Anthony Pyle bent to his calculations, tongue between his lips. I smiled. Once, when I was a youngster, I’d been made to do the same.
This wasn’t my watch; I was free to leave the bridge. But I was too keyed up to sleep. Besides, I’d have to be back when we Fused. No Captain would dream of letting subordinate officers Fuse on their own. If something went wrong, he’d be the one who had to explain.
Of course if something went wrong, there’d be little to explain. The ship was unlikely to be found.
“Thorne to Galactic.”
Thank Lord God. Once we were Fused, he’d have been unable to reach us.
“He agreed, sir. But he said to tell you a personal invitation would have been more polite.” Thorne’s tone was disapproving.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s like him. Pay no attention. Now, as to the rest?”
“In hand. A few hours. Best of luck, sir.”
“And to you.”
Thorne had been circumspect. I approved. It was unlikely anyone was listening in to secure Naval frequencies, but one never knew.
Fifteen minutes later, I fed Fusion coordinates to our puter. “Bridge to Engine Room, prepare to Fuse.”
“Prepare to Fuse, aye aye.” A moment’s pause. “Engine Room ready for Fuse, sir.”
I ran my finger down the screen. The fusion drive kicked in. The stars shifted red, then blue. As the drive reached full strength they slowly faded to black. We were Fused, hurtling past normal space at supraluminous velocity. Our external sensors were blind. Galactic was dependent entirely on her own resources, as was any Fused ship.
We’d be no more than a few hours. Hardly enough time to settle to sleep. At her console, Arlene yawned conspicuously, twice. She must be exhausted. We’d none of us caught up on our rest.
She yawned again.
“That’s quite enough, Lieutenant.” I glowered. “If you want me to go to bed, say so.”
“I’d like you to go to bed, Captain.”
Well, I’d asked for it. “Hmpff. Send a med tech to our cabin, to help me out of the chair.” I rolled off.
When I’d first captained Hibernia, I’d been awed at the size of the Captain’s quarters compared to the wardroom I’d known. Compared even to Hibernia, the Captain of Galactic slept in awesome luxury. The compartment was easily twice the size of our passenger cabins, which themselves were lavish. My cabin was fitted out in magnificent splendor. Wasteful. An outrage. Nonetheless, the head was a marvel of design and comfort, and the bed ...
I’d first seen the cabin a few hours earlier, when it still held Stanger’s gear. I’d summoned the purser, brusquely ordered him to remove it. I needed no reminders of the man I’d murdered. No, executed. It was one death for which I felt no regret.
The med tech left me lying on my bunk, spine throbbing, waiting for a new dose of pain blocker to take effect.
Still, I felt a strange sense of peace. My confrontation with Bishop Saythor had been so calamitous, so absolute, that I had nothing left to rue. Having rejected the God I loved, I was alone, in the forever of the universe.
Yet, that freed me for the present. I could nourish Philip, cherish my beloved Arlene, succor Mikhael for what little time was left before I sank into the fires. And, for the moment, I had my ship.
I’d been raised to Lord God, and duty.
Now there was only duty.
I lay staring at the overhead. There was no possible way I’d sleep, not with my pain and my anguish.
I slept.
Some hours later we Defused. Two hundred twelve thousand miles outside Titan’s orbit, amazingly close for one jump. Fusion drives were inaccurate by about one percent of the distance traveled. I made a quick recalculation, and a corrective jump. We emerged so close that Melbourne registered immediately in the sensors.
Alexi’s old ship had left Earthport before the coup. An interstellar vessel performed many roles. One of them, unfortunately, was to serve as tourist transport. The cruise to the Jovian satellites, for example, was famous. An intrasystem Fuse made the voyage a tolerable length, and the public approval gained by occasional tourist jaunts helped support the Navy.
The Titan cruise was another such waste of resources. Alexi had been wise to arrange his leave to coincide with the journey. The ship would be filled with a gaggle of politicians, celebrities, mediamen, and the like. No fit company for an honest sailor.
