by Allen Steele
I’m about to abandon ship, but it won’t be through the hatch. If I tried it that way, I’d only go into orbit around the pod, and that’s no good because the pod will soon overshoot the rendezvous point. No, Chip has better plans for me than that.
Here comes the scary part.
Once I’ve strapped myself back on the couch, Chip voids the pod’s atmosphere. When the pressure gauge stands at zero, I kick the dashboard away from my knees and reach up to a tiger-striped panel above my head.
I pull it open, take a deep breath, swear at Dad one last time for getting me into this mess, then toggle a switch marked Emrg. Ejct.
The porthole silently blows away.
The couch jettisons into space.
I scream bloody murder.
Hurtling through black void streaked with the tracer fire of stars turned comets, stomach rebelling, eyes shutting, Chip telling me to unbuckle the seat harness, get out, get out, get out now right now Alec get out right now
Alec, detach the seat harness at once. Do you understand?
Detach seat harness NOW.
as I blindly fumble at the catches at my chest and groin until they pop open and suddenly the couch falls away and now that I open my eyes and see
the pod racing away into eternity
and
the couch receding behind me
and
stars here
stars there
and
darkness everywhere
and
that’s when I scream for damn sure.
The pod has vanished. The couch has vanished. I’m alone in the void, my arms and legs outstretched, pinwheeling through dark vacuum.
Alone.
No friends. No family. No enemies. No sound. The only light comes from places thousands and millions of years in the past. Except for the Sun, an inflamed pimple in the cosmos.
I’m alive, and I’m dead.
Tears detach themselves from the corners of my eyes, spot the inside of my helmet like sour raindrops.
I wait to die.
Then a dark mass occultates the stars.
At first, it looks like an irregular hole has opened in space.
Then it becomes a black barbell with little sparks coming off its edges.
It resolves itself into a spaceship: a drum-shaped forward section with little windows through which I glimpse the faintest hint of motion, an open cradle in a narrow center section where large gold lozenges are held down by folded arms, a rear section comprised of enormous cylindrical fuel tanks, leading to five engines.
At first, it comes slowly.
Then it rushes straight at me like a freight train on a midnight track.
Remembering the reaction-control gun strapped to my wrist, I twist around and fire it behind me. It sends me flailing toward the vessel.
Chip goes eyes-up; he paints an X in the middle of my field of vision. I aim the Super Soaker and fire it at its center. When I twist around again, the enormous ship is almost on top of me.
I aim the reaction gun between my legs and give it one quick burst. It’s just enough to save me from being pulverized; now the ship is just below me.
I fall toward the ship, and as I reach for thin metal flanges along its hull, I catch a fleeting glimpse of human movement within its forward windows—someone staring up at me—then I grab hold of something, but I can’t hang on, and I’m sent rolling across the hull like a pinball being kicked between bumpers.
Warning lights flash in my helmet. I look up just in time to see an antenna mast. I duck my head and it spirals past me, and when I look around again, there’s the edge of a large cradle gaping open below me. I grab something with both hands, hang on tight as my legs flop over the lip of the cradle.
Then my legs float upward and my arms stop screaming. I’ve matched the ship’s momentum.
Looking down, I see a row of ladder rungs leading down into the cargo bay. I grab one of them, hang on for dear life, then begin making my way, hand over hand, toward a hatch in the rear of the forward section.
When I’m a little closer to the hatch, lights come on in the bay. I’m dazzled for a moment and squint against the glare. When my eyes readjust, I look down and see a sign painted above the hatch just below me:
WATCH YOUR STEP
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I murmur.
I make my way the rest of the way down the ladder until I reach the hatch. The locklever twists easily, counterclockwise; I pull the hatch open, haul myself through, turn around, and yank the hatch shut.
I’m now inside a tiny compartment. Chip tells me how to operate the control panel next to the hatch; I follow his instructions.
