Nimbus

by Jacey Bedford

  A single person appeared at the top of the ramp. He was in his fifties and wore a crumpled, teal-green flight suit that matched his claim to be James Bridgwater, captain of the Barbary. Tengue’s men surrounded the bottom of the ramp, but James Bridgwater didn’t look dangerous. He even stumbled as he walked down the ramp.

  “He looks exhausted,” Cara said. “Not much of a threat.”

  “I wonder if the colonists on Butterstone thought that when their refugees arrived.” Ben stepped forward with Cara at his side. Ronan was a couple of paces behind. “Captain Bridgwater,” Ben said. “Welcome.”

  “I’m sorry. You have the advantage. Not sure who you are or even where we are. Are you in charge here?”

  “Ben Benjamin. I’m in charge of your reception. We have medics standing by. Unless your passengers would prefer to stay on the ship.”

  “I’m sure they’d prefer to stay anywhere but the ship.”

  “We need to verify who you are and where you’re from.”

  “Of course, Mr. Benjamin, of course. Happy to tell you everything you want to know. May we disembark, now?” He wobbled and would have fallen but for Ronan.

  “You don’t look in such good shape yourself, Captain. Come with me.” Ronan flashed a private comment to Ben and Cara. *Whoever he is, he believes he’s telling the truth.*

  “I agree with Ronan,” Cara said. “There was no hint of anything untoward in Captain Bridgwater’s mind. We’ll know more when the med team has done a DNA match.”

  One by one, the crew and passengers of the Barbary descended the ramp. They were all ages from teen to elderly and showed a varying amount of physical distress. Ben and Cara watched them walk, shuffle, limp and—just two of them—run the short distance between the ship and the compound.

  The people of Jamundi had provided blankets and spare clothes. Rena Lorient delivered them, all piled on a mule cart led by a couple of men who immediately started unloading and passing the bounty to a chain of Gupta’s security team.

  “Are you sure these people are dangerous?” Rena Lorient paused by the fence next to Ben and Cara. “They look like they need our help.”

  “I’m not sure,” Ben replied, “but I’m not sure they aren’t dangerous either. We know of six colonies that have been destroyed so far. Do you want Jamundi to be the seventh?”

  She shuddered. “Of course not. Your instincts have served us well, Commander Benjamin. I’ll back your decision, whatever it is.”

  “We’ll give them medical help, food, and shelter. I guarantee they’ll not be harmed unless they start something, but I’m not letting them out of here until we’re sure.”

  “They don’t look fit enough to start anything but a prayer meeting,” Rena said.

  “That’s the truth,” Ben muttered as Rena walked away.

  “We came here full of suspicions,” Cara said, “but if the other refugees were as convincing as this, I can understand how they were accepted. I’ve had my Empathy dialed up for anything untoward, and so far they’re all genuine. It was a different bunch who attacked Butterstone—smaller group, smaller ship. We don’t know about the other colonies. Maybe these folks are exactly what they appear to be.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Ben said, “But there are too many coincidences. And the Barbary was reported lost in the Folds.”

  “I know. I know.” She paced back and forth. “What are we missing?”

  Ben wished he had an answer for her.

  Ronan and Mel Hoffner, along with four med-techs, established a medical tent inside the compound perimeter, separated from the refugees’ accommodation by a single fence. There were no signs of violent injury, though some of the refugees had had relatively minor accidents, and some were suffering from stress and long-term medical conditions exacerbated by their recent circumstances. Tengue and Gupta between them arranged a permanent watch on the compound.

  With everything secure, Ben and Cara retired for the night to the Benjamin family farmhouse, a short way out of town.

  “Rion’s been busy,” Cara said as they pulled up in the borrowed groundcar.

  “Maybe not Rion. That’s a new house, not a new barn.” He pointed to a traditional wooden building across the yard from the original house, a basic modular dwelling with pods added for private rooms for Nan, Ricky, Kai, and, more recently, Thea.

