by C. Gockel
The stylus slipped from Alaric’s fingers.
In the pub, a woman said, “In some cultures, a kiss is a perfectly reasonable greeting—”
“Not on the lips openmouthed!” someone else protested.
“Sinclair!” Alaric demanded. “Show me what is happening to the ship.”
Sinclair glanced at the holo where the ambassador was being pulled from the pod. The android frowned, focused, and the holo changed. It showed the exterior of Time Gate 1—Alaric recognized the moon in the background—and there was Volka’s ship. Without her armor, the ship was a shimmering pearl. She sat motionless against the moon, but something was wrong. Alaric couldn’t say what. “Zoom,” Alaric ordered, forgetting where he was and who he was talking to, but the holo did zoom, and there, on the ship’s delicate hull, were tiny veins of gray worming their way across the surface. “Heat,” Alaric ordered. “Give the ship heat now.”
A voice rumbled from the holo and through speakers in the room. “Aye, Captain.” The room went deathly silent, and the voice added, “Sending in drones.” At the words, in the holo’s glow, hundreds of drones shot toward the ship.
“Is that voice Time Gate 1?” someone asked in the hush, in the same tone someone might ask, “Is that the voice of God?”
“Yes, it was,” Sinclair said.
“Nebulas,” someone whispered.
Alaric was too worried to contemplate their awe. He watched the drones descend on the ship, infrared pulses springing from them in concentrated beams aimed at the gray, diseased surface of her hull.
Sinclair murmured, “It is working.”
The android was tied to survey devices that surely had a better view. The android also had no reason to lie. Still, Alaric worried. Oddly, not just for Volka, but for the ship itself, even though it had pulled him into more than one uncomfortable shared daydream. But the dreams had been … interesting … and necessary. It was an entity. It was alive. And it was trying, in its alien, uncomfortable way, to help. For a moment, his eyes blurred, and he saw Volka in her armor, Carl Sagan in her arms. Behind her was the landscape of the alien colony ship, around them was the familiar deep hush. Her ears came forward as they did when she was surprised, and then she said, “Don’t worry. It was a close call, but Sundancer was able to jump just as the infection began. She will be fine.”
She’d read his mind again. He felt indignant. Her face flushed, perhaps in response to his indignation.
Alaric stifled his irritation. “And you will be fine, too.” He was relieved by that, all other things aside.
Volka gave him a tentative smile. “Yes.”
Neither of them said what was unspoken. “For now.”
Alaric exhaled, and he was back in the pub. Conversation was swirling around him. Sinclair was staring at him.
“Yes, it’s working,” Alaric said.
The android raised an eyebrow.
In the crowd behind them, Alaric heard someone say, “But the SH44 is the best you can do in a hover sedan—”
“Change the holo back to the ambassador,” he told Sinclair.
Sinclair nodded, turned his head to the holo, and an instant later, Alaric was watching the ambassador being pushed into a cell with a ceiling too low to stand and no furniture. The camera jumped forward and seemingly bounced across the floor and then rolled, its focus coming to a rest on the old man, gazing down at it in horror. “We will talk when you recover,” said the Dark Infected man who’d kissed him, somewhere out of the camera’s view. A door whooshed shut in the background.
Around the pub, the change in the conversation took a turn that made Alaric’s heart sink. “Let’s get out of here,” he told the android. Grabbing his stylus, he turned and left, not bothering to see if he was followed.
Alone, in his hospital room, Alaric’s stylus flowed across the tablet, hand aching from the furious pace of his scrawl.
—and then, Alexis, after they saw the man thrown into the cell, someone suggested that the command was for him to “recover from his trip.” Someone else suggested the cell was perfectly reasonable accommodation since it is a research station and “spartan.” Or they excused the whole scene by declaring that they “couldn’t see the whole picture.” When I left the pub, they were still arguing about whether the presence of the strange Galactican craft constituted an act of war.
On leaving, I expressed my frustrations to my android minder. He, at least, seemed to agree with me. Such strange times we live in when androids are our allies and our fellow humans are not. Alexis, that isn’t precise. The Galacticans aren’t our enemies, and they are not evil; they just are too trusting.
