Текст книги "Harbinger"

Автор книги: David Mack

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

His door signal sounded. “Come in,” he said. The door opened and Dr. M’Benga walked in, looking energetic and textbook-perfect. He was carrying a data slate. Fisher projected a fatherly smile toward him. “Jabilo, what can I do for you?”

“Good morning, Doctor,” M’Benga said, looking suddenly a bit nervous, like a student facing the principal. He motioned toward the chairs in front of Fisher’s desk. “May I sit down?”

“Be my guest.” Fisher leaned back and relaxed as M’Benga sat down. “What’s on your mind?”

“I need to ask a favor,” M’Benga said.

Pointing at the slate, Fisher guessed, “You need a consult?”

M’Benga handed the device across the desk to Fisher. “No, your signature.” Fisher glanced at the display and recognized the open document before M’Benga added, “For my transfer application.”

Fisher scrolled through the completed application. “Starship duty?” He looked up at M’Benga, his surprise transmuting to resentment. “Jabilo, I groomed you to run a state-of-the-art hospital, and you want to be a sawbones on a starship?”

“It’s not about Vanguard Hospital,” M’Benga said. “This is a terrific facility. It’s just that I joined Starfleet to see new worlds and meet new species. And I feel like that would be easier to do on a starship assigned to frontier duty.”

Holding up the slate, Fisher said, “You know it can take months for Starfleet to process these? Or longer?”

“All the more reason not to wait,” M’Benga said.

The weathered CMO shook his head in dismay. His carefully laid plans for retirement were unraveling, and there was nothing he could do about it. He opened his desk drawer and searched for a stylus. “A damn shame,” he mumbled. Snatching the stylus from the jumble of clutter, he reviewed the transfer request, signed it, then handed back the slate.

M’Benga accepted it with a humble nod. “Thank you, Doctor.” He stood up to leave.

“Promise me one thing,” Fisher said. M’Benga stopped and looked back. Fisher continued, “When the rest of the galaxy all starts to look the same, come back here so I can retire.”

“Fair enough,” M’Benga said with a half-grin.

Fisher shooed the younger physician away. “Go on.”

Left alone with his disappointment, Fisher checked the calendar. He was unsurprised to find that it was, in fact, a Monday.

Kirk sat at the small monitor in his quarters, reviewing Tim Pennington’s story about the ambush of the Bombay. His dinner of lamb stew and sautéed green beans sat untouched on the desk. Spock stood behind the captain, watching over his shoulder.

“His command of the facts is impressive,” Kirk said.

“Indeed.”

Arriving at the end of the article, Kirk swiveled his chair to face Spock. “The fallout from this won’t be pretty.”

“I suspect that will prove to be an understatement.”

Feeling lost in his own thoughts, Kirk stood and paced away from the desk, exhaling his anger in a low huff. “What the hell is Pennington thinking? Is he trying to start a war?”

“If I understood you correctly, Captain, you yourself advocated just such an action scarcely forty-eight hours ago.”

An angry glare was Kirk’s instinctual response. He forced himself to shed it and calm his temper. “I’ve had time to think since then. Time to consider…another point of view.” He leaned against the hexagonal-pattern screen that divided his quarters into a sleeping area and a dining area and workspace. “What do we really know about the Tholians, Spock? They’re nothing like us. Not humanoid, not interested in the same kinds of planets. Maybe there’s more we don’t understand about them…. Just because we weren’t aware of any Tholian claims in this sector doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Maybe we didn’t think our actions were provocative, but who knows how it looked to them?” He shook his head, unhappy with playing the part of devil’s advocate but nonetheless appreciating the importance of doing so. “How do we know that we aren’t the aggressors here? What if we cast the first stone, without even realizing it?”

“All valid lines of inquiry, Captain,” Spock said. “However, it is likely that the Federation Council will focus instead on one incontrovertible fact: That the Tholians destroyed the Bombay. In light of Mr. Pennington’s article, they will not be able to ignore it.”

Suspicions and doubts pushed themselves front and center in Kirk’s thoughts. He walked back to the desk and skimmed the article again. “How did Pennington get all this information?”

“Presumably, he had a confidential source.”

“It would have to be someone fairly high in the chain of command to get him this much information,” Kirk said.

“A logical assumption.”

“But Reyes runs a tight ship, one of the tightest I’ve seen. I don’t think his officers would talk to a reporter, on or off the record.” Kirk narrowed his eyes as he stared at the screen. “Lower-decks personnel wouldn’t have this kind of access.”

