Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [14]
“Lieutenant,” said the captain, acknowledging her presence. He came around his desk, clearly in no great hurry, and sat down. “Thank you for coming.”
I didn’t know I had a choice in the matter, Bender thought. “Can you tell me why I’m here, sir?”
Picard nodded. “It’s Lieutenant Ulelo.”
Dikembe…? “Is he all right?”
“His health is not the problem.”
Bender didn’t understand. “Then what is?”
“Apparently,” said Picard, “Lieutenant Ulelo has been using his position as com officer to transmit technical data on the Stargazer to an unknown party.”
He might as well have said that Ulelo was a Regulan bloodworm. It would have made as much sense.
“There must be some mistake,” said Bender, her throat uncomfortably tight all of a sudden.
“I wish there was,” the captain said, with what seemed like utter sincerity. “Unfortunately, there is no question as to Ulelo’s guilt in this matter. He was caught red-handed—in the act, as it were.”
She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it. Not from Ulelo. “Can I speak with him?”
“Not at this time,” said Picard, “but soon enough.”
It wasn’t what Bender had hoped to hear. “If I could see him,” she asked, “get his side of the story…”
The captain frowned a little, but remained unmoved. “Clearly,” he said, “this comes as a shock to you. I expected no less. However, you are Ulelo’s closest friend on the Stargazer, and—as you can imagine—it is important to us to identify the recipient of his transmissions.”
There is no recipient, Bender insisted inwardly. It didn’t matter what anyone said. Ulelo couldn’t have done it.
Unaware of her thoughts, Picard went on. “Do you recall his having said anything, at any time, that might shed some light on this matter for us?”
She shook her head—too soon to give the captain the impression that she had fairly considered his question. But he didn’t take her to task for it.
He simply said, “Perhaps later, when you have had some time to think about it. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Bender was about to ask again to see her friend, but she could tell it wouldn’t do any good. Feeling numb and a bit unreal, she left Picard’s ready room and—abandoning the idea of eating anything—wandered in the direction of her quarters.
Chapter Five
WU GAZED AT LIEUTENANT ULELO across the yellowish shimmer of the electromagnetic barrier that incarcerated him. He was sitting on the bed provided for his use, looking up at her.
If Wu had expected Ulelo to look repentant, he wasn’t. He didn’t even look worried, though he had to know that he was headed for a Federation penal colony.
But he didn’t look arrogant either. More than anything, he reminded the second officer of a small boy, caught up in something he didn’t quite understand.
A small boy, Wu reminded herself, who had put one over on all of them, betraying his crewmates and sending information on any number of key operating systems to some mysterious third party.
She glanced at Pierzynski, the security officer on duty, and nodded. In response, Pierzynski fingered a code into the touch-sensitive, metal-alloy plate set into the bulkhead next to Ulelo’s cell.
A moment later, the barrier was gone. Wu stepped inside the enclosure, which housed a chair in addition to the prisoner’s bed, and then glanced at Pierzynski again. Inputting another code, the security officer restored the barrier.
Wu sat down in the chair and waited a moment. She wanted to see if Ulelo had anything to say for himself—protests of innocence, that sort of thing.
He didn’t. He just looked at her.
“Well,” she said finally, in an attempt to loosen things up, “to tell you the truth, I never pictured us having a conversation here in the brig.”
Ulelo frowned a little, but didn’t say anything in response.
It was all right. Wu hadn’t expected him to confess right off the bat. Not after he had run a covert operation for months without so much as a bead of sweat.
“I’d like you to answer some questions,” she said. “If you cooperate, it may make a difference in your sentence.”
He remained silent.