Raven's Children

by Sabrina Chase

  “Be careful, dammit. And keep talking,” Moire snapped.

  “Yes, sir. Reporting in every three minutes, sir.”

  “Smart–‌ass.”

  “What a quaint, old–‌fashioned term,” he said, trying not to laugh. He grasped the strange cable and pulled himself across to the crab ship. The tunnel surface under his boots felt grainy, like sand over stone. Then he noticed he wasn’t floating. “This ship has gravity,” he said slowly. “Feels a little bit less than standard. Are you getting the vid feed?” They’d rigged up a transmitting vid that also had storage. It wasn’t designed for vacuum use, though, and he was carrying it uncomfortably inside his helmet, tucked beside his jaw. One corner was starting to poke him in the ear.

  “Yeah, I’m getting it. Make sure Alan stays behind you, OK?”

  Alan had already followed him across, and he was staring wide–‌eyed at the tunnel wall.

  Ennis waved him over and pointed to the wall surface “This is the stuff I saw on Helios. Remember the door?” Alan frowned, then nodded. “That’s crab material. What they make their ships of. I saw it on a human ship, so I knew something was wrong. Only a crab would have put it there.”

  “He can’t use our handles very well,” Perwaty said, coming up next to them. “So he added the extra piece.”

  Ennis indicated the end of the tunnel. “Can he open this?”

  Radersent undulated to the hatch, a tall oval in the side of the ship. It had a green, prismatic sheen with faint ridges. A projecting hub with spines was placed off–‌center on the oval, with a matching arrangement of struts on the hull. He wrapped his tendrils over the hub and twisted to use his good forelimb on the struts.

  The oval shivered, and the faint veins thickened as the surface thinned and disappeared. The web of veins then collapsed to the edges of the hatch. Ennis stared, then shook himself, his mind numb. This was their hatch technology? How had Fleet managed to survive this long fighting them? What else could they do?

  The space inside had more struts and spines; he assumed for more functions like opening the hatch. He turned slowly to capture it all on the vid. There were devices high up on the wall, and he wondered if Radersent was a small crab, or if they were special things rarely used.

  “OK, let’s go inside,” he said, when he had seen everything. Perwaty pointed to the second oval, which was not on the facing wall, but at an angle to the one they had entered from.

  The same action by Radersent to the new set of controls produced a slow compression Ennis could feel on the surface of his suit. The atmosphere seemed slightly cloudy to him now. He checked his readout and raised a surprised eyebrow. More than an atmosphere pressure, and the red pinlight suggested he didn’t want to breathe whatever gases were out there. It was warm, too.

  The inner hatch turned to web and then nothing. He took a deep breath and stepped inside the ship.

  It’s like a cave. Not like the big, open cave on Sequoyah, but like the vids he had seen of underground caves on Earth. Pillars descended from above, ending over their heads. Openings like tunnels started halfway up the curving walls and continued on. They looked like corridors, but how did the crabs get to them? It was empty, too. Just as Perwaty had said.

  “What a weird ship!” Moire’s voice was hushed and amazed. “Right out of an Escher drawing.”

  Ennis froze. The timbre of the sound was different, as if it was coming from a suit comm and not from the bridge of the scout. He turned slowly.

  Moire was standing behind him, her head tilted to one side and an amused gleam in her eye. She backed up a step when she saw his expression of fury.

  “You. You said….‌” He’d been so distracted he’d never noticed her following them through the hatch.

  “Absolutely nothing about staying on the ship. You are out of your mind if you think I’d miss this. I don’t see a single flat surface anywhere, do you? I wonder how they make these things.”

  “Will you please go back, now that you’ve gotten what you wanted?” he gritted out.

  “I can’t operate the hatch; can you? Might as well stay for the grand tour.” She paused, and her cheerful expression became more serious. “I didn’t join the exploration team just to find planets. I’ve waited all my life for this.”

  Ennis barely restrained himself from pointing out it could be the end of waiting for anything if something went wrong. She was inside and he couldn’t get her out again without Radersent’s cooperation. He’d just have to hope their trust was not misplaced.

