“Yikes. You’re not only planning on surviving, you’re planning on hitting it big.”
“You negotiated quite a good deal with Candace, and I know you, you will find a way to extract more. Then there will be my own little trading efforts with the Guild on Cimer. It would look bad if I didn’t make us some money there.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Sometimes, darling, you are too practical.”
“I just want our consort party to be special.”
“Yes. Anything you want. Anything. I want you to be happy,”
She pressed her cheek against my neck. The delicate down of pale fur tickled some. “Then fall asleep with me,” she said slowly, “now, and on all the nights of the future.”
“That’s the best deal I’ve been offered in a long time,” I said, my own eyes feeling heavy as a gentle lassitude gripped me. It was only mildly shaken by the recollection that I had said nearly the same words to Maauro after our first adventure on the asteroid, when she’d offered to join forces, so we could protect each other and remain free. But the recollection was a pleasant one and I continued my drift to sleep, thinking that all of time and space could slow as far as I was concerned and we could happily remain in this moment forever.
I woke early, as I always did when something special was in the offing. Jaelle rose and stretched in ways that would have crippled me. We showered and made our way to the galley, me toting a duffle bag as I was bound for Pisces after breakfast. Maauro and Dusko were already there. Maauro must have been monitoring our cabin door, as she slid hot coffee and chai in front of us, immediately followed by fluffy eggs and all manner of breakfast goodies.
We reviewed the plans for the last time, calling each other by our codenames and feeling a little like children sneaking off on an adventure, or at least, Jaelle and I did. Dusko had a sour look as if we actually were misbehaving kids. Maauro’s true thoughts were hidden behind her calm, gentle face.
“I’m leaving you the dishes,” I said to Dusko as we rose. To my surprise, the Dua-Denlenn barked a short laugh. Maauro reached down and lifted my heavy duffle as if it was a napkin.
“My gear is aboard,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
We walked down to the airlock together. Jaelle stepped forward and put her mouth to my ear, whispering. “Remember all we said to each other.”
“I will,” I promised and kissed her.
She turned to Maauro and embraced the smaller android. “No pouncing today, Kit-sister. You take care of yourself and be sure to return my male with all parts intact.”
Maauro gazed up at her. “I will protect Wrik with my existence. His safety exceeds all other mission parameters.”
“Good,” Jaelle kissed her on the cheek and stepped back.
Dusko looked us over. “Don’t get killed. It would annoy me.”
This time it was I who snorted a laugh. “Watch out for Jaelle and stay out of the ship’s safe.”
We turned and walked onto Pisces. At the last second, I turned back for a look at Jaelle. She smiled and winked at me as the door closed. Maauro waited for me at the other side of the airlock, sealing the door after I entered.
“Well,” I said. “It’s just you and me again.”
“I will miss the others,” she replied, “but I am always happy to be with you.”
I put an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get up to the bridge. Time to kick free and head for the jump point.”
I lined the Pisces up on the entrance to the warp-point. Maauro, more precise than any supercomputer in the Confederacy, handled the course set-up. With her calculations, we would shave weeks off the real-time absence from the universe that a starship normally experienced. In an additional advantage, we’d arrive weeks before any enemy would expect our arrival. But there was a certain intuition in approaching a warp-point: a touch, a sense for choosing the exact moment to initiate the jump. In that sense, star travel remained as much an art as a science and Maauro left those brushstrokes to me.
The warp-point looked like every other section of space, except on our instruments, which showed the fracture lines in space-time and the bending caused by the singularity in our stardrive. I braced myself. Time didn’t pass for biological entities in stardrive. Everything had to be set at the entry and exit point; otherwise it was like riding on a bullet. The transition to hyperdrive was rarely pleasant, though by the time you really experienced it, you were out the other side and back in space-time.
I looked at Maauro. “Well, here we go.”
“See you on the other side,” she replied.
I engaged the stardrive.
Discontinuity, dreams, discordant blasts of light, sound and smell.