“Perhaps Pennington himself has means we are not aware of.”

“No,” Kirk said, shaking his head. “He’s a competent reporter, the Gary Mitchell piece proved that. But to get a break like this…it’s almost impossible. Look here, in paragraph seven—he’s quoting information that would have to have come from our duty logs. Pennington’s good, but he’s not that good, Spock…. Something’s wrong with this picture.”

“Your hypothesis suggests three likely scenarios, Captain. First, that there is a security leak in the command staff of Starbase 47. Second, that an enlisted crewman or non-commissioned officer gained access to classified data for the purpose of relaying it to Mr. Pennington. Or third, that Mr. Pennington himself has the requisite skills to penetrate Starfleet security protocols.”

“None of which’ll make me rest any easier tonight.” Kirk clicked off the monitor. “Start encrypting all communications with Vanguard. That includes routine operations. And put a hold on all personal transmissions by the crew until we’re safely out of the base’s monitoring range tomorrow night.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Dismissed.”

Spock left quickly, no doubt on his way to the bridge to relieve Scotty at the conn and implement the new security protocols.

Alone in his quarters, Kirk continued to ponder the security leak aboard Vanguard. Determining who had provided Pennington with such sensitive information would likely be a nigh-impossible task. Figuring out what other secrets might have been compromised by the leak would be even more difficult. But one other question, perhaps the least knowable of them all, was the one that haunted Kirk the most profoundly.

Why?

Reyes steeled himself for another miserable day of depositions. He and his department heads filed into the wardroom, their already grim moods further darkened by the morning news feeds about the Bombay. Rumors of war had already made the rounds of the starbase and were well on their way to a second circuit, freshly embellished with new exaggerations.

Desai and the two JAG lawyers, Liverakos and Moyer, entered through a separate door at the back of the room and quickly took their seats. No sooner had everyone settled into their seats than Desai double-tapped the judge’s bell on the polished-wood table three times. “This board of inquiry is hereby reconvened,” she said. For the past several days, she had ended her opening remarks there, preferring to allow the attorneys to take over. Today, she continued, “Because of new evidence made known to this board, evidence that suggests the loss of the Bombay was the result of a carefully premeditated sneak attack by forces of the Tholian Assembly, it is the summary ruling of this board that Captain Gannon and her crew are absolved of any wrong-doing.

“Furthermore, this board also finds insufficient evidence to warrant further deposition of the Bombay’s supervising flag officer, or the command and support staff of Starbase 47.

“All records of these proceedings are hereby ordered sealed and classified by order of the Starfleet Judge Advocate General. These proceedings are closed. We are adjourned.”

She tapped her bell once, collected her papers, rose from the table, and exited so quickly that her gold dress uniform resembled, to Reyes’s eyes, little more than a blur. Moyer and Liverakos followed her out, exchanging confused shrugs and bewildered stares as they went. As the door closed behind them, Reyes and his department heads remained seated at the table, all of them stunned into silence.

Finally, it was fleet operations manager Ray Cannella who made the remark that needed to be said.

“Who wants to get lunch?”

Heads turned as Pennington walked past one of the outdoor cafés of Stars Landing. Affecting a nonchalant demeanor, he secretly basked in the sudden embrace of notoriety. He tried not to be too proud of his “accomplishment.” If his story had the impact that he expected it to, then war between the Federation and the Tholian Assembly likely was not far off. Dark days would soon come to Vanguard, and to countless other places.

But the Truth is served, he reminded himself. Justice for the Bombay . And for Oriana.

Back in his apartment, Lora was still fuming about the late-morning search and interrogation by the Starfleet JAG office, but he had been expecting it. In fact, for the sense of vindication it offered him, he had welcomed it. Being despised was acceptable as long as he wasn’t being ignored.

Getting closer to the café, the inviting aroma of espresso and pastry drew him in. He had all but surrendered himself to the anticipation of a latte and a beignet when his FNS pager buzzed softly on his wrist. The message on it was very brief: Real Time. It was the instruction his editor used when she wanted him to make contact via accelerated subspace radio. This far from Earth, even FTL communications normally lagged by as much as a full day. To maintain a real-time channel across such a vast distance required enormous amounts of power, and for most civilians it was prohibitively expensive.

Forcing away thoughts of the latte and pastry that would have to wait until later, he made his way up to the starbase’s communications office. The small but technology-packed facility buzzed with countless overlapping audio feeds from around the galaxy. A bank of monitors on a far wall flickered with activity. Pennington held up his FNS credentials for Ensign Mugavero, the liaison officer on duty. “I have a request for a real-time channel to Earth,” he said.

