by Wil McCarthy
She blinked. “Josev told me you were up here. He, ah... He seemed a little uneasy. Said, ah, you were acting weird at dinner.”
“Was I?” Jonson reached for his clothes, bundled near him on the floor. “I'll be sure to talk to him about that, find out what's bothering him.”
Marshe felt herself trembling slightly. Whatever Jonson had done or said in the cafeteria, she was pretty sure he hadn't balanced naked on the table and coughed out a language not intended for human throats.
“Jonson,” she said. “Are you all right? Would you like to talk?”
Ken stood, pulled on a pair of briefs. “Talk? Sure. What's on your mind?”
She sighed, rubbed her temples. “This, ah... You know what's on my mind. Have you snapped? Have you lost your God-damn mind?”
“No,” Jonson said, sounding surprised and mildly indignant. He shrugged into his uniform. “I was just getting into the part. Trying to, you know, see what it feels like to be a Waister. If it bothers you, I'll stop.”
“It bothers me, yes. Don't you think it's a little extreme? Four hours ago you were barely responding to questions.”
Jonson zipped, buttoned, smoothed. “I didn't ask to be here, Queen. I don't like doing this. But why go halfway? Like that dog. Her head is crammed full of webware, and her voice is an electronic speaker. But she's talking Standard at us. What have we got the Broca webs for if we're not talking Waister?”
“You can't speak Waister, Corporal,” she said. “Not unless your throat doubles as a bamboo flute. We got the webs so we could listen.”
“To what? To the dead prisoners? To the FTL transmissions we can't detect?”
“Classified. You'll find out later.”
Ken sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I almost had it. The talking, I mean. There are only about four sounds I need that I can't make. There's a thing we could wear over our mouths, a little raspy thing, kind of...” He made a cage of fingers over his mouth, then paused, took the hand away and shook his head. “I could draw you a picture.”
“Ken,” Marshe sighed.
“It would be easy,” he said. “Really. As easy as not doing it. Could you just assume for a minute that I haven't lost my mind? You're the one who painted the rooms purple. 'If it helps, even a little...'“
Jonson's voice made a passable imitation of her own.
She chewed at her lip for a moment. “Mmm. That's not bad. Just clip your T's a little more sharply: 'If iT helps, even a liTTle...' Get that Europe effect.”
She searched his features, not knowing quite what it was she wanted to find there. Sanity? Not likely. Nobody was sane any more. She sighed. “A standard navy voder can produce almost any sound. And they can be keyed to a Broca web, so...” She sighed. “I'll look into it. But I want you to know, you've got me worried. Josev, too. I don't know what he'd say if he saw you in here. This is serious, Jonson. Watch yourself.”
Something flashed across Ken's face, a frown, a hint of fear. But it was gone quickly, replaced by a tired, feeble grin. “Catch me if I fall?”
“Yes,” Marshe said, without a trace of humor or kindness. “Bet on it.”
~~~
Ken was disappointed with Saturn. He and Marshe had moved two levels up from the gym, to a cramped metal room with what she'd promised would be a spectacular view. But the planet hung outside the observation port like a cheap hologram, not impressive in the slightest, and he realized she'd been joking. Strange. Marine humor tended more toward the coarse and the physical. But her words had been... ironic? Saturn looked small, smaller than a chase-me ball, and its color was a murky yellow, only faintly striped. The rings, those glorious God-works praised so often in poetry and song, were spidery, almost-straight lines across the equator.
“The ring plane is almost edge-on this time of year,” Marshe said, catching his look.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, but the year is three hundred and fifty-nine months long.”
“Huh. The jewel of Sol system,” Ken said, his eyes still on the planet. “I thought there'd be more to see.”
“Well, we're in a three-hundred day drift orbit. Only thing farther out than us is a moon called Phoebe, and she's on the other side of the planet right now. It's a stupid idea if you ask me, being out here in the wide wastes. Like hiding in the middle of the room. Get a target-rich environment, like the middle of the B-ring for example, and a station is a lot harder to spot. But here we are.”
