by Sharon Lee
Stop that!, Theo thought. You’re starting to sound like Bechimo.
Gravely, she returned Win Ton’s bow with one of acknowledgment, reached up to hook the key onto the chain around her neck, and took a deep, hopefully calming, breath.
“Please, Pilots,” Bechimo said, sounding, impossibly, breathless. “Follow the blue line along the floor.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jamiatha’s Jumble Stop
The blue lines guided them between levels to yet another hallway that Theo had never walked, behind a dogged hatch bearing the symbols for the potential for low grav/low oxy.
“Should we have masks?” she asked, and it was Joyita’s voice that reassured her, from the comm she carried.
“You’re safe, Pilot Theo. It’s just one of Bechimo’s cubbyholes. In honor of your presence all is adjusted for your comfort.”
She nodded, accepting it—trust your ship; well, what else could she do? Kara…Clarence—who knew what was happening to them! Even if the voice promised to return them alive—even if she agreed to give Bechimo into their keeping—there were very many things that could be done to a human body, while still keeping it alive.
“Theo?” Win Ton murmured beside her, and she nodded again, coming out of her thoughts. She undogged the hatch and stepped through…
…into a cul-de-sac.
Before her, was a blank wall. To her right, just beyond Win Ton, was what ought to be a view port, but it was sealed against light and radiation. She leaned over to touch the sensor set in the frame.
The iris widened, and she was looking through a thick crystalline window at the graveyard, the ships in parking orbits around the misty blue asteroid. She took a breath, and sighed it out.
“Please, Theo,” Bechimo said. “Open the door.”
She turned away from the port, all the way to her left, until she was facing the door—just a door, not a hatch, with an indentation, looking just like…
…a keyhole.
“All right, then,” Theo said softly. She took a breath. Her heart was pounding, her palms were damp. She was aware of Win Ton, standing at her back, between her and the view port, waiting, tense and patient.
She fingered the chain ’round her neck, pulled it up and detached her ship-key. It hummed in her hand like Hevelin when he was very pleased, indeed, and with a little taste of anticipation, too.
Well, she thought, at least the key isn’t nervous.
She seated it, and stepped back.
The door slid aside; lights came up in the chamber beyond.
It was a small space, barely larger than a port infobooth. She stepped inside, and looked about her.
Like an infobooth, a data screen was prominent on the front wall. Unlike most infobooths, though, this screen was…very large, and flawless, like the mirror in the room that Val Con said was “hers” at Jelaza Kazone.
Theo faced it. The surface was deeply black, and gave back no reflection, though something tickled the edge of her vision. She looked up and to the left, saw a hose-horse set high in the frame of the screen. Reflected light kissed the hoses, cables, and clamps that depended from it, dyeing the tips silver and gold.
One more deep breath, a glance to the side, where Win Ton leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, and an expression of perplexity on his face. She smiled at him. He inclined his head.
Theo faced the screen again.
“Tell me what to do.”
“State your name,” came Joyita’s voice from her belt-comm.
“Theo Waitley.”
Something…rippled in the ebon depths of the screen.
“State your intention,” Joyita coached.
“I propose myself as Bechimo’s Captain. I’m here to share in the bonding.”
The screen snapped into brilliance, bathing the interior of the booth with light.
Code appeared and began scrolling, what looked to be a ship schematic building behind it all.
A hand came down lightly on her shoulder, another caressed her hair.
Theo jumped back with a yelp, hands rising to fend the gleaming tentacles that had fallen from the hose-horse, connect ends glowing bright yellow, illuminating wires as thin as cat whiskers clustered at the end of each.
“Wait! What is that?”
“Theo,” Bechimo’s voice sounded as panicked as she felt. “The bonding…”
“I don’t—”
Old Tech, she thought. Bechimo was built on Old Tech principles; Uncle was an expert in Befores. To have those wires pierce her, change her…
“No,” she said, chest aching and lungs laboring. “No, I—” She stopped herself. She had promised—she had made so many promises, accepted so many bonds. She might not be Bechimo’s destined captain—wasn’t, as they both agreed. But she was the best chance he had, and Kara had…Clarence, Joyita, Win Ton…and…
Theo Waitley.
All those lives that depended on her…
“Pilot Theo,” Joyita’s voice was matter-of-fact, as if he was discussing a mundane shipboard task. “The connections must be made. Please insert your key so that we may proceed.”
She did so, gingerly, feeling the key vibrate happily as it was pushed home, and felt a pang of loss as the whole of it disappeared within the dashboard.
The screen flickered and changed again. The code vanished, and there stood Joyita, shaking his head slightly, and smiling.
“Theo,” he said, gently. “Trust your ship.”
She gulped, grappled with the fear; danced a tiny, in-place dance of quietude and peace, and stood there for a moment, with her eyes closed.
The fear receded…enough. And really, what had Father used to say of hard choices and tasks that would by preference never be taken up?
Necessity exists.
“Theo?” That was Win Ton, a world of worry in that word.
She cleared her throat.
