by Sharon Lee
• • • • • •
Verita opened her eyes, realizing that she’d been swimming in the half-sleep she’d become prone to. A chime in the halls had woken her, one of the administrator’s many notes to maintenance.
She was in her own chair, office door locked, so no one saw her start to wakefulness. She was sleeping short shift as she tried to keep up. The returned rovers reported astounding amounts of local free oxygen in the long midafternoon of the planet’s forty-hour day. Not an atmosphere breathable by humans, by any means, but one promising explorers might walk the world, extracting the oxygen they needed directly, within a century, perhaps even a decade. She wanted to see it sooner, she wanted to make it happen in a rush of . . .
A chime woke her; the screen was filled by the administrator, her face blotchy and busy with tension.
“Investigator? The tender is under my direct control. Understand me? Until I leave! The pilot’s under doctor’s care for exhaustion. The backup pilot is nearing the same point. People are ill all around you because you push too hard. You push everyone too hard, Verita.”
• • • • • •
Kiland suppressed the yawn by force of will as he went over routine schedules on the bridge. Smit had always done his paper work on the bridge, too—it was good for the crew to see the leader at work. Lunch was only moments away . . .
“Captain?” The sub-captain’s voice was firm. “I don’t have any incident reports from the station on this—would you like to take a look on the main screen? I was having some of the crew practice long-range visual ID and we were getting mismatches—”
At high magnification the RosaRing spun in space, filling the screen. The station silhouette was clear but the alternating angled white and blue stripes, clear on large parts of the hull, were smudged and blotchy, as if overlain by a layer of greenish rust around the protruding docking bay on the lower reaches.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this, sir.”
Kiland’s boredom fell away, memory jostling his concentration, trying to come to the front of the mind.
He pointed at a second screen.
“Put some samples from our outbound recorded images there, Sub-Captain, close as you can to a match. Ask Station Operations if they’ve suffered any gas leakage or maintenance issues they haven’t passed on? Get as good an image as you can for them. . . . And ask Ops . . . no, ask the administrator’s office to share results of the routine tests they’ve run on our docking ports and loading locks. Also, request current readings on the inner docks.”
“Sir!”
The sub-captain issued commands, brought the bridge to alert, used the keypad to search images and bring them live on screen, ran a match, adjusted sizes.
The ordinary sounds on the bridge fell away; watch partners messaged quick notes or whispered.
The captain hand-signaled the sub-captain, who approached, bowing slightly to hear the captain’s order.
Instead, the captain asked, “Were you on academy on the mount, or on the islands?”
The sub-captain, caught by what seemed a non-sequitur, hesitated and said “Why, like you, the islands, sir.”
The captain nodded, then nodded toward the images on the main screen.
“So you are familiar with the Citadel’s wind walls? Perhaps along Chespick Beach, or the tidal falls at Injridge?”
The sub-captain’s features showed remembrance, a touch of a smile for some assignation late night at oceanside, where the waves and wind conspired to produce a lovely romantic place overseen by ancient star-bleached walls smudged at base and higher with the greens, browns, and even reds of algal scums.
Recognition blossomed and . . .
“There’s nothing to grow, there’s nothing to grow on if there was . . .”
The sub-captain quieted, perplexity wrinkling his youthful visage in much the way passion might.
Kiland nodded and sighed. “Not an oxy world yet, is it? Who knows what’s a balmy seaside for what’s already growing down there?”
• • • • • •
“Station Ops—sir, I’m afraid we woke them up. Our contact is somewhat unfamiliar with standard comm protocols and has ‘gone off to find someone’ in charge—”
The air quotes were audible.
“—who’s apparently dealing with an engineering issue. There seems to be some confusion . . . the administrator hasn’t answered a direct call, sir. The automatic transmissions have become sporadic.”
“Is anyone talking to us at lower levels?”
The sub-captain queried his consoles.
“Engineering reports they had a contact yesterday, asking for suggestions on dealing with a sluggish stability ring. . . . We sent them updates and a testing program.”
Kiland stared at the images, pristine and stained. This could go wrong . . .
“Try again for the administrator and send lunch to my office. If the administrator’s office does not respond within five minutes, connect me with the principal investigator. I’m declaring a System Alert; chief pilots should sim-up on irregular rendezvous and docking.”
Averil 30, 407 CSY
“Prime Investigator, sir.”
Verita heard the connection go through, and looked up. He was handsome, stern. It was good to see him, her own . . .
“Captain Kiland,” she said, “I’m informed that the administrator’s second is escorting her to the tender, as she is planning to transfer before Implacable docks. If both leave this station at the same time, I will be in charge.”
There was no privacy, of course—the sub-captain was monitoring the line—so she said no more than the immediate information, waiting for his voice, his support . . .
“We’ve no flight plan filing on that, Investigator; I’ll alert my staff to the potential, though if the stability of the ring is in question they ought not plan on launching.”
“There have been some irregularities in the spin, Captain, I think as a result of preparation for docking. There is some issue . . .”
