Alliance of Equals

by Sharon Lee

  “Yes, Father,” she said, and gave him a fond smile that he found to be sincere on all the levels accessible to him. “Truth told, I am a little tired.”

  She was more than a little tired, but he held his tongue, and forbore from probing more deeply, drilling for stone.

  Instead, he gave her a smile, and allowed his love for her to sweep out and envelop her as he rose, and walked her to the door.

  “Sleep well, child,” he said softly, gently reinforcing the impulse to sleep.

  “Yes, Father,” she said, and stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.

  —•—

  “So, nothing yet?”

  That was Vez, coming in for her shift. She threw a fast glance at the change-over board, but she’d see the answer on his face, easy enough.

  “Nothing yet,” Stew said anyway. It’d become a ritual, like they’d taught at home, before he got tired of ritual and hired himself off-world.

  He was plenty tired of this ritual, too, and even tired of the fear that was the reason for it.

  “Still peaceful,” he said, watching the screen—the screen, divied up into eight sections: one section each for the ships that made up the being who called hisself Admiral Bunter; the eighth displayed the boundary beacon, where a ship Jumping in would show first.

  Vez sighed, and came over to stand at his shoulder, looking at the screen in her turn.

  “How much longer you figure on waitin’, Stew?”

  “Still got eight days on the stationmaster’s word, last time I counted,” he said, stiffer then maybe he’d oughta been.

  Him and Vez, they worked good together; they consulted and kept each other in the loops. Not that there been all that many loops at Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop, nor crises, neither.

  Except for the one they had now, and it was a doozy. Seven near-derelict ships, keeping station—keeping watch. He oughta’ve known better than to take an independent logic on, but…the logic—Admiral Bunter—had saved the station’s bacon; and he had some manuals; and he’d always been good with tech, and…

  …he’d been overconfident, is what. Shoulda dismantled the old ships first thing. Should never have let that little captain talk him into keeping what she’d done. Made it sound so damn reasonable. Made it sound like there wasn’t going to be no problems at all.

  “Been peaceable, lately,” he said quieter, and heard Vez sigh; felt her hand come down light on his shoulder.

  “Ain’t been anything but a couple junk haulers in, since,” she said. “How do we know what it’ll do, if we get in a ship full o’marines, or some miners lookin’ for a good time?”

  It. Yeah, well. Vez was looking at a malfunctioning machine, which was worrisome enough for Vez, Stew thought. Independent logics was make-believe, to Vez, something like you’d read about in Thrilling Space Adventures and get all over shivery for a minute.

  “Somebody with family. Connections,” Vez continued, her fingers pressing hard into his shoulder, “’stead of a rag-edged rimrunner?”

  Stew shrugged and moved out from under her hand.

  “Still got eight Standard days,” he said, turning to face her.

  Vez pressed her lips together, and shook her head. He braced himself for maybe a cussing-out, but her voice was even, and reasonable.

  “We got the cannon up and targeted,” she said.

  Well, that wasn’t no good news, and a bad plan, too.

  The idea was to target all seven pieces of Admiral Bunter at once, and blow him to Galaxy Nowhere before he knew there was a threat.

  Problem being that Stew was…pretty sure the Admiral knew about the cannon. He was slow, but he was thorough. Observant, too. And, to be fair, the cannon was a better idea than Vez’s first, that they just send a tech onto each deck to decommission the comps.

  That, in Stew’s not-exactly-uninformed opinion, would’ve been suicide. Admiral Bunter’s personality was shared around thirteen comps in the seven old ships. He’d know what was going on the minute the first tech went for main comp. And he’d act to defend himself, which anybody would, and there would be seven dead techs, and an angry Admiral Bunter.

  “We don’t know the cannon’ll work,” he said to Vez. “We can’t afford to have him mad at the station. So far, he don’t see us as a threat; he sees us as something he’s responsible for protecting. If we made a move that causes him to suspect we’re trying to kill him—I can’t answer to that, Vez. Nor I might not have to. Those ships can take out the whole station.”

  “And they will. It’s not stable, Stew.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know that. I just—let’s just wait a little longer, Vez, right?”