The compartment begins to revolve end over end. Once more, I’m bashed against a wall, but this time there’re plenty of handholds. I grab one and hang on, and after awhile I get used to gravity again. It’s not much of a pull, but just enough to make me wish that I hadn’t watched so many people eating food earlier this long night. I just collapse on the floor and wait for the room to stop spinning.
There’s an inner hatch, but I don’t have to open it; it unseals the moment a green light flashes on the control panel. I look up to see two enormous blue eyes within a pair of butterfly wings staring down at me.
Then the razor-sharp tip of a rapier jabs my chest.
“Who are you?” a woman’s voice demands.
Oh, Christ. A Superior.
Of all the ships I have to find in the Belt, it has to be one run by a goddamn Superior.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
* * *
FEELING GRAVITY’S PULL
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-Day of past Regrets and future Fears—
To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.
—The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
I’m not adverse to picking up floaters, but I’ve really got to know what you were doing out there.”
The Superior has let me get up on my knees and take off my helmet, but her rapier is still drawn. It isn’t just the fact that she’s a Superior that surprises me: six feet tall, thin as a rail, blond hair cut to the scalp in front but long and braided in the back, her arms, face, and neck completely covered with tattoos. No, what gets me is that she speaks Primary, not the strange patois that makes most Superiors sound like Yoda. For once, Chip doesn’t have to flash me an eyes-up translation.
“You sure don’t sound like any google I’ve ever heard,” I say, dropping the helmet next to me.
Butterfly wings furl over owlish blue eyes. “And you’re about ten seconds away from being marched back into the airlock.” she replies. The rapier’s sharp tip inches a little closer. “I’m counting.”
Whoops. Forgot that Superiors don’t appreciate that nickname. “Sorry,” I say quickly. “Didn’t mean it that way. Just haven’t met too many Superiors who speak like…y’know…”
“Apes?” I think I’m supposed to be outraged; when I’m not, she gives me a quizzical look. “I’m beginning to wonder myself how many Superiors you’ve met.”
“Not many.” I glance at the rapier. “Look, I’d like to get off the floor now, if you don’t mind. Want to put that thing away?”
“No and no.” She touches her jaw with her free hand. “Rohr? He’s aboard. Just came through the carousel. Got him in the secondary suit compartment.” She listens for a moment. “Copy that. Don’t take your time.”
“The captain?”
“My first officer. He’ll be down shortly.”
I glance around the compartment. Not much to describe—suit lockers, racked air tanks, some cabinets—except that there’s only three helmets on a shelf above the suit lockers. Odd; from what little I know about Superiors, their ships are usually crewed by clans with no fewer than nine members. Of course, there could be other airlocks…
“Want to tell me your name?” she asks.
“Alec T
ucker. William Alec Tucker.” I give her an easy smile. “You can call me Alec.”
She isn’t buying it. “What ship are you from, William Alec Tucker? What’s your position?”
“On my knees right now.” I raise my palms. “Look, lady, you see me carrying a gun? If you’d just let me get up…”
I start to shift my left leg; the rapier moves a little closer, and I freeze. “I’m asking the questions, Mess’r Tucker. What ship are you…?”
“Aw, give him a chance to answer, will’ya?”
The voice—oddly accented, sort of a cross between English and Southern—comes from the ceiling hatch behind her. Its owner begins descending the ladder from the deck above. He’s a tall, middle-aged gent with a sunburned face and graying blond hair, and that’s my second surprise: I’ve never heard of any Superior ships with Primaries as first officers.
He stops at the bottom of the ladder and leans against it unsteadily. “All right, let’s get acquainted. You’re aboard the TBSA Comet. I’m Rohr Furland, the first officer, and this is Jeri Lee-Bose, my captain. Now who the hell are you?”
“Says his name is William Alec Tucker,” Jeri Lee-Bose answers for me, still not lowering her rapier. “He won’t tell me what ship he’s from or his position. And he called me a google.”
