by Blaze Ward
She turned when she realized he was staying outside of her space. Frowned for a second and then smiled discreetly.
“Innruld history?” she asked simply.
“Whatever you have that would put me in the best position to answer questions when the authorities ask,” Lazarus said. “Or to tell the best lies if Director Wolcott needs that from me.”
“Why would he need you to lie?” she asked defensively, turning more to face him in surprise.
“Whatever rendezvous you had out here in the middle of nowhere needed secrecy,” he smiled grimly. “If it was legitimate cargo, you could have done it on a dock somewhere, or in orbit of an inhabited planet. That you had to sneak out here suggests that I might need to be completely clueless about where you picked me up, so nobody could backtrack you. Close?”
“Too close,” she said in a serious tone. “You’re smarter than you let on.”
“I was a Director on another ship, like Wolcott,” he said, feeling his back come up just a little. “Moreso, because that was a warship with a crew of one hundred, and not just a cargo trader. You didn’t grasp that?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted harshly, grabbing a book from the shelf and starting his way. “You’ll need this initially, but we need to talk to Addison about what else you should know.”
Lazarus let her stuff the tome into his hands as he stepped back out of her way. She blew right past him and headed forward so he fell into her wake and walked slow enough that he didn’t run into the Yithadreph woman when she stopped.
They found Kuei and Cormac on the bridge when the hatch opened.
“Where’s Addison?” Aileen asked bluntly.
“Office,” Kuei looked up from her game, or whatever she was doing on the screen.
Didn’t look like piloting.
Aileen pivoted right under his hip and turned to the left hand door on the aft of the ship’s head, rapping on the metal.
The door opened a moment later, revealing Director Wolcott behind a medium-sized metal desk, and the Qooph, Ereshkiki Nisab, on this side, resting on a flat. He pivoted to turn a critical eye on Lazarus, standing above and behind Aileen as she took a breath.
“I suggest you two need to chat more with Lazarus,” she said simply. “Now, before he reads too much Innruld history in the book I gave him.”
She turned and lit out like Lazarus might be chasing her, moving as rapidly as those stubby legs might carry her away from him.
Lazarus stood in the door and composed his face.
“Come in,” Wolcott said. “We were just talking about you.”
Lazarus understood the Qooph to be the other officer on this crew, with the rest really just being enlisted sailors, although there was no rank structure here. Each crewmember had specialties, and he had been attached to Aileen Enjehn because she was the person best at packing and understanding cargo containers, just as Thadrakho was good at repairing things and Wybert understood combat.
Lazarus entered the Lion’s Den remembering Sunday School lessons of Daniel.
“I surprised Aileen,” he said simply. “Pointed out to her that I felt I should learn more about the Innruld, in case I needed to tell convincing lies to the authorities when they interrogated me.”
“What deceptions do you foresee, Lazarus?” Ereshkiki Nisab asked in that awesomely bizarre harmony you could achieve with several mouths speaking at once.
He could see why Ezekiel might have believed God had sent such a creature.
“I am an ignorant sailor rescued by Director Wolcott and the crew of Shiva Zephyr Glaive,” Lazarus leaned back against the wall to relax, since there was no chair that would fit him until he grabbed himself a box or made something. “But they’ll ask where I was found, and I suspect that telling them about that hollow space in the nebula would be counter-productive to your business and perhaps a vast number of your associates.”
Both men froze. Beings. Creatures.
People. They were people. Leave it at that and don’t try to understand why God chose so many interesting shapes for His children.
But the two people had been caught with hands in cookie jars, however metaphorically.
Lazarus nodded.
“Smugglers?” he guessed, watching Addison Wolcott for subtle cues, since he had no idea how to read the body language of a four-foot-tall blue-gray wheel with two rims, two arms, six eyes, and six mouths.
Not yet, anyway. The hands and eyes probably told you things, once you paid enough attention.
Lazarus had no idea if they might kill him now. If the secrets these two kept were worth more than his life. But he also owed them one of his lives. And if they were nice enough, and the Innruld as bad as everyone here seemed to think, then perhaps he might need to take Ajax on a slight detour before he headed home.
“Are you truly a rebel, Lazarus?” Wolcott asked.
“The Rio Alliance considers itself an independent, stellar nation,” he replied. “Westphalia disputes that notion and seeks to dominate every world they cannot conquer. Your kind would be distinctly unwelcome. They would classify me as a rebel. I’m just a scientist with a military background, but yes, I certainly plan on making sure that someone sticks it to Westphalia in the most painful way possible.”
“Then perhaps you understand my relationship with the Innruld after all,” Wolcott smiled. “None of the other species are free from their dominance. You will not be, either, but if you are too stupid to even know your homeworld’s coordinates, then there is not much they can do to bother other humans.”
“Perhaps, old friend, they already know humans?” Ereshkiki Nisab spoke up, glancing the topmost of those big eyes over at Wolcott for a second. “Who is privy to the inner councils of the Innruld? Lazarus, from which direction did you enter the nebula?”