“Not even blacked out?”
“Hell no. Wide-spectrum black is a great way to confuse our own sensors. Doesn't bother the Waisters a bit.”
“Oh. I see. What's this station called, anyway? The clipper crew never told me on the way over.”
Marshe snorted softly. “Its official designation is ATG-311-B. That's the serial number of a Lagrange habitat that they decomissioned over a hundred years ago. Mirrors, smoke, and secret pockets. Like the Waisters are really going to search our registration archives. There was another name during the Monarchy, some grand, foofy thing I can't remember right now. The original, Preclementine asteroid was called Musashi.”
“What do you call it?” He asked, turning from the window to face her. Weightless, her bulk made her look puffy and uncomfortable. Her hair was a stiff halo around her head.
“Me?” She smiled bitterly. “I call it home.”
Her tone suggested genuine hurt, which struck Ken as strange. The captain had been here for years, far from danger, far from the clamor and struggle and endless toil that the war represented for most of humanity. What did she have to be upset about?
He turned back to the observation port. “It's better than a troopship, Captain. Better than...” He let his voice trail away. The stars glared, unwinking, through the thick glass.
Something touched him, and he spasmed, jerked away. He felt the object withdraw. The captain's hand.
“I'm sorry,” she said, her voice soft. “I can be pretty selfish sometimes.”
Ken studied the stars. Behind Saturn, and off to one side, stood Orion the hunter, his weapon raised. A warrior for the eons, never tiring, never taking the day off for R and R. It seemed the constellation should pulse with malevolent light, a grim advertisement for the creatures it harbored, but the jewels of the hunter's belt looked much like any other stars.
“Which one is Alnilam?” He asked after a long pause.
“I don't know,” Marshe said. Her voice, like his, was low and quiet, as if they were standing in a church. “Sipho could tell you. When the Waisters hit us, though, they'll be coming out of Sirius. That's south of Orion somewhere. I think that's it, that bright blue one.”
An arm reached out over Ken's shoulder, index finger extended, pointing out at the stars. Marshe was close, her body centimeters from his. He could feel her heat on his back, contrasting sharply with the deep-space cold radiating out from the window. His pulse quickened. He reached thick fingers out to grab the bolted lip of the window, and pulled himself half a meter along the wall. Escaping.
“I'm sorry,” the captain said. “I didn't mean...”
“It's okay,” he replied tightly. He tensed his shoulders, relaxed them again. He turned to face her. “It's... okay.”
Waister drones swarming, bursting against the walls. Screams of the dying.
“It's okay,” he repeated, reaching out to take her hand.
They spun, very slowly, in the air, their right arms extended in awkward handshake. And then she pulled him in, wrapping him, enfolding him. Her embrace was tight and warm.
“Relax, Drone Two,” she whispered urgently, maternally. “Relax.”
Ken relaxed, moisture beading at the corners of his eyes and mouth, soaking into her uniform.
“Relax, I'm right here.”
He buried his face in her warmth and softness, and held her for what seemed like hours. He felt... warmth? Protection? No, it was something both deeper and more specific. The web tickled at his brain.
“Whwhh,” he said faintly. �
�Whwhh # whh.”
His Queen was here.
Chapter Six
“It doesn't feel right without the Dog here,” Ken Jonson commented.
Marshe was inclined to agree. The neurolab crew had taken Shenna off at oh-dark-thirty that morning, to have her web implants reprogrammed. When she returned, she'd be speaking Waister. It was a sad thought, in a way, as if the animal's personality were being stripped away from her and replaced with a darker, more sinister model.
“Yes,” Sipho Yeng said, sounding a little surprised. “It's as if we've somehow lost our symmetry.”
“She'll be back,” Marshe said, looking around at her people. “Day after tomorrow. Let's get on with our business. Now, I've emphasized the importance of team-building, which I believe is vital to our success. On that note, I'd like each of you to relate an embarrassing incident that occurred while you were a child. I'm sure your most embarrassing moments are hidden away where you never think about them, but please try to come up with something. Because I've had time to think about this and the rest of you haven't, I'll go first.”
