“Ready,” I confirmed.
His touch on the ionjets was deft and easy, and in moments he had the shuttle headed back toward the cargo lock of the orbit station.
“Major …” he asked after a time of silence, “were you with the Newton when …?”
“When we found the forerunner artifact?” I paused. “Yes.”
“What was … what’s it like?”
“It looked like an off-center Gate, sort of whitish, hard-to-see, and old. Very old.”
“Did you ever go into it?”
“None of us did. We just scanned it with probes.”
“Good thing you didn’t.”
“Oh?” His comment seemed a little strange.
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” I asked.
“About the alien curse? Or virus? Or whatever?”
“We’ve been out six months. Tell me,” I suggested dryly.
“They say that half the scientists who were on the Darwin were laid up with something. Two of ’em died.”
“That seems far-fetched to me,” I pointed out. “First, that artifact was so old that it didn’t have any atmosphere left. For even a virus to survive that long near absolute zero would be almost impossible. Then, for it to be compatible with our physiology?” I found myself shaking my head. “Besides, they decontaminated the Darwin with a photon-plasma wash, and with nanetic medicine, there’d be no way a leftover virus from some other life form could survive. And that was over two years ago. If something like that had survived, there would have been talk sooner than this.”
He shrugged. “I only know what they’ve been saying.”
“Are there any hard reports? Anything like that?”
“Not that I’ve seen, ser. But the last two ships, they were saying the same thing, they were.”
“Could be. I just don’t know.”
“I just know what I heard.” The jockey sounded put out that either I didn’t believe him or that I had nothing new to add. So that was that for the rest of the short hop to the orbit station.
Once there, I stripped myself of the suit and racked it in one of the transient lockers, and pocketed the microkey. Then, carrying my case, I put on a stern expression and made my way to upper level and the commander’s section. Since all orbit stations were designed the same, that wasn’t a problem.
A fresh-faced lieutenant wearing a logistics insignia on his single-suit immediately addressed me. “Might I help you, Major?”
“I have a case for Captain Flahrty.”
The senior lieutenant looked at me. “Ah … I could take it, ser.”
“I was ordered to deliver it to Captain Flahrty personally, Lieutenant. I brought it over from the Newton.”
“Ah … yes, ser.” He went rigid for a moment, apparently linking with Captain Flahrty. Then he gestured toward the hatch behind him and to his left. “The captain will see you, ser.”
I inclined my head. “Thank you.”
The hatch opened to my touch, and I eased/floated inside. Captain Flahrty was loosely strapped before a manual console in an office that was barely three meters square and not quite that from deck to overhead. He looked more like an ancient gladiator than a Federal Service senior captain.
“Yes, Major?” Captain Flahrty growled, as everyone had said he did.
“This is from Commander Matteus, Captain, with her compliments.” I extended the case, then managed a slight formal bow, despite the weightlessness.
Captain Flahrty raised his eyebrows, but he took the case. “Thank you, Major. Is there anything else?”
“No, ser. Unless you have anything that needs to go back to Earth.”
“If I do, Major, I’ll send it over on the shuttle.”
“Yes, ser. Thank you, ser.”
With another bow, I propelled myself out of the smallish office. After nodding to the young lieutenant, I made my way back down to the main deck, where I stopped by the mess and tried some of their pastries. They weren’t any better than those on the Newton, and no one on the station seemed especially friendly. So I went to suit up again and to find the cargo shuttle.
The shuttle had a new pilot, and she didn’t mention the alien Gate, and neither did I, although I did wonder about what the other pilot had told me. But all I could wonder was how anything could have survived the time and temperatures for so long. And I still felt restless.
* * *
Chapter 34
Raven: Vallura — Helyna, 459 N.E.
* * *
I woke up groggy from not sleeping well. My home was probably safe — for a time — and the latest modifications to the glider were designed so that it would have been easier to blow it up with an antique tactical nuclear device — were there any left on Earth — than to tamper with it in a way that wouldn’t register on my personal link system.
But something was happening, more than a simple attempt to murder me. I could take matters two ways — that someone was out to kill me or that I’d been given a serious warning. Stay home and out of whatever it was, or get killed. I’d never liked that kind of game. I suppose it was why I still occasionally played tennis against Gerrat, even if he won most of the time.
If I had to, I supposed that I could dip into my inheritance and go trotting all over the world to try to dig out more on the PST connection. Or I could go visit Eldyn — I certainly didn’t want to talk substance to him on the net — and he’d probably talk to me, even if he told me nothing. But there was no certainty that I’d find anything. And there was no one else I could hire that could probably do much better. I knew nets, and systems, and I knew the people and the kind of people who ran them. If the kind of information I needed didn’t happen to be accessible on someone’s net, then it was either firewalled where breaking in would end someone on the Mars penal project, or it wasn’t on any system. In a very careful way, I’d already been set up, set up so that almost any effective way to discover exactly who was after me or why would be illegal and dangerous, or both.
