Outward Bound

by Juanita Coulson

  Not recently, you haven't been, Derek. You weren't at FTL Station when Morgan and Tumaini and Rue were hurt. But ... you came back. You risked your rank and your berth on board that ship to be with me and Morgan. You love me that much.

  And now ... how much do I love you?

  "It'll have to be soon, Bren," he was saying. There was a note of desperation in his voice.

  No more leaves. Final stages before launch. They would start putting the volunteers in their cryogenic cubicles in a few weeks. The adventure of the century, Hiber-Ship's PR called it. Twenty-five hundred colonists in stasis. Heading out for the stars. Derek would be one of them.

  Time, running out. And she had to have time to think, to decide what to do. The temptations scared her. She had always been able to resist them before. What was happening? Was it the nearness of the fatal launch date? New Earth Seeker had been years in the building and recruiting, just as Breakthrough Unlimited had been striving to achieve faster-than-light drive for years. But now New Earth Seeker was ready, and there was no end in sight for FTL yet. If she delayed, or made the wrong choice, would she be left with nothing? There would be no chasing after Derek's ship, once it had left the Solar System, and protesting that she had changed her mind and wanted to go with him after all!

  "Please," Derek said, his whole heart reflected in his face, in those sky-blue eyes. "There's another ferry heading out that way in two weeks. They'd always find a seat for you."

  "I can't go," Brenna whispered. Derek appeared stricken. "Not then," she added.

  He pounced, taking her hands again, drawing her close. The two of them had been together since they were children. All the emotions were reflexes by now, battering her shaky resolve. "When?" he insisted, pleading.

  "I ... I could make better time in a private spacecraft," Brenna said, thinking hard and fast. "Maybe ... after the next unmanned test."

  "Great! An SE ship? Governor Matsumoto would be delighted. He's fully supporting Hiber-Ship. He'd love to have a Saunder visit."

  Brenna nodded weakly. It seemed like the best solution all around. A rendezvous at Jovian orbit. But she would take her own ship, not one of the "enemy's." She had to maintain some balance in this struggle. The siren was coaxing her toward the shore. A friendly shore, or rocks that would shatter her dreams and her hopes for the future? Derek's eyes searched hers, probing her soul. What was he seeing? Her motives? Her faltering independence?

  "I don't know what my ETA might be. I'll have to call you. You're not keeping radio silence or anything like that, are you?"

  Derek smiled and shook his head. "No, not at all. Call me, any time. I'll be waiting." He raised her hands to his lips, never breaking eye contact, devouring her with love. The buzz of voices around them seemed to fade into white noise. There were only the two of them, lovers and philosophical rivals, twin worlds, double suns, orbiting around each other, neither able to break free, bound to each other.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Losing Contact

  Brenna sat in the spaceport cafeteria a long while after Derek had left to catch his flight. Lilika Chionis hadn't come to page him. He had kept watch on the time and departed, reluctantly, with five minutes to spare in order to reach Hiber-Ship's launch gate.

  The doubts didn't begin immediately afterward. But they set in slowly and insidiously. Brenna toyed with her cup of caffeine and nibbled on the carbohydrates, staring at nothing. Was she so shallow that the moment Derek was out of sight she would renege on her promises? No, it wasn't exactly that. But while he was with her, his presence made her forget so many counterarguments. It had always been that way, to some degree. But until the last three years, it had never been a serious problem because they had thought so much alike, believed in the same things, dreamed of the same goal—reaching the stars. After Breakthrough Unlimited's Prototype I had been destroyed, though, after Kevin KcKelvey, Derek's idol, had been killed, the situation had altered. Derek had made his decision, and for the first time he veered away from the track his childhood playmates chose to follow. His course was set. Brenna had thought hers was. Now ... doubts, increasing.

  How much of the doubt was due to realistic appraisal of Breakthrough Unlimited's future and how much to her love for Derek? She couldn't tell, but she would have to jump one way or the other.

  "It'll have to be soon, Bren..."

