In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

He hoped he’d survive her joy at being known.

  Chapter 84

  GAIL might not have Petra’s training in meditation, but several hours spent sitting on a grassy hilltop—in a sealed, dark blue suit at the sun’s zenith, no less—pretty much guaranteed she’d nod off no matter what the situation.

  “I know you’re awake. We’ve got your vitals right here on the board.”

  Grant could be annoyingly persistent in person—as a disembodied nag he was unendurable. Had Gail had something to throw at the ’bot, she would have done so long before now. “Fine. I’m awake,” she admitted. “Nothing’s changed, has it?”

  She’d already looked longingly at Aaron; he was still entombed in strips of Quill. She didn’t dare think of what might be happening to him. He hadn’t fallen. Cold comfort, but better than the nightmares she was trying her best to forget. Either the Quill supported him, or he’d remained standing on his own. Both implied he lived.

  “No, except the Payette is on her return run—successfully, I might add.”

  All Gail wanted in her life right now was the ability to rub the sleep out of her eyes. She settled for sitting up straight. “What did they find?”

  “Quill. From the vids, identical to these. And you’ll like this—once they’d grabbed a sample, they saw a statue as well.”

  “Susan Witts?”

  “No. The statue was of a man. No baby. No outreaching arms.” Grant paused, as if for effect—or maybe, Gail thought, because he found what he had to say too incredible. We’ve made a match to the face from your data—”

  Gail went through the list of names and ship destinations in her mind. “Josh McNab.”

  “The terraformer whose genome was on the suits,” Grant agreed. “Witts’ second-in-command on the projects and definitely one of those who received her gift of a Quill fragment. If not for your recent encounter, we might have assumed this representation was simply the Quill’s response to the suits. A reflex—not communication.”

  Gail stared at the innocent mound of Quill-laced grass demarking her permitted incursion on this world in no uncertain terms.

  “Let me know anything further the Payette has to say about the Quill,” Gail ordered without thinking, then she winced. “Please.”

  “Dr. Smith. Gail. I’ve every intention of sharing any findings with you. That’s not the issue. I want you to use the pod and come back to the Seeker! ” Grant sounded a little harried.

  Gail sympathized, but said adamantly: “Not without Aaron. And short of growing wings, I’ve no idea how to get past them.” She waved all around her.

  “The Payette has functioning drop pods on board,” Grant’s voice was implacable. “And even if your distinguished staff refuses to recoat any of the anti-Quill suits to match this world, you did leave us one suit, you know.”

  Gail squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment. The headgear might be torture, but on the plus side she no longer had to govern her every expression. Tears eased the itching in her eyes, but made new, maddening trails down her cheeks. Sooner or later, she’d take the damn thing off if only to rub her face. She knew it. “I didn’t leave you the suit,” she informed Grant, not caring if her voice was huskier than normal. “Aaron insisted.” A safety line—old habit, he’d told her.

  “Wise man. I’m not asking your permission or cooperation, Dr. Smith. When the Payette achieves orbit, I’m coming down for both of you as soon as we can get a pod ready. Understood?”

  “Copy that,” Gail said wearily. “Keep an eye on Aaron while I freshen up, Commander.”

  She stood and went back to the Athena, ignoring the Quill, walking by the blankets where she and Aaron had done their earnest best to marry one another, their hearts touching, if not their hands.

  Gail was inclined to be practical. If it took cooperating with the FDs to free Aaron from the Quill, she was ready to consider it.

  If Grant thought she’d leave this world without Aaron, well, she planned to be ready for that eventuality, too.

  Chapter 85

  “THEY eloped, young Hugh?”

  Malley shrugged. “You can listen for yourself, if you wish.” He looked down at what was in his hand. A portable comm link, similar to the one Grant wore in one ear except that this was slightly larger and came with a small disk attached. He’d seen the like before—the techs used them to listen to procedural instructions, play background music, or spread around jokes they’d rather not be caught saying out loud.

  This one contained something quite different: recordings of Aaron and Gail’s conversations from the Athena . . . and Rosalind’s voice, which was why Malley had sought out the older ’sider.