  The family all assembled in the yard. Ricky threw himself at Ben and immediately started gabbling all the news he could think of.

  “Hold on, young man,” Ben set him on one side and embraced Rion. They must have looked more like brothers once, but Ben had lost several years in cryo, so he was still thirty-four, while Rion had lived all of those years and was now closer to fifty, his hair sprinkled with gray and his skin weathered to dark brown leather with liver spots showing on his temples.

  Nan, who’d also lost years in cryo during her time as a negotiator for the Five Power Alliance on Earth, and later as a freelancer, didn’t look a day over seventy despite her outdoor skin and gray hair swept up into an untidy knot. Cara knew she was at least eighty in biological time, but she’d been born well over a century earlier. One day she’d like to have a long sit-down with Nan and learn some real history.

  “Ah, here they come,” Nan said as Kai and Thea crossed over from the new house to greet them. Thea hung back a little and Kai cradled her shoulders to draw her into the family circle. Cara saw immediately why Kai had built the new house. Thea looked about seven months pregnant.

  “Congratulations,” Cara gave the freckled redhead a hug. “You look as though life is treating you well.”

  “It is.” Thea’s pink cheeks deepened several shades. She was one of those pale-skinned women who blossomed in pregnancy.

  “Come in. Come in.” Rion waved them toward the farmhouse door.

  “Ah, young people these days,” Nan said as she put a tray of tea on the large kitchen table and indicated they should all sit and drink. “Always putting the cart before the horse. These two should be standing up together and declaring their marriage, don’t you think so, Ben?”

  “You mean like you did, Nan?” Kai grinned at his grandmother. He was a handsome young man, lighter skinned than his father and with Ben’s height and supple grace.

  “There were reasons your grandfather and I didn’t marry,” Nan said stiffly, and then her face cracked a smile. “I simply can’t remember what they were after all this time. He’s still around, you know.” She winked at Ben. “And I don’t think he’s currently married. Maybe we’ll do it one day—we still had a spark the last time we met, though I haven’t seen him in person for a long time.”

  “You never talk about him, Nan,” Ricky said. “Like he’s some well-guarded secret.”

  “Well, I suppose he is, or was at any rate. He’s about to retire from politics now, so I don’t suppose it will matter then.”

  “He’s a politician?”

  “Oh, yes. Malusi Duma is the outgoing president of Pan-Africa.”

  “The Malusi Duma?” Ricky’s jaw dropped.

  “I’ve mentioned him before. I knew you were only half-listening.”

  “I was listening. I heard the name, only I didn’t know much about Earth history until you made me take a class in it while we were traveling.”

  It wasn’t news to either Ben or Rion, but Thea’s eyes grew as round as saucers. “Even I’ve heard of Malusi Duma,” she said. “Didn’t he push through the Pan-African charter?”

  “One of his finer moments,” Nan said with a wink. “At least, one of his finer public moments.”

  “Nan, you don’t mean . . . ? Euwww!” Ricky screwed his face up.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, young man, but I was thinking about him brokering the trade agreement with Europe. Most of that had to be done behind closed doors.”

  Cara laughed at Ricky’s discomfort and then
felt mean.

  “So what about this ship?” Nan asked. “Where’s it supposed to have come from? What’s the story?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Ben said. “We’ll know more tomorrow when we can interview some of them. They don’t behave like homicidal maniacs, but I guess Butterstone’s refugees appeared legitimate, too. Otherwise, why would they have been billeted in people’s homes?”

  “Are the refugees dangerous?” Ricky asked.

  “Well, there are three hundred of them, but they’re safely contained in a compound,” Ben said. “Only a few at a time are allowed into either the medical facility or the interview room. Most of them don’t look fit enough to do serious damage, given that they aren’t armed. The engineering team is checking over their ship for signs that it’s been involved in any kind of violence, traces of blood on garments or on shoes, or maybe even in the passenger seats. Ronan’s medics are also running DNA samples. We should have the results soon.”

