by Mel Keegan
“It’s bad, as I said, and we only learned about this one because we were eavesdropping on Fleet comm while we loaded the AI core into the Esprit.” He stirred with a vague gesture over his shoulder, back in the direction of the dockyards. “I have a very bad feeling about the facilities back there. If Fleet had any integrity, they’d be evacuating Albeniz right now, but it’s business as usual. You’d never know anything had happened. As for us, we’re on Weimann ignition procedures. Next stop, Alshie’nya. So I’d better send this while I can – and we’ll see you there. Neil, Curtis, Harrison … you watch yourselves. Nowhere is safe.”
The threedee blanked, returning to routine ship system data, and Marin took a long deep breath. Beside him, Travers was silent though Jon Kim swore quietly and drew both hands over his face. Marin cleared his throat. “You want to run the vid? All 6.4 seconds of it.”
“Yes. Ingrid, play the vid attachment,” Shapiro said softly. “Set it to loop.”
Now the threedee darkened. The viewer had just enough time to see a corridor, a wide doorway, subdued lighting, such as was normal aboard a ship where the day/night cycle was set to cater to a human crew, before three figures moved into the frame from the right. The image began to white out intermittently with muzzle flashes, and to break up with interference patterns caused by powerful energy sources at close proximity.
Between flashes, and among the visual distortion, Marin saw the figures clearly even the first time the vid played through. He did not need to see it loop more than twice before he turned his back on it, not wanting to see it again. The clip ended suddenly, just a cessation of signal. It was the last transmission likely to issue from an area within a radius of several hundred kilometers from the Aotearoa.
The humanoid figures were unmistakable. A glimpse of them, and the eye saw Emil and Midani Kulich. Not any modern Resalq – the mongrel, hybrid race whom the Kulichs despised on sight. These figures had the look of the ancestrals, whom Dario, Tor and Leon had learned to dislike after a brief exposure to Emil.
“Zunshu automata,” Shapiro whispered.
“Yes. I’ve seen old, old vids.” Marin glanced from Travers to Shapiro and back. “Fragments would be transmitted, exactly like this, before a colony was lost. Mark cobbled them together into four or five minutes of video, all they were ever able to capture from dozens of encounters.”
“Encounters,” Shapiro echoed. “Ingrid, show me the data on the Hunan system. Plot the position, relative to Hellgate.”
“And Albeniz,” Travers added. “I remember the Hunan system. The Intrepid swung through that armpit of the universe with replacement machinery, maybe four years ago. If I remember correctly, it’s closer to Naiobe than Albeniz is, but not by much.”
Before he finished speaking the data was in the threedee, and Marin whistled. “Well, now. There’s enough space to buy Albeniz a day or two. If the docks still exist in a week, it’s because the Zunshu are going to need to muster the troops to take on a target so large, not because they can’t reach Albeniz … and certainly not because they don’t know it’s there.”
“Damn.” Travers poured a second flute of champagne and swallowed it too fast to even taste it. “You want to warn them?” He lifted one brow at Shapiro.
“Do I want to signal Fleet Albeniz and tell them to get the hell out, while they can?” Shapiro’s head dropped back and he regarded the ceiling panels blindly for several moments. “Yes, but don’t expect miracles. It’s a four-day data lag between here and Albeniz.” He gestured at the threedee. “Richard sent this transmission ninety hours ago. Albeniz could already be gone, and even if it isn’t, it’ll be another ninety hours from now, before the colonel in command of the base receives a message from me.” He shook his head slowly. “Say, two more days to mobilize the system and bug out en masse, even if the base commander believes a word I’m saying – and if,” he added acidly, “my orders carry any weight by the time he hears this!” He turned away from the threedee, which was still looping, and leaned both elbows on the workspace. “I’m about to become persona non grata. Fleet has had me under surveillance for a long time. I’m supposed to have embezzled most of the Fleet Borushek budget!”
“They have no skerrick of proof,” Kim said pointedly.
