This is the moment. That first glimpse of space, coyly revealed by the widening doors. Kheo gives his instruments the attention they require, but his eye is drawn downwards, to the banded glory of Yssim, the cold and distant light of the stars beyond.
His exit is faultless. The Clan insisted he pre-program it, rather than take even the miniscule risk of their favoured son screwing up and dinging his yacht on the hangar doors. That would never do, not with the whole world watching.
Some impulse had made Kheo visit the engineering hangar three days before the race. He should either have been preparing himself mentally with relaxation and centring exercises – as his family would prefer – or drinking, gambling and womanising in the lowtown rings – as the media would expect – but he had a sudden desire to be alone with his yacht, without the tech crew fussing around.
The hangar was the largest open space on the liner and the ship’s spin provided near-normal gravity here. After two months away from Homeworld, the echoey open space and illusion of full weight were disconcerting. In the low lighting Liberty Bird was a point of colour, although her red and blue hull was muted by the oily shadows.
Kheo reached up, tracing the fusion yacht’s perfect lines, his hand passing just below the Clan crest emblazoned on her side. Someone had left the steps in place; it was only logical he use them to climb into the cockpit. He sighed as he sealed the canopy. Liberty Bird was the only birthright he wanted. Yet the race she had been built for might not be held many more times and if his family had their way this would the last time he would be permitted to compete. That made claimimg his third win even more important.
He started at movement glimpsed out the corner of his eye. Someone out there, down on the hangar floor. A thief? A saboteur from a rival clan who had somehow got onto the Reuthani liner? His heart raced. The net was buzzing with stupid gossip: with no one to keep them in check any more, ancient clan rivalries were getting out of hand.
No, just Chief Mechanic Sovat. Kheo liked Sovat, respected him. Yes, that was what he felt: respect. Sovat often worked late, went above and beyond.
Except Sovat didn’t appear to be working. More like waiting. Another of the tech team walked in, a younger man whose name only came to Kheo after a moment’s thought. Greal: junior propulsion specialist, university educated, rather effete for the rough-diamond world of the yacht-techs. Why were this mismatched pair meeting here so late? Not for something nefarious, he hoped. They appeared to just be talking, standing close.
Oh. Had he really seen –? Did they really just –?
Sovat stepped back, then looked around. Kheo shrank down in the seat, holding his breath. The Chief Mechanic’s gaze passed over him, and he turned back to his companion. More brief words, then the two men left, Greal following close to Sovat. Kheo had no doubt they were headed somewhere more private.
Kheo clears the great wheel of the hangar-deck at a pace the watching cameras will no doubt find pedestrian. Of course, speed is relative: the liner is in a high, fast orbit around the gas giant far below. The first thrust of acceleration as he brings the main engines online is deceptive; he actually needs to lose orbital velocity before the start of the race.
He rotates Liberty Bird and peels away from the Reuthani Clan liner; the huge blunt needle is strung with spoked rings, their sizes and positions determining their place in this microcosm of clan life: engineering, living suites, gardens, entertainments and accommodation for the few thousand citizens permitted to accompany their betters off-world for this annual jamboree. In a touching if tacky gesture, a block of portholes in the central midtown ring have been selectively lit to spell out the words Good Luck Kheo.
All around Yssim, other Pilots are leaving their liners. Most clans, including his own, only field one Pilot these days. Some clans no longer participate in the Flamestar Challenge. Other clans no longer exist.
The yachts head for the Royal Barge, a smaller vessel in a lower orbit around the gas giant. Though the Barge now lacks any royalty, tradition still dictates that the race starts from there. It will take several hours to reach the Barge, and the formal start of the race. The approach is critical to a good start. In his five previous races, Kheo has tuned his coms into the razzmatazz that surrounds the biggest event in high society’s calendar. All across the system, pundits are discussing the latest form reports released by the clans for their teams and mulling over the detailed ion-stream data. Every other year, Kheo has revelled in the sense of being at the heart of it all yet free, out in the vastness of space.
Not this time. He selects some roots-rock – not his usual sort of music, but it should blast his head clear – and stares out into the beauty of the void, urging his mind to remain blank.