  “Do you need some help with the interviews?” Nan asked.

  Cara had been hoping she’d volunteer. She was one of the best Empaths this side of the Rim. If anyone could ferret the truth out of the refugees, Nan could.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  REVENANT

  “MIGHT AS WELL START AT THE TOP AND work down,” Ben said.

  Cara settled into her chair. Their interview room was little more than a hastily-assembled, tunnel-shaped riser made of medonite panels clipped together. It didn’t have any windows, but light filtered through the translucent walls. The Psi-Mechs had assembled it in half a day, and divided it into two rooms. Though it was basic, it wasn’t unpleasant. Nan and Vijay Gupta had taken over the second interview room.

  The door opened. One of Tengue’s mercs ushered in Captain James Bridgwater.

  “Captain Bridgwater, please sit down,” Ben said. “I hope you’re feeling better. Doctor Wolfe tells me your blood pressure is stable now, but you’ve been under some stress.”

  “It’s funny how you don’t notice it until it’s not there, isn’t it?”

  “Stress?”

  Bridgwater nodded. “I feel as though someone’s pulled the plug out, Commander Benjamin. By the way, I must apologize for calling you mister yesterday. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “You weren’t rude. Commander is a courtesy title. We don’t have ranks in the Free Company.”

  “But you captain your own ship?”

  “As do you, Captain Bridgwater. You do understand I have to ask a few questions, don’t you?”

  “I do. Go ahead.”

  “Your ship, the Barbary, was reported lost in the Folds with thirty-four souls on board, including yourself. All crew. You were on the way to pick up passengers on Kemp’s World, thereafter headed for Chenon.”

  Bridgwater blinked twice. “Ah, yes. That was it. Kemp’s World to Chenon. A regular run via the Dromgoole Hub. I remember now.”

  “You’re a little vague.”

  “Am I? Well, a lot’s happened since then.”

  “How long ago was it?”

  “Oh, at least two weeks. I’d need to access my ship’s log to tell you exactly.”

  Ben glanced at Cara and she frowned. She leaned forward and held Bridgwater’s gaze. “Would it surprise you to know it was last year, Captain?”

  “Last year? No. I don’t think that could be right.” He closed his eyes as if in thought. “Three weeks. At the most.”

  *He thinks he’s telling the truth,* Cara said on a tight link to Ben.

  “How did you get your ship out of the Folds? You don’t have a jump drive.”

  “Jump drive? No, nothing like that. I guess we must have got lucky.”

  “You’re a Navigator as well as a pilot?”

  “I wish I was. I have a great Navigator, though. She’s a whiz. She found a line to a jump gate. Pretty scary at the time, but no damage done.”

  “If you have a great Navigator, how did you get lost in the Folds in the first place?”

  He frowned. “I’m sure it will come to me. The gate . . . which gate? Ah, yes, Dromgoole E. That’s it. It will all be in the ship’s log.”

  “Unfortunately, all of your ship’s log has been erased, including your crew manifest.”

  He shook his head. “Those things are impossible to erase.”

  “Agreed. They are, which is why yours being erased is highly unusual.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’m sure it’s okay. I made an entry in it as we landed here.”

  “What happened between entering the Folds through Dromgoole E and arriving here? Where did all your passengers come from?”

  “Couldn’t leave them behind. Humanitarian aid, you understand. Never fail to answer a distress call.”

  “This distress call, tell us about it.”

  “Distress call.”

  “From a ship? From a planet?”

  “Yes, distress call.” Bridgwater’s eyes began to droop and his head bent forward.

  “Is he going to sleep?” Ben asked.

  “He’s exhausted,” Cara said. “It’s more like his brain is shutting his body down. Better get a medic.”

  She called for Ronan, but Mel Hoffner arrived instead. She ran a scanner over Bridgwater and looked at them sharply. “What have you been doing to him, Boss? He’s in shock.”

