A King of Infinite Space

by Allen Steele

  Once I got bulkhead-scrubbing and toilet-sponging down to a fine art, I soon discovered that I had plenty of free time on my hands…and this time, I didn’t have to hide from a Main Brain that monitored my every waking moment. At first, I was wary about probing the ship’s library systems on my eyes-up display, until Jeri herself laughingly told me that it was okay; if there were any vital secrets, she said, the Brain would tell me, and as it turned out the only information to which I was denied access was the ship’s financial records. So I spent a lot of off-duty time in the wardroom, drinking coffee—which, by the way, tasted a hell of a lot better once I started cleaning out the brewer once a week—while filling in the gaps of the last century’s history that I hadn’t learned while on 4442 Garcia.

  I also read novels, poetry, essays, anything I could find in the Brain’s library that looked interesting. I’ve never been much of a reader, but nine months cooped up in a spaceship solves that pretty quickly. I also began writing a memoir of my experiences, storing it in an unused section of Chip’s onboard memory. At first I tried dictating the whole thing, but then Chip downloaded a seldom-used word-processing program from the Brain; with a few adjustments, this gave me an eyes-up keyboard I could use by hunting-and-pecking my fingers in midair.

  If boredom was a problem, it didn’t last. We’d just passed the orbit of Mars when something happened that once again reminded me just how dangerous the future had become.

  I’m in the wardroom one afternoon, idly moving text around with my forefinger. Jeri’s sitting across the table from me, eating an early dinner. Rohr’s standing watch in the bridge, and she’s slated to relieve him in a few minutes. She asks me to fetch her another cup of coffee from the brewer behind me, but I don’t hear her at first; I’m monkeying around with different fonts, and her request goes unacknowledged. After the third try, she picks up one of her chopsticks and wings it at me.

  I’ve barely caught the sudden motion out of the corner of my eye when

  WARNING!

  my left hand darts up and plucks the chopstick out of the air. The next instant

  AUTODEFENSE MODE!

  I’ve somersaulted backward out of my chair, landing on the floor in a crouch, my hands balled into fists: heart pumping, nerves electric, blood turned to ice water.

  Jeri stares at me in astonishment. “What did you just do?”

  I let out my breath. “Back down, Chip,” I whisper. “False alarm.” I feel my body slowly relax; I’m hot all over, my forehead clammy with sweat. I stand straight and look apologetically at the broken chopstick in my right hand. “Sorry about that. It’s something Mister Chicago did to me.”

  “Your associate has an autodefense system?”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

  She nods. “Pax soldiers were retrofitted with it during the System War. In their case, the process involved surgical implantation of MINNs in their brains and biochemical cartridges in their necks. Helped the Royal Militia win the ground war on Mars, but it burned out a lot of soldiers. Mister Chicago must have figured out how to put it in his deadheads…sleepers, I mean. Sorry.”

  I shrug it off. If she can get over being called a google, I can live with being called a deadhead. “But Superiors don’t have it?”

  She shakes her head. “Not first-gens like me. We have associates, but autodefense technology didn’t come till later.”

  “This has only happened once before.” I pick up my chair, sit down again, tell her about the time Vladimir Algol-Raphael pulled his rapier on me. “I took a cut across the arm, but at least it saved me from getting killed.” I pick up the broken chopstick, drop it on the table. “Guess Chip misinterpreted this as an attack. Sorry.”

  “Not your fault. You can’t help it.” She picks up the two halves of the chopstick and idly plays with them. “That can be a useful talent, if you can learn how to control it. The Pax can be quite dangerous.”

  “Yeah, well, if someone ever throws a chopstick at me again, I’ll know exactly what to do.”

  Jeri’s lips purse thoughtfully. She pushes back her chair and, without another word, leaves the compartment. When she comes back, she’s carrying two rapiers.

  “If you’re going to defend yourself,” she says, laying one on the table before me, “you should learn how to do it right.”

  I stare at the sword. “Aw, c’mon, Jeri, I’ve never picked up one of these things in my life…”

  “Not an excuse. Everyone else has.” She unsheathes her own rapier and hoists the blade before her. “The art of swordsmanship was rediscovered during the System War, during close-quarter combat within ships and habitats. Bullets ricochet, tasers don’t work against hardsuits, blasters cause blowouts…but a good sword in a well-trained hand is as deadly as any gun. Where you’re going, everyone carries them.”

  I reluctantly pick up the rapier. “Look, Jeri, I know you mean well, but…y’know, I’m a peaceful kinda guy. I’d just as soon try to get through life without sticking this in someone.”

  She nods. “I know exactly what you mean, Alec. Believe me, I’m a pacifist by nature. There’s nothing I’m less willing to do than kill another person.”

  She slowly lowers her rapier until it’s pointed straight at my face. Her dark eyes stare at me down its long, slender shaft. “Yet you can’t count on the other person feeling the same way, and a broken chopstick won’t save you.”

