Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 48
The pilot was a young Acheroni woman with a buzz cut and an attitude. She only gave short and sullen answers, and she didn’t even try to hide her dislike for Dunstan’s authority. The medic was a tall and white-haired Oceanian who was friendly and almost gregarious, as if he had no worries about their situation at all. The mechanic was Oceanian as well. She was the only one who was nervous, the only member of the crew whose behavior fit the severity of their predicament, but Dunstan got the impression that she was mostly worried about her ship, not her personal fate. All of them had some mud splatters in their personal histories, but Dunstan knew what a crew of incorrigible hard cases looked like, and this was not one of those. The only other crew member was the ship’s comms officer and linguist, and he was the one whose background gave Dunstan concern.
“Aden Jansen,” Dunstan read off the projection from his terminal. “You’re the language expert.”
“I am,” the comms officer said in flawless Rhodian. His hair was slightly shaggy looking, and he had a short reddish beard that was just three days too old to be called stubble. From the way he had walked in, Dunstan could tell some military bearing.
“All the other crew members agree that you probably saved their lives,” Dunstan said. “When you figured out what your customers were talking about before they left your ship.”
Jansen smiled, but it was a curt smile, as if he was uncomfortable with receiving the credit. There was a nervousness radiating from him that wasn’t just worry about the possibility of being held in Rhodian Navy detention for a few weeks.
“So, good job on that,” Dunstan continued. “They all owe you a drink once the dust settles. I think you were right to warn them, and I think they were right to listen to you.”
“Thank you,” Jansen said. “But why do I have the feeling that you don’t just want to congratulate me and send me on my way?”
“First I have to figure out what I am dealing with here. Or who I am dealing with.”
Dunstan brought up a data screen.
“You see, when we submitted everyone’s ID passes to the system for a check, they all came back green. Except for yours. That one came back yellow. That means ‘pending.’”
He rotated the data field in the air between them so Jansen could see it as well.
“Now, there are good reasons why a background check might come back pending instead of an instant clearance. It could be that the link with the Oceanian database is a little shaky from all the way out here. But your three Oceanian crewmates all came back green instantly, so I don’t think that’s the issue.”
Dunstan put a hand on his chin and tapped the side of his nose with his index finger.
“A more common reason is that the data on the pass doesn’t quite match the database entries all the way, and that the system needs to do a more thorough algorithm check to give a certain reply.”
“I’ve used my ID pass to scan in all over the system,” Jansen said. “Never had an issue.”
“Those entry scans are running off a common database. The background check we ran goes through the respective planetary databases. Takes longer, but it’s more thorough.”
Jansen looked at him impassively, but Dunstan could tell that this was not a welcome development. There was a flicker in the linguist’s gaze that hadn’t been there just a few moments ago.
“When I get a yellow on an ID pass, I usually put in a system request for an extended ID check. That can take an hour, sometimes two. But I have no place else to be for a while.”
Dunstan extinguished the screen between them.
“I think that you really don’t want me to send that extended ID check request. I think that you paid someone a fair chunk of ledger for that pass, which is why you are getting through scan-ins everywhere. But I also think that it’s not your real ID. Or maybe it is, but you had the data tweaked a little. Maybe had something erased or added.”
Now there was definitely a whiff of panic in the linguist’s expression, and Dunstan took it as encouragement to press on while he had the man off balance.
“We can play this in two ways. I can put in the request, and we can wait for the return. If we go that way, we’ll be sitting here for a while. Or you can fess up and tell me why your ID pass is coming up yellow. Same result, but one will make me considerably less cranky.”
Jansen closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
“It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” Dunstan encouraged. “I may not even give a shit. I have a nuclear warhead to deal with today. I don’t care about a fake job clearance right now. Or whatever it is that’s making you all jumpy.”
Jansen opened his eyes again and suddenly seemed deflated somehow. It was like looking at a different person.
“I paid twenty-five K for it,” he said in a resigned voice. “It’s real, but the person on it isn’t.”
Dunstan nodded, pleased to have his instincts validated.
“So who is the real you? And remember, I may not care. I just like to know who I’m talking to. Especially when there’s a surprise nuke involved.”
“I’m Gretian. My name is Aden Ragnar. My service name was Aden Robertson. I was a prisoner of war on Rhodia until this May. I ended up on Oceana and bought a real-fake ID because I didn’t want to return to Gretia.”
“This May,” Dunstan