Nimbus

by Jacey Bedford

  “I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t.”

  Cara dropped the empty ration packs in the recycler and strapped into her chair for takeoff. Though there were systems and comms stations on the Bellatkin, she was designed so one person could fly and navigate. The retrofitted jump drive made things slightly more complicated, but they had to be a considerable distance from the planet before they activated it, hence the journey time. The trip through the Folds would take minutes, though it always felt longer. Most of the journey time was acceleration away from Dounreay and deceleration from the jump point inward to Crossways.

  *Hey, Ben.* She reached out across several billion klicks of space and found him drowsy.

  *Cara.* The warmth he put into that one word made her shiver in parts of her anatomy she’d been ignoring as best she could. *We’re coming home.*

  *I’ve missed you.*

  She shivered. *Jake says about fourteen hours.*

  *I’ll take the afternoon off. Boss’ privilege.*

  She laughed, anticipating the homecoming. *How’s it going?*

  *Remarkably well. Garrick is having the power grid strengthened. It’s a miracle how fast contractors can work when they’re paid in pure platinum. Wenna says hello, and to get your arse into the comms chair.*

  *I will, very soon, though maybe not this afternoon.*

  *Quite right, too.*

  *How is Garrick?*

  *Mother Ramona says he’s fine. He says he’s fine, but I’m not sure. He went through a lot. I’d be surprised if he was over it completely. Hell, I’m still having bad dreams about foldspace and I’ve been trained to deal with it.*

  *Are he and Mother Ramona still planning—*

  *To tie the knot. Yes. They think it will show the good folks of Crossways that the worst is over. We’re all invited, of course.*

  *That’s a good thing, don’t you think?*

  *That we’re invited?*

  *That they’re committing to each other. I mean, we all thought that it was a union of convenience, but it’s obvious they’re dotty about each other.*

  *Dotty?*

  *You know what I mean.*

  She felt him smile. *Of course I do. I’m dotty about you. We could—*

  *Let’s think about it later.*

  *Sure.*

  Did she want to make their relationship official? Would it make a difference?

  He accepted her put-off without missing a beat. Cara had never been all that good at reading Ben Benjamin despite being an Empath. Maybe he was offering because he thought she expected it. Maybe he was relieved she’d said no. Or maybe he was all chewed up inside because he thought she didn’t want to commit.

  *I’m dotty about you just the way you are,* she said.

  *Dotty?*

  *Totally.*

  She thought she felt him smiling.

  *See you soon. Travel safe.*

  *You can sack Jake Lowenbrun if he loses us in the Folds.*

  *Don’t even think about it.* She felt his smile evaporate. Disappearing into the Folds and not coming out the other side was the way his parents had died. She shouldn’t have made a joke about it, not after discovering there was life of sorts in that other dimension—that the visions of strange creatures were not hallucinations.

  *We’ll be fine. Jake’s a good Navigator.*

  *One of the best.*

  She thought about saying: “What could possibly go wrong?” but decided against it. Instead, she sent him the equivalent of a kiss and signed off, then sank into her chair, suddenly weary. Too much dust, too much osteena, and not even time to spend a single night in a real bed.

  “Wake me when we get home,” she said, tilting her seat into the recline position.

  “You want me to warn you when we’re about to make the jump to foldspace?” Jake asked.

  “Not unless you need me to do anything.”

  “You can warn me,” Jussaro said from the other crew chair. “Carlinni might be blasé about jumping through the hereafter, but I’d rather go into it with my eyes open.”

  Cara closed her eyes and let her mind wander. Talking to Ben had reminded her that she’d soon be getting back to station duties, taking turns manning long-range comms and generally filling a go-anywhere-do-anything brief.

  She heard Jake telling Jussaro to prepare himself for foldspace in three . . . two . . . one. She was taking a breath to tell him she’d wanted to sleep through it when reality changed with a lurch.