Our entry into hyperspace is excellent. While I am the more precise, somehow Wrik, with his instincts about space-time and spacecraft, remains my superior in this. It should not be, but is.
Time is distorted in hyperspace. Unlike Wrik, I am aware. But it feels as though it takes hours to turn my eyes to look at my friend. He is motionless, his biological system in a form of suspended animation, not imposed by science, but by the very nature of the universe we now travel in. His kind is not meant to be here. In a very real sense he does not exist here, being merely a potential Wrik who will again act and think upon emergence. Though I can operate here, my systems do suffer disorientation: colors are off. I do not experience smell as Wrik does, but readings for certain things are clearly incorrect.
I continue to study my friend. His eyes are open but unaware. His expression is almost eager, excited. Wrik is at his happiest in space, at the controls of a ship. I know this is where he feels he contributes the most to our group, another reason I leave almost all ship functions to him wherever possible. It is pleasant to study his face for the time of the trip, though even that is wrong, as there is no time where we are. Yet I am conscious from second to second, though my chronometers and my elapsed experience do not and will not tally, in one of the great mysteries of hyperspace. I sit, thinking idle thoughts and log the experience.
“Emergence,” the ship’s computer, which was now merely an extension of Maauro and spoke in her voice, sounded in my ear. I groaned. This was a particularly foul emergence and my stomach threatened to rebel.
“Here,” Maauro said. She had the vial of restorative fluid and anti-nauseants. I gratefully gulped them down while wondering how she managed to get them so quickly. I scanned my instruments. “Nothing on short-scan. Good, I’d hate to hit even some dust at this percent of light speed.”
“That would void even my warranty,” Maauro agreed.
I grinned at her and she returned it.
“On course insystem,” I added. “This feels a little odd. Usually I do airbraking on a gas giant to slow down for entry to the inner worlds of a system. Today, it’s our destination.” I finished the restorative. “I hope Jaelle has an easier emergence.”
“They should. Their angle of entry puts them days behind us, and should stress their biology less.”
I nodded. “Time to announce our presence?”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath then keyed the mike. The message would outpace our speed by a day.
“This is Lt. Jedaya Fels, CSS Pisces to Tir-a-Mar Space Control, Planet Cimer, Cimbar System. We have entered your systems and will be assuming standard orbit over your floating city after air-braking. Please prepare to receive standard star mail and Confed diplomatic correspondence. We will be conducting inspections of habitations of all oxygen-breathing species on Cimer and accounting for all Confed personnel aboard. Please make ready to receive a pinnace from our ship. Acknowledge upon receipt.”
I kicked on the ship’s thrusters, determined to lose some speed to lessen the strain of air-braking on the gas giant’s atmosphere. “Well the fat’s in the fire now.”
“And that is a bad thing, I gather.”
I grinned. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know much about cooking.”
Pisces sped into the system. A terse acknowledgement came back from Tir-a-Mar, along with approach coordinates. Maauro checked these thoroughly. It wouldn’t do to brake at too severe an angle and disappear into the cobalt-blue skies of Cimer. Later, a more civil response came as the authorities sorted themselves out in reaction to our unexpected arrival.
We used Maauro’s simulated crewmen, mere projections in the computer, to handle most of the routine communications. As commander, I was invited to a reception aboard the floating city.
Five hours later, we completed airbraking in the outer edge of Cimer’s atmosphere, drawing a hellish blaze across their sky as if we were some harbinger of doom. Perhaps we were.
Maauro prepared her escape pod for her separate descent. I preflighted the pinnace, then returned to my cabin to change into uniform. Twenty minutes later, I grimaced in the mirror at the Confed dress uniform I now wore. The jacket was an elegant dark-blue over medium-blue pants with a gold stripe. The crossed, shooting stars of the Confed navy decorated one raised collar, the bar and comet of a Senior Lieutenant the other. Maauro had felt I was too young to pass for a Lieutenant Commander in a small scoutship in a peacetime navy. The collar chafed, but perhaps it was simply being back in uniform that ailed me. The associations were unpleasant.