Kheo was expected to show his face at the hangar the next day, both as a courtesy to the techs working on his behalf and to attend a briefing on the current configuration of the ion-streams. He had been looking forward to the tactical discussion of routes and fuel management, to sharing the respectful camaraderie of the men. Instead he was uneasy, almost nervous. He made himself chat to the usual people; act normal.
And everything was normal. In the daytime bustle, Kheo wondered if he had been mistaken; perhaps he even dreamt the encounter he had witnessed the previous evening. He spent enough time imagining such things.
Sovat was as brusquely efficient as ever when he took Kheo over the latest engine test results. There was no sign of Greal.
Sovat was the last to leave the briefing room, and he paused, as though waiting for Kheo to say something. When Kheo failed to speak, the Mechanic turned to follow his fellow techs out.
Kheo took a different route back to the suite-decks, choosing rarely used corridors and secondary float-tubes, doing his best to avoid the crew, minor family and hangers-on with their ready smiles. He spent the journey trying to work out whether the look Mechanic Sovat had given him had been an invitation.
By the time he has the Royal Barge on visual, Yssim itself is too large for his mind to interpret as spherical. The gas giant is a sky-spanning backdrop of mauve and azure, lavender and turquoise. He is close enough to spot details in the roiling turbulence between the coloured bands. Thanks to the false-colour projections enhancing his view through the canopy, he can see the ion-streams: ethereal threads and skeins, twisting and curling out from the massive world, curved lines of force linking it to Estin, the pus-yellow moon constantly pummelled by Yssim’s tidal forces.
Now comes the first test. The intricacies of orbital mechanics make an actual start line impossible. Instead Kheo, and every other Pilot, must interpret detailed positional readings then use them to apply delta-V, at the same time keeping track of the movements of the other yachts.
The exact moment the race starts is determined by the AI-enhanced stewards on the Barge, who are monitoring every one of the twenty-three yachts to determine when all of them are present in the prescribed volume of space. Just being in position isn’t enough: you need to be on the right heading and, ideally, as near the front of the volume as possible.
Fifteen ships already lined up… another entering. And another.
He makes a tiny adjustment; raising his orbit slightly. He’s in a good position but he can’t afford to leave the start volume before the last yacht enters. A false start not only annoys the watching billions, it means the culprit has to start in the secondary volume, behind everyone else.
The penultimate yacht enters the volume. Kheo’s got less than five seconds before he leaves it…
The final yacht is in place.
His board lights green.
He keys the preset that maxes the drive. The gentle hand that has been pressing him into his seat becomes a grasping fist.
The Flamestar Challenge is on.
Two days before the race, Clan Reuthani held the pre-race banquet in the liner’s Great Mess, a name which had made Kheo smile when he was growing up.
Kheo’s first banquet had been seven year ago, shortly after his sixteenth birthday. Uncle Harrik had been First Pilot then, and Kheo had joined in with the drunken and enthusiastic chorus of the Reuthani Clan anthem which serenaded him to his rest. Harrik had won the Flamestar that year, a victory made more special because that had been the first staging of the race since the Empress had been ousted; their Clan yacht had even been renamed in recognition of the coup. In all, his uncle had won twice in eight races. Impressive, but not as good as three out of six.
This year, as the diners picked over the second course of the third remove – sweet jellied consommé upon which floated spun sugar confections in the shape of fusion yachts – a lull in the quiet murmur allowed an overloud stray comment to surface.
“Liberation’s become a dirty word!”
The speaker was Kheo’s father, the Honourable Earl Reuthani. At his words silence fell across high table. Several people on nearby tables glanced at the chair between Kheo and his mother. Next to him, Prinbal sighed. His younger brother currently greeted most parental comments with sighs but for once Kheo could have joined in.
“Surely you aren’t suggesting we were better off under the Empress!” That was Harrik: no else would dare speak up, but the combination of being an ex-Pilot and having fought in the Liberation gave him the right to question the Earl.
“Course not, she wasn’t even human.” His father was drunk, as usual. “What I mean is, the commoners forget that most of us rose up when they did, an’ fought beside ‘em. And now they’re angling for this ‘New Liberation’ – from us!”