She looked down, smoothed the trouser leg of her uniform. The loft incident. God, this really was embarrassing. “I, uh. Clan Talbott runs a small agro combine in Eastern Europe. Bratsilasice, specifically, up in the highlands of Slovakai. My uncle was the workmaster at the combine's vineyard. He made wine.
“The last time I was there, I was in the throes of puberty, and very unhappy about being away from my friends for the summer. Usually I enjoyed the farm work, but this year Nikolai and Marthe had to scream and shout to get me to do anything. I spent a lot of my time hiding in the barn, which was a wide, tall building where they kept the horses. We used to ride on the horses, by the way. That was always my favorite summer thing. But that year I was always being punished, so my riding tackle was locked up most of the time.
“What I did in the barn, aside from brushing the horses and sulking, was jump off the loft. The combine also raised sheep, you know, and there were always bales and bales of uncarded wool inside there. The loft was about three meters high, which can be very dangerous on Earth, but I'd jump off it and land in the wool. For some reason, I used to take off my clothes and jump naked. I loved the scratchy feel against my skin when I landed. Just a kid thing, you know? But this summer, I was almost thirteen. One time, one of the farmhands came in just when I was jumping, and I suddenly realized how the whole thing would look. I tried to stop, but it was too late. I ended up landing wrong, on my back, on the very edge of the bales. Knocked the breeze right out of me.
“Well, Nikolai spotted this man carrying my naked body back up toward the house, and he just didn't know what to think. It took a long time to straighten out the fuss, and about a week later he shipped me back to my parents in Brussels. He said a farm like that was no place for a girl my age.”
Marshe felt herself blushing. The last time she'd told that story, she'd been laughing in the arms of Jim Lublik, her fiance', while a January night raged outside the window. Almost ten years gone, that was. No Jim Lublik any more, no cold winter nights. But here she was, sharing the same intimate secret with... others.
“Josev, I'd like you to go next.”
Josev Ranes glowered at her, brooding still on their earlier exchange of words. “You happy?” He'd said, waving a finger in her face. They'd been alone in the assimilation chamber, the others not back from breakfast yet. “You pushed Jonson 'till he broke. Reprogramming the dog was his idea, right? Sludger's gone totally out the lock.”
“I talked with him last night,” she'd countered. “He's a little disoriented, but his mind is still working, and his perspective is vital. Don't you start making accusations behind his back. Or mine.”
Her voice had rung fiercely, but inside she'd winced; there was truth in Josev's accusation. Ken Jonson was like a man dangling from the edge of a cliff, looking up with calm eyes as his fingers lost purchase and slipped. Last night, she'd reached out to grab him, and been pulled off balance herself. Their long embrace was puzzling to her now, her thoughts and motives unclear. She'd wanted to calm him, help him smooth out the tangles of his mind. But when she'd put her arms around him, her feelings had not been as motherly as she'd indicated, nor had they been lustful in the usual sense. She had felt... strange. Queenlike. It was she who'd broken the hug, claiming an errand.
“We're waiting,” she said now to Josev.
He growled. “Shouldn't we be thinking about the war? Shit. There was this time I was thirteen years old, and this new family moved in across the corridor from us. Two doors down, I guess it was. The people that used to live there were clan Karlawish. Four children, and they all smelled funny. But these new people were Goodbury, very neat and neighborly, and their daughter was a nymph named Becky Li. She'd smile and wink when we passed each other in the corridor, even though she was a year ahead of me in training. Names-of-God, the things I wanted to do with her! But my Da was a sadistic old fart tank, invited the family over for dinner one night. I was so nervous I choked on a piece of tart and coughed it up all over the table.”
Marshe smiled. This didn't sound as intimate as her own story, but Josev seemed genuinely embarrassed to be telling it. Maybe it was the memory of adolescence, more than the story itself, that made him squirm. “What happened next?”
“Next? She made a face, then turned away and never spoke to me again. End of story.”
