Hearts Akilter (4 page)

Marlee heaved a sigh. “Look, Major, Henry and I are caught between a rock and a hard place. A very hard place.” She shoved her hands into her side pockets, as if to keep from wringing them. “I inadvertently discovered a bomb. I can’t report the bomb to security because, well, should they find out how I gained access to where the bomb is, I’ll lose my job.”

She took in a breath. “And secondly, the instant I report the bomb to security, or even the Guardians, the person most likely to have planted the bomb will know, and then Henry and I are toast.”

No wonder the woman was paranoid. “Where’s the bomb?”

Henry looked up at Marlee. She glanced at him and nodded.

The little robot faced him and said softly, “Deacon, the bomb is inside me.”

The lift seemed to drop fifty decks under him, but Deacon steadied himself. “Where exactly inside you?”

“My chest cavity.”

To get inside the bot, he needed the access codes. Deacon looked at Marlee. How had she come by the codes? That didn’t matter. Disarming the bomb took precedence. “What are the access codes?”

“I don’t have them. Never did.”

“Then how do you know there’s a bomb inside Henry?”

“Because,” Henry replied, “I am capable of opening my own panels.”

What the hell…

“And,” Marlee said, a warning in her tone, “if you ever reveal Henry can do that, I
will
burn off your balls.”

The robot rolled forward, until he was directly in front of Deacon. “It is panel number four, upper left. Please, take the bomb out of me.”

A bomb. One inside the little robot? That didn’t make sense. Maybe it wasn’t a real bomb. More likely, some practical joke the geeks were playing on Marlee. Yes, that had to be it.

But could he chance the bomb wasn’t real? This was Kifel Space station, the Jewel of Sol, the gateway to the Star World Colonies. Thousands of people on board were at risk.

He willed his stomach and his nerves to steel hardness. He better check out the bomb.

“Marlene, I’ll need tools. I’ll have to go get them.”

Cheerily, Marlee replied, “No need.” She exited the lift but didn’t go far. She returned, pulling an antigrav skiff she maneuvered toward him.

On the skiff were two large and two small satchels bearing his stenciled name and ID numbers. His gear? “You took those from my classroom?”

“It’s where you left them, wasn’t it?”

Nothing like stating the obvious. “That classroom is sealed until the investigation and inquiry are made public. Off limits to all personnel.”

“I know, but you need tools, right?”

“And you just walked in and took my things!”

“Don’t panic. I accessed the maintenance tunnel behind the storage room. I’ll put your stuff back when you’re done. No one will be the wiser.”

He’d met many women, many techs, but Marlene Whatever-her-last-name-was, took the brass ring for forthright and gutsy different. And, damn him, he liked gutsy different.

What a stupid thought, especially when she scowled at him like that.

“Well, Major” she said, “are you going to stand there or get to work?”

The bomb. Right. Dismantle the bomb. In this lift? No, that was insane. “Marlene, if the bomb goes off accidentally—”

“It’ll blow the station to kingdom come?”

He nodded.

“Not to worry.”

She said that with such nonchalance that he found himself speechless. He cleared his throat. “Why not? Did you snatch the portable Bomb Disposal Unit, too?”

“Better.”

“What’s better than a BDU?”

“Garbage incinerators.”

“What?” He glanced out into the darkness beyond the lift. Giant machinery stood silhouetted and veiled in shadows. “Where are we?”

“Deck forty-three, Ring D zero three. Relax. Don’t panic. They once accidentally incinerated a torpedo in number four, over yonder.” She pointed to the left. “Nobody heard or felt it explode, and there wasn’t even a drail’s worth of damage done to the incinerator, or anything else.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It happened three years ago. I was there, a deck above. Never mind.”

Henry manipulated his finger appendage, grabbing and briefly tugging the shirt sleeve of Deacon’s good arm. “Marlee would never lie about anything so important.”

“Does she lie about unimportant things?” He instantly regretted his caustic remark.

“I do not know.” Henry spun sideways, facing Marlee. “Do you lie about unimportant things, Marlee?”

“I have been known to tell a white lie now and then to spare someone’s feelings, but on the whole—” She looked away from Henry.

As her blacker than black eyes met his gaze, Deacon felt pinned to the wall.

With clarity, she said, “I
am an honest person.”

