Then there was the Asiatic Cooperation Metasphere, which was currently home to six separate star system wars: Hindus versus Muslims versus Buddhists versus Shintos; rich versus poor; peasants versus aristos. There were unconfirmed reports of the Han Sphere using planetary bombardments against fringe regions of the Nihon Sphere.
Elsewhere, Unity Europa’s nine systems were breaking apart along racial and financial fault lines. News reports said it had started as an internal trade dispute between the rich systems and the poor systems, with claims of dumping and exploitation, but it had swiftly devolved into racial hatreds; white versus brown; West versus East.
More than one commentator observed: “You can take humans out of Earth, but you can’t take Earth out of humans.” I thought they had a point. We seemed destined to carry our ancient hates and murderous passions along with us for the rest of time, as well as all the new conflicts we picked up along the way. It was staggering to think of those ancient conflicts, born millennia past on a world that no longer even existed! The ghost of Earth haunted the whole human race. Peace, for all people at the same time, had never looked more illusory and naïve.
“News,” I said to Critchlow, shaken. “I ought to leave it the hell alone.”
“Watching the stuff about the Unity?” he asked.
“Yeah. I never thought I’d see it breaking up like this.”
“Sometimes, Mr. Dunne, wars can have a kind of sick momentum. The more they go, the more they go. The original causes get left behind in the mud.”
“I just worry … my mother. She’s on New Jerusalem.”
He sighed, clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, son. What a day, huh?”
For a moment I had forgotten I was on my way to see Rudyard and Ferguson.
And Janning. I wasn’t looking forward to the look on his face.
“Still,” the doctor said, forcing a smile, “at least it can’t get much worse.”
I managed a shaky laugh. “Suppose not.”
“You okay to move again?”
“I think so.”
Critchlow was a worrier, a man who looked older than his years. I figured he was in his thirties, but was already sporting a gray buzz cut. “Okay. Now don’t worry too much. We’ll be right. You’ll see. And try not to let Ferguson spook you.”
I couldn’t believe he’d say that to me, considering everything. Already I felt cold at the prospect of seeing Ferguson. I wished I had a gun — but didn’t know if I could use it, given the opportunity. “Screw him. What do I care?”
“Just … be careful, James.”
It was wasted breath. We kept going. The corridors felt narrower than they had that first day aboard, when I had been amazed at the ship’s roominess. The Service gray color scheme made everything blend together under the flat white light. I remembered stories I had read about condemned prisoners going to the gas chamber, long ago. Already I felt myself stooping over. I wondered what vacuum felt like on naked skin.
My father was gone. The news was hard to grasp. Gone more than a week now. His dying wish was that I should seek out my mother. The idea made me feel sick, cold, and angry. How could I face the woman my mother had become, and tell her that her one-time husband was gone? Hadn’t she forfeited any right to that knowledge when she left us? No contact at all in the long years since.
It was too much to bear, too many old wounds open at once, too much pain. I tried to shove it aside and tell myself I didn’t care, that I was through with all these people.
I came to the captain’s door. The doctor knocked; a disposable enlisted man in dress whites opened the door for me and announced my arrival. I stood back a little, feeling nervous. Flexing my hands, I tried to control the fluttering in my stomach; biocontrol was good but not perfect. My boots chafed. I felt the ship’s power plant boosting up; we were going for another tube, which meant we were almost home. They’d be marching me off this ship in restraining cuffs once we got to Ganymede. I was sort of glad Dad wouldn’t be there to see me. It’d be hard for him. He said I’d never amount to much in the Service, that I was doing it for the wrong reasons.
Pain piled on pain.
I thought of Trish. She’d know about Dad by now. I should send her a note. Trish and Colin had been close, closer than I had been to her.
I was also thinking about how things are never finished. These wars tearing at human space; and my father, chasing the ghost of his dead son, more than ten years after Colin’s death. I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Colin. If I hadn’t been left with this feeling that I, in some way, had to do my bit to fill in for him…
“Mr. Dunne?” It was the enlisted man, holding the door open for me. “Won’t you please come in?”
