“Every kind of thinking about space travel is new for Old Earth,” Finlay said in frustration.
“You want to contact your Witch and ask her what she knows?”
“No need to get snarky.”
“Are you sure?” Cybele wound her hands out to the side until an entire array of control possibilities bloomed in front of her, like a strange light flower with flashing boxes trying to draw her attention.
“Because I could open up communications right now.” The slight undertone of teasing turned darker. “We could ask where the hell your people got this design.”
“Got the design?” Finlay’s forehead creased in confusion as his eyes flickered back and forth between the communications control board that Cybele had conjured to float in front of them and Cybele herself. “Are you saying you don’t believe the Old Earthers developed this craft themselves?”
Cybele shook her head. “I don’t know. But look at it, Finlay. I mean really, look at it how it shaped, the placement of things. Even the shape of the craft itself.”
Finlay’s head tilted to one side as he examined the details that the Rapunzel-320 continue to add as it scanned ever more of the vehicle following it. Cybele watched him as much as she watched the ship, but she found her gaze drawn back to the odd design over and over again.
If it had taken off from the ground, as it almost certainly had to have done, then its atmospheric engines had to be immensely powerful. It defied everything Cybele had ever learned about aerodynamics—and as a pilot, she’d had to learn quite a lot on the subject. The … thing… that followed them was squat, shaped more like a toad than the emphatically phallic spaceship designs found in the recently revived space-travel programs on New Terra.
Its thruster engines would have had to push the equivalent of a platter up and out, breaking gravity not with an arrow shooting to the sky, but with something that more resembled a truly old-fashioned flying saucer.
And that engine in the center. Was it the one that would finally allow Cybele, and other visitors from New Terra, to travel back and forth quickly? Had the Old Earthers actually come up with a way to eliminate cold sleep from long space travel?
“It can’t really be an FTL drive.” Finlay’s voice trailed off. “Can it?”
On the real-time readout, the image of the ship blinked out of sight.
Almost simultaneously, proximity alarms erupted all over the Rapunzel-320.
Chapter 10
Trying not to panic, Cybele switched the ship over to voice control mode. Ripping off the VR unit, she glanced around to make sure everything on the bridge was as it should be. Despite the alarms’ flashing light, everything seemed perfectly okay.
Jamming the VR headset back on, she snapped out commands. “Computer, visual on whatever is set off the proximity alert.”
In the air in front of her, a 3-D image of the froglike ship circled the Rapunzel-320. Finlay let out a long, slow whistle, having joined her in the VR projection.
“It’s one thing to get the dimensions handed to you,” he said. “It’s another thing to see it right up next to us.”
He was right. The ship sent out to track him by the Old Earthers was easily twice as large as the Rapunzel-320, dwarfing it by comparison.
With a muttered curse, Cybele pulled the headset off again. “Computer, shift all the readouts to the bridge.”
“Hey,” Finlay said, pulling his own had set off. “I was still working in there.”
“I have the definite feeling that we’re going to need more input than we can get from either the bridge standard readouts or the VR unit,” Cybele said anxiously.
“Suddenly makes me wonder why New Terra always sends only one pilot out to do your job.”
Cybele nodded. “Yeah. We’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s a point of contention on New Terra that we send anyone all—especially the New Terra First group. The global coalition thinks it’s a waste of our resources—at least enough of them did to make it an issue.”
“Yeah, I suspect a lot of Old Earth would think much the same about this monstrosity.”
Although the Old Earther ship continued to circle close enough to set off the alarms, it made no further moves. Cybele called up an outer view from the ship and alternated watching the computerized readouts and the actual images of the ship itself. The Rapunzel-320’s cameras transmitted an image of something even more unsettling than Cybele had suspected at first.
She couldn’t quite pin down what bothered her about it. But the ship was simply wrong. The dimensions were wrong, too wide and too low for humans.
And that was it, she realized. Some part of her knew that the ship was not made for her. She muted the sirens and narrowed her eyes as she examined a still of the ship that she’d pulled off the video feed.
“Finlay?”
“Yes?” He asked distractedly, those competent hands of his working across the computer readout to try to make sense of the Old Earther ship’s quick transfer to them from a distance that should’ve taken hours to traverse.
“What is Old Earth’s stance on aliens?”
“Aliens?”
“Stop what you’re doing. Look at that ship. Really look at it.”
Instead, Finlay looked at Cybele, and she could see in his eyes that he already knew.
“Tell me,” she said. “Are we going to survive this?”
When he didn’t respond, she nodded. “Then I think you owe it to me to tell me everything you know.”
* * *
“I don’t know anything for certain,” Finlay began, holding up his hand to stop Cybele from interrupting when she started to ask a question. “It’s all reverse.” He flipped one hand outward toward the alien ship that managed to orbit the Rapunzel-320 even as Cybele’s ship hurtled through open space.
“If rumors are all we have, then I want you to share those with me.” Cybele’s voice was hard—harder than anything she’d ever used with Finlay.
“It probably started about five years ago—when you are still in cold sleep, on your weight us, when the last New Terra rep was still doing the threads for us.”
