The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  Corrie nodded, and pulled out his own log tape, sliding it into the second-pilot's place. Costa released her grip on the strap and floated forward, pulling her own tape from her pocket. She slipped it into the final port, and pushed off from the console, letting herself drift back toward the bulkhead.

  "Isn't it nice to have a stake in things?" she murmured, with an ironic smile.

  Corrie grunted something, and Guil hid a grin. Para'anin or not, the two Rhawns had had a stake in this from the beginning, far more than she herself had ever had. She turned her attention back to the workscreen, watching the course line snake across the upper window. It was the correct pattern, the computer matching the simulated beacon signals perfectly, but she called up a second, different pattern just to be sure. It, too, showed a perfect response, and she punched the end-test button as soon as the screen emptied again. The test tape popped back out of its slot, and she put it back in the case with the rest.

  "Chart and data transfer is complete," she announced formally. "The check test is nominal—you can signal Andrasteia we're ready, Corrie."

  "I confirm transfer and tests," Corrie murmured, swinging the communications board out from its place flat against the right-hand bulkhead. The plan called for all communications to be carried out by burst-code, rather than voice, to lessen the chance that the Brandr might pick up transmissions. Privately, Guil thought it was highly unlikely that the Brandr would bother monitoring communications in the ring, but Moraghan had insisted. She watched as Corrie typed in the proper code phrase—the card with the established signals was taped to the com board itself, just below the transmitter buttons—then checked it, and pressed the button that would send the message on its way. A moment later, a single number flashed on the screen. Corrie ran his finger down the list of signals and said, "Andrasteia acknowledges."

  "Good enough," Guil said. "I have control." Without waiting for Corrie's answer, she pressed the log-in button and typed her union number and code word. The logboard chimed twice, and the red light came on beside the first-pilot's port.

  Corrie unfastened the last of the safety webbing, and pushed himself gently out of his couch, executing a neat Immelman in the control cabin's central volume. "I'll check back in a couple of hours," he said. "Is there anything you want from the galley?"

  Guil shook her head, and Costa said, "I'll relieve you in eight hours, Guil."

  "Thanks," Guil said. "If I want anything, or need you to spell me, Corrie, I'll buzz you."

  "Right," the Rhawn answered, and then they were gone, the hatch sealing itself automatically behind them.

  Guil sighed, settling herself more comfortably in the couch's harness, and turned her attention to her screens. It wasn't exactly usual for the senior pilot to take the first flight stage—the stage that brought a ship up to the ring—but the course she'd helped choose took the little fleet through some of the ring's most dangerous sections. If she was to be fresh for that, she would have to take the first watch, and leave Costa to handle insertion.

  Sighing again, she leaned across the board to press a button on the sensor console. Lights flashed briefly, and a new set of figures appeared on the workscreen. She hit the code sequence that dumped that data to the tracking computer, and pressed the button that displayed the resulting graphics on the main screen. The screen dimmed slightly, a band of individual lights spreading across the screen as the sensors picked up the asteroid beacons. Guil touched keys, defining parameters, and the picture shifted, sharpened, until the screen showed only the wedge of the ring lying between the fleet and the point Orestes would reach in sixty-five hours. Orestes itself was not yet visible on the screen; the only other lights were the red wedges that marked the positions of the two lead ships.

  Guil watched the image form without really seeing it, wondering what they would find when they reached Orestes. She had landed at Madelgar before, and so was reasonably familiar with the spaceport there. It was smaller than the main field at Destiny, but large enough—just large enough, she amended, with a silent laugh—to take the entire fleet. The airfield was separate, of course, and more than adequate to accept the incoming flyers—always assuming, she added, that things went as planned. Still, even if they didn't all show up, some would, and the heavy arms in the freighters' holds should make all the difference. With some surprise, she recognized the knot in her stomach as fear.