  "Soon," in space travel terms. Derek wouldn't be at Jovian orbit until December, he had said. When would the next unmanned Breakthrough Unlimited test be? She didn't know yet, for sure. A lot would depend on the data they had just brought back re the hull material. Morgan would have to look that over. All she would have to do would be to get an answer out of him, if that were possible. She wasn't so sure about that anymore, either.

  Brenna gazed out the cafeteria "window," a vid-screen view of the spaceport above the concourse. The crater floor stretched to the horizon. Every so often a ship would take off, heading for other ports on Mars or to distant worlds and colonies. The Hiber-Ship ferry for Goddard Colony was one of those launching up into Mars' dark sky. Brenna watched the ship until the vid cameras couldn't hold it in their lenses any longer. Then she sighed and touched the com at the side of the booth. "Saunder Enterprises Central, please." For a change, there was a human, not a computer, at the other end of the line. Brenna laid her hand against the screen's surface, registering her palm print as proof that she really was the person the dispatcher at the other end of the call was seeing. The computers would verify her voice as further identification. "I'd like a sub-surface car ready at the cafeteria gate in five minutes, please."

  "It'll be ready, Miss Saunder."

  SE Security had checked the car over and was on board to ride shotgun when she arrived. Brenna nodded to the guards, then sat back in the plush couch. The private car could carry thirty passengers, but usually the Saunders used it merely for handy transportation around the planet. If Brenna hadn't been in such a hurry, she might have used a skimmer. However, the weather report wasn't favorable, so that plan probably would have been aborted. "Saunder Estates," she said to the program. The monitor blinked and fed the command into the mass driver car's systems. In seconds, the train left the spaceport, accelerating eastward. The screen showed Brenna that she was passing public trains rapidly, overtaking the Pavonis City express and other transports using the tunnels. Unburdened by excess weight or extra passengers, the small car made the trip from Amazonis Planitia in a half hour. Brenna hadn't asked for flank speed, or the vehicle could have shaved the time by five or ten minutes.

  Along the way, she had glanced at some of her correspondence. One look told her that none of this stuff was likely to determine the future course of her life or anyone else's. Brenna was quite suddenly bored and annoyed with the endless demands. She thought of her father, saying he was really going to retire. Would she be like that? When had the fun gone out of being a corporation co-president? Or was this just a bad mood that would disappear by tomorrow? Usually, she could gauge her own biorhythms and predict. This time she couldn't. Tomorrow was a blank. She couldn't see beyond now.

  The SE guards had been willing to chat, to pass the time during the journey. But they sensed Brenna's don't-touch-me frame of mind and kept their distance.

  The car eased to a stop at the Saunder Estates: Mars terminal, and Brenna got out and rode the elevator to the Estates level. She stopped at her own residence first to shower and change. There had been no need to bring her travel kit with her. She kept plenty of spare clothes here. Saunder Enterprises would pick up the kit at the hangars later and clean and recycle the work jumpers Brenna had brought back with her from a week's stay at FTL Station. As soon as she had grabbed something to eat, Brenna went out on the bridge and crossed over to her parents' estate. The intrastate monitor said Dian was at home; her father was in Pavonis City right now and wouldn't be back till late tonight.

  She found Dian in the mansion's office, going over some Wyoma Lee Foix Medical Foundation reports. Brenna saw herself in h
er mother's bored but conscientious run-throughs of financial statements and correspondence. When Dian looked up, it was plain she would appreciate a recess. "Welcome home," Dian said cheerfully. She studied Brenna closely. "You look wrung out."

  "Thanks, and I just tidied up, too," Brenna retorted, smiling, and sat down.

  "Rough trip?"

  "No. That was smooth." Brenna shrugged. "The spaceport's pretty excited about the election news."

  "Huh! Coulda seen that one comin'," Dian said with a sniff. "Hong got what he deserved. What's funny is: Ay cock lost, too. Carissa was backin' him. Guess she's getting too cheap with her bribes these days. Too used to payin' off in the old credit exchange."

  Brenna propped her arm on one knee, cocking her head and resting it on her hand, gazing soberly at Dian. "Are things really that bad on Earth? I admit it wears thin fast, whenever I go there for a visit, but..."

