“ ’Scuse,” Evan said, walking right past without stopping.
Musey grabbed his sleeve. “What’s wrong with you?”
Ryan tried to melt himself into the bulkhead, or edge by, but the way was blocked. He could turn around and go the other way but the symp cast him a look that said, I’m not done yet.
On the captain’s orders, still.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Evan said. “I did Junior a favor and now he thinks I wanna do him.”
What was there to say to that? Nobody said anything.
Evan tugged from Musey’s hold, blushing. It was doubly obvious against his pale skin. “So, like, the pirate’s always gonna want to screw the new kid. I get it. Even when the pirate’s just tryin’ to do an ordinary favor ’cause he likes the kid. Just friends. I got that loud and clear, Azarcon, and besides, you ain’t even that hot.”
He said as calm as he could, because he wasn’t going to make the situation worse, “I misread. I’m sorry. You just seemed to get strange.”
“I was trying to apologize. Never mind. Pirate self gettin’ in the way.”
“Stop saying that. You’re not a pirate.”
“Yeah I am. He’s a symp. I’m a pirate. Ask the crew, they’ll tell you quick enough.”
His voice was getting loud. Other people way down the corridor noticed.
Musey said, “Leave it.”
Evan stared at him. Ryan watched them and it felt, curiously, like how it was when his parents fought. Like he knew there was history there and probably deep emotion, but the armor on their words was too thick, damaged and holding.
He looked away at the scratched surface of another hatch. So he didn’t see what happened, he just heard the sudden change of tone in Musey’s voice.
“I have to talk to Ryan, but I’ll see you later.”
It wasn’t dismissal, but more like a question that had too much embarrassment inside to signal itself.
“Yeah,” Evan said, sulkily appeased. “Later, Azarcon.”
Now he looked back and the air was clearer. He said, “Sure.”
Evan left, completely ignoring everything around him, including the other crew, and Musey said, “He’s kind of manic.”
“I don’t blame him. It’s a bitch on this ship, isn’t it?”
That got an unexpected smile out of the symp. Musey had two dimples on his cheeks that made him look about half his chronological age. The expression died rather quickly.
“I saw that,” Ryan said, honing in. “The symp can smile.”
“Only off-shift,” Musey said, with a straight stare. “And every other Saturday.”
Back in his father’s quarters, which Ryan was beginning to think of as his own now (testament to the subtle indoctrination of ship living, in his opinion), he checked his comms and spent some time sifting. One came from Dr. Grandma Ramcharan, which made him smile because she reminded him about doing all the things a young man his age ought to be doing, especially when it came to “women on his father’s ship”—as she knew there were many: be kind, be respectful, and be especially careful.
It was good advice. The last thing he wanted was bedbug rumors floating to his father.
Another comm blinked from Shiri. She didn’t take it personal that he didn’t comm back, but she wasn’t going to harass him either, since she knew this was a rough time right now. She just wanted to tell him that she’d landed the internship with Paulita Valencia on Mars.
He wanted to congratulate her, seeing her excited expression and the way her eyes lit up so they seemed more crystal than dark. Damn, she was cute, and a great kisser, and it was getting on in months since the last time he’d really touched a woman…
When he thought about it, memories of the flash house sprang to mind. Which was just screwed up, and made him annoyed with himself, so when he checked the rest of the messages and saw the long list of meedees hammering with requests for interviews, he thought of Evan’s off-the-cuff idea: Wouldn’t it be fun to mess with them the way they messed with him?
When he got in these moods, it seemed like a fun proposition.
What did he think of Tyler’s accusations? What did he think of the news that Tyler had been arrested for possession of illegal narcotics? Why wasn’t he venturing out in public again, was he going to let the pirates “win”?
As if this was all a contest.
Delete. Delete.
If he learned to really burndive, where he wouldn’t get caught, he could infiltrate these ’casts and exploit the truth instead.
He could talk to Shiri.
He could wreak vengeance on people like Tyler Coe without having to depend on Sid or his mother.
