by Tony Daniel
But that wasn’t improbable. It was impossible. The only way a ship could be at Tarris eight days ago and here yesterday was to travel at the speed of communications, and the speed of communications was the speed of light.
There was no such thing as a ship that traveled at the speed of light. If there was, it would certainly look sexier than Captain Fenroth’s old heap. That was an irrational argument at best, Hoppo knew it was, but the whole thing was fantastic from start to finish—wasn’t it?
Except nobody had mentioned the habharite, yet.
The door behind Hoppo had opened, somebody had come in; the same not-really-uniform as Nobody, but strangely enough Fenroth seemed to recognize him: and a look of profound contempt flashed across his face, almost too quickly to be identified.
“The director knows all about Skipjack, Captain Fenroth,” New Nobody said. “And I’m sorry, but it’s simply too important to leave in the hands of the ship service. All you people ever think about is war.”
That was unfair, in Hoppo’s opinion. Or maybe not. The ship service did think a lot about war, almost exclusively about war, because they happened to be right in the middle of the ugliest one in recorded history. Though maybe not in the middle anymore; nearing the end for Hamstead Vrees. That was what “unconditional surrender” meant. So Hoppo knew who New Nobody was, now, if only in a general sense: a traitor.
“Skipjack’s a ship,” Hoppo said, because otherwise he was going to say something like “schmuck this flip,” which would compound the breach of protocol by a factor of two or three. “He’s the captain. He’d know.”
Yes, he remembered what Skipjack’s XO had said to him: Here in an instant, there yesterday, Skipjack. But he was already guilty of one unauthorized interruption, so it was probably better to save that one for later. No, he wasn’t going to keep it to himself, of course not, but he’d just decided that he liked Fenroth better than he did either of the two Nobodys. Judging by appearances. He was just that shallow.
“Your ship is contaminated with habharite,” Nobody said. Now that was something Hoppo did know about. Mull had slipped him the stats. Habharite when it married up with gregor particles as they decayed was a precursor to the jhilin elements, almost supernatural quantum identities whose creation and decay was held to be much more than merely planet destroying. Gregor particles were so arcane as to be practically mythical, however.
That was the sum of Hoppo’s knowledge, so he listened carefully to what Nobody said next, hoping for enlightenment. “It is in fact the most concentrated reservoir of habharite we’ve ever seen, and we’ve been looking, because we have our own research programs. The conclusion is inescapable. We know, Fenroth. We have all of the research.”
New Nobody fixed his eye on Hoppo’s face, accusing, affronted. “No, Skipjack’s not a ship,” he said. “It’s a research program. Light speed.” He shifted his gaze. “And somebody’s cracked the code, and it wasn’t us, Fenroth. We knew the ship service was up to something, but we never dreamed you’d actually get somewhere. So how does it work?”
Captain Fenroth chose this moment to sit down, absent-mindedly pulling on his captain’s cap, which, as Hoppo was happy to see, had been cleaned up and brushed neatly. Interesting choice, Hoppo thought: military code. Director Nobody didn’t seem to realize she’d just been insulted. Of course Fenroth could just be tired. It hadn’t been more than a day since they’d pulled him out of the wall.
“How about this,” Fenroth said. “There were actually twenty-two ships in Skipjack’s class and configuration. We used prerecorded dialog for transmissions at Tarris. The chemical signature is faked. We were tasked to transport habharite, and somebody screwed up in the containment-and-shielding department. One way or another my crew are rapidly dying of habharite exposure masked by happy gas and there’s nothing to be done about it, so I’d like to see my people now, please.”
Nobody nodded. “And we’d like to see your secret log. Oh, we’re sure your cruise log is in order—” Holding up her hand in a placating, patronizing manner, she waited while Fenroth bit off an instinctively angry rejoinder before continuing. “Just as we’re sure there’s another, more interesting one. We could tear your ship apart looking for it, or you could surrender your log, and your journals, to us here and now. After all, they’d be going to my esteemed colleague anyway, wouldn’t they?” New Nobody, that would be, who nodded as Fenroth looked back over his shoulder with a near-voiceless snarl. “So give them to us now. And then you can rejoin your crew.”