  He put his back against one of the privacy columns that formed a visual barrier between the front and back halves of the lounge, keeping his eyes on the screen. Nothing had changed in the past hours: Aaron remained entombed; Gail sat on the grass as close to him as the Quill would let her, when she wasn’t getting supplies from the pod.

  As far as he could tell, Rosalind hadn’t looked at it once.

  She took the offered recording from his hand, using her dexterous left fingers; they felt cold and hard against his palm. “So, young Hugh,” Rosalind said, seeming amused. “Dr. Smith’s assumption that she controls what reaches this ship is, let’s say, naïve.”

  Malley nodded. “The commander could hear them on the planet, even before deploying his ’bot.” He remembered the comm link Grant wore and how quickly the Earther had reacted to Aaron’s encounter with the Quill. Secrets within secrets. This one had been discarded the moment the ’bot activated—the FDs piping through audio as well as vid. If you counted their vows to each other as binding—he’d no doubt Aaron did—the newlyweds’ sliver of privacy was long gone.

  Not that Malley had told anyone but Rosalind about the recordings made earlier—but Grant couldn’t help but spread the information to those listening.

  “Aaron—if he survives—will take this eloping business seriously,” Rosalind said, confirming Malley’s own thoughts, then surprised him by adding: “as will the Earther.” She regarded the silent stationer with a wry twist to her lips. “What, young Hugh? You doubt her veracity? You think this merely a ruse to keep control of an impressionable man? I hadn’t thought you such a cynic.”

  “I doubt everything about her.” But Malley didn’t put much conviction behind the words. How could he, having watched Gail’s vigil on that blue-ceilinged hill? “She put him in danger ...” He hesitated.

  “And you wonder why I helped?” Rosalind finished perceptively. She took a seat at the nearest table, motioning him to do the same. Malley obeyed reluctantly. His entire body quivered with the need to do something active—an opportunity unlikely to arrive anytime soon.

  “Frankly, yes.”

  She steepled her hands, fingers and paddles touching only at their tips. The paddles were stronger and cruder in motion; Malley remembered she was always careful when using them together—spare parts being impossible to find. “Gail Smith bought my cooperation initially by promising to prove to me that the Quill were the real reason we’ve been barred from the terraformed worlds—she also promised to show me how she planned to destroy these pests.”

  “Initially,” Malley echoed. “There’s been another bargain since?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rosalind said contentedly. “In return for my help reaching the planet, the good doctor has promised to arrange for my partners and me to return to Callisto, where we belong. It might take several months—but we’ve waited long enough. You and young Aaron would be welcome with us,” she added. “Your skills are not inconsiderable.”

  “You helped her take Aaron—there—in order to buy a ticket home?” Malley heard his voice drop into full threat and didn’t care. This was exactly why the station had unspoken rules against private deals with Earthers. Rosalind was worse than a traitor to Thromberg—she’d sold out her own for personal gain.

  The ’sider was unperturbed—perhaps, having faced so many battles in
her lifetime, one angry stationer, however large, could-n’t disturb her calm. “You do want to go home, don’t you?” she asked. “If not Callisto, then to your station?”

  “I can’t go home, can I?” Malley rejoined fiercely. “Ironic, isn’t it? They think I’ve done what you have—sold out to the Earthers. I might as well kill myself and save my friends the trouble, as go back.”

  Rosalind snicked her fingers together. “Such passion, young Hugh. Really—you should learn to pay close attention to your elders. We might just know more than you do about life and its risks.”

  Malley closed his lips to stop his instant, hot-headed response. Instead, he found himself considering what Rosalind was—not just what she’d done. This woman had absolute control over the extreme fringe of the ’sider population, those spacers who’d never believed in integration with the station or forgiven the past. There’d been rumors she’d somehow blackmailed Thromberg and the Earthers in order to join this mission—no details. It was clear she’d bargained away Aaron’s ship without a second thought; she’d done the same, now, with Aaron himself. “What do you know that I don’t, Rosalind?” he asked, making the effort to bring his voice to something resembling level and polite.

