Whistling Past the Graveyard

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Robek yelped. “That was my best cap!”

  Elisa didn’t care about the cap. “You brought a message for me. I want to hear what Mr. Iswander found so important.”

  Robek continued to gaze out at the clouds, where his bright cap dwindled to a dot as it drifted away, bouncing on the stray winds.

  Then, with a loud cry of delight, the humming airbikes whipped in, Fourth in the lead. He leaned over his bike and raced faster as Juvia and Candeen barreled after him, diving into the cloud bank in search of the lost cap. Robek grinned, waiting.

  Elisa cleared her throat. “The message, please.”

  Distracted, Robek returned with a sealed message crystal. “I don’t know what it says. He code-locked it to your voice.”

  “Of course he did,” Elisa said, annoyed and assuming that the pilot had tried to listen. “It’s probably confidential business information.”

  Leaving the man to watch and wait for the three daredevils to retrieve his cap, Elisa cycled back into the main module. The two solicitous servers, Anil and Shar, were busy preparing a fine banquet for when sunset finally arrived on the gas giant. Oni Delkin had returned to the mechanic’s bay, so she played Iswander’s message in the nearest port, turning the volume down and leaning close. His image appeared on the screen.

  “Elisa, I haven’t heard a report yet on your plan to create a sky hotel. I look forward to letting you impress me, as you usually do.” His expression became serious. “However, we’ve studied the modules you retrieved from Rendezvous, and I’m afraid they all have structural defects. Since clan Reeves couldn’t pay much, we offered older surplus modules, and now we’ve discovered that their integrity has a tendency to fail, especially under atmospheric conditions.”

  In the recording, his fingers danced in front of him on a keypad as he uploaded data sets and testing files.

  “The four modules I gave you for your sky hotel prototype are from the same model and lot number. I wanted to contact you before you moved forward. I’ll get you better modules for your test run, but for the time being, don’t use the ones I sent. They’re unsafe. They quickly lose integrity, sometimes in as little as a week. We’ll scrap them and repurpose the components.” He gave her a more personal smile. “Contact me as soon as you get back. I’d like to hear more about your plans.” He smiled again, then the transmission ended.

  Elisa felt sick and cold. She had wanted to surprise him. She was impatient and ambitious, but also determined to cobble together Cloud Nine. On the other hand, she knew what a publicity debacle any disaster would be. If she made mistakes, Lee Iswander would pay. His reputation, his track record, and his business acumen were on the line. Nobody knew Elisa Enturi, and they would blame Iswander. Her four initial guests were influential, important in their own ways, and they could generate a great deal of bad press if something did indeed go wrong. She hadn’t actually cut corners, but she had been anxious to prove her idea, moving forward with all possible speed.

  And the luxury transport would not come to pick up the guests for two more days.

  She swallowed in a dry throat and went back out to the deck where Tel Robek was waving as the three airbike riders came back up, triumphant. Juvia held the red cap in her hand, but the speed of her flight and the fierce winds blew it out of her grip again, which sent Fourth and Candeen racing after it.

  Robek turned to Elisa, grinning. “I think they’re going to retrieve it!”

  “I assume they will, and they’re having fun. Look how much they enjoy being here.” She gave a false smile, glad that they were all distracted. “Mr. Robek, I’ll need you to stay here for a day or two. I have something important that may need to go back to Mr. Iswander.”

  The scout pilot shrugged. “If you say so. I’m on salary, and this seems like a nice place.”

  Leaving him to watch the antics of the race through the clouds, Elisa went to the mechanic’s bay and found Oni Delkin lounging about, having completed his work on the bikes. “Mr. Delkin, I want you to check the integrity of these modules. Run complete tests on all systems, all seals, all life-support units.”

  He frowned at her. “Why? They’re self-sufficient.”

  “Consider it busy work,” she said. He would be very busy if seals started failing.

  The engineer grudgingly got up and went to retrieve his diagnostics kit.

