NEARSPACE
Chapter Nine
Maja stayed in her cabin when we made the wormhole jump from MI 2 Eridani to the uninhabited GI 892 system, sulking, I think, because she and Hirin had fought about his being on the bridge for the skip. She thought it was too dangerous, and he'd laughed and told her he felt well enough to pilot the ship himself. Aside from that, by the time another three days had passed we'd all settled into a comfortable routine. Mid-afternoon of that day we arrived at the Split.
Viss and Rei spent some time running every conceivable check on the ship's systems; stabilizers, hull integrity, skip drive, plasma drive, field generators, steering thrusters and half a dozen more. Meanwhile, Yuskeya ran reams of data calculations on everything that was known about the Split and fed all the analyses into the nav computer.
Hirin was on the bridge with them. He'd earned a place there as the only one aboard who'd piloted the Split before, even if it had been over thirty years ago. Skip drives and Ford-Roman field generators apparently hadn't changed much in that time, because he was discussing technical fine points with Rei and Viss and seemed completely at ease. From my chair at the command station, I admired him covertly. The changes in his health were still all positive, and he looked about as close to dying as anyone else aboard.
Maja was in her cabin, feigning disinterest, but I expected she and Dr. Ndasa would appear on the bridge by the time the skip drive kicked in.
I tried not to fidget, and I knew Baden was feeling the same way by the sympathetic look he shot me. The two of us really had nothing to do while we waited, and the suspense was killing us. I wasn't surprised when Dr. Ndasa appeared in the archway that led to the bridge.
“May I come up there with the rest of you?” he asked sheepishly, twisting the end of his long braid around one finger. “It's slightly—unnerving, waiting back there and not knowing what's happening.”
“Completely understandable.” I turned in my seat to smile a welcome. “I was planning to call you before we went in to ask if you'd like to come to the bridge. We're still running checks, but you can have a seat at one of the empty stations and make yourself comfortable.”
As I said, I'd been through the Split once before. However, since I was busy at the time trying to subdue an alien—a Lobor pirate who was attempting to strangle me—and listening to Hirin swear because he couldn't leave the controls to help me with the alien in question, I can't tell you what it looks like inside. All I know is what I've heard, that it's not like a normal wormhole. Apparently that's all Hirin noticed about it at the time, since he was dividing his attention between piloting the ship and watching his wife fight off an alien pirate. I was looking forward to this time, when I hoped I could let others do all the work and just watch the show.
Rei sat back in her chair and fetched a deep breath. “I think we're ready,” she said. She turned and grinned at me. “This is going to be interesting.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not too interesting, I hope. Just get us safely out the other side and that will be plenty interesting for me, thanks.”
“No problem, Captain,” she said, and snapped off a completely irreverent salute.
“Viss?” I asked.
He nodded. “She's as ready as she's going to be—the ship, I mean. She's in good shape as far as I can tell. I'm going to monitor everything from the engineering console here.” He grinned. “I don't want to be stuck down on the other deck and miss any of the fun.”
“Yuskeya?”
“All ready. All the data we have has been compiled and downloaded into the nav computers and the skip drive compensators.”
Hirin snorted. “The time I piloted the Split,” he said in true cranky-old-man mode, “we arrived in this sector at top speed and fired up the skip field generators on the fly. We had no wormhole data to speak of, mostly rumours, and I had to do everything myself as the rest of the crew was engaged with—another emergency. Rei's a perfekta pilot and the ship is in good shape. Let's get going, already!”
“Not much I can say after that.” I smiled. “I hope you're still as lucky as you were back then, old man. Go ahead, Rei. Take us in.”
Rei and Viss busied themselves at their stations and the ship hummed to life. The buzzing whir of the skip drive matter generator soon drowned out the usual comforting throb of the main drive. Once it got going it faded into white noise, but for the first few minutes after it started up it sounded like a hive full of angry giant bees had invaded the ship. You definitely knew that something out-of-the-ordinary was going to happen. It was at this point that passengers usually arrived on the bridge.
Right on cue, Maja appeared and, when Hirin crooked a finger at her, took a skimchair from an empty console and wordlessly slid it over beside him.
We began to move toward the wormhole, the black spot where no stars shone growing even darker as we approached. To outward appearance it looked like any other wormhole.
The difference was obvious as soon as we entered the mouth, however. The tunnel that stretched and curved ahead of us swirled with the usual spangle of colours down one side, but the opposite side was a barely discernible gauzy grey, opaque yet seemingly insubstantial. My head spun with a vertigo that was completely unlike the sometimes-dizzying beauty of other wormholes. This was more like standing on the edge of a steep, crumbling precipice.
“Holding steady on one-hundred-eighty degree skip course,” Rei said, and her voice was the tiniest bit shaky. “Advancing Krasnikov matter generator to full power.”
It was like going over the crest of a snowy hill on a sled, the slightest hesitation and then a quick drop as the ground fell away. We skidded along the wormhole like a skipping rock, one that ricocheted off the sides of a watery half-circle in a smooth defiance of gravity.
“Drives at one hundred percent,” Viss reported. “No problems.”
The colours were beautiful, but I couldn't keep my eyes away from that half-circle of grey that demarcated near-certain death. It looked almost soft, inviting. I wrenched my eyes away from it. My suicidal curiosity was kicking in again, but I had more lives to consider here than just my own.
We hurtled along the wormhole at nearly full speed now, the colours blurring almost painfully. I heard Dr. Ndasa gasp but didn't turn to him.
“Rei? How are you doing?” Her hands skittered over the touchscreen like frenzied spiders, making the numberless tiny adjustments that would keep us away from the deadly grey zone.
“Okej.” It sounded like her teeth were clenched. “The ship wants to make the full circle skips. Hard to hold to one-eighty.”
“Should we reduce speed?”
She shook her head. “No, I think it would only make it worse. I don't know how the hole gravity would affect us.”
A tremor shook the Tane Ikai, only a small one, but anyone who knew the ship felt it. Viss punched in adjustments. I glanced over and saw that Maja was holding Hirin's hand, her face ghostly in the bright bridge lights. My own fingers dug painfully into the armrests of my chair, and I deliberately disengaged them. We seemed to be swinging closer to the dangerous edges of the coloured walls with every skip, but it might have been my imagination and I didn't want to put any more pressure on Rei.
“Time?” Rei asked. I looked over and saw that her skin, beneath her pridattii, had gone very pale.
“Probably halfway through,” Baden said. The muscles were working in the side of his jaw. Inaction at a crucial time was a difficult thing for a man like Baden. He was a lot like Hirin in that respect, I thought with a pang.
“Luta,” Hirin gasped suddenly, and I turned to look at him. His face was ashen, the same grey as the half-wall of the wormhole, and he clutched his chest with one hand and Maja's hand with the other. Maja stared at him, her mouth open. Heart attacks happen occasionally during skips. The words appeared with horrible clarity in my mind.
“Hirin!” I dove out of my chair toward him. Dr. Ndasa and Yuskeya moved only seconds behind me.
“Luta?” That was Rei, her voice tight.
“Never mind us!” I yelled. “Keep the ship on course.”
We eased Hirin out of his chair and onto the bridge's cool metal decking, and Dr. Ndasa loosened Hirin's shirt. Maja hadn't said anything, but she still gripped her father's hand. Yuskeya leapt up and staggered against the inexorable forces that pulled at her, heading for the First Aid station.
“His pulse is jagged,” Dr. Ndasa said. The metallic scent of his worry belied the calmness of his voice.
“Feel like . . . can't breathe,” Hirin managed to gasp. “Too tight . . .”
“Dad . . .” Maja croaked.
“It's all right, Hirin.” I took his other hand. It was ice cold. “We're going to help.” I looked at Dr. Ndasa hopefully, but his dark alien eyes were unreadable.
Yuskeya hurtled back onto the bridge and dropped to her knees beside us. I hardly knew what she was doing as she and the doctor worked over Hirin. A datamed. A scanner. A pulse injector for meds. Other implements I couldn't name.
Maja met my eyes for a second, hers dark with fear and something else I didn't want to name. I couldn't let go of Hirin's hand, although the weakness of his grip was frightening. I must have been crazy to think I could handle this. Then I looked back down at Hirin, and in his eyes was a look of finality, and love, and regret. He had been getting better! It isn't fair!
“Luta!” Something was wrong. Rei was shouting.
Then I felt it—the ship was shaking as if we were entering an atmosphere far too fast and at the wrong incline.
“What's wrong?”
“The swing force is too much. I can't hold us to one-eighty!”
“You've got to!”
“Twenty seconds, Rei,” Baden shouted. “Just twenty seconds more!”
“I can't do it! We'll be off the safe side in two more skips at this rate!”
“Viss? Can you do anything?”
He didn't answer me right away. “Viss!”
His hands never stopped moving over the engineering console, but he shook his head. “I'm trying. Nothing's working.”
Hirin whispered something. Yuskeya bent over him. “What?”
“The main drive,” he rasped, a little louder. “Shut it down.”
“We can't shut down the main drive,” Viss said calmly. “The drag would disrupt the skip. I don't know what it would do to the ship.”
“Rei?”
“I don't know.” Her voice was as panicked as I'd ever heard it. “We'd probably break apart.”
“No.” Hirin's voice was stronger, but not much. “The plasma drive's started . . . a resonance flux with the skip drive. That's what's wrong. You have to . . . shut it down. Now.” He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “Trust me.”
I released Hirin's hand and stood up, swaying against the warring energies that clawed at the ship. “Viss, do what Hirin says.”
“But Captain—”
“Shut it down, dammit. Now!”
He didn't argue again, and his hand didn't hesitate as he punched the command to shut down the drive. The shaking stilled immediately and the ship shot forward even faster than it had been travelling.
“Hey!” Rei's hands still flew over the board, but I could tell from that one word that she was back in control—both of the ship and of her fear. The arc of the skips lessened perceptibly, and ten seconds later, we shot out of the terminal point of the wormhole into the starry, empty space of the Delta Pavonis System.
“Help me get him to First Aid,” Yuskeya said, wrapping Hirin's arms across his chest so we could carry him.
I was shaking so badly I knew I couldn't support his weight, and I let Baden push me gently aside so he could help. Maja held fast to Hirin's hand, and she hadn't looked at me again. Before I followed them, I laid a hand on Rei's shoulder. She was trembling, too.
“Good work.”
She shook her head. “I almost lost it.”
“Not your fault. You got us through. We're here in one piece.”
“What about Hirin?”
“I don't know. He's still alive, and we're out of the wormhole.”
She shuddered. “If anything—”
“I know. But he wanted to come. Yuskeya and Dr. Ndasa will look after him. He wanted to come.”
“Oh, Luta,” she said, and tears welled up in her golden eyes and flowed over the beautiful dark swirls on her cheeks.
“I know, Rei,” I said, and my own tears came then, too. “I know.”
A week later Hirin was still alive, but barely. He was extremely weak and short of breath, always feeling shaky and tired. Dr. Ndasa ordered complete bed rest, but it was unnecessary—Hirin couldn't have walked the length of himself. Maja nursed him almost ceaselessly, while Yuskeya and Dr. Ndasa took turns caring for his immediate medical needs and trying to figure out what had happened to him. It had been a heart attack of sorts, the result of some strange surge the virus had taken when we entered the Split. But there was no real explanation. Even Dr. Ndasa was, on the whole, mystified.
I kept waiting for Maja's anger at me to explode, but this time it didn't. She wasn't saying much, her eyes burned when she looked at me sometimes, but we weren't fighting. It was eerie. Finally, I mentioned it to Hirin when I took some lunch into his room.
“What's up with Maja?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, struggling to sit up.
“I mean she hasn't tried to bite my head off for taking you through the Split.” I sat on the side of the bed and handed him the bowl. He took it shakily.
“This time,” he told me with a characteristic grin, even though his voice was quavery, “I confess. I interfered.”
The effort of talking exhausted him, though, and he motioned for me to take the bowl again. I filled a spoon with spicy, saffron-coloured broth and held it to his lips.
“You told her not to get mad at me?”
He slurped and nodded.
“Even you haven't been able to manage that little miracle before,” I observed, spooning up some more. “How'd you talk her around this time?”
Hirin swallowed carefully before he answered. “I told her that if I found out you two were fighting,” he said, and paused to draw a deep breath, “it would probably kill me.”
I stared at him, mildly shocked. I'd never known Hirin to resort to any kind of emotional blackmail before.
He shrugged. “I figured that if I only have a short time left, I might as well use it to get you two to be civil,” he said. He took a few breaths, gathering strength. “You can go back to sparring after I've gone.”
I pressed my lips tight together, willing the tears away. “Well, I'm not saying I'm buying into the whole 'I'm a goner' thing, but thank you. At this point I don't care why she's doing it. I'm just too tired to worry about anything else.”
Hirin took my hand, although his grip was very weak. “Luta, I do wish you two could learn to get along. You'll both be alone now once—”
“I know, I know,” I interrupted him. “I don't have to hear it again.” I leaned over to kiss his wrinkled forehead. “As long as you feel up to it, keep saying nice things about me. Maja might actually listen to you one of these times.”
“I'll do my best,” he whispered, and closed his eyes to nap again.
I went in search of the doctor to ask for what seemed like the hundredth time if he'd discovered anything new. He and Yuskeya were drinking triple caff in the galley.
He made the strange Vilisian waggle that was the equivalent of shaking his head. “I still don't understand it. The tests I ran just before our arrival at the Split showed that the virus had gone dormant, probably since Hirin left Earth. I was going to start running some theoretical data extrapolations to see if I could come up with an explanation.”
“You really think that just being in space was causing the virus to back down?” I asked, my heart heavy. If that were the case I would have kept Hirin on the Tane Ikai years ago instead of letting him go into the nursing facility on Earth. But at that time he'd seemed to be getting steadily worse.
He shrugged. “I was hoping to verify that theory. It could have been conditions in space, or it could have been conditions he left behind on Earth. Two sides of the same coin, but knowing the causal relationship could provide information that might be applied to other diseases, or to others suffering from this virus or ones like it. Since it's a synthetic virus—”
“A synthetic virus?” I asked. I'd never heard of the doctors mention that before. “What does that mean?”
“The virus that infected Hirin is a bio-engineered entity, not a naturally occurring organism,” he explained patiently. “Actually, it looks like a recombinant version of two originally separate viruses, with a synthetic element. This is the first chance I've actually had to look at it, treating Hirin since his . . . relapse,” he said. “I thought you would have known that.”
Yuskeya said carefully, “I thought bio-engineering viruses was illegal.”
“Well, it is,” Dr. Ndasa said. “Unless it's done as part of a project that doesn't have the creation of viruses as its ultimate goal, and everything is destroyed once you're finished with it. It's a fairly common practice, really, and sometimes—well, sometimes the protocols fail, and a virus does get out and flourish 'in the wild.'”
“So, doesn't that mean it should be easier to treat?” I asked. “I mean, knowing what it's made of?”
Dr. Ndasa smiled slightly. “If only it worked that way,” he said. “In truth, that's why bio-engineering viruses is illegal, except under highly controlled conditions for research purposes. Often synthetic ones are more resistant and difficult to treat.”
“Was there much damage to his heart?” I'd been putting off asking that question.
Yuskeya frowned. “That's the weird part. There doesn't seem to be much damage to the heart muscle itself, and yet he's not getting any better. It's like the virus is running rampant now, and everything in his body is affected.”
“Even though we're back to the same conditions as when the virus was dormant,” I added. “It doesn't make sense.”
“Ah, but we don't know if they're exactly the same conditions or not,” said Dr. Ndasa, “because we don't know what those conditions were. We're in a different part of the universe, don't forget, and although it all may look the same from the viewscreen of a starship, every system could have subtle differences we can't even detect. Particles, rays, who knows what? Maybe things we wouldn't see even if we ran extensive scans and readings in the system.”
It sounded grim. “Can you think of anything that might help him?” I asked, hating the pleading sound in my voice. “We're almost at Rhea, and we've got a cargo dropdown for there. I could go planetside, find whatever you need . . .”
Dr. Ndasa nodded slowly, the folds of skin around his eyes puckering as he thought. “There might be a few things,” he said, “if you could find them. I'll make a list tonight.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. “Thank you.”
He reached over and patted my hand. “I can't make any promises,” he said seriously. “There might not be any improvement at all.”
“I know,” I said, blinking. “But it's worth a try.”
Maja insisted on going planetside with me on Rhea, to try and fill Dr. Ndasa's wish list. I was surprised.
“I thought you'd want to stay here with your father.”
Strangely, she flushed. “I do, but I want to feel like I'm doing something, too,” she said. “Do you mind if I come?”
There was no trace of the old belligerence in her voice. She was just asking a favour.
“No, I don't mind at all,” I said. “I'd be glad of the company.”
Once we'd berthed at the spacedock outside Undola Mines and the steves had started to unload the cargo, we took the slideway into the city proper. We could have rented a flitter but Maja suggested that since the day was fine we might as well get all the fresh air we could. After being cooped up in the ship for so long, I had to agree with her. As we walked, I felt some of the stresses of the last few days dissipating in the cool air.
The city was an old one, the first one to spring up after humanity had discovered the wormhole to Delta Pavonis and explored the two planetary jewels of Renata and Rhea. Rhea's crust was riddled with rich deposits of uranium, and most of the settlements had grown up around mining colonies. Undola Mines, though, had transformed itself over the decades from a simple mining station to a large, cosmopolitan city, and I wouldn't have known where to start looking for Dr. Ndasa's supplies if it hadn't been for the handy data kiosks peppered around the streets. I touched my datapad to the screen and the whole of the city lay in my hand, mapped and ready for us to explore.
Maja wasn't quite as impressed with it as I was, but she was busy taking in the sights. There was a considerable Lobor population on both Rhea and Renata, and Maja was watching the wolf-like aliens with covert interest. There were Lobors on Earth, but they were uncommon.
“Stop staring,” I whispered.
She turned to me impatiently, then saw my grin and chuckled. “I guess I was, a little. I didn't realize what I was missing, staying on Earth this long.”
I consulted the datapad and we set out down a wide street lined with shops. Electric cars hummed past in both directions, and the walkways were crowded.
“That's one thing your father and I always enjoyed,” I said, “just being in a place completely unlike anything you'd ever seen before.”
It was the wrong thing to say. At the mention of Hirin, the air seemed to pick up a chill that permeated both of us.
“This way.” We turned down a side street that was less busy, but still humming with activity. We found the shop we sought easily. The Lobor behind the counter was brisk and professional, consulting our list without questions or comments. I caught Maja staring at the pale umber skin on his hands and the line of dense russet fur that showed when the hem of his sleeve pulled back from his wrist, and nudged her foot. He had all but two of Dr. Ndasa's items in stock.
Back on the street, I consulted the datapad again. We might find what we needed at another of the smaller shops listed. It was on the other side of the city and too far to walk, but slideway routes arched over the busy streets, and we climbed a set of steps up to the nearest one. They moved much slower than the traffic, but twice as fast as we could have walked.
Maja seemed relaxed again, so it seemed an opportune time to have another talk with her. “You seem to be adjusting well to space travel after all. Is it not as bad as you'd remembered?”
“It's fine.” She stared over the rail at the traffic below us.
I tried again. “You do seem a little distracted though, and worried. Anything you want to talk about?”
This time she turned. “I'm worried about Dad, of course,” she snapped.
My mercurial daughter. “I know that,” I said gently. “But he thought you had something on your mind earlier, before we went through the Split and he got worse. I wondered if Taso—”
She shook her head, blonde hair wafting around her face in the breeze. “No, I told you, I'm fine with that. After the first little while it was—actually sort of a relief. We were together, but not in any way that really mattered.” She looked as if she might say something more, but stayed silent.
“Okej.” I turned away lightly. “I was just asking.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence. Our stop was in a much quieter part of the city, away from the main routes. The streets here seemed a little darker, more shadowy, although the sky was still clear above.
The buildings were dingier and not as well marked here, the streets narrow and crooked. We walked slowly, peering through dust-coated windows and trying to decipher signs in Vilisian and Lobor as well as Esper. There were almost no other pedestrians, but I didn't turn to look when I heard footsteps behind us. I was studying the datapad, trying to locate the store, when a black-clad pair of arms went around me roughly from behind. I jerked in surprise, dropped the datapad, and heard Maja scream.
Reflexively I kicked out backwards, but missed my attacker's legs and stumbled forward. He was ready, however, and didn't loosen his grip. I tried the opposite end, throwing my head back in an attempt to smash it into his face, but he ducked that, too. I heard a nasty chuckle.
I twisted my head to try to see Maja. She was in the same state I was, held tight in the grip of a man in a dark biosuit. I caught a glimpse of his face but I didn't recognize him. A bruise was darkening beneath his left eye, so Maja must have had better luck than I'd had in landing a blow. I felt a flash of surprise at that, but I didn't have time to think about it then. I had a brief impression of two or three other dark-suited figures. Something small and cold pressed against the back of my neck, I heard the snick of a pulse injector, and my vision dimmed. A wave of nausea rolled over me.
I heard Maja gasp, “What are you doing? Not now!” just before I lost consciousness, and wondered foggily what she meant.
Whatever they'd injected fortunately wasn't meant to kill me or incapacitate me for very long—or perhaps my mysterious internal defence systems had come to the fore again. I fought back to consciousness with the realization that I was being trundled along on a cargo sled, arms bound in front of me. For a wild moment I thought the cargo sled meant we were back at the spacedock, but I didn't recognize the rhythmic thumping noise that echoed around us, and when I gingerly opened one eye a crack I saw what looked like the inside of a warehouse or factory. The air was thick with an oily smell I couldn't place.
I didn't want to move around enough to attract attention, but I could hear the treads of another sled behind us, presumably carrying Maja. The footfalls of our captors were soft, and they didn't speak. It sounded like all five or six of them must still be with us.
At last we stopped and someone punched a code into a keypad on the wall. The cargo sled moved through a doorway into a darkened room. The second sled nudged up beside mine, and something hit the floor nearby with a clunk. I caught the glint of Maja's fair hair before they shut the door, closing us into the dark. The oily smell was less noticeable in here, and the thumping quieter.
I tried to sit up and realized that something bound my ankles as well. A wave of dizziness swept over me when I raised my head and I almost fell sideways again, but I bowed my head and fought it off. The only other sound in the room was Maja's even breathing. She didn't seem to have moved yet.
I felt around my ankles for what held them, and was disappointed to feel the smooth, hard lines of ultraplas cuffs, not good old-fashioned ropes and a knot. My wrists were doubtless held by the same kind of cuffs, since there was no give to the binding at all. I took a deep breath and slid off the edge of the cargo sled to stand, swaying a little until I gained my balance. It felt good to have accomplished even that much.
Shuffling as quietly as I could over to the other cargo sled, I leaned down close to Maja and whispered her name. She didn't stir. She lay on her side, facing away from me, curled up almost into a fetal ball. Blindly, I ran my hands over her wrists and ankles—they were bound just as mine were. I shook her, gently at first, then more urgently, but she still didn't show any sign of returning to consciousness. Panic threatened to overtake me, but I told myself that she was okay; her breathing sounded steady and strong. They must have injected her after they put me out, or given her a stronger dose. Or my “entity” had allowed me to wake early.
Belatedly I thought of the beacon implant in my ID biochip—if I could activate it, the Tane Ikai would know that I was in trouble, and the crew could follow the signal to me. I hadn't even thought about the implant until the day Baden had asked me about it, but it was worth a try. If it still worked—he hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was outdated. And if the factory we were in wasn't wire-blocked. And if anyone back on the ship was on the bridge and listening.
With the ultraplas cuffs firmly locking my wrists together, though, I couldn't reach my forearm to activate it. One good press was all it took, but it was impossible with the cuffs on. I swore under my breath. I looked around for something to extend my reach, realized it was too dark to see anything, and knew that I had to get Maja awake to help me.
Hard as I shook her, though, she didn't wake. I whispered into her ear as loudly as I dared, but with no response. Finally I shuffled around to the other side of the cargo sled and leaned over her, trying to maneuver one of her limp fingers into position on my implant. If I pressed against her finger hard enough, I thought, it might activate the beacon. I was just thinking that I might have done it when the door to the room opened, spilling blue-tinged light around us. It was too late to feign being still unconscious, so I stood up as if I had merely been trying to rouse Maja and faced my captors with more confidence than I felt.
“Kidnapping is a Primary Statute crime, you know,” I said conversationally to the figure outlined against the light in the doorway.
The figure said nothing, just reached toward the wall. Overhead lights sprang to life and I blinked in the sudden glare. When my eyes had adjusted, I saw three of them in the room with us. All were dressed in black biosuits, two men and a woman. I didn't recognize any of them. One of them shut the door.
The shortest of the three, a blocky man with thin grey hair sparsely peppered across the top of his head and a jagged white scar across his upper lip, pulled a chair out from a computer console and pushed it in my direction. “Have a seat, Captain Paixon,” he said. “You and your daughter can be on your way in a few minutes.”
Like I believed that. I hesitated, hating to give in to his orders, but there wasn't much I could do to resist. With my hands and feet bound by the ultraplas cuffs, any one of them could have me on the floor in a second without breaking a sweat.
“Why hasn't my daughter woken up yet?” I asked as I sat.
“She hasn't been out as long,” the same man said, unclipping a techrig from his belt. It looked familiar to me, but at first I didn't realize why. “She should be coming around any time now.” As if she had heard him, Maja twitched her head and groaned.
“Do I get to know what this is all about?” I asked, to hide my relief.
“Come on, Captain, I think you already know.” He was busy with the touchpad on his techrig, and I glanced over at the other two. They stood just inside the door, their faces impassive. One was the man with the blossoming bruise under his eye, the skin around it taut and swollen now. Maja must have landed a hard one on him. The short man looked up from his screen at me and grinned, not a friendly grin. “And if you don't, your daughter can explain it all to you when she wakes up.”
He nodded to one of the guards and she moved behind me, clamping her hands on my shoulders. The short man pressed the end of the techrig to my upper arm, and when I glanced down at it, I realized where I'd seen one before. The intruder on the Tane Ikai had carried the same kind of modified datapad. I'd only had a glimpse of it before Viss tucked it away for further study, but I was sure this one was the same. The prick of a needle stung suddenly where the techrig pressed against my arm. I twitched away, but the woman's hands held me like a vise and the needle didn't dislodge.
“Almost done,” the man said, and pulled the techrig away from my arm. He moved it over my ID implant, about to link into it. I remembered Baden's datapad beeping when it recognized the beacon implant. If he linked to me, he'd know I'd set the beacon. I had to try and delay that, to give someone on the ship more time to get to us.
The guard behind me had relaxed when the other man had taken the techrig away, and I twisted to the side, swinging my wrists in the ultraplas cuffs up toward the techrig. They connected with a solid thunk and the rig flew out of his hands and skittered across the floor, into the alcove where he'd gotten my chair. Unfortunately, it didn't smash.
He cuffed me across the face, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, and I heard Maja gasp.
“Mother!” she said, struggling to sit up. “Just—just let them do this. Then they'll let us go.”
I turned to look at her. Her face was set, but her eyes were frightened. Your daughter can explain it all to you when she wakes up, the short man had said.
“How would you know that?” I asked her.
The short man had retrieved his techrig and was fussing over it, while the woman's hands gripped my shoulders again, even harder this time. Maja pressed her lips together, then said in a rush, “They only want the samples, and then you can go. I—it wasn't supposed to be this way.” She glared at the short man, who was paying no attention to her. “They were supposed to wait . . .”
“Wait for what?” I was amazed at how calm my voice sounded. She had managed to wind up sedated and bound herself, but Maja had obviously known something about this in advance. My mind was having trouble processing that information.
I was going to have to wait for an explanation, though. The short man was advancing toward me, techrig in hand, his face hard. The woman clutched my shoulders in a death-grip. I wouldn't be able to take them by surprise again.
In the next breath the room went dark. The short man swore. “See what's going on!” he barked at the man still standing guard. I heard the click of the latch, but no light spilled in when he opened the door. The muffled thumping noise had also stopped, I realized, and the entire building was eerily silent.
I wished it meant that someone had come to rescue us, but there was no way the crew could have gotten to us that fast, even if I had managed to trigger the beacon. I realized I was holding my breath, and let it out in a long, silent sigh.
“Get out there and tell me what's happening,” the short man hissed, and as my eyes adjusted to the feeble amount of light coming from the huge room outside, I saw the guard move out.
I barely heard a soft thud outside the door, and then two beams of blinding light pierced the room, playing around quickly and coming to rest on our two remaining captors.
Baden's voice said casually, “Now, these lights are the targeting beams on a couple of pin-beam plasma rifles. Let the ladies go and you won't have to find out just how painful a pin-beam plasma burn can actually be.”
I couldn't understand how it was possible, but my body went limp with relief.
The man and woman were obviously not as willing to die for their cause as the intruder aboard the Tane Ikai had been. They didn't move from where they stood, although the woman released my shoulders.
Someone else slipped into the room, careful to avoid walking through the targeting beams, and I felt Yuskeya's hand on my arm a second later. She touched the cuffs and said, “Viss, maybe we could have the lights back in this room. I'll need to see to key in the disengage code that one of our friends here is going to provide.”
“Sure thing,” Viss said, and the lights came on overhead. The targeting beams dimmed under the overheads, but were still visible, playing with ominous brightness on the chests of our captors. I noticed that Viss held a techrig very like the one the short man had used on me—it had to be the one he'd taken from the intruder's dead body. I grinned in spite of myself. He'd said it might be useful sometime, and he'd been right, as usual.
Yuskeya looked pointedly at the short man and he snarled the code to disengage the cuffs. “You all right, Captain?” she asked as I rubbed my wrists where the hard ultraplas had bound them.
“We're not hurt.” I glanced over at Maja as Yuskeya used the code on her cuffs as well. She wouldn't meet my eyes. I was far from all right, knowing my daughter was involved in this somehow, but I was willing to let it wait until we were alone.
I stood and took the techrig from the short man's unresisting hand.
“What shall we do with them?” Baden asked me.
“Well, it seems a shame to let these perfectly good cuffs go to waste.” I passed them to Yuskeya. “And at least one of them has a pulse injector that might have a few doses left in it. There were more than just these three, though.”
Viss nodded. “Already taken care of, Captain.”
“Do you think that fancy techrig could extract names and personal data from their biochips, Viss?” I asked.
He grinned. “I'm pretty certain it could, Captain.”
While Yuskeya trussed them up, and Viss got their data. “Sylvana Kirsch, Ben D'Epiro, and Anshum Chieng, Captain,” he said when he'd finished.
None of the names were familiar to me. I found the bag that they'd tossed into the room with us. My datapad was inside, as well as the things we'd bought from Dr. Ndasa's list. I tossed the second techrig inside and crossed to the short man, now sitting in the chair I'd occupied only a few moments before. Yuskeya had cuffed his hands and feet and held the pulse injector close to his neck.
“One second,” I told her. I stuck my face close to his. “Tell your bosses at PrimeCorp that next time, we won't be leaving live bodies for them to find. You just got lucky today, Mr. D'Epiro. Stay away from me and my family.”
He didn't say anything, and I nodded to Yuskeya and left the room. My stomach churned with an anger so intense I could almost taste bile in my throat. The rest of the factory lay in darkness, but when the others followed me a moment later Viss used the techrig to pull the lights back up. Nobody said anything else until we were outside again, and Viss and Baden quickly loaded their weapons into a flitter that waited near the door with an anxious-looking Rei in the pilot's seat.
I climbed inside. “I don't understand how you found us so fast. I wasn't even sure I'd activated the beacon, and you were there only a couple of minutes later.”
Baden turned from the front seat and grinned at me, a little sheepishly. “Remember when I updated your virus protocols, after PrimeCorp sent you that bug?”
I nodded. Rei started the flitter and we rose above the street level and up past the elevated slideways.
“Well, I thought if PrimeCorp was ready to start playing dirty, it might be a good idea to update that beacon implant, too, and I keyed the signal into all the crew datapads. We got a signal from it as soon as you went unconscious. By the time you tried to activate it, we were probably almost there.”
I took a deep breath. I wanted to hug him, but I had to be the Captain first. “But you didn't see any need to let me know about those little modifications?”
“You would have told me not to bother,” he said with a shrug.
I smiled. I was a long way from laughing just yet. “Your’re probably right. Well, thank you, Baden. It's nice to know that you've all got my back.” Maja was sitting beside me, but I still hadn't looked at her. There was one person in the flitter who most definitely hadn't had my back, and once we got back to the Tane Ikai I was going to find out why.
I had to let Yuskeya and Dr. Ndasa fuss over us for a few minutes, and I gave the doctor what we'd been able to find from his list.
“I'll come and check on Hirin in a little while,” I told him, “but I have a few things to take care of first.”
He nodded, and his eyefolds were puckered with what I had come to recognize as Vilisian worry. The coppery scent of his emotion suffused the First Aid station. “You should have a rest, Captain. You've had a traumatic experience today.”
I patted his arm. “I know, and I will. I'm going to talk to Maja now and see how she's doing.” He made as if to protest, and I added, “And then I'll have a lie down, okej?”
Maja had managed to slip away to her cabin, but she wasn't getting out of this that easily. I had to know what part she'd played in the day's events. I was confused, because although she'd obviously known something about what was happening, they had knocked her out and cuffed her, too. I stopped in the galley on the way through to her cabin and pulled myself a triple caff. As I held the steaming mug I realized that my hands were ice-cold and not as steady as usual. I pressed them tightly around the mug to keep them still.
She didn't answer when I buzzed her door, but when I reached out to press the button again it slid open. She sat on the side of the bed with her head in her hands, and she didn't look up. I crossed the room and sat down in the desk chair, setting the caff down on the desk beside me.
“I'm sorry,” she said in a muffled voice after a minute. “I am so, so sorry.”
I was still angry, and though I kept my voice calm, it sounded hard and cold even to my ears. “That's wonderful and I'm glad to hear it, Maja, but I'm still not exactly sure what it is you're sorry for. How were you involved in what happened today?”
She sat up and swallowed hard. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. “I wasn't. Not involved. But I knew right away what it must be about, although that wasn't how it was supposed to go.”
She stopped and took a deep breath.
“I'm listening.”
She didn't look at me. “A woman named Dores Amadoro contacted me after you left Earth,” she said. “She works for PrimeCorp, for Alin Sedmamin.”
“I'm familiar with her,” I said dryly.
“She told me that you were still refusing to cooperate with PrimeCorp even though they had a legal right to ask you for what they wanted—samples for their research.”
“And you believed her, of course.”
“Yes, I did. I . . . thought it sounded like something you would do.” She looked up at me defiantly. “You've always hated PrimeCorp, irrationally, I thought. And you don't always play by the rules, Mother. Even Dad admits that.”
“Neither does your father, but I'll grant you that.” I took a careful sip of caff. “What did Amadoro want you to do? Come with us and set me up somehow? Is that why you're really here?”
“No! I'd already booked passage on the Keinen to try and catch up with you. Amadoro knew that when she contacted me. She knew Dad was dying. She was very sympathetic.”
“I'm sure.” I bit my lip. I was trying to let her tell it her way, but my anger kept slipping out.
“All she asked me to do was plant a beacon on the ship after Dad had . . . passed. I wasn't planning to stay aboard after that. She said she just wanted to be able to keep track of you this time, so that they could pursue proper legal channels to get the samples. She said you never stayed in one place long enough for them to track you down and serve notices.”
“So you agreed.”
She met my eyes. “Yes. It didn't seem like such a big deal. And. . . I thought you were in the wrong.”
I wanted to tell her that I'd consider betraying one's own mother to be a very big deal indeed, but I didn't. “But then your father got better, not worse—”
“And I didn't know what to do,” she finished.
I looked at her, trying to imagine just how much she must dislike me. “When Amadoro told you that she just wanted to keep track of me, did you believe her?”
She looked away. Her hands twisted in her lap restlessly. “Yes. At least I told myself that I did. But then today, when they attacked us . . . I realized that I'd been fooling myself.”
“Did you ever plant the beacon?”
She shook her head. “No. She told me the cargo hold would be the best place, but I never did it.” She crossed to the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a shiny foldcase with her name on the front. From it, she extracted a fingernail-sized button and held it out to me. “You can get Baden or Viss to check it. It hasn't been activated.”
I let her drop it into my hand. “Seems like PrimeCorp wasn't planning to wait around for you to use this, anyway. Gee, could it be that they weren't playing straight with you?”
“Look, you don't have to tell me I was an idiot,” she said. “But I didn't plant the beacon and I didn't have anything to do with what happened today. I tried to stop them, after they put you out.”
“And that's why they took you, too.”
Neither of us said anything for a moment. Then Maja said, “I wonder how they found us today?”
I shrugged. “There's not much PrimeCorp can't find out about if they want to, not on Earth, anyway. Dores Amadoro could easily have looked up the planets I took cargo for, and had PrimeCorp ops watching the spacedocks for a chance to get at me. When they saw one, they took it.”
“Then why would they need the beacon?”
I stood up. “Because I only filed a flightplan to a certain point. Once I made the last cargo dropdown from Earth, there'd be no record of where I was going next.”
Maja licked her lips. “I guess I was wrong about that Amadoro woman. I am sorry, Mother.”
I'd let a lot of things slide with Maja over the years, even since she'd come aboard, just trying to keep peace in the family. I wasn't ready yet to forgive her for this one. “So am I, Maja.” I left the cabin, and she didn't try to stop me.
