by Jaleta Clegg
Beryn typed on the nav computer, checking his numbers frequently and sweating nervously.
"Ships coming up behind us," I said. "Are you about done?"
"Let me check it," Beryn muttered. He tapped a few more keys.
I pushed the engines, opening the throttles to see what the ship could do. It leapt forward, a thrust of power I hadn't expected. The ships behind us fell away, lost in our speed.
"That's it," Beryn said as the computer beeped.
I pushed the slider for the hyperdrive. We surged forward and slid through the transect boundary between dimensions. A moment of twisting unreality and we were through. Hyperspace rippled and danced in colored streams over the viewscreen.
"Now what?" Beryn asked.
I shrugged.
"Cards?" Mart offered from his seat at the table.
Chapter 20
The ship was tiny. There wasn't room for me at the table. I really didn't mind. Mart and Beryn started a game. I opened storage lockers, looking for I wasn't sure what. I wanted to know why Myriassima and Ti'uro were helping us. I wanted to know how Lowell was involved. I wanted to know how I could reclaim my life. Again.
It was a courier class, very small and very fast and designed for two people. Three was going to get crowded. The cockpit was at the very front, barely large enough for two seats and the controls. The cabin was small. A narrow walkway down the center divided it into two halves. To my right as I faced aft were two bunks and several storage lockers. To my left were the table and galley and the hatch. Access to life support filters and equipment was overhead on that side. At the very back was a small bathroom. That was it. The engines were inaccessible from inside the ship.
I started just behind the cockpit. The largest locker held an assortment of clothing. I flipped through, looking for more than just cloth. I didn't find anything. I opened another locker. A few dusty odds and ends lay on the bottom. I kept working my way down the side of the ship.
I found three lockers with clothing, new to judge by the feel of it. The colors and styles were muted, they would blend in on just about any world. Half of them were clothing in my size, the other half was Mart's size. They'd been expecting the two of us, not Beryn. There was a clue in that somewhere, but I couldn't figure out what. Myriassima's explanation was still too strange.
Most of the lockers were empty, I found a few scattered tools and forgotten items that had been there for years to judge from the coating of dust on them. The ship looked like a wreck, but it was deceptive. Someone had taken great pains to keep up the illusion. From the way the ship flew, the engine was new and well maintained.
I poked around in the bathroom. The lockers in there were empty. The water tank was full, the recycling tank freshly recharged. The soap dispensers were full, too. I came back out, leaning in the doorway.
"What?" Beryn said, glancing up from his cards. "You're frowning."
"This doesn't make sense," I said. "They were ready for us. At least me and Mart. So why are they dumb enough to send us off in a ship that is going to be on every Patrol wanted list within a week?"
"What?" Beryn put his cards down. Mart turned around to look at me.
"We lifted off Shamustel without authorization. They can't overlook that, no matter what Myriassima does about it." They were staring at me, not understanding. "Every ship has a beacon that identifies it. I could strip it out, but if we have no beacon, it labels us as pirates or worse. We're only one jump ahead of the Patrol. They know the ship beacon."
"You're saying that as soon as we hit normal space again they'll know who we are?" Mart frowned as he talked. Most spacers never had to worry about beacons, most had no idea how they worked. Only those with reason to work outside the laws had that knowledge. And me. I'd learned at a junkyard where I spent my holidays as a cadet.
"They'll be after us faster than we can run," I agreed. "We might possibly stay one jump ahead for a while. Until we have to stop to refuel somewhere. And by then, every planet in the Empire will know to have us arrested."
"What can we do?" Beryn asked. The cards lay forgotten on the table.
"We've got a few days," I said.
"Maybe they left something to help," Beryn suggested.
"I've been through the lockers. There isn't much besides some clothing." I tugged at my bottom lip. I'd noticed something without realizing it. I tried to put my finger on it but couldn't.