  "And what do you see?" Dian asked sharply. "A view from an SE flier or shuttle? Saunderhome? Terran Worlds Council's fancy new building on the Pacific Coast? One of the Saunder Enterprises enclaves in Switzerland or the Philippines? You lead an insulated life, girl. That's not Earth." Ugly memories were reflected in the older woman's dark eyes. Legends of the Chaos and the Death Years and the Crisis of 2041. Brenna sighed, anticipating a lecture. "Yeah, it's bad there. Bad enough even you almost got your tail feathers singed off, I hear."

  Startled, Brenna jerked upright, staring. "Ames. He told you."

  Dian pursed her lips, her manner scornful. "He'd damned well better. He owes your father and me. We owe him, too. But he owes more."

  "I told him not to..."

  Dian poked a small dark finger at her daughter, stabbing the air. "He didn't tell your father, and neither will I. Got that straight? But I want to know when something like that happens."

  "Why?" Brenna asked belligerently. "I'm a big girl now. I don't need you holding my hand and leading me over to the air lock. If that's what you want of me, I think you and Dad had better start that second family."

  She had caught her mother off guard. Dian leaned back, frowning. "Don't get sassy. Yes, we've talked about it. I think your father's dead-on serious. I'm getting so I like the idea. He said you wouldn't object..."

  Brenna was about to say she didn't know they had considered her wishes in the matter, but thought better of it. "Dad explained his feelings. I understand." That wasn't a lie, though it wasn't exactly the truth. It served to avoid a confrontation with her inner feelings.

  "Get back to the main issue," Dian said abruptly. "You wanted to know why Ames told me. Because we'd better know about those things. He gave me a message to relay to you—said to quit worrying about it. He took care of it. Permanently." A shiver chased down Brenna's spine. The statement had an ominous ring to it, like "assassination." Dian was nodding. "You don't ask any deeper than that. But we have to know where we stand. And SE Security should have been notified immediately. We can work with Space Fleet. Where are your brains? This isn't a kid's game. You're old enough to know better. When I was your age..." Dian caught herself in the middle of that cliché, stopped, and a sheepish smile curved her mouth.

  Brenna didn't return the smile. "When you were my age, you'd lived through the Death Years and the Chaos, escaped from the United Ghetto States, had cracked the Vahnaj language code, and helped stop my grandmother from destroying Earth and Goddard. That's a hell of a lot to five up to. Not everyone enjoyed your hair-raising form of education. I muddle along with what I've got, and I make mistakes. I'll probably make more of them. But I'll make them on my own, if you don't mind."

  She stood up and started out of the room, hearing Dian's footsteps behind her. But Dian made no attempt to stop her. She followed Brenna out into the corridor and through the domed greenhouse. By the time Brenna reached the outer gate, her temper had cooled. She turned and looked at her mother warily. Dian's guard was up. She glared at Brenna. "It's tough being a legend. Is that what you're thinking? Huh! I know all about that, girl. You'd better get used to it. You're old enough, and then some. Either you can let those legends sour you and turn you hateful, or you can make your own legends." In the stubborn set of the older woman's face, Brenna saw a series of dark images receding through the years.

  Children of legends. Dian's grandmother was a legend. Brenna's father walked in the shadow of Ward Saunder and the notorious Jael. Morgan had been expected to follow in Kevin McKelvey's footsteps, become governor of a space station, a leader. Morgan knew how disappointed his father had been when he chose not to go into Space Fleet. Even Stuart was haunted by a legend—his father, Patrick Saunder, the golden-voiced orator, the savior of Earth.

  Dian was right. It irked Brenna to admit that. She was feeling cornered and uncomfortable when, abruptly, Dian hugged her. Brenna was surprised, then responded to the embrace. Slim, strong arms closed about her tightly for a moment. When Dian let go, Brenna saw that her mother looked upset. Dian covered whatever was disturbing her with tough words. "Yeah, you go do that. Make your own legends. But," and Dian held up an admonishing finger, "you watch your step while you're about it. Hear? Don't try to do it all alone."

  She remained by the greenhouse gate until Brenna had crossed the bridge to Morgan's estate. Brenna turned and waved, and after a noticeable hesitation Dian went back inside the mansion.