We didn't waste any time in leaving Rhea. PrimeCorp's actions lately were outside the scope of what I'd encountered from them before, so it was impossible to predict how they might react to anything. We had cargo to dropdown on Renata as well, but I intended to do it as quickly as possible and not let anyone off the ship. Then we'd make the skip to Mu Cassiopeia, and we'd find out if my mother was still on Kiando.
The night before we reached Renata, I dreamed again.
As usual, I'm running through the crowded corridor of the space station. The silvery walls curve with the compass of the station, never allowing a long line of sight ahead. I know my mother is there, in the crowd, but I can't even glimpse her this time. I push past humans, Lobors, Vilisians, but I never seem to get any closer.
At last I reach the docking ring, but she isn't outside it this time. I've missed her. I run up to the ring anyway, punch in an access code with numb fingers. The docking ring doors roll open but there's no ship beyond, no sign of Mother. This time it's the swirling rainbow colours of a wormhole outside the ship, and a wild surge of force threatens to push me out of the station. I hang on to the door, pull myself back inside and key the doors to close. Exhausted, I lean against a viewport I hadn't noticed before, and I'm shocked when a body floats by outside with no EVA suit. It rolls gently, free-floating as if in water, and I see the dead face.
Hirin.
I don't think I screamed aloud, but I jerked awake, my face wet with tears. I sat up in the bed, panting, heart racing, the burn of adrenaline tingling up my arms and legs. I couldn't bring myself to look up at the viewport overhead. My head throbbed painfully. A single thought pulsed in my mind, one I'd been trying the past few days to ignore.
I couldn't take Hirin through another wormhole. Not in his current condition. Not after what had happened to him in the Split.
Unless . . . unless I put a certain plan into action. I got out of bed and paced the tiny room. An idea had sprung into my head after what happened on Rhea, but it seemed so crazy I didn't know what to do with it. I'd kept it to myself, rolling it over repeatedly in my mind while I waited to see if Hirin improved with Dr. Ndasa's care. But he hadn't, and I couldn't wait much longer. I paced the inadequate length and breadth of the cabin, wishing I could go out in the corridor, but I didn't want to wake anyone or have to answer any questions. I finally went back to bed and forced myself to stare out the viewport at the star-flecked darkness beyond, but I didn't venture into sleep again that night.
In the morning after breakfast, I went to see Hirin. He was dozing when I entered his cabin. There wasn't much sense in keeping him in the First Aid station, with its utilitarian cot, so we'd hauled all the equipment we thought we might need in a hurry and set it up in the guest quarters. The tiny room was crammed. For once, Maja wasn't there with him. He must have sensed my presence, even though I tried to move quietly, because he opened his eyes as I crossed to the bed.
“Come to cheer me up?” he asked. “I'm all right, really, Luta. This shouldn't be a surprise to either one of us.”
“I know that.” I sat on the side of the bed and took his lined hand in mine. His skin felt cool and fragile again. “It doesn't help.”
He shook his head ruefully. “No, it doesn't, does it?”
“Where's Maja?”
“She went for a nap when I said I was going to sleep for a while.” Hirin sighed. “I'm supposed to call her on the ship's comm as soon as I'm awake.”
No time to waste, then. “Hirin, I have an idea.”
“Mm-hmm? Should I be worried?”
I smiled. “Probably. It's a little crazy, but you might think it's worth a try. I'll let you make the decision, though.”
“I never was one to refuse to consider a crazy idea, especially when it came from you.”
“Let Yuskeya give you a blood transfusion—from me. We have compatible types, so that's not a concern.”
He was frowning slightly. “No, it's not, but why?”
The words tumbled out. “Think about it, Hirin. I never age. I never get sick. I didn't get this virus when we were both exposed. The chemical fire on Eri that time, or the snakebite when we were mountain climbing in Brazil. Nothing affects me. Why? What if it's something in my blood?”
“But you've been tested,” he said, shaking his head. “No-one's ever found anything.”
“I know that, but what if the tech simply couldn't find it before? Baden ran a virus scan on me before we left Earth and he found something—something the datamed couldn't get a reading on. Maybe that's why PrimeCorp is bothering me again, because some new tech might find it and analyze it. Now I'm wondering, what if it's something that I could transfer—to you? We've never known the explanation, but what if it's not something natural, or even enhanced? Something completely—I don't know—autonomous. It might help. That's all I'm saying. It might help.” I ran out of breath and blinked at sudden tears.
He reached up to stroke my cheek, his gnarled hand gentle on my soft, unlined skin.
“And if you're wrong, I don't have much to lose, do I?”
I laughed. “You said it, old man, not me.” I took his hand in mine. “But it's all just conjecture, things I've tried to figure out on my own with not much to go on. Even if I'm partly right, and it is something blood-borne, it could be specific to me. It could even kill someone else, their body could reject it, or—”
“Shh. I know. I saw all that while you were talking, because I'm not quite senile yet.” Hirin rolled sideways with obvious effort and propped himself up on one elbow. “Luta, the last couple of weeks, before the Split—they've been better than the last few years put together. Being out here, with you, feeling better for the first time in a long time . . .” He shook his head. “I think I'd take any risk rather than go back to staying an invalid again.”
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. “So you want to try it?” I realized I'd been just as afraid that he'd say yes as that he'd say no.
“Maja won't like it.”
I felt my jaw tense, but I hadn't told Hirin about Maja's betrayal, and I wasn't going to put that on him now. “Maja,” I said, “will go freneza. But it isn't her decision to make.”
He nodded. “I'll tell her. How will you explain it to Yuskeya?”
“That, I don't know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Frankly, I'm so tired of trying to hide the truth that I'd just as soon tell her—tell all the crew—at least part of what's really going on. They're all good at keeping secrets. I think they'd understand.”
“What about Dr. Ndasa?”
I hesitated. “I'm not so sure. I mean, I like him, don't get me wrong, and it's nothing to do with his being Vilisian. I simply don't know him that well. I think we'd all have to keep up the charade for him at least. But some of the pressure would be gone.”
Hirin laid back on the bed again. “Think he'll go planetside at all when we're on Renata? When we're unloading cargo?”
“I think so. He mentioned a colleague on Renata he thought he'd look up if we were staying long enough. I wasn't sure if I'd even let anyone off the ship, but if I tell him he has time I think he'll go.”
“So we could explain everything to the crew and do the transfusion while he was off ship. That would make it easier.”
“That's what I was thinking. Hirin, are you sure you want to risk this?”
He reached up a shaky hand and drew my head down to his, placing his lips gently on my cheek. “No risk is too great,” he said in a low voice, “when the prize is worthy enough. Tell Rei to get this space crate to Renata as fast as she can. And you'd better go tell Maja I want to talk to her.”
Maja stormed into my cabin a short while later without even knocking. I was ready for her.
“How could you?” she demanded, before the door had even closed behind her. Her eyes were wild and she didn't come all the way over to where I sat at my desk.
It was strange, but I was still so angry with her myself that her emotion didn't touch me the way it usually did. I set my datapad carefully down on the desk. “Maja, I think it's his only chance.”
“And he'll do whatever you think, even if it kills him,” she said bitterly. “He always does.”
I shook my head. “That's not fair and you know it. Your father's always made his own decisions.”
“Fair? You want to talk about fair?” She stalked the rest of the way to my desk and leaned over it, glaring at me. “Is it fair that he still listens to you when I'm the only one who's stood by him all this time? The only one not roaming all over Nearspace while he sat in that place? I went every day—every day. Is it fair that I'm always the odd one out in this family? Is it fair that you look like that,” she spat, pointing at me, “and I look like this?”
She'd never actually come out and said it before, and my stomach lurched. But, good. It was finally out. I stood up. “So that's why it's all right to betray me, is it? Because life isn't fair? Grow up, Maja.”
For a second she looked like I'd slapped her. “I didn't plant the beacon!”
“Only because you didn't have a chance.”
“Stop trying to change the subject. I'm here about Dad.”
“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest and took a deep breath. “I think this is the best chance he has, now. We've been through this before, a hundred times. I can't help the way I am, Maja. I don't understand it, I certainly didn't ask for it, and I've told you all I know about it. Don't you think if I knew how to share it I would have done that long ago?”
“I don't know,” she said nastily. “You seem to think you know how to share it now.”
“Maja, I have a theory, that's all. I don't know if this will work for your father. It's something I've just figured out recently, because of things that have happened.”
“Right.”
“Look at the incident on Rhea. PrimeCorp seems to think there's something in me worth going to a lot of trouble to get.”
She ignored that. “So this plan of yours is something you just 'figured out.' How convenient.”
I threw up my hands. “Dio! Do you really think I'd want to outlive your father and you and Karro and the children? To stand by and watch you all grow old, die, and not do anything about it? Am I a monster?”
“What if it kills him? Has that occurred to you?”
“Of course it has. But as far as he's concerned, he's as good as dead already. He was ready to die when we left Earth. How much better is it for him to sit around suffering? Can't you go along with it because it's what he wants?”
Her blue eyes pierced mine. “Oh, I won't try to stop him. I don't seem to have any choice in the matter. I'll tell you one thing, though. If he dies because of this,” she said between clenched teeth, “I'll never speak to you again.”
“He's dying anyway, Maja.” My voice was harsher than I'd intended. She didn't say anything. I wanted to shake her, to ask her why he mattered so much more to her than I did. “And what if it makes him better? Will all be forgiven then?”
She didn't answer, just turned on her heel and walked out. I didn't try to stop her.
We touched down on Renata in the middle of a wintry morning. The first thing that met me was a static message from Dores Amadoro, which didn't improve my mood. I read it in my quarters while the crew finished docking procedures.
Received: from [205152.59.68] PrimeCorp Main Division
STATIC ELECTRONIC MESSAGE: 25.7
Encryption: securetext/novis/noaud
Receipt notification: enabled
From: “AdminAssistant Dores Amadoro”
<admin.amadoro.primecorp*web>
To: “Luta Paixon” <ID 59836254471>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2284 1:42:13 -0500
Attention Luta Paixon
Further to our last conversation, and under instruction from Chairman Alin Sedmamin, please be advised that I have instructed our legal department to begin proceedings for an exemption under the Nearspace Genetic Materials Privacy Act, in order to obtain samples of your blood and tissues. The same proceedings will be undertaken against your brother, Lanar Mahane, and your mother, Emmage Mahane.
Please advise the nearest PrimeCorp Division of your travel plans within Nearspace for the coming six months, so that we may serve the necessary documents as they become available. This will facilitate matters for all concerned.
Any information you may have concerning the whereabouts of your mother, the aforementioned Emmage Mahane, should be transmitted to any PrimeCorp Division to avoid later charges of obstruction or complicity.
Dores Amadoro, Administrative Assistant
for Chairman Alin Sedmamin
I glared at the screen. So Sedmamin, the bastardo, had decided to send his little flunky after me via the conventional legal route now, since his illegal plans hadn't worked? That didn't seem like him, but it could be true. Or it could be the influence of this new thorn in my side, the oh-so-chilly Dores Amadoro. I erased the letter from the datapad with a contemptuous flick. Like hell I was going to tell PrimeCorp where they could find me. Let them chase me all over Nearspace.
The nerve of them, asking for—no, demanding—information about my mother's whereabouts! If Sedmamin had been present, I probably would have punched in that puffy face of his, and slapped Dores Amadoro into the bargain. I stood up, sending my desk chair skimming across the room. It clattered against the bed. My quarters seemed suddenly too small, so I went out into the corridor, paced evenly down to the bridge entry, then turned and went back, as far as the galley, and turned again. The steady thud of my feet on the metal decking had a calming effect on my nerves, and the crew wouldn't ask questions. When I paced, they left me alone.
This Amadoro woman must feel very confident if she was dragging my brother Lanar into it. Lanar had the pull of the Nearspace Protectorate behind him, and the Protectorate had very clearly told PrimeCorp years ago to stop bothering him. Maybe Sedmamin hadn't warned her about that. Or maybe this sudden turnaround had something to do with the “changes” Sedmamin had hinted at in his conversation with me. I'd send Lanar a message as soon as I finished pacing, to see if he'd heard from anyone at PrimeCorp, and ask if we could meet up to discuss things. Between my unpredictable travels and his patrol duties it wouldn't be easy, but maybe we could manage it.
After traversing the length of the hall a few more times, I'd decided that was all I would do. I wasn't going to contact the PrimeCorp Division on Renata and tell them anything whatsoever. If this were another bluff, I'd call it, and if it were something else, I'd deal with it when the time came. I'd send Lanar's message, and then I had a meeting with my crew, and Hirin to worry about. Everything else would have to wait.
The capital city of South Colony, Serous, had a spaceport widely known for its hospitality. I got some curious looks when I told the crew we were having a meeting before any of them left the Tane Ikai for shopping, drinking, or any other planetside pleasures.
“This had better be important,” I heard Baden grumble as they filed into the galley.
I'd confided in Rei some of what I was going to say to them all, and she shot him a look that he must have read pretty well, because his eyebrows raised and he looked suddenly more alert. Dr. Ndasa had left for a meeting with his friend from one of the Universities, with my blessings to stay away until suppertime. I had already helped Hirin down to the galley and settled him in one of the two big armchairs that flanked one end of the room. Maja perched on the arm beside him, not meeting my eyes. The others took the chairs around the big table.
“We have about an hour before the first cargo is due to be unloaded,” I said without preamble, “and I have a few things to explain that are going to take a little while. So I'm just going to jump right in and you'll figure it out as we go along.”
They were a pretty solemn bunch right then, and I wondered what they thought I was going to dump on them. If the situation had been less serious, I would have laughed.
I started with a brief synopsis about my mother, how she'd worked for PrimeCorp when I was a child and that her focus had been in longevity research. I could tell they were wondering what that had to do with anything, so I dropped the first bombshell.
“I suspect, but have nothing but my own observations as evidence, that her work is responsible for a curious fact about me. I'm going to tell you my actual age. Most women don't hide it anymore, I know, but I have good reasons to do so. I'll be eighty-five on my next birthday.”
Baden snorted a laugh, then fell silent. Looks and mutters of disbelief made their way around the table and I kept quiet to let it sink in. Three pairs of eyes stared at me like they never had before, and I knew they were taking in every detail of my appearance in a very different context.
“Okej,” Viss drawled. “The last fifty years or so have been mighty good to you, Captain. And you think your mother's anti-aging research when you were a child had something to do with it.”
I nodded. “My brother Lanar is the same way. It would make sense.”
“How old is your brother, Captain?” Yuskeya asked sharply.
“He's eighty. But you wouldn't know it to look at him.”
“And that's why PrimeCorp is always dogging you? Because your mother stiffed them over half a century ago?” Baden asked incredulously. “Hola, do they have long memories.”
“Well, it's more than just that, Baden. Don't forget the disaster with Nicadico Corp and Longate. They have Vigor-Us, but PrimeCorp would love to be the company that comes out with a treatment like Longate—a version that doesn't kill everyone who uses it.”
“Yeah, that would be a definite improvement,” Viss said.
“PrimeCorp seems to think that some of my mother's research into that sort of treatment is still floating around in Nearspace. To be precise, in me.”
“Do you think they're right?” Yuskeya asked.
I shrugged. “Quite possibly. It's the only thing I can come up with that would explain why I seem to be virtually immune to disease, toxins, aging, everything negative that affects the body.”
“The thing my virus program couldn't quite identify?” Baden asked.
I nodded. “I think so.”
“So why are you telling us now?” Yuskeya asked. “I can understand your keeping it a secret for so long, but what's changed?”
“That would be me,” said Hirin, his voice still raspy and soft since the heart attack.
“Bombshell number two.” I crossed to Hirin's chair and settled on the other armrest. “Hirin and I have been married for sixty years, and Maja is our daughter.”
“Unfortunately, I don't share my wife's immunities, as is too painfully obvious,” Hirin added. Maja said nothing.
“I knew it!” Baden gave one bark of laughter. “I thought it was one of those May-December things, but I knew it. Hirin, I confess to you now that I did my best to seduce your wife when I first came on board the Tane Ikai, but she resisted with ego-smashing ease.”
Maja remained stony-faced, but Hirin smiled. “I can't blame anyone for trying to seduce her,” he said. “She's easily the best-looking octogenarian I've ever seen.”
Baden laughed again.
“I still don't—”
“I know, Yuskeya. Here's the part where it all comes together.” I got up again, walked over to the counter and drew off a double caff. “On the chance that whatever's in my system would help Hirin recover from the virus, even slightly, we want you to give him a transfusion, from me. We have to make the last skip to Kiando in a week and a half, through a brand-new wormhole, and it may not have been just the Split that made the virus and Hirin's heart go berserk.”
She frowned. “But a transfusion! When you don't know anything about what might or might not be in your blood? That seems so risky. What if—”
“Sorry to keep interrupting you, but we've been through all the 'what ifs,'” I said. “Hirin's willing to take the chance and so am I, but it's too difficult to keep it secret any longer, at least from all of you. If things happen as a result, we can't keep trying to hide the facts. I'm tired of it, and we need your help to do this.”
“What about Dr. Ndasa?” Viss asked.
I shook my head. “I'm not willing to share with anyone outside this room yet, and I might never be. I have to trust you all to help me keep the truth hidden from everyone else. It would just be easier if we were in this together.”
“Count on me,” Viss said easily. “The whole thing's so damned interesting that I'd be willing to keep my mouth shut just to know what's going to happen next.”
“Me, too,” said Baden. “If you don't tell anyone I came on to a little old lady. My reputation would be shot.”
Rei punched him in the shoulder. Not gently, either. He winced.
“I'll attempt the transfusion,” Yuskeya said. “But how are we going to keep it secret from Dr. Ndasa? That won't be easy.”
“We'll do it now, while he's off the ship.” I took Hirin's hand. His skin felt cool and wrinkled as a withered leaf. “If Hirin gets better, he'll put off any more of Dr. Ndasa's tests on the grounds that he's just happy to be recovered, and doesn't feel like any more medical stuff right now. If he doesn't—”
“He knows how sick I am,” Hirin finished for me. “It wouldn't be that surprising if I were to die. Just don't let him do an autopsy,” he said with a chuckle. It caught in his throat and he coughed, clutching my hand harder with each spasm. Just like back on Earth, I thought. Oh, this has to work.
“One more thing,” I said.
“Dio! There's more?” Baden widened his eyes in mock surprise.
“Yep. The researcher Dr. Ndasa is going to Kiando to meet? One of the reasons I wanted to take him there is that I'm hoping she might turn out to be my mother.”
Maja shook her head impatiently, but no-one else seemed to notice.
“Your mother? Wait a second, Luta, she'd have to be—”
“I know, I know. Don't bother doing the math. If she's alive today, she's almost one hundred and thirty. But—I suspect she doesn't look it.”
Viss nodded. “You think she experimented on herself, too?”
I shrugged. “I haven't seen her since I was fourteen, but I do remember her and what she was like, and I can tell you one thing: she'd never have used anything on us that she didn't use first on herself.”
“Well, the clock is ticking, folks,” Yuskeya said, getting up from the table. “I'll go get some things ready. Fifteen minutes?”
I caught Hirin's eye and he nodded unwaveringly. “Fifteen minutes,” I told Yuskeya, “will be perfekta.”
I gave Viss, Rei and Baden all the information they might need to see to the unloading of the cargo and told them they were free to take a break in Serous as soon as that was complete. Hirin and I made our way slowly down the length of the ship to the First Aid station, pausing to peek out the front viewscreen at the spaceport. It bustled with humans and Vilisians, some of the humans from the various worlds exhibiting such cultural diversity that they might have been other aliens. We shared a glance, remembering how exciting it used to be to visit a new spaceport for the first time, years ago on those early trade skips.
In the First Aid station, Yuskeya was fidgeting around, creating a pile of datameds and other instruments on the cot.
“What are you doing?” I asked when we entered, Hirin leaning heavily on my arm. “I thought Hirin would have to lie down there.”
She shook her head. “We should just do it in Hirin's cabin,” she explained. “I'm sorry I didn't think to tell you that. There's no room here for both of you to get comfortable—wait a second.” She stopped what she was doing and stood with her hands on her hips. “There isn't really room in his cabin, either. We'll have to do it in yours, Captain, unless you want to use the galley.”
“No, if Dr. Ndasa comes back early I'd rather not be out in plain view. My quarters are fine. We'll start back.”
Hirin and I headed back down the corridor. “I'm getting my exercise for the day, anyway,” he joked. His feet shuffled hollowly on the metal decking.
“You take the bed,” I directed once we were in my quarters, “and I'll sit in the armchair. I'll just push it over as close as it needs to be. Is it cold in here?” My hands felt icy.
Hirin shook his head. “I don't think so. I think it's just nerves.”
“Maybe so. I hope this works.”
“Me, too. Now that they all know we're married, I could be spending every night in your room.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Men. They never change.”
Maja came in then and wordlessly sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She radiated anger, but maybe it was conflicting with the guilt she felt about conspiring with Amadoro against me. Hirin smiled at her and got a half-hearted response.
Yuskeya bustled in with an armload of supplies. “Get comfy, folks.”
“What is all this stuff? I pictured a couple of needles and some kind of tube to connect us. Isn't that how they used to do it?”
Yuskeya gave me a look. “Let's just say I'm not taking any chances. I've never done this before, remember. Person to person transfusions were never common, and since the development of artificial blood, we don't even have to collect it and store it very much anymore. I've had to improvise.”
She held up what looked like a datamed with bioplastic tubing protruding from each side. “This is what will connect you. I'll set you both up with transcutaneous diverters and then attach the bioplas tubes. I'll use the gadget in the middle first to make sure your blood is compatible—”
“We have the same blood type,” I interjected.
“Yes, well, I still have to do a crossmatch, if you don't mind,” she said mildly. “I'm the medic here. Regardless of—and because of—those extra-special additives that might be floating around in you, I want to make sure that your blood isn’t going to cause any adverse reaction in Hirin. I’m sure you don’t want to kill him instead of saving him.”
I gulped. “No, of course not. How long will it take?”
“Only a couple of minutes, with this.” She held out the gadget she’d indicated and I pressed my finger on a soft, clear pad. I felt the slightest prick as it took a sample. She did the same thing with Hirin.
“We’re lucky. This part used to take about an hour before we’d have a result,” she said as she studied the screen, reading the output. Then she looked up with a smile. “Everything looks good.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. I hadn’t realized my entire plan could have failed before we’d even begun.
Yuskeya set the datamed down on the night table. “Now this will regulate the blood flow so that we have a nice smooth transition.” She held up another one. “Hirin, I'll connect you up to this one, too. It'll monitor your blood pressure to make sure we're not adding too much too fast. How much do you want to transfer?”
I hadn't thought about it. “Maybe half a litre or so? Does that sound right?”
Maja opened her mouth, then clamped it shut without speaking.
Yuskeya shrugged. “What's 'right'? Nobody's ever done this before, or at least not for the same reasons. You're the one who said this was all theory.”
“It is. Well, let's try half a litre and see what happens. I guess what I meant by 'right' was, can I lose that much and Hirin gain that much without any other physiological problems?”
“Probably. That's why I'm monitoring his blood pressure and other vitals. Just to be sure.”
“Okay. Let's do it.”
After all the talking and Yuskeya's fussing and puttering around were finished, the actual transfer took about forty-five minutes. “In the old days it would have been a little faster,” Yuskeya said, keeping an eye on Hirin's readings in the datamed, “but I would have had to actually pierce your vein with a needle. Transcutaneous is slower, but less painful and intrusive. And I didn't want to put too much of a strain on Hirin's pressure.”
Truthfully, I hardly felt a thing, just the pressure on my arm where Yuskeya had taped the transcutaneous extractor, and the pangs of worry that it wouldn't work. Next to those, a little physical discomfort was nothing.
Yuskeya checked our vital signs periodically during the procedure and again when the process was through, fetched us glasses of chilled fruit juice from the galley, and suggested that we simply rest for a little while before trying to go anywhere else on board. She and Maja looked after cleaning everything up despite my protestations that I would help.
Maja said, “I'll check on you later,” as she went out the door. I couldn't tell if she was speaking to just Hirin or both of us, but she shot me an appraising glance that I couldn't really interpret.
As Yuskeya was leaving, she paused. “Feel better,” she said with a smile from the doorway. “Both of you.”
Hirin looked over at me. “I wonder what will happen now?”
I took a deep breath. “I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Luta,” he said quietly. “I know it hasn't been easy—”
“Shhh.” I stood hesitantly and walked, just a little wobbly, the couple of steps to the bed and lay down beside him. He wriggled over to make room. “It hasn't been easy for either of us. But we've always done our best. It's worked so far. Well, except with Maja, I guess.”
He put an arm around me and closed his eyes. “That it has. And Maja will be all right. We'll just have to trust that things will work out, one more time.”
We both slept then, not knowing what forces worked inside us, but content in the knowledge that it was one more thing we shared.
The next few days left me wondering if we'd made a terrible mistake. Hirin ran a fever that soared well over a hundred and stayed there for two days, despite the meds Yuskeya gave him every few hours. He was delirious some of that time, his mind wandering the pathways of the near and distant past. He talked to Karro and Maja as if they were present and young children again, assured me that we'd keep looking for my mother for as long as it took, and recited data on skip runs we'd made long ago. We had to invent excuses to keep Dr. Ndasa away, for fear of both what Hirin might say and the medical tests the doctor might want to perform.
I spent as much time in Hirin's room as I dared risk without arousing Dr. Ndasa's curiosity. Maja was there almost constantly and seemed to be getting a head start on her vow never to speak to me again. We spoke about as much as strangers on a gravlift. Yuskeya helped run interference with Dr. Ndasa by explaining that Hirin was feeling down about his condition and had requested some time to spend alone with his daughter and me, his only family on the ship.
She told me later that Dr. Ndasa had asked, “What is the relationship between Hirin and the Captain? I've never asked.”
“I told him you were a niece or something,” she told me. “Was that all right?”
“Sure. Just as long as I can remember to tell the same story if he asks me, too.”
Four days after the transfusion Hirin's fever was suddenly gone, and he was awake and demanding some “real” food. Three more days and he was out of bed and back to normal. I was so relieved I felt almost ready to forgive Maja for her pact with Dores Amadoro, and that she might be ready to relent a little toward me, too. In fact, she didn't seem so angry, just quiet and aloof.
“I can't believe how he's improved,” Dr. Ndasa said one morning as we sat having breakfast in the galley. Hirin had just come in and was digging in the cooler for something interesting.
I sighed. “It's a great relief, I'll say that. Thank you for all you've done, Doctor.”
Dr. Ndasa shook his head. “I don't know that I made much of a difference. He seems to have just fought back on his own. He's a strong man.”
Hirin winked at me over Dr. Ndasa's head. “Clean living and good eating, and all bad things in moderation, that's what I always say.”
“Well, it certainly seems to have worked for you. Tell me, Hirin, will you let me run those tests to study your virus soon? Are you feeling up to it? I would love to know what it is doing now.”
Hirin sat down across from the doctor. “I would, too, Doc, but to tell you the truth, I've had enough of datameds and scans for a while. I'd like to just enjoy this good feeling while it lasts.”
The doctor looked disappointed and the scent of fresh bread wafted gently from his skin, but he nodded. “I suppose I can understand that. But you will tell me when you think we can get back to the tests, will you?”
“Oh, sure, Doc. I'll definitely let you know.” He tackled his breakfast with great gusto.
He was a better liar now than he'd ever been in his younger days, but I was glad to see him having fun with it. I left him and Dr. Ndasa to their chatter and went to the bridge to check on our status. I had more than enough on my mind as we drew closer to Kiando and whatever—and whoever—we would find there.
Before we made it out of the Delta Pavonis system, though, I had a very different worry.
Chapter Twelve
We were a week out from Renata when an urgent call over the ship's comm woke me from a deep sleep.
“Captain, Yuskeya here.”
“Go ahead.” I struggled to get my bearings. Beside me, Hirin sat up, too.
“I'm alone on bridge watch and there's a vessel on fast approach. I've commed it but no reply. I don't like the look of it.” Her voice was clipped and businesslike.
“I'm on my way. Wake Baden, Viss, and Rei and get them to the bridge.”
“Aye, Captain.”
I swung my legs past Hirin and reached for the jeans I'd left on the desk chair. He was right behind me.
“You stay here,” I told him, pulling my t-shirt over my head. “You should rest. I'm sure it's nothing. We're all just a little jumpy.”
He was already fastening his shipsuit. “Like hell,” he said mildly. “I feel fine, and I still have a vested interest in this ship, remember.”
I didn't wait to argue any more, since it was obviously a waste of my breath anyway. The ship lurched hard to the left just as I got the door open, and I stumbled inelegantly into the corridor.
“Damne,” I swore aloud, and ran for the bridge.
Yuskeya was still alone there. She didn't look up from the piloting console when she heard me come in.
“It's an unmarked Stinger-class,” she said, “and the ship's sig is scrambled. I don't know what he's trying to do. He's not hailing us on the comm; he's not shooting at us. He just keeps trying to get up under us. I'm taking evasive maneuvers.”
I wondered where Yuskeya, a navigator, had learned to take evasive maneuvers, but she seemed to know what she was doing and I didn't have time to ask. Rei and Viss both arrived on the bridge at that second, and Rei slid into the secondary pilot console while Yuskeya gave her a clipped rundown of what she'd just told me. Viss went to the engineering console and punched up the screen.
“Viss, try and get a reading on it. What the devil is he doing?”
Baden ran onto the bridge then and slid into the comm console. “What's up?”
Before I could answer him, Viss barked, “Goddamn—Cargo Pod One airlock override just engaged!”
“Anything you can tell me, Baden—”
The ship shuddered again and Viss yelled, “Cargo Pod One dockside door open.”
“What the—close it!”
Viss punched commands into the computer but he shook his head. “Can't. Something's overridden the controls. I'm going down there.”
He turned and sprinted from the bridge before I could tell him not to. Yuskeya was about two steps behind him.
“Damne! Baden, come with me! Hirin, you have the bridge,” I shouted over my shoulder as Baden and I followed Viss and Yuskeya. They'd left the weapons locker open and I pulled two of the remaining plasma rifles out of it and handed one to Baden. It sounded like Viss was mostly sliding down the metal ladder to the engineering deck below. Baden put a hand out to make me let him go first, and we went down the hatchway.
“What the hell?” Baden asked me as we climbed down. “Is there even anything in Cargo Pod One?”
“No, Viss thought we should leave it empty if we were going through the Split. They must have just picked that one as a way to board the ship.” Board the ship. My own words sent a chill down my spine. Piracy wasn't unknown in Nearspace, but the Protectorate kept it reasonably well under control. Those who practised it anyway were ruthless, hardened, and no-one I wanted to run into.
We reached the engineering deck and jumped off the hatchway ladder. The ship pitched hard again to dockside and I stumbled, almost falling into the open hatch. I caught a rung of the ladder and pushed myself back. The hatch continued down to Cargo Pod Four below us, and I had no wish to take the same leap the masked intruder had taken a few weeks ago.
“You okej?”Baden gasped, and I nodded. We sprinted through Engineering toward the hatchway to Cargo Pod One at the front of the ship. The pods didn't interconnect on the lower level; each had its own airlock and cargo doors. Viss's footsteps echoed on the metal decking as he ran ahead of us down the long corridor between the fuel storage cells. I had no idea where Yuskeya had gone, but she wasn't ahead of us. The hatchway to the cargo pod was at the very end. Viss was kneeling beside it when we caught up.
“Viss!” I yelled, and he stopped and looked up at me, one hand on the hatch lever. “Red light!” The warning light beside the hatch glowed bright crimson, indicating that the pod below was not pressurized. The hatch shouldn't have opened without a keycode anyway, but I wasn't sure how clearly any of us were thinking.
Viss let go of the lever, stood, and kicked the wall beside the hatchway viciously. None of us had stopped to put on an EVA suit, so the hatch had to stay shut. He turned and started to run back past me headed back to Engineering and the EVA suits stored there.
He almost ran into Yuskeya. Her arms were loaded with EVA suits, and Maja was with her, carrying more.
I blinked. Maja's blonde hair was still tousled from sleep and she'd thrown only a short jacket over her sleepsuit, but she looked totally in control of herself. She'd obviously stopped at the weapons locker for a handgun since she was toting a pin-beam Viper in one hand. I know I stared. She let Viss pass her and ran down the hall toward us.
“Are you okej? What's happening?” she demanded.
“I wish I knew. Pirates, apparently. What are you doing down here?”
“What was I going to do, cower in my cabin while the ship was being attacked?” she asked.
Viss was on his way back down the corridor. He'd closed and sealed the bulkhead at the engineering end of the corridor behind him and took a suit that Yuskeya offered him. “Get these on quick,” he ordered. “If they blow this hatch from the other side—”
Damne, I hadn't thought of that. The Tane Ikai had bulkhead hatches between each deck, but we almost never kept them closed. I touched my biochip implant to comm the bridge and told Hirin, “You and Rei get into EVA suits, just in case. Wake Dr. Ndasa. With the pod bay doors open—”
“Already done,” Hirin said. “What's happening down there?”
“I'll keep you posted.” I struggled into an EVA suit as quickly as I could. My fingers trembled as I wondered if the intruders would blow the hatch from the depressurized pod before we had our suits on. The others were quick, too. Baden helped Maja with the unfamiliar fastenings.
“What are they doing down there?” I wondered aloud. “There's nothing in that pod to start with, and they're not coming up.”
Viss gave me an unreadable look and said, “I'm going to open the hatch.” He'd been the first into his suit and had stood fidgeting, waiting for the rest of us.
“They'll probably be watching it,” Baden warned. “Don't do anything rash.”
Viss just grinned at him and pulled the hatch lever. There was an almost immediate burst of plasma fire from the cargo pod. Viss glanced up at me and then dropped through the open hatch. Yuskeya and Baden followed him and there was more fire.
“Stay here,” I ordered Maja, and went down the hatch myself.
When you drop through a cargo pod hatchway you have two options. You can keep climbing the metal ladder down the nearly five meters to the floor of the pod, or you can head to the side on one of the raised catwalks. Going in blind, I hit the catwalk, dropped, and crawled right. There hadn't been any lights on in the pod, although Viss must have hit the switch when he left the bridge. They were still very faint, warming up, so the pod was cast in general gloom.
I could make out a few things. The doors were still open, though mostly blocked by the stinger, which had attached itself to the Tane Ikai's hull just outside the doors. Its own cargo door was open, and some crates rested just inside. A couple of figures in EVA suits crouched behind the crates, and one more was trying to hide behind a crate on our pod floor. The tableau didn't make sense to me. They'd boarded the ship to put cargo into our pod?
A few short bursts of plasma fire shot out from the stinger, but they were out of range and didn't reach us on the catwalk. The final pirate left on the Tane Ikai made a run for the stinger under the covering fire, and Viss let loose a couple of shots. One went wide, but one took the pirate in the leg and he stumbled and fell, skittering across the floor of the cargo pod toward the open door. He dropped both his weapon and a techrig, clutching at the burned patch of fabric and flesh on his calf with one hand and trying to catch the door ledge with the other. He stopped sliding, hauled himself upright, and managed to launch himself across the space separating the two ships just as the stinger's cargo door slid down, blocking our view. Viss gave a yell of rage, muffled by his helmet, and slid down the ladder. Yuskeya fired at the stinger but the distance was too great and the plasma dispersed harmlessly.
At the same moment, Maja jumped down onto the catwalk beside me and immediately rolled to one side, coming up with the Viper steady in her hand as she looked around. I was speechless.
She grinned at me. “Warrior Chi self-defence classes. I had to do something to vent after Taso left.”
Well, that explained the bruise she'd left on the PrimeCorp operative back on Rhea, anyway.
The second the stinger's door closed the ship released itself from us and moved off, slowly at first but then with mounting speed. I wished the Tane Ikai's torpedo bays were full and I could order the little bastardo taken right out of the sky, but it was an empty desire. I hadn't carried torps since Hirin and I had downgraded from really exciting cargo to more mundane loads, and with the Protectorate on patrol, the notion of pirates had dimmed to a memory of a long-ago threat.
Viss crossed to the control panel beside the open doors and punched in some commands. The pod bay doors began to close, and once they did, the pod could be re-pressurized. For now we'd have to talk over the comm channel. I left the plasma rifle on the catwalk and climbed down the ladder, Baden and Maja right behind me. Yuskeya had already made it to the floor and was collecting the pirate's weapon and techrig.
Hirin's voice came over the comm. “Luta? What's happening? Should we pursue this guy?”
I thought fast. “No, never mind. We'd never catch a stinger; they're just too fast. Is everyone okej up there?”
“We're fine. You?”
“No problems. You can probably shuck the EVA suits, too.”
By this time I had reached the floor, and I realized that there were still a dozen crates sitting in the tie-downs. Slowly my confusion cleared—somewhat. The pirates hadn't been loading anything into the pod; they'd been taking it out. This pod, however, was supposed to be empty.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked.
No-one answered, and the question hung in the air, caught in a sudden tension. Then Viss said, “I suppose I could say, 'ask your brother,' but that probably wouldn't cut it, would it?”
I turned to look at him and put my hands on my hips. “No. No, it wouldn't. What does Lanar have to do with any of this?”
Viss sighed. “You want to go up to the galley and get a triple caff? This could take a while.”
I scowled at Viss, but it's hard to feel you're really conveying your anger from behind an EVA helmet.
“I think we'll take it on the bridge.”
