by Mel Keegan
The smaller ship was already heading out like a comet arcing across the vista of Hellgate. “On our way,” Asako Rodman told him. “You take care of yourselves … you look like a bombsite from out here.”
And from inside, too. Marin was looking at the vidfeed from the hangars and fabrication shops, and muttered a very old Resalq oath. “Damnit, there’s a week’s work to get this mess straightened out.”
“She’ll fix,” Jazinsky said bitterly. “I’d like to tell you we’ve seen worse, but the truth is, we haven’t. We’re not a warship.”
“And Borushek,” Vaurien added in an odd voice, “will never know how close it came.” He knuckled his eyes hard enough to leave the whites red. “Did our mines respond to the cloaked object?”
“Nope. They didn’t see anything worth coming online for.” Jazinsky looked as disgusted as she sounded. “But Lady Luck’s still riding with us. Now we know the cloak profile, I can reconfigure the mines. The next time the Zunshu try to drop a world-wrecker out of Hellgate, the swarm will be on it, same as happened to the battle group at Velcastra.”
“You have a lot of work ahead of you,” Vaurien observed.
She looked tired, Marin thought. Lines of strain had appeared around her eyes recently, and the blue-mauve backwash from the navtank seemed to deepen them. “The Harlequin still six fields to seed,” she was saying. “I can reconfigure the new ’bots ahead of time, and design the command set to tweak the rest on remote. Roark and Asako can take care of the field work, soon as I’m done in the lab. Christ! All the work we’ve invested, Richard – all the blood, sweat and tears, and in the end the survival of Borushek comes down to blind luck.”
“Be glad,” Vidal suggested, “we’re still lucky.” He was shutting down Tactical, passing monitoring back to the AI. “If you can get along without me, I need to take a break.”
“Go.” Vaurien waved him away toward the crew lounge. “You don’t need this kind of stress, Michael. Do you want Bill to have a look at you?”
“No … just a break,” Vidal decided. “Give me a hoy, if you need me.”
What he might have wanted was a stiff drink, Marin thought, but Vidal’s organs could not handle alcohol yet. His liver, kidneys, pancreas, spleen, were hanging together by virtue of medical nano, and he knew it. Travers’s eyes were dark as he watched Vidal leave the Ops room, and Marin urged him to follow.
The crew lounge was just ten meters aft, almost opposite. The scents of coffee and Italian herbs and cinnamon issued from the ’chef there, and without a word Travers volunteered to run the machine. Vidal sank down into the chair with the best view of the long armorglass panes and surveyed the flank of Hellgate with heavy eyes. Three of the supergiant stars blazed through a veil of dust, brightening it like virgin snow. He took a mug and cradled it between his palms as if his hands were cold, while Travers fetched coffee for himself and Marin.
For a long time they were silent, each imprisoned with the thought that Borushek – from the blue-green waters of the Challenger Gulf to the glorious high valley which cradled Riga, from the depths of Sark’s pungent citybottom to the glittering, spiring rooftops of the city – might have been no more than a memory.
At last Travers shook himself hard, and his voice was as bitter as Jazinsky’s. “Luck. We shouldn’t need to be lucky. The day you start relying on luck is the day you get squashed like a bug, and you bloody deserve to be squashed. I used to tell that to my kids, Bravo Company, where they really were kids, still wet behind the ears and running scared of everything they saw.”
“So we do better,” Vidal said, though his voice was an exhausted monotone. “This is one more weak spot plastered over. They won’t catch us this way a second time, not when we know their jamming profile now.” He blinked up at Travers. “Why don’t you stop fuming and try thanking the goddess of fortune for batting on our team.”
The suggestion surprised Travers, and much of his anger dissipated while Marin watched. “Point,” he admitted.
One thin hand splayed over the Daku tattoo on Vidal’s bony chest. “I can’t help focusing on the bigger picture since…”
He said no more, but Marin knew what he meant. He lifted a brow at Travers, and Neil sighed soundlessly. “You ought to be resting,” Marin told him.
“I am resting.” Vidal’s eyes closed.