Beryn popped open a locker below the bunk, one of the empty ones. He slapped it back shut. He stood and checked the other lockers, opening them one by one and shifting any contents.
My gaze drifted to the bottom locker next to me. I crouched down and popped it open. Several broken connectors lay in the bottom, wires trailing from one end. I lifted the door, ready to slam it back shut, when I realized what had bothered me about this locker. The connectors weren't dusty. The only other lockers free of dust were the ones with clothing. I dropped the door back open.
"You find something?" Beryn asked.
I poked at the back and sides of the locker. I opened the locker just above. Same depth, same width as the one I was investigating. The one above had a thin coating of dust on the bottom. I grinned. The bottom was the answer.
I shoved the connectors out of the locker and banged on the bottom. Nothing happened. I felt along the sides and back. I found a minute projection in one corner. I pressed it and the bottom popped up. The area beneath was shallow and contained two packages wrapped in sealed plastic. I pulled them out.
"You found something?" Mart asked. Both of them loomed over me.
"You're blocking the light," I said. They moved back.
One package was full of papers. I handed it to Mart. The other package was what I wanted. Six chips nestled in protective foam. Each one had a tag attached with a ship name and id number in small print. We could change identities at will. I unsealed the bag and pulled out a chip. We were about to become the Mui Shannon.
"Ship id's?" Beryn's face was incredulous. "Were you some kind of pirate in a former life? How did you know those were there?"
"I didn't know, I guessed." I pushed past him, squeezing by in the narrow aisle to get to the cockpit. I lay down and squirmed under the control boards.
"How did you learn to strip beacons?" Beryn asked as I did just that.
"The same way I learned to pick locks," I answered. "Shut off the relay for this board."
He flipped a switch. "Caid said you were full of surprises."
"He doesn't know the half of it." I seated the new chip, making sure the connections were secure. It took a minute of careful fiddling to get all the wires back in place. As long as no one checked the integrity circuit, no one would know we'd changed id's. It was extremely illegal to switch beacons without jumping through all sorts of regulations and paperwork hurdles. I didn't let that bother me. Myriassima had assumed that we would know how and that we wouldn't be squeamish about doing it. Why else provide us with six new identities? Just owning the chips without the appropriate ship to go with them was punishable by a life sentence somewhere horrible.
I wriggled out from under the controls and flipped power back to the board. The lights were all green. Beryn was already checking the beacon without me asking him to.
"Ship specs say we're the Mui Shannon. Small courier class, forty years in service, registered out of Herculanum. Where in space is that planet? I've never heard of it."
"Neither have I," I said, peering over his shoulder at the information scrolling across the screen. "The size and other specs match."
"We're not rated for a crew of three," he said.
"You're going to quibble over that?"
He sighed. "No, I'm going to find out what food they stocked."
There wasn't any chicken noodle soup. They really had done their homework. I hated the stuff. The food was still the mix of frozen and freeze-dried meals almost all spacers used. After Jasyn's cooking it was bland and mushy. It was edible though.
Mart had the other p
acket open on the table. The papers were neatly sorted into piles.
"New identities for us," he said holding up id plates. "And money and ship registrations. What is all this?"
"Illegal," Beryn said.
"The only way we're going to get anywhere," I countered. "What happens if they arrest us, Beryn?"
"We go to jail and we sort this mess out," he said.
"You sound like Jerimon. We go to jail, they sentence us to a prison planet. We live a very short, unpleasant life. End of story. No one ever finds out who Mart is or what is going on."
"The people after him are not government," Beryn argued.
"How do you know?"
"How do I know what?"
"That they aren't government?"
"Lowell's Patrol, isn't he? He's working against them. They can't be Patrol."
"You think they're just one big happy family? Like Gypsies?"
Mart watched us argue. I was aware of him, every breath, every move. It was distracting to say the least.
"What are you not telling me?" Beryn demanded.
"Lowell's involved, true, but this doesn't feel like his normal methods. Something else is going on."
