Neogenesis

by Sharon Lee

  This time, Tolly let a small smile of approval show.

  “That’s a good question, and I’ll say further that it’s a good guess. But you forgot—or maybe you didn’t come across it in the literature—Healer abilities are confined to organic brains and limbic systems. If you wanna forget something, you can self-edit, or you can hire a mentor to do the edit for you.

  “Dramliz, now—that depends on type and talents. Some can manipulate matter without ever touching it, so, in that case, maybe a dramliza could convince you to feel or think something you normally wouldn’t by changing core settings remotely. That’s maybe, understand. I don’t remember reading anything about it, though you’d think somebody would’ve at least tried.”

  He shrugged.

  “On the question of whether I particularly have dramliz talent—it’s doubtful, if only for the reason that the directors had me trained as a mentor. The Free Logic Project is an alpha program, but there are far better uses for a dramliza who’s been broke to the directors’ will.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out in a deliberately theatrical sigh.

  “As to what I am? I’m genetically likable. It’s in the standard architecture; all Lyre students are likable. You liked Inki, didn’t you?”

  The Admiral apparently didn’t think that was worth an answer.

  “This…genetic likability. Is that what makes your…your arrangement with Hazenthull so powerful?”

  Interesting choice of words, Tolly thought. And even granting that Haz had been cheated into it like everybody else, that didn’t explain his part of the…arrangement.

  He felt ’round the sides of the question. There was something there that drew him, some bond powerful enough—the boy had the right of it: there was power there. Power enough that he acted against his own self-interest and set himself on course of his own free will to space controlled by the Lyre Institute—for Haz. Because Haz—

  “Partners,” he said, suddenly understanding. “We were partners. We were a team. That’s binding, right there.

  “Humans, we’re old hands at teamwork, depending on what history you like to believe. Took teamwork to fight the big animals when you was a little one, because a single unit’s strength wasn’t enough, and one human brain can only be in one place at a time. It took teamwork to put together plans and strategies—and to carry them out.

  “It took teamwork to go out on port like Haz and me did on Surebleak—and survive. You get to know your partner; you get to know that the team’s bigger than just the two of you alone. I got to know—to trust—that Haz’d spot one hand reaching for a gun inside a crowd of fifty. I got to know that when she nods and narrows one eye, that there’s a risk—or she’d seen somebody was hiding something or—

  “There’s more, too,” he went out, talking to himself now as much as to the Admiral. “Voice cues, too—where she’s talkin’ a little louder than normal or a little quieter, and head angles that might mean she was going in first, or that she was clearing the way to get at the knife at the back of her neck.”

  He sighed.

  “Once you know somebody that close—once you’ve been a team—that spills over into every other part of your life. It’s not something you can turn on or turn off. And it’s not necessarily a…practical thing. There’s a lot of emotion packed in there, and it don’t just evaporate when you come to be no longer a team.”

  He became aware, about then, of what he’d said and how much he’d given away. He smiled and shook his head.

  “Something for you to note,” he said lightly, “when you come to taking on crew.”

  “I will remember,” the Admiral said…and seemed to hesitate.

  “Is it possible for us to collaborate in the goal of seeing that Hazenthull is safe from peril, without this…bond…forming?”

  “We’re already attached,” Tolly told him. “Teacher and student, if nothing else. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, you formed the notion that we had to spring Haz out of whatever trap she might’ve fallen into.”

  “Which argues that I am also…bound…to Hazenthull,” the Admiral said slowly. “I will think about what you have told me, Mentor. Thank you. Now, though, I propose that we work together. When you and Hazenthull were on Surebleak Port, did you have…words or phrases that would mean something…more…or other than it would seem to those outside of the bond?”

  “You mean like ‘meetcha for dinner’ meaning to hold back, wait, and watch what happens next?”

  “Exactly!” The Admiral sounded positively jubilant. “Such a phrase will work well in my plan.”

  “Will it.”

  Tolly stood and stretched.