It wasn't often that I saw Viss looking sheepish, but that's the face he presented me once we assembled back on the bridge. The viewscreen showed a magnificent nebula swirling in the distance, but none of us paid much attention. Viss and I faced each other near my command chair, but I didn't sit. The others went to stations, turning in their chairs to face us. Tension hummed in the air as if the skip drive were warming up.
“Are you sure you don't want to do this in private?” Viss asked me.
I glared at him. “You've put every member of this crew in jeopardy. I think they have a right to hear what you have to say.”
“There might be . . . higher powers . . . who might not appreciate that,” he said.
“The higher powers can kiss my azeno. You have one chance to tell it, and this is it. So get on with it.” Generally I got on exceedingly well with Viss, not because I was under any illusions about his shady past—or present, for that matter—but because I thought we shared the same bearings on our moral compass. The possibility of this kind of betrayal had never crossed my mind. First Maja, now Viss. The thought left a bitter taste in my throat.
“Guess I'm not a very good smuggler,” he said with a half-grin.
I didn't return it. “Oh, I don't know, you had me fooled, and it's my ship. What's in those crates in the cargo pod?”
“Illegal tech,” he said.
I closed my eyes. Carrying illegal technology was a Primary Statute crime that could land us in jail for what would be, even for me, a very long time.
“And why is it on my ship?”
Viss swallowed. “Because your brother asked me to deliver it to Kiando, or as close as I could get it, for him.”
“Her brother?” Yuskeya broke in. “You mean the Admiralo?”
“That's the only one she has, as far as I know,” Viss drawled.
“I don't believe it.” Yuskeya sat back in her skimchair and folded her arms, looking as angry as I felt. “He wouldn't put the Captain in that kind of danger.”
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “You'd better just tell me the whole thing.”
“Mind if I sit?” he asked, and pulled a skimchair away from the secondary pilot's console without waiting for my answer. He turned it to face me and sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Here's what I know. The Admiralo contacted me when we arrived Earthside, and then again shortly before we shipped out again. I've done some . . . favours . . . for the Protectorate in the past, so that wasn't unusual. He told me that they've been keeping an eye on PrimeCorp for some highly irregular activity at their new tech subcorp for a while now, and they've managed to . . . acquire . . . some of PrimeCorp's illegal tech.” He paused.
“I've got my own issues with PrimeCorp, but I don't see how this ties in.”
He shrugged. “Well, it doesn't. See, the Protectorate wants a chance to have a look at this stuff, so they need to get it to a planet controlled by one of the other Corps. They have to tread carefully around PrimeCorp and they don't want any hint to get out that they're involved. It's too chancy for a Protectorate ship to transport the stuff. But we were going to Kiando anyway, it wasn't a big load, and I knew we weren't carrying a full cargo shipment . . . if I just told you to keep one pod clear . . .”
“And what happens if we get caught with it on board?” I asked.
“The Admiralo said he'd make sure that didn't happen, and if the worst happened and it did, he'd make it right. Remember how he jumped in when that Mars Planetary Police ship was heading for us? I figure that's why.”
“It was on board then?”
Viss nodded, but had the grace to blush. “Once I got you to leave Cargo Pod One empty, I had room for it, and that pod wouldn't have to be opened again, so the secret would be safe. The Admiralo's message came for me as soon as we were close to Earth.”
I threw my hands in the air. “And who's out here looking after my back now? I didn't see any Protectorate ships coming to the rescue when we were breached and boarded a little while ago!”
Viss frowned. “I don't think they were expecting that. The Admiralo didn't mention that anything like that might happen.”
“Who the hell were those guys?”
“I don't know.” Viss stroked his grey-peppered beard. “I'm kind of worried about that, to tell you the truth, since they knew exactly where to find us and where on the ship to look for the stuff.”
“Unless it was a coincidence,” Yuskeya suggested, but she didn't sound like she believed it. She stared at Viss coldly.
“Viss, did you tell Lanar we were going to Kiando?” I asked. “Maybe the message was intercepted?”
He shook his head solemnly. “No, Captain, because I didn't tell him that. I said I'd see how close I could get it, and let him know where the Protectorate could pick it up. We have some . . . mutual contacts . . . and I was sure I'd be able to arrange something. But I knew you wanted to keep the Kiando thing quiet.”
“I think it had to be PrimeCorp,” Baden said suddenly.
“Why?”
“If they've got an eye somewhere inside the Protectorate, found out where the stuff was headed and how, it'd make sense to come out and try to take it back.”
“PrimeCorp has an informant in the Protectorate? No way,” Yuskeya said, shaking her head.
Hirin spoke up. “If they were going to go to all that trouble,” he said, “Why didn't they just blow the hatch and come right through the ship after Luta, too? We know they're still after her. They could have taken care of two birds with one stone.”
Everyone fell silent, picturing that scenario, I suppose. I know I was, and I didn't like it. Then Rei snorted delicately.
“Different departments,” she said. “These guys probably don't even know anything about Luta. PrimeCorp's huge—big enough to make the Protectorate nervous. Not everyone's going to know what everyone else is doing.”
“Great, now we have two groups of PrimeCorp operatives after us? Makes me want to skip into the nearest unexplored wormhole and take my chances.” I turned back to Viss. “Did Lanar tell you why the Protectorate is tiptoeing around PrimeCorp? That doesn't sound right to me.”
Viss shook his head. “He didn't really say. But he said that PrimeCorp's planning something—he didn't say what—that the Protectorate is working to stop. But he said it's a 'delicate operation.'”
“If the Protectorate's worried, then I'm worried,” Baden said. Yuskeya looked like she was about to say something, but she scowled and stayed silent.
I sighed. “Okay, let's get back on track. Viss, get down and check the integrity of the cargo pod. I want to know how they got the doors open and if they damaged the ship at all. Yuskeya, set up a maximum range in-system scan and keep it running. I want lots of warning if anyone else comes looking for us.”
Viss nodded and stood.
“Viss, you know I'm going to have to check your story with Lanar.”
He grinned. “I wouldn't respect you if you didn't, Captain,” he said. “I'm half-surprised you're not locking me in my quarters.”
“Don't think I didn't consider it. Now get going.”
Viss flashed me a grin and headed down to the cargo deck.
“Baden, check all the crates that are in that pod, would you? Just make sure they're all secure again.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said.
I saw the gleam in his eye. “And don't open the crates. I know you'd love to get your hands on some of that stuff, but it's strictly off-limits, understood? Whatever's left, I want to deliver to Lanar intact.”
“Oh, Captain! Just a peek? I swear I won't take anything!”
I shook my head. “No opening the crates.” I grinned. “I know you wouldn't be able to resist the temptation. Think of it as me saving you from yourself.”
“You're a hard woman,” he said, shaking his head as he left the bridge. Maja followed him.
I stood up from my chair, although my body felt that it barely had the energy.
“Rei?” I stretched, feeling the kinks pull out. “As soon as you get the okay from Viss and Baden, get us back on track for the wormhole to Mu Cassiopeia, please. Once we're underway, I want to double up on bridge shifts. No-one's on duty alone. I am going back to bed, and if anyone wakes me before morning, I'm converting one of the cargo pods into a brig.”
In my cabin, I lay down on top of the bed without bothering to change my clothes. I wanted to shoot a message off to Lanar right away, lambasting him for first, using the Tane Ikai as a mule ship, and second, not coming to me with his problem instead of Viss. I know Lanar likes to think that I've always been squeaky-clean in my operations, but it hurt that he hadn't simply asked me to help.
It wasn't safe to send that kind of message, though; PrimeCorp owned the subcorp that had a monopoly on almost all the communications systems in Nearspace, and it was far too likely that any message might be scanned or intercepted. I considered asking Viss if he counted any data runners among his questionable friends and contacts, but decided against it. The ship was hot enough with all that contraband tech in the hold. I didn't need to add any other illegal activities to the list.
Anyway, I was still too mad at Viss to ask him for any favours. I sighed, rolled over, and resolved to put all worries out of my head and get some sleep. It must have worked, because I didn't even notice when Hirin climbed back into bed with me.
Chapter Thirteen
Hirin improved every day after that. We both felt certain that whatever secret helpers functioned in my body were now hard at work in his. He had already regained the improvements we'd noticed on the beginning leg of the trip, and seemed poised to make even further gains. Still, the thought of the next wormhole filled me with trepidation.
Our encounter with the pirates had one positive result. Maja and I arrived in the galley at the same moment the next morning, and I realized that sometime around the moment she'd arrived at the cargo hatch with a pin-beam Viper in her hand, I'd stopped being quite so angry with her.
“Thanks for your help last night.” I pulled double caffs out of the machine for both of us.
She half-smiled and shrugged. “I didn't actually do much.”
“But you were there.”
“Sometimes families have to stick together regardless,” she said, handing me a plate of pano with an uncharacteristic grin. “Pirate attacks fall into that category.”
Rei came in then and we didn't say anything more, but I felt as if maybe there was hope for us yet.
We were still a day out from the skip to Mu Cassiopeia when Baden hailed me on the ship's comm. Hirin and I were playing quozit in my quarters.
“Captain, incoming WaVE for you, although the signal's weak. Admiralo Lanar Mahane, on board the Protectorate Patrol Ship S. Cheswick.”
“Thanks, Baden.” I switched to the incoming. Hirin mimed going to the galley for a snack and I nodded. My brother Lanar's face appeared on the screen, grinning through the grainy reception.
“Saluton, little sister! We meet again!”
This time I let the “little sister” thing pass. I was too angry to play games with him just then, but I knew the comm could be monitored, too, so I had to choose my words carefully. “Hola, Lanar. Calling to talk to Viss?”
“No, why would I—” he broke off and his grin disappeared. He swallowed. “Oh, how's Viss doing, then?”
“He got quite a surprise when we were breached and boarded by some space pirates. They were interested in some cargo I'm hauling.”
“Dio! Is everyone all right?” He looked stricken, and I felt perversely satisfied.
“Yes, and they didn't get away with much. What I can't figure is how they knew we had that particular cargo aboard. They must have had some kind of inside information. I think the shipper must have been careless.”
“You'll want to speak to him first chance you get, I guess,” he said carefully.
“Yes, I'm pretty much livid about the whole thing. He'll get an earful when I catch up with him next.”
“I imagine he'll feel pretty badly.”
“He'd better,” I said grimly. “So, what's this about? I didn't think I'd see you again this soon.”
He looked relieved that I'd changed the subject. “I wish this reception were better—we're just outside the wormhole to Beta Comae Berenices, ready to make the skip. Thought I might catch you before you left the system.”
“You did, just barely.” Apparently we weren't going to have much time. “Hirin's doing better. He's better than he's been in years.”
“Really? That's wonderful news, Luta. What happened?”
I grinned. “You might say I worked a little magic on him.”
He narrowed his grey eyes at me. “I wonder exactly what that means? I think we need to get together, face to face, sometime soon.”
“You're right about that. Did you get the message from PrimeCorp? About legal proceedings?” I hardly cared if they intercepted my feelings about that charade.
Lanar snorted. “I did! I think they're bluffing.”
“I don't know. From what I've seen of them lately it seems like they're a lot more intense than they used to be.”
“You're right about that.” He leaned closer to the screen, his eyes serious. “You've had more than one . . . encounter with them?”
“Yes, but I think the details will have to wait until we have that realspace chat. Listen. Does this have anything to do with those changes Sedmamin mentioned? They've always steered clear of you in the past.”
Lanar's lips flattened into a thin line. “I'd say it has a lot to do with that. I would have expected Sedmamin to be playing his cards a little closer to his chest, but he tends to forget that people can figure things out on their own.”
I sighed. “I love chatting with you, Lanar, but the riddles get tiring after a while.”
He laughed suddenly. “You're probably right, but that's all I can say now. You're doing okay, then?”
I nodded. “I'm fine. I have one passenger headed outsystem and I'm going to have a look around when I drop him off.”
“Hmmm . . . something interesting where you're headed?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Maybe not. I'll keep you posted.”
“Do that.” He paused. “You don't think anyone is following you now, do you?”
I shook my head. “I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. I have Yuskeya running a constant in-system scan so we'll have lots of notice if anyone turns up. There shouldn't be any public record of where I'm headed next. I could be taking any one of the skips out of Delta Pav.”
“Well, if they're following you, remember that not every world is under PrimeCorp control. There are other corps out there, like Schulyer and Duntmindi, that don't like them any better than we do. You'll have better protection there.”
“I don't think it's going to be a problem.”
“Are you going to get in touch with PrimeCorp about the legal proceedings?”
“Are you kidding? The only thing I'll be telling them is to kiss my thrusters.”
He laughed again. “Good girl! I'd like to see Sedmamin's face if you sent that message. But listen, Luta,” he said seriously, “don't worry too much, okay? Whatever you think, I've got your back. And watch out for those quilberries.”
The reception began to fade. “What do you—Lanar!”
He grinned and mouthed gis la revido. I shook my head and waved to him as the carrier wave dispersed. “Yeah, see you soon, little brother.”
“What did Lanar have to say?” Hirin asked, coming back with some honey kuko for us.
I blew out a long breath. “He had the grace to look guilty when he realized I knew about his arrangement with Viss. And somehow he knows we're going to Kiando.”
“What? I thought you didn't log that.”
“I didn't. And Viss said he didn't tell Lanar where we were heading.” I frowned. “But he told me to watch out for quilberries. I got sick on them once when we were kids, visiting Kiando. That had to be what he meant.”
“Weird.” Hirin shook his head. “Must be a Protectorate thing. Maybe he knows about Dr. Ndasa?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. He told me not to worry too much, because he has my back. So he's keeping tabs on me—somehow. I don't know what he can do, though, considering that within ten minutes or so he's not even going to be in the same system. And if Lanar knows where we're going . . . well, what if PrimeCorp does have an informant in the Protectorate?”
Hirin chuckled. “Don't they have a saying in the Protectorate—'Worry never won a battle'?”
“Something like that.” All I knew was, I wished I had some of Lanar's confidence.
We arrived at the wormhole into Mu Cassiopeia around midnight by the Tane Ikai's clock, eleven days after the transfusion. I hadn't bothered going to bed, since I knew we were this close, but apart from Viss, taking his nighttime shift on the bridge, the ship was silent; I thought everyone else had retired. I'd spent the evening alone in my cabin, curled up in the big armchair, reading. It wasn't easy to keep my mind on the book, but I knew nothing else had any chance at all of distracting me. The swiftly approaching wormhole presented a host of potential problems that I'd already been thinking about for a week and a half.
While I was encouraged by Hirin's progress, I was still worried. If this wormhole skip caused another heart attack he might not survive it, and if he did, there was no way I was going to undertake a further skip with him on board. That meant that the Tane Ikai and I would have to remain in the Mu Cassiopeia system indefinitely. There were two inhabited planets in the system, Kiando and Cengare, and while either one of them made a nice place to visit, I wasn't sure I wanted to be stuck on them. I also didn't think any of my crew would want that, which would mean letting them go, and that would be heart-wrenching. After a lot of trial and error, I'd put together a crew that really worked well together, and losing them would hurt.
Furthermore, while I could probably find a few jobs running goods between the two planets, a far trader would be expensive to use for in-system runs, and a waste of resources to boot. Even with just me and Hirin to run her, though we had done it before, I might have to trade her in for something smaller, and I would truly hate to do that.
If my mother wasn't on Kiando, I wouldn't be able to follow her trail any further, even if she'd left one. PrimeCorp would eventually track me down and I'd have nowhere to run.
I had managed to forget all of that temporarily in the pages of my book, and I looked up, startled, when Viss's voice came to me over the ship's comm.
“Captain, we're here,” he said in a quiet voice. I think everyone on board was worried about the skip, and it touched me how much they cared about Hirin for his own sake and for mine.
“Do you want to tackle it now, or wait till morning?” he continued. “It won't cost us much time to wait.”
It was tempting to put it off a little longer, but as I was considering it, a knock sounded on my door. Hirin's knock, I thought, and sure enough he poked his head in without waiting for my answer.
“Are we there yet?” he said with a grin.
“We're there. Do you want to wait till morning before we run the skip?”
He shrugged. “I doubt anyone's actually asleep, although I think Rei could pilot a skip even in that state if she had to. Why don't we just get it over with?”
He looked so confident, so like the old Hirin, that I felt marginally better. “Okej, Viss, we'll go now. I'm on my way. I guess you should let the others know.”
Viss chuckled over the ship's comm. “Actually, Captain, they're all here already. Except Dr. Ndasa. I'll tell him.”
“Dio! Am I that predictable?” I smiled despite the worry.
The bridge hummed with quiet efficiency when Hirin and I got there. Maja sat in a skimchair close to Baden's at the comm station. Their heads, his dark and hers fair, almost touched as he explained something to her and I was struck by the sudden realization that I'd seen them together frequently in the past few days. I'd just been too preoccupied to wonder about it. Now I did. My motherly instincts jumped into the red zone when I considered Baden's womanizing ways, but I fought them down. Maja was certainly old enough to look out for herself. I'd keep an eye on the situation, though. Those instincts don't die easy.
I tugged my attention firmly away from my daughter and to the viewscreen, searching for the telltale dark blotch of the wormhole. From this vantage point, it hung in an area of space with fewer faraway stars in the background, so the spot where no stars shone was not as pronounced, and it took me a moment to find it. We all took our assigned spots—almost the same ones we'd occupied when we entered the Split, but Maja didn't leave her seat beside Baden although she turned to watch her father. Hirin gave me a thumbs-up signal and I told Rei to take us in.
This hole was a “normal” one, not like the truncated Split, and the swirl of colours was as spectacular as in any other wormhole I'd ever traversed. This time, though, they brought back the memory of my painful dream and I kept one anxious eye on Hirin. He seemed perfectly fine, and everyone relaxed visibly the further we travelled through the tunnel. Perhaps fifteen skips later we sped out the other end and into the star-spangled darkness again. Rei laughed with relief and the men cheered. Maja gave Baden a quick hug and my intuition nudged me again. Even Dr. Ndasa heaved a sigh as if a great weight had lifted from him.
Only Yuskeya kept her eyes on her screen. She frowned as her fingers danced over the holo controls.
“Anything wrong, Yuskeya?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don't know—I don't think so.” She turned around to look at me and shot a significant glance at Dr. Ndasa. “Just a reading that looked off, but it seems fine now.”
Hirin was grinning widely. “I'm not sure if you're happy I made it through in one piece or if you're just looking forward to the pleasures of Kiandon jarlees wine. Either way, what do you say I treat you all to a drink when we get planetside, and you can use it to toast my health?”
There was hearty agreement all around as the others headed for their cabins, but I hung back to talk to Yuskeya. When only she, Viss, and I remained, she said, “The sensors caught a ship signature somewhere behind us when we entered the wormhole, but then it just—stopped. The wormhole might have cut it off, but it also could have been deliberately damped.”
“Could you get anything on it?” Viss asked.
She pursed her lips. “It might have been a PrimeCorp sig, but I can't say. I thought I should mention it, though.”
“They're a long way behind if the signature was just coming into range,” Viss mused. “But I'll keep the in-system scanners on maximum, just in case.”
“Thanks, you two. I appreciate everyone staying on the alert.”
I left them then, my mind already leaping past PrimeCorp and Maja and jarlees wine to the answers I hoped I might find on the next planet. Now I just had to come up with an innocent way to get Dr. Ndasa to take me with him when he went to find the researcher he'd travelled so far to meet. And to decide what I'd say to her if it turned out to be the woman I'd been chasing for fifty years.
Getting an invite to the Chairman's palace proved an easy task. I offered to help Dr. Ndasa get his massive pile of luggage and equipment unloaded and safely transported to its new home, and he accepted gladly.
“I didn't like to trouble the Chairman for assistance, when I had just arrived,” he confided in me. “He's already invited me to attend an informal gathering he's holding tonight, and pressed me to bring any acquaintances I liked. I think he's rather keen to have a wide variety of visitors at these salons whenever he can. They're a regular event, or so I've heard. Do you think the others would like to go?”
I told him I could virtually guarantee it, but I could tell there was something else on his mind.
“It's only, well . . . he calls them informal, but I believe the Chairman likes his guests to—er—dress for the occasion, if you know what I mean.” He blushed, the pink undertones of his amber skin deepening into a human-like flush.
I smiled. “Doctor, you needn't worry. Just because we favour plain biosuits, or in my case, jeans and t-shirts, while we're working, doesn't mean the crew of the Tane Ikai can't rise to the occasion. I know that Rei, for one, will be absolutely thrilled at the prospect of dressing up for a change. Don't worry. We won't embarrass you.”
“Oh, now, I didn't mean—”
“Not another word about it. What time shall we be ready? We'll pile all your goods into the groundcar from Cargo Pod Two and arrive in style.”
I went the rounds of the crew and told them about our invitation. When I stopped off in Engineering, I asked Viss, “How soon will Cargo Pod One be cleared out? I don't want those crates in there a minute longer than they have to be.”
He grinned. “Already scheduled, Captain. They'll be gone within an hour. Do you want to know the details?”
I stopped him with a wave of my hand. “No, thanks. Just let me know when it's gone and I'll be happy.”
“Aye, aye,” he said with a mock salute, and I continued my mission.
Everyone else was delighted by the idea of a party, but I hit a snag when I told Maja about the evening's plans.
She shook her head. “I don't think I'll go.”
“Why not? It might do us all some good to actually have some fun for an evening.”
She turned to look out the viewport above the dresser. “I don't have anything to wear.”
I knew that wasn't it. “I'm sure you could borrow something from Rei or Yuskeya.” I tried to joke with her. “I'd loan you something myself, but my closet's not exactly overflowing with dresses.”
She smiled briefly and shrugged. “Maybe I just don't feel like a party.”
My gut reaction was to let the issue drop, as usual, but this time I didn't. I'd seen a glimpse of a Maja I didn't know when she'd jumped down onto the catwalk beside me, and I wanted to see more of that person. I was never going to do that by walking away from her.
I leaned my back against the door for support and said, “You don't have to come, Maja, but I'd like it if you did.”
“Is that an order, Captain?” she asked, but there wasn't any bite in the words. I felt like they were an automatic response, the way mine had almost been.
“No, it's just a request. Honestly, I don't know what or who we're going to find there. If it's your grandmother, I'd like you there with me. And if it's anything else—like a PrimeCorp trap—I'd be happy to have another Warrior Chi graduate watching my back.” I chanced another smile.
She looked at me thoughtfully. “You're not quite the way I remember you, Mother,” she said. “Sometimes I don't know . . .” her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “I don't know what to expect.”
I nodded. “I'm finding the same thing. You're surprising me.” I grinned. “I like it.”
“I guess I have a couple of things that might be suitable for tonight,” she said finally.
I smiled. I felt like I was dealing with a skittish animal, this new Maja, and I didn't want to scare her off. Happiness welled up in my chest, but I kept my tone light. “Great.” I opened the door. “Thanks, Maja.”
She smiled. “No problem.”
With a lighter heart than I'd expected, I went off to face the daunting depths of my own closet.
The crew was as good as my word. When we gathered in the cargo pod I had to blink at how absolutely stunning we all looked. Rei was resplendent in a dress of artfully arranged amber and gold scarves that seemed dangerously close to falling down around her ankles whenever she moved, and a gold chain that looked like something from ancient Egypt.
When I asked her about it and she said, “Oh, it's a souvenir from one time on Xaqual . . . there was this exec from IndioCorp—”
I held up a hand. “Never mind. You can tell me sometime over a bottle of jarlees wine.”
“It's a good story,” she said, grinning evilly. “It might even take two bottles.”
Baden wore a pale grey biosuit interwoven with nano-optic fibres that subtly illuminated the planes of his body. Yuskeya looked quite regal in a swirling, multicoloured robe that molded itself to her curves and swept upward to meet the dark fall of her hair, and even Viss had traded his blue shipsuit for a dark synthsilk sherwani jacket and pants. I hadn't even known he owned such a thing.
Maja was radiant in a layered cornflower-blue and silver tunic and nodded to me with the hint of a twinkle in her eyes. I wondered whether her good mood had more to do with our tentative peace or the effusive compliments Baden paid her. She seemed anxious below the surface, however, shooting covert looks at me when she thought I wasn't looking. Was it something to do with Baden? Or Hirin? Our conversation? Or the prospect of meeting her grandmother? There was no opportunity to ask her, though.
I had been worried about what Hirin would wear—I knew he hadn't brought much on board with him and nothing, I was sure, that could be considered formal. He'd told me not to concern myself over it, however, and appeared now in a jacket that took my breath away. I knew it—from the crimson silk embroidered with two rampant ebony dragons, to the elegant wide, white cuffs, to the small yin/yang symbol placed just above his heart—he'd worn it when we were married. My eyes filled with tears and I turned so that Dr. Ndasa wouldn't see.
Viss had offered to drive, and I went to the furthest back seat in the groundcar. As I'd hoped, Hirin clambered back to sit with me, and Dr. Ndasa sat up with Viss. Hirin leaned over and whispered to me.
“I brought it to wear when you jettisoned me,” he said wryly. “I didn't know I'd be going to any parties.”
“It looks wonderful,” I whispered back. “I couldn't believe it.”
“And you look absolutely bela,” he said. “Where did you get that?”
“That” was a dress I'd bought on Quma a couple of years ago, and I have to admit that I loved it. It was an intermixed fabric of bio-synthetic fibre and velvet in deep purple, the skirt studded with tiny optics that twinkled like stars. It clung close and rose in a high neckline, while the sleeves shifted to an open braidwork of velvet and silver. Whatever the Chairman thought of us all, I was certain he couldn't find fault with our dress.
The spaceport lay on the outskirts of Ando City, Kiando's capital, and while the streets were not in bad shape, the neighbourhoods we passed through held a general air of shabbiness, as though there wasn't quite enough money to keep everything up to standard so it all just slipped a little. The city was busy, even at this hour when the sidewalks began to shimmer with a nighttime guideglow and some of the shops and businesses had closed.
The atmosphere changed perceptibly as we drew closer to the Chairman's palace, however. Duntmindi Corporation, the mining conglomerate that owned the heavy metal mines riddling much of this part of Kiando, ran the planet with the Nearspace Authority's blessing. Chairman Buig had been at the top of the corporation for thirty years, and rumour had it that he wanted to retain that top spot indefinitely. Hence his interest in anti-aging technology, I supposed. He reportedly ran the corporation like a well-maintained skip drive, engendered loyalty among his workers, and kept the shareholders happy. His only enemy, it seemed, was time, and he was doing his best to eliminate the effects of that.
It was apparent that money clustered around the palace of the Chairman like moons clung to their planet. As we approached, the homes grew larger, the streets broader, and the people obviously wealthier. Some stared at us with open curiosity. I'm certain a groundcar from a far trader was something of an oddity on these streets.
The palace itself, when we reached it, was what I would call a mansion, although if it pleased the Chairman to call it his palace then who was I to argue? Whatever one called it, it was magnificent, an architecture stolen straight from late twenty-first century Earth, with its juxtapositions of styles in chrome and brick, greenspaces and ultraplas. I noted with interest that security was minimal and we passed through into the parking area after Dr. Ndasa gave his name to the single guard who appeared to be on duty.
I say “appeared,” because the Chairman was obviously a perceptive man and doubtless liked to give the impression of open gates while maintaining a reality that was rather more secure.
Luxury groundcars and flitters sat around the parking area in small groups, as if holding their own salon. Viss settled ours near a group of flitters, and I wondered fancifully if it would have some interesting tales to add to the conversation.
Inside the palace, a notebug recorded our names and likenesses, and a multi-armed 'bot arrived to relieve us of outerwear and offer a variety of refreshments. When we had made our selections, another guidebot led us down the green-marble-floored hallway to an ornate set of gilded double doors, muffling but not quite muting the sounds of conversation within. The doors slid open silently when the guidebot reached their sensor range, and we had a sudden panoramic view of the gathering beyond.
The room was enormous. Vaulted ceilings arched gracefully overhead, painted a dark midnight blue and dotted with “stars”—tiny lights that sparked and twinkled, but did little to illuminate the room below. In contrast, the floor glowed with squares of pale, multicoloured light, and wall sconces arrayed around the room completed the lighting. Small groupings of chairs and tables invited people to sit, talk, and eat from several bountiful sideboards, which numerous attendees were doing. An open area in the middle of the room might have been for dancing, had the music been right for it, but it was mostly occupied by small knots of people holding drinks and chatting. A few heads turned when the doors opened, but most of the crowd seemed too engrossed in their discussions to pay attention to newcomers. Some of those who had turned to look stared at us with surprising rudeness, especially for Kiandon society. The five colonies on Kiando had a reputation for their strict social rituals and concern with etiquette.
One man did more than turn and look when we entered. He was tall, with greying hair and a confident bearing, and he turned and crossed toward us immediately. His two-piece biosilk suit was almost unrelieved black, but for a white Duntmindi Corporation logo over the left breast and a neat row of four white circles below it. The asymmetrical hemline of his jacket fell to his knee on one side, and to his ankle on the other. This, then, must be Chairman Buig himself, and Dr. Ndasa stepped forward to greet him.
“You must be Dr. Ndasa! Come in, come in! And your guests as well.” His smile took us all in, although I had the strange impression that it faltered when his gaze fell on me. He stopped far enough away from the doors so that we could enter easily and allow them to close behind us. He clasped his hands over his heart and bent forward twice from the waist, in the classic Kiandon greeting. “Welcome, guests.”
“I am Dr. Ndasa, and I'm very pleased to meet you, Chairman.” Dr. Ndasa returned the ritual bow smoothly, and added the Vilisian gesture of greeting, the touch of a palm to eyes, lips and heart. Then he turned to the rest of us. “Allow me to present my friends from the far trader Tane Ikai,” he said, “starting with the incomparable Captain Luta Paixon.”
I made the Kiandon greeting for an uninvited guest, the same but with only one bow. Buig's eyebrows had lifted slightly at the name of my ship, and I knew he'd made the connection. He obviously took his anti-aging research very seriously indeed to catch such an obscure reference. I wondered what he'd think if I told him my age.
“Thank you so much for your generous invitation, Chairman,” I said. “Your home is quite magnificent.”
When I lifted my head from the bow I caught a glimpse of an unabashed stare from his pale, ice-blue eyes, before he rearranged his face into a gracious smile. He looked gratified and perhaps relieved that I'd known the custom and responded properly. “Please promise that you'll tell me more about your ship later, Captain Paixon,” he said, and Dr. Ndasa continued with the introductions. Buig shot me another glance when Dr. Ndasa introduced Hirin, too polite to ask about the relationship. His gaze lingered long and appreciatively on Rei, Yuskeya, and Maja, and I wondered if womanizing was one of the Chairman's techniques for a longer life. It didn't seem to be the same kind of stare he'd treated me to, though. I wondered if I should be insulted.
The Chairman gestured for us to mingle and afford ourselves the pleasures of the various refreshment tables, and with a final sidelong glance at me, moved off to chat with Dr. Ndasa first, as was only proper.
Hirin leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I'm getting something to eat. We've had to leave enough parties early and I haven't forgotten my old rule of getting fed first.”
I suppressed a giggle and watched him stroll over to the nearest buffet table and help himself to a plate. He piled it high with a reddish salad, slabs of spiced meat, and a selection of intriguing-looking appetizers. If his appetite were any indication, his recovery was going well. Maja followed him and asked him something I couldn't hear, then glanced over her shoulder at me.
Viss, Rei, Yuskeya and Baden were still huddled in a little knot, sipping their drinks and sending covert looks around the room. I strolled over to them.
“Relax, you people,” I hissed. “It looks like you're casing the place to come back later and loot it.”
“Did you notice this floor?” Rei asked. “This much lumistone probably cost as much as the Tane Ikai!”
I had to admit it was beautiful, perfectly cut and matched blocks of multicoloured stone that emitted its own soft light when stepped on. The floor seemed like a living thing, breathing colour as it interacted with the other creatures in the room. The light was never harsh, just a glow that limned the lower half of the room in a wash of blue, pink and mauve.
“Well, don't just stand here gaping,” I ordered. “Walk, talk, and find out who everybody is. I've never known any of you to be exactly shy or retiring!”
They laughed and moved off, breaking into pairs to go in search of conversation. Standing alone for the moment, I had the eerie feeling that half the people in the room were looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. While the purple dress was not intended to deflect attention, it certainly wasn't the most noteworthy in the room and had never caused this much of a stir before.
I felt a touch at my elbow. Chairman Buig had circled back to me.
“Thank you so much for bringing Dr. Ndasa all the way here from Earth,” he said. “It's a long run, I know.”
His pale blue gaze was earnest and intense. I felt myself withdraw a little from it. “We were pleased to have the opportunity, and a new wormhole has cut a considerable amount of time off the journey.”
“I'd heard about that. It could be we'll have more visitors in the near future.” I couldn't tell if he thought that was a good thing or not.
“But tell me about your excellent ship,” he continued. “I recognize her name. One of the longest-lived Japanese women on Earth in the twentieth century.”
I nodded. “That's right. Of course the ship herself is not nearly that old.”
He laughed politely. “Did you name her? Or did she come to you with her personality already set?”
“No, I named her myself. I've always had an interest in longevity research.” He would take all night to get around to actually asking me, I could tell. Not a man to speak before thinking.
“Personally, I do not understand why more people are not fascinated by it,” he said, nodding approvingly. “Aging, death, they are the only things that bind us all, are they not?”
Well, most of us. “Dr. Ndasa mentioned that he'd be joining other colleagues in the anti-aging field here. I'm impressed that you're throwing so much support behind the work. No scientific research comes cheap.”
“No,” he said seriously, “it is an expensive endeavour. I have sixteen top researchers here now, and Dr. Ndasa makes seventeen. It is one of the largest groups working on the problem in tandem anywhere in Nearspace. Although some people continue to think it's just a silly hobby on my part, they are wrong. Only Earth's PrimeCorp and the Schulyer Group on Mars are larger.”
“Really? Are the researchers here tonight? I would love to meet some of them, if I might.”
He nodded, looking around almost agitatedly. “Yes, there's someone I'm particularly interested in having you meet. Some of them are here already . . . I see Dr. Admelison over there, speaking with Sinjoro Paixon. You and he are related? It is an unusual name.”
“Distant relatives,” I lied easily. “He's no stranger to aging himself, but had a yearning to return to space one more time. I was glad to be able to offer him a berth on the Tane Ikai.”
“Most commendable,” he said. “Now, where are the others? I had thought they would all be present tonight. Perhaps, if you will excuse me, I'll round them all up, especially . . . well. Enjoy yourself in my absence.”
He moved off, but I saw him pull out a small datapad and input something. Was he calling someone? Or making notes about me like a good corporate executive, so he could “remember” me later?
I strolled over to Baden and Rei, who each held a plate piled high with brightly-coloured exotic fruits covered with a sweet-smelling sauce. “Does anything seem kind of strange here, to you?”
Rei grinned as she delicately licked her fingers. “Here's the big one, there are more people staring at you than there are at me. That's definitely a first, although you know I think you're beautiful, Luta.”
“I know, there's nothing catty about you, Rei.” The room hummed with an undercurrent of conversations kept deliberately muted as guests cast covert glances my way. “That's what I've noticed, too. It feels bizara.”
“I take it you haven't seen her,” Baden whispered.
“No, even taking into account how she might have changed, I don't see anyone who could be her. But Chairman Buig said he thought all the researchers would be here tonight, and he's gone to hunt them up. I should know soon if she's here or not.”
Hirin came up to us then and unobtrusively gave my hand a little squeeze. “Nothing yet?”
I shook my head. “No. Soon, though, I think.”
He hesitated a moment. “That man I was talking to—Dr. Admelison—he said none of the researchers was over seventy.”
“She might not look seventy.”
“I know,” he said. “I just hate to see you have another disappointment.”
Maja stepped up behind me and said in a low voice, “Mother, I was thinking about what you said earlier—that this could be a trap. If you don't see her, maybe we should leave. I have a bad feeling—”
A hush fell over the hall, as suddenly as if someone had damped the volume with the flick of a switch. Another doorway stood open, one that led from somewhere inside the palace, and a woman stepped through it. Even Chairman Buig stopped speaking to someone at the other side of the room and turned to look. It was as if the entire room had been waiting for her to arrive, and now held its breath.
She was exquisitely dressed, in a sweeping emerald dress of organic velvet trimmed with spun gold brocade. A tall collar studded with tiny sparkling sunrubies and moonpearls framed her face and reached high above the mass of auburn curls looped and twisted artfully on top of her head. She was stunningly beautiful. She entered the room confidently, gracefully, a little smile on her lips, then halted her steps to look around at the sudden and unexpected quiet.
My heart pounded once, then felt as if it paused in mid-beat as the moment stretched into eternity.
She was me.
I heard Hirin's sharp intake of breath as if it came from very far away, felt Maja's hand touch my arm. With agonizing slowness, the woman's quizzical gaze swept the room, landing on each face in turn, until it came to us.
To me.
All the speed that had been drawn from the moment came back in a rush. The woman's hand flew to her throat and she took a step forward, mouthing a name.
Luta.
Then she crumpled silently into a heap on the gently pulsing lumistone floor, and the room erupted into chaos around her.
Chapter Fourteen
I don't know if Chairman Buig ever had a stir like that at one of his salons before, but I doubt it. As my mother collapsed, the noise level in the room swelled from a moment of stunned silence to at least double what it had been. Buig himself actually ran the length of the room to get to her, but Yuskeya, bless her, was there first, and had Mother's head resting comfortably on a pillow she'd swiped from somewhere before Buig ordered her out of the way.
