Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2

by B. C. Kellogg

  The air that greeted them out in the open was crisp and cold. Conrad realized with a start although he’d known that it was September, he hadn’t really processed what season it was. The recycled air on a starship was always the same. Sanctuary—or Earth—was strange to him now, wild and unfamiliar and even slightly dangerous. It was ironic, but the fresh air felt unnatural.

  “It’s cold,” he remarked. The twilight and the chill brought him out of his dark musings.

  “That’s normal for Dublin, during September,” she said, her pace brisk for her eighty-odd years of life. “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you,” she said, sounding amused.

  “You know how it is when you’re stuck inside a tin can for half a year.”

  She harrumphed. “Is there somewhere else you’d rather be?”

  “‘Course not.”

  “Thought so.” She was taking them along the River Liffey, the streets crowded with people—and the occasional alien. Conrad could make out a few P’Orcians hawking books and miscellaneous bits of rusted bric-a-brac on a corner. Their quill-covered backs were covered with plastic tarp—it was what passed for clothes for the round, heavy creatures.

  “Porcs are everywhere now, aren’t they,” he said as they passed them. The nickname for P’Orcians seemed derogatory, except that the aliens were as rotund as pigs with double the appetite.

  “They are,” she said. “A pity that people tend to look down on them for being hoarders. They’re the gypsies of the galaxy. They know more than anyone might expect—and sometimes, they’ve squirreled away a pearl underneath all their junk. Not that they usually know it, or you’d be in for one hell of a bargaining session,” she said.

  Conrad glanced behind him. The Porcs were standing against a wall covered with red and white graffiti—most of it denouncing aliens who lived on Sanctuary.

  “The nativists have gotten bolder since I’ve been gone,” he said.

  Garrity grimaced. “They have, the dirty little buggers,” she said. “On Venus and Mars, too. But it’s worst on Sanctuary—this being the birthplace of the human race and all. The ‘Humanity First’ slate’s getting more support than I ever imagined it would. We’ll see what happens with the spring election.”

  “You’ll have to tell me how it goes.”

  She paused outside a pub, her hand on its thick wooden door. “You don’t plan to be here in the spring?” she asked.

  “No.” His eyes flickered up. “I’ll be back out there. Whether in the Corps or out of it.”

  Chapter 5

  The pub was dimly lit and warm, smelling of rain and alcohol. It felt private and safe. Conrad’s dress jacket was draped on the booth, turned inside out so as not to attract attention.

  Garrity took a long, luxurious draft of her Guinness and sighed with contentment. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s been asking me that lately,” he muttered. “Am I sure? About the Corps? Sanctuary? I’m not sure about anything, to tell you the truth,” he said, shifting in his seat.

  “With good reason, I’d say,” she said. “But think about it from the High Council’s perspective, Conrad. You’re escorted from Alpha Aurigae by the Nu, of all creatures. Space sirens! No one’s seen them in half a century. And you haul back with you a ship of highly advanced design, that no one, not even the most secret agencies within the Sanctuary government, has ever seen. With two clearly disturbed individuals who share a common delusion. What happened to those two, anyway? They practically vanished into thin air. Somehow escaped Corps custody.”

  Conrad shrugged, faking innocence. “Damned if I know.”

  She gestured wildly. “And then this recent event at Colony Gambier, violating the laws of physics and portals. You go in a portal, with a Vehn ship on your heels. Then you appear in Martian space, with the Vehn ship suddenly gone. What are they to make of all that?”

  “I wasn’t lying to Deschamps,” Conrad said. “I was telling the truth about that portal. I told the Corps everything in my debriefing—both the oral and written reports. You know that—you were there for the oral debriefing after Alpha Aurigae. All seventy-two hours of it. It was all recorded, every second.”

  Garrity took another sip. “It still sounds completely and utterly insane, Conrad. I have a hard time believing it myself.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t be held responsible for their lack of imagination.”