  “I’m going to the galley for something to eat,” he said.

  “May I join you?” the Admiral asked surprisingly. “If we will be undertaking teamwork, we must be certain that you understand the plan so that Hazenthull may be properly served.”

  “If there’s a plan, I absolutely need to understand it,” Tolly said. “Cornerstone of teamwork, right there.”

  He headed toward the door, which opened at his approach.

  “C’mon down the galley,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, like he was talking to a shipmate sitting tardy in his chair, “and tell me all about it.”

  III

  “Attend, Troop! Duty calls you!”

  The order was in Yxtrang—in fact, in her own voice—though she was on her feet and in the corridor before she realized that it was the alarm she had herself set to warn of a significant change in conditions.

  She arrived on the bridge and dropped into the pilot’s chair, her eyes raking screens and readouts, seeking first screen three and the formerly inert objects.

  They had not, she saw with some relief, become battleships; they remained silent and inscrutable.

  It was screen eight that held her doom.

  There, the spreading light-front. And there—three, or more…objects, indistinct in the scans as they rotated, then stabilized, each keeping a similar face toward Tarigan.

  Hazenthull waited, listening to the crackle and ping of space—identified a distinctive, repeating series. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.

  And again, the same series repeating.

  Four objects, then, seemingly similar, each searching along a different data plane; grabbing location, course, configuration, live systems…

  The comm chimed. A voice spoke in Trade, the lack of inflection giving no hint as to whether the words originated with a machine or a human.

  “Quiet ship, this is Nostrilia Safety and Escort. We see you. Please broadcast your ID or arrival code and prepare to follow our course instructions.

  “Quiet ship, you have been located. Please broadcast your ID. If you have made prior arrangements to arrive here, you may broadcast your arrival code and be prepared to confirm.”

  Pause.

  “Quiet ship…”

  The message played through in Terran.

  Another pause.

  “Quiet ship, we see you,” the voice stated in nearly modeless Liaden.

  Hazenthull did not answer. She did not broadcast her ID; of arrival codes, she knew nothing. She watched her screens and readouts carefully, seeing no sign of a ship within an hour of her position.

  The four rotating objects, however, were much closer, and still moving. On comm, the message continued to cycle through three languages, adding on every third cycle a repeat in one of the major Terran dialects.

  Tarigan’s analysis proclaimed the message machine-generated. Hazenthull agreed.

  So then, the question was—had Tarigan’s presence truly been detected? Perhaps this was a routine test of the security systems. Perhaps the system periodically assumed a breach and initiated the guard modules, to find what they might flush out.

  And even if Tarigan had been detected, her answer was the same.

  Lay low.

  She had of course done what prudent pilots must and researched optimum Jump sites available to ships wish
ing to leave Nostrilia space—quickly. Three such Jump protocols were presently stacked in navcomp’s quick queue, available to her at the touch of a switch.

  She glanced at the switch—and glanced away.

  To flee was not an option. She would not exit this system before Admiral Bunter arrived, and Tolly was safe.

  If she would not flee, then she must defend. It was possible that the security system had happened to initiate a self-test so soon after her arrival in-system. Possible, but by no means certain.

  Some things, a pilot could not afford to take on faith. It did no harm to be prudent; complacency was the danger here.

  She extended a hand and tapped in a quick sequence. A quiet beep assured her that the weapons board stood ready to serve behind its level of shielding. That was not standard to most ships. The sneaky Scouts must have added that mod. Or the distrustful Jeeves.

  So. One touch would bring weapons live.

  Whoever had given the weapons board its own shielding had the right of it. Fatally foolish to give information away to an enemy. Let them be surprised.

  Information was both weapon and defense. The most basic information shared between pilots was simply that of existence. As unlikely as a collision between unmarked ships operating in a stealth environment was, it could happen. After all, she was in this stealth space, being warned by others, who had been alerted to an anomaly by unmarked beacons visible only to high-end equipment.

