Endless Blue-ARC

by Wen Spencer

  He wasn't sure where she was going but nodded in encouragement.

  "That's not how we are here in the Sargasso. We believe in divine intervention. Sad to say, but probably because we're so helpless at time. But once you open that door to belief, it's hard to close it. A lot of people think the Hak are gods, or at least kami, which are spiritual beings along the same lines of a god. English really doesn't have the words to explain and Standard tends to be devoid of religious ideology."

  "And the Hak say that seraphim are angels."

  "So the legend goes. But I doubt it is completely correct. Generally speaking, translators only use Zen concepts when dealing with the Hak."

  "And 'angel' isn't a Buddhist concept?"

  "Technically, no." Captain Bailey shook her head. "It's possible that the Hak used a Buddhist concept and it later got translated into English as angel."

  "What do you think they are?"

  She sighed. "I don't know. I've heard so many stories about them saving people. They perform miracles by foreseeing disaster and moving people out of harm's way. I just don't believe that these things are supernatural forces of good. I do think that somehow they can see beyond what we can sense. But I hold the unpopular belief that they have their own agenda and they're helping us only for selfish reasons."

  "You don't trust them?"

  "I have found that every species, with maybe the exception of the Hak, has a common trait; they act in their own self-interests first," Captain Bailey said. "Usually I can figure out what the other being is getting out of any one action. You give me cargo because you want me to keep helping you. I understand that, so I trust you—to a degree. Because I can also guess where you might turn and bite me in the hand and I can guard against it. You know I can guess it, and that I'm guarding against it, so it's unlikely you would try it. Trust is a game of checks and balances."

  On a certain level, he agreed completely with her. He would like, however, to think that the trust between he and Turk wasn't a game. That their trust was unquestionable and unbreakable. But if it was unbreakable, he wouldn't have to worry about damaging it. He had always been careful of protecting Turk for fear of losing his trust and affection. Was it that way with all families? Or was just because he was Turk's brother only in his own mind?

  He shied away from probing his own inner scars and considered the seraphim. "As far as I've been able to determine, I'm the only one that they've attempted to communicate with. Why focus on me? Why try to talk to humans at all? Why don't they deal with the Hak? Or the minotaurs?"

  "Humans are kind of unique in the Sargasso. We're the only race that will talk to anything, including our cats."

  "The only ones?"

  "That I know of." Captain Bailey patted her hand on the Svoboda. "This is the Svoboda. She's a good fine ship, trusty and true."

  Mikhail sensed she was trying to make a point. "I don't understand the connection."

  "We see everything like us—until even objects become people. No other race does that. Take the minotaur. If we were minotaurs, instead of humans, this wouldn't be the Tigertail, it would be Mikhail's troop lander."

  "So you're saying that the minotaur don't talk to other races because they don't see them as people?"

  She nodded. "With the minotaur, sometimes I think it comes from the fact that they're herbivores. Certainly, they're the most egocentric of the races. They don't share their space with anything that doesn't benefit them. They don't have pets. They don't keep plants beyond what they eat. They barely seem to be able to tolerate themselves. With humans we have that hunter/animal husbandry stuff going on that lets us empathize with other creatures. From the very beginning of our race, we had to get into the minds of other animals to survive."

  It made sense that the seraphim would attempt to communicate with the one species willing to listen. It still begged the question: why focus on Mikhail? Could it be because Viktor had done something that caught the seraphim's attention and now that he was dead, Mikhail was heir yet again to Viktor's legacy? Or could it be because he was perhaps the captain of the only human ship that came here on purpose. Or was it simply because he was already slightly insane? Who knows, pushing him over the edge might bring joy and delight to aliens far and wide.

  "Is there anyone who is an expert on the seraphim?" Mikhail asked.

  Captain Bailey shook her head. "Not exactly. We can ask the Hak, see if the legend is true. We could also see if Ethan had friends here in Ya-ya that shared his interest. Ceri seemed to indicate that he some success in communicating with them."

  Mikhail nodded. "I would also like to go to the salvage yards."

  Captain Bailey misunderstood the reason for his request. "Georgetown Landing has a shipyard. It would be easier to create a boat out of the Svoboda in Georgetown than do it here and try to sail there with an inexperienced crew."

  "Turk thinks . . .." Mikhail paused. What exactly had Turk told her about their mission? He'd assumed that Turk would have told her once he thought that the Svoboda had sunk. But Turk could have considered their mission so moot that he didn't see the point of explaining it. There was no way, though, that they could investigate the modification of the engine without her understanding what they trying to find.

  "Turk thinks what?" Captain Bailey said.

  "We didn't come here by accident." Miksail decided on an edited version of their mission. "We were sent here to find the Fenrir. Its engine returned to Plymouth Station with no indication what happened to the rest of the ship."