  • • •

  Time doesn’t behave itself in foldspace. It isn’t like real objective time, it’s more like an elastic band that stretches and stretches and stretches . . . then snaps with a twang and curls round itself. Yes, Cara knows there’s no such thing as time if you ask a physicist, but humans are used to the subjective passing of seconds, minutes, and hours. In this strange dimension, however, it doesn’t flow straight. It whirls and eddies. She can’t even hear her own heartbeat or find her pulse. The handpad that registers her lifespan in subjective time doesn’t always register elapsed time in foldspace even though sequences of events happen or are perceived to happen.

  Cara couldn’t see void dragons at first, but she can see them now. They aren’t dragons, of course; they are creatures from another dimension. They must have rifled through a human mind, once, and stolen the most fearsome image they could find from some dark recess. There’s no telling what their true form is—or if they even have one.

  She looks around the cabin. Foldspace is never the same twice. Sometimes it’s like something you might see while under the influence of a mind-altering drug. This time she sees it as a negative image, but instead of black and white, it’s blood-red and silver.

  The bulkhead shimmers and two sleek shapes, maybe each as long as a man is tall, swim through the bulkhead. Ben calls them otter-kind because that’s the closest reference for their shape. Are they young void dragons? Ben used to think so, but now he’s not so sure. One nudges Jake’s shoulder, and he brushes it away, batting it gently on the nose as if it’s a too-eager puppy. Jussaro isn’t reacting. She doesn’t think he can see them. One otter-kind does a barrel-roll across the cabin, noses Jake’s ear, and flips over backward before heading out through the far bulkhead. The other opens its jaws wide, unhinging them, curls round Jussaro, and lunges for his head, biting it clean off. Jussaro doesn’t notice and his head is still on his shoulders as the otter-kind follows its partner. There’s a sense of amusement in the air.

  *Yeah, bastards, I suppose you think that’s funny.* Jake doesn’t need to say it out loud.

  A feeling of agreement floats back to him.

  Great! Void creatures with a sense of humor. At least it’s only the otter-kind and not the void dragon. After several meetings with it or possibly them (it’s hard to tell), she’s no more comfortable than she was the first time. But at least the void dragons appear to be benign—curious, but not actively malevolent.

  The Nimbus is something else altogether. She’s seen it kill.

  • • •

  Twang!

  The elastic snapped and they were out of foldspace.

  “Everyone all right?” Jake asked.

  The words grated on her ear after the weird sensations in the Folds.

  “Smooth ride,” Jussaro said, oblivious to the visitation.

  “You saw them, Jake, right?” Cara asked.

  “The snakes? Yeah I saw them.”

  “Ben calls them otter-kind.”

  “Yeah, whatever. I saw one of them chow down on Jussaro’s head.”

  “Huh?” Jussaro rubbed his temples.

  “It was joking—at least I think it was joking. Maybe it was a warning.”

  Chapter Ten

  OSSIO

  NORTON GARRICK AND MOTHER RAMONA stood on the threshold of the main door of the Mansion House and pee
red in.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Mona said. “The cleanup crew has done a good job.”

  Garrick shrugged, almost nervous to see what the last year had wrought. He could have found places for the refugees in the makeshift dormitories and reclaimed his home at any time, but it had been a point of pride, and a message to the rest of Crossways, to sacrifice comfort for the sake of those left destitute after the battle.

  Situated at Crossways’ hub, the residence had been protected, which was why the refugees had gathered here, and it had been only logical to take in all he could house, close to fifty of them, with the big reception room turned into a dormitory and four to each bedroom. Almost a year of living between the converted ready-room next to his office, and Ramona’s small but secluded den in Yellow Five, had served to lead by example. Returning home marked a significant step forward on the road to normality.

  Mona ran her fingertips over the table in the hallway and examined them.

  Stepping from room to room, Garrick reassured himself that there was remarkably little damage. How strange to see something so normal again when this last year had been anything but. Perhaps living in the Mansion House once more would help him to reclaim the time before the Nimbus had taken Kitty Keely and then almost swallowed him whole. The battle and all the dead of Crossways hadn’t given him the nightmares that those few moments of proximity to the Nimbus had.

