Marque of Caine

by Charles E Gannon

  Hsontlosh tapped his control vantbrass. The image of a ship appeared over Riordan’s bed. It was narrower than Olsloov, more of a spearhead than a delta-shape. “It is among the smallest shift-craft the Collective ever built. Its overall length is one hundred and seventy meters. Its smart hull enables dynamic optimization of aerodynamics. It is also equipped with a self-energizing grid.”

  Riordan raised an eyebrow. “Which means…?”

  “That, despite its small size, this ship can conduct a standing shift. Furthermore, the lifting body’s leading edges, the prow, and the stern all have extendable EM emitters for extra radiation shielding. However, the habitation modules rely on physical shielding alone when they are in rotational configuration.”

  Riordan scanned the ship’s smooth, flowing lines for any sign of hab mods. “Uh…I don’t see any modules.”

  Hsontlosh tapped his vantbrass. Just forward of where the airframe widened into sharply swept wings, the hull retracted, revealing two pods. They extended outward from a rotational collar sleeved around what looked to be the ship’s formidable spine.

  Riordan leaned back. “How long was it in mothballs?”

  “In what?”

  “In storage,” Peter furnished mildly.

  “Approximately nine centuries.”

  Riordan’s and Eku’s were the only human eyes in the room that did not widen; Yaargraukh’s black, knob-ended eyestalks tucked back under his cranial shelf.

  Hsontlosh was studying Caine. “You seem less surprised than your crew, Mr. Riordan.”

  “I ought to be. Even Olsloov is three centuries old.” He nodded at the floating image. “When was the hull laid down?”

  “Just over fifteen centuries ago, at which point it was already a somewhat dated model. It is one of the last of its class in such excellent condition.”

  Riordan nodded. “So where are we heading?”

  The loji burbled once again. “What little data and documentation we were able to glean from the biohousing facility indicate that we should visit four systems between Leltlosu and the Collective’s main naval reserve facility in L 1815-5A, which we call Ygzhush.”

  Duncan Solsohn folded his arms. “Which translates as…?”

  “Depot. The first world along that route requires caution. It does not enjoy full Collective membership. It is what you would call a protectorate.”

  “It has a large loji population. Two rings,” Eku added in response to Caine’s frown, but without looking at him.

  Riordan folded his arms. “And why do we need to go there?” And what the hell is eating at you, Eku?

  “The protectorate system is a major hub for loji traffic,” Hsontlosh replied. “Your mate’s module is likely to have passed through it. And, as I intimated before, it is in just such systems that we must search for additional leads, since your mate is not being transported by officially sanctioned carriers.” His concluding tone was almost challenging, as if he expected someone—Eku?—to contradict him.

  Dora nodded. “So Elena is black cargo, requiring private transport. Your equivalent of a tramp freighter, no questions asked or answered. Cash and carry.”

  Hsontlosh had to work to keep up with her colloquialisms. He finally waved two tentative fingers. “Yes. It is as you say. I think.”

  Duncan frowned. “If that’s true, then why is Depot such a crucial waypoint for us? Sounds like the kind of place loji would avoid. Probably a lot of Collective bureaucracy and patrols.”

  Eku’s voice was flat. “Over ninety-five percent of Depot’s security and processing, both shipboard and spaceside, is provided by advanced semiautonomous systems. Also, it is the largest legitimate source of spare parts and repairs in the Collective. It is a natural gathering point for spacefarers of all backgrounds.”

  Hsontlosh trailed a languid finger in Caine’s direction. “More importantly, though, it is the astrographic gateway to Elena Corcoran’s likely location: the Border Worlds. If her overseers are using illegal medical technologies and an illicit Ur Virtua node to sustain her, they require a location that is not only secret, but quite remote.”

  Riordan nodded. “So, even the Border Worlds have nodes of their own? Or could that just be a rumor?”

  Eku shook his head grimly. “Mr. Riordan, consider what you have learned about the Collective. There are scores of illegal virtuality models with millions of users. There are gray and black markets for almost every conceivable illicit commodity or service. There are thousands, possibly millions, of disaffected loji who emigrate to systems that Collective ships rarely, if ever, visit. Correlate these facts and conjecture: where will one most readily find working access to, and support of, these activities?”

