Firmament: Machiavellian

by J. Grace Pennington

  I bit my lip. “But Doctor…”

  He waited, eyes piercing mine with their gaze. The look seemed to push against my tide of frustration, and inject it with a creeping sense of guilt.

  I sighed. “Never mind.”

  He reached across and touched my hand. “Andi, are you all right? You haven’t been yourself.”

  He was right. I hadn’t. I shook my head, started to say, “I’m just tired,” and changed my mind. “I don’t know.”

  He frowned, and closed his fingers gently around mine. “Are you still confused about the mission? About Trent’s position?”

  I shrugged, then looked up at him, meeting his eyes more readily.

  He gave me his trademark half-smile. “Andi… I know you feel sorry for the people of Kainus Ge. I know you cared about Elasson, and that little girl. I care about them, too.”

  I smiled, getting used to the pressure of his calloused hand on mine.

  “But,” he went on, smile vanishing, “however much I want to help them, I can’t disobey the rules we all swore to when we signed onto the ship. I can’t do it, Andi. No one should.”

  “But Doctor, how else can we help them?” I felt the muscles of my fingers tighten beneath his, but he didn’t move his hand.

  “Andi, we cannot do evil that good may come. What would you say if the only way to save the people of Kainus Ge was for me to kill one of the members of the crew?”

  My eyes widened, and I shivered. “But Doctor, that wouldn’t…”

  “Just suppose.”

  “Well… that’s wrong,” I protested, feeling contradictory, but not knowing why.

  “And breaking the law, as well as one’s word, isn’t?”

  “But…” I fished for thoughts and the words to express them. “But that’s different—this isn’t… we wouldn’t hurt anyone. We wouldn’t—”

  “Sin is sin.”

  He said it so seriously. And it was a serious word, “sin.” Sin, the transgression of the law of God.

  Quietly, he repeated his earlier words. “We must not do evil that good may come.”

  “But… Doctor, sin is breaking God’s law. The law about the galactic center is just a man-made law. That’s different, isn’t it? Didn’t Jesus break the laws of the Jews?”

  “Maybe, but when did He promise to abide by their rules and then go behind their backs to break them?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, and after a moment he continued.

  “It’s more about our oaths. All officers on the Surveyor have sworn to obey ISA. We can’t just throw that away. And this isn’t the only way. Why couldn’t we ask permission from ISA?”

  “You heard him say why. It would take too long.”

  “Well, Kainus Ge has survived for hundreds of years. It can survive a few more months.”

  “But some of them could die!” I cried.

  A soft snore from a few meters away reminded me of August’s sleeping presence, and I lowered my eyes to my lap, where my hand was covered by the Doctor’s.

  He squeezed gently, and we sat quietly for a moment. My heart beat more slowly, only slightly out of sync with August’s EKG.

  “Is this really about Elasson, Andi?” the Doctor asked softly.

  I didn’t reply.

  He squeezed more tightly, then pulled his hand away. “There are other ways. If Trent was really determined, he could resign and get a non-ISA-affiliated vessel. That would be legal.”

  But it would still take too long.

  When I didn’t answer for a moment, he stood up. “I’m sorry, Andi. I should have talked to you about Elasson before now.”

  “It’s not just about him,” I insisted, raising my eyes to his.

  He half-smiled again. “I know.” He paused, then straightened up and spoke in his normal sardonic tone. “I’m ordering you to get some rest. I’ll look after August for awhile. You go on. Try to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired—” I protested, but he interrupted firmly.

  “Yes you are. I’m the doctor, I’ll tell you what you need.” The words were accompanied by a playful smile, and I couldn’t help smiling back, despite the lingering weight on my heart.

  “Thank you, Dad. I’ll try.”

  I stood up, and he stepped forward and quickly wrapped his arms around me. He never initiated hugs, and the thoughtfulness of the gesture made me melt inside. Tears flowed from my eyes onto his shoulder.

