Allison’s feet pounded down the hall. She’d run for over an hour, hard. Her legs had felt like rubber for the last two kilometers, but now they burned so badly she was pretty sure they were vulcanizing.
After a few more paces her earbud beeped. Twelve kilometers had come and gone. She finally succumbed to her aches and sank against the nearest wall. Even though Maggie’s interior was kept at a cool eighteen degrees C, sweat beaded on Allison’s forehead and shoulders. The wraparound glasses she wore to counteract the disorienting effects of hyperspace started to fog.
“Captain?” asked the ceiling.
Allison took a moment to bring her breathing under control before answering.
“Captain, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Maggie, just a little winded. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, per se. You have a message from Captain Tiberius. Would you like to hear it now?”
“I’d rather listen to my own firing squad.”
“I do not understand.”
“It’s sarcasm, Maggie. It means I don’t want to listen to his message right now.” Or ever.
“All right. I will place it in your queue for later review.”
“Thanks.” Allison pressed her bare shoulders against the cool wall. It felt good. The corridor was quiet and empty, aside from her labored breaths. Still, she felt as though she wasn’t the only one present.
“You’re still there, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” confirmed the ceiling.
“Did you want to ask me something else?”
“Yes. I have noticed that your disposition changes when you are confronted with Captain Tiberius. You exhibit uncharacteristic belligerence and volatility.”
“It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Yes. I am concerned about you.”
“Don’t be. I know you were programmed with an eye to mediate conflicts among the crew, but it won’t be needed. I can handle Tiberius, and myself.”
“What about Captain Tiberius puts you off? He has a reputation for competence and strong leadership.”
“Yes, his greatness is one of his more enduring traits.”
“Don’t you mean endearing traits?”
“No, enduring, because we have to endure it. He uses his accomplishments as an excuse to act like a spoiled frat boy. And, if I’m going to be honest, there’s more than a little resentment involved. We’ve been living this mission since before his parents were born. Everyone abandoned their old lives to be here. Our friends and family are either old or dead. When we finally do get home, it won’t really be home. The world we left is six decades in the past. All our music, holos, and favorite places to eat will be forgotten, bulldozed over, and recycled. We all agreed to make those sacrifices because it was the only way to get the job done.
“But now, Tiberius and his merry men just waltz out here in their sparkly new ship and get equal billing. The launch of Magel—” Allison remembered who she was talking to. “Your launch, Maggie, is barely within living memory for the people back home. All the fanfare goes to the Bucephalus. Not to mention it has the only hyperdrive, so we have to follow them around like a lost puppy. That’s not fair to any of us.”
“Forgive the interruption, Captain, but you are overlooking something. If we had not come this far, the buoy would have remained undiscovered, and the development of hyperspace travel would not have occurred. Without our expedition, Bucephalus could not exist.”
“Of course you’re right, Maggie. I guess I’m just feeling a bit like yesterday’s leftovers.”
“May I ask another question?”
Allison nodded.
“Does this resentment extend to Mr. Fletcher and Lieutenant Harris?”
“Well, no, but that’s different.”
“How?”
Allison opened her mouth to answer, but she knew anything that came out would only be hot air. “You have to ask the tough questions, huh?”
“I only wish to better understand human relationships.”
“You and me both.”
“One moment, Captain. Chief Billings would like to speak with you.”
An accent as thick as Texas toast crackled from the ceiling. “Ma’am, you there?”
“Yes, Steven, I can hear you.”
“Good. Could you c’mon down to engineering? We’ve got a … situation.”
“Define ‘situation.’”
“Promise not to be mad?”
“Nope.”
“It was worth a shot. Well, here’s the deal. We were fixin’ to open up that nanny android y’all brought up from Solonis to start studying it, when it started up and jumped off the table.”
“Did it get loose?”
“No, ma’am. It didn’t try to run; it just stood there scolding us for trying to sneak a peek in its britches.”
“How could you tell what it was saying?”
“’Cause it started talkin’ English, ma’am.”
Now that was interesting. In the background, Allison heard a slightly tinny voice lay into her chief engineer. “Steven, my scans indicate you are lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. You haven’t been eating your vegetables.”
“Vegetables are what food eats, you mechanical Mary Poppins!” Billings shot back. “Captain, you gotta get down here. It’s chaos.”
Allison’s head shook slowly, while a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll be right there, Steven.”
She stood, readjusted her socks, and headed toward engineering at a jog.
* * *
Felix’s eyes darted around the small double cabin restlessly while crewman Nash dug through an old metal-banded wood trunk that most certainly wasn’t standard AESA issue.
“Don’t you worry, sir. Should only be a minute. I know they’re in here. Just traded one to Ensign … well, it doesn’t matter who.”
