21
THE GRACIEUX

Tycho had just reentered the Southwell when his mediapad began to trill. He looked down and saw it was his father. He thought about not answering—he’d be back in the Jovian fondaco in a couple of minutes, after all—but then reconsidered.

“I’m almost there, Dad.”

“Almost where? I hope you don’t mean here, because you’re wanted elsewhere.”

Tycho came to a stop, forcing a burly man in a freight hauler’s uniform to perform an awkward pirouette to avoid crashing into him.

“I can’t figure out what that means,” Tycho said as the freight hauler departed with a shaken fist.

Mavry chuckled. “It means you’re wanted at the consulate.”

“Ugh. All right. I’ll be there in a minute and we can all walk over.”

“Oh, we weren’t invited. Just you. Mr. Vass requested you specifically.”

“For what?”

“Seems like a logical first question for the minister, kid. Anyway, the rest of us are going to relax over bowls of hominy and gossip about the Titan scandal.”

“Terrific,” Tycho said with a sigh.

“We’ll see you at the Comet. Oh, and Tycho? Give the minister our fondest regards.”

Vass’s office was near the apex of the Well, guarded by a Gibraltar Artisans cyborg who turned his mirrored eyepiece in Tycho’s direction.

Tycho stopped when the soldier’s weapons system powered up. Sparks shot from the electro-prod clenched in his left fist, and lights blinked on the console in his chest armor.

“I have an appointment with the minister,” Tycho said, annoyed and a little frightened.

“You are armed,” the soldier replied. His voice sounded gravelly, as if from disuse.

“I’m a Jovian privateer. I’m not going to shoot one of our own ministers.”

“You are armed,” the man repeated, taking one step to the side so that he blocked Vass’s door.

“And you’re repeating yourself. I had business beyond the Westwell—I needed to be armed.”

The soldier just stared at him, and Tycho wondered what Gibraltar Artisans’ technologists had done to his brain in augmenting him for bodyguard duty. Did the man think, feel, and dream like he always had, with an additional layer of threat awareness through which he could view his surroundings? Or had the human part of him been removed? The thought made Tycho suppress a shudder.

The door to Vass’s office opened, and the minister tried to peek around the cyborg’s bulk.

“What’s this, then? Ah, Tycho. Come in, come in.”

The soldier blocked Vass’s way, his eyepiece fixed on Tycho.

“He is armed.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Vass said. “Tycho isn’t a security threat. You may stand down.”

The soldier’s expression didn’t change, but after a moment he stood aside, the sparks from the electro-prod vanishing.

Inside his office, Vass was standing behind his desk, looking up at the black bulk of Attis suspended overhead.

“Interesting thing, working beneath one’s own sword of Damocles,” he muttered. “Sit down, Tycho. Thank you for coming. It’s already a busy morning—we’re trying to figure out where those livres missing from Titan wound up.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Tycho said as he perched on one of the plastic chairs in front of Vass’s desk. “I apologize, Minister, but I need to be at our ship by 1000.”

“Ah yes. The hunt for the shipyard. Good work there, Tycho. We hadn’t considered the idea that Earth was seizing ships to use in construction.”

Tycho nodded. “Thank you, Minister. But we’re looking for the shipyard and the Nestor Leviathan.”

Vass waved that away. “All things considered, the loss of the ship is merely an embarrassment. The shipyard is far more of a concern.”

“You’ll forgive my family if we see it a little differently.”

“Of course,” Vass said, then hesitated.

“What is it, Minister? Do you have new information that might help us?”

“Not exactly. We have some promising leads—the Securitat has identified and interviewed a number of workers who returned from the shipyard, and is collating information in hopes of pinpointing its location. But that method brings no guarantee of success. Which is why I asked you to come in today. I wonder, Tycho, if you’ve made use of all the sources that might be available to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Minister.”

Was it his imagination, or did Vass look embarrassed?

“I believe you have a . . . friend who is highly placed in Earth’s community here.”

Tycho stared at Vass.

“The two of you haven’t exactly been discreet, Tycho.”

“Kate doesn’t know anything. Her father brought her out here to see the solar system. She’s not part of any of this. She’s innocent.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” Vass got to his feet and stood by the curved window of his office, staring down into the Well’s web of girders and wires. “But through her you might discover information about Earth’s operations that we desperately need.”

Tycho folded his arms. “You’re asking me to use my relationship with Kate to spy for you,” he said, his voice turning hard.

Vass turned from the window and locked eyes with Tycho. “Yes, that’s what I’m asking you to do.”

