by Ginger Booth
The Sanctuary immigrants had years to prepare, and wealth pouring out their ears from the AI Loki’s manufacturing. Abel easily converted that wealth into their own enclave, custom-built on the outskirts of Schuyler city. Each of the Sanks arrived to a home far nicer than the apartments they left on Sanctuary, with a concrete plan of how each would proceed to become a self-supporting, productive member of Mahina society. The emancipated slaves, the Sagamore paddies, came with nothing, but they had nothing before, and welcomed the challenge.
But both previous immigrant waves came in numbers small enough, slow enough, for Mahina to absorb without a blink. The Denali wave would be a whole new ballgame.
“I’m stunned,” Ben assured her. “Kassidy, Hunter, impressed as hell.”
Grimly, Abel stared at the screen. He hugged his wife Jules in the next chair to his chest. “Are you coming with me, Kassidy? To film?”
“With you?” she asked in surprise. Abel and Jules only arrived home from Hell’s Bells last night with Friendship Thrive, twin to Ben’s Merchant Thrive. They’d advanced their schedule four days to make it to this meeting.
Abel nodded resolutely. “As soon as they’re finished reloading, I take Friendship and Eager straight to Denali.” Eager Thrive was likewise twin to Hopeful Thrive, their other Sardine-class transport. Friendship was gateway-capable. “And stay there, at least until I’m confident the Denali can fly Eager well enough. Use it to sky-lift refugees to Denali Prime.”
“Wait, what?” Kassidy demanded, fist on hip. She and Hunter dropped everything to produce her masterpiece and convince people from Poldark to Hell’s Bells to take in refugees.
“Peace, Kassidy,” Ben murmured. “This gets complicated. Abel’s rushing to Denali as fast as he can to start ferrying urgent cases to safety. But Prime can’t take many in, and Hermitage refuses. Meanwhile, I fly Merchant and Hopeful to Sylvan, and pick up Sass and the remnants of the colony expedition. Then off to Sanctuary. Actually the asteroid belt. I doubt we’ll visit the planet. And take possession of four new Hopeful-class transports and a fuel tender, full of star drive fuel.”
“Have you named them yet?” Cope asked, striving to lighten the mood.
Ben glowered at him. “The tender is Stalwart. Remi, I hope you’re ready to step up as captain on Stalwart?” The Saggy engineer nodded doubtfully. “The transports are Bold, Brave, Daring, and Gallant.” He shrugged at Cope’s quirked lip. “Subject to approval by their first captains.”
“Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful…” Abel teased him.
The physicist Teke ignored him. “Do we need to transport Loki on this trip?”
“He can’t pack in time.” Ben sighed. “But I agreed to allow observation AIs in his new ships. Loki mini-clones a la Bloki. They won’t carry ansibles, though, only light-speed comms.”
“Gah!” Remi breathed. The poor engineer was acting captain on Thrive when Bloki, Floki’s ‘father’, assumed control on Cantons once.
“Loki promised observation-only. But they can communicate with you.”
Remi snarled but seemed to accept the inevitable. Loki’s ships and fuel would save tens of thousands of Denali lives. They’d pay the devil his due.
“I’m going with Ben,” Jules offered. “At max capacity, those transports are the biggest housekeeping challenge ever.” Her husband gave her a squeeze of solidarity. “I’ll rejoin Abel soon. On Denali.”
“I’m going with Ben as well,” Teke murmured. “I have a breakthrough plan for the Dregs of Mars to test, if we ever find some free time. Cope, we can get the team tooling it on MO.”
Cope shook his head. “Not until Denali summer is over. But I’m with Ben, too.”
Ben noted, “But Kassidy, you didn’t shoot that footage. And it’s devastatingly good.”
She shook her head. “No. No, I think my place is here again. Persuading more Mahinans to take in refugees, plant more, do more, give their all. I’ll film the refugees arriving, recuperating. Rah, rah, go Mahina!”
Remi surprised her. “And Sagamore. Make them part of the solution. Please, Kassidy. Mahina can’t feed all these people alone. Time to let Sagamore be heroine instead of villain, yes? And Hell’s Bells can take many. Maybe only hundreds.” He paused. “Maybe Loki can build more Hell’s Bells.”
Ben sighed. “Not this month.”