I had no idea where Captain Fenner’s loyalties lay, but Alexi had spoken approvingly of him. It would have to suffice. In any event, I doubted he’d try to flee. Moored at Titan’s Orbiting Station, he was too close to Saturn’s satellite to Fuse, and in any event Galactic bristled with laser cannon.
I had Lieutenant Garrow summon Melbourne’s Captain aboard to receive dispatches from Admiralty. I rolled my chair back and forth, to the middies’ growing annoyance, waiting to learn if he’d comply. Certainly Fenner knew my visit to Titan was no routine matter; ships were spread so thin that it was rare one encountered another outside home port.
To my vast relief, his gig soon appeared in our simulscreens. Not long after, he was piped aboard.
Josh Fenner was a rather short joey, with a grave mien. We reviewed my orders from Admiralty, that gave me authority over his ship. “Very well, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I need to, ah, borrow Melbourne.”
“You do.” His eyes bored into mine.
“For a few days, no more. Anton Bourse is aboard, is he not?”
He gaped. Even such an eccentric, as I wouldn’t disrupt the schedules of two great liners merely to meet a holostar. Even if he was the world’s premier entertainer. “You want to meet him?”
“No. I want him dead.”
Almost two days to wait. It nearly dissolved what was left of my sanity. I roamed the ship in my motorized chair, or at least those parts of it I could reach. I had the midships and aft gravitrons turned low for my visits, but the improvised controls were erratic at best; sudden gravitational surges left me breathless and gasping with pain.
Chief McAndrews supervised repair of the corridor hatches; the circuitry was complicated and difficult, especially as to the bridge overrides.
I joined the passengers for the evening meal. They were immensely relieved that some form of routine had been reestablished, even if the Captain they’d known was a bloody mutilated corpse, and his replacement gaunt and silent.
Mikhael languished in sickbay. I visited every few hours, even when I should have been stretched in my bed, warding off the effects of exhaustion.
His eyes were red, his body sore. His spirit, deflated.
“Would you like to visit the bridge?” In other days, joeykids had been awed by its splendor.
He shook his head. “Not really.”
I said brightly, “How about Melbourne’s bridge? Alexi would have wanted you to see it.”
“I did, before his last cruise. I don’t want to think about it.”
“It?”
“Him.” He turned away, tucked his pillow under his head, left me contemplating the curve of his back.
“Son ...”
“I’m nobody’s son.” His tone was sullen.
“You’re angry I couldn’t save you from Karen?”
“When I try to be brave I wet my pants or get beaten to a pulp. It’s not fair. I can’t be like you. Nobody can.”
“Don’t ever try,” I said through clenched teeth, “to be like me. You don’t want to be that.”
Something in my tone caused him to peer over his shoulder, and slowly, reluctantly turn. “Pa?”
I nodded, not quite able to speak.
“What is it? What’s changed in you?”
“Nothing.” I couldn’t tell him I’d defied the Deity, and been broken. But “nothing” wasn’t the truth. “I don’t have much left in life, Mikhael. I’d truly like you to be my joeykid.”
He lay listless, from time to time sniffling. Then, “Pa, am I glitched? Do I need rebalancing?”
“No
, son, you’re a teener. You need love, and a bit of aging.”
By now I could at least recognize my lieutenants, and was forming an impression of their abilities. Arlene, in our precious hours of privacy, broke tradition to discuss her observations with me. It was one of the few perks of the Captain’s wife.
On a long cruise an officer in her position would be lonely. No crewman would trust her. Whether or not she revealed their confidences, they would assume she had. But for now it didn’t matter; we were only briefly posted to Galactic. When this was over, if I lived, I’d seek some quiet corner for retirement. A place with low gravity. Lunapolis, perhaps. They were building new warrens there, with comfortable quarters.
“Nick ...” We snuggled in bed. I’d tried lovemaking, but my spine wouldn’t allow it. The movement was too much.
“Yes, hon?”
“That child ... promise me we’ll have it.”
“After all we’ve been through?”
“You changed your mind?” A tinge of sadness.