“Trailing and farther out on the rim,” Lazarus decided to give them that much truth.
Westphalia would not welcome even more aliens, whereas the Rio Alliance most certainly would, if they showed up.
“From my homeworlds, the nebula appears as a wide, flat shield across several degrees of sky,” Lazarus continued. “I still don’t know how I managed to get in there without hitting something.”
“If you did, that suggests a straight enough path from your worlds,” Wolcott said. “And an unknown one, because all the paths I know hook significantly around star systems. But that is not today’s task.”
“Indeed,” Lazarus agreed. “What do I tell people?”
“I think if you tell them the wrecked and destroyed spaceship story, that will be sufficient,” Ereshkiki Nisab replied instead of Wolcott. “It would not be to your long-term interest to mention that it was a warship, or that you commanded such a vessel. You should fall back on the common caricature of the erect biped as a simple dupe from the lower decks who has never even met his previous captain, let alone stood on the bridge of your previous vessel. Addison and I can deflect everything from that point, and your ignorance on the topic will not haunt any of us. Is this satisfactory?”
“It is,” Lazarus decided. “What should I tell Aileen or the others?”
“That much, and little more,” Addison Wolcott said. “We will tell the crew what they need to know. If they know little, they cannot accidentally tell anyone. Perhaps you should refrain from discussing your past with anyone.”
“Is Aileen safe?” Lazarus asked. “I will need someone to talk to and she is willing to loan me books on Innruld history and other topics to read.”
He held up the book and realized he hadn’t even looked at the title yet.
The spine was blank, unlike any book he had ever seen. Even the few books that people owned in this age proudly displayed their title for the world to read when shelved.
Lazarus flipped it up and spent a moment deciphering the ornate and flowery script font that the title page presented.
Worlds of the Masters.
Well, that pretty much put it into perspective, didn’t it?
“Y
es,” Wolcott responded when Lazarus looked up. “But I would suggest not letting anyone else know that you can read Innruld. She can get you more books when we arrive at Dormell, as well.”
“Very good, Director,” Lazarus replied, standing again. “Are there other questions I might deal with at present?”
“There are not,” Wolcott said. “We should get to Dormell in five days.”
Lazarus nodded and turned. The door opened and he emerged back into the hallway. Aileen Enjehn was waiting for him after all, when it had looked earlier like he wouldn’t see her again today.
“News?” she asked carefully after the office hatch closed behind him.
“You’re safe to know the truth, but we should not tell many details to the others,” he said. “I’m a dumb spacer, so illiterate as far as everyone else is concerned. You’ll have to be my big sister if they let me out on station, keeping me out of trouble.”
“Okay, I can do that,” she said after a moment.
Lazarus hadn’t intended to trigger some maternal instincts in the tiny woman, but maybe he had. She nodded at him and smiled, heading back.
“I’m going to take a nap,” she announced. “You should go read about the bastards who think they own the universe.”
Lazarus watched her depart, willing to accept a dismissal when he saw one. He might have just recruited her into his own conspiracy, even if it was just to keep him from going stir crazy. Khyaa’sha was the only other crew member he’d met with whom any warmth had been evident.
But he was an alien here. And taller than most everyone else, so he stood out, and possibly reminded them of the Innruld, even if they supposedly had another foot of height on him in person. He was still a dangerous outsider, overly strong and from a radically different culture.
Still, he had time. Wolcott and Ereshkiki Nisab would hopefully decide if they were keeping him,or abandoning him on the first station they met after he got some sort of papers.
At no point had they mentioned pay. Or proper identification papers. Or anything else.
At the same time, Lazarus realized that it had been less than two days since he’d first hailed them in orbit of some unknown planet in the middle of a stellar nebula birthing new stars as fast as they could pull together enough hydrogen to generate fusion.
What insanity would a week aboard this ship bring?
Chapter Eighteen
Addison
What to do with the human? Addison had discussed it with Ereshkiki Nisab for some time after Lazarus had returned to his cabin to read, but they had come to no firm consensus.
He owed the human rescue and transit to a station under Innruld law. From there, the being could begin a new life. Lazarus was apparently the name for the reborn among his kind, so this would be his future, separated from the past of that battle and flight into the dangerous wilderness.
Did Addison keep Lazarus aboard as part of his crew? Certainly, that would protect most of the ship’s secrets from accidental discovery later. Or intentional disclosure.
Addison looked around his personal cabin and considered how he had gotten here. He was a Director of a reasonably profitable venture, even with just the cargo he officially declared, to say nothing of those boxes that Lazarus had tucked up in a place where nobody could get them down without help.
The room betrayed its resident. All the normal sharp corners had been removed when he took out the central wall so he could have a double cabin with an elevated nest depressed in the middle. Addison kept the heat a few degrees warmer in here so he could sleep more restfully.
