Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  “Are you sure?”

  Bryce started to nod, but that wouldn’t be right. Shaking his head wasn’t right either. A ripple of laughter started somewhere deep inside and bubbled to the surface. He was taking an action that was neither for the Old Bastard, nor because of him. It was an action of his own and it felt glorious.

  “No. But if it will save us, it’s worth the risk. What do you say?”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck for a moment and kissed him. His world became the feel of her lips. It was only when Donnie cheered and several in the room laughed that he remembered they weren’t alone.

  Ri kept her hand on his arm as he thumbed in.

  Bamker wallowed his hefty frame up out of his chair and looked at the screen. “Is it what you thought it was?”

  Donnie was reaching for the keyboard when a message flashed on the screen:

  Unless specifically authorized by

  Bryce Randall Stevens

  -President, World Economic Council-

  in opening this document you have

  already committed an act of treason

  punishable by immediate execution

  with extreme prejudice

  In the sudden, sober silence that filled the room after the death threat from a dead man, he heard Ri’s gasp. Yes, she’d seen the same thing on Wilkson’s data.

  Bamker whistled softly. “It survived.” His Adam’s apple bobbed several times as he stared at the screen.

  “One of my daughters was executed by the Council for ‘homicidal tendencies.’ She left behind two of the sweetest boys you could imagine.”

  Voices sounded from the room so softly there was no telling who spoke.

  “Grandmother. All I remember is her cookies.”

  “Cousin.”

  “Best friend.”

  “Wife.”

  “School chum.”

  “Mother,” the last voice was his own.

  Bamker cocked an eyebrow at Bryce. “I don’t know whether or not to thank you, young man.”

  “That would be ‘not’ is my guess. But there it is nonetheless.” Bryce could feel a nervous laugh coming, but managed to keep it in rather than let it release the hysteria he knew would follow.

  Donnie swore and Bryce focused on the screen once more, it was going wild.

  “Damn, that thing’s big. Never seen compaction like this one. Shit.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

  “What’s wrong?” Ri started forward.

  “No pressure loss. I just wish I could’ve peeked under the hood before we peeled back the shielding.”

  Jill Emers leaned in. “What are you doing with my pilot logs?”

  “Just clearing a little room. No sweat. I have the whole system, except this lab, backed up on the Stellar. Should have liberated a couple hundred petabytes when we were out there scrounging. Damn.” After a few more moments with only the soft clicks of the keystrokes filling the silence in the lab, the screen stopped at a menu of options.

  Bryce stumbled forward into the silence and rested a hand on Donnie’s shoulder.

  “Is that it?”

  She selected an option and a vast holographic submenu displayed above the station.

  “That’s it.”

  The burst of cheers left a cold chill running up his spine.

  # # #

  It wasn’t just along his spine. Bryce could feel the horrible squealing pierce right through his temples. Several others in the lab backed away from the console as if it were going to explode.

  Donnie turned from the console and pointed at Ri’s leg.

  “Kill that damn alarm.” She covered her ears. “I’ve never heard a ship-wide emergency screamer before.”

  Ri dug frantically at her thigh pocket and pulled out her t-card. She couldn’t seem to make her fingers work right. Everyone had their ears covered. Bryce took it from her shaking fingers and pressed the acknowledge key. In the sudden silence it felt as if he’d never hear again.

  Then Captain Conrad’s voice issued into the room.

  “Riot in R4. Report in.”

  Ri took back the card and thumbed in. “Ri here, Captain.”

  “We have a bit of a problem. Olias?”

  Bryce leaned in to hear the response.

  “Ag-workers just torched Level 1 and 2 of R4 East. I’ve cut off additional oxygen, but the fire is still going, they must have used a rocket fuel to spike it. Riot spreading to—”

  A voice cut Olias off on the t-card, and issued from the all-call as well. “This is Chief of Fabrication Johnson Merkar. I now control the food on this ship so I now control this ship. We’re going to start doing things my way or there will be more of what you are now seeing on your screens.”

  Donnie opened a channel and her display showed people screaming as they ran among fields of wheat, their clothes and hair on fire.

  Ri grabbed his arm and the arm of Donnie’s shipsuit and bolted up the hold stairs yelling for someone named Jane. A woman rushed up behind them as they tumbled into the lounge of the little ship. They gathered around a large display table.

  “Let’s go.” Ri pounded on the surface. “C’mon. Hurry.”

  Jane and Donnie were tapping the control surfaces. Ship’s schematics flashed up on the display.

  “Where was it?” Donnie called out without looking up.

  “R4 East. Ag1 and Ag2.” Bryce was surprised at how steady his own voice was while people were dying.

  “Release it.” Ri hadn’t let go of his arm and her grip was becoming painful.

  Jane tapped four control points as Donnie displayed the images. A wave of gas flooded the ag-bays and suppressed the fire.

  “What was that?”

  “Simple Halon extinguisher.”

  “But they’ll suffoca—”

  Ri cut him off. “They’re all dead in there already. It’s above the melting point of iron in both bays already. The plas wall would have let go in another sixty seconds.”

