging by the shrieking and squalling. It vaguely resembled a creche from back home, but no conditioner would have tolerated this sort of indiscipline for an instant. About thirty small children were racing around the room, some of them naked, others wearing elaborate costumes. The lights were flashing through different color combinations, and the walls were flicking up one fantasy scene after another — flaming grottoes, desert sands, rain forests. A gaggle of silvery balloons buzzed overhead, ducking almost within fingertip reach, then dodging aside as fast as overloaded motors could shift them. The music was deafening, some kind of rhythmic pounding bass line with voices singing a nonsense refrain.

Franz ducked down and caught the nearest rioter by the hand. “What’s going on?” he demanded. The little girl stared at him wide-eyed, then pulled her hand away and ran off. “Shit,” he muttered. Then a little savage in a loincloth sported him and ambled over, shyly, one hand behind his back. “Hello.”

“Hello!” Whack. “Heeheehee—”

Franz managed to restrain himself from shooting the kid — it might alert the target. “Fuck!” His head hurt. What had the boy used? A club? He shook his head again.

“Hello. Who are you?”

“I’m—” He paused. The girl leaning over him looked taller — no, that wasn’t it. She looked older, in some indefinable way. She was no bigger than the other children, but there was something assured and poised about her despite the seven-year-old body, all elbows and knees. “I’m Franz. Who are you?”

“I’m Jennifer,” the girl said casually. “This is Bamabas’s birthday party, you know. You shouldn’t just come barging in here. People will talk. They’ll get the wrong idea.”

“Well.” Franz thought for a moment. “I came here to talk, so that’s not a problem. Is Sven the clown about?”

“Yes.” She smirked at him unhelpfully.

“Are you going to tell me where he is?”

“No.” He stood up, ready to loom over her, but she didn’t show any sign of intimidation. “I really don’t think you’ve got his best interests in mind.”

Best interests in mind? What the hell kind of infant is this? “Isn’t he going to be a better judge of that than you?”

To his surprise, she acted as if she was seriously considering the idea. “Possibly,” she admitted. “If you stay right there, I’ll ask him.” Pause. “Hey, Sven! What you say?”

“I say,” said a voice right behind Franz’s ear, “he’s right. Don’t move, what-what?” Franz froze, feeling a hard prod in the small of his back. “That’s right. Sound screen on. Jen, if you’d be so good as to keep the party running? I’m going to take a little walk with my friend here. Friend, when I stop talking you’re going to turn around slowly and start walking. Or I’ll have to shoot your balls off. I’m told it hurts.”

Franz turned round slowly. The clown barely came up to his chin. His face was a bizarre plastic mask: gigantic grinning lips, bulbous nose, green spikes of hair. He wore a pink tutu, elaborate mountaineering boots, and held something resembling a makeup compact in his right hand as if it was a gun.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Start walking.” The clown nodded toward the door.

“If I do that, you’ll die,” Franz said calmly.

“I will, will I? Then so shall you.” The face behind the plastic grin wasn’t smiling, and the makeup compact wasn’t wavering. It was probably some kind of low-caliber pistol. “Who sent you?”

“Your client.” Franz leaned back against the wall and laced his fingers together in front of him to stop his hands shaking.

“My client. Can you describe this mysterious client?”

“You were approached on Earth by a man who identified himself as Gordon Black. He contacted you in the usual way and offered you a fee of twenty thousand per target plus expenses and soft money, installments payable with each successive hit, zero for a miss. Black was about my height, dark hair, his cover was an export agent from—”

“Stop. All right. What do you want? Seeking me out like this, I assume the deal’s off, what-what?”

“That’s right.” Franz tried to make himself relax, pretend this was just another informer and cat’s-paw like the idiots he’d had to deal with on Magna. It wasn’t easy with a bunch of raucous children running around outside their cone of silence and a gun pointing at his guts. He knew Svengali’s record; U. Scott hadn’t stinted on the expenses when it came to covering his own trail of errors. “The business in Sarajevo with the trap suggests that the arrangement has no future. Someone’s identified the sequence.”

