Chameleon Ch 12

“Here’s the breakdown from our visit to Novissimus, sir,” Zoe Stone said, handing Jackson a data pad.

“You didn’t have to come up here just to hand me this.”

“No, Captain, but this time I thought perhaps I should.”

“Uh-oh, what’s in here?” he asked his quartermaster. She glanced sideways and clasped her hands behind her back in the parade rest posture. Jackson tapped the screen until he saw what she was hesitant to speak of. “This isn’t just an accounting.”

“No, sir. Everything is there. They didn’t miss a thing.”

“I’ll reconcile this and call you if I have any questions.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a couple.” She turned on her heel and departed. Jackson shoved his hands through his hair and sighed.

“Commander Quixote, please report to the doyen’s office.”

“Aye, Captain, on my way.”

Jackson hadn’t wanted to start a second cup of coffee immediately after the first, but what else was he going to do with his anxiety but drown it. He thought about the whiskey he kept in the cupboard over his desk. He grabbed the bottle and poured a jigger in his coffee.

Quixote reported a moment later. Jackson handed him the data reader with the station accounting. The tangerine eyes scanned and scrolled until several line items caught xes attention.

“In the olden days, executives would put this on their expense accounts. However, it’s not the olden days and your mates are not executives. This comes out of their pay; it goes on their records.

“Does it have to be put on their records, Captain? I feel partly responsible. I encouraged them to enjoy the variety of entertainment options on the station. This isn’t what I had in mind, but…”

“I could look the other way if it was just breakage, but it’s what they broke that I might have to explain.”

“I will be the first to admit I don’t understand the appeal of reproduction, but faux reproductive acts are simply, well, incomprehensible to me. Do you have any suggestions for me about approaching them from my perspective?”

“I’ll deal with it. I have an experienced perspective, sort of.”

“I appreciate that, Captain.”

“You owe me,” Jackson said with all seriousness. He tapped the intercom to engineering again.

 “Ron Painter and John Chin report to the doyen’s office double time,” he called.

Symbiont humans were the worst of the bunch in these cases. They were not artificial intelligentsia, not androids, but robots covered with silicon, textured like skin. Some were exotically transparent, most not. These 'pleasure workers', both anatomical males and females, were advertised as fully functional, but that was certainly open to interpretation. Not being alive, they were often mistreated, and commonly broke down. But they were the least expensive ‘option’ available, and subsequently, ubiquitous by popular demand on space stations.

His doorbell chirped. He had a slug of his Irish coffee and opened the door remotely. The two engineers stepped in; the door closed. Jackson wondered how his crew seemed to have lost their self-control. Perhaps he needed to demand adherence to protocols. It just had never been his way. The crew were one entity, a family with a representative from just about every psychological category of dysfunction.

“Sit.” He paced a few steps. “I dislike hearing from Admiral Wallace. I know I will as soon as he sees this accounting for our visit to Novissimus.” The two men were statues but for their eyes. “Did you think this wouldn’t show up?”

“They were malfunctioning to begin with,” Ron muttered. “We only wanted our money back, but they refused.”

“So, you didn’t read the myriad of signs posted around that say things like, no refunds, use at your own risk, you break you buy, and the like?” Neither man spoke. Jackson grumbled inside his head.  

“Space station or no, shore leave or no, discretion is a virtue.” He engaged with his coffee cup. “You’re both nice, good-looking men. You couldn’t find real dates on the entire station?”

“That takes time, or more money than either of us had.” Jackson sighed, but had more tolerance for their actions than he had for the officers. Maybe it was sympathy, certainly not empathy, and being crewmen, without rank, he didn’t want to add to their humiliation.

“You do understand why your superior officer isn’t addressing this with you?” No answer. “Draconians are facultative parthenogenetic creatures. They don’t understand the necessity, or what the big deal is. On the other hand, you’re not salmon and I fully expect you won’t present me with this conundrum again.” He’d have to put a little more whiskey in his coffee if they did.

“No, Captain.”

“You’ll be required to pay for the damages out of your salaries. You can make arrangements with Ms. Stone to work that out. I have to put a disciplinary action on your records since the accounting is part of our formal records. Now, any requests?”

“I’ll take maintenance shifts,” Ron volunteered.

“I’ll take on the housekeeping for the gym,” John said.

“Thirty days, to be done during your recreation hours. Go down to the quartermaster and then get back to what you were doing. Dismissed.”

The men saluted; he responded formally and the two scattered out of his office like their butts were on fire. He wondered if his daughter Zalara and her friend Honey were in fact the only children aboard his ship.

þ

Something chirped, but maybe it was part of his dream. No, that was the intercom. Jackson reached for the button.

“Sorry to wake you, Captain, but we received an urgent message from Admiral Wallace marked ‘private’. It’s time stamped and reply requested.”