“True,” Shapiro agreed. “So someone way back along the command chain gave the order to terminate me, only to have Captain Hume vanish off the face of Velcastra, a few days ahead of my own complete disappearance out of the Deep Sky.”
Travers chuckled. “There’s going to be an arrest warrant issued. The fact you’re disappearing gives them all the reason they need. Show your face again on this side of the frontier, and you’ll be in custody.”
“Which would concern me, if it were relevant,” Shapiro said in arid tones. “Fortunately, it’s not! You know Robert Chandra Liang has spent many hours in conference with the republican and Daku factions which form the colonial shadow government here. Individuals whose names I don’t even know are poised to stage the coup at the key moment. When we return to Borushek, you’ll see Nine Worlds Commonwealth flags, and I’ll take my orders from this world’s civilian oversight, via a president in Sark.” He smiled faintly, and shared a look of deep satisfaction with Kim.
“Your part in the Colonial Wars is almost done,” Kim observed.
“And I’m glad to be hearing those words.” Shapiro massaged the muscles in his neck, which seemed to be tight. “From here, we’re headed to Ulrand, which is a Freespacer port in any event, and from there, we’re going directly into the Drift. If word of my apparent corruption and desertion reaches Albeniz ahead of the execution of the order to evacuate, my voice will be ignored.”
“Still, it’s worth going through the motions,” Marin mused.
“It is, and I intend to. When we leave the Drift, systems like Borushek, Velcastra and Jagreth will be on the cusp, evolving into sovereign territories. Even if arrest warrants are in force in the Middle Heavens and back as far as the Near Sky, those orders won’t be recognized here.”
“Which won’t stop Fleet, or bastards like Senator Rutherford, taking another crack at you.” Travers warned. “They’ll soon know Hume’s crew failed. They can easily send assassins into Borushek.”
Shapiro waved Marin and Travers away. “I’ve surrounded myself with the best security I know – Dendra Shemiji and the core of Bravo Company. I’m trusting you to keep trouble off my back until it’s all over! Now, take a couple of days to yourselves. There’s no more to be done till we reach Ulrand, and as for Robert and myself, we’re in the safest place in the sector. The Mercury is hardly a honeymoon destination, but I can think of worse places! You’ll have a short while in Marak City, while I make arrangements to have Senator Rutherford transferred aboard, and then …”
And then they were headed to a rendezvous with Richard Vaurien’s ships, the Carellan Djerun, and Lai’a. Marin collected two of the flutes and the rest of the open bottle of McLaren Domain. “There’s a few places aboard even a cruiser that make it worth the ride. If you need us, call.”
“I will.” Shapiro had pulled up a chair and was already tasking the AI to assemble a priority transmission for Albeniz.
The crew deck was quiet. Threads of music issued from the executive quarters Chandra Liang shared with his ex, and Madam Deuel herself was organizing the bevy of drones and two human aides who were assigned to make her tenure aboard a military vessel as comfortable as the conditions allowed. Marin and Travers shared quarters thirty meters aft. Travers might have expected Marin to stop there, but Curtis did not pause until he reached the service lift at the rear of the deck, where the heavy pulse from the engines thrummed through a man’s bones.
He punched for a car and sent it up, and forward. Travers’s face was curious but he waited to be surprised, and when Marin led him out into the astrolab, under the great armorglass dome, he whistled. A tiny maintenance drone scurried back under its hatch as Curtis set down the bottle and flutes. He waved a hand through the dor
mant threedee to bring it alive, and hunted through the archive.
The sounds of Bevan Daku whispered into the lab, and overhead the stars of the Deep Sky were bright, hard. The Mercury was already driving out, away from Borushek. She would soon be coming up on the edge of the Weimann exclusion zone, and seen from the astrolab’s dome, the jump into e-space would be a spectacle.
The last of the champagne brimmed both flutes, and Travers handed one to him. “Not quite the event I’ve been imagining, but …” He leaned over and captured Marin’s mouth with a comprehensive kiss. “How’s it feel?”