  Radersent was standing nearby, patient and motionless. Moire walked up to him, and he tilted his head back as she approached. Ennis reached to pull her back. They didn’t know what that posture meant to a crab; maybe he was going to attack.

  She pointed at one of the openings in the wall. Radersent turned and moved away in the direction she had indicated. When he reached the point where the curving wall met the floor, he kept going on the wall itself. Moire gasped, then ran after him.

  “Moire! Wait!” Ennis yelled, running in turn. She didn’t stop, and when she reached the edge jumped and stood on the wall, turning around in amazement.

  “Hot damn. Look what they can do with gravitics!” She chewed her lip, gazing at the other end of the wall. “I wonder if I can stand on the ceiling?”

  “I don’t want you to stand on the ceiling!” Alan said loudly, sounding frightened.

  Moire turned quickly and stepped back off the wall. “It’s OK, the gravity is different in this ship. I won’t fall.” She walked over to him, looking about.

  Ennis swallowed and tried to slow his hammering heart. He was going to have to talk to Alan and convince him to help. Moire actually listened to him.

  It was a very strange ship. The faint mist obscured things at a distance, making it even more mysterious. He hoped the vid was picking up enough to be useful.

  “What should we look at next?” Ennis asked. What would a crab control room look like? Did they even have a bridge?

  “Hmm. That corridor is larger, maybe it’s….‌”

  “Raven. Come in, Raven.”

  The signal had an undercurrent of noise. Ennis glanced at Moire. She was looking startled and worried.

  “That’s Kilberton. What the hell is he doing here now?” she said.

  “Raven, please respond. This is Dunkirk.”

  Moire made some adjustments to her communications controls on her suit. “Dunkirk, this is Roberts. What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got problems, Captain.” Kilberton sounded relieved to hear her, but still worried. “McNaulty’s crew boss has some questions he wants to ask you before he’ll start the job.”

  Moire was looking very annoyed now. “Are you saying you brought him here?”

  “There’s more, but we need to show you. It’s not good, Captain. I don’t think you can return Commander Ennis as you planned.”

  She swore and changed her comm again. Now he couldn’t hear the conversation, but he could tell it was not a happy one. Then she waved her arm in the direction of the entry and headed there herself.

  “What’s going on?” Perwaty asked, puzzled.

  “Looks like we’re heading back,” Ennis said. “Something’s come up she needs to deal with.”

  Radersent operated the hatch controls, and soon they were back in the scout. Moire wasted no time getting underway.

  “Problems?” Ennis ventured, looking at her set face.

  “If Kilberton can’t handle it himself, it can’t be good,” she said, without elaborating. “We’ll have to drop those two off before going to Dunkirk. Did you get enough from the ship?”

  “Enough? No, but it’s more than we had before. You could just leave us and come back later,” Ennis suggested.

  Moire snorted. “Now who’s taking dangerous risks? We’re split up enough as it is. Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Moire let out a breath, flexing her fingers on the controls. “Besides t
he fact that calm, collected Kilberton comes barging back a week early yelling that we’ve got more problems? Problems involving getting you back to Fleet? Isn’t that enough?”

  Ennis sighed. “I might be able to help, if you tell me what’s going on. Or do you want to do everything yourself?”

  “It’s not about you,” Moire said slowly, lowering her voice. “OK, maybe it is. There are some things we’re doing a Fleet officer probably doesn’t want to hear about. You’ve got enough with…‌I don’t want to give you any more potential conflicts of loyalty.”

  “I see.” His voice was as low as hers, and he was aware of the growing tension in his body. “That’s my problem.” It was kind of her, but too late. The conflict she was referring to was already there, and growing stronger every second he was with her. Every time he remembered how, when he had held her, the pain had stopped.

  She turned to look at him. “Is it? If Fleet asks you about me, about our operations, how much will you tell them? If it was just my secrets I wouldn’t care so much, but a lot of people are trusting me to keep them alive.”