Twenty-One
I just had time to notice Rudyard, Ferguson, and Janning clustered around the captain’s desk, all of them sitting there with folded arms, looking like murder, before the enlisted man got me with the mask.
A mist of mint and alcohol tickled my nostrils. Suddenly I felt sick again.
And then I realized, as I started feeling faint: they had gassed me. Before I collapsed, I got a look at the bastards. Only Janning looked pained.
Then there was plunging sick blackness. I don’t remember hitting the floor.
I woke up in pain. Sitting secured in the captain’s guest chair, I could feel the blood dripping from my nose, down my face. I could taste it: warm, metallic, and salty. Nobody moved to stop it. From the size of the puddle, it looked like I had lost about half a liter. I felt dizzy, and my head hurt. I went to hold my head, and discovered the restraints behind me.
Oh God.
Rudyard leaned forward over his desk. His head looked enormous. “Mr. Dunne, thank you for joining us.” He didn’t sound too hospitable.
I felt like if I said anything I would vomit. Instead, I tried to look at him and meet his gaze. But looking at him only reminded me of him raping that woman. That made me feel much worse.
“Security Team Leader Riordan has explained your situation to you, has she not?” Rudyard asked. His eyes loomed in and out of my focus.
I nodded.
“Thus you understand that this little gathering here is not by any means to be construed as your formal court-martial. That will happen back at HQ, of course. You are here today simply to answer a few questions.”
The genial tone again. Nothing good ever came with that tone. Not with these guys.
I made a vague head gesture suggesting my discomfort.
Now it was Ferguson’s turn. I saw him smile. My heart raced, just seeing him lean forward. “Before you get any funny ideas, I should inform you that we’ve removed all of your headware.” He let that register for a moment. Then continued, “Unfortunately, we didn’t use a particularly subtle ejection agent…” He chuckled. “And our readings indicate it will be chewing around on your healthy brain tissue for a fair while before it stops.”
Janning said, “I still say that’s barbaric, you bastard!”
Ferguson went on, unbothered. “And when it does stop, in a week or two, its breakdown products turn out to be cytotoxic, too. I must say, I’m terribly sorry to tell you this, Mr. Dunne. It really breaks my poor old heart.”
For a while I simply sat there. Breathing was an effort. Vomit percolated in my throat. I could feel clammy sweat on my face, down my back, all over. I was trying hard to concentrate.
My headware was gone? That would explain the blood: in a hard system ejection, the dissolved bits of headware fiber get funneled down through the sinuses and into the nose, along with a lot of blood. The blood loss would explain the dizziness, and the absence of headware explained the stunning silence in my head. No background hum of incoming news or music. Nothing.
I tried to access biostat control — nothing. Tried ShipMind — n
ot there.
I was offline. I had never been completely offline before.
Rudyard said, “We intercepted the message you tried to send Miss Riley, too. She won’t be receiving it. I’m terribly sorry, but we couldn’t let that material through. Violation of Service security regs, you understand.”
There went my insurance.
I took some breaths, swallowed hard on my vomit, risked a few words, “You murdering, rapist bastard!” The words gurgled out; I was almost sick right there.
Rudyard blinked. I swear he blushed and then went bone white. He regained his color in short order. He asked me, “Dr. Critchlow tells us you’ve been making some wild accusations, Mr. Dunne.” His tone gave me chills.
So this was the main event, the reason for this cozy little meeting. I figured I could hardly be any more screwed. And besides, right at that moment I only wanted to curl up in a whimpering ball in a dark corner somewhere. I lacked the energy for all this crap.
“I said that, did I?” I muttered in the flattest tone I could muster, trying to keep from being sick everywhere.
Rudyard, his strange eyes unsettlingly alive, said, “And what, might I ask, makes you think we did anything of the sort?”
I shrugged, and wanted to say, “Well if you didn’t, what are we all doing here having this chat?”
