by Tony Daniel
“Important, Administrator?”
“Yes, important! There’s an outer-belt asteroid on a collision course with Trikandle. The captain has sent me a secure message! A strike on the planet is within the margin of error, he tells me.”
Verita felt her pleasant expression vanish—
“Our mission!”
The administrator offered a grim little smile, apparently pleased with this reaction.
“Yes, our mission, indeed, yes. Also, our station. I gather this ‘pass’ as he calls it is not immediate but needs be dealt with. There is some factor of resonances and such still being determined. I am not informing the crew, wishing not to spread alarm.”
The administrator pursed her lips, her visage taking on the near rictus she assumed when issuing commands not to be denied.
“You shall not tell the crew, do you understand? I will direct the captain to inform you of the technical details, and I shall decide what needs be done. I have promised a reply within two shifts, so hold yourself ready for consultation.”
With that the screen went back to ordinary.
The crew took direction well; they’d even taken to the maintenance-plus-pursuit staffing. Given that they were technically shorthanded, with entire Fleet Operations sections of dozens reduced to shifts of pairs, this was a fine way to return the ship to the spit-and-polish days of Smit.
The sub-captain in particular seemed to relish his extra duties. While he’d commanded a small vessel in recent peacetime, his service had not been properly recognized. Passed over several times for political reasons, he, like Kiland, was a volunteer to the Implacable. A man with ambition made a good ally.
The sub-captain’s shifts responded for him as well as they did for the captain, and he had enough camaraderie with crew to have a mathematician come forward with the threat the asteroid posed several orbits out—which was to say, eleven hundred and seventy-two Standard Years, away. They would chase that asteroid down now. It was the duty of a captain to remove known space hazards.
Reward? The crew would see and taste their own power. For the moment they worked harder and fell into the proper crew-spirit.
Averil 22, 407 CSY
From Principal Investigator via RosaRing Secure COMM 7 for Captain’s Eyes Only
My full heart, my hot blood, surely you have outdone yourself! The destruction of that menace delights. It was good that the event could be shared, though some, like the administrator, were shaken by it. In fact, the administrator, speaking confidentiality, considers she might order passage on Implacable rather than attempt another three years. She asks that I hold updates on my work for the moment.
I have agreed that I could share burden of a Joint Command with her second, and on the other side I have spoken with the Second, who is willing to have promotion sooner. She has been consulting with the physicians to that end.
Admin’s oversight of operations has been recently uneven; meals have been late due to minor problems with the energy systems, the air circulators are changed to manual on some shifts as they are affected by a glitch in the attitude controls as we maintain our synchronous orbit above the prime research zone. It is vexing, but to be expected with the staff waiting for decisions easily made. It will be solved soon, I am certain.
On the practical side, the chief tender pilot placed herself on sick leave. The tender’s new pilot has been dropping off-the-record radiosondes along with the regular drones. These drop parallel to the rovers; they are wonderfully useful. I see exponential expansion to the limits of the habitat boundaries. We should see blossoming that will change Trikandle sooner rather than later.
My work consumes me nearly as much as my desire to offer myself up to you.
PI Verita
The captain was pleased. The crew was brazen in their newfound self-esteem. They’d done something violent and powerful, they’d destroyed—down to gas, plasma, gravel, and powder—a worldlet. The ship might have landed there, the crew might have walked suited in the ravines, collected water from the ice packs. It had been a place, and by their action it was gone. They were ready, eager, proven. They searched for more threats, they honed their skills at drills to battle station.
The captain let them strut for themselves; he was willing to admire them, their newfound ambition. They were no longer in awe of the ship—now they were in awe of themselves! Someone had even slipped him a recording of a new song sung on the ship. Made by the same mischievous mathematician who discovered it, the song celebrated Implacable and her captain and described the obliteration of the asteroid. The old Fleet might be gone but the urge of youth to bathe in the glory of power had not died!
Averil 24, 407 CSY
From Captain, Implacable, to RosaRing Secure COMM 7 for Principal Investigator Only
My Second Heart, I do so desire to share your tremble. Your work engages my crew; we study Trikandle with our sensors and shall share our findings with you. Particularly involved are crew in meteorology and mathematics. I am informed that some regions we’d imaged last trip have changed drastically in these three years. There are streaks of new color evident on the continent you concentrate upon. Also dots of that new color are seen where the rivers flow, around shore lines, ridges, elsewhere. Are the currents and winds so strong? Do the tender flights and the drones work so hard? I shall return to the High Command with evidence of your success.
As always, thoughts of your touch and tone beguile me to sleep; I seek your ministrations.
Captain Kiland
Averil 26, 407 CSY
From Principal Investigator via RosaRing Secure COMM 7 for Captain’s Eyes Only
My Partner in Sense and Sensation, I quiver at your approach. The administrator may now opt for very early transfer to Implacable, as she is finding sleep and concentration difficult. Several of the lab crew are reporting such issues as well—I ascribe it to general excitement over the approach of your ship.
