by Alex Stewart
“Which you can worry about when we arrive,” Lena chided, folding forearms thicker than my thighs across her chest. She smiled at me too. “Not a bad job for a little ‘un.” Which isn’t an appellation I’d have been happy with from most people, but since she and her husband topped me by a head and a half, and two of me could easily have stood in the space either of them normally occupied, I suppose from their perspective she had a point. I’d certainly learned early on that if you met either of them head on in a corridor, the only way forward was back.
Simon, to the bridge. The message dropped into my ‘sphere without warning, which at least saved me from having to continue a conversation which was bound to end in embarrassment for one of us.
“Wonder what he wants?” Rolf said, picking the message up too. Remington had simply bounced it off the central node, so anyone in my vicinity could have passed it on if I’d been disconnected or asleep. (Or both. Like most people, I’d found incoming messages didn’t always wake me if they arrived while I was sleeping, but they could generally be relied on to induce some disturbing dreams.)
“Only one way to find out,” I said, pinging back a brief acknowledgement as I spoke, and went trotting off to do so.
“Thought you might like to see us cast off,” Remington greeted me as I entered the bridge. “Seeing as it’s your first time.” He took in my rumpled, and somewhat breathless, appearance, the inevitable result of taking the stairs two at a time after several hours putting my shoulder to crates heavier than I was. “You didn’t have to run.”
“You didn’t say it wasn’t urgent,” I said, earning a derisive snort from Rennau, who was watching one of the boards which had been powered down the last time I was in here. In the last few days I’d learned that he was officially the first mate, second in authority only to Remington, but the loss of the top spot clearly still rankled. And, since he regarded me as Remington’s protégé, a lot of that resentment was coming my way by default. Clio had assured me it was only a matter of time before he came round, but that looked like it would be a long way off from where I was standing.
“When I call, it’s always urgent,” Remington said, with a hint of amusement, though which one of us it was directed at I couldn’t have said. He indicated a spare seat. “Sit down, mesh in, and keep quiet.”
“Keeping quiet. Right,” I responded, and parked myself in the somewhat dilapidated chair he’d waved towards, which turned out to be almost as uncomfortable as it looked. Not that I really noticed, diving headlong into the datasphere and meshing with the Stacked Deck’s central node as soon as my buttocks hit the upholstery. (What little there was left of it.)
Don’t fiddle with anything, Rennau sent, although I had more sense than to try. Datastreams were blizzarding past to and from the boards ranged around the bridge, and through them to the neuroware ‘spheres of the operators. As well as Remington and Rennau, I could make out the distinctive haze of complex algorithms surrounding Sowerby, the chief engineer, who wasn’t actually physically present, but meshing in from the power plant on the lower decks, no doubt with her largest wrench poised to deal with any unforeseen difficulties: Sowerby was a great believer in percussive maintenance. One of her assistants was manning the board on the bridge, although I doubted he’d have much to do with his boss on the job.
“Take us out,” Remington said, and a virtual image appeared in my ‘sphere, apparently being relayed from a vantage point somewhere on the exterior hull. Nothing but pitch darkness at first; then a ring of light appeared, growing rapidly, until it filled the whole field of vision. After a second or two I was able to make out a hemispherical indentation, lined with bright, reflective metal, and realized I was looking at the interior of our cradle on the outer hull of the docking arm, from which we’d just disengaged. As the Stacked Deck pulled further away from its starting point, our shadow shank slowly to an almost imperceptible stain at the bottom of the hollow. A moment later, as the field of vision continued to expand, I was able to make out the domes of other ships, still nestled into their docking ports, and the metallic craters of the nearest unoccupied ones, their smooth, curving sides indented with the outlines of docking hatches and umbilical sockets.
“We’re clear,” Rennau reported, although that much was obvious from the supplementary data streams; later, I was to be more grateful than I could possibly have imagined for the Guild tradition of reporting verbally and keeping an eye on the manual boards in spite of the instant awareness of all the ship’s systems meshing in gave you, but at the time I really couldn’t see the point.