  There was a silence as they watched the views disappear behind clouds of smoke and Halon mist. The result reminded him all too well of the first view he’d had of the burning Earth.

  “The Captain said rioters.” Bryce reached out to tap for views of R4. “Where are they?”

  Donnie slapped his hand aside and sprang back into action.

  Bryce felt sick when they finally located the center of the melee, though he’d already guessed, it was framed by a bright red and gold logo.

  “Hit them.” Ri started cursing up a storm.

  Donnie pulled up a submenu of the ship’s announcement system. She piped an audio file to that section of R4.

  The rioters dropped the tables and countertop they’d torn free. Most collapsed to the floor, though a few struggled on covering their ears against the sonic blast.

  “C’mon you deaf bastards. Drop.”

  Finally only one person was still standing. At long last he fell onto his back still holding a keg to his chest. The fountain of blood erupting from his mouth proved that it had been full as it crushed him.

  “This is Chief Merkar. Your pitiful attempts to regain control will draw a punishment on a scale you cannot imagine.”

  Ri shouted over his voice, “Shut that asshole off.”

  Bryce peeled Ri’s fingers off his arm before she could draw blood. “No, trace him.”

  Donnie shook her head. “He isn’t using a pickup. He’s hardwired into the system somewhere.”

  Bryce pushed her aside. It took a few moments to figure out the interface. He did his best to ignore the ongoing tirade.

  Background noises. He could pick up something in the background. A sound like two sheets of paper being rubbed together.

  Suddenly the broadcast cut off. He waited, but it didn’t return.

  “I know this ba
stard. I saw him murder a man bare-handed only minutes after the Earth died. Egg him on, Ri. He has a wicked temper.”

  “But should I make him madder?”

  “We can’t find him if he shuts up.”

  She remained frozen.

  He nodded sharply at her, then winked. The mixed messages jarred her loose. He tapped in an all-call to the table’s pickup.

  “This is Security Chief Ri Jeffers of the Stellar One. You have sixty seconds in which to surrender yourself or we shall take action against your position.”

  There was a painful silence as they all waited.

  “Ha! As if you have any idea where I am.”

  “I already have forces headed in your direction. If you come peaceably then…”

  Bryce tuned the words out. He looked at the schematics searching for something that could make such a noise.

  The thrasher on the recyclers was a possibility. He changed channels until he found one then shut it down. That wasn’t it.

  The ag-boss’ mic clicked off once more.

  There was a stony silence for at least ten seconds in which he heard nothing beyond his own heartbeat. The stream of invective Ri unleashed was impressive beyond belief. Her point that he was the only one on the whole ship dumb enough to torch the ag-bays while his people were still inside was the telling one. Or perhaps how she was going to soothe him with a moly-torch crammed up his backside.

  In the resulting shouting match, that must be echoing from one end to the other of Stellar One, he found the sound he needed. He knew the sound. There was a pulse to it.

  Donnie shouted at the same time he did. “Waves.”

  “Not the Arctic.” Bryce was certain. He knew every nuance of sound that ocean could make.

  Donnie looked at him strangely as she responded. “No. The ocean here in R1. Right by the wave generator. I’ve swum out there a lot.”

  Bryce grabbed Ri in mid-expletive and dragged her toward the hatch. He had to yell back for Donnie to release the airlock. They sprinted side by side to the nearest maintenance hatch and dropped down into L0.

  “Where? The ocean wave generator. Where is it?”

  Ri didn’t even hesitate, but set out at a full sprint to spinward. He tried to keep up with her, but his long legs and out-of-shape lungs were no match for her. When he caught up with her she was scowling at the red lockdown of an overhead hatch.

  “I can’t get through it.”

  He slid past her and pulled a small wafer from his pocket. She laughed sharply as he placed it on the lock and thumbed Bryce Sr.’s fingerprint on the wafer.

  As the hatch slid aside, Ri sprinted up before he could stop her. He heard a man yell before he could get there and felt a lurch in his stomach. He didn’t want to lose her now, especially not to some idiot like Merkar.

  He needn’t have worried. Johnson Merkar was quite dead, she’d kicked in his throat, and she was kneeling over his hand.

  “Dead man switch. I hope I got it in time. Find out what it does, Bryce.”

  It took time to trace it to the underside of the wave generator. Booby-trapped explosives set to blow the floor out of the ocean’s bottom. If it let go, it would flood the maintenance corridor of the entire ring and drastically unbalance it. The force would probably tear R1 right off the structure of the core. Merkar was even dumber than he’d thought.

  His hand was shaking as he studied the trap. Bryce Sr.’s memories were silent. The useless Bastard had never studied explosives. Neither had Bryce.

  “Hurry, Bryce,” Ri’s call sounded desperate. “It’s got a strong spring.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how he would wire it up. It would be like the servo-starter on a mass-driver rocket. He opened his eyes and jerked out the three red wires.

  # # #

  Ri lay on the sand beneath the diving platform. And watched the ballet going on before her.

  Devra Conrad, Bryce, Olias, and Jackson Turner all trying not to ask about things they didn’t want to know. Ri just wanted to lie there and never move again. She’d sworn she’d never kill again after Nara. The last person who’d tasted her blade had been Tinai, more mother than leader, to set her spirit free from the Diabutsu-den dungeon when Ri had been unable to save her body.