The changes you report outside the river valleys we’ve studied amaze. I am not so much sleepless as vibrating with energy and anticipation. I hope the cargo shifts will allow the new drones among the first items available; the old ones have become unreliable. We lost one to weather, an upper current overwhelmed it. A second drone found it crash-landed outside of our prime valley with a large burden of unexpended biotic canisters.
Do tell me you have new challenges and rewards for me, I seek to please you soonest.
PI Verita
Averil 27, 407 CSY
From Captain, Implacable, to RosaRing Secure COMM 7 for Principal Investigator Only
Your burden is mine; you will find my requirements a pleasure.
I have requests from your station administrator asking of arrangements for a ceremony of arrival; I hesitate to authorize an on-docking event out of hand. She mentions the possibility of a transfer; paradoxically she requests it and can order it and seems overmatched by her position, indeed. My staff must prompt hers for ordinary transmissions and data sharing, she runs an unprofessional operation, I am afraid.
Can it be that there is a weather wave spreading your new biotics? Is it a chemical reaction catalyzed by the increase in oxygen? Our observers report a surge of color changes on planet; the spectra show unusual mixtures, the temperature sensors show wild variations. Have you science you can share on this?
Supplies will be offloaded by pod and bin, we have become a cargo vessel and are not suited to it! The sub-captain reports basic supplies in the first rounds, and then laboratory items, by necessity of the pod mounts. The pattern is preset.
Do not doubt that I will be firm with you, very soon. I long to hear you whispering.
Captain Kiland
Averil 29, 407 CSY
Glaring at the screen in front of her, Verita rotated the troth ring on her third finger without looking at it. The weight and the repetition were comforting. As much as she twisted it, she couldn’t change the fact that docking with Implacable was just sixteen hours away, and things were getting worse instead
of better.
This latest news from the lab sections was not good. Four of seven biology technicians in the drone research area were on sick call and both of the service mechanics.
She clicked off the message; the staff knew their work. She’d get to them later with a pep talk about yesterday’s results. Now, she needed to concentrate . . .
This was not how she’d intended to display a well-controlled station! The mechanics complained of different maladies—one of skin rashes leaving behind a kind of scar, the other of dizziness with headache. All complained of strange odors and odd tastes; she’d not visited the hangar for days to avoid the sneezes that had become common there. Her own tests . . . well, she was not a medical doctor. It just seemed wise to be cautious and remain in her offices and suite.
It was unfortunate that replacement drones could not be brought to bear sooner. He should have known that chasing the asteroid would add delay . . . but no, nothing about this was his fault. Nothing.
Verita opened her eyes realizing that she’d been swimming in the half-sleep she’d become prone to. A chime in the halls had woken her, one of the administrator’s many notes to maintenance.
She was in her own chair, office door locked, so no one saw her start to wakefulness. She was sleeping short shift as she tried to keep up. The returned rovers reported astounding amounts of local free oxygen in the long midafternoon of the planet’s forty-hour day. Not an atmosphere breathable by humans, by any means, but one promising explorers might walk the world, extracting the oxygen they needed directly, within a century, perhaps even a decade. She wanted to see it sooner, she wanted to make it happen in a rush of . . .
A chime woke her; the screen was filled by the administrator, her face blotchy and busy with tension.
“Investigator? The tender is under my direct control. Understand me? Until I leave! The pilot’s under doctor’s care for exhaustion. The backup pilot is nearing the same point. People are ill all around you because you push too hard. You push everyone too hard, Verita.”
Kiland suppressed the yawn by force of will as he went over routine schedules on the bridge. Smit had always done his paper work on the bridge, too—it was good for the crew to see the leader at work. Lunch was only moments away . . .
“Captain?” The sub-captain’s voice was firm. “I don’t have any incident reports from the station on this—would you like to take a look on the main screen? I was having some of the crew practice long-range visual ID and we were getting mismatches—”
At high magnification the RosaRing spun in space, filling the screen. The station silhouette was clear but the alternating angled white and blue stripes, clear on large parts of the hull, were smudged and blotchy, as if overlain by a layer of greenish rust around the protruding docking bay on the lower reaches.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this, sir.”
Kiland’s boredom fell away, memory jostling his concentration, trying to come to the front of the mind.
He pointed at a second screen.
“Put some samples from our outbound recorded images there, Sub-Captain, close as you can to a match. Ask Station Operations if they’ve suffered any gas leakage or maintenance issues they haven’t passed on? Get as good an image as you can for them. . . . And ask Ops . . . no, ask the administrator’s office to share results of the routine tests they’ve run on our docking ports and loading locks. Also, request current readings on the inner docks.”
“Sir!”
The sub-captain issued commands, brought the bridge to alert, used the keypad to search images and bring them live on screen, ran a match, adjusted sizes.