“You shouldn’t be standing duty like that.” With his mug, Travers gestured back into the Ops room. “Too much adrenaline and testosterone, hormones on the rampage. You’re still too busted up to take much of this. Bill Grant was probably having kittens – you think he isn’t monitoring you?”
“Hormones?” The blue eyes opened to slits, and Vidal looked Travers up and down. “I know Bill’s monitoring me. I’m full of nano. I’m still getting shots. Grant won’t let me out of his sight for more than two hours. In fact, I’m probably overdue at the Infirmary.” But he did not move a muscle, and his lids dropped again. “What I need is to be up and moving.”
A thread of something very like pain wormed through Marin, but it had more to do with memory than what he actually saw of Vidal. In fact, several kilos of body weight had recently begun to flesh out the long, hard bones and Vidal’s face looked just a shade softer. When he walked, he was in full command of his limbs, and his mind was clear again. The pain Marin felt issued from his own memory, and he shied away from it like a skittish horse. He had buried any recollection of the Argos down deep, and did not care to be reminded of it.
He joined Travers at the viewports and frowned at Hellgate’s fractured sky. Neil’s arm went across his shoulders and they said nothing. Marin was conscious of deliberately resisting the urge to analyze the event. Vidal was right – they should be grateful for a little luck; but Travers was also right, any reliance on luck was a recipe for disaster.
“I’m envious,” Vidal said at last, making Travers turn back toward him. He gestured at the two of them and smiled faintly. “Damn, I wish I’d been there.”
“When we handfasted?” Travers guessed. “We told you, it wasn’t much. We just filed the documents and opened a bottle of ludicrously expensive champagne.”
“Which I couldn’t have drunk anyway,” Vidal said philosophically. “Still, I wish I’d been there.” He looked up into Travers’s eyes and the smile softened into a wistful expression, almost melancholy. A wealth of emotion hid behind that smile, but Vidal said nothing of it. Instead, he seemed to take himself by the scruff of the neck, give himself a shake. “And speaking of parties,” he went on, “you’re invited.”
“To what?” Travers took a swig of coffee.
With an enormous effort Vidal pushed himself up in the chair and got both elbows onto his knees. Marin thought he could almost hear the man’s spine crackling as he stretched. “The official Return from the Dead party. Jo and Ernst just got clearance from Bill. They can take a shot of booze and not keel right over. Me? Not a chance.”
“Does Bill know about the, uh, organ regeneration yet?” Travers asked delicately. “That is, if the nano can rebuild –?”
Vidal gave him a mocking look. “You mean, does he think the nano can save my liver, pancreas, spleen, kidneys?”
“That would be what I mean.” Travers considered Vidal critically for a moment. “You look like you’re starting to come around.”
“Not so green around the gills?” Vidal passed a hand over his buzzcut skull. “The last set of scans look promising. Bill tells me he’s optimistic. That’s the word he uses. The organs are repairing … I’m being a good boy, playing by house rules. So I suppose I’ll drink apple juice at the party, or maybe green tea.”
“Both of which are better for anyone’s liver than booze.” Marin was seeing the differences in Vidal, but the frailty was still shocking and he deliberately steered the conversation in the other direction. “So when’s this party of yours?”
“Tonight.” Vidal stirred via sheer willpower. “After Shapiro’s briefing, in Ernst’s quarters.”
Rabelais a
nd Queneau had been permanently discharged from the Infirmary and assigned accommodations among the Wastrel’s senior staff. Vidal was still technically an Infirmary resident, but he was almost never there. Most of the time Bill Grant had to track him down, bring the next round of medication to him, since Vidal was busy.
He was either in the gym or the Ops room, taking a break here in the crew lounge, or aft and down three decks, in Hangar 5. The modest sized private hangar had been empty until he, Queneau and Rabelais commandeered it, and stores soon provided the materials they requisitioned. They had worked for a week with a squad of drones, to build the oddest flight simulator Marin had ever seen; and they had been testing it for several days now.
“I’m wasting time,” Vidal groaned, pushing himself up to his feet, where he swayed only a little.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Travers argued. “Go lie down, before you fall down.”
“I’ve rested enough.” Vidal gave the tunic an angry tug and thrust both hands into the pockets of the silk slacks. “You have no bloody idea, Neil, have you?” He nodded at Marin. “Ask your better half.”
