“I think we all die with the ship if they fail,” said Max.
Rambaud, one of the troopers, appeared in the door. “Message from the captain, Doc. He wants you on the bridge.”
“Tell him no.”
The trooper’s eyes kept flicking nervously to their badges. Max noticed his own was a sickly orange color. “Beg your pardon, Doc, but he’s getting ready to abandon ship. If it’s necessary.”
“If he wants to give me an order, he can come down here and do it himself,” said Noyes, shooting the burned man full of painkillers and starting an IV pump.
Rambaud fled.
Noyes stared after him. “They were going to suicide all of us anyway, for nothing. If I’m going to die, it might as well be doing my job.”
“Hell, yes.” Max’s job was getting the specifications on the deflectors to Drozhin. If the captain took the escape shuttles and flew in system, then it was Max’s duty to retrieve the chips from his quarters and get on a shuttle.
He followed Noyes back into the mouth of fire instead.
“They’re coming out!” someone shouted.
Four more men this time, in worse shape than the others. Noyes had to hypospray them full of painkillers just to get them down to the shower. Max carried the man with the tattoos. They were coal black in his skin. Whatever lived in the cells and gave them their luminescence had been killed off by the radiation.
Before they finished the others, Chevrier was brought to them, covered with burn blisters, his hands raw meat, his eyes blind. He couldn’t speak.
“Did he get it done?” shouted Max.
No one knew, so Max flew back toward the monitor room, where the handful of men who remained were arguing over the monitors. “The temperatures are still climbing,” shouted DePuy. His voice had risen an octave in pitch. “I tell you he didn’t get it running.”
“What’s going on?” asked Max.
“The pipes aren’t open,” said one of the electrician’s mates.
“Somebody needs to go in there and turn this valve here,” said DePuy. He pointed to a spot in the middle of the thick steam that surrounded the overheating reactor.
No one volunteered.
They were boys mostly, eighteen or nineteen, junior crewmen. They’d all seen the others carried out, had smelled the burned flesh, had listened to their weeping.
The cut on Max’s leg throbbed. His face and arms felt hot, burned. “I’ll go in,” he said.
Reactors were the only ship system he wasn’t officially trained on, and all the reading he’d done before the voyage seemed inadequate to the task now. But he could go in there and turn a valve. He could do that much.
He went out to the corridor and found it blocked by a man in a vacuum suit, dragging a plasma cutter on a tether and reading the manual in his palm-pad. The man turned, his face gray behind the clear mask covering his face. It was Kulakov, the chief petty officer.
For a second Max thought the man would freeze up.
Kulakov looked back down at his diagram. “Be sure to seal the locks tight behind me,” he said. “Send someone right now to levels three and four, portside, directly above us, to clear the corridors and seal the locks there. You have to do that!”
“Will do,” said Max. Then, “Carry on.”
Kulakov passed through the hatch, but when Max went to seal it, the freshwater supply tubing blocked it. “Damn,” he said, with a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Damn, damn, damn.”
Then DePuy was there beside him with a clamp and some cutters. He severed the pipe, and tossed the loose end through the hatch after Kulakov. Max sealed the door. “Did someone go to three and four?”
DePuy nodded. “But I’ll go double-check,” he added, glancing at the bare spot where Max’s comet should have been. No, he was looking at Max’s radiation badge. It was orange-red, bleeding into a bright crimson.
“You better head over to see Doc,” said the electrician’s mate at the monitors.
“Not yet,” said Max.
On the video feed they watched Kulakov move methodically from point to point, comparing the hook-up and settings with the diagram on his palm-pad. It took him much longer than it had Chevrier when he was naked. A couple times it was clear that between the fog, and the loss of sensation caused by the suit, Kulakov became disoriented crossing an open space. He spun in circles until he found the right side up again. He reached the final valve but couldn’t turn it. He peeled his gloves off, surrounded by the steam, and slowly cranked it over.
The electrician’s mate pounded the monitors. “It’s running! Look at the temps drop!”