  I’m trying to come up with a suitable retort when Rohr’s voice comes from the ceiling:

  “Jeri, Alec…whatever you’re doing, save it and get up here. We’ve got a problem.”

  Jeri drops her sword; nictitating membranes close over her eyes. “Ship status,” she snaps. I do the same, and Chip feeds me the Brain’s status screen. No alert bars; everything’s copasetic. What the hell…?

  “The ship’s fine,” Rohr says. “The Brain just intercepted a Code A-One priority message from another vessel on our traverse…an Alliance liner inbound from Mars. Better get up here, Jeri. Serious shit.”

  “On my way.” Jeri’s already out the door; she stops in the corridor to look back at me. “Let’s go, Alec. You’re the second…don’t drop the line now.”

  “Right behind you.” I jump out of my chair to follow her, but not before she’s halfway to the ladder leading to the forward carousel.

  The bridge hatch irises open; we float into the Comet’s command center, a circular compartment with a low ceiling, every inch of its bulkheads jammed with instrument panels. The bridge is dark, the only source of light the flatscreens on the master consoles and the holographic display above the nav table. Starlight gleams through the narrow windows above the cockpit.

  From the pilot’s chair, Rohr Furland’s voice calls out: “Victor Foxtrot Alpha eighty-seven, this is Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five, TBSA Comet, do you copy, over?…Victor Foxtrot Alpha eight-seven, this is TBSA Comet, Mexico Alpha Foxtrot sixteen-seventy-five. Do you copy? Please respond, over…”

  Jeri somersaults, grabs a ceiling rail with her elongated toes, and pulls herself into the cockpit. I still haven’t gotten over how she does that; I use my hands instead as I follow her. “What’s going on?” she murmurs, peering upside-down over her husband’s shoulder.

  Rohr barely glances up at her. “Received a mayday signal about fifteen minutes ago, a Code A-One repeater requesting assistance from the nearest vessels. Sounds like it was sent by automatic transponder. I haven’t been able to get anyone to talk to me.”

  “ID on the ship?”

  “Brain identifies it as the Goh Ryu-maru. A Bradbury-class Aresian passenger liner registered with the Alliance. Departed Phobos Station four days ago, destination Highgate.”

  “Trajectory and distance?”

  He cocks his thumb over his shoulder. “See for yourself. Same traverse as ours. Distance one thousand fifty-two klicks and closing. Brain says we should be passing it in twenty-six minutes.”

  I turn around to look at the holo. It di
splays a sphere of space about a half-AU in diameter, criss-crossed with radiant lines depicting the orbit of Mars and the courses of the Comet and the Goh Ryu-maru: two tiny spots, one red, the other blue, within a few inches of one another, just a foot or so past Mars. The Comet follows the same traverse as the liner; we’re coming right behind on the Goh Ryu-maru. “What does that name mean, anyway?”

  “‘Strong Dragon.’” Jeri scarcely glances at the holo. “Rohr, Bradbury liners have fusion drives. We shouldn’t be gaining on it like this.”

  “Damn if I know, sweets. All I can tell you, she’s sending out a Code A-One but won’t answer.” He turns back to his console and once again prods his lower jaw. “Victor Foxtrot Alpha eight-seven, this is Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five, TBSA Comet, please respond…”

  Jeri swings her legs down from the ceiling and lands in the copilot seat next to Rohr. “Brain, take us off auto and lay in a close flyby with the liner.” she says as she buckles herself in. “Five klicks will do.”

  “Affirmative, Captain.”

  “Five klicks?” Rohr glances at his wife and captain. “You sure you want to do that? We don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Sure we do. It’s a liner with almost sixty people aboard, sending out a mayday. Want me to start reading you the book?”

  “Blowout the book. Maybe the transponder’s snafued…”

  “Have you been calling them on the emergency channel?” Rohr doesn’t answer; he doesn’t need to. “Then why haven’t they responded? Why are we catching up so fast?”

  “You got a point…”

  “Two points.”

  “All right, two points…but let’s make that ten klicks instead of five.”

  While they’re bickering over this, I turn to the nav table again, cupping my hand over my mouth. “Chip, can you get the Brain to show me what the Goh Ryu-maru looks like?”

  “Yes, Alec. Just a moment.”

  An instant later, a window opens on the red blotch, rapidly expanding until a wire model of the Goh Ryu-maru fills the table; vital stats are printed out below the image. A big mother: two enormous cylinders laid in tandem with a more narrow cylinder between them. A conical engine flare sprouts from the aft cylinder, the business end of its fusion pulse engine. A delta-winged shuttle and a lifeboat are moored in cradles on either side of the central cylinder. The forward cylinder is ringed with rectangular windows; the broad, hemispherical prow sports a large circular atrium just below the bridge. Four hundred feet long: crew complement of ten, passenger berths for fifty. A cruise ship in space; I can imagine Kathie Lee Gifford dancing in pink leotards aboard this thing.

