“What about my crew? Can they come with me?” Even as I asked the question, I knew it was impossible.
“Unfortunately, the Pinion’s crew wouldn’t integrate well with the crew of an Echelon ship. There are differences of training, procedure, and, if you’ll forgive my bluntness, professionalism. And I don’t think they would enjoy the experience. Could the crew of a commercial freighter on Earth walk onto a navy vessel and expect to be welcomed?”
“No,” I whispered.
“The Izdarith is scheduled to dock with us tomorrow morning. It’s an Echelon ship with a crew of thirty-six, all veteran officers whose records and affiliations are above reproach. It would need minimal refueling and resupplying, but it could be ready to launch again within another three or four days.”
“The Ascendant is ready now,” I said. “So is the Pinion’s crew.” I was surprised by my own persistence. So, to judge by the sidelong look she gave me, was Kylie.
The governor’s tone was as mild as ever, but her next words were clipped. “Let me be clear. As things stand now, there is virtually no chance of your continuing on to Vardesh Prime with your original crew. On any ship.”
“Then send us somewhere else!” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.
Tavri said, “Forgive the repetition, but this is an important matter, and I need to be sure I’m understanding you correctly. Are you telling me you no longer wish to go to Vardesh Prime?”
I could feel Kylie’s intent listening stillness beside me. I took a deep, steadying breath. “Of course I want to go to Vardesh Prime. That hasn’t changed. But even more than that, I want to be with the people I know. I’ve spent months building connections with them. I trust them. I understand that I might be safer on an Echelon ship, and I appreciate that you’re trying to act in my best interest. But I’d rather take my chances with the Fleet. If that means someone else gets to go to Vardesh Prime in my place, then so be it.”
“You would abandon your mission?”
“As far as I’m concerned, my mission is about building connections. I don’t see this as abandoning it. Just taking it in a different direction.”
Tavri nodded. Her blue eyes studied my face with intensity and no discernible warmth. “Your official position, then, is that you’d rather stay with some or all of the Pinion’s crew, regardless of the destination, than travel to Vardesh Prime with an Echelon escort.”
“That’s right.”
She reached for her flexscreen. “I’ll have to see what can be arranged. It may be some time before I have a response for you. I’d advise you to spend that time seriously considering whether your request is in the best interests of your people and the alliance. Try to remember that there’s more at stake here than your personal happiness. You can speak lightly about taking your chances with the Fleet, but you’re not just an ordinary citizen anymore. What happens to you has a direct impact on two worlds. To lose sight of that fact would be not only irresponsible but, frankly, selfish.”
Out in the hallway, I turned automatically toward the guest wing, but Kylie said, “This way,” and started off in the opposite direction. I went after her. Officer Deyn and her companion, who had moved to follow me, did likewise. I realized almost at once that Kylie was steering us toward the Atrium. She didn’t say anything more until she’d found us seats on the upper refreshment tier and placed a foamy gray beer in front of each of us. She took a long pull of hers. Then she said, “You know, Avery, you’re a terrible poker player, but that was one hell of a bluff.”
“It wasn’t a bluff.”
She stared at me. “You were serious about giving up Vardesh Prime? Why?”
“I want to be with my friends.”
Kylie traced a pattern that looked vaguely like a sigil in the condensation on her glass. “I’ve met your friends. I liked them. I can see why you like them. But you’ve been offered a chance to be the first human on another planet. And not just any planet—the Vardeshi homeworld. I can’t believe you’d just walk away from that.”
“Believe it.”
“And what about your crew? What if they don’t feel the same way you do? The Echelon might take you at your word, you know. We don’t know how vindictive they are. They might ship you off to some backwater starhaven or frozen asteroid. It’s not fair to drag everyone else along without even asking them what they want. For all you know, they might like their new assignments better. At the very least, they might appreciate being given a choice.”
I stared at her, appalled. “I didn't think of that.”
“You’d better talk to them. If it’s not already too late.”
I stood up, fumbling for my flexscreen. Deftly she tipped the remaining beer from my glass into hers. “Hurry. I have a feeling it won’t take Tavri all that long to make her calls.”