  She hoped he didn’t find anything, or if he did, she hoped he found it soon enough. Elisa would not allow any errors on her part to cause embarrassment for Mr. Iswander … or the deaths of everyone aboard Cloud Nine.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Garrison Reeves

  Wanting nothing more to do with clan Reeves, Garrison returned to Newstation, a place his father resented on general principles. The orbiting commerce center was now the heart of the Roamer government and economy, the place they had chosen as their thriving heart. The clans had jilted Rendezvous.

  Garrison wanted to see if he belonged there.

  He flew the Workhorse toward the remarkable space station near the glowing comet. The space construction traffic was dizzying, and his navigational screen plotted a safe course among hundreds of ships in the vicinity. The frenetic activity only served to hammer home the difference between Newstation and the broken Rendezvous complex. Even on a busy day, Rendezvous still seemed like a lonely and pitiable ghost town.

  After docking, Garrison boarded Newstation, which was awash with Roamer culture, many different colors and accents, the smells of traditional cooking, exotic spices, cuisines developed by necessity and limited ingredients in order to make packaged proteins and carbohydrates palatable.

  Trading ships came from countless clan enclaves, outposts on rugged planetoids or inhospitable environments, as well as larger-scale operations on calmer worlds. Garrison’s father scorned an easier life, amenities, conveniences, and soft environments. “A knife loses its edge unless it is sharpened.” But as he looked around Newstation, he thought the Roamers looked very sharp indeed.

  He recognized many people here, having made numerous trips to make fruitless appeals for support. One aloof young man welcomed him, and Garrison recognized Sam Ricks, the second son of a popular Roamer clan, who seemed to make it his mission to know everyone aboard Newstation. Ricks let out a gently teasing laugh. “Are you here to convince us to disassemble Newstation and bring the components to Rendezvous? You should tell your father that race is lost.”

  Garrison responded with a surprising smile. “I’ve told him that many times, but he doesn’t need facts if he already thinks he knows the answer.”

  Chuckling, Ricks clapped him on the back. “Your words, not mine! We could use your clan’s help here on Newstation. See how we’re thriving? This is clearly the wave of the future.”

  “My father is more interested in the past than in the future.”

  His attention darting away, Ricks saw someone else he recognized, and he muttered something perfunctory to Garrison, then flitted off without any interest in continuing the conversation.

  In his previous visits, Garrison had wanted to solve the problems of clan Reeves, to get investors and workers, to reignite the dream of Rendezvous. Now, when he saw the way other Roamers looked at him, he felt ashamed, realizing what they must have thought of him. He felt his cheeks burn.

  He was no longer part of that. After leaving Rendezvous, he did not intend to go back. He was sure that his father felt his grand dreams sliding away, and so he took it out on others … and the more followers he lost, the tighter a stranglehold he kept on the remaining ones.

  Garrison had no regrets about leaving. He had many useful skills; his upbringing had seen to that at least, because a Roamer was supposed to adapt and survive under any circumstances. Now he would survive as an exile from his clan, but not from the rest of the Roamers.

  For a moment he thought of Sendra Detemer, the strong and beautiful young woman who would likely have been his wife if he’d remained at Rendezvous. She was the obvious choice, and even Olaf a
pproved. If she did marry him, maybe the two of them would be strong enough to stand up to his father … but did he actually want to be the next clan leader? Was he willing to have that kind of fight? No, he didn’t think so. Garrison was not power hungry, did not need wealth or influence, did not want to reshape Roamer history. The clans were making their own history here at Newstation. He had no intention of interfering with that.

  But he was still a Roamer in his heart, and he thought about what his people really stood for. The clans were problem solvers—but Olaf Reeves wasn’t trying to solve a problem. He was creating a problem by burying himself in the past. Garrison grumbled to himself. When had Roamers ever been stuck in the past? Wasn’t it better to construct something new and exciting than to rebuild something old and broken?