Hoppo waited while the gates clicked in Fenroth’s mind. New Nobody and Nobody clearly in intimate cahoots, so there was a certain degree of logic to Nobody’s argument. Whether or not Fenroth decided to surrender his log in the absence of an authorized military authority—whether or not Fenroth would admit to there being a private, secret log—he was a true enough captain to want to see his people, even when his people had roughed him up and locked him up in the wall of his own ship.
That was either wonderful or idiotic. For himself, Hoppo had tried to learn the new, more corporate, model of duties and responsibilities from the new breed of officers coming up in ship service, but he’d consistently failed so far. There were traditions in ship service. They died hard.
“I’ll need a guide,” Captain Fenroth said, standing up at last. “Captain Wircale. Please note that I submit to this irregularity under protest as contrary to the Prize Conventions for treatment of enemy combatants taken prisoners of war.”
“Someone discreet,” Nobody said to Captain Wircale, talking over the tail end of Fenroth’s statement. Wircale nodded.
“So noted, Captain Fenroth,” Captain Wircale said, leaving it up to Nobody to decide whether Wircale had just ignored her. “XO Hoppo, if you would accompany Captain Fenroth, please.”
That was rank acknowledging rank. Also minimizing exposure, Hoppo supposed; he was a senior officer, he’d already been on board Skipjack, and Nobody seemed satisfied. He wished the captain hadn’t tagged him for the errand, because it felt a little dirty; but Captain Wircale was already having a bad day, and Hoppo didn’t like the idea of giving Nobody anything to smile about.
“Very good, sir.” And right away. Captain Fenroth didn’t know how quickly people were dying, because Infirmary had been cautioned against telling him. Hoppo knew, though. Fenroth probably did, too, because he hadn’t been surprised to hear about habharite contamination. All the more reason to hurry, so that Fenroth could say good-bye, maybe good riddance.
Hoppo stood to one side politely to allow Captain Fenroth to precede him out of the room. There was a Security posting standing ready to escort them, of course; Fenroth was a prisoner of war. Not to be allowed off on his own to seek out the secret, and constantly moving, cabaret they ran on Aika Lynn with all-volunteer talent and whatever they could come up with to drink.
Hoppo himself had been awarded the prestigious Three Half-Empties on one memorable occasion for his medley of mostly remembered nursery rhymes, but there was nothing in his life to compare to the Vreeslander Egret Plume, with or without the Wheat-Ear Clasp.
“Parole,” he said to Fenroth, who had his eyes fixed on Hoppo’s face, with a clearly communicated “what are we waiting for” message in his expression. Now that Hoppo could stand nose to nose, he couldn’t help but notice that Fenroth wasn’t as old as Hoppo had at first taken him to be; and that he was tall, for a Vreeslander commerce raider’s captain. Vreeslander crews ran shortish, because of the narrow corridors and low ceilings.
“Specifications?” Fenroth asked, because a prudent man considered carefully what his parameters were before he agreed to them. Security didn’t twitch. It was part of standard prisoner in-processing to pair each crew member up with a sympathetic listener of equal or just subordinate rank; being taken prisoner was stressful, people talked, out of nerves or relief at being alive or disgust at the same fact. Fenroth would know that. They knew each other’s tricks, at least in general outline.
“To r
emain in custody, and execute all reasonable undertakings required of you. Saving only your duty and your honor, under code.” To surrender his secret logs to Director Nobody, which didn’t quite fall under things consistent with a captain’s honor. Still, Nobody had presented it to Fenroth clearly, and Fenroth had apparently accepted the quid pro quo. Turn over your secret logs; see your people.
If Fenroth gave his word the logs were as good as in Director Nobody’s hands already. She’d get them just a little bit later than immediately, that was all, Hoppo decided. A few minutes. An hour. It was already all but finished, the war, and Hoppo had got through it all without a single black mark on his record, which he considered to be a failure of a sort. He was going to have to hurry if he wanted to get that checked off his list before it was too late to acquire a shadow on his wartime career.
Fenroth nodded. “Word of honor.” And Security knew the drill. Hoppo gave them the nod, go wait in the canteen for a while; and started down the hall. “It will be this way, sir.”