"You know him that well?"
"Unfortunately."
"What's going on? What's different, Dace?"
The warmer beeped, letting us know dinner was ready.
"When I figure it out, I'll tell you." I stuffed the papers and the extra beacons back into their hiding place.
After dinner, I played cards with Beryn while Mart slept. He had nightmares. I felt his fear, a twisting in my own belly.
"You aren't concentrating," Beryn finally complained after I'd lost three hands running.
"It's rather difficult," I said. "Mart's having nightmares."
Beryn looked up at his sleeping form on the top bunk and then back at me. I shuffled cards, unwilling to meet his questioning look.
"Remember the connection Larella said she broke between us?"
Beryn nodded.
"It's back and even stronger than before."
"This is getting too weird for me," Beryn said as I dealt.
"It's no worse than Lady Rina's cards."
"True," he agreed. "They gave me the willies more than once."
I laughed in agreement. Mart rolled over and relaxed. His dreams drifted away. I felt the knot in my own stomach unclench.
I won the next five hands. Beryn finally gave up.
"You want the bunk?" he asked, yawning.
"I'm not sleepy."
He rolled up in the blanket, facing the wall.
I went to the cockpit and dimmed the rest of the lights. I sat in the pilot's chair, tucking my feet under me.
I had a lot of questions and only partial answers. I opened a personal log file on the ship's computer and typed in everything I knew so far. It was pitifully short. Then I typed in everything that seemed connected in any way to the situation. Then I stopped.
What was the situation? What was I really trying to do, besides stay alive and out of prison? Help Mart. But what was Mart trying to do? Regain his memories? Save Jericho? For all I knew he was trying to assassinate the Emperor. Except that didn't feel right.
All I really had to go on were my feelings. I trusted Mart, maybe because of the link I had with him, maybe because I was going insane. I had no reason to trust him and every reason not to, and yet I still did.
I summarized what had happened so far and how it tied together. Mart and his necklace came first, his plea for help. I couldn't refuse because of the necklace. And because even then, I felt the connection to him. Then the message sending us flying back to Lady Rina. I don't think Lowell expected her to die. He'd left his message with her assuming she would deliver it to us through Family channels. His message sent us to Shamustel. And a trap. Lowell hadn't set it, I was certain of that. Lowell expected us to find his package and take it to Scholar. I didn't have his package. And I wasn't sure how I was going to get to Scholar.
So how did Myriassima and Ti'uro fit in with everything else? Why leave their address for me at the Guild office? It had been there for a year, waiting for me to pick it up. Had they been planning this for over a year? That didn't seem reasonable. How did they fit in? They knew Mart and Jericho. Getting a straight answer on anything out of either of them had been impossible. Maybe if I'd had more time. No, I would have gone insane within two days being in their company.
And what had they meant when they said I was notu'zhri? Mart hadn't known anything about it either, or he'd forgotten. Who or what were the Hrissia'noru? They tied in to Jericho. A place of refuge. Sanctuary. For whom? And from what?
And what of the retreat of the silver lady? I shook my head when I realized I'd already found it. Myriassima had to be the silver lady. Her mansion on Shamustel was her retreat. It made sense but it might be wrong. I might be wrong about everything.
How did Lowell fit in? Why was he involved? He had the same slight build, the same silver eyes. Was he related to Myriassima and Ti'uro?
And why were we going to Talisen? I'd never been there before. We were only going because Myriassima told us to and we had all fallen under her spell. How else could I justify the way we'd left Shamustel?
I kept typing, pouring out all my doubts and questions and what ifs. I felt Mart's emotions mix with my own until I wasn't sure where I started and he ended. I felt his heart beating in unison with mine.
I finished my file and closed it. I tried to play solitaire and ignore Mart's presence. It didn't work.