  She sighed, trying to shake off the feeling, and touched a second button on the sensor console. In the screen, the points of light shifted, became strings of characters, beacon codes as familiar to her as any Destiny landmark, but she stared past them, not really paying attention. Moraghan had been so calm during the planning sessions—too calm, Guil thought, almost cold. By almost imperceptible stages, the off-worlder had become a stranger, a woman Guil did not know, and did not particularly want to know. That, she finally admitted, was the real reason she had not protested Moraghan's choice of pilot: she had not wanted to spend seventy hours cooped up in a control cabin with the person Moraghan had become.

  Well, that's what it means to be a soldier, Guil told herself, and pushed impatiently against the safety harness. Moraghan's a good one, by all accounts. Be glad she's leading you. Almost angrily, she punched figures into the workscreen, checking on the second stage of the course. Costa wouldn't have much to worry about; the opening leg was fairly clear, with only a few of the clustering rocks the pilots called shoals to avoid. The second leg was a little more complicated, with the big rock known as TTN-7 just impinging on the course. However, that shouldn't be a problem, she thought, unless we're running behind schedule.

  With the third leg—her own next watch—things started getting tricky, and she punched for a more detailed outline of the course. The picture in the screen swam and reformed, but she was unable to concentrate on its details. Instead, the image of the field at Madelgar filled her brain. It wasn't the easiest approach, especially landing immediately after two other ships—she would have to be careful to leave room for the three tugs following her—and she would get no help from the Tower. Not that the Tower was much help in any case, she added bitterly. They always seemed to know when a Destiny pilot was diverting to their field, and took a positive and perverse pleasure in being as unhelpful as possible. And when the pilot was para'an, as well. . . . Unconsciously, her lips thinned, her mouth setting into an expression of masked anger so habitual she barely recognized it for what it was. There were one or two of the port employees she'd take personal pleasure in killing, especially after her last job out of Madelgar. She had been prepared to use that excuse—that she bore a measure of the guilt in having brought in the off-world guns for the Brandr—in order to get a chance at her own revenge. It was just as well that Alkres—or, more likely, Maturin and Moraghan together—had decided to welcome para'anin into their army; she would not have enjoyed reminding the Halex Patriarch of her part in the arms delivery. Still, she thought, it would have been worth it.

  She shook herself then, and turned back to study the screen, forcing herself to concentrate on the course laid out before her. Here things began to get difficult—the linked patch of stones and debris known as the sandbars would come up about an hour into the watch, and there were almost always difficulties passing their position. The fine debris, though not really large enough to pose a direct threat to the ship, formed a sort of background clutter that could hide larger and more dangerous rocks from the ship's sensors. Guil was glad Moraghan had agreed to reduce speed until the fleet was well past the sandbanks. Less than thirty minutes beyond the sandbanks was the worst hazard of all, the rock labeled BRRH-56-J. It was a jagged, friable piece of rock moving in an eccentric orbit, trailing, as always, a tail of lesser debris. BRRH-56-J killed one or two people every year, usually prospectors who strayed too close in search of usable chunks of rock in its tail; over the years, it had been responsible for two of the three biggest accidents in Orestes' history. Guil, like most pilots, disliked and distrusted it, and under any other circums
tances would go out of her way to avoid it.

  The computer chimed, and the course projection on the main screen shifted slightly: another hour gone. Guil sighed, checking her second watch course a final time, then hit the keys that would return the present course to her workscreen. The computer was doing the actual flying right now; her job was merely to keep an eye on its functions. Unbidden, the image of Madelgar rose again in her mind, all stubby towers and bright-tiled roofs rising above the woven metal of the field fence. She wondered what it would feel like to carry one of the heavy assault guns, to feel the heat of its power pack against her ribs, to turn it on the fence and the buildings and the people who'd called her para once too often. It was a strange feeling, as heady as wine or the rising heat of desire, and she wasn't at all sure she liked it. Frowning, she switched functions on the workscreen, and began again to review the trouble spots in the course ahead.