Cybele nodded. She’d been brought on as a potential candidate after the last New Terra rep had left, heading out toward Old Earth on the long flight. But like everyone else on New Terra, and definitely everyone in the space program, she knew of the previous representative’s history.
“All I know for sure is that we were told a small meteorite had hit the Eastern continent, and we were all blocked from knowing much more about it. The government tried to play it off as if it were nothing important, but there were still G-Com discussions of what was going on—no matter what kind of news blackout might exist, people are going to gossip, especially online.
“There were stories of some kind of alien crash-down, much like the theories of ones on ancient Earth. I didn’t put any stock into any of them, until about a year later, when our market suddenly shifted to include a number of technological advances that I simply couldn’t figure out. I mean, I know how they work. I’m an engineer. But I don’t see—never could—how anyone on Old Earth managed to jump from where we were to those. “
* * *
The next time they heard from The Witch, she was sending a message that originated from what Cybele had taken to calling “the alien ship” in her mind.
“Rapunzel-320, this is the Old Earth ship Antipodes, hailing on all frequencies. Halt and prepare to be boarded.”
Cybele and Finlay traded glances, but Finlay didn’t say anything. Cybele’s mouth tightened, and she nodded determinedly. She couldn’t outrun them, she knew that. But she wasn’t about to heave-to and allow Old Earthers to board her ship. She almost couldn’t believe they had actually issued the order. The Old Earthers she had dealt with over almost two years had been inculcated with a horror of physical contact with people from New Terra. All except for Finlay, of course—and even he, Cybele expected, had to be brought around to the idea slowly. It was one thing to arrange f
or an illicit to VR tryst. It was something else entirely to throw over one’s entire life, everything one had believed in, to pursue a long-term relationship outside the normal constraints of society.
But suddenly, Cybele wondered if perhaps whatever had led the Old Earthers to the alien ship had also led them to a cure for the Gotha plague.
That would mean they didn’t need us anymore.
What might that mean for New Terra?
If Old Earth didn’t need New Terra’s infusion of microbial concoctions any longer, would all communication between the two planets cease? They had been ingrained with a horror of one another for so long that it would be easy for it to slip over into something even more xenophobic. Something for which the reasons, however appropriate they might have been initially, were no longer in effect—and yet the disgust for each other would remain.
In an instant, all the possibilities of that unfurled in her mind. Images from her own planet’s history marched through her mind—soldiers rendered in black and white, with tiny square mustaches, marching in lines with arms outstretched and honor of their leader, a charismatic man who preached the value of racial cleansing.
There were others, too, of course. But none of those carried the cultural weight of the one who had decimated an entire population for no discernible reasons. A future so similar to the recent past, only on a planetary scale, swirled around her as she tried to find ways to stop it before it ever started.
“But there are only two of us,” she whispered.
As the Rapunzel-320 sped up, the other ship kept pace and continued to circle her, like some squat alien moon.
After a moment’s thought, Cybele responded to The Witch on her own frequency. “This is the Rapunzel-320 responding to the UGS ship Antipodes. Please note that any attempts to board will be viewed as an act of war and are illegal. New Terra ships are under no requirement to obey Old Earth requests once outside Old Earther space. We will respond to no further communication.”
Cybele glanced at Finlay. His face was pale, but his hands continued to flash as rapidly as ever over the control panel as he worked to overcome the alien ship’s innate superiority.
“I don’t know how we’re going to manage,” he said. “And I can’t tell anything concrete about their weaponry. Do you see anything I’m missing?”
Cybele pulled up the blueprints-style image of the ship, once again noting the odd placement of the thrusters and engines, but this time also looking for evidence of weaponry.
“I don’t see anything here that really resembles any of our current weapons,” she said.
Finlay fisted his hands in his hair, then drew in a deep breath and dropped them with a sigh. “Then we should move forward on the assumption that their weaponry outstrips us at every turn.”
Cybele nodded sharply. “Agreed.”
But the Rapunzel-320 was a medical rescue ship, not a warship. There was nothing on board that could truly help them.
Unless…
“I have an idea,” she said.
“Tell me.”
Chapter 11
Cybele raced through the outer corridor, determined to put her latest plan into action. She wasn’t certain it would work, but it was the best opportunity they possibly had. Of course, it all depended on how well shielded the alien ship was.
As she reached the hatch leading inward toward the next ring Cybele slammed it open and slung herself through. In between the levels, there was very little life-support, as that was primarily reserved for the levels that Cybele lived on—and that meant the outer ring. She had taken the time to don a suit, hooking the helmet at the very last minute before slinging herself into the rest of her ship.
Ninety percent of it unused by me—like an iceberg on old New Terra.
Now, if only she could make sure that the alien ship ran aground on the unexpected depths of the Rapunzel-320, much as one famous ancient ship had done with an iceberg.
Once she was in the microbe-replication area, she paged Finlay. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m here,” Finlay replied. “Let me know when you’re ready to join me in VR.”
