The Outback Stars

by Sandra McDonald

  “You let me worry about Senga. My concern is making sure nothing like what happened in T6 happens again, and I don’t care who I have to incarcerate to make sure of it.”

  “There’s more.” Jodenny told him about what she’d discovered regarding the missing DNGO and Chiba being logged into a lifepod he couldn’t possibly have reached in the allotted time span. Picariello listened with a grave expression and went off vowing to look into it. Jodenny checked the time, wondering if it was a wise idea to go visit Myell in Sick Berth in light of what had happened to Francesco.

  Dicensu was still minding the front office. He asked, “How’s Sergeant Myell, ma’am?”

  Jodenny picked up a pile of handmail that had come in. “If you’re so interested, why don’t you damn well go and ask him?”

  Dicensu cowered. “Because Chief said not to.”

  “Chief Nitta said what?”

  “When Terry got hurt we wanted to go to Sick Berth,” Dicensu said. “A lot of people did. The chief ordered us to stay away and not bother him.”

  Ysten came in, looking as unhappy with the world as ever. Jodenny knew she should move the conversation with Dicensu to somewhere more private, but her temper overrode her judgment. “What else did the chief say?”

  Dicensu’s face furrowed. “That it’s Myell’s own damn fault for getting hurt.”

  He did a good Nitta impersonation, but Jodenny had a sudden suspicion. “He said all of that to you?”

  “Some of it.” Dicensu hung his head. “Some he was telling Barivee and I kinda overheard.”

  Ysten unexpectedly spoke up. “I’ve heard that talk, too. Chief Nitta’s been saying it was Myell and Hosaka who screwed up, otherwise nothing would have happened.”

  Jodenny retreated to her office with Ysten on her heels. “I’ve imailed you my essay,” he said. “Four thousand words. Plus another two for good measure. You were right.”

  She sorted through the handmail. Reports, leave requests, a flyer from the Morale Committee. “Right about what?”

  Ysten locked his gaze on the bulkhead. “About what you said. I’m not a good officer. I’m lazy. I don’t take initiative. I could have gone into the shaft to save Myell, but instead a nineteen-year-old AT showed me up as a coward.”

  Jodenny put down the mail and gave him her full attention. “Go on.”

  “I thought you were exaggerating, so I went back and asked Lieutenant Commander Vu to tell me again her opinion of me. Then I asked Master Chief DiSola.”

  “And?”

  Ysten took a deep breath. “Lieutenant Commander Vu told me if it were up to her, I’d have to turn in my commission tomorrow. Master Chief DiSola said he pitied anyone under my command.” His face colored. “I never wanted to be that kind of officer. It wasn’t my intention.”

  “So what are you going to do about it, Ensign?”

  “I’m going to improve. I’m going to work for you until I earn your approval.”

  “You’ll have a lot of work to do,” she said. “I’m firing Chief Nitta.”

  Jodenny couldn’t kick Nitta off the ship. Only the captain could do that, after months of documentation and progressive disciplinary action. But she had decided that she could no longer afford to have him in her division. She went to Master Chief DiSola and said, “Chief Nitta doesn’t work for me any longer.”

  DiSola leaned back in his chair. “He doesn’t?”

  “He works somewhere else. I don’t care where else. I don’t care who I have to take to square it.”

  “I don’t know if it’s going to fly,” DiSola said cautiously.

  “Let me tell you what’s going to happen if you don’t transfer Nitta. I’m going to give him Myell’s old job. He’ll sit in T6 every single day for the rest of this deployment. No chiefs’ lunches. No late mornings or early knock-offs. He’ll be complaining so incessantly that you’ll have a constant earache and a headache to match. Am I painting a pretty picture?”

  “Pretty enough. What if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll go above your head.”

  DiSola’s voice was calm, though his cheeks had spots of red. “That strategy isn’t always going to work for you, Lieutenant.”

  “But it’ll work for me today,” Jodenny said.