The route he took was a little circuitous, maybe. A sudden dodge into a janitor’s closet, and then out the other side. A shortish stroll through a maintenance aisle in silence. Director Nobody’s people had locked off service access to the ventilation systems when they’d moved into the floor above, so there was no danger of meeting anybody in particular until Hoppo opened the door that would let them back out into some of the more well-traveled administrative areas. Infirmary, in this instance. Fenroth might even recognize it. He’d spent the night under observation, after all, in his own cell and everything, not like his people.
“Hope to be excused a small detour, sir,” Hoppo said. Fenroth’s people were on the open ward, because Aika Lynn didn’t have enough by way of individual quarantine for that many people, and happy-gas poisoning—habharite poisoning, for that matter—wasn’t contagious. The ward was as secure as it needed to be, with Security posts on site. “Handing you off to my squad leader for a few, Captain. Sorry, but I’ve got to get some stims or I’ll fall over.”
Sergeant Turapa stepped up and saluted a point halfway between Hoppo and Fenroth. Maybe she knew who Finnie Fenroth was. Maybe she was just being polite; Hoppo couldn’t tell, and he didn’t care. He wasn’t making it up about needing the stims.
Fenroth pushed his cap up off his forehead to the back of his head, stone faced, moving slowly into the open bay. The first patient he came to raised herself up in bed as well as she could, in her clearly weakened state, and Fenroth put his arms around her for a fervent embrace, his eyes tightly shut.
Hoppo went off for a word with Carstairs, because it wasn’t his business what Fenroth had to say to his crew and he knew he could trust Turapa’s good judgment. He took his time, because he wanted to make sure to check all Carstairs’s usual haunts in Infirmary, stores, equipment locker, the friendly technician on duty for sick call. He didn’t find Carstairs, in the end, but it was Carstairs’s rest shift—he suddenly remembered—so he swallowed the tabs the friendly technician gave him and came out at the far end of the open bay to retrieve Fenroth from Turapa.
Fenroth was just finishing his rounds. His cap had gotten knocked a little sideways, in the process. He was leaning down low over one last crewman, a fistful of bedcovers in his hand; kissing the man’s forehead, oddly enough, pulling the bedcovers forward to cover the man’s face as he straightened up. Another one gone, then. That made at least eight by now. Not quite half of them. Deterioration was accelerating.
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Hoppo said to Turapa. “I’ll take it from here.” Fenroth looked as though he wouldn’t have minded some stims himself right about now. Hoppo wondered what he’d had to say to the crew that had roughed him up and shoved him into a crawl space; hadn’t that been his XO, the woman he’d hugged?
Fenroth was clearly feeling the strain, stopping under the ventilation grate in the ceiling, tilting his head back to let the cool air blow in his face. Quarantined air, in Infirmary; filtered on the way in, filtered on the way out, no cross-contamination for communicable diseases. There were important people upstairs, after all. Spooky crew. High-level researchers with a sideline in treason, so Hoppo didn’t like them now that he knew, even if it was to Skanda’s benefit.
“Well, hurry on,” Fenroth said, turning his back on the now-closed doors into the open bay. “Time to be made up.” Fortunately Fenroth had turned left at the junction, so they were going in the right direction. “I hope you’re feeling better, by the way.”
As thanks it was very indirect, and so understated as to be practically undetectable. Hoppo didn’t mind. This man was Captain Belknap Fenroth. His people were dying. “Much improved, thank you, sir. Yes, this way.”
Still there was something wrong.
He just couldn’t get it all laid out and organized, but the medication was powerful stuff, and he had hope.
There were Security posts at every access point to Fenroth’s Skipjack, but they didn’t give their own XO any trouble. The cargo vault ramp still stood open, flushing atmosphere; near the end of the cycle, Hoppo expected.
At the head of the ramp Captain Fenroth stopped just short of the threshold and took off his cap, bowing his head. He stood there for a long meditative moment; then he put his cap back on with a decided tug and saluted the empty air. He turned to Hoppo. “Well, then,” Fenroth said. “With me.”
Hoppo knew the way. He’d studied Skipjack’s plans on Mull’s analysis report, and maybe just a little bit longer than absolutely necessary. He remembered Skipjack’s predecessor ships from the days of his childhood fascination, and the basic layout hadn’t changed much between the end of the last war and the start of this one.