“You look very handsome, Wrik.”
I looked at Maauro with a surprised laugh. “So androids feel the same way about a man in uniform that human females do?”
She cocked her head at me in the characteristic way she had when I’d said something puzzling. I wondered if she was aware of it, or if it was a signal to me. A smile stole over her face. “Yes, we do. I will have to beat all the M1s through M6s away from you.”
“Android humor,” I said ruefully. “What next?”
But she had seen something in my face. Maauro walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. It was warm and light. Always it was in the little things that Maauro amazed me.
“No more dwelling in the past,” she said, giving me the slightest shake with a hand capable of shearing armor. “Whatever you once were, you are now Wrik Trigardt and you have proved yourself many times.”
I put my hand over hers and had to resist an urge to kiss her. My feelings for Maauro were getting more complicated and heading in directions that I hadn’t imagined before. Sometimes I could no longer clearly describe them to myself. It caused an unsettling mix of guilt and confusion.
I realized that I was staring at her and felt myself blushing like a fool. “Well not only Wrik Trigardt. Now I am Lt Jedaya Fels, CSS Pisces.”
“And I,” Maauro snapped off a perfect salute, “am your trusty crew of three. I’ve programmed the ship’s AI with three additional artificial personalities, including visual images, that will respond to any messages with military precision and reticence.
“None of them look like me, of course. It’s best to assume that we have some enemies down there and they may recognize us. I am especially distinct.”
“Whereas I am merely one of billions of brown-haired humans undistinguished for beauty or ugliness,” I returned.
“Just so,” she agreed.
“Pity that malleability skill you showed when we first met is gone. It would be useful if you could change appearance.”
“Perhaps. I can still alter many details of my Maauro matrix; my outer casing was optimized for that. I have slowly and carefully made minute adjustments to look a little older, but an overall change, such as when I first switched to Maauro-appearance, is very disruptive, even if it is quick. I believe that fast change I made when we first met may have been responsible for my malfunctions on the asteroid and on Kandalor. That ability was new to my model and had not been used much. Even if I could do so, I would be loath to try any permanent change again without a Creator tech team in support. My M-7 matrix is gone. If I disrupt my Maauro appearance there is no telling what could follow.”
I sighed. “Might was well wish for a battleship to back us up while we are wishing.”
Again came the smile. “Might as well.”
“Time to go?”
“Yes, I will walk with you to the pinnace.”
I picked up my duffel and we walked through the scoutship’s narrow central corridor to the compact bay that held the pinnace, a slender atmospheric craft with folding wings that filled the bay amidships near the AG drive/reactor core. It was hard to believe a crew of four could get into it, but it and the escape pod were all the auxiliaries we had.
I stowed my gear and did my customary preflight. Maauro had attended to such details, but I’d have no use for a pilot who wouldn’t inspect his own ship before launching. I dogged the hatch, slipped into the pilot’s chair, and looked at Maauro through the canopy. She smiled and waved. I waited. She looked at me.
“Wrik,” her voice came over the speaker. “Go ahead. I promise not to die from explosive decompression.”
“Right,” I said, swatting myself on the head. I triggered the control that sucked the oxygen out of the bay, and opened the doors. Maauro stood there and gave me a thumbs-up. The pinnace slowly dropped away from the scoutship. I looked up at the small, gentle face that watched me go and wished I wasn’t leaving. The bay doors closed and I lined up for entry.
The pinnace quickly heated from reentry and it bucked as I hit thicker atmosphere, glad for all the hours I’d spent in the simulators. Cimer was a pilot’s nightmare. It was closer to the main sequence star of Cimbar than was Sol’s Neptune, which it otherwise resembled, so there was far more ambient light, but the extra energy also stirred Cimer’s atmosphere, fueling tremendous storms. As I dove into the clouds, the light quickly faded to twilight.