I did have some information to track down Elysa — but I didn’t want to use any system I had … and if I went to UniComm … well, then, I could get further involved in the sysnet wars … if indeed they were part of the problem. Besides, something about going into Unicomm felt wrong.
As I sipped yet another cup of Grey tea and looked at the early-morning shadowed shapes of the East Mountains, I had one thought. Probably a bad one, but I needed a friendly face as well as more information.
So I headed to get cleaned up and dressed.
I had gotten as far as getting dressed. In fact, I was standing in my office wondering what I’d need to implement my questionable idea when the gatekeeper chimed. The identification was about what I’d worried about — or feared — the Civil Authorities.
The image that appeared was that of a tired-eyed but young CA in a slightly wrinkled off-white and gray singlesuit. “Ser, I’m officer Whitsenn, with the Helnya regional office of the Civil Authorities.” He paused, I suspect, to see what I would volunteer.
“Yes?” I was wary, but I decided that I needed to get through the call. “What can I do for you, officer?”
“There’s been an incident of sorts here, and we’ve been going through the skytors and tube records, and it appears that you might have been in Helnya yesterday when it occurred.”
“I was in Helnya yesterday,” I admitted. “I was visiting a jeweler, but I don’t see what …” I frowned, then shook my head, and offered a puzzled smile. I hoped it was a puzzled smile. “How can I help you?”
“I’d like your permission to record this, if I might, ser?”
“That’s fine,” I agreed. There was no reason not to agree. He was being polite, or putting me on notice, or both, since he certainly didn’t need my permission.
“Thank you, ser.” After a moment, he continued, “You took the two fifteen induction tube from Helnya to Vallura, and a man of your approximate description was seen hurrying to the tube train statio
n at about five past two.” He waited again.
I smiled and shrugged. “I’m sure that was me. I didn’t want to wait for another tube.” I decided to be very cooperative. “What else do you need to know?”
“You seemed to be coming from the northwest.”
“I’d guess so. I was just following the walkway. There were oaks there. I was just walking, and then I realized if I didn’t hurry I might miss the tube.”
“Did you see anything unusual?”
I frowned. “Where? There was a pair of youngsters on the train, you know the type, with the wide-legged red leather single suits with the white vests that strobe …”
“Actually, ser, we were interested in anything you might have seen just before you got to the station.”
I squinted, trying to remember just how the monoclone had looked. “I only saw one person before I reached the station … I mean just before. I didn’t think it was that unusual. Maybe a little … There was a man in a sort of brown singlesuit — a cheap one, and it struck me as a little odd for Helnya at first, but he was standing in the nasturtiums, and then I realized he was a gardener or something.”
“Why did you think he was a gardener, ser?”
“Well … because he had knife in his hand and was doing something to the tree. It looked like he was pruning something … so I thought he was a gardener.” I looked at the CA’s image. “Wasn’t he a gardener?”
The CA politely ignored my question. “Could you describe this man?”
I shrugged again. “I didn’t look too closely. I remember the brown, because it was cheap-looking, and he had brown hair … I think. I would have noticed if he’d been a redhead or a blond. I don’t think it was black. Maybe medium-sized, not as tall as I am.” I tried to look helpful. “That’s the only person I can remember seeing. Does that help?”
“Yes, ser, it does.” He gave me a professional smile. “Is there anything else you can remember?”
I tilted my head, trying to remember any other detail, but I couldn’t, except for the clone’s vacant face and the filament knife, and I wasn’t about to mention those. Finally, I shook my head. “I really can’t. I suppose I dismissed him once I realized he was a gardener.” I paused. “Except he wasn’t, was he?”
“No, ser.”
“Can you tell me what this is all about?” I tried to be insistently polite.
“I really can’t, ser. You’ve been most helpful. All I can say is that we’re investigating.” He paused, then asked, “Did you see anyone else who might have passed this man? Say, someone going the other way? From the station toward him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t that far from the trees where he was to the station. I suppose someone coming off the tube might have walked that way, but I didn’t see anyone.” In fact, I hadn’t seen anyone except the monoclone until I’d gotten into the station.
“No one at all, ser?”
“No one. Not until I was in the station.” And that was definitely true.
He kept at it for a time, asking about details, and rephrasing questions, but I struck to what I’d seen, and everything I told him was true — except for the little detail about the clone using his knife to prune the tree. I just didn’t tell him everything.
Finally, he — or his image — looked at me. “You’ve been very patient, ser, and I thank you. If we run across anything else, might we contact you?”
“Of course.”
After his image vanished, I went upstairs and had another cup of Grey tea. I’d need to wait a bit before I put my bad idea into practice, since the last thing I wanted to do was to go screaming out of the house right after a call from the CAs.
* * *
Chapter 35
Fledgling: Earth Orbit Station Three, 442 N.E.
