29.0

Your mum seems nice,” the girl said. They were the first words out of her mouth since Ravi had walked through the door. She’d stood, quietly invisible, while his mother had gone on and on about how he needed to eat right and take care of himself and not let Boz (“Stars abound, Roberta, but you can be a bad influence”) get him into trouble. She’d waited patiently until his mother said her reluctant goodbyes and headed back to her quarters in Fiji. As the door slid closed behind his mother’s back, the girl lowered herself to the deck, sitting cross-legged atop Ravi’s worn carpet.

Appeared to sit, Ravi reminded himself fiercely. She wasn’t really here. It was all in his head.

“What do you want?”

“Excuse me?” Boz replied, startled. And then, seeing that her cousin was staring at a blank spot on the floor, added, “Oh.”

The girl’s crooked smile widened into a mischievous grin.

“To see you, of course.”

“Isn’t invading my dreams enough for you?” He was tired and irritable, he realized suddenly. The surgery had hit him harder than he’d thought.

The girl’s grin vanished.

“I have to take my chances. And we’re running out of time.” She gestured at herself with both hands. “None of this is easy, you know.”

Ravi took a deep breath, determined to stop the conversation running off the rails.

“Okay,” he said heavily. “Let’s start again: to what do I owe the pleasure?” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Boz staring at him, intrigued. He did his best to ignore her, staring instead at the apparition in front of him.

The girl’s smile returned, possibly with a hint of relief.

“I have a present for you,” she said, pointing at his space chest.

Feeling slightly self-conscious, Ravi stepped over to the chest and opened the lid. Fake BozBall was back.

With three siblings. All four of them were lying on top of his clothes, black, and round, and arranged as if on parade. He was absolutely certain the original drone was the one on the right, but he didn’t know why he thought that. They all looked identical. He took a slow, deep breath, gathering his thoughts.

“So, this is what it’s been doing since it broke out of my quarters,” he asked. “Making more of itself?”

“Among other things.” The hackware in his head made it look like she’d gotten up off the deck and walked over beside him. She bent over the open chest and peered inside. “This is how you’re going to turn on the transponders.”

By some prearranged command, three of the fake BozBalls shifted slightly as their shells slid back to reveal a thumb-sized depression.

“Press here,” the girl instructed, “and the trojans will let you log on. Once you’re online, you need to tell them how to get to Main Navigation, what the control panel looks like, and what to do when they get there. After that, you can leave the rest to them.”

“Trojans?”

“Like the Trojan horse. It comes from ancient, ancient Earth. Troy, the city of the Trojans, had been besieged for ten years by Greek invaders—without success. One day, the Trojans woke up to discover the Greeks had sailed away, leaving behind an enormous wooden horse as a sacrifice for their safe journey home. The Trojans, convinced they had won, claimed the horse as booty and dragged it into the city. Unfortunately for them, it was a trick. The horse was full of Greek soldiers. That night, the Greek army sailed back, while the soldiers in the horse sneaked out of its belly and opened the city gates from the inside. The Greek army poured in through the open gates, slaughtered the population, and burned the city to the ground.”

“Gnarly,” Ravi said. “So, we’re the Trojans and you’re the Greeks? Archimedes is Troy?” He picked up one of the trojans, a lump of disquiet forming in his throat. “Is this a trick as well? We open up our airlocks to these things and you blow us to quarks?”

The girl burst out laughing.

“It’s just a name.” The hackware was definitely getting better at navigating his chipset. It had put a distinct twinkle in her eye. “Do you think we’d call it a Trojan horse if it was actually, you know, a Trojan horse?”

Ravi had no answer for that. He stood there in silence, his mind spinning in little circles.

“What’s she saying?” Boz asked.

“Shut up,” Ravi replied. But there was no heat in his voice.

“Let’s assume I believe you, that you mean us no harm,” he said to the girl. “All the trojans are here. There’s no way I can get them aboard the rest of the fleet.”

“Of course there is. I already told you that, remember?”

Ravi gave her the barest of nods. She’d told him just seconds before the dragon had burned them alive—but she hadn’t told him how.

The dragon was back in his mind now, and he shuddered, remembering the windy inferno of the dragon’s breath; the screaming pain of blackened, blistering skin; the terrible knowledge that he was about to die in the most horrific way possible. It only lasted a moment, but it had felt so real. It was the girl’s dream, he knew, beautiful and horrific.