Meanwhile, the drag of gravity continued to build. The pinnace had no AG field, although the pilot’s seat was designed to be used in high-G, with all controls reachable from fully supported positions. The god-awful flying conditions for my small craft kept my mind off the high-G.
I concentrated on the controls on my screen, keeping the cross-hairs centered. The ship’s automatics did the rest, but I was too much of a fighter pilot to trust entirely to automatics. Down I went through canyons of blue clouds, past flashes of lightning of mind-boggling strength.
A speck appeared on my instruments and shortly later I had it on visual. The Ribisan floating city was a sight for sore and amazed eyes. It sat on a boundary layer, a mass of dark-green metal, dozens of kilometers in length and width, larger than any space station or ship. Only the Infester Artifact, a planetoid-sized ark made by Maauro’s ancient enemies exceeded the city in size. And this was far from the largest of such installations the Ribisans could build. This was, after all, a frontier world. The station’s dark-green metal was lit by a riot of colors. I was grateful for the contrast with the grim and violent world around it.
“This is Lt Jedaya Fels, CSS Pisces on final approach.”
“This is Tir-a-Mar landing control. Welcome, Lieutenant. We have you on instruments. Prepare for ALS landing.”
“ALS landing, aye.” Another pilot might have relaxed, leaving the automatic landing system to bring them in, but we had enemies and maybe some were on the floating city. I kept my hands poised over the instruments, but there was no need. Giant doors opened on a landing field. Light spilled out as my pinnace lowered itself into the bay within. The oppressive embrace of the planet eased as I entered the AG field inside of the vast floating city. I sighed in relief as the pinnace settled on its landing jacks inside the hanger.
Outside, Ribisans moved easily in the poisonous murk of Cimer’s atmosphere. The green-tinged light was low by Confed standards, but they saw by other organs. I switched to night-vision to get a look at them. Even that was difficult. Immobile in armored suits in 02 environments, here they darted about the hanger, skittering on their multiple legs, trunked to a central core
. They reminded me of a bizarre cross of a squid and a child’s top. These wore vests and belts festooned with tools. The heads were the strangest of all, appearing like large clusters of grapes. In the low-light scan, the grapes glowed with some form of bioluminescence.
They moved about my ship, chocking the landing gear and hooking up power cables so I could shut down my reactor. Overhead the great doors began to shut. The Ribisans scattered to my right, heading for large airlock doors that presumably led to their section of the city.
Bright white light replaced the dim green. Blowers swirled out the native atmosphere and my instruments showed a standard oxygen-nitrogen mix replacing it. The hanger went from being a fantastic stage for the bizarre, to Confed gray and blue. Other small ships dotted the deck, a mix of standard Confed and Ribisan models.
At the far end of the hanger a door slid back and a variety of Confed humanoids marched in, the welcoming committee.
“Maauro!” I sent mentally, suddenly feeling the need for contact with my deadly companion.
“I’m with you,” her mental voice sounded in my mind: calm, quiet and reassuring. “I will only speak when necessary so as to not divide your concentration, but we are always connected.”
“Yeah, good,” I said, trying to keep relief out of my voice. Silly, she knew how scared I was from monitoring the adrenalin levels in my body. I rose and slipped on my cap, squared my shoulders and got ready to make contact.
Chapter Eight
I opened the side hatch and slipped through the small opening down to the metal deck. The welcoming committee moved forward en masse. I studied them as they approached. Candace’s briefing material had covered many of the senior staff, but it wasn’t recent information so I was uncertain of who was greeting me. The five were a common mix of Confederate species. A stocky human woman led them. Her steel-gray hair matched her air of practical efficiency. Behind her followed a male Dua-Denlenn, a Morok, a human male and a hulking Okaran in a police uniform. The Ursinoid Okaran was far smaller than Dusko’s old bodyguard, Truff, so I guessed it was female.
Against That Time Page 8