  Later that day Nitta was called to Master Chief DiSola’s office. When he emerged an hour later, he returned to Underway Stores, threw his plaques into a box, and left without a single word. Two days later Jodenny introduced Chief Faddig to the division. Faddig had been working in the ship’s Public Relations office, writing press releases about Aral Sea and her crew. He knew absolutely nothing about supply requisitions, balance sheets, or DNGOs. His primary qualification, and the only one Jodenny cared about, was that he was not Nitta. Nitta was now in Ship’s Services, where Vu assigned him to work in the laundry with a dismayed Ensign Hultz.

  Mrs. Mullaly, badly rattled by the General Quarters and fearful for her unborn child, decided to quit. She knew the ship would have more drills, but at least she’d be in the Towers with all the other wives when they occurred.

  “Sorry about the short notice,” she said. “Will you have trouble filling the position?”

  “We’ll be fine,” Jodenny assured her.

  If she wanted a new civvie, the position would have to go to Outsourcing for recruitment. Al-Banna said, “Move Myell into it. He’s going to have to ride a desk for a while anyway.”

  Wildstein suggested, “Maybe we could put him somewhere else.”

  “Why?” Al-Banna asked. “Underway Stores is short on personnel as it is, or so Lieutenant Scott here likes to tell me every week.”

  Jodenny said, “I’ll ask him, sir,” and went to Sick Berth with Faddig in tow. It had been almost three days since she had seen Myell. He was sitting up in bed.

  Myell’s expression brightened. “Lieutenant.”

  “You’re looking better, Sergeant.” She would keep this thoroughly professional, as she would with any member of her division. “This is Chief Faddig. He’s taking over for Chief Nitta.”

  Myell shook Faddig’s hand. “Welcome to the division.”

  “I hear it’s an exciting place to be,” Faddig said.

  Jodenny said, “Mrs. Mullaly’s leaving and we need someone to fill in her job. Do you want the position?”

  He gazed squarely at her. “I’m not sure I’m the admin type, Lieutenant.”

  “You need light duty and the schedule will be easy.”

  Myell frowned. Jodenny suffered an attack of self-consciousness. Maybe he blamed her for the accident in some way. Maybe he knew she’d kissed him after surgery and was uncomfortable because her affection was not reciprocated. She said, “I can ask the SUPPO to transfer you elsewhere.”

  “No.” Myell fiddled with the edge of his sheet. “I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” she said briskly. “We’ll leave you to rest, then.”

  “Actually, Lieutenant,” Myell said, and there was no mistaking the hope in his voice. “Can I have a word with you in private?”

  She didn’t trust herself. The accident was still too recent, her feelings for him too raw. “I’m sorry, but I’m due for a meeting.”

  Myell imailed her later that day, asking her to stop by. Jodenny told Holland to delete it unanswered. Rude, she knew, but given what had happened to Francesco, it was the only reasonable action she could take.

  * * *

  Gallivan and Timrin visited every day Myell was in Sick Berth. VanAmsal dropped by with some books. Kevwitch came round and asked Myell if he wanted Chiba hurt and hurt bad.

  “It was an accident,” Myell insisted. “Leave it be.”

  But Security seemed to think it was more than just a random collision. Two chiefs came down to ask him about the fight he’d broken up in the locker room between Spallone, Engel, and Olsson. They also wanted to know about the incident between Myell and Chiba on the mess decks, and the fight that had occurred between Underway Stores and Maintenance. Myell downplayed it all, because he
really couldn’t see a connection between all that and the fact Circe had malfunctioned during a General Quarters. He’d seen DNGOs do worse.

  “It was just bad luck,” he told Timrin.

  Timrin shrugged. “If it is, then they won’t find any evidence of wrongdoing, will they?”

  Chaplain Mow called to see how he was doing. Myell remembered a hazy visit from her after his surgery and thanked her for it. Commander Wildstein and Master Chief DiSola stopped by for brief chats, which startled him—after the Ford incident, they’d both been cold as ice. Dyatt came by, so large and close to giving birth that Myell wondered if she just shouldn’t grab a bed in the next cubicle over and spread her legs.

  “Look what Joe gave me!” She waved her hand so that he could see Olsson’s engagement ring on her finger. “They reassigned him to Engineering. We’re getting married just as soon as the baby’s born and we know it’s his.”