  “For one thing, you will be most welcome back on Thromberg—a hero’s welcome, in fact—now that we have proof the Quill are as harmless as we’ve always said.”

  “Harmless?” Malley thrust his arm toward the screen. “You call that harmless?”

  “What do you see there?” she countered. “What do you think you see? I’ll tell you what’s really there: young Aaron, frozen in one of his usual fits. The Earther, unharmed after hours spent with the Quill—”

  “She’s wearing a protective suit—” the stationer spat.

  Rosalind laughed. “A protection the Earthers can’t even explain to themselves? Smoke and mirrors, young Hugh. Nonsense to delay and confuse us so they could bring in their ships to blockade this system. I thought you were bright—don’t you see it? Gail Smith is a genius, no doubt. She’s tracked down the only world the Earthers missed keeping from us. But why? To seal this system before our people learn the truth. To keep it for Earth.”

  “The Quill are deadly,” Malley ground through his teeth.

  “Are they?” Rosalind’s eyes gleamed and suddenly she pulled up the sleeve on her right arm, showing the metal cuff replacing her wrist, binding her robotic hand to the remaining flesh. “Before the accident on my ship, young Hugh, what do you think rode here most of my adult life?”

  He stared at her, feeling as uneasy as if he stared into the dark maw of an air lock. “No ...”

  “Yes. My father may have been killed, but not before our family saved his beloved Quill. It would wrap around no one’s arm but mine. My beloved Quill,” her voice shook with emotion, then firmed. “Where’s the proof, young Hugh? They brought Quill on this ship. Was anyone killed? Have you seen anyone die? Are there skeletons in the grass at Aaron’s feet?”

  The worst thing was, she made sense of a kind. Rosalind must have read something of his doubt; she went on, each word like a hammer: “This is economics, not science. They want to harvest the Quill for themselves—and keep this world from your people. Of course I helped Gail Smith. Her hopeless love for young Aaron gave me exactly what I was waiting for. What you and I have been waiting for ...”

  “And that is?”

  “A demonstration. She’s proof that people can survive on this world—and she very conveniently sent the blockade ships away on a fool’s errand.”

  Malley felt the blood drain from his face as he looked at Rosalind and saw the triumph of a fanatic. “What have you done?” he almost whispered.

  “I think everyone is about to find out.” The ’sider gestured toward the entrance. Malley turned his head to see Grant, flanked by four FDs with their weapons out, a passage splitting through the stunned crowd as they came directly to his and Rosalind’s table.

  “You will thank me, young Hugh,” Rosalind was saying confidently. As if he was listening. “You will be a hero.”

  Malley surged to his feet in time to meet Grant. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What did she do?”

  Grant’s eyes were flint hard, his face a forbidding mask. He looked past Malley at Rosalind, then back to Malley. “We have upward of fifty starships on approach to this system—a system on no charts or records,” the Earther stated, his voice edged with fury. “They claim to have been invited.”

  Rosalind continued to smile, her pale eyes shining with anticipation. “And so they were, Commander. Did you never think to ask how Dr. Smith calmed the panic on Thromberg? How she managed to talk Station Admin into patience? Quite simply, if bold even for her. She promised them this planet for a home.”

  “Once it was free of Quill,” Grant bit off each word. “We don’t know yet if we can remove them from a planet—let alone if we’re dealing with another sentience! There are people on those ships, ’sider.”

  “Oh, yes,” Rosalind answered, as cool as Grant was furious. “I daresay those ships are crowded to the point of risking life-support failure. Some will be tows and barges, barely capable of reliably harvesting ice and transporting cargo, let alone moving families. I seriously doubt there’s an experienced crew on any—since ’siders have no interest in dirt. But you can’t stop a migration, Commander, just by making the journey hazardous.”

  “Migration?” Forgetting her age and rank, forgetting everything but the faces of those he’d left—he’d thought safely—behind, Malley grabbed Rosalind’s shoulders and yanked the ’sider up to face him. “Why now? Why didn’t they wait until it was safe?”

