Backflow Boxed Set

by F P Adriani

  I was frowning now as my eyes shifted to the viewscreen again, where I could see the dark silhouette of the Rintu city-ship behind the Demeter’s aft nozzles. The Keepers had finished the work on repairing my ship, but, apparently, they had no intention of leaving just yet.

  “Here’s what’s really worrying me now,” I said. “Claudius apparently had information on the stone, and now he has information on his visit here, too.” I had really said this bit to Geena, Chen and May, but before they could reply, Kostas did.

  “There is no need to worry: when we took over your computers that first day and when we entered Claudius’ ship before, we removed all pertinent information about the stone and your experience in the well from both of your ships’ records. And we will remove everything from since then before we depart now. You and he could talk to people about your experiences all you want, but there will be no useful, detailed physical information that can be confirmed by anyone, including by you.”

  I was doing that bottom-lip-dangling-in-shock thing again. I felt both burned and used. I wanted to spit and rage at Kostas…but I had seen first-hand the ramifications of the wells and the many contraptions in The Hall Of Devices. I had seen another dimension with species living in harmony who deserved to be left alone and inaccessible to those they didn’t want there.

  And now I also saw how the myths and bits of info about the stones and wells had probably come about in human science: it must have happened long ago. After all, I hadn’t been the first among humanity to access a well; though that person hadn’t actually done the trek up the Rintu mountain, that person’s collision with a stone had still happened. Yet there was probably no real information on that person left outside of Rintu. So the occurrence had since been turned into myth.

  “Well-well-well, that’s very friendly of you to delete everything without asking me,” I said to Kostas finally, but there was no real bite behind my words. “I get the feeling you’ve done this to others before.”

  “Yes, once. He did not have to make the journey because he had not connected up with a stone as strongly as you had. His stone had also been slightly damaged in the original explosion, so it wasn’t working exactly as it should have been. He was lucky to find a way out of the energy well at all, as you were lucky to do the same.

  “However, Lydia, we have now considered many of the things you have said over these past days, including today. We now believe our isolation is only drawing more attention to us and making us look like an intriguing place to visit. This isn’t the first time someone has tried an attack on or near Rintu. It was never successful, but it is possible that, someday, we will fail in protecting all the work we do.

  “Many more stones—and other things—are still out there. It might be to our and this universe’s benefit that we have eyes among the stars, human eyes, looking out for what else could cause problems and letting us know of any abnormal sightings; hence, our decision to let Jim become a part of your crew. As I, Kostas, have said, Jim is equipped to maintain contact with us, which will be to our benefit—and yours.”

  “I see that,” I said, “and I appreciate your position. I just hope it works out to both of our benefits. Will you—and Jim—promise to let me know if there’s something I should know?”

  “Yes,” Kostas said.

  “Well then, I guess that will have to be enough.”

  *

  “Why are you frowning?” Geena asked me a little later.

  She was still standing beside my chair; Steve had just contacted me to tell me that The Keepers had somehow fixed the beam engine’s heat exchangers too, without ever coming inside engineering. I was dubious about that. They probably had been inside engineering; it had just happened so fast that my crew was unaware of it. This was part of what was making me frown. The other part was….

  I looked up at Geena. “I have to be honest and say that I’m just not crazy about a worker being a part of my crew now. How do I know The Keepers won’t be spying on me every two seconds? I need to be able to run my ship the way I see fit.”

  Geena nodded down at me. “I can understand that—why don’t you tell Jim that?”

  “I kind of figured Kostas has already let him in on our conversations.”

  “You have figured right, Lydia,” came Kostas’ voice. “You will have complete autonomy, I assure you. Jim will only be a guide if necessary and a go-between.”

  “Will I…hear from you again, Kostas—from any of you there that I’ve met?”

  “As I’ve told you before, Lydia, I’m afraid that’s unlikely. We are always busy. And if you don’t hear from us, it is probably because no news is good news.”

  “Okay,” I said on a sigh now, rubbing my right hand along the soft cushion on the arm of my chair.

  “This is goodbye, Captain Zarro,” Kostas said. “We have finished the repair work on your ship, and Jim has sent us the data on a scan he’s just done of your systems affected by your battle with Claudius. All of your systems are now in proper working order again.”

  “And you’ve also removed the rest of my recorded data related to you and your repairs here, huh?” I said in a dry voice.

  “Yes. Goodbye again,” Kostas said, but, this time, I only nodded at the viewscreen. I knew that she could probably see my nod anyway.

  I continued watching the screen; I saw the fading away of the huge city-silhouette there, the retracting backwards, toward where the edge of the gravity cloud was visible.

  “That was some ship!” I heard Shirley say. She had just walked onto the bridge. I nodded at her as she moved behind one of the science panels beside Gary’s usual panel.

  I turned back to Geena and gave her a smile, albeit a tired one. “Why don’t you go check on your comrades in the dining room? I think we could all use a good hot meal soon.”

  Geena grinned down at me. “Absolutely, Captain—I’ll see you later!”

