by Mel Keegan
Among the group making its way through the short passage of the docking adaptor, Shapiro alone wore Fleet insignia, and he seemed either resigned or comfortable about the role of military negotiator. Perhaps, Travers thought, he was keenly aware that most of his power had been stripped away. Harrison Shapiro was a fugitive now; the Mercury would certainly have been listed as hijacked, stolen.
The ship and crew would be high on Fleet’s wanted list, and anywhere but on this deck, the authority Shapiro had commanded was gone. He was down to logic, strategy, even personality, the same qualities which made an individual into a leader among Freespacers. For some perverse reason, Travers found himself respecting the man more than ever.
The general went ahead, but Jon Kim held back. His voice was a bare murmur, well under the comm pickups, as he leaned closer to Travers. “You know what’s at stake as well as we all do.” His eyes were on Shapiro’s back. “Harry wants you aboard.”
“I’m sure he does,” Travers said softly. “We’ll let you know, Jon.”
“You mean, you still don’t know where you’re going?” Kim’s eyes widened in the dimness of the docking rings.
“And, do you?” Marin wondered.
“Of course.” Kim seemed amused at himself, and nodded at Shapiro. “I’m going wherever he goes. There – simple enough for you?”
Marin chuckled. “I could wish all decisions were so clear cut!”
The very sound of the Wastrel, the smell, the feel of her, was like balm on raw nerves. To Travers, she had been the only real home he had known since he left Darwin’s World. Time and again, Richard had said, ‘Get out of Fleet, walk away, good things can happen for you.’ And Neil had begun to ask himself why he had always refused Vaurien’s offer and gone back.
It was 19:45 shiptime. The lights were low, the air was rich with the aromas of dinner issuing from several autochefs in the forward mess, and Travers was very glad to be back. He heard Vaurien’s voice, and quickened his pace. Just ahead of Marin, he stepped into the cream and amber light flooding the long tables, which had been laid for a formal dinner with white linen, pale blue china, fresh flowers from the hydroponics labs. The contrapuntal harmonies of Bevan Daku murmured from the comm, over the subtle chink of glasses and decanters.
In a deep russet shirt and black slacks, with the long red hair loose on his shoulders, Richard looked tired, stressed, yet he was smiling. Barb Jazinsky was pouring cognac, and handed him a second as Travers led the group into the mess. She was in emerald green skinthins with a pale gold wrap about the hips and a lot of platinum jewelry on both wrists. The white-blond mane was tamed into a coil on one shoulder, and like Vaurien she was smudged with fatigue, tight lipped with the strain they had lived and worked with for too long.
“Neil.” Vaurien opened his arms, embraced Travers, kissed his cheek in greeting, before he gave his hand to Marin. “Welcome back. And you’re not a moment too soon. You saw Lai’a, on your way in? They’re installing the hyper-Weimann module in about an hour, and then we go hunting.”
“Hunting?” Shapiro took Vaurien’s hand, clasped his wrist. “My gods, Richard, you look like I feel! The pair of us need our brains examined. We’re too old for this.”
“Tell me about it,” Vaurien growled, and then mocked himself with a grin. “Hunting,” he said expansively, “for an event. A Class Seven. We’ll stand by Lai’a until we find what we want, and then Lai’a goes in.”
“Damn.” Travers felt a shiver, the length of his spine. “And then, what?”
“Then,” Mark Sherratt’s voice said from the passage right outside, “we wait for it to find its way out, exit Elarne via a similar event, and make its way back to Alshie’nya with a report. This is what Lai’a was created for. Have a little faith, Neil.”
“Mark.” There was a faint tremor in Marin’s voice, as if he did not trust himself fully to speak, and when Sherratt offered an embrace he took it, held him more tightly, and for longer, than might have been proper in the elegant company. No one seemed to notice, or to mind. At last Marin caught hold of himself, pushed away from the big Resalq, and ducked his head in apology. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Mark touched his face lightly. “We all feel it. The need to choose a path, right here, right now.”
“Even you?” Travers gave both his hands to Sherratt.