Ferguson shouted, “Answer the captain!” I flinched. He looked like coiled steel. I felt my queasy stomach lurch.
I took some calming breaths. At length, I managed, “Don’t. Know.” Swallowing hard. Sweating.
Janning blurted, “For Christ’s sake, Dunne. Help yourself!” He looked genuinely upset.
I glared at Janning, saying nothing, breathing deeply, mouth tight.
He said, “You don’t want Ferguson to do you again, do you? Think, man!”
Ferguson looked hurt. “Mr. Janning! I really don’t know what you mean by that, but your outburst is not appropriate conduct.”
Janning shot back, “You know perfectly bloody well what I mean. The whole ship knows about you.”
Rudyard interrupted Ferguson before he could respond. “Gentlemen. Please. We are here to discuss Mr. Dunne.”
Janning scowled; Ferguson looked predatory.
The captain looked at me. “Now then, I’ll ask you again. What gives you the idea that we have been involved in any kind of genocidal activity?”
I took a risk. “If not … why are we … here?” Bile filled my mouth, burning my palate and throat. I swallowed, wincing. Thinking, I won’t get away with that again.
Rudyard flushed again. Janning concealed a meaningful cough.
Ferguson leaned in. “The very rumor of such an action, the accusation itself, is enough to warrant disciplinary action, Mr. Dunne.”
I rolled my eyes, doing my best, “Oh really?” expression.
Rudyard glanced at Ferguson, then to me, “That’s right, son. Rumors are a dangerous thing aboard ship. They can get quite out of hand.”
I shrugged, wondering how much longer I could hold my guts down.
The captain pressed again, “So, if you would be so kind, where did you hear this scurrilous rumor?”
I shrugged again and managed a sickly smile.
Janning again: “Dunne — James! Don’t make them do this! Help yourself!”
Ferguson flashed a big, beaming smile at me. “By the way. Point of information. Service Security back at HQ have your girlfriend in custody as we speak.”
I gasped — and felt my guts spasm. A thin trickle of bile slipped from my mouth.
Sorcha? What did Sorcha do? I felt instant clenching panic.
Ferguson added: “Do what Mr. Janning says, Dunne. Make it easy on yourself.”
I sagged. My shoulders hurt, wrists hurt, the small of my back ached. It was hard to breathe with all this blood. I thought, I’m dead no matter what.
But I didn’t want to put Sorcha in it. I didn’t care about myself anymore, but she didn’t deserve to join me. I shook my head.
Janning muttered, “Oh shit…”
Rudyard scowled and fiddled with a stylus. Ferguson grinned again. “Go on, boy, put Riley in it. We know you two were up to something. ShipMind records show she sent you a big bundle of encrypted files. Why don’t you tell us what she sent?”
I shook my head, still trying to fend off the spasms in my belly.
Rudyard put the stylus down, hard. The mood in the room cracked. “Mr. Dunne!” he bellowed. “It was SSO1 Riley who told you about the genocide rumor, was it not?”
I didn’t have the energy to mount a flippant denial or casual shrug. I saw Ferguson looking triumphant, pointing at me. Rudyard said, his voice now soft, “I see. She told you we went to the world of those aliens and we wiped them all out, didn’t she?”
I wanted to deny everything. Wanted to laugh in their faces. Ha, you’ll never get me to talk you bastards! But life doesn’t work out that way. They already knew everything. Sorcha was done for, just like I was.
I cried my guts out. I hadn’t felt this bad since … well, since Colin died, since Mom left.
Ferguson kicked back in his chair, boots up on the captain’s desk. Rudyard asked him to move his feet. Ferguson cackled.
“I’m really sorry about this, son,” Janning said.
Rudyard filled in the silence. “Well. I should point out, though, Mr. Dunne, that Miss Riley’s accusations are quite unfounded. The Service does not annihilate entire species of life forms.”
Ferguson hooted. He said, “Uh-huh!” Hooting some more.