At least Clan Reuthani still exists, thought Kheo grimly.
His brother was watching their father, absorbing the adult interactions even as he pretended to disdain them.
His Mother said, “But I doubt the malcontents will get far. We need some continuity. Most people realise that. What we should be worrying about is all those other systems out there.”
“Surely contact could be to our advantage,” said Kheo, thinking of the new technologies he had heard about via the recently instituted ‘beamed virtual’ connection. After centuries of imposed isolation they were finally part of the universe at large.
A cousin chirped, “Yes, who knows what outsider technology could mean for the Flamestar Challenge?”
Assuming it continued. Now that the massive extravagance of moving everyone of note out from Homeworld to run a race around the largest body in the system was no longer maintained by the Empress’s brutal taxes, the race was becoming unsustainable. Which just made it more important that he won it again this year. But as discussion returned to the upcoming race, Kheo found his taste for the festivities dulled. He was glad when he was sung to his rest.
Alone in his room, his mood darkened further. He had spent much of his adult life being secretly grateful that he had been too young to fight in the War, that his elder sister had volunteered instead, although he doubted Father would have let an older son join the fight. Now, facing a life of responsibilities he never wanted and knew he was not up to – not to mention the frustration and hypocrisy – he almost envied his dead, heroic sister.
The first stretch is a long straight burn.
Kheo’s initial gamble paid off: he has a solid starting position. But so have half a dozen others, including Umbrel Narven. She’s one of two female Pilots, vanguard of the kind of changes the Earl hates; she has a reputation for recklessness and her clan has some of the best techs, inherited from now-defunct clans. With two close seconds and a third but no win to her name, Narven’s the one to watch.
A couple of competitors are already lagging behind, possibly because their yachts aren’t as well tuned as his, or possibly because their starts didn’t give them the trajectory they wanted for their chosen path through the ion-streams. Everyone else is still a threat.
Thirty minutes in and the field is spreading out. Now the tactics start to show, as each Pilot plots the precise course they’ll be taking through the near-invisible energy maze formed by the ion-streams. Kheo has assimilated all available data on the current disposition of the streams but now, close up, he can get more detailed readings and make final adjustments. It looks good: the provisional trajectory he agreed with his team won’t need significant adjustment.
The projection of the streams overlays the view ahead, a shifting, sparkling curtain coloured every shade of the rainbow. The colours are a code imposed by his comp. He is heading for the golden-orange area, nearer Yssim than Estin. Running close to the gas giant has inherent risks, being liable to fluxes and gravitational effects that could affect his instruments and put stress on his yacht, but he has the skill to navigate it and Liberty Bird is up to the task. And the crowd will love it.
But he is not the only one risking a close skim. By the time they are fifty minutes into the race, his sensors show two other yachts lining up for similar courses. One of them is close enough that he thinks he can actually see the tiny black speck against the looming ion fields. His instruments ID it as the Aurora Dream. Clan Narven; he might have known.
The sense of emptiness lingered. He woke with a ridiculous urge to cry, but saw it off with a cold shower, along with all the other unwanted desires and unsafe emotions.
He was nervous at the prospect of going to the workshop but, in the end, what else would he do the day before the race? His heart tripped when he saw Mechanic Sovat, and he looked away.
After the daily briefing he lingered, and was unsurprised when the Chief Mechanic did the same. Kheo searched for the right thing to say. Finally, as Sovat raised an eyebrow and turned to go, Kheo managed, ‘Do you really think Clan Narven’s directional thrust innovations pose a threat to us?’
If the mechanic had any idea that this wasn’t what Kheo wanted to say he gave no sign. “They might well, sirrah. You’d best take the lead from the start; they have the advantage in hi-gee manoeuvring. Make Narven’s yacht work hard to catch you, and stick the course. Just like I said.”
Which he had, in the meeting, only a few minutes earlier. “Right. Yes.” Kheo looked at the man’s hands, because they were safe. Except they weren’t. They were fascinating.
“You’re a good pilot, sirrah.”
