Five Planes

by Melissa Scott

  “There are ways. Unfortunately, some of them involve having an overwhelming force so your opponent won’t dare to fight.” She sighed. “Our main goal tonight is to arrange an armistice. Ultimately, I’d love to have get these two CEOs to support us against Ocampo.”

  Al-Ghazali shuffled virtual windows, each detailing one of Ocampo’s intrusions into the power structure of a conglomerate. “He’s strong.”

  “He’s had too many years to build his organization. That’s why we keep Judiciars from settling on any plane. Especially as they get more experience and influence.” She looked off into blank space. “I wish Accursius was here. Between us, we’d end this war and depose Ocampo without raising a sweat.”

  Al-Ghazali squeezed her shoulder. “She’s out there somewhere, Nalani. We’ll find her.”

  Sapnara approached in tiny steps, as if pretending she wasn’t actually there. “We’re back on the Rock,” she said. “The caterer’s ready to set up.”

  Nalani gestured, and virtual documents gathered themselves into her wrist cuff. “Then we should get out of their way.”

  The Last Fair Deal had settled neatly at the very edge of the Parra system. The relay beacon alerted to their presence, and the ship broadcast its current alias, as well as a private code that should allow it to receive and send data without the transactions registering in the general mail system. Privately, Imric thought that was an unnecessary precaution—by the time ap Farr’s messages could be sorted out of the torrent of data passing through the relay, the ship would be long gone—but he had to admit that the program was impeccably made. And vastly illegal, of course, but he didn’t doubt there were plenty of legal businesses who used similar programs, or so he told himself.

  The console pinged, and he glanced over his shoulder to where ap Farr sat waiting. “Transmission complete, capa.”

  “Thank you.” Ap Farr tapped her fingers on the arm of the captain’s chair—a rare and unnerving sign of indecision—then pushed herself to her feet. ”We’ll remain here for no more than ten hours. I may need to send an immediate reply.”

  “Yes, capa,” Morcant said, her fingers dancing across her board as she set anchors and programmed the autopilot to keep station on them. “Derrian, copying you the power numbers.”

  “Got ‘em.” Hina studied his screen for a moment, then adjusted a set of sliders. “Set and holding.”

  “Confirmed.” Morcant glanced over her shoulder. “Imric. Anything we need to worry about?”

  Imric shook his head. “Scanners are empty—looks like Parra One is on the far side of the sun right now, so I wouldn’t expect much traffic. Beacon signal is less than fifty percent, though it’s still perfectly readable.”

  “Any bulletins out on us?” Hina asked.

  “I’ve got the ship’s AI sorting, but nothing so far,” Imric answered.

  “Well, that’s a mercy,” Morcant said, and failed to swallow a yawn. “Damn. I need a nap.”

  “Go ahead,” Imric offered. “I’ve got a couple more things to lock down here, and I can call you if anything shows up.”

  “Set the alarms, too,” Hina said, with a smile that made it clear he was teasing. Or mostly so: Imric still wasn’t sure if the other man trusted him.

  Morcant waved the words away. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m going to get some sleep while I can.”

  “She said ten hours,” Hina pointed out. “I’ve got some diagnostics to run. And someone needs to check on the prisoner.”

  “No more than ten,” Morcant said. “If they’ll wait—well, I’d sleep first.”

  Hina nodded. “That goes for you, too, Imric.”

  “I know.” Imric looked back at his screens, status bars flickering as the ship’s AI processed the data from the incoming beacon transmission. “I just want to be sure there’s nothing important before I close up. If you want, I’ll check on Bhagwati.”

  “Everything shows secure,” Morcant said, and flicked the switch that locked her boards.

  “Thanks.” Hina nodded, palming open the control room hatch. Morcant followed him, but glanced back over her shoulder.

  “Seriously, don’t wait too long. We’re going to want you fresh if she starts making deals.”