I fear this war is one we’ll fight alone.
He paused, closed his eyes, and remembered … Opening his eyes, he wrote:
I think of you now, bringing your translations to bed, falling asleep with them on your lap. I did not think it was possible to admire you more for your dedication, but being here, among so much willful ignorance, puts your quest for truth in starker contrast. It is worth it, Alexis. I know it will be. You will find some way we can defeat the Dark.
You put your considerable curiosity and tenacity to work for Markus, and now you fight for all of Luddeccea’s children. I should not be surprised you do so, and maybe surprised isn’t the word. Awed?
If anyone decries your efforts to get weere to the Republic to help in their security efforts, please let me know so I may punch them in the jaw. Someone has to be here with the sense to fear it.
I wish I was able to help you fight. I feel next to useless now, though I’d be truly useless without the help of the Republic’s doctors. They say I will heal, and I have no doubt Luddeccea will let me come home or at least return to duty above you.
Until then, I am, as always,
Yours,
Alaric
A light blinked at the top of the tablet. The Luddeccean Embassy was in Chicago, and it was three in the afternoon there. He needed to send the missive now to give Luddeccean Intelligence a chance to approve it. He almost pressed send—and then he realized that nothing he’d written would make it past the censors. Admit that their allies would fail them? Not acceptable. Admit that he got along well with an android? Heresy. Even mention of her translations would likely be nixed because it verified her importance to Luddeccea. Just admitting that he’d needed Republic medical intervention would be considered dangerous.
All the letters he’d written to his parents had been confiscated during Alexis’s treatment … What had he been thinking? The stylus sagged in his hand. He’d been missing his wife at the most inconvenient time, and he’d been angry after his experience in the pub. He’d lost his head. Growling with frustration, he deleted the letter and scrawled out a hasty note instead. He sent it off with not a second to spare, hoping she’d understand.
15
Divisions on the Homefront
Luddeccea : New Prime
Alexis signed “Night, night,” but Markus had already gone to sleep. She held him a long moment. It was Saturday afternoon, and he’d had no carer today. She was grateful for the help during the week but savored the moments on the weekend when she had him alone. She almost touched his nose, but reminded herself he did need his nap, or she’d pay later. Padding softly to the crib, she laid him down and then noticed the house was unusually quiet. With two young boys, perhaps dangerously so.
Wondering what mischief they’d gotten into, she exited the room. In the hallway, she heard Silas’s new assistant saying, “Shall I prep this canvas, Mr. Darmadi?”
And Silas’s response, “Yes, that would be a big help, Joel—and call me Silas.” She heard the cheery sound of Silas’s brushes clinking in the can he kept his solvent in, but not a peep from Sam and Lucas. She went down the stairs. Hearing the boys’ voices outside, she looked out the front window. The sun had been covered by clouds all day, and it was unusually cool. The boys were passing a ball on the lawn. Sebastian, Alaric’s cousin, was off duty and kicking the ball with the
m. Sebastian had been there when Alaric had taught Alexis to shoot. Seeing him made her think of that last day with Alaric—everything that had seemed right that had turned subtly wrong at the last, worst moment. She shook herself. She was being overly paranoid. Standing on her tiptoes, she spied other members of her guard off in the distance. The boys could never get in too much trouble outside, she decided, going to the back of the house and the kitchen for a drink. There were so many men watching the grounds, nothing could escape their notice.
“Meep.”
Alexis blinked. Had that sound come from the kitchen’s door to the back garden?
“Meep.” There was the tiniest scratch at the door, so faint she thought she’d imagined it. It was followed by a blood curdling, “Roaaaarrrrrkkkk” that made her jump. Ptery wings flashed past the kitchen window.
A terrified “Meeeeep!” came from behind the house.
Alexis ran to the back door, flung it wide, and saw an enormous ptery hopping just past the stoop. Leathery wings spread, its eyes were at something just at her feet, something that was terribly small, white, and half hiding under the woven rope doormat. “Meep!” it cried.
