Aneka reached out and took Evolution’s hand. It was warm, the skin felt like skin. It was hard to think of this being as a computer. ‘You’ve had a millennium to work through your mistakes and every opportunity to control how you teach what you know. I trust Abraham and Gillian. If they think this can work, that the knowledge you have will be of overall benefit, then I have to believe that it’s going to be okay.’ She smiled. ‘Besides, we do have a couple of very big safeguards.’
‘Indeed. I was a little surprised that your crewmates agreed to have their memories altered.’
‘They all know they’re safer that way,’ Aneka replied. ‘If none of them knows where this place is they can’t be used to find out. That leaves Aggy, who won’t go against an order from me, and me. If someone can force it out of me then they probably deserve to get the information. How’s the relay network going?’
‘We have wormholed six out of ten units into position. The others will be placed over the next sixteen hours. Doctor Wallace has been observing the operation.’ She grinned. ‘With considerable interest.’
Aneka grinned back. ‘Yeah, he would be.’
25.9.524 FSC.
Aneka watched as the stars appeared ahead of the Garnet Hyde. The ship was moving smoothly out through the outer doors of the hangar bay under Aggy’s guidance. Aneka was the only person active on the ship right now, and she was up there for only one reason. She waited, silently, while the fusion drive took over from the thrusters and the Hyde accelerated away from the station. Then she reached out and tapped a button on the console.
‘Garnet Hyde to Negral Control. Ready for warp.’
It was Evolution’s voice that answered her. ‘All our sensors are showing green lights, Aneka. Good luck, and good journey.’
‘Talk to you in a couple of months, Eve.’
‘We’re all looking forward to it. Negral Control out.’
Aneka sighed. ‘All right, Aggy, let’s go to warp.’
Ahead of them the stars blurred and vanished into blue, and they were on their way home.
Part Four: The Art Of Diplomacy
FScV Garnet Hyde, 20.10.524 FSC.
The last of the usual diagnostic messages scrolled past Aneka’s eyes. She opened them, registering again that Ella was not lying beside her. She had not even considered that she would miss that, but she had. Basically heterosexual before the Xinti had conditioned her to a more ‘open’ view of just about every new experience, the idea that missing a woman in bed with her would be a problem was just… odd. Still, she was missing Ella and she was glad that it would not be the case for much longer.
Sitting up and swinging her legs out of bed, she immediately saw Cassandra. The android had been her companion for the last twenty-one days. Aneka’s first duty once the Hyde was clear of the Negral system had been to reactivate Cassandra. Turning herself off had been her own idea; she had wanted no possibility that she would see anything that could lead back to Negral. She had, in fact, been quite happy to be inactive for the entire trip, but Drake had nixed that; if Aneka was awake someone else had to be, and Aggy did not count yet.
‘Good morning, Aneka,’ Cassandra said, smiling. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
‘We’ll get the others up,’ Aneka replied. ‘They’ll want food and drink, and I can grab something then. It’s not like I really need it.’
‘Shall we go down then?’
‘Let me get my suit on.’ Aneka reached for the garment as she said so.
‘Are you sure you should bother? You’ll just have to take it off as soon as Ella has recovered.’
Aneka gave the android a look. Cassandra was all serious, except for the twinkle in her eyes. Slipping the Ultraskin garment up her legs she said, ‘It comes off very easily. Aggy, would you restart the air cycle in the other rooms, please?’
‘Of course, Aneka.’ The computer’s image appeared near the cabin door. ‘Shall I initiate the recovery systems? It requires ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds, on average, to complete.’
It would not take them that long to walk to the cold-sleep room. ‘Yes. Pipe the telemetry through to Al.’ Almost instantly two rows of indicators appeared in-vision showing the frighteningly low heart and respiratory rates of each crew member, and their nearly non-existent EEGs.
Ten minutes later, as Aneka and Cassandra waited with bottles of isotonic fluids, the readouts looked far more normal. ‘Everything appears to be normal,’ Cassandra commented as she walked down between the two rows of white coffins with their transparent lids.