For myself, I was rooted to the spot, feeling like I'd swung off the safe side of the Split into a soft grey nothingness. There was no exultation at the conclusion of my fifty-year quest, no feeling of relief or disbelief or even satisfaction. It was as if the world had dropped out from under my feet and left me hanging in space without an EVA suit. I simply didn't know what to feel. The only things that seemed real were the presences of Hirin and Maja beside me.
There was no shortage of doctors in the room, and Dr. Ndasa was there as well. His presence gave the scene an even more surreal feeling—he'd travelled all this way to find her, and here he was, having to minister to her only moments after her appearance. In short order Mother was conscious again, although so pale it seemed you could see through her skin. As soon as she was back on her feet Buig took her arm, gestured for us to follow with a peremptory jerk of his head, and led her from the room through another door. The stares of the other salon attendees were no longer guarded or covert, but open and unabashed. I held my head high and walked beside Hirin, with Maja still gripping my other arm tightly. My breath came in short gasps. I couldn't seem to fill my lungs. I heard Hirin tell Dr. Ndasa to come with us, but his voice seemed to come from a long way off.
The room beyond the door was a small sitting-room, and as soon as the door closed behind us my mother let go of Buig's arm, turned to me, and held out her arms. Her hands trembled like leaves in a windstorm, but when I stepped into her embrace the shaking stopped and she held me as if she meant never to let me go.
I don't know what effect tears have on organic velvet, but mine flowed freely onto her collar.
“Remarkable,” Chairman Buig said in a low voice. “They must be twins. I could hardly believe my eyes when she walked into the ballroom. Demmar, you never told me!”
No-one answered him because, stupidly, we hadn't rehearsed any story to tell if we actually found her. I guess after so long, I hadn't really expected it. I hoped, but I had long ago given up on expectations.
She recovered more quickly than I did, holding me off at arm's length and studying me, but speaking absently to the Chairman. “I'm sorry to have caused such a scene, Gusain. It's a long time—a very long time—since Luta and I have seen each other.”
There was still a little part of me taking notes, and it spoke volumes that they used each others' first names so easily. I wondered if all his researchers were that informal.
“You must have known I was here?” The question was casual, but the intensity of her eyes locked on mine revealed its importance.
“I'd heard a rumour.” I was surprised at how normal my voice sounded. I smiled. “And I had a job in the vicinity anyway.”
She laughed then, a sound I remembered with a sharp pang of joy and pain intermingled. She hugged me again. “Well, as long as you didn't go out of your way!”
Chairman Buig cleared his throat. “Well, Demmar, if everything is all right?”
“I'm fine now. Go on back to your guests. Do you mind if we take a little time . . .?”
“No, no, that's fine. Stay here as long as you wish.” He chuckled. “I'll go and see if I can stop the rumour mills from grinding.”
“Good luck with that,” Hirin murmured as the Chairman left. Through the open door, we glimpsed huddled knots of people in the throes of wild conjecture.
When the door closed behind him Mother's composure slipped again. “Luta, can it really be you?” Her voice was harsh with tears that I suspected she'd been holding back too long to cry even now.
I squeezed her hand. “It's really me. These are my friends—my crew—and my family. They. . . know a lot.”
She glanced around at the others. “If you trust them, I trust them,” she said finally.
“This,” I added, pulling Hirin forward, “this is my husband, Hirin Paixon.”
He swept as low a bow as he could manage. “I am as honoured as I could be to finally meet you,” he said.
Her eyes filled with tears then. “Oh, Luta, I'm so sorry! No, I mean. . . Hirin, I'm so pleased to meet you. . . I knew, of course. . . how it must be. . . it's just—I've made things hard for you both, impossible, I know that—”
He shook his head and slipped an arm around me. “Please. It's been my profound pleasure and honour to be married to Luta,” he said elegantly. “I would not trade one moment of our life together. I want you to believe that.”
She smiled through her tears. “Oh, I do. I can see it in your eyes. Thank you, Hirin.”
“And this is our daughter, Maja.” She was still a quiet presence just behind me. “Your granddaughter.”
Maja smiled and nodded reservedly to Mother. It was hard to reconcile the relationship between them, looking at the two together. Now that I had seen her at closer range, Mother did look older than I did—a gathering of fine wrinkles hemmed her eyes, and her hands showed the rigours of time more than mine—but she'd been older when she'd done . . . whatever she'd done. She and Maja could have been of an age. Maja might even have been the older of the two, and speaking the words made it absurdly obvious.
“Maja, I can't believe I'm meeting you at last. My beautiful granddaughter! I knew about you and Karro, naturally,” Mother said, eyes still glistening. “I'm sorry I had to watch from the shadows, but please believe that it wasn't because I wasn't interested in my family.”
Maja seemed to be searching for a way to respond, so I came to her rescue.
“Here's someone else who has travelled a long way just to meet you,” I said, turning to find Dr. Ndasa. He'd retreated to the back of the room, behind everyone else. He seemed pale—or the Vilisian equivalent of pale, a sickly greyish cast replacing the usual pink undertones of his skin. I stepped toward him, hand outstretched. His scent, when I caught it, was a jumble that I couldn't sort out, but he said nothing.
“As you might have guessed, Dr. Ndasa, Demmar and I are related.”
He looked at me intently, the amber skin around his eyes crinkling. “So, Captain, all this time, while we were travelling—you knew who she was . . .?”
I smiled and shook my head. “No. I hoped, and I suspected. But I didn't know. In fact, I have you to thank.”
“You, too, were searching for her.” He shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear it, and swallowed with an audible gulp. I caught a breath of the anxious grapefruit-like scent that had clung to him on the bridge just before his first wormhole skip. “This is—not what I expected.”
Mother made the Vilisian greeting gesture in a fluid motion and said, “I'm very pleased to meet you, Doctor.”
“It is a very great pleasure to meet you, Sinjorino Holsey,” he said valiantly as he returned the gesture. “I—I . . . oh, dear, this is awkward.” Unexpectedly he slumped down into a chair that was fortuitously behind him and dropped his head into his hands.
There was a brief silence. I felt the crew go into alert mode. Don't ask me how I knew, but I knew. I dropped to my knees beside the Vilisian. “What is it? What's wrong?”
I glanced up at Mother. Alarm had spread visibly across her face. Dr. Ndasa didn't move. I put a hand on his arm and shook him a little.
“Dr. Ndasa, what's wrong? You have to tell me.” I used my captain's voice. “That's an order.”
He sat up then, and heaved a sigh. “I have a message for Doctor Holsey,” he said quietly. “But under another name, which I'm . . . not sure I should mention here.” He glanced around the room and gulped again. The grapefruit smell was almost overpowering now.
“A message? From whom?” Mother's voice was harsh.
“PrimeCorp?” I could barely say the word.
“From the Schulyer Group,” Dr. Ndasa said, barely above a whisper. The Vilisian didn't look up at me. He smelled damp and cold, like wet earth. Viss quietly moved to stand behind the Vilisian's chair.
“Dr. Ndasa.” I waited, but he didn't look up. “Does the Schulyer Group know where we are right now?”
“Yes,” he mumbled, keeping his gaze fixed on the tabletop. “But they're not coming here. No-one from Schulyer is following us,” he added quickly.
“You're sure about that?”
He nodded.
“What about PrimeCorp?”
“I have nothing to do with them.”
I could tell Viss was resisting the urge to shake him. “You said you had a message for Doctor Holsey?”
The Vilisian heaved a great sigh and finally lifted his head. He spoke when he found Mother, perched uneasily on the edge of one of the brocaded armchairs. “I have a message,” he said, “for Doctor Emmage Mahane. I was shown a holo,” he glanced back to me, “although as it turned out that wasn't really necessary.”
So that explained why he'd looked so startled at seeing me, the odd stares I'd occasionally catch. Not an alien thing at all. A curiosity thing.
“I did not realize that you were unaware of her presence here,” he said, his curious violet eyes sorrowful. “I now feel that I have betrayed your hospitality.”
“Deliver your message,” Mother said coldly. She sat back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest. “This is all I needed, another corp tailing me everywhere I go.”
Dr. Ndasa shook his head vehemently, his dark braid swinging. “No, no, please, it isn't like that. I'm here to ask for your help, nothing more.”
Mother narrowed her eyes at him. “Go ahead.”
“The Schulyer Group has been developing a new anti-aging technology for twenty years,” he said. The words came in a rush now, as if he were tired of holding them in. “It's similar to Longate, but yes, they've solved the problems Longate caused. They bought out all of Nicadico's research years ago so they could see where Longate went wrong. They're certain their basic data is sound,” he added emphatically, perhaps because Mother had already begun to shake her head. “But there have been . . . incidents.”
“Incidents? So perhaps the data is not as sound as you think.”
The Vilisian tilted his head to one side. “No, that is not what I mean. They believe someone—I’m certain you can guess who they suspect—has been sabotaging their efforts. Subtly altering data. Interfering with samples. Trying to access classified data, although we do not think they have been successful. They would like to have their work—especially the groundwork—verified by a trustworthy outside source, by someone who has been working in this field longer than anyone else. By you, Dr. Mahane.”
“How did they find me?” Mother wanted to know.
Dr. Ndasa waggled his shoulders in the Vilisian equivalent of a shrug. “They did not tell me that, only who you were and why it was important to find you.”
“And why did they send you, in particular?” She regarded him with narrowed eyes.
He flushed, his skin darkening from amber to ochre. “Perhaps because they knew that once I knew about you, I would have to meet you. I share your obsession, Dr. Mahane, and I've made no secret of that. And perhaps because I am so very . . . non-threatening.” He twisted a tentative half-smile at her, then grew serious again. “Please, Doctor, I don't have to tell you how important this could be. I know you already understand.”
“Only too well.” Mother sighed and turned to me. “Luta, I assume you were not privy to Schulyer Group's machinations?”
I couldn't read her voice. An outraged protest rose to my lips but I didn't speak the words. How could she know anything about me, really, after all this time? Could I blame her for being suspicious?
“No. He told Hirin he'd heard there was a female anti-aging researcher doing work for the Chairman on Kiando, and he'd wrangled an invitation to join his colleagues there. Hirin passed it on to me. It was only a guess hitching a ride on the back of a rumour, but it seemed worth a try.”
“That's all?” She raised her eyebrows. “It's a pretty thin rumour.”
“I started following thinner rumours than that a long time ago.” I regretted the words when I saw the look of pain that flashed across her face, and shook my head. “Don't apologize again. I'm pretty sure I understand some of the reasons—”
A staccato knock sounded on the door and it opened to reveal Chairman Buig. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him quickly. He didn't look happy. The skin around his pale eyes was taut and worry lines creased his forehead.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he said, and his eyes quickly found my mother. “Demmar, we need to speak. It's urgent.”
Her face stayed calm, but I saw her fist clench ever so slightly. “Gusain, what is it?”
He flicked a glance over the rest of us. “Perhaps it would be better to speak privately—”
Mother shook her head. “It's all right. Whatever it is, you can say it here.”
He pulled a deep sigh, looking even more unhappy, if that was possible. “I've had a very unsettling communication from a vessel that's on its way here,” he said. “I really think this should be private, but . . .” He must have recognized the stubborn look in my mother's eye, because he seemed to make up his mind. “The vessel is from Earth, a PrimeCorp far cruiser named Trident—apparently belongs to their police branch. They just came through the wormhole from Delta Pavonis. They say they have a warrant for your arrest—although they used a different name—for corporate data theft and other Planetary Statute crimes. And a second warrant to obtain genetic samples. They had a holo for identification, it's—it's definitely you, Demmar. Their assertion is that I am constrained by interplanetary Nearspace law to hold you until they arrive, and deliver you to them.”
Mother didn't say anything, and Buig turned to me. “They have a similar warrant for you, although it's only for the genetic samples. I believe if you allow them to take those, they have no interest in detaining you.”
I caught Maja's eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. I had nothing to do with this.
Damne. My stomach roiled and I felt sick, a weird echo of Alin Sedmamin's trick with the virus. This feeling, though, came from my own emotions. They must have followed me, somehow, despite my precautions. I've led PrimeCorp straight to my mother.
“Chairman Buig, did they say how long it would be before they arrive?” I asked.
“Several hours. It's a far cruiser, and they're still in the outer system.”
My mother spoke then. Her voice was flat, emotionless, as if she'd gone completely cold. “And what did you tell them you would do?”
He didn't flinch under her gaze. “I told them I wasn't certain of your whereabouts, either of you, but that I would see what I could do to locate you.” He flashed a quick grin. “It's called, stalling for time.”
Mother let out her breath in a quiet chuckle and I felt my stomach unclench. It looked like Chairman Buig, at least, was our ally.
“Why would they give you so much notice? Why not just show up and make their demands?” Baden asked.
“That's PrimeCorp for you,” Mother said with a humourless smile. “Supremely confident in their own power. It wouldn't occur to them that Gusain would question their authority or not comply. He works for a smaller corporation.”
“Well, they don't know us very well either, then,” Rei said. “So what's the plan? Make a run for it?”
“If they're still that far out, we can outrun them easily,” Viss added. “Far cruisers aren't built for speed.”
Mother turned to me with a half-smile. “You're docked nearby?”
I took hold of Mother's hand. “My far trader's at the Havering dock. And when we say 'we,' you're included in that. I'm not letting you go so soon. Not for a long time yet.” I smiled. “Just so you know.”
She squeezed my hand in return. “You couldn't if you tried. Can you give me a few minutes to grab some of my things? I'll be quick.”
Gusain Buig opened his mouth as if he might protest, but I said “I'll be right here,” and without hesitation she opened the door that led to the salon. The Chairman followed on her heels and they merged into the crowd. I saw him catch up to her and cup a hand under her elbow as he leaned in close to speak.
“But we have to be fast,” Yuskeya said. “It's silly for everyone to wait here. Why don't I go with them, and I'll bring her back to the groundcar? If we meet back there we'll get underway faster.”
“And if I ask the Chairman to give me access to his communications crew, I might get some better details on the ship and how soon it might be here,” Baden suggested.
I nodded. “Good ideas. Go catch up to them, and we'll meet back at the car.” The two of them hurried after Mother and the Chairman.
I looked at Dr. Ndasa. “Doctor, I'm afraid I'll have to insist that you come with us until we have this sorted out,” I said. “We're in enough trouble now. I can't take any more chances.”
He looked startled, then nodded.
“Bring him,” I told Viss. He took Dr. Ndasa's arm with smooth efficiency, and the Vilisian doctor didn't try to pull away.
Maja slid into the crowd and found one of the waiters, and we asked him to show us the quickest way out, avoiding the salon. He seemed unfazed by the strange request—perhaps guests often wanted to leave unseen—and led the way through a twisting maze of hallways. All were sumptuously carpeted and gently illuminated by elaborately blown glass sconces. Finally we rounded a corner, and the waiter let us out a back door to the parking area. All the time I followed him, I tried to calm the pounding of my heart, sick with the fear that I'd led my mother's enemies to her safe haven.
Kiando's moons were on the rise and shone brightly, painting pale puddles on the ground and deep shadows under the parked vehicles as we waited at the groundcar. None of the others were back yet, but I couldn't make myself get inside the groundcar to wait. Hirin and Dr. Ndasa climbed in, and Maja sat on the running board, but I paced nervously across the silver-limned space next to the car. I felt as if I'd just opened the box and found Schrödinger's cat alive and well, but that there was no guarantee of maintaining that state.
Rei leaned back against the groundcar and crossed her arms, watching me. “Congratulations, Captain,” she said suddenly. “Slow down a minute, would you, and take a breath? You did it! I mean, you really did it, you found her. After all this time.” She grinned. “PrimeCorp notwithstanding, that's a good thing.”
I stopped and took a deep breath, closing my eyes. “Thanks, Rei. You're right. Although I think I'm still in shock, mostly.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Viss glance at his datapad. “I hate to say this, but what if she doesn't come back?” he said slowly. “She said she'd be quick, and that PrimeCorp ship is getting closer by the minute.”
“She'll come back.” I'd seen the look in her eyes. She wasn't going to run away again—not just yet, anyway.
Baden came around the corner at a run and practically skidded to a stop, leaning on the groundcar and panting. “I thought you might leave without me,” he said between breaths.
“Oh, we would have, if Yuskeya and Luta's mother had raced you back,” Rei drawled. “However, since you're here, did you find out anything useful?”
He paused to stick his tongue out at her, then said, “Judging by the timestamps on the comm signals between the ship and the Chairman, we should make it off the planet before they're in sensor range. Even if they've sped up considerably since then, we should have a decent window of opportunity.” He glanced toward the Chairman's palace. “As long as we don't waste too much time.”
I started pacing again. What could be taking them so long? I assumed that my mother, in her years of running and hiding from PrimeCorp, could be packed and out of anywhere in short order. Unless Gusain Buig was trying to talk her out of it. Or wasn't really on our side, after all. But Yuskeya was with them, and she was more than competent to make sure my mother was able to come with us. I sent her a quick message from my datapad. Where are you?
Coming!
But after five minutes they still weren't back. I messaged her again. Everything okay? This time she didn’t respond. Well, maybe she wasn't paying attention to it and had the sound off. Maybe she was busy trying to hurry mother along, or talking to the Chairman. After another five minutes of silent pacing, and two more unanswered messages, checking my datapad every thirty seconds or so as the moons climbed higher into the sky, I said, “I can't take any more of this. I'll have to go and find—”
My words were cut short by the appearance of one of Chairman Buig's uniformed security personnel, who appeared in the doorway we'd come through into the parking lot. He held the door open and beckoned a finger in my direction. I took off at a run, although I heard Viss say, “Captain, wait! It could be a—” Then his footsteps followed mine. I knew the others would be watching from the groundcar, so nothing too bad was going to happen.
When I got close enough, though, my heart tightened in a painful spasm in my chest. On the richly carpeted floor of the hallway next to the guard lay a figure whose long, tousled dark hair I recognized immediately. Her multicoloured robe lay wreathed around her like a shattered rainbow.
Yuskeya.
Chapter Fifteen
I must have stopped in shock, because somehow Viss was there before me, kneeling beside her and feeling for a pulse at her neck. I felt a hand on my arm—Maja had come, too. The guard said to me, “She's unconscious, but otherwise she seems fine. The Chairman found her in a hallway, and said to bring her—”
“Where's the Chairman now?” I interrupted him. “And there was a scientist with her, a woman—red hair, looks a lot like me—”
He shook his head and gestured toward Yuskeya, whom Viss had now lifted up from the floor. He held her cradled against his chest as if she weighed no more than a child. I noticed distractedly that he looked unusually pale. A dark bruise stained one side of Yuskeya's forehead, and the blow that had done it had raised a nasty-looking lump, as well.
“She's the only one I saw,” the guard said. “The Chairman said to contact him on this channel.” He fished a torn scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“I have to see him—” I started, but Viss cut me off.
“Time, Captain. We don't have much. Let's get Yuskeya into the groundcar and you can call him. No point running around here looking for him.”
“Just call him, Mother,” Maja urged. “It'll be quicker.”
Damne. I wanted to grab the guard, shake him, and demand that he take me to Gusain Buig, but Viss and Maja were right. We were on a deadline. And now I didn't know whom I could trust. Swearing under my breath, I punched the code from the scrap of paper into my datapad. The Chairman appeared on my screen almost immediately.
“What's happening, Chairman?” I asked. I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded.
His face was pale, and he puffed out a sigh of relief upon seeing me. “Captain, you're all right. Is Demmar with you?”
My fingers tightened reflexively around the datapad. “No,” I said evenly. “The last I saw her, she was with you, and so was my navigator, who is with me, but currently unconscious.”
His image jumped unsteadily on the screen, and I realized he was walking quickly as he talked to me. The glass wall sconces flickered behind his image as he passed them. “I don't understand,” he said. “Your crewmen caught up with us. She—your navigator, I assume—went with Demmar. I took your communications officer, Mr. Methyr, to a console and connected him with my comm station, and told them to give him any information he needed.”
We had reached the groundcar by now, and Baden heard the end of what the Chairman said. He nodded his confirmation. Buig was telling the truth—at least to that point.
“Then what?” I stood beside the car while Rei and Viss manoeuvred Yuskeya inside. She still hadn't stirred. They settled her in one of the seats, her head still leaning on Viss's shoulder, his arm around her. Baden clambered behind the wheel.
Buig ran a hand across his forehead. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his skin and his hand shook slightly. “Then I went to find Demmar. I wanted—I wanted to say goodbye, properly. To find out where she was going to go, and when I might hear from her. But she wasn't in her room, so I thought I'd missed them. I was on my way to see if I could catch up to you in the parking area when I found your navigator, unconscious, and called a guard.” He was in a darker hallway now, the light from the datapad throwing his features into caricature-like relief.
“Where are you now?” I could feel the eyes of everyone on me: Hirin, Rei, Baden, Viss, Dr. Ndasa. Waiting for me to tell them what we would do next.
“I'm trying to find her, goddammit!” Buig snapped. “But it's like she's vanished. I hoped she'd already found her way to you.”
I swung around, searching the parking lot. The dual moons painted it in a clear, bright glow that reflected off the many vehicles still dotting the area. But nothing moved, the air was silent, and the lot seemed empty of anyone but us. “I don't see her. She hasn't come outside.”
“Do you think she'd go straight to your ship?” Buig looked up from his screen, searchingly, as brilliant light flared in front of him. It darkened again, and he looked back down. “She's not in the labs.”
“I didn't tell her the name . . . but who knows, she might know it.” I tried to think clearly, logically, but my mind raced from awful possibility to awful possibility. Which was worse: that she'd been somehow kidnapped practically right in front of me, or that she'd run away from me again, despite what she'd said?
I felt a firm hand take mine and looked up to see Hirin's blue-grey eyes. They were dark and serious. “Let's go and check the ship. She might be there. We can't be much help here . . . we don't even know our way around.”
I swallowed hard. He was right, as usual. “I'll call you again from my ship, Chairman,” I said. “Keep looking.” And if you're lying to me . . . I climbed into the groundcar beside Hirin and we wheeled out into the Kiandon night.
The drive back through the nearly-deserted streets to the spacedock seemed to take forever, and the silence was making me crazy. There would be a rowdy area of the city, where the clubs and bars and shopping venues were open late, since it was predominantly a mining colony and there were always miners whose shift had just ended. Our path wove through more residential and business areas, where lights had been extinguished for the night and streets lay in soft darkness. None of us spoke much. I felt torn between by the certainty that I should not be driving in the opposite direction from where I'd last seen my mother, and the crushing fact that perhaps this was exactly what she wanted. Could she have lied to me that thoroughly? Could I have read her so wrong? I don't know what consumed everyone ease's thoughts, but I guess we were all either too worried, too angry, or both, to talk. Hirin and I kept an eye on the road behind us, but no-one followed.
When we arrived back at the Havering spacedock Baden jumped out to disable the alarms and open the cargo pod doors. I wanted to call Chairman Buig again, but I wasn't going to do it until we'd reached one of the wire-blocked decks above the cargo level. The engineering and bridge decks had wire blockers on a constant sweep and scramble so that onboard communications were private, but the cargo deck didn't—the required electronics would limit the types of cargo we could haul. I was glad that we'd spent some of the travel time to Kiando making security modifications, but I was suddenly sorry that I'd stopped carrying torpedoes a while back, if PrimeCorp was sending far cruisers after me now. At least the personal ordnance locker remained well-stocked for emergencies.
Hirin's hand on my arm brought me out of my musings and I realized the groundcar was inside. Baden and Maja were already securing it. Viss lifted Yuskeya gently out of the car, and Rei had a hand on Dr. Ndasa's arm. It was lucky they knew instinctively what to do, because my head seemed too jumbled to think of everything. I gathered up the heavy folds of my purple dress and climbed out of the car.
“Go ahead, Captain,” Baden said. “I'll help Viss bring Yuskeya up.”
“Put her in First Aid,” I said with a nod, and headed for the metal stairway that had been locked in place next to the ship when we docked. It led all the way up to the airlock door on the bridge deck. The rhythmic mindlessness of the climb up the stairway felt somehow soothing, and I didn't stop until I'd reached the top. Hirin was right behind me all the way. It didn't occur to me that it was a long climb for him or that I should slow down, but he kept pace without complaining. I took five minutes to change out of my dress and into jeans and a black t-shirt, then strode straight to the bridge. I called Buig as soon as I was sitting. Hirin took a skimchair and slid it over near mine. Maja came in and sat at the communications console, since Baden wasn't there yet.
“Anything?” I asked without preamble when the Chairman appeared on the screen.
He shook his head. He looked a little calmer now, although no less worried. “I can only assume that she knew this might happen someday, and had a plan ready,” he said. “She's very resourceful.”
“Or she might have been kidnapped!” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. It didn't work very well. “Someone knocked out my navigator, and I doubt it was my—Demmar.”
“Is your navigator all right?”
“She's still unconscious. You don't think this looks like Demmar was taken by force?”
Through my anger and anxiety I was trying to read the man. I had only his word that he'd found Yuskeya unconscious—what if he'd knocked her out himself? But if he had, why had he allowed me to retrieve her?
“It's possible Demmar was kidnapped,” the Chairman said, “but I don't think it's likely. Why would PrimeCorp do that—a criminal act, something so risky—when they think they're going to walk away from here with her anyway?”
“Then who attacked my navigator?”
He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “I'm sorry, I just don't know. Maybe they were accosted by someone, and there was a struggle, but Demmar got away. Perhaps your crew member will be able to tell us something when she regains consciousness.”
I wanted to drop my head into my hands and cry, but there was no time for that. “You'll keep searching on your end?”
He regarded me seriously, his eyes dark with worry. If he was a liar, he was damn good at it. “I will. What are you going to do?”
“Consult with my crew. I'll get back to you shortly,” I said, and broke the connection.
Rei came onto the bridge. She'd also taken time to change out of her golden finery and into a plain blue shipsuit, and had tied her chestnut hair back in a ponytail. “Dr. Ndasa is back in his room.”
“Think he'll stay put?”
She nodded. “Seems pretty glum about the whole thing. Also, I locked the door from the outside,” she added with a grin.
Viss and Baden came in through the archway to Sensors. “Yuskeya's settled in First Aid,” Baden said. “All her vitals are good, she's just sleeping now.”
Viss passed me a cocoa-coloured leather satchel, a little worn around the edges as if it had seen a lot of use. “This was slung over Yuskeya's shoulder,” he said. “Don't know if you noticed it. I've never seen it before, and I don't think she had it with her when we went to the Chairman's place.”
I took it, puzzled. “I'll ask her about it when she wakes up,” I said. “Thanks.”
Rei was in the pilot's chair. “I assume we're getting out of here?” she asked, flicking switches to start the engines and thrusters warming up. The bridge screens sprang to life.
“I—” I stopped. I didn't want to leave the planet without knowing what had happened with my mother.
Hirin put a hand on mine. “No matter what else has happened, you still don't want to give PrimeCorp those samples, right?”
I pulled a deep sigh and shook my head. “No.”
“The Chairman might be able to protect your mother if she's still down there, but he can't do a thing for you if we're sitting right here in plain sight. I know it's hard to leave.” He squeezed my hand. “But we can come back.”
Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked them back. I swallowed hard. “Right. You're right. Rei, get us off Kiando, fast. Baden, try to get a reading on that PrimeCorp ship. Wherever it is, take us in the opposite direction. Once we're well outside their sensor range, we'll figure out what to do next.”
Maja said, “I'll go and sit with Yuskeya in case she wakes up and wonders what's happening.” She left the comm station to Baden and hurried off to First Aid. Baden commed the docking authority and told them we'd be leaving. After a brief discussion about docking fees they agreed to release the clamps.
Viss settled in at the auxiliary Engineering console. “Once we're off the planet, I'll go down to make modifications to the main drive. I might be able to alter the drive signature slightly, to make us more difficult to detect in case PrimeCorp is scanning for us. It'll only be temporary, but it might work.”
“Great. Are we ready to lift off?”
Rei nodded. “Firing thrusters now.” A low, steady hum had been building in the ship for the last thirty seconds or so and it increased sharply when Rei took us up. Other than that, it was a smooth lift. Probably not even enough to wake Yuskeya. Even under pressure, Rei had a steady hand at the helm. Maybe especially then. I got ready to contact Chairman Buig again.
“Luta, look at this,” Rei said, although she didn't look away from her screen. A map of the Mu Cassiopeia system popped up on my screen. “The PrimeCorp far cruiser came through the wormhole from Delta Pavonis not long ago. No matter what wormhole we decide to go through, we're going to have to wait until the cruiser is docked here in order to get close to any of them. Instead of hightailing it out to the other side of the system to stay out of their scan range, why don't we just try to hang out in the planet's sensor shadow until they land at Ando City? Then once the planet's turned so that the spaceport is facing away from the wormhole we want, we'll slip out of the shadow and run like hell for the terminal point.”
I hesitated. “How much time will it save us in getting through the wormhole?”
“Depends on how fast the PrimeCorp cruiser is moving, and where we decide to go. But it'll be here in a few hours. If we spend that time putting distance between us and them but then have to backtrack . . .”
She was right. “Go ahead, then, Rei, but be careful. Block all outgoing transmissions except from the bridge. I'll speak to Chairman Buig if I have to while we're there, but otherwise we don't want anything going out that PrimeCorp could pick up on.”
I sent a ping to Chairman Buig and he came up onscreen. I quickly outlined our plan. “Will you send me an encrypted message when they dock at Ando City?”
“Certe,” he said.
“What are you going to tell PrimeCorp?” I asked.
A glimmer of a smile touched his lips. “Why, that Sinjorino Holsey went off to visit someone at the spaceport, and I haven't seen her since. Naturally, I'll keep my men searching for her.”
“And you'll leave out our little conversations?”
He grinned. He looked quite nice when he did that. “I don't know what conversations you mean, Captain. I've also instructed my docking authority to 'lose' the documentation on when you left.”
There wasn't much to do then except sit and watch as Rei piloted us up and around the planet. On the viewscreen, Kiando spun slowly below us, the ochre swirls of its many arid deserts interspersed with verdant dots of scattered oases and small blue seas. Was my mother still down there somewhere? Any number of small vessels and mining ships had lifted off since the message had come from the PrimeCorp ship; the spaceport at a busy mining colony rarely went quiet, and a silvery starliner hung in orbit, with a busy stream of shuttles flitting between it and the surface. But if she'd wanted to get off the planet, why hadn't she simply come with me?
“We're just about in a perfect position,” Rei said.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said a voice from the archway. I looked up to see Yuskeya, very pale and with a somewhat messily wrapped bandage encircling her head, leaning against Maja. Her robe was a wrinkled mess but she seemed supremely unaware of it.
“She insisted,” Maja said, shaking her head.
Yuskeya stared at the bag in my lap. “Where's your mother?”
I jumped up and went to her. “I wish I knew. But I know where you should be. Lying down,” I told her.
She shook her head, then half-closed her eyes, grimaced, and pointed to the empty skimchair at her nav station. Maja and I helped her into it and I knelt beside her. “What in the world happened?”
Yuskeya closed her eyes. “I was hoping you could tell me. We had your mother's things—she gave me that bag to carry for her—and we were on the way to meet you.” She touched the tips of her fingers gingerly to the lump on her head. “Whoever or whatever hit me, I never saw it coming. The next thing I knew, I woke up in First Aid.”
“Who was with you?” I wanted to check out Gusain Buig's story.
“Just me and your mother,” she said. “The Chairman went with Baden to hook him up with the comm centre. Did you send me a message?” She squinted as if she were trying to remember something.
I nodded. “Several. You only answered the first one.” I kicked myself mentally. My message had probably been the distraction that let someone sneak up on Yuskeya. “I'm sorry,” I told her.
She shook her head, then winced again. “No, I'm the one who's sorry. This never should have happened.”
I patted her hand and went back to my chair, where I'd left the leather bag. It felt a little voyeuristic to go through it, but I justified snooping by telling myself there could be a clue inside to tell me where Mother was now. To be honest, I think I just wanted to feel a little closer to her. I sat down and opened the top.
It looked like a pretty ordinary travel bag. I pawed through carefully. A denim-blue t-shirt and rolled-up pair of jeans. A set of tiny earphones. A chipcase. A personal bag with toothpaste, toothbrush, soap and other toiletries. Socks. Mints. A tiny light and an actual paper book, Ring of Tears by Juris Lell. A hand-drawn wormhole map of Nearspace, a red pen, and a sheaf of papers filled with scientific diagrams and notations that made less than no sense to me.
I sighed. It was all pretty standard, and what I would have expected. Could have belonged to almost anyone, really, except for the scientific stuff. And the wormhole map, I supposed.
But . . . there was the chipcase. I drew it out and opened it. There were slots for six chips, but only three of them held anything. Two were labelled NB2897 and PC35411, respectively. The third was labelled, L/L.
Luta/Lanar? Or was I being silly and sentimental?
“Yuskeya,” I said slowly, “my mother didn't say anything about this bag, did she? Or anything in it?”
“No. She just asked me to carry it. She had a few bags.”
“Rei, we're okay here for a bit, yet, right?” I asked her.
She nodded, leaning back from the piloting console and folding her arms. “Until we hear from Chairman Buig that the PrimeCorp ship is down, we just have to stay in geosynchronous orbit.”
“Then I'm going to my quarters for a bit. Hirin, Maja, would you come with me?”
I saw the quizzical glance that passed between them, but they both got up to follow me. “Yuskeya,” I added, “Go lie down, okay? There's nothing for you to do here, and you could use the rest.”
She smiled and nodded. “I've felt better, I have to admit. Thank you, Captain.”
I knew it wasn't necessary, but I added, “Keep an eye on her, Viss.”
“Aye, Captain.”
I took the whole bag with me to my cabin. Hirin and Maja trailed after me, and we stopped in at the galley for hot drinks.
“What's up?” Hirin asked, drawing off a chai tea for himself. Yuskeya seemed to have won him over to her favourite drink.
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But maybe a message from my mother. I’d like a little family support if that's what it turns out to be.”
Hirin squeezed my arm and Maja simply nodded, spooning sugar into her own tea. “That's what we're for,” Hirin said.
We settled in my room, Hirin in the big armchair and Maja on the edge of the bed, while I sat at the desk. I twisted the screen around so that we could all see it. When I inserted the chip marked L/L, a message popped up. Please enter the password to view this data.
I slumped back in my chair. “Well, this might be a short meeting. Having not seen the woman in seventy years, I doubt I can guess this password.”
“There's nothing else in the chipcase, or the bag?” Maja asked.
I passed the bag to her and opened up the chipcase, showing it to her and Hirin. “Two other chips, that's all. Everything in the bag looks pretty normal.”
While Maja went through the contents of the bag, I tried the other two chips, but they were both password-protected as well. I put the first one back in and tried the labels of both the other chips as the password for this one. I thought that was pretty clever, but neither of them worked.
Hirin leaned back and steepled his fingers in his characteristic “thinking” pose. “Okay, let's think about this. Assuming she meant this for you or Lanar, she must have made the password something you could figure out.”
“Assuming that, I suppose. I don't even know for sure that's what L/L means, but we're working under that assumption.”
“So it's likely something that relates to your life together,” he went on, “before she had to leave.”
“Well, I was only nine when she left PrimeCorp, and fourteen when she went off on her own,” I said. “I doubt that I remember very much from that time. What if there was something that she thought was important, but I didn't?”
“All we can do is try.”
For ten minutes or so we tried street names, pet names, teachers, schools, my father's and grandparents's names—anything we could think of that tied to my early life. We moved on to places we'd lived, friends, children; still no luck. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration.
“What about things you and your mother have in common?” Maja suggested.
I typed in red hair, but that wasn't it.
“Very funny,” she said. “No, really. So you've been separated all this time—that doesn't mean you have nothing in common.”
I typed in PrimeCorp, but that wasn't it, either. PrimeCorpSucks? No.
“Something you have in common, something important to you both,” Hirin mused. “But maybe with a more positive connotation?”
I sat back and closed my eyes, thinking about the all-too-brief conversation we'd managed to have. Had she said anything that might be a clue?
. . . it wasn't because I wasn't interested in my family.
Family. We did have that in common. I typed in KernenEmmageLutaLanarKarroMaja.
And we were in.
Chapter Sixteen
There were several files on the L/L chip, but they were all labelled Luta & Lanar vid, followed by a number. I paused only long enough to take a deep breath and pat myself mentally on the back for guessing correctly about the contents of the chip. Then I tapped the screen to play the file that ended with -01.
Mother's face filled the screen. She sat at a scarred, metal-topped desk, and the background looked like any one of thousands of small passenger rooms on any one of hundreds of starliners that operated around Nearspace, carrying folks between planets and systems. She looked pretty much exactly the same as she had when I'd spoken to her earlier, although she wore an azure mandarin-collared shirt and her auburn hair was piled in a messy updo—that kind I can never achieve myself.
She took a deep breath and began to speak.
I'm not sure who'll be watching this, Luta, or Lanar, or maybe both of you together. So hello to you both, and before I say anything else, I love you. I'm sorry I haven't been able to say it more often.
She blinked away tears that had threatened to spill over, and smiled. I have a lot to tell you. I doubt that it will all happen at once. I'll number the files consecutively so that you can watch them in order, and they'll make sense. If you're watching these videos, it's because I'm dead—which I sincerely hope is not the case—or for some other reason, they've come into your hands without me. I hope we'll be able to talk this over together, but if not, it's important for me to tell you everything. She smiled. Or at least a few things.
“She sounds like you, too,” Maja said quietly.