The challenge was barbed but not unexpected. Travers cocked his head at Marin, waiting. Marin certainly understood everything Vidal had not said, but putting it into words Travers could understand was another matter.
He puffed out his cheeks, sifted through his memories and chose his words with great care. “We take our health for granted till we lose it. I’m guessing Mick was rarely below par before Elarne.” He arched a brow at Vidal, who answered with a fatalistic nod. “Youths don’t appreciate vitality – it’s like the air they breathe, cash sluicing through the hands of a spoiled kid, say, Trick Shackleton, who wouldn’t know a budget if it punched him in the nose.
“Then … all gone. Weeks blur away, nothing to show for them. You squint at a mirror … looking older. You hear the clock ticking, consciously watch life wasting.” He took a deep breath, holding the past at arm’s length by force, lest it get a talon onto him. “We question the value of anything we ever did, fret about ever doing anything meaningful, try to fathom what we want. Need.
“The bottom line never changes. ‘Gods, give me one day without pain.’ Not, ‘I wanna run the hundred in nine, dance and shag all night, get rich and famous.’ Just ‘let me live without pain, move the way I used to. Walk without the stumble that makes strangers think I’m drunk.’ For a time you drift, too tired to fight … cry when no one’s looking, scorn your own self-pity. Some guys lose it – make it through the disaster, then check out on a triple-dose. Bill could tell you stories.
“Mick and me –? Survivors.” Marin frowned at Vidal. The shorn head nodded slowly, but Mick would not look up at him and Marin went on, knowing every syllable was a thorn in Vidal’s flesh. “One day we feel a lick of energy, the strength to walk across a room, open a door. The sun’s hot on your back, the wind’s in your face … now, it hits us hardest. We remember who we were, what we were, before. Survivors start to brawl.”
He gestured at Vidal, who stood with hands buried in pockets, glaring at the deck as if he bore it a personal grudge. “We fight with what we have. Bursts of strength come and go like sprites. Moments of hope … hours of despair, when willpower and sweat get us through before pain and exhaustion bury us again. You think you’ll never dig out of the hole. Intellectually, you know you’re recovering but you slide back, start again almost from scratch, over and over. The effort drains you till you almost quit. Stubbornness – or maybe masochism! – force you up one more time, knowing you’ll fall … because stopping ends any chance of digging your way out. You push while people call you crazy. Maybe it isn’t healthy to do what you’re doing, but there’s no half measures. We fight or we don’t. If we quit, it’s over, and if we push – well, it’ll be worse before it gets better.”
The loudest sound in the crew lounge was the soft hiss of cooling fans, a faint burble from the autochef, which was percolating a fresh batch. Travers’s face was deeply reflective and Marin knew he was examining his own memories of the weeks they had spent in rehabilitation and physiotherapy after the incident on the ruined campus just above Hydralis. But the incident was brief, the radiation poisoning was treated quickly, effectively. Recovery was rapid, sure. The event did not compare with anything Vidal had endured, and Marin was grateful when Neil did not try to weigh one against the other.
At last Travers cleared his throat and said softly, “Give yourself a little respect for what you’re doing, Mick. It’s not a race.”
Vidal looked sidelong at his reflection in the armorglass. “Do you remember, Neil? The Delta Dragons, the Omaru blockade.” His left hand covered the tattoo, which looked almost like a scar on the too-thin face.
“We all remember.” Travers hesitated. “We were all about a hundred years younger. Curtis and I also remember the wraith that hauled itself out of the antique cryotank. You’re coming back, Mick. You’re probably halfway there, you just don’t realize it yet.”
The remark won him a rare, genuine smile. “Thanks.” Vidal offered his hand, and Travers took it. Vidal held on for a long moment, studying their laced fingers before he gave Marin a brooding look. “You really have been here. Done this,” he said as he let go Travers’s hand.
In that moment the Argos was as real as the Intrepid, and Marin was sure he felt a shade of color fade out of his own face. “I really have.” He set a hand on Vidal’s shoulder. “You need something, Mick, you tell us.”
