Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  “Of course,” she said with perfect composure.

  “And that is all you knew of your parents’ universe?” Globin asked. “Only the broad outlines of the war?”

  “Oh, I learned the details when I was in my teens,” she said. “It all seems like a story in a book, though, for that is what it was.”

  Globin held her gaze while something shriveled inside him, at the thought that he was history to her. “What of the Khalians after their war with the Fleet?”

  “I was told that the war was ended,” she said, studying his face, “ended many years ago, and that most of the Khalians had joined with the Alliance. Some, though, would not be appeased, would not stop fighting, but became pirates, so that they could continue to prey upon the ships of the Alliance. They told me also that a human renegade had clawed his way to command of all the pirates—a misshapen creature called the Globin.” She shrugged. “Surely he could not have endured long—a lone human among his blood enemies.”

  Globin took a deep breath, turning away, then remembered that he had to face her while he talked, or she would not be able to understand him. “One human did—a Captain Goodheart. His ship was blown up by a Family squadron.”

  She frowned. “They told me of Captain Goodheart—scary tales for darkness. Was not this ‘Globin’ his assistant?”

  Globin nodded. “Globin led the search for Goodheart’s killers. He found them, though it took years—and all the Families with them.”

  She stood rod-still, galvanized, eyes wide. “What happened then?”

  “War,” Globin told her, “between the Alliance and the Families. The Khalians, learning that they had been used as the Families’ tool, screamed betrayal and allied with the Fleet, seeking revenge.”

  Her face was ashen; she had to moisten her lips with her tongue. “And the end of that war?”

  “The Fleet and its Khalian allies defeated the Families. Their worlds were occupied; they paid reparations.”

  “They were conquered,” she whispered. “All because this Globin found them?”

  He could see from her face that she knew the fate of those who were conquered, but he found he could not lie. He nodded, and felt his heart plummet.

  But it revived at her next words. “I cannot believe that he was so thorough a villain—that he must have had reasons for what he did, other than money.”

  Globin nodded, with relief. “You are right.” But he was annoyed with himself, too; her opinion of him should not matter so much. “What is your name?”

  “Lusanne,” she said. “What is yours?”

  “People call me ‘Globin,’ ” he answered.

  She would not scare. No matter what he told her, no matter how much of the gritty truth, she would not scare. She was only interested—perhaps “fascinated” would be a better word—for she was confronting a living legend, a character from the pages of history.

  And she was very curious. Globin decided she must be a natural historian.

  But while he discussed history with her, he had to manage the present, with an eye to the future. Both were summed up in one name: Brand.

  Commander Brand had raised the roof, or at least the ceiling; his voice almost shook the speaker off the wall. “Globin, what the hell do you think you’re doing holding human prisoners?”

  “None more human than I, Commander,” Globin told the image on the screen, “though you may find that hard to believe.”

  “Any prisoners taken are under the authority of the Fleet, Chairman! Any shipwreck survivors rescued are under my jurisdiction!”

  “With the commander’s pardon,” Globin said, his old tone of authority reasserting itself, “the survivors were rescued by a Baratarian corporate vessel, taken to the Baratarian sector, and are currently the guests of the Baratarian Corporation.”

  “Damn it, Globin, they’re Schleins!”

  “And very sick ones, too,” Globin said, authority turning into iron. He reflected that Brand’s intelligence network was, as always, excellent. “It would be very dangerous for them to be moved just now, Commander. With all due respect, in consideration of the survivors’ welfare, I must respectfully decline to allow them to leave the Baratarian sickbay until they are restored to full health.”

  “They’re human women, Globin! And you’ve got ’em being nursemaided by a bunch of Wea . . . Khalians!”

  “Khalian doctors,” Globin snapped, the iron transmuting into steel, “under the direction of my personal physician, Dr. Arterial—who is a graduate of Camford University on Terra, I might remind you, as well as of the College of Physicians of Khalia.”