“What’s she saying?” Boz asked again.

“She’s about to tell us how we can get two of these LOKIs—which she calls ‘trojans,’ by the way—across a hundred thousand klicks of hard vacuum and into our sister ships.”

With a wry smile, the girl took the hint.

“Your fleet is still transshipping goods?” she asked.

“Yes. I know for a fact the Bohr is short of food, and Chandrasekhar’s freeball team is coming over for a playoff game.”

“What’s a playoff game?”

“Another time. Bottom line: the fleet is still transshipping goods.”

“Bonzer,” the girl said, which Ravi took as Newton slang for good. “Once you’ve told them what they need to know, take two of the trojans and pack them into the cargo, one for Bohr, one for Chandrasekhar.” The girl flashed him a confident, beaming smile. “The trojans will do the rest. Then all you have to do is disable the torp.”

“She wants to know if we can disable the torpedo,” Ravi told Boz.

“Sure,” Boz said, speaking at where she thought the girl might be and failing miserably. “I’m in charge of the coding and I’ve figured out how to put in a kill switch.” A smug smile spread across her face. “That sucker is going nowhere.”

“Which is great,” Ravi said, turning back to the girl. “But how do we know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? All three ships will be defenseless. What if you don’t do the same?” The thought sat on his tongue a moment or two before leaping out. “What if you’re the Greeks?”

“We’re not the Greeks.”

He wanted to believe her, to believe the memories she’d left in his head. Cake, and peace meetings, and not wanting to kill anyone.

But then again, she’d made him retrieve a potentially dangerous foreign object from the outside of a lifeboat. Boz had a point. The memories, solid as they seemed, might not be real.

“Yeah, but what if you are the Greeks?” He stared levelly at the girl. “I’m not that long from getting out of school. And school here isn’t like it is on Newton. They don’t teach us the names of the kids who died on that lifeboat of yours. They don’t teach us about you at all. What they do teach us is that we stand on the shoulders of a hundred thousand people who lived and died on these ships just to get us where we are today, that we owe it to them to finish the Mission. If we do what you’re asking, everything those people worked for—seven generations of hard work, and sacrifice, and danger—could be blown to pieces in a couple of seconds.”

“We’re not the Greeks,” the girl repeated firmly. Taking in the stubborn tilt of Ravi’s chin, she smoothed her expression into something more accommodating. “Look,” she continued. “Newton is dead set on destroying you. You’re right about that. It’s been planning this attack for years and it will succeed. The only way it won’t is if you trust me. All I’m asking you to do is give up certain death for a chance at survival.”

She flashed him a gentle smile.

“Besides, if I wanted us to kill you, why would I have tried to make contact at all? All I’ve done is make it harder for us. Does that make sense to you?”

“Space is big. Ships are small. Maybe this way you can’t miss.”

“Ai ai ai!” The girl didn’t bother to hide her frustration. “Is there anything that will convince you?”

“What’s she saying?” Boz asked yet again. Ravi told her.

“Light her up,” Boz suggested.

“Beg pardon?” the girl asked, which Ravi had to pass on.

“Light her up,” Boz repeated. “Send out a signal the fleet can’t miss. It doesn’t have to be very long, but long enough for the fleet to know where you are. Then you’ll be as vulnerable as we are right now but less than we will be if we do what you ask.”

“And then you could kill us,” the girl said, “without giving us anything in return.”

“What’s she saying?”

“She’s thinking,” Ravi said, pointedly.

Hackware or not, the girl’s long, tremulous sigh seemed very real indeed. She chewed worriedly on her lip, her hands thrust deep in her pockets. Ravi held his breath.

“Okay. But I need time to set it up. I’ll transmit something loud and proud in the S-band, no more than a few seconds. I’m sure you have a bunch of sensor dishes pointed in our general direction. One of them is bound to pick it up.”

It was like standing untethered at the edge of an airlock. If he stepped out, there was no coming back—ever. His heart rattled in his chest. Time stood still.

“Then you’ve got yourself a deal.” The words seemed to come from a long way away.

The girl looked like she was going to say something, but she disappeared instead, ousted from his chipset by a high-priority piece of code. A familiar and unwelcome face painted itself across his mind’s eye.

