Last Plane to Heaven by Jay Lake Page A

looking at that had made her so interested in what he’d seen? Those eyes flashed edged and dangerous in his memory. He almost asked the ship where she was, but a question like that would be reported, drawing more attention than it was worth.
    Maduabuchi closed his eyes for a moment, screwing up his courage, and opened the data run.
    It cascaded across the screens, as well as virtual presentations in the aerosolized atmosphere of the Survey Suite. Much more than he’d seen when he was in here before—plots, scales, arrays, imaging across the EM spectrum, color-coded tabs and fields and stacks and matrices. Even his Howard-enhanced senses had trouble keeping up with the flood. Captain Smith was far older and more experienced than Maduabuchi, over half a dozen centuries to his few decades, and she had developed both the mental habits and the individualized mentarium to handle such inputs.
    On the other hand, he was a much newer model. Everyone upgraded, but the Howard Institute baseline tech evolved over generations just like everything else in human culture. Maduabuchi bent to his work, absorbing the overwhelming bandwidth of her scans of Tiede 1, and trying to sort out what it was that had been the true object of her attention.
    Something had to be hidden in plain sight here.
    *   *   *
    He worked an entire half shift without being disturbed, sifting petabytes of data, until the truth hit him. The color coding of one spectral analysis matrix was nearly identical to the green flash he thought he’d seen on the surface of Tiede 1.
    All the data was a distraction. Her real work had been hidden in the metadata, passing for nothing more than a sorting signifier.
    Once Maduabuchi realized that, he unpacked the labeling on the spectral analysis matrix, and opened up an entirely new data environment. Green, it was all about the green.
    â€œI was wondering how long that would take you,” said Captain Smith from the opening hatch.
    Maduabuchi jumped in his chair, opened his mouth to make some denial, then closed it again. Her eyes didn’t look razored this time, and her voice held a tense amusement.
    He fell back on that neglected standby, the truth. “Interesting color you have here, ma’am.”
    â€œI thought so.” Smith stepped inside, cycled the lock shut, then code-locked it with a series of beeps that meant her command override was engaged. “Ship,” she said absently, “sensory blackout on this area.”
    â€œAcknowledged, Captain,” said the ship’s puppy-friendly voice.
    â€œWhat do you think it means, Mr. St. Macaria?”
    â€œStars don’t shine green. Not to the human eye. The blackbody radiation curve just doesn’t work that way.” He added, “Ma’am.”
    â€œThank you for defining the problem.” Her voice was dust dry again.
    Maduabuchi winced. He’d given himself away, as simply as that. But clearly she already knew about the green flashes. “I don’t think that’s the problem, ma’am.”
    â€œMmm?”
    â€œIf it was, we’d all be lining up like good kids to have a look at the optically impossible brown dwarf.”
    â€œFair enough. Then what is the problem, Mr. St. Macaria?”
    He drew a deep breath and chose his next words with care. Peridot Smith was old, old in a way he’d never be, even with her years behind him someday. “I don’t know what the problem is, ma’am, but if it’s a problem to you, it’s a command issue. Politics. And light doesn’t have politics.”
    Much to his surprise, she laughed. “You’d be amazed. But yes. Again, well done.”
    She hadn’t said that before, but he took the compliment. “What kind of command problem, ma’am?”
    Captain Smith sucked in a long, noisy breath and eyed him speculatively. A sharp gaze, to be certain. “Someone on this ship is on their own mission. We