  Costa relieved her promptly, as scheduled, just before the Virago entered the ring. Guil stayed in the control cabin just long enough to acknowledge the "raise screens" signal from Andrasteia—the communications board was hard to reach from the first-pilot's chair—then swung herself aft to the galley for a hurried, tasteless meal. Through the compartment's open stern hatch, she could see the twenty-odd passengers sprawled in their couches, some asleep, some talking quietly, some playing cards or reading, and took a quick turn down the main aisle to make sure everything was in order. Right now, and for the next seven hours, she was the copilot; the passenger compartment was her responsibility.

  There was nothing that needed doing for the passengers. Those who were subject to spacesickness had been dosed with various medications before liftoff, preventing the most common problem facing a tug's copilot; no one seemed to need instructions for using either the galley or the zero-G toilet, the second and third most common difficulties. Guil let herself drift back to the tiny pilot's cabin.

  Corrie was asleep in his bag, light-blocking curtain pulled closed around his cubbyhole. Guil floated into her own compartment, deliberately shifting her frame of reference so that the sleeping bag, actually perpendicular to the ship's long axis, was now suspended horizontally, and stretched out against it, hooking her feet under a strap of the safety webbing. She glanced to her left, making sure the intercom was open if Costa needed her help, and reached for her book in its reader. In two hours, she would see if Costa wanted a meal, or just wanted to take a break, but for now, she would relax a little. She pressed the cue button, shooting the tape to the place she'd stopped the night before, and leaned back against the bag, losing herself in the fiction.

  The watch cycle passed without incident. As was more or less traditional among the pilots, Corrie roused himself an hour before he was due on watch to shower and breakfast, and announced that he would handle the copilot's work for the last fifty minutes. Guil nodded and turned in: she would do the same for Costa at the end of the next watch.

  The beep of the alarm woke her on schedule; she showered and grabbed a skimpy breakfast before warning Costa she could turn in. The other woman nodded, yawning, and vanished into her cubicle almost before Guil had finished talking. Instead of waiting in the pilot's cabin, however, Guil drifted forward, to kick the release at the edge of the control cabin's hatch. Corrie did not turn as the hatch slid open, eyes fastened on the screen.

  "How're we doing?" Guil asked quietly, pulling herself into the copilot's couch.

  "Not too bad," Corrie said, sounding a little doubtful. "The sandbanks are looking a little dense—a lot of midges cluttering up the screen. I'm concerned there might be something bigger broken loose."

  Guil leaned sideways to study the radar display, though she did not touch the tuning knobs. The sandbanks did show a number of flashing orange blips, bodies large enough to pose a potential danger to the ship's sensor suite and outboard mountings, but not really big enough to be a danger to the hull—midges, in the pilot's jargon. The radar wasn't penetrating that screen of debris at all. She frowned, then jumped as the part of the screen displaying the picture from the main camera flashed white. The ship's defensive screens had just vaporized something a little larger than dust. She grimaced, annoyed that she had allowed herself to be startled by something so common in the rings, and Corrie nodded.

  "There's been a lot of that, too," he said morosely.

  "Wonderful," Guil muttered. "Any word from Andrasteia?"

  "No." Corrie shook his head. "Nothing yet."

  "Mmm." Guil studied the readings in the copilot's repeater, checking density and reflected mass against the readings stored in the computer's memory. Both were high, but still within normal limits. She chewed at her lower lip. Under normal circumstances, she'd signal the lead ship—or Glittermark, for that matter—and report her intention of changing course, but Moraghan had forbidden unnecessary transmissions. "We'll wait and see," she said at last.

  "You're the boss." Corrie glanced at the chronometer stuck to his console, and reached for the harness buckles. "I'm just as glad it's your problem."

  Guil smiled and pulled herself free of the copilot's couch. They changed places with practiced efficiency, and Corrie said, "Do you want me to stick around for the first couple of hours?"

  Guil hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I'd appreciate it." The next two hours would see the most dangerous part of the ring passage; the copilot's help just might make all the difference.

  Corrie nodded back, fumbling himself into the copilot's harness. He stopped with it half-fastened. "Damn, I didn't think. Do you want anything first?"