The ordinary sounds on the bridge fell away; watch partners messaged quick notes or whispered.
The captain hand-signaled the sub-captain, who approached, bowing slightly to hear the captain’s order.
Instead, the captain asked, “Were you on academy on the mount, or on the islands?”
The sub-captain, caught by what seemed a non-sequitur, hesitated and said “Why, like you, the islands, sir.”
The captain nodded, then nodded toward the images on the main screen.
“So you are familiar with the Citadel’s wind walls? Perhaps along Chespick Beach, or the tidal falls at Injridge?”
The sub-captain’s features showed remembrance, a touch of a smile for some assignation late night at oceanside, where the waves and wind conspired to produce a lovely romantic place overseen by ancient star-bleached walls smudged at base and higher with the greens, browns, and even reds of algal scums.
Recognition blossomed and . . .
“There’s nothing to grow, there’s nothing to grow on if there was . . .”
The sub-captain quieted, perplexity wrinkling his youthful visage in much the way passion might.
Kiland nodded and sighed. “Not an oxy world yet, is it? Who knows what’s a balmy seaside for what’s already growing down there?”
“Station Ops—sir, I’m afraid we woke them up. Our contact is somewhat unfamiliar with standard comm protocols and has ‘gone off to find someone’ in charge—”
The air quotes were audible.
“—who’s apparently dealing with an engineering issue. There seems to be some confusion . . . the administrator hasn’t answered a direct call, sir. The automatic transmissions have become sporadic.”
“Is anyone talking to us at lower levels?”
The sub-captain queried his consoles.
“Engineering reports they had a contact yesterday, asking for suggestions on dealing with a sluggish stability ring. . . . We sent them updates and a testing program.”
Kiland stared at the images, pristine and stained. This could go wrong . . .
“Try again for the administrator and send lunch to my office. If the administrator’s office does not respond within five minutes, connect me with the principal investigator. I’m declaring a System Alert; chief pilots should sim-up on irregular rendezvous and docking.”
Averil 30, 407 CSY
“Prime Investigator, sir.”
Verita heard the connection go through, and looked up. He was handsome, stern. It was good to see him, her own . . .
“Captain Kiland,” she said, “I’m informed that the administrator’s second is escorting her to the tender, as she is planning to transfer before Implacable docks. If both leave this station at the same time, I will be in charge.”
There was no privacy, of course—the sub-captain was monitoring the line—so she said no more than the immediate information, waiting for his voice, his support . . .
“We’ve no flight plan filing on that, Investigator; I’ll alert my staff to the potential, though if the stability of the ring is in question they ought not plan on launching.”
“There have been some irregularities in the spin, Captain, I think as a result of preparation for docking. There is some issue . . .”
“Are you aware, Investigator, of the buildup on the ring’s external surfaces?”
Kiland’s face was calm, his voice too neutral to be glad of. Beside his face were video images of the RosaRing looking disreputable, like an out-of-use parts dump.
“I am not—”
“We must have clarity about these stains, Investigator. If they are involved with your stability issues they must surely be solved before we can begin docking. We must have the test results for our docking pilots.”
Verita floundered. Her expertise was in living things, not in mundane issues of habitat upkeep. She . . .
“My staff is stretched thin, Captain,” she told him, reaching for time to think. . . . “And I am not yet in charge. I will have to study this to . . .”
His expression went bland and she saw him sigh. Then his face went gentle, and she became frightened.
“We cannot enter into final docking procedures until we’re sure of the docking mechanisms. Have you access to the records? Surely the dock integrity tests have been done! We cannot query your computer directly without permissions and I can
not risk docking until we have updated information. You must act so that we may properly arrive!”
The sub-captain took the orders without blinking. If the crew blinked, they did so with face bent over screens, following their orders. In a few hours they would be well away from the RosaRing, orbiting the planet and pacing the station at a distance, any docking approach awaiting developments.
The captain did what a captain does: he let his crew work. It was possible that he could have stepped into any one of the work streams, but they were becoming teams and he would have unbalanced them. The sub-captain directs the crew, the captain directs the sub-captain, and has the big picture.
The tactical crew studied the images; some savant had their computers going over accidental information drawn from the drone reports they’d intercepted. There were more images to be studied for change over time, and possible insight into the stability issues, if engineering could be roused to take a look . . .
Engineering—only a few of the current crew had been on the mission which had brought the station here! Engineering was studying the feasibility of a cold-latch using the very pod mounts they’d used to ferry it here in the first place.
The pod transfer systems. . . . If the standard docking system was compromised, the cargo transshipment would be a logistical terror.
“Captain, Station Ops has someone with experience holding down the deck now, sir. We’ve got one clear line, and they’re asking if we can get some medical advice for them in a hurry. They have a lot of sick people, sir, and she says the administrator’s locked in the tender bay, refusing to come out. There’s unrest.”