The blue-shirted young man led Pennington into a private room and entered the FNS code into a computer terminal. Moments later, the FNS icon appeared on the screen.

Mugavero motioned for the reporter to have a seat. “Here you go. It’ll take a few seconds to connect, but once it does you should be in real-time contact.”

Pennington sat down. “Thank you.” The ensign left the room and closed the soundproof door behind him. A few seconds passed while Pennington pondered what Arlys could be so eager to tell him. An award? A promotion? An invitation to serve as the Paris correspondent? After breaking this story for them, it’s the least they could do.

Arlys Warfield’s image flickered onto the screen. A stern-jawed woman with a steel-gray brush cut, her fiery glare was said to be capable of breaking people’s will, and her bullhorn of a voice could clear a path on any urban thoroughfare in the Federation in seconds flat. During the brief time that Tim had worked for her in the Paris office, he had overheard one of her senior editors remark that her last name was Warfield because a warpath simply wasn’t wide enough to grant passage to her rage.

She reached forward, apparently adjusting the picture on her own monitor. “Tim, is that you?”

“Yes, Arlys, I’m here—in real time.”

“Ah, there you are,” she said. Her tone became venomous. “You idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“You blithering Edinburgh blockhead.”

“Arlys, I’m sensing you’re not entirely happy.” Despite the staticky subspace feed, he now noticed that she looked even more disheveled and fatigued than was normal.

“Do you have any idea how many hornets you stirred up? How much trouble we’re in?”

“We knew we’d be ruffling feathers,” he said. “You said—”

“Forget what I said. That was when I trusted you.”

“Now hang on, there’s no—”

“How credible were your sources?”

“First-rate,” he said, suddenly very defensive. “I heard it from a command-level source, found a stack of corroborating evidence, then I got that vouched for by someone directly involved.”

“Well, check your syndicated feeds, because you’ve been duped,” Arlys said. “We all have.”

Sweat dampened his collar. His pulse throbbed uncomfortably in his temples. “Duped?…I don’t understand.”

Arlys massaged her forehead. Her expression was one of deep pain. “Tim, how did you find that amazing evidence of yours?”

He recoiled from the question. “It…” Suddenly, he felt very foolish explaining it. “It was an anonymous tip.”

“An anonymous tip,” she parroted. She threw a murderous glare at him from across the light-years. “Wonderful.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question, but he had to ask anyway. “What was wrong with it?”

“Everything, for God’s sake!” She flipped through the stack of papers on her desk, crumpling them and flinging them away as she ranted. “Chronological inconsistencies in the sensor logs, fake security codes—Dammit, Tim, the logs from the Enterprise were signed by an officer who wasn’t even alive when those reports were filed! You’ve got comm-traffic recordings on channels our own signals team confirms were clear. This isn’t evidence—it’s fiction!”

Shock was setting in. “But I got it confirmed….”

“According to Starfleet, you got snookered. And according to me, you just got fired.”

It took a few seconds for those last few words to become real for Pennington. “No, Arlys, please, you can’t…you—”

“Your unpaid expenses are being sent back to you, we’re not covering them,” she said. “You can still submit stories as a stringer if you want, but I’d stick to canned releases for a while if I were you.”

“Arlys, wait, we can—”

“You’re fired.” She switched off the channel without even adding Good luck or Take care. The FNS icon flashed briefly on the screen, which then went dark. Pennington slumped forward and let his head thump against the offline monitor.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

It wasn’t long before he was hyperventilating. He stretched the collar of his shirt away from his chest and pulled it up over his nose. Taking long, deep breaths and exhaling heavily, he calmed himself by degrees. Bile crept up his esophagus. His stomach heaved. So this is what total failure feels like.

Reason reasserted itself momentarily. He powered up the monitor in front of him and patched in to Vanguard’s internal directory. Selecting “M,” he scrolled quickly down to Israel Medina’s name in the crew roster.

It wasn’t there. There was no entry between “Medeira, Specialist Roderigo,” and “Meeker, Ensign Rory.”

Oh, bloody hell, no.

The entire distance between the communications office and salvage bay four blurred past the sprinting reporter.

He bounded into the salvage bay, which was busy with second-shift activity. An antigrav load lifter nearly clipped him at the knees until a sharp-eyed crewman whistled shrilly behind Pennington’s ear and waved him out of the way. The first person whom Pennington was able to flag down and corner long enough to swap two words was a frazzled-looking young woman who had “MALIK, K.” stenciled on the front of her coveralls.