Kheo tried not to be over-pleased by the praise. Before he could stop himself he looked up and said, “I believe you worked late two days ago.”
Rather than answer immediately Sovat bent forward a little, leaning on his fists; those perfect, sinewy hands. Kheo got a heady whiff of oil and sweat. “What makes you think that?” said Sovat quietly, then added, “sirrah.”
“Never mind my reasons, Mechanic,” Kheo was glad of the table, which was high enough to hide his body’s response to the encounter. “Were you in the hangar the night before last?”
“I was.” Sovat’s gaze never wavered.
Kheo found his own eyes drawn, once again, to those hands. “And were you alone?”
“No, sirrah. I had Apprentice Greal with me.”
Kheo must have imagined the small hesitation between ‘Greal’ and ‘with’. “And did anything happen?”
“Happen, sirrah?” Kheo would swear the man was enjoying this. “What sort of thing were you thinking of, sirrah?”
“I… I could check the camera feeds, you know.”
“So you could, sirrah.” The mechanic smiled laconically. “But I doubt you’d find anything to alarm you.”
Because Sovat had edited them. The Mechanic was careful, thorough: he must have lived with what he was for years. Kheo wanted to hate such forward planning, such contrivance, but found himself admiring it. This man could not only face the truth, but live with it. “If,” he managed, “I did see anything some people might find alarming…” he swallowed, half expecting an interruption, but the other man remained silent, “I’m not sure I’d be alarmed, myself,” he finished in a rush. His face felt like it had caught fire.
Sovat’s voice was soft. “Perhaps you wouldn’t, at that,” he said.
“And if, if I was not alarmed when, when most people would be. Normally, that is. Would that be … something of interest? To you.”
Sovat remained silent.
Kheo swallowed. “I was asking you a question.”
“Were you now, sirrah?” Was that caution or knowing acceptance in Sovat’s voice?
Acceptance, Kheo decided. They understood each other. No damning words, no absolute confirmation, but there was that connection, that shared experience. Except Kheo’s experiences had been confined to fantasy, until now. “What if I had been here, with you, instead of Apprentice Greal? Would something have happened? Something the cameras wouldn’t see, and that no one,” he felt his breath growing short, “no one ever needed to know about.”
Sovat paused before answering, then said, his voice regretful, “No.”
“No? Why not?”
“A matter of taste, sirrah. Personal taste.”
“What are you saying? I’m not your type? But you’re… and I’m…” And no one else is. Except Greal, apparently. “I could report you, you know. What about that, eh?”
“You’re free to do as you will, sirrah.” Sovat sounded calm; Kheo had no idea if he was concerned about the threat. “Your word carries far more weight than mine.”
But with doctored cameras, it would just be his word. And he could never betray the only man he had ever spoken to in this way. Not even if that man rejected him. “Well, just… remember that.”
“I always do, sirrah. Was there anything else?”
“No. Nothing else.”
After Sovat left Kheo sat alone in the briefing room. Then he locked himself in the nearest restroom alone, and privately explored the possibility that Sovat would walk in, and find Kheo was his type after all. Then he showered, thoroughly.
Having been both vindicated and rejected in one short conversation, he returned to the family suite, heading straight for his rooms. Here he checked the publically available information on Mechanic Sovat. The man’s first name was Appis, and Kheo spent a few moments saying the name, Appis Sovat, before chiding himself and looking deeper.
There was nothing incriminating to be found. Had there been the technician would not be in the position he was in today. Kheo uncovered only one item of note, from before the War: when Sovat was twenty-six two of his male friends had been charged with gross indecency. One had opted for surgical readjustment; the other had not relented of his perversion and had been exiled ‘at the Empress’s service’. Further research revealed that the man had died two years later, at a mine in the bleak high plains of South Arnisland. The verdict was death by natural causes. It generally was, in the mines.
Kheo hisses in triumph as one of the two yachts peels away, slowing as it does. Too rich for you, eh? He has taken the shorter, riskier path twice before. The first time, he won. The second time overdriving the engines damaged his yacht, and ended his race. Who would have thought two other pilots were also willing to take the skim? Or rather, one now. Umbrel Narven is still in the race. And her yacht is going to enter the streams ahead of him. He’ll be hard pressed to catch her.
