Free The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 by Arlene F. Marks

from hanging around until dinner. So you see, everyone on Daisy Hub knows what it’s like to be interrogated by a Ranger, and no one enjoys it. You can still ask questions — but make certain they’re honest questions. That way, you have a better chance of getting honest answers.”
    And he did want honest answers, Drew acknowledged, even if he had to lie to everyone on the Hub to obtain them.
    AdComm took up all of Deck C and was, literally as well as figuratively, the nerve center of Daisy Hub. It was also the most haphazard arrangement of office trappings Drew had ever seen. Glancing around, he was able to identify an assortment of display consoles, several stacks of security monitors, a half-dozen or so InfoComm units, two work tables, a couple of desks, five or six stray chairs, and a sprinkling of shoulder-high gray metal filing cabinets.
    “Where was Khaloub’s workspace?” he asked.
    “All of C deck,” Ruby replied matter-of-factly. “Except for my console and Lydia’s station, which is over there.”
    As his gaze followed Ruby’s pointing finger, Drew realized why he hadn’t noticed the other woman before. He could barely see her now.
    Lydia Garfield sat, fortressed by furniture, in a pie-shaped cranny just large enough for one person and a row of monitor screens. She was slim and very blonde. And she was shrinking. From the moment Ruby had pointed her out and the two of them had begun walking toward her, Lydia had grown visibly shorter behind her desk. She was a data nerd, Drew guessed, more comfortable around numbers than in the presence of living people. Perfect choice for a virtual reality programmer. And she’d been looking forward to meeting him? Sure, she had!
    As Ruby made the introductions, pretending to ignore the younger woman’s anxiety, Drew couldn’t help wondering how Lydia Garfield managed to function, let alone hold onto her Eligibility. Her eyes were darting all over the room, as though seeking out her next hiding place, a safer haven than the one in which she had just been discovered. Her shoulders shook. Her hands drew nervous figures in the air. And her discomfort was contagious. Drew had to stifle the impulse to grab her and hold her still — he was afraid she might die of fright, like a trapped bird. He shared her obvious relief when Ruby suggested continuing his tour on Deck D, maybe getting a bite to eat in the caf while they were there.
    The crew of this hub had quirks, Ridout had said. Eccentricities. But Lydia’s behavior went beyond eccentric. It strongly reminded him of those female vics who called Security after being sexually assaulted and then locked themselves in the closet. Clearly, there would be some further investigating to do once his mission for SISCO was accomplished.

Chapter 7
    “What can you tell me about Karim Khaloub?”
    In response, Ruby took another sip of her java, glancing up as Chef Jensen, a rotund man in his forties with a shock of frizzy brown hair, sank into the third chair at their small round table. The Daisy Hub caf was empty at this hour, and Jensen was obviously glad of the opportunity to get off his feet.
    “The man was a saint,” he declared.
    “No, he was a manager,” Ruby corrected him patiently. “Since I arrived here, there have been six individuals with the title of Station Manager, but only two of them have actually managed the station with any effectiveness — Nayo Naguchi and Karim Khaloub.”
    “Then Naguchi was a saint,” Jensen decided. “If he hadn’t made me a chef, I’d still be a grunt, inspecting airlock seals and replacing lightbars. He came in one day while I was fixing myself lunch, saw how much I enjoyed cooking, and asked if I would like to do it all the time. The very next day, I was reassigned to the kitchen and informed that I’d been enrolled to take Cordon Bleu courses via interactive Gate transmission.”
    Ruby was nodding agreement. “Nayo believed in order and discipline, but he also felt that