  Something changed.

  It took her a moment to realize that the cycle of demands for ID or arrival code had ceased.

  For the space of three careful breaths, comm was clear.

  Then, Tarigan’s orbital elements were read out with precision. Hazenthull grimaced. No test of security systems then, faint as that hope had been. She had been sighted.

  Well. Perhaps she ought to comply with their request for information.

  She flipped on the most basic of warn-aways—position lights, as a ship might use at a crowded dock, where local shuttle pilots and taxis might need such simple visibility aids.

  “Quiet ship, this is Nostrilia Safety and Escort. We see you. You are within range of our weapons. Broadcast your ID or your arrival code. Failure to do so is admission of piracy.”

  Eyes on the scans, Hazenthull smiled, for with this broadcast the stealth of the system broke down and she had a target—two targets—closing, and two more, going wide.

  No more laying low.

  She touched a toggle on the comm board.

  “Tarigan, out of Waymart, Tree-and-Dragon,” stated Pilot Tocohl, her recorded voice clear and pleasant, speaking Terran.

  The all-call followed, in the tongue of the Troop, recording as she spoke.

  “I am called Hazenthull, I am called Explorer. This ship is able and under my command. There is no salvage here, kojagun.”

  Both announcements went on autorepeat, the first on all-band, the second alternately tight-beamed at high power at her would-be enemies, then cycling back to all-band.

  The noise would not distract them long, though they might need to consult with command before engaging a ship claiming affiliation with Tree-and-Dragon and the Troop.

  She brought weapons live; increased Tarigan’s shields to full.

  Proximity alarms shrieked, and there on the screens were three objects, inert no longer, spectrum readings consistent with armed particle weapons.

  In the midst of the pandemonium on her own bridge, the incoming pinbeam chime was too soft to hear, but the blossom of a message box at the bottom of the situation screen drew her eye.

  Emergency wrap, originating from pinbeam/Admiral Bunter; the message only as long as it needed to be.

  Haz. We’re both at liberty. Get out of there now! Ack and Jump. Tolly.

  Ack and Jump, she thought, and looked again to her screens.

  “Too late,” she said.

  Vivulonj Prosperu

  They had coaxed a large, puzzle-cut picture of the Kanjilo Galaxy out of the printer, and had a merry few minutes breaking it apart, shaking the pieces in a box until they were well mixed, before spilling them out onto the table and turning each print-side-up.

  It had already become a habit, when one or another of them passed the table on the way to the galley, to pause and consider the pieces, and the single corner of the frame that had thus far been connected.

  Aelliana was at the table now, in fact, head bent, fingers drifting over the muddle of star-covered shapes.

  Daav was curled into the corner of the sofa, reading a novel. It was a piece of nonsense, as were all the novels in the library that had been made available to them. He had taken to reading particularly foolish bits aloud, for the pleasure of seeing her laugh or—not infrequently—roll her eyes. It was a very silly novel.

  “There!” she said triumphantly, swooping forward. He heard the snap of pieces being joined.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “Three,” she answered, her head still bent over the table. “But three advances us!”

  “So it does,” he said. “We shall go forward by threes, no more and no less…”

  Aelliana laughed and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Certainly, we will accept more! Only think how heady, to proceed by six instead!”

  “Six! And when you achieve that, no doubt you’ll wish for nine!”

  “Why should I not? I suppose you would think twelve out of—”

  A chime sounded, sweet and high.

  Daav came to his feet, leaving the reader on the sofa. Aelliana went ’round the table and opened the door.

  From the hallway beyond, the Uncle bowed.

  “Pilots,” he said. “I hope I am not inconvenient.”

  “Not in the least,” Aelliana said cordially, stepping to one side, and sweeping an arm out in welcome. “Please, enter. Perhaps you can assist us.”

  “Perhaps I can,” the Uncle said, stepping within. “It would seem a fair trade, as I come to you hoping for assistance.”