  “There’s a little wear and tear on the fixtures and fittings,” Mona said, “but it’s all cosmetic damage. There’s nothing that can’t be mended, replaced, or refurbished.”

  He should have felt relieved, but he found he was numb.

  “Oh, look.” Mona tapped him on his arm and drew him into the present.

  Someone had left a huge bunch of flowers on the dresser in the bedroom. Garrick was startled. Fresh flowers were the last thing he’d expected to see. Alongside them was a pair of carnival masks, one silver and one gold, studded with sequins and bling.

  “Artificial,” Mona said.

  “The masks?”

  “The flowers. Good quality ones, though. You can’t tell until you touch them. Even then . . .”

  “Thoughtful.”

  “The people appreciate you.”

  “Most of them don’t know I exist, or what I do.”

  “Does that worry you?”

  “No. I shall remain a benevolent dictator until such time as I slip quietly into obscurity.”

  Mona snorted. “Obscurity? Hardly. It’s not in your nature. What are the masks for?”

  “A reminder. When Crossways fought for its independence the first time, the citizens wore masks so they stayed anonymous on the surveillance recordings as they pushed the megacorps personnel back to the docks. After they won, the Independence Day celebrations were characterized by masks. It fell out of fashion, but maybe we should revive it. Have our own Independence Day again.”

  “Let’s do it. Our wedding and a general celebration—with masks. The people deserve it.” She opened a cupboard. “We deserve it. The flowers were a neat touch, maybe some thanks for cleaning us out of my not so secret stash of imported single malt. I’m going in search of a new bottle. Let’s see if some of the locks held. I believe Gibney may have squirreled the booze away. I hope so, anyway. It could be a while before we get any luxury supplies.”

  She dropped her bag on the floor and sauntered down in the direction of the kitchens, the domain of the ever-reliable Gibney and Mrs. Gibney, who had taken the refugees into their care.

  Garrick watched her leave and then bent to his own bag. Swiftly, he pulled out a small packet and stepped into the bathroom. The packet contained six bulbs, barely half as long as his little finger. He snapped off the end of one to reveal a short stub of hollow needle. Pulling up his shirt, he gently pressed the needle to the skin of his flat belly. A small resistance, a sharp but not desperately painful prick, and the needle slid into flesh. He squeezed the bulb steadily and felt a sting followed by a warm glow spreading outward, buffering the anxieties of the day as it would surely drive away the terrors of the night.

  He wasn’t sure how long the effects would last. The detanine had given him six hours of dreamless sleep when he’d first used it; now he was lucky to get five. Still, five was better than waking up screaming eight or nine times a night. Mona might not approve of the drug, but she wouldn’t begrudge it if she knew what the nightmares were like.

  He heard her footsteps in the bedroom and hastily dropped the empty bulb down the pan and vaporized it.

  “Give Gibney a raise,” she called. “He’s preserved all my single malt. Not a bottle cracked. Want some?”

  “No tha—” How would it mix with the detanine? Only one way to find out. “Yes, all right. Just a drop.”

  She poured him a very generous drop as well as one for herself. “Here’s to the cleanup crews, the engineers, the psi-techs, and the guards, plus all the volunteers who’ve fixed what could be fixed and made do with what couldn’t. And to the shuttle pilots who’ve delivered two hundred thousand refugees safely to the planet, whether they wanted to go or not.”

  “There’ll be a few folks down there cursing my name.”

  “I didn’t hear them grumbling when they took first pick of the crops ready for harvesting.”

  He took a sip of the whisky and felt its warmth spreading down his throat while the detanine tingled through his nerve endings.

  “Ah, Mona, love. I honestly thought we were done for, but I’m beginning to think we might survive this. The station’s not going to fall apart and the ships have been coming in steadily with relief supplies. We’ve more friends out there among the colonies than we knew.”

  “They’re all thankful we took the hit and not them, but they’re beginning to see the benefits of an alliance.”

