The Stolen Future Box Set

by Brian K. Lowe

  Before I could inquire as to whether this was a compliment or a jibe, someone tried to open the door, and only after finding it bolted did there come a knock.

  “That must be Maire,” I said. “She’s not used to being locked out of her own cabin.” The Librarian disappeared without having to be told so that I could unfasten the door.

  Maire entered with unusual hesitancy, glancing about before she left the doorway. I stood aside in silent invitation. She was unarmed, and I credited Skull with initiative. Maire was unlikely to attempt to threaten me, given the odds and the debt she owed, but the psychological effects of allowing her to continue going armed would be bad both for the rowers and her own crewmen. I waved her to a seat.

  “Harros is dead.”

  “I know.” She nodded. There hardly seemed any way she could not have known, with his body sprawled in plain sight on the deck, but decency commanded me to show some concern. “Was he involved—in the mutiny?”

  “It seems that way,” I said economically.

  “I thought so, when I woke up to find him gone and four men trying to crawl into bed with me.” She glanced over at what had been, until an hour ago, her corner. “What are you going to do with my crew?”

  As long as open warfare could be avoided, the rowers and the crew were better off divided for now. Tomorrow the integration could begin for those who wished to remain on board. I had not considered the question, but I saw no reason why any former crewman who wished to leave could not be set down by the ship’s launch in an empty field near a town. I said as much to Maire.

  “They’re staying,” she said flatly.

  “Well, certainly, if that’s what they want. But I want them to know they have a choice. Under the circumstances it is only fair.”

  “I appreciate your sense of fair play, but they’ll stay with me. They’re my personal retainers. They came with the ship.”

  I found myself rolling the Library between my hands to keep them occupied. Visualizing the Librarian rolling over and over inside made me smile despite the circumstances.

  “Your personal retainers just tried to rape and murder you.”

  She misinterpreted my smile. “Those were sailors I picked up along the way,” she snapped. “Half of my crew was drafted by another sky barge for military duty in the west. I didn’t have any choice but to find new sailors.” Changing the subject abruptly, she reached for the Library. “What is that thing you’ve got, anyway?”

  I put the Library away before she could get a look at it, lest she recognize it.

  “I’m going to need your help to pull all these men together. I have a mission for them and I’m going to need everyone to work together to get it done.”

  “What kind of mission?”

  Following the ancient rule of command once again, I ignored her question. As a subordinate, she had no right to know my plans—not that I had any definite plans to know. But every commander knows: If you can’t be wise, at least be decisive.

  “I’ll need to set up a new chain of command. Skull will be first mate; I’d choose Timash, but he has no experience. You’ll be second officer. Your—retainers—will be your personal responsibility, at least for now. Keep them in line and Skull will keep them safe from others.”

  Maire was half out of her seat. “Second officer? To Skull? On my own ship?”

  “Sit down, woman!” She fell back into her chair; she’d never heard my command voice before. “Skull has the respect of the men! He’s done the job before. And if I put you in place as my second they’d all think it was because—”

  “Because I’m sleeping with you?” Her eyebrows raised, Maire went on: “What do you think they think we’re doing right now? ‘Captain’s privilege,’ they call it.”

  I felt the warm blood rise in my face. “I’ll put a stop to that.” I sighed heavily. “By God, what do they think of you?”

  “Oh, come on. They already know about Harros.”

  For a moment, I was nonplused, thinking of Harros, whose broken body waited with the others for the long fall to the sea. Then the light dawned…

  “What do you mean, you and Harros? He was shot in the head!”

  “Since when has a man ever let a little thing like that stop him?”

  The blood rose in my face once again. “This is hardly a fit topic for discussion. I’ll have Skull set the men straight.”

  “As long as you’re setting things straight, there’s something I’ve been wondering about, and as long as I’m going to be working under you for a while, I think I have a right to know.” She leaned forward again, staring me straight in the eye.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  I found my reliance upon decisive action in place of hesitation to be wearing thin.

  “What do you mean?” I thought it a reasonable question under the circumstances, and the best I could do. I was tired.

  “You heard me. You’re too big to be a Thoran, but you run around with a gorilla. You’re a yellow, but you’re dyed to be a red. You’re carrying a Library, but you don’t know the first thing about not firing a weapon on a sky barge—and I can’t find your address in the datasphere.

  “At first I thought you were a spy,” Maire continued. “Or else an assassin. But that didn’t make any sense. If you were a spy you couldn’t have found me in the Vulsteen city, and if you were an assassin you would have left me there. So who the hell are you, and how did you end up running my ship?”

  “I won’t be needing it long,” I answered almost inaudibly.

  “And then what?” she demanded, her maternal instincts aroused.

  “And then you can have it back,” I said harshly. “I won’t need it after that.”

  “After what?”

  “None of your business,” I whispered.

  “It damned well is my business!”

  “You can have your pick of the cabins, after Skull,” I told her. I knew it would infuriate her that I still ignored her questions, but I had more work to do and no time to indulge her. “Are we secure for the night?”