“Especially me.” From somewhere Mark produced a crooked smile. “Dario and Tor are packing their equipment, ready to shuttle it over to the habitation module, as soon as Lai’a is back and safe, with the hard data we need from the inside of Elarne.” His brows rose as he looked down into Marin’s face. “They’ve asked Leon to go, and I know he can’t resist … few Resalq could. Leon and Roy are thrashing out for themselves where they’ll be. I’ve offered Roy a place on the Carellan Djerun, if he chooses not to fly with Leon, but –”
“But he won’t take it,” Jon Kim said softly. “If Leon goes with Lai’a, Roy will go with him.” He was looking levelly at Shapiro as he spoke.
Travers saw the flicker pass across Shapiro’s face, a little honest gratitude, a little reproach, as if they had debated this in private for some time, and Shapiro might have preferred Kim out of harm’s way. Kim would have none of it.
The cognac was very expensive. The bottles were black glass with scarlet labels, and Travers recognized them. Robert Chandra Liang had stocked the Playford’s, a lifetime ago, when Travers had spent some months living on StarCity, working in the mansion. Perhaps Chandra Liang recalled those days, but tonight he touched the rim of his glass to Travers’s and the social gulf between them seemed to have closed. Even Madame Deuel, whose social standing as the daughter of an ex-colonial governor should have set her far above the others, seemed to have set aside every vestige of the old order. She stood with her arm linked through Chandra Liang’s, close to him, and Travers was not surprised to notice that they wore matching rings again.
“The data we all need,” Mark was saying, “is going to come right out of Elarne with Lai’a. I know what I believe to be the facts, and between us, Barb and I can brief you as completely as possible before the test flight. There is,” he admitted, “a faint chance –”
“Very faint,” Jazinsky retorted
“—we’re wrong in our assumptions. In which case we’ll need to redraw certain plans, based on the data return from Lai’a,” Mark finished. “However, Barb is quite right. The chances of our work being inaccurate are around one in ten thousand.”
“In other words,” Chandra Liang mused, “even without a test flight, you’d be happy to put yourself into the habitation module aboard Lai’a and launch yourself into the wake of the Orpheus, through the jaws of a Class Seven event, into the bowels of Elarne.”
“In the wake of the Orpheus … it has the sound of epic poetry, epic myth. I like it.” The voice belonged at Alexis Rusch, and Travers turned toward it, surprised and delighted. She was smiling as she stepped into the mess, tall, slender and elegant in the gull-gray dress uniform, the only overtly military figure in the company. She gave her hand to Shapiro, and then to Chandra Liang, and smiled at Travers and Marin. “Harrison, it’s good to be here. And Bobby, you look marvelous. I don’t know how you do it.”
Chandra Liang leaned over, kissed both her cheeks. “Allie, you have no idea. The truth is, my belly’s full of armor-plated butterflies and I break out in a cold sweat every time I think about what we’re doing. Dear gods! Velcastra is on a system-wide alert right now, and the Chicago can’t be more than a week away.” He squeezed shut his eyes. “If I look calm, it’s the result of thirty years’ discipline in the political arena.”
“The Chicago.” Rusch took a cognac from Vaurien’s hand and saluted the whole company with it. “It’s Allan Bronhill and Valerie Sung I can’t comprehend. Captain and XO of that damned ship. I’ve known them both a long time – they’re scientists, no less than myself. Yet they’ve taken some ludicrous, homicidal Confederate order to come out here and obliterate whole popula
tions. It makes me sick to my gut, as well as confused.”
“When did you get in?” Marin asked as he examined the bar, looking for a light wine. “You’ve been here, in Alshie’nya, before?”
But Rusch’s dark head shook. “I’m not officially here now. According to the record – and it was easy to fudge! – I’m on a courier, on my way to Velcastra for medical treatment beyond the care available on the blockade. The diagnosis is … dire, and since I’ll probably fall off the perch, I choose to expire at home in the bosom of friends and family.” She made a face. “My CMO is Daku, like so many colonials.” She frowned at the ankh on Chandra Liang’s breast as she spoke. “Like Mick. Most of the command corps on the Kiev has colonial sympathies – which is why I’m here.”
“There’s no safer place in the Deep Sky than Alshie’nya,” Shapiro said darkly, “which is a sad commentary. So, Alexis.”