“Are you aware, Investigator, of the buildup on the ring’s external surfaces?”
Kiland’s face was calm, his voice too neutral to be glad of. Beside his face were video images of the RosaRing looking disreputable, like an out-of-use parts dump.
“I am not—”
“We must have clarity about these stains, Investigator. If they are involved with your stability issues they must surely be solved before we can begin docking. We must have the test results for our docking pilots.”
Verita floundered. Her expertise was in living things, not in mundane issues of habitat upkeep. She . . .
“My staff is stretched thin, Captain,” she told him, reaching for time to think. . . . “And I am not yet in charge. I will have to study this to . . .”
His expression went bland and she saw him sigh. Then his face went gentle, and she became frightened.
“We cannot enter into final docking procedures until we’re sure of the docking mechanisms. Have you access to the records? Surely the dock integrity tests have been done! We cannot query your computer directly without permissions and I cannot risk docking until we have updated information. You must act so that we may properly arrive!”
• • • • • •
The sub-captain took the orders without blinking. If the crew blinked, they did so with face bent over screens, following their orders. In a few hours they would be well away from the RosaRing, orbiting the planet and pacing the station at a distance, any docking approach awaiting developments.
The captain did what a captain does: he let his crew work. It was possible that he could have stepped into any one of the work streams, but they were becoming teams and he would have unbalanced them. The sub-captain directs the crew, the captain directs the sub-captain, and has the big picture.
The tactical crew studied the images; some savant had their computers going over accidental information drawn from the drone reports they’d intercepted. There were more i
mages to be studied for change over time, and possible insight into the stability issues, if engineering could be roused to take a look . . .
Engineering—only a few of the current crew had been on the mission which had brought the station here! Engineering was studying the feasibility of a cold-latch using the very pod mounts they’d used to ferry it here in the first place.
The pod transfer systems. . . . If the standard docking system was compromised, the cargo transshipment would be a logistical terror.
“Captain, Station Ops has someone with experience holding down the deck now, sir. We’ve got one clear line, and they’re asking if we can get some medical advice for them in a hurry. They have a lot of sick people, sir, and she says the administrator’s locked in the tender bay, refusing to come out. There’s unrest.”
Kiland stared into the reflection of deck lights in his troth ring for a half a second.
To the sub-captain: “Add me to the listen list, get a medic online, take any information you can about the physical plant situation. Try to patch through to the line I was on with the principal investigator last shift, open to the command chairs only.”
“Sir,” was the response, and then he listened.
“And this is?”
The image came from RosaRing’s medics; he shared it back across space and waited.
Verita winced when she saw it, her indrawn breath loud between them.
“There is this as well, and this, all isolated within the last hours. Tell me about them!”
Captain to subordinate, the last demand. Verita nodded and began.
“The last image is a fairly common nanopump; it is available for use on restricted crops on many worlds. It biodegrades over time; that one is close to the end of utility. I use them in my work.
“The second image appears to be a blood platelet from an oxygen breather. I’m assuming it is human, and it is malformed—perhaps it has been paired with a nanopump and become separated.
“The first image is an anomaly. We see two of these cell structures, intertwined, one with a cell nucleus being—let us say examined or read—and one with a variant cell in, let us say, production. It uses an alternate chirality to induce evolutionary opportunity.”
He said nothing for a moment, shared a list of symptoms . . .
“And this . . .”
“Is not surprising.”
“This is native to Trikandle, and it is infecting humans through some strange happenstance?”
Verita glanced at the screen, which made it look to Kiland that she’d been avoiding looking at him.
“No, it is not natural to the world. It is not natural anywhere. We brought it. I introduced it. It is of the Sherikas.”
She looked at him as if he were in the room with her.
“It ought not to have been able to do this, I swear.”
• • • • • •
“The entire mission is in grave danger, Sub-Captain; nothing medical personnel on board the station have tried have been more than palliative; the filtration approach has failed entirely. We must act quickly and responsibly . . .”
Captain Kiland piloted the captain’s gig alone; he’d done so as a young officer and had had the ceremonial honor of piloting Admiral Smit’s farewell flight from the Implacable. Going over the log books he’d long ago discovered that he had more hours on board than any other and now . . . and now he was the best able to bring the tiny vessel to the scene of the crisis.
They’d jury-rigged infection monitors once it was apparent that the kitchens had been infested, or the air filters or . . . and so maybe it was true that the only person on board the RosaRing free of the mutagenic was the principal investigator. He carried two of the touch-free monitors and eight of the Implacable’s biohazard suits, while he wore a standard spacesuit he could shed in an outer lock. The gig could use the smaller connects and emergency ports, and he had a target, a hatch well away from the crew quarters where the sick were lying where they fell, or hiding in the darkness as systems went offline.
The sub-captain was overseeing refitting a wing of half-empty crew quarters into an isolation ward, though by now there was word of deaths among the ill, and odd behaviors among the living. They’d gotten some hope, though, from a few stalwarts who switched to back-up air supplies early . . .
