Five Planes

by Melissa Scott

The full crew was back on Last Fair Deal’s bridge, red-eyed from stim and lack of sleep, but giddy with delight that Quintile Illumination had defied the odds and successfully exited Drop with only the judicial codices to stand in for a proper ship’s AI. Imric closed his eyes, feeling himself perilously close to tears at the thought. He knew Milos would have done everything he could to protect the children, but—it was good to know that they had all made it, without disaster, without the need for lifepods or heroic rescues. From what he could read in the sensor web, Quintile Illumination had strained her engines, but everything else seemed intact. That was more than he had dared hope for, and he touched the edge of the screen where he had last seen Milos. Milos was born lucky: they’d all said that at once time or another, and he was relieved to see that his luck was holding.

  “Imric,” Vetrys said, and he looked up, hoping he hadn’t missed anything important. “Can you tell what they’re doing over there?”

  He’d left a few plug-ins in place in Quintile Illumination’s systems, nothing that couldn’t be denied with apologies, and he touched keys to tap their data. “Looks like they’re still running diagnostics. Everything’s coming back ragged-edge right now, but they’re getting it resolved.”

  “Is everything as intact as it looks?” That was ap Farr, leaning forward in the captain’s seat with her hands folded on the top of her cane.

  “Our scan shows no hull damage, or damage to exterior fittings; it looks as though their maneuver engines are fine, but they’ve strained their drive engines.”

  “Did they blow the capacitor?” Derrian asked.

  “Not as far as I can tell.” Imric touched more keys, querying Last Fair Deal’s sensors. “Really, she’s remarkably intact, considering.”

  “That’s a bit of good news,” ap Farr said. “Have they said anything?”

  “Just that they made it,” Imric answered. “And an incoherent thank you.”

  Ap Farr smiled. “Fair enough. Raise their comms tech. I want to talk to the captain. Private link, and tell them it’s urgent.”

  “Right away, capa.” Imric touched more keys, pulling back his sensors and then opening the link they’d rigged between the two ships. “Quintile Illumination, this is Patrika.”

  There was a moment of static, and then an unfamiliar voice spoke in his headset. “Quintile Illumination here.” The comm screen windowed a half-second later, the image smudged with static, but clear enough for him to be sure he hadn’t seen this technician before. He swallowed unreasonable disappointment—Milos was probably resting now, along with everyone else who’d fought through the exit—and said, “Quintile Illumination, Patrika. My captain would like a word with yours.”

  The technician, a young woman almost as pale as ap Farr, blinked twice, and then looked down as though checking a secondary screen. “Patrika, Quintile Illumination. I can call her, but she’s conferencing with engineering right now. I’ll have her step over when she’s done—”

  “My captain would like a private word,” Imric interrupted. “It’s urgent.”

  The technician blinked again. “One moment, Patrika.”

  The screen blinked to static, and Imric muted the contrast glancing over his shoulder to see ap Farr’s response. She was frowning slightly, but otherwise hadn’t moved from her earlier position, still resting her hands on the head of her cane. After a moment, she pursed her lips.

  “Warm up the guns, Hina. Let’s make sure they don’t take too long.”

  “Warming the guns,” Derrian answered. “Railguns are hot. Ion cannons warming.” There was a little silence, and they could all hear the soft chirping as the ion cannons counted down. “Ion cannons hot.”

  If it was me on the Quintile Illumination, that would surely get my attention, Imric thought. He glanced at his boards, expecting an almost instant hail, but the screen stayed blank. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vetrys frown, and behind him ap Farr said, “Bin Marrick. Can they see that, or are their sensors down?”

  “As far as I can tell, their net is working in the short range,” Imric said. “And we’re well inside it.”

  “Want me to take a shot, capa?” Derrian asked.

  Ap Farr shook her head. “Not yet.”

  A minute crawled by, and then another. Vetrys shifted uneasily in her chair, but said nothing. Imric rolled his sensors out to their furthest extent, catching a pair of mining-and-manufacturing stations in the net as well as a scattering of what seemed to be drifting debris, and pulled the net in again.