“She does,” Hirin agreed. I had no opinion, not really knowing what my own voice sounded like. But my mind was busy elsewhere. I felt guilty to be watching this without Lanar. He deserved to be here as much as I did. I couldn't send him any kind of message without possibly alerting the PrimeCorp ship to our presence, though, and I needed to know if there was going to be anything in these files that might help me decide on my next move. Mother began to speak again.
PrimeCorp has been dogging me—sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly—for as long as I've been away from you. She breathed a deep sigh, letting it out slowly, as if she were releasing more than just breath. That's a long time.
They have always maintained that they have a proprietary interest in all the research I carried out during the years I worked for them. Sometimes their attempts to find me have seemed almost cursory, but then they will ramp things up again. They stopped almost completely for a time, when they brought Vigor-Us to market, but the reprieve did not last long. In the past two years, they've appeared to be growing more desperate. They want my data and knowledge, and they want it now.
Mother paused and took a sip from a mug. She positioned her hand to cover the ship's logo imprinted on the side of the mug. Always careful.
“They probably know or suspect that Schulyer is getting close with their own research,” Hirin commented.
Let me be clear, Mother continued. Legally, they do own all my data up to the point when I left. It's plain as plain in the contract we all signed when we went to work there. I can't argue with that, legally or ethically. But I don't want them to have it.
It's a complicated story, but I'll try to be concise. I worked for PrimeCorp for fifteen years doing research on what was then the next generation of bioscavengers.
Even though she couldn't see me, I nodded once, my heart thumping. I'd been right.
We were looking for a way to incorporate all the functions of the previous generations—cancer and disease fighting, trauma repair, toxin purification—into one super-protein, and supply an extra function as well: age-related change suppression. Once we could create nanobioscavengers to deal with the main causes of aging—telomere shortening and damage, DNA glycation, and oxidative stress—in addition to everything else they could do, it would be easy. PrimeCorp fed us a lot of encouragement about the philanthropic value of what we were doing, how this would change humanity forever, how their business model would make it universally accessible. We believed them.
She smiled. It was probably the most exciting time in my life. We all thought that we were on the verge of offering virtual immortality to the human race.
And then—we discovered PrimeCorp's actual agenda. We'd just had a breakthrough. We had a prototype designer protein for bioscavengers that could self-replicate, and delay aging by about seventy years before an individual would need an infusion of new proteins. Then we discovered a way to make that protein indefinitely self-replicating. It would mean something close to human immortality.
I heard someone, Hirin or Maja, take a deep breath. I couldn't take my eyes off Mother.
She brushed a few stray hairs back from her face and went on. PrimeCorp stood to make enormous profits, because effective as the bioscavs would be, they couldn't be inherited. Each new generation would have to have an initial infusion.
That's when we found that PrimeCorp had no intention of using the research to the full benefit of humanity. They planned to halt the research where it was, and manufacture only the non-replicating bioscavengers. They'd offer them for distribution only to colonial and planetary governments—at exorbitant prices. A huge advertising campaign would practically force governments to pay whatever PrimeCorp asked. If people knew the technology existed, they'd demand it from their governments, and if the governments didn't come through, the people were sure to revolt.
Mother folded her hands, set them on the desk in front of her. When we found out, some of my colleagues wanted to argue with PrimeCorp about it, try to fight them. Someone mentioned starting legal action on the basis that we'd been encouraged to work under false pretenses. That didn't make much sense to me; I could see where that would go. We'd all had to sign non-competition contracts when they hired us so that we couldn't take our data or even our experience and go start working for some other genetics firm. We couldn't just move to a less greedy company. It would be tied up in the courts for years, and meanwhile PrimeCorp would let the news slip out, and the demand would be so great that they'd win in the end.
So I took matters into my own hands. I was the project head, after all, and most of the original ideas had been mine. Before PrimeCorp began to suspect that we weren't happy, I stole all the data and we ran with it. She leaned back in the chair and looked suddenly very tired. I've been running ever since.
The image froze and I realized that was probably the end of the first video file. I was about to tap the next one when Maja said, “If they were after her for that long, how do you think they finally caught up with her now?”
I started guiltily and turned to face her. “I'm afraid I must have done something to lead them here,” I said. “Although I don't know what. I tried to be careful.”
Maja tapped her fingers against her lips in an echo of her father's gesture. “Somehow, they keep finding us. Could they have put something on the ship?”
I shrugged. “All the decks except cargo are wire-blocked, so it wouldn't matter if they managed to smuggle something on with one of us. And a tracking device on a piece of cargo doesn't really make sense—it could be offloaded anywhere.”
“What about the intruder?” Hirin said suddenly. “Didn't you say he came up from the cargo deck?”
“What intruder?” asked Maja.
“It was before we left Earth,” I said. “Someone, I'm assuming Sedmamin, sent a stripped operative to break into the Tane Ikai and get a biological sample from me without my permission. He didn't get it,” I added when I saw the worried look on Maja's face.
“What happened?”
“He tried to fly from the bridge deck to the cargo deck, without stopping at Engineering in between,” Hirin said wryly. “But PrimeCorp hadn't thought to give him wings first. He left a mess on the deck, and we left what was left of him in the outer Sol system.”
“And then in the Keridre/Gerdrice system,” I added. “He slipped through a communications pinhole when we jettisoned the body in a cargo crate. We planned to tuck it away on an asteroid until we'd decided what to do.”
“Were you hurt?” Maja asked.
I shrugged. “A bit of a scratch, that was all. Yuskeya fixed me up.”
“I didn't know about that,” Maja said, frowning.
“That was before you caught up with us,” Hirin explained, patting her hand. She still looked troubled and pale. “Could he have—I don't know—injected you with something to make you trackable somehow?”
I hadn't thought of that possibility before, but then I remembered my “entity.” “I don't think that would be very useful. I'm almost always on one of the wire-blocked decks.”
“So where was he on the ship?” Maja asked.
I waved a hand. “Pfft. Everywhere, I guess. Well, no, that's not true. I came out into the corridor as he got to this deck. We had to assume he got in through the airlock on the engineering deck. He could have been in any of the cargo pods, and anywhere on Engineering. I don't think he got anywhere on this level before he ran into me. Or I ran into him.” I grimaced, remembering.
Hirin stood up. “He could easily have planted something on the cargo deck. Did we run any scans after that?”
I shook my head. “I don't think so.”
“Then let's go check.”
I popped the chip out of the reader and put it back in the chipcase, pocketing the whole thing. I wasn't letting it out of my possession until I'd watched everything that was meant for me.
Rei and Baden were on the bridge, and Yuskeya was still there, too. Someone had been to the galley, since they all had empty mugs and a plate specked with crumbs sat on the console next to Baden.
“Didn't I tell you to go and lie down?” I demanded of Yuskeya.
She held up her hands in surrender. “I'm resting. I haven't moved from this chair since you left. Rei and I were just chatting, and we sent Baden to the galley for us.”
“Oh, all right. Next time I'll make it an order.” I turned my attention away from her. “Baden, nothing from Chairman Buig yet?”
“Not a word.”
“Is Viss in Engineering?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
I opened up the comm to the Engineering deck. “All right, then listen up, everyone. We have reason to suspect that the intruder who boarded the ship before we left Earth might have left a tracking device on the cargo deck.”
“He came in through cargo pod Four, Captain,” Viss said. “I got that much from that techrig he had.”
“All right, we'll start there. What do we have for scanners? It'll probably be minuscule.”
Baden held up his updated datapad. “This will pick up any transmission that would be strong enough to use for tracking. I'd just have to scan for the right frequencies.”
“So that could have been a putra PrimeCorp ship behind us when we jumped for Kiando,” Yuskeya said, already halfway out the door before I could tell her to sit back down. “I'll get the datameds from the First Aid station. The implant bioware could scan for transmissions if I tweak the sensors a little.”
“My datapad's got the same capabilities as Baden's,” Hirin said, following Yuskeya. “He got me a new one when we were on Renata. I'll be right back.”
Diable. I didn't know Hirin had a new datapad. I think I gaped after him a little. The changes in that man just didn't stop.
“I have a new datapad, too,” Maja offered quietly. “I bought it to come on this run. I don't know everything it does yet, but if Baden will show me how, I'll help.”
“And if I shut down the wireblocker on the engineering deck I can scan the cargo deck from the diagnostics station,” said Viss.
“All right. At this rate, I can't imagine not finding it, if it exists. Let's go.”
There didn't seem to be anything for me to do but go along and . . . watch.
I stood to one side, watching the others move around the half-empty cargo pod in their search. I wasn't sure if I hoped they'd find something, or not.
Yuskeya tired more quickly than she'd expected and came to stand next to me, having handed her scanner over to Maja. “You know, Captain, just going through the Split might have been enough to throw anyone off our trail.”
“Thanks, Yuskeya, but they found Mother somehow,” I said grimly. “If this was how they managed it, I guess I'd rather know.”
I got my wish.
“Got it!” It was Baden, over in a far corner of the cargo pod. He knelt beside a cargo lockdown slot.
Everyone rushed over. “I can't see the damn thing yet,” he said, “but this reading shouldn't be here. There's nothing else it could be.”
“Let me see.” Rei knelt near the lockdown slot, tucked a tendril of chestnut hair back from her face, and pressed something just behind her right ear. A bright, slender beam of light emerged from somewhere near her temple and shone wherever she looked.
“Huh,” Baden grunted.
“I knew this implant would be useful someday,” Rei said, not looking up from the search. “Ah-ha! There it is.” She ran a fingernail over a spot just under the lip of the lockdown slot and came up with a tiny black and silver circle on her fingertip. It was no bigger than the stud Baden wore in his ear. “Nice.”
I hailed Viss over the comm. “We've got it. I'm bringing it up to you.”
“Excellent, Captain,” he said, “I'll reset the wire blocker, and once it's up here it'll be mute. If I can reprogram it, it might be a handy little thing to have around, don't you think?”
“Good idea,” I agreed. A thought struck me and sent a chill down my back. “Has this thing been transmitting to the PrimeCorp ship ever since we left the planet? Do they already know we're here, hiding behind it?”
Viss didn't answer right away, but Baden said, “I doubt it. This type of signal would get lost really easily once we were inside a planet's atmosphere, to say nothing of all the extra chatter coming from the planet and the ships coming and going—and the Trident is still pretty far out. I don't think they'd have any chance of picking it up.”
“Okej.” I didn't feel entirely safe, but Baden knew his stuff. Anyway, there wasn't much we could do about it now except stop the transmission and hope for the best. We left the cargo pod and climbed back up to Engineering.
I handed the minuscule bug to Viss and Maja said suddenly, “But if PrimeCorp knew their operative had left a beacon on the ship, why did Dores Amadoro try to get me to plant one, too?”
“What?” Hirin exclaimed, frowning. He put his hands on his hips. “Seems like I haven’t heard all of this story.”
The others, who didn't know about the way Amadoro had conned Maja either, stared at her uncomprehendingly.
I held up my hands. “Sorry, Hirin, you were out of the loop on that one. We’ll fill you in as soon as we’re done here.”
He didn’t look entirely happy about that, but he nodded. I thought about Maja’s question
“Because Amadoro wouldn't have known if this beacon was in place or not. All she—or she and Sedmamin—knew then was that the virus trick had failed, and the op hadn't come back from the mission. If they couldn't stop me from leaving, they at least wanted to be able to track me.”
In a display of unusual tact, none of the others asked for details. Rei looked a query at me, but I shook my head a little and she seemed to accept that.
Viss said, “The tracker probably wasn't set to start signalling until we made the first skip out of Earthspace, to minimize the chances of it being found.”
“So when Amadoro learned that you were coming after us—”
“She thought she could set up some 'insurance,'” Maja finished bitterly.
I squeezed her arm. “Stop worrying about it. We've put that behind us, right?”
She nodded. “What do you mean, 'virus trick'?”
“That was before we left Earth, too. Chairman Sedmamin sent me a notebug infected with a virus in an attempt to get me in to PrimeCorp for some 'discussion.' It didn't affect me in the way he'd hoped, so I guess that's when he sent the operative to break in.”
“How did you know he came from PrimeCorp?” Maja asked.
“Well—we don't, not for sure,” I said. “He didn't have any identification, not even an ID chip. But he did try to get blood or something from me. Makes sense that he was from PrimeCorp.”
“Too bad you can't prove it,” she said. “If you had actual proof of some of the things they've done to you, maybe you could make them stop.”
I stared at her. “But it's . . . PrimeCorp,” I said. “We wouldn't stand a chance against them. Anything we said—they'd find a way to bury it, or make it go away. Buy people off.” I shook my head. “They're just too big.”
Maja cocked her head at me, considering. “It's PrimeCorp, yes. But maybe they're bigger in your mind because you've spent so much time feeling attacked by them. They can't be free to act completely outside the law. Surely they can't be so big that in all of Nearspace, we couldn't find enough allies to move against them.”
“She's right,” Baden said, leaning back against one of the Engineering consoles and crossing his arms. Viss cleared his throat and Baden stood up straight again. “I mean, you seem to have found one in Chairman Buig. PrimeCorp might think he'll accommodate them, but he's under no real obligation to. Duntmindi Corp has its own sovereignty rights on its own planets.”
“And its own legal rights and justice system,” Hirin added slowly. “The things that happened on Earth and on Rhea—they're both PrimeCorp-controlled planets. I wouldn't think you'd have much luck there. But if you could manage to bring charges here . . .”
Yuskeya snapped her fingers. “The pirate attack! That happened in open Nearspace, not on any planet, which means you can bring the charges on any planet with an ambassador in the Administrative Council.”
My mind was whirling. “But we don't have much evidence from that. A techrig and a weapon. Maybe a bit of DNA or a fingerprint, if we could recover it from the weapon. And we'd have to be able to link that stuff to PrimeCorp.”
“Yes, but if you start the proceedings here, you can bring in the other incidents as well,” Yuskeya said. She'd sat down at one of the auxiliary engineering consoles, but she leaned forward in the skimchair, eyes bright. Viss didn't seem to mind her sitting there. “You'd have to prove that they were all related, but you could build the body of evidence for everything at once.”
“And maybe you don't even have to win,” Rei said thoughtfully. “If it even looks like you have a chance of winning, you may be able to get PrimeCorp to negotiate, or at least leave you and your mother alone.”
An ally in Chairman Buig, I thought suddenly. An ally who had access to the Nearspace Database, and might be willing to access it on our behalf.
“I need to think,” I said. Which meant I needed to pace. I opened the bulkhead leading from the Engineering station to the long corridor between the fuel storage cells, where so recently we had raced in response to the pirate attack on Cargo Pod One. Before I stepped inside, I said, “Maja, take your father up to the galley and fix him a double caff while you explain about Dores Amadoro, would you? He’s a patient man, but he has his limits.”
Maja didn’t look like she relished the idea of telling that story again, but she nodded and took Hirin’s arm. I wasn’t too worried about how he’d react. If I’d forgiven Maja, I knew he would, too. But I had to let them handle this one themselves. I had too many other things to think about. I stepped through the bulkhead and pulled the door shut behind me, signalling my need for a few minutes alone, and stalked down the corridor. I used the easy rhythm of my feet on the decking to shuffle my thoughts into order.
What evidence did we have against PrimeCorp, if I stacked it all up together? We had a photo of the dead intruder, which might be enough to provisionally identify him. It wouldn't be enough on its own to do much damage to PrimeCorp, but if he were identified, then we'd know if he could be linked to PrimeCorp. His techrig might not be much use, since Viss had taken it apart, put it back together, and used it since then. Body of evidence, Yuskeya had said. I wished again, mightily, that we still had the body, but put that thought aside for now.
I had Alin Sedmamin's notebug message about the virus. I had the names of the thugs who had kidnapped me on Rhea, and I had the techrig, weapon, and if I was lucky, some DNA or a fingerprint from one of the pirates.
I reached the end of the corridor and turned, then slumped back against the wall as another thought hit me. There was also the illegal tech cargo that the pirates hadn't managed to get, which we—or Viss, anyway—had delivered to the Protectorate agents on Kiando. That meant they now had hard evidence of PrimeCorp's manufacture of illegal tech. If they'd help us. If they could do so without jeopardizing their own case against PrimeCorp, and the things Lanar had hinted at so obliquely. I couldn't say anything to the others about that yet. I needed to talk to Lanar—securely—and find out what the Protectorate could do to help.
I leaned my head back against the cool metal wall of the corridor, letting its solid bulk comfort me. The ship always had a way of doing that. Maybe the evidence wasn't much, even taken all together. It didn't tell me where Mother was now or why she'd disappeared as suddenly as I'd found her. But at least it gave me something to do.
Chapter Seventeen
I hurried back towards Engineering. It said a lot about how well the rest of them understood me that none of them had followed me into the corridor or moved from the spot. Only Hirin and Maja had gone.
“Baden,” I said, as soon as I was within earshot. “Do you think I could talk with the Chairman for a few minutes, and send him some data packets, without jeopardizing our situation with that PrimeCorp ship?
Baden pursed his lips. “I think so. I'll make it as narrowband as I can; the quality might suffer a bit, but the ship should still be far enough out that they wouldn't pick it up. There's lots of that other chatter I mentioned down here to mask it, and they shouldn't even be looking for us out here. If they pick us up at all, they'd likely think we were still on the planet.”
“Okej.” I outlined what I'd been thinking. “If he'll help us, I'll send him the photo of the intruder, the names of the kidnappers, and anything we might get off that pirate's belongings. If Buig can identify any of them and link them to PrimeCorp, we'll have something to start with.”
“We can do even a little better than that,” Rei said suddenly. “Wait right here.”
Without another word she swarmed up the ladder to the upper deck. Everyone looked at me, but I shrugged.
She was back inside a minute, swinging something small and soft and black from her hand, and she tossed it to me, carefully, as she passed. “I'll bet you can get a better identification of the intruder with some of his skin cells, and maybe a hair or two . . .” She dropped into one of the skimchairs and let it spin her around, looking extremely pleased with herself.
I picked it up. It was the intruder's mask.
“How?”
Rei tilted her head to one side and grinned. “Souvenir,” she said. “I thought it would be a good one. I had it in the secret locker in my room so it wouldn't be out in plain sight if anyone came asking about the man. I kept it after we took it off him that night. Didn't think he'd miss the warmth. No-one else has had it on, so anything in there belongs to him.”
I hugged her. “Remind me never to call your souvenir habit crazy again.”
She pulled back. “You think my souvenirs are crazy?” But there was a smile in her eyes.
“Okay, folks,” I said. “Here's what we're going to do. Yuskeya, if you're feeling up to it, would you try to extract some information from this mask and the pirate's belongings, and package the results to send to Chairman Buig? Ask Dr. Ndasa to help you. I'll go and retrieve that message from Sedmamin about the virus. Viss, you took the photo of the intruder, would you send a copy to Baden? And Baden, you can cobble all of this together, make it as small as you can, and get it ready for me to narrowband down to the Chairman after I've spoken to him.”
A chorus of ayes met my requests, and I led the way up the hatchway ladder. Yuskeya said she'd need about half an hour, and I headed to my quarters to call up Sedmamin's nasty message from the notebug. I settled at my desk and tried to load it, the one where he'd admitted that there had been a virus in my notebug message. I should have realized he wouldn't be that sloppy, though. The message was a corrupted mess of gibberish, obviously set to self-destruct after it had been read. I made several attempts to rebuild or decrypt it with some filters I’d gotten from Lanar, but it was no use. I wondered briefly if Baden could make anything of it with his superior techrig. Somehow I doubted it. Sedmamin was a master when it came to covering his tracks. Maybe we wouldn't need it anyway.
A knock at my door took my attention from the screen, and I crossed the room to answer it. It was Maja, and she looked pensive.
“May I come in?”
I nodded and pushed the door open, stepping inside and holding it for her to follow me. “Of course. How did it go with your father?”
“Oh, fine,” she said absently. “He’s more angry at Amadoro than he is at me.”
She crossed the room, looking around as if she'd never seen it before, and sat down in my big armchair. She stared across at the wall, saying nothing, as if she were searching for a way to begin. Her fingers drummed a nervous staccato rhythm on the arm of the chair.
I sat on the bed and waited. She obviously hadn’t come here because of Hirin.
“I didn't know you'd been attacked,” she said finally. “Besides what happened to us on Rhea.”
I shrugged. “Well, like your father said, it was before we left Earth. It wasn't a big deal.”
She stared at the wall above my bed, not meeting my eyes. “But . . .twice? I think it was. Is. A big deal.” She met my eyes, her blue ones thoughtful. “And the things Emmage said in that vid . . .it all makes me realize that I never really listened when you tried to explain why things were the way they were.”
I raised my eyebrows and half-smiled at her. “I noticed.”
Maja stood, walked around the chair slowly, running her manicured fingers gently over the soft woven fabric. “All I could see was that it wasn't fair. I always seemed to be on the outside. You and Dad and Karro, even Uncle Lanar—you all loved space so much. I hated it. Never staying in one place, living on a far trader. You all thought it was so exciting. For me, it was just . . . unsettled.”
“It isn't the life for everyone. I suppose I didn't pay enough attention to what you wanted. But there was always PrimeCorp to think about—”
“I understand that now.” She sighed. “I just thought it was a stupid excuse then. I stayed angry about that for a long time. PrimeCorp never seemed like such a threat to me. Then it started to be obvious that you hadn't passed on whatever was keeping you young. I hated you for that, too—and you wouldn't cooperate with PrimeCorp to find out about it. And later,” she went on, as if she were determined to make a full confession, “when Dad got sick. That was your fault, too, as far as I was concerned. And then I couldn't forgive you for putting him in that facility and leaving.”
“Maja, I—”
“No, no, you don't have to say anything. I understand. Now I do, at least. Then when Taso and I . . . he went off with someone else.” She smiled wryly. “She was much younger. And even though it didn't make any sense, I blamed you.”
“Honey, I'm sorry.” I didn't know what else to say.
She shook her head. “It doesn't matter now. Really. It was just one thing after another, all our lives, and now I see that I always got it wrong.”
“I wouldn't say you always got it wrong.” I looked up at the viewport, at the incomprehensibly vast expanse of stars beyond it. I'd thought of the whole thing as my home, never understanding that Maja needed something else. Never paying enough attention, I realized. “I spent a lot of time when I was younger being angry with my mother, too. It took time, and learning to understand the situation, before I could see her reasons for acting the way she did.”
She stared at the fabric of the chair, lightly tracing the design. “I think I should have been able to find that clarity sooner.”
“I didn't make it any easier for you to do that. It wasn't exactly a normal life.”
“No, it wasn't,” she agreed, almost smiling. “But that's no excuse.” She'd circled the chair and sat down again, leaning her arms on her knees. She looked forlorn, her blonde hair tumbling over her eyes like it had when she was a little girl. “These last few weeks, being here on the ship, I started seeing things differently, even though I didn't realize what was happening. Then when I saw you finding out things even you hadn't known, from Emmage—I'm afraid I can't call her 'Grandmother' yet—it came into focus. And knowing that there was real danger from PrimeCorp . . . I can't blame her, either . . .” She sighed. “I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say.”
I knelt down and put my arms around her. “That you don't hate me?”
She laughed a little at that, or maybe it was a sob, but at any rate, she hugged me back. “That's it, Mother. I don't hate you.”
“That's good to know, Maja.” I smiled. “I don't hate you, either.”
I told Maja that Rei would fill her and Hirin in on what we were planning and she left then. I looked at the time; Yuskeya wouldn't have things ready yet. I was intensely aware of the chipcase in my pocket, and the unwatched messages from my mother waiting for me to view them. I hesitated only a moment before I pulled out the L/L chip, slotted it into the reader, and touched the second vid file to start it.
The background had changed from the last vid; Mother was obviously in a different place, although it was impossible to tell how much time had passed between the last message and this one. Her hair was swept into one long auburn plait and hung over one shoulder. She wore a baggy, loosely-knit sweater in shades of green and blue. A bank of bookshelves covered the wall behind her, but I couldn't make out any of the titles.
Mother smiled, a bit tentatively, it seemed. I've been wondering what you both may be thinking about my decisions and actions from an ethical standpoint, she began. We—most of us, anyway—felt that we had a moral right to decide how our research would be used, if not a legal one. In the end, I alone took the action, and the responsibility, of removing the data. But that was seventy-five years ago. You probably wonder why I've worked so hard to keep it secret for so long.
She took a deep breath. You may be thinking that even if they made untold billions from the product, at least PrimeCorp would have made it available. That there are thousands upon thousands of people who've died in that time, who would still be alive today if they'd had the bioscavengers.
I can't even count the number of nights I've lain awake and thought about that. Mother's voice was weary, those little lines around her eyes more pronounced. I hunted for ways I could safely get in touch with you, Luta, when Maja and Karro were young, so that I could offer you the choice for them. But I knew they would be monitoring you, watching. I had to consider both the benefits and the risks. If PrimeCorp had this data, it would effectively rule the entirety of Nearspace. I think I did the right thing; look how they've exploited their monopoly on the rejuv market with Vigor-Us. If PrimeCorp could offer virtual immortality, every government in Nearspace would be under its thumb. I simply couldn't take the chance. I was afraid of the kind of society I might be creating if I let it happen. No single corporation should have that much power.
Even the alien governments, the Vilisians on Damir, and the Lobors, would have come under PrimeCorp's sway. We had samples of Vilisian and Lobor DNA even then, and some researchers were working on modifying first- and second-generation bioscavengers to work for the alien races, too. We share a certain amount of basic biology. It would only have been a matter of time before they had a prototype that would work against alien aging, too.
Mother took a drink from a delicate china teacup that sat on the table or desk next to her. Graceful tree branches wound around the sides of the cup and the curving handle echoed their shape. I did wonder if some other company would come up with the same data at some point, she continued, or with a similar product. I always felt that in the event another company developed a self-replicating bioscavenger, I'd send everything back to PrimeCorp and let them go to it, or maybe leak the data on the public nets, because at least then there'd be competition. No one would have sole control of human aging. However, I felt that the possibility of that happening was unlikely, for two reasons.
One was the breakthrough I mentioned. Like the discovery of penicillin at the beginning of the twentieth century, or the Krasnikov matter we depend on for wormhole travel, our breakthrough was something of an accident. We wanted nanobioscavengers that would not only deal with disease, trauma, and aging, but that would be self-replicating as well. The self-replication was the roadblock. And then—I suppose you could call it a twist of fate. Those Vilisian DNA samples? One of them got into a human culture by accident. We never did know how it happened—probably just a tech not following proper lab procedures. But when it combined with the proteins we were growing in the culture—she sat back and snapped her fingers. There it was. The key to the self-replication problem.
Mother glanced off-camera, and the image froze. The end of the vid.
I sat back in my chair. Vilisian DNA was the key to mother's breakthrough research? I never would have guessed that. And, I supposed, neither had anyone else, since the research had apparently never been duplicated.
Unless it had now, by Dr. Ndasa and Schulyer Corp. I wondered if the revelation would come as news to him.
I looked at the chipcase lying open on my desk. Two more chips, which might hold the keys to Mother's research. Or more evidence against PrimeCorp. Somehow I doubted they'd be protected by the same password as this chip.
I was about to watch the third vid on the L/L chip when Yuskeya commed me. “Captain, Baden and I have this data ready to send.”
“Be right there.” I put the chips away again. It was more important right now to get this data to Gusain Buig—if he would agree to help us.
I made my way to the bridge, and found everyone but Dr. Ndasa waiting for me there. I assumed the Vilisian was still in his former quarters, probably unsure of his status aboard the ship now. I'd have to go and speak with him later.
“How close is the Trident now?” I asked.
“Still a ways out,” Yuskeya answered.
“I guess we'll chance it,” I said.
“Did you get the message from Sedmamin?” Baden asked. “I didn't see it come through to me.”
I shook my head. “No, it self-destructed. We'll have to forget about that for now and concentrate on what we do have. Go ahead and open a narrowband transmission to the Chairman for me.”
When the Chairman came onscreen, he shook his head. He looked as haggard as I felt. “No word on your mother, Captain, I'm afraid. And the PrimeCorp ship isn't here yet, either.”
“I'm sorry to bother you, Chairman, but I have a favour—another favour, I suppose I should say—to ask of you.”
If he was annoyed at my temerity, he didn't show it, at least. “If I can help you, I will,” he said graciously.
“Chairman, in the past few weeks, while we travelled here, there have been a number of illegal attacks on both my ship and my person. We've managed to retrieve some clues to the identities of the perpetrators—photos and DNA samples, but there are some planets where we suspect we wouldn't get far with any complaints.”
The chairman raised his eyebrows. “Planetary Statute crimes?”
“And Primary Statute,” I said, “piracy being one of them. And I suspect that they were committed by order of someone at PrimeCorp.”
Now he frowned. “Those are serious accusations, Captain.”
I nodded. “I agree. And I don't make them lightly. But the first thing I need to do is ascertain that the perpetrators did, in fact, have some link to PrimeCorp. And to do that, I need to know their identities.”
“And that's where I come in,” he said. “You need access to the Nearspace Worlds Database.”
I held up a hand. “No, I'm not asking for access. I don't want to compromise you. But if you had the data, and could access the database yourself—well, any information you could pass along to me would be much appreciated.”
He looked at me hard for the space of a few heartbeats, and I thought he might be wishing I were there in person so he could read me better. I didn't know what Mother had told him about me, but it must have been good because finally he said, “Captain Paixon, I would be happy to assist you. But the PrimeCorp cruiser is getting closer. Can you send me the data right away?”
“It's coming now,” I said, and nodded to Baden. “We'll go back to radio silence until the Trident docks. If you know anything by then, you can send it along with that message. Thank you very much for your help, Chairman.”
He smiled. “If it will help keep your mother out of PrimeCorp's clutches, that will be thanks enough,” he said, and broke the connection.
I spent a few minutes watching Kiando whirl slowly below us, colours blurring and shifting beneath the clouds that wreathed the planet. Its hypnotic effect eventually made me realize just how long it was since I'd had any sleep. Everyone else must be feeling the same way, I thought guiltily, but no-one's said a word.
“I think everyone should get some rest,” I said. “We have to stand a watch, but share it up, and get some sleep. That's what I'm going to do.”
Rei, Viss, and Baden worked out a schedule to take the watch while we waited to hear from the Chairman, with promises to wake me if the PrimeCorp ship landed on Kiando or anything else of interest happened. Yuskeya demanded to take her fair share, but the others voted her down and she agreed, grudgingly, that she might have had a slightly more difficult night than the rest of them.
Hirin left the bridge with me and stopped outside my door. “Feel like some company?” he asked, and I was glad to curl up next to him.
“Luta?” he whispered, after we'd lain silent in the darkness for a few minutes.
“What?”
“Your mother—you found her once. You will again, I'm sure of it. And at least you got to see her.”
He lay pressed against my back, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “You always said I would.”
“I'm glad I was here for it.” He reached up to stroke my cheek. His skin was warmer now, not as fragile-feeling. “Since . . . since the transfusion. I've been feeling so much better.”
I rolled over to face him. His face was half in shadow, but I knew every line and plane. “I know. I think it worked. It's another reason I want to find Mother again—to ask her about the whole thing. But I think if Dr. Ndasa ran a scan on you now, the virus would be gone.”
He nodded slightly. “I think so, too. I haven't felt this good in . . . well, in years. Thank you. If you hadn't thought of the transfusion . . .”
“I'm just glad it worked,” I whispered. “It's been wonderful, having you here with me, especially now.”
I sensed, more than saw, his grin in the darkness. “A useless old man like me? That's a pretty big compliment.”
“Useless? Never,” I said with a chuckle. “And honestly . . . you don't even seem as old anymore. The way you walk, the way you talk. You stand straighter. Your voice is stronger.”
“Would you believe that my hair is starting to grow in a little darker?” he said wonderingly. “And my hearing is sharper. I'm sure of it.”
My eyes filled with tears suddenly. It seemed as though whatever worked its age-defying magic in me was also toiling in Hirin, regaining at least some of what time and illness had taken away from him.
“I wish I'd thought of it years ago.” I brushed away a tear with my fingertip. “You wouldn't have had to go through—”
“Stop.” He put two fingers gently on my lips. “It never occurred to me, either. We just didn't understand what was happening . . . or at least we hadn't made as many educated guesses. It doesn't matter. What matters is now.”
I nodded, his fingers still on my mouth. I kissed them.
“Luta,” he whispered again. “I think I could . . . I wonder if we—”
I pushed his hand out of the way then and kissed him full on the mouth, stopping his question with my answer. Hirin's virus had virtually erased the sexual element of our relationship years ago, and although we made the best of it, we'd both missed the closeness. I'd noticed a tension building between us ever since the transfusion, noticed it without thinking about what it could mean. It was like slipping back into comfortable clothes that you haven't worn in a long time, the way we'd begun to banter again, to touch casually. I'd wondered if we might rekindle this aspect of our relationship, or if it was just wishful thinking.
It wasn't. Whatever was working on Hirin, I found out for sure that night, was doing a damn good and thorough job.
Chapter Eighteen
Both Dead and Alive
Baden's voice woke me over the ship's comm a few hours later. His voice was low, as if he hated to wake me. “Captain?”
I touched my biochip implant and said, “I'm here, Baden. What's up?”
“Message request just came in from Chairman Buig. The Trident will be docking at the Ando City spaceport soon, and he wants to talk to you about the data we sent him.”
“Be there in ten,” I said, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I couldn't say I felt truly rested, but I did feel better. Hirin was still asleep and I didn't wake him. Goodness knew he must be tired out. I quickly and quietly pulled on the one shipsuit I owned, dashed some water on my face, and scooted down to the bridge. Baden was alone there, and the ping from Chairman Buig was waiting on my screen.
“We'll be watching for the first opportunity to slip away from Kiando,” I said to Baden. “You might want to wake Viss and make sure everything's set to go in Engineering. With luck, what Chairman Buig has to tell me will help us decide exactly where we want to go.” I pinged him back and his image filled my screen.
“This will have to be brief,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I'll have to put in an appearance and talk to someone from the PrimeCorp ship in person any minute.”
I knew he would already have said something if it was warranted, but I had to ask. “No word from Demmar?”
He shook his head. “No, but I won't stop looking. I'll make a big show of searching for her for PrimeCorp, but the real hunt will be much more discreet. Don't want PrimeCorp to know if I actually do find her.”
“Did you have any luck with the data we sent you?”
“I'd say so,” he said. The data appeared on the screen, along with a full head shot of a face I recognized, although it had been dead by the time I'd seen it. It was definitely the intruder. I'd recognize the thin scar that curved along his jawline, if nothing else.
Chairman Buig summed up what the screen was showing me. “Oleg Borrano. He's been in PrimeCorp's employ for the past number of years. Security division, PrimeCorp Main. That is still listed as his current employment, and he has a top security clearance there.”
The display switched to show three faces, each with its own personal data. I recognized my three captors from the warehouse on Rhea. “The three names you gave me, Sylvana Kirsch, Ben D'Epiro, and Anshum Chieng—they all also work for PrimeCorp Security, although not at the same clearance level as Borrano.”
“Thanks, Chairman, that's all pretty much what I expected. Any luck with the DNA?”
He chuckled. “That took a little more work, but luckily, I have a few people around here who are good at that sort of thing. That DNA sample belongs to one Nikolai Cavan, who doesn't seem to have any employment record with PrimeCorp. In fact, he doesn't have much of an employment record at all, although he's worked from time to time as a general crewman on various traders and mining ships.” He must have seen the disappointment on my face, because he went on. “However, the techrig he was carrying—well, I've also got a couple of folks here who are what I might call 'techdogs.'”
I smiled. “I know one or two of those myself. They're handy to have around.”
He nodded. “They tell me this rig is a highly modified version—illegal modifications—of a piece of technology Ginteno Tech was making before PrimeCorp took them over. The mods look like mass-production, not things someone hacked together in their workshop. The opinion is that they would raise some eyebrows with the Protectorate and the Administrative Council.”
“So there's a link to PrimeCorp there, as well,” I said. “Chairman, if I wanted to pursue legal action on these matters, could I get leave to do it on Kiando?”
“You could certainly file a complaint here regarding the pirate attack,” Buig said, “and bring the other matters in under that umbrella. Do you have further evidence besides what you've given me?'
“All of us who have been involved would give statements, and testify—whatever was necessary,” I said. “We don't have much else in the way of hard evidence, I suppose.”
He considered. “Well, it's enough to begin proceedings . . . but you only have your story regarding how you came by any of this information you sent me. To tell you the truth, a good advocate could probably poke holes in that pretty quickly—and PrimeCorp is going to have good advocates if you bring an action against them.”
I nodded. “That's what I thought. I'll let you know what I decide, Chairman, and thanks for your help. We're going to take the first opportunity to leave without attracting attention. I want to speak to my brother; he's an admiral in the Protectorate. And I'd rather PrimeCorp didn't know I'm going looking for him.”
“I'll get word to you if anything changes,” he said. “I hope we'll speak again soon, Captain. And if you find Demmar before I do, tell her—tell her I look forward to her return, would you?”
“Will do.”
I shut down the commscreen and turned to Baden. “Okay, it's time to scramble. Did you get Viss?”
“He's already down there.”
“I want to be ready to burn for a wormhole as soon as the spaceport is facing away from it. I'll wake Rei—”
“Don't bother,” she said, coming onto the bridge. In deference to Hirin, I suppose, she was wearing her souvenir crimson robe.
“Doesn't anybody sleep around here?” I asked.