Max did, but he watched Kulakov too as he struggled to put his gloves back on, picked up the plasma cutter, and then burned a hole through the hull.
The weeping sound of the radiation alarms was joined by the sudden keening of the hull breech alarms. The whole ship shuddered, the bulkhead creaked beside him, and Max’s ears popped.
But he kept his eyes fixed on the screen in the reactor room. The steam and all the radioactive water whooshed out of the ship. So did Lukinov’s body. And so did Kulakov.
There was a dark, flat line straight across one of the screens, like a dead reading on a monitor.
Kulakov’s tether.
“Hey look!” whispered one of the crewmen as Max entered the sick bay. “The Corpse is up and walking!”
They all laughed at that, the survivors, even Max. Chevrier was dead, and so was Rucker, and so were two other men. Of the six surviving men who’d received red badge levels of radiation exposure, only Max was strong enough to walk.
Kulakov sat in the middle of them. His hands were wrapped in bandages, two crooked, crippled hooks. Max nodded to him. “They still giving you a hard time?” he asked.
“You know it,” grinned Kulakov.
“Well it’s not fair that he should be the only one who gets leave while we’re on this voyage,” said one of the men.
“How can it be shore leave without a shore, that’s what I want to know,” said Kulakov.
They all laughed again, even Max. That was going to be a ship joke for a long time, how Kulakov got liberty—hanging on a tether outside the ship.
“Papa sent me down here with a message,” said Max. Captain Petoskey, Papa, had only been to the sick bay once since the accident, and quickly. Most of the other crewman stayed away as if radiation sickness were something contagious.
“What is it?” said Kulakov, the words thick in his throat.
“He wanted me to tell you that he’s going to request that they rename the ship.” The crewmen looked up at him seriously, all the humor gone from their eyes. “They’re going to call it the New Nazareth.”
New Nazareth had been nuked the worst by the Adareans. The land there still glowed in the dark.
Kulakov chuckled first, then the other men broke out laughing. Max saluted them, holding himself stiff for a full three seconds, then turned to go see Noyes. The medtech slumped in his chair, head sprawled across his arms on the desk, eyes closed. “I’m not sleeping,” he muttered. “I’m just thinking.”
“About your fiancée,” asked Max, “waiting for you at home?”
“No, about the bone marrow cultures I’ve got growing in the vats, and the skin sheets, and the transplant surgery I have to do later this afternoon, that I’ve never done unassisted before, and the one I have to do tonight that I’m not trained to do at all.” He twisted his head, peeking one eye out at Max. “And Suzan. Waiting for me. And the ship flying home. How are you feeling?”
“I’d be fine if you had any spare teeth,” Max said, poking his tongue into the empty spots in his gums. That didn’t feel as strange as having gravity under his feet again.
“They’re in a drawer over by the sink,” said Noyes. “Take two and call me in the morning.”
* * *
Max walked through corridors considerably less crowded than they had been a few days before. Almost everything inside the ship had received some
radiation. The crewmen went crate to crate with geiger counters deciding what could be saved and what should be jettisoned. With the grav back on, the men’s appetites returned. They also had a year’s worth of supplies and only a short voyage ahead of them, so every meal became a feast. Some celebrated the fact that they were going home, and others the simple fact that they’d survived.
Only Captain Petoskey failed to join the celebration. When Max entered the galley, Petoskey wore the expression of a man on the way to the lethal injection chamber. Max couldn’t say for sure if it was the condemned man’s expression or the executioner’s.
Ensign Reedy sat on one side of a long table, with two troopers standing guard behind her. Petoskey and Commander Gordet sat on the opposite side with Simco standing at attention. Petoskey looked naked without his beard, shorn before they recorded these official proceedings. Burdick, the other intelligence officer, sat off to one end.
Petoskey invited Max to the empty seat beside him. “Are you sure you feel up to this, Nikomedes?”
“Doc says I’ll be fine as long as it’s brief.”
“This’ll be quick.”