  “Yes,” she gritted.

  “Good. Then please fetch Skull and Timash. We need to have a conference.” When she hesitated, I added: “You will find that some of your questions may be answered.”

  She still did not move. “Not the one I want. There’s something weird about you. You know the wrong people, you turn up in the wrong places, and most of all the ‘sphere says you don’t exist.” She looked at me most queerly, as if seeing me through a microscope and discovering an unknown virus. “Are you from the homeworld?” she breathed.

  “I was born right here on Thora.”

  Maire banged her fists on the table. “That’s impossible! Then why aren’t you in the ‘sphere?”

  I grabbed her wrists. “Stop pounding the furniture and do as you’re told.”

  She did stop pounding the table; breaking free of my grasp, she wound up and swung at me, instead.

  Again, I did not hesitate. I caught her hand, pulled her to me, and kissed her.

  Chapter 41

  I Betray Myself

  When I finally dismissed my “senior staff” that night, I made sure to bolt the door to my new cabin, and still I slept neither in the bed that Maire had recently occupied, nor that used by Harros—though now it appeared that recently the two had been interchangeable. That was not, however, the reason behind my choice, nor was it squeamishness about sleeping where lovers had last lain before one of them died, even if that was more than sufficient in and of itself.

  No. In the main, I apprehended assassination. Only hours ago an attempt had been made upon this room’s tenant, and the change of landlords, to my mind, made a repeat of that scene more rather than less likely. Maire had calmed for the duration of the conference—amazingly, she had not only failed to attack me for the liberties I took with her while we were alone, she accepted them without comment and fetched Skull and Timash straightaway—but I, like most men, am only so far acquainted with the wa
ys of the fairer sex that I admit the depths of my ignorance. Maire, while she had assured me that Durrn had revealed the only bolt-hole into or out of this cabin, might harbor darker motives than she would admit.

  And even could I trust her not to attempt to take back her ship, her men might try something equally foolhardy. For tonight I had them under guard, but it was best to take no chances; without my command, the crew would surely dispose of them and sail away to their homes. I intended eventually that they would have that chance, but not at the expense of more lives lost.

  Nor could I even rely upon my own men. I had taken Skull’s pre-eminence by force; by force or stealth it could be taken from me.

  I checked the locks again, and slept in a pile of tapestries in a dim corner. Despite all my precautions, had my killer sidled up to my side in the night, I would have died, for no sooner did I lie down than I was dead to the world until Timash rattled my door in the morning.

  Groggily I staggered across the strange room, tripping on a worn piece of carpet. Timash was insufferably cheerful.

  “You look like the wrong end of a rhinocehorse.”

  “Which side is that?” I asked, casting about for a sink in which to wash my face.

  “Usually the bottom. Rhinocehorses trample their prey before eating it.”

  “Oh.” I decided ignorance truly was bliss. “Where in heaven’s name is the sink?” Now that I thought about it, there was much missing in the captain’s quarters. Being the only woman on the ship, I doubted she had shared her sanitary facilities with her crew—especially as she was their captain, and a titled lady to boot.

  Timash looked around. “You could ask the Library to ask the ship’s databoard.”

  The thought of sharing my morning not only with Timash but also with the supercilious image of a long-dead professor did not improve my mood. I said I didn’t know where the dataport was.

  “You could ask him that, too.” Gorilla or not, if he offered any more help I was likely to throw him overboard if it meant cutting him up and shoving his body parts out through the porthole.

  “I refuse to ask a computer every time I want to wash my face. Where I come from the washing bowl was always right next to your bed!” As if on cue a panel in the wall beside the bed slid soundlessly away, revealing the water closet. “See?” I demanded. “Some things never change.” I disappeared inside to take care of my morning ablutions. As I said, some things did not change—thank Heaven.

  I emerged with an entirely new outlook on life. It brightened even further when I saw how Timash had spent his time: breakfast was on the table. After all the time we had spent together in his mother’s house, he even knew what I liked, odd as it seemed to him.

  He watched me eat with a silence that conveyed much. Timash had never been disposed to pensivity. He had learned that I tended to eat, not talk, at meals, but he had never let that stop him before. I made an encouraging motion with my fork.

  “Out with it.”

  “The men are wondering what you’re planning to do—”

  “And?”

  “And so am I.”

  I wiped my lip to give myself time. I sighed and settled back in my chair to give myself some more. At length, however, I ran out of things to dawdle over and Timash was still awaiting my answer.

  “I started out to find Hana Wen and bring her home. That hasn’t changed.”

  “I’ll give the pilot orders to make course for Dure,” Timash acknowledged, but he did not rise from the table.

  “Was there something else?” I asked coldly, for Timash’s question had left my nerves on edge for reasons I could not pin down.

  “What about after Dure? Are you still planning to try to find that time machine?”

  My irritation made me answer his question with one of my own.

  “Why? Did you have other plans?”

