BOUNDARY(102)

A.J. nodded, although Hathaway was quite sure that he had reservations. Reservations strong enough, in fact, that Ken would probably have problems with him if it did turn out to be Fathom.



But that was for a later day—which might never come.



In that respect, at least, A.J. obviously felt the same way he did. "Well," the imaging specialist said, "I just hope we never have to find out."





So do I, Madeline thought to herself as she shut off the recording. So do I.



Not that it would make a very big difference. She'd been expecting to hear that conversation, or one like it, right around now. A.J. was good, but he was only second-rate as a security specialist. More than good enough for basic civilian or low-level military stuff, to be sure, and he was probably a hell of a cracker if he wanted to be. But when you had the resources to draw on that Madeline did, a second-rater was only going to find what you wanted them to find.



Everything had to be a double blind whenever possible. One of the best ways of defusing effective resistance was to convince your opponents that they were smarter than you were, always just a step ahead. In this case, she'd arranged for fairly well-hidden back doors to exist—while burying her real back doors far deeper inside the system. It was the same strategy she'd used with respect to her martial arts capability.



Not quite the same strategy, she reminded herself. It wouldn't do to underestimate A.J. Baker. Her martial arts skills were hers alone, while in this case she was only about as good as A.J. in her own right. Not even that, really, given a level playing field.



But this wasn't a level playing field, not even close. The HIA could tap the best people in the world when it came to this sort of work. All Madeline had had to do was arrange access for one of them to assist in the coding. He'd done the rest.



Bugging Hathaway's office had not been difficult. It had been trivially easy, in fact, since no one had been expecting surveillance equipment to be installed aboard Nike. The military people and scientists who made up the crew just didn't think in those terms.



Now she had to decide if she'd gotten all the use out of the monitors that she could reasonably expect, or whether she should leave them in place. The longer they sat there, the more chance there was that someone would spot them.



A.J. was, once more, the major threat there. He scattered his Fairy Dust almost randomly at times. And, unlike those in use in engineering and other departments, A.J.'s sensor motes were not merely cutting-edge but bleeding-edge, customized in both their software and sometimes even hardware aspects. In fact, she had to grudgingly admit that they outperformed even the supposedly top-of-the-line stuff she'd been supplied for this mission. If A.J. ever decided to start looking for other sensor motes, she'd be busted. Martial arts was his exercise and computer systems his sideline, but sensor systems and detecting things that were hidden was A.J. Baker's expertise. He was probably the best in the world at it. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she could no more beat A.J. on that battlefield than he could beat her in an honest fight.



So the decision wasn't to be made casually. She'd gotten excellent intelligence from them so far. But was the chance of getting more such information worth the risk that A.J.—suspicions already aroused by finding the back doors—might decide to sweep the ship for other unauthorized activity?



"No," she answered herself aloud. She was already tap-dancing on land mines. The monitors she had in place to maintain surreptitious surveillance of Nike's personnel were already stretching the letter of the law. Even the military members of the crew would be furious, if they found out. The civilian members would completely blow their stacks, negating at one stroke all of Madeline's long and careful work to build up their trust and cooperation.



There was no point in keeping around extra ways of detonating the mines if she didn't really need them. She sent out the signal which caused the motes to move into the air system and allow themselves to be filtered out with the rest of the dust.



Then, was surprised at the relief that swept over her. It was disconcerting to realize just how uncomfortable she'd become with her role in this mission. She hadn't gotten the usual satisfaction seeing how neatly Ken and A.J. had followed her script. It had been almost painful to listen to them voicing their suspicions about her.



Jesus! I'm actually feeling guilty about this whole thing!



She shook her head and sighed. She still believed in her mission, even if she'd slowly come to detest it from a personal standpoint.



The worst aspect of the situation was that if she wanted to avoid the eventual confrontation, she had to hope that nothing particularly exciting or revelatory was discovered on this trip. Which meant that either way things went, her friends were going to end up disappointed—either in what they found in Phobos, or in what they found in her.