The robot put the ends of his appendages together, as if they were hands meshed together for prayer. “Marlee, have you been honest with me?”

She looked at the robot, and her voice gentled. “Yes, Henry, I always have been honest with you as you have been with me.”

There was sincerity in her voice.

“Hey, you two,” Deacon said, “back to the bomb. This is a lift. If something accidentally triggers that bomb, the blast will go up.”

“Do not panic,” Henry said, and backed out of the lift. “Marlee picked an ideal spot for you to deactivate the bomb.”

“What’s your definition of ideal?”

Marlee replied, “Safe. Isolated. No one will be around for a week—or more, depending on if the parts arrive as scheduled.” She pulled the skiff with her and headed into the corridor. “Follow me.”

He followed Henry, who, en route, grabbed a worker’s task stool. The robot lifted the chair so its base didn’t drag and make noise. Minutes later, Marlee stepped into what seemed a black abyss. Lights quickly came on, revealing a bay.

Marlee parked the skiff in the center of the emptiness. “This is one of the incinerator pots.”

He turned three hundred sixty degrees, and studied the rocklike, gray walls. Not a bay but a pot? One big enough to house a dozen shuttles. A second later, the acidic scent of ashes and cinders had him rubbing his nose to thwart a sneeze. “This looks more like a bay than a pot.”

“It’s on its side for cleaning.”

“Looks pretty clean to me.”

“There’s three meters of cement-hard residue to be chiseled and sandblasted off.”

Henry set the task stool before him. “Please, Deacon, fetch your tools and sit down. I really would appreciate having the bomb removed as quickly as possible.”

Once Deacon had his tools, he sat down. After removing the bib plate from Henry’s chest, he used a flashlight, peered into the cavity, and soon spotted the bomb. It was all too familiar. Only this was, “Sloppy.”

“Yeah,” Marlee said from her spot near the rear of the skiff, “the placement allows it to move about.”

“It moves?”

“Yep. Check the light blue wire at the back, right side.”

He reached in with a tool. The moment it touched the clay, the bomb shifted. “No way is this Yokovnin’s work.” Why had he spoken his thought?

Marlee came over and stood by his shoulder. “Who’s Yokovnin?”

“A terrorist who—” He stopped himself. Yokovnin was dead.

Memories flashed of seeing the man die in a hail of Guardian disrupter and rodgun fire. No one was to know he was dead. At least not yet. Not until Yokovnin’s associates had been rounded up.

Deacon took hold of his emotions and vanquished the memories. He schooled his voice to a matter-of-fact tone. “Yokovnin would have made sure the bomb stayed in place, undetectable.” He flashed his light along the pale blue wire. It was a red herring, something to mislead anyone trying to disarm the bomb. “Really shoddy work.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Marlee said. “It was shorting.”

He swiveled his stool around until he could look up at Marlee. “That’s impossible. The wire is a dud. It isn’t connected to anything with current.”

A look of profound relief suffused her face. “Bless the Lord.”

“You thought the wire was hot?”

She nodded. Then a puzzled frown crunched her brow. “Now I get it. It wasn’t a charge from the wire. It was the end laying across the two posts that let a charge build and race up Henry’s arm, making Henry think he was having a heart attack.”

A heart attack? Robots didn’t have hearts or heart attacks.
But a hot wire could wreak havoc
.
Deacon swiveled around to Henry and studied the area behind the exposed wire. “I don’t see any evidence of a short.”

“You would need microscopic vision to see it,” Marlee said. “But the evidence isn’t there anymore. I replaced the posts with insulated ones. I even put in a microscopic brace, so when the bomb shifts, the wire won’t touch anything.”

She had the foresight to do that? And the guts to work around the bomb? He glanced over his shoulder and put a heartfelt compliment to his words. “Well done.”

Her smile softened her face and stance, even softening the gloss of her eyes.

She looked downright pretty when she smiled.

“So, Major,” she said, “can you disarm the bomb?”

“Call me Deacon. And, yes, I can disarm it, but to be safe, you should leave.”

“Right.” She pulled something out of one of her pockets and handed the gizmo to him. It was a comm unit. “It’ll take me ten minutes to get clear and—”

“You don’t have to go that far.”

“Why not?”