  Garrity smiled. “It’s a dangerous thing, don’t you think, to ask a politician to use their imagination?”

  “Do you believe me?” he asked, point-blank.

  She drew herself up. “Of course I do,” she said. “Your story about your little jaunt to the other side of the galaxy was bizarre. Beyond belief. Which is how I knew it was true, aside from the standard somatic tests that indicated you weren’t lying. You haven’t got the imagination either to think up something that nutty, my boy. And of course we debriefed the companions you brought back. They confirmed your story, and statistically there were too many corresponding details for the thing to be a total fabrication.”

  “And yet the Council still tried to ground me.”

  She smiled. “Like I said before, Conrad, they’re not the most credulous, trusting types. It’s easier to blame an officer like you for wrongdoing than to admit that they haven’t been provisioning colonies or Corps ships in deep space with enough defenses.”

  “I don’t give a—”

  “Besides,” she cheerfully continued. “I edited your report.”

  Conrad stared at her. “You ... what?”

  “Edited your report,” she said again, looking at him over the rim of her glass. “I took out all that lunatic stuff about the Empire on the other side of the galaxy and so on. Made some modifications. Said you bought the ship from a bunch of Porcs at St. Drake’s. Made it easier for them to digest, to be sure.”

  Conrad continued to stare at the petite, silver-haired woman sitting across from him. “You ... you’re lying.”

  “I’d never,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “Not to you, anyway, dear boy.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Why?”

  “As I said. Our friends the councillors couldn’t bear it, you know. Their sweet, tiny heads would explode all over the High Council chamber room and then I’d be held liable for the cleaning costs.”

  “You’re joking about this whole thing,” said Conrad, stunned. “You’re talking about treason.” The Commodore Garrity he knew had served faithfully in the Protectorate Corps for more than six decades, preparing generations of officers and soldiers. The notion that she would actively deceive the High Council was ludicrous.

  She drank more of her Guinness. “God, this is good,” she said. “The bottled stuff doesn’t compare. They have beer on the other side of the galaxy?”

  “They ... have whiskey,” he said. “Garrity—”

  “That’s something, I suppose,” she said. “Although I much prefer—”

  Conrad reached across the table and grabbed her arm. “Why did you edit my report?”

  “I would have edited this new report too, about what happened at the portal at Colony Gambier,” she said. “If you hadn’t requested that hearing, I could have saved you a world of trouble.”

  “Why?”

  She continued to avoid the question. “I believed every word of your report,” she said, her eyes bright. “Of course I did. I’ve known you since you were a lost, lonely six-year-old boy, Conrad. I brought you off that freighter myself, in my own arms. You told the truth.”

  She dropped her voice. “And I’ve done more digging. Do you want to know what I’ve found?”

  A chill washed over Conrad. The need to know why faded, just slightly. “Tell me.”

  She leaned forward. “The Satori did exist. It was a class nine colony ship, exactly as you reported. It came out of the Pacific Consortium—it was a top-of-the-line ship during that time. If you remember, the English and the Japanese dominated the design and engineering of colony ships, and the
Satori was one of the finest. As for the other details, you got the captain’s name right as well—Ishiguro Karsath.”

  “What else?” Conrad demanded.

  “The crew was mostly English,” she said. “But the passengers were a mix. A large contingent of Japanese nationals; some Americans sprinkled in. Goodness, it is strange to hear those old labels, isn’t it? These days, we’re too busy trying to evict aliens from the solar system to care about human races or cultures or ethnicities.”

  “The Satori,” he reminded her, sensing that she was trying to veer off course.

  “Right,” she said. “Well. Five thousand souls aboard. All mostly born on this planet, although some passengers boarded the ship from Mars. They made their way out of Sol, via the Martian portal ... and then to Centaura, and New Crozet, and our last record of the Satori is a portal pass through in the Dekan system. That’s the last we heard of the Satori—it vanished like all the other colony ships of that period did—just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  Conrad sat back, and swallowed. “I have some idea where it went,” he said softly.