Silly notions, maybe. And at this point—moot.
His father commed him on his tags to cancel dinner. He was still in meetings with govies and their aides and too much caff, and he sounded stressed and somewhat pissed. Ryan said, Okay, and got off comm as soon as possible.
It was beginning to feel more like Austro after all—the parent missing meals because of work, and more stressed at certain times than gratified by their job.
So he commed Sid for dinner and suggested just lounging in the q with music and junk food he’d stolen from the galley (captain’s son’s privilege; the cook couldn’t tell him no, especially when he turned on his smile), and Sid was there in ten minutes flat.
“I’m so tired,” he said, heading straight for the couch and stretching out with his feet hanging over the end.
“I thought you said you were teaching them new tricks.” Ryan grinned across the coffee table from where he sat on the deep blue chair with his comp, his feet on the edge of the table and a bowl of salty chips handy.
“You ever try to train a dog? It’s tiring. Dumb animals just run in circles.” Sid waved his hand.
“Don’t insult the dog species. I like dogs. I wish Mom had let me get one.”
Sid laughed. “Could you imagine a dog on her marble floors? She’d make it wear knit booties. Silver to match the decor.”
The image was too much, and they were both tired. It took five minutes of laughter before Ryan could speak again, and he had to avoid Sid’s gaze.
“I know you’re wary of comming my mother because the outgoing sigs are traced…”
“That’s not the only reason.”
“… Well, I have an idea. I’m comming her now and you can talk to her from my comp authorization.”
Sid looked at him, then pushed himself up on both hands. “Ryan, I don’t know if that’s so—appropriate. Considering where I am right now.”
Too bad he hadn’t thought of that a few years ago, when they were on Austro.
But—no. Ryan wasn’t going to start that train of thought barreling down the same old track. “It’s already done. I’m sending a live rap.”
Sid stared at him, wordless.
“Well, it’s not like you can sleep with her from this distance.” He tried to make it wry. “You can talk. Just don’t argue. If I want to hear my mother argue with someone I’d just make the captain comm her.”
“Ryan…”
Mom Lau’s face bloomed on his screen. She seemed surprised to see him and looked like she was preparing for bed. She was at home, he recognized the organza curtains behind her shoulders, wore no makeup, and her hair was down.
“Hi Mom.”
“Ryan—is something wrong?”
“No.” He allowed a tiny smile and looked at Sid. “Someone just wants to talk to you.” He got up and moved away from the comp.
“Ryan, what are you—?”
Sid went over and sat down, a little slow. Ryan kept going toward the bedroom but he heard the brief silence from both of them.
Then his bodyguard said, somewhat hesitantly as if he didn’t know how she would react: “Hi Song… how are you?”
“Tim,” his mother said, so surprised she seemed at a loss for words. That was quite a thing for Songlian Lau. “Tim, it’s so good to see you…”
Ryan thought about loitering by
the bedroom screen to eavesdrop, but he glimpsed Sid stretch a hand and touch the comp image with light fingers.
So Ryan slid the screen shut to give them privacy and picked up his guitar.
First Minister Damiani kept his father busy for the next seventy-two hours. They, plus his grandfather and Minister Taylor and assorted other govie types, locked themselves in one of the conference rooms on maindeck and Ryan maybe or maybe not passed his father at lunch break. He kept it polite and his father kept it distant, consumed by other matters presumably. In any event, the captain was Not Pleased by this delay in the peace talks in order to address Damiani’s concerns, and it was wiser to contain their breakfast conversations to “hello” and “good-bye.” Ryan was often in bed before his father came back to quarters, either from his meetings or his time on bridge or in his office catching up on ship work, most of which involved the constant repairs.
Since the Warboy and the Caste Master were still on their ship, Musey had plenty of time to spend on Ryan. The symp wasn’t one for public places, so he usually kicked Evan out of their quarters and kept Ryan in there—for the comp work (weapons training and basic hand-to-hand fighting were all in public. Ryan got bruised and humiliated both, in short order). So, after perusing the files he’d gotten with Evan in the library, he tried to steer Musey toward one topic in his lessons.