  He stroked my hair softly. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Andi.”

  “But Dad—” I began, feeling the now moist fabric of his coat rub against my cheek.

  “Shhh.” He gave my hair another stroke, then held me out at arms’ length by the shoulders and smiled. “I love you, Andi. You need your rest. We can talk more later, okay?”

  I dragged my jacket sleeve across my eyes and smiled. “Okay. Thank you, Dad.”

  He let go of me. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  I watched him walk towards August for a moment before I turned to walk out, realizing again how highly I valued his rare shows of affection.

  *****

  Despite my insistence that I wasn’t tired, I managed to get close to an hour of sleep, and woke up to the dinner announcement feeling groggy, but refreshed.

  As I ran a comb through my hair, working out the tangles from my nap, I smiled, remembering the Doctor’s kindness. The smile faded slightly as an image of Elasson in the desert flashed into my mind again.

  I glanced towards my dresser, where the young man’s cap still laid. Was the Doctor right? Did I really just care about Elasson, not about the whole civilization?

  No. I had felt sorry for all of them as I watched them working in the heat, giving their whole lives to provide food for their families.

  As I stepped through my cabin door, I saw Napoleon just passing with two of his men, talking earnestly and pleasantly with them. When he saw me, his cheerful face brightened. He stopped walking, said a few words to his men, and sent them away. Then he turned to me with a chivalrous bow from the waist.

  “Miss Andi!” he said. “I’m pleased to see you, very pleased indeed! I’d been hoping to talk with you.”

  “Oh?” I said, feeling my stomach tighten. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk with him, but the feeling made me feel guilty. He was a perfectly nice person, and it wasn’t his fault I’d been upset with the Doctor.

  “Yes,” he smiled, falling into step beside me as I started for the elevator. “I was hoping you would be pleased to hear that your Captain accepted my mission, but you left so soon after the briefing I didn’t have the pleasure of asking.”

  His simple, innocent smile seemed to make it impossible to respond with anything but gratitude and enthusiasm. “I’ll be interested to see what happens,” was all I could think of to say, though it fell disastrously flat.

  “Indeed!” He beamed, not seeming to notice that I’d responded with anything other than pure joy. “I have great confidence in your captain, my dear… a more capable man than I am! I’m pleased, so very pleased that our trouble put us aboard your delightful ship, truly I am.”

  I smiled, and my stomach relaxed again.

  But he frowned the next moment. “I’m not pleased that I have managed to cause trouble between your captain and his helmsman, however. Indeed, it grieves me to see two such friends quarreling.”

  I bit my lip. “Guilders is doing what he thinks is right—” I began.

  “Of course! And I respect him for such a gesture! Disagree, perhaps, but well, that is a different thing entirely! I do not like to see friends fighting in such a way. It does not please me at all.”

  I remembered Guilders’ words again, and spoke hesitantly. “Captain Holloway…”

  “Just Holloway, please.”

  I didn’t bother to address him before speaking again. “Don’t you think… Guilders might be right? I mean it’s true that it’s against the law to enter the galactic center. So should we really?”

  “There’s no danger, my
dear,” he said, smiling a kind, fatherly smile at me. “The navigation of ships has improved greatly since the early vessels, there’s really no reason for the law any longer.”

  “Oh I know,” I hastened. “I’m not afraid. I only wondered if… if it’s right.”

  “Ah.” He smiled again, the same paternal yet somehow naïve smile. “I see. I am so pleased, so very pleased to see that you are such a conscientious young woman.”

  I smiled back, but waited for him to answer my question.

  “My dear,” he said gently, “it is very right. There is no moral wrong about entering a particular place in the galaxy.”

  “But there is in breaking your word, isn’t there?”

  He stopped walking as we reached the elevator, pushed the button, and looked straight at me. “Is there?”

  “I think so,” I said, aware that I sounded anything but confident.