No, that’s defeatist talk: he is still the best Pilot, in the best ship.
Umbrel Narven no doubt thinks the same about her own skills and vessel.
“Ah, there you are!”
Kheo looked up from his desk and forced a smile for his mother. “I thought I’d get an early night…” He waved the display clear.
“Very sensible. But first, I have news.”
Kheo knew that tone. “You’d better come in.”
She swept into his room and perched on the more upright of the two chaises. “I didn’t want to distract you until we were sure, not with the race coming up –”
“It’s tomorrow, Ma, and I don’t want to be distracted, you’re so right.” Kheo ignored his mother’s wince at being spoken back to.
“Ah, but this will give you something to race for.”
“Have you… finalised arrangements? You have, haven’t you?” Making the right match was as much the duty of an oldest son as racing in the Flamestar Challenge. More, really: the Empress had dictated that Clan scions must prove themselves before marrying, but she was gone. Given the dangers of yacht-racing, many Clans, already depleted by the War, forbad their heirs from taking part. And whether or not the race endured, it was no activity for a family man, as his mother had reminded him on his last birthday.
“I have!”
“With Leilian Fermelai?”
“Well, you two used to play together so well when you were children. And the poor thing lost both her parents in all the nastiness.” Meaning: unlike Clan Reuthani, Clan Fermelai had not acted against the Empress. “We’ll announce the engagement en route back to Homeworld, and hold the formal party at the Manse.”
“This isn’t what I want.” His voice sounded dead in his ears.
“Kheo, I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for all of us. But you have to settle down. Leilian is technically the head of her clan but she’s only a woman, and with most of her family gone… this is better for everyone. She will be a good wife.”
He wanted to protest further, to say he did not want a wife, good or otherwise, but it would be futile.
More gently his mother added, “This marriage is a necessary thing. I hope you can find happiness in it, Kheo, I truly do. But if you cannot… provided you do your duty, a blind eye can be turned.”
Does she know? But he had done nothing to act on his feelings; on the contrary he had made every effort to live up to the image of the yacht-racing noble rake. “What do you mean?” he asked as evenly as he could.
“The unsuitable women,” said his mother, in the verbal equivalent of scraping excrement from a shoe.
Ah yes, those women, the entertainers and hostesses; eager to please, and notorious enough that his rumoured liaisons with them maintained his reputation, yet low enough that his failures and foibles would never reach the wrong ears. He had been careful in his choices. He wouldn’t miss the embarrassment and guilty revulsion; nor the fear that they saw him for what he really was.
“You won’t have to worry about them,” he said.
“Good.” His mother’s smile told him that she, like everyone else, believed the carefully cultivated image. “That’s settled then.”
The Aurora Dream is pulling ahead, Narven’s lead opening up second by second.
So, no win. No glory. No final chance to shine before subsiding under the weight of duty and acceptable behaviour. The best he can hope for is second place.
Why can’t I just be happy with the privileged life I was born into? He knows the answer: because he can’t be himself.
Am I being selfish? Perhaps; there were choices, plenty of them. He could have fought in the War, despite being young. He could admit what he really wants in a lover, although where would he find that in the world he lives in, where such things are never spoken of, even if they are no longer punished with more than a fine? He could stand up to his father, although the old man is quite capable of disinheriting him; an unthinkable prospect.
Plenty of choices there. Shame he has been too much of a coward to take them.
He blinks away stupid self-pitying tears and focuses on Liberty Bird’s instrument panel. Here is the one thing that is good and simple and right about his life, directly in front of him. And he is about to come in second, in his final race. It’s all downhill from here. Winning isn’t just desirable any more: it’s the only option, whatever the cost.
There isn’t much time: he scans his readouts, their meaning as comforting and familiar as the drapes above his bed, or the face of his childhood nurse. It would be a minor adjustment to his trajectory.
He makes the change.
An alarm sounds.
He ignores it.
Kheo never slept well the night before a race. He doubted any Pilot did. He ended up resorting to the chemical remedies offered by the Clan doctor.
