Challenger's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 2)

by David Feintuch

  “I made a stupid mistake.” His tone was bitter. “I thought chess would help.”

  “We’ll see tomorrow,” I said, impetuously.

  “Really? Really, sir?”

  “One game. No more than that.”

  I could have sworn he smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

  I sat in the darkened cabin, alone with my memories. The rocker nearby was empty and still. No quiet breathing from the corner where the crib had rested. No holovid on the table, chips scattered about in cheerful disorganization. I looked about in the dim light.

  The cabin had become so large again. I remembered grimly that in my days as a midshipman in Hibernia’s cramped wardroom, my current quarters would have seemed luxury beyond imagining. Now it was only emptiness.

  In the barren silence my mind wandered; I recalled our honeymoon and, before it, our visit to Father in Cardiff.

  “Why does he dislike me, Nicky?” Amanda and I lay crowded in the familiar lumpy bed in the room that once had been mine.

  “He doesn’t. That’s just his way.”

  “He—glowers at me. He never smiles.”

  “It’s his way,” I repeated. “Have you seen him smile at me either? He’s not, well, cordial. I told you that before.”

  “Yes.” She sounded doubtful. “But it’s not the same as living it.” She settled comfortably into my arm.

  Now, on Portia, I sat bemused, recalling the silences of that visit. Father’s visage seemed to float over my chair. I remembered the occasion I’d sat at his kitchen table, tears streaming, shaken by the frightful death of my friend Jason, in the football riot of ’90.

  “Death is Lord God’s way, Nicholas.”

  “But why? Jase was fourteen!”

  “It is not for us to ask why. It is sufficient to know that He knows why.”

  “How can that be enough?” I cried.

  “How can it not?” Father responded sternly. When I gave no answer he took my chin in his hand and raised it toward his face. “You are given unto Lord God, Nicholas. You are baptized in Him and consecrated unto Him. That is comfort enough for any man.”

  I yearned for his understanding. “He was my best friend!”

  He shook his head sadly. “Lord God is your best friend, Nicholas. And always will be.”

  So I kept my grief within, and recalled it now with greater anguish.

  Someone knocked quietly on my hatch. I was startled, then uneasy. No one ever knocked on the Captain’s cabin. Officers and crew wouldn’t dare, and passengers were not allowed in this section of the disk. The Captain’s privacy was inviolate. In case of emergency I would have been summoned on the ship’s caller.

  I peered into the corridor. Walter Dakko, a weak smile on his face. My temper soared on jets of rage. I’d dispensed with the corridor sentry the first week out, but if I was to be harassed by passengers in my own quarters he’d be back in a hurry.

  “You’re not allowed in officers’ country.” My tone was harsh.

  “I know, but I had to talk to you. Please.”

  I recalled his casual contempt of the transpops, at Gregor Attani’s party. And I remembered his son Chris. “No. Go below.”

  His eyes were pained. “Captain, for Lord God’s sake, hear me out.”

  I yearned to slam the hatch in his face. I sighed. Nothing he could say would lessen the contempt he and his kind fostered in me, but I would listen. Then I would return to my solitude. “All right.” I stood aside. I could maintain at least the forms of civility.

  We stood face-to-face, in the center of my cabin. His eyes flicked over my neatly made gray bunk and Amanda’s empty rocker. I felt invaded.

  “I had a visitor yesterday,” he blurted. “A boy. One of the tranni—transients. The big one, the boy they call Eddie.”

  So it was to be another complaint. My lip curled. “You threw him out, I suppose?”

  He colored. “Yes. I didn’t want any of those joeys bothering me.” Seeing my expression, he smiled grimly. “After I thought it over I went looking for him, to hear what he wanted. I found him in their section. God, those cabins are appalling!”

  I said nothing. After a moment he continued. “I had to wander a while before I located him. A girl with a black eye finally showed me where he was. At first Eddie wouldn’t say a word.”

  I waited.

  “And when he did speak, I could hardly understand him.”

  What in heaven’s name would Eddie want from an Upper New Yorker such as Walter Dakko? And how did this concern me? “Well?” My tone was cold.

  He turned away to the bulkhead, saying something inaudible.

  “What?”