Petoskey turned on the recorder and read the regulations calling a board of inquiry. “Ensign Reedy, do you wish to make a confession of your crimes at this time?”
Max looked at the youngster. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her since he’d taken the chips in the radio room. If Reedy broke and told them what Max had done, then the entire gamble was for naught.
“I have nothing to confess,” Reedy said.
“Corporal Burdick,” continued Petoskey, “will you describe what you found in the radio room.”
“The equipment had been disassembled and the memory chips replaced with spares.” He made eye contact with no one. “This happened sometime during the last shift when Lieutenant Lukinov and Ensign Reedy were on duty together.”
“Sergeant Simco, please describe your actions.”
“Sir, we made a complete search of Ensign Reedy’s person and belongings looking for the items described by Corporal Burdick. We found nothing there, nor in any place she is known to have visited. We also searched Lieutenant Lukinov’s belongings and found nothing.”
“Lieutenant Nikomedes,” continued Petoskey. “Would you describe what you saw in the radio room.” He added the exact date and shift.
Max repeated his story about the battery short circuit. “If Lukinov removed the chips that Ensign Burdick described, and he had them on him, then they were spaced.”
Petoskey nodded. “Yes, I’ve thought of that. Ensign Reedy, can you explain what happened to the chips containing the communications from the neutral ship?”
“No sir, I cannot.”
“Were you and Lieutenant Lukinov working together as spies for the Adareans?”
“I was not,” answered Reedy. “I can’t speak for the lieutenant, as I was not in his confidence.”
Petoskey slammed his fist on the table. “I think you’re a coward, Reedy. You’re too weak to take responsibility for your actions. I’d tell you to act like a man, but you’re not.”
If Petoskey hoped to provoke Reedy, then his gambit failed. She sat there, placid as a lake on a still summer day.
“Can we conduct a medical interrogation?” interjected Max.
Petoskey went to tug at his beard, but his fingers clutched at emptiness. “I’ve discussed that already with the surgeon and Commander Gordet. Noyes is only a medtech and not qualified to conduct an interrogation that will hold up in military court. Conceivably, we could even taint the later results of a test.”
Max leaned forward. “Can we use more ... traditional methods?”
“I won’t command it,” said Petoskey, looking directly into the recorder. He waited for Max to speak again.
Max ran his tongue over the loose replacement teeth, saying nothing, and leaned back. He might get out of this, after all.
“However, if you think ...,” said Petoskey.
Max looked at the camera. “Without an immediate danger, we should follow standard procedures.”
Petoskey accepted this disappointment and concluded the proceedings with a provisional declaration of guilt. He ordered Reedy confined to the brig until they returned to Jesusalem.
As Max limped back toward his quarters afterward he noticed that Gordet followed him.
“What can I do for you, Commander?” asked Max.
The bull-shaped second-in-command looked around nervously, then leaned in close. “There’s something you should know, sir.”
“What?” asked Max wearily. “That Petoskey ordered Simco to kill me, that he intended to blame it on Reedy, and then have her arrested and executed?”
Gordet jerked back. “Did you check the secret orders too?”
“What does it matter now? Simco failed, Reedy’s arrested anyway, and we’re on our way home. A bit of advice for you, Mr. Gordet.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Next time you should pick your horse before the race is over.”
He walked away. When he returned to his room, he recovered the sheet with the combination from its hiding spot and destroyed it. He didn’t know what the secret orders said. He didn’t care.
There was only one thing he had left to do.
* * *
Third shift, night rotation, normal schedule. Max headed down to the brig carrying a black bag. One of Simco’s troopers stood guard. “I’m here to interrogate the prisoner,” Max said.
“Let me check with Sergeant Simco, sir.”
Max had been thinking hard about this. Only two people knew that he had the plans for the deflector, and the only way two people could keep a secret was if one of them was dead.
“Sarge wants to know if you need help,” said the trooper.
“Tell him that I take full responsibility for this, in the name of the Department of Political Education, and that no assistance will be necessary.”
