Cleve’s checklist has two more names on it, the Eke siblings. But before we go talk to people who might be happier returning to life in a dome, I have some ideas I want to explore with Roze. They have evidence that Morgan was the last person to leave Captain Garland’s quarters onboard Unity. It’s circumstantial, sure, but it could help destabilize his position on the board by tarnishing his reputation with fellow planetfallers. I do wonder what Morgan was up to, having Shu-Fen recover his cryopod under a gag order. Maybe because it’s evidence that he woke up early? If there’s a way to get our hands on that, we might have more fuel by this fire. If it hasn’t been destroyed, Morgan’s probably holding it close to his chest. Our current plans are to head in the opposite direction of the Morgan domes, so who knows when we’ll have a chance to follow up on that.
But someone else is still in the Morgan domes, someone who is in a position to act. When I track down Roze, I remind them, “I mentioned to you earlier that Morris has plans for the domes. If this is a good time for you to talk…?” They do me the courtesy of turning away from their computer, though with their eyepiece still down, they may very well not be giving me their full attention. “Morris wants to coordinate a network attack on Morgan Industries, and he needs Data Haven’s hacker expertise for that. So here’s a legitimate hackery way to contribute to interfering with Morgan’s power, at no personal danger to anyone here. If you don’t like having those exiles around, because they’d rather just go home to Morgan domes, Morris would be happy to take them back. If he could overthrow Morgan there, then those people could return and be out of your hair. This network disruption that he wants to plan is one of those things that could lead to that. And I’m sure that would be a fun computer project for you.”
It doesn’t take much convincing to get Roze to agree to such a project, but they feel no particular time pressure about tackling it. “The thing is,” I go on, “Louisa is here to touch base with Marina, but then she’s heading back to the domes. That’s an opportunity to deliver a packet of Data Haven contributions towards bringing down Morgan.” ¡Ah, sí! Maybe I can also get her to deliver a more personal package to Fritz. He was really taken with the quality of my clothes… If he can’t mend the absolutely ruined shirt and blazer, perhaps he can rework the material into something else. I’ll need to get them laundered… but that’s something to worry about later. I need to stop distracting myself. “Ah, anyway, that would be when you could pass information back to Fritz—er, I mean, Morris, about the network disruption he wants to do and give him a copy of the evidence Cleve brought you, more input to tarnish Morgan’s reputation and discourage support for what he’s doing. Are you willing to provide a copy of that? Or did you have some other plan of what to do with it?”
“If you trust this Louisa person, then yes, we can give her a copy of the data to share with Morris,” Roze agrees. I trust Louisa to take information back to the dome. I don’t trust her to do things non-violently, but I trust her to act in our interest. Roze adds, “I don’t know what good it will do, though, thirty years after the fact.”
“The potential avenue Morris is pursuing for destabilizing Morgan is Leyland Campos, one of the other board members. We had incriminating evidence of Morgan being involved in an illegal wolf beetle fighting ring, which I’ve already given to Morris. He’s going to follow up on that by getting that information to Leyland Campos. This can be more fuel for that fire.”
“So you have a plan for what comes after?”
I shrug and thankfully it’s not as painful a gesture as it was yesterday. “I don’t know what comes after an ouster of Morgan because I don’t know how that board is set up. If it’s just that a new chairperson gets put in place, Leyland Campos at least is not interested in the wastefulness of repo squads. So he’s got that going for him. And he’s interested in working with some native-grown materials, not destroying the whole environment of this planet. But I don’t know anything about any other board members there.” With a chuckle, I add, “Right now, Leyland Campos has my vote as the best of the two board members I know of.”
“I don’t think you get a vote,” Roze says, turning away from me back to their keyboard. A few keystrokes later, they present me with a data stick. “Here. I didn’t think this’d make a big stir, but you’re right. With Louisa going back, that gives us another chance to stick some wrenches into Morgan’s plans.”
I thank Roze and leave them to resume whatever it is they do with their hoard of data. Or to get started on their new programming project. That went really smoothly, and I’m pleased to have acquired something that can help unseat Morgan, as well as potentially give me more ammunition to use with the Ekes.