Another ptery landed behind the first. Shrieking, the first darted toward the tiny shape, long, sharp beak clacking.
Bending down, Alexis scooped up the ptery’s intended lunch. Both pterys rose in the air and shouted at her. She shut the door fast, and only then did she look down at what she’d rescued. It was the tiniest werfle she’d ever seen.
“Oh,” Alexis murmured, holding it up and examining it. She could feel both its little hearts beating under her fingers, and its fur was downy soft. It had blue eyes, which she’d never seen in a werfle, black fur on its chest in the shape of a star, and black fur on its ear tips, nose, and the tip of its tail. “You’re darling,” Alexis breathed. She felt a jolt of fear—it could be wild and venomous—and then relaxed. It was too young. That was the only reason the pterys had dared to attack. She frowned. It was far too young. “You shouldn’t be away from your mothers and your father,” she told it.
“Chirp,” it replied.
“They’ll miss you, and you need your second mother’s milk.”
It wrapped tiny little paws around her thumbs and squeezed as though holding on for dear life. “Squeak!”
Outside, the pterys squawked.
“Well, of course I won’t put you out there with them.”
Its chest vibrated, and Alexis bent her ear close and heard a barely audible purr.
“Poor baby.” She pursed her lips. “I’ve heard that chicken eggs are a near perfect food for werfles of all ages.”
The purr increased in volume, almost as though it understood her. Alexis couldn’t help smiling. She was wearing a casual dress with wide front pockets. She slipped the creature into one before going to the refrigerator to retrieve an egg. A few moments later, she was watching the hatchling lap it from a saucer on the counter. Her mother would never have abided a wild animal on a kitchen counter, but it was so small, a misstep would squish it. Alexis ran her fingers between its ears, and it purred contentedly. She wasn’t aware of herself bowing beside it, eyes lowering until they were at the level of the creature’s own, until the doorbell rang.
Alexis stood up with a start. Who would come on a Saturday and be able to pass through the security gauntlet without an invitation? She went cold. Was this the visit every Guard wife feared—the visit from officials to let them know their husband had died? She closed her eyes. Once, she’d almost thought it would be easier that way. Widowhood would have challenges, but at least she’d always know where she stood. But now … Things with Alaric were not perfect, but their relationship, in many ways, had just begun. The werfle nuzzled her hand, and the doorbell rang again. Squaring her shoulders, Alexis left the kitchen and went to the front of the house. She heard Silas on the stairs but answered the door herself.
She expected someone she didn’t know, some anonymous officers to come deliver the news that her husband had died, but it was Captain Ran.
“Alexis,” he said. He was wearing his Dress Greens and holding out his hand. She blinked down at it, confused.
“Your mail. I thought I would deliver it personally,” Ran said.
This was not how these scripts went. Madame, we are sorry to inform you … That was how the script went. For a moment, Alexis couldn’t move, but then she took the letters. The one on top was clearly Guard Post. Guardsmen were allowed to send letters by lightbeam, or, Alaric had admitted, even Q-comm if they were very far afield. They were printed by machines when they reached Luddeccea. The paper was cheap, thin, and gray, the address in a square font with ink that was smudged across the envelope. There was no postage.
Was it a last message from Alaric? She ripped it open.
The message was printed in a replica of Alaric’s small, neat hand:
My Dear Wife,
I am well. I am not sure when I will be coming home. I’m thinking of you and the boys.
Yours -
Alaric
Her heart fell. It was short, even by Alaric’s standards. Was he still angry? She swallowed at a worse thought—but Ran wouldn’t hand her the letter and then declare, “Sorry, ma’am, he is dead.” He wouldn’t be so cruel, would he? The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
“It doesn’t tell you anything,” Ran said, startling her.
Alexis’s eyes met his.
He smiled wryly. “May I come in?”
No, she wanted to say. Something about this visit didn’t add up. Where was her guard? Sebastian was holding the ball, eyes on Ran, the boys oblivious, running around him, begging him to play with him. She glanced to the side.