  “Just questions, polite ones,” Ben said. “No raised voices, nothing awkward. He’s got a distorted idea of time. Thinks his ship has only been out of contact for two or three weeks, and can’t remember how they escaped from the Folds, or, apparently, where they picked up the refugees.”

  “I’m going to have to put him on a monitor.”

  She called for a med-tech with a float chair and wrestled an unresisting Captain Bridgwater into it, clipping a safety strap across his middle.

  “Keep us informed, Mel.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.” She pushed Bridgwater’s chair out of the interview room and let the door close behind her.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Ben said. “I wasn’t too harsh on him, was I?”

  Cara shook her head. “You were gentler than I would have been. If he has no memory of events, what has happened to him?”

  “Let’s see what the next one says.”

  Their next interviewee was the Barbary’s second in command, David Cho. He appeared more alert than his captain had been. He was firm on the Dromgoole Hub and entering the Folds via the Dromgoole E gate, but then began to exhibit the same vagueness. No, he wasn’t sure how they exited the Folds and, although he knew they’d answered a distress call, he couldn’t recall the circumstances. Ben stopped pushing him before he started to shut down like Bridgwater had done.

  “Perhaps we’ll have better luck with the passengers,” Cara said. She flashed a message to Mel. *How about you pick us out a passenger who’s in robust health,* she suggested.

  *I’ve got one here you should find interesting. She’s in excellent health for someone who’s a hundred and ten years old according to the birth date she gave us, but doesn’t look a day over forty. I should have her DNA results in about fifteen minutes.*

  *Does she have a name?*

  *Ms. Catherine Ashbeck of the Boston Ashbecks. When I reminded her Boston, Massachusetts, didn’t exist anymore, she said if we thought a little thing like a meteorite strike was going to take down her family, we should think again. They are apparently now based in Boston, Lincolnshire, even though they’ve retained their American accent. To hear her tell it, they own most of Lincolnshire and were single-handedly responsible for saving the town. When the sea rose, it was their money that paid for the evacuation and the new town site fifty miles inland.*

  “This should be interesting,” Ben said to Cara.

  The door opened to admit a woman who carried herself like she was certainly a member of the
richest family in Boston.

  “Ms. Ashbeck, please sit down.” Ben made the introductions and polite enquiries as to Ms. Ashbeck’s health and well-being before getting down to the serious questions. “Can you tell us how you came to be on board the Barbary?”

  “Certainly. My companion and I were aboard the Pride of Kashmir, cruising to Appledore where my family has business interests.”

  “Your companion?”

  “A secretary. He’s of no consequence.”

  “Is he still with you?”

  She frowned as if she couldn’t quite remember. “We must have separated.” Her voice faltered for the first time.

  “So what happened?”

  “There was an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “You think they tell the passengers? A red-flashing-light-sirens-in-the-night kind of emergency. The kind they drill you for. I grabbed a breather mask and strapped into my cabin couch.” She frowned again. “I must have passed out. When I came to, I was on the Barbary in one of those dreadful recliners, sandwiched between an elderly gentleman and someone who looked like a vagabond.” She brushed her own clothes as if to say, I have standards.

  *I have the DNA results,* Mel interrupted without coming into the room. *She’s exactly who she says she is. Reported dead sixty years ago with the loss of the Pride of Kashmir in the Folds.*

  “How long have you been on board the Barbary, Ms. Ashbeck?”

  A frown flickered across the woman’s face like a brief shadow passing across the sun. “Since the day before yesterday.”

  *She believes that’s true,* Cara said. *There’s not a flicker of doubt, and she’s not deliberately lying.*

  “Thank you, Ms. Ashbeck.” Ben tried to give nothing away in his tone of voice. “We might need to talk to you again, later, but that’s all for now.”

  “What happens next, Commander Benjamin? Are you sending me back to that squalid tent? Don’t you at least have better accommodation? How long do we have to wait before we’re repatriated? We are going to be repatriated, aren’t we?”