  “Then perhaps we shall have to disagree, Miss Lloyd.” He smiled gently as the elevator doors opened. “I see things differently.”

  We both stepped into the elevator, and he said, “B-Deck,” then glanced at me. I nodded, and the doors closed.

  “You don’t see it as wrong?” I asked as the elevator moved us upward.

  “Not if it’s done for a good cause. You have to weigh things, Miss Lloyd. There is much good that goes undone in this world because people give excuses of wrong in the way. It saddens me.” He sighed, and gazed absently at the closed doors.

  “But…” I spoke slowly, trying to sort out my thoughts. “Should we really do evil that good may come?”

  He looked at me, still smiling. “You are a Christian, yes?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I recognized the quote. I respect your religion very much. Doesn’t your law and your God say that killing is wrong?”

  “Yes,” I spoke up unhesitatingly.

  “And yet you say that killing to protect someone else is acceptable.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Yes, I’d always heard that killing in self-defense was acceptable—and yet it did say “thou shalt not kill.”

  The confusion began to weigh down my heart again.

  He smiled again. “I see that you have much to learn about life, Miss Lloyd. It will come for you. You are young, you are still learning to see the world through the eyes of an adult. Your perceptiveness and your compassion… they will guide you.”

  How was I to answer that? He wasn’t a Christian—he had intimated that. But…

  “I must go to the bridge.” He nodded a little bow to me as the elevator doors opened. “Your captain has honored me by choosing my pilot for the position of temporary helmsman, and I am on my way to help install him. I am pleased, very pleased to be able to help.”

  Showing his perfect teeth in yet another smile, he stepped out the metal doors, turned the corner, and disappeared down the hall.

  Chapter XIV

  The mess hall was bustling by the time I arrived, and I wandered through the tables until I found a small, round, empty one in a corner far from the snack bar, and I sat there alone, trying to sort through my thoughts.

  What the Doctor said made sense, and what Napoleon said made sense too. If it was all right to do something wrong in order to do something right, then how could we tell where to draw the line?

  Or was there any line?

  The constant buzz of conversation around me made it hard to think, especially when my ears kept picking up disjointed words and sudden laughter. A kitchen assistant set a tray down in front of me, and I nodded my thanks and picked up the sandwich. I bit into it a little too fiercely.

  There was no reason for me to be worrying about this, anyway. The Captain’s decision was his own, and was no business of mine.

  I should focus on my own responsibilities. Like August. Taking care of August; and trying to figure out what happened to him.

  Since I only knew a small amount of information about the life support systems, and thus had little or no idea of what to look for, it was probably best to talk to McMillan and ask him what he thought. I glanced around the room, but couldn’t see him from where I sat.

  I hurried to finish, wiped my mouth, and stood up. I looked around the room again, and this time I saw the engineer sitting with Olive at a table in the opposite corner.

  I started towards them, glad that Olive was there. I hadn’t known her long, but I still knew her better than I knew her husband, and her presence should help the questioning process.

  “Hello,” I smiled when I came alongside their table.

  “Andi!” Olive chirped, while her husband nodded at me. She gestured to a seat next to her. “Sit down! How is your brother doing? Any better?”

  I sat where she’d indicated and nodded. “Yes, he’s feeling better. He needs his rest, and we’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened, but he’ll be all right.”

  She bobbed her head, bouncing her dark hair around her shoulders.

  I cleared my throat. “Actually… that was what I came to ask about.”

  “Oh?” She sipped her drink.

  I turned towards McMillan. “The Doctor and I suspect that the life support in his room may have been tampered with.”

  McMillan frowned.

  Olive set her glass down. “I told you about that, Mac. His blood pressure was high, but his oxygen was low.”

  He shook his head, and twisted his lips as he looked at me. Olive tapped her fingers.

  “It’s definitely possible,” he said at last. “As for being able to tell… I’d have to think about that.”