  He spent time on Newstation, drinking in the conversation, the restaurants, the entertainment centers, the coffee and klee houses where clan members discussed business or gossip. Veterans of the Elemental War told grim stories, while others talked about grand dreams and giant projects. Kotto Okiah, the greatest Roamer scientist, had launched a breathtaking new scientific project in the Fireheart Nebula. Kotto’s “Big Ring” would take years to complete and cost an inconceivable amount of money, but the Roamers supported it because they liked to dream big. They looked to the future, expanded beyond what they had.

  Unlike Olaf Reeves.

  By contrast, Garrison thought of Iswander Industries back on Earth, and especially Elisa Enturi. She was beautiful and intelligent, with a common sense unlike anything he saw among his family. Elisa had thrown her lot in with Lee Iswander, a new sort of Roamer. Many of the clans disliked Iswander because his attitudes and business practices seemed too much like the corrupt Hansa.

  But was that a bad thing? Iswander ran his operations for profit and efficiency, and also to help fill obvious needs. Garrison had heard other people mutter that the man wasn’t a real Roamer, but now that he knew more about Iswander’s practices and what he intended to accomplish, Garrison felt a spark of anger rise within him.

  Who was more of a “real Roamer?” An inflexible old fossil like Olaf, or a person who solved problems and seized opportunities? Someone like Lee Iswander. Someone like Elisa Enturi.

  Garrison spent another day at Newstation, talking to people, seeing the sights and gathering information. But he had already made up his mind.

  He departed in the Workhorse, flying back to Earth. Flying back to find Elisa.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Rlinda Kett

  After delivering her potted treelings to Ildira, Rlinda was anxious to depart for her own reasons. While Adar Zan’nh put together a cumbersome expeditionary force to investigate the missing Solar Navy warliner, she bid her farewells to the Mage-Imperator and accepted a warm hug from the green priest.

  “Thank you for the wonderful gift from Theroc,” Nira said. “When those treelings grow tall, they will make me feel more at home.”

  During her meetings in the Prism Palace, Rlinda had secured several trade agreements and paved the way for Confederation manufacturers to deliver unique items to the Ildiran Empire. She had even negotiated a grant of land, a portion of the capital city where a group of humans could settle among the Ildirans. They would share their traditions and cultures in an exchange of goodwill among races. Countless humans were fascinated by the alien race, and already a dozen ambitious families were eager to set up shop to demonstrate arts and crafts, cook human specialties, and cater to what they hoped would be an equally fascinated Ildiran audience.

  Overall, it was a good mission. Peter and Estarra would be pleased.

  Rlinda departed as quickly as possible, knowing she could move faster than the tradition-bound Solar Navy. The Ildirans were a people trapped by their ceremonies, and nothing formal could be done without complex, tedious planning. She worried that the lost warliner might be in some kind of continuing danger, although the Adar and the Mage-Imperator seemed certain the crew were already dead, from what they could sense through the thism. Rlinda, though, held out hope, and she intended to get there first.

  The Ildirans knew the patrol path of the lost warliner, near a star system called Dhula. From Adar Zan’nh’s briefing, Rlinda knew Qul Loar’nh’s schedule and approximately when some kind of disaster had occurred. That gave her the parameters she needed, and she could interpolate where the ship might be. She went hunting.

  The Voracious Curiosity flew into the blindingly bright sky, reached orbit, and raced off in the direction of the Dhula system. Rlinda was counting on the fact that Loar’nh would have sent some kind of distress signal, even though he knew the electromagnetic message could not possibly go far enough and fast enough to summon help in time.

  But the speed of light was a constant, and knowing the approximate time when such a distress would have been sent, as well as the general location of the warliner, Rlinda could fly into the signal bubble, the radius a signal could have traveled. If she could intercept the distress message, she could learn what had happened to the warliner, and then she could head in to rescue any survivors, or at the very least find an emergency log.

  Knowing the Ildirans, Zan’nh would bring his ships into the vicinity and crisscross a vast gulf of space in a rigid search pattern until they blundered upon the warliner. Rlinda could act much faster than that, and she would consider it a favor for the Mage-Imperator. Also, if the warliner was wrecked, the Ildirans would likely abandon it, and in that case Rlinda could claim it as salvage, maybe turn it over to the ambitious repair engineers from Ulio Station.

