by Scott Rhine
Max led Roz from the room as her composure cracked.
Chapter 7 – Clarke’s Oasis
Two tiny rooms in the shielded core each held three shrimp tanks and four stasis units. Everyone but the Magi crawled into these cramped units. Reuben was the last because his window faced Ivy’s frozen form. He had stayed dry since Max’s warning but yearned for another drink as soon as he saw her angelic face. His hand hovered over his stasis activation button until Ivy’s face blurred due to his first tear. Refusing to embarrass himself, he engaged power to his unit.
He thawed a heartbeat later, his ears popping from the pressure change. The lights had dimmed to the emergency safety setting, and the air smelled strongly of saltwater and algae from the tanks. Six days gone like a toss of the dice. “Minder: report status.”
“All systems within tolerances. Inbound toward Clarke Station.” The refueling outpost had been named after an Earth inventor who developed the method of extracting oxygen from the red sands of the barren planet. The colony was uncomfortably close to its sun but flourished from the Human-Bat trade route. As they converted more of the surface to arable soil, the population gradually expanded. “The projected arrival time is 8.1 ship days.”
Roz reported over the intercom, “No drama so far. Why don’t you check out the rest of the ship for glitches?”
“Aye-aye, sir.” Reuben didn’t intend to thaw Grady unless he needed serious help. If they had to lie to the staff at Clarke Station, no one wanted to threaten the old-timer. This way, he had no idea how long the trip was taking and could not spill the beans.
Reuben kissed the window of Ivy’s unit and tapped open the elevator. The lift could rotate 360 degrees to any of the rooms. Once he left, the elevator would not allow him to return to this level until one of the Ellisons granted entry.
He started his search on the bridge. The sterile room didn’t have a button or switch out of place. Neither did the officers’ quarters on the level below. He braced himself for the cargo level. His first view of the area was the shrimp tank in the security room beside the lift. Someone had moved the tank a few centimeters closer to the desk lamp. He squinted. None of them had sprouted extra tails. Perhaps the glorified sea bugs might be paler than before, but that could be the lighting.
Wary, Reuben crept up on the jungle biozone. His heart leapt at the swoosh of the airlock opening. He stared for a while at the interwoven plants, failing to spot any new mutations. Tapping Broadcast on his badge, he said, “I can’t see any significant differences except for a slight shift in the tank position.”
“Grady may have adjusted it. He was last into stasis,” Roz replied. “My theory is that changes can only occur where there was the possibility for choice.”
“And when the object is observed. If a quantum particle falls in the jungle and no one sees it fall, did it happen?”
Roz chuckled. “I’ll do you one better. If something changed, would we remember?”
“You’re sick.” Reuben closed the airlock and moved to the dining commons. “Nobody else comes up here until I finish inspection. If you have someone move the tank back before I return, I’m going to drop a load.”
He found no dead bots or undead crew members roaming the halls, nothing warranting a report. The next step was a detailed measurement of room temperatures and unexpected power drains. These telltale subbasement fingerprints were faint and confined to the extremities of the ship. As Minder had reported, everything fell within the accepted range. Only the consistency of the pattern pointed to anything other than sheer chance. He forwarded all the data to the astrogator and pilot along with his report. “We’re green to resume normal operations.”
“Roger. Max is thawing the others now,” Roz said.
Reuben asked, “How’s Echo holding up?”
“Better. The shallower jump was easier on her.”
“Is she going to last until we reach Giragog?”
“I wouldn’t have suggested the trip if she couldn’t. Max and I can build up her strength between jumps. Our main worry is exposure to disease. That’s the main reason she stays sequestered,” Roz said. “Man the anti-missile console on the bridge in case someone at Clarke gets aggressive. The rest of us will join you there for a partner meeting in an hour.”
****
Sitting at the console alone, Reuben felt like more than an hour had elapsed. Each shimmer of starlight could have been a launch flare. He was already sweating worse than final-exam week, and the crew would need to staff this console from now until they reached Giragog.