“No.” I hoped it was truth. “I’m ... lost inside, hon. How could I raise—”
Her palm covered my mouth. “Don’t think about it. Trust your instincts. You were as troubled then as now, and look at P.T.”
“Yes, look at him.” Grief-stricken, morose. Lethargic. And articulate as always, so the cause of his sorrow came easily to his lips. If I could add his misery to mine, gladly would I have done so.
“He’ll survive.” Her pity was less than I expected. “Wounds heal. He’ll find another boy, or girl.”
“A girl this time, I hope.”
She giggled. “So do I.” Then, “Promise.”
“I swear by Lord—” I couldn’t do that. “I promise by everything I hold dear, we will make another child.”
“Thank you, love.” Drowsily, we drifted in space.
“You’re bloody right it’s canceled! It brings him up to ten.” I flung my holovid across the console. “Who told you to issue my cadet demerits?”
“I’m first middy.” Edwin Speke’s face was tense. “Anselm’s been moping about the corridors. You should have seen how sloppily he came to attention when I—”
“Who told you to put him at attention? Mind your own affairs.”
“If that’s the way you want it, sir.”
I sat fuming. I’d assigned Tad no duties. I wasn’t even sure he was a member of the ship’s company. His darkness of the soul had enveloped him like a shroud. I’d have to spend time with him. Or better yet, put him with someone who could set an example. I tottered on the edge of despair.
Yes, a cadet was subject to midshipmen’s orders, and Anselm should have been more responsive. But he wasn’t a member of Galactic’s wardroom, and Speke needn’t have noticed him.
It was chance, pure seniority, that made a first middy. As Jeff Thorne had known when I was a boy, no leader could ask a willingness, a spirit, he himself couldn’t provide as example.
Later, I visited P.T. in the cabin they’d assigned him, struggled out of my chair in the light gravity, gave him a fierce hug. “I love you, son. Remember that always.”
“Fath?” He searched my face. “You make it sound a farewell.”
“It is. I have to go.”
“Where?”
I told him.
When I was done, he stirred. “I’ll—”
“No.” I spoke softly, but with a finality that brooked no argument, as in his youth. “Not this time. Perhaps I’ll be back. With Lord God’s—” I bit back the obscenity. “Perhaps.”
Below, in the engine room, Chief McAndrews looked morose. “The corridor hatches will seal, but the bridge overrides—the wiring’s fused, somewhere in the bulkheads. We’ll find it, sooner or later.” He scowled. “Make that later.”
“Keep at it.” I glanced up to his panels. “And the gravitrons?”
“Directly wired.” He glowered at the mess I’d made of his circuits. “It’ll give me something to do on the way to Constantine. In the meantime ...” The grudging hint of a smile. “Hope you don’t mind a drop to zero gee now and then.”
“I’ll survive.” I’d do more than that; only light gravity made my injury tolerable. “But the passengers ...”
“I know, sir.” Groundsiders were notorious for their ineptitude in anything less than Terran gees.
I was wheeling myself back to the bridge. As I rounded the corridor, voices ahead.
“... thrash you myself, do you hear?” Derek Carr.
“The Captain canceled—”
“I don’t care what Mr. Seafort said. His every move is agony, he’s hanging on by a thread, and I won’t have a whiny cadet adding to his worries!”
I would turn my chair, go around. A long way, but ...
“I wasn’t—”
“Stand at attention, Anselm! Did I release you?”
“No, sir!”
“By God, that does it! Now what, you’re crying? What in hell is the matter with you?”
“I don’t know.” The boy’s voice was tormented. “Cashier me. Beach me. Let me go home.”
I braced myself for Derek’s explosion. It never came. His tone was reflective. “I felt that way once. I was just your age. Like you, too old to be a cadet.”
No response.
“I begged to be cashiered. I whined, just like you. I had snot running from my nose, just like you. Not on your sleeve, damn it!” His voice softened. “Use this.”
“Thank you, sir.” A whisper. “What happened?”
“He took me into the corridor. He let me cry, and—I don’t know how, but he sent me back to do my duty, and I was glad to. For him.” A pause. “Is this by any chance about Bevin?”
“Yessir.”