Then, unexpectedly, he glanced in my direction. Enjoying the show? His expression was still sardonic, and the ping was as devoid of emotional overtones as they always were, but even so it was the first thing he’d done since I came aboard that seemed even remotely affable. So I nodded a reply, determined to take the overture at face value.
Never seen anything like it, I sent back.
“That I can believe.” His tone was as dry as ever, but I thought I could detect a hint of amusement beneath it. Besides, it was perfectly true: I hadn’t.
I’d seen the exterior of Skyhaven before, of course, but only from viewing ports in the orbital itself, or from a surface to orbit passenger boat. The commercial side, with its array of freight docks, was entirely new to me.
As the image widened still further, the sheer size of the cargo port began to become apparent; the docking arm we’d just disengaged from must have been a good half a mile from end to end all on its own, and there were four more of them jutting from the habitat’s main hull in its immediate vicinity, casting shadows across the nearby superstructure that looked curiously like a smudged handprint. And the sky around them was full of ships, over a thousand if the datastream from the sensor array could be relied on. (Which, of course, it could, otherwise we’d never have been able to navigate safely through the swarm.)
I’d been expecting us to continue separating from the habitat along the same vector until we were completely clear of it, but we were still only a few hundred yards from the vast cylinder of the docking arm when Sowerby booted the gravitics (possibly quite literally, knowing her) against the weak gravity field of the orbital, bouncing us into a neat parabola over the curving metal horizon.
Avalon rose into view, and I caught my breath, abruptly conscious for the first time on a truly visceral level that I was leaving my homeworld, and the system of which it was a part, possibly for ever. If Remington really decided to dump me on Numarkut, I could be stuck there for good. On the other hand, if I impressed him enough to offer the apprenticeship he’d half promised, there was no telling where the Stacked Deck would be heading for next. True, he seemed to do business with Aunt Jenny on a fairly regular basis, but there was no guarantee they always met on Avalon—since she’d revealed her avocation to me, I felt I could take nothing about her for granted any more.
The planet was three quarters full, a lush blue crescent, the muted greens and browns of its land masses veiled by wisps of cloud: white for the most part, though in one or two places its face was marred by the mottled bruising of thunderheads. On the night side, amid the phosphorescent tendrils of cities and roads, I caught a brief flicker of lightning out in the rural hinterlands, and felt a momentary flare of nostalgia—the Forrester estates would be engulfed in the torrential autumn rains now, the drops hammering against the window of my old room, with no one there to listen to it.
“Know why we’re not heading straight for the rift point?” Rennau asked, in a tone that made it clear he expected a negative answer.
I nodded. “The planet’s got more mass for the gravitics to kick against.” We could just have boosted against the orbital, but we’d have accelerated a great deal more slowly that way. “And the sooner we get to the rift point, the sooner we get to Numarkut. The sooner we get to Numarkut, the sooner we get paid for the cargo.”
Remington laughed, although whether at my answer or Rennau’s expression of surprise I couldn’t be sure. “Thinking li
ke a Guilder already,” he said.
“Up to a point.” Rennau sent an orbital dynamics graphic to my ‘sphere. We can get an additional boost from slingshotting round it before Sowerby powers up. Which I already knew, of course, from listening to Naval gossip behind the drawing room door as a child, once I was old enough to sneak out of bed during Mother’s dinner parties, and the cramming I’d done for the Academy entrance exam. But I’d attended enough soirees as an adult, where I was expected merely to be decorative and laugh at the right people’s jokes, to realize that letting on how much you know isn’t always a good idea.
“I see,” I said, after pretending to study the diagram for a moment. “That way we get to use the planet’s mass twice.” Then it struck me that was the second time I’d thought of my old home as just “the planet,” rather than “Avalon.” Perhaps I was beginning to adjust to my new life as a spacefarer faster than I’d thought.