It was a largely silent voyage. Several hours for the gig, a considered lifetime for Kiland. They’d mapped out as best they could the ports where the stains were, and clearly the hub ends were both affected. The tender’s failed launch made that port inaccessible as well.
His targets were the several ports in the area of the labs, ports largely unused since the station was first provisioned by massive temporary dry docks long before the mission to Trikandle. The station was visible to naked eye against space, strobes pointing to the parts he didn’t want to visit—he was avoiding the central hubs in favor of the outer ring, the lower quarter of the outer ring once he’d got oriented. The thing was huge—of course it was, that’s why it had taken the Implacable to move it!
“Kiland? They gave me this as a direct channel.”
He froze. There was too much to say now, and most of it said or shared before. He needed to concentrate. And . . .
“Verita. Yes, I am here. Approaching. Be calm. I’m cruising along the hull, watching section numbers go by. Yours will be soon, Verita.”
The contact was voice alone, so he watched the structure go by as he corrected for spin. He doubted that he wobbled, and he waited, glad that she could not see his face.
“Kiland, we have always been honest, so I will be honest. I am not well. It is not mere tension—you know that I know tension. I—I fell and bloodied my nose, Kiland, and it stopped instantly. But, I have tools. I am good at my work.
“My blood shows changes, too, Kiland. Please, fly on by, Kiland. Fly on by!”
• • • • • •
She was away from the microphone some moments but he heard and said: “It is too late for me to fly by, Verita. We are committed. I must see and report for myself.
“Tell me your exact location. I will find the port closest to you. I will . . .”
He was under the bulk of the thing, with white and blue and white and blue and white and blue blurring before his eyes to white. . . . Then blue. He matched velocity until the surface below him barely crawled and then, numbers and letters.
“Forty-four AGAAGF/FE,” he said out loud as the gig answered his touch sweetly, approaching hatches auxiliary collars could link to. A hatch outlined, as if sketched over from within, by a collar of red and green crystals around the more prosaic ceramics meant to guard the ship close, even in the no-space that was Jump. His cameras surely transmitted that to the Implacable, surely the sub-captain saw the signs . . .
“Yes,” Verita said, “that will be several doors down. I can go there, Kiland.”
“There is a wobble,” he said, which was true of the ring’s motion and not his own.
“The next hatch will provide a better attachment angle. I will check that.”
The little vessel let the ring slide on by, and in a moment he heard a sound that might have been a cry or a cough and . . .
“Kiland, I am not well. It will take me some minutes to get to the next airlock.”
“No matter, the time,” he said, “Implacable awaits my order.”
“Yes, but I should move while I can, you see . . .”
“I have seen what I need to see, Verita. I shall return to the port where you are now. We shall be together very soon.”
The gig bumped very slightly against the stain edging the port. “Implacable, I am docking. We have blue, blue, blue. Without doubt, we have blue, blue, blue.”
“Kiland, tell me where to move?”
“Stay there, Verita. I will come to you. I am solving this.”
• • • • • •
“Beam Banks One and Two, go live as leads. The captain has declared a lethal threat situation. We have identified and targete
d a threat.
“Prepare to fire on my command, on radar’s current target T02. This is not a drill, you will now go to full combat power. Your target should be oversaturated at all wavelengths until plasma. Repeat, until plasma. Await my command.”
“Beam Banks Three and Four. Your targets are any rapidly vectoring objects showing planetary escape velocity. Your targets should be oversaturated at all wavelengths until plasma. Repeat, until plasma. Await my command.”
“Beam Banks Five through Twenty, your planetary grids are pretargeted and programmed. You will fire until plasma. Repeat, you will fire until plasma. Await my command.”
A decisive moment, the image from the gig, showing an empty pilot’s seat and board. The forward cams show a fringe of strange color around the docking collar, growing.
“All fire,” says the man. “All fire, all fire.”
Somewhere, a singer is sobbing quietly at her terminal. The ship trembles. And trembles again, the ship’s rotation bringing all the beam projectors to bear, one after another, a rotational broadside searing the ether.
There is silence, and then, loud in the silence of tense breathlessness there is the news of solving:
“Zap.”
Revolutionists
From the first book the Liaden Universe® has dealt with the often necessary conflict between progress and stability. Here, in a story requested for The Razor’s Edge, an anthology all about revolution, we looked at what can happen when that conflict hits the inexperienced, the naive, and the privileged young of an out of the way space station.
****
“Arin’s Envidaria, as instituted for the Seventeen Worlds by Arin Gobelyn’s son Jethri Gobelyn and overseen by the Carrassens-Denobli, established an egalitarian trade network meant to be self-supporting during the disruptive incursion of Rostov’s Dust into the lesser galactic sub-arm.
“Jethri Gobelyn, a peripatetic traveler and trader, left his mark in many ways; his genes are said to be widely dispersed in and around the Seventeen World trading nexus. Due to divergent local institutional traditions the Seventeen Worlds Network experienced a period of instability following the end of the dust-dark and the reestablishment of regular trading with the wider Terran-Liaden trading web.”