  Brenna stopped to chat with the med aide at the monitoring station. Helen wasn't at the Estates this evening, but by now Brenna was on a first-name basis with most of Dr. Ives's staffers. She wondered if their loyalty would hold up any better than Hector's. No, that was unfair. Hector had stayed quite a while, through several kinds of hell. But his desertion hurt, badly.

  "He's doing okay right now, Miss Saunder."

  Okay. That handy euphemism. What Dr. Ives and her medics meant by "okay" was, "no crises; patient is holding his own as well as can be expected." As the summer months had ended and September and October had passed, Brenna had begun to realize—as Helen and the surgeons must have known right after the disaster—that Morgan would never recover. He was under an indeterminate sentence. A plateau was satisfactory, from the doctors' point of view; it meant he wasn't losing ground. Brenna sensed that, eventually, Morgan would, lose ground.

  "Doing okay," considering he had been broken into pieces and seared and put back together again with spare parts.

  Brenna continued on into the visitors' alcove, where she found Ambassador Quol-Bez. She wasn't surprised. He was as much or more of a "regular" here as the medic team was.

  Quol-Bez stood with his skinny arms behind his back, hands clasped. His broad, gray face was screwed up in concentration. On the other side of the transparent wall, Morgan had moved his chair-bed to within a meter of the pli-material, but he wasn't touching it. He wasn't looking at Quol-Bez, either. He was staring at an array on his monitor screen. Brenna recognized the readout: the latest test figures on the hull material. George Li and Yuri must be sending them through from Amazonis Spaceport. Didn't Morgan ever stop studying Breakthrough Unlimited's data? Apparently not. After all, there wasn't much else for him to do.

  Brenna felt like an intruder. Neither the Vahnaj Ambassador nor Morgan took any notice of her. Brenna got the impression the two of them had been occupying the same positions for hours. Morgan wouldn't strain his frail body by merely lying in the chair-bed and gazing at the figures on the monitor. His concentration had always been good. Now it was awesome, since sensory deprivation cut off his contact with the outside world. What was Quol-Bez getting out of his own extended silence, though? Did his being here qualify as a "visit" to the invalid? This wasn't the first time Brenna had come in on this sort of scene. Quol-Bez would spend hours here, standing and looking at Morgan and saying nothing.

  The continued stillness, excluding her, stirred resentment. Finally Brenna cleared her throat to announce her presence. Quol-Bez's snaky neck craned, and he peered around at her in surprise. "Brenna! I did not hear you. My apologies for my rudeness." The Vahnaj turned back towar
d the pli-wall. "Morgan, Brenna is here with us."

  Morgan kept on staring at the vid display until Brenna grew worried. "Perhaps I'd better check with the attendants..."

  Quol-Bez's three-fingered hand fell on her shoulder lightly. "No, that is not needed. He is aware of your presence."

  "Is he?"

  Quol-Bez smiled. Not his pointy-toothed grin. This was a sad closed-hps smile, somehow distant. Goose flesh prickled on Brenna's nape and arms. A discussion, ages ago, sprang up in her mind—she and Derek and Morgan talking about an occasional atavistic reaction, like shivers and goose flesh, caused by two beings from radically different evolutionary paths coming into contact. Quol-Bez sometimes felt shivery when he was around humans, too. Wasn't it all a matter of angle and point of view? Who was the alien? The other being, of course—it was whoever you weren't.

  As if he had read the thoughts in her mind, Morgan slowly moved his head on the stera-gel pillows. Those inhuman eyes looked through her, at things Brenna couldn't see. There was less of Morgan in that gaze, each time she saw him. Brenna tried to ignore the unnerving stare. She nodded her head in greeting, exaggerating the motion so that Morgan's computerized eyes would detect the movement. "Been reading the data, I see. The hull material collapsed right where you said it did. Pins down one more item on the probable cause. Of course, it also gives us another very expensive pile of junk—crates full of it, stacked up in the hangar."

  One of those awful stillnesses followed. Brenna fidgeted, watching Quol-Bez sidelong. He didn't seem bothered by the lack of a response from Morgan. That faint smile still played around his mouth.