“Necessity,” she said, the weight of fathers and mothers before her freighting it far beyond the Liaden mode between comrades.
“Necessity,” she repeated, in Terran, for emphasis.
“Oh, Theo,” he breathed, and then, more firmly, in Liaden. “Necessity, Pilot. Understood.”
Theo opened her eyes.
Joyita smiled at her.
“Theo,” said Bechimo. “The bonding will not harm you, nor will it diminish you; it will make us whole. We will be…all that the Founders intended, and indeed beyond their ken, for you will be the First Captain.”
“I know,” she said, looking into Joyita’s eyes. “I’m ready.”
His smile deepened.
“Place your left hand on the screen, in the center of the inner circle. You will feel a touch, several touches. There will be no pain. We cherish you, Theo. Captain.”
She put her hand against the screen, which was agreeably warm, the surface giving, as if she had placed her hand over the hand of a lover. There was a brief swish and hum, and Win Ton’s breathing was nearly as loud as her own, though he stood well away from her.
Soft fingers combed her hair back from her face, and rested sweetly over her ear. Sensuous touches along the back of her neck, and a feeling of delightful, shivery warmth down her backbone.
Almost she purred, eyes slitted, her gaze on Joyita’s face. A firm arm came round her waist, holding her steady on legs gone slightly silly.
“Your other hand,” he whispered, “over my heart.”
She placed it so, seeing his face soften; the hard eyes widen.
A thumb rubbed over her lips, fingers braceleted her throat, heat burned in her belly. The universe expanded, and there was pain—an ecstatic pain so fierce and joyous that she opened to it eagerly, only wanting more—and more.
Light ran her nerves, her blood heated, and she was up, away, out of her body, riding a crescendo of ecstasy, but not alone, never again alone, her lover’s voice murmuring in her ear, his strengths supporting her as hers supported him. They were one, entwined, indivisible.
Complete.
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Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jamiatha’s Jumble Stop
The key was purring, loudly; vibrating against her fingers as she recovered it from the dashboard and clipped it onto the chain.
Theo thought she might be purring, too. From the look on Win Ton’s face, maybe she was—or had been. Before her, the screen was reflective ebony once more; in it she saw her reflection—her hair floating ’round her head, as if she were in low gravity.
“Captain,” Win Ton said, very softly. “Time marches.”
Time? she thought, feeling the sweet pressure of light against her skin, and the pure, sensual pleasure of perfectly tuned and functioning subsystems.
“Theo.” Win Ton extended a hand. “We have less than an hour to redeem Kara and Clarence.”
Memory sparked; she relived the comm call in every detail, gasped, and spun away from the screen, the key still purring against her palm. Win Ton gave before way her, the hatch closed as she exited, sealing at her thought, or Bechimo’s. It didn’t matter. She was already running back up the hall, with no need for the guide-lights at all.
As she ran, she noticed that a murmuring enclosed her. It reminded her of when she had been very young, and gone up to bed while Father and Kamele stayed downstairs to talk. Sometimes, she’d lay on the landing, and listen to the sound of their voices—the sound, not the words—and feel contented; safe and loved.
She was aware that Win Ton was at her back, running not so fleet as she, and she thought to check on the state of his health.
No sooner the thought, than the knowledge—Win Ton’s pulse was slightly raised, his breathing quick—both consistent with a man who was moving rapidly, but he wasn’t laboring.
That was good, she thought, as the lift door opened before her.
She swung inside, and Win Ton joined her. The door closed and the lift rose, the door opening again on the main level.
“Do you,” Win Ton asked, as they stepped out into the hall, “feel…well?”
Theo smiled at him.
“Never felt better.”
* * *
“Captain, welcome,” Joyita said, looking up from his boards as she came into the Heart, Win Ton walking at her right shoulder and one step behind.
“Joyita,” she said, pausing to consider him. He seemed…more solid, somehow, though his image was the same as it had been. It was as if she could feel the weight of his systems. She shook her head slightly, and nodded at her main screen, which was much busier than it had been.
“You have progress?” she asked.
He grinned.
“Captain, we do. The station’s systems were designed with the expectation that all network traffic would be local and benign; there’s only a very naive security system in place, which I have been probing. It appears that in some cases lines have been severed physically. Those will be harder to access. We have a number of electrical connections that permit us to monitor local lighting activity, however, and I have access and control of a state transition PLC farm serving the air and fluid movement system.
“Bechimo has calculated usage rates, and we’re now attempting to infer room populations. We have three probable locations for the Opposition and the likelihood that our crew are within twelve paces of those locations is high. Expect a positive location fix within moments.”
“Thank you,” she said, and moved to her board. She sat, seeing Win Ton do the same, and place his palm on the plate.
She slipped her pilot’s key—her captain’s key, she corrected herself—off the chain and slid it into the board. The board remained dark, and she heard an…alteration in the murmuring surrounding her.
Then, as deliberate and as majestic as the progress of a Scholar Emeritus down the rows of the faculty senate, there rose out of the left side of her familiar board a new bank of controls, perhaps a hand-span wide. Simultaneously, a concave set of transparent mini-screens rose on a stalk, perfectly placed to act as a heads-up display.