  He saw the looming shape of Helios and the other ships coming close with relief. This was becoming a dangerous conversation. What would he tell Fleet? He should tell them everything, but he already knew he wasn’t going to. He said nothing more until after Perwaty and the crab were dropped off and Moire headed to dock with Dunkirk.

  “Do you want me to stay on the scout?” he asked quietly.

  Moire shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.” She switched the comm to Dunkirk’s channel. “Kilberton. I have Commander Ennis with me. Can one of you tell him what’s going on while I talk to our guest?”

  Ennis followed Alan to the bridge, where the pilot, Kilberton, and Yolanda Menehune were waiting. They turned quickly to face the door when he entered. Kilberton’s face was troubled.

  “You must understand, we don’t believe it is true. But others….‌”

  “Let ’em see what we’re talking about first,” Yolanda interrupted. “I overheard some talk when we were on station. Found this marvelsheet going around, got a copy to bring back. Take a look.”

  She handed him a textsheet. It had a screaming yellow border and a morphing, mildly obscene titleplate at the top, and Ennis recognized it as one of the wilder circulars, “Hick’s Picks and Probes.”

  “I like ‘Tom–‌Tom’s Tell–‌All’ better,” he commented, scanning down the content list. “If Hick’s ever tells the truth, it’s by accident.”

  Kilberton’s eyes were wide with amazement. “You read these things?”

  “See? Some people like 'em,” Yolanda said, giving him a shove. “Open your mind a little, goodguy.”

  The listing was fairly standard stuff Ennis had seen before, in one circular or another. Deranged gestation facility worker switches tank IDs. Psychic predicts crab attacks on Earth. Secret colony hides supersoldier genetic engineering lab. Pirate gang terrorizes Fringe.

  “Which one?” he asked finally, distracted. Yolanda peered over his shoulder and pointed to an article that had not caught his attention at all, it seemed so ordinary. Ghastly murder on station one of many.

  He pulled up the article. As soon as he saw the station identified as Jessack he felt a chill. All the details were there, except the Toren agent was referred to as a “young Fleet technician on her first posting.” A still of her in uniform, smiling and eager, was included. There were stills of him, too. Lots of them, from all angles. The article went on to mention the attack on Canaveral, now inflated to two murders, and that he had escaped from the notorious prison colony Fimbul.

  “Very convincing,” Ennis said, taking a deep breath. “If it appeared anywhere else, I’d believe it myself.”

  “They don’ have to believe anything but the reward,” Yolanda said, her hands on her hips. “That part’s true enough. Checked it myself.”

  At the end of the article. For capture or confirmed death. 50,000 ED. He whistled soundlessly. That was a hell of a lot of money, especially in the Fringe.

  “Crew knows what really happened on Jessack; saw what you looked like when we found you. Probably can trust them,” Yolanda said, looking doubtful. “Better not push your luck, though.”

  “Who would put such lies about?” Kilberton asked. “The risk they would be exposed….‌”

  “Ah, but they were careful to include just enough truth,” Ennis said softly. “I did come from Fimbul—‌but I wasn’t a criminal. I was born there. There was a brutal attack while I was on Canaveral—‌but only one, and not a murder. I did kill Oberst. Toren shouldn’t have mentioned what happened on Canaveral, though. That isn’t widely known outside Fleet.”

  Yolanda narrowed her eyes. “I’m gettin’ real tired of those jokers. Don’t they have anything useful to do?”

  Toren didn’t want him getting back to Fleet. The reward was a very effective way of making sure he either stayed hidden or got killed. The kind of people who read and believed Hick’s circular wouldn’t be asking difficult questions, like why a Fleet technician was killed so far from the nearest Fleet post.

  “I regret, Commander Ennis.” Kilberton spread his hands. “Perhaps the captain will think of some other way for you to return safely.”

  Ennis stared at the textsheet without really seeing it. He had to make contact with Fleet; the information he had was too valuable. If Moire couldn’t think of a way, he had to. Even if he didn’t want to go.