“Who could sleep with so much excitement happening?”
“So where are we going, Captain?” Yuskeya asked, coming in, too. Apparently she wasn't going to pay much heed to any of us about getting some rest. Maybe I'd have to get Dr. Ndasa to have a little talk with her.
“That's what I'm trying to decide,” I said. I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair, thinking. “I want to try and reach Lanar. I want to tell him everything that's happened, and I have some videos he needs to see. My best chance of tracking him down is to get to a planet with a Protectorate outpost or find a Protectorate ship—either one will tell me where he's currently deployed.”
Yuskeya nodded. “True.”
I got up and paced around the chair. “Also, I'm thinking about Mother—if she's still on the planet, either hiding out or kidnapped, the Chairman has the best chance of finding her or getting a message from her. I can't do either if I'm trying to avoid PrimeCorp myself. However, if she's off-planet, then I'm the one she's likely to try and get a message to if she can, so that's another reason I should get away from here and out where we don't have to keep the communications locked down.”
“Good thinking,” Rei said.
I stopped walking. “And the other thing I want to do is skip into Keridre/Gerdrice and see if we can't find our missing cargo crate with the intruder's body inside.”
“You think we need that for the case against PrimeCorp?” Yuskeya asked. “We do have his DNA, thanks to Rei.”
“I know, but the Chairman is right—PrimeCorp will just say we could have gotten that anywhere. If we have the body, too, it's better proof that he was here, on the ship, and that our story is true. It's been frozen all this time, so they can do whatever forensic tests they like on it. And it's evidence that he was operating without an ID biochip. It's got to help our case.”
Yuskeya nodded. “You could be right. And with the homing beacon and knowing where the pinhole exits, we should be able to find it.”
I took my seat again. “So, knowing all that, where should we go?”
“Well, we don't know about your Mother—so other than getting out of this system, her whereabouts don't influence where we go,” Rei said.
“The last place you knew your brother was heading was Beta Comae Berenices, right?” Yuskeya asked, calling up the wormhole map on the big screen.
“Right.”
“So we can make one wormhole skip right into Beta Comae. There's a Protectorate outpost on Jertenda there, and then we're only one more short skip to K/G, to see if we can find the cargo crate,” Yuskeya said. She smiled. “Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”
“Okay,” I said. “As soon as we're in an optimal position to burn for the wormhole to Beta Comae, we'll do it. Might as well wake Maja and Dr. Ndasa and let them know what's going on.”
I left the bridge and headed back to my quarters. Hirin was awake when I opened the door and patted the bed beside him. “You still look tired,” he said with a grin. “You should come back to bed.”
“Ha ha,” I said, leaning down to kiss him, but dancing away when he tried to pull me down next to him. “I don't know how much time we have before we break for the wormhole out of this system, and I want to watch the last video from Mother.”
I explained my plan to catch up with Lanar and try to find the intruder's body while I got out the chip and inserted it.
“Well,” he said, “for an old lady you aren't too senile. That's brilliant!”
I blew another kiss over my shoulder toward him. “Gosh, you'll turn my head with compliments like that. I don't know if it's brilliant, but it's a chance. All I can do is try.”
“All we can do, Luta. You're not alone in this.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “I know. The idea just takes some getting used to again. Now, do you want to watch this with me?”
He did, and I touched the screen to play the video.
Mother was back in a tiny, unassuming stateroom, likely on another of the big starliners that ferried people around Nearspace. This one had at least made a nod to décor, and a wall holo behind her displayed slowly morphing images of soothing Erian landscapes. She'd dyed her hair dark brown, covering up its signature bright auburn, and it made her look older.
I do want you both to understand why I've done the things I've done, Luta and Lanar, she began. I had to test the bioscavengers on someone, and it seemed only fair that it be me. Once I knew they worked, and I had started to suspect that PrimeCorp wasn't going to play fair with them, I couldn't live with myself until I'd shared them with both of you. Few parents want to outlive their children, and I especially wouldn't have been able to stand it knowing I'd engineered my own longevity. I'd have treated your father, too, but he didn't want it. I've never quite understood why.
And when your father died—you were probably angry that I didn't come to the funeral. I was there—in a way. I sent a good friend with a hidden recorder. But I also knew that PrimeCorp would be watching, expecting me to turn up. And it was so hard—knowing I could have saved him, if he'd let me . . .
Her eyes brimmed and she blinked quickly, denying the tears. I felt guilty. I had been angry, for a long time. Until I'd figured out what her reasons probably were. That's one thing about living on a far trader—lots of time to think.
She went on. The generation of bioscavengers you both have should keep on self-replicating without errors for at least another ten years or so, but there is a new generation I've produced that's—well, they should last pretty much indefinitely. I did plan to contact you both sometime in the next couple of years and offer them to you. If something has happened to me, all the instructions for producing them are on the chip marked NB2897, which should be in the chipcase with this one. The password is the sum of your two birthdays, plus the ages you were when we first left Earth, written in standard format. You'll have to decide yourselves if or how to go about that.
She leaned back in her chair, which squeaked in protest, and stared at the space above the camera as if gathering her thoughts.
My own mind was whirling at what she'd said. Indefinitely. That meant, barring accidents, I was, or could be . . . functionally immortal.
An idea like that takes some getting used to. I was quiet, too, while Mother composed her thoughts on the screen. I felt Hirin take my hand.
“Wow,” was all he said, and then Mother was speaking again.
There are many things to consider if the choice has come to you. When I started this project I thought it was important, the best thing we could do for humankind. I sacrificed so much because I didn't want it to come at the price of putting us all at the mercy of PrimeCorp or one of the other corporations. All these years I've kept working at it, hoping the day would come when we could distribute it freely. But sometimes when I think about it, it seems like the worst idea in the world.
On the one hand, we could accomplish so much more if we had more time, longer lives. So much misery could be avoided if there were no death. We would have limitless capacity for joy, for discovery, for loving.
Hirin squeezed my hand again, and I squeezed back.
Mother shifted forward in her chair. Then I consider the other side. The necessity to keep expanding, to find room for all of us to live. The wars and disagreements that might never end because death doesn't hand the problem over to a new generation. The endless ways greedy power-seekers will invent to oppress others if they have all the time in the universe to think about it and implement their plans. How much longer it will take for views and attitudes to change if there's no dying-out of a generation. I don't know. Maybe it would be a disaster.
She paused again and I considered that. What would Alin Sedmamin do with endless years in which to scheme and plan? Would he eventually get bored with money and power and turn to philanthropy? I doubted it. You don't know how a couple hundred years could change a person, but they'd probably only reinforce character traits, whether good or bad.
And what would my future hold if I got my bioscavengers refreshed from my mother's bag of nanotechnological tricks? I couldn't imagine running a far trader forever, however much I might enjoy it now. And even if I could share them with my family, would it be the same for them? I had quite a head start in the non-aging department. Maybe I'd still have to face losing Hirin someday and spending forever without him. Maybe Maja and Karro, too. I'd thought it might be a possibility before, but I hadn't let myself consider the ramifications because I hadn't known. I could have been programmed to drop dead on my ninetieth birthday, for all I knew before. It wasn't worth worrying about. Now it was different. Now I knew.
Or did I? With an infinite future lay infinite possibilities. It would be the same for all people. Perhaps that was how it should be.
Mother spoke again. At any rate, there's one major reason why I haven't been forced to make a decision about whether to release the data—industrial espionage. No-one else has arrived at a workable prototype because PrimeCorp has agents in its major competitors—Schulyer, Genusana, AriAndas. They steal data, they subtly sabotage experiments, they do whatever it takes to make sure that PrimeCorp is going to be the corporation that wins this race.
I glanced at Hirin and he raised his eyebrows, as incredulous as I was. I whispered, “How would they be able to manage an operation like that without someone figuring it out? Wouldn't someone get suspicious eventually, if none of their research ever worked out?”
Hirin nodded. “You'd think so, eventually. But isn't that exactly why Dr. Ndasa said he came out to find your mother? So maybe PrimeCorp's luck is running out.”
You're probably thinking, Mother continued, that with all of that stolen data at their disposal, along with their own legitimate work, PrimeCorp would have made more headway by now. It's true. But PrimeCorp has one little flaw.
Hirin snorted. “Only one? I doubt it.”
I shushed him.
Hubris, Mother said, one side of her mouth twisting up a wry smile. They've never stopped to think that any game they can play, someone else can, too. I've managed to retain a little influence on what goes on at their facilities. Let me explain—and confess, I suppose.
None of my colleagues were happy about what PrimeCorp planned to do, when we found out about it; and, well, most of us were friends. There was no question that the original research was mine. Most of them would have had moral scruples about using my ideas without my permission. Almost all of them left PrimeCorp just after I did. I stayed in touch with them—in roundabout ways—from time to time, to make sure we remained friendly. There was one who would eventually have gone along with PrimeCorp, but he had—gaps, let us say, in his ethical makeup. And with what he knew, he probably could have helped others duplicate the research.
But—one of those ethical gaps had allowed him to have an affair with one of the PrimeCorp executives' wives . . . an affair that involved some very embarrassing appetites. After I left, I contacted him and threatened to make it public if he ever used my research. I had holos to prove it. Very nasty and explicit holos that I had lifted from his datapad before I left, and I sent him one—just one—when I contacted him. He died a number of years ago, and he'd never worked in anti-aging research again.
You might call it blackmail, she said, but I thought of it as firm persuasion. After all, I didn't want anything from him. I just wanted him to do the honourable thing.
At any rate, almost my entire team left the corporation, but a few stayed on, claiming that their loyalty was to PrimeCorp, and that they'd keep working on the research, even though I'd taken the data. She paused. I don't know if PrimeCorp really trusted them at first, but I guess in the end they were convinced. It wasn't entirely for show. My colleagues did some good work there on the Vigor-Us program. They were the ones who found out when PrimeCorp put moles in the other corporations and started stealing data, and they contacted me through a communication route we'd set up when I left. We decided the best thing to do was to quietly make sure that other research fell through. And as they aged, they carefully recruited people to take their places.
I felt a little awed. PrimeCorp was the most powerful of the megacorporations, but she had managed to secretly manipulate them from the inside. And then a realization struck me.
It was like she read my mind, because she leaned toward the screen and said, Yes. I set up a secret way to communicate with the colleagues I left behind—but not with my family. Her face showed a sadness so deep I could almost feel it through the screen. When I left PrimeCorp, I didn't think we'd be on the run forever. And I wanted a way to keep up on what they were doing, keep tabs on them, and on my colleagues, to make sure they stayed loyal. Years later, by the time I left you and your father, though . . . she drew a deep breath and blew it out. I knew how tenacious PrimeCorp was going to be. It seemed like the only way to keep you safe—to make sure you could have a normal life—was to cut our ties completely. All I could think of was keeping you out of it. If they somehow found out you could contact me, it might have made you a target. She shook her head. In hindsight, perhaps I should have done things differently. But I made what seemed the best decision at the time. I'm sorry.
At any rate, my only leverage against PrimeCorp is the evidence from my contacts on the inside. To use that means pulling my people out of there, and once that happens, there's no going back. So I have to be sure that what I have is enough, and that the time is right to do it.
If necessary, you can trigger that. One prearranged, coded message, and they'll get out and take everything with them, and get it to me as quickly as possible. Or to one of you, if they can't contact me. That's what will take the time. It'll be a roundabout route, because I didn't want to put anyone in the position of actually knowing where I was. Safer all around. The message is on the chip marked PC35411, and the password is the sum of your father's and my birthdays plus the year I left you all on Nellera. Please use it if you need to, but not without due consideration.
She leaned back again. Anyway, there it is. My explanations and my sins. As I said, I hope we'll have a chance to talk about it all together sometime. And if not—well, it's in your hands now. I love you both. Good luck. She blew a kiss toward the screen and the image froze.
Chapter Nineteen
Playing the Odds
“Excuse me, Captain.” Yuskeya's voice came over the comm. “We're ready to try and sneak out of the planet's sensor shadow now. Ando City's going into the shadow on that side and we have a clear run to the wormhole to Beta Comae Berenices.”
I touched my implant. “Start to move whenever you're ready, then. I'll be there in a minute. Thanks.” I didn't get up right away, though.
“That's a lot to process,” Hirin said.
“You're telling me. And I feel guilty seeing these without Lanar.”
Hirin stood, pulled me to my feet as well, and kissed me lightly. “Then let's go find him,” he said.
By the time we reached the bridge everyone else was there, too. Rei had taken over the pilot's console from Yuskeya, who was back in her seat at nav. Maja and Dr. Ndasa stood near the archway into Sensors, talking quietly. The main drive ticked over like a clock, its pulse rumbling through the ship as Kiando fell further and further away behind us.
“Anyone noticing us yet?” I asked as I slid into the chair.
“Would everyone please sit down so I don't have to worry about knocking you over if I have to take evasive action?” Rei asked. Maja and Dr. Ndasa moved to take skimchairs.
“Not yet,” Baden answered me from the comm station. “Only a few short traders have left the planet since we did; they all seem to be headed for Cengare. There's a starliner in orbit getting ready to ship out in a couple of hours, so there's a lot of shuttle traffic between it and the spaceport, but that's it.”
“Let's hope it stays that way. How long to the terminal point?”
“I guess we're a little faster than that bucket PrimeCorp sent,” Viss said with evident satisfaction from the engineering station. “We'll get there almost an hour faster than it took them to come in.”
“So we'll jump to Beta Comae, then take the wormhole there to Keridre/Gerdrice?” asked Maja.
I nodded. “Viss, I know you wanted to have a look at that tracking device we found in the cargo pod, but did you do anything to it yet?”
“Not yet. There hasn't exactly been an opportunity,” he said dryly.
“I know, that's what I was hoping. I wondered if it might be a good idea to drop it somewhere—I don't know, like maybe near a wormhole we don't plan to take, just as a bit of misdirection in case someone comes looking for us?”
He grimaced. “What a waste of a perfectly nice little tracker! I thought we were going to have some fun with it.”
“Well, you might have to sacrifice that in the interests of survival. If it looks like they're trying to follow us, I want to leave it as a red herring.”
“Oh, all right. I'll load it into one of the jettison tubes so it'll be ready.”
“Good thinking. And if we don't need it, I promise you can have it back.”
We managed to burn toward the wormhole, apparently undetected, for almost an hour when Baden let out a yelp.
“Ship just took off from Kiando and it's moving this way at a hell of a pace!”
“What? What is it?” I punched up the sensor readings on my own screen.
“Dio! It's the Trident, but what's she burning? That's not the same power she came in on!”
“Unless she was hiding it,” I said through clenched teeth. “Probably has one of those new burst drives.”
“And at the rate they're going, they'll catch us before we get to the Beta Comae wormhole,” Viss added.
“But we'll be far enough out that the Kiando Planetary Police won't have any jurisdiction,” I said. “We can't call on the Chairman for help.”
“If this was a trap, we played right into it,” Baden said. “And there's a message incoming from the Trident.”
“Put it through,” I said. I composed my face. Whoever was on the bridge of the PrimeCorp ship, I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me look worried.
“Captain Paixon? We meet again.” Dores Amadoro's face appeared on my screen. Her blonde hair was secured in a somewhat severe knot behind her head, throwing her sharp features into even stronger relief. She'd traded her sleek PrimeCorp pantsuit for an equally well-fitted corporate shipsuit with a red-embroidered logo on the collar. It was obvious who was in command of the ship chasing us. Whatever attempts at softness she may have made for the environs of PrimeCorp headquarters, she had clearly abandoned them now.
“Good day, Ms. Amadoro,” I said. “Small universe.”
She smiled tightly. “Getting smaller all the time, in some ways. I believe you have something to which I'm legally entitled,” she said.
I shook my head. “I'm sorry, but it will take more than a piece of paper—which you could very well have simply paid for—before I willingly surrender any samples to you.”
Dores Amadoro shook her head and chuckled softly. “Nice try, Captain, but I'm not as interested in your DNA as I am in the origin of it. I'm talking about your mother. She's on your ship, but I intend to exercise my warrant and take her onto mine.”
I leaned back in my chair, and it was my turn to smile. “That's quite a threat. You sound almost like a pirate. Sadly, you're mistaken. My mother isn't on board—as far as I know, she's still on Kiando. So you're wasting your time looking for her here.”
She cocked her head at me. “Oh, yes, of course. And I'm likely to believe that and head back to the planet? You must take me for quite a fool, Captain.”
“What I think of you personally hardly matters. My mother is not on board this ship.”
“I suppose we'll do this the hard way, then, Captain,” she said, and cut the connection.
“Well, they obviously didn't buy Chairman Buig's story,” Hirin said.
“No. And I guess it makes sense to conclude that we'd be trying to get her off the planet.”
“Yeah, if we were stupid,” Viss said. “If we really were trying to get her away, we never would have done it this way.”
“Talk about it later, folks!” Rei said. “What are we doing now? I'm giving it all I've got, but unless Viss has a secret burst drive wired up, they're definitely going to catch us before we make this wormhole.”
“I know, I know. I'm thinking.” I closed my eyes to concentrate. “Yuskeya, put the wormhole route map up on my screen, would you?”
The route map appeared in front of me, showing all the known wormholes and the systems they connected. I could have rhymed them all off without the map, but now I needed to visualize our options.
As soon as I looked at it, the answer was clear.
“We have to go through the Split again.”
“What?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Not again!”
I didn't know who said what, but I knew that Rei had only drawn her breath sharply and that Hirin stayed silent. Maja's lips were pressed in a thin white line.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I'm looking at it right here in front of me. We're not going to make it to the Beta Comae wormhole, but if we change course now, we should make it to the one for Delta Pavonis. Then we have three options. We can take the wormhole out to K/G, but the Trident will catch us first, and even if they don't, we can't hide where we're headed—they'd come through and see us. We could head towards the wormhole from that system to Beta Comae Berenices—same situation. They'll just chase us from system to system until they catch us—which they will eventually. Even if they find out at that point that Mother's not on board, I'd rather not have them catch us at all.”
“Obviously,” said Viss.
“But, if we skip into Delta Pav and head for the Split into GI 892, we might make the terminal point out again before they're in the Delta Pavonis system, so they won't necessarily know that's where we went, especially if Viss can mask our drive signature or scramble it a little. We can jettison the tracking device in the direction of the wormhole to Beta Comae, which is where they thought we were headed anyway, so they might take that bait. And even if they think we took the Split, they might not have a pilot who'll attempt it. They'll have to go the long way around even if they figure out where we're going. At any rate they won't know where we've headed out of GI 892.”
“And from GI 892 there's another wormhole to K/G anyway,” Yuskeya said. “But PrimeCorp won't necessarily be expecting us to take it. They're much more likely to think we'd head to Eri from there, trying a more roundabout route to Beta Comae to avoid them.”
“Couldn't we do it in reverse?” Maja asked. “Leave the tracker near the Split as a red herring and actually take the other wormhole like we planned?”
“The Split's closer. We can't make it to the other one before they come through. They'd see us. And they're less likely to go through the Split anyway.”
There was silence, then Hirin spoke.
“Luta's right. It's the best chance.” There was no hesitation in his voice, and I loved him as much in that moment as I had in my entire life. He was the one with more to fear from the Split than any of the rest of us. If he were willing, I knew the others wouldn't balk.
“So, change course for the Delta Pavonis wormhole?” Yuskeya asked.
“Do it,” I said.
“Trident is also changing course,” Baden reported after a moment. He ran his fingers over his touchscreen, gathering data. “They've gained on us some, but we'll definitely make it to the Delta Pav wormhole well ahead of them.”
“As long as we can get to the Split before they come through,” I said.
“It'll be close, but if we can maintain speed, we could do it,” Yuskeya said.
Viss left his console and sprinted down the corridor toward the engineering hatchway, shouting something over his shoulder about having an idea for re-routing more power to the main drive.
“Captain,” Baden said, “Yuskeya told me you want to track down your brother. I could send a message through the K/G wormhole to the Protectorate base on Nellera, see if they can tell us where he is. We might get a response back before we leave this system.”
“Good thinking, Baden, do it,” I said. “With luck, he's still in Beta Comae; we can get there in two skips from GI892.”
The overheads dimmed, the ship shuddered a bit and Rei gave a whoop. “Viss is as good as his word. That's a fifteen percent increase in power, so PrimeCorp should have a harder time catching us.”
“Message coming from the Trident,” Baden said.
“On my screen.”
The cold eyes of Dores Amadoro stared out at me again. “Captain, I am prepared to disable your ship if necessary.”
I stared back at her, considering. “You're bluffing,” I said. “If you want my mother this badly—and you truly think she's on this ship—you won't risk harming her.”
“That's why I'm sending this message,” she said coolly. “I'm advising everyone on your ship to get into EVA suits, just in case your life support systems suffer . . . collateral damage. Or you could just stop, let us catch up to you, and allow your mother to come with us peacefully. I am anxious to meet her, you know, so that I can thank her.”
“Thank her?”
Amadoro smiled, but it was not a nice smile. Too much wolf and not enough warmth. “When I recognized her and took that information to Chairman Sedmamin, it did wonders for my future at PrimeCorp. I can honestly say I wouldn't be where I am today without your mother.” Her face hardened. “So I'm prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to secure that meeting.”
I muted the feed. “Folks? Could they have any kind of weapon that might be capable of reaching us from that distance?”
Yuskeya shook her head decisively. “Not a chance. When they get closer, maybe. But not from that far away. They could fire torps, but we'd have so much time to get out of the way, it wouldn't be worth launching them.”
“Nothing I know of, for sure,” Rei agreed.
“Yuskeya's right,” Viss chimed in from Engineering. “Tell her to blow it out her—”
I killed the feed from Engineering and switched back to Amadoro. She was still there, looking annoyed.
“Thanks for the warning, Ms. Amadoro,” I said, and cut the connection before she could say anything else. “Everyone into EVA suits.”
“They're too far away!” Rei protested.
“I think you were right in the first place,” Hirin said. “She's bluffing.”
I shrugged and left the chair, heading for the bank of EVA lockers near the bridge airlock. “Nevertheless, I am not taking any chances. Suit up.”
They weren't happy, but they did it. I didn't like it, either, since the suits were bulky and got hot after a while, but I didn't trust Dores Amadoro not to have some new long-range weapon she was just itching to try out on us. PrimeCorp could easily have developed something that was still a corporate secret.
So it wasn't the most pleasant time I've spent on the bridge of the Tane Ikai, but it passed, and we watched the Trident slowly devour the distance between us as we neared the wormhole to Delta Pavonis. They still weren't what you'd call close—but I wanted as much distance as possible between us. They hadn't fired on us by the time Rei fired up the skip drive, and I smiled to myself. As bluffs go, Amadoro's hadn't even been a very good one.
“Torpedo away from the Trident!” Baden said suddenly. “Moving fast.”
“Time?” I asked.
“We can dodge it or get into the wormhole, but we have to do one or the other. Immediately.”
“Rei?”
“Initializing skip drive now,” she said. The low whir of the drive thrummed through the ship and reverberated in the decking under our feet.
“Everyone take your seats,” I said, and opened a channel to Dr. Ndasa's room. He'd excused himself from the bridge and gone back to his room, with a promise to keep his EVA suit on. “We're about to make a skip, Doctor.”
“I'm ready, Captain,” he answered.
“Going in,” Rei said evenly as the mouth of the wormhole opened up and swallowed us. The mad swirl of colours spun us along its length, skipping and spinning as fast as the drive could propel us. Rei kept the ship rock steady, and I was sure we skipped that wormhole faster than it had ever been done before.
No-one spoke while we were inside. The instant we exited the terminal point, Rei cut the skip drive and Yuskeya's fingers flew over the touchscreen as she laid in the coordinates for the Split. I told Baden to monitor the wormhole we'd just exited for any signs of the Trident.
“Aye, Captain.” He touched the screen. “Message is away to Nellera regarding your brother. And I'm ready to launch that tracking device at your signal.”
“Use your own judgment unless I say otherwise, Baden, because I might be distracted. Fire it off at the optimal vector for the Beta Comae wormhole. That's the best we can do.”
“Will do.”
I took off my EVA helmet and said, “Okay folks, shuck your helmets and gloves but keep them nearby.” The air on the bridge felt deliciously cool against my skin.
I caught Hirin's eye and he smiled and winked at me as he unfastened his helmet. Then he crossed to Rei's chair and bent low beside her, telling her something in a low voice. My breath caught in my throat and I almost choked, but I managed to clamp it down. The last thing the crew needed now was a captain going to pieces on them, but this plan terrified me. What if the Split affected Hirin's heart again? He already had all the help I could give him.
All I could do was hope he wasn't going to get his wish to die in space just yet. Hope, in fact, that none of us were.
“Captain?” It was Yuskeya. “I was thinking—we should ask Dr. Ndasa to come back up to the bridge for this next skip.”
I sensed a silent presence just behind me before I could answer. It was Maja, but she said nothing, simply put a warm hand on my shoulder.
“That's a good idea.” I glanced over at Hirin, still talking to Rei, and Maja's hand twitched as she followed my gaze. She kept silent.
I lowered my voice. “I think he'll be fine, but it would be good to have the doctor up here just in case. The bioscavengers have been working in Hirin for a while now. They might have repaired all the damage that was done the last time and whatever caused it in the first place.” I turned to look at Maja. “Are you okay with this?”
She pressed her lips together, then nodded. “Look at him. He's not worried. He wants to do this. I haven't seen him like this for a long time.”
I nodded my agreement. “If I changed my mind now, and he thought it was because of him, he'd never forgive me.”
I reached up wordlessly and squeezed Maja's hand. Thank you. She squeezed back.
“Maja, would you go and bring Dr. Ndasa up from up his quarters?” I asked.
“Right away,” she said, with a final glance at her father, and hurried down the corridor.
Hirin straightened up from Rei. “We're going to go in cold this time, folks. You had last time to cut your teeth, this time, no babystepping. Rei's asked me to take the secondary helm, which I'll do if the Captain approves it.” He looked to me and I nodded. “So we're going to be firing up the skip drive on the fly. I want everyone sitting down and buckled in when we do that.”
He strode over to the secondary helm as if he owned the place—well, he did, half-ownership, anyway—and hailed Viss on the ship's comm. “Viss, about that power you've got re-routed to the main drive?”
“Oh yeah, can you feel it?”
Hirin grinned. “I can feel it. Do you think you could rig something to switch it directly over to the skip drive stabilizers when I give the word?”
“Give me half an hour,” Viss said. “It won't be a smooth ride, but I think I can do it.”
Yuskeya looked up from the nav screen. “Half an hour is on the outside edge of what you've got,” she told him. “We have to be out of sight before that PrimeCorp ship makes the wormhole. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to work. Right, Hirin?”
“You've got it,” he answered.
Diable, I could see the day coming when he'd be captain of the Tane Ikai and I'd be busted back to piloting again, if the crew got to choose. No, Rei was a better pilot than I was. Cook, maybe. Seemed like Hirin was becoming their favourite person, but it was okay with me. He was already mine.
Half an hour passes with a speed relative to what you're trying to do in it. If you were Viss, trying to set up the power crossover, I expect it would go amazingly quickly. If you were me, sitting and watching everybody else work while I waited for the Trident to burst out of the wormhole behind us, it was agonizingly slow.
Finally, we were there. I'd already picked out the dark mouth of the Split, and we were coming up on it fast. Maja and Dr. Ndasa had arrived and taken seats at two of the empty sensor stations near Hirin. The Vilisian caught my eye and nodded gravely. He knew why he was here.
“Data packet back from Nellera,” Baden said.
“I'll look at it on the other side,” I told him.
“Viss, you ready?” Hirin asked over the ship's comm.
“Well, I can't say for sure that it's going to work, but I'm ready to give it a try,” he answered.
“Okay, Rei and Viss, listen up. On my mark, Rei's going to engage the skip drive. Viss, you count about three seconds and then do the switch. Yuskeya, just do exactly what you did the last time. It was perfect. Baden, you're going to jettison the tracking device as soon as you hear me give Rei the word. Everybody okay?”
I couldn't resist. “Anything I can do?”
Hirin didn't turn around, but I was sure he was smiling. “Cross your fingers, Captain.”
I didn't. He knew I wasn't superstitious. Then Hirin barked, “Rei, skip drive now!” Baden said, “Jettison tube engaged,” and Viss must have done whatever he was going to do down in Engineering because the ship bucked violently a couple of times and then we were swallowed up by the eerie half-presence of the Split.
I'd kept my eyes locked on the screen that showed the sensor readings for other ships in the area. Just as we entered the Split, they seemed to be picking up something—maybe the Trident coming out of the wormhole from Mu Cassiopeia, I don't know. I didn't think they could have gotten to the wormhole that fast, but I couldn't be certain, with that burst drive. I hoped, if it was them, they hadn't seen us go into the Split.
Maybe I should have crossed my fingers after all.
At any rate, there wasn't time to worry about that now. Rei and Hirin between them were piloting us through the Split, keeping the skips so short and close together that we barely moved from side to side down the length of the tunnel. Viss's extra power to the field generators must have held, because the ride was exponentially smoother than the last time we'd made this trip.
And Hirin—I could hardly keep my eyes off him, watching for anything untoward, but he seemed perfectly fine. He was deep in concentration, synchronizing his efforts with Rei's, but he didn't seem to be in the least distressed. I couldn't relax just yet, but I let out a breath I'd barely realized I was holding.
The passage was so much faster this time—or at least it seemed so—that before I knew it we were slipping out the other end, into the quiet darkness of GI 892's red dwarf system, and I gave them a chance to sigh and cheer and babble in delight.
“Okay, okay.” I clapped my hands. “Great job, everyone, but it's not over yet. For all we know the Trident is still right behind us, so we want to high-tail it out of here. Viss, are you there?”
“Here, Captain. That was a hell of a ride.”
“You got that right. Now listen, that magical power-boosting you were doing down there, how long can that work?”
“I know you'd like me to say indefinitely, but I can't. I'm stealing power from all kinds of places, but I can't keep it up or I might overload the system. We could burn it to the next wormhole if you think it's necessary, but I wouldn't advise switching it again or running it for longer than that. I should really put things back to normal then.”
“Okay, keep the reroutes on the main drive until we get to the next wormhole. We won't need to switch it back to the stabilizers for that one, and you can put everything back in place then. But I'd appreciate any extra distance we can put between us and our friend Ms. Amadoro.”
“No problem, Captain.”
“Yuskeya, lay in a course for the Keridre/Gerdrice wormhole, and Rei, let's get there as fast as we can. Everybody else—take a break, I guess.” I grinned. “I wonder what Dores Amadoro is doing right now?”
“As long as she's not running for the Split, she's not a worry,” Baden said. “You want that message from the Protectorate on Nellera now?”
“Yes, please.” It came up on my screen, brief, and not what I'd been hoping to see. My brother's ship, the S. Cheswick, was back in Sol system, too far away to help get PrimeCorp off my tail—or help me figure out where Mother was now.
Chapter Twenty
“Damne,” I whispered, but Baden heard me and turned in his skimchair.
“Not what you were hoping for,” he said.
I shook my head. “I really want to talk to him,” I said, “and I don't want PrimeCorp listening in. But Sol system is three skips from here no matter which way you go.”
Baden cocked an eyebrow at me. “Remind me again what we're going to do while we're here in K/G?” he asked.
“Find the cargo crate, if we can,” I said with a frown. “But I'm not going to spend too much time on it now. Talking to Lanar seems more—”
I broke off because Baden was looking at me expectantly.
“What?” I asked.
“And the cargo crate is going to be near . . .?”
“The pinhole,” I said in exasperation, but by the time I got the words out I realized what he was getting at. “The pinhole! Which is a communications gateway to—”
“Sol system,” he finished for me. “And if we get a message to him and bring him to that end of the pinhole, and we cozy up to this end, it'll be about as secure a communication as you could have face-to-face.”
“As long as we get into K/G before the Trident catches up with us,” I said. “Thanks, Baden.” I stood up. “I think I'll go talk to Viss, see if he can't get us even a little more power to the main drives.”
Trying to get somewhere in a hurry when you don't know if you're being followed is enough to make anyone want to scream, and this trip took almost twelve hours. It was a relief to arrive at the terminal point for the wormhole to Keridre/Gerdrice with still no sign of the PrimeCorp ship behind us. Viss had managed to get us a little more juice at the expense of the heating systems, but with extra sweaters we were all okay. I sat down next to Yuskeya while Rei and Viss did the last-minute preparations for the skip.
Baden's readings from his tracer scan had come from the planet Nellera, so the pinhole wasn't too far from there. The wormhole we would be entering the system through, on the other hand, came out somewhat closer to Stana, the middle inhabited planet. As long as the homing beacon on the cargo crate was still broadcasting, it shouldn't be too difficult to focus our efforts and find both the crate and the pinhole.
I wasn't surprised when everyone showed up on the bridge for the skip into K/G. It was something to do besides look over our shoulders for PrimeCorp.
The skip was nothing out of the ordinary, although the inside of a wormhole is always worth looking at—same as you can't really ever get tired of sunsets or starry nights no matter what planet you happen to be on. I held my breath as we neared the end of it, though, because no matter how cocky I'd tried to sound, I wasn't altogether sure there wouldn't be an armada of PrimeCorp ships lying in wait just beyond the terminal point.
I let it out in a long sigh when we cleared the end of the wormhole and the only thing waiting for us was the distant globe of Stana, shining in the reflected light of its double suns.
“Baden, can you get any kind of a reading on the pinhole yet?”
“Hola, Captain, we're still too far out. I'll start scanning, but don't expect any return for a while yet.”
“I know, I know, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Okay, let's head toward Nellera with our sensors at maximum.”
The fifth planet of the K/G system, Nellera, was just inside the double star's habitable zone. Much further out and it would have been too cold to be welcoming, but as it was, some nice little colonies gathered around the warm and watery equator. The hospitable spots on Nellera were mostly island chains looping around the planet's middle, and they did a booming tourist trade with the two other inhabited planets in the system, Stana and Tarcol.
The most likely scenario for the crate was that it had come through the pinhole's terminal point and was still coasting along an unobstructed path that led in-system. While this wasn't necessarily a good thing, since it meant the path would take it further and further into more heavily travelled space, it was my preferred scenario because it made the crate the easiest to find. It also meant that it would be heading towards us as we pointed our nose towards Nellera, and that if we found it, the pinhole would also be easy to find.
We watched Nellera grow larger and larger in the viewscreen for a while. Baden said, “Well, I hate to say it, but if the crate had just come out and headed in this direction, I should be picking up the homing beacon by now. I think we'd better consider some other possibilities.”
Damne. “Such as the chance that some piece of space junk or a small asteroid collided with it and changed its trajectory?”
Or smashed it to smithereens. No one said it, but I was sure everyone was thinking it.
“Possibly, yes. I can change the parameters of the sensor field, to extend further out to one side or the other from the ship,” Baden said, “but there's not much else we can try. We at least need to get within reach of the beacon.”
“I think we should concentrate on finding the pinhole,” I said. “It would be great to find the body, too, but I think the priority has to be contacting Lanar. Turn the attention to that for now, but keep the sensors up. If we're looking for the pinhole and we come across the crate, too, so much the better.”
But I didn't really feel that lucky. The initial anticipation I'd felt in the air on the bridge as we entered the last wormhole was fading fast, and we needed to focus. I wanted to have my discussion with Lanar before the possibility of PrimeCorp appearing at any moment made me any more anxious.
“Come on, folks, don't be so gloomy. You didn't expect it would be sitting outside the wormhole waiting for us, did you?”
“No, but a person can hope,” Yuskeya muttered.
“Let's get to the pinhole first, and worry about the crate later.”
Baden called up the data from his tracer scan and went about analyzing where it meant the pinhole should be. After a few minutes he said, “Rei, I'm shooting you some coordinates. Head for them, and if the pinhole's within sensor range of there, we should find it.”
My nerves were running high, since two of the inhabited planets in this system were PrimeCorp-controlled. The Protectorate administered Nellera, and that was the only planet we were planning to get close to. I didn't know how much notice PrimeCorp took of the rest of the system. For all I knew they might have their eye on Nellera, watching for data runners or other corporations or who knew what.
And I wondered what Lanar was going to say about Mother's revelations. As an admiral in the Protectorate, I didn't know what he'd think of her confessions to things that had been outside the strictly legal. Then again, he was good at turning a blind eye to things I'd done when I didn't feel that “right” and “legal” completely coincided. Maybe he would do the same for our mother.
“Got it!” Baden yelled suddenly.
I jumped. “What?”
“The cargo crate, off to the dock side, almost outside the sensor range.” He entered coordinates on his screen. “Rei, you want to take us over there?”
“Sure thing,” she said with a grin. “That's easy compared to some of the things I've been asked to do lately.”
“So the pinhole should be . . .”
“Just got a fix on that, too,” Baden said. “We can pick up the crate, then head straight over there to try and contact Admiral Mahane.”
It wasn't long before we could actually see the crate onscreen, hanging still and dead, looking like a discarded toy. I felt another pang of conscience, much like the one I'd had the day we jettisoned it. It didn't seem like a very dignified place for a body, especially when I felt responsible for it being there.
“Why isn't it still moving?” I asked.
“Good question,” Hirin said. “The only answer is, something—or someone—stopped it.”
“It might not be very . . . pleasant, when we open this,” Viss murmured. “Even if the body is frozen, and might not have decomposed much—”
“Eww!” Maja said, wrinkling her nose.
“He might be starting to look sort of freeze-dried,” he continued.
“Do we have to talk about this?” Maja demanded.