  Riordan nodded. “Somewhere near the Collective, yet beyond ready scrutiny. The Border Worlds.” Which, from the sound of it, was an interstellar outback where he and his companions would be unwanted and unwelcome. Except, perhaps, as unsuspecting targets of opportunity. He sighed. Well, if that’s what it takes…

  Hsontlosh possibly sensed Riordan’s withdrawal from the conversation. He drifted toward the door. “One last matter, Mr. Riordan: your assistive recovery therapy. I need your express consent before I commence treatment.”

  Riordan sat up. “What does it entail?”

  “A mixture of pharmaceuticals and brain destimulation that ensures up to twenty hours of deep, dreamless sleep daily. This, in alternation with four hours of daily exercise and nutrient intake, will promote rapid and maximum recovery.”

  “Did you say brain destimulation?” From Newton’s tone of voice, it sounded more like he was reaching for a gun than asking for medical clarification.

  Eku raised a palm. “It is simply an outgrowth of the technology used in our control circlets and virtuality interfaces.”

  Miles O’Garran frowned. “You mean your cure is to put Caine back in never-never land? What is this? Hair of the dog?”

  Eku shook his head. “No. The interface eases the brain into more quiescent states, so the subject spends more time in deeper sleep.” He moved abruptly toward the iris valve. “Hsontlosh and I should depart. The stimulants will wear off quite soon.”

  As he and the loji exited, there was an exaggerated amount of space between them.

  Chapter Sixty

  JULY 2124

  DEEP SPACE, BD+75 403A

  The moment the iris valve closed, Riordan nodded at his team. “I need your best guess. Have either of those two been eavesdropping on you?”

  Dora shrugged. “No way to tell.”

  “Figured. So we need to work out a method for written exchanges. Now, what the hell is the real story behind Irzhresht’s death?”

  Duncan shook his head. “Damned if I know, sir. From the moment we arrived three weeks ago, Eku seemed scared or suspicious of us. Maybe both. Hsontlosh went to get the new ship just three days later. A few days after that, Irzhresht started avoiding Eku.”

  Peter’s shook his head. “Even before Hsontlosh departed, none of them were at ease with each other.”

  Riordan frowned. “Any idea why?”

  O’Garran shrugged. “Didn’t know the players well enough to even guess. But then again, they didn’t seem to know each other that well.”

  Bannor nodded. “None of them are exactly sociable types. But I found it suspicious when Eku didn’t take to us. Alnduul made it clear to him that we are trusted friends.”

  “Eku’s a factotum. He doesn’t always react like other humans.”

  Dora wagged a hand impatiently. “Yeah, okay, but can we trust him?”

  Riordan considered. “I don’t think he’d work against our interests. But that’s not the same thing as his telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it comes to what he knows or what he’s up to.”

  Dora threw up both hands. “So the short answer about trusting him is, ‘not really.’”

  Riordan made his voice firm and level. “No, the answer is that we can trust him to a point. But he’s not a de facto asset.
Which is what you’re really asking.”

  Dora grumbled, studied her nails, nodded evasively.

  Riordan leaned back. “How did you find out about Irzhresht’s death?”

  Ayana Tagawa sat straighter. “Hsontlosh informed us. Eku was with him when he did, but did not speak.”

  Riordan rubbed his chin. “Did Hsontlosh show you where she died?”

  “Yeah,” grumbled O’Garran, “for all the good that did, staring around at a cockpit full of Dornaani fairy tech.”

  Ayana waited until O’Garran had finished grousing. “The chief is correct. However, Eku is familiar with the boat’s systems and he did not question Hsontlosh’s account, nor did his demeanor suggest that he had unspoken reservations.”

  Duncan shook his head. “Frankly, I think Eku has reservations about everyone. Except you, Commodore. Maybe he’ll open up if he gets an opportunity to meet you alone.”

  Riordan shrugged. “Maybe. But if Eku suspected that Irzhresht’s death put me at imminent and greater risk, he would have told you.”