In his closet, a collection of shirts and vests that went with the equipment harness he habitually wore when he was off-ship. Dressing warmer than a station was rarely necessary. If it was that cold, he’d send Thadrakho out and let him deal with folks. Chances were they were Necherle anyway, if he was in that kind of climate for a delivery.
Around him, Shiva Zephyr Glaive was a speedy cargorunner, two points faster than the average civilian transport. The crew was a good mix of species that all got along well.
If Aileen was willing to put up with Lazarus, the human’s muscles would be extremely helpful in the cargo-moving business. She had given Addison a write-up detailing an eight percent improvement in volume by being able to stack containers three and four high in odd corners without having to find a way to get the crane under the upper deck overhang.
That alone argued for keeping Lazarus aboard and being able to pay him and everyone else better.
But other parts of the human’s story didn’t add up. Lazarus probably wasn’t even aware of the discrepancies, but partly that was a comparison of information disclosed over that first dinner with details that had come out since. Details that had shifted some.
Addison was nearly certain that the ship Ajax had not been destroyed. That Lazarus had hidden it somewhere instead. The so-called lifepod was a fully-equipped shuttle with its own trans-light drive of some sort, and not just a tiny shell you threw yourself into and then triggered the launching rockets just before your main vessel exploded.
Warship.
What could Addison do if he had a vessel capable of taking his war to the Innruld directly? What should he do?
There was an entire Species Underground out there that would probably vote for access to weapons capable of threatening the Innruld. Shiva Zephyr Glaive was armed, but that was to keep pirates at bay. Even on his best day Wybert was no threat to the massive Security Barcs that the slaves of the Innruld used to enforce the will of the overlords.
What might Ajax have done? Or do on some future date? Addison knew he didn’t dare let Lazarus out of his sight until that question was answered.
At the same time, he would need to protect the human from his own superiors, lest one of them decided to kidnap the human in some stupid attempt to force Lazarus to show them where Ajax lay hidden, if the vessel did indeed still exist. Addison could see the human overwhelming his guards, especially if nobody told those people how strong the human was.
Addison felt the strangest mix of feelings come over him as he considered what lies he might suddenly decide to tell his superiors. And his enemies.
Because everyone would misunderstand the human, spy or not.
There would only be one chance to lay hands on Ajax. Addison could see that. Using force would just alienate the one ally that might help them change the universe.
If they played it right, Lazarus might even show them how to build copies of the vessel with which to introduce the overlords to a greater parity among the species.
Addison wondered if he would send up any red flags looking for references to the Rio Alliance when he got to Dormell. Or if he should just settle for asking one of his underworld contacts and reminding that person to keep such inquiries at a personal remove, just in case the Innruld took notice. And take exception.
The Phraettis Nebula was supposedly outside of space that the Innruld claimed, so any species beyond that were theoretically strangers, were they not? Opportunities for trade and cultural contact?
Allies one might quietly recruit?
Addison would have to allow the authorities access to Lazarus. The human would need papers, even if he only continued to crew on Shiva Zephyr Glaive.
But what would the authorities do or say? Would they know what humans were? And where might they have learned what a human was?
That in itself would lead Addison and his contacts to other questions. Other potential revelations.
What other species out there might the Innruld not want their underlings to meet?
Chapter Nineteen
Lazarus
Because he had been a good boy, eating all his vegetables and washing behind his ears, at least metaphorically, Lazarus got to be on the bridge as Shiva Zephyr Glaive came out of trans-space at a place called Dormell.
One moment, that endless expanse of pearl-gray nothingness shot through with blue streaks. The next, the utter black of deep space lit with distant star
s. He had never imagined what a mathematical hyperspace tunnel might look like from the inside. Back home, they were gone so fast that you left behind a huge flash of blue-shifted light as you arrived at your destination.
But he was here now. Innruld Space, shadowed behind the great shield of that nebula that had once marked the boundaries of known space as far as humans had even considered.
Kuei called up a new image on the main screen and then echoed it to the smaller one at the station where Lazarus sat next to the NavCrawler Cormac.
Fairie Castle. Lazarus couldn’t think of any other term to describe what he was seeing.
Instead of a big cube, or even a torus hanging in space, someone had literally built a castle in orbit. It even had a specific bottom, a downside pointed at the surface of the blue-green planet below, flat across like an ancient stone fortress that had been torn from the earth somewhere, but this thing was metal. At least it looked like metal.
Gray mixed with all of the pastels he could imagine, like someone had taken a model they bought and swiped at it with enormous brushes to add color at random. The towers emerging from the top of the keep looked like something he had once seen on the cover of a fantasy novel he had read as a child, floating almost weightless above the ground. Those were lit up as well, while the walls of the fortress below were just rough and dark.
The ship was aligned almost perfectly on a corner as they approached, so Lazarus could see two identical gates, both open, like the ship was supposed to fly into the middle of the courtyard and land.
But that would be silly, right?
Except…
“Dormell Station Control, this is Shiva Zephyr Glaive,” Kuei said now, her voice far more formal than normal. “Requesting docking lane and landing assignment. Details transmitted.”