“Should the bomb go off, most of the damage will be short-range. My suit will protect me.”

“Okay, but, thank you very much, I’ll feel a whole lot better somewhere else.”

The way she said that had him wondering. “Marlee how did you know this was a bomb?”

“I—I saw one very much like it once. A long time ago.”

“Where?”

“Here, on Kifel. I was new, just starting out as an apprentice, working on a Big Mo crane. I saw a stick-thing on a gear box and thought it was a retrofit. After my shift, curiosity got the better of me. I went to the control room to access maintenance records, but the bomb went off.” Her voice lowered, as if the memories were painful. “A cascading explosion took out a quarter of the deck, including the control room. Twenty died—I was unconscious for two days…”

With the brilliance of a lightning bolt, he made the connection. “Evans. Are you Evans?”

“Yes, that’s my last name.”

“You drew a sketch of the device that took out the crane?”

“Yeah. Why? What’s it to you?”

“That drawing you gave the authorities was a godsend to my squad. It enabled us to figure out Yokovnin’s bombs.”

“Small world, huh? And speaking of worlds, I’m out of here. When I’m clear, I’ll let you know.” She left.

He found himself marveling at her, grinning, and watching the swing of her hips until she was out of sight.

Minutes later, the comm crackled with Marlee’s breathless, “I’m at a safe spot. Let me know when you’re done and, Henry, you do as Deacon says.”

Henry replied, “I will, Marlee.”

Deacon fetched his protective gear from the largest of the satchels on the skiff. Despite his ever-increasing queasiness and rising nausea, half an hour later, he removed the black disk from the center of the clay. He briefly held the disk up for Henry to see before he triggered the comlink on. “The bomb is disarmed.”

Henry’s voice held heartfelt relief. “Bless the Lord J’Hi!”

The comm unit crackled with Marlee’s, “I’ll second that. Is it safe for me to come back?”

“Yes,” Deacon said. By the time he had his gear off and stowed, Marlee arrived.

“Look.” Henry pointed to Deacon, who stood near the skiff.

Deacon raised his hand, clutching the black disk between index finger and thumb for Marlee to see.

“Looks like a TS4 spacer.” She eyed the front end of the skiff. “Where’s the explosive?”

Deacon replied, “It’s inside Henry.”

She gasped. “Aren’t you going to take it out?”

“No.”

“NO?”

“Fetch me one.”

“One what?”

“Spacer. You just said the detonator, this black disk—” He again held up the disk. “You said this looked like a TS4.”

“Yeah, it does, but why do you want a spacer?”

“If it’s a match, I can put it in the explosive and make it look like the bomb is still alive.”

“Why do that?”

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want the person who planted the bomb to know you found it?”

“Right. I did. She mustn’t find out.”

“
She
?”

Marlee’s cheeks flushed crimson.

Well, well, well. Marlee hadn’t meant to reveal that, had she? So, could he guilt trip her into revealing the woman’s name?

“Look, Marlene,” he said, “we don’t need any bomber wreaking havoc on the station or creating a panic, now do we?”

“No.”

“You can trust me. Tell me, who planted the bomb?”

Marlee raked both hands through her hair, pushing wisps and bangs over her ears, muttering, “Skom, skom, skom.” She suddenly stilled and made eye contact with him. “Look, Major, I’m pretty sure she might have done it, but I’m not absolutely positive
.
What if I’m wrong?”

She was right. False accusations could do more damage than a bomb. “Okay, point taken. Still—”

“Did that Yokovnin, the bomb guy, use robots to deliver his bombs?”

“No. He never used a robot.”

“Then why Henry? It doesn’t make sense to me why anyone would plant a bomb in a med-bot, one who is based solely in sickbay.”

That simple logic hit home.

“You’re right. The placement and amount of the explosive makes it as effective as a hand grenade. There would be a lot of shrapnel at close range, but it wouldn’t do more than a room’s worth of damage.”

Is that what his killer had in mind with the demo that had gone off prematurely? Send him to sickbay, then detonate Henry?

No, wait a minute. There had been plenty of opportunities to detonate Henry and kill him. So, if he weren’t the target, who was? And—“Marlene, even if someone important ended up in sickbay, reprogramming Henry to deliver an overdose of something is a better way to kill them, not a bomb.”