“So, Harrison.” She drained the cognac and handed the glass to Marin, who was between her and the bar. “Yes, my command corps will follow me, if and when push comes to shove. Christ! I know the Omaru system is being seeded with Zunshu mines, like Velcastra, like Borushek and Jagreth! Put the Kiev onto the battle lines, and she’ll be gone like that.” She snapped her fingers, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “The way the Chicago is going to be gone, and the London, and five thousands souls with them.” She shook herself visibly. “I’d pull the Kiev out on the pretext of battlefield oversight, and we’d watch the capital ships go down. Most of my command corps would agree. There’s only three hardline Earthers among them, and they can easily be in custody. They could,” she added with bitter cynicism, “just as easily become statistics.”
“And the Kiev?” Travers asked quietly.
“Will be there to stand between the London and Omaru, if needs be, when the time comes,” Rusch said with clinical matter of factness.
“It won’t have to.” Shapiro gestured for a glass of wine, which Marin poured and handed across. “The London will be deployed to Jagreth. This is how it was decided, Alexis. Rob Prendergast will make his sovereign territory statement at the opportune instant, and the London battle group will fly into the teeth of a Zunshu minefield. They’ll share the fate of the Chicago battle group at Velcastra. The Kiev will be the last super-carrier in the Deep Sky, and your command corps will be given every chance to make an honorable capitulation, in the face of insuperable opposition, and in the interests of preserving the lives of a conscript crew drawn largely from Middle Heavens homeworlds. You’ll be applauded as a hero, Alexis.”
“I wonder,” Rusch whispered. “I do wonder.” And then she set aside the weight of misgivings and gave Mark Sherratt a grim smile. “I’m here for two reasons, and the second is less political and far more interesting! I’m here for the briefing from Doctors Sherratt and Jazinsky.”
“And to make the same decision as the rest of us,” Marin added.
“Yes.” Rusch was looking at the ankh again. “In the wake of the Orpheus. The sound of epic myth, as I said. Michael would have loved it. He wouldn’t have been able to resist, and how could I? He was always the pilot, not me, but he was never a physicist. Just the romantic who saw the grand adventure of vast seas and unknown countries beyond far horizons.” She shared a faint smile with Jazinsky. “Research into temporo-gravitic anomalies is the whole reason I got myself into the service. It was the only way to get into Hellgate – follow in the path of my illustrious ancestor.”
Jazinsky raised a wine glass in toast. “To Ernst Rabelais, wherever and whenever he is. All of us follow the track he laid down.” She drank, and gestured at the trio of ’chefs. “I’m starving. What happened to the rest of them?”
The rest? Travers’s brows rose, but Marin only shrugged, and it was Mark who said, “I’ll see if I can round them up. Give me five minutes, and if I’m not back – start without us.”
He had stepped out, headed aft in the direction of the Wastrel’s plush accommodations, when Teniko and Ingersol appeared. Tully had put on white slacks and a baggy gray sweater which slipped elegantly off one shoulder, very chic in Elstrom City this year. Gold gleamed in both his ears, and his eyes glittered with anger. He and Teniko had been arguing until the moment they stepped in, and both were still furious. Tonio was in black, head to foot, not a piece of jewelry nor a hint of color to break up the somberness. He might have been headed for a funeral – save that he was dozy with the drugs. To Travers’s eyes he looked doped to the ears, with the dilated pupils and slightly slack mouth of some chronic addiction.
A step inside the mess, he and Ingersol parted company. Tully cut a line to Vaurien and Jazinsky, and Travers watched him talking in an undertone rasp punctuated by angry gestures. Teniko headed to the bar, where he helped himself to a double vodka, and then another, when Travers would have been prepared to wager that alcohol on top of the drug was not a wise idea.
No one challenged Teniko. Vaurien had turned his back on the younger man, though Tonio remained stubbornly intent on Richard. His too-dark eyes smoldered on Vaurien, ate him alive, and Travers wondered if Richard were aware of Teniko’s obsession. The tense set of his shoulders said he was.
The light Australian voice of Bill Grant spoke from the passage, in the direction of the staterooms, and Travers began to listen. He heard Roy Arlott a moment later, and then a voice which surprised him. Marin murmured in surprise. “He’s here? What would he be doing here?”