“I will.” Vidal pulled his spine straight and mocked his reflection with a glare. “Somewhere along the line, I guess I decided to live. I still have a liver that doesn’t work, and a dick that can’t remember what it’s for … and Bill isn’t so optimistic on the subject of my gonads. My days of being the playboy Velcastran CityNet loved are probably over.”
“You don’t know that,” Travers remonstrated.
But Vidal only shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Marin said, too loudly, causing Vidal to angle an almost amused look at him. “Give yourself a chance,” Curtis suggested. “You’re young. You’re going to meet somebody – it happens, Mick, and everything will be different.”
“I already met somebody,” Vidal said softly, looking once at Travers before he set the question aside. “Then everything went to hell, literally, and here I am. Oh, get the worried look off your face, Curtis! I was never going to try to get between you and Neil. You know me better.”
In fact, Marin did. He had no idea what had been on his face, but he drew a careful mask over his feelings. “It was Neil’s decision to make, unless you and I wanted to slug it out.”
“Oh, please,” Travers protested.
Vidal actually chuckled. “You never had a couple of young bucks duke it out over you?”
“Sure, it used to happen all the time,” Travers said facetiously. “The crewdeck of a super-carrier was the perfect place for young love to bloom.”
“And then you woke up,” Vidal finished. He tilted his head at them, curious, apparently fascinated by what he saw. “In fact, it did happen for you. You know it’s rare.”
“Very,” Marin agreed. “About as rare as the other end of the scale – Tonio Teniko.”
“And those hustlers we met in Henri Belczak’s house on Celeste.” Travers gestured vaguely over his shoulder, which might have been in the rough direction of Freespace. “None of that bullshit would have happened on any crewdeck of mine.”
“Spoken like a genuine Master Sergeant,” Vidal observed, and it was a compliment. He stretched, appearing to luxuriate in the ability to move at all. “Let it be, Neil. Right now, it’s all academic. You couldn’t seduce me if you wanted to … added to which, I’m a half hour late for my shots, and that’s probably why I’m starting to feel like hell. Bill’s going to be yelling my name in another minute. Why don’t I save him the trouble?”
He was walking better, Marin thought as they watched him make his way aft, but there was still a tre
mor in his limbs. His energy levels were swinging, leaving him doubting his own abilities. Travers’s eyes were dark as he regarded Marin, and Curtis waited for him to speak, but Neil remained deliberately silent, as if everything had been said.
It was Richard Vaurien’s voice which intruded, and Marin was almost grateful as he, Jazinsky and Tully Ingersol walked into the crew lounge, in mid-conference. They were reviewing the extensive damage report, which Jazinsky and Ingersol had divided between three handies, and Vaurien wore a simply resigned expression.
“Long story short,” Ingersol said disgustedly, “No way can we break the drones out of bunkers 4 through 9. We’re blind as a freakin’ cave bat on any e-space band you care to mention, we can’t load or unload any of the holds without the forward crane, and speaking of holds – number 3 was still loaded with raw materials for the fabrication shops. I’ve got a tech gang down there right now, seeing what we can salvage, but it’s ugly.”
“It always is,” Vaurien said levelly. “As Barb said not long ago, we’re not a warship.”
“The Zunshu aren’t likely to cut us any slack on that account,” Ingersol said in sullen tones.
Jazinsky had headed directly to the ’chef and was inspecting a wide, thick cinnamon scroll. “You’re taking this personally, Tully.”
He glared at her. “You mean, you hand the ship to me on day one, and on day two you take her out, bust her up and hand her back, and I’m not supposed to be pissed?”
“Hand the ship –?” Jazinsky echoed. “Not till the Lai’a expedition launches!”
“Picky, picky.” Ingersol shoved both handies he had been juggling at Vaurien. “All yours, apparently, Rick. I suppose I’d better get back with the grease monkeys.”
“Children, play nice,” Vaurien said loudly, and deliberately dropped all three handies on the long mess table. “So we have half a gang of maintenance drones straightening out the mess up topside and securing us for a Weimann tow, as soon as the Wings can get here, and it’ll take you a week to make sense of number 3 hold. I’m sure you’ll survive. Something about grist for the mill.”