“I won’t,” Tycho said, staring back at him. “And you should be ashamed for asking me, sir.”

“Tycho, the only scenario that fits the facts we have is that the craft nearing completion in that shipyard is an Earth warship. And you know as well as I do where this leads—to an Earth shipyard and possibly a military base. Both on our side of the Kirkwood Gap.”

Vass’s gaze crept upward again, to the enormous rock above them.

“Distance, Tycho, is the only real defense we have against the economic and military might of Earth. If that’s taken away from us, our very survival is at stake. So no, I am not ashamed about what I’m asking you to do. I would ask you to do far more.”

“And you’d get the same answer. I said no and I meant no. Good day, Minister.”

Vass watched silently as Tycho rose from his chair and thumbed the control to retract the office door. As Tycho passed the cyborg soldier, he caught sight of his distorted face in the man’s mirrored eyepiece and turned away in disgust.

When Tycho climbed the ladderwell to the quarterdeck, his mother was waiting for him. She inclined her head for him to follow and led the way aft, not turning until they’d passed the equipment bays that opened on either side of the passageway.

“Go back belowdecks,” she said. “You and Carlo are on duty reading the hands in for this trip.”

“It’s Carlo’s and Yana’s turn, not mine.”

“You’re going to take your sister’s turn anyway. I don’t know what your problem is with your brother, but I’m tired of seeing you staring laser beams at him, so the two of you are going to work it out in the fifteen minutes or so before the crew ferries start arriving. Is that clear?”

Tycho hung his head.

“Use the aft ladderwell,” Diocletia said, already striding back toward the quarterdeck.

Tycho passed the larder, auxiliary magazine, and head, following the passageway where it curved around the closed ladderwell that led from belowdecks to the Comet’s dorsal gun turret. He reached the aft ladderwell and climbed down, emerging in the narrow passageway between the port and starboard holds.

Carlo was waiting at the port airlock with his mediapad. From his unhappy expression, Tycho could guess that their mother had taken him aside too.

“Guess it isn’t Yana’s turn after all,” Carlo said.

“Guess not,” Tycho grumbled, taking out his own mediapad and getting ready to record which crewers were present and fit for duty. He knew he couldn’t blame their mother. He and his siblings had arguments and resentments like in any other family, and there was no way Diocletia could know that this was something far larger—something that couldn’t be fixed by a captain’s order to get an uncomfortable conversation over with.

It was Carlo who broke the silence first.

“So are you going to tell me what I did?”

Tycho stopped tapping on his mediapad. The smart thing—the sane thing, really—was to say nothing, to stand in uncomfortable silence next to his brother until it was time for the Comet to fly.

But he was tired of saying nothing.

“You already know what you’ve done,” Tycho said. “Your problem is that I know it too.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carlo said, but his face had gone pale.

“There was no sign walker,” Tycho said, surprised at how calm he sounded.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

Tycho jabbed his finger at his brother’s face.

“It’s not just that you’re a liar—it’s that you’re a bad one. The solar system’s chattiest sign walker, standing in a tunnel telling everybody where Earth freighters are going to offload cargo? In an area of space prowled by privateers? You couldn’t do better than that?”

“Back off or Mom will have a bigger problem to handle. Since you know everything, Tyke, tell me what it is you think I’ve done.”

Tycho hesitated, kicking angrily at the deck beneath their feet. Then he leaped. He knew it was a terrible idea, but he had to see his brother’s face when he was confronted with what he’d done.

“The Securitat gave you that ship,” he said. “Told you where it would be and when. They gave it to you as a gift, and you took it to help your chances of being captain. I just hope you asked them what they’ll want in return. Did you ask them that, Carlo?”

Carlo stared at Tycho, his mouth hanging open.

“The Securitat?” he stammered. “What would they know about Earth freighters?”

“Don’t play dumb. It’s their job to find out stuff like that—and to use it.”

“You’re crazy,” Carlo managed. “Crazy and paranoid. That thing Yana said about you catching up with me has got in your head, and now you’re imagining things.”

“Maybe I should try imagining a sign walker,” Tycho said, trying to ignore the little voice in his head reminding him that he’d imagined a lost mediapad well enough when he was the one who’d talked to the Securitat.

Carlo swallowed, and his hands balled into fists. Then Tycho saw him forcing himself to relax.