Midani Kulich was the last Resalq they had expected to see, but he stepped into the mess with Arlott and Leon Sherratt, and a pace ahead of Dario and Tor. He was dressed in marble denims, an oversize bronze silk shirt which disguised his body morphology, and only the hairless skull which was clearly different, and the double-thumbed hands, set him apart from the modern, reengineered Resalq. He was deeply in conference with Dario and Tor, while Mark hovered behind them, listening with a frown. Travers caught a few syllables of the most abstruse calculus, and gave his attention to Leon and Roy instead.
“Good to see you,” Leon was saying. “They told you?”
“About what?” Marin handed him a glass of the driest, most acid wine the bar offered – the best suited to the odd Resalq palate.
“They’re installing the hyper-Weimann module,” Ingersol said tersely, “right bloody now.” He was waiting for Kulich, with a handy pre-loaded with their work. “That’s what Midani’s doing here.”
“I didn’t know he was an engineer,” Travers began.
“He was a maintenance tech,” Roy told him, “before he was dragooned into the front lines out of necessity. Midani’s not a soldier by nature, unlike Emil.”
The name made Leon groan, and Marin chuckled. “I suppose he’ll be along in a minute or two. Is he any easier to get along with?”
But it was Mark who answered, from the business side of the bar where he was reading cognac labels. “Emil is on the Freyana, still at Saraine. She’s stocking and fitting for a long-duration flight right now.” His brows arched, and he lifted a brandy balloon in salute. “Here’s to the explorers. They’re headed out in a week, perhaps ten days, following the routes charted by our last expedition. Six weeks out from Borushek, on a heading more or less for Orion 359, there’s a world that needs a bare minimum of terraforming.”
Travers whistled softly. “That’s off the charts – human charts, I mean.”
“And Orion 359 is bad news,” Marin observed. “It was the first and only hotspot of Zunshu activity your ship was able to find, in years of hunting off the charts.”
“Correct,” Mark affirmed. “But the planet the Freyana is headed for first, to drop off a science and terraforming colony, is something like twenty months’ flight time short of Orion 359. The Zunshu are certainly out there, on that heading, but the nearest big, dirty black hole system of any significance is too distant to put us in any jeopardy. Without their gravity express, the Zunshu don’t seem to be able to drop in uninvited. I’m not concerned for the science colony.”
Still, his f
ace was taut and Marin said quietly, “Then what has you anxious, Mark? The Freyana itself? She’s old – is she spaceworthy?
“Hm?” Mark stirred with an effort. “Oh, yes. She’s been fully flight-rated, and at worst she might become a salvage job. In the event of major problems, the Wastrel would stand by her, manufacture what she needed. Tully Ingersol,” he added darkly, “is taking command of this ship.”
For a moment the sense of what he had said did not impress itself on Travers, and then a chill rushed through him. “Richard’s leaving?”
The Resalq’s golden eyes widened. “Richard and Barb have decided to commit to Lai’a. I was surprised, but I also believe the expedition’s chance of success just doubled when they came aboard. Barb has the best human mind in the Deep Sky, and that includes Teniko on a good day! And I wouldn’t trust anyone but Richard to command this mission. I can’t even imagine having the human contingent aboard Lai’a under the command of anyone else.”
“Who seduced him into signing aboard?” Travers was looking at Shapiro, who had just pulled out a chair and settled between Kim and Alexis Rusch.
Mark chuckled softly, but it was not a sound of humor. “I’m afraid to say, I’m your culprit, Neil. The truth is, the expedition needs the best commander as much as it needs the best hyper-Weimann specialist … and if Dario and Leon are going to be aboard, obviously I want to buy them the best chance they have of coming back.” His face was grave. “The company is coming together, the engine module will be installed in Lai’a while we’re having dinner, and then we’re chasing a big storm. Lai’a will perform its test flight as soon as we’ve found a Class Seven event to act as its gateway into Elarne.”
“The company,” Marin echoed. “Shapiro’s going. When the time comes to look the Zunshu high command in the face and have it out with them, he’ll be the one speaking with the voice of this species, and I don’t envy him. Jon goes where he goes. Richard will be commanding, and Barb will head the science team. You have Dario and Tor wrangling Zunshu hardware – cryptocybernetics! I suppose Leon would be along because this has to be the pinnacle of a lifetime’s work, hunting down Zunshu tech wherever he could find it. And where he goes, you’ll find Roy.”