  “But he’s not human, Globin!” Brand took a long breath, then said, “My quarters. Chairman. Right away—if you please.” The last was very grudging, but Brand knew the contract—and the laws to which he would answer if the Hawking returned to Terra—and, moreover, knew that Globin knew them, too.

  “It is always a pleasure to accept your kind invitations, Commander,” Globin returned evenly, then rose with a satisfied smile. “Plasma, if you would join me?”

  The Hawking was a huge ship, so by the time Globin and Plasma arrived at the commander’s office, Brand had had enough time to both calm down and think things through—so, as Globin came through the door, he was all sweetness and light. “Now see here, Globin. I think we can both agree that the ladies’ welfare is foremost.”

  Globin breathed a secret sigh of relief. He was more than halfway home free. “Yes, Commander, I can agree with that.”

  “Well, these women are Schlein family. How do you think they’re going to feel if the first thing they see when they wake up is a Khalian muzzle?”

  Globin remembered how the one woman had reacted already, and said slowly, “Your point is well taken, Commander.” Of course, Brand knew just exactly how well taken it was; Globin didn’t doubt for a second that the commander knew about the one woman who had half waked, screamed, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  “Well, that’s all I’m asking—just to have Terran doctors treat them.” Brand held up a hand. “No, I’m not asking for your Dr. Arterial to be excluded from his own sickbay, or for any of his assistants to be kicked out—I’m just asking that human doctors be allowed in there, too.”

  “And that they be the first one the revivees see.” Globin nodded slowly. “I’m afraid I cannot disagree with you in any degree, Commander—as long as we are only speaking of five or six doctors, and they are coming to our sickbay, not the other way around.”

  “Done!” Brand grinned like a shark. “I’ll have them down there in five minutes, Chairman!”

  Globin decided that Brand would pay for that grin.

  But it would take time to decide how to exact that penalty. Oh, Globin knew what it would be—he would keep the women in the Baratarian Quarter. But how to achieve it would take long days of thought, and nights of letting the elements of the problem link themselves up while he slept.

  While the problem stirred itself around in the back of his mind, and the physicians labored over the other survivors, Globin allowed himself the luxury of the company of the youngest Schlein.

  And a pleasure it was, for she showed not the slightest distaste at his presence. He took her for a tour of his domain, the Baratarian Quarter of the ship. They visited the workshops, the mess hall, the lounge, and ended by strolling through the park. Lusanne looked about her with bright and eager interest in all the strange sights. “So vast,” she whispered.

  It was only five hundred meters in diameter, and fifty high, but the walls and ceiling were painted to give the illusion of a limitless expanse of plain rolling away to an imaginary horizon, to fulfill the need of shipbound creatures for open spaces. Globin realized with a shock that the poor child had never seen open fields or sky, any sky but the star-strewn night of the Core. She might have been afraid, but instead she was eager, and his admiration for her, already high due to the courage he perceived in her, rose still more.

  She would far more likely ha
ve been afraid of the Khalians who rose from the long grass now and then, bounding away in frenetic joy at escaping the close confinement of their quarters for a few hours, or strolling slowly by, chatting. Always Khalians, always fur and leather, never human skin and clothing. Raised to fear Khalians as other children feared bogeymen, Lusanne might have shrunk gibbering in terror—but she greeted every encounter with the fresh enthusiasm of a child let loose to discover its world—or a scientist given free rein to examine whatever she wished.

  “So I am a pirates’ prisoner?” she asked in her oddly uninflected diction.

  “Scarcely!” Globin stifled a chuckle. “You are a guest, Lusanne, and we are no longer pirates. I guided the Khalians of Barataria into legitimate commerce forty years ago. They are a legal merchant corporation now and obey all laws.”

  “Forty?” She looked up, startled. “But our ship departed on its expedition only thirty years ago!”

