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not
smear?” He threw an electric wrench into the shining metal framework just
to the right of the open console. If someone monitoring his last exit from the
V-side traced his digital prints back to this ship, they could also find out
which virtual worlds he’d visited. He’d be swept away by a contractor patrol
and imprisoned as an Embassy agitator. Until they found out he was a node in
the fragger organization, then he’d just be tortured and executed and
forgotten.
    Sean had suspected someone
shadowing him during his last couple of ventures into the V-side, the virtual
world. Possibility leaned toward probability now that he found the door to the
comm chamber slightly ajar.
    Inside, snuggled into a protected
wall, lay the secret port he had installed six years ago after initially
purchasing a suite aboard the Bard and becoming the ship’s engineer, or
mech tech as the others referred to him. This port allowed him access to the
V-side without detection, without shadows tracking him, without suspicious
Embassy officials lifting his digital prints from this source. Or at least he
thought. He probed the port and watched the readings scroll over his palm from
a wrist reporter implanted under his skin. Everything checked out. Maybe there
hadn’t been a shadow, just his paranoia.
    David would enjoy hearing that.
    The new nav leader on board
already hinted at Sean’s stim abuse and his consequent bouts of paranoia. But
what did he know? David Anlow was little more than a hired pilot who flew a
bunch of independent scientists to appointments throughout the system. Problem
was that David, being a former Armadan captain, fancied himself still in charge
of a ship.
    Sean had caught him looking
around the engine room on one other occasion. The ensuing argument had turned
physical on Sean’s part. Risky since Armadans were bred to be warriors, how
their caste came to be named after the military in which most of them served.
As a result, their bone and muscle structure was stronger than that of
Socialites, the other Upper Caste. Of course Sean’s real father passed along
some of that Armadan strength to him, even if no one but his immediate family
circle knew Sean’s true genetic history. That wasn’t the biggest secret,
though. Sean’s mother had been from the Lower Caste. His father took care of
them anyway, even helped to buy them into Socialite society before he died. But
Sean and his brother always knew they were different, not as deserving as other
members of their father’s family circle, including their siblings by other
mothers.
    Heading to the Bard ‘s
bridge, Sean reminded himself to be calm when confronting David, to keep his
head. He didn’t want to tip his hand if David didn’t already know what was
happening.
     
    As soon as Sean burst through the
open bridge door, he flew into David. “What the fuck were you doing in the
engine room again? Thought I told you to stay away from there.”
    David swiveled his nav chair
around inside the orb of holo-controls.
    “How you doing, Sean? Coming
down from a binge?”
    Sean resisted the impulse to leap
across the shining black floor of the bridge and grab the bigger man by his
throat. Truth was Sean had just taken several restors to bring him back to
equilibrium.
    “Just asking if you visited
the engine room recently.”
    “It sounded to me like you
were accusing me of something.” David manipulated an airscreen in one side
of the orb.
    His nonchalance and cheery
disposition grated on Sean’s nerves. “Just tell me if you were
there.” Sean scratched at his chin and neck; an itching sensation rose
with his blood pressure, a restor side effect. He forced himself to stop before
David noticed.
    “Like you said, I’m not
welcome in there. Besides, it’s too bright. All those glowing white walls give
me a headache.”
    David’s lack of eye contact
proved he told the truth. After two months, Sean could read the man well,
especially considering they had pulled