“Crewman Malik, can you help me please?”

She looked at him with the pity one would expect for a lost child. He hadn’t realized how desperate he sounded. “What’s wrong, sir?”

“I’m trying to find Chief Medina,” he said.

She shook her head and leaned closer, as if she had mis-heard him the first time. “Who?”

“Chief Israel Medina, the gamma-shift cargo supervisor.”

Malik shrugged. “Never heard of him, sir. Our gamma-shift supervisor’s Master Chief Shalas.” She pointed down the long aisle of shipping containers at an Andorian woman in a red Starfleet uniform shirt. “That’s her down there. She’s covering beta shift today.”

Pennington backed away slowly toward the exit, no longer caring whether he blundered into the path of some large, dangerous machine. It hardly mattered anymore, one way or another. A quick death might be preferable, he decided.

As meaningless as such concepts as “day” and “night” were in deep space, as far as local time aboard Vanguard was concerned it was the middle of the night. Naturally, it was now, during the sleep cycles of the majority of the Diplomatic Corps staff, that Tholian Ambassador Sesrene had elected to call a meeting with Envoy Sovik, who, in turn, had woken Ambassador Jetanien, who then roused Anna Sandesjo and brought her down here for no good reason except perhaps to fetch the Chelon a bowl of his offensive-smelling broth.

Sesrene, true to character, treaded the fine line that separated curt from rude. “Your government has recanted its call for war.” He spoke through the room’s universal translator. The metallic screech of his true voice was muffled but still audible from inside his envirosuit. “We have no further business.”

Sandesjo remained a short distance behind Jetanien and Sovik, who stood at the meeting room table across from the Tholian delegation, which was composed of Sesrene and his attachés, Pozrene and Tashrene. Lifting a hand to stifle whatever reply Sovik had been formulating, Jetanien said to Sesrene, “Quite the contrary. We remain concerned about your health. This is the first we’ve seen of your delegation since your…episode a few weeks ago. Are you well? Do you require any medical assistance? Or adjustments to your living quarters?”

Sesrene reached out and initiated a touch-telepathy link with his attachés, a practice that Sandesjo had found odd until she realized that it was not all that different from humanoids conferring in whispers. Until their conference was concluded, there would be nothing to do but wait in patient silence.

The three Tholians were all bundled in their golden-hued envirosuits, about which Jetanien had prattled on during the long walk from his office. Composed of Tholian silk, the envirosuits were surprisingly lightweight and flexible around the Tholians’ crystalline, arthropod bodies. No warmer than room temperature on their exterior, their interiors sustained a combination of intense heat and crushingly dense corrosive gas—a Class-N environment that was duplicated in their quarantined residential suites. What little of their heads was visible through their translucent face-plates suggested that their species exhibited a wide variety of colorations. With their multilimbed physiques, Tholians reminded Sandesjo of the venomous ghewpu’tIn that populated some of the darker, untamed forests on Qo’noS. Being in the same room with them made her deeply curious as to how one of these exotic-looking novpu would fare in single combat against a Klingon warrior.

Finally, the touch-telepathy link was broken, and Sesrene’s eyespots brightened slightly as he said, “A temporary affliction. It is of no further concern.”

“We are greatly relieved to hear that, Your Excellency,” Sovik said with a small nod.

“We have no more business with you at this time,” Sesrene said. He turned away from the table, and his attachés moved in synch with him.

“Ambassador,” Jetanien said, his voice suddenly large enough to fill the room with its deep, booming resonance. Sesrene paused then turned very slowly back toward Jetanien, who continued, “Though our council has chosen the path of peace, do not be misled into thinking that we are fools. We know full well that your forces attacked and destroyed our vessel at Ravanar. Starfleet will watch your borders far more closely from now on…. We won’t betaken by surprise again.”

The implied threat seemed to hold Sesrene and Jetanien in place, like the opposing poles of a magnet, filling the room with an undercurrent of violent reprisal.

Then Sesrene ended the discussion.

“Neither will we.”

In unison, the Tholian delegation left the room, moving with almost mechanical precision. Once they were gone, Jetanien turned away and exited through a different door, saying nothing but clearly expecting Sovik and Sandesjo to follow him.

