He’d come too close to dying this time. And why?
The rumor of the suicide mission still bothered him, and so did the problem of Reedy. When he drifted off to sleep, he dreamed that he was wandering an empty vessel searching for someone who was no longer aboard, through corridors that were kinked and slicked like the intestines of some animal. They started shrinking, squeezing the crates and boxes that filled them into a solid mass, as Max tried to find his way out. The last section dead-ended in a mirror, and when he paused to look into its silver surface he saw a bloody eye above a pyramid.
He woke up shivering and nauseous. According to the clock, he’d slept nearly four and a half hours, but he didn’t believe it. He wasn’t inclined to believe anything right now.
He rose and dressed himself. He needed better luck. If it wouldn’t come looking for him, he’d have to go looking for it.
* * *
Down in the very bottom of the ship rested an observation chamber that contained the only naked ports in the entire vessel. Max went down there to think, dutifully followed by Simco’s watchdog.
Max paused outside the airlock. “You can wait here.”
“I’m supposed to stay with you, sir.”
“The lights are off, it’s empty,” said Max, realizing as soon as the words were out of his mouth what had happened the last time he went into a dark room alone. “If someone’s waiting in there to kill me, then you’ve got them trapped. You’ll get a commendation.”
Rambaud relented. Max entered the room, closing the hatch behind him. It sealed automatically, reminding Max of the sound of a prison cell door shutting.
Outside the round windows stretched the infinite expanse of space. The sun was a small, cold ember in a charcoal-colored sky dominated by the vast and ominous bulk of Big Brother. They were close enough that Max could see crimson storms raging on its surface, swirling hurricanes larger than Jesusalem itself. He counted three moons spinning around the planet, and great rings of dust, as if everything in space was drawn into satellites around the self-consuming fire of its mass.
A quiet cough came from the rear of the compartment.
Max pirouetted, and saw another man floating cross-legged in the air. As he unfolded and came to attention, light glinted off the jack that sat lodged in his forehead like a third eye. It was the spongediver, the ship’s pilot, Patchett.
“At ease, Patchett,” said Max.
Patchett nodded toward the port as he clasped his hands behind his back. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It’s no place for a human being to live,” Max said. “Give me a little blue marble of a planet any day instead.”
The pilot smiled. “That figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the political officer, and politics is always about the place we live, how we live together.” He gestured at the sweep of the illuminated rings. “But this is why I joined the service—to explore, to see space.”
“Has it been worth it?”
“Too much waiting, too much doing nothing.” Patchett shifted his position, rotating a quarter circle. “The diving makes it worthwhile.”
“Good,” murmured Max, looking away.
“You and I are alike that way. We both are the most useless men on the ship except for that one moment when we’re the only one qualified to do the job.” He stared out the port. “What happened to you, that was wrong, sir.”
Max gazed out the window also, saying nothing.
“I’d guess,” Patchett said, “that I’ve been in the service as long as you have. Nearly twenty years.”
“Just past thirty years now,” Max replied. It wasn’t all in the official records, but thirty years total. A very long time. Patchett clearly wanted to say something more. “What is it?” asked Max. “Speak freely.”
Patchett exhaled. “Things have been going downhill the past few years, sir. The wrong men in charge, undermining everything we hoped to accomplish in the Revolution. They all want war. They forget what the last one was like.”
“Are you sure you should be telling this to your political officer?”
“You may be the only one I can say it to. You have to know it already. Petoskey’s an excellent captain, don’t get me wrong, sir. But he’s too young to remember what the last war was like.”
They hung there in the dark, weightless, silent, watching the giant spin on its axis. If Patchett was right, there was one moment in the voyage when only Max’s skills would make a difference. But what moment, and what kind of difference, there was no way to know in advance.
When Max went to the med bay to check in with Noyes he found Simco sitting—more or less—at the exam table. “I’d salute,” Simco said, “but Doc here’s treating a sprain.”
“Dislocation,” corrected Noyes.
“What happened?” asked Max.
Simco grinned. “I scheduled extra combat training for my men. Want to make sure they’re ready in case they run into whoever attacked you. It doesn’t really count as a good workout unless someone dislocates something.”
Noyes snorted.
“Plus, Doc here says that we have to exercise at least an hour a day or we’ll start losing bone and muscle mass.”
“Nobody’s had to deal with prolonged weightlessness in a couple of hundred years,” added Noyes. “I’m only finding hints of the information I need in our database. The nausea, vertigo, lethargy—that I expected and was prepared for. But we’re already seeing more infections, shortness of breath, odd stuff. And we’ve got orders to spend months like this? It’s madness. Take it easy on this thumb for a few more days, Simco.” He went to lay his stim-gun on the table and it floated off sideways across the room. “Damn. Not again.”
Max snatched it out of the air and handed it back to the Doc. “Any word on who my attacker was?” he asked Simco.
“No.” The sergeant blew out his breath. “But I did hear that you picked a fight with Chevrier down in Engineering.”
“Nothing even close to that.”