“Yes, well, this wouldn’t have happened if you’d taken my original advice about changing ships at Turku,” Svengali said waspishly. “Traffic analysis is always a problem. Like attempts to sever connections and evade obligations on the part of employers. Did you think I worked alone?”

“No,” Franz said evenly, “but my boss may take some convincing. ‘Bring me the head of Svengali the clown,’ she said. I think you’ll agree that’s pretty fucking stupid on the face of it, which is why I decided to interpret her orders creatively and have a little chat with you first. Then maybe you can carry your head in to see her while it’s still attached to your body.”

“Hmm.” Svengali looked thoughtful, insofar as Franz could see any expression at all under the layers of pseudoflesh. “Yes, well I think I’ll take you up on the offer, and thank you for making it. The sooner this is sorted out, the better.”

“I’m glad you agree.” Franz straightened up. “We walk out of here together after I signal my backup. I take it your backup is aboard the ship?”

“Believe whatever you want.” Svengali shrugged. “Send your signal, pretty boy.”

“Sure.” Franz held up his mobile and squeezed the speed button. Idiot, he thought disgustedly. Svengali had screwed up, making the fatal assumption that having a friend aboard to keep watch would be sufficient unto the day. It hadn’t occurred to him that they might be unable to deliver any damning evidence for rather a long time if the entire ship disappeared. Or that the ReMastered might not want a professional assassin running around while they were trying to sort everything out. Then he gestured at the door. “After you?”

“You first.”

“All right.” Franz walked through the door back into the corridor. “Who was the kid?” he asked curiously.

“Who, Jen? Oh, she’s just a Lolita from childcare. Helping out with the party.”

“Party? What ideology are they?” Franz added, sounding puzzled.

“Not ideology, birthday. Don’t you have any idea—”

One moment the clown was two paces behind Franz, the small box held loosely in his right hand. The next instant he was flattened against the wall and bringing the gun up to bear on Franz, his lips pulled back with a rictus of hate. Then he twitched violently, a shudder rippling all the way through him from head to toes. He collapsed like a discarded glove puppet.

Franz turned round slowly. “Took your time,” he said.

“Not really. I had to get into position without alerting him.” Strasser bent over the clown and put his weapon away. “Come and help me move this before it bleeds out and makes a mess on the carpet.”

Franz joined him. Together they lifted the body. Whatever Strasser had shot him with had turned Svengali’s eyes ruby red from burst blood vessels. He felt like a warm sack of meat.

“Let’s get him into one of the lifts,” Franz volunteered. “The boss wants to see his head. I reckon we ought to oblige her.”

Martin was still piling the contents of the walk-in closet up against the newly fitted partition when the passenger liaison net came back up. It made its presence known in several ways — with a flood of ultrawideband radiation, a loud chime, and a human voice broadcast throughout the ship.

“Your attention, please. Passenger liaison is now fully reconstructed and accepting requests. I am Lieutenant Commander Max Fromm, acting Captain. I would like to apologize for the loss of service. Two hours ago, a technical glitch in our drive control circuit exposed the occupants of the flight deck and other engineering spaces to a temporary overgee load. A number of the crew have been incapacitated. As the senior line officer, I have moved control to the auxiliary bridge, and we are diverting to the nearest station with repair facilities. We will arrive there in thirty-two hours and will probably be able to proceed on our scheduled voyage approximately two days later.

“I regret to inform you that it is believed that this incident may not have been accidental. It has been reported that our passenger manifest includes a pair of individuals belonging to a terrorist group identified with revanchist Muscovite nationalism. Crew and deputies drawn from the ReMastered youth leadership cadre aboard this vessel are combing the ship as I speak, and we expect to have the killers in custody shortly. In the meantime, the privacy blocks provided by WhiteStar for your comfort are being temporarily suspended to facilitate the search.

“Please stay in your cabins if at all possible. Please enable your communications nodes at all times. Before leaving your cabins, please contact passenger liaison and let us know why. I will announce the all clear in due course, but your cooperation would be appreciated while the emergency is in effect.”

“Corpsefuckers!” Wednesday stood up and paced over to the main door, like a restless cat. “What do they—”

“Anita,” Rachel said warningly.