The Chelon didn’t speak until the three of them were in a turbolift on their way back upstairs. “That was not good,” he said. Then, to Sandesjo’s amazement, he said nothing more. Even after they returned to the deserted Federation Embassy office, he had nothing to add to his statement in the turbolift.

As the ambassador marched toward his office, Sandesjo said to his retreating back, “Should I postpone your morning meetings?” For once, Jetanien neither interrupted nor answered her. He went into his private office and closed the door, which emitted a soft double-beep to indicate that he had locked it.

She and Sovik looked at each other. He raised one eyebrow. She shrugged. He departed, and she made the long, lonely walk back to her private quarters.

The repetitive grind of long days, which by now had blurred together, left Sandesjo enervated. Filing a report with Turag would no doubt be a tedious matter, and it was one that she would prefer to put off until morning. Unfortunately, she knew that he would be livid if she waited that long to brief him.

She locked her door, then unlocked her slim briefcase and opened it on her dining table. I hate the waiting, she fumed, as the device established its encrypted subspace link. It takes too long. Sooner or later, someone will notice.

“bImoHqu’,” came the challenge-phrase.

In a glum monotone she answered, “jIwuQ.”

Turag’s harshly shadowed face replaced the Klingon trefoil emblem. He grinned. “Another late night, Lurqal?”

“Don’t call me by my true name, you yIntagh,” she said. “I don’t like being reminded.”

“Spare me your tale of woe. Report.”

“Jetanien told Sesrene that the Federation knows the Tholians destroyed the Bombay. Both sides seem ready for war.”

“Then why aren’t they at war?”

“Clearly, Jetanien and his peers have a larger objective—one that war does not serve.”

“If the Federation is unprepared to make war to hold its ground in the Gonmog Sector, we might find it easier to stake a claim here than we thought.”

“Perhaps.” She transmitted to Turag an image she had clandestinely recorded during the meeting between Jetanien and Sesrene. “In any event, Sesrene and the other Tholians appear to have recovered.”

“Any word yet on what caused their seizures?”

She shook her head. “None.”

“Jay’va,” Turag muttered. “If we could find the source, we could use it against them. It would be a great help when it comes time to conquer them.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Sandesjo said.

From the other end of the conversation, Sandesjo heard the beeping of a comm signal. “Lugok demands an update,” Turag said. “I must go. Qapla’.”

“Qapla’,” she said, then shut down the channel as quickly as possible. She had just locked her briefcase when the door to her quarters opened without warning.

Standing in Sandesjo’s doorway, shadowed by back-lighting from the corridor, was Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn.

“Good evening, Miss Sandesjo.”

She nodded politely, but her throat tightened. “Commander.”

T’Prynn walked in uninvited. The door closed behind her. Standing in front of Sandesjo, she drummed her fingertips once on the closed lid of the briefcase. “Working late?”

“Just finished,” she said.

“Good.” Moving with exaggerated slowness as if to prolong the moment, T’Prynn circled the table, trailing her right index finger along its edge. Her fingernail left a subtle gouge in the table’s varnish. “Then I am free to take my time.”

Sandesjo was convinced that T’Prynn’s dark brown eyes were staring clean through her pseudo-identity. The lithe Vulcan woman, who was slightly taller than Sandesjo to begin with, took advantage of the fact that the younger woman was seated and loomed over her. “Some things are best done by degrees,” T’Prynn said. “Do you concur?”

Sandesjo stared back with equal intensity. “Absolutely.”

T’Prynn’s hand shot forward and grasped a fistful of Sandesjo’s auburn hair. Sandesjo grabbed T’Prynn’s arm and dug her fingernails into the skin. Twisting Sandesjo’s hair as she pulled, T’Prynn yanked her, shrieking, from her chair and slammed her, back-first, against the wall.

The Vulcan woman’s kiss was rough and hungry. Sandesjo reveled in it until their lips parted. They both breathed heavily and eyed each other through chaotic locks of ferally tousled hair. Sandesjo gasped for breath through a delighted smile. “You’re early, my love.”

Saying nothing, T’Prynn gave Sandesjo’s hair another hard, aphrodisiacal twist and kissed her again. Blissfully surrendered into her lover’s embrace, Sandesjo savored the irony that not only had she forsaken Klingon tradition for the touch of other women, but that of all the women she might have loved she had lost her heart to a Vulcan.

Breaking free of the devouring kiss, T’Prynn tugged on Sandesjo’s sleeve and, moving with the languid grace of a slow-dancing flame, led her toward the bedroom.