“Good. He’s a big man, completely out of your weight class.”
“Right now, we’re all in the same weight class.”
That won Max a laugh from both Simco and Noyes. “Still, if you go see him again, about anything, please inform me first,” the sergeant said.
“You’ll know about it before I do,” promised Max.
After the Doc finished checking him, Max went back through the crate-packed corridors toward his quarters. On the way, he passed Reedy, whose mouth quirked in a brief smile as Max squeezed past her.
“What do you find so funny, Ensign?” Max growled.
Reedy’s eyes flicked, indicating the trooper following her and the one behind Max. “For a second there, sir, I wondered which of us was the real prisoner.”
Very perceptive. She had an edge to her voice that reminded him of Chevrier. He recalled that she had shown a strong aversion to confinement after the incident with Vance. “Remember who you’re speaking to, Ensign!”
“Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
He went into his room and swallowed another painkiller. Even if the moment came when he could make a difference, would he be able to get away from his minders long enough to do it?
Eight more shifts, two more days, and nothing.
Max had no appetite, the food all tasted bland to him. He couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time. If he turned the lights off, he’d wake in a panic, disoriented, unsure of his location. But if he slept with the lights on, they poked at the edge of his consciousness, prodding him awake. He tried to exercise one hour out of every two shifts, but everything seemed tedious. It just felt wrong, empty motions with nothing to push against.
On the bridge, he asked Petoskey if it was still necessary to have a guard.
“The attack’s still unsolved,” Petoskey said. “Until Simco brings me the manor woman—who did it, I want you protected.”
Max had the sinking feeling that might be for the rest of the voyage. “How are the repairs going?”
“Chevrier replaced all the chips in the dead array with new ones, but something failed when he tested it. He has an idea for rebuilding the chips with some kind of silicon alloy crystal. Says he can grow it as long as we stay weightless. Some other kind of old tech. Inorganic. He tried to explain it to me, but he’s the only one who really understands it.”
“Can we wait that long?”
“We can’t power up to jump as long as those Outback ships are in the vicinity. They’d see us—and the wormhole—in a microsecond. So far they still haven’t detected our buoy. Or if they have, they just took it for a pulsar signal.” Which was the idea, after all. Petoskey tugged hard at his beard. There were dark stains of sleeplessness under his eyes. “Don’t you have some work to do, some reports to write?”
He meant it as a dismissal. Max was willing to be dismissed. He was still no closer to catching his traitor, and his luck couldn’t have been more execrable.
He went to the ship’s library to read. Rambaud, his trooper again this shift, had no interest in reading or studying vids of any kind. He writhed in almost open pain as Max made it clear that he intended to stay at a desk alone for several hours. Max decided that it wouldn’t be murder if he bored Simco’s men to death.
He sat there, scanning Pier’s monograph on the Adarean war, skimming through the casualty lists in the appendixes, thinking about some of the worst battles, early on, and the consequences of war, when a voice intruded on his contemplations.
“... bored as hell down here. Uh-huh. Wargames. That sounds interesting. Can you understand that Outback lingo?”
Rambaud was whispering on the comlink to his compatriot in charge of Reedy. Max let the conversation turn to complaints about the exercise regimen and weightlessness before he flipped off his screen and rose to go.
He headed for the intelligence radio room. The scent of Lukinov’s imported cologne drifted out the open door into the corridor. Max paused at the doorway. Inside, the trooper floated behind Lukinov and Reedy. He wore a set of earphones.
“So this is how well you keep secrets?” asked Max.
The trooper saw Max, yanked the earphones out of his ear, and handed them back to an ebullient Lukinov. “Wait until you hear this, Max!” Lukinov said.
The trooper tried to squeeze by Max without touching him. Max stayed firmly in his way, making him as uncomfortable as possible. “Rambaud,” he said to his own man, “I believe I left my palm-pad down in the library by accident. Retrieve it for me and bring it to this room immediately so I can record this conversation.”
Rambaud hesitated before answering. “Yes, sir.”
The other trooper went over Max’s head and took up station outside the door. Max kicked the door shut and latched it.
“What’s going on with the spongediver?” asked Max.
“They’re testing a new laser deflector, using it for wormhole defense.” Lukinov grinned. “Go ahead and listen.”
Max picked up the headphones and fit the wires into his ears. Pilots chattered with tactics officers, describing the kind of run they were simulating. No wonder Outback outfitted their survey ships with the newest military equipment. The blind side of a wormhole dive was probably the only place in the galaxy they could test any new weapons without being observed. “Very standard stuff here,” he said after a moment. “Is there just one channel of this?”
“Their scientists are on the other channel, the one Reedy’s monitoring. But don’t you see what an advantage this gives us if we can steal it? We can attack Adares with impunity and keep them from diving into our system.”
Max switched the channel setting to the one Reedy listened to. “Do unto others before they do unto you?”
“Exactly!” replied Lukinov.
Reedy’s eyes went wide open. She started tapping the desk to get their attention. “Sir,” she said. “There’s something you should. ...”