  “That’s great,” he said, and thought back to Olsson in the locker room, Spallone’s threats. A vague memory nagged at him, something about the Repair Shop and DNGOs. He rubbed his forehead, trying to remember.

  Dyatt’s smile faded. “He’s been told not to talk to you, but he wants you to know he didn’t have anything to do with what happened. I believe him, Sarge. He’s made some bad choices, and so have I, but we’re both trying to do right.”

  Timrin dropped by with the news that Nitta had been transferred. “Lieutenant Scott’s getting some wash-up to take his place. As good as pissing in the wind, if you ask me.”

  Jodenny brought Faddig around but wouldn’t stay. She wouldn’t return Myell’s calls. He brooded on that, telling himself not to be unreasonable. Gallivan had told him how she’d spent most of the day in the waiting room, waiting to see if he emerged from surgery alive, but she would have done that for anyone. She was just that kind of officer. By the time Dr. Lee released him he had resigned himself to unrequited love. He was looking for his boots when Chaplain Mow came by.

  “You look much better,” she said.

  “Thanks. At least my insides don’t feel like they’re still broken.”

  “Your ribs or your heart?”

  He opened the closet doors. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Chaplain Mow sat in the visitor’s chair. “Did you hear about Lieutenant Francesco and Chief Vostic?”

  “Got caught, I hear.” Timrin had told him. “Stupid of them.”

  “Do you think the fraternization rules are fair?” Chaplain Mow asked.

  The boots were under a spare blanket on the bottom shelf. Bending carefully, one arm pressed against his ribs, Myell fished them out. He told himself that as soon as he got back to his cabin he was going to slide into bed, pull a sheet over his head, and sleep for another week. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I was wrong about how she feels.”

  “Perhaps. But that doesn’t change how you feel.” Chaplain Mow leaned forward. “What about the trip through the Mother Spheres the two of you took?”

  He was almost too flummoxed to reply. “She told you?”

  “No. You did. You weren’t exactly clearheaded at the time.”

  Myell got one boot on with ease, but his right side lit up with fire as he reached for the other. “You shouldn’t have listened. It was nonsense from the drugs.”

  Chaplain Mow gazed at him steadily.

  “It was,” Myell insisted. If he breathed slowly and shallowly, the pain was just about manageable. “People visit Spheres all the time. Nothing ever happens to them. And we couldn’t make it happen again.”

  “But you made it happen once,” Chaplain Mow insisted. “It’s the greatest discovery since Jackie MacBride found the Little Alcheringa, and it brings us all closer to the Wondjina. Don’t you see? You told me that the Rainbow Serpent said you would have to make a choice. Secrecy versus the truth, Terry. The path where you continue to hide your knowledge, or the road where you follow the spirit path that’s been laid for you in your visions.”

  Spirit path. Road to ruin, more likely. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “No one knows anything for sure,” she replied. “Do you feel up for a walk? There’s someone you should meet. Someone who might be able to help.”

  Chaplain Mow seemed so earnest, so sincere, that something hard inside him softened just a little. Bed would have to wait. “All right. But unless you want me to go barefoot, I need your help with this damned boot.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  T9 held a new colony bound for Warramala. Chaplain Mow took Myell to the eleventh deck and a hatch emblazoned with an official-looking seal.

  “Who are we going to see?” he asked.

  “A very wise man,” she replied.

  The doors slid open. The suite beyond had been furnished in standard Team Space decor, with none of the opulence he expected in a diplomatic suite. A large map of Warramala hung on one bulkhead, flanked by a map of Old Australia. “Sit,” Chaplain Mow said, indicating one of the grain-colored sofas, but he remained standing while she went into a side room. The Australia map was marked up with tribes’ names, some of which he’d come across in his reading: Nyamal, Wakaya, Gowa. Where had his mother come from? Had she been of Aboriginal descent, or had her ancestors been those who’d invaded the country and tried to destroy the native culture and people? He was following the landscape from rain forest to desert when Chaplain Mow returned in the company of a dark-skinned man with startling familiar features.

  “Sergeant Myell.” The man offered his hand. “William Ganambarr.”