Wednesday sighed. “Yes, Mom?”

Martin finished shoving the big diplomatic fab trunk up against the panels and turned round. She’s got the exasperated adolescent bit down perfectly, he noted approvingly. And she’d managed to change her appearance completely. Her hair was a mass of blond ringlets and she’d switched from black leather and tight leggings to a femme dress that rustled when she moved. The bows in her hair made her look about five years younger, but the pout was the same, and with the work Rachel had done on her cheeks and fingerprints — let’s just hope they crashed the liaison system hard enough that they don’t pay too much attention to the biometric tags, he thought grimly. Because—

“Sit down, girl. You’re making me dizzy.”

“Aw, Mom!” She pulled a face.

Rachel pulled a face right back. “We need to look like a family,” she’d pointed out half an hour earlier, while Martin was walling Steffi and a three-day supply of consumables into the priest’s hole. “There’s a chunk of familial backbiting, and a chunk of consistency, and we want you to look as unlike the Victoria Strowger they’re hunting for as possible. Wednesday wears black and is extremely spiky. So you’re going to wear pink, and be fluffy and frilly. At least for a while.”

“Three fucking days?” Wednesday complained.

“They’ve crashed the liaison network,” Rachel pointed out, “and crashed it hard. That’s the only edge we’ve got, because when they bring it up again they’ll be able to configure it as celldar — every ultrawideband node in the ship’s corridors and staterooms will be acting as a teraherz radar transmitter. With the right software loaded into the nodes they’ll be able to see right through your clothing, in the dark, and track you wherever you go to within millimeters. We have to act as if we’re under surveillance the whole time once the net comes back up, because if they’re remotely competent — and they must be if they’ve just hijacked a liner with complete surprise — it’ll give them total control over the ship and total surveillance over everybody they can see.”

“Except someone hidden at the back of a closet inside a Faraday cage,” Martin murmured as he slotted another panel into place, still stinking of hot plastic and metal from the military fabricator’s output hopper.

“Yes, Mom.” Wednesday paced back to the armchair and dropped into it in a sea of lace. “Do you think they’ll—”

The door chimed — then opened without pause. “Excuse us, sir and ladies.” Three crewmen walked in without waiting, wearing the uniforms and peaked caps of the purser’s office. The man in the lead had a neatly trimmed beard and dead eyes. “I am Lieutenant Commander Fromm and I apologize for the lack of warning. Are you Rachel Mansour? And Martin Springfield?” He spoke like an automaton, voice almost devoid of inflection, and Martin noted a bruise near the hairline on his left temple, almost concealed by his cap.

“And our daughter Anita,” Rachel added smoothly. Wednesday frowned and looked away from the men, scuffing the carpet with her boot soles.

“Anita Mansour-Springfield?”

Fromm looked momentarily blank, but one of the men behind him checked a tablet: “That’s what it says here, sir.”

“Oh.” Fromm still looked vacant. “Do you know of a Victoria Strowger?” he said stiffly.

“Who?” Rachel looked politely puzzled. “Is that the terrorist you’re looking for?”

“Terr-or-ist.” Fromm nodded stiffly. “If you see her, report to us immediately. Please.” His eyes looked red, almost bloodshot. Martin peered at him intently. He isn’t blinking! he realized. “I must revalidate your diplomatic credentials. Please. Your passports.”

“Martin?” Rachel looked at him. “Would you fetch Commander Fromm our papers, please?” She remained seated on the chaise longue at the side of the dayroom, a picture of languor.

“All right.” He walked over to the closet, throwing the doors wide, and retrieved the passports from the briefcase on top of the fab without turning on the closet light. Let them get a glimpse of a cluttered closet with no room for anyone to hide … “We should like you to withdraw surveillance from this suite,” he added, as he handed the passports over. “And as soon as she’s up to it, I’d like you to convey my best wishes for a speedy recovery and a happy code red to Captain Hussein. I’d like to see her when she’s got time, if possible.”

“I am sure Captain Hussein will see you,” Fromm said slowly, and passed the passports to one of the other two officers for a check.