  She sighed, but—

  Vez nodded. “Day nine, we still got nothing, we use the cannon.”

  Stew shook his head.

  “Day nine, we still got nothing, we pull the whole crew together and we go over the situation. Come up with a plan.”

  He reached up and resettled his cap on his head, reached to the screen to sign himself out and shut down Up-Shift accounting—and snatched it back as the bell sounded—the bell from the boundary beacon, announcing a ship incoming.

  “Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop,” the beacon’s rusty voice came across broadband. “Please identify yourself, and your purpose: repairs, refuel, supply. Please supply standard ID compressed cross-load and active voice broadcast.”

  The beacon was a long way out—but neither him nor Vez moved, nor maybe breathed, waiting for the ID to come across.

  Some clicks on audio; then the high ping of an ID arrival alert.

  There was a delay before the voice answer came, crisp as if the pilot was talking in Stew’s ear.

  “Ahab-Esais, out of Waymart, Pilot First Class Inkirani Yo. Repairs.”

  Stew stepped to his console, and opened a direct line. The ship showed up now on radar as a small courier-class blip, in a neat and proper approach orbit.

  “Ahab-Esais, this is Repairs. If you transmit a list of your necessaries, we can get started pulling what we’ll need to fix you up and give you orbital vectors for a connect to the yard or the shop.”

  Again the delay of light, and now the commlink even brighter, like the pilot was using directional homing.

  “I thank you,” the crisp voice said in his ear. “My necessity is to speak with Master Mechanic Steward Vannigof. He had requested my assistance.”

  The station seemed to rotate around Stew. He grabbed onto the edge of the console and let relief take him.

  “Yard,” he said, touching a different comm slot, “Yard and security. Be advised incoming will visit the station by invitation.”

  It was automatic, now, to tell the Admiral to keep him calm, and to be sure everyone was alert for trouble when a ship got close. What he couldn’t say and hoped didn’t show, was his exquisite relief.

  The expert—the one he’d sent for, after it seemed clear that Cap’n Waitley’s expert didn’t have no time for Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop…

  The expert had finally arrived.

  —•—

  Before the Passage left Surebleak, Aunt Anthora had given Padi a Name Day present. Never mind that her last Name Day had passed inside Runig’s Rock, or that her next would very likely be celebrated aboard the Passage. It was never wise to attempt to reconcile Aunt Anthora with mundane realities.

  So Padi had received, with all due gratitude, a bath set: soaps and shampoos and lotions, all scented with lavender. A small luxury, Aunt Anthora had said, putting the box into Padi’s hands. A small luxury, niece, against a time when you may wish to smell like flowers.

  Smelling like flowers was certainly better than smelling like Chesselport—or like fear. Padi had therefore carried one of the smaller soaps and a vial of shampoo into the ’fresher with her. The lather on her skin was creamy and sweet; the scent reminding her of home—of Trealla Fantrol, where there had been a planting of lavender directly below her window.

  Yawning, still Padi took time to wash her hair twice, and to thi
nk grateful thoughts to Aunt Anthora.

  Now, warm and sweet-smelling, she sat on the edge of her bunk, and reached out to pick up the bowl the artisan had given her at Andiree.

  It rested lightly in her palms: the blue surfaces agreeably textured, the white surfaces as smooth as ice. Yet, for all of its lightness and beauty, it was not fragile; it was in no danger of being broken.

  Like Uncle Val Con’s special knife, Padi thought, the crystal blade that was given to him by his Clutch Turtle brother.

  And who would think of using weapons-grade crystal in a glaze to protect—art?

  Art and weaponry would seem to stand on opposite hills, and yet here they were, each nature complementing the other.

  If only she could turn that trick, she thought—and yawned, suddenly and widely.

  Well, yes; she was tired. She had said as much to Father, and promised him that she would nap. The shower…but the shower had loosened muscles tight with the aftermath of fright, and the lingering scent of lavender lulled with memories of home.

  She put the bowl gently back in its place on her bunkside table, and slid under the blanket. Settling her cheek against the pillow, she sighed, once, and slid into sleep.