Kesh arrived first and rushed to the comm system. “How long has this light been blinking?”
“Dude, not my problem. I kept your tail free of missiles. That was my job. You’re welcome.”
“Your focus is too narrow. If we fail to respond to this challenge, the station will consider us hostile. Quiet while I assuage their fears.” Kesh pressed the lit square. “Apologies, Clarke Station. We’re just waking up from a three-month haul, inbound from Shepherd’s Point.” This was agreed-upon cover, and their inbound vector matched. “What’s the hurry?”
“Be warned that there is heavy pirate activity in the area.”
Kesh didn’t bat an eye membrane. “Yes. We’ve been sent here looking for those blighters.”
“Under whose authority?”
Reuben chimed in. “We have letters of marque from the Bat Lord Aviar and Lunar Oligarch Xavier Claremont. I’ll radio those to you as soon as our protocol expert wakes.” Or as soon as I finish a credible forgery. He pulled up his personal tool kit, along with Max’s bounty-hunting certificates signed by those authorities.
“Then why does your drive signature read as a Magi vessel?”
Kesh cleared his throat. “They couldn’t condone violence, but the academy of sages outfitted us with the best defenses and the fastest ship available. Our pilot and navigator are both members of that body. Why else would you see beam projectors on a Magi courier?” He said it with such confidence that even Reuben began to believe the tale. “When did the pirates strike, and what did they steal?”
“Someone identified as Deep 6 destroyed Salizar B Station five days ago.”
“The devil you say! That’s our designation. They knew we’d be out of touch for three months. Do me a favor. Don’t report our arrival over the ansible when we dock. That’s how the enemy must be tracking us.”
“Come again?” asked Clarke Station tower.
“Do you have someone cleared for military secrets on your station?”
“Just me and the chief engineer, sir. We’re both ex-navy.”
Kesh grinned. “Send everyone else out of the room. This is need-to-know.”
“Roger. We’re alone.”
Here, the Saurian trader seasoned the lie with just enough truth. “The Bats have been able to listen to all the ansible messages for years, not just the ones addressed to them.”
“I’d heard rumors to that effect, sir.”
“We captured a notorious criminal at our last port, but he pointed us in the wrong direction. This Bat rebel has been distributing radios and music opposed to the church—”
“DJ Noir? Yeah. We have the wanted posters.”
Reuben sat up. Whose picture had they used? They thought he was a Bat? Tower transmitted an image of Yenang, the team’s former weapon’s specialist. “Negative. This is just one of his bodyguards, one we eliminated. Noir is much younger.”
“Who’s your task-force commander?” asked Clarke Station.
“Max Culp, formerly a Phib hunter for the war-criminal division of Turtle Special Forces,” Kesh said, using Max’s previous identity.
“The Order of the Dolphin guy?”
“Affirmative. I say again, do not announce our presence on the ansible. Various governments have given us gold and radioactives to pay for necessities so we don’t leave a trace. We need to get fueled on our way to Babel to surprise these criminals as soon as possible.”
“How will you find
them?”
“We’ve tracked them before through second-hand reactors sold on the black market,” Kesh said easily. “They chop up the shuttles for parts.”
“Understood. Be advised that while you are in our system, you should power down all defenses, close the turret, and follow the designated approach. Standing by for authorization papers.”
Kesh turned off the comm. “You and me both.”
“Can we trust them not to shoot us?” Reuben asked.
“Depends on how good your forgery is.”
****
When the partner meeting began, Reuben was still placing virtual coffee stains and port stamps on the paperwork to add authenticity. Kesh handled the briefing. “This Blue Giant facility looks like all the other franchises in the Union. They’re built of spun carbon-and-silicon fiber panels barely strong enough to hold back the vacuum of space. The air always smells of bearing grease and cooking oil. Everything they do is geared to save money, from the construction to moving freight.”
Roz said, “Their halls are rectangular, which takes getting used to. Scum tends to build up in the corners.”