I called Zey while en route to his quarters to ask if I could stop by for a visit. He opened the door looking tired but cheerful, his hair still tousled from sleep. I followed Officer Deyn inside and waited while she did a perfunctory sweep of his rooms. Once we were alone, I began a rapid-fire recitation of the meeting that had just concluded. Zey’s cheerfulness faded as I spoke. When I was done he said incredulously, “You said that? To the governor?”
“Yes, I said it, and now I’m afraid I made a huge mistake. Kylie thinks I shouldn’t have spoken for the rest of you. And she thinks the Echelon could punish me by sending us somewhere really terrible.”
We had been standing in his front room, which was significantly less opulent than anything in Kylie’s suite. Now I followed him into the tiny adjoining galley, where he unscrewed the cap on a flask of what was obviously last night’s senek, sniffed it judiciously, and poured some into a cup. Before drinking, he waved the flask inquiringly in my direction. I shook my head. He drained his own cup, rubbed a hand over his face, and said, “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. The thing that drew most of us to this mission was the chance to visit Earth. If we stick by you, we get three weeks of leave there after we drop you off at your front door. And anyway, what’s the worst they can do? They have to have you soilside again within nine months. Most of the really bad places are a longer haul than that. Six months or a year in the wrong direction. Hathan would know better than I would. He could probably tell you all the options without even looking at a star chart. Besides, the Echelon has their own image to think of. They’re not going to send the heroine of the Pinion off to the ice mines of Zarakhat after she nobly stood by her disgraced crew. As much as they might like to dump the rest of us there.” He swirled the dregs of the senek in his cup, wrinkled his nose at the dark sediment of powdered leaves at the bottom, and drank it anyway. “Ahh. It’s no good cold.”
“I should have brought you some from the Atrium. I wish I’d thought of it.” I didn’t point out that it was almost four in the afternoon and even the late risers among the Vardeshi had had their morning senek several hours ago. Zey had still been going strong, fueled by trashy pop music and Earth elixirs, when Kylie and I left Downhelix the night before.
“Only Saresh gets that kind of special treatment, am I right?” He grinned. “So what did Tavri say, in the end?”
“They’re going to reevaluate. She didn’t look pleased.”
“Of course she’s not pleased. You just made her job harder. She’s trying to keep the exchange running smoothly. And to be fair, she’s right. You probably would be safer on an Echelon ship.”
“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. “It sounds lonely. Me and a bunch of military commandos. I’m not just some package to be delivered.”
“It sounds like you made that point pretty effectively.”
“Emphatically, for sure,” I said. “Effectively remains to be seen.”
CHAPTER SIX
I wasn’t in the mood to pace around Kylie’s suite obsessively checking my flexscreen, and I’d spent all the units I could decently afford to spend in the Atrium, so I went from Zey’s quarters to the largest of the
starhaven’s hydroponics bays. It wasn’t on the scale of the Arboretum, but it was a generously sized room. The brilliant blue-white radiance I now knew to be simulated sunlight poured down from the ceiling panels. The walk to hydroponics had given Officer Deyn sufficient time to put her team in place; two uniformed security officers guarded the entrance, and as we went in, I saw a third escorting two workers in drab gray uniforms toward a door at the far end of the room. Abandoned on the ground behind them lay a basket half-full of purple gourds, evidently an incomplete harvest. I felt a twinge of guilt at having interrupted their labor.
I wandered for a while among the rows of meticulously tended crops. Just as in the Pinion’s tiny hydroponics bay, every available inch of space was carefully utilized. I still didn’t recognize most of the plants, but I could identify one or two. I paused to look at a silver trellis covered in the cobalt-blue vines and star-shaped leaves Zey had noted as belonging to the senek plant, and again beside a stunted tree with narrow crimson leaves that Ziral had said proliferated on her homeworld of Rikasa. Standing there in the warm, heavily perfumed air, I wondered if this was as close as I would ever come to walking on a Vardeshi world. Had I just torpedoed my only chance of seeing Vardesh Prime?
Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to make myself regret it. I could see exactly how my remaining days among the Vardeshi would go if I submitted to the Echelon’s urging. There would be no more movie nights or raucous dice games in the lounge. Instead there would be stilted officers’ dinners and sparsely attended lectures on history and culture. I wouldn’t be a crew member. I wouldn’t belong. I would spend three lonely months on the Izdarith, two lonely weeks in Khezendri, the capital city of Vardesh Prime, and six more lonely months on another Echelon ship before I was deposited on Earth, neat and intact, like the parcel I was. It was still a generous offer. There was a time when it would have been enough. It didn’t feel like enough now.
“Eyvri,” Officer Deyn said behind me.
Startled out of my thoughts, I turned around. She wasn’t alone; just behind her stood Councilor Zirian.
“May I join you?” he asked. “I’ve just been speaking to Governor Tavri.”
I nodded to Officer Deyn, who retreated to stand near the door. To Zirian I said, “Something tells me I’m not her favorite person right now.”
“No,” he agreed mildly. “You would have made things much easier on her—and me—if you’d simply smiled and complied with our request. That’s what usually happens in politics, you know.”
I looked at him suspiciously. Had that been a joke?
He smiled slightly. “You weren’t expecting humor from the Echelon.”
“Not humor I can understand,” I said. “Not from anyone.”
“Humor is an elusive concept, isn’t it? It’s all about expectations. To truly understand a joke, you have to understand how it diverges from what’s expected. And why.”
The parallel was obvious. “I guess that’s what I’m doing. Diverging from what’s expected.” I stopped to consider my words. “I’m not trying to make things harder for the Echelon. I know you’re just trying to keep me safe. I’m grateful for that. And I’m sorry if my request sounds unreasonable. But I stand by it.”
He nodded. “It may surprise you to hear this, but it doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. I spent fifteen years in the Fleet. I think I understand your position a little better than the governor does. There is a special quality to the relationships that you build when you’re working in close quarters in deep space. I maintain a number of friends from that time in my present life. One of them is Novak Takheri.”
“I didn’t know he was in the Fleet,” I said.
“It was a long time ago.” Zirian reached up to an overhanging branch, which trailed its feathery leaves in long gray tassels, and plucked a pale blue bud. He crushed it between his fingers and breathed in its scent. “You’re right to think that your life on the Izdarith would be materially different from what you knew on the Pinion. In some ways, that would be a good thing. Tighter discipline, fewer opportunities for things to go as disastrously wrong as they did for you. But you would lose things as well. The collaboration. The closeness.” Wryly he added, “You wouldn’t find yourself roaming Downhelix at all hours of the night with the officers of the Izdarith.”
“Those are the things that matter to me,” I said.
“So I see. Tell me, then, would you consider a compromise?”
“What kind of compromise?”
“You launch for Vardesh Prime as planned, on the Ascendant, with the addition of an Echelon officer to serve as second-in-command. Hathan Takheri continues as khavi, Athra Ziral resumes her original rank of rhevi. All other crew assignments are unchanged, with the obvious exception of Reyjai Vekesh. You reprise your role as Novi Alkhat.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “That’s hardly even a compromise. That sounds . . . perfect.”
“It might not be as idyllic as it seems at first glance. The addition of an Echelon officer would alter the power structure on the ship. Your crewmates might resent a new presence among them. They might resist his authority. There are understandable tensions between the Fleet and the Echelon navy. Life wouldn’t be exactly as it was before.”
I had to smile at that. “Believe me, I don’t think anyone wants it to be exactly the way it was before. But would that be enough to satisfy the Echelon? One new officer?”
Zirian’s answer made it clear that he had been considering the question. “It would mean a direct line to the inner workings of the ship. We would have a perspective on events that we didn’t have before, and a source of information we implicitly trusted. All our officers undergo rigorous martial-arts training, so he would be prepared to physically defend you if your safety were threatened. And, as second-in-command, he would be well placed to assume control of the ship if needed. It helps, of course, that three of your crewmates are sons of Senator Takheri, a known and respected member of the Echelon. Taken together, I think the arguments might be compelling.”
“Governor Tavri thought it would be difficult to integrate two crews together,” I said.