‘Uh-huh,’ Aneka replied. There was a spike in brain activity on one of her displays and she turned towards the pod Delta was in. She had sort of figured that the girl would be the first up and, sure enough, the lid hinged open a second later and Delta let out a groan.
‘Are we there yet?’ Delta croaked, sitting up and wincing. ‘I hate cold sleep.’
Aneka handed her a bottle. ‘About a day out from Sapphira.’
‘Right.’ Cracking the seal, the muscled redhead drained the bottle in one, very thirsty pull. ‘Tell me again why we’re stopping off at Sapphira.’
‘It’s the first Federation world we come to. We stop here, contact New Earth, and get instructions.’
Monkey’s pod cracked open then, forestalling any further discussion, and after that they were busy as people started to rapidly awaken. The last was Wallace, the oldest and the least adapted to stress, though it was Gillian who expressed their joint displeasure.
‘I’m getting too old for this,’ Gillian groaned, holding out a hand for a second bottle of water.
Aneka giggled. ‘Do you say that every time you wake up from cold sleep?’
‘For as long as I’ve known her,’ Bashford said, chuckling.
‘Just imagine how I feel,’ Wallace countered. ‘Could someone get me my…’ He stopped as Cassandra handed him the anti-gravity unit the AIs had given him. ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked, grinning.
‘You would certainly never be able to find anything,’ Cassandra replied, ‘but I think you would adjust.’
‘All right,’ Drake interjected, ‘I want food, a lot of coffee, and a status report. I trust you two haven’t broken my ship?’
Aggy’s voice came from the room’s speakers. ‘All my systems are operating perfectly, Captain. We are currently twenty-three standard hours from entry into the Sapphira system. The flight has been smooth and uneventful.’
‘Sounds good. Now I just need to eat.’
‘So do I,’ Ella agreed, stretching as she climbed free of her sleep pod, ‘but I’d better get some food in me first.’
~~~
Aneka’s hips tilted, her back arched, and she felt the familiar tension of orgasm beginning again. ‘Fuck… gonna…’
Ella lifted her head for just long enough to say, ‘Come for me, love,’ and then she returned to tonguing Aneka’s clitoris with a flicking action she knew worked exceptionally well.
‘Mmnngggnnn-ah!’ Aneka replied as the pressure exploded up through her body and swept through her mind, and nothing mattered aside from Ella’s tongue and fingers, and her whole world was bright light… And then she was lying on the table in their cabin, panting hard even though her body did not really need the oxygen.
Giggling, Ella slipped her fingers out of Aneka and made a show of licking them clean. ‘It feels like you’ve missed me,’ she said, sounding pleased. ‘I must’ve missed you. I had a dream that we were making love on a beach the whole time I was asleep. You must’ve had some fun with Cassandra?’
‘Nope,’ Aneka replied, struggling to regain control of her breathing. She had a theory that she only did this because it clearly made Ella think she was doing a good job. On the other hand she did not appear to be able to stop doing it either. ‘Not even a stealthy grope.’
‘Vashma, you must be strong. I’d have been between her thighs before the first night was out.’
‘You don’t have Al in your head. It’d feel a bit li
ke I was getting Cassandra to cheat on him.’
‘So you’ve been over twenty days without an orgasm? You poor baby!’
Aneka barked a laugh. ‘Ella, you may be used to sex at every opportunity, but I’ve done without for months at a time.’
‘I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that that causes mental instability and social dysfunction.’
‘Huh. I was in the army and then a mercenary. I was already socially dysfunctional.’
‘Tamahda! You’re as balanced as every Jenlay I’ve ever met, aside from the fact most of them won’t kill people.’ Her hands stroked over Aneka’s bare thigh. ‘And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Hunter deserved it.’
‘I’m not sure anyone deserves to die…’ Ella’s hands slid further up Aneka’s thighs, sliding inward, and Aneka groaned. ‘H-haven’t you had enough?’
‘You’ve got twenty days of abstinence to make up for,’ Ella replied, smiling sweetly as she leaned forward.