  “Indeed, they are.”

  Max Constant slipped inside the crowded room and nodded briefly to Ronan Wolfe and Archie Tatum. They’d got a better view than he had, but he wasn’t going to miss this training session for anyone. He’d argued against being put in the rotation—argued and lost—so he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of seeing Ben Benjamin pulverized by Morton Tengue. Oh, no. Benjamin was good; no one would argue with that. Everyone in the Free Company had, at one time or another, experienced Ben Benjamin’s training, either at first hand, or watching him in matches against other members of the company. He was good. Maybe it was his inbuilt talent as a psi-tech Navigator. It wasn’t simple geography, but spatial awareness. Ben Benjamin always knew which way was up which, considering the time he spent in space where there was neither up nor down, was impressive.

  But it wasn’t simply Ben’s skill in the training ring. Max had seen him in action. When the chips were down, there was no one Max would rather have by his side—or preferably between him and danger—than Ben, but today wasn’t a chips-down kind of day. Today was the chance to see Benjamin pasted to the floor by the unstoppable Morton Tengue.

  Oh, yeah, this was going to be good.

  Plenty of other people had the same idea. The training ring—not a ring at all, but an oblong mat in the center of the gym—was surrounded by a sea of spectators. Max spotted Ada Levenson, who’d come with exactly the same idea as himself, no doubt. Wenna was on the sidelines. Max didn’t know how old Wenna was, but he suspected she’d never see the low side of fifty again. She’d done well in her own session yesterday by all accounts.

  Neither man wore a buddysuit. Tengue, all hard muscle, was dressed in loose trousers and singlet. Ben was similarly dressed and, though not as muscular as Tengue, was lean and fit, his mid-brown skin looking darker than usual against the white of his singlet, his hair pulled severely into a single stubby plait.

  It wasn’t the two of them, of course; this was a class of thirty or so drawn at random: some Free Company, a few of Tengue’s mercs, and half a dozen of Syke’s militia.
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br />   Tengue ran the group through a series of stretches and warm-up exercises, correcting some members of the group on posture and form, giving others an acknowledgment of good work with a nod or a soft-spoken word. Everyone appeared to be trying their best. Max hoped he could do as well in his own session tomorrow. He wasn’t exactly unfit, but he’d ended up in the Free Company almost by chance, previously enjoying a soft lifestyle behind a desk until he fell in love with Gen Marling.

  He glanced around to see if Gen had turned up to watch. She’d expressed an interest, but these days she hardly did anything that didn’t include baby Liv. He would have never guessed she was going to be so infatuated with the baby that she’d instantly rejected any idea of leaving Liv in a nursery and returning to work. Liv was at that restless, curious stage and very vocal with it. Gen wouldn’t be likely to bring her to such a crowded event. Perhaps that was no bad thing.

  Uh-oh, he’d missed something while woolgathering about his wife and child. Tengue was having quiet words with one of Syke’s crew. Max couldn’t hear what was going on, but the man had evidently made some kind of complaint about the training routine. Bad move. Catching the instructor’s attention could lead to all kinds of extra grief as Max had discovered on first joining the Free Company.

  The troublemaker was unremarkable except for his mouth: average height, average weight, pale skin-tone, mid-brown hair, the kind of regular face that was easy to forget. He was dressed in a beige softsuit with loose trousers and a sleeved top tied with a belt.

  They’d barely returned to their exercises when the man must have made a joke at Tengue’s expense. Max winced. If he were going to pick someone to be the butt of a joke, it wouldn’t be Morton Tengue. The man was great at his job, but possibly needed a sense-of-humor transplant.

  Tengue didn’t stop the class, but Max caught a glance between Tengue and Benjamin. Ha, the poor sod’s fate was sealed. Tengue wouldn’t take him down personally, but Max guessed the guy would find himself up against Benjamin. Ah, well, that meant the anticipated match of Ben against Tengue wouldn’t happen today, but this one might still prove interesting.