by P. K. Lentz
Waiting by the woman’s side for the mild stimulant he’d given her to run its course, Gareth began to second-guess himself. Though he could scarcely stomach the thought of turning anyone over to the Interim, he also could not deny that it was the more responsible choice. A captain’s first duty was to his passengers and crew--even if said captain only held the role by virtue of owning the ship in question. Could he really justify risking the lives in his care for the sake of a personal conviction?
Then again, there remained the possibility that Lady was doomed now no matter what he did. Sheltering Zerouali presented obvious dangers, but even surrendering her came with no assurance of safety. There were risks involved for William Gareth--even a revoltingly subservient William Gareth--in any dealings he might have with the Interim.
At any rate, he could hardly wash his hands of the whole problem now. Zerouali was very real and right in front of him. Gareth determined to delay any decision until after he’d spoken with her. Maybe Astynax was wrong, maybe she was some hardened criminal who deserved whatever she got. That might change things.
At length she began to stir. Gareth felt uneasy as he hadn’t in ages, sensing that life was about to become complicated. Complication was never good.
Zerouali stretched and rolled her head dreamily for a few moments before at last opening a pair of striking eyes of deep brown.
Gareth greeted her amiably in the Meradi tongue. “Hi,” he said. “How’re you feeling?”
Her dark eyes studied Gareth in his chair, wary but not quite distrustful. Surely the look of an experienced fugitive.
“Where am I?” she asked calmly in Commonwealth Standard.
Though it was certainly no favorite of his, Gareth used the same tongue to answer her. “You’re aboard my ship, Lady of Chaos, at Merada’s spaceport. You’re safe. For now.”
Zerouali’s fine, tired features hardened subtly. Gareth wasn’t sure precisely what this meant, but it seemed that something he’d said or the way he’d said it had surprised her. Naturally no self-respecting fugitive would be willing to accept her safety at the word of some stranger, but this was something different.
“Right,” Gareth said, if only to break a long silence in which the woman just stared at him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Commonwealth world,” he explained. “My Standard is rusty, if you hadn’t noticed.”
Zerouali obliged him then by shifting into Meradi for all of the two words she spoke before falling silent.
“I had,” she said. Then she just stared, her eyes and expression opaque.
“We haven’t been introduced,” Gareth said, resuming the more comfortable Meradi language. He was determined to break the needless tension, or at least fill the dead air between them. “I’m Will Gareth. Jilan Zerouali, I presume.”
When the woman failed once more to hold up her end of the conversation, Gareth shrugged in defeat. Maybe she wasn’t ready to talk yet. He was halfway ready to give up and leave her to rest a while when he made a perhaps insignificant realization.
“Speaking to me in Standard just now,” he said. “That was some kind of test, wasn’t it?”
Zerouali’s answer was short and uninformative, but at least she answered. “If you like.”
“If I like?” Gareth scoffed--gently, so as not to offend her. “You could at least tell me whether or not I passed.”
Rubbing her eyes, Zerouali raised herself to a seated position on the bed before delivering her eventual reply, the first to consist of more than three words.
“You’re not from a Commonwealth world,” she observed.
“Thankfully, no.”
Gareth hoped she might speak further on the subject, and so was disappointed when the conversation failed yet again to achieve escape velocity; Zerouali slipped right back into her silent glare.
A comment came to Gareth’s mind to the effect that she evidently was of the Commonwealth, something that gave him even more cause to suspect her than vice versa. But he dismissed such words as too confrontational, not to mention revealing.
“Alright,” Gareth said with rising impatience. He opted to abandon small talk and cut straight to the business at hand. “I’ve been asked to smuggle you past a Fleet quarantine.”
This seemed to faze Zerouali--almost.
“Quarantine?” she echoed without particular urgency.
“Just announced. Departures suspended indefinitely. Did you sleep through the attack, too?”
Again her reply was a single, borrowed word. “Attack?”
Gareth nodded, pleased at having managed at least to pique the fugitive’s interest. “The Interim warship in orbit took serious damage,” he said. “I’d have thought your Meradi friends had something to do with it, except if it was meant to help you escape it backfired.”
Zerouali betrayed perhaps the barest hint of emotion as her dark eyes went thoughtfully to the ceiling and back. “They are not my friends,” she said at length, “and I’ve never been privy to their plans. However...the attack would seem to be the work of others. The timing is unfortunate.”
“To say the least,” Gareth agreed. “But let me guess. If you knew anything more about it, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?”
“No.”
“Thought not.”
More silence followed. The woman’s patience seemed infinite.
Gareth’s was not. “Look,” he said at length. “I’m willing to help you, but try to see this from my side. I have a ship full of passengers and crew who are already at risk because of your presence here.”
“Are they aware?” Zerouali asked quickly. Even now, when she showed something akin to true interest, her speech came across as distant and mild.
“No,” Gareth said. “I was--”
“You’d place your crew in such jeopardy without consulting them? That’s irresponsible.”
Though part of Gareth was pleased to see the conversation gain momentum, Zerouali had crossed a line in insulting her would-be deliverer within minutes of waking. Never mind that she might be right.