  “I figured,” Imric answered, and the hatch slid shut behind them. He turned his attention first to the ship’s systems, calling up the systems that monitored the young judge’s cell. The interior lights were dimmed, and Bhagwati seemed to be sleeping, only a bit of tousled hair visible above the sheet. The biosensors seemed to confirm that he was sleeping, and the locks all showed secure. Imric closed that screen, and opened a wider view that gave him a picture of system activity throughout the ship. Ap Farr’s cabin glowed white—whatever she was doing, she was taking up a good deal of the ship’s processing capacity. Trying to find a way to get rid of Bhagwati, Imric guessed, though he had no idea whether she’d given up her idea of trading him for Val Millat’s information. A moment later, a light blinked on at the center of the communication screen, signaling a burst transmission on a dedicated frequency. Ap Farr left the channel open, and Imric eyed it thoughtfully. If there were open lines—once one frequency was in play, others necessarily became involved, as backups, as failsafes, as tuning channels for the AIs. If he could open a line, there was a good chance no one would notice, and that would give him a chance to contact Milos. If the system could find him. If no one caught him.

  He took a deep breath, watching the bars flicker across his monitor. Whatever ap Farr was doing, she was taking most of the AIs’ attention, her own doing the heavy lifting and the ship dancing attendance. It would be easy enough to insert a separate thread into the back channels, add a carrier frequency—if the system could find Milos. He watched a moment longer, confirming that everyone’s attention was elsewhere, and then typed in the query. He used engineer’s codes rather than the standard commercial numbers, but even so he held his breath until he was sure no one was going to interrupt the transmission.

  And now it was just waiting. He reopened the screen that monitored Bhagwati’s cell—that was always a good excuse—and set another diagnostic running. By the time it was done, he would know if the system could locate Milos—

  An icon blossomed at the base of his main screen: subject found. It was instantly replaced by connection available, and he hit the accept key before he could change his mind.

  The screen opened, small and low-resolution, but Milos’s face was unmistakable.

  “Imric? I didn’t—I know the code said, but—”

  Imric put a finger to his lips. “Milos. I don’t have much time.”

  “Where are you?” Milos shook his head. “No, wait, never mind, the codices can find you—”

  “Codices?” Imric grimaced. “No, stop, don’t tell me, I don’t have time. First, you need to know, the capa—ap Farr wants something, information, that Quintile Illumination’s pilot had. I think she’d trade your apprentice judge for it.”

  Milos paused. “But we don’t have Sen Millat. He jumped ship right after we left Drop. I don’t know where he’s gone.”

  Imric swore under his breath. “That’s not good.”

  “No. Nalani intends to get him back by whatever means necessary.”

  “Wonderful,” Imric said sourly. “I was hoping for a simple trade.”

  “What about ransom?” Milos didn’t sound hopeful, and Imric shook his head.

  “She, the capa, she wants whatever Sen Millat has. Can’t you find him?”

  “Maybe. Do you know what the information is, what it’s about?”

  Imric shrugged, suppressed the desire to glance over his shoulder. “Something to do with the ship, with Quintile Illumination, I think.”

  Milos straightened. “Wait. If that’s what she wants—Imric, Quintile Illumination was asking for help with a data problem. It asked me for help, I mean. I have a tranche of data direct from it, entirely undamaged when Quintile Illumination was destroyed. Do you think she’d trade Bhagwati for that?
”

  Of course she would. Imric swallowed the words, knowing they were far too optimistic. “I think so. I think it’s worth making the offer. Has she contacted you?”

  “Not me,” Milos said. “I expect any contact would go straight to Nalani. Can you give me a code?”

  “I don’t dare,” Imric answered, and Milos nodded in understanding. “But she has to be in touch with you soon. If she didn’t already send something—we’ll be here for no more than ten hours and then we’ll jump again.” He paused. “By the way, ‘here’ is Parra—”

  “It’s all right,” Milos said. “I’ve got a way of tracking you via Bhagwati’s codex. Just don’t deactivate it, and you’ll be find.”

  Imric nodded. “All right. Milos, I have to go now—”

  “I miss you,” Milos said, and Imric touched the screen.

  “Me, too.” He cut the connection before he could say anything he might regret. His boards were all still green, showing no signs that he’d attracted any undue attention, and he leaned back with a sign. At least this way they might be able to get rid of Bhagwati without getting anyone killed.

