Searching for the Fleet

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  It actually looked like the drive had been covered with a nanobit coating and the coating was coming off in chunks.

  Underneath those chunks, she saw more brown than gray. The drives in all the learning materials were round or oblong or imperfectly rectangular. The drive before her looked like a pillow that was trying to regain its form after someone had punched it repeatedly and in different places.

  Only that pillow had sharp edges, small craters, and the same kind of tiny, tiny scales that the gloves had. Those scales were not on the parts of the drive that had the nanobit coating—or rather, the scales were not visible on the parts of the drive that had the nanobit coating.

  Bits of gold threaded through the entire drive, disappearing under the nanobit coating wherever there was some, and reappearing in the brown materials. Black lines also threaded through the drive, only those black lines looked more like something burned into the drive than something intentional.

  Yash crawled around to the other side of the drive, following the instructions not to touch it, and saw more of the same. Only on the side closest to the window, she did see a hole that led all the way into the drive.

  She removed her penlight and used it to illuminate that hole. Bellier hadn’t forbidden the use of tools, after all, provided that they did not touch the exterior of the drive.

  Not that Bellier had said anything at all about the use of tools, but that was how Yash took the instructions.

  Inside that hole, she saw something dull silver that didn’t look like a rock or like it had been made of nanobits. In fact, it didn’t look like anything she recognized.

  She frowned, examined the sides of the drive—using the multipurpose tool’s light and then without it—but seeing nothing unusual. Or rather, nothing she hadn’t seen on the front and back.

  She returned to her original spot, her body aching from the chill of the floor. Her stomach growled as well. This class had gone on longer than the three hours that Bellier had initially predicted it would take before lunch, probably because of Crenshaw and the others.

  “All right,” Bellier said. “Stop staring at the drive. I will answer five questions, one from each of you. Then we will break for lunch, and you will make notes in your class file about what you have seen.”

  Bellier had let them know that the notes would be important to their grade. The system they used uploaded their notes to Bellier’s teaching accounts. So far, half a semester in, Bellier had not responded to a single note, nor had she acknowledged receiving them.

  However, Yash always felt Bellier’s presence as she made the notes, hoping that Bellier would not think everything Yash had to say was stupid.

  “Zarlengo.”

  Yash jumped as Bellier said her name.

  “You’re on a roll today. Ask me a question about the drive.”

  Great. Yash was going first. She had a million questions. She had hoped someone else would weed through them so that she could focus on the best question to ask.

  She mentally skipped the obvious questions about the nanobit covering and the black threads. She wasn’t sure that everyone got a glimpse of that silver thing inside the center of the drive.

  “I have never seen images of drives that are being retired,” Yash said, “only the structure of a new and/or functioning drive.”

  Bellier tilted her head just a little, signaling impatience.

  “I saw a lot of materials I expected, but one thing I did not. In the center of the drive, there’s something silver, and it looks like it was made of a material that I haven’t seen before. I’m assuming it’s something important. What is it, exactly?”

  Bellier’s eyebrows went up. Then she walked to Yash’s drive.

  “Where is it?” Bellier asked.

  Yash scooted over and pointed to the hole that went all the way in. Then Yash used her multipurpose light to illuminate the silver thing.

  Bellier crouched and peered inside.

  “Hmph,” Bellier said, and then she nodded. She seemed a bit surprised to see that, but Yash might’ve been reading more into that reaction than there actually was.

  Bellier put her hands on her thighs, and stood up.

  “Good question, Zarlengo,” Bellier said. “I decline to answer it at this time.”

  Yash frowned, not expecting that at all.

  Bellier had already turned away from her. “Darlington, your question?”

  “Um, there appears to be a nanobit coating on mine, and it’s either come off in parts or it never covered the entire drive. Yash mentioned the specs, and I was thinking about them too. I don’t recall a mention of a nanobit coating. Is that coating unusual or isn’t it listed in the materials?”

  Yash couldn’t see Darlington, who was probably sitting on the floor just like Yash had been. But she could see Bellier.

  Bellier’s face was a lot more expressive than it had been a few hours ago. Apparently, she enjoyed this give-and-take.

  “The coating is a repair technique that has fallen into disfavor,” Bellier said, “for precisely the reason you cited. It doesn’t stick to the drive well enough to make the drives safe to use. Over time, nanobits unbond. Sometimes nanobit coatings unbond, just like you’d expect, but more often than not, they slough off. Next question. Mercer?”

  Mercer cleared his throat. Yash couldn’t see him either. She couldn’t see any of the others, and that felt a bit odd. She usually looked at her fellow students when they had the floor.

  “The drives in the specs,” he said slowly, “and the drives I’ve seen when someone opened a container, always look symmetrical. Mine does not. It’s pitted and filled with holes. It looks like parts have broken off. Is this what dead or dying anacapa drives look like or is this the result of some kind of trauma that this class is as yet unfamiliar with?”

  “Neither, Mercer,” said Bellier. “There is no standard look for a retired anacapa drive. Next question. Triplett?”

  Yash wished Bellier hadn’t called on Dilys Triplett so quickly because Bellier had done something in her answer that surprised Yash. Bellier had changed words.