Instead of loosing his more instinctive reply, Gareth made a conscious decision to begin choosing his words. He’d obviously have to be careful what he revealed to this woman.
“How I run my ship is my concern,” he said calmly. “Now that you’re aboard it, you’re my concern, too. I was hoping you and I might have a meaningful talk to help me decide what to do. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely.”
The casual insult left Zerouali unmoved. “The decision is obvious,” she said. “You must not put your passengers at risk for me.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Gareth said, too forcefully. “I told you I’m willing to help, and I am. The only decision I’ve made is not to turn you in.”
“Perhaps you should reconsider that.”
Puzzled, Gareth let out a genuine laugh. “Strange attitude for a fugitive,” he said. “I offer to help and you say I shouldn’t bother? How is it you haven’t been caught yet?”
The expression Zerouali managed to conjure was withering despite being scarcely distinguishable from the impassive mask she’d worn until now.
“Perhaps you were hoping I’d cry on your shoulder?” she said. “Fall to the floor begging for asylum? Tell you you’re my only hope?”
Gareth’s teeth clenched. “You know...” he began brusquely, forgetting diplomacy, “being hunted by a bunch of power-mad murderers is no excuse for being a bad guest. Maybe I should turn you in after all.”
Unaffected, Zerouali returned calmly, “Maybe you should.”
Gareth scowled at her. The woman’s calm only intensified his frustration. “I just don’t understand you,” he confessed.
The fugitive regarded him patiently for several moments. When eventually she did speak, her voice was softer, almost placating. She asked, “How many passengers are asleep in your holds, Captain?”
Gareth hesitated, knowing already the point she intended to make. But in the end he answered honestly
, “Almost a thousand.”
“If you are caught sheltering me, those thousand will never wake. My freedom, even my life, is not worth such a price. I will not hide behind human shields.”
“I’m not offering that,” Gareth snapped. “Astynax said--”
“Astynax values only his cause. He told me I would not be placed aboard a passenger vessel.”
“Whatever. He seemed to think you were worth saving. And without even knowing what you did.”
“I can’t speak for Astynax,” Zerouali said. “But I can say that symbols mean a great deal to men such as he.”
Gareth got her meaning, if barely. He let curiosity dictate his next question. “What if I were to need more than symbols?”
A glimmer in the woman’s dark eyes foreshadowed a derisive laughter that failed to materialize. She said placidly, “I’ve already told you what you should do with me.”
“Yeah, I heard. And I’m more confused than I was five minutes ago. Do you talk like this to everyone who tries to help you? Because if so, your social skills need serious work.”
Zerouali answered coolly, “I’ll practice them with my prison guards one day.”
“A joke?” Gareth said, making an exaggerated show of surprise. “Maybe you’re human after all.”
Zerouali didn’t smile or otherwise acknowledge the comment, didn’t say anything in fact. Gareth was again left to fill the void.
“Anyway,” he said. “You could murder my mother and I probably wouldn’t hand you to the Interim. So assuming you won’t tell me why you’re wanted, how about at least telling me as much as you told Astynax.”
Zerouali’s response, like the look she gave Gareth, was predictably opaque. “I told him that the Interim and I had different ideas about my future.”
“That’s often the case with hunters and prey,” Gareth said. By now he’d almost grown accustomed to her non-answers. Enough to take them in stride anyway. “So why are you so eager to surrender now?”
“Not eager, Captain,” Zerouali said. “As a trader you must accept the principle that any given commodity has a certain finite value. I simply don’t wish to see the cost of my freedom exceed its worth. It may have already.”
A noble sentiment. As a conversation partner Zerouali was aloof and condescending, but here was some hint of a redeeming personality behind the impenetrable facade. How to combat it, though? She made a strong argument against aiding her, but paradoxically--or inconveniently--this made her only more sympathetic. If it was a strategy on her part, it was arguably more effective and less transparent than any tearful pleading she might have done.
“I’ll put the matter to my crew,” Gareth concluded. “We’ll decide by majority.”
“No. There’s too much at stake.”
“It’s out of your hands.” Gareth was determined to have the final word, at least for now. “You’re on my ship,” he said. “A word from me and you could be buried so deep in the hold you’d be lucky to see stars again.”
The fugitive regarded him with some unreadable expression, a mix, perhaps, of amusement and condescension. When at last Zerouali nodded acceptance, Gareth felt he’d achieved a victory of sorts. Though he was loath to admit it even to himself, the woman intimidated him. His inability to read her left him feeling powerless. Hence his idle threat, an admittedly clumsy attempt to exert power over her. Her reaction said she had recognized it as such.
Damn. Already his relationship with her was far too complex.
“I’ll convene the senior crew in two hours,” Gareth said. “You should be there.”
Zerouali’s answer was another silent nod. Gareth rose and started for the door, more than a little puzzled by the whole exchange. Lady was now sanctuary, at least temporarily, to a fugitive who declined to divulge her alleged crime and advised against helping her. Was she worth the risk? Probably not. Even she didn’t seem to think so. But the Interim wanted her and that was enough. Her symbolic worth had been sufficient for Astynax. Maybe it could suffice for Will Gareth, too.
