Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(54)

—Why do you hate me? What have I ever done to you?

—I’m showing you a road out of the particular hell you got yourself into. Is that what hate looks like? I’ve told you how to take responsibility. You do whatever you want, Mr. Test Scores.

Urska Kaluza looked bored when Dabeet came into her office. She had one elbow on her desk and leaned her head on that hand, regarding him as if she were barely able to stay awake. “You had your mysterious ansible chat,” she said to him. “What do you want now.”

“It was suggested to me that I inform you fully about a threat to this station.”

She closed her eyes. “What threat could you possibly know about, that I don’t? Did your ansible pal make threats?”

Dabeet really did not like her. But he was trying to train himself to pay better attention to what people actually did, as well as what they said. Urska Kaluza sounded contemptuous and looked lazy. But Dabeet thought he could detect a rigidity in her, tension that arose from what, fear? Dread? General anxiety? She believed that he had talked to MinCol, and now he had something he’d been told to tell her. So she thinks this is some kind of danger to her career, not to the school. If she responds wrong, it might anger MinCol, who would either cashier her, transfer her, or … what, notice how resourceful she was and promote her?

Yes, thought Dabeet. She has the kind of ego that would believe somebody might want to promote her.

“Before I came up here from Earth,” said Dabeet, “I was taken onto an airplane by some men with South American accents, who told me that many small nations were terrified of the chaos on Earth and wanted the International Fleet to intervene and stabilize things.”

A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.

“Yes,” said Dabeet, “it was foolish of them to imagine that the IF would ever do any such thing, no matter the provocation.”

He saw a bit of eye movement that he realized might have been the beginning of an eye roll, nipped in the bud. Her smile was not at his captors’ foolishness. Her smile was at the lie she assumed Dabeet was telling. Didn’t she realize that if he were lying, he’d at least try to come up with something halfway plausible?

“If you don’t want to listen,” Dabeet said, “it was only a suggestion that I should tell you.”

“I’m listening,” said Urska Kaluza.

“They intended to force the IF to intervene by means of a provocation involving Fleet School.”

That got her attention. He could see her body grow more tense, her gaze sharper.

“They knew I was coming here. They instructed me to signal them when I got the capability to open exterior doors in the unfinished portion of this station.”

“You don’t have that capability,” she said.

Dabeet ignored her. “If I didn’t signal them that I had that capability within six months of my arrival here, they would kill my mother.”

Now she did roll her eyes. “Haven’t you been getting enough attention? After all your efforts to get here, are you trying to get me to send you home to Mommy?”

“The deadline was approaching, so I sent the signal.”

“You did not,” she said scornfully.

“I did,” said Dabeet. “After all your time here with the brightest children of the Fleet, do you still think you’re capable of predicting what is and is not within our ability?”

“You’re a child,” said Urska Kaluza. “You don’t know anything.”

“If that were true, that would be a pretty severe indictment of your incompetence as head of an educational institution.”

“You don’t know anything that the adults here do not know.”

“Here’s what I don’t know: I don’t know if the men who gave me my orders and threatened my mother are still in power in their home countries. I don’t know if they actually have the ability to bring a raiding party here to Fleet School. I don’t know how they expect to let me know when to open a door again.”

She sniffed in disdain.

“I don’t know if they’re smart enough not to arm themselves with heavy projectile weapons. The shell of the station is self-sealing to a point, but too many bullets punching their way through and the nanooze on the surface won’t be able to cope. They might also damage life-support equipment.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So I said,” Dabeet agreed. “All speculation about possibilities—which is what I was instructed to tell you. I don’t know if the raiding party will be led by competent military leaders or by clowns. But most importantly, I don’t know what their objective really is. The men who gave me my orders seemed to believe what they were telling me, but who knows if getting the Fleet to engage with Earth really is their goal? Nor can I even guess whether their purpose is extortion or terrorism.”

A brief look of puzzlement passed across her face.

“If they take Fleet School and hold the children as hostages, then maybe they hope the IF will take steps to mollify them. But if the goal is to make the IF get involved on Earth, their most effective plan might be to kill everybody in the station and then shuttle on back to Earth. Or the Moon. Or wherever they’ve arranged to escape.”

“You do understand,” said Urska Kaluza coldly, “that by saying what you just said about terrorism, I am obligated to report this conversation, sending a full transcript to the authorities, because of the very strong likelihood that there is a terrorist threat, not from some mysterious cabal on Earth, but from you and your block-building friends.”