Viss just grinned. “Are you going to lift it into one of the cargo pods and keep it there until we get back to Kiando? They're all empty now.”
“That's what I'd planned. Put it in Pod Two, it's the smallest.” I hadn't realized until now how creepy it was going to be, travelling all the way back there knowing what horrible cargo we carried below.
When we got close enough, Viss and Baden went down to Engineering, where the controls for the remote arms were. We didn't use the remotes very often, but occasionally they came in handy for transferring cargo between ships in space instead of at a spacedock. With the remotes it wasn't necessary for anyone to go on EVA—you just put your arms inside the big gloves and mimed what you wanted the real things to do.
Viss was working the remotes and keeping up a running commentary for those of us still up on the bridge. He'd latched on to the cargo crate on the first try and then muttered, “Uh-oh.”
“I don't like the sound of that.”
“It could be a misreading,” he said hesitantly.
“Just tell me.”
“There's not enough mass.”
“Not enough mass?”
“The remotes provide feedback on the mass of whatever they're picking up, since it has to match up to the cargo manifest especially on skip runs, where weight calculations are important,” Viss explained. “The reading I'm getting seems too small for the crate and its contents. Unless I'm wrong about what the crate weighs.”
But this was Viss, the man who knew more specs about the Tane Ikai and everything in it than I did, and I knew how likely it was that he had it wrong—not likely at all.
“Where's the crate now?” I asked, getting up.
“Bringing it through the pod bay doors,” Viss said. “I'll have the doors closed and the air pressure equalized by the time you get here.”
He hadn't counted on how fast I was moving, though, and I had to stand and tap my foot impatiently at the airlock hatchway to Cargo Pod Two while the air was pumped back in. Everyone else—including Rei, who really should have stayed at the helm—gathered around it, too. When the indicator went green I opened the hatch and climbed down into the cargo pod, the others clattering one by one down the ladder behind me. The cargo crate lay on the far side of the strapped-down groundcar, on its side over near the bay doors, and we practically ran over to it.
I found out what I wanted to know soon enough, anyway. Not letting myself stop to think about what the inside of the crate might be like, I keyed in the simple unlocking code and lifted the lid.
Viss, as usual, had been right. The crate was empty, and the body of the identity-stripped operative, one of our keys to bringing PrimeCorp down, had vanished into the blackness of space.
I slammed the hatch closed. “Damne, damne! What do we do now?”
Hirin shook his head. “Doesn't make sense. How could the body be gone?”
“Are we sure it's our crate?”
“Yes, because of the homing beacon. And the unlock code worked.”
“PrimeCorp,” Maja said in a tight voice. “It has to be. Somehow they tracked him here—”
“I don't think so.” I cut her off. I didn't want to believe it was possible. “They couldn't know he was in this system. He had no ID biochip for them to track him with, and there's no way they'd find that homing beacon by chance.”
“Although they did have the tracking device on the Tane Ikai,” Hirin mused. “They might have been tracking us but staying just at the edge of our sensor range from the moment we left Earth. Maybe they knew when we jettisoned the crate and knew it went into the pinhole, did the same thing Baden did to see where it went, then sent someone out to pick it up in case it could lead back to them.”
“The tracking device couldn't have had that strong a signal,” I argued. “Surely they couldn't have been close enough to pick up the signal but out of range of our sensors. And why leave the crate here?”
“They could have had a tiny tracker on the op's body,” Viss suggested. “We didn't strip him down. Never thought of it.”
“Or maybe someone just found the crate and opened it to see if there was anything valuable in it,” Maja said reasonably.
“So when they discovered it was a body, why didn't they just put it back out in space?” Rei asked. “Anybody with any decency would. It's got no value.”
“Anybody with any decency wouldn't have opened it in the first place,” Maja said.
“It might be valuable to someone,” Baden mused. “There are lots of traders out here, and not all of them are dealing in things we'd like to think about.”
“Ick,” said Yuskeya. “I know I don't.”
I kicked the crate once, knowing it was childish. “Well, I'm freezing my butt off down here, so I'm going upstairs for a triple caff. I might even find something interesting to use as an additive. You're all welcome to join me. And then we'll see if I can get through to Lanar, or if this whole detour has been a waste of time.”
We trooped back up the hatchway ladders again. I was starting to think I'd look into installing some kind of elevator when I put the Tane Ikai in for a refit. I'd never climbed the ladder as much as I had on this trip.
Rei and Baden went back to the bridge. I fetched a bottle of Vileyran whiskey from the secret compartment in my cabin and plunked it down on the galley table with a “Help yourself.” When the rest of us had collected our beverages of choice from the galley we followed Rei and Baden to the bridge, taking drinks for them, too. The Tane Ikai was already moving toward the pinhole, and as I came onto the bridge, Baden said, “Message request queued up and ready to send on the WaVE, Captain. If Admiral Mahane is in Sol System we should know pretty quickly.”
Baden was right. Lanar pinged back with a WaVE message within three minutes. I opened it up on my screen. Lanar was on the bridge of the S. Cheswick; I could see crewmen at consoles in the background. “Saluton, little sister! I didn't know you were back in Sol System.”
It was good to see his smiling face, and I felt some hidden tension in my chest loosen. I hadn't realized just how badly I wanted to talk to him. “Saluton, Lanar, but I'm not actually in the system. If I send you some coordinates, can you tell me how quickly you can get to them?”
He raised one eyebrow. “Hmmm, all business today. Sure, send them along.”
I nodded to Baden and he sent the data packet along the WaVE. I watched Lanar relay them to a crewman. “What's up, Luta? Are you all right?”
I let myself smile a little. “I'm not even sure how to answer that, Lanar. An awful lot is 'up.' Although I am all right, for the moment at least. And better now that I'm talking to you.”
His eyes softened and he smiled. “No more pirate attacks, I hope.”
I shook my head. “Fortunately, no. But then again, I'm not carrying any particularly interesting cargo, either.”
He looked off-screen briefly and then said, “We can be at those coordinates in about six hours if we burn hard,” he said. “And if it's important.”
“I think you'll agree it's important,” I said, “But I don't want to say anything else unless I know we're secure. Will you come?”
His grey eyes went very serious as he studied me on the screen. “We'll be there,” he said, “although my navigator claims there's nothing of interest in that sector.”
“Well, maybe your navigator will learn something new,” I said with a wink. “Gis la revido, Lanar. I'll talk to you soon.”
Six hours was a long time to wait and hope that PrimeCorp didn't show up. I retreated to my cabin and watched Mother's videos again, and tried to decide what she should do. Deep in my heart, I believed she'd been right to keep PrimeCorp from using the research unscrupulously. Whether she'd signed a contract or not, they were her ideas, and I felt she had a moral right to some control over them. And PrimeCorp had certainly proved itself an unworthy caretaker of humanity's future.
But now, with the Schulyer Group to consider, the situation might have changed. If their research turned out to be sound, the control that Mother had guarded so closely was about to be taken out of her hands anyway. And if Schulyer hadn't gotten there, someone else would before long. Mother would not be able to stop it from coming. All she could do would be to try and ensure that people had fair access. But some of the things she'd said in her videos were bothering me. I wanted to talk to Lanar about them, but that wasn't going to happen for a while. And for some reason I didn't want to go to Hirin or Maja with this.
I went down to Dr. Ndasa's cabin and lightly rapped my knuckles on the door.
“Come in,” he called.
The doctor sat at the desk in his room, reading something on his datapad. He set it down when the door opened and got to his feet. As usual, his violet-coloured eyes were calm and his demeanour quiet. It struck me that this seemed to be his default state. “Captain Paixon. What can I do for you?”
I took a deep breath. “I want you to know that I don't really blame you for being . . . secretive . . . about your reasons for wanting to find my mother.”
He lowered his head like a penitent. “Thank you. I did not enjoy deceiving you—although it was only a partial deception—but I felt that the importance of the cause perhaps superseded personal feelings.”
I nodded. “I was angry, but I do get it. As long as Schulyer is not going to turn into another PrimeCorp—”
Dr. Ndasa shook his head vehemently at that.
“—then that's it,” I finished. “But I do want to ask you something.”
He gestured that I should take his vacated desk chair, and seated himself primly on the edge of the bunk, adjusting his shipsuit awkwardly. He'd left Kiando without any belongings other than his datapad and the clothes he'd worn to Chairman Buig's salon, so we'd lent him some shipsuits. He didn't seem entirely comfortable in them, although he didn't complain.
“You've spent a long time hunting for the secret to immortality, just like my mother,” I began.
The Vilisian nodded, his long ebony braid swinging slightly.
“Did you have to struggle to decide if it would be a good thing, or a bad thing, in terms of the future of our races?” I asked. “Or has the answer to that always been clear to you?
He waggled his head. “Not always clear, no. When I first became interested in the field, it was all about figuring out if and how we could do it, not necessarily should we do it,” he said. “There are arguments for both sides. How would we deal with near-immortality? Would it cause more problems than it would solve?”
I nodded. “I watched a video that my mother left for me. She seems to have struggled with the same questions, and never really been able to come to a decision. I think if she had, she would have released the data from her PrimeCorp research into the public or given it to other researchers long ago.”
He chuckled. “It might have saved her a lot of trouble—or made more for her. She still might have had to run from PrimeCorp, and from the law as well if they wanted to press their rights.”
I couldn't sit still any longer, and got up from the chair to pace the small room. Since all of the Vilisian's belongings had been unloaded back on Kiando, it was back to the bare bones of bunk, desk, and dresser. I felt a little pang of guilt for hustling him along with us so unceremoniously. And yet he'd come along and stayed without protest.
“What I keep coming back to,” I said, “is that I don't know if it's any one person's decision to make. I know my mother wanted the knowledge to be used responsibly, if it was used at all. She said she believed that no one should have sole control of human aging, when she was talking about PrimeCorp. But hasn't she put herself in exactly that position? She's the one hanging on to the control. So I think she may have been wrong in keeping the data secret.”
“And that is difficult for you to accept,” he said, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he studied me.
I nodded. “In the years since she left us, all that time spent looking for her, I've always assumed that when I found her—we'd agree on things. That whatever had made her leave us and stay away, was a noble cause. That I'd understand everything she did and why she did it, if she just had a chance to explain.” I leaned against the wall next to the desk. “Well, I've heard her explanation—at least an abbreviated version—and I don't really agree with her.”
“But you are still worried about her whereabouts,” he said.
“Absolutely. I'm just worried that when I find her—we're not going to get along.”
Dr. Ndasa regarded me, then seemed to come to a decision. “Captain, there is something about my race that is not well-known. We have the ability, if we choose, to change our memories. To adjust them to what we want to remember, rather than what actually happened.”
I looked at him in confusion. “Humans don't have perfect memories, either, Doctor.”
He shook his head gently. “No, this is different—a matter of control. The old memories remain, but we can keep them submerged, hidden beneath what we would rather remember. It makes life . . . easier, in many respects. We can literally change the past—or at least our experience of it. We can make it easier to bear.”
“That's—that's really fascinating,” I said. “I didn't know that. But I'm not sure I understand—”
“I mention this because I think I understand your Mother's choices. Without my people's memory-altering ability, she would be most concerned at making the wrong decision in this matter. She would feel responsible for whatever happened as a result of her actions—actions that could affect all of humanity and the other races as well. Because I would have the option to escape it, I can appreciate the enormity of that prospect.”
I considered it. “And she'd be around to see those consequences. All the consequences. Potentially for . . . forever,” I said slowly. “I guess that would be pretty daunting.”
Dr. Ndasa smiled. “I think you also sell yourself short, Captain,” he said. “I've watched how you 'get along' with everyone—even your daughter, with whom I gather you have had difficult times. I think you need not fear a relationship with your mother.”
I fetched a deep breath. “Thanks, Doctor. I hope you're right.”
And I hoped I'd get the chance to find out.
Chapter Twenty-One
The hours crept by as we waited for the S. Cheswick to arrive at the Sol end of the pinhole. It was far worse than hours spent travelling through space, when at least sometimes the scenery was interesting: nebulae, asteroids, wispy clouds of cosmic dust. At some point in the waiting process I went to the galley with Hirin and Maja and we had a meal together. Maja cooked up a delicious stir-fry and Hirin put fresh fruit over ice cream for dessert. We talked about our lives together and apart, and half of it I don't even remember, except that for a little while I let go of everything I was worrying about and it was kind of amazing.
So when the message ping came in from Lanar, I felt pretty good. I took the conversation in my cabin, because I wanted to talk to him about PrimeCorp and I knew we needed privacy.
“Aren't you the secretive one,” he chided me when his face came on-screen. “How long have you known about this pinhole?”
The reception was incredibly clear, considering the almost unimaginable physical distance that separated us. Lanar was in his shipboard office, and the lettering on the wall plaque behind him was almost readable. I knew what it read anyway, though; In Astra Pax, the motto of the Protectorate. Peace Among the Stars. He had the lights low, his face thrown half into shadow.
I shrugged. “Not long, really; Baden discovered it when we were leaving Sol System the last time. He's convinced he'll get to name it,” I added with a smile.
“And he should.” Lanar studied me. “So, why this little rendezvous? Not that I don't like talking to you,” he added.
I blew out a long breath. “Where to start? I'll give you the condensed version. I found Mother—and lost her again. I have some messages from her that I want you to see. PrimeCorp is after me because they think Mother's on board my ship. We need to find her and make things safe for her, and I might have an idea how to do that. How's that for a start?”
Lanar grinned and shook his head, then took a deep breath of his own. “Little sister, I think it's time to pool our resources. But first I really want to see those messages from Mother. Can you narrowbeam them to me through the pinhole?”
I wondered what he meant by “pool our resources,” but that was sort of what I was hoping for, anyway, so I didn't press him on it. I commed Baden and asked him to send the datapacket of the messages, which I'd already downloaded from the chip and prepared. A few moments later, Lanar and I were watching them together.
Even all together, they weren't terribly long. At the end, Lanar was solemn. “You sure look like her. Sound like her, too.” He ran a hand over his face. “It's a lot to take in.”
I nodded. “But Lanar, here's what you don't know. Dr. Ndasa, who skipped out to Kiando with us, works with Schulyer Group. They think they've come up with something just as good as Mother's nanobioscavs, and they want her to vet their research.”
He pursed his lips. “So if that pans out, she won't have to worry any more about PrimeCorp having a monopoly? She could just give them back their data and step away from the whole thing.”
“I don't think she'll see it as being that easy. She's held onto this data for a long time, and she feels responsible. Even if she gives it to PrimeCorp, she's going to worry about what they'll do with it—and how they might still come after her, legally, maybe. And after all the things they've done—not legal things, I might add—I don't want them to have the data, either. They can't be trusted. I think it's time for PrimeCorp to take a fall. A big one.”
Lanar leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “What if I told you that we can't afford to have PrimeCorp take too big a fall? The timing isn't right.”
“We? Who's we? Who wouldn't be better off with them out of the picture?”
“A lot of people, sadly. Think about it. PrimeCorp is Vigor-Us, it's techrigs, it's skip drive technology.” He held up a hand. “I know, there are others in the same fields. But not nearly as influential or with the same kind of reach. It's also the government on five Nearspace planets. More than half of the people in Nearspace depend on PrimeCorp for one thing or another, and if we pulled the rug out from under them, it would hurt. Hurt industry, hurt medicine, hurt people all over Nearspace. To make matters worse, too much of the system is built on interdependent political connections, and who owes whom. A breakdown of that web might open the door for someone even worse to step into the gap while things were in confusion.”
I stared at him. “So we just let PrimeCorp get away with whatever they want? Is that Protectorate policy? That's not right, either.”
Lanar shook his head. “No, it's not. And it's not that we're doing nothing about it. In fact, I'm supposed to give you this.” He touched the screen and a datapacket showed up on mine. “We've set up a hearing on Vele, before the Nearspace Worlds Administrative Council, to present evidence about PrimeCorp's illegal tech operation—the one Viss helped us with. Your datapacket is a summons to appear to give evidence—you and the crew. It's not going to bring down PrimeCorp, by any means, but it's not meant to, either. Just push back a little. Cut out one of the tumours.”
I steepled my fingers and tapped them against my lips while I thought, realizing after a second that I'd picked up the habit from Hirin. “Okay. I had thought about bringing my own complaint against PrimeCorp. I've got a fair bit of evidence accumulated, which I was going to take to Chairman Buig on Kiando. Rei already suggested that I could bring the complaint—and then be 'persuaded' to drop the charges if they'd come to some agreement with Mother. This could work to our advantage. If they're already in trouble because of the illegal tech, they might not want any other complications right now.” I chewed my lip. “It doesn't completely solve the PrimeCorp problem, but it would get them off our backs.”
“Blackmail them into leaving Mother alone?” he said with a grin. “You sound just like her.”
“Not blackmail.” I grinned. “I'd prefer to think of it as firm persuasion. And if the Schulyer data turns out to be solid, PrimeCorp might be willing to forget any plans of action against Mother just to get their own data back.”
He nodded. “It might be persuasive enough. And it wouldn't interfere with the bigger picture of what the Protectorate's doing.”
I sat back again and rubbed my hands over my face. “I just wish I knew where she was. She gave us the password—we could send the message to get her people out of PrimeCorp and take their evidence with them, and that would give us even more leverage against them. But I hate to do it without her permission. I don't know if the situation is really desperate enough to pull down what she has set up there, because once it's gone, it's gone.” I sighed. “At first I was scared PrimeCorp had taken her on Kiando, but Dores Amadoro certainly didn't seem to think that. So in that case, I don't know where she is. Or even if she's acting as a free agent.”
I stared at him earnestly. “Is there anything the Protectorate can do to help find her now? Could you start trying to track her from Kiando, or put out some kind of watch on her known aliases, or—”
Lanar sighed and gestured for me to stop. “I think before we go any further with that, it's time for me to come clean on something. Would you mind inviting your navigator to join us in this little chat?”
“Yuskeya?” I stared at him. “What's Yuskeya got to do with any of this?”
He smiled, the mischievous smile I knew so well from when we were kids. “Get her, and I'll tell you.”
Shaking my head, I touched my comm button. “Yuskeya, would you come to my cabin, please?”
“Right away, Captain.”
In moments she tapped on the door and I told her to come in. “For some reason, my brother the Admiral requests the favour of your presence.”
She moved to stand just behind my chair, so Lanar could see her. “Hello, Admiralo Mahane.”
Lanar nodded. “Good day, Commander. Luta, I'd like you to meet Commander Yuskeya Blue, of the Nearspace Protectorate. Under my command, and currently on covert assignment aboard the Tane Ikai.”
I stared at Lanar for half a minute, trying to decide if he was playing some joke, then turned to look at Yuskeya. She'd stood to attention, and nodded when I met her eyes. Her cheeks flushed pink. “It's true, Luta. You can scan my implant if you'd like. The Admiral will give you the Nearspace Authority codes you'd need to read the secure layer.”
“Oh, no, I believe you both,” I said. I waved her to the other chair. “You might as well sit. I have a feeling this might take a while.”
Yuskeya? A Protectorate officer? And yet, maybe it made sense. She'd been shaken the night the intruder got aboard the Tane Ikai. She'd been extra cautious performing the transfusion—what had Lanar told her?—and running that scan on me when I'd been injured. She'd been the first one to Mother when she collapsed, the first one to think PrimeCorp might be following us. The one who'd been with Mother when she disappeared again.
Lanar had the grace to look a little sheepish when I turned to the screen again.
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “So, this is how you had my back, huh, little brother? You couldn't have told me?”
Lanar shrugged. “You wouldn't have let me put a Protectorate officer on your bridge if I'd asked you.”
“No, I wouldn't! I don't like being spied on!”
“Come on, Luta, Yuskeya wasn't spying. She was just doing what I told her to do—keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn't get into too much trouble.”
I shook my head. “Oh, sure, that's nothing like spying. But Yuskeya's been with me for over a year. PrimeCorp only started bothering me lately.”
Lanar nodded. “Sure, they've only started bothering you again lately, but we've been keeping a close eye on them for longer than that. Ever since Sedmamin made his way to the top, we've been aware of changes in the way PrimeCorp does things—big changes, Luta. There are things underway that go beyond industrial espionage and stepping over the line of the law. I figured they'd be after you eventually, but in the meantime, there were other uses for an undercover officer on a far trader.” He had the nerve to wink at me.
“So I've been unwittingly participating in covert Protectorate operations? First Viss, and now Yuskeya. Is there anyone on board besides me who isn't on the Protectorate payroll? Wait a minute—did Yuskeya know about the illegal tech, too?”
“No, I didn't,” Yuskeya said, and there was a touch of ice in her voice.
Lanar shook his head. “No, our Commander Blue isn't one to look the other way when the Protectorate has to venture into grey areas, even when we feel the ends justify the means. I thought it best to keep her out of that loop.”
I believed him. I remembered how shocked Yuskeya had seemed when Viss told us about our “secret” cargo. She hadn't been faking. “I hope she gives you hell for it, then.”
“Don't worry, she already did, in a very strongly-worded coded message. So I've been suitably chastised, and we can just put that little issue behind us, okej?”
I wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily. “If the Protectorate knows how crooked Sedmamin is—and they certainly do now—why don't they go after him? PrimeCorp wouldn't necessarily fail if you took him out of the picture.”
Lanar shook his head. “The Nearspace Council made a mistake in letting PrimeCorp get as powerful as it is,” he said. “It's not just Sedmamin. The entire corporate infrastructure is rotten, and they're greedy for even more power. Yes, we could target Sedmamin and take him down, but the Board of Directors could replace him with someone even worse. We're building our case, gathering information, but if we move before we have enough, it's all going to come tumbling down. We can't have that. Nearspace can't afford it. So all we can do is quietly crack down on the worst of what they're doing and try to get some leverage at the top. A series of surgical excisions, rather than an all-out attack.”
“Baden thinks PrimeCorp might have an informant in the Protectorate, so you might want to be careful who you trust.”
He seemed to consider the possibility. “I'm doubtful, but I'll keep it in mind. One more thing—I think I can help you make your case against PrimeCorp look even better.”
“Well, I want it to look as damning as possible,” I said. “They're more likely to cut a deal if they're worried.”
Lanar pursed his lips. “Yuskeya sent me a coded message not long after you left Sol system. About a certain . . . item that had gone missing.”
At first I drew a blank, but then I realized what he meant. “The body from the cargo crate? You have it?”
He nodded. “Picked it up and put it into storage, just in case we might need it someday. And because we didn't want PrimeCorp getting its hands on it. I guess it was a good idea.”
I turned to Yuskeya. “Why'd you bother letting us go hunting for it?”
She shrugged. “I was under orders not to reveal my identity—unless it was a life-or-death situation. And I wasn't sure if it had been picked up, anyway. So I had to just go along.”
“Well, I'm glad someone has it, anyway,” I admitted, and got up to pace. I'd been sitting too long, with too much new information coming at me. I turned to Yuskeya. “So, does this mean you know where my mother is? Was all that knocked-unconscious thing just a cover to help her get away?”
Yuskeya actually looked uncomfortable and touched the place on her head where the lump had been. She glanced an unspoken question at the screen, and Lanar nodded. “Yes, and no. The lump and the bruise—they were all too real,” she said with a grimace. “I was under orders, if we ever found your mother and she seemed to be in danger, to get her to a Protectorate safe area as quickly as possible. That's why I volunteered to go with her. So I could contact one of our agents on Kiando and get her safe.”
“She could have been safe with us!” I protested.
Yuskeya shook her head. “With the PrimeCorp ship on the way, I couldn't be certain of that. I thought it was best to get her into Protectorate hands as quickly as possible.”
“So you do know where she is.”
“No.” Yuskeya bit her lip. “Your mother is a very—strong-willed person. She said she'd take my advice and not go back to the Tane Ikai, but she wouldn't let me get her to our agent. She had her own . . . contingency plan, she said.”
I almost smiled at the image of my mother telling Yuskeya that she could take her protection and stuff it. But I didn't. I was hurt. “Why didn't you just tell me all this?”
She pulled a deep breath. “I'm sorry about that, Luta, I really am. But I knew that you'd be able to think clearer—and not have to lie—if you really didn't know where she was.”
“So you let yourself get hit on the head to convince me that you didn't know what had happened to her. Were you really unconscious at all?”
She smiled a little and put hand to her forehead again. “Your mother apparently has a black belt in Warrior Chi. But she gave me a shot so that I wouldn't have to 'fake' being unconscious.”
I shook my head. “Nice little conspiracy,” I said with a certain amount of bitterness. “I wouldn't have thought I was that easy to fool. Or so untrustworthy.”
“She did want me to make sure you got the bag, and the messages on the chip. Maybe it wasn't the right decision. But we had to act fast.” She grinned. “And you have to admit, the Tane Ikai taking off like it did made a good distraction. We got the Trident away from Kiando, which might have made it easier for her to get off the planet.”
“But,” I said, “you don't know where she is?”
Yuskeya shook her head, her grin fading. “She wouldn't tell me her plan. Just that she had confidence in it.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were dark and sincere. “And she told me to tell you, when I could, that she'd be in touch as soon as possible.”
I wasn't sure what to say to that, but as it turned out, I didn't have to say anything. Because that's when PrimeCorp caught up with us.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but we've got company,” Baden said over the ship's comm.
“Who is it?”
“Our new acquaintance the Trident just showed up on our sensors—and it looks like they brought some friends. I count four runners, all with PrimeCorp sigs.”
“How far away?”
He hesitated. “That's the strange thing. Closer than they should be for our sensors to just be picking them up now. I can't explain it. Viss says maybe they have some new stealth technology or something. But they're here.”
I swallowed. Even with three planets in the K/G system and Nellera in sight, we were far out of the local traffic lanes, and there were no known wormholes out here. This sector of K/G was pretty lonely, the equivalent of being ambushed in a dark alley. Even if I was, so to speak, on the phone with the Protectorate.
“I'll comm them, Luta,” Lanar said.
I was happy to let him try, but I doubted it would do any good. Dores Amadoro was unlikely to care about a Protectorate ship in another system.
I opened the ship's comm so everyone could hear me; I wasn't sure where everyone else was. “Everyone take a seat somewhere and buckle down,” I ordered. “I don't know what these oncoming ships have in mind, so we might have to get out of here fast, and when I say fast, I mean fast enough to take the pseudo-gravs offline.”
“Aye, Captain,” Viss said from Engineering.
“Dr. Ndasa and I are in the galley,” Maja said over the comm. “What's going on?”
“With luck, not much, but I wouldn't count on it,” I said. “It's PrimeCorp.”
“They're not answering my pings,” Lanar said.
“They don't know about the pinhole; they probably think it's some kind of trick I'm trying to pull,” I said. “They can't see a Protectorate ship, so if they haven't noticed the pinhole, how could one be pinging them?”
“I'm going to see who else is in the vicinity. If there's another Protectorate ship anywhere close, I'll send them to you.”
“Thanks, Lanar,” I said. “Signing off now. With luck, I'll call you back in a few minutes. Don't go anywhere.”
With Yuskeya at my heels I hurried to the bridge, and switched the bridge view to all the ship's screens. That way everybody could follow along with the rest of us.
When they hailed us a few moments later, the angular face of Dores Amadoro did nothing to improve my mood. I'd thought, with the summons to Vele, at least I wouldn't have to see her again until I got there.
“Captain Paixon,” Amadoro said in her coldest voice. “Here we are again. I'm still looking to execute this warrant for the arrest of Emmage Mahane. I'll have to ask that you prepare for boarding so that my agents can carry out their duties.”
“I'm afraid that won't be possible.” I did my best to look perfectly relaxed. “This ship is en route to a hearing before the NWAC on Vele, where, frankly, I expected you would be headed as well. I hear the Council is pretty testy when it comes to Primary Statute crimes. I don't think they'll be happy at this delay.”
“Primary Statute crimes? Which ones?” she asked nastily. “The one in which your mother violated the terms of her employment contract and stole PrimeCorp property, or the one in which you helped her escape apprehension knowing full well we had a warrant for her?”
I crossed my arms casually. “Neither. My mother is still not on board my ship, and those are only Planetary Statute crimes in any case. I'm concerned with more serious matters here. For instance, the development and manufacture of illegal tech as defined under Nearspace Authority law.”
Tiny wrinkles appeared at the corners of Amadoro's eyes as she took that in, but she was still belligerent. “PrimeCorp is not involved in the production of any technology classed as illegal,” she said flatly.
“No? But strangely, it seems that one of its subcorps is. I'm sure you personally have no knowledge of such a thing,” I said sweetly. “If you don't like that one, how about the one where someone—whose identity I think you already know—sent a stripped op onto my ship to steal DNA samples directly from my person?”
Amadoro allowed a slight frown to crease the skin of her forehead. “I don't understand what any purported invasion of your ship has to do with me, Captain.”
“Oh, spare me the crap, Ms. Amadoro. I don't like dancing with you out here, any better than I do with your boss Earthside. It may not have to do with you directly, but it certainly involves PrimeCorp. Now, the Council is expecting us to arrive with this evidence very soon, and they know where to look for answers if we don't.”
“What sort of evidence?”
Her voice was smooth, but her body language was telegraphing all sorts of things. She was trying to rattle me, catch me in a lie, but she really was interested in what I had. “That's confidential.”
“Because there is no evidence,” she rejoined, “and PrimeCorp has committed no crimes. To get back to my warrant—”
“Well, what if I told you I know that PrimeCorp has been engaged for years in a comprehensive campaign of industrial espionage, focused particularly on anti-aging research, at several other corporations' research facilities? And that PrimeCorp has systematically stolen, compromised, and otherwise interfered with research, data, and experiments owned by those other corporations.”
She stared at me, and then threw back her head and laughed with ostentatious merriment. “Oh, Captain Paixon, you are amusing. This whole thing is intriguing, but it's fabrication from beginning to end. Now,” she said, her smile disappearing as if someone had wiped it off, “if you're quite finished, we're coming aboard.”
I shook my head firmly. “No, you are not. You're completely welcome to accompany us to Vele, but you are not boarding my ship. There's a Protectorate officer on board with me, by the way. No doubt she'll be happy to give evidence of what's happening here.” I saw the puzzled look that passed between Baden and Rei and remembered that no-one else knew about Yuskeya yet. Well, this wasn't the time. “Tell your people to stand down and let us pass, because if you don't I'm going to start blasting a pathway through you.”
“Oh, really? I'd heard that you didn't believe in carrying weapons on a far trader,” Amadoro said with a smirk.
“Well, times change. Would you like me to prove it? I'm formally giving you notice that my ship is going to begin moving away and you are not to interfere. I'm certain I can justify my decision if I'm forced to take defensive measures.”
Of course that was the bluff; despite my mental vow to start carrying torpedoes again after our run-in with the pirates, there simply hadn't been an opportunity to get it done. I hoped Amadoro wouldn't take the chance. I'd always done my best to set myself up as a don't-care, kickass mercenary to PrimeCorp, so the bluff could work.
Amadoro pursed her lips, considering. I hoped I'd made her nervous, but not nervous enough to start taking the Tane Ikai apart.
Viss, from the engineering station, said over the ship's comm, so Amadoro could hear it, “Forward torpedo bays on standby, Captain. Ready to fire on your command.”
It was a brilliant bit of backup that I hadn't even asked for, but Dores Amadoro wasn't buying it.
“I don't think so, Captain Paixon. I have the law on my side. Stand by to be boarded. Resistance will be met with force.”
One of the PrimeCorp runners began to move forward, presumably making ready to hook up to one of our airlocks.
Damne, damne! I couldn't think of a single thing to do. I'd tried my best bluff and it hadn't worked. Lanar, this would be a good time to have one of your Protectorate buddies show up.
“Captain?” Viss interrupted her. “Shall I fire a warning shot across their bow?”
What was he doing? The bluff was over. Maybe he'd rigged up something that might look like a torp?
“Go ahead,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
A single torpedo burst out of one of the forward bays and toward the PrimeCorp runner that had moved toward us. It hurtled silently through the space between us trailing blue-tinged exhaust, and damne me if it wasn't real. I watched the sensors track it all the way until it skimmed the runner's nose and kept going harmlessly past.
It wasn't easy to keep my voice steady, shocked as I was, but somehow it came out okay. “Well, Ms. Amadoro, are you going to move aside? The next one will not be merely a warning. I'm certain if you follow us to Vele, the Council will look at everything and make a fair decision.”
She hesitated only a fraction longer. “I don't get paid to take that kind of chance,” she said, and the connection went dead. I suddenly realized that maybe taunting her about all the evidence I had on board hadn't been the smartest move. Now we were more of a threat than ever.
“Viss, where the hell did you get a torpedo?”
“Yeah,” said Baden, “and do we have any more?”
“Trident and runners are readying weapons systems,” Yuskeya said in a voice that seemed preternaturally calm.
“Evasives, Rei,” I ordered. “Hang on, everyone.”
It was fortunate that I'd told everyone to sit down earlier, because Rei hit the thrusters almost as the words were coming out of my mouth. The Tane Ikai bucked and jumped up and away from the PrimeCorp ships. An auto-alarm blared, triggered by the sudden acceleration. I hoped the others had heeded me and been prepared.
Damne, I thought. I should have had everyone in EVA suits before we made the skip. If the PrimeCorp ships fired on us and made enough of a hole in the outer plating to compromise life support, we wouldn't survive long.
“Ready to fire on your word, Captain,” Viss said over the comm.
“Not unless they fire first, Viss,” I said. “We still might get out of this without anybody getting hurt. But I want a full weapons report immediately.”
Hirin surprised me by answering. “I bought the torpedoes, Captain, and I had Viss bring them aboard when we were at Ando City. Thought they might be needed. I just got him to load them into the bays in case they were needed. We have a full complement, everything the Tane Ikai was built to carry.”
“Torpedo away from the Trident,” Yuskeya said. “Heading straight for us. No warning shots here. Runners seem to be equipped with wasp missiles and—”
A flare of orange light burst from the front of a runner that had managed to get close on our tail.
“—particle beams,” she finished, as the flash from the superheated dust and gas particles the beam had encountered in its path faded. “Very narrow, reasonably weak, and fortunately for us, badly targeted that time. A lucky hit will poke a hole in us, though.”
“Fire rear bay torpedoes, Viss,” I ordered. I hadn't wanted this fight, but they were obviously willing to kill us. I had no trouble defending my ship and crew. “Hirin, take the front guns. Both of you, fire at will. Rei, try your best to get us the hell out of here.”
The Tane Ikai shuddered as Viss released two torpedoes toward the runner, and groaned as Rei veered sharply downward. Something hit the floor and smashed in First Aid, and I wondered how many other things weren't secured for this kind of flying. Another alarm klaxon blared, echoing down the corridor behind the bridge. The Tane Ikai wasn't an agile fighter or an armoured battle cruiser. I wasn't sure how much fighting action she could take.
A rhythmic, metallic clanging echoed from the main corridor behind me and I turned in my chair thinking something had shaken loose. Instead I saw two EVA-suited figures, their arms heaped with more suits, making their way toward the bridge with heavy steps, the magnetized boots allowing them to stay swayingly upright.
“We thought these would be a good idea,” Maja said, her voice emerging hollowly over the ship's comm from inside her helmet. She handed me a suit and crossed to set one down beside Rei, who was obviously unable to stop and put it on. The third was for Baden. Dr. Ndasa took one each to Hirin and Yuskeya.
The ship jolted again and Rei whooped as the rear screen lit up in a flare of white light.
“Torpedo hit on that bastardo behind us,” Yuskeya said.
“Shock wave do any damage?”
“We're okay so far,” Baden said. Now that communications had broken down, he was monitoring the ship's systems.
“Trident is using their burst drive to try and get close,” Yuskeya said.
“Can we get in position for me to get a shot with the forward torps?” Hirin asked Rei. “I don't need more than a few seconds to get a target lock.”
“See what I can do,” Rei said, and the ship rolled sharply to starwise and shot forward.
I was trying to struggle into my EVA suit from a sitting position, not an easy task especially at these speeds and erratic flying. Once I had my feet and legs in, though, I could trigger the magnetics and stand to finish the job. My helmet tried to roll off my lap and I grabbed it, ramming it over my head even though I couldn't connect it to my suit yet. At least it would stay put.
I stamped my foot and the mags triggered, the electromagnetic force gripping the metal decking. I stood up then, just as the ship juddered and the lights flickered. I would have fallen over without the mags.
“Report!”
“Looks like a wasp went through Cargo Pod Two,” Baden said. “Losing pressure in there.”
“Is the access hatchway sealed?”
“Showing green, Captain,” he reported.
“Viss,” I said over the comm, “can you get to an EVA suit?”
“Little busy, Captain,” he said. “But the bulkhead between Engineering and the access hatches is sealed. I'm fine down here.”
Unless the next missile goes through Engineering. “Maja, can you try and get down to Engineering, get a suit to Viss?” It wouldn't be easy to climb down the ladder in a suit, but he was completely vulnerable without one.
“Aye, Captain,” she said, sounding just like one of the crew. I heard her clomping off down the corridor as fast as the mags would let her.
“Torps away from the Trident and two runners,” Yuskeya reported.
“Hang on, folks,” Rei said, and the ship veered up and rolled to dock. I hoped Maja had stayed on her feet. Struts creaked over my head and the floor beneath my mag boots trembled against the metal decking.
Hirin had his own EVA suit on and I clomped over to him as quickly as I could. “Can you pilot while Rei gets into her suit? I'll take weapons.”
