by David Wiley
CHAPTER 5
Ernie had the first watch, so it was a little before midnight, ship's time. She slumped in the Captain's chair. Damn that Solo! She had worked with the Arkhangel's Nav routines on the course update. She triple-checked the results on how long it would take the ship to be in position to see if the anomaly was a wormhole or not. She nonchalantly handed her calculations to the pilot as he passed through. Abasolo glanced at them. "I hope you didn't spend too long on this, Ernie."
She shrugged. "I was bored. This was just a little something to keep busy, that's all."
"Because they are totally wrong. This would take us so high out of the elliptic we wouldn't even be able to see the end of the anomaly."
"What? But I checked the numbers with-"
"Looks like you ran the numbers only out to the third decimal place, instead of the eighth. The distances we're talking about that means several million kilometers difference." He handed the calculations back to her. "If I were you I'd leave the navigation to the professionals, girl."
As she replayed the scene in her head again, Ernie caught herself clenching her hands into fists. She glared down at the traitorous appendages. Just great. The Strangler surfaces again. She hated her large hands, they were the size you should see on a man, not a girl. The other kids on the Orbital had taunted her, calling her the Strangler. It hadn't helped when Rodrigo's body was discovered in one of the hydroponics tanks, when Ernie was fifteen. Rodrigo had been a couple of years younger than Ernie and as he was a bright, socially awkward outcast like her, they naturally hung out together-until he was murdered, that is. He had been strangled or drowned, nobody was really sure, his body had been in the tank for a while. But if she thought she had been an outcast before....
Of course, Ernie had her own suspicions about Rodrigo's death. Rodrigo was a handsome boy and had confided in Ernie about attracting the unwanted attention of Reverend Jim, the self-appointed leader of the Orbital. She shuddered as she thought of Reverend Jim. With an effort, she unclenched her hands. She decided to turn on the view screen. The stars always helped her forget, even back on the Orbital.
A while later, Ernie had tired of peering at the supposed wormhole and was now using the Arkhangel's visual sensors to look down at the Kuiper Belt. Not many ships ever came up this way, so once again she could imagine that she was the only human to have ever seen this view-at least until Qing entered the bridge, trailed by Lucky.
Qing studied the view screen. "I would have thought you would be looking ahead and not back."
Ernie smiled. "You don't know how right you are. Hey, Lucky," she greeted the cat who started purring and rubbing against her legs.
Qing sat down and nodded her head toward the view screen. "So, what do you see there?"
Ernie regarded the screen soberly. "Patterns, I guess. Up close you can't tell that the ice and dust are long braids and those braids are woven with others. But from up here it all looks carefully planned."
"Hmmm, I never figured you for a theist, Ernestine Borgia," Qing's tone implied she was only teasing the younger woman, but Ernie still shuddered, thinking of Reverend Jim.
"I'm not really. My folks were members of one of those obscure little sects that seem to sprout up in the poorer habitats like mushrooms in uh, manure. Some smooth-talking preacher that was good at separating folks from their money. I never took to it, one of the reasons I wanted to get away from home. No, I know the patterns are from the resonance orbits, lots of stuff at one orbit for every two of Neptune's or two for three and even a little bit at weird ratios like at four to seven. So, I'm not a theist, what kind of a god would make you do the math on a four to seven ratio?"
Qing's mouth quirked. "Indeed. Still, pretty as they are, it is too bad they can be calculated at all."
Ernie thought for a moment. "Ah, the multicorps and their robotic miners."
"Exactly. If it was not so easy to predict where the rocks will be, it would be a lot better for wildcatters. The robots would not just be able to move along an orbit, sucking up everything in their path. You know, Saturn once had the most spectacular rings you ever saw." Qing stared at the view screen, but she was seeing something else.
"I know, I've seen photos," Ernie said softly.
"I saw them in real life as they harvested the last of them and please don't say anything about how old that makes me."
"Wouldn't dare," Ernie said. Lucky had now worked her way up into Ernie's lap and she gave the cat a good knuckle rub. "How long do you figure we have before the multicorps and their robots are out here?"
"Oh, decades. It's a long way between rocks out here, but they are starting to work their way out through the Belt. And they are getting smarter, I'm afraid. They're quicker and quicker at finding the good stuff amidst all the dirty snowballs."
"Better even than Horst's intuition," Ernie murmured.
"Better than Horst."
"Where would we go then? The Oort Cloud?"
Qing shook her head in a tacit admission of defeat. "Stuff there is even further apart. Besides, that's outside the heliopause, without the solar wind to protect us, we'd fry from cosmic rays, even with our magnetic screens."
"So we don't have any choice. That's why we have to see what this thing is. If it's a wormhole, well, I think we should fully investigate," Ernie switched the view screen back to the mysterious object.
"You mean go through it," Qing waved at the screen.
"I know things can't go on as they are, forever. I know the Captain is worried about being able to keep the Arkhangel running and I know he is scared to try, but we have to. Don't you see?"
"I do."
"We have to at least try. You've known him longer than anyone else, can you at least talk to him?"
"The best I can do will likely be for him to allow a vote by shareowners," Qing cautioned.
"And me, being so junior, will barely have enough to even include. You must really be worried if you came to feel me out before your shift."
Qing looked at the girl with obvious affection. "You continue to surprise me."
