A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) by Robert Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

weren’t there. But Lewis was another matter. The unhinged planetologist had no fondness for Hamilton. It wouldn’t have surprised him to find out she’d squealed on the whole thing and tried to cut a deal.
    All of the Ulysses crew were present as well, barring Rames and the entire contingent of Marines. It seemed as if the inquest had quickly decided who was in charge of each group and had kept them back for longer questioning. Most of the rest had been interviewed just the once before being released into Q-section. The only exception was Klane, unsurprisingly, who had endured two full interviews and then a question session before she was allowed to rejoin the rest.
    The Ulysses crew had already filled in Hamilton’s companions on his reanimation and questioning by Rames. None of them knew what had been said between the two men and they had no idea beyond the obvious interception of the freighter what was going on. Rames had told them to cooperate with the investigation fully and not hold anything back. Not that they knew anything to hold back.
    That was one of the things that had set alarm bells ringing in Hamilton’s head during his questioning. Despite mentioning it himself, and no doubt the Ulysses senior officers saying as much, the interviewers had never asked him about his conversation with Rames in the med-bay. Not once. They were more interested in the cargo than in what the men might have said to one another.
    Once exposed to the Ulysses crew, Hamilton’s shipmates had spun them the same fake story they had all agreed upon, just in case there were any further question sessions to come. Rames himself had suggested it, but hadn’t been happy about deceiving his own crew. But they all needed to sing from the same hymn sheet, as it were. Rames wanted his crew to be ignorant of the deception, in case it all went pear-shaped.
    Once introductions had been concluded, Hamilton took Jones and Klane aside into one of the alcoves. A large number of fake plants had been arranged around alcove, cutting off the sight of anyone who might be watching. As Hamilton had attempted to do in his interviews, lip-reading was a possibility. Unlike Hamilton, however, the software that did it was far more accurate at working out what was being said. The plants precluded that possibility.
    Jones produced a small tangle of wires and circuitry from his pocket and set it on the table. He connected up a couple of wires and a steady orange light began to glow from somewhere amid the tangle.
    “Where did you get that from?” Hamilton asked. None of them had any possessions on them other than clothing.
    Jones shrugged. “I made it.”
    “Don’t tell me they have an electronics shop around here.” Hamilton joked.
    Jones grinned. “Nah. But it’s amazing what components you can find lying around the place.”
    Klane snorted. “They were only lying around after I put my foot through your room’s terminal.”
    Jones nodded. “You’re big and scary, but you do have your uses.”
    “Gee thanks!” Klane muttered. Despite the comment, she seemed to be pleased by the black man’s assessment.
    “I see they did some repairs on your cybernetics.” Hamilton noted to Klane.
    Jones groaned. “Oh! Now why did you have to go mentioning that.”
    Hamilton frowned at Jones. But his attention was drawn back to Klane, whose expression had darkened towards anger.
    “Look at this!” She complained, lifting a leg up onto the table and pulling the leg of her trousers up.
    “Looks like a leg to me. What’s the issue?” Hamilton asked. He could already see, but Klane would vent no matter what he said. He might as well help her along with it.
    “Exactly!” She exclaimed. “It looks like a leg. That’s the whole problem!”
    “I don’t get it.” Hamilton said innocently.
    She scowled at him. “Sure you do. It looks like a leg. It acts like a leg. It even feels like a leg! That’s the issue!”
    “At least you don’t have to have Carl lug