  Globin stared at her, amazed, realizing just how long she and her shipmates must have been drifting in that capsule. He said gently, “It has been one hundred fifty years since your parents began their quest, Lusanne.”

  She stared. “Can we have been in that life-pod for so long?”

  “Perhaps not,” Globin said slowly. “You said that the Ichtons—excuse me; that is what we call the insectoid race that attacked the Dunholme—you said that your ship fled for several weeks, at nearly the speed of light?” She nodded, and Globin said, his suspicion strengthened, “There is a time-squeeze effect; for each week that passes near the speed of light, years pass on the surface of a planet. So you may not have been in the capsule longer than a decade or so—but between your long sleep and your long escape, twelve decades have passed.”

  Tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “Alas! For my father and the brave men who died with him! For even if they escaped the Ichtons, they must be dead by now!”

  Globin remembered that she had said the last man alive had released the pod, and knew that the men for whom she mourned had almost certainly died. “They died that you might live, Lusanne,” he said softly. “Surely there can be no greater mark of a man’s love than that. Let the tears flow, Lusanne, for they must fall sometime. Let them fall.”

  Her face reddened, her fists clenched, but the tears began to flow in earnest.

  Globin felt his heart twist, and held out his arms. Lusanne came into them like a child to be comforted. He folded his arms around her and patted her back gently as the sobs racked her body and she clung to him as though to a life ring in a turbulent sea. Globin rested his cheek against her head, savoring the warmth and the sensation of her body pressed against his, concentrating on every touch, every pressure, to be sure he would remember every detail, for he had never held a woman in his arms before and knew he probably never would again.

  Finally, the tears slackened, and Lusanne pulled away from him, eyes downcast. Globin’s handkerchief was instantly in her hand; she dabbed at her eyes, then blinked up at him with a tremulous smile, and he felt his vitals turn to water. “Thank you,” she said. “I had not known . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Emotional shock,” Globin explained, and wondered if it was true of himself, too. “You’ve had a traumatic experience”—he managed a sardonic smile—“culminating in rescue by a pirate.”

  “But you said you are no longer a pirate.” Her eyes were wide and very blue.

  “I am not,” he told her. “The Khalians elected me their leader, and over a decade, I managed to move them more and more into legitimate trade. Finally, our commercial ties were so strong that the Alliance virtually had to offer us membership, or lose too much gold to us in trade. As part of the treaty, and to save their collective face, we agreed to cease piracy, which we had almost eliminated anyway.”

  She stared, horrified. “You are of the Alliance now?”

  “We are,” he said gently, “and the war with the Families is over.”

  She began to tremble. “Yes—the war with the Families. Will not your Khalians hate we Schleins?”

  Globin bit his lip. He said gently, “The Khalians realized they had been used by the Syndicate, betrayed, so they joined with the Alliance. The result was foregone, but tedious.”

  Her face was pale. “What is left of our homeland?”

  “Your homeland is intact.” Globin was terse. “But its armaments, and the factories that built them, are gone.”

  “They are defenseless, then,” she whispered.

  “The reparations are paid,” Globin told her, “and they have nothing more to fear from the Fleet. Oh, there were atrocities, yes, but as few as the command could manage. Your countrymen are humbled, and many died in the war, but they are by and large intact. They could have fared much worse—and the Fleet that fought them now protects them.”

  Lusanne watched out of the corners of her eyes, uncertain. “Will the Fleet not seek to revenge itself on us women, if they find us?”

  “They have,” Globin said gently, and waited for it to sink in.

  It did, and she pulled back with a gasp. “Not you!”

  “Not really,” Globin said. “There are few Fleet personnel in Barataria’s decks—but those decks are leased from a Fleet battlestation, and the overall command of the ship is Fleet.”

  “Then we are lost,” she whispered.

  “No,” Globin said, “you are saved. The men of the Fleet might still harbor hatred for the Schlein family, but even they will certainly be courteous to civilians—which you are, especially since the war is long gone.”