Rennau was looking at me as though calculating how much per pound I’d be worth to a Skyhaven pie merchant. “Quick on the uptake, anyway,” he conceded.
Remington grinned. “What did you expect from Jenny Worricker’s nephew?”
The mate shrugged. “Same as from everyone else. More than meets the eye, less than they like to think.”
I thought about that, trying to fillet an insult from it, but not sure it would be worth the effort. It actually sounded quite astute, if you were a congenital cynic. Though perhaps such a reflection just showed I was already further along that particular road than I liked to think.
“So, how long till we make Numarkut?” I asked, already doing the calculation for myself.
Remington looked thoughtful. “Depends how much speed we’ve got on when we shoot the rift,” he said. “Couple of days out to the point here, same on the other side—unless we have to slow down for a customs inspection. Once we lose way, there’s sod all to push against. Took over a week, once.”
Rennau nodded again, sourly. “And we had perishables aboard. Bastard inspector slowed us down to a crawl once he realized there was nothing in the hold worth pilfering.”
“Does that happen a lot?” I asked. Sowerby seemed to be running things from the gravitics room at the moment, which gave us more time to talk than I’d anticipated, and I meant to take full advantage of the opportunity.
“Depends on the system,” Remington said. “Numarkut, they’re all at it. Never find a customs inspector there living the frugal life. On the plus side, it makes them easy to bribe. ’Til they get a better offer.”
“League worlds, it varies,” Rennau chipped in. “Most of their inspectors are strictly by the book. But you’ll find the odd one with his hand out. When you do, they’re worth cultivating. ’Til they get found out and shot.”
“Shot?” I asked, involuntarily, and Remington shook his head.
“Just that one time. Served him right for resisting arrest.”
I nodded, considering this. League law enforcement had a reputation for heavy-handedness, at least according to Commonwealth gossip, and I found it all too easy to believe a corrupt official would be summarily executed.
“What about the Commonwealth?” I asked, hoping my own people would turn out to be relative paragons.
“Pain in the arse,” Remington told me. “Want to check the manifest three times before they’ll even come aboard. Then they poke about everywhere, expect to be fed and given tea, and complain incessantly about wasting their time. After which, if they can’t find anything actually wrong, they’ll make up a new regulation they can ‘fine’ you for infringing anyway.”
“Does that happen often?” I asked, trying not to sound shocked.
“Often enough,” Remington said, not fooled for a moment. He paused, receiving a message from Sowerby that suddenly dropped into his ‘sphere, and nodded once. “Thanks, Sarah. Whenever you’re ready.” Then he glanced back in my direction. “You’ll enjoy this.”
If I’m honest, enjoy wasn’t quite the word that first sprang to mind as I returned my attention to the visual display floating in the center of my ‘sphere, which had been quietly getting on with the job of piping an image from the outer hull all the time I’d been distracted with conversation. While we’d been talking, the Stacked Deck had sailed serenely around the curve of the orbital, and begun her plunge towards the planet below.
Now Avalon appeared a good deal larger, and more ominous, than it had the last time I’d looked. The wisps of cloud, barely perceptible before, seemed thicker and more solid as we drove in towards the day side limb of the planet. I found myself looking for familiar land masses, as though we were expecting to land, but we were moving far too fast for that ever to be an option: unless, by “land” you mean “leave a crater the size of a city block.” I was no expert, but it seemed to me that Sowerby was cutting it a bit fine.
“She’ll be skimming air if she’s not careful,” I said, mildly disconcerted at the realization I’d spoken the thought aloud.
“Not Sarah,” Remington said, then hesitated. “Not much, anyway.”
It’s all a question of balance, see? Rennau added, along with another superfluous diagram. In that, at least, he was right: the closer we got to the planet, the greater the boost to our speed from the slingshot maneuver. On the other hand, the deeper we dipped into the atmosphere, the more velocity would be dissipated as friction.