The stalk locked solemnly into place.
There was a beep, incongruous and bright, and the entire arrangement came live.
Theo took a breath, wondering if there was a training tape or—
Bechimo interrupted these thoughts, briskly.
“One location has eliminated, Captain. There is a high probability that the Opposition has divided its available forces between two bases. One is the station office, which they appear to be using to control the station, and almost certainly to hold our crew. Their other base is the freighter Donihue’s Docent, which is broadcasting the general warnaways. This ship is—”
It appeared on her screen, docked on an opposite arm of the station, targeting information overlaying the image. The image seemed to ripple, like something seen underwater. Theo frowned and reached for her controls.
“Bechimo, can you sharpen that image?”
“The distortion you see, Captain,” Bechimo said, “are emanations from the Old Tech aboard.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t look good, or am I reading wrong?”
“Your instincts are good, Captain Theo,” Joyita said. “Many of the timonium-based instruments on-board that ship are either unstable or unshielded. Or,” he added, as one being just, “both.”
“Is it dangerous?” she asked, staring at the wavering image of the vessel.
“Without a doubt, it is dangerous,” Bechimo said. “We must operate on the assumption that they have us targeted, as we have them. The original weapons were very light; but there are the subetherics, the purpose of which we can only guess at.”
“Beyond the fact that they’re unstable,” Theo added.
“We don’t believe,” Bechimo said, “that the Old Tech will malfunction catastrophically within the span of time allotted to us to act.”
At second board, Win Ton laughed.
Theo threw him a grin. “Least of our worries,” she agreed. “Right.”
She sobered suddenly, and raised her hands, signing, input pilot.
“There’s two of us,” she said aloud. “Should we try to storm this office? Short of a firefight…”
“We can’t be sure of a firefight.” Win Ton said, looking bleak. “They will target our crew first.” He used his chin to point at the image of Donihue’s Docent on her screen. “We are held hostage as much as they.”
“A two-pronged attack,” Theo said, frowning. “If we could threaten their ship at the same time we went against the control room…”
“An advance against the control room is something that I cannot support,” Win Ton said, primly. “To mount a credible threat against their ship would require another ship, which was not hard-docked to the…”
He stopped, staring at his second aux screen, which showed a drifting display of ships in the graveyard, several of them limned in blue.
“Those ships out there,” he said slowly, his eyes still on the screen. “Most of them are alive to some degree. If we can roust two, or more, to move in…they needn’t have working weapons, even.”
Theo flicked a look at the Docent, station-keeping like a law-abiding ship.
“We could box them in,” she said. “At the very least, we can get something between us and their weapons.”
She looked at him, fingers moving, do it. “Work with Joyita. Whatever you have to do. Joyita—”
“On it, Captain!”
Theo left them to it. She turned back to her screen, tapping up the station schematic. “Where are they?” she murmured.
A section lit, deep inside the station—not quite in the core, but close. The section expanded, unfolding so that she could see not only the approaching hallways, but the ducts and repair passages…
“Captain,” Bechimo said in her ear.
“Theo,” she murmured, upping the mag on the schematic some more.
“Theo. Are you still considering an attack on the control room?”
“I’m thinking,” she said, slowly, “if we use a remote, through the ducts…trying to visualize ou
tcomes.”
“Allow me.”
She was standing in the air duct, peering through the ceiling hatch at two faces among many, heard the discharge of a weapon, the faces gone…
Again, the duct. She dropped a knock-out bulb through the grate, heard it hiss—and the discharge of the weapon…
She was in the repair hall, removing the access wall, in the room beyond among shadows, two faces, a weapon discharged…
She was in the main hall, her hand on the hatch…
Gasping, she shook her head, and the schematic was back before her mind’s eye, security cameras highlighted in yellow…
She pushed, hard, against what, she couldn’t have said…
…and she was in her chair, blinking hard, her head aching furiously.
“Too risky,” she managed after a moment. “Got it.” She chewed her lip, eye caught again by the indistinct image of the ship that targeted them.
“Bechimo, you can talk to Old Tech,” she said slowly. “You subverted the Befores at Win Ton’s prison.”
“That’s correct.”
“Can you talk to those Befores?” she asked, nodding at the screen. “Create a diversion, or even do real damage? I don’t necessarily care about the Docent, but I don’t want to hole the station.”
“Let me consider. It is possible that I may incite erratic behavior, enough to alarm the crew.”
“See if you can do that,” she said, and was aware of his attention being—not withdrawn, but applied more fully elsewhere.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. The headache was fading, which was good.
“Captain,” Joyita said. “We have several ships working under our orders.”
“Good!” she said, spinning her chair ’round.
Win Ton looked up with a faint smile.
“Good within limitations,” he said, wryly. “The problem is to get them to move in concert. The remote controllers are slow, and—understand, Theo, these are old ships, but not Old Tech. They need…guidance. A captain’s hand. I don’t know how many tasks Bechimo is willing to manage at once…”