“Not right now,” said Max.
Lukinov frowned at him. “Now see here—”
“No, you see here. Has the captain been informed of this?”
“Not yet,” replied Lukinov.
“You invite some grunt in here to listen to information that will certainly be classified top secret before you notify the captain?” He sneered at Lukinov, pausing long enough to listen to the scientists talk. “You can be sure that my Department will file a record of protest on our return. In the meantime, I better go get the captain.”
Lukinov popped out of his seat. “No, I’ll do that. I was just planning to do that anyway, if you hadn’t interrupted.”
“Sir,” repeated Reedy. “Sirs.”
“Ensign,” said Max, “Shut. Up.”
The ensign nodded mutely, her eyes shaped like two satellite dishes trying to pick up a signal.
“I’m coming with you, Lukinov,” Max said.
“No, you aren’t, Lieutenant,” snapped the intelligence officer. “I’m the one man on this ship you can’t give direct orders to and don’t you forget it.”
Max saluted, a gesture sharp enough to have turned into a knife hand strike at the other man’s throat. Lukinov stormed out of the room. Max turned back to the ensign, who simply stared at him.
“They just broadcast the complete specifications,” said Reedy. “They were checking for field deformation—”
“I know that,” said Max. And then he did something he never expected to do, not on this voyage. He said aloud the secret intelligence code word for “render all assistance.” Silently, to himself, he added a prayer that it was current, and that Reedy would recognize it.
“Wh-what did you say?” she stammered.
Max repeated the code word for “render all assistance” while he pulled off his earphones and reached in his pocket for his multi-tool. His fingers found nothing, and he realized that it had been missing since his attack. “And give me a screwdriver,” he added.
Reedy handed over the tool. “But ... but. ...”
Max ignored her. In thirty seconds, he’d disconnected the power and disassembled the outer case of the radio. “Give me the laser,” he said.
The ensign’s hands shook as she complied.
“I need two new memory chips and the spare pod.” Reedy just stared at him, uncomprehending. “Now!” spit Max, and the ensign dove for the equipment box.
Max shoved the loaded chips into his pockets and snapped the replacements into their slots as Reedy handed them over. The radio was still a mess of pieces when someone rapped on the door.
“Stall them!” hissed Max.
The rap came again and the door cracked open. Rambaud pushed his head in partway. “Here’s your palm-pad, sir.”
“I’ll take it,” said Reedy, grabbing it and shoving the door shut on him.
“Thanks!” called Max. He’d lost one of the screws, and when he looked up from the equipment to see if it was floating somewhere, he was temporarily disoriented. His stomach did a flip-flop and his head spun in a circle. “Shit!”
Rambaud pushed back on the door. “Are you safe in there, sir? I’m coming in.”
Reedy wedged herself against the wall to block the door.
Max heard a plain thump as Rambaud bounced against it. He saw the screw floating near his ankles and scooped it up. He fixed the cover and powered the machine up again. Reedy grunted as the door pushed against her, cracking open. “I’m fine,” Max said loudly.
Rambaud nodded, but he stood outside the cracked door peering in.
Reedy panted, caught herself, controlled it. A thousand questions formed and died on her lips. Max had taken the leap, and now he had to see how far that leap would take him.
“Ensign,” he whispered.
“Yes, sir?”
“From this moment forth,” his lips barely moved, “you will consider me your sole superior officer.”
Her eyes jumped to the door. “Sir? But—”
�
��That is a direct order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will not tell anyone—”
But he did not get the chance to tell Reedy what she should and shouldn’t say. The door swung open and Lukinov entered, followed by Captain Petoskey. Lukinov grinned like a party girl full of booze. “Wait until you hear this,” he said. He put his headphones on, and handed one to Petoskey as Reedy slid quickly back into her place.
They listened for a moment. Petoskey squinted his eyes, and rounded his shoulders even more than usual. “Sounds like they’re bringing the shuttles in, getting ready to leave. Radioing a safe voyage message to their other ship. What was I supposed to hear?”
“They’re testing a new deflector for wormhole defense. If we attack their ship and kill them, we can take it. Their other ship will be stuck in-system and we can nuke them.”
“Captain,” said Max.
“Yes?”
“I didn’t hear any evidence of this deflector. I can’t recommend an attack.”
Lukinov frantically punched commands into his keypad. “Let me back up to an hour ago.” His face went as blank as the records he was trying to access. “I can’t seem to find it. Reedy, what’s going on here?”
“Sir,” she muttered, with a pleading glance at Max, “uh, I don’t know, sir.”
“She’s covering up,” said Max.
Three faces stared at him with variations of disbelief.
“Look at the battery, it’s not properly grounded.” It was an awful explanation, but the best that Max could come up with on the spot. “Reedy was moving some equipment around, hit it with something. I didn’t see what. Sparks flew and the screens all went dead. She got them back up right away, but she probably wiped the memories.”
“Ensign,” Lukinov said coldly. “Explain yourself.”
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection Page 26