“Being handfasted?” Marin guessed. He pulled out a chair, sat, and considered Travers with a wry smile. “It feels very good. Very right. We’ll be in e-space before I can tackle the financial business, but I can do it from Ulrand just as easily.”
“It’s not important,” Travers began.
“It is to me.” Marin’s left hand wandered through the blue-green mist of the threedee; a flock of menus whisked by, and not far away the big motors began to drive the deepscan platform. “I put my life on the line a hundred times on Mark’s business, and if I don’t get my affairs in order, under Jagrethean law the accounts revert to the state five years after I vanish! If we’ve both been reduced to a couple of memorials on some honor wall in a garden of remembrance, I’d rather see the money supporting the new Resalq colonies than being siphoned off to build an extra wing on the governor’s residence and put the latest model luxury spaceplane in a senator’s garage!”
“You make a good argument.” Travers was watching the stars drift through the armorglass dome as the Mercury made its way to the jump point.
“And … there. Done.” Marin sat back from the threedee and picked up his glass. “The stars of home?”
In the display, the yellow G2 star of Darwin’s world was framed among its near neighbors, in constellations Travers had to recognize. He had grown up under those skies. Marin watched the expression of surprise and delight, and when Travers leaned down to kiss he was pleased to tip back his head and take everything Neil had to offer.
The vibration through the deck alerted them both to the power surge just ahead of the Weimann transition. Travers lifted his head to watch the heavens swim into blue and mauve while the stars shifted red and streaked like fireflies. The sight was magnificent, and rarely seen since the days of Ernst Rabelais himself, when the splendor was still appreciated.
Even Fleet pilots rarely saw this, since the ignition protocols closed armor shielding over the forward viewports on military and industrial ships. The astrolab dome was cocooned within interlaced Arago screens but not physically armored. It was left viable as the ultimate fallback. If every instrument on the ship were destroyed, the naked human eye could still take visual sightings for rough navigation.
“Pretty,” Travers decided. “Why did we never do this before?”
“No reason to.” Marin stood, wanting Neil’s embrace and getting it. “It’s just same old, same old. The magic of it went away long before we were born. People used to wax rhapsodic about this, the way they still do about windjammers – the way you do about iceboat sailing.” He looked into the threedee, where the last realtime image of the stars of Travers’s youth was frozen. “You can show me all this.”
“I will,” Travers promised. His embrace tested Marin’s ribs for a moment before he took a long draught of the priceless champagne, and set his lips on Marin’s to share it.
Chapter Thirteen
Ulrand
“So where’s the boss?” Roark Hubler asked, between bites of seafood lasagne. “I thought the pair of you would be shadowing him.”
They were in the Skye High, the bar and grill at the extreme tip of the transit platform, with a view of half of Ulrand, where Marak City sweltered in the afternoon heat two hundred kilometers below. The platform extended back, up and down in every axis, and the docking rink was busy. Since the battle it had been a crush of Freespacers, many of whom had staked salvage claims on the wrecked Fleet hulls.
The Mercury was docked not far away, up in the arching superstructure. When she entered the system, Shapiro had not identified as a Fleet vessel. She came in simply as an independent with Borushek registration. The Harlequin was still at its berth, down below, where the maintenance facilities had easier access.
Asako Rodman was satisfied with the work still being finished by a crew of drones as she and Hubler joined Travers and Marin in the Skye High. Hubler commandeered a table with a view, in a wing of the bar where the decor was a peculiar mix of tartan and antique technology, heather and cheap plastex reproductions of famous Resalq relics.
“The boss,” Travers said with some amusement, “is sitting in the penthouse suite at the Marak Santorini, with his secretary right beside him and four young guns from Bravo Company outside the door.” Satisfied with the security detail, Travers was content to relax. “They’re only waiting to take delivery, pay the bill, and they’re coming right back up.”
The bar was busy with a diverse crowd of locals and Freespacers. The only people in any way connected with Fleet were sitting at this one table, just inside the vast armorglass observation windows. Rodman had hung her jacket over the back of the chair and was working on a third Black Russian. Hubler was drinking dark ale while Travers and Marin opted for Irish coffee and listened to the comm.
