“Seems funny not to have Spooky along,” Ezekiel Denham said to the Sekoi Blend Bogrin as they boarded Steadfast Roger through a circular, sphincter-like opening. The ship had grown in the last year and had now attained the size of an old-style jetliner rather than merely that of a whale.
“Spooky is Spectre now, and has great responsibility on the planet,” Bogrin replied.
“I know that. Just making conversation.”
Bogrin laughed. “In humans, ‘making conversation’ is often a sign of nervousness, even insecurity.”
“Well, how do you feel about being appointed senior viceroy to the Gliese 370 system?”
“Pleased, but not nervous.”
“I’m shaking in my boots.”
“You are not wearing boots.”
“Tag the phrase in your translator. It means I’m terrified, though with an element of irony.”
Bogrin laughed again.
A commotion on the flight deck of the orbital shipyard where they rested caused both beings to turn and look. They watched as, near one of the doors, a human guard was flung back to roll and slide along the floor in his armor. Other men with weapons hurried to surround a Ryss warrior.
“Oh, crap,” Ezekiel muttered, hopping to the deck in the low gravity and jogging toward the confrontation. When he got there he saw a snarling Trissk held at gunpoint by a dozen men and women.
“What’s the problem here, Lieutenant?” he addressed the most senior of the squad.
“My lord, this alien here refuses to produce identification, and he assaulted one of my men.”
Trissk hissed and snarled in Ryss, his words translated by a device high up on his battle harness. “I have submitted to your insulting procedures for long enough. There are exactly seven Ryss adult males in this system. Five have prosthetic limbs, one is so aged he can barely stand, and the last is me. If you cannot identify me without your machines, you are even weaker of mind than you are of body.”
Taking advantage of the tendency of those born under Meme rule to defer to Blends, and thankful he was wearing his yellows, Ezekiel said, “Let him and his gear through. He’s with me.”
“Yes, my lord.” The guards backed up and moved off, chastened.
“Sorry about that,” Ezekiel said. “These local forces aren’t very flexible. They’re used to taking orders and following procedures, not thinking for themselves.”
“Your apology is noted, friend Ezekiel, but I will be happy to be back on Afrana and among my own kind, as will the rest of my people stuck here.”
“Hopefully we will find the Afrana system safe and your people can return if they wish,” Ezekiel said in passable Ryssan as the two walked across the flight deck toward Roger. “I hear you’ll be recruiting warriors there to fight aboard Desolator and his fellows.”
“That is my intention, but as you said, the situation on Afrana is unknown. I do not even know whether my name will be remembered.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Fleet sent FTL test drones to the Gliese 370 system and two more nearby. The other two returned with data that those systems had been overrun with Scourges, but at least they proved the drive works. The one aimed at Afrana...”
“It might have malfunctioned or been destroyed by a solar anomaly...or the Scourge. That’s what we are going to find out,” Trissk said as he stepped up to the opening in Roger. “I cannot believe I am boarding this tomb of flesh again.”
Ezekiel slapped Trissk on the back. “It’s better now. Bigger. Besides, we’ll all be sedated for most of the trip. The FTL field messes with people’s heads – human, Ryss or Sekoi.”
“And Meme?”
“We don’t know enough about how their brain-analogues work to predict for sure, and none of them wanted to come along for the ride. We’re bringing a blank mitosis as an experiment, but who knows what that will tell us?”
“What indeed?” Trissk squared his shoulders and entered the Meme-grown ship as if marching to his death.
Once inside, Ezekiel watched as Trissk placed his gear in a locker-hole and stood by one of four sarcophagi.
“What’s the extra one for?” the Ryss asked, pointing to the only coffin not open to receive an occupant.
“Just a backup.”
“Let’s get this over with, then,” said Trissk, and Ezekiel ran his hand along the top of the sarcophagus. It split open with a sucking sound and Trissk lay down in it, shivering with distaste.
“Nighty-night,” Ezekiel said, activating the container. It filled with biogel even as parts of its inner surface extruded to find all the orifices in the Ryss. The sarcophagus would maintain all life functions for the trip.