  At first she was merely startled by the information, but as connections were made, she frowned. The frown worked deeper and deeper. "You think you can warp out of the Sargasso?"

  Mikhail nodded. "If the people that made the modifications weren't killed. The parts that were used to modify the engines had markings from Yamoto-Yamaguchi's salvage yards."

  She stared at him mutely for several minutes before saying, "I—I don't know if I should help you with that."

  "Why not?"

  "Georgetown Landing is a small independent colony. If the United Colonies gained access to the Sargasso, they're not going to see us as that. They'll see as lost New Washington property. We go through this every time another New Washington ship lands in the Sargasso. They get on the radio, announce that Captain so-and-so is calling for our commanding officer and when they discover all our original crew is dead, they think they own the place."

  Yes, he could see that happening. He through frantically of how he could sway her; while there might other translators to be had, Bailey could be dangerous opposition.

  Luckily, though, he could offer what no other person could. "Novaya Rus will recognize Georgetown as an independent colony."

  She considered it a moment before shaking her head. "No, United Colonies wouldn't allow it."

  "I knew that there might be—" he edited out the word 'creche' and inserted, "—important items here in the Sargasso. Ships, certainly, if the Fenrir was here. I wasn't sure what I'd find, but I didn't want to risk everything and then hand over whatever I found to the United Colonies. I negotiated that Novaya Rus has salvage rights for anything I discover."

  "You did?"

  "I am the clone of Viktor Volkov and someday be the Tsar of the Novaya Rus Empire." Whether he wanted to be or not.

  She bite her lip, her face filled with uncertainty.

  Mikhail pressed on, hoping to win her over. "If the people who modified Fenrir's engine are still alive, it might not matter what you and I agree on. They know that the engine warped out. They had something close to success. There's no reason why they wouldn't try again."

  Captain Bailey's eyes went wide. "You're right! They might try again. The Sargasso is littered with parts. They might even try to do it here in Ya-ya." She looked out at the bustling harbor and city spread beyond.

  Mikhail gave her a minute to consider all the awful implications. Let her realize that by doing nothing, she could be allowing the people that leveled Fenrir's Rock destroy anoth
er landing. "What happened at Fenrir might have been an accident, or it might have been a total disregard for human life. I want to find out. I need your help."

  She nodded, and kept nodding, as if agreeing to things that went unsaid. "I'll help you. I can't let that happen again. Let's take your runabout to the salvage yards."

  Spoken like a true Volkov.

  * * *

  Captain Bailey gave them a travelogue and history lesson on Ya-ya as she navigated the runabout through Ya-ya's waterways. It seemed as if she was pointing out the best features of the city.

  Turk, Mikhail noticed, took up a position beside Captain Bailey, standing with one arm braced behind her. They weren't touching, barely seemed aware of each other, and yet radiated 'we are a couple' feeling. As they wove their way through city, Turk smiled time and time again at things Bailey said. It made Mikhail realize how rarely Turk smiled. Seeing how happy his brother seemed, Mikhail began to worry about the future. If all went well, he and Turk would return to their universe. The only way Turk could live happily with Captain Bailey was if one of them would give up everything they knew.

  Who would sacrifice everything for the other?

  Mikhail couldn't imagine Bailey giving up the boat she had worked years to earn and leave her tight-knit family. Besides Mikhail, what was there to keep Turk on the Svoboda? Like himself, Turk was friendly with the rest of the crew, but not necessarily close. Turk's universe saw him as non-human, a rogue piece of property that somehow owned itself.

  The more Mikhail considered it, the more likely it seemed that Turk would stay with the Rosetta when Mikhail found a way to return to his universe. Would knowing that Turk was happy be easier than when he thought Turk was dead? Was he strong enough to keep on going without Turk? He felt ashamed that not only had he to consider the question, but there was a tiny spark of terror deep inside him that didn't believe he was.

  * * *

  The canal opened up into another harbor area. Here, shrouded in the mists, was a sudden graveyard of small personal spaceships. Fighters. Shuttles. Troop Landers. And something he didn't recognize.

  "What is that?" Mikhail moved the headset's eyepiece into place to eliminate the effects of the fog and zoomed in on the alien ship.

  Captain Bailey followed his gaze. "That's a minotaur ship lifepod. A salvage ship out of Fenrir called the Gleipnir found a very large minotaur ship just on the edge of the minotaur flats. They've been floating the lifepods in for a few months now."

  "There's only one." Turk murmured.

  "Human salvage sits for a while because people often buy them whole." She pointed to the troop lander. "Reshape the bow on a troop lander and they make good sturdy boats. It already has water filtration, bathroom, showers, crew quarters and such built in. People don't like working with alien ships. The sizes are wrong. None of the subsystems are set to human standards. And they're kind of creepy; it's like at some very deep level that they strike you as wrong. So they get melted down for scrap."