  “That assumes,” Yaargraukh added in reluctant tone, “that Eku is indeed a loyal servitor. However, his present attitude seems at odds with assumption. So let us imagine for a moment that he is not. If he suggested that Hsontlosh baited Irzhresht to her death, Eku would rightly anticipate that his accusation could be perceived as an attempt to deflect suspicion from himself.”

  O’Garran nodded. “And even if Eku is Alnduul’s man Friday, what do we really know about him?”

  Riordan shook his head. “We know that he’s been traveling with Alnduul for centuries and that Alnduul trusts him.”

  Yaargraukh’s small ears flattened slightly; he did not like what he was about to say. “If that is true, then should we not have trusted Irzhresht also? She, too, enjoyed Alnduul’s trust.”

  Riordan shook his head. “Irzhresht’s loyalty is more problematic than Eku’s. Not only was she with Alnduul for a much shorter period of time, but even the most trustworthy loji might still be vulnerable to extortion by others of their kind.”

  Dora’s eyes were grim. “You mean, by having relatives held hostage, that kind of thing?”

  “That and much worse.”

  O’Garran shrugged. “But boss, that brings us right back where we started. Everyone’s still a suspect.”

  Bannor unfolded his arms. “I can’t see any way to settle this here and now.”

  “No,” agreed Duncan, “but every day we don’t may put us at greater risk.”

  “Of waking up on the wrong side of the airlock?” muttered Dora.

  “No, of not knowing who to trust while we’re almost totally ignorant about where we are, where we’re going, and what we might have to do when we get there.”

  Riordan nodded. “Which means, that if we have to take a chance, we reach out to Eku.” Seeing hesitation in several faces, Riordan leaned forward. “Look, if Irzhresht was a traitor, then the problem is behind us. On the other hand, if she was a victim, then we’ve got two suspects. And no, I don’t know why he’s being so distant all of a sudden, and I don’t know him well enough to trust him. But I do trust Alnduul’s confidence in him.”

  Yaargraukh pony-wagged his head. “There is merit in that deduction.”

  O’Garran sucked at his teeth. “Yeah, but if Mr. Eku is smart, that might also be the way he figured it would all play out when we compare our options on who to trust. Because the path to preferring him over Hsontlosh does seem pretty inevitable, doesn’t it?”

  Riordan nodded. “So even if we are provisionally prepared to rely on Eku, we can’t completely disregard the possibility that he’s the murderer. Now, how and where is the rest of the group?”

  Bannor leaned against the bulkhead. “We were forced to activate our final contingency: bring everyone together in Zeta Tucanae. But they’re all fine.” Seeing Riordan’s bent eyebrow, he added, “Really.”

  Duncan nodded. “Best morale in years.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Alnduul is searching for a way to bring everyone over the border.”

  Riordan started. “That’s the deal he’s working on? To bring them all into the Collective?”

  O’Garran’s voice was a hiss. “Keep it down, Boss, or you might as well put it on the intership. But yeah, that’s the plan.”

  “Okay, but how does he—?”

  “Alnduul did not explain,” Yaargraukh said quietly. “Which was, I think, prudent.”

  Duncan rubbed his chin. “Yeah, the longer we’ve been here, the more I get the feeling that Alnduul’s plan must involve bending some rules. The Collective makes Beltway bureaucracy looks speedy and minimal. There’s no way their, uh, Senior Arbiters would give official approval within a useful timeframe. Assuming they’d ever give our people asylum at all.”

  Approval notwithstanding, that sounds like a great option for us—but not so great for Alnduul. Riordan sat up as straight as the cocoon bed allowed. “Now, the most important question: why the hell are you here? You’re supposed to be looking out for everyone else.”

  Bannor folded his arms. “Yeah, about that. Once we agreed to Alnduul’s plan for complete extraction, we realized there was a leadership issue that needed settling. Specifically, that if we left the CTR, you had to be the CO.”

  Riordan wasn’t sure if his breath was short because the stimulant was wearing off or because of the heavy responsibility that Bannor had dropped on his chest. “No. That’s your role, Colonel Rulaine. You’re career military. And you’ve been the commander for four years.”