The feed from the Mercury was a soft whisper in the background, and the feed from the penthouse suite at the Santorini had been silent for an hour. With any luck, Travers thought, Shapiro and Kim would have grasped the opportunity offered by peace, quiet and tight security. There would be no better time for intimacy.
“They tell you how long?” Rodman wondered.
“Before we can expect Rutherford to be wheeled out in shackles and handed over?” Marin leaned over the table and teased a breadstick from the basket. “They didn’t say anything about when. Some major official from the Ulrish government stated the price, Shapiro told her it was a done deal, and Neil and I are in a holding pattern, until the authorities file the papers. The fee was delivered an hour ago, in gelemeralds, from Shapiro’s own hand.”
“Twenty-five million Confederate credits’ worth.” Rodman whistled. “That’s a lot of cash. What’s it make in Ulrish dollars, two or three billion?” Her brows rose, creasing her forehead. “You don’t ever think of just vanishing into Freespace and carving out an empire of your own?”
But Marin only smiled. “Not this year. It’s a zoo, right across the frontier.” He broke the breadstick into three pieces and dunked one in the sweet chili dip. “You guys signed with Shapiro. You’re talking deals with Richard Vaurien. You’re not thinking about cutting and running –?”
“Now, would we do that?” Rodman demanded fatuously.
“I don’t know. Would you?” Travers was frowning at Hubler. “You’ve got a good thing going.”
“And I’ve got enough brain cells left to know it.” Hubler swabbed the last of the sauce out of his bowl with the last wedge of garlic bread. “I’m waiting for my legs, Travers. Shapiro owes me that much.”
“You’ll get them.” Marin gestured over his shoulder and up, toward the high boom where the Mercury was docked. “After the scene on Velcastra, everything they could jimmy out of the whole Borushek facility was loaded aboard. There’s a tank with your name on it, in the medlab. Back in Sark, it’s just the AI minding the store … and right about now all hell will be busting loose.”
Because Harrison Shapiro had vanished. The news he had paid a high price for Rutherford would race back to agencies answerable to Earth, but due to the data lag he was far beyond their reach. They could only construct a case, try and sentence him in absentia. The warrants for his arrest would probably remain in force in from the Middle Heavens right back to Earth itself for the rest of Shapiro’s life.
There might always be a security risk surrounding him, Travers mused. The probability of agents trying to abduct him to attend a show trial in ten or twenty years was
very real. But as the man who had almost singlehandedly wrought liberty for the Deep Sky, Shapiro could expect to be guarded jealously on any Commonwealth world.
The tale of the scenes on Velcastra had not surprised Hubler and Rodman. Travers and Marin told it by turns, and Hubler’s face settled into bitter lines. Cynicism was an occupational hazard. Rodman’s only remark was that she wished they could have been there – they had missed a good fight. A heavily edited version of the data from the Hunan system was told in soft, confidential tones, and now Rodman swore softly while Hubler’s big hands clenched on the table.
“Shit,” he murmured. “It’s happening, isn’t it? Damn! I wish Mick was here to see this.”
Travers finished his coffee and waved to their waiter with gestures for another. “So do we. He was a good friend.”
“You know what burns me up?” Hubler said to no one in particular. “It’s knowing the Orpheus was surfing on some stable temporal current, or a gravity tide, or whatever the hell it is, and he’s still out there somewhere. Tully Ingersol put the whole thing into words of one syllable for the likes of me, over a slab of beer.”
“But,” Rodman added pointedly, “the way the time currents run at different rates inside the Drift, accelerated rates, he could be fifty years in the future by now. A hundred. He’s still out there, but there’s no way to know when, much less where – even if you could reach him, which you can’t. Leave it alone, babe.”
The subject was sharply painful, and Travers changed tracks while Hubler was still frowning over it. “So the Harlequin’s shipping out soon? Where to?”