  “Me?” He leaned back, hands wide. “No, I’m just along for the ride.” We were both silent for a few moments, not knowing how to escape this swamp in which we had wandered. “I just thought maybe you wanted to do a little more with your life.”

  “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” If I thought my attitude would cow him, I was surprised.

  “It means that after the way you helped out the conservationists, I thought maybe you were onto something! I saw how they reacted to you, the same way I did. They wanted to follow you, and they didn’t know you from a tiger spider! And Uncle Balu, he saw it, too! He was the one who said I should go with you in the first place. ‘He’s gonna go far, boy.’ That’s what he said. ‘Follow him and the stars’re the limit.’“

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”

  He took a deep breath and plunged on. “Uncle Balu was right. Look what’s happened since we met. You organized the conservationists and destroyed an entire Nuum research station. We got caught by the Vulsteen, and you made friends with the breen, for god’s sake. Now we get kidnapped onto a sky barge, and a week later you’ve not only taken over the slave hold, you’re captain of the whole damned ship!”

  Put that way, it did seem rather extraordinary, but to my mind I had done nothing but that which was required to survive. And I pointed out that the captaincy of the Dark Lady was completely fortuitous.

  “When we were starting out, you told me there was a saying in your time: ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ So be bold. I don’t know about the rest of Tehana City, but I’m tired of living in a damn cave. Thora’s tired of living in a cave. The Nuum have had us down so long they think we’re a joke. The conservationists, my people, the breen, we’re not laughing. We’re mad. All we need is a leader.”

  “My god,” I whispered, my eyes opening wide. “You’re right! You are mad.”

  It was tragic to watch his untempered enthusiasm die its swift and undeserved death. He stood slowly.

  “I’ll take your orders to the pilot.”

  Maire had taken to heart my orders to bring her men into line with the more numerous rowers. Timash told me later that she and Skull had put their heads together earlier that morning, each coming away from the meeting with a grudging respect for the other’s abilities. I don’t know who impressed me more. The crews, however, were working together and that was what counted. Timash himself had taken on the cleaning up each former rower and outfitting him with a new outfit from the former crew’s stores so that at first glance, it was difficult to tell who only yesterday had been the masters and who the slaves.

  I don’t doubt that there were problems. These men had much to work out, and even the combined personalities of my officers—which were formidable singularly, and positively overwhelming together—could never smooth over all the old animosities. But not a rumor of discord ever reached my ears, and if my eyes spied an occasional facial bruise and a corresponding bandaged knuckle, I could turn away and play ignorant so long as no one disappeared. In that requirement, life had not changed.

  Maire consented to turn over to me all of the ship’s records, save for her own personal logs, which she assured me had no bearing on my official duties, and I accepted her word with the air of a gentleman. She steadfastly refused to give me access to the Nuum datasphere. I turned instead to the Library without realizing how much my mere request had given away.

  What I found in the ship’s logs shocked me.

  “These men aren’t criminals, they’re revolutionaries!”

  The Librarian pretended to read over my shoulder. I suppose it was to make me more comfortable than knowing that he had scanned all the records beforehand.

  “To the Nuum, they are one and the same.”

  “But these charges—!” I protested. “Their trials were kangaroo courts.”

  “Without recognizing your reference, I can presume your meaning from context. The Nuum are not interested in justice, but in preserving their way of life. These sky barges are designed specifically to destroy any cohesive spirit by denying the prisoners sufficient resources for all, thus pitting them
against one another. It also disperses them across the empire.”

  I thought back to my own first days on board ship. “The system works.”

  “The Nuum thought it instructive that the populace understand the risks they took in revolt,” the Librarian said. “My files include graphic representations of shipboard life. If they are accurate, Captain Por Foret was a very merciful jailor.”

  Timash’s words haunted me like the ghost of Hamlet’s father calling him to his task. I grinned self-consciously at the irony of drawing such a simile while sailing on a ship called the Dark Lady. When my professors had proclaimed the Bard immortal, they had had no idea…

  “There is a great deal more to the captain than we thought,” I mused.

  “As she is beginning to realize about you, as well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come, come, sir,” he said in his best imitation of an Oxford don. “You asked her how to access the datasphere.”

  “Yes?”

  He sighed. “The Nuum datasphere.” I looked blankly over my shoulder at him and he returned the favor until at last his eyes widened. “Sir, where you come from—they did not have a worldwide data system, did they?”

  “Where I come from, they barely had airplanes. We had never heard of computers.”

  The Librarian walked around to the other side of the table so that I could untwist my neck.

  “I begin to see. The Nuum datasphere is a universal system, open to everyone—everyone who is a Nuum, anyway. When you asked Lady Por Foret how to access it, she knew immediately that you were not a Nuum.”

  I closed my eyes and cursed softly. “Would you know if she had accessed the datasphere herself?”

  “No, sir. I am not connected at all. If she carries an implanted datalink, she could download any information or contact any other person in the sphere without anyone else knowing.”

  “Which means she could call for help at any time.”