Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) by Jeffrey A. Carver Page A

for Bandicut to perch on. Meanwhile, a woman's face had appeared in the holoscreen. "Janie—get me Jackson, will you?" Stelnik said. He tapped his fingers on the table until the screen blinked and a middle-aged man's face appeared, wearing old-fashioned eyeglasses. "Cole," said Stelnik, "I've got Bandicut here with me."
    "So I see," said the face in the screen.
    "He was just about to tell me how he fried the electronics in that rover. You got the report, right?"
    "I did. I must say, John—I hope you have a good explanation." Jackson peered out of the holoscreen, stroking the underside of his chin with his fingertips.
    Bandicut cleared his throat. "Well, I—"
    "It says here that you were out of the approved sector, as well," Jackson said sharply. Stelnik, his eyes shifting back and forth between Bandicut and the screen, barely concealed a smirk. Was he hoping to add the firing of a negligent driver to his record of tough-minded management?
    Bandicut stirred and tried to think fast. "Well, as I said, I had an electrical malfie. I was just telling Lonnie here, I don't know exactly what went wrong. But the first thing that went was my nav. I missed the markers—and I, uh, don't know that particular stretch out there as well as some of the others." That last part, at least, was true.
    "Nav, huh?" Jackson did not look entirely convinced.
    "Nav and comm." He was thinking frantically now. "Something crisped itself in the electrical system, and eventually stopped me altogether for a while. And I, uh, just had to patch it together as best I could to get home. Napoleon came along right after I got the thing running again." He felt his face hot with anxiety as he struggled to sound convincing.
    /// You're doing fine. ///
    /I'm a lousy liar. I don't like lying. Why am I doing this?/
    /// Because if you tell people about me,
    our chances of success will diminish markedly. ///
    /Success?/
    /// Saving the Earth.
    I promise, I'll explain later. ///
    Bandicut sighed, not replying. Neither Jackson nor Stelnik had responded to his explanation. Stelnik's gaze was slanted down his nose again; Jackson looked worried, as though he might have to log something inexplicable on his reports, and how would that look on his job review? It was Jackson who spoke first. "The report from Pacho Rawlins called it the most... unusual ... malfunction he'd ever seen."
    Stelnik cackled and rocked forward. "That wasn't the way he phrased it in the report I saw."
    "Well, weird might have been the word he used," Jackson said.
    " Fucked was the word he used, Cole. He said it was the most fucked power compartment he'd ever laid eyes on."
    Jackson adjusted his eyeglasses. "Whatever. There's certainly no need to repeat Mr. Rawlins's vulgarity." His gaze shifted. "In any case—John, what can you tell us about that?"
    Stelnik rubbed his nose.
    Bandicut thought hard, and a possible explanation welled up in his mind. "I'm hardly an expert, Cole, but I figure it might be that some of those components, like that cable that broke loose that I had to arc-weld back together"—he couldn't believe he was saying this—"weren't quite as cryo-ready as they were supposed to be. You know, we have had trouble with that sort of thing before."
    Stelnik snorted, looking away. But Jackson squinted as he met Bandicut's gaze in the screen. "Well..." he said after a moment, "it's true, we have had our fair share of low-temperature problems."
    And if that were the explanation, it would make the work audit a lot simpler, wouldn't it? Bandicut thought, waiting for Jackson to bite. He could see Jackson trying to decide whether it was sufficiently credible for his superiors to accept.
    "I don't recall the robot's diagnostic report saying anything about cryo-failure," Stelnik said, making a sucking noise with his lips. "I'm not saying it's impossible, Bandicoot, but—"
    "But what? I had the thing running again by the time the robot got there." Bandicut shook his head in exaggerated disgust