Kassidy nodded firmly. “Thank you, Remi! Yes! Pono’s rings will be unrecognizable in a few years. I’ll stay here and build the vision! Tens of thousands of new immigrants, smart and strong and motivated. This rego moon will bloom with their industry!”
Teke noted, “And vast self-esteem.”
Ben ignored him and beamed at her. “Counting on you! Don’t let me down.”
“Not a chance, fleet captain! I’ll get those refugees housed and fed!”
Jules cocked a wry eyebrow at her. Housekeeping and real estate were her bailiwick. But this time she’d volunteered as mistress of mopping. Cleaning those over-packed transports was a disgusting nightmare. Kassidy was so glad it wasn’t her.
“I might help, too,” Hunter muttered.
She giggled and swooped down to hug him from behind around the chest, and smeared purple lipstick on his ear. “You’re my hero, Hunter!” Her part was only cheerleading. Hunter, with connections shot through the halls of power, legal and illegal alike, would actually make this work. His specialty was moving and shaking behind the scenes.
“Way to go, Hunter!” Ben thumped the dining table. “Let’s do this, team Thrive! We got places to go, lives to save!”
Kassidy led the cheer, of course.
“I have an idea,” Sass shared ardently with Ben when he called her next on the ansible. He rested in Pono orbit now with Merchant and Hopeful, ready to make transition in the morning. Mahina morning, anyway – around 02:00 Sylvan time. “Tarana is leaning on me to punish the ringleaders severely. Leave them behind, in fact. I need to comply.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Spaceways employees. You don’t really feel that way, Sass. Do you?”
“No. Well, maybe, with Zan. He –”
“Don’t,” Ben cut her off, hand up in front of the crappy silver-scale camera.
She nodded. “I play good cop, to Tarana. You play good cop to our miscreants. And I’m bad cop to Zan and his cranky band of sleaze balls. You’re bad cop to Tarana.” And she explained her plan of attack.
Ben chuckled. “Convoluted. But I’m no cop.”
Sass shrugged that off. “Same as a starship officer, really.”
“Perhaps you’re just doing it wrong.” Ben grinned at her. “Acosta out.”
44
Ben slipped to a seat, dangling his legs from the shuttle airlock, a meter up and one over from the platform at Sylvan Two. He set his comms to broadcast. “Hey! Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Tarana’s prisoners, left floating here to die, struggled to their feet. Ben judged they were stiff and cold, not in life-threatening distress yet. Sass said she dumped them off last night with 12 hours of air, a toolbox, and a corroded air remixer. His arrival should strike a nice balance. Close enough to asphyxiating that they’d contemplated their crimes. Yet still in good enough shape to think straight. Though a tad chilly.
The verdict was in on Sylvan summer. They’d arrived near the peak. Autumn’s breath on Melt Lake left a pretty tracing of frost on their floating dock. Their paltry supplies included no shelter, nor any means to build one.
“Who’s flying that thing?” Zan inquired, studying the shuttle.
“I am, of course,” Ben said cheerily. “Because I’m that good.” His auto-pilot programs were works of art, if he did say so himself.
Walker leaned out over his head, brandishing a stunner. “Don’t even think of jumping it. No one boards this shuttle without the cap’s say-so.”
Ben pushed him to the side, where his security goon locked onto a D-ring to cantilever off the side. “Can you all gather round? Or will that flip your fine dance floor?”
&nbs
p; The ringleaders shuffled forward, to face him in a line. Tarana had the minor miscreants working off their sins by loading the ships and containers for departure at Sylvan One. Here he faced Zan, Tikka Gena, Tikki Cook and his doormat lover, Benek the turncoat farmer Selectman, plus another disgraced farmer and healer and a couple hunters Ben didn’t know.
“Glorious view, isn’t it?” Ben admired, taking in the panorama of dark forest and brilliant blue-green waters, snow-capped peaks flashing in the sun beyond. “Trifle cold, though. Who wants to leave?”
None of the other prisoners responded. But Zan stepped forward. “Don’t toy with us. You’d never forgive us for what we did. What we had to do! To save Denali!” The others nodded.