Throughout history, every ship larger than a lifeboat has had a crewmember with a certain entrepreneurial spirit. They were the ones everyone went to for items that had fallen off, or were never on, the official inventory. Nash fulfilled this critical role on board Bucephalus. He was short and shaped like a bowling pin. His hairline had receded faster than a strong tide.
“Ah, here it is. Best love potion you could ask for.”
Held aloft in Nash’s hands was a small, clear plastic vial with a screw-on top. It looked like the sort of vial a hospital would use to hold blood samples, except this one didn’t appear to be holding anything.
Felix frowned. “But it’s empty, isn’t it?”
“Empty?” Nash’s eyes went wide with exasperation, although the effect was somewhat dulled by the bulky 3-D glasses. “Of course it’s not empty. I’m a businessman. Would I sell you an empty vial?”
“I suppose not.”
“Of course not. I could hardly make a living if I went around selling empty vials to hardworking folks like yourself. What would that do to my reputation?”
“I see your point. So, then, what is it full of?”
“Air.”
“Air, right. But why put it in a vial when the room is already full of it?”
“Not so fast, young man. It isn’t just any old tangy, recycled air. This here’s homeopathic air. It’s a one-trillion-power dilution of bull shark testosterone and mallard pheromones, so it’s all very scientific.”
“Mallard pheromones?”
“Sure. You ever see a mallard mate? Them boys don’t take no for an answer.”
“All right, but isn’t homeopathy based on dilutions of water?”
“Water? Naw, that’s weak sauce. First you dilute the ingredients in water, then you let the water evaporate and capture that air the water used to be in. See, that way the air remembers what the water remembered having in it, so it’s like, exponential. Makes all them ground-up Chinese tiger wangs look downright flaccid by comparison.”
Felix was beginning to regret coming. Earlier in the day, he’d noticed Bucephalus’s and Magellan’s shuttle crews were scheduled to run maneuvers to get their pilots comfortable working in hyper, and to familiarize them with the flight decks on the other ship. This meant that there was a real chance for an “accidental” encounter with Jacqueline. Felix was looking for any edge he could get, but he couldn’t muster much confidence in magic air.
“I’ll need to think about it.”
“What’s to think about?” Nash threw an arm around Felix’s shoulders and pulled him close. “I like you, Freddy.”
“Felix.”
“Him, too. Anyway, tell you what I’ll do. How’s about I offer you an ironclad, money-back guarantee. If it don’t work, just return the unused portion for a full refund. What do you have to lose?”
“Besides my pride?”
“Pride! What can you buy with pride? Nothing, because it’s worthless. Less than worthless, even. Men will pass up big opportunities just to hold on to their pride. Opportunities like this here love potion. C’mon, kid, whadaya say? Help an old spacer out. I’ve got to cover my overhead, you know.”
“Yeah?” Felix looked at the man’s rapidly vanishing hair. “Buy a hat.”
Felix marched down the hall, leaving the unlicensed homeopath in his cave. From behind, someone matched his gait, someone who cast a shadow befitting an upright bear.
“Hello, Tom.”
“Afternoon, Felix,” Harris said. “I couldn’t help but notice you walking out of Nash’s cabin. Anything you want to talk about?”
“It was nothing.”
“People don’t go to see a guy like Nash for ‘nothing.’”
“Fine, you got me.” Felix held out his wrists, offering them up for handcuffs. “I went to Nash to buy some counterfeit sunglasses. Slap the bracelets on me.”
“Be serious, Felix.”
Felix stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at his feet while they walked. “All right. I wanted to get something to spice me up a bit in case I ran into … someone.”
“Someone? Oh, please. Like I don’t know you’ve got a thing for Dorsett. I even have a pretty good idea what that thing is.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Yes, it is. What I don’t understand is why you’re looking for enhancement from the ship’s smuggler. What’s wrong with the real you?”
“Are you kidding? The real me drowns in rivers.”
“I wouldn’t call it a river. More like a stream.”
“That’s not helping. Anyway, I’ve been myself around women my whole life; it hasn’t been the most successful tactic.”
“Those were girls, not women. They couldn’t see what makes you great. Now, Dorsett’s a little tech geek, always got grease under her fingernails. You really think she won’t be switched on by the man who invented hyperspace travel?”
“Stole hyperspace travel.”
“You say potato. Listen, buddy, I have to run my platoon through some counter-boarding drills while these shuttle maneuvers are going on. Why don’t you come along and play hostage? You might run into Dorsett that way.”
“Thanks, Tom, but I’ve already played hostage for real.”
“That wasn’t so much hostage as hors d’oeuvre.”
“Hilarious. I should get back to the bridge and work up the numbers for the next transition.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll see you later.”