“I think I can manage,” he said with a flash of a grin. Hirin had piloted the Tane Ikai for decades. I just hoped his recent de-aging experience had restored his reflexes.
I sat down at the console just as the targeting locked onto another of the runners. Without hesitation, I touched the button to fire the torp and watched it launch from the bay soundlessly, arcing toward the runner bearing down on us. The pilot rolled to avoid it, but it contacted the edge of a wing and an orange bloom scattered sparks and debris in all directions. The impact sent him spinning away out of sight below us. With luck, it might be enough to take him out of the equation.
“Message from the Trident,” Baden said.
“Audio only,” I said.
“That's all she's sending.”
“Captain Paixon, this is your last warning,” Dores Amadoro's voice was as cold and icy as the space around us. No battle heat there. “We will try to disable you only, but at this point I'm sure you understand that I can't make any promises.”
“Thank you, Ms. Amadoro,” I said. “I'm sure you can understand that I can't, either.” I broke the connection, tired of the woman's threats and games.
Hirin sat at the secondary pilot's console and Rei bent over, pushing her feet into the EVA suit. I hadn't noticed even a stutter in the handling of the ship when they swapped control. “Any chance we can just outrun them?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Not with that burst drive,” Hirin said. “The runners, maybe.”
“All right, then. Concentrate on taking out the main ship,” I ordered. “Disable them if possible, but don't hesitate to take any opportunities, either.”
A chorus of ayes met the order.
“Try to get a lock on the Trident, Luta,” Hirin said. “I'm going to try a chicken run.”
I swallowed even as my hands danced over the controls. Hirin certainly hadn't lost any of his nerve, anyway. A “chicken run” was old jargon from our early spacefaring days together. It would take us in a swerving line toward the enemy ship, hoping to get a shot away at them before they could get one off at us. Part of me wanted to order him not to, but I'd always trusted him in the past. How could I refuse to trust him now?
We'd been trying to put distance between ourselves and the Trident; now Hirin pushed the ship into a sharp climb relative to the far cruiser and brought us around in a tight turn to make a run toward it.
“Searching for lock,” I said, and Hirin started the ship veering left and right, sharper than should have been possible, it seemed to me. I heard Dr. Ndasa gasp, but kept my eyes on the targeting screen. The Tane Ikai trembled under the stresses and a low whine sang along the walls.
“Torpedo away from the Trident,” Yuskeya said. Even now her voice was steady and strong. I guess my brother had trained her well.
I should have ordered Hirin to break off, but I didn't. He swerved harder, more erratically, and I waited, finger poised over the screen, for the lock to turn green. Or the ship to fly apart at the seams.
Then Maja's scream came over the comm, and cut off as abruptly as it had begun.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Maja, what happened?” I demanded. I could not move from my seat or take my eyes off the targeting console, or risk all of our lives.
For a long, long moment there was no answer. “Maja!”
“I'm okay,” she said, her voice small and strained. “I fell off the hatchway ladder. But I'm okay.” She ended with a sharp intake of breath that did not sound okay at all.
The lock went green and I fired the torpedo. “Away!” I said to Hirin, in the same breath as Yuskeya said, “Trident has fired again.”
Now it was just a question of who could dodge faster. The Tane Ikai immediately veered starwise in a sharp twist, and the metal all around us screamed in protest at the forces pulling at it. On one of the viewscreens I saw the bulk of the Trident dart to one side as well, then I couldn't keep following it. I was too busy trying not to black out as Hirin pushed the ship through maneuvers that were near-certain to tear us apart.
“Torp has a trace lock on us,” Yuskeya said.
“Jettison the trash,” I ordered. “We might confuse it.”
“Done,” said Baden, as the flotsam and jetsam that would usually be dropped at at spacedock for recycling trailed out behind us.
Light flashed in a brilliant rush on the viewscreen, painting the dimly-lit bridge like moonlight. “That's a hit,” Rei said with satisfaction. She'd finished suiting up, but wasn't about to take the piloting controls back at this point. “Looks like we might have taken out that burst drive, she's coasting now.”
I started to grin but it didn't last long. Hirin sent the ship into a rolling dive that threatened to bring up the contents of my stomach, and I remembered the PrimeCorp torpedo still chasing us. The Tane Ikai jolted suddenly sideways and an even brighter light roiled over every viewscreen. Metal shrieked and a horrible rushing sound filled the comm.
“We're hit,” Yuskeya said with the tiniest catch in her voice. “Cargo Pod Four and Engineering.”
“Main drive is losing power,” Hirin said.
“Switching to secondary,” Rei answered without missing a beat.
I was up and on my feet before I realized what I was doing. Luckily my mags were still engaged or I would have gone flying across the bridge. I yelled into my helmet comm. “Maja? Viss?”
I started clomping toward the rear of the bridge, planning to take the ladder down to the lower deck.
“Captain?” Hirin's voice sounded behind me. Just the one word, and he didn't shout. But it halted me in my tracks, and I shook my head to clear it. No. Despite what my heart was telling me, I couldn't go running to see what had happened on the deck below us. I was in command. I started walking again, but I stopped when I got to the command chair and sat down shakily.
“Reports,” I said. My throat was so tight, the word seemed to scratch it, heart thumping so hard and painfully it must be audible over the comm.
“Emergency bulkhead between Decks One and Two has sealed,” Baden said. His voice was shaky, with no trace of his usual cockiness. “Engineering deck is depressurized.”
Maja, I thought in agonized silence. I knew he was thinking the same thing.
“Trident appears to be disabled,” Yuskeya said. “One runner left, and it's coming this way.”
“We still have secondary drive and manoeuvring thrusters,” Hirin said. “Coming about to face the runner.”
“Fire everything we have at it,” I heard myself say calmly. My voice sounded like it came from someone else.
The ship shook as a volley of torpedoes vaulted out toward the oncoming runner. It got just close enough to launch one of its wasps before one of our torps took it squarely in the body and it blossomed into a silent red ball. I felt nothing, not even relief. My mind had gone to some place where it simply did whatever came next.
Another tremor ran through the ship as the last wasp missile hit, but our luck held one more time. Hirin had managed to keep the manoeuvring thrusters turning us sideways once our torps were away, and the wasp struck the door to Cargo Pod One. The reinforced doors were possibly the strongest parts of the ship, and although the wasp detonated and the Tane Ikai juddered harshly again, I didn't think the missile had penetrated.
“We're okay.” Maja's voice came weakly over the comm. She was panting. “At least, I'm okay, and I think Viss is . . . I hurt my leg when I fell . . . might be broken . . . so I couldn't get the suit to Viss as fast as I should have.” Her voice rose in pitch and her words tumbled over each other, hysteria vibrating beneath them. “He didn't have the helmet all the way on when we were hit. But . . . it's on him now, and he's still breathing. It doesn't sound right. Someone . . . should get down here, soon.”
I let out a breath that was almost a sob. “Good—” I had to clear my throat and try again. “Good work, Maja. Glad to hear you're okay.”
“All threats seem to have been eliminated or disabled, Captain,” Yuskeya said, and for the first time her voice had a tremble in it. “Weapons systems on the Trident appear to be offline. Permission to render medical aid in Engineering?”
“Go ahead, Yuskeya,” I said. “Folks, we're going to have to seal all the bulkheads and depressurize the corridor to open the hatch to Engineering. I don't know how good our overall integrity is, so everyone check your suits and say when you're ready.” We'd have to go and inspect the damage soon, see if we could patch ourselves up to get to Vele, but first I wanted everyone safely on the bridge deck.
“Captain?” Dr. Ndasa's voice came over the comm from his helmet mic, shaky but resolute. “I will go with Yuskeya and help her see to the others.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
There was silence from Dores Amadoro or anyone aboard the PrimeCorp ship. The Trident itself seemed to be coasting, slow and blind, and I wondered with a pang if they had wounded or dead to care for. I set my jaw. If they did, it wasn't my fault. She'd risked the fight, and it definitely hadn't gone the way she'd expected. But I did have one other thing on my mind.
“Hirin,” I said, and he turned in the pilot's chair. “You didn't see fit to consult with me before loading up the ship with torpedoes?”
He had the decency to squirm in his seat. “You were busy . . . you had a lot on your mind. I didn’t think it was a detail you needed to be bothered with.”
“A load of torpedoes is something I don't need to be bothered with? Let me state for the record, here and now with everyone paying attention, that any munitions brought aboard this ship constitute a detail that I need to be bothered with. Anything else will be considered mutiny. Is that clear?”
It was greeted with a quiet chorus of “Aye, Captain.”
Rei said, “I bought a new plasma rifle when we were on Eri . . .”
And at the same time Baden was saying, “I picked up a—”
I waved my hands to stop them. “Personal ordnance excepted. All right?”
Nods and smiles all around. Much later, I thanked Hirin properly for saving us with the torpedoes, but those details aren't important here.
“Captain, your brother is pinging us like mad,” Baden said.
“Put him through.”
Lanar was on his feet, leaning on his desk with white knuckles as he stared at the screen. “Luta! Are you all right?”
I nodded, realized he might not be able to see my face very will inside the EVA helmet, and said, “I think so. Viss is injured and Maja might have a broken leg. Yuskeya and Dr. Ndasa are seeing to them. The ship has a few more perforations than it did the last time we talked, but we're holding together.”
“I've got a far cruiser on the way but she won't be there for an hour or so. Are you secure?”
I laughed. I couldn't help myself. My ship sported numerous holes, was partly depressurized, and the “enemy” was still within sight. As far as I knew, PrimeCorp still wanted samples of my DNA, Mother continued to be missing, and I'd had a Protectorate “spy” on my ship for over a year without suspecting it. Secure?
“I guess we're as secure as possible under the circumstances, little brother,” I said. “But I'll certainly be happy to see the spacedock on Vele.”
Not one, but three Protectorate far cruisers showed up to escort us to Vele, along with the disabled Trident. By the time they arrived, Viss and Maja had been brought back up to the bridge deck, and Hirin and Baden made a cursory inventory of the damage we'd suffered. The Trident turned out to be in worse shape than we were; the torpedo that had taken out their burst drive had also caused a chain-reaction failure in their main and secondary drives, so they were pretty much dead in the dark. Generators strove to keep life support at least minimally functional, and that was it. One of the Protectorate cruisers had to call for a tug to get them moving again.
I did hear that no-one on the Trident had been killed, but beyond that, nothing. I wondered briefly what Dores Amadoro had told the Protectorate officers about what had happened here, but decided that I didn't really care. I'd had my own Protectorate officer aboard the Tane Ikai, who had witnessed the whole altercation, and I was pretty sure that Amadoro's hot-headedness would prove to be a game-changer in our dealings with PrimeCorp. After her stunt, Lanar and the Protectorate might not get their wish to take the corporation apart little by little. I couldn't say the thought made me sad, despite Lanar's conviction that a PrimeCorp collapse would be bad for Nearspace.
We had fared much better than the Trident; we needed some emergency patch materials from the Protectorate ship that had taken us into their care—the Winchester—and some electronics, but our secondary drive would get us to Vele all right. The main drive would have to be replaced. Maja's leg was in an ultraplas cast, a weird echo of the ultraplas cuffs from our kidnapping episode on Rhea. But she was limping around just fine.
Viss was confined to his quarters, where Dr. Ndasa and Yuskeya had moved a load of equipment from First Aid to monitor him. He'd been exposed to vacuum for a mercifully short time, but one lung had collapsed, and some small blood vessels in his eyes and face had burst. Once Maja had secured his helmet and the suit had repressurized he'd seemed stable, and Dr. Ndasa had been able to treat him quickly, but they were keeping a close eye on him. Viss was helping his own recovery mostly by complaining a lot and trying to get someone to let him onto the Engineering deck.
It would be three skips to get to the Beta Hydri system, where Vele and its sister planet Vileyra circled the yellow-orange star. That meant I had lots of time to think, when I wasn't overseeing repairs and visiting the patients. And what I mainly thought about was my mother. My mother and all her worries and fears and sacrifices, and how she'd looked on Kiando when she said it wasn't because I didn't care about my family. I thought about her, and the bioscavs, and Hirin and Maja and Karro. And me. And how this mess with PrimeCorp was all going to sort itself out.
The conclusions I came to were these: she was tired of running. And I was finally tired of chasing.
So one day I sat down and loaded the chip marked PC35411 into my datapad. I added up the numbers for my parents' birthdays and the year she left us on Nellera, punched it in as the password, and it opened up the message like a charm. But I didn't send it, not that message. That decision was my mother's to make, unless and until she wasn't able to make it herself and I had proof of that. Instead I took the address it was to be sent to, and wrote my own message.
STATIC ELECTRONIC MESSAGE: 25.7
Encryption: securetext/novis/noaud
Receipt notification: disabled
From: “Captain Luta Paixon”
<lutapaixon.taneikaireg.nearspace*web>
To: “Anonymous” <ID 32597564512>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2284 11:16:55 -0500
To whom it may concern: Please forward this and the attached message along the route established. There is no danger to you or recipient.
Many thanks,
Luta Paixon,
Captain, Tane Ikai
Encoded inside that message was the one I wanted Mother to read. I used the same password she'd placed on the L/L chip; she'd figure it out.
Mother,
You said: No one should have sole control of human aging. Think about it?
Come home,
Luta
Four days later I was lying on my bunk, trying to get some rest. That goal was being thwarted by my brain insisting on trying to figure out how I was going to pay for a new main drive, when Baden commed me. We'd made the skip through to Beta Comae Berenices the day before, with the Winchester hovering behind us like an anxious mother, and tomorrow we should make the wormhole to MI 2 Eridani. One more skip from there would take us to Beta Hydri and the proceedings on Vele.
“Captain, message for you.”
I sat up and touched my implant. “From Lanar?”
“No.” Baden's voice sounded strange. “It purports to be—from you.”
“On my datapad,” I said, bounding for the desk to snatch it up. It wasn't vid, only a text message, and it was brief.
Received: from [205152.59.68] Eri Main Datastation
STATIC ELECTRONIC MESSAGE: 25.7
Encryption: securetext/novis/noaud
Receipt notification: enabled
From: “Captain L. Paixon”
<lpaixon5064.public.nearspace*web>
To: “Luta Paixon” <ID 59836254471>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2284 6:25:22 -0500
Dear Luta,
You may be right. I'll see you on Vele.
M.
I thumbed my implant comm. “Baden, where did this message come from?”
“Through the comm relay from MI 2 Eridani,” he said.
It did have the relay stamp from the Eri datastation at the top, but that didn't mean it had originated there. It could have bounced around Nearspace for a while before it got to me.
It seemed like, at least when this message had been sent, she'd been safe. And somehow, she knew about what was happening on Vele. I wondered if Lanar had found a way to get a message to her, too, or if her network of contacts was just that good.
Either way, it seemed like everything was going to come together on Vele. I rolled over, closed my eyes, and this time my brain let me sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Vele was a smallish planet, about the size of Mars, circling its star at a distance similar to Earth's from Sol. It was Earthlike and yet somehow alien; it had little axial tilt and so seemed to have one long temperate season that rarely varied, and something in their biochemical makeup made a lot of the plants look wrong. It was a nice enough planet, though, and I would have liked it more had it not been the place where Hirin originally took sick.
Mother was as good as her word. We said goodbye to the Winchester and set down on Vele late one mild, starry night, and the next morning I was barely dressed when I got a message ping. It was voice-only, but it was Mother. “Are you accepting visitors?” she asked.
“Dock One-Eleven,” I said. “I'll be at the bridge deck airlock.”
“Wait inside. I'll knock,” she said.
I supposed it was to avoid drawing attention; me standing alone outside the door, obviously waiting for someone. She was the expert at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, so I did as she asked.
When the knock came, I opened the airlock immediately and there she was, standing at the top of the metal staircase. Her hair was a rich, dark brown with pale highlights now, and she wore the midnight blue uniform of a dockworker. She carried a canvas carryall slung over her shoulder and vidshades hid her eyes, but it was her. She was smiling.
I waited until we were inside before I said anything. “So, you're here to see if PrimeCorp can wiggle out of this one?”
She pulled me into a quick hug. “Actually,” she said, “I'm mostly here for you.”
“For me?”
She slid the vidshades off and tucked them into her carryall. “Do you have any caff?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, not being much of a hostess, am I? Let's go to the galley.”
Strangely, it was deserted. I pulled us both steaming mugs from the machine, and we sat down at the long table. “That was some message you sent me,” she said, looking around the room. “Nice ship you have here.”
“Thanks,” I said. “There wasn't much to it. The message, I mean.”
“No, but you certainly got straight to the point, and it made me think.” She blew across the top of her caff, making the liquid ripple and steam writhe in the air. “I hadn't really stopped to think about things for quite a while. I was on automatic pilot, you might say. It was . . . a wake-up call. Anyway,” she went on, pulling a datapad from her carryall and setting it on the table between us, “I've sent this data to Lanar. Dates, names, and details on the research data PrimeCorp appropriated and sabotaged, what companies were involved—everything.”
I looked up from the pad, meeting her eyes. “You sent the message.”
She nodded. “I sent the message.”
“And your people? Are they out of PrimeCorp's reach?”
“No-one on that end realizes what's happened yet. By the time PrimeCorp gets notice of this, they'll be well away.”
“PrimeCorp's going to have a lot of things to worry about, all of a sudden.”
She shrugged and turned the datapad around with a finger. “Let's hope so. At any rate, I've decided that I have to let it go,” she said simply. “I'm going to go and talk with Schulyer, release my research data publicly, and let PrimeCorp take me to court if they want. They'll stop bothering you, at any rate.” She put a hand on one of mine. “It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done to leave you on Kiando. Leave you again. Seeing you, and Hirin, and Maja—it sort of cracked something inside me.”
“I would have helped you, you know.” I couldn't stop myself from saying it. “You didn't have to disappear.”
She sighed. “I know. You know what happened?”
“Yuskeya told me, what she knew, anyway.”
Mother sat back in the chair, cupping her mug in both hands and staring into its depths. “I just did what I've been doing for so many years. Put the plan into action. Keep moving. I had a dummy ticket booked on that starliner that was orbiting Kiando—that's standard practice for me. So I took a shuttle up to the starliner under one of my other identities, changed my appearance in a stateroom, caught a shuttle back down to the planet, and hopped on a short trader to Cengare. From there I shipped out for MI 2 Eridani. And the whole time, I was thinking what a fool I was, and how I should have just gone with you.”
I smiled wryly. “Turns out, that would have been a bad idea. PrimeCorp caught up with me almost right away and ended up nearly destroying my ship.”
She met my eyes then. “But I still would have been there. I would have been part of your life for once, instead of just watching from the outside.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally I said, “I watched the videos. Showed them to Lanar, too.”
“So you know the best and the worst of it.”
“You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done.”
She smiled at that.
I sipped from my own mug. “You know what I got out of it all? That at some point, people should start benefiting from your research. Isn't that what all your work has been about?”
She didn't answer, so I went on.
“I know it's a worry—what will happen. But you can't take all the responsibility on yourself. We've been hunting immortality, wishing for it, working towards it, for centuries. You're only the locus that all that work has led to. You're the last function in the equation. Most people will probably embrace the technology, but some won't. Society will change, of course, evolve just as it always has when conditions change. You can't take it on yourself to be responsible for what immortality will mean to humanity. You have to give people the chance, and the choice. What happens then—well, it can't be your worry.”
“Your message made me come to a similar conclusion,” she said. “But the letting go—I want to. It won't be easy.”
“You don't have to stop your own research,” I said. “It's what you love doing. You just have to focus on the people you'll be helping. Take Hirin, for example. I gave Hirin a blood transfusion a few weeks ago, and the changes in him have been—well, unbelievable.”
Mother stared at me. “What?”
I realized that Mother didn't know about Hirin's virus, and told the story as succinctly as I could. “He had a bad reaction when we went through the Split. The virus surged, and it affected his heart. We decided to gamble that a transfusion from me might help.”
“Transferable bioscavs? I wouldn't have thought—especially that generation, and after so long . . .” She stared into the distance, likely envisioning complex formulae and nanostructures I couldn't even begin to imagine. “They didn't have any adverse effects?”
I chuckled. “Well, they seemed about to kill him for a few days, but then he got better. Since then they—the bioscavengers, I guess—have been reversing a lot of the damage age has done to him. It's noticeable already.”
She still seemed stunned. “After so long in your system . . . I wouldn't have thought—” her voice caught and tears sprang to her eyes.
“What is it?”
“If I'd realized sooner . . . but it never worked in tests—”
My heart lurched. Perhaps the transfusion had been an even bigger gamble than I'd thought. I caught her hand briefly and squeezed. “It's okay. I know you would have told us if you'd known. Maybe it had something to do with the particular virus Hirin had.”
“Is Hirin here? I'd like to run some tests, if he'd let me.”
I smiled. Whatever else I might convince my mother to do, she'd never stop being a scientist. “I'm sure he will.” I touched my implant and messaged Hirin, asking him to meet us in the galley. “What about the new generation of bioscavs—the ones you mentioned in the video? Will they work for Hirin?”
“Ye-es,” she said hesitantly. “They'd be more limited. I wouldn't say they could prolong his life indefinitely. But they'd extend it for a good many years yet.”
Hirin came into the galley, stopped dead and did a double-take. “Hola, that is weird. Even with the different hair colour, you two look amazingly alike. You're going to have to wear name tags if you're both going to be on this ship. I don't want to start making passes at my mother-in-law by mistake.”
I took a swipe at him as he passed me, which he ducked with newly-reacquired speed. “If a man can't tell his wife from her mother—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Hey, I get to plead extremely unusual circumstances,” he protested as he filled a mug with chai for himself.
“Mother wants to take a look at your virus, and your bioscavs,” I said. “Do you mind?”
He shook his head and held out his arm, implant facing Mother. “But will there be anything of the virus left to find?”
“Oh, I think so,” Mother said. She placed her datapad gently over Hirin's implant, waiting for the connection. “The bioscavengers would deal with the virus in one of several ways—by neutralizing parts of it or by altering the body's reaction to it—but they wouldn't necessarily erase it. And I want to see how they've adapted themselves to your body, too.”
“I still have all the data Dr. Ndasa collected,” Hirin volunteered. “He gave me a copy to keep for my own records.”
The datapad chittered and Mother removed it, pressing her fingers swiftly over the screen. “I'd love to see it, Hirin. The comparison would be valuable. This will just take a few minutes to analyze.”
He found it on his datapad and sent it to her, and while the datapad performed its operations, Mother questioned Hirin closely about his condition at all stages of the virus's progress. I sat back and sipped my double caff, savouring not only the hot, sweet bite of the drink but also the fact that we could talk about Hirin's illness in the past tense.
The datapad alert announced that the analysis was finished, and Mother looked it over, frowning.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Let me check something.” She pulled a chipcase from her bag and loaded another chip into the datapad.
“Is something wrong?”
“The virus,” she said distractedly, scrolling through pages on the datapad. “There's something—it's familiar.”
Hirin and I shared a look, but said nothing. Mother studied the screen, occasionally pursing her lips and squinting at the data. The suspense was almost intolerable and I was about to speak when she abruptly got up from the table, still staring at the datapad screen. “I don't want to believe this.”
I just looked at her until she continued.
“The virus contains a gene sequence that belongs to PrimeCorp. They own the patent on it. I know because I helped create it.”
“Dr. Ndasa told me it was synthetic—engineered. That it must have been spread by accident.”
“It should have been completely destroyed when we were finished with it. It shouldn't still be in existence.” She sat down again. “And it definitely shouldn't be in Hirin.”
“So . . . you think PrimeCorp wasn't careful enough with it? Or sold it?”
She didn't answer, drumming her long fingers on the table and staring at a spot on the far wall. Finally she said, “No. It's too much of a coincidence. My guess would be that PrimeCorp deliberately exposed you to it in an attempt to find out what your bioscavengers could do.”
“But it happened here, on Vele! They would have had to follow us out here, and then find a way to infect us! And how could they do that without risking exposure for other people?”
“Maybe they didn't care. This is PrimeCorp, remember?” Hirin said. He rubbed his stubbled chin contemplatively. “It would explain some things. Like why the doctors never could pinpoint what kind of virus it was.”
“There'd be nothing obvious to link it to PrimeCorp, not for anyone who hadn't worked on the project.” She stood again and paced the length of the galley. “What did you do when Hirin first got sick?”
“We headed straight back to Earth.” I looked out the viewport, remembering those terrible days. “There were reasonably good medical facilities close by on Vileyra, but the colonies were still young. We thought the newest and best treatment would be Earthside.”
“And it kept getting worse on Earth, then regressed once you left?”
Hirin shook his head. “For a long time it was up and down. We kept trading, tried to ignore it. I'd have flare-ups, then it would calm down, just simmer for a while. Didn't seem to make a difference if I was Earthside or anywhere else in Nearspace.”
“But when you . . . reached the point where you couldn't manage the trade runs anymore?”
“It got steadily worse once I went into care,” Hirin said. “Slowly, but steadily. It didn't improve until I left Earth the last time.”
“Almost like someone was trying to make sure Luta stayed to look after you?'
I broke in. “What are you saying? That PrimeCorp—”
“Do you think it would be difficult for them to find someone in a care facility who could make sure a patient got sicker instead of better—if the price was right?”
I stared at her. When I could speak, my voice was only a whisper. “You think PrimeCorp was making sure Hirin got worse, and he started to recover when he came with me because they couldn't . . . get at him any longer? That's monstrous!”
Hirin narrowed his eyes. “But it makes sense. And it explains why they were so reluctant to let me leave. They couldn't forbid it, but they did everything short of that. Including trying to say I was crazy.”
I still didn't want to believe it. A sick churning roiled in my stomach. All this time I'd thought I was doing what was best for Hirin, and in fact I'd only been leaving him in jeopardy alone. I didn't want to accept that it might be true. “What about the Split? When the virus surged again? PrimeCorp couldn't have engineered that!”
“I can't answer that part of it, Luta,” Mother said. “It could have been something caused directly by the Split, or the virus could have been engineered to surge after a certain amount of exposure to wormhole radiation—that would be an effective way of limiting travel.”
“I'm going to have to kill him.” My voice seemed alarmingly calm, even to my ears. “Sedmamin. For doing this to you.”
Hirin took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. His blue-grey eyes were intense as they fastened on mine and his hands were strong and firm, not the weak, fragile hands of such a short time ago. “You're going to do no such thing, Luta. Listen, PrimeCorp is going to get what's coming to it. The Protectorate is going to see to that. We're going to let them take care of it, and we're not wasting any more time or worry on Sedmamin or the rest of them. This is not the beginning of a vendetta. I've been given the gift of more time, and I have better things to do with it.” He gave me a gentle shake. “Got it?”
That's when I burst into tears. I guess I got it.
Hirin told me later that Maja cried, too, when he told her about it.
I can say unequivocally that giving evidence in a proceeding before the Nearspace Worlds Administrative Council is the most boring thing I've ever done. Lanar arrived on Vele just a day before the actual hearing was due to start, and we had a nice reunion, he and I and Mother. It made for a welcome break in the monotony, because by then we'd all been interviewed, signed affidavits, turned over evidence, been interviewed about the evidence, and then been cross-interviewed about everything again by PrimeCorp's lawyers. A lot of paperwork and bland meeting rooms and hurry-up-and-wait. There were no courtroom dramas, no damning accusations from a witness stand. This was the Protectorate's show, and Lanar had done his part remotely from his ship. I would have given almost anything to simply slip away some night and burn for the nearest wormhole, but that would have solved only the boredom problem. I wanted to stay around and see how it all fell out.
And how it all fell out wasn't the most I could have hoped for, but it was pretty satisfying. The Protectorate had quite a bundle of charges, thanks to our evidence, to take to the Council. In addition to its own evidence of manufacturing and transporting illegal tech, there were the instances of piracy, kidnapping, industrial espionage, use of illegal viruses and stripped ops, and unprovoked firing upon a civilian ship.
It certainly would have been interesting to observe the proceedings, because I'm sure that delicately balanced web of interplanetary relationships throughout Nearspace that Lanar had talked about came into play—who sided with PrimeCorp and who with the Protectorate, and what political leverage was brought to bear. The media certainly gave it full play on the vids and the web (although they weren't privy to the deliberations, either, so a lot of it was speculation) and PrimeCorp's net worth valuation took a pretty deep hit. Not enough to ruin the corporation, because as Lanar had said, ruination wasn't feasible—at least not yet. They couldn't make all the charges stick, or possibly some were negotiated away. But the PrimeCorp foundations shook, no doubt about it.
Predictably, Alin Sedmamin came out smelling—if not like a rose, at least mostly free of the odour of corruption. Dores Amadoro didn't fare so well, and was facing time in prison. Sedmamin managed to sidestep most of the responsibility for the criminal activity, allowing it to land squarely on her shoulders. Somehow it came to light that all those criminal happenings had been instigated or carried out by her, acting on her own initiative. The Board of Directors was shocked—simply shocked, that such a viper had been sheltering within its walls.
I didn't believe it one bit, obviously, but I still didn't feel sorry for her. Dealing with someone like Sedmamin, she should have known he'd be the last person to take responsibility for failure.
It was Lanar who stopped by Dock One-Eleven to give me all that news. “It'll be pinging all over Nearspace tomorrow,” he said, “but I wanted you to hear it first.”
We were in the galley, in the two big armchairs facing each other, mugs of double caff in hand. It was quiet, except for a dull thumping that signalled Viss was labouring away on the repairs to Engineering.
“I'd rather hear that Sedmamin was going down,” I said, “but I'll take Amadoro as a consolation prize. Do you think they'll go after Mother when she leaks the research data?”
He shook his head. He was off-duty, and had traded his Protectorate uniform for jeans and a transform t-shirt. “If I know Mother, she'll do it in a way that won't be directly traceable to her. If anyone knows how to do that, I'm sure she does.” He grinned. “And don't be too certain about Sedmamin. His day is coming. I expect his Board of Directors is going to be very unhappy with him after this, if only because it happened on his watch.”
“Thankful for small victories,” I said, and raised my mug.
He leaned forward to touch his mug to mine. “Speaking of victories, your evidence really helped us out, Luta. No-one could argue that it was just Protectorate harassment or trumped-up charges. The Protectorate is going to be grateful. Quiet, but grateful.”
“Huh. If they'll turn that gratitude into a new, upgraded main drive, that might compensate me for my trouble.” I was still not entirely over the way Lanar had gone behind my back with Yuskeya, but I never could stay very angry with him. I changed the subject. “So I suppose you'll be wanting my navigator back now. Where am I supposed to find another one as good as Yuskeya?”
Lanar glanced away, not meeting my eyes, then back. “Actually, I want to talk to you about that. I hear you're taking Mother back to Kiando. Could I leave Yuskeya with you for that trip? I want her to meet with our agents there to—discuss a few things.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I'm suspicious already, but sure, I'll take her back. She can spend the time bringing me double caff and cinnamon pano to make up for lying to me.”
“I don't think that's in her job description,” he said, grinning again. “Any of them. But you can try.”
Maja knocked on the door of my cabin one evening as I was looking over cargo manifests for likely jobs. The repairs to the Tane Ikai were almost complete, and we'd be shipping out for Kiando soon. Might as well travel with full cargo pods, even if the Protectorate had paid for the new drive. I put the datapad aside when she came in.
She wasn't the same Maja who'd come aboard on Eri. Her blonde hair spilled down from a girlish ponytail and her blue eyes were lively. She smiled at me as she settled herself in my big armchair and tucked her feet up comfortably.
“Are you making plans for taking Grandmother back to Kiando?” she asked.
I nodded. “Looking for some likely cargo to haul on the way there, anyway. She's anxious to see Gusain Buig again, so I don't think she'll want me to make too many stops along the way.”
She licked her lips. “I've been thinking . . . I'd like to stay on for a few runs, if it's all right with you. I'm starting to think that I didn't give space travel enough of a chance when I was younger.”
“Does my communications officer have anything to do with that idea?”
She flushed slightly. “You know about that?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Maja, I'm your mother. And we both know why, despite my age, I'm not senile just yet.”
She laughed then, a sound I couldn't hear often enough. “Do you mind?”
“Why should I mind? Baden is a good man. He wouldn't be on my crew if I didn't think so. He does have a bit of a reputation—”
“As a womanizer. I know all about it.”
“—and I thought he and Rei had something going—”
“Baden told me about that, so I talked to Rei, too. She laughed, very nicely, and said he was 'amusing' on long runs, but that she has a fiancé back on Eri whom she'll be marrying 'when he's old enough.'” Maja raised her eyebrows. “What's that about?”
Sankta merdo! I'd known the crew had secrets, but the ones I'd learned lately were not what I'd expected. “I have no idea, and nothing you or anyone else does is any of my business. I can't keep track of it, anyway. So yes, I'd be very happy if you stayed with us for awhile, and so would your father. There's a lot in Nearspace I'd like you to see.”
She leaned her head back against the chair. “I had a nice talk with Grandmother, too, today. I thought at first I'd feel angry with her, since she was really the beginning of all this. But I don't.” She took a deep breath and looked around my cabin thoughtfully. “Everything I worried about for so long seems to be awfully far away now. And everything important is right here.”
I smiled. “That's a good thing.”
She nodded. “That,” she said, “is a very good thing.”
Weeks later, back on Kiando, Mother and I took a long walk together, a real outdoors walk through some of the vineyards where the fruit for jarlees wine grew. They were reminiscent of vineyards on earth, although the jarlee vines grew over tall, arching trellises and sported pale, burgundy-veined leaves. Anyone seeing us would think we were sisters, not mother and daughter, and I was thinking about how alike we were, and how alike Maja and I were also turning out to be.
“So you're staying on here for a while.” It wasn't really a question; the relationship I'd suspected she had with Gusain Buig had turned out to be very obvious, and she'd already been talking about getting back to her ongoing research. The trip to Schulyer Group's labs was in the works, and Dr. Ndasa was keen to show her what they'd done.
She nodded and sighed. “And you're not, I suppose.”
I smiled. “Part of me would like to. We still have years' worth of things to catch up on. But you're going to be pretty busy for a while.”
“That's for certain. But I'd squeeze you in.”
“I know. I think it will be even more fun if I come back later, and bring Karro and Aliande, and their children, if they'll come. I'll mention it to Lanar next time I talk to him. We'll have a real family reunion.”
“That would be wonderful.” Her voice was warm, and there was a catch in it.
I pulled a dark violet jarlee fruit from one of the vines and rolled it in my fingers, enjoying the plump promise of sweetness.
“Hirin came to see me about the new breed of bioscavengers,” she said. “I explained what they could and couldn't do for him. But he seemed happy for whatever they'll accomplish.”
“He's already had the treatment?” I was surprised he hadn't told me.
“Yesterday. Maybe he wanted to surprise you.”
“Hmmm. Maybe.” I thought it might be something else, but I'd have to ask him later. “Mother, it's kind of strange, but—now that the die is cast, I think I understand your hesitation to unleash immortality on humans.”
Mother laughed. “Oh, really? You told me rather bluntly that it wasn't my business to decide for the entire race.”
“Well, something like that, I guess. But when I think about people like Alin Sedmamin and Dores Amadoro, I wonder if you weren't right after all. We could do a lot of harm if mortality isn't an issue anymore. There seems to be an almost limitless capacity for greed and mean-spiritedness in us as a race.”
“We could.” She picked a jarlee fruit and popped it into her mouth. “On the other hand, we might get over the short-sightedness that's plagued us for centuries. Might be more mindful of the hundred-year consequences of our actions if we have every expectation of being around to experience them. We have great capacity for kindness and compassion, too.”
“True.” I grinned. “I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?”
“I guess so. There's a quotation from an old Earth writer that's always intrigued me. It goes, 'I don't believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun.' I don't know what she actually meant by that, since she killed herself years later, but I've always taken it to mean that instead of worrying about getting older, we should instead be able to use time to change our perspective on things. Change how we see the universe and the face we present to it.” She laughed a little. “I guess that's what I hope this research will ultimately enable people to do. Alter their perspective from time to time, because they'll be around long enough to do it.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I guess that's what I've been doing for years, I just didn't realize it.”
We walked a long way in silence after that, and it was perfectly okej.
That night when we were getting ready for bed, I told Hirin about my visit with Mother.
He smiled. “I'm so glad you finally found her. All that time—it wasn't wasted.”
“I wouldn't have said it was wasted, anyway.” I sat beside him on the bed. “We had a lot of good years out there on the Tane Ikai.”
“And a lot of close calls,” he said with a chuckle. Then his face grew serious. “Luta, this has turned out so differently than what we talked about when I left Earth. You've gotten into something you didn't expect . . . or maybe even want.”
I'd suspected as much. I turned to meet his eyes, eyes I'd looked into for decades, loving them with every glance. They were no longer clouded with age, no longer sunken—the bioscavengers had taken a good fifteen years off his appearance and probably fixed him up inside even better than that.
None of that mattered to me at all. I'd never felt that he'd aged beyond me, only that he'd been subject to forces that had bypassed me, like an illness to which I'd been blessed with immunity. Our souls were the same age, and that was what had brought us together and kept us together all that time, anyway.
“Mother said you went to see her yesterday. Looks like you don't have to worry about dying in space—or anywhere—just yet.”
He nodded. “But you weren't counting on that, and I'll understand if you'd rather—”
I kissed him, which shut him up briefly, but then he pulled away and said, “No, I'm serious about this—”
“And so am I.” I kissed him again, harder this time. “You silly old man. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Unless you're thinking you want a younger woman now—”
At which point he made it very clear that, in fact, he did not.
THE END