  “Which almost everyone has spent in cold sleep,” his friend replied. “So not a lot of commanding got done. But here’s the real point: we’re not a conventional unit and we sure as hell don’t have a conventional mission. Yet I’m a conventional officer with conventional training.

  “That’s why everyone still thinks of me as the XO. Including me. Because given who we are and where we’re going, our commander has to be more than a conventional CO.” He didn’t give Riordan the chance to rebut. “We also need a diplomat, a first contact expert, and yeah, a polymath. We’re out where no humans have ever set foot, so we have nothing but each other—which all started with you. So”—he grinned and held out the letter of marque Caine had given him four years ago—“you’re stuck with us again. Commodore.”

  Riordan shook his head. “If this journey takes us into the Border Worlds, it’s a total unknown. Anything could happen.”

  “Yes,” Duncan said with an assessing gaze, “it could. And that’s why it’s also a unique intel opportunity. We’ll go to worlds that the Dornaani aren’t bothering to police. Or over which they’ve lost control.”

  Dora’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Nothing will show us the Collective’s state of play as honestly as the places they don’t want us to see.” Her smile matched the one on Duncan’s face. “Coño, talk about killing two birds with one stone.”

  Newton was frowning. “We should be mindful of aggravating the Collective’s authorities. Had they foreseen the turn of events that brought us all to this point, they might have declared the Border Worlds off limits.”

  Caine shrugged. “Yes, but they’ve also renounced any responsibility for Elena or for my return to Terran space. So I can expect benign neglect in my further travels, just as long as I don’t break any laws.”

  “You keep saying ‘I,’ Commodore,” Peter murmured, “when you should be saying ‘we.’”

  “That’s because, despite all your well-rehearsed rhetoric, I cannot let you come along.”

  Miles O’Garran pushed forward. “All due respect, sir, we didn’t come out here to put the letter of marque back in your hand and then wave goodbye as you go solo on this crazy quest of yours. We wouldn’t be together if it wasn’t for you. And now that we don’t have a home anymore, well, it’s like Colonel Rulaine says: all we’ve got is each other. So staying together is what counts. And keeping us together is what you’re good at. So you’re leading. And we’re coming. End
of story. Sir.” O’Garran looked as surprised at his outburst as anyone else in the room.

  Bannor smiled faintly. “Caine, before we got on board Olsloov, we all promised each other that we were going to see this through. Not just for you, but for Elena.”

  Riordan managed not to show how desperately glad he was. “Sounds like I don’t really have a choice.”

  Bannor shook his head. “No choice at all.” He grinned. “Commodore.”

  PART FIVE

  The Border Worlds and Beyond

  November 2124–March 2125

  TERRA INCOGNITA

  (Unknown/unexplored regions.)

  Chapter Sixty-One

  DECEMBER 2124

  DEEP SPACE, L 1815-5 A (YGZHUSH)

  Riordan, hand on his vac suit’s tether, turned away from the closing airlock hatch and looked starward. The incandescent red-orange ball that was L 1815-5 A raged silently against the blackness of space. Off to one side was a small sickle of vermillion: the main world, a sliver of its sun-blasted bright-face limning its unlit bulk. In the middle ground, a small patch of the deep dark was marked by faint, intermittent glitters: ships of the immense depot that gave the system its name.

  Caine checked the heads-up display inside the lightly built Dornaani helmet. The rads were still well beneath the suit’s tolerances. Every other indicator was teal, the color of optimum functionality for the vacuum suits that Eku had brought from the Olsloov. Like most objects of Dornaani manufacture, they either never experienced mechanical failures, were self-repairing, or both. And the semiautonomous assistant invariably anticipated and displayed the wanted information at just the right moment. Extremely helpful, but also a bit eerie.

  Riordan had organized and ordered a training rotation with their various suits, most of which had been brought by his crew. It was particularly helpful to Murray Liebman and Craig Girten, the Lost Soldiers from the twentieth century. They had never been EVA before, although Liebman insisted on calling it a “space walk,” for some reason. Even after weeks of training, they exited the airlock with exaggerated caution, but without their initial white-knuckle hold upon the tethers.