  She relished a challenge.

  As the Curiosity flew onward, Rlinda rummaged in the left pocket of her slacks and removed the silver capsule, placing it on the flat surface of the piloting controls. “I wish you were here to help me make the plotting and course suggestions, BeBob. You were always better at that than me.”

  Of course, BeBob would never have gone chasing after a missing Ildiran warship in the first place, especially knowing the entire Solar Navy would be hunting for it too. But Rlinda had been perfectly happy to push her favorite ex-husband out of his comfort zone. Sometimes a person just needed a little shove.

  She slowed the ship when she was within four light days from the Dhula system, figuring she was still half a day out from the transmission boundary. She eased forward, her comm system fully active, scanning all bands. She didn’t want to go too fast and overshoot the message, but the comm filters would intercept the signal as soon as they encountered it—if Qul Loar’nh had even sent out a message. What if the warliner commander hadn’t even bothered, knowing that the Mage-Imperator would pick up on his crew’s distress through the thism?

  No, a commander would have tried every possible hope. There was always a chance some Roamer scout or Confederation trader might be in the area. Or maybe Loar’nh had launched a log buoy, some kind of reporting drone, which would have a locator, a ping signal.

  The Curiosity rolled forward for an hour, and then she got bored and went back to the galley to fix herself a snack. But a snack was inadequate unless it had accompaniments. Crackers had to be toasted, the cheeses paired with an appropriate chutney. Then she decided that cheese and crackers needed to have a savory soup. Rlinda was never satisfied with packaged soups, so she used tomato basil as a base and added her favorite ingredients, roasted garlic, rosemary, and a sprinkle of crushed walnuts on top.

  Then, of course, such a snack had to be enjoyed with the proper wine, and she had a bottle of good New Portugal red. She opened it and poured herself a glass, but in order to enjoy it properly, the wine had to breathe. While the wine breathed, she chose a good selection of music, BeBob’s favorite—Relleker jazz. She hadn’t liked the style much herself, but she was feeling nostalgic and she played it for him.

  By the time she finished her light snack, two more hours had passed. She went back to her expanded piloting chair and lounged in front of the controls, sipping the last of her second glass of wine, when the comm alert trigger
ed, “Message received.”

  Rlinda sat up so quickly she almost spilled her wine. She slowed the Curiosity and ran the message back through the filter, replaying it. The transmission showed a distraught Ildiran military officer—Qul Loar’nh, she presumed. The commander spoke in a monotonous deadpan as though he had lost all hope, simply delivering a report.

  “… simultaneous catastrophic failure of reactor shielding on two stardrives. We lost our ability to fly, and the barrier walls failed before we could put dampeners or radiation shields in place. Most of our ekti spilled into space, but I prevented an explosion.” He paused, drew a breath. “We’re dead anyway. Life-support systems have been compromised in a cascading surge. There’s a slim chance our engineers might get them fixed, but it will not matter. Every person on board has received a lethal radiation dose. The engineer kith down in the stardrive chambers are already dying. The medical kith tested the rest of us and confirmed that tissue damage has set in. The warrior kith are the most susceptible, and they will die next.”

  He paused, as if concentrating. “According to the tests, I expect to be dead within a day. The last ones to remain alive will be the attenders, but they will have no one to attend. I am making preparations, Liege. They will take care of the bodies and prepare them in hopes that someday they may be brought back to Ildira and burned under the light of the seven suns.

  “Through the thism you already know something terrible has happened to us. If someone finds our ship, the complete log is in the command nucleus. My crew and I have been proud to serve you, Mage-Imperator Jora’h, and the Ildiran Empire.”

  He placed a trembling fist in the center of his chest and bowed his head. Then the transmission ended.

  Rlinda held the wine in her hand and stared at the screen, contemplating whether or not she wanted to watch the message again. She decided not to. In a single gulp she finished her wine, then traced the origin of the signal, tracking it back to the heart of the Dhula system, near the larger gas giant. The ship must have been on patrol when it suffered its stardrive mishap.