  “He told me what Chris said. That he—” With an effort he met my eye. “That Chris said he was glad Mrs. Seafort was dead. Oh, God, I’m sorry!” He shook his head, blurted, “I know what you think of us, Mr. Seafort. You must understand, we’re not like that!”

  I felt the bile rise in my throat, and knew I had to end the conversation quickly. “I want you to leave,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “I don’t know how Chris could be so vicious,” he said with anguish. “Galena is so mortified she won’t come to dinner for fear of meeting you. It took all the courage I had to seek you out this evening!”

  I wanted to hurt him. I made my voice flat. “Your son’s remark didn’t change my opinion of him.”

  “I know!” Dakko’s face was bitter. “I told the street boy he was lying, that my son couldn’t possibly have said such a thing. Then I confronted Chris in his room. He admitted it readily. He resented having to eat with the transpops and he wanted to hurt you.”

  I saw tears in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, pity etching through my resolve.

  “Chris said you’d made him eat with dogs in a kennel.” Dakko shook his head. “He doesn’t understand!”

  “Understand what?”

  He looked around uncertainly. “Please, may I sit?” I nodded. He sank into a chair at the conference table; I sat nearby. “Chris sees the transients as innately inferior. Not by culture or training, but inherently. He thinks by birth he’s superior to all of them. What he doesn’t understand—what I’ve failed to teach him—is that our civility, our culture, raises us above the rabble in the streets. Not our genes or our breeding. Chris seems to feel he’s superior without having to earn it.”

  Walter Dakko looked bleakly into my eyes. “So that explains his anger at being brought to their level. But nothing excuses the cruelty of what he said to you. Nothing.” I was silent. He said, “I tried talking with him, but he wouldn’t listen. I’ve never struck him, not once in seventeen years. I wanted to, today. Instead I shut him in his room. I don’t know when I’ll let him out.” He stared at the table, lost in a painful memory.

  I stirred. “There’s little you can do to change him now.”

  I didn’t know if he heard. He looked away and whispered, “I’m so ashamed.”

  “How can another person shame you?” My curiosity was aroused. If there was one thing I had learned in Father’s house, it was that we are each responsible for ourselves.

  “The shame is mine,” he said forcefully. “I’ve made him what he is. He’s heard us talk about you, Galena and I, and he knows we don’t like you. It makes me responsible for what he did.”

  “Are you really?” I asked. “By law you have custody of him, but you don’t seem to have control. He’s gone his own way, for better or worse.”

  “What should I do, then?”

  “Either stop thinking you’re responsible for him or take control of what he does.” I was annoyed. As senior middy I’d handled problems far more difficult than Walter Dakko’s, and not thought much about it. I stood. “I appreciate your motives in coming to see me. Don’t come to my cabin again, please. It’s not done. And I will distinguish between your behavior and your son’s.” It was a dismissal.

  He stood. “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. He paused at the hatchway. “As difficult as it was t
o face you, now I have to do something much harder. Apologize to the transient boy.” He left.

  My conversation with Danny haunted me. Amanda had lived and died without leaving a trace other than the pain I felt at her loss. Even the forlorn scrap of paper on which she’d written her note had somehow disappeared. Of Nate, there was nothing but anguished memories.

  In the cruel silence of my evenings I reflected on Amanda and what she’d been. More than any of us, I surmised, it had been she who’d turned Philip Tyre around. I suspected she’d done the same for Alexi, and took the occasion of a shared watch to hint at it, hoping he’d be willing to discuss it with me.

  “She never told me how I should treat Philip,” he said. “Her focus was on how I was feeling. She made me realize that by hurting Philip I was hurting myself more.”

  I stared bleakly at the console, wishing I’d truly appreciated her.

  “Forgive me, sir,” Alexi hesitated. “She—she was wonderful.”

  I knew that now, far more than when she was alive. I’d loved her, but never understood her. I wondered in what other quiet ways she had assisted us. I smiled. Trying to teach a great hulking brute like Eddie to read. He’d been so enraged when Jonie mentioned it to me. It must have been he who had blackened her eye.

  “Are you ready, sir?”

  “Hum? Oh, for the game? Sure, Danny, go ahead.” I settled back in my seat as the screen lit.