  Mercer had asked about dead or dying anacapa drives. Bellier had responded discussing retired anacapa drives. Yash wasn’t sure those were the same thing.

  But she didn’t ask about it. Bellier had said five questions, and each student would get to ask one. Yash wasn’t going against those orders.

  Fortunately, Triplett had taken a moment as well to ask her question.

  “My drive is really tiny compared to the others,” Triplett finally said. “Was it this tiny when it was in use, and if so, did that have an impact on how it worked or where it was used?”

  “Yes, it was that small,” Bellier said, “and no, the size had no impact on how it was used. Final question. Gallatin?”

  “Ah.” Rex Gallatin sounded nervous, but then he always sounded nervous. “I called up the specs and images of working drives. You didn’t say we couldn’t.”

  “That is correct,” Bellier said. “I didn’t restrict that.”

  Yash silently cursed at herself. She hadn’t even thought of that. She had been too focused on the drive in front of her.

  “In my quick review of those images,” he said, “I noted that there were no thin black lines threading through any of those drives. Yet mine has a lot of black threading through it. Is that sign of use or are there variations or is it something else I should note?”

  “Good question, Gallatin,” Bellier said. “I will, as with Zarlengo’s question, decline to answer at the moment. I do want to commend you, however, on the initiative. When dealing with an unfamiliar system, always look at the specs if you have access to them.”

  Yash felt her own cheeks heat. She knew that. She had forgotten it as, apparently, had everyone except Gallatin.

  “You have fifteen minutes for lunch and for taking notes. Replace your gloves into their storage spot before you go. I expect you back here after you’ve eaten, but do not touch anything. You are free to go.”<
br />
  Yash peeled off her gloves. They made a grating noise as they rubbed against each other, and that made the hair on the back of her neck rise. She would have to get used to that sound or she would have to suffer through it every time she used the gloves.

  She was willing to, though. She wanted this more than she realized. Every time someone got dismissed, her desire to work in this field grew exponentially.

  She double-checked the controls on the side of the container before she returned the gloves to their little storage area. Then she hit the controls, making sure the gloves were hidden from view.

  Her stomach growled again as she headed toward the door. She would have to take time to eat, even though she didn’t want to. It was going to be a push to finish her notes in the time allotted, which, she was sure, was the point.

  She was the first one through the door. She hurried through the main entry, then climbed up the ramp to the runabout. She would get her lunch, shove as much of it into her mouth as she could, and then return to the entry below, where she might get some privacy from the other students.

  The runabout door slid open, and she stepped inside—and immediately wished she had skipped lunch altogether.

  The six students whom Bellier wouldn’t even take into the lab were seated in the large cabin adjacent to the cockpit. And adjacent to the tiny galley kitchen where everyone had left their food.

  She gave them all a nervous smile, then pushed past them into the galley kitchen, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Crenshaw stood near the packets of food. He was eating a carrot out of a pink bowl, which probably meant that the carrot wasn’t from his lunch.

  She couldn’t imagine any other reason the runabout had pink dishware. The bowl certainly didn’t look spaceworthy. It looked like some kind of container that had some kind of lid.

  “She finally boot you out?” he asked.

  Yash wasn’t going to answer that. She wasn’t going to get into any kind of conversation with Crenshaw.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  He leaned against the cabinet where the lunches were stored. “I asked you a question.”

  “I know,” Yash said. “I’d like to grab my lunch.”

  “You can have it when you answer me,” he said.

  She didn’t have time for a conversation, but she recognized his mood. If she told him that, he would continue to engage. He probably had a sense that she was on the clock and he would continue to engage anyway.

  So she walked over to him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him away from the cabinet.

  “Hey,” he said. “You can’t do that.”

  Just did, asshole, she thought, but didn’t say. She didn’t want to engage him any more than she already had.

  She opened the cabinet, grabbed the bright green packet with her lunch inside, and decided to change her plan. She certainly couldn’t eat on the runabout.

  She turned, hoping she could eat in that outer area in the lab, only to see Mercer and Triplett enter.

  “Oh,” Crenshaw said. “Must be lunch time. Unless you all got dismissed.”

  Mercer and Triplett glanced at Yash, who shook her head just a little. She held the cabinet door open for them. They pushed past Crenshaw.

  Yash did too, trying to leave. Gallatin had stopped to talk to one of the six who’d been stuck on the runabout all day. Darlington stood outside the kitchen, looking a little uneasy.

  “I think he’s eating your lunch,” Yash said. “You want to share mine?”

  To Yash’s surprise, Darlington teared up. Then she nodded.

  “I’m leaving the runabout,” Yash said.

  “Okay,” Darlington said softly. She gave the kitchen one last look over her shoulder, then followed Yash out of the runabout and back into the lab building.

  She didn’t see Bellier. In fact, she didn’t see anyone else.

  Several chairs lined the wall closest to the door. Yash indicated those, and Darlington came with her.

  “I—we were—I’m—he’s going to hate me,” Darlington said.