Kesh continued, “With only about 10 percent water on the planet, the oasis was rushed to compete with Cocytus, but the Llewellyn terraformers did this one right. Nanites built solar cells everywhere, so they have a surplus of energy. To speed the formation of soil, they imported insects, worms, and moas.”
“Whoa,” Roz said. “Aren’t those extinct?”
“These were genetically spliced from ostriches,” Max replied. “They have ranches for the birds, their primary source of food and fertilizer.”
Reuben congratulated himself. “Well, the shrimp might come as a welcome change of pace for these guys.”
“Only if we scrub every identifying mark. If they trace the tanks back to Salizar, we’re squeezed,” Kesh said.
“Don’t teach a rebel DJ to suck eggs,” Reuben joked. “We have bigger problems. I checked the bank records, and The Mind’s Eye, the Saurian registry name for this ship, has officially been reported as stolen. The Bankers have awarded our company’s finances to the Blue Claws as payment for the defaulted loan, including title to the ship.”
Roz cursed. The vessel officially belonged to her, a wedding present from Echo. “The ship never belonged to that pirate Zrulkesh to begin with. He had no right to use a Magi ship worth billions as collateral!”
“When we’re able to visit a Union magistrate, this can all be straightened out in a few months,” Kesh said.
“By Saurian law, they don’t officially own the vessel until it’s in their hands,” Max said. “Of course, the more they have to work at the chase, the more they enjoy the kill.”
Reuben shuddered at memory of the Saurians bragging about eating the still-beating heart of their prey. “How do we pay for new trade goods without our company account?”
“Hauling freight?” Roz said weakly.
“The standard rate is 200 credits per ton for each parsec traveled. To earn enough to replace the fuel, we would need to haul 7,500 tons. With the one forklift remaining, that would take us about 750 hours to load. A month! We’ll miss the Convocation.”
Roz remained optimistic. “We can charge five times that rate for mail, and we can rent as many stevedores as it takes.”
“To do that, we’ll have to tap our personal finances,” Kesh said. “Who planned ahead and sheltered funds?”
Alyssa, Reuben, and Kesh raised hands. The newlywed trio had lost everything invested. Reuben’s eyebrows shot up. “Nothing?”
Roz looked embarrassed. “We took a vote.”
“We’re not in this for the money,” Max said. “Just for the cause.”
Reuben growled, “Money is a weapon. You’ve just been disarmed.”
“I’ll find more,” Max replied. “The ship has twice the Icarus drives that it needs for normal subspace, and a hundred more if we only take the subbasement.”
“We are not cannibalizing my ship,” Roz said as if he had suggested she donate a kidney. “Eliminating even one would completely ruin the balance.”
“Then remove them in pairs. Those engines have to be good for over ten million credits each. We can’t ignore the potential revenue stream.”
Alyssa changed the subject before Roz blew a gasket. “Each of us will have to take turns financing a refuel once our existing cargo is gone.”
Kesh rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Each time we do so, the Bankers may block future access for that individual. We’re burning our futures.”
“You guys are welcome to everything I have, but my lousy two megabucks won’t scratch the surface.” Reuben remained silent about Ivy’s nest egg.
“I’m sure the Magi academy will reimburse us,” said Echo.
“I’m not,” said Max, “but our friends at Laurelin might. We’ll take one jump at a time.”
Chapter 8 – Secret Origins
The station treated Deep 6 like a plague ship until Roz announced the mail from Magi space. Then, the Anodyne-trained repair and medical crews welcomed the sphere.
Reuben dozed in the officers’ lounge, near the tubular ladder to the bridge. Max woke him by joking with his wife. “I guess terrorists don’t deliver academy science journals.”
From the pilot seat, out of Reuben’s sight, Roz explained, “These people don’t get contact with the outside world too often. They have tons of stuff they want mailed home to the university.”
“But we’re not stopping at Anodyne,” Max objected.
“Close enough. We can use the credits.”
“Speaking of money, are we going to give Grady a retirement bonus or hazard pay when he disembarks?” Max asked.