Captain Nazma Hussein is almost certainly dead, Martin realized, the cold hand of fear tickling his guts. And you should know what a diplomatic code red means. He forced a smile. “Are the papers in order?”

“Yes,” the man behind Fromm said curtly. “We can go now.”

Fromm turned round without a word and marched out the door. The two other men followed him. The one who’d checked their papers paused in the doorway. “If you hear anything, please call us,” he said curtly. “We’re from the ReMastered race, and we’re here to help you.”

The door clicked shut. Wednesday was on her feet almost immediately. “You fuckmonsters! I’m going to rip your heads off and shit down your necks! I—”

“Anita!” Rachel was on her feet, too. She grabbed Wednesday’s shoulders swiftly and held her. “Stay calm.”

Martin walked in front of her and held up an archaic paper notepad and a tiny stub of pencil, TERAHERZ CELLDAR SIGNAL IN HERE, he scribbled twitchily in small letters, REZ ONE CM. SOUND TOO. CANT READ XPRESSNS, CAN C GESTRS, SOLID OBJECTS IN POCKETS, GUNS.

“What’s—” Wednesday gasped, then leaned her head against Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel embraced her. She sobbed, the sound muffled. Rachel stroked the back of her neck slowly, CAPTAIN DEAD, FROMM REMASTERED ZOMBI.

“I’m not sure I believe this,” Rachel said quietly. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

Wednesday nodded wordlessly, tears flowing.

“Looks like they lost the liaison network completely,” Martin observed, looking away. What set that off? he wondered. Her family? He wanted to be able to speak freely, to tell her that the scum who’d done it weren’t going to get away, but he also wondered how true any such reassurance would be. “On the bright side, they revalidated our passports.” Including the one in the name of Anita, with Wednesday’s face and biometric tags pasted in. “Liaison,” he said, raising his voice, “what’s this station we’re putting into for repairs?”

The liaison network took a moment to reply. Its voice was slightly flatter than it had been the day before. “Our repair destination is portal station eleven, Old Newfoundland. This station is not approved for passenger egress. Do you require further assistance?”

“That will be all,” Martin said, his voice hollow.

“Old Newfie?” Wednesday asked incredulously, raising her tear-streaked face from Rachel’s shoulder. “Did you hear that? We’re going to Old Newfie!”

Thirty-two hours:

They stayed in their suite as instructed, forcing small talk and chitchat to convey the impression of familial claustrophobia. Wednesday milked her role for all it was worth — her adolescent histrionics had a sharp edge of bitterness that made Martin fantasize about strangling her after a while, or at least breaking character sufficiently to give her a good tongue-lashing. But that wasn’t on the cards. His book-sized personal assist, loaded with nonstandard signal-processing software, showed him some curious patterns in the ambient broadband signals, worryingly tagged sequential pulse trains.

“I’m bored,” Wednesday said fractiously. “Can’t I go out?”

“You heard what the officer said, dear,” Rachel responded for about the fourth time, face set in a mask of unduly tried patience. “We’re diverting somewhere for repairs, and they want to keep the common spaces clear for access.” Wednesday scribbled furiously on Martin’s paper notepad: OLD NEWF LIFE/SUPP DOWN HEAVY RAD. Rachel blinked. “Why don’t you just watch another of those antique movies or something?”

WORRIED ABOUT FRANK.

Martin glanced up from his PA. “Nothing to gain by worrying, Anita,” he murmured: “They’ve got everything under control, and there’s nothing we can do to help.”

“Don’t want to watch a movie.”

“Sometimes all you can do is try and wait it out,” Rachel said philosophic “When events are out of your control, trying to force them your way is counterproductive.”

“That sounds like bullshit to me, Mom.” Wednesday’s eyes narrowed.