Ezekiel saw that Bogrin had already sealed himself in his much larger coffin, sized for the thousand-pound hippo-like Sekoi, so the human stripped off his yellows and climbed into his own. Soon, the representative world of VR space opened up in his mind and he joined his two friends on the steampunk-inspired bridge.
“We’ll be rendezvousing with the Erasmus shortly,” Ezekiel said, sitting down in a plush pedestaled seat to begin manipulating large brass levers. Placing his hands on a small, polished wooden ship’s wheel, he soon lifted Roger from the shipyard’s flight deck and set course for Mercury.
Taking the liberty of manipulating their time senses, he shortened the apparent trip duration from hours to a mere ten minutes, just long enough to relax before they approached the innermost planet of the Solar System. Keeping the small, barren planet between Roger and the sun, Ezekiel soon brought them down to hover above the surface where they could see a large spherical ship resting on long struts.
Despite Mercury’s proximity to Sol, its dark side remained quite cold. One full Mercury day lasted more than 58 Earth days, giving the outward surface plenty of time to cool. With no atmosphere, there was nothing to equalize the heat of the day from the cold of the night, no storms, no difficulties – except the chill.
“Why is it on the surface?” Trissk asked. “Why not rendezvous in space?”
“To cool the ship’s heat sinks and insulation as much as possible before we dive into the sun.”
Trissk hissed. “That phrase does not inspire confidence.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll be in wormhole space long before we burn up. I hope.”
The Ryss snarled and moved away, staring out a porthole.
Ezekiel piloted Roger down after establishing comms with the Erasmus. As they approached, he could see the FTL ship was much larger than it seemed at first impression – at least five hundred meters across. Most of that was insulation.
A large bay door stood open, of barely a size for Roger’s porpoise shape to fit through. Should the worst happen, with Erasmus damaged and trapped in the Gliese 370 system, Steadfast Roger and his crew could survive without support. After all, no one on Earth knew what had happened there during the last 36 years.
In extremis, Roger could even make the long trip back to Earth conventionally, with the three crewmen in coldsleep. Ezekiel fervently hoped that would not be necessary.
“How’s it look, Roger?” Ezekiel asked.
“Adequate, Ezekiel,” the sentient ship replied. Unlike most Meme-grown craft, Roger’s intellect approached that of humans, a result of Ezekiel’s constant genetic tinkering and mental interaction. “My skin is armored against space weaponry, so I believe it can protect me inside this cargo bay.”
“Your sense of irony is improving, Roger.”
“I was trying for sarcasm. Did I not succeed?”
“Getting there.”
Once the crew of Erasmus strapped Roger in place, Ezekiel informed the FTL ship’s bridge that all was secure and ready. A sensor feed gave those inside the Meme ship the ability to see what was going on.
To limit boredom during the several more hours until launch, Ezekiel set their time senses on fast-forward. Soon, the Erasmus lifted, retracting the long struts that had held it perched above the frigid surface.
Ezekiel was glad to view the sun in VR via sensor feed rather than directly. Manipulating controls, he dimmed the great disc until it shone no more brightly than the Moon as they approached. Long filaments of solar flares showed at the edge of the great circle, and he hoped the crew of Erasmus knew what they were doing, though he didn’t air his concerns in front of the others.
“It must be strange to give up control to another ship,” Bogrin said from where he stood to Ezekiel’s left, staring out the great forward window alongside the human and the Ryss.
“I’m less worried about that than what’s waiting for us at the other end. We might find ourselves running for our lives.”
Trissk coughed a growl. “Simply another reason to hate these scouting missions: all the running. One can’t even count coup upon an enemy that has no appreciation for the niceties of such things.”
A chime sounded, and then came the disembodied voice of the Erasmus’ comm tech. “Wormhole entry in ten minutes, Captain Denham. Please make certain your crew is properly sedated. Travel time will be approximately nine days, seventeen hours and twenty-seven minutes.”
“Thank you, Erasmus,” Ezekiel replied. “Roger, put us to sleep, and then yourself, as per the plan.”
“Of course, Ezekiel. Sweet dreams.”
Bogrin laughed uproariously, and that was the last thing Ezekiel remembered until he awoke in the Gliese 370 system.