21.10.524 FSC.
‘All hands,’ Shannon’s voice came from the lab’s speakers, ‘warp exit in sixty seconds. This is a trinary system so there may be a little chop.’
Aneka, who was hanging around there because she had nothing much else to do, glanced around at Gillian. ‘Chop?’
‘Sapphira is a three-star system,’ Gillian replied. ‘The complex gravity can cause some odd reactions with the warp field. The closest companion star is always at least thirty AU out so it’s unlikely, but we are flying with an engine we’ve never seen before.’
‘The warp field generated by a second-generation drive is actually more stable than that of a first-generation drive.’ Aggy’s image was standing beside them. She had been assisting Gillian and Ella in an analysis of Xinti musical composition. Aneka definitely preferred her rock music.
‘Soon know,’ Aneka replied. ‘The engine note just changed. I can hear it now.’
‘Gravitational stress is resulting in a three per cent increase in power demand,’ Aggy told them. ‘Since my reactor is already fully loaded I have had to reduce speed. Time to exit now twenty-three-point-four seconds.’
The tone lowered until Aneka could hear a strong, ultrasonic whine. ‘Sounds like it’s labouring a bit.’ Then the sound cut off, replaced a second later by the roar of the fusion drive. ‘We’re out of warp.’
‘We are,’ Aggy confirmed. ‘Captain Drake is contacting Sapphira flight control now.’
‘This should be interesting,’ Ella commented.
They waited in silence for what seemed like hours, but Aneka’s clock showed just over a minute before Drake’s voice came over the lab’s speakers. ‘The naval base is sending a frigate out to meet us. They’re putting us into quarantine.’
‘To be expected,’ Gillian said, sighing.
‘I have dispatched the message you requested, Aneka,’ Aggy stated. ‘Estimated time to reception at New Earth is eight days, two hours.’
Aneka nodded. ‘It’ll reach Winter before anything the locals send.’
‘Let’s just hope they don’t shoot first and worry about contacting New Earth later,’ Gillian said.
‘They wouldn’t!’ Ella protested.
‘This is the Navy we’re talking about,’ Aneka replied. ‘They don’t like the Xinti.’ She shrugged. ‘Then again, I’m not entirely sure the modern Navy knows where the fire button is on their guns.’
~~~
They might not have known where that button was, but they knew where the triggers were on their carbines. There were five of them, four marines in combat suits and full helmets, and one wearing the insignia of a lieutenant. He was the one doing the talking; the others formed up at his flanks as soon as they were through the airlock.
‘Lieutenant Ireland of the Delta Delilah,’ the squad leader said.
‘Captain Drake,’ Drake responded. He was standing ahead of Aneka and just to her right. If the shooting started, he was going to be behind her, though they were hoping to avoid that eventuality. ‘This is one of my facilitators, Miss Jansen.’
‘The rest of your crew?’
‘In the mess,’ Drake replied.
‘A federal alert went out to keep our eyes open for your ship, Captain,’ Ireland said. ‘The reports indicated that their might have been Xinti involvement in your disappearance.’
‘There wasn’t,’ Drake replied. ‘However, we need to talk to Administration Representatives as soon as possible.’
Ireland’s face was impassive. ‘Our orders are to hold you in quarantine until we can determine the nature of the Xinti influence you’ve been under. There are medical teams on their way up from Sapphira.’
Drake glanced at Aneka and she shrugged. ‘How high is your security clearance, Lieutenant?’ Drake asked.
‘I’m the XO aboard the Delta Delilah,’ Ireland replied, straightening his back. ‘Level five on a need-to-know basis.’
‘In that case you’d better get me your Captain, because if you bring a medical team aboard this ship I’ll have to have you arrested for treason.’
~~~
Captain Joshua Perry was not a happy man. You could tell from the way he glowered through the faceplate of his helmet as he walked into the mess aboard the Garnet Hyde. Aneka noted that the insignia he wore ranked him as a commander, not uncommon for the officer in charge of a frigate, but Perry did not look young and he was stationed on a Rim World base well out of the Federation’s core. She guessed he had not had a particularly distinguished career. His body lacked the definition she was used to in naval officers; he was not keeping himself as fit as he could, but his situation suggested more that he was too keen to run his mouth off. His opening statement backed up that supposition.