  “So do we, now,” she said. “What do you think happened?”

  “The Satori established their own Empire,” he said. “But their imperium is old. Two thousand years old. Two thousand years ago the Romans were still kicking around Europe, Garrity. It doesn’t add up.”

  “It must. We’re just missing a part of the equation. We need more information. We need more information about why you seem to be able to infiltrate them with your bloodprint.”

  “Who are you talking about when you say we?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Me. Rose. Your favorite interrogator, Colonel Ngai, whom I trust implicitly. And that’s about it.”

  Lowering his voice, he leaned forward towards her, speaking in a rushed whisper. “Don’t you think the High Council ought to know? Or the High Command? How can you keep this from them?”

  “They just grounded you on Sanctuary—probably for the next century—and suddenly you think I should go and spill the beans to some politicians that you know are a bunch of infantile half-wits?”

  “The Protectorate High Command should know about this threat.”

  “I trust them slightly more than the High Council,” said Garrity, with a twinkle in her eye. “They will know, soon. And unlike the government, the military can keep a secret.”

  “When?”

  “Once you’re out of the solar system, and it’s too late for them to recall you.”

  He sat back. “You audacious old battle-axe,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’ve sent a message to Rose, telling her where we are. She’ll explain the rest.”

  Rose was out of her formal Council clothes now, wearing instead a casual black dress and loose brown coat. She slid into the booth with them, her hair tousled. For the moment, she looked like simply any other person on the street, rather than a junior member of the High Council that governed the known galaxy.

  This side of it, anyway, thought Conrad.

  “You’re in on her little conspiracy?” he said to her.

  Rose stole his untouched drink and drank deeply. “Sadly, yes,” she said, putting down the glass. “From beginning to end.”

  “What happens next, then?”

  She studied him. “You’re so quick to just jump into the fray,” she said. “Do you ever stop to think twice?”

  “I try not to,” he said.

  “Rose shot an annoyed, knowing glance to Garrity, who merely smiled. “Fine, then,” she said. “This is the long and short of it. You’re going on a mission back into Satori space.”

  His pulse quickened. “I’ve done that once,” he said. “Why do you want me to go back?”

  She chewed on her lip for a moment before answering. “You said in your report that there’s a rebellion—some kind of organized insurgency that opposes this Empire. We want you to find it, make contact, and establish a line of communication.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll have to just dive into the fray and figure it out,” she said.

  He paused, thinking it over. “This is treason,” he said.

  “It isn’t treason,” Rose said. “Between the two of us”—she indicated Garrity—“we have the power to authorize this as a highly classified, covert mission. It goes south, I’ll take full responsibility before the Council.”

  “That would end your career,” he said.

  She sighed. “Maybe. But this is important. I don't trust the rest of the Council to have the foresight and unity to deal with this threat. They'd descend into squabbling and panic, and that would spread all through the solar system and beyond. No,” she said, more determined now. “This stays quiet. Until we have our allies.”

  “You’re taking an enormous risk,” said Conrad.

  Garrity looked at Conrad, her blue eyes bright. “Somewhat less than the risk we’re asking you to take, my boy,” she said. “So, what do you say? Are you willing?”

  Chapter 6

  She pulled him into her flat, her slim fingers cold in his hand. He glanced behind him.

  Rose smiled. “You’re acting like we’re back in the creche,” she said as the door closed behind them. “Sneaking out after curfew.”

  “A lot’s changed,” he said. “But old habits die hard.”

  She kicked off her heels and pulled the pearls from her earlobes, dropping them on a table. “Stay tonight,” she said. “You don’t have to go back to the Corps barracks. It’s too far and much too cold.”

  Conrad shoved his hands into his pockets. Only two years ago, he would have leaped at the chance to be alone with her.

  But now ...