Cybele glanced around, noting the various elements she would need to divert. If she put Finlay in cryo-sleep, he wouldn’t use that many of the microbes on the trip out. But she would still need the ability to make more.
Enough for one person.
Maybe two, if Finlay infected her.
And any children we might have.
At the thought, she shivered.
Quickly she began disconnecting various tubes that led into the enormous vats, themselves encased and enclosed. As she worked, she muttered, keeping up a running commentary, both for herself and for Finlay.
“As long as we have one complete system enclosed and running, we can continue to make as much as we need. But I’m keeping two just in case we end up needing parts for the first one.”
“What about a delivery system?” Finlay asked.
“I’m setting aside the first three lengths of pipe. We can sling the rest out at the alien ship—do some real damage if I time it right.” She continued separating the sections she planned to keep. “If we need more than we keep wherever we end up, we’ll have to scavenge from the Rapunzel-320. There’s plenty of piping on board.” She nodded to herself. “I assume we’ll need to land her to use as a habitat to begin with, anyway.”
When Finlay didn’t answer, she paused. “You there?”
For a few seconds, she heard nothing. Then the ship-board comm system crackled, and a new voice came over the intercom.
“If you want to say goodbye to your lover, you should join us on the bridge,” The Witch said, her voice cold.
* * *
Cybele’s blood ran cold at the tableau that met her eyes when she arrived on the bridge. Finlay stood straight and still, his hands cuffed behind his back. A uniformed soldier held a weapon aimed steadily at Finlay’s head.
To one side and slightly behind them, a woman watched for Cybele’s entrance, a slight smile on her face. She stood almost as tall as Finlay, her broad shoulders and square jaw a match for his own, her sandy blonde hair cropped in short curls around her face.
She’s younger than I expected, Cybele thought, almost incoherently.
“Glad you made it in time,” The Witch said. “Say your goodbyes.”
“I love you.” Finlay gazed intently into Cybele’s eyes.
“No.” Cybele took another step into the room. “You are not allowed to give up.”
“Last chance,” The Witch said.
“I won’t let them hurt you, Finlay.”
“Shoot him,” The Witch ordered the soldier.
Cybele pulled her sidearm out from behind her back, where she’d been holding it, and in one smooth motion, took aim and fired on the soldier guarding Finlay.
But not before the soldier fired on Finlay.
The soldier’s arm jerked, and the weapon in his hand skittered across the floor as he crumpled to the ground.
Finlay fell at the same moment, and Cybele raced toward him, bending over to scoop up the soldier’s gun at the same moment. When she reached Finlay, she dropped to her knees and set down one gun long enough to lift his head into her lap and stroke his hair. With a sob of relief, she realized he was still breathing.
“Your flunky missed,” she said, her tone defiant.
“No, he didn’t,” The Witch said, that same half-smile on her face. One of the other soldiers flanking her stepped toward Cybele, who picked up the second gun again and waved it at all three remaining members of the boarding party.
“Don’t take one step closer,” she warned.
The Witch waved one hand outward. “Give it a minute,” she said, gazing intently at Finlay.
After a few more seconds, Finlay stirred, and Cybele’s heart leaped in her chest. She wasn’t sure how she would get them out of this mess, but at least he was okay.
Then he looked up at her and asked, “Who are you?”
&nbs
p; * * *
Memory wipe.
Finlay’s remembered words held Cybele motionless as she waited for some sign that Finlay—her Finlay, the man she loved—would come back to her.
Instead, she saw his steady gray eyes, his intelligence, staring back at her—but no sign of him.
Until one of The Witch’s remaining guards jerked Finlay out of Cybele’s lap and to his feet, she’d completely forgotten about their audience. Her hands had dropped to the floor beside her, but now she pulled them back up, taking aim at the soldiers.
“Give him back to me,” Cybele demanded.
“Absolutely not.” The Witch’s voice was practically freezing. “However, you are welcome to return to Old Earth with us. You could even keep your memories intact. If, that is, you really wanted to.”
Cybele shuddered at the thought of returning to a planet that left The Witch in charge of major scientific breakthroughs or bounty hunting, either one.
“No thanks,” she replied. “But if you leave Finlay here, we will never tell anyone. We’re heading to the outer sectors—the ones that aren’t populated. No one will ever see us again.”
The Witch shrugged. “Your loss. You know, I hear that some of the earliest subjects have gotten portions of their old memories back. Of course, it’s stressful and debilitating, but they eventually manage it.”
“You bitch,” Cybele said, raising the memory wipe gun and taking aim at The Witch. But before she could get a good bead on her target, the guard holding Finlay had brought his own, regular gun up to aim at Cybele’s head. At the same moment, he swung his prisoner around between The Witch and Cybele in order to intercept anything the New Terra soldier might fire.
“Should we get the memory gun back, sir?” The Old Earther soldier asked The Witch.
Her smile grew perceptibly larger. “No. I suspect she’s going to need it a lot more than we will.”
With that, she urged the confused Finlay toward the door, her gaze never leaving Cybele’s.
Spectral Velocity Page 5