“Listen to me,” Carlo said, his voice low and harsh. “I know what we need to do to survive as a family. I see how to get there, and I’m the only person to lead us. I’d rather do that with your help than without it, Tycho—but I’ll do it either way. I’m not going to let anything stop me—particularly not some crazy fantasy you’ve concocted.”

They stood in silence for a few moments. The bells clanged five times. It was 1030, just about time for the ferries full of Comets to start arriving.

“You know what, Carlo?” Tycho asked. “I believe you when you say you know what we need to do, and that you think you’re the right person to get us there. I just can’t believe that you, of all people, would sacrifice your honor to make that happen.”

Carlo said nothing for a moment, his face expressionless. It frustrated Tycho that he couldn’t figure out what Carlo was thinking—but then, he’d rarely been able to do more than guess at how his brother’s brain worked.

Then Carlo simply turned his back on him, his shoulders sagging.

“Obviously you’ll believe whatever you want to believe.”

When Tycho and Carlo returned to the quarterdeck, neither bothered pretending that they’d patched up their differences—their mother was harder to fool than that.

As Grigsby bellowed out orders belowdecks, Carlo flopped into his chair and strapped himself in, then immediately started testing the piloting linkages. Behind him, Tycho reviewed their course and marked communications channels for the other Jovian privateers taking part in the day’s sweep. Diocletia studied her sons, face impassive, then turned to look out through the viewports at the arc of docking ports and ships.

“Piloting systems check out,” Carlo said.

“Course to our long-range tanks is locked in,” Tycho said, wincing as Huff leaned forward from beside the ladderwell to tousle his hair too roughly.

“Got it,” Carlo said. “We’re ready to roll, Captain.”

“Tycho, raise traffic control and get us a departure slot,” Diocletia said.

“Aye-aye,” Tycho said. “Cybelean Traffic Control, this is the Shadow Comet in Berth 33A, operating under Jovian flag. Requesting immediate clearance for departure on vector twenty-six-niner.”

“Stand by, Comet,” a controller replied, her voice tinny and modulated.

A tense silence hung over the quarterdeck, and Tycho found himself mourning that the family ship had become an unhappy one. Was that his brother’s fault, or his? Or was it bigger than either of them—a consequence of everything at stake here at Cybele?

“Come on, let’s get out of here already,” Yana grumbled from her seat.

“Hold for departure, Comet—we’re prioritizing a launch from the surface.”

An annoyed Tycho could only sigh. “Acknowledged.”

“What the heck?” Yana asked. “Who’s cutting the line?”

“Someone willing to pay a premium for a dirtside berth,” Mavry said. “Unless we’re planning to shoot up the tower, we just have to wait.”

“Arrr, is there anything I hate more’n console jockeys an’ their shenanigans?” Huff growled.

“Since being named to the bridge crew of this starship on September 17, 2838, you have identified seventy-four individuals, collective entities, situations, or abstract concepts you purport to hate more than any other items that could be assigned to those categories,” Vesuvia announced.

“An’ how many times have I asked for yer opinion, yeh presumptuous blabbermouth stenographer?”

“All right, that’s enough,” Diocletia said. “It’s another minute or two in a docking cradle—I don’t think it will kill us.”

“Whoever’s cutting the line, they’re taking off,” Yana said. “And it looks like their vector will take them right past us.”

A moment later, a sleek winged craft about the same length as the Comet rose smoothly into space in front of them, the light of the distant sun flashing off her chrome engine baffles.

“Ain’t that an elegant little firecracker,” Huff muttered. “Catamount-class, wouldn’t yeh say, Mavry?”

“Looks like it. I believe that’s the Gracieux.”

“It is the Gracieux,” Tycho said. “And she’s hailing us.”

“Patch it through,” Diocletia said.

“Good morning, Captain Hashoone,” Captain Allamand said. “Apologies for burdening you—we had to extend our launch window to receive new orders. Good hunting, my friends.”

Diocletia maintained a stony silence as the Gracieux’s maneuvering engines ignited. She waggled her graceful wings as she accelerated away from them.

“Arrr, that ship would look a lot better with a few holes in her,” Huff said.

The search was fruitless, leaving the Hashoones silent during the trip back down to Cybele in the gig and during the long walk back from the landing field. At the center of the Well, a glum Diocletia headed right, due for a briefing at the consulate, while the rest of her family turned left toward the Jovian fondaco.

When Mavry summoned them for dinner, Tycho emerged from his room and nearly bumped into his sister, who was sweaty from another unarmed-combat sim. Yana was breathing hard, but she was smiling too.