Rudyard’s turn to sag.
Ferguson shifted his feet back to the floor, leaned forward, covering for the captain’s momentary lapse. He said, “We’re not surprised you bought into this malicious lie, though, given your psych profile. Frankly, we’ve been watching your decline for weeks. You haven’t been the same since you came back from that alien ship, have you? No wonder you’ve got aliens on your mind. And, of course, there is your family history—”
Janning said, “Watch your mouth, Ferguson. That’s a low bloody thing to say to the kid.”
I could see how this was going to play. They had a perfect way out.
Rudyard said, quietly, “Mr. Janning, you are here as a courtesy. I would strongly urge you to take a more supportive position.”
I managed to catch Janning’s gaze. He and I looked at each other for a long moment; he looked away. We both knew I was forfeit.
“The captain and I,” Ferguson said to me, “will be sorry to see you go, Dunne. You had a good deal of promise.”
The blood from my nose was mingling with my tears. I went to send Dr. Critchlow a note — and found no mail interface, of course.
And then I thought: what if Trish tries to contact me? For some reason I thought of her pet spiders, Abelard and Heloise. That was a welcome pleasant image.
Rudyard said, “It would be very easy to take the simplest course here and toss you out an airlock. But as it happens, we’re heading back to Ganymede anyway, so for the remainder of the voyage, Mr. Dunne, you will be confined to the Brig under Miss Riordan’s watchful eye. I would say you have been shown considerable mercy, more than you deserve. Much more. Quite apart from this business involving Miss Riley’s allegations, there is the more serious matter of your attempt on Mr. Ferguson’s life.”
Oh yes, that. I felt a fresh plunge of despair thinking about it. I said nothing; all my limited energy was fixed on not vomiting.
The captain wasn’t done yet. “Normally, attempted murder of a senior officer carries the penalty of execution once the charge is proved. And in your case, Dunne, I doubt there would be much chance of your getting off. All in all, you don’t seem to have much to show for your time on this ship, do you?”
A nice scar on my ass, I thought, n
ot to mention the loss of a friend and a complete absence of self-respect.
It looked like the meeting was almost over. They had what they needed to deal with Sorcha, and with me.
Sorcha. I’d never even had a chance to hold her properly, to tell her how I felt. I managed, wrenching sobs aside, to swear quietly at the cruelty of the universe.
My limbs tingled. I was short of breath. My heart thumped in my ears, loud and fast. Ferguson, when I looked at him, seemed to have a gigantic chin; Rudyard’s sad eyes looked like they were dripping off the sides of his face. “What are you bloody looking at, Dunne?” Ferguson sneered. His tongue looked bloated, a vivid red. Mr. Janning sat there, impossibly huge hands over his face. The light in here was too bright; I squinted.
Rudyard said, interrupting this lull, “Excuse me a moment. The bridge.” He paused, eyes glazed. Then said, to nobody in the room, “Go to tube entry at your discretion.”
Ferguson chuckled and said to me, “Better make peace with your god, boy. We hit Ganymede geosynch in three days.”
Riordan was waiting for me outside the captain’s office, her hot blue eyes burning, her jaw set. She saw I looked like shit, and said to me, “Need the head?”
I nodded. She grabbed me by my collar, dragging me along the passageways; I shuffled along on treacherous legs, trying to stay upright. Her boots clacked hard on the deck with each rapid step. I could feel her breathing with contained fury. The light was still too bright; I kept my head down, squinting, and wondered vaguely what else the captain and Ferguson had drugged me with.
Finding a restroom, she pushed me inside — overwhelming white and chrome glare and a searing stink of antiseptic — and flung me sprawling into the nearest cubicle. “Hurry up!” she said.
It all came out. The actual vomit was incidental compared with everything else.
Riordan dragged me out of there after several minutes; I was still wiping my face. I could have stayed longer. She yanked me upright; the world spun two different ways at once; I made a helpless gurgling sound.
Eclipse Page 26