‘There better be a damn good reason why I’m having to come here in person or…’
‘What’s your security clearance, Captain?’ Drake asked, cutting the man off. His tone suggested he was not happy with Perry’s.
‘Seven, if required. What’s that got to do with you lot undergoing medical scans?’
Drake looked at Aneka. Aneka sighed. ‘I’ve got this little speech I was told to give.’ Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Delta swallow hard; she had got the same speech. ‘The information you are about to be given is classified under Federal Law as a level-seven secret. You are to reveal this information to no one. Revealing this information is subject to penalties not excluding death. Captain Perry, do you understand what I have just told you?’
The man’s face went from angry to serious. ‘I do.’
‘Right. You’re aware of who I am?’
‘Yeah, of course. Most of the galaxy knows who you are. Aneka Jansen, resident of Old Earth, kidnapped by the Xinti and frozen for a thousand years.’
‘They didn’t just freeze me. They took an image of my mind and transplanted it into a cybernetic body. This body. They did to me what they did to themselves. Physically, you could say I’m a Xinti.’
Perry stiffened, his hand moving towards the pistol at his hip. ‘Why’s that a secret?’
‘Firstly,’ Gillian replied, ‘because people would react the way you did. Fear, distrust. Aneka has undergone extensive psychological evaluation. She is, despite her physical nature, a Jenlay.’
‘Human,’ Aneka corrected. ‘We were Human back then. And the other reason why it’s a secret, Captain, is that Winter says it is. If you’d like to ask her about it, feel free, but I don’t think the conversation would go well. She’s never struck me as someone who likes having her decisions second-guessed. Anyway, you can’t have me scanned. The medics would pick up that I wasn’t Jenlay immediately.’
Perry sagged. ‘Gopi,’ he grumbled. ‘This is above my pay grade, and I doubt Captain Goddard is going to think any different. We’ll need to contact New Earth and that’s a sixteen-day round trip for a message…’
‘It gets worse,’ Drake told him. ‘We weren’t taken by the Xinti, but we were transported across half the galactic arm by some AIs they left behind. We started out as an ar
chaeological mission, now we’re diplomats. They want to open communications with the Federation.’
‘Technically that’s not a secret,’ Aneka said, ‘but I think if word of it gets out there’ll be blood on the decking.’
Perry was back to looking angry. ‘Why the fuck did you people have to turn up on my watch?’
‘I guess you’re just lucky,’ Aneka replied.
~~~
‘So what’s the story with Sapphira?’ Aneka asked. She was sitting in the cabin she shared with Ella while the redhead took a shower. There was no room in the small cubicle that contained the washroom for two to get wet at the same time.
‘It’s a little like Odanari, a resort world. It’s famous for one of its mountain ranges which is practically entirely formed of blue quartz. The main difference is that Sapphira has a native population, mostly farmers. The mountains are on one continent, which is where all the tourists go. The natives live on the other one. Pretty insular, I believe, but that’s not uncommon on the Rim.’
‘Sounds kind of nice. Quiet.’
‘Not the resort. From what I’ve heard Sapphira Tourism likes to keep the authorities away from the place. Once you’ve landed and you’re away from the spaceport and the government facilities, pretty much anything goes. It’s not cheap to get all the way out here so the clientele are mostly rich kids or Rim Worlders. The locals like the money the resort brings in, but not the resort. Most of the staff are shipped in on contract.’
‘Think we’ll get to visit?’
The water stopped and Ella emerged from the washroom, drying herself with a towel. ‘Vashma, I hope so. I could do with a planet under my feet before we go back into cold sleep.’
‘Well, I doubt we’re getting off this ship until Winter steps in. We’re going to be in orbit for sixteen days at least.’
Ella gave her a predatory grin. ‘Sixteen days with nothing to do but fuck? I can live with that.’
The Cold Steel Mind Page 19