  At last the screen lit, showing first a string of codes and then a graying woman peering out at them. Imric reached for his controls to confirm the connection, but ap Farr said, “Wait. Be sure she’s alone.”

  Imric switched controls, examining the signal. “Looks like it’s a direct feed from her ready room.” He typed in a second set of commands, peering close to read the results. “I’ve pinged the area, and as best I can tell she’s by herself.”

  “That’ll have to do,” ap Farr said. “Open the line.”

  “Yes, capa.”

  The screen brightened, a string of icons flashing past to indicate that reciprocity had been achieved, and the graying woman bowed slightly. “I’m Kimura, captain of Quintile Illumination. Thank you for your help, Patrika. Without you—” Her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat. “We’d have broken up in Drop if you hadn’t been entrained with us, for starters. And your help preparing to exit Drop was invaluable. We’re in your debt.”

  “There is a way you can discharge that debt,” ap Farr said. There was a new note in her voice, a hint of menace Imric hadn’t heard since Broad Increase had been taken. “I admit that I hoped to overtake you once you left Drop. You have a crewman on board who—you are not the first ship to whom this has happened, and your crewman knows more about it than he admits.”

  “If you’re accusing one of my crew of being behind this sabotage,” Kimura began carefully.

  Ap Farr held up her hand. “I expect he is, though that’s not my concern. I had a contract with the man, which he broke, and I want him back. Hand him over, and we’ll call all debts paid.”

  Kimura shook her head, not in disagreement, but as though she was having trouble processing the question. “I—everyone on board is under legitimate contract to my employers. I can’t just hand over someone—”

  “Actually, you can.” Ap Farr glanced at Imric. “You’ll find the relevant file queued for you, engineer. Please transmit.”

  “Yes—” Imric bit off the betraying “capa,” and found the file waiting as she had said. He pressed the button to transmit it, and saw Kimura’s eyes drop as it opened on her secondary screen.

  “That’s the contract we had,” ap Farr said. “You’ll see it’s term is not yet up. Under Fourth Plane labor law, my contract takes precedence over yours.”

  “People are allowed to break contracts,” Kimura said.

  “Certainly—not that I wouldn’t have fought it in court,” ap Farr added, with an air of scrupulous honesty, “but he could have broken it. Instead, he ran out on me, and took a superceding job on Iridium Azimuth. And then with you. Technically, neither of those contracts if legitimate, and his employer could be fined for labor poaching.”

  “Of course we had no idea that there was a preceding contract,” Kimura said warily. “But, as I said, I don’t have the authority to release him to you. That is, as you said, surely a matter for the Judiciary.”

  “You have representatives of the Judiciary on board,” ap Farr said. “Fortunately so, it seems on several levels. Perhaps you should consult with them about the issue.” She paused, then showed teeth in a slow smile. “I should also reiterate that I believe Sen Millat was involved in a similar death of an AI, and may very well be involved in the death of yours. Of Quintile Illumination. If that’s correct, and I suspect it is, he will have arranged for rescuers to pick him up. If you don’t have him over to me, you may well have to give him to someone with fewer rights in the matter, and
no scruples at all about how they ask.”

  “I had noticed that your guns were hot,” Kimura said. “Purely precautionary, I assume?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” Kimura echoed. “I will, as you suggest, speak to the Justices we have on board. You will understand that, without their authority, I can’t just hand over Sen Millat.”

  “At your discretion, of course,” ap Farr said. “But a captain has great authority when it comes to the survival of her ship. And make no mistake, that is exactly what’s involved.”

  “I’ll discuss it with the Justices,” Kimura said again. “Quintile Illumination out.”

  Imric closed the connection, not wanting to ask the question that trembled on all their lips, but Vetrys was less inhibited.

  “That’s—pushing things. Do you think they’ll hand him over?”

  “I have no idea what the Judiciary will say,” ap Farr answered. “I rather doubt she’s going to ask. They’re a sitting duck right now, and it’s a solid thirty hours before a tug can reach them. She’ll turn him over.”

  Captain Kimura, Nalani thought, had lost five kilos and gained ten years. Kimura sat shrunken and disheveled at the table in Nalani’s suite, her eyes hollow. She accepted the steaming mug that Bhagwati offered her with gnarled fingers, then fidgeted with it constantly.