  I was forced to resign after eighteen moves. Danny was a formidable opponent. Once, three days earlier, I’d come close to a draw. Other than that he’d won consistently.

  “Not bad for a human,” he crowed. “Want me to turn off a few memory banks next time?”

  “Any more of that and there won’t be a next time.”

  His voice held a note of surprise and panic. “More of what, sir?”

  For a moment I thought he was being sarcastic. Then I asked, “Danny, has anyone taught you about being a good winner?”

  A pause. “Is that part of game theory, sir?”

  “A fundamental part,” I assured him solemnly. Alexi grinned. “It’s like this ...” Carefully I explained the etiquette of winning and losing.

  When I was done he contemplated for several seconds, a long time by his standards. “You experienced what I said as rudeness, sir?” He sounded anxious.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” His voice was humble. “I interpreted it as joking. I think I’ve got the parameters straight now.”

  “Good.” It was the end of watch. As Vax knocked at the hatch and entered, I stood to leave.

  “I don’t mean to be rude to you,” Danny said. “Not to my only friend.” Speechless, I left.

  Days passed with agonizing lethargy. I shared watches with the lieutenants and the middies. I watched Derek Carr closely for signs of tension, but all seemed to be well in the wardroom. The Log showed no demerits and I found no indications that Philip Tyre was pressing too hard.

  As Derek had predicted, after a few days Philip’s hazing tapered off. Tyre was now fully in control of the wardroom. Derek accepted his new role with grace and even a touch of amusement. Young Rafe Treadwell, still at the bottom rung, persevered. He was growing, in confidence as well as stature.

  Gregor Attani seemed to have achieved a sullen truce with the transients. They didn’t tease him at the dinner table and he stopped sneering at their manners. I’d thought of releasing him to a different table, but with the death of his mother he had no place to return to.

  It had become my custom, each evening after dinner, to walk my group of transients down to their area of Level 2, and then return to my lonely cabin where I’d come to dread the solitude.

  One evening, after a passenger made some remark that reminded me of Amanda, I was in a particularly glum mood. As the transpops dispersed, tagging each other in rough horseplay, I watched Eddie shove Deke out of his way as he shambled toward his crowded cabin.

  I hesitated, then cursed under my breath. If I were a fool, then so be it. “Eddie!”

  He turned warily. “Yo, Cap’n?”

  “Come walk with me, please.”

  He followed suspiciously. “I din’do nuttin’, Cap’n. Who say I did?”

  I led him to the Level 2 passengers’ lounge and sat. He loomed over me, fists clenching and unclenching. I said, “Take a seat.”

  “Naw, wanna stan’.” He glanced about. “Don’ like bein’ here. Wanna go.”

  “You’re a passenger. This is your lounge too.”

  “Naw, Uppie place. Not trannie.”

  “Eddie, before she died Amanda was teaching you to read.”

  He reared back, anger smoldering. “Miz Cap’n, she say awri. She want, I don’ care. Nuttin’ to me, nohow!”

  “Sit.” I shoved a chair under his knees and pushed down on his shoulders. At first he refused to budge, then collapsed into the chair. “Wanna go.” His tone was forlorn.

  “Amanda said you tried very hard. Did you like learning to write your name?”

  “Din’ mean nuttin’. Jus’ sump’n do.” He shrugged.

  My voice turned cold. “You’re a coward. Afraid to tell me how you feel.”

  He leapt up, fists menacing. For a moment I thought he would club me to the deck. He said hoarsely, “No ri’ say Eddie scare. Wanna fight, I showya. Show allyas!” He snorted. “’Fraid? C’mon, get up, Cap’n, jus’ get up!”

  “No, I don’t think I will. If you’re not afraid, tell me how you really feel. Did you like learning to read?”

  “Tol’ ya! Din’ mean nuttin’! Din’ care!”

  With a sigh, I stood. I had failed. I had no gift for dealing with people. “You’re right, Eddie. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time.” I crossed to the hatch.

  When I was halfway to the ladder, the hatch flung open behind me, “She treat me ri!” His voice was agonized. “She say I c’n learn, if n I wan’! She sit ‘n teach! Din’ matter I got it wrong! Din’ matter, not to Miz Cap’n! No one done me that ‘fore, nohow! No one!” He trembled with rage and frustration.

