“Maung?” the guard asked.
“What?”
“Any idea why the Chinese would leave Earth?”
Maung shook his head. “No clue,” he lied.
The refueling operation took more than twenty-four hours, and by the end of it Maung almost couldn’t sit still. Nang was on Mars. And he never got a chance to send a message to his son, on Earth—one he had prepared when he first took control of the Fleet—so when after ten hours his leg improved, Maung began harassing the captain and asking for access to the Langley’s network. The captain never responded.
Maung was asleep when a coded message came in, and one of the guards jiggled him awake, handing him the cable link. He jacked it in. Maung was still half-asleep when the semi-awares guided him through the coms link and before he could ready himself, the Old Man stared at him.
“Is everything OK with Nang?” Maung asked.
The Old Man nodded. “It’s fine. We just got something puzzling and wondered if you and the Langley command semi-awares could give a shot at analyzing it. We have an idea down here, but we need a second opinion.”
“Sure,” said Maung. “Send it over.”
As soon as the transmission played, Maung recognized it, without running it through a formal analysis. He couldn’t decipher the language. But the spectrum was identical to what he observed in Charleston and there was no mistaking the guttural sounds mixed with hisses and clicks.
“It’s Sommen,” said Maung.
It took a second for the transmission to reach the Old Man, and a second for his response; he looked shocked. “You sure? You’ve only had it for a few seconds.”
“I’m sure. It’s exactly like the emissions I recorded from the one at the Charleston spaceport. Where did you get this?”
“It originated from the Kuiper belt. Near Karin. An automated reconnaissance platform picked it up and it sat in the Mars storage banks for a while waiting to be analyzed; we’re lucky to have intercepted it. It was tight beam and they sent it right after you found the bodies on Ganymede.”
Maung shivered. He couldn’t see the empty space around the ship and now the blindness made him feel vulnerable, and he imagined that every moon, asteroid, and planet could hide unknown numbers of Sommen. They were there.
“They’re watching us,” Maung said.
“Yeah.” The Old Man paused to whisper something off camera then turned back to Maung. “One of our fast scout ships should be arriving at Fleet in the next hour. It’s there for you. We need you back on Mars now so we can get to work; who knows how long it will take for the remaining Fleet ships to move out of Europa’s orbit; we can’t wait that long.”
Maung sighed, relieved. He agreed with the Old Man, pulled out the cord, and slammed his helmet on. One of the guards asked what was up. After he told them, the men took his arms and guided Maung into the corridor.
“Thank God we’re getting out of here,” one of them said. “The Langley is a freakin’ missile magnet. You should have seen this ship get hit from the perspective of the lifeboats.”
Maung slept for most of the trip back. But whenever awake, he couldn’t stop thinking about his family and his thoughts spun out of control, flicking back and forth between his mother and son, and then Nang and his unborn child. I will never see Charleston again, he realized. It was too late now; he’d made the deal with the Old Man, but he had to convince them to let him send the message to his son—one last contact. But then maybe it wasn’t a good idea; Maung knew how he would feel if his father had disappeared voluntarily and at the top of his list of likely emotions the move would evoke were hatred, betrayal, and terror. When sleep finally came, it was a welcome vacation from worry.
Nang melted into his arms. When she kissed him, Maung felt her tongue against his and they ignored the embarrassed looks from the other guards and scientists, continuing to kiss until the Old Man finally cleared his throat.
“I thought you’d get killed,” Nang whispered.
He buried his nose in her hair. “I had to make it back to you guys.”
The Old Man interrupted. “Listen. We have to get working.”
“Working on what?” Maung asked. “We nailed the Chinese, and they’re about to leave Earth for good.”
“They already left—while you were in transit. Now we have to figure out what to do with all the ones remaining on Earth.”
Maung looked at the Old Man and cocked his head. “Where will the elite go—the ones on the ship?”
“Far away,” Nang said. She wouldn’t let go of Maung. “We think they’re headed for a wormhole near the Lupan system, but it will take forever for them to get there unless the rumors are true—that they developed a new drive.”
Maung was still confused. He glanced at the Old Man and then back at Nang, and the Old Man must have figured out what was bothering him. He put a hand on Maung’s shoulder and squeezed.
“We already notified your son and mother, Maung. They’ve been moved to a neighborhood in the Virginia suburbs of DC. You should see their house; it’s huge. And we forwarded your message—the one you stored on the Langley.”
Maung blinked against tears, and Nang squeezed him tightly. “Is he OK?” he asked.
“He’s sad,” the Old Man said, looking away. “But you’re making the same decision I would. Someday, when he’s older and maybe finds out more about why you did this, he’ll understand. Nobody has an easy life these days, Maung. Nobody. But he’ll have an easier one than most. Zhelnikov thinks he has talent.”
“I love you,” Nang whispered.
Maung kissed the top of her head. “So what do you need from me?”
“We need to get going on analyzing your systems. A hundred years might sound like a long time, but it’s not. We have a timetable. There’s nothing we can do about the Sommen keeping tabs on us, but we can make sure we’re ready for them. Starting now.”
Maung kissed Nang again, holding her face in both his hands and then staring into brown eyes that seemed to go on forever. He clutched her hand and led her toward the closest door.
“Where are you going?” the Old Man asked.
“We’ll start in a while. First I want some private time with my new wife. I’ve earned it.”
Nang stopped and got in front, blocking him. “Wife?”
“If you’ll marry me.”
She kissed Maung again and pushed him to the floor, straddling him in front of everyone, holding his hands down so that he couldn’t move. Maung chuckled. She slapped him playfully and then unzipped his environment suit at the same time the Old Man ushered the team of scientists and guards out. In just a few seconds her hands were below his belt.
Maung called out before the door shut, “Can you get me some cigarettes?”
“We already did,” the Old Man answered. “Crates of them.”
THE END
Tyger Burning Page 36