  “Governor of this colony,” Chaplain Mow added.

  “Call me Terry, sir,” he managed to say. Ganambarr was the Wirrinun. Or perhaps the Wirrinun’s twin. They had the same small eyes and high forehead, and skin that had been weathered by time and wind, and wiry gray-black hair. But this man wore a business suit and fine shoes, and no markings had been drawn on his skin. He was graceful and lithe as he sat in an armchair and motioned Myell to one of the sofas. Chaplain Mow got Myell a glass of water.

  “Kath tells me you have made a great discovery,” Ganambarr said. “If it’s true, people can traverse from planet to planet without the necessity of costly transport—a most amazing thing.”

  “Yes, sir, it would be.” Myell was still trying to wrap his mind around the governor’s resemblance to the Wirrinun. He lifted the water glass and took a sip.

  Ganambarr steepled his hands together. “Did Kath tell you our colony consists entirely of Aborigines from Earth?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Never before has such an endeavor been attempted. After the Little Alcheringa between Earth and Fortune was discovered, the people allowed to go forth and colonize were those survivors of the Debasement who had money, influence, or the proper skin color. Left behind all these decades to deal with the aftermath of ecological disaster were the poor and the dark and the illiterate.” Ganambarr’s tone was even, though his eyes had turned hard. “It’s taken my people twenty years of dedicated effort to fund this colony’s transport from what’s left of Earth. Even then, Team Space only wanted us to go to Baiame. It took ten years of lawsuits to be allowed to emigrate to Warramala instead.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, sir,” Myell said. “If it was possible to move to another planet without Team Space’s approval or assistance, it would change everything.”

  “Everything.” Ganambarr repeated the word. “Endangered societies would have the same chance at resettlement as those groups that have been traditionally entitled. The Unigar, the Shan, the Han—all on the verge of extinction, forced to eke out an existence on the planet our collective ancestors debased and defiled. The knowledge you have is priceless beyond measure.”

  Myell spread his hands. “I don’t have any proof. I don’t know how to make it happen again or why it happened in the first place. Please don’t put the burden of saving the universe on my shoulders.”

  Chaplain Mow said, “We’re not trying to, Terry,” but Ganambarr nodded
gravely.

  “It is an awesome responsibility,” Ganambarr said, “and one which would not have been placed on you were you not able to bear it. Your fate is far different than you ever imagined it would be, Sergeant. You are walking the path of the Eternal Dreamtime.”

  “I’m not Aboriginal,” he protested. “I don’t even know what I believe in.”

  Ganambarr smiled suddenly. “The spirits will guide you. They do that to those among my people who are of high degree and clever minds. You are uninitiated, but your rite of passage is just beginning.”

  The mystical talk bothered him more than he wanted them to know. Myell started to stand. “I have to get back to my quarters.”

  “Wait,” Ganambarr said, and touched Myell’s knee.

  The cabin lurched around him. Myell groped for something to balance against as the entire room vanished into a vast plain. White sunlight blistered the sky. On the horizon, dark thunderheads rolled up against each other in preparation for a terrible storm. He could see a large monolith of rock in the distance—Uluru, a voice whispered inside his head—and when he gazed down at himself, he saw that he was dark-skinned and dusty, painted with white markings, clad only in a loincloth with a long stick in his hand.

  Something hissed on the ground nearby. The Rainbow Serpent coiled toward him, its mouth opening wide, wider than Myell himself, wider than the world—

  Ganambarr’s cabin reappeared. Myell’s knees gave way and he landed on the sofa with a solid thump.

  “Terry? Are you all right?” Chaplain Mow asked.

  “Uluru,” he gasped.

  “One of the greatest of all spirit places.” Ganambarr leaned forward. “Did you see it?”

  “No,” Myell lied. Chaplain Mow pressed the glass of water into his hands and he gulped it down. The unnerving vision of himself as some kind of ancient Aboriginal made his voice shake. “I didn’t see anything.”

  Ganambarr scrutinized him carefully, then rose and disappeared into the next room. When he returned, he had a small cloth bag in his hand. “This is a dilly bag. In it, you keep your most sacred objects. Will you take it and carry it?”