So far as I could tell, we were slipping just a little bit deeper than we should have been, the first faint wisps of air reaching up like swell on a placid sea to claw at our hull. Temperature readings began to climb, and although they were still a long way from anything approaching dangerous, I felt a faint shiver of apprehension. We began to acquire a visible wake of displaced air, roiling behind us, and a bow wave of condensing vapor, compressed and superheated by the speed of our passage.
“And . . . break!” Sowerby said calmly, her voice slightly attenuated by the node’s vocal processor. Another burst of power to the gravitics, and we were suddenly clear, hurtling away into the void.
“Nicely done,” Remington said, and turned to me. “Having second thoughts?”
“Bit late for that,” I said, with more conviction than I felt, while the world I called home dwindled rapidly in the virtual image. I closed it down: no point watching it diminish into a pinprick, before it vanished altogether in the never-ending night.
“Got that right,” Rennau confirmed, glancing in my direction. He stretched, as though the whole thing had been mildly tedious. “While you’re up here, you can get us some tea.”
CHAPTER TEN
In which I shoot my first rift.
I suppose I’d expected things to settle down a bit now we were on our way, but of course they were no quieter; at least for me. Though there were no crates to manhandle, the Stacked Deck was full of systems to check, minor problems to correct, and people needing a gofer right now, so there was no shortage of jobs for me to do. In the next couple of days, during which we went very fast through a great deal of nothing, I renewed my acquaintance with the vessel’s darkest and dustiest corners, and absorbed a great deal of information from Sowerby and her assistants about which tools were best to hit which pieces of equipment with. I even found myself redistributing the grime on the deck plates of the lower hold level with a broom on one occasion, an implement I’d only ever seen used before in historical virts.
“I thought we had drones for this kind of thing,” I grumbled, half-seriously. Clio, who was perched on the catwalk above me, legs swinging, as she applied a molecular bonder to a handrail that had cracked when Lena leaned against it, grinned down at me.
“And what happens if the power goes off?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Life support fails, we all suffocate or freeze, no one gives a stuff about sweeping the decks.”
“Well, there’s that,” she agreed cheerfully. “But the less you rely on the tech, the less there is to go wrong.”
“Says the woman who lives on a starship,” I said.
“
I never said you shouldn’t use it.” She tested the handrail by swinging from it, and I found myself edging across to stand beneath her. She seemed to know what she was doing, but it was still a good fifteen feet from the catwalk to the deck plates, and I’d tripped often enough while lugging crates about to know just how hard they were. “Just don’t rely on anything you don’t need to.”
“Like you’re not relying on that bonder to have worked, so you don’t break your neck?” I asked, and she grinned again.
“Exactly. If I didn’t know damn well it had worked, I’d never—eek!” She dropped abruptly, and I leapt forward, arms outstretched. One of her hands caught the edge of the catwalk, and she hung there for a moment, looking down at me—then burst out laughing. “Oh, your face. You should see it from this side.” She let go, did a neat back flip, and landed on the deck plates next to me, flexing her knees to absorb the impact.
“Very funny,” I said, trying to hide how impressed I was. I’d seen sloppier displays in gymnastics competitions. “You didn’t tell me you were an athlete too.”
“That’s cos I’m not,” she said, although her face seemed to go a little pinker—probably as a result of the exertion. “I just picked up a few things scrambling round the holds.”
“So long as you put them back afterwards,” I joked, and she tilted her head, looking at me in the appraising manner I’d quickly come to associate with my new shipmates.
“Suppose I find something I don’t want to put back?” she asked.
“Then don’t get caught, I suppose,” I said, feeling faintly surprised. One thing I’d learned since coming aboard was that, despite the popular cynicism, Guilders were quite genuine in regarding an agreement of any kind as completely binding: I’d heard several stories of crippled ships with cargoes of food whose crews had eked out their rations to the point of starvation before even considering breaking open a hold. The idea of any Guilder, let alone Clio, entertaining the notion of casual pilfering, even in jest, was hard to get my head around.