* * *
Somehow, everything was less eventful, less mysterious, after the discovery of the forerunner Gate. I kept looking for stories about it, in the scientific netpubs, the journals, the pop news … but there was little outside of a few short articles on the basic inscrutability of the alien science, and one series of stories about how there had been a single huge energy spike from the Gate, but no sign of anything except what appeared to be a puff of gas that dispersed into deep space almost instantly. The stories went on, but no one had figured out how it had happened or triggered or why, and eventually those disappeared as well. Someone had begun to unravel the mystery of the composite hull and was hopeful that the material could be duplicated commercially within the decade.
As Gerrat and Father had said, if there’s nothing new, it’s not news, and there wasn’t anything new, and the pop news went back to the VR entertainment hoaxes, and the scaps that were and weren’t, the latest epidemic to come out of Southeast Eurasia, blamed on the uncovering of pre-Collapse biowar stockpiles in Chung Kuo but curtailed by rapid deployment of specialized nanites.
Along the way, I became and remained the senior pilot on the Newton, until I decided to put in my papers on our way back from Delta Felini. Ten years was the minimum to fill the FS obligation for a pilot, and I’d put in sixteen, almost seventeen years, thinking I might go for retirement, before I decided that I couldn’t see myself bucking for command and playing all the political games. Being senior pilot had shown me enough about that.
We were in the last few hours of decel coming into Earth, and I was scheduled to go on duty in an hour. I was looking around my cabin wondering if I should start to pack when the link chimed.
“Major?” The voice was that of Captain Matteus. She had finally succeeded Andruhka as the commander of the Newton, and she was personally the opposite of Andruhka — slighter, physically deft, soft-spoken, and with an understated sense of humor. She also never forgot a favor or a slight.
“Yes, ser?”
“I’m in my office. I’d appreciate it if you could stop by.”
“Yes, ser. I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you.”
What did she want? To wish me well? Change my mind? Tell me I was making a mistake? I didn’t know, and wasn’t about to guess, since Matteus had been the toughest officer to read of any I had served with or for. Unless she wanted you to know, you didn’t. It was that simple. She had summoned me personally, rather than just talking over a private netlink, and that was unusual, to say the least.
I closed the locker I had been studying prior to packing and made my way out of the small cabin and along the passageway to her office. There I knocked on the door. “Major Alwyn, ser.”
“Come in, Major.”
I stepped inside and closed the door.
She gestured to one of the chairs, fastened firmly to the deck, like everything in a Federal Service ship.
I sat and waited.
“You’re one of the best pilots in Federal Service, you know,” she said quietly. “If you decide to change your mind, I’d take you back and offer you ops.”
That was an automatic promotion to subcommander. “I didn’t know we needed an ops officer.”
“Subcommander Vehrens is being transferred when we reach Orbit Three.”
I nodded.
“You don’t seem surprised, Major.”
“No, ser.” It was better that I not say I’d been totally unimpressed with Vehrens, particularly since some of his duties had been delegated to me, and since it had been obvious that the captain and the exec had been covering for his lack of ability.
“He’s eligible for early retirement. He was once a very good pilot.” The captain smiled sadly. After a moment, she spoke again. “Before you make up your mind, there is one thing you should know. All transfers to and from orbit station have been frozen. No one who’s been augmented or pre-selected can go Earthside until they’ve been medically screened.” She gave a rueful smile. “And the equipment’s Earthside and likely to stay there for a while. Then they’ll have to sterilize Kuritim.…”
“Ser?”
“It came in about an hour ago. There’s another plague or virus. It
started in the Sinoplex … and a few other locales on the Pacific Rim. This one only attacks pre-selects who are augmented. All FS officers are both, and many of the senior techs as well.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t even leave the FS without difficulty. “Does anyone know how it started? Or why?”
“I’m sure someone does, but they haven’t seen fit to tell me, or anyone on Orbit Three. I talked on the longlink with Marshal Hylui. He said they had matters under control, but since the orbit stations are effectively already quarantined, if they leave them isolated, then they can concentrate all resources on the affected areas and people.”
I sighed. “I take it that if no one’s coming up, then I wouldn’t be going down.”
“No … you could wait on Orbit Three” Her tone conveyed I would be waiting a long time.
“Do you still want me back?” I grinned at the captain. “Even as a pilot?”
With a rueful smile, she shook her head. “If you’ll extend for six months, you can have ops, and the promotion. There’s no one else close to you that’s available right now.”
And she wanted Subcommander Vehrens off the ship. That was quite clear.
“The quarantine?”
“That … and the rotation schedules. Sometimes, it happens.”
“I’ll extend.”
Her smile was broader. “If you make it two years, you can take early retirement and the higher rank.”
Thinking about Father and Gerrat, especially, there were suddenly reasons for taking her offer, reasons that looked very good. For that I could take the political games, for another year and a half beyond the six months. But only for another year and a half, and only under Matteus.
“Let’s go for two.”
Captain Matteus smiled and handed me a folder. “No one has seen your papers. No one will.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Could I ask why?”
“Yes … but I won’t tell you until you leave Federal Service.” She reached into one of the drawers in her desk and pulled out the gold starburst insignia of a subcommander. “Here. You can have these as a loan, and you can start wearing them tomorrow.”
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