  I watched her back as she walked away, my eyes finally falling on Chen and May. I probably should have had Pete come down here and take over for Chen for a little while at least. But, it was also probably best if Pete remained in his cabin for another day. Really, both men were hobbled….

  May got up from the navigator’s seat and came toward me. I smiled at her as she said, “I heard Steve say we can leave whenever; I want to do a quick check on the cargo bay first. Jim just sent Chen a confirmation message that the cargo-bay wall’s been fixed—though not the damaged cargo.”

  “That’s fine, May—go. I know you want to take over there.”

  She laughed at my statement. “You’re right.”

  “Aren’t I always?” I said, grinning at her.

  *

  Of course I wasn’t always right; she knew it and I knew it; so did Gary, Shirley and Chen know it, and everyone else for that matter, I was sure. None of us were always right, and sometimes things went wrong. But I was glad that when they went wrong, I had people beside me I trusted who cared about me and my ship, and cared about each other.

  We flew away together now, away from everything-Rintu and The Keepers, and everything I’d seen and done. The Demeter was working perfectly, and when we were finally inside a curon bubble, heading toward the layer where Keron-3 rotated, my mind began to wander over the recent past.

  I remembered back to the beginning, to when I first found that stone, and to when Chen and May were so happy during and after their marriage. So much had happened since. I wondered if anything else had changed since….

  From in my captain’s chair still, I looked at Chen. I began feeling sad again, about his arm and all the pain he had been in when we’d gotten stuck in that strange dimension, with creatures that a part of me still missed.

  “How are you doing?” I asked Chen now. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you—it’s been so hectic since I got back.”

  Chen tossed a sideways smile at me. “I’m fine, Captain.” He lifted his robotic cast. “It’s taking some getting used to, but at least I can move my hand now withou
t being in agony. The workers said I can remove the cast in nine days. You think that’s true?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said. Then I sat up a little straighter. “There have been so many changes on this ship lately; yet we didn’t even get a chance to change your room to the junk room. I’m really sorry your honeymoon got ruined.”

  Chen waved his good arm my way, in a don’t-worry-about-it fashion.

  But I still said, “Chen, what about the near future—I’ve been wondering about it, about what you’ll want. I don’t have much to offer you on here. There’s certainly more elsewhere.”

  Chen’s mouth dropped open as he turned to me, and his dark eyes shifted a little warily toward Shirley and Gary at their science panels. “Captain, are you saying you want me to leave the Demeter?”

  “What?” I practically screeched. “No! I’m saying the opposite: that maybe YOU will want to leave.”

  “Lydia, if you mean it’s up to me and May, believe me, we’re not going anywhere.”

  My eyes slowly widened at him. “But I thought—well, especially after what happened to your arm, I thought you might want to quit being on here. You’re married now. Will you be having kids?”

  “I don’t know yet, but even if we do, we can raise them on here—if that’s okay with you.”

  I was very surprised at his response. I was also very glad about it. Nevertheless, I wanted him and all of my crew to remain as my crew because they wanted to. I saw how important that was now. I saw that because of my own issues over feeling abandoned in my childhood by parents who had dropped me off to be raised by others, I had expected too much from my crew who, though they were a daily part of my life and dreams, still had their own lives and dreams.

  “Chen,” I said now, “are you sure a life in space would be the right one for kids—”

  “Lydia, I was raised that way, and I think I turned out fine,” Chen said on a smile.

  “More than fine!” I said on an even bigger smile. “Still, you were on Space Force ships. That’s a whole other lifestyle.”

  “This place isn’t that far removed from the Space Force, with the organized way you run it. Only this place is even better. My dad used to complain all the time how he had to stick to authorized settings on his pilot’s panel. But you let me authorize the settings here. And May—she told me earlier today that she can’t even remember the last time you gave her a real order about anything in the cargo bay. Why would we ever want to work anywhere else?”

  I felt tears in my eyes now; I turned my head around my bridge, finally looking at Gary and Shirley. They had surely heard my conversation with Chen, but they were being professionals about it; they were sticking to doing their work, or, for Shirley, learning what her work in future would be.

  And Gary—I could always count on him to do the right thing by my ship and by me. He looked at me now, his mustache widening across his face as he smiled my way.

  My eyes shining at him, I slowly, gently nodded, trying to tell him with my gesture and expression what I’d never told him in actual words.

  Then I finally turned back to the front viewscreen and my panel.

  I pushed some buttons that needed pushing. I listened to the chatter from my crewmembers over the intercom. I watched Chen’s familiar form out of the corner of my left eye; he looked happy, as if he was right where he wanted to be.

  I had thought that everything that happened lately would make me and my crew drift farther apart, but, amazingly, the opposite happened. And I saw now that maybe finding the firestone had been a good thing after all.

  Omnivelocity

  When my crew and I delivered a massive amount of coffee beans from Earth to Makron Station, I didn’t know then that the delivery would be a bad mistake.

  I had been on a much-needed break on Earth when Makron offered me the job, and the timing of the delivery seemed particularly convenient for me and my crew: I had a delivery already scheduled that happened to be along the usual route I took to Makron; and Babs, my former science crewmember, was on Makron now and had asked me if I could pick her up. I would never refuse her or any of my other absent crewmembers a ride on my ship. The Demeter could probably comfortably hold a hundred people, and I had less than seventy working for me now.