He paused at the door before leaving. “You’ll have to stay here for now. Our only guest quarters are occupied.”
“I’ve spent the last eight hours in a box, Captain,” Zerouali replied. Her manner betrayed no evidence of any deliberate attempt at humor.
As Gareth made again to leave, an afterthought turned him back. With a few keystrokes he eased security routines on the room’s system console to allow Zerouali access to some of Lady’s basic functions--environment controls, entertainment, non-sensitive datastores--without authentication.
“You have comm implants?” Gareth asked. Taking her silent stare to mean ‘Of course,’ he continued, “You can get our frequency and encryption keys from the ship.”
“Do you make a habit of handing those out to strangers?” Zerouali snapped.
Gareth scowled. Twice now in the few minutes he’d known her, the woman had taken him to task. She was absolutely right, of course, on both counts, but that made it no easier to stomach. Best now just to cut his losses and make a quick exit.
“It’s a judgment call,” he said hurriedly. “If you want the codes they’re yours.”
Zerouali’s unreadable eyes grew reproachful--or maybe Gareth imagined it.
“The Interim is not a forgiving enemy, Captain,” she said. “Your judgment might require some tuning.”
Gareth clenched his teeth. A proud, childish part of him longed to tell her off. A wiser voice told him simply to leave. Fortunately the latter won out, though not without a small and careless concession to pride.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to, lady,” he said evenly. “Comm me if you need anything. I’ll be back for you in two hours.”
With that he let the hatch slide shut, putting a welcome barrier between himself and a woman whom he had little doubt would be the source of considerable headaches to come.
***
“Hi, Celene, it’s Simon. I’m sure you must have heard about Merada by now. Well, we’re being sent there. No telling how long I’ll be, but I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. We embark in two hours, so if you receive this before then, call me back. My love to the boys. Take care.”
Simon Ascher disengaged his comm upon finishing the message to his sister. It was deep in Reissa’s night and he hadn’t wanted to wake her by calling directly.
After he severed the link, a familiar low buzz persisted in Ascher’s ear. His hardware was acting up again. For as long as he’d had neurilace his body had been rejecting it, a problem that even a half-dozen surgeries had failed to fix. Neurilace rejection was not uncommon, but it almost always doomed a career in Fleet. Command wouldn’t tolerate this state of affairs much longer before handing him his discharge.
Nonetheless, he’d been called up for this voyage. If it was to be his last, he could hardly have asked for a better deployment. Whisper of Death had been attacked and damaged in a terrorist attack at Merada. Hours later the voidship’s translight beacon had brought the shocking news to Fleet Command on Reissa, where it was decided to dispatch Hunter in the Dark to the wounded ship’s aid. A lucky Simon Ascher, senior payload specialist, would be among the flagship’s complement of three hundred.
Ascher’s advice to his sister not to worry had not merely been a platitude to give her peace of mind. Despite the unprecedented attack, the assignment struck him as more exciting than dangerous. Perhaps Whisper should have been better prepared, or more likely there had been an intelligence failure. Whatever the explanation for this minor victory achieved by some band of groundside deadenders, it seemed unlikely to repeat itself. Fleet would not permit a recurrence.
Reissa’s media had been quick to devour the incident. Within hours the most reactionary of commentators had hailed the attack as the beginning of a new and less innocent age. Citing a growing resentment toward the Interim (of which the attack on Whisper was only the latest and most extreme example) and the Commonwealth’s painfully slow rate of expansion over three cent
uries, voices many and shrill were screaming for a new order.
The calls to Empire were nothing new. Since the Founding there had been a vocal minority in government and among the population calling for just that. Thus far the idea had failed to take root, but the Merada attack had given those voices a powerful rallying cry. Just how powerful remained to be seen.
Though he would never speak openly of it--for as a Fleet crewman he was forbidden to criticize--Ascher did secretly hope that the calls for drastic change would pass unheeded. The violent course those voices endorsed struck him as the kind of adventure generally favored only by those who would stay safely at home.
Whatever path was chosen, though, Simon Ascher would do as ordered. Until his dismissal, anyway, which right now didn’t seem far off. After that...who knew? Maybe commercial spacing. He wasn’t much looking forward to the day he’d be forced to decide.
For now, though, he had the Merada voyage ahead of him, and that was more than enough.
***
CHAPTER FIVE
Gareth paused a moment outside Mela’s guest quarters to prepare himself for the unpleasant task ahead. Prior to the eventful past few hours, he had truly meant to spend time with the girl. He still wished he could. However, the immediate future now seemed to offer a distinct lack of opportunity, if not the mood, for recreation.
Mela was a sweet girl, but circumstances had made her something of an inconvenience. Gareth wasn’t looking forward to telling her she’d have to join her family in hibe much sooner than planned, but it had to be done.
Earlier, the girl’s valiant struggle to maintain at least the outward appearance of high spirits had ended in dismal failure. When Gareth last had left her she’d just finished crying herself to sleep.