Ben’s last ace up the sleeve stepped out of the shadows and looked down – the physicist Teke. Zan met his eyes in anguish, then dropped his gaze. “Zan, listen with your ears. You’re a disgrace. But you know Thrive. They believe in redemption. Or do you prefer to die of terminal mouth? Shut up.”
Zan nodded, and stepped back to cede the conversation.
“First up,” Ben said. “Benek. I trust you slept well in the great outdoors.” Denali farmers seldom emerged from the dome they were born in, practicing extreme quarantine to protect their Earth crops from the omnipresent bakkra microbes. This exposed platform, gently slurping on wild water, amounted to life in hell for the agoraphobic.
“Why did you do it?” Ben asked.
Benek met his gaze boldly. “This is no place for farmers. Mahina is. We can garden there, make the regolith bloom in safety and peace. Here? This is a world for adventurers, hunters. Not for builders, creators, providers. Not us. It’s too raw, too dangerous. We’re already too close to the edge. No. We need less risk. Farmers and academics, Mahina is perfect for us. It was cosmos and hunters who dreamed of Sylvan. A children’s fantasy, not practical at all.”
Ben nodded understanding. Though he shared the hunters’ wild spirit himself, he agreed with Benek about the welfare of Denali as a whole. Even the cosmos were misguided, too entranced with preserving their unique culture. Only their hunters belonged on Sylvan. However.
“Sagamore offers an empty paddy ville. I carried its slaves to Mahina some time ago. But it’s in good shape. The Saggies donated it for a penal colony. Grow food. Take in other trouble-makers. Most of your co-conspirators in camp could go with you. Safely sealed, with a lovely view of the gas giant. Think you can make it work?”
Benek’s sentence would be the harshest, because his offense was grave. For a Selectman to betray his people was beyond the pale. Yet few hankered after life in a slave paddy. And Mahina sure didn’t want Denali’s criminals. Ben figured if anyone could make sure they didn’t end up as slaves, it was this lot. And Benek’s soul needed hard labor to earn back his self-esteem. Ben made a good offer.
The burly farmer nodded. “I can make it work.”
“Then come on board!” Ben encouraged. Wilder swung out a hand to haul the elder-looking gentleman in. “Which of you are with him?” Others hesitantly stepped forward, pulled aboard in turn.
Kaol started to step forward after them, but Ben waved him back. “Excuse me, the doorway is full. I need to hop down, so Walker can cycle the airlock.” He pushed off and easily landed on the platform, to take a look around. Teke leapt after him and nearly toppled into the lake. But Zan and Kaol hastily caught him. Sass was right. Hunters served academics well.
The airlock door sealed behind them. Ben took a stroll around the plank periphery, admiring the view and the peaceful lapping of waves. Sylvan was gorgeous, no doubt about that. Born on the regolith hell of Mahina under the alien gas giant Pono, Ben’s blood still stirred at the sight of a landscape so reminiscent of Earth.
He was down to the Spaceways offenders. He sighed. “Tikka Gena, you suck. Tampering with the drugs? Eli Rasmussen will never forgive you. You will never do research at Mahina University. But Darren and Cope hope to rig the transports to provide healing from the minute a refugee boards at Waterfalls. Dehydration, heat exhaustion, fever, malnutrition. They could use a consulting physiologist. Someone better educated than the cosmo healers.”
“You don’t even ask me why?” Tikka Gena said bitterly.
He glanced at her sideways. “Tell it to Cope. If you cross him again, he’ll kill you.” He twiddled his gauntlet fingers to sweep her toward the closed airlock. “I won’t pay you.” She stumbled a step. “But if you’re lucky, you might be employable at the end.”
She nodded once. That was fair. By Denali lights, anyway – Ben worked this out with Teke. The physicist left home at 17. His counsel on his native culture was suspect. But Tikka Gena was an academic, his own kind.
“And then there were three. Kaol, please. You have a place anywhere in the Spaceways fleet.” Tarana and Sass never sentenced the young hunter to this platform. At the last, he’d jumped out, to share Tikki’s final hours.
Tikki smirked. Ben caught it and strode over to place his helmet a hand’s breath from the shorter man’s. “Kaol, choose a different ship than Tikki’s. You two need some time apart.”
Tikki dropped his eyes, and nodded.