  When we finally docked the Demeter inside one of Makron’s communal hangars, I went straight down to my ship’s cargo bay. The air inside held a pleasant twinge of earthy coffee scent, but my nose didn’t linger on it; nor did my feet in my boots. I rushed across the bay, down the long gray ramp outside, then into the Makron hangar.

  There were quite a few other ships parked inside, but the overall space was still broad and bright, with its silvery fittings and its hard, silvery floor. My boots made an annoying tinny sound as they clicked on the floor, but I was in a rush to get my paperwork done in the station and to meet up with Babs.

  As I walked, I thought I probably should have taken a few of my crew with me, especially Gary, but he’d been up late the night before and was now in his cabin taking a much-needed nap. Shirley was working on a project down in her office on the engineering deck. And Chen was on the bridge, plotting a course to our next possible job—“possible” because it was a job I wasn’t sure I wanted to take. The opportunity for that delivery from Barton-2 had come up while I was doing another job on Cardoon Station Twelve—making a delivery of a museum exhibit to there, which job wound up being a strenuous, tedious one, and ultimately facilitated my ordering my whole crew—including me—to take a break from doing any work of any kind while on Earth. We had all gotten far too exhausted, especially from certain recent events from before then, especially from our interactions with the Keepers and their workers, one of whom was still on my ship….

  As usual, I sighed inwardly at the thought of Jim. If I had thought Kostas was humorless, that was only because I hadn’t gotten to know the uber-humorless Jim then. He had been on my ship for months now, and I still hadn’t gotten to know him. And his efforts to train Geena as a worker and his response to her as a person—those were more things that made me sigh, and get a little mad, too.

  I could have asked Geena to come with me to greet Babs today, but the real reason I hadn’t asked anyone was because I preferred going to see Babs alone; I really didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of any of my crewmembers if I got emotional around Babs. That she’d left my ship to stay on Genteran still bothered me whenever I thought about it, and so much had changed since she’d left—I honestly couldn’t wait to tell her about it, at least about some of it. The rest I wasn’t sure I should share—that depended on how long she would remain on my ship….

  When I finally reached the area where the Makron cargo and other offices were, I had to rush from one to the other of them as I dealt with the finicky paperwork side of the coffee delivery: Makron was very particular about the coffee its restaurants used; the brew had to taste just like Earth coffee so required Earth-grown beans. And a delivery of coffee also required a lot of paperwork verification, communications back to Earth, tests on bean samples, etcetera.

  When I was done with dealing with most of that, I used the communicator on my red captain’s belt to contact May in my cargo bay.

  She answered almost immediately in a juiced-up voice: “We’re ready to go here, Lydia!”

  “Great,” I said on a smile. “I’ve just gotten paid for the shipment, so, as soon as the Makron cargo-manager reaches the ramp to run the tests on the sample-barrels, you can start moving the rest of the barrels forward inside the bay. About how long do you think unloading will take?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” May said. “That one loader is still glitching—I’ve had Steve take a look at the wheels, but he can’t find a specific problem. He says it’s just general mechanical aging.”

  “What else is new with the ship?” I said on a sigh.

  *

  I was supposed to meet Babs in the station’s commercial mall, and when I finally walked into that wide-open area, I spotted her almost
immediately: she was sitting on a silver barstool at a long, metallic bar stand, sipping on a tall drink. The familiar, sleek cut of her black hair near the glass gave her away.

  “Babs!” I said, waving excitedly at her.

  She abandoned her drink and rushed up to me, grabbing me into a strong hug. I winced a little; she had quite muscular arms and legs, and I didn’t.

  “I’m glad you contacted me!” I told her. “You should have done it sooner.”

  Pulling back from me, she rolled her brown eyes and adjusted the hem of her gray blouse. “I didn’t want to burden you, especially with my break-up. What a disappointment—I thought Derry and I were in it for the long haul. Then she leaves Genteran within only weeks. She really can’t handle a life off the Earth—I see that now.” There was a frown on Babs’ face, but I noticed that her dark eyes looked a bit too glossy.

  I couldn’t help frowning too. “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out, but I’m curious about why you didn’t stay on Genteran anyway—I thought that, for you, it was about the science there. The Ghost especially.”

  Babs began walking back toward the bar and her drink; she picked it up and asked me if I wanted one, but I declined. I actually had to pee badly, and I still wasn’t done with the office work at Makron….

  Babs was talking to me again: “Let’s just say I didn’t get much of anywhere, except I moved around in circles a lot. The materials-position didn’t pan out. And the many Hash-huffing deadheads on Genteran were no help at all in tracking the Ghost species. The rest of the people—like Cambridge—he found a few more people interested in helping me, and I finally got more data on sightings in two other areas of the planet. But I couldn’t get transportation to one area, and the other—by the time I got there, the planet’s surface outgassings had apparently reacted with the Ghost’s chemical trail and masked it. It’s like it really was a ghost, and it vanished into thin air.”