by Mel Keegan
“Better yet, its orbit is almost identical to Velcastra’s, in terms of distance from the sun, orbital inclination and so on. The star is a comparatively large G7 dwarf – stable, long-lived, luminous; and from what we can tell, the planet’s axial tilt is less than 20o, so it’ll have very mild seasonal variation … insofar as a gas giant will have seasons any of us would recognize. That planet’s warm, bright, stable, mineral-rich, and from spectroscopic analysis we’ve confirmed that several layers of the upper atmosphere are heavy with organic molecules.”
Jazinsky’s fingertips drummed a tattoo on the table as she glared at a short loop of video which played over and over, an approach view to the giant world, clearly showing three attendant moons. “I’ve already seen some of the transcript,” she said slowly. “There’s curious little comments in the logs and journals. I might have hoped these people would be systematic, methodical, but they were completely traumatized by the time they were recording their memories. There’s nothing resembling scientific method.
“It’s quite possible several of the escapees had undergone some kind of experimentation and just retained no memory of the procedure, though it left a footprint in sheer disorganization. Autopsy on the remains found in the hulk of the Ebrezjim might prove this. As Dario said, much of what was recorded was babble, but not all of it. A few of the survivors were coherent, and one of them spoke of light gravity while they made their escape – he said he was disoriented by it, inside the ‘vessel’ where they were kept.”
“Stasis vessel?” Travers wondered.
“Perhaps.” Jazinsky sighed. “He could also have been referring to a ship, perhaps a prison ship in which they were being transferred from place to place. There’s a lot more guesswork involved than I care for. Elsewhere in the reports there’s a mention of enormous air density. And when I say ‘air,’ at such density, it’s the wrong word. We’re still reading a rather literal translation here. Air simply means the medium involved in respiration, and the environment surrounding the dominant species. What can I tell you? We’ll know more when we see it for ourselves.”
The screen was cycling the images again, and this time Travers watched more closely. Beside him Vidal and Queneau, the only qualified transspace pilots, watched unblinkingly as the Zunshu skies displayed, as if they expected to fly them. Travers felt a marrow-deep chill.
“The planet’ll be easy to find,” Vidal said quietly, “as soon as we transit the Zunshu Gate, yes?”
“Finding the system is the simple part,” Mark said bleakly. “We were able to extract a little navigational data. They told us, the Blood Gate is often visible from the Orion Gate through the transspace flux – four days on this gravity tide we’ve been riding … two days ahead of us now. From the Blood Gate, the Zunshu Gate is intermittently visible, five or six days away on the same tide. Time to get through depends on conditions of the transspace flux. Lai’a has already loaded all the navigational information we could recover.
“The plan is this, Richard. We’d like to transit out at the Blood Gate,” he said slowly. “We’re not looking for Ebrezjim survivors. Alas, we know, now, what became of them. But we’d like to drop back into normal space and do a little astronomy.” He paused. “We should find out where we are, not in transspace, but in galactic terms.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The Deep Sky should be visible with the aid of powerful imaging, but where are we?”
Vaurien agreed at once. “We won’t know till we transit out and take a look. Lai’a, do you have anything to add?”
“Nothing critical, Captain,” Lai’a said mildly. “The navigational data of which Doctor Sherratt spoke is incomplete, ambiguous. However, the Zunshu home star is identified as a dwarf of spectral type G7, and only a few such stars will be within similar proximity to the Zunshu Gate as systems like Velcastra, Omaru and Borushek are to Hellgate – convenient for what is commonly termed the ‘gravity express.’ Locating the Zunshu home system is a simple task of observational astronomy: a G7 star of known characteristics with a well documented system of planets and a readily identifiable gas giant.”
“And we’re two days out from this Red Gate,” Vaurien mused. “I can’t say I relish the sound of it. Why name it for blood?” He lifted a brow at the Resalq. “Is there some kind of tradition or mythology among your people? Blood is, what, iconic?”