  “How did they know where to come?” Grant added, standing by Malley’s shoulder as if he’d like to be the one holding her. “Dr. Smith wouldn’t have told them—”

  “Because,” Rosalind said, her voice faintly surprised, as though they should have guessed. “When Dr. Reinsez had me find the coordinates for his patrol ships to come and blockade the system, I sent them to my people on Thromberg as well. And when Dr. Smith so conveniently cleared that blockade, I informed them the time to approach was now—or never.”

  Malley opened his hands, as if they might be contaminated by touching her. “You can’t let them land,” he said to Grant, looking past to the screen where fields of Quill rippled in moving air. “You have to stop them.”

  “With what?” Grant said savagely. “This ship? We’re hours from full reconnection—and even if I leave the science sphere in orbit, what could the Seeker do on her own? This is a research vessel, Malley, not a warship.”

  Warship? Malley heard a small noise of satisfaction from Rosalind and, for a soul-shattering instant, he knew exactly what she was thinking—and couldn’t help but think the same. The Earthers would do it again if they could . . . destroy any ship coming from the station, no matter who was on board. Only this time, the enemy had faces: Grant, Benton, Aisha . . .

  And this time, those who would die weren’t strangers from the past.

  Chapter 86

  “REPEAT that?” Gail asked numbly, then said immediately: “No, don’t bother. It sounded ridiculous enough the first time.”

  “Ridiculous or not, Dr. Smith, I’m looking at a tactical display showing me fifty-seven ships, most of which I wouldn’t trust to haul waste from Deimos to Phobos. Two didn’t even make it out of translight. They are incoming and very hard of hearing. I’ve talked to them. Your stationer’s talked to them. Hell, I had Reinsez pretending to be the Chancellor of Titan U, and it didn’t make any difference.”

  Rosalind Fournier. On some level, Gail approved—the move was worthy of herself. The ’sider had backed her into the ultimate corner: deliver on all promises at once . . .

  Or prove the Quill are deadly.

  Gail understood it was nothing personal. The ’sider was powered by her conviction that the menace was pretense. She believed all the cards were hers to play.

  In that, Gail knew, Rosalind was mistaken
.

  Grant’s voice rang in her ears. “Maybe you can talk sense into these people—at least have them hold at a distance—” It had to be her imagination putting the words: We all volunteered beneath his.

  “Good idea,” Gail said, her eyes never leaving Aaron. “Make sure you pipe me through as vid as well as audio. I want them all to see this.”

  “Of course,” Grant knew, she realized, hearing acceptance heavy in his voice. “Let me know when you’re ready, Dr. Smith.”

  A moment passed in silence. The wind pressed against her side, ran off to chase grassy leaves around Aaron’s waist, twirled once, then dashed away to wherever winds went. Gail had done her best not to move, suspecting the Quill were sensitive to any vibration traveling through the ground or air. Now, she stood, wincing at the burn in both feet—and all the way up her right leg—as nerves protested and circulation resumed. Flexing her toes in her boots helped, even though she couldn’t feel them yet.

  “Swing the ’bot to the other side of Aaron,” she ordered. The ’bot moved as if her voice controlled it, stopping on the opposite side as if staring at Aaron’s face.

  Gail could only see his back, still coated in Quill. As the sun’s rays had intensified during the course of the day, they’d grown darker, less colorful—perhaps injured by the light; perhaps protecting themselves from it. They hadn’t moved either.

  “We’re relaying vid and audio to all of the ships—some might not have the equipment to receive both.”

  The ’bot should have her in view. Gail lifted her hand experimentally.

  “Copy that,” assured another voice—probably one of the deployment specialists, used to testing equipment.

  “Good,” Gail said. Now that all was ready, she found herself delaying to take a quick sip of body-warm water from the straw by her lips. Pointless? Perhaps. But she needed her best public voice—the one with total confidence and that hint of compassionate power. She’d practiced it enough.

  “Greetings from Pardell’s World,” she began. “My name is Dr. Gail Veronika Ashton Smith—Pardell. I’m the senior scientist on this mission, in command of the Earth Research Council’s Deep-Space Vessel Seeker.” She doubted Grant would leap on the comm to argue the point. “You are invited to observe Trial Number Six A of our project to determine the safety of this world for human life.”