The trooper relayed this information, then gave Max a short, sneering nod. “He says he understands. Perfectly. But he wants me to make sure that you’ll be safe in there.”
Max patted a hand on his black bag. “If you hear screaming,” he said, “don’t interrupt us unless it’s mine.”
The trooper twitched uncomfortably under Max’s glare. “Yes, sir.” He opened the door for Max.
Reedy twitched then sat up quickly on the edge of her bunk. Her wrists and ankles were cuffed, and she wore insignialess fatigues. She folded her hands on her knees, fingertip to fingertip, pressed together hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
He stepped inside. The room was barely eight feet by four, with a bed on one wall and a stainless steel toilet built into the corner opposite the door, “That’ll be all, trooper,” Max said. “I’ll signal you when I’m done.”
The hatch closed behind him and latched shut. He looked at Reedy. Her eyes were red and puffy but devoid of feeling, her cheeks hollow and drawn. A blue vein stood out vulnerably on her pale neck.
With his lips tight, Max gave her a small nod. He removed a wand from his bag and searched the room for bugs. She watched closely while he located and destroyed them.
“You look depressed,” he said quietly when he was done.
She shook her head, once. “No, I’ve been depressed before. This time it’s not bad.”
“Define not bad.”
“It’s bad when you want to kill yourself. Right now, I just wish I was dead. That’s not bad.”
Max sat down with his back against the door and opened his bag. He removed two tumblers and a bottle of ouzo. The ensign remained perfectly still as Max pulled out a plate, and ripped open vacuum-wrapped packages of cheese, sausages, and anchovies to set on it.
“Not proper mezedes at all,” he said apologetically. “The fish should always be fresh.”
He filled one cup and pushed it over toward Reedy, then poured and swallowed his own. It tasted like licorice, reminding him both of his childhood and his days as a young man in completely different ways. Reedy rem
ained immobile.
“I’ve been thinking.” Max spoke very quietly, unbuttoning his collar. “When two men know a secret, it’s only safe if one of them is dead.” Good men had died already because of this. So would many more, likely enough, along with the bad. “Therefore you don’t know anything. Only I, and Lukinov, and Luldnov’s dead. Do you understand this?”
“I don’t know anything,” Reedy said, with just a hint of irony. She reached over and lifted the glass of ouzo with both hands.
“My department will declare you the most politically sound of officers. Intelligence will know the truth, at least at the level that matters. Drozhin will get the captain’s official report, but he’ll get another report unofficially. You’ll be fine.” He picked up an anchovy. “There will be a very difficult time, a very ugly court-martial. But you can survive that.”
“Again?”
“Again. This one will not be removed from the record due to extenuating circumstances.” Her attack on Vance had been one of self-defense. “But you’ll be exonerated. You’ll be fine. Things are changing. They’ll be better.” He believed that.
She leaned her head back and tossed down the ouzo. Max reached over and poured her another glass while her eyes were still watering. “When I got this assignment,” she said, “I couldn’t figure out if I was being rewarded for being at the top of the class in languages, despite being a woman. Or if I was being punished for being a woman.”
“Sometimes it’s both ways at once,” Max said. He bit the anchovy and found he didn’t care for the taste.
“Can I ask you one question?” asked Reedy.
Why did people always think he had all the answers? “Information is like ouzo. A little bit can clear your head, make you feel better. Too much will make you sick, maybe even kill you.” He twirled his cup. “What’s your question?”
“Did you really win your wife in a card game?”
“Yes.” He drained his glass to cover his surprise. Though he’d won her with a bluff and not by cheating.
“Why did she leave you?”
Max thought about telling her that was two questions. Then he thought about telling her the truth, that his wife hadn’t left him, that she waited at home for him, not knowing where he was or what he did, going to church every day, caring for their two grandchildren. His daughter was about Reedy’s age. But he’d kept his life sealed in separate compartments and wouldn’t breech one of them now.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection Page 28