The captain's cabin was between the mess area and the command center, not far from where Fenroth had been shut up in the wall: close to the bridge, and accessible. “This is it,” Captain Fenroth said. “Me first?” He held up his left hand, flattened, to palm the biometric admit control beside the door, but paused politely for Hoppo’s go-ahead.
For a moment Hoppo wondered whether Skipjack would explode when the captain’s door was opened. But his tech people had scanned the ship and reported it clean, no detonation circuits standing by for a closed loop to blow up the ship, no stores of explosive materials cunningly secreted here and there just waiting for their chance.
“After you, sir,” he agreed. Fenroth put hand to read pad at the wall plate, and went in. It smelled a little stale, as though ship’s ventilators didn’t quite penetrate; other than that it was little different from a junior officer’s cabin on a Skanda corvette: small, tidy, and only a commissioning picture on the wall—with a few medals tacked up beneath it—to show who was living here.
Hoppo wanted to go examine Fenroth’s honors, breathe on them, touch them perhaps. The Hamstead Vrees Egret Plume was an actual bit of an egret’s plume, and Fenroth’s bore not only the banner but the Wheat-Ear Clasp in brilliants; Vrees’ rarest battle honor, only thirty awarded. There was the service badge every crew member received at the completion of seven successful engagements, and one Hoppo didn’t recognize. He restrained himself. He hadn’t been invited.
Fenroth laid his cap down on the worktable in the middle of the room and crouched down to open a little cabinet set into the wall at the foot of the neatly made bed. There was something a little odd about that, though Hoppo couldn’t put his finger on it; but Fenroth was just standing up, now, turning back to the table.
“Here’s the necessaries,” Fenroth said, putting glassware—two tumblers, a tall flask—down on the table before letting himself fall heavily into the chair, its wear pattern apparently fit to his rump by long usage. “Sit down, XO, there’s the bed. Join me in a drink. We should have time to get through the bottle, and I’ve been holding on to this one, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”
As a stash of secret documentation, this wasn’t one. Had Fenroth changed his mind, now that he’d seen his crew? That wasn’t possible. He’d given his word. “Ah, the director
will be waiting for your secret logs, Captain.”
“Aren’t any.” Fenroth filled both glasses full to the brim. “So no breach of honor, as I see it. I couldn’t give her what she wants either sooner or later. Nothing to turn over.” When Hoppo didn’t move to take the second glass, Fenroth clinked the base of his against the lip of the one still on the table, draining half his pour in one swallow before he set it back down again and coughed. “What I told that sludge Ratine and your director was the truth. Just not all of it. And too late now either way anyway, so. Cheers.”
Hoppo ran through some calculations in his mind, but none of them worked out. “Why do you say that?” he asked. “There’s no bomb on this ship.” He sounded more confident than he felt. “Including this ship itself. So what’s going on?”
Fenroth nodded. “What do we need for a bomb, though, XO?” he asked. “Explosive material, and something to set it off. Well. It’s already set off. Nothing any of us can do, or I’d be telling you to abandon base, in—ah—” There was a chrono on the wall, right across from where Fenroth sat. “Uh, starting four or five hours ago, if your evac sequences are anything like ours, and we’re counting on it. There’ll be no outrunning it now. Have a drink. Really.”
Slowly Hoppo sat down. “Where’s your detonator?” Fenroth wouldn’t have mentioned “something to set it off” if Fenroth wasn’t sure it couldn’t be disarmed. Whatever it was. “I have crew here. I deserve to know.”
Fenroth said nothing, waiting patiently. Reaching out for the full glass of untouched liquor Hoppo waved it in Fenroth’s direction before he drank. He wasn’t ready to clink on it. Common bran-mash brownie, in the bottle. Hoppo had been drinking it all his life.
“We planted the ‘Skipjack’ scheme in ship-service R&D to flush out traitors like Ratine,” Fenroth said. “Then we found out about Aika Lynn, and realized we could do better. All we had to do was get our traitors here, in one place with your R&D, and we could wipe everything clean. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. But Vrees isn’t winning the war.”