  CHAPTER 12

  ODD JOBS

  When Moire arrived there was only one person in the crew meeting area, a short, barrel–‌chested, powerful–‌looking man with rough black hair and an expression of suppressed fury on his face. His lips were moving, as if he were muttering curses to himself.

  “Mr. Kostas?”

  He turned his head to scowl at her. “You Roberts?”

  She nodded. “What’s the problem? If McNaulty didn’t like the contract he should have said so earlier. I don’t have time to waste.” She was getting angry herself, just thinking about how much time it would take to find another contractor.

  His face got darker. “Nobody showed me that contract. I’m the crew chief, and I’m responsible for their safety. No way in hell I’m gonna let them go off when you won’t say where and you won’t say what they’re doing when they get there. I gotta sign off before we get the crew and the equipment, and I got nothing to evaluate. I—‌ain’t—‌satisfied!” he said, stabbing a stubby finger closer and closer to her face with each word.

  She resisted the urge to lean back, away from his anger. She needed to put him on the defensive instead. “McNaulty agreed to the secrecy. It’s in the contract. If you don’t like it, why are you even here?”

  “I need the work. We all do,” he growled. “People don’t want to build much with the crab war going on, and when they do they don’t hire the independent firms. Been real tough finding jobs. Bet you thought that would be enough, eh? But I got limits. I get real suspicious when somebody won’t tell me things I need to know. Makes me think you got something to hide, maybe something I wouldn’t go along with. You think just because I need work I’ll do anything? Lots of us take our family on jobs, ya know. I don’t risk my kids, or theirs. You don’t like it, find another contractor.”

  This was going to take some work. Moire sat down at the long table, summoning up a calm, understanding face.

  “I understand. My family’s safety is involved here too.” She could see she’d startled him, and he was listening intently. “That’s why I need the secrecy. I have enemies that would love nothing better than to know where I am. I can’t tell you that.” Seeing his brows start to lower again, she added, “What would satisfy you? What do you really need to know?”

  Kostas sat down opposite her, leaning back in his chair. “I wanna see the site, Roberts. We don’t even got a survey to work off of. I wanna know what you want built there. I wanna see who’s there and who I’ll be dealing with. You don’t want everybody knowin’ where
you are, I can understand with that. But I gotta know my crew won’t get in trouble from this.”

  Trouble follows me like a dog. Moire sighed. It was risky, but not much more than bringing in contractors in the first place. Kostas wouldn’t know the coordinates of Sequoyah or how to get there. The worst thing that could happen would be if he talked about the new Earthlike planet he’d been on and Toren found out. She’d just have to pound the need for secrecy into his head before sending him back. There wasn’t much hope of keeping it quiet when the construction crew left, but by then they should have their defenses ready.

  “OK, you can see the site. When you get there I think you’ll understand why I’m so paranoid. If you still want the job, great, but understand the biggest danger to your crew is if they can’t keep secrets. Not from me, but my enemies, you understand? If you don’t like the risk, we’ll take you back and find someone else.” Under a rock, maybe. We looked everywhere else. She hoped her bluff wasn’t showing. “If you agree, then we’ll hand you the plans. You’ll see my people there. Is that enough?”

  Kostas shifted restlessly in his chair, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “So how you payin’ for all this? You got big plans but no budget, or what?”

  “We salvage ships. That’s why we’re all the way out here.”

  He gave her a careful, thoughtful look through narrowed eyes. She noticed he wasn’t revealing much, and he hadn’t answered her question.

  “So…‌you get a little impatient with the original crew, maybe helped them leave or somethin’?”

  “We are not pirates, Mr. Kostas,” Moire said with careful calm. “The ship had been drifting for years before we found it.”

  “That so.” He gave her another shrewd look. “You been doing this for a while? Ever find any survivors?”

  There was no reason not to answer his question truthfully. “Once. Two of them.”

  Kostas pursed his lips, then slapped both hands down on the table. “OK, deal. Show me the site, and we’ll go from there.”