Furland scowls. “That’s a serious charge, boy. Google’s a word that’s not allowed on this ship…”
“I’m sorry. Just a slip of the tongue, that’s all.” I glance from Furland to Jeri. “You heard me say I was…”
“Never mind. You’re…” He belches into his fist; I catch a boozy whiff of his breath. That clinches it. If the first officer’s crocked, then this can’t be a Superior ship; they don’t allow alcohol aboard their vessels. He glances at the captain. “C’mon, put that thing away already. If he’s a pirate, he’s the dumbest one I’ve ever heard of.”
“I’m not a pirate.” Who’s in charge here, anyway?
“No kidding. You’re too stupid to be a pirate.” He runs a hand through his short-cropped hair as Jeri reluctantly slides the rapier into a sheath on her belt. “Unless, of course, this is some sort of diversion. If it is, it’s the strangest one I’ve ever heard of. What happened to the boat you transmitted that mayday from?”
“I ejected from it. It was out of fuel and almost out of air, so this was the only way I could reach you.”
“Out of air and fuel?” The two of them exchange incredulous looks; Furland shakes his head. “What kind of ship runs out of consumables in the middle of the Belt?”
“A pretty small one. It was an EVA pod.”
Jeri’s mouth drops open; Furland sags against a bulkhead and laughs out loud. “Elvis! You are the stupidest pirate I’ve ever heard of…”
“I’m telling you, I’m not a—”
“Okay, all right. I believe you.”
“I’m not sure I do.” Jeri Lee-Bose’s spidery left hand lingers on the pommel of her sword. “It could be a setup, Rohr. They launch a pod with one guy aboard to send out a mayday to distract us, and while we’re dealing with him, they sneak up on us with another ship.”
“Relax. I checked the screens before I left the bridge. There’s no other vessels within five hundred kilos.” He looks away from us. “Brain? Any ships in the vicinity?”
An androgynous voice replies from nowhere: “No, Rohr. Except for the EVA pod Mr. Tucker described, there are no other spacecraft within interception range. Mr. Tucker’s pod is one hundred and seven kilometers from us and receding.”
“Thanks.” Furland looks at the captain and shrugs. “Guess that settles it. He’s an idiot, but he’s not a pirate.”
I’m not crazy about the character assessment, but under the circumstances I’m not about to argue. “That’s your…um, AI? Brain, I mean?”
“The Brain’s our AI, yes.” Jeri has removed her hand from her sword. “You sound like you’ve never heard one before.”
Lady, if only you knew. But I don’t want to get into that just now. “I’ll tell you later. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get up now. Maybe get this suit off, too, if that’s not a problem.”
Furland grins at me. “Sure, if you can think of the proper way to ask permission from the captain.”
I look back at Jeri Lee-Bose. “Umm…may I please get off the floor and remove my suit?”
“Getting smarter all the time,” Furland murmurs.
Jeri nods. “Permission granted, Mess’r Tucker. Rohr, if you’ll escort our guest to the passenger cabin and give him some clothes?”
“Copy that, chief.” He turns to the ladder. “After that, I’ll take him to the wardroom.”
“Going to finish your little party now?” she asks, a little coldly.
“Nope. Party’s over. Time to start the new century.” He starts climbing the ladder. “C’mon, Tucker. We’ll get you a change of clothes and fix a pot of coffee, then you can tell us how you came to be here. Can’t wait to hear how you managed to wind up in a pod with no fuel or air.”
He pauses at the top of the hatch to look down at me. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t get rid of that skinsuit. You’re not off the hook yet.”
Although the TBSA Comet is larger than the Anakuklesis, its living quarters are small and cramped; its narrow main passageway winds around the inside of a drumlike centrifuge. At one-sixth gravity, it’s lighter than I’m used to on the asteroid. Furland doesn’t say anything, but he notices when I stumble over myself in the narrow corridor. I’m grateful when he slides open the door of a tiny compartment no larger than a jail cell and leaves me alone for a minute.