“We intended to, but I don’t think we have much to spare,” Roz replied. “We should give him something to let him know there are no hard feelings.”
“How about that group photo from our engagement party on Babel and one cube of gold?”
Reuben knew eavesdropping was wrong, but hearing the couple talk made it feel like the early days when they would all chat while fixing dinner. Ivy would uncork a bottle of good wine and pour him a glass.
Max moved around the bridge, leaving Reuben’s line of sight.
Roz asked, “Should we have Echo present a certificate?”
“No. She’s too paranoid some Human will guess the big Magi secret.”
Hello. Reuben leaned over the arm of the sofa, closer to the open hatch.
“Which one?” Roz chuckled.
“That’s not fair,” Max complained. “You spend a lot more time with her than I do, especially mind-linked. Don’t worry. She’s resting right now from all the stress of having to be ready to jump out at any time. What did she let slip this time? No secrets between us.” He did something that made Roz sigh in approval.
Memories of his own foreplay with Ivy in that same reclining chair made Reuben slink away from the hatch. He didn’t want to intrude or open any old wounds of his own. Roz’s next words froze him in his tracks. “I think I know why the click-speak people have immunity to the Collective Unconscious.”
“Do tell.”
“Some time before the pyramids were built, disguised Magi scouts were still allowed to interact physically with the natives. On one of their visits to their backward cousins, the Magi brought a contagious disease similar to the plague that wiped out 20 percent of the men on Earth four hundred years ago.”
Cousins? Human and Magi are cousins? This is big.
Max said, “Let me guess. Something leftover from the war that didn’t affect those with the gene for the Collective Unconscious.”
What war?
Roz answered, “Since the scouts couldn’t give us the CU gene, they did the next best thing—they capped off the attach site for the plague and inoculated everyone in a ring around the area to contain the spread. The immunization was supposed to vanish in a generation. However, a few pregnant women retained the trait in their unborn children.”
“Because o
ur genetic codes are so similar to the Magi,” Max said.
“After that, scouts weren’t allowed to land on the planet. They even subcontracted a few five-hundred-year checkups to other species.”
“That’s when the Goats gave us wine, and the Phibs robbed us blind of key natural resources so we’d never develop anti-gravity on our own.”
Roz said, “Don’t knock wine. Along with tea and beer, it made civilization possible.”
“As well as increasing the birthrate.”
Reuben slipped into an unused bedroom to process these revelations. The Magi weren’t the demigods his people thought they were. They had made mistakes and covered up their own flawed past—not unlike what he had learned about Xerxes. All of his heroes had feet of clay.
Several minutes later, Max paged Reuben over the intercom. “Since we’re officially in Human space, Kesh wants to revive our Bat passenger.”
“So soon?”
“Since Grady is leaving, we need someone else to work the docks. Kesh thinks we should get to know the new guy. Where are you? Your video isn’t transmitting.”
Reuben glanced at the décor. “Ivy’s old room.”
Max sighed. “Man, that’s just sticking your finger in the light socket. Snap out of it, and meet me in stasis chamber one.”
“Right, boss.” Reuben would rather be pitied than thought a spy.
****
In the cramped storage chamber on the Magi level, Reuben moved aside a stack of spare clothing so Max could set up the medical gear. The Bat in stasis had been immobile for only seven weeks. Max was being overly cautious, testing the cardiac restart equipment. To lighten the mood, Reuben asked, “So what do we call this convict?”
“Menelaus. He was named for a Spartan king in the Greek epic The Iliad.”
“No frilling way,” Reuben said with a laugh. “What was he in for? I only ask because for the prisoners at Niisham to give up on him, he has to be pretty hard-core.”
“Not as much as you would think. He lived in an outlying region of Niisham, a fishing village. When he was only twelve, a Blue Claw freighter visited the prison. The Saurian shuttles give off frequencies that scare away the fish. No one could eat until they left. However, that year, the freighter decided to bargain for more ore for the usual allotment of grain. Negotiations stretched out for so long that people started to die, Menelaus’s mother among them.”