“I don’t care exactly how a comp is built or what. I just want to know how to use it.”
Musey leaned back in his desk chair and squinted at Ryan, who sat cross-legged on Evan’s bunk with his comp in his lap.
“I’m not going to teach you to burndive, for the last time, Azarcon.”
“Just a little. Just basic stuff, nothing that would pass as a felony in court. Come on!”
“No.”
“Musey…”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
He threw in his hand. “There’s a girl—”
Musey looked at the ceiling, shifted, and tossed his slate on the desk.
Ryan sighed. “Look, I know you’re Mr. Teflon about that stuff, but some of us like to have a social life.”
“Is this you trying to convince me?”
“Jos.” By now they occasionally used each other’s first names without belligerence. “Jos, I’d really like to talk to her, but I won’t unless I can mask the point of origin, right? Please. I asked Sid but he said no.”
“Small wonder.”
“He’s all afraid my father will boot him.” Sid had not been the romantic that Ryan had hoped he would be. Either that or some of the jets’ uncompromising attitude with a capital A was rubbing off on him. Being on this ship seemed to do that to people.
“I’m afraid your father will boot me,” Musey said.
“He can’t. You’re kind of indispensable.”
“You’ve never seen your father actually command, have you? Nobody is so indispensable that he won’t humble you if he thinks you need it. I’ve even seen him call Dorr on the carpet.”
“Musey. How will he find out?”
Musey shook his head.
“I’m going to learn one way or another, you know. I’m not dumb, I can read, I can do math. You either teach me to do it properly so I don’t give myself away somehow, or I go off and try it and blow it all by mistake.”
“Your father would skin you.”
“I’m not afraid of him.” He stared right into the symp’s eyes as he said it, the way he noticed Musey did when he wanted to make a particular point. “Look, you aren’t as angelic as you like to play it. We just keep this between us and nobody’s got to know. If I do get caught I’ll tell the captain I figured it out on my own. He knows I know a little already.”
“You’re not going to burndive, Ryan.” But it didn’t have the previous conviction.
He said, to nail the deal, “Yes. I will. It’s up to you whether I do it safely or not.”
“I could just tell your father and he’d confiscate your comps.”
“Like I won’t be able to access another one? Short of locking me in my room… you know, I slipped Silver by my bodyguard. For months.”
Musey stared at him. “Well,” he said slowly, “your bodyguard’s a Marine, not a jet.”
“No. I’m just stubborn that way.” He smiled, big eyes, bitten lip, his sweetest expression. It worked on Shiri most times. Even Sid.
Musey wasn’t Shiri. He looked like he had the worst job in the universe and wasn’t even getting paid.
Which was true.
Musey said, “The very basics.”
He tried not to gloat. “That’s all I want. Code mask. Maybe a little diversionary tactics—?”
“Don’t push it. I ought to take you in there and leave you.”
He laughed, leaned over, and touched Musey’s arm. Musey flinched slightly, not visibly, but Ryan felt the muscle twitch. He kept his hand there, anyway, to make his point. And Musey didn’t break his wrist, which he knew the symp could do without any effort. So that had to mean something.
“I promise… I’ll be careful.” He met Musey’s quiet, introverted gaze with a genuine smile.
Musey looked at him for a long moment, then slowly removed himself from Ryan’s touch.
“You need to spend less time with Evan,” he said.
He and Sid had dinner this time in the mess hall, with Dorr and Hartman and other regulars: vapid-looking blond Madison, a flight crew team that appeared to be friends of Musey’s (surprise in itself that Musey had friends outside of the jet circle), Evan of course, and Aki.
Ryan sat beside the girl and flirted, but she seemed more interested in Sid and kept asking him what Earth was like. Sid didn’t seem to mind at all and even told her about his grandmother’s ranch and how he’d grown up riding horses. That perked everyone’s interest, spacers that they were.
“He fell off a lot,” Ryan said.