The inevitable, eternal reproach of her ancestors haunted Sandesjo’s thoughts: They will never let me enter Sto-Vo-Kor. Sinking onto the bed beside T’Prynn, however, she decided that the dishonor of her next life would be a small price to pay for such a love in this one.

Hours later, Pennington returned home to his cluttered, search-tossed apartment and glowering wife. After drowning his sorrows in the pub nearest his apartment, a bout of the spins and an episode of public vomiting had left him with no choice but to call it a night.

Eyeing his miserable state, Lora sneered and said, “I see you’re taking the phrase ‘filthy, stinking drunk’ literally.”

He wanted to act aloof, but tears rolled freely from his eyes as he slurred out, “ ’Sbeen a miserable damn day.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “You have some sob story that explains why I haven’t seen or heard from you for twelve hours?”

“Liars!” He stumbled against the coffee table and kicked it over, impervious to pain for the moment. “I wanted truth with a capital ‘T’ and got crap.” As he staggered slowly to his liquor cabinet, his vision softened but his righteous anger didn’t. “Set me up, the bastards. Data card, Medina, all of it, just a sham.” He yanked open the cabinet door and fumbled to grab the whiskey.

Lora tried to steal the bottle from his hands. He refused to let go. “Put that down,” she said. “You’re drunk.”

“Am I?” With a violent tug, he pulled the bottle free of her hands. “Have you got physical evidence? A second witness?”

“What in God’s name are you going on about, Tim?”

The cork of the whiskey bottle came free with a delightful, hollow-sounding foop. He swigged a hefty mouthful and didn’t bother to sleeve the excess from his chin afterward. “I lost my damn job! They fired me…. Jesus, don’t you read the news?”

“This is about your Bombay story?”

“That’s what I always liked about you, Lora—you’re quick.”

She threw up her arms and stormed away from him, seeking the safety of a little distance. “Well, excuse me if I find you a little hard to follow when you come home a drunken mess.”

“They buried the whole thing,” he said, falling backward onto the couch. He grunted heavily on impact. “FNS denied the story.” He put the bottle to his lips and upended it, dumping a solid double down his throat. Seconds later, he felt sick. “And those bastards at the Federation Council…said they can’t go to war ’cause all the evidence is fake. Fake! Are they kidding?” He fumbled the bottle and spilled half its contents into his lap. He rubbed his face vigorously. It was numb to his touch. “Is this right? The goddamned Tholians killed her, but Starfleet does nothing! Is that fair? Am I supposed to call this justice?”

Lora folded her arms. “Who did they kill?”

“What do you mean, who…? They killed the whole damn crew, two hundred people, the team on the planet—”

“You said they killed her.”

Paralysis set in instantly. He grappled with his whiskey-fogged short-term memory, trying to replay his own words of a few seconds earlier. The warmth of the booze departed his face, which he felt turning cold and gray with dread. A shiver of guilty horror trembled his entire body.

His wife glared at him with a hatred like ice.

“What was her name?”

He had rehearsed a thousand lies in case this day ever came. Telling stories fleshed out with fine details was his stock-in-trade. He dealt by day in facts and obstinate truths, which had only given him a better appreciation for what they sounded like. Inventing a clever but unimpeachably simple cover story had been easier than he had expected. All that remained now was to let the story work its wonders.

Instead, his mouth blurted out “Oriana.”

Lora’s fury dissolved into agony, then she screamed with rage as she hurled her knickknacks at him, one after another. A porcelain rabbit pelted the top of his head. He yelped in pain as the horn of a pewter unicorn impaled his thigh. Pennington fell to the floor and retreated into a fetal curl behind the overturned coffee table as his wife continued her barrage.

When it finally ceased, he opened his eyes to find her sitting cross-legged on the other side of the room, weeping angrily into her palms. “You bastard,” she said between distraught whimpers. “Damn you.”

He was still too shell-shocked to leave the protective cover of the coffee table. “Lora,” he began, “I…I just—”

“Shut up, Tim. Just shut up.” She thrust her hands away from her face, revealing her tear-streaked makeup and swollen eyes. “I’m done talking to you. Get out.”

“It’s my apartment,” he said.

“You found another bed before, you can do it again. Get out.”

Pennington crawled first on to the couch, then he pushed himself back to a standing position from there. He picked up his bottle of whiskey, which lay on its side on the sofa. Inspecting it close up, he realized it was empty. He cast a bitter glare at Lora, then he turned and hurled the empty bottle into the bedroom. It shattered on the wall above the bed, sprinkling the sheets with countless shards of glass.