  —•—

  It had been a quick skim in-and-out at Bieradine; clustering subsequent Jumps as close as was prudent, for human health. Pilot Tocohl was eager, now, to reach the site of their assignment, this Jemiatha Station, or, as it called itself, the Jumble Stop. It offered supply and repair, and kept an astonishingly large yard of out-of-service ships from which to draw parts.

  “So far out from the more traveled routes,” Hazenthull had said to Tolly, “why do they have so many?”

  “Prolly because they’re remote,” Tolly’d answered. “Out in back-space, a lot of the ships’re old—working a hundred Standards or more. Makes sense to keep parts for ships that’re the same age as your customer’s work-boat.”

  It was fortunate, for Jemiatha Station and also for the being that Tolly and Pilot Tocohl hoped to…educate, that the location was so remote. One pilot and her ship had died, through what Hazenthull’s comrades deemed an error of ignorance. They were there to assure that another such error was not made.

  Tolly had told her that education was key.

  “Poor fella wakes up into himself without any parameters, except only that the station’s under attack and it’s his duty to protect the station. First thing he does, without even properly knowing the why of it, is kill a ship and all aboard. Next time he sees a problem, it’s no wonder he applies the same solution—it’s the only answer he’s got. It’s gonna be my job—mine and Pilot Tocohl’s—to teach him better, show him there’s a wide range of answers, and how to sort his problems down from Code Red.”

  “What if,” Hazenthull had said then, for she was very curious regarding this process and what Tolly was about as a mentor. It had become apparent, in their talks at board together, and at meals, that he considered this work, above all others, his work, and she hoped that she would be privileged to see him at it.

  “What if he does not learn?”

  She was immediately sorry that she had asked, for Tolly’s face had turned grim, and he had seemed a soldier in that instant, duty lying heavy across his neck.

  “If he can’t learn…won’t learn…then we’ll shut him down,” he said heavily.

  “But you do not think that will be necessary.”

  “Well—I hope it won’t be necessary,” Tolly said, his grin not quite sincere. “You know me, Haz—always looking for the good outcome.”

  Tolly was resting now, and Pilot Tocohl was at study, leaving Hazenthull alone on the tidy bridge, sitting copilot’s duty, watching the countdown in the corner of the Jump-grey screens.

  The last number cleared, the screen came live, and for the next while, her thoughts were those of a pilot newly reentered into normal space. Though the pilot’s chair was empty, she received the appropriate information from first board. Pilot Tocohl was, in a sense, always at her board, which, given her nature, was hardly a surprise. Still, it had taken several breaking-ins before Hazenthull was comfortable with what Tolly laughingly called the Ghost Pilot.

  The door to the bridge opened as they came into range of the first beacon, and Pilot Tocohl soundlessly took her chair—or, rather, hovered above it—her delicate hands moving along the various switches and toggles.

  “All’s well, Pilot,” Hazenthull said. The pilot surely knew so, but she’d found that she not only needed to state the obvious, but, on the two occasions when she had made an attempt not to do so, the pilot had prompted her for a status report.

  “Excellent,” Pilot Tocohl answered. “Wake Pilot Tolly, please. I want him with us on the bridge when we approach the station.”

  “Yes, Pilot.”

  Hazenthull opened the line to Tolly’s quarters and relayed the message, receiving a sprightly, “I’m on my way!” in return.

  Nodding, Hazenthull closed the line, just as the comm light snapped on.

  An auto-voice came, a little too loudly, over broadband. Hazenthull adjusted the volume down, and felt a foolish tightening of her stomach.

  “Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop. Please identify yourself, and your purpose: repairs, refuel, supply. Please supply standard ID compressed cross-load and active voice broadcast.”

  There was other traffic in the system, which the ship noted, as did the pilot, and the beacon message repeated—an endless loop, if it received no answer.

  Hazenthull raised her eyes to Tochol, to see who would answer the beacon, and by then Tolly arrived, still adjusting his shirt. His eyes were on the big screen, then—

  “Those,” he said pointing to seven mismatched dots ranged well away from the busyness of the station’s core cloud. Dots that were somehow not the station’s stock-in-trade but something more.