But Mark’s head was shaking slowly. “No more so than among humans. Blood could be a reference to death or survival; it might indicate a rite, perhaps even a baptism of some kind. I remember, there was a spiritual culture – a few millennia before your ancestors fought the Battle of Troy, Richard – which initiated its members with a ceremony involving scarification. Blood let in their rituals was considered sacred to the elemental creatures with whom initiates communed. Our ancestors haven’t venerated any deity since our bronze age, as you know; but they were always keenly aware of so-called spirits inhabiting places, elemental entities, creatures not quite of the same world as ourselves. Some were friendly or beneficial, others downright wicked; all could be bargained and reasoned with – but only by initiates. Sacred blood let during ceremonies was used to empower magical tools and the weapons of great warriors. Perhaps this Blood Gate, or Red Gate, is a reference to the old practice of baptism in blood.”
“Damn. Well, two days,” Vaurien said grimly, “and I guess we’ll know when we see it.” He stood, worked his way around behind Jazinsky and Shapiro as he spoke, and headed to the ’chef for mineral water. “At this point, it’s high time our civilian members got up close and personal with industrial armor. Neil, I’d be grateful if you’d bring them up to speed. Roy, Jon, Leon, Dario, Tor, even Barb – some of them might have considerable experience with armor, but nowhere near as much as I’d like, and they’ve had no practical experience at all with the new Zunshulite hardsuits.”
Travers was grateful for a definite assignment. “I’d be glad to.” He looked around at the faces which had turned toward him. “Tomorrow, early, if you’ve no objections.”
“And what if I had?” Tor grumbled.
Irritable, Travers observed, prickly, as if he were determined to be difficult. Beside him, Dario breathed a light sigh and rested one hand on his shoulder; Mark looked along at him with a frown and said, “Indulge me, Tor. It’s simply to ensure your safety.”
“I’ve worked in bloody armor,” Tor protested.
“I know you have.” Mark summoned a faint smile. “But this armor is rather different. In its fully-developed form, it’s almost four times the mass of the Marines suit, with a ‘lag’ in the force-input sensors, making its pseudo-motility rather odd. Ask Neil and Curtis. They field tested this same armor in action against Zunshu automata. No one is better qualified to familiarize you with it.”
“All right,” Tor said in a bass growl, and gave Travers a rebellious look. “Not early. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep late.”
“We’ll be there,” Dario muttered, “if I have to drag him.”
“No problem,” Travers said expansively. “Two days to the Red Gate? Why don’t we all sleep late, meet for lunch and then tackle the armor when we’re all on the same page?”
“I could go for that,” Vidal decided. He was looking at Mark.
“Go ahead, I’ll join you shortly,” Mark promised.
The assembly broke up while Travers lingered over a second dessert. Perlman and Fujioka stayed for coffee, heads close together, talking too softly for words to carry. Judith Fargo waited for the drones to clear the tables and began to deal the customary hand of solitaire. Bill Grant settled beside her, brought beer and pretzels, whispered something in her ear that made her snort with laughter. Marin was behind the bar, rummaging for something specific while Rodman and Hubler pulled up a couple of stools and began to make inroads on a fifth of fine Velcastran scotch that was wasted on them.
“I’m going to hit the sack,” Vidal announced, yawning deeply.
“You’re sleeping better,” Travers observed.
&nbs
p; “The dreams have quit,” he said quietly. “And it’s easier sleeping when somebody’s there beside you in the dark.”
He was right. Travers was watching Marin, still hunting for some item he had probably hidden away in a corner under the bar, and he tried to recall the last time he had slept alone. “You and Mark.” He gave Vidal a thoughtful look. “You’re … intimate.”
“What a nice, diplomatic word. It bothers you?” Vidal was surprised. “Because he’s not human? Curtis was intimate with Mark on and off for years, a long time ago. And what about Roy and Leon?” His face darkened. “Or does it bother you because you know I’m about as much use as a bloody eunuch? Mahak doesn’t mind.”
“I’d be surprised if he did,” Travers said easily, “and it’s none of my business anyway. It doesn’t bother me at all, Michael. I’m damn’ glad you’re not alone.” He set a hand on Vidal’s arm. Beneath the sleeve of the deep bronze tunic, it was sinewy with muscle laid thinly over bone. “And as for the eunuch part – it’s a small price to pay, I’d say.”