“Really?” Rachel looked only half-amused. “Let me give you an example then, a story about my, uh, friend the bomb disposal specialist. She was called out of a meeting one day because the local police had been called in to reckon with a troublesome artist…”

Wednesday sighed theatrically, then settled down to listen attentively. She seemed almost amused, as if she thought Rachel was spinning these stories out of whole cloth, making them up on the spur of the moment. If only you knew, thought Martin. Still, she was putting on a good act, especially under the stressful circumstances. He’d known more than a few mature adults who’d have gone to pieces under the pressure of knowing that the ship had been taken by hijackers, and they were the target of the operation. If only …

He shut down his PA’s netlink and scribbled a note on it, leaving it where she’d spot it when Rachel finished, WHY OLD NEWF? “Anyway, here’s the point. If my friend had tried to rush the crazy, she’d have triggered the bomb’s defense perimeter. Instead she just waited for him to open up a loophole. He did it himself, really. That’s what I mean by waiting, not forcing. You keep looking at the door. Was there something you were thinking of doing out there?”

“Oh, I just need to stretch my legs,” she said disingenuously. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been pacing up and down the floor every half hour as it was. “Maybe p look at the bridge, if they’ll let me in, or see things. I think I left some of my stuff somewhere and I ought to get it back.” She caught his eye and he nodded minutely.

LEFT STUFF OLD NEWF? “What did you lose?”

“Oh, it was my shoulder bag, you know the leather one with the badge on top And some paper I was scribbling on. I think it was somewhere near the, um, purser’s office. And there was a book in it.”

“We’ll see about getting it back later,” Rachel said, glancing up from her tablet. “Are you sure you didn’t leave it in the closet?” she asked.

“Quite sure, Mom,” Wednesday said tightly, B-BLOCK TOILET BY POLICE STATION — GOVMNT BACKUP DISK.

Martin managed not to jump out of his skin. “It was quite expensive, as I recall.” He raised an eyebrow.

“One of a kind.” Wednesday blinked furiously. “I want it back before someone else finds it,” she said, forcing a tone of spoiled pique.

Trying to figure it out, whatever it was that Wednesday had stashed near the police station in Old Newfie, was infuriating, but he didn’t dare say so openly while they might be under surveillance. The combination of ultrawideband transceivers, reprogrammed liaison network nodes, and speech recognition software had turned the entire ship into a panopticon prison — one where mentioning the wrong words could get a passenger into a world of pain. Martin’s head hurt just thinking about it, and he had an idea from her tense, clipped answers to any questions he asked her that Rachel felt the same way.

They made it through a sleepless night (Wednesday staked out the smaller room off to one side of the suite for herself) and a deeply boring breakfast served up by the suite’s fab. Everything tasted faintly of plasticizers, and sometime during the night the suite had switched over to its independent air supply and life support — a move that deeply unsettled Martin.

Wednesday was monopolizing the bathroom, trying to coax something more than a thin shower out of the auxiliary water-purification system, when a faint tremor rattled the floor, and the liaison system dinged for attention. Martin looked up instinctively. “Your attention please. We will be arriving at our emergency repair stop in just over one hour’s time. Due to technical circumstances beyond our control, we would appreciate it if all passengers would assemble in the designated evacuation areas prior to docking. This is a precautionary measure, and you will be allowed to return to your cabins after arrival. Please be ready to move in fifteen minutes’ time.”

The bathroom door popped open, emitting a trickle of steam and a bedraggled-looking Wednesday: “What’s that about?” she asked anxiously.

“Probably nothing.” Rachel stared at her and blinked rapidly, a code they were evolving for added emphasis — or negation. “I think they just want us where they can keep an eye on us.”

“Oh, so it’s nearly over,” Wednesday said heavily. “Do you think we should do it?”

“I think we all ought to play our parts, Anita,” Rachel emphasized. “Might be a good idea to get dressed, too. They might want us to go groundside” — blink blink — “and we ought to be prepared.”

“Oh goody.” Wednesday pulled a face. “It’ll be freezing! I’ll wear my coat and trousers.” And she vanished back into the bathroom.

“Think she’ll be all right?” Martin asked.

Rachel slowly nodded. “She’s bearing up well so far.” She scribbled hastily on her notepad: COMM CENTER? CAUSAL CHANNELS? R-BOMBS?

“Well, we ought to go and see what they want, shouldn’t we?” he asked. “Let me just get my shoes on.”