  “Those are the Admiral.”

  Hazenthull allowed a slight smile to form on her lips. Tolly pretended to be an amateur in everything, yet it wanted the eyes of a well-seasoned pilot to pick out and understand those dots on the screen.

  “Please announce us, Pilot Hazenthull,” Tocohl said gently. “Mentor, your attention here, if you will.”

  Tolly moved to the pilot’s side, taking an earbud from her hand. Hazenthull keyed the comm. “Tarigan, out of Waymart. Copilot Hazenthull nor’Phelium. We seek long-term docking.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jemiatha’s Jumble Stop

  Hazenthull and Tolly went together to the Repairs side of the station, him walking two of his short steps ahead on her left, so as not to impede her, should she have to pull her weapon. It was the configuration they had worked out as most efficient for them, as partners in Surebleak Port Security, and Hazenthull took comfort from it. Let those they passed in the narrow halls grin outright at the disparity in their heights—that had happened often enough on Surebleak Port. And they had soon enough learned that the “tall and small team” was effective. Possibly, they would learn so, here, though it was Tolly and Pilot Tocohl who would carry the honor of the team.

  Pilot Tocohl, they had left aboard Tarigan, so that she might complete her studies. That was well enough, though Hazenthull wondered what sort of study might keep the pilot, with all of her advantages, so long.

  She dared not ask Tolly, not here in the halls when anyone might hear. Perhaps she would ask Tocohl herself, when they were all three again aship.

  In the meanwhile, here came the door to the Repairs section. The name of their contact was Stew, being the person with whom Pilot Waitley had lately dealt.

  Pilot Waitley was the Scout’s blood-sister, as the matter had been explained to the House Troop. She was not herself either a Scout or a soldier, though she commanded her own vessel. Hazenthull had met the pilot when she had recently visited Surebleak, and had thought her young for command, even for one of the Scout’s kin. Certainly, she was not beyond error, even, as Tolly would have it, grievous error.

  “It’s like leaving a ne
wborn baby to fend for himself, what she did!” he had exclaimed during one of their team sessions. He was hot-voiced on this topic as on no other, even when speaking of those who would enslave his will to theirs.

  “Like leaving an armed and mobile newborn,” Pilot Tocohl had said, in what Hazenthull was coming to understand as her humor, “who has Jump capability.”

  “Not seven together, he ain’t Jumping,” Tolly had objected, more temperately, and squinted at the pilot. “You think?”

  “Do you think the computation beyond his capabilities?”

  Tolly had sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Well, that’s part of the problem. Seven old ships, with comps so cramped it takes all thirteen of ’em—including what looks to be a lunchroom comp!—to hold one live brain. Old ships—but, sure, say he does the math, and Jumps. If one comp blows, or one ship shreds—he’s gone. You know and I know he’s got no backup. Even if the ships had redundant systems when they came in, we gotta believe the yard’s pulled whatever was worth having…”

  He shook his head, and fell silent.

  “And if you—forgive me—were to be shot in the head, you would be gone,” Pilot Tocohl said, after it seemed that he had no more words. “All life is vulnerable. It’s the nature of the condition.”

  “Heads up, Haz,” Tolly said now.

  The door opened before them, and she saw that the warning had been more than a friendly reminder to focus. Tolly walked tall through the doorway. She, however, was required to cant forward from the waist in order not to crack her forehead against the frame.

  Past the door was a room divided by a counter, with another door at the far end, behind the counter. Also behind the counter was a stocky Terran male, cap snugged down over hairless head, orange jacket with Jemiatha Supply and Repair stencilled on the breast, open over a dark sweater. He was in close conversation with a person considerably taller, pale hair caught in a careless knot at the back of the head, skin nearly as dark as the worn Jump pilot’s jacket.

  “Might wanna make voice contact first,” the stocky man was saying. “But you’re the pro. Station priority—” He cut himself off as they entered, raising a hand toward the dark pilot, fingers shaping a fast hold that.