“And she was undoubtedly correct. But the smaller the numbers involved, the more straightforward the integration. I think one Echelon officer with a flexible mindset could assimilate into a small Fleet crew without difficulty. I can’t make any promises, of course. But if you like, I’ll speak to the governor and see what can be achieved.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
“I’m glad to be of service,” he said.
As he walked away, I remembered that Daskar had advised me to identify my allies. Evidently I hadn’t done a very good job; here was one I hadn’t even known I had.
* * *
That night Kylie and I found ourselves united in our desire for a quiet evening. We made our way to a senek room we had visited a few nights before with Zey and Sohra. “Good choice,” Officer Nerev murmured as we filed past her through the door, and it occurred to me that our security personnel must be grateful for the respite as well.
The senek room was the Vardeshi equivalent of a café, complete with mood lighting and a young woman with long silver hair plucking soulfully away at a mandolin in one corner. Kylie and I installed ourselves in one of the recessed seating areas and ordered senek and tea. There was only one variety of tea on the list of approved beverages, and I liked it more for its aura of authenticity than for its flavor, which was insipid and blandly floral. We’d each brought a project with us—unedited Earth Night publicity photos for her, a backlog of messages from home for me—and we worked in companionable silence. I was vaguely aware of the Pinion’s crew members drifting in by ones and twos to claim the other seats in our recess and the one adjoining it. I hadn’t told anyone other than Kylie and Zey about my conversations with Tavri and Zirian, but word seemed to have gotten around. When Sohra slid into the seat beside me, I took it as a cue to collapse my flexscreen. With a sigh of relief, I curled my
legs under me and reached for my senek.
“Any word?” Sohra asked.
“From the Echelon? Not yet.”
“It won’t be long though,” Zey said from her other side. “We’ll know tonight.”
“You think so?”
“Why else do you think everyone’s here? It’s just a question of who they tell first, you or Hathan.”
I looked over at the other alcove, where Hathan and Saresh sat studying a display they had called up on one side of the seating area’s low table. They looked relaxed, although I noticed that both their flexscreens were in easy reach. For that matter, I realized, I felt perfectly at ease myself. It might have been only the effect of the senek, but there was a sense of inevitability about the moment that was almost comforting. I knew Zey was right. Either way, we were going to know tonight.
“What are they doing?” I asked Zey.
He turned to look. “Probably mapping out possible destinations. Places the Echelon could send us if they decide to call your bluff.”
“Do you think they’d mind if I looked?”
As always I was grateful for the transparency of Zey’s expression. He looked at me blankly. “They’re here, aren’t they? If they wanted to sit by themselves looking at a star chart, they wouldn’t do it in a senek room.”
I picked up my tea and went over to take the empty seat next to Hathan. He was finally in civilian wear. I liked the vest he was wearing. It was the color of rust, with silver embroidery, and I didn’t think I’d seen him wear it before. His hair looked a bit shorter too, although the style was unchanged. Maybe he’d finally found time to visit the Atrium. After the obligatory greetings, he said, “Eyvri, I think it’s time you learned some stellar cartography. This is a map of the region surrounding Arkhati. Can you find Earth?”
I studied the map carefully, then pointed to a glowing blue triangle labeled Earth in Vardeshi script.
He nodded. “Good. Starhavens are marked in orange. Naturally occurring bodies—that’s planets, moons, asteroids—are in blue. I’ve rotated the map so that Earth, Arkhati, and Vardesh Prime appear more or less in alignment.” He waited while I hunted for the orange icon labeled Arkhati and the blue one marked simply Prime. “In three dimensions, of course, the configuration isn’t quite so neat, but it’s helpful to visualize them this way. The lines marked in gold are potential routes. This is our original flight path.” He traced the connector that ran with umbilical directness from Earth to Arkhati to Vardesh Prime, its thickness doubled to indicate a round trip. It was the only straight line on the chart. The other routes spiderwebbed around it, each one originating on Arkhati and terminating on Earth. “Presuming a ship with the Ascendant’s capabilities, these are all the other places of interest that we could visit and still return to Earth within about nine months. I don’t know exactly what the Echelon’s criteria are, but I’ve ruled out the smaller starhavens and the planets with no biological or cultural significance.”
Bright Shards (The Vardeshi Saga Book 2) Page 10