“Would you, now?” Vidal did not sound so sure. “I’ll get it back eventually. Cloned glands.” He did not have to feign a shudder. “Bill tells me it’s all routine, average stuff, especially among engine techs and flightline personnel, where accidents happen way too often.” He gave Travers a dark look. “Eight more freaking bloody months.”
“Till the glands are ready to transplant?”
Vidal nodded. “Till then I’m on the bottom of any arrangement, and lucky to have a partner who knows the score … lucky again, to be comfortable there. I’ve been easy either way, since I was a kid – then again, you know that. You were there. You heard it all.” Color flushed in his cheeks but he shrugged, eyes brooding on Travers. “Mahak is one of a kind. Ask Curtis.”
“I don’t have to ask.” Travers raised the last drop in his glass in an impromptu toast. “I have a lot of respect for Mark Sherratt.” He paused. “And for you, Mick. Nothing I heard when Mark was working you over made me think any different.”
For the first time in so long Vidal smiled, though the expression was faint and short lived. “Thanks. And I do care for Mahak. A lot. It’s not just gratitude.”
“Well, that’s healthy,” Travers said honestly. “You’re letting yourself feel again. From what Curtis tells me, it’s a big part of the way back.”
“Back from the doldrums of being told to skedaddle by the love of my life?” Vidal muttered with a self-mocking chuckle.
“Back,” Travers corrected sharply, “from the edge of bloody extinction. Goddamn it, Mick, you almost checked out! You don’t think it’s going to change everything for you, for the rest of your stupid bloody life?”
“I know it will.” Vidal twisted the chair to face him. “You know, you’re beautiful when you’re mad enough to spit.”
“I’m not mad,” Travers remonstrated. “Just – exasperated. You never seem to give yourself the credit for being a survivor. Fighting your way back. And as for you and me … it could have happened. Would have, if anybody else had walked aboard the Intrepid in Curtis’s place. I might have been partnered up with some other guy, or maybe somebody like Jo Queneau, who used to be your best mate and pulled your sorry ass out of the fire a few times!”
“All very true.” Vidal studied him with the familiar smoldering intensity. “Then, when Harrison assigned you to the Kiev, it’d have been you and me, Neil.” His brows popped up. “Which wouldn’t have stopped me flying the Orpheus.”
“Getting yourself busted right into the middle of next year,” Travers added, “and winding up – you said it yourself.”
“On the bottom of any arrangement and just damned lucky to be comfortable there,” Vidal said in resigned tones. He shoved back the chair and got his feet under him. “I’m tired. Catch you tomorrow, Neil. You want a hand running rookie school, getting a bunch of civvies into Zunshulite armor?”
“If you’re up to it.” Travers drained his glass. “Get some sleep, you idiot. You look like a ghost.”
“I am a ghost,” Vidal said darkly, and was making his way around the table as Marin returned with a bottle in either hand. “G’night. Curtis. See you tomorrow at Hardsuits 301.”
He was leaving as Marin set down a bottle of Hardesty ’55, a sherry from a tiny boutique winery on Jagreth, and Kōsetsu, a pearl sake from Lushiar. He set them both on the table before Travers and nodded after Vidal. “What was that about? It looked a little ... fraught.”
“It might have been. Just Mick being Mick.” Travers shook his head. “He’s letting Mahak pick up the pieces, and I’m glad to see it.”
“I told you, Mark collects strays,” Marin said musingly. “Mick’s problem is, he was always the top dog. Elstrom society, Delta Dragons, the Kiev, first human transspace pilot who ever flew Elarne. Everyplace he went, he was on top of the heap. I guess it won’t be easy reconciling that with having your organs and glands cloning in vitro while your body idles along in neutral and you sweat blood, trying to rebuild any muscle you ever possessed. If Mark can help him get through – cheers to the both of them.” He frowned down at Travers. “In his condition, he can’t be hitting on you.”
With a snort of ribald humor. Travers pushed away from the table. “Even if he was, I’m a big boy.”
Marin looked him up and down. “I’ve noticed. You, uh, in the mood?”
“Yeah.” Travers snaked one arm around him. “Matter of fact, I am. What d’you have in mind?”