  Kiet looked at his cards and scratched his head. Not the best hand, but he could work with it.

  They’d fallen into the habit, after the rest of the fam was asleep, of gathering in wardroom 16 for a friendly game and late-night snacks. There were four regulars—Kiet and Thanh, Val and Caridad—with Jamahl a frequent fifth. Tonight, Caridad was already up sixty, while Jamahl and Val were fighting over last place.

  Caridad swallowed the last of the cheese sticks and leaned back. “I know you’re all distracted, but you’re making this way too easy for me.”

  Val snorted. “Can you blame us?”

  Jamahl, elbows on the table, cradled his chin in his hands and looked at Val. “What went wrong this time? I thought we were doing fine—why’d you terminate the run?”

  Kiet nodded. “I was sure we were going to Drop.” He glanced at Caridad. “We were right on the brink.”

  Focused on his had, Val said, “Didn’t feel right. We’re not ready.”

  Thanh, crosslegged with her ever-present knitting in her lap, said, “Val had his reasons. We have to trust his intuitions.” She touched Val’s shoulder. “When you can articulate the difficulty, then we’re ready to help with a solution.”

  Val put his cards face down on the table and ran a hand through his hair. “We’re okay as long as we’re in normal space. But when we’re halfway into hyperspace, just when we’re ready to topple…I feel everything slipping away. The fields start gyrating, out of control. It’s like we hit black ice. If I hadn’t terminated, we’d be adrift.”

  Kiet stroked his chin. “That’s what happens to our buoys, they start drifting and then we lose them. It takes months, though.”

  Thanh’s brow wrinkled. “Our buoys are linked to us through telemetry. In a way, you could say they’re tethered to normal space.” She looked to Val. “I don’t know if that helps at all.”

  Val shook his head. “Ships aren’t tethered. It has to be something else. Something more fundamental,” He picked up his hand, made a face, and threw the cards down. “I fold. Who wants another drink?”

  While Val fetched fresh drinks, Caridad cocked her head and said, “In the early archaic period, humans on different planes were still learning how to build their own transplanar ships. The fragments and legends we have tell about early ships going adrift—there’s a large section of an epic poem involving a rescue of the Grail Spectacular.” She waved her hands. “That doesn’t matter. There are many references to the problems of ‘establishing keel.’ I don’t suppose that could help?”

  Val, holding a tray of beverage bulbs, froze. “Caridad, I think you might be on to something.”

  Jamahl took the tray and distributed bulbs; Thanh guided Val back to he seat. “What does that mean, Val, ‘establishing keel’?”

  “It’s…” Val blinked. “It’s something multiplanars do automatically. It’s built in to the shape of their fields.” He sat up, his eyes suddenly alive. “Look, the Fissure has a defined shape through hyperspace. It’s like…like a knife stuck through a five-layer cake. That’s what the Fissure is, really, a rigid region of transplanar hyperspace that extends through the planes.”

  “And so...?”

  “We slide down that region like…electrons moving through the knife blade. To do that, you have to align yourself to the axis of the fissure—you have to stay within the blade. Unless you keep your attitude fixed in relation to the Fissure, there’s no consistent frame of reference and you’re adrift. Keeling aligns you with the Fissure.”

  Jamahl nods. “Regular ships do that by picking out nav beacons or individual stars. Otherwise, pilots wouldn’t know how to get where they’re going.”

  Kiet said, “So what do we need to establish keel? Is it a mechanism we can buy or build?”

  Thanh gave a cough. “If we go after technology like that, won’t we be tipping our hand to the company? Everyone will know we’re building a transplanar.”

  Val shook his head. “It’s software. A set of subroutines for shaping the primary hyperfields and aligning them with the Fissure.”

  “Antoku should be able to find a copy,” Kiet said, “although keeping it secret from the company might be harder. Val, are you sure this is what we need?”

  Val spread his hands. “I can’t make any promises. But I can tell you that without it, we’re not going anywhere useful.”

  Jamahl leaned back with a smile. “I’ll bet Perbaikan Rock has something we can use. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a trip there.”