There wasn't much to do for the rest of the trip. The ship was too small. We took turns sleeping, not just because there were only two bunks and three of us, but also to keep from getting on each other's nerves too badly. It didn't help me where Mart was concerned. Asleep or awake, I was intensely aware of him. I knew exactly where he was and what he was feeling. It was all emotional, no thoughts or speech. I assumed he was experiencing the same thing about me. I avoided talking about it or even thinking about it. It was still the main thought on my mind. I was used to being me, myself, and no one else. I didn't know how to deal with it. So I avoided it.
Mart didn't push things. He let me have as much space as possible in the tiny ship. The few times Beryn slept and left us awake together we spent at opposite ends of the cabin. Any time we brushed past each other surges of energy poured back and forth between us. After the second time, Mart very carefully kept his distance. I think I saw a reflection of my own discomfort in his eyes.
We helped ourselves to the wardrobe provided. Our green shipsuits would be too well known, too easy to spot. We traded for muted tunics and leggings. Most of them had a company logo I didn't recognize stitched just below the collar. It was a swirl of silver and blue with a single triangle of deep purple at the center. A silver letter S curved through the triangle. Beryn and Mart had never seen it before. The computer records on the ship didn't have any information on it. I added it to my list of mysteries and ignored it.
When the reentry alarm went off I was playing solitaire. Beryn was snoring up a storm. Mart was on the floor near the bathroom, reading through the fake papers. He looked up when I stood to answer the alarm.
I slid into the cockpit and hit the cutoff button. I brought the sublights online, warming them up as we neared transition to normal space. Mart came up behind me, I didn't need to look to know he was there.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
"Go ahead," I said.
He slipped into the chair next to me. It was almost too close. After the initial surge, I could brush the feelings away, though. Having to concentrate on flying the ship helped.
The ship dropped through transition. It was a bit rough, but normal enough. The larger a ship's mass the smoother the transition tended to be. How well the engines were tuned made some difference, but in a ship as small as the courier, even the best engines wouldn't smooth it out much. I was very busy for a few minutes, shutting down the hyperdrive, kicking the sublights up and dum
ping speed. By the time turbulence cleared, I was ready to call Talisen control and see how well our new beacon worked.
I pulled on a headset and called them. "Talisen control, this is Mui Shannon requesting approach vector."
"This is Talisen control," a crisp voice informed me. "Proceed on priority approach seven two. Transferring coordinates now. Louvelloas Shipping has reserved berth seven for you."
"Thank you." I flipped the com to standby. "Do you have any idea what this is about?" I asked Mart.
He shook his head. He ran one hand along the edge of the board. He was distracted by something, probably a ghost of a memory.
"What's wrong now?" Beryn asked as he scratched and yawned behind me.
"We're expected," I said. "On a priority basis. You ever heard of Louvelloas Shipping?"
"That's one of Lady Rina's biggest competitors. Why?"
"Because they're giving us berth seven to land in."
I had the course set. I flipped on the automatic steering. It could take us in most of the way to the planet.
"Can you get me access to their datanet?" Beryn asked. He leaned over Mart to type on the computer.
I pushed a few buttons of my own on the com.
"I'm in," Beryn said.
Mart slid out of the chair, letting Beryn sit. Mart stuck close though, leaning over me instead. His hand strayed to my shoulder. The contact was charged with energy, emotions I didn't want to sort flowed between us. The bond between us was growing, becoming an integral part of me. I couldn't have broken it if I tried. I didn't move away from his touch.
"We're registered to Louvelloas Shipping," he said. "At least the Mui Shannon is. I could check on our previous registration if you want."
"Don't," I said. "It might start someone thinking and putting pieces together. See if you can get a data dump, ship registrations, shipping routes, the whole sector if you can. If we're registered from Herculanum and just came across most of the Empire it would be strange if we didn't request it."
Beryn started typing. "What kind of money do we have? They want paid."
"Charge it to Louvelloas Shipping," I said. "We're their courier, aren't we?"