“This is Ship Security,” Commander-Inspector Vasconcelos announced, his voice booming inside Ravi’s head. “Official business. Open your door, please. Now.”

“You couldn’t have used the buzzer?” Ravi asked. He’d been aiming for wry humor, but he was too stressed to hit the mark. It came out like a querulous complaint.

Vasconcelos ignored him. He stepped across the threshold, practically brushing Ravi aside as he did so. Nor was the inspector alone: he was followed through the door by the looming bulk of a security drone and another ShipSec officer. Ravi’s mouth ran dry. He’d just agreed to betray the fleet, and now ShipSec was at his door? His hands started to tremble. He balled them into fists, trying, with scant success, to get them to stop. The sheer press of people and machinery in the cramped confines of his quarters forced him back against a bulkhead.

Vasconcelos’s gaze lit upon Boz.

“A whole nest of MacLeods, I see. Care to confess any crimes today, Roberta?”

If Boz was as terrified as Ravi felt, she was doing a much better job of hiding it. In order to make room for the sudden influx of security, she backed into Ravi’s space chest and used it as a chair. In order to do so, she calmly closed the lid, hiding the four trojans from prying eyes.

“No confessions today,” she replied breezily. “But I’m more than happy to hear yours, Inspector.” The smile she flashed at him was obvious in its insincerity.

Vasconcelos grunted something incomprehensible. He turned his attention back to Ravi.

“How many of your classmates are BonVoys?” he asked abruptly.

“How the hungary should I know?” Relief he wasn’t wanted for mutiny made his words blunter than they should have been. Vasconcelos’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Because they’re your classmates,” he said, his voice heavy with condescension. “I understand most of them have more sense than to associate with someone of your, ah, background, Midshipman, but even you must have some friends, surely?” His eyes glazed over, a sure sign he was accessing information. “What about Vladimir Ansimov? Has he ever expressed BonVoy sympathies?”

Ravi’s immediate response was a bark of derision.

“Ansimov? Not a chance. He thinks BonVoys are insane.”

Vasconcelos absorbed the information without apparent surprise.

“The kid’s never expressed concern for the native species of Destination World?” he pressed. “Never said anything doubtful about the Mission?”

Ravi shook his head. Vasconcelos stared at his feet and hummed quietly to himself, as if filing away the answers. When he looked up again, his eyes were shrewdly focused.

“What about Sofia Ibori? She ever express regret about colonizing the planet?”

The question brought Ravi up short. Because, truth was, she had. A lot. And as for her boyfriend . . . Jaden was a BonVoy, no question. His mind flashed back to the demonstration in the hubs: the way Jaden’s snarling face had slipped out from under his mask. Even though Sofia wasn’t a BonVoy herself, she had no problem going out with one. The thought ate at him, bitter and acidic.

But there was no way Sofia was involved in blowing up chunks of Australia. She was an Ibori, for Archie’s sake. And Jaden, two-timing gullgroper that he was, was a Strauss-Cohen. They were kin to the Captain, and the Chief Navigator, and the man standing in front of him—officers to the sixth generation. No one from families like that would damage the Archimedes. For all intents and purposes, they were the Archimedes.

He shook his head once again. Vasconcelos favored him with a skeptical stare.

“You understand that three crew are dead because of these people? And another one on Chandrasekhar, and four on the Bohr? This is not the time to be protecting someone you think is a friend, son. Friends don’t go around blowing up our home. Friends don’t sabotage the Mission.”

“Yes, sir. But I don’t know anyone who would do that.” That, at least, was the truth.

“Well, if you change your mind, or remember anything, you message me. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” And with that, the Commander-Inspector turned on his heel and walked out the door, drone and officer in tow.

When they were alone in his quarters again, Boz turned to face him, her expression hovering between amusement and concern.

“You know, he didn’t believe a single word that came out of your mouth.”

“It’s the curse of the MacLeods, cuz. I could have told him the honest truth and he wouldn’t have believed that either, would he?”

“True,” Boz agreed. “Just keep an eye on your chipset, okay?” Her eyes flickered as she tossed him over a bunch of new codes—guardware, by the feel of it. “My latest and greatest. Get these set up before you go to bed. Sure as starlight, Vasconcelos is going to try and stick a tracer on you while you’re asleep.”

She stood up to leave, a mischievous smile quirking at her lips.

“And when you do sleep, do it well. We have a fleet to sabotage.”