  * * *

  When Paige had been begging for bargains and offering nothing to sell, she'd had dealt with the foreman out in the salvage yard. Mikhail, however, with his newly-arrived riches and need for massive and speedy repairs, was escorted to offices she'd never seen before. There they met with the salvage yard's owner, a thin Asian whose yakuta hung on him as if he was a clothes hanger. His thin long fingers danced over the abacas before him, flicking beads up and down the rows. He had a pair of glasses balanced on his face that he seemed to only need for reading as he took them off every time he paused to talk to them.

  "Yes, yes, I recognize these." The manager waved his glasses off toward the far end of the salvage yard. "There was an odd motley crew that would come and climb around all the new arrival stuff. They pick out what they want and Hardin would pay for it. They favored the exotic."

  The glasses went back on.

  Exotic meant alien technology. "What were they doing with it?"

  The glasses came back off. "Who knows. Exotic is usually melted down since so few people can make heads or tails of the stuff."

  Paige turned back to Mikhail who been trying to follow the conversation of rapid Japanese without success. "He knows the people that bought the items. Says Hardin paid for it."

  "John Hardin of the Red Gold?" Mikhail asked.

  The manger spoke enough to Standard to recognize that. "Yes, John Hardin." The rest was in Japanese. "He paid for everything they took. A hundred thousand . . .two hundred thousand yen of salvage. Very good customers."

  "How much?" Paige said. The amount was staggering

  "Hardin made over a dozen payments," the manager said. "All ten thousand yen or more. He'd come every time he was in port, his crew would come buy more parts."

  "What is it?" Mikhail asked.

  "Hardin paid out a shit load of money for the parts. You can make good money doing salvage, but I can't imagine Hardin being able to afford something of this scope."

  "Maybe he had a credit line? Or a backer?"

  Paige shook her head. The cautious moneylenders of Ya-ya wouldn't lend that much money to someone whose sole collateral was their salvage ship. Especially someone with as legendary bad luck as Hardin. "Did Hardin have a backer?"

  The manager looked startled, as if he realized for the first time how odd it was. He put the tips of the earpiece into his mouth as he considered. "Yes, I believe so."

  "Who was his backer?"

  "I only know that he paid for things he couldn't otherwise afford." The glasses went back on and he bent over his abacus. "He must have had a backer."

  Paige thought back over the conversation. Something had slipped past her, she was sure.

  "What did he say?" Mikhail murmured when she been silent for some time.

  Paige held up her hand to silence him. It was coming to her. On the surface, what the manager said seemed as if he was talking about Hardin's crew, but when considered carefully, actually implied the opposite. "This motley crew? They weren't Red Gold crew?"

  "No." The manager pointed his glasses at Mikhail. "None of them were newcomers, like these two obviously are. Three humans, a minotaur, an obnaoian, and two blues, translating."

  Paige's heart jumped. "Who were the Blues?"

  "Evangeline." He breathed her name like a lover, although the effect was ruined as he stumbled over the 'l' in her name. "Such grace. Such beauty."

  Paige knew Evangeline. She was Ceri and Oust's daughter. "Who was the other one?"

  The manager thought and then slowly shook his head. "I-I never paid much attention to him."

  Men! "They're here in Yamato-Yamagouchi?"

  The thin shoulders shrugged. "I haven't seen any of them for weeks."

  He bent over his abacus again.

  Mikhail caught her eye and lifted his eyebrows in query.

  "Hardin had people that weren't his crew working here in Ya-ya," Paige told him. "From the sounds of it, they stayed here as he came and went."

  "So they might still be here."

  "Maybe. But he doesn't know anything more."

  "Did he say anything to give us a clue to how we can find them?"

  "Hardin was working with a woman called Evangeline. I really don't know her well, but I do know that she lives on Temple Island and works as a translator."

  19: Temple Island

  Since modifying Fenrir's engine obviously took place in Ya-ya, Mikhail decided to commit his resources to repairing the Svoboda. The lack of knowledge on part of Fenrir Rock's survivors suggested a secretive organization, and one unlikely to risk everything to discovery. Chances were good that Mikhail could uncover enough to recreate the success. Like Captain Bailey pointed out, the Sargasso was littered with spare parts, and the Svoboda already had an undamaged warp drive.

  Captain Bailey negotiated the purchase, exchanging parts for Svoboda's spare equipment. She was less than overjoyed to carry out the deals, but Mikhail had to trust that she bargained in good faith. It was unnerving to know that his su
ccess ran counter to his translator's happiness. Captain Bailey, though, seemed to embody the same moral compass that Eraphie had; to do the right thing because it held true to the type of person you wanted to be. It would have been nice to think that Viktor was the fount of this ideology; but more likely, it was from the Bailey's other grandfather, John Bailey.