“Not as much as you did,” Sid said, teasing, but would a girl from a space station know how hard it was to actually fall off a horse?
Aki found it funny.
Musey was the only one who didn’t appear interested, but Ryan could read him a little better now; Musey just never liked to look like he was listening, but he always was, and in this case he seemed enamored of Earth as well, in the way he fixed on Sid in regular intervals throughout the conversation. Or maybe he was enamored of Sid and his hazel eyes and lightly freckled nose, like Aki seemed to be.
Sid and his ol’ boy Marine charm.
It got boring fast.
Ryan turned his attention to the broad wallvid, high in the corner of the mess hall. It played at a low murmur and had been cycling the SendTertain when they’d sat down, showing music bites in colorful layers.
Now it had his father’s face on it with a split screen of a female meedee and a scroll of words.
Ryan sat up straighter, hitting Sid’s arm.
A crewmember shouted, “Vid, eighty-five!”
Every eye in the room turned to it and the increased sound burst hollowly out across the hall as the voices died.
“… death now allows some of his previously compartmentalized files to be declassified. Naturally the military does not advertise this fact and had it not been for Mr. Pompeo’s research for his work, currently entitled Azarcon A-Z: the Unauthorized Biography of Cairo Azarcon, many of these details would not have come to light. Just hours ago Arthur Pompeo sat down with Paulita Valencia on Mars for an exclusive interview. Here is what he said…”
The meedee’s face was replaced by the same old man who’d accosted Ryan on Austro, sitting in an Earth Victorian-styled chair in what looked like someone’s living room but was probably just a set, softly lit and fully powdered under the lights.
“Oh, shit,” Sid said, echoing Ryan’s thoughts.
Pompeo said, “While there isn’t anything explicit in the late Falcone’s early files to show his affiliation with Cairo Azarcon, one only has to line up the dates and relationships to see the connection. I’d like to say, howeve
r, that I am releasing this information for the government’s benefit, and for the benefit of EarthHub’s citizens who now depend on the captain in these negotiations with our longtime enemies.”
“Right!” Dorr shouted to the screen. “You fat old dirtside arse!”
Ryan didn’t take his eyes from the transcast, feeling pushed down into his seat by an undefined weight.
Half the mess hall got on their feet in outrage.
“Shut up!” Ryan shouted, his voice echoing. They looked at him, noticed him, realized he had every right to yell.
They quieted. Ryan dug his fingers into his legs.
Arthur Pompeo continued, interspersed with quick shots of Paulita Valencia’s dark-haired elegance and alert gaze: “Early in 2163 EHSD, Vincenzo Falcone broke out of the Kalaallit Nunaat military prison. With help from other crooked officials he wasted no time in establishing himself on the Arms—”
This dirtsider was so ancient he still called the Dragons by its old name.
“—as a pirate of considerable wherewithal and deadliness…”
“Damn well sayin’ a eulogy,” Evan muttered.
“… in organizing what was previously a scattered group of rogue ships into a purposeful fleet of marauders that systematically combed through our colonies, relocation camps, and stations often on the heels of strits who had passed before and thus weakened our defenses. He took advantage of the war situation because he knew carrier battle group movements and could even anticipate deep-space ship schedules.”
Valencia interrupted. “But what does this have to do with Captain Azarcon? By the dates we’re discussing, the captain was no more than a teenager, chronologically, and a young one at that.”
“Yes. The captain’s past has never been released to the public and any attempts I’ve made to elicit his participation in my research have been summarily stonewalled. But we do know that he was officially adopted by then-Captain Omar Ashrafi in 2169 EHSD, at the age of eighteen. Though this isn’t illegal, it is unusual for someone who is considered a legal adult for two years to now be legally made a relative of a rather, shall we say, influential man. One who has the power to bury dirty comrades and classify information. It is no secret that Admiral Ashrafi, in his days as a deep-space captain of the battleship Trinity, was instrumental in bringing Falcone to justice after the massacre at Ghenseti, and was perhaps the most vocal when Falcone escaped.”
Burndive Page 29