“Thank you. Please send it to my quarters.” Happy he didn’t have to go to the bridge, Jackson slid out of bed and tiptoed to the desk in the great room. Not wanting to turn on the lights, the glow from the audio-visual display was enough to see by. Thankful for the light years that prevented two-way live communication, he looked at a red, blinking icon; it changed to green, and the video played. Admiral Wallace appeared agitated, to put it mildly. His face was flushed red and Jackson was sure he saw smoke coming out of the man’s ears.

"Jackson: what in hell is going on aboard your ship? Have you lost command? I demand an explanation. The expenses at Novissimus are outrageous!”

The admiral threw his hands around in frustration.

“Fist fights in the brewery? Infirmary expenses for injured parties, repair bills for specialty robots? I sent you there to drop off the mummy and pick up an A I droid. I can authorize upgrades to your com system, and ship related business, but this is not acceptable.”

Rianya walked in and stood behind Tom. He hadn’t told her about the escapades on the station. She had enough to deal with, from the mummy’s DNA to carrying a baby. He stopped the playback.

“What’s going on?”

“Wallace isn’t happy about some of the problems we had on Novi. He wants my six.” She looked at him sideways. “He’s mad.” He started the message again and the face continued its rant.

"Hell’s bells, Jackson, you’re a married man! Anne hasn’t stopped crying since she got home."

Tom’s stomach leaped into his throat. With his wife behind him, he nearly wet his pants.

"Now I know it takes two, but she’s broken-hearted. Her mother’s furious. Frankly, I’ll have your bars and stars before you walk away from my girl. I’m no prude, but your conduct is unbecoming of an officer, and you’ll take responsibility for this. I don’t care if your little girl saved half the planet. It’s no excuse for this!"

The message ended abruptly. Did he dare look at Rianya?

“I better make some coffee for this one,” she said, and walked away.

“Love, I don’t know exactly what Wallace is thinking, or what he heard, but it’s not true.”

“If you don’t know what he’s talking about how can you be sure it’s not true?”

“Whatever Anne told him, it’s not true.”

“So, you know what she told him?”

“She has been pestering me since we left Earth. She’s mad because I gave her a cold shoulder.”

Rianya poured Tom a cup of coffee and pushed the sugar jar at him, and a spoon. She made another for herself.

“What is a cold shoulder? I don’t know that term.”

“She’s been very pushy, disrespectful to you, out of line, and I turned her down, of course. She’s only twenty for gawdsake.”

“What did she want?”

“Rianya, you really can’t guess?” He wasn’t sure if she was stringing him along for the squirm factor or if she really was clueless. She shook her head slowly. Oh, for the love of … “She wants to get me in a compromising position, probably to protect her job.”

“Oh.” She took a drink of her coffee and set it down. “I know about that.”

Tom nearly spit his drink on the floor. As it was, he had to choke some down.

“You knew that? What do you mean, ‘you know that’?”

“You’re easy to read. So was she.”

“Then you know I had nothing to do with her.”

“Then why is Wallace so mad?” she asked. “You have known him a long time.”

“Anne has told him something, a lie, obviously. She’s blackmailing me.”

“That’s another word I don’t think I’ve heard. Black mail ing.”

“I need a minute,” he said and hurried to the lavatory before he exploded. He glanced in the mirror and saw something he rarely did – fear. Fear that Anne was going to ruin him because he didn’t play her game. Innocence was on his side, however. He had to stop quaking and stand up to the accusations, whatever they were. Calmly, he returned to the table.

“Blackmailing is exposing a person’s secret if they don’t give you what you want. She told me if I didn't give her what she wanted, she’d simply lie to her father. From Wallace’s message, I’m thinking that’s what she must have said.”

"That doesn't sound like you. Why would the admiral believe her?"

"She's his daughter."

“You wouldn't do that.”

Tom took a few deep breaths and calmed himself. “But of course, you’d say that.”

“She’s not a nice person. She would watch the girls, but I think she wanted to watch you more.” Tom wondered how Rianya could sit there so calmly, assured in her convictions of who he was. “I watched you on Kinnae, at the beach, and you never hit people, and they did what you asked them to do. Sometimes you did the same things they did.”

“I’m in command, they have to do what I say.”

“No, they don’t. Maybe on the ship but not on the beach. Is why I talked to you. You are the leader because you protect them and make good decisions. They trust you. So, I trusted you, and I was right.”

Tom drank half his coffee. His eyes stung with sand, and despite the coffee he was ready to go back to bed.

“I knew Wallace would be upset about what the boys did on the station, but this thing about Anne came out of left field. He asked that she be deployed to the station and not stay aboard Maria Mitchell.  I thought the whole incident was over.”

“Things will look different in the morning,” she said. “Come back to bed.”

“I need to answer this right away.”

“Not right away. In the morning.” She held out one hand and pulled him along behind her, back to bed.