‘Well, now.” Marin paused only to collect the bottles he had found and a pair of glasses, and let Travers steer him out of the crew lounge. “I was thinking a while ago … Dario and Tor had an interesting idea. And they’re in the lab tonight.”
“The arboretum?” Travers was intrigued.
When Marin said he was thinking about it, he meant he had taken the time to dump a pile of rugs in the shade of rasps and cherry beans which nodded in the breeze from the big fans. The water cannons had misted the whole garden not an hour before; the air was heavy with moisture and the scents of flowering citrus. In the garden ‘night’ never fell, but the lights dimmed to simulate a day/night cycle for the engineered species that needed it. Travers wondered who had planted roses and camellias among rows of mundane vegetables.
He let Marin tumble him on the rugs, sprawled back and looked up at the high ceiling of a compartment that had been a storage bay for maintenance drones, Arago sleds, heavy equipment. Scores of lamps created heat and convincing daylight, and a single jet of water thirty meters away cast a rainbow over Marin’s shoulder as he dropped his clothes, stretched every joint till they popped, let warmth and humidity soak into every cell.
He was in fine condition. He ran five kilometers each morning, covering the habitation module many times over before he jogged into the Bravo gym and lifted weights for twenty minutes. Even now, Marin tended to regard his body as a tool, perhaps even a weapon. The Dendra Shemiji training would be long, long time wearing off.
Naked, more relaxed than Travers had seen him in some time, he knelt on the rugs and mixed sherzaki. Neil took a flute from him, tried it, nodded appreciatively. “You’re laid back. Want to let me in on the secret?”
“No secret.” Marin tried the drink. “That’s not bad. Needs a touch more sake, don’t you think?” He was pouring when he said, “I guess I just … acclimated to all this. Orion Gate, Red Gate, Zunshu space. Exploration. People of our generation never did any of this, but as kids we all used to dream about it. The Middle Heavens, the Deep Sky, it was all settled, charted, terraformed, populated, long before we were born. Didn’t stop us daydreaming about being trailblazers. We got the chance at last, and I’m going to make the most of it.” He took a mouthful of sherzaki, leaned over and set his mouth on Travers’s, to share it. His voice was husky as he said, “Richard was talking about heading out, after the war. The far side of Freespace, a world Earth never even heard of. Think about it, Neil.”
In fact, Travers had been thinking of it.
He set aside the glasses and rolled Marin flat on the rugs under him, while phantom visions of Three Rivers tumbled out of his memory. The morning sun was white and sharp as a sabre off the shoulders of mountains where hanging glaciers never dwindled much even in high summer; the uplands rolled greenly, as far as the eye could see, with soft grass knee-deep to a dozen horses; and at the center of it all stood a cabin built of local timber, where a finger of smoke pointed southeast ahead of a lazy breeze. The visions were seductive, but the scene did not have to be staged in Three Rivers.
Beneath him, Marin wriggled to comfort, hands seeking up under the hem of Travers’s black linen tunic to find the contours of his back, his breast, his belly. Neil growled, deep and bass, as a frisson of pleasure rushed through him, prickled his skin, brought his whole body alive. Marin’s right hand pressed high between his legs, finding him, urging.
The heat and humidity broke a light sweat across Travers’s back as he shrugged out of the tunic. Marin’s hands snapped open his belt and the gray slacks fell with a soft shush. The meshlex was expensive, extravagant, not something a soldier would have chosen; but Travers had left those days behind.
He was still kicking the slacks off as Marin turned over on the rugs and stretched again. Curtis indulged in a groan of sheer luxury, and reached back to find him. A little bottle of something fragrant, cool, blue, stood by the rugs, but Travers had to chuckle as he discovered Marin had already used it. This scene must have been on his mind for some time.
“Consider me seduced,” he growled as he moved between the long, slender legs – runner’s legs, sinuous, supple – and took the gift he had been offered. Another time, Marin might tease with foreplay that would take Travers out to his limits, but not now. He seemed to want it simple, immediate; not quite spontaneous, since he had gone to some trouble to make this happen, but Travers was enchanted, and knew what he needed. He stroked both hands down the long, fine back, raked his nails across the tender skin of his flanks, and sank into him in one long stroke.