“Ahh. Did I ever tell you about my friend Sandy Wilsky? A young middy on Hibernia. Come along, we’ll find a softie. He was killed, on airlock watch I should have been standing. I blamed myself, of course. As you do.”
“I prayed for it to be Danil!”
“God doesn’t hear such prayers. He just understands. Don’t cry again, I didn’t mean ... well, perhaps I did. Come along, joey. A part of me was grateful it was Sandy had the airlock, and for months I felt such contempt for myself ...”
The voices faded.
Thank You, Lord God. For doing what I could not.
A tenuous peace held at the Rotunda. U.N.A.F. made no effort to enter the gates. Neither did they withdraw. The six o’clock hour came and went, with no broadcast by Valera.
From what we could gather from transmissions, both factions had paused, awaiting my capture or death, or the unlikely possibility that I’d oust Hoi and Simovich. The Assembly had supported my enviro package and was generally assumed to be with me; the Senate was firmly in opposition. It didn’t matter; I’d dissolved both bodies.
U.N.A.F. Command remained neutral, with only a few isolated units committing themselves. One such patrol had captured Jerence, and still held him.
All depended on timing. I called Arlene, Derek, and Captain Fenner together for one last conference. Again, they assured me all was arranged.
I set the caller to shipwide frequency. “By order of Admiral Seafort, Lieutenant Arlene Sanders is granted the temporary rank of Captain.”
Fenner returned to Melbourne.
We Fused.
“The cadet asks to speak to you, sir.” Midshipman Speke was exceedingly stiff and formal.
Escorted to the bridge, Anselm waited to be released. Then, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll try to do better.” He shifted. “That’s all I had—that’s all, sir.”
“Thank you. Dismissed.” As he turned to go, I blurted, “Danil’s death was my fault, not yours. Attacking Galactic was a suicide mission. I shouldn’t have allowed—”
“Pardon, sir. But that’s what we’re for. Cadets and middies, I mean. We’re military. We accept the risk.”
“Did Danil?”
He gulped. “Not of outright murder. He was terrified.”
“So were you.”
“Yes.” His eyes met mine. “Yes, I was.”
“I couldn’t imagine otherwise. Could I ask you a favor, one which no commander may require of an officer?”
“What, sir?”
“Would you pray for him with me?”
“Oh.” His eyes filled. “Oh, yes. I’d like that.”
“Tonight, then. I’ll call you to my quarters.”
I watched him go. Something in his stride resembled the assured young middy I’d first met.
“They’re bringing him out now, Ned. The casket is wrapped in poly, to protect it in handling. Level 7 portholes are lined with spectators. Few have dry eyes.”
The death of Anton Bourse shocked the public. It was perhaps the only event that could drive the attempted coup from the front pages. Melbourne’s Captain, in a universally applauded gesture of respect, had suspended his cruise to return the beloved holostar’s body to Earthport Station for transshipment and burial.
Even for Melbourne, Admiral Hoi would have been suspicious, had she proposed to dock at a bay. But Captain Fenner hove to alongside, in full view of the Station, and well within the range of her laser defense.
“The effects of decompression are not for the squeamish. The casket will remain closed. Burial is slated in California for Wednesday.”
Restless, I flipped my suit radio from one frequency to another: news zines, Earthport Traffic Control, even distant Lunapolis.
Mediamen and their holocams lined Earthport Station’s portholes as the joey who’d made millions weep was brought out of Melbourne’s vacuum hold and floated into her launch. A sealed coffin, due to the tragic decompression accident that claimed him.
“Tomorrow, a special shuttle will carry Bourse groundside, to his many admirers.”
The launch sailed slowly into an Earthport bay, his grieving retinue aboard. Squads of armed sailors were vigilant, even now fearing a ruse. But only a handful of Bourse’s young staff passed through the airlock. Many were in shock.
Melbourne would resume her itinerary, two days late. Two dozen of her passengers disembarked, and were ferried across to the Station. Perhaps they’d booked the cruise only to mingle with Bourse. Their places would be taken by others.
Patriarch's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 6) Page 42