“My friend Jules Greer is willing to teach you to be a real housekeeper. You’ll clean transports. Those ships were designed for three hours max transit. Insufficient latrines. After the evacuation of Waterfalls, if you do your job well, you can stay with my fleet. And I’d advise you take the offer. Unless you think you’d survive as a geisha on MO after what you’ve done.”
Tikki shook his head. “My geisha days are over. I’m glad of that.”
“Join Kaol. Only for the hop to Sylvan One. Say your good-byes.” The airlock door stood open again now, Kaol already aboard. Walker hauled Tikki in without help from his hunter lover.
“And then there was one,” Teke said in a sing-song. He’d drifted over to bracket Zan.
“How could you do this to me, Zan?” Ben challenged him. “Betray me like this?”
He didn’t respond.
Teke shoved him, possibly the only person who could get away with it.
“After all the years we’ve been together,” Ben growled. He still wasn’t sure about Zan.
“Some things aren’t about you, you narcissistic frill!” Zan spat back. “Why are you play-acting? You’re going to leave me here!”
“Long speech,” Teke observed. “Light on brains.”
Zan’s face whiplashed to meet his, working as though inventing an awful enough retort. But he didn’t say anything.
“Sass didn’t tell me details,” Ben shared. “I asked her not to. I mean, I’ve been with you what, two decades now? I’ll decide for myself. I’m not sure she’ll forgive you, though, and that tells me volumes. She’s a bit of a sucker.”
“So are you! Fool!”
Teke mused, “Do you really hate yourself so much? Ben needs captains, Zan. A captain on one of these transports could save ten thousand. There’s a chance for you, if you watch your mouth.”
“I’m listening,” Zan grated.
Ben considered him. Walker called out., “You won, Ben. I bet you’d apologize, Zan. All our years together. All the times we’ve screwed up. But no, cap was right, you’re hell-bent on self-destruction. Fool.”
Zan grimaced and flipped the finger at Walker. This was hard to do in space gauntlets. But the three of them practiced assiduously, playing cards and swilling beer, whiling away the hours of the long wasted runs across the rings of Pono. While Ben lost his husband and went on a depressed drinking spree for years. While Walker never did get his act together to amount to anything. And Zan was lost, a hunter far from the jungles of home.
“Kind of the ultimate revenge against Waterfalls, isn’t it?” Ben asked him. “To save their sorry asses? You were never quite good enough, were you? Or rather, they always preferred Waterfalls natives just that little bit. Nothing grotesque. They didn’t give a promotion to anyone incompetent. But they always favored their own over you. What did they tell you, Zan, on ou
r way to Cantons?”
“Never mind,” Zan murmured.
“Can you carry them to safety?” Ben inquired. “It might take years for them to really find home again. But they’ll have that chance. Like you did. To find a home eventually.”
“You’re stuck with us,” Walker opined. “Brothers in failure.”
Ben turned from the waist to glare at his security chief. “I’m a success.”
“Sort of.” Walker grinned at him unrepentant.
Ben grimaced and turned back to Zan. “Stay off Sass’s nerves. And mine. But you’ll make it to the rings, at least. Did you really think we’d let you commit suicide?”
“Never,” Walker offered. “We’ll kill you ourselves.”
“Or lock him up groundside. Get on the damned shuttle,” Ben ordered. “Oh, hey, is that air gizmo worth salvaging?”
“No, but the tool belt is good.” Zan strode over and scooped it up. “I’ll probably let you down again.”
“You always do,” Ben agreed. “I might screw up a few more times myself.”
Zan snorted amusement. “Brothers in arms. Just don’t blow up your marriage again.”
“Yeah, cap, that was dumb,” Walker offered.
“Everyone’s a critic! Cope and I are tight now. We’re doing great!”
“Uh-huh.”
Teke clapped the ex-hunter on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
They boarded the shuttle, and settled into the aisles, except for Ben stuck with standing room only. So he banked away smoothly, and flew like grandma on Glow tootling along to church. That was fine by him. He enjoyed the scenery. I won’t be back this way again.
Or not. Teke said, “Oh, did I tell you? I hope to terraform a small continent here. Zelda and Floki came up with the idea. Should take about a hundred years. Once I get my new power generator to work. But Jules wants to invest. Her biggest real estate deal ever.” He laughed.
Zan’s face registered horror. “Damn. We’ll live that long, won’t we?”