A white one-piece jumpsuit hangs inside a tiny closet across from a fold-down bed, along with a pair of stikshoes. I peel off the skinsuit and try on the jumpsuit and the shoes. The jumpsuit is tight, its sleeves and ankles a little too short; the stikshoes are a size too small. When I complain about this to Chip, he tells me to relax and stand still; as if by magic, the suit and shoes seem to stretch themselves until they meet my dimensions. More wonders of the twenty-first century—excuse me, the twenty-second century. I guess tailors are obsolete now.
“Okay, Chip,” I say softly, “where am I?”
“You are aboard the TBSA Comet,” Chip replies.
“I know that already. What is it?”
“Please wait. I must access this vessel’s primary AI interface.”
A few seconds go by as Chip introduces himself to the Brain. They shake hands, have a couple of drinks, swap a few jokes, and do whatever it is that AIs and MINNs do when they meet the first time. Chip finally comes back to me: “Most of the Comet’s primary AI interface—”
“The Brain, you mean.”
“Yes. Most of the Brain’s higher memory functions are security coded, so I cannot access them without clearance from the captain. However, I can tell you that the TBSA Comet is an Ares-class asteroid freighter, registry number MAF-1675. It is a registered vessel in the Transient Body Shipping Association, and is based at Lagrange Four in the Pax Astra. Its crew complement consists of Jeri Lee-Bose, captain and ship owner, and Rohr Furland, first officer and ship owner. Its current cargo manifest includes refined asteroid materials, including—”
“Never mind. Where did it come from, and where is it going?”
“The TBSA Comet left Ceres Station on December 6, 2099, Gregorian. It is scheduled to arrive at Lagrange Four on October 9, 2100.”
“Where…I mean what…is Lagrange Four?”
“Lagrange Four, also known as Highgate, is an interplanetary shipping port located in a Lagrangian halo orbit near the Moon. It services spacecraft belonging to the Pax Astra and its trading partners, and—”
“Whoa. Hold on. Is that near Clarke County?”
“Clarke County is located at Lagrange Five.” Chip goes eyes-up to show me a map; the L4 and L5 points are located at the far tips of two adjacent triangles, with Earth and the Moon positioned at the opposite ends of the shared leg. “Although both Highgate and Clarke County oscillate in hal
o orbits, their average distance is approximately three million kilometers. Each station is located nearly one million five hundred thousand kilometers from Earth.”
I whistle under my breath. Three million kilometers are three million kilometers; compared to three hundred sixteen million miles, though, it’s a walk around the block. Spend nearly a year in the Belt, and you start thinking in very large terms. “And the Immortality Partnership was located in Clarke County?”
“The last known location of the Immortality Partnership was in Clarke County. However, following the company’s bankruptcy, its remaining assets have been relocated elsewhere in near-Earth space. That location is unknown.”
There’s a knock on the door, followed by the first officer’s voice: “Whatever you’re doing in there, cut it out. The captain wants to see you right now.”
“Be right there.” I triple-blink and the map vanishes. All right, so I’ve lucked out: the freighter I flagged down is headed right to where I want to go. Now it’s time to try to convince these two characters not to pitch me out the airlock…not until we reach the Pax, at least.
The wardroom is located down the corridor from my room, and it looks like Furland has been holding his own little New Year’s party. The walls are hung with paper streamers, and two wine bottles—one empty, the other half-full—stand in the middle of the table. When Furland leads me into the compartment, though, the captain has already arrived and has made a pot of coffee. Sitting at the opposite end of the table, she watches as the first officer pushes a mug in my hand, then slouches into a chair next to me. He takes a noisy slurp from his own mug and makes a face.
“Jeri, this coffee’s not going to do the trick. Wanna fetch me a soberup from sickbay?” Jeri casts me one last, mistrustful look, then silently gets up and leaves the room.
“Funny way to run a ship,” I murmur. “Who’s in charge here, you or her?”
“We both are. As you can probably tell, we don’t stand much on formality round here.” Furland peers at me with bleary eyes. “Okay, start talking. Where are you from, and how did you get here?”