Perhaps that was why, when he was escorted through the halls and corridors of the liner the next morning amid cheers and thrown petals, he felt as though he was watching the festivities from afar, rather than being the reason for them.
Sovat – Appis – was in the hangar, amongst the honour guard of techs who stood respectfully silent while their Pilot crossed the floor to his yacht. Kheo gave him no more regard than was normal, including him in the faint nod of gratitude to his crew as he passed.
Only when he took his seat in Liberty Bird did he fully wake up. He performed the usual pre-flight checks with a combination of the utmost care and little conscious thought. By the time the hoist had inched him into the hangar’s massive airlock, he was as ready for his fate as he had ever been.
The trajectory alteration is subtle; a matter of a few degrees in one plane. The difference between passing through a volume of space with no appreciable matter in it, and the lower path, where the number of molecules in the vacuum might constitute the start of an atmosphere. Enough of an atmosphere to cause drag and test Liberty Bird’s engines, certainly. But the ultimate shortcut – if it works.
He is deep in the ion-streams now, their flickering representations dancing around his yacht. Every other racer is above him; some still appear to be ahead, but they have further to go. It is too early yet to know if his crazy ploy will bring victory.
His com flashes: the support team requesting emergency contact. No mean feat given the ionic interference; they must be juicing up the signal with everything they’ve got. If he answers, will it be Appis Sovat on the com? He is Chief Tech, after all. The prospect of hearing Sovat’s voice again makes Kheo hesitate. Then he catches himself and turns his attention to his console. The drive readout is already edging out of the safe zone, and there’s a constellation of amber warnings. Suddenly one of them spikes red: a jolt thrums through his yacht. What was that? Ah, navigational thrusters. Even this is too much atmosphere for them. Well, he’s stuck on this course now. As for what happens once he’s on the far side, whether they’ll blow clear … first make it to the far side, then worry about that.
The ship feels wrong. It’s a subtle sensation, a faint vibration, but if he carries on, it’s only a matter of time before structural integrity begins to fail.
His life is so complicated. The tension of duty and desire. His inability to be himself. And always he has taken what seemed like the easiest path, only to find complications besetting him. Not now though. Now everything truly is simple. He will either win this race, or die trying.
Another red light: radiation warning. There is only so much energy his suit and canopy can protect him from. The view outside is more spectacular than ever, like a great forest of energy, the psychedelic ion-streams like twisted trunks of impossible trees.
This in itself is the easy way out, of course. Yes, even as he defies death, he’s still a coward.
The vibration becomes a shudder. Suddenly Kheo is scared. At least his body is: racing heart, dry mouth, dizzy head.
What am I doing? This insane stunt isn’t bravery: it’s avoidance, the ultimate avoidance.
The ship begins to shake. The drive readout spikes into the red. He reaches for the console but everything’s moving, wild forces pulling at him. And even if he could get his hands on the controls, what could he do? The course is set. Too late to change it now.
I’m a fool. A coward and a fool.
A great concussion hits, throwing him in every direction at once. He is going to die, here, now. Die without facing himself.
Massive constriction – but I was expecting an explosion! – and he is wrapped in chilly gel. As the sedatives kick in he realises two things: he has lost the race and he is still alive. When, seconds later, the drugs ease his stressed system into therapeutic unconsciousness, his last thought is that the former doesn’t matter, only the latter.
The media love it. Kheo Reuthani’s miraculous escape after his death-or-glory bid for victory eclipses Umbrel Narven’s win. Kheo feels sorry for her.
The rescue clipper barely arrived in time to stop Liberty Bird drifting into the nearest ion-stream, an experience he would not have survived even encased in crash-gel. By the time his yacht was hauled in, he had received enough radiation to increase his risk of long-term health problems – and to destroy any chance of him giving Clan Reuthani an heir.
Mother visits him in hospital. “I’ve seen your results.”
She could be talking about an exam he failed. “I guess the wedding’s off then.” He tries not to sound triumphant. He feels sorry for Leilian Fermelai too. He does not, for once, feel sorry for himself.