  I tried in vain to read his face as he went on thinking.

  “Mac.” Olive bumped his broad shoulder with her slender arm. “Can you do it or not?” She rolled her eyes in my direction. “He’s not an easy one to draw out. Don’t worry, I’m working on him.”

  “I’m just thinking about it, honey,” he replied, not seeming even slightly annoyed. “I don’t want to say I can do it if I can’t.”

  I couldn’t help a laugh.

  He spoke again, slowly. “Normally we could check the security footage, but the security systems in engineering have been glitching. I think I can check the security files on that deck and find out if anyone changed the systems in his room… if it was a malfunction, something will show up, but…” He lapsed into silence.

  “But what?” His wife nudged him again.

  “Well, I was just thinking that if someone did adjust the system on purpose—though I don’t know why anyone would—someone who had the ability to do that would probably also have the ability to cover their tracks.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “You think it could just be a malfunction?”

  He shrugged, finished his last bite, and stood up, scooting his chair out. “I suppose it’s possible—though if it were, I should have been alerted. But I can look into it. I’ll tell you if I find anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “No problem,” he replied, and left.

  I sat silently for a moment after he’d gone. Olive laid a hand on my arm, and her flowery perfume lilted my senses. “I can’t imagine anyone did it on purpose.” She smiled.

  I tried to smile back. “I don’t know why they would, but—”

  “Here, let’s get to sickbay,” she said, standing up. “I’m sure the Doctor could use a break right about now.”

  “Yes. I’m sure he could.” I stood up and let her loop her arm through mine and walk me out of the room, but my mind was elsewhere.

  A thought had been edging its way from the back of my mind all afternoon, a thought I’d been pushing away. But I couldn’t help noticing that August’s inability and Guilders’ resignation opened up the way pretty nicely for Napoleon’s pilot to have control of the ship’s navigation.

  But the same difficulty kept combating the idea. Why? Why would he care? Yes, Napoleon wanted to help the people of Kainus Ge, but that hardly seemed like a strong enough reason to want to sabotage and hurt people, especial
ly when he hadn’t even seen the planet himself.

  And I still couldn’t reconcile the idea of deviousness or pain-causing with the cheerful, chivalrous little captain.

  When we reached sickbay, the Doctor was standing on the other side of the room next to August’s bed.

  “You didn’t feel anything unusual yesterday? Extra fatigue, lightheadedness, anything like that?”

  August shook his head, then looked beyond the Doctor at Olive and I.

  The Doctor turned and saw us. “Did you get some rest?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Yes sir.” I slipped my arm out of Olive’s and stepped towards the Doctor. Lowering my voice, I said, “McMillan is checking to see if he can find out whether there could have been a malfunction with the life support in August’s room, or if someone could have tampered with it.”

  The Doctor nodded. “Good. I’m going to dinner then, if you ladies will be staying here.”

  “We’ve eaten, Doctor,” Olive assured. “Go right ahead.”

  He brushed my arm as he walked away, and I smiled. Dear Doctor. And to think I’d been worried that Olive’s addition to the medical staff would endanger my place at his side. Instead, she had freed us up to be able to spend more time together, and the extra help let him relax more than he had in years.

  “Andi?”

  I turned to see August sitting up slightly, leaning back on his elbows. His color was more normal, though still pale, and his eyes were more alert.

  I walked towards him, and Olive went to update his report. As I sat down next to his cot I glanced at his EKG. It peaked and valleyed at a normal, stable rate.

  “Yes?” I leaned towards him. “You feeling alright?”

  He nodded. “Your dad told me about the mission.”

  My smile faded. “I suppose he told you about Guilders?”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed, and looked down at my hands. “I don’t know what to think, August…”

  My wristcom beeped and I answered it, not taking the time to excuse myself to August. “Andi Lloyd.”

  “Miss Lloyd?” It sounded like McMillan. “I have something to report in engineering. I don’t know…”