“I relieved your guard,” Ran said.
He could do that? She wanted him to come in even less now.
“I have information on Captain Darmadi’s whereabouts,” he said. “Information that must be kept private.”
Holding the door open, Alexis stepped aside, and Ran stepped into the house. A motion at the top of the stairs caught her eyes just before she shut the door. Glancing up, she saw Silas, Joel just behind him, on the landing. Silas’s expression was unreadable. Joel’s eyes were narrowed and glowing eerily in the shadows. She was grateful to find herself not alone, but remembering Ran had dismissed her guard, she touched her lips for silence. Silas nodded infinitesimally.
Alexis snuck in the sign for “thank you” as she turned to Ran. Gesturing toward the sitting area in the front room, she plastered a smile on her face. Normally, the library was the place for such visits, but she wanted to stay in hearing distance of Silas. Staring at Ran’s back as he entered the sitting area, she realized she wasn’t carrying her pistol. She’d protested when Sebastian had insisted she wear it before, but now she wished she had it. Not that she was afraid of Ran. She didn’t think he’d hurt her, and yet—what if it hadn’t been Ran? Who would it be, though? What dangerous person could make it through her security? Was she being ridiculous?
“Would you like some tea?” she asked with a practiced smile.
Coming to a halt, he pivoted on a heel and smiled at her. It was a smile that seemed as insincere as her own. The one she wore dissolved.
“No, I won’t be staying long,” he said. “I just thought you’d like to know that Alaric was injured.”
Alexis took a step forward. “He wasn’t infected?” God, no. She wouldn’t wish treatment for the Dark on her worst enemy or even Alaric on their worst days.
Ran held up a hand. “No.”
Alexis relaxed.
He paced a step, gaze shifting to the window. “His ship was destroyed and a bit of the hull pierced his abdomen when it did.”
She crossed her arms. Abdominal wounds were deadly. Besides the risk of damaged organs, there was always the potential for sepsis. But he wasn’t dead—Ran had just told her so. How could that be?
“He was in the Republic at the time,” Ran said. And that explained it. But did she hear bitterness in his
voice? His lips made a thin line and Alexis tried to interpret the expression. Disappointment? Ran had once been Alaric’s first officer. Alaric had said Ran had been “eager to please.” That observation didn’t match his expression or tone.
Ran continued, and Alexis swore she could hear anger in his voice. “Somehow they were able to pick him up in time and get him to the medical facilities on Time Gate 1. We have been assured he’ll make a full recovery.”
He looked back at her. “I thought you should know.” He glanced down at the letter. “They always censor letters from the Republic.” He straightened. His lips turned up at one side in what should have been a reassuring smile. “I’m sure he’ll get on well while he’s there. Crew always used to joke that Alaric was practically a robot himself.”
Well that … was just insulting. Alexis gave him a bland smile. “Thank you for coming here and letting me know.”
He took a step toward her. She held her ground, and when he looked into her eyes, she refused to look away.
“He spent a great deal of time aboard Time Gate 1 while you were recovering,” Ran said.
Alexis lifted her chin, never so glad of her ability to lie. “He’s a devoted husband.”
“Really?” Ran asked.
“Yes,” Alexis snapped.
Lifting his eyebrows, Ran looked away. “Some might say he was too eager to spend time in the Republic.”
“Some might say all sorts of things,” Alexis countered. Though she felt herself grow cold. How often had she heard Alaric say, “Sometimes I think I was born on the wrong side of the Kanakah Cloud?”
Ran put his hands behind his back and paced a step away from her. “He has … connections … in the Republic.”
That weere. Alexis gulped. Alaric said it was over, but he’d never said he didn’t love the weere woman. Was the bitch with him now? She wrapped her arms around herself, and caught sight of Sam and Lucas outside, and thought of Alaric playing Robots and Guardsmen with them in the garden. She thought of Markus asleep upstairs, and Alaric learning sign language to be able to speak to him. “His connections here are stronger,” she said with more certainty than she felt.
