Thinking that the political officer in Sol system had meant something specifically about Sol was the mistake she’d made. That they’d all made. There was also one on Auberon, and that changed the scope. Now that she knew to look for the pattern, it was there. Freighters diverted to Medina on their transits or held. Environmental audits on ships that were running close to their theoretical maximum load.
It still wasn’t confirmation. Nothing so overt as that. But if there had been a massive wave of Laconian bureaucrats being quietly repositioned throughout the colony worlds—a new level of infrastructure being put in place without fanfare or warning—this was what it would look like. One political officer going to Earth was an opportunity. Two political officers being set in place in Sol and Auberon were a threat. A new Laconian mandarinate covertly set to keep eyes on the transfer points was an escalation. If Laconia continued the trend and put officers on the ships themselves, it was the end of the shell game.
She flicked through the data, looking for places where she might have been wrong. Where her interpretations could have been mistaken or where another interpretation could have fit the same data. She was reaching for hope the way a patient might by holding a doctor’s hand and saying, But it might not be terminal, right?
Emma accepted her connection almost as soon as she requested it.
“I need to send a message,” Naomi said.
“Where to?” Emma asked over the gabble of other voices.
“Upstairs,” Naomi said. “Do you want me to say the name?”
Emma was silent for a moment. Then, “Can you find your way to ops?”
“I’ll meet you there,” Naomi said, and dropped the call.
She moved through the ship faster when her mind was on something else. As if her body, freed from thinking about her place in the rhythms of the ship, found them automatically. She composed the message as the decks passed by her, what she could say to make the situation clear to Saba but obscure to anyone intercepting the tightbeam either here or at the repeaters that bridged the interference through the gates.
She heard Emma’s voice before she reached the ops deck. Her tone was high and rough as a decking saw. Naomi pulled herself onto the deck and grabbed a handhold to stop. Emma was on the float by the comms station, her arms folded and her jaw jutting out. A man with a salt-and-pepper beard longer than his close-cropped hair looked away from her long enough to recognize Naomi, then back at Emma in disgust. His uniform identified him as Captain Burnham. The comms tech was between them like a mouse at a catfight.
“The answer was no before,” Burnham said, then pointed toward Naomi with his chin. “Now that this one is on my deck, the answer’s go fuck yourself.”
“It’s nothing,” Emma said. “Five-minute tightbeam to Medina? No one would even blink at it. It’s trivial.”
“It’s already too much.” He turned to look at Naomi. “Don’t say anything, you. I know who you are, and I know what you are, and I have extended my unrequested hospitality to you out of grandmotherly fucking kindness.”
“You have as much to hide as she does,” Emma said. “Everyone knows about the sealed cabins.”
The comms tech pulled himself down into the gel of his crash couch like he could disappear into it. Naomi considered the captain of the Bhikaji Cama with all the calm and dignity she could manage. “I appreciate that my presence puts you and yours at greater risk. I wouldn’t have chosen this if there were a better way, but there isn’t. If things had gone the way I hoped, you’d never have known I was here. That’s not the way it happened, though. And now I need five minutes with your tightbeam.”
Burnham lifted his hands to her, palms out. Stop. “Ma’am, I am not a partisan, but I know a lot of my crew are. I’m the kind of man that kens when to shut up and mind my own business. I’m not turning you over to the political officer, but don’t mistake that for loyalty. I’m trying to get my ass out of a crack, and I’m getting more and more convinced that locking you in a cabin and welding the door shut might be an easier path than the one I’ve chosen.”
“It’s important,” Naomi said.
“It’s my ship. The answer is no.” His eyes were hard, but it was as much fear as anger. Naomi waited a moment, seeing what her gut said. Push or back down. Emma sighed, and the captain’s beard shifted as his jaw went tighter.
“I understand,” Naomi said. She met Emma’s eyes for a fraction of a second, and then they moved to the bulkhead together. Emma fumed silently until they made the turn into the lift shaft.
“Sorry about that,” Emma said. “He’s an asshole.”
“I did stow away on his ship and
put him at risk of a Laconian interrogation room,” Naomi said. “Expecting him to take orders from me along with it might be too much to ask. I’ll find another way.”
“I can help unbox some of those communication torpedoes,” Emma said. Her tone made it an apology.
“I’d rather find another way to use the tightbeam. Time may be important. But Emma, you have to be more careful.”
“He’s not going to fold,” Emma said. “I’ve shipped with that man long enough to tell when he’s at his edge. There’s a thing he does with his lips. I can clean him out playing poker too.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Naomi said. “You said five minutes talking to Medina.”
“They were going to know where the message was going anyway,” Emma said. “They had to.”
“I didn’t know Saba was on Medina Station, and I do now,” Naomi said. “Now if they catch me, it compromises him.”
Emma pressed her lips tight. “Sorry. I assumed that… Sorry.”