“Hot date tonight?” Tycho asked quietly.

Yana aimed a sidelong glance at their family assembling in the kitchen, but Huff was loudly explaining some strategy for boarding actions. A cruiser could have plowed into the fondaco without attracting attention.

“Just got the message,” Yana said. “We’re meeting right after dinner. And you? You look a lot happier than you did on the Comet.”

“Same plan,” Tycho said. Kate had messaged him to say that the formal dinner she’d feared would never end was, in fact, breaking up.

“Good for you,” Yana said. “Now all you have to do is get through half an hour without killing Carlo.”

Tycho glared at his sister, but she just fluttered her eyelashes.

As they were passing the trays of vat-grown meat, Diocletia returned and sank heavily into her chair.

“So what news from the powers that be?” Mavry asked with a brave attempt at cheer.

“It’s pretty much all bad,” Diocletia said, picking at her food.

“Out with it, Dio,” Huff said. “Bad news don’t improve with age.”

“Let’s see. Wages for shipbuilding workers have dropped by two-thirds since yesterday. How’s that for starters?”

“Meaning that Earth ship’s finished and ready to fly?” Carlo asked.

“Sounds like it. Except there’s still no indication that the life-support systems have been installed. Presumably you’d need workers for that. So go figure.”

“That’s another sign Tyke was right and they stripped those systems from a seized ship,” Yana said.

“Which implies the Leviathan’s at the shipyard,” Tycho said. “Find one and you’ll find the other.”

“Or, as has been the case so far, you’ll find neither,” Diocletia said. “Point is, we’re out of time, or very close to it.”

“I hate to bring this up, but did you say ‘for starters’?” Mavry asked.

“I did,” Diocletia said. “The Widderiches and Dmitra chased down what they thought was a convoy of Earth ore boats.”

“Uh-oh,” Tycho said.

“Uh-oh is right. It was a Cybelean convoy. They seized two of them and demanded ransoms for crew and cargo.”

“It’s not like the Union couldn’t have seen that coming,” Carlo said. “Sleep with snakes and eventually you get bit.”

“We should all remember that,” Tycho said, glaring at his brother.

“Arrr, serves them Cybelean swine right,” Huff growled. “How much ransom did our guys get?”

“That’s not the important part, Dad,” Diocletia said.

Huff shrugged, his forearm cannon whining. “I’m interested is all.”

“What interests me is who compensated the ore boats’ owner. It was Captain Allamand—as a gesture of friendship and solidarity from the people of Earth.”

Leaving the Southwell, a troubled Tycho turned up the furred collar of his jacket against the inescapable chill of Cybele. He pushed his way through the Well’s usual evening crowds, then waited irritably as the constables at the entrance to the Northwell verified that he had a legitimate reason for being there.

His footsteps slowed as he caught sight of the gilded gates of Earth’s fondaco and the holographic blue and red flag of Imperial Earth flying above them.

“Tycho!” Kate called, and he smiled when he saw her waiting just inside the gates, face framed by a halo of synthetic fur.

The gates opened and she hurried past the Cybelean guards, turning her face up to kiss him.

“Oh, your hands are freezing,” she complained.

“Where do you want to go tonight?” he asked. “What deserted corner of this frozen rock shall we investigate?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Kate said, taking his hand and tugging him along. “Come on!”

She led him back to the center of the Well but then turned left, toward the long corridor that led to the landing field.

“Where are we going?” he asked, puzzled.

“You’ll see,” she said as they passed sign walkers pacing back and forth beneath their holographic ads and a morose gaggle of rickshaw drivers waiting for fares.

A gang of freight haulers walking down the seemingly endless tunnel looked at them curiously, surprised to see a beautiful girl in luxurious furs coming toward them with a young spacer in tow. Kate didn’t break stride, and the freight haulers stepped to either side of the corridor, peering after her and Tycho before re-forming their ranks.

“Kate, wait—there’s nothing down here. Just berths and customs offices and waiting areas for ferries.”

“Would you please trust me, Herschel Tycho Hashoone?” she asked, eyes merry.

They reached the customs station, and Kate showed the two Cybelean officials her mediapad. They scanned it, then looked questioningly at Tycho.

“My guest,” she said.

The officials looked at each other. Then one of them shrugged.

“Berth 12, ma’am.”

“Come on,” Kate said.

“Your father’s ship? Really?”

“Really.” She stuck out her lower lip theatrically. “Unless you don’t want to come.”

“I’m just worried you’ll get in trouble.”

