“I don’t care about Siitsi rules. We need to get my brother back, and we need to protect Earth.”
Shiro shook his head. “It’s not that simple. This is a science vessel. We don’t have weapons to blow something like that out of the sky, even if we could see it, which we can’t, and even if we wanted to, which we don’t, because there are humans on board. We’ve got explosives, but not torpedoes or laser cannons or any of the kind of thing you’ve seen in movies.”
My shoulders slumped. Of course I didn’t want to blow up the Botanist ship. Not until our people were safely off it. But then . . . yeah, he was right. I envisioned firing huge cannons and watching it explode in a big, green flash, with plant parts drifting out into space. Now that I thought of it, even that probably wasn’t a good idea. Plants could grow from cuttings. With my luck, we’d blow it up, and a little piece of that vine would float down to some other world, grow up, and take over ever everything. But still. I had hoped.
“So what do we do? We just . . . leave them? Go back to Tau Ceti or wherever you were heading when you found me? Just let my brother die?” My face was hot, hands shaking. We couldn’t. No way I was leaving them. But what could I do? Once again, I was captive. This time it was humans who wanted to help and birdpeople who didn’t want to eat me, but I was as helpless as I’d been on the Botanist ship.
“Look, I don’t like it either,” Shiro said. “Every human is precious now. We don’t have anywhere near enough for a stable population on either of the planets we’ve colonized. Even twenty more healthy people would be huge.” He sighed. “But I don’t know any way to rescue them.”
“You have to. You’re captain of this ship, aren’t you?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Captain? Hardly. I’m just security around here. Siitsi ship, Siitsi captain. She’s already been informed, and we’ll stay close if we can find them. But that’s the best we can do.”
Not good enough. “Can’t we call for help? Aren’t there other ships around?”
He nodded. “There are other species all over this part of the galaxy, but none of them would likely assist, and we don’t want any of them to know Earth or the colonies are so unprotected. And there are other Siitsi ships, but nothing in communication distance.” He pointed out the window again. “See that star?”
Which one? “Sure. I see a lot of stars.”
“That one is three hundred light years away. But the space-going species have set up travel nodes all over this part of the galaxy. They’re like . . . tunnels. You go in one side of a mountain and come out the other. But instead of a mountain, it’s hundreds of light years of space. With travel nodes, we could reach that star in a couple of months.”
I nodded. Wormholes and star gates were a staple of my sci-fi childhood.
“But there are no nodes anywhere near Earth because nobody ever goes there. We set them up near enough to Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani for our own use, but those nodes are secret. Only Siitsi know where they are. No beacons on them. We can travel in no time where there are nodes, but without them, we can’t go faster than light speed.”
“Can the Botanists?”
He shrugged. “I doubt it. We can send unmanned drones out faster than light to set up the nodes for travel, like a relay, but I don’t know of any species that could get to Earth in less than about sixty years. This ship can’t get there at all. It’s not a long-haul vessel.”
“Then we get a long-haul vessel.”
That might help Earth. But it wouldn’t help my brother. Even if the Botanist plant didn’t eat him, he’d be almost seventy by the time they got to Earth. I’d be well over eighty. Not much good for a rescue.
“Can’t. We can travel through the nodes, but we can’t communicate over those distances. We’re on our own.”
My fingers found the chipped edge of the bottle in my pocket and traced the sharp edge. “So that’s it. We just abandon them.”
Shiro’s expression darkened from sadness to anger. “We don’t have any choice. I guess their ship can just fly there, and plants don’t care how long it takes. They probably took on enough food at the trade stop to last them the whole way. They’re probably able to photosynthesize, so they wouldn’t actually need much. Just starlight to keep them going, or maybe they can even go dormant like a tree in the winter. Who knows?” He rubbed a spot on his leg. “I don’t want to abandon anybody. Believe me. There was a time I thought I’d been abandoned by my friends. Almost died.”
“So you know what it’s like. What my brother must think.” My voice broke. He must think I died trying to escape. Because he knows I’d never give up. And yet, here I am.
“Don’t you think if there was a way we could—”
His words were cut off by a chirp from the panel at the door to the room.
“Shiro? Come back to the workshop.” The voice was Corey’s coming through the panel.
Shiro spoke into the air, not bothering to turn around. “What is it? Did you find something?”
The voice echoed off the huge glass window. “They’re changing course.”