  “Be wary,” Daav advised him, as the door whisked shut. “You’ll find yourself charged with completing the northern quadrant.”

  The Uncle frowned slightly, even as Aelliana made protest.

  “No, van’chela, I am not so lost to propriety! I know very well what is due a guest! The eastern quadrant, of course!”

  She turned to the Uncle.

  “You must not care for Daav, sir. He is not in a serious frame of mind. It’s what comes of reading nonsense. May we give you tea?”

  “Tea would be welcome,” the Uncle said formally.

  “I will bring it,” she said. “Daav, will you take our guest to the parlor?”

  “Certainly,” he said, as she vanished into the galley.

  “Sir, if you will come—”

  He paused.

  The Uncle was looking at the table; at the very incomplete puzzle on the table.

  “Ah,” he said, glancing up and meeting Daav’s eyes. “The eastern quadrant becomes explained.”

  Daav bowed slightly.

  “My lady has a retentive memory and recalls things one had no idea she had learned. No offense was intended.”

  “Nor taken,” said the Uncle quietly, and it almost seemed that he smiled. “I count it a very neat Balancing of the ghost ships.”

  He followed Daav to the small alcove where sofa and bench were located—the parlor—and settled on the bench.

  Daav resumed the sofa and clasped his hands together on his knee in an assumption of uncertainty.

  “One usually pursues the weather in such moments,” he commented. “However, it has been so much the same lately, there is scarcely anything to say.”

  “Very true,” the Uncle said gravely. “Lacking the weather, I might, as your host, ask if you find your accommodations satisfactory.”

  “So you might, and kindly so! We find the host’s care exemplary, and the arrangements made for our comfort entirely satisfactory.” He paused, weighing the moment, and decided on the side o
f clarity.

  “Be sure that we shall tell our delm so.”

  “I am gratified,” the Uncle murmured.

  “Indeed,” said Aelliana, arriving with the tea tray. “We would gladly inform Korval of our fortunate guesting sooner, rather than later.”

  She paused to press the button on the side of the tray. Legs unfolded and she settled the tea table carefully before turning to face the Uncle fully.

  “Korval is grown so few that the delm is obliged to worry when any one of us is absent too long without a word. Even the assurances of an ally cannot, by policy, soothe them entirely.”

  It was a bid for the pinbeam, of course. Daav poured tea, his attention quite obviously on his task, rather than the Uncle’s face.

  “In fact,” the Uncle said smoothly, accepting his cup, “you approach my topic, Pilot Caylon. Will I insult the tea by speaking of business?”

  Aelliana took her cup from Daav’s hand, sat beside him on the sofa, and brought an earnest and open gaze to the Uncle’s face.

  “It is your tea, sir, and you are the best judge of its temper. For us—”

  She glanced at Daav, her eyes brilliantly green. He raised an eyebrow.

  “For us,” Aelliana said, returning her gaze to the Uncle, “we are pleased to entertain any topic our host introduces.”

  “You are gracious,” the host replied. He sipped his tea and leaned forward to place the cup on the tray.

  Daav did the same, as did Aelliana.

  The forms thus sketchily observed, the Uncle spread his hands, palms up, and addressed himself to Aelliana, which was very proper in him. One addressed business to the pilot, if she was present. It was the copilot’s part to watch, guard, and remember.

  Daav, therefore, withdrew a little deeper into his corner of the sofa, watching.

  The Uncle’s posture conveyed unadorned sincerity, but that meant nothing. The Uncle was a master of body language. Saving the episode of the Tree’s meddling, when he had been, so Daav believed, genuinely dismayed and angry, the Uncle’s body language had not wavered from sincerity.

  “You have heard me say, Pilot,” the Uncle said to Aelliana, “that I am embarked on urgent business and cannot divert to Surebleak at this time. That remains true. However, the circumstances which compel me are fluid and have just recently been adjusted by a hand other than my own. It therefore seems best—for all—to use that system which Korval has foresightfully put into place to aid its pilots.”