“Not necessarily. There may be a medical work-around to the, ah, fertility issue. Perhaps even some advance from out-of-system.”
“Ah, so you’d accept outsider medicine to solve the Clan’s problems, then?”
“One must adapt.”
A shame, then, that she had not pressed his father to adapt to the proactive approach many Clans had instituted after the Liberation, of taking sperm or egg samples from their Pilots in case of such accidents. “Yes, one must. I’m sorry, Mother. I won’t marry that poor girl just to save face. Let Prinbal have his chance. He wants to lead the clan more than I do anyway.”
He is treated to the rare spectacle of his mother lost for words.
The general consensus is that he had a lucky escape. If his drive had not cut out when it did, Liberty Bird would either have shaken itself to bits, blown up or been crushed by Yssim’s atmosphere. Kheo keeps his opinion on the matter to himself.
He is still welcome in the hangar, where work is underway to ensure that Liberty Bird will race again. He might even be the one to fly her, when and if his father forgives him for declaring Prinbal the Reuthani heir. Assuming the Flamestar is still going then.
It is only natural that Sovat leads the repair work. And it is only natural that Kheo and he should take the chance to talk about the state of Liberty Bird.
Their conversation, held in the meeting room while the techs work outside, begins with an assessment of the damage, and what is being done to fix it. Kheo looks at Appis Sovat’s hands twice, and his face once. He realises that the Chief Mechanic loves the yacht as much as he himself does, perhaps more.
“She was lucky, wasn’t she?” asks Kheo. “Well, we both were. Liberty Bird, and me. Losing power at exactly the right moment to bounce us off Yssim’s atmosphere.” He hopes his words don’t sound too disingenuous.
“So they say.”
Kheo seizes his chance. “You don’t think it was luck then?”
“It was fortunate the engine shut down soon as the rads and outside density reached critical. But not luck, sirrah, no.”
“Ah.” There had been a move, immediately after the Liberation, to install overrides to stop Pilots overdriving their engines but it had been deemed unnecessary, and insulting to the Pilots. “I… see.” Kheo picks his next words carefully. “Having such a fortunate shutdown wouldn’t be hard to arrange for someone with the right skills.”
“I imagine not, sirrah.” The tech’s tone is careful.
Kheo ploughs on. “But one would have to ask why anyone might arrange for such a thing.”
“I’ve seen it before, sirrah.” Sovat is looking at him directly now; he can feel it. “More than once.”
“Seen what?” says Kheo slowly. He manages to raise his gaze as high as the tech’s chest.
“The boys who can’t live with themselves.”
“Wait, you think I made the choices I did just because I… because you... You know nothing about me, Technician!” Except the one thing Kheo wished the man didn’t know. His embarrassed anger lets Kheo meet Sovat’s eyes.
“True enough, sirrah.” The tech’s voice and gaze are gentle. “And I’m not saying there’s just the one cause. But that’s part of it: us being what we are. It’s not worth dying for, you know.”
“It’s pretty damn hard to live with.”
“Hard for others to live with, yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that, sirrah: we’re what we are. It’s those around us that make it a problem.”
“Unless we get caught.”
The tech shrugs, though it is a considered gesture. “That’s still true, for now. But not every change is for the worst.”
“No, it isn’t. Listen, I know I’m not, er, your type… but if I did want some advice about, well, safe places, where people like me, like us…?”
“I’d be happy to give it.”
“Thank you.” Kheo hesitates. “And thank you for knowing what I needed even if I didn’t. Had anyone found out what you did –”
“I’m better at my job than that, sirrah.”
“Even so, you risked your career for me.”
“A career don’t matter a s–spit compared to a life, sirrah.”
Kheo nods. “Quite so. Good night, Engineer Sovat.”
Alone in the briefing room, Kheo exhales. He calls up the plans for his yacht. The thought that he might never pilot Liberty Bird again is hard to face, but face it he will. Who knows, perhaps when contact with the rest of the universe strengthens he might fly something more amazing, perhaps even travel between the stars? Now that is a good dream to hold onto.
After a while he shuts down the display and goes to find his mother. There is something he needs to tell her.