  “Only courtesy,” she whispered.

  “Only that,” he agreed. “But you are in the midst of Khalians here, and young Khalians at that, to whom your government’s treachery is only a tale from a history book, and whose fathers’ desire for revenge has been slaked, and forgotten—for that is how the Khalians are. You are safe among these, my adopted children.”

  She darted a curious glance at him, but all she said was, “I must tell all my aunts about this.”

  Globin nodded. “Come—let us see how well they have recovered.”

  Behind the glass wall, the women were sitting, still dazed and groggy. The Fleet doctors moved among them, their faces masks of impervious politeness—though now and again, one slipped, and the contempt showed through.

  Lusanne shuddered. “Must we be left to the cold care of such strangers as these?”

  “Only until your aunts are restored to full consciousness and mobility,” Globin assured her. “That has been the subject of some spirited discussion between the commander of this battlestation and myself.”

  That was a huge understatement, he reflected as he thought of Brand’s fury over the intercom, and the hatred that still seemed to echo in his voice when he said the name “Schlein.” So now, as Globin stood with Lusanne gazing at the groggy women sitting upright in their flimsy hospital gowns, supported by their raised mattresses, watching their human and Khalian physicians with fearful eyes, Globin deliberated about the next phase in his campaign against Brand.

  He was certain that he was right to want to keep the Schlein women in his own bailiwick. These were not women who had undergone the defeat of their home planet, and been chastened by it and come to be grateful for Alliance clemency, but women who were still mentally at the height of deceptive war, regarding the Fleet doctors as their captors and hated enemies, and the Khalians as their despised but lethal pawns. In Brand’s territory, the best they could expect would be ostracism; at worst, they would be targets for the long-buried vengefulness that they themselves would reawaken.

  Globin’s recruits, on the other hand, were all young Khalians, who would not really think about the Schleins having been traitors to either race, for to them, the war was only a tale told by their elders, albeit a very vivid one. Like Lusanne, they would be more curious than vengeful, and willing to be patient, coaxing their prisoners ahead into the modern day, and waiting patiently for friendship.

  There was no question—the women
had to stay in Barataria.

  But how?

  “Let us go in,” Lusanne said. “I can see what they are saying to one another, when the doctors’ backs are turned.”

  See what they say? Globin frowned down at her, then remembered that she was reading lips. “Yes, of course. Let us go in.”

  They came into the recovery room, and every woman instantly locked her gaze on to Globin, apprehension deepening at the sight of one more strange male. Then Lusanne’s presence beside him registered, and they relaxed—a little.

  “Thank heavens, child!” Selena croaked. “We were afraid you were dead!”

  “Very much alive, Aunt Selena,” Lusanne assured her. “Our rescuers have been very courteous and gentle with me. I would like to introduce you to our host, the chief executive of the Baratarian Corporation.”

  “Thank Heaven!” breathed the tallest, a woman in her fifties with tousled, auburn hair, still beautiful even though she was drawn and wan with the strain of her long coma. “A man who isn’t a Fleet officer!”

  “Be quiet, you fool!” snapped an aging matron. “That’s not a man, it’s the Globin!”

  The auburn woman stared, horror coming into her eyes.

  The women all shrank back against their mattresses in alarm. “The Globin!”

  “Am I so notorious as that?” Globin blinked around at them in mild amusement. “I had not thought that my reputation would reach all the way to your home world!”

  “We have heard,” Selena said, her mouth dry. “We have also heard that you treat your captives well, because you expect their governments to ransom them.”

  Globin nodded gravely. “But I am no longer a pirate, madam, nor are my Khalians—and Barataria is no longer a pirates’ nest, but the home world of a commercial conglomerate.”

  There was a stir among the women, and Selena glanced at Lusanne for confirmation. Lusanne nodded ever so slightly, and hope lighted Selena’s face. “You have become legitimate, then!”