  They had been on the edges of the Parra system for a little over nine hours, the autopilot keeping them stationary relative to their anchor coordinates. Imric had managed to eat and shower and even get a few hours of sleep, but the conversation with Milos haunted him. Surely Milos’s Supreme Justice could manage to rescue her apprentice—and surely ap Farr would be sensible enough to want to trade him. Holding even an apprentice judiciar prisoner for any length of time was simply asking for trouble, particularly if Milos could somehow locate Bhagwati’s codex. Did ap Farr know that was possible? Would it make a difference if she did? I miss you, Milos had said. Imric closed his eyes, resting his cheek against the cool metal of the bulkhead. I miss you, too, more even than when we were divorced.

  He couldn’t afford to think about that, not while he was still on Last Fair Deal. He shoved himself to his feet, pulled on a clean shirt, and made his way back to the control room.

  It was still empty—Morcant had been in the commons when he passed, frowning at her meal, and a glance at the consoles showed that Hina was in the engine room, fiddling with the condensers. Ap Farr was presumably still in her cabin: the communications channels were still open, though on stand-by. Whatever she was waiting for presumably hadn’t yet arrived.

  Imric settled himself at his station, automatically unlocking the boards, and touched keys to check on Bhagwati. The apprentice justice was awake now, and the remains of his meal sat neatly on its tray by the door, waiting to be retrieved. Imric had expected to find him pacing, or showing some other signs of impatience; instead, he was methodically working his way through the Hjessari Exercises, the familiar short form adapted for confined spaces. Apparently he was determined to stay fit in spite of his circumstances: an admirable thought. He moved well, too, someone who had clearly been well taught on top of natural grace and ability, and Imric sighed, watching. He himself had never had that skill.

  He was so caught up in the Exercises that he almost missed the codex’s move. A single connection flashed momentarily yellow, there and gone again so quickly he couldn’t be quite sure he’d seen it. If he’d had anything else to do, he wouldn’t have bothered to check, but with nothing else to occupy him, he called up the screen, and froze. The codex had somehow persuaded the ship’s AI to give it access to the inner shell of its containment, and it was busy leveraging that access to develop a connection that w
ould let it contact the rest of the ship.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said aloud, and called up the screen that would let him revoke the permissions. In the screen, the thread that marked the codex’s progress abruptly recoiled, and Imric entered codes to force an unscheduled change of the security codes. That should keep the codex secure at least for a while. For a moment, he considered querying the ship’s AI, but most of its attention was still focused on ap Farr, and he didn’t want to draw her attention. Probably the codex had gotten as far as it had because the ship was distracted; there was no need to report it unless there was another attempt. And besides, he added silently, shutting down his boards, there might be a time when he’d be grateful for the codex’s efforts.

  The caterer did good work. The room’s center was dominated by an airy, crystalline sculpture; around it a septet played unobtrusive but upbeat background music. A ring of tables and serving stations came next, each staffed by an authentic human—the Fourth Plane generally disdained the intricate bots and other mechanisms that were so popular on Third.

  A broad promenade separated the food area from arcs of couches, rearranged slightly in comfortable groups giving prime view of space outside the dome.

  A crowd of three dozen minor notables was also arranged by the caterer—representatives from all five conglomerates and most major worlds, as well as enough members of the popular press to keep them engaged. Apparently, Nalani thought, the arrival of a Supreme Justice was a good enough excuse for a party.

  Ocampo was conspicuously absent.

  (“Sara Naksatra and Il-Sung Sanxing have boarded,”) Nalani’s codex announced, (“along with their retinues.”)

  Across the room, Nalani nodded at Sapnara. With no hint of motion, the surface of Perbaikan Rock fell away, naked space all around them.

  The CEOs entered together. Nalani bowed to each. “Thank you for coming. We’re under way; I hope you’ll find the evening enlightening.”

  In severely-cut business robes of mottled brown and tan, Sanxing looked even more than usual like an ancient banyan tree gone walkabout. He bowed and brought his lips a centimeter from Nalani’s hand, then straightened. “I have no doubt, Supreme Justice.”