  The Icarus’ security measures, which she had approved and authorized, had killed five of the twenty-two who died in the rioting. And that was without tallying the people incinerated in the ag-bays. The only way to identify them would be to wait and see who didn’t key into the system tomorrow.

  “What a mess.” Olias was looking beneath the beach towel that Bryce had thrown over the fabrication chief.

  Perhaps if she’d tried harder to talk with him at their brief meetings, this would never have happened. But he’d been so angry at the change of his role from fabricator to farm manager that he shut her out. Maybe if she’d…

  “I would recommend that you cease whatever thoughts are putting that look upon your face.” Devra squatted beside her in the sand. “You saved my ship.”

  She shielded her eyes against the bright sky. “It certainly doesn’t feel like it. He’s… I never gave him a chance. He was horrible whenever I checked in. I should have done something other than retreating. It didn’t have to happen this way.”

  “Perhaps. But not likely.” Devra scooped a handful of sand. “Whatever else is said across time. Men are still men. Watch them.” She nodded toward their three companions.

  Jackson and Olias had finally found something in common; neither of them liked Bryce. It wasn’t enough to make them talk to one another, but she could overhear the biting tones as they cross-examined him on exactly what had happened. As if it mattered.

  Bryce was standing calmly as if they were out on a picnic talking about sports, but Ri knew it wasn’t the real Bryce. By the way he’d held her when they’d released the deadman switch together, just in case he’d been wrong. And held her afterward when they knew they’d live.

  “I guess I should go rescue him.”

  Devra made no move. “Well, I would be inclined to say that nothing constructive is going to happen until you do.”

  Ri met the Devra’s eyes. They exchanged a weak smile that warmed Ri and finally chased away the worst of the chill at having killed Merkar. She rose to her feet and crossed to stand beside Bryce. Jackson was taking his shot.

  “And how in the hell did you defuse—”

  “Shut up, Jackson.” The man looked at her startled, but Olias didn’t pay any attention.

  “I know you from somewhere, you unregistered little bastard. I’m goi—”

  “You, too. Just shut the hell up.”

  He scowled at her, his scars rippling as he frowned.

  “C’mon, Bryce.”

  As soon as they were alone in L0, he leaned over and whispered to her. His breath was warm and tickled her ear horribly.

  “Thanks.”

  # # #

  Once the living had been dragged to the autodocs, Bryce sent away the R4U patrons who had assembled to help. He’d clean up his own bar, which had taken the brunt of the riot. Jaron and Robbie had volunteered, but one look at Robbie’s face was enough. He detailed them to help people into the autodocs and back to their quarters afterward.

  Ri had refused to leave.

  She didn’t even flinch as they moved the corpses. They recorded their identities and slid them down into the recycler with little ceremony. It was grisly, but within an hour the bodies and the worst of the blood was gone.

  They found Jaz, weak from blood loss by a gash to her head, passed out behind the locked door of the brewery. He shoved her to the front of the line for the autodoc with instructions for Robbie to sit on anyone who complained.

  He and Ri hadn’t exchanged a word since the start of the cleanup. He had trouble handling the bodies. She didn’t. Her neat,
exact movements were no different than when sealing a hatch. He tried to emulate the lack of concern for the deceased. She met his eyes easily, without looking away, and then turned back to the task at hand. He didn’t know if it was imagined or not, but it always seemed she worked with renewed energy after their eyes met. He certainly did.

  Jaron and Robbie returned as they were scrounging for bits of intact furniture. It took the four of them to reseat the bar. Two of the three taps still worked once he’d found a new hose and some fresh kegs from the brewery. They’d recycled the one that had crushed the final rioter.

  The cleaner was smashed beyond repair, but it hadn’t been opened. He kicked at the door until it fell free and he found a clean load. The jug of credits was still spread all over the floor, but no one bothered to pick them up.

  He poured four drafts. It was only then he let himself feel the horror of it. They had fought a war.

  “It seems a pity, doesn’t it.” Jaron sipped at his beer.

  “What?” Ri’s voice revealed the exhaustion she’d held in check while they’d cleaned up his bar. He could now see the sorrow on her face. At first he could only read her smiles and frowns on that foreign Japanese face, but he was learning. When her hair hung down on both sides of her face she was either exhausted or embarrassed. And there was no blush running up her part this time.

  “That we can’t wait to die. We had such promise, Homo sapiens. The two great pinnacles of animal evolution, dolphins and man, are neither likely to live out the year. The trees won’t last long without us. I can sustain them for a few years with mechanical programs, but I can make no program that survives more than four years in any simulation.”

  “Evolution has run out of time. We need something new.” Ri was nearly speaking to herself.

  Bryce glanced over hoping Jaron missed it. No such luck.

  “Such as?”

  Bryce jumped in. “Such as a better way to live together. To be better people than we are.” He moved around the counter and helped Ri to her feet.

  “C’mon, naptime. Jaron, you better wake up your friend asleep on the counter there and get her to bed. If you have any sense, you’ll stay there, too.”