"Yeah, well, I'll stop now. I'm beat and am going to bed. It's your watch. You have the conn." Ernie logged out and handed the controls and the cat over to Qing.
Qing nodded, "I have the conn."
"I've been thinking about the potential ramifications if this is a viable wormhole," Horst Schroder had cornered the ship's pilot in the galley.
Abasolo Cesar snorted from in front of his open food locker. "Bullshit, Horst, you're just figuring out how you can make the most money off of it."
Horst smiled vulpinely, "And you have a problem with that?"
Solo took a swig of what the ship's galley euphemistically called fruit juice and made a face. "Judging by how nasty our rations have become, not at all, but I'm thinking bigger than that."
"Oh, I've got to hear this, got a plan, have we?"
Solo frowned at Horst's tone. "I do, which is more than what most of you have. For starters, I can just about guarantee you that any decision that the Old Man makes, will be the wrong one. The slob is in hock up to his thrusters and that won't change any time soon, not without taking some chances. Why else do you think I set us on the course for the wormhole or whatever it is in the middle of the night? So he didn't have the chance to crap out about it.
"Regardless though, whether it is a wormhole or merely a curiosity, there is no way any wildcatters are going to be able to control it. The multicorps are where the action is. If they can't buy something outright they'll steal it, through the so-called legal system, if nothing else. Trick is, you need a way in to the multicorps, offer them something unique to get your foot in through the door. If I had been fortunate enough to be born into the right family, I'd be flying high by now, with all the fancy toys and women I could ever want. Instead, I'm stuck on this decrepit old wildcatter rig, going slower and slower to nowhere."
Solo shut his locker door, but it popped
back open. He slammed it shut again. Twice. "Dammit! Not even the lockers work right on this ship. Take it from me, Horst. This could be our ticket out of here, but only if we think big enough. And I'm going to get what I deserve, one way or another. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a watch to stand."
The tone was insolent, but Solo's interests seemed to be aligned with those of Horst Schroder, at least for now, so the purser let it go without comment. However, Horst fingered the penknife in his pocket, remembering the days when a sharpened sliver of steel often proved to be the most eloquent argument he could make.
The Captain brooded in his cabin. Just below the surface, tremors ran through the Arkhangel's crew. He could feel them. Like a misaligned grapple slinging an asteroid back to the processing plants, the resulting oscillations could shake the ship apart. He stared up at Madankirpal's heroic features while considering and discarding several options to restore the equilibrium. He absently stroked Lucky's fur. Somehow the damn cat had snuck into his cabin, despite his best efforts to keep it out. He stared into the cat's slitted eyes. "Why bother?" he asked and grasped the squeeze bottle, the plastic worn smooth over time by his hand.
Boris belched and worked on draining the last of his despised shipboard alcohol rations. Unfortunately, he could not ask Sean to refine any more alcohol, not with the potential for short rations looming for everyone. Would he be able to handle the sniping without his preferred crutch? He regarded the cat and sighed. "Tomorrow we'll find out for sure."
"What was that?" Qing asked from the doorway.
"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking, they are like rats fleeing a sinking ship, you know. Although out in space there is nothing to flee to, a fact probably lost on our crew, unlike that of Captain Bligh and the Bounty."
"Who?"
"Never mind. I am just sorry I cannot keelhaul the miscreants."
Qing snorted. "Next you'll be having them walk the plank. You know it wouldn't kill you to at least pretend to live in this millennium, Boris."
It was Boris' turn to snort. "Some concepts are timeless. What are you doing here anyway?"
"Looking for Lucky, that's all."
"Well, you can have her," Boris dumped the protesting cat off his lap. "You know how I hate cats."
"Yeah, I know how you feel about cats," Qing closed the hatch behind her and then sat down in the chair across from Boris.
"Won't you come in, Qing?" Boris invited.
"Thank you, Boris." She sat in silence for a minute.
Boris finally cleared his throat. "I would offer you a drink, but I know you never touch the stuff. Not anymore."
She looked up sharply at this, but Boris would not meet her eyes. She picked up the cat, who was pawing at her leg. "Boris, I want to know what you've decided about the anomaly. Whether we are going to fully investigate it."
"Haven't decided," he mumbled.
He must have been drinking more than she thought, to be slurring his words like this. "Well, you're going to have to decide pretty soon. I think we need to go for it."
His eyes flashed. "I did not ask you."
"No you didn't, but even your youngest crew member knows what we have to do."
"Really?"
"Oh come on, Boris. Ernie knows full well that you, that we, are running out of options. This wormhole is not only our best chance, it's our only chance."
"A good chance of getting killed, you mean."
Qing threw her hands up in the air. "Any given day our number could be up. You know that, Boris."
"Why? You been slacking off on maintenance again?"
"No, although you wouldn't know it since the lighting in the storeroom in B Hold is shorting out again. No, you know I would not do that."
"No, you would not dare. Who are you to lecture me on the need to take risks? How long have you been with the Arkhangel?"
"You know very well."
"Since before my parents died."
Qing sat, her face carved stone.
"And just how did you survive? And they did not?" Boris enunciated slowly, sinking the barb.
"Boris, we've been over this time and-"
"By taking risks? I don't think so."
"Damn you, Boris!" Qing slammed her hand down on the desk as she rose. "Just go back to your fucking bottle. Let someone else play at being captain for a while, okay?" She stormed out of his cabin, trailed by the cat, who shot him a reproachful look as it left.