  “I just don’t know how to handle this,” the Captain croaked. “I can’t believe Millat did all that this claims.” She inclined her head at the flatscreen al-Ghazali was reading. “I don’t know what to think.”

  Nalani put on sympathetic smile number two, the one usually reserved for dying clients. Appropriate, really…after this incident Kimura’s career was surely dead. The company that operated Quintile Illumination needed a scapegoat, and Kimura as Captain was the most likely one.

  “The whole thing’s trumped up, Masina.” Nalani held out a hand; al-Ghazali passed her the flatscreen. “This so-called contract is twaddle. Any Judicial codex will verify that.”

  Bhagwati sat down, glanced at the flatscreen, and snorted. “It’s a lousy forgery. They didn’t even try.”

  Kimura looked around the table. “Her weapons are real enough. And charged. And pointing at us.” She shook her head. “I should turn Millat over to her.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Supreme Justice, I know you—”

  “Impossible, because Sen Millat is no longer aboard.” Nalani set the flatscreen down in the center of the table. “I suspected something like this might come up, so I sent him away.” She narrowed her eyes. “And we’re going to give him enough time to get to safety.”

  Al-Ghazali was the first one to find her voice. “How?”

  Nalani’s smile turned hard. “I summoned military help as soon as we emerged on this Plane. One cruiser will be here in six hours, with another two hours behind it.”

  Kimura retreated into her chair. “Our shields aren’t military grade—they won’t last fifteen minutes against her ion cannons.”

  Nalani’s codex said to her, (“No worries. The Chief Engineer says our circuits went in fine. Performance optimal.”) She took a sip from her own mug, sighed. “I have to beg your pardon, Captain, for taking action without consulting you. We Supreme Justices always have a few bits and bobs stashed in our luggage…Judiciary tech, you know, First Plane stuff. Very advanced.” Another sip. “ Your Chief Engineer was kind enough to install the parts my codex identified. Your shields are better than military grade now. Of course, I’ll have to take the parts with me when we’re done.”

  Bhagwati chuckled, and Kimura’s mouth hung open.

  “So you see,” Nalani continued, “we can argue points of contract law until the cruisers get here. I doubt that our friends on Patrika will stay around long after that.” She glanced from al-Ghazali to Bhagwati. “Besides the obvious forgery of the contract, what other legal points are open for dispute?”

  Bhagwati grinned. “I’ve got a good one. I searched their ship’s registry code. Patrika was decommissioned and broken up two years ago. All the relevant records are on file. They’re spacing under a false registry.”

  Nalani nodded. “Good.”

  Brushing back her hair, al-Ghazali said, “Their Captain hasn’t properly identified herself.” She shrugged. “I guess all we’d get would be an alias, but at least we could get it on record for further verification.”

  “Hmm.” Nalani stroked her chin. “The proper way would be to insist on a personal meeting, with full identity verification through codices. That would mean a trip over to Patrika, and I’m reluctant to do that.” She blinked. “Still, you’re right, formal identification procedures will take up time. The longer we can stretch out inquiries, the longer she’ll have to refrain from testing our shields.”

  “How can you be sure?” Kimura asked.

  “Oh, we’ll be transmitting the whole proceeding on Judiciary channels. Quite public. If she wants to fire on a Supreme Justice in the full view of the whole Plane....”

  Nalani wore her full robes of office, lending Quintile Illumination’s bridge an unaccustomed solemnity as she sat straight-backed and dignified in full view of the comm console. At her right al-Ghazali, in robes simpler and less imposing, still commanded respect.

  (“Ten minutes to go, Nalani.”)

  Out loud, Nalani asked, “Where is Bhagwati?”

  Heads swiveled back and forth among the bridge crew. No one spoke until Kimura said, “I haven’t seen him since we left your suite.”

  With an inward frown, Nalani said to her codex, (“I want to talk to Bhagwati.”)

  (“Locating him.”) After a pause, her codex went on, (“Oh, you’re not going to like this one bit. He’s on a shuttle approaching Patrika.”)

  Nalani set her jaw. (“Comm. Now.”)