  “What kind of fiancée would I be if I didn’t invite you in?” she said, padding into the kitchen in her bare feet.

  He shrugged off his jacket. “Rosie, I know how you feel about that.”

  She came back into the living room with two mugs of steaming hot tea. “We haven’t had much time to talk about it, have we.” She handed him a mug and sank down onto the sofa, and he did the same.

  “The algorithms could be mistaken,” he said. “Lifetime compatibility can’t be reduced down to just numbers and psych evaluations. I know it’s voluntary, and I know that the Corps means well when it matches people up. But it feels cold somehow.”

  She stirred her tea. “Conrad ... it was Garrity who put us together, you know. Not the algorithms. She chose us for each other—not some computer program.”

  He stared at her for a minute, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “That woman’s going to be the death of me.”

  A small smile appeared on Rose’s lips. “Should I take that as a challenge?”

  He hesitated. “Rose ... like I said before. I won’t object if you want out of the arrangement. I know you were with Holt before, and if he’s still around, I ...”

  He suppressed a faint spike of jealousy when mentioning Holt. His relationship with Rose was complicated. When they were younger she was his holy grail—smarter and sharper than any other girl he knew. And she was wholly out of reach. Perhaps that had been part of her draw.

  She chewed her lip. “He is. And ... Conrad. I’m earthbound in a way that you’re not. In a way that you could never be. I’m tied here for the rest of my life as a councillor. It’s my duty—and it’s a universe apart from your duty.”

  “I understand,” he said, fighting down an urge to object.

  “The three of us, Con,” she said. “You, me, Argus. We were all meant for different things. But I’ll admit, when I was younger I always wished that I could have followed you two instead of going into the Lyceum.” She smiled.

  “You were meant for better things than blowing up objects in space,” he said. “You’re the only person on the High Council with more than half a brain.”

  “More than half? I’m overwhelmed by your flattery.”

  “It gets me everywhere, or so I’ve been told,” he said.

  She smile
d slightly before her expression grew more serious. “I’m worried about you, Con.”

  “Don’t be.” He drank the tea, wishing it was something stronger.

  She studied him. They’d known each other since they were children, entering the Corps creche as orphans. There wasn’t a lot that he could hide from her, nor her from him. Marriage would have been a disaster, he reflected. We know too much about each other to ever be happy together.

  “You haven’t been the same since Alpha Aurigae. Argus hasn't changed, but you’re different. Your temper’s shorter. It’s just ... you’re more serious now. The Conrad I remember wasn’t quite so serious.”

  He turned the mug slowly in his hands, glancing outside. Rain was sheeting down now—he’d forgotten how dark and dreary Dublin could be.

  “I’m a captain,” he said. “Or was, ‘til they grounded me. Being responsible for a ship and crew is serious. I’m glad that I’m not still the same happy idiot I was when I was a cadet, thank God.”

  She made a noise like she didn’t really believe what he had said. “Well, with regard to being a captain—the Steadfast is yours again if you want it,” she said. “But on one condition.”

  “Anything,” he said.

  “That you come back,” she said. “You made me that promise once before and you kept it, so I’m asking you again. Come back.”

  He reached forward, touching her cheek. Her eyes widened just slightly. “For you, Rose ... anything.”

  “And bring Argus with you, because I know he’ll follow you to the ends of the universe,” she added. “Even when he knows better.”

  Conrad nodded.

  She put her tea down and folded her arms. “And then ... what happened at Gambier ...”

  Conrad stiffened. “I’m not going to talk about that,” he said. “You—and apparently Garrity—know what happened there.”

  Her eyes were intense. “I’m concerned,” she said. “Are you feeling—”

  “Fine,” he cut her off. “I’m fine.”

  The last thing he wanted to do was to burden her with his nightmares. The memory obliterated his thoughts for a moment—thousands of people, dying deaths of fire and ice—burned in explosions on impact or frozen in the vacuum of space.