“I can take care of myself, Tycho. I’m tired of ministers’ lectures. Like I told them, I’ll spend time with who I want and I’ll go where I want. Which right now means spending time with you, in my room aboard the Gracieux. Don’t get any crazy ideas, but this way we get to be alone—and without risking hypothermia.”

Through the curved glass wall of the docking terminal Tycho could see starships sitting on the landing field, connected to the terminal by umbilicals. The Comet’s gig was just a few hundred yards past Berth 12, blocked from his sight by a bulky galleon.

Tycho found himself holding his breath as they reached the end of the umbilical, and he followed Kate up the gangplank. Belowdecks, the Gracieux was spotless dark steel and carbon fiber, silent except for the faint throb of air circulators. The Comet’s corridors were stained and pocked by centuries’ worth of abuse, and smelled of sweat, oil, and cheroot smoke. The air in the Gracieux held only the faintest whiff of cleanser. Captain Allamand’s frigate was far less claustrophobic than the Shadow Comet, and she looked like she’d just emerged from the docking cradle where she’d been built.

“Come upstairs,” Kate said, then paused. “Oh. I should have known. You’ll want to look around, of course.”

“Maybe just for a moment,” Tycho said. He headed toward the bow, his heels ringing on the decking. Above, hammocks were stowed in perfect lines. Eight bells rang out, the tone bright and clear. The gunports were pristine, down to the neatly coiled cables and gleaming pistons of the cannon housings.

He eyed the cannons unhappily. Those weapons had been aimed at Jovian starships, and the projectiles they’d hurled had killed Jovian crewers. And it seemed likely they would do so again.

He imagined looking up from Port Town and seeing the sleek shape of the Gracieux overhead, part of an occupation force. Not so long ago, he would have dismissed the idea as a paranoid fantasy. But now it seemed horribly possible. Earth could turn out dozens of frigates like this each month, if it had to—not to mention warships that would dwarf the Gracieux in both size and destructive capabilities.

“Are you all right?” Kate asked when he returned from his quick inspection.

“She’s very . . . impressive,” Tycho said, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned. “A beautiful ship.”

“She should be—the crew does enough work on her. I just wish it wasn’t so cramped in here. Come on.”

He climbed up the ladderwell after her and emerged on the spacious quarterdeck, gaping at the bridge crew’s wide, comfortable chairs. He ran his hand over the tawny tops of the consoles. They were wood, set in gleaming black metal.

“It can’t be that different from your family’s ship,” Kate said, noticing his dumbfounded look.

“Well, the layout of the quarterdeck is more or less the same.”

“And my room is down here, toward whatever it is you call the back of the ship.”

Tycho grinned. “Your cabin, Miss Allamand, is located aft, near the stern.”

He followed her down the passageway, passing a compact, spotless galley and the door to the head. Kate’s cabin was small, but as comfortable and well constructed as the rest of the Gracieux, with a desk running from bulkhead to bulkhead, opposite a berth. Between the two, cabinets were built into the starboard beam.

Tycho took off his jacket and sat in the chair, while Kate tossed her furs onto the berth. He peered at the ceiling, then smiled.

“What is it?” she asked, trying to see what he was looking at.

“It’s silly. The ceiling of my cabin is covered with people’s initials.”

“It is? Why?”

“Family tradition. Everyone who occupies a berth leaves his or her initials on the ceiling. They go back centuries—there are dozens of them.”

Kate considered that. “On my father’s ship, I think someone would show up with a can of paint before you finished writing.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Anyway, this is where I spent most of the journey here from Earth, doing homework or practicing. It was crazy—our warrant officer had to disable the security on my console so I could play the viola. Something about the music simulator not working properly with the security settings.”

Kate settled herself on Tycho’s lap, then reached past him to the computer console set into her desk. Tycho jumped a little as a hologram shimmered to life around them. A man and a woman in formal clothes sat to their right, holding violins and bows. Tycho turned and saw a man with a larger stringed instrument sitting to his left. He heard the sound of tapping, and the three players around them nodded to each other. The violinists tucked their instruments under their chins, and all three musicians brought their bows up. They drew the bows across their instruments’ strings, then immediately stopped, faces turning to Kate and Tycho.

“When I was little I wouldn’t play because I thought it was more fun to make them stop and wait for me,” Kate said with a smile.

As he moved to kiss her, the first violinist looked at him disapprovingly over Kate’s shoulder.

“Um, could we turn them off?” he asked.

Kate cocked her head at him, puzzled, then laughed.