  Yash nodded. Darlington wanted to talk about Crenshaw and Yash didn’t. Normally, she would be polite.

  “We don’t have time to have this discussion right now,” Yash said, handing her half of a sandwich made with turkey, some kind of yellow cheese, and a piece of lettuce that was almost bigger than the bread.

  Yash ate the half sandwich faster than she had ever eaten anything in her life, saw that she only had seven minutes left to make her notes, and shoved the remaining lunch at Darlington.

  “If you need to talk later…” Yash said, deliberately leaving that sentence unfinished.

  She grabbed the pack that Bellier had made them bring wherever they went, but which Bellier had not allowed inside the lab with the anacapa drives, and hurried to the other side of the lab. Inside the pack, Yash found her tablet, deciding to make her notes there. She hoped that the tablet would back everything up.

  Yash set a timer on the edge of the tablet, and then described what she had seen as quickly as she could. She noted that all the drives were a different size, that they seemed to have different characteristics. She didn’t spare herself in her analysis, mentioning that Gallatin had been the most brilliant one in the anacapa investigation because he had been sensible enough to compare everything to the specs in real time.

  At that moment, her timer went off. She had one last observation, which she added hastily. I always thought that anacapa drives had controls on the drive itself. I didn’t see any on the drive I was dealing with. I can’t imagine that the controls would have been on the bottom of the drive, but I’ve seen a lot that I hadn’t been able to imagine before today.

  Then she closed the notes, set the tablet to back everything up and send an extra copy to Bellier, put the tablet into her pack, and put the pack back where she had found it.

  She didn’t see Darlington anywhere, but the remains of lunch sat on the chair Darlington had been using. Yash grabbed the lunch remains and shoved them into her pack before she hurried back to class.

  Bellier stood alone in front of the bank of windows, her back to all the containers. Her face was visible, though, because it was reflected in the odd lighting. Her gaze met Yash’s.

  Yash gave her a nervous smile and returned to her place near what she was now thinking of as her anacapa drive.

  She was the first back into the room, but only by a few seconds. Mercer came in next, followed by Gallatin and Triplett. Yash hoped that Darlington hadn’t given up and gone back to talk with Crenshaw.

  But Yash had barely had that thought when Darlington hurried through the door.

  Bellier hadn’t turned around, but she clearly watched everyone come in, reflected in the glass.

  “Close the door,” she said.

  Since Darlington was the last in, she was the one who had that unenviable task. The controls weren’t obvious. Of course, nothing in this lab was obvious, and that was probably by design.

  It took her a full minute to find the controls, and by then her hands were shaking. Darlington was clearly trying to hide the emotions that had swept over her at lunch.

  Bellier turned around.

  “Take your places,” she said.

  Everyone did. This time, Yash made a note of where they were. Ironically, no one ended up right next to anyone else. The gaps left by the students who had failed were obvious.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Yash realized that the three students who had been injured weren’t on the runabout—or, at least, weren’t near the other students on the runabout.

  Oh, the ride back was going to be ugly.

  “On the top of your containers,” Bellier said, “you will find several sets of tools. You’ve probably already noticed them. Put your gloves on and find the small red-laser blade. It looks like this.”

  She held up a six-inch-long black tube.

  “The cutting edge itself is clearly marked. And before you ask, there are no more tricks with the tools or the gloves.
Now I would like you to focus on other aspects of learning, so get your equipment as quickly as possible.”

  Yash wished she hadn’t eaten the sandwich. She hadn’t tasted it as she crammed it into her mouth, but she was tasting it now. Nerves made it feel like she hadn’t even swallowed the sandwich, although she had.

  She used the controls on the panel, opening the lids on all of the storage units on top of the container. She took the gloves first, moving faster than she wanted to and praying that Bellier hadn’t lied to the class.

  She hadn’t—at least with the gloves. Then Yash scouted for the right tool, seeing several different laser blades. It took a minute, but she finally found it.

  She didn’t grab it right away, though. First she put on the gloves. This time they almost seemed to slide on without her help. Then she reached for the tool.

  The scales on her right glove caught on the lip of the storage area. She wanted to pull away, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to rip those gloves—not that she was sure whether or not they could be ripped.

  She peered over the side and carefully unhooked the trapped glove without removing it.

  Then she grabbed the tool.

  It glowed a slight orange at her touch. She didn’t like that. She hadn’t activated the tool. She didn’t want it to have a mind of its own.

  She set it back into the compartment and was about to look for a way to shut it off when Bellier spoke.

  “For those of you who are trying to shut off the orange light flowing through the tool, please stop worrying.” Bellier’s tone this afternoon was kinder than it had been in the morning. Much kinder, in fact. There was no contempt at all. “Your gloves activated the power switch automatically.”

  Yash didn’t like that feature at all, but she didn’t say so. She just removed the tool and held it at her side, careful that the laser blade’s edge didn’t point at anything.

  Bellier looked a little amused. She made a point of making eye contact with all five students.

  “You are now going to cut off the nanobit coating. You may take bits of the surface beneath it along with the coating.” Then Bellier glanced at Yash. “Zarlengo, avoid the hole that you showed me earlier.”