“Oh. Well. Thanks for sharing it.”
She favored Josev with a faintly sympathetic smile. He was supposed to feel uncomfortable, that was the point of this exercise, but he should also feel camaraderie with his fellow sufferers. After a moment, he gave a little nod to show her that the message had been received. She turned and cast a meaningful look at Sipho Yeng, who sat beside Josev in the circle. “Have you got one for us?”
The astronomer fidgeted and smiled uncomfortably, as if he were sitting on something sharp. “Ah. I suppose so, though I must say this does not strike me as a helpful exercise.” He looked at Ken Jonson, then at Marshe, then back at Jonson again. “I'm sure you two know what ice skating is, but, ah,” His gaze swept to Josev, and to Roland Hanlin. “I wonder about you.”
“Where you strap blades on your feet and slide around?” Josev said. “Yeah, I've seen holies of it. On Luna we just use a polished floor and a pair of flat-soled shoes. We call it 'slide dancing'.”
Sipho nodded. “Mmm. In the winter on Mars, it's usually too cold to skate. The pressure of the blade doesn't melt the ice directly under it, so it doesn't bite in. You can't steer, or stop, or even go straight too well without falling. In the spring, though, we have big festivals. After thirteen months of winter, you understand, people are very anxious to celebrate. Young children build sand sculptures, the parents dance and sing, and the older children all go skating.
“The first year I was old enough to go, my mother became obsessed with the idea that I would fall down, break my visor and suffocate. Never mind that she and my father had both been skating at the same age. She made me wear a sort of bar over the front of my helmet, and the other children laughed and laughed at me. Years later they were still calling me names because of it.”
“Ah,” Marshe said, suppressing this time the urge to smile. “What a charming story. Thank you very much.” She turned to Roland Hanlin, who cringed. “Roland? Please be as candid, it is your turn.”
Roland pursed his lips, waited a moment, then uncringed himself and spoke without further prompting: “There's two kinds of light besides regular. Quick light and slow. When people know things far away, things they oughtn'ta know about, that's quicklight. That's how the Waister ships know their formations and suchlike. FTL. Quicklight. The other kind of light is slow, and that's where a ghost come from.”
Josev made a derisive noise. “That's likely the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”
Marshe raised a hand, silencing him, and said to Roland: “Is this leading somewhere particular?”
“Sure,” Hanlin repl
ied. “I didn'ta think you'd agree or nothing. But it's part of my story. My sister, she'd always see slowlight better than me. It has to do with the retina, with those tiny rod and cone cells that the eye uses to detect light with. See, the slowlight spreads out from people and objects and things that happen, in these slow shells that move maybe a centimeter every year. If your eye catches 'em perpendicular, then the slowlight triggers those rods and cones just like regular. But most of the cones don't line up totally straight, which is why a ghost looks kind of clear. Most of your eye isn't seeing it.
“Anyhow, I figure my sister has some really straight cones in her eyes, because she was seeing ghosts a lot more than I ever was. One day we were down deep in the catacombs, and—”
A buzzer rang out, shattering Marshe's concentration.
“Hang on,” she said, then rolled her chair over to one of the assimilation chamber's many data consoles. She tapped a few keys. “Yes?”
The holie screen above the console blanked momentarily, the image of Lalande system vanishing, replaced quickly by the head and shoulders of Colonel Jhee.
“Captain Talbott,” the colonel said.
“Yes?” She repeated.
“I've just finished reading your report, and I am not amused.”
“Sir?”
He leaned closer to the screen. “A batch of wild guesses, Captain, does not constitute a report, no matter what your fancy introduction says. And vague guesses, at that.”
Marshe rolled her eyes, wondering if Jhee was permanently an asshole. Perhaps surgery could correct the problem. “Colonel, I told you we weren't fully up to speed yet. It's not like we can tell you which planet they'll attack next.”
“That is precisely what I expect you to tell me. Which planet, when, and how. This project is not a platform for you to express your opinions. Frankly, your viewpoint doesn't matter. What I want is what you promised me: tactical forecasting.”