“You know they’re not real, right? Just checking.”

“I know it’s crazy, but they’re making me self-conscious.”

Kate laughed again, delighted, then gave him an apologetic kiss and got to her feet.

“I need a few minutes to freshen up,” she said. “And I was thinking of making some tea. Do you want some?”

“That would be great,” he said, eager to chase some of the Cybelean cold out of his bones.

“I’ll be back. You and my musicians can make friends while I’m gone.”

And with a parting smile she was gone, the door shutting behind her. The musicians had lowered their hands and were waiting. Whenever Tycho shifted in the chair, they turned to see if he was ready to play yet. He knew the responses were programmed, a simulation of life, but the illusion was eerily convincing.

He swiveled idly in Kate’s chair, the sumptuous leather beneath him creaking faintly as he turned his back on the musicians. The computer console was a state-of-the-art model. Tycho’s knee bumped the desk and the touch screen lit up, open to a data stack labeled “Homework.” Behind it, other stacks were grayed out.

Tycho looked from the screen to the door, then back. Thoughts chased themselves in his head. The Comet pursuing the Gracieux, bearing away from the Jovian convoy and into disaster. The blazing engines of the Nestor Leviathan shrinking as her captors bore her off. Vass staring up at the bulk of Attis, warning about an Earth shipyard and military base on Jupiter’s doorstep.

He got up from the chair, walked through a perturbed-looking violinist, and opened the door, leaning out into the passageway.

“Kate?”

There was no answer. He shut the door, politely stepping around the holographic musicians, and sat down again.

He imagined the Leviathan being reduced to a metal skeleton by a swarm of spacesuited workers. In his vision another ship sat nearby—a military vessel, with workers shuttling parts from one to the other. He thought about the dry docks of Earth, suspended in space above an impossibly blue world, their questing metal arms cradling warship after warship, all nearing completion.

Tycho extended a finger toward the monitor. He closed the data stack holding Kate’s homework. The stack on the top left of the screen said Flight Operations.

He hesitated, then reached for it.

It’ll be locked. Please please please let it be locked.

It opened.

The screen now displayed rows of substacks within Flight Operations. He found Flight Logs in the third row.

Tycho tapped Flight Logs, and there were Captain Allamand’s files, organized by month. He opened this month’s file and saw a long list of navigational entries—an exact record of everywhere the Gracieux had traveled, when, and for how long.

“Tycho?” Kate called, making him jump. “Do you want milk?”

“Yes please,” he said, reaching forward to close the flight log, to navigate back to her homework stack.

“It’s coming up. I’ll need a minute—I can never find where our cook keeps things.”

Tycho reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mediapad. He tapped the connect icon, telling it to look for nearby computers it could exchange information with. He hoped it wouldn’t find any, while knowing that it would.

His mediapad beeped, confirming it was connected. Tycho leaned forward and tapped the last two months’ flight logs, selected the Copy command, set his mediapad as the destination, then confirmed the command.

Copying records: two minutes remaining, the screen read.

Tycho closed the flight logs, then backed out of Flight Logs and then Flight Operations. He tapped on Homework, shut off the touch screen, and slipped his mediapad back in his pocket.

The cellist seemed to stare reproachfully at him.

The door opened. Kate handed him a cup of tea. It was hot and he drew his hand hastily away, sloshing tea onto his pants and the leather cushion on the seat.

“Oh!” Tycho said. “Sorry!”

“Did you burn yourself?”

“No, I’m fine. But the chair . . . I’m really sorry.”

“Tycho, it’s a chair—don’t worry about it,” Kate said with a smile. “I’ll just get a towel.”

She returned and sipped her tea while he dabbed grimly at the spilled tea, unable to meet her eyes.

His mediapad beeped and he almost spilled the tea again. The file transfer was complete.

“What was that?” Kate asked.

“Incoming message or something. Probably just junk.”

“Good,” Kate said, settling back on his lap and leaning forward. Her lips tasted sweet from the sugar in the tea.

His mediapad beeped again—and kept beeping, filling the cabin with long trills of sound. The holographic musicians looked over questioningly.

“Oh, why don’t you smash that stupid machine?”

“I can’t—that’s an immediate recall order,” Tycho said dismally. “From my captain. I have to go.”

“No,” Kate said, burying her head in his shoulder. “Oh, Tycho. Please no.”

“I’m really sorry,” he said, gently moving her off his lap and getting to his feet, reaching for his jacket. “It’s . . . it’s my duty.”