  The comm screen caught Bhagwati just turning his head, looking startled. “Thurgood. You surprised me.”

  Keeping her tone even, Nalani said, “Why are you over there?”

  He grinned. “You said that a personal meeting would be best. I figured I’d represent, and get some of the identity scans you wanted.”

  Teeth clenched, she said, “Get back here this instant.”

  His face fell, then someone—the shuttle pilot, undoubtedly—turned and said something. Bhagwati listened, then said to Nalani, “We’ve docked.” He lowered his voice. “Thurgood, let me do this. I understand that you didn’t want to ask either of us, but I’m ready and willing to spare you the trouble.”

  Oh you idiot, Nalani thought, that’s not what I meant…she cut herself short. “That’s very nice of you, Bhagwati, but I really don’t want you there. I will explain fully when you return.”

  “Too late.” He smiled. “One of Patrika’s crew just came to get me. I’ll see you in conference.”

  (“Two minutes. Do you want to abort?”)

  Nalani took a deep breath and counted to five. (“No. Not with half the Judiciars on the Fourth Plane watching us. We just have to hope for the best.”)

  (“As long as he has his codex,”) her codex offered, (“his personal shield will protect him.”)

  (“And the stars watch over drunkards and fools. I’d rather he was a drunkard.”)

  The comm tech looked up from her console, looked from Kimura to Nalani. “The broadcast is all configured. Should I activate the link?”

  Kimura bowed her head in Nalani’s direction. Nalani flashed a smile at the tech. “Yes, please. My codex will send the necessary clearance codes.” She composed herself as the main screen’s neutral grey was replaced by a long shot of Patrika against the distant stars, the smaller shuttle attached like some tiny parasite. (“Recording and transmitting,”) her codex informed her; an administrative overlay flashed though details such as ORC date and time, judicial document code, and Nalani’s official seal as well as al-Ghazali’s.

  Wearing neutral face number one, Nalani announced, “Regarding employment contract of BD Valentyn wa Salim Millat Naksatra, Supreme Justice Thurgood IX
presiding. Supporting documents attached as exhibits.” One by one, a parade of other judicial seals joined hers and al-Ghazali’s. When the count reached nine, she nodded to the comm tech. ”Open circuit to Patrika, please.”

  The screen switched to the flight deck of Patrika. Nalani recognized Imric bin Marrick seated at the console; Bhagwati stood next to him. On the overlay, Bhagwati’s seal joined the others.

  “Patrika here.” Bin Marrick’s face and voice were expressionless. “Our Captain invokes personal privacy protocol.”

  Nalani suppressed her impulse to frown. “Granted.” She’d half-expected this; Patrika’s Captain would not appear in person, but would be represented by an anonymous image and processed voice. Regulations strictly dictated the extent to which facial expressions and vocal tone could be disguised—but Nalani had no expectation that the pirate would follow them.

  Well, no help for it. “Good morning, Captain.”

  The most generic permissible avatar appeared in front of the flight deck, a cartoon face with minimal detail. “And to you, Supreme Justice.” The voice was flat and flavorless. “Am I to assume that you are responding for Captain Kimura?”

  Nalani kept her gaze on the cartoon eyes. “You are to assume that I represent the Judiciary. The matter involves a dispute regarding Sen Millat’s purported employment contract with you, is that correct?”

  “Quite. The man skipped out on me. I want him back. As is my right under Fourth Plane labor law.”

  Nalani glanced up, then back. “I refer to exhibit alpha. Do you affirm that this document is the contract under question?”

  The cartoon head turned slightly, the eyes tracked back and forth for a few seconds. “It seems to be.”

  She looked up again, addressing the unknown audience. “Judicial review has determined that this document is invalid. Three codices concur.”

  The cartoon mouth became a straight line. “Both parties entered into that contract in good faith.” Out of the corner of her eye, Nalani noticed bin Marrick’s knuckles whiten.

  “Captain, I call your attention to exhibit zeta-three, document entitled ‘Specifications, temporary enhancement to shields, Quintile Illumination.’” She raised her right hand, inspecting her nails. “Have you any further evidence to offer in this matter? If not, I am prepared to make a ruling.”