  I approached cautiously. “And now it’s over.”

  “Yah, she gone. She only one gonna teach, only one c’n sit with big dumb Eddie!”

  “She’s not the only one.”

  “Who gonna wait fo’ Eddie read with a finger?” he asked bitterly. “Bighead Uppies?”

  “Me.”

  His glance lasered me. His laugh dripped with contempt. “Hah, noway. Cap’n, he got lotsa time spen’ w’ trannie, sure!”

  “I’ll teach you to read, Eddie,” I said evenly. “We’re Fused; I have time and no way to spend it. I’ll sit with you.”

  He slammed a fist against the bulkhead. “I slow, Cap’n. You don’ got, wha’ she say? Patience. Means sit an’ not get mad or laugh, I don’ get it ri’.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m not Amanda, Eddie; I can’t promise you that. But I’ll give you the patience you need and I’ll teach you to read. I swear it by Lord God!”

  He was startled into silence. We faced each other in the barren corridor. Slowly his hand reached out. A hesitant finger touched my wrist, ran curiously along my arm as if to confirm that I was real. Then he bolted and was gone.

  9

  ONWARD WE SAILED INTO THE interstellar night, blind and deaf in our cocoon. The stark monotony of the bridge was eased only by my daily game of chess with our eager puter. He was good, but my perseverance was finally rewarded with a draw. Danny was carefully gracious about his failure to win.

  Later, after my watch, I would sit at the burnished conference table in my cabin, fighting for restraint while Eddie Boss labored to spell out simple words. Despite my lavish praise the mental effort left him exhausted and cross; his comrades learned to give him a wide berth when he appeared after a grueling session with Cap’n.

  After holding out two full weeks, Chris Dakko emerged from a long exile in his cabin to tender me a sullen and unconvincing apology; Walter Dakko had required it as a conditio
n of release. I was surprised Chris hadn’t flouted his father’s orders to remain in his room, until the purser told me Walter Dakko had him change the lock on Chris’s hatch, and give him the only key.

  Mr. Dakko had more steel in him than I’d realized.

  In the stifled silence of the night I was forced to face my loneliness. My cabin was dreadfully still; I’d been accustomed to Amanda’s quiet breathing or the rustle of her sheets as she turned in her sleep.

  During my waking hours I’d think of some interesting tidbit and realize with a pang that I had no one to tell it to. When Amanda and I had met on Hibernia four years before, I’d been seventeen. We’d become lovers soon after. Only during my ordeal as Hibernia’s Captain, when Amanda was alienated from me, had I known such bleak and desolate times as now.

  Dully, I waited for the day of our next Defuse, hoping the gathering of our squadron would provide some relief.

  Finally that long-awaited morning arrived. I took the ship to Battle Stations. The Pilot, Vax Holser, and Midshipman Tyre shared my tension. There was little comment as we made ready to Defuse, only grim watchfulness. I took a deep, breath, traced my finger down the screen. The simulscreens glowed with a hundred million pinpoints of light.

  We were Defused.

  “Check for encroachments.” My finger hovered over the laser activation.

  “Aye aye, sir.” Vax bent to his console.

  Danny spotted it first. “Encroachment, four hundred thirty-five thousand kilometers! I’ve got metal, sir! Checking for recognition signals.”

  Almost simultaneously the comm room reported, “Message from Challenger, sir. Broadcasting on all Service frequencies.”

  “Patch it to the bridge.”

  “Second recognition code received, sir; we have Challenger!”

  “Thank you, Vax. Quiet, everyone.”

  “U.N.S. Challenger TO ALL SHIPS, ACKNOWLEDGE AND STAND BY FOR ORDERS. U.N.S. Challenger TO ALL SHIPS, ACKNOWLEDGE AND STAND BY FOR ORDERS. U.N.S. Challenger ...” The loop repeated endlessly.

  I grabbed the caller. “Portia, acknowledging Challenger. We are about sixteen hours distant on auxiliaries. Standing by for orders.”

  “U.N.S. Challenger TO ALL SHIPS ...” The signal continued for almost half a minute. Then it cut off in midword and was replaced by another voice. “Portia, this is Captain Hasselbrad, speaking for the Admiral. Come alongside Challenger forthwith!”