  Guil shook her head. "Thanks, no, but get yourself something if you want it."

  Corrie hesitated, then slipped back out of the harness. "I'll be back in a minute," he said, and vanished.

  Guil stared at the screen, just as glad for the few moments of privacy. In the enhanced view projected across most of the big screen, the bigger rocks moved through a swarm of lesser debris, a ponderous dance of giants. The sandbanks were a blurred shape at the bottom of the picture, too complex even for the computer to sort out. Somewhere beyond lay BRRH-56-J. She put that thought from her mind, and concentrated on the sandbanks.

  The computer chimed twice—the new-data signal—and flashed a string of numbers. She deciphered them quickly: the incidence of dust-sized debris was increasing, and the sensors were picking up more and more debris in the pebble range. Even as she read the final line of code, another, bigger piece of debris struck the Virago's screens, and vanished in a flash of light. Frowning, Guil punched for a readout on its size. The computer considered for a moment, checking the amount of power used to destroy it, and finally produced a number. A pebble the size of my thumb, Guil thought, and we're still—she touched keys—thirty minutes from the banks. That's not a good sign.

  The hatch slid open, and Corrie floated back into the compartment, a liquid-meal pouch clutched in one hand. He maneuvered himself into his couch with the other, saying, "Anything yet?"

  Guil shook her head. "We'll just have to wait," she said again.

  The density reading steadied, hovering just below the level Guil considered dangerous. She watched it for a few minutes, then turned her attention to the sensor board, fiddling with the controls until the secondary suite was scanning specifically for the larger chunks of debris Corrie had suggested might be hidden behind the band of smaller material. The two freighters ahead of the Virago blocked the scan, but she kept on anyway, swinging the reflector along its track. Nothing showed, as she'd more than half expected, and she switched the suite back to its normal operations.

  The communications board chimed again, and Corrie said, unnecessarily, "Incoming signal." He swung the board across his lap, eyes flickering from the screen to the list of codes. Finally, he said, "Andrasteia's picking up a high concentration of debris, maybe screening something. We're to alter course."

  Guil frowned. "Patch the coordinates through to me."

  Corrie nodded, fingers moving on his keyboard. A moment later, figures appe
ared in Guil's workscreen. She studied them, still frowning. "And how's this going to affect passing BRRH?" she murmured, half to herself. Corrie shrugged, but the senior pilot didn't notice, too busy punching numbers into the screen. The tiny course display swam and steadied, one section of the projected line suddenly flashing yellow. Guil swore softly. The new course would avoid the patch of debris Andrasteia had picked up, but it would take them into the edge of the "bow wave" preceding BRRH-56-J.

  "Query that," she said.

  Corrie punched keys on his board, and waited. A few seconds later, he shook his head. "Exact repeat. That's the line they want."

  Guil hesitated, chewing gently on her lower lip. Most of the time, the bow wave wasn't too dangerous, no particles the ship's screens couldn't handle. Every so often, though, there was a bigger rock there, always obscured by the rest of the dust and debris. But that really only happened at close approach, she told herself, annoyed at her own concern, and Orestes and Electra were almost at their greatest distance. It should be fairly clear.

  "Do you want to try an alternate course?" Corrie asked, craning his neck to see the pattern on Guil's screen.

  Guil shook her head. "An alternate would waste time—acknowledge, and signal we'll comply."

  "You're the boss," Corrie answered, not entirely happily, and bent over his keyboard. A moment later, he said, "Andrasteia says we're to commence firing in seven minutes, bursts at thirty."

  Guil nodded, feeding the information into the workscreen. The numbers looked right, but she ran a quick verification on them anyway before dumping them to the main control board. Lights flashed as the machine checked its copy against the originals, and then the standby light came on. Numbers began flashing in the lower corner of the main screen, ticking away the countdown.

  "All secure?" Guil asked automatically, and Corrie nodded.

  "All secure."

  "You might want to warn the passengers."