  Time passes slowly; the Comet chases the Goh Ryu-maru through the darkness. Rohr and Jeri murmur to one another as they study flatscreen readouts. A tiny point of light just ahead of us gradually becomes larger, gaining size and detail.

  As we draw closer, the light seems to wink at us: a long pulse, then a weakening of luminosity, then another pulse, followed by another fadeout, as metronomic as if it had been set by a timer. At first they think it’s the liner’s running lights, but then they realize that it’s too bright for that. Then they theorize that it’s the main engine, until the Brain reports that the Comet’s sensors have picked up no radiation from a source strong enough to be a fusion trail. So why is the engine down?

  All this time, no radio response from the Goh Ryu-maru, save for the transponder SOS. Then, just as we’re close enough to see the ship through the cockpit windows, a human voice comes over the comlink:

  “TBSA…TBSA Comet, this is Goh Ryu-maru…Victor Foxtrot…Alpha eight-seven. Do you copy?”

  Rohr snaps to attention. “Goh Ryu-maru, this is TBSA Comet. We’re receiving you. What’s the nature of your…”

  His voice trails off as the Goh Ryu-maru emerges from the darkness like an iceberg on a midnight sea.

  The leviathan slowly tumbles end over end, cartwheeling through the void like a creature gone insane. The windows and atrium in its forward section shine brightly, but its engine nozzle is dark. Lifeless.

  “Screw it.” Rohr’s hands move to the console. “We’re holding at ten klicks. I’m not getting any closer.”

  This time, Jeri doesn’t argue. She taps her jaw to put herself on the comlink. “Goh Ryu-maru, this is Jeri Lee-Bose, captain of the TBSA Comet. Please identify yourself, over.”

  A pause, then:

  “This is Masamichi Osako, captain of the Goh Ryu-maru. Comet, please do not approach any closer. I repeat, do not approach any closer. You cannot assist us in any way.”

  “What the hell?” Rohr glances at Jeri, then prods his jaw again. “Captain Osako, this is Rohr Furland, first officer of the Comet. Please advise us of the nature of your emergency. We’ll do whatever we can to assist, but we need to know what is wrong with your vessel.”

  Another long pause. “Must be reactor failure,” Jeri murmurs. “Look at the way it’s tumbling.”

  “Then why didn’t they dump the core? I don’t…”

  Osako’s strained voice suddenly returns: “Comet, do not come any closer! Maintain your present distance! You’re in terrible…”

  Suddenly, a new voice over the comlink, more scratchy and frantic than Osako’s: “TBSA Comet, this is Chief Petty Officer Ernsting! We’re preparing to abandon ship! Our lifeboat is—”

  Ernsting is abruptly cut off. The next instant, Osako is back online. “Comet, disregard that transmission. If the lifeboat is launched, do not pick it up! Repeat…do not pick it up!”

  “What’s going on over there?” I murmur.

  Jeri ignores me. Reaching under her seat, she pulls out a seldom-used headset and clamps it over her ears. “Rohr, see if you can raise Ernsting, find out what’s going on. I think he’s calling from the lifeboat on a different channel. I’ll talk to the captain.” As Rohr scrambles for his own headset, Jeri reaches up to stab buttons on the communications panel. “Captain Osako, you must tell me the nature of your emergency. Why can’t we take aboard a lifeboat if you’re abandoning ship?”

  “Chip,” I whisper, “can you monitor both channels?”

  “Yes, Alec, I can.”

  “Good. Patch me in.” Now I can eavesdrop on all sides of the two radio conversations at the same time.

  Osako: “Chief Petty Officer Ernsting is acting without my authorization. He and two other members of the crew…two crewmembers and a passenger, I think…are in the lifeboat and are attempting to launch. They…”

  Rohr: “Ernsting, this is the Comet, First Officer Furland. Can you hear me? Over.”

  Osako: “…cannot launch at this point. I’m on the bridge and have prevented them from doing so, but they may attempt to override the lockout and…”

  Ernsting: “We copy, Comet. This is a Class A-One emergency. We’re attempting to abandon ship. Please stand by to take aboard survivors.”

  Osako: “…abandon ship without my authorization. You cannot allow them aboard your ship. Do you understand?”

  Jeri: “Captain, I can’t do anything without…”

  Rohr: “Please state the nature of your emergency. Do you have a reactor crash?”

  Jeri: “…knowing what your problem is. Please tell us.”

  Ernsting: “Yes! Yes! We have a reactor crash! Primary ignition system unbalanced, deuterium loop reaching critical overload! We have to abandon…”

  Osako: “Comet, we have suffered an outbreak of Titan Plague.”

  Rohr and Jeri look at each other. Their mouths drop open.

  Ernsting: “…ship before the reactor explodes! For God’s sake, get us out of here!”

  Jeri quickly shakes her head, slices her forefinger across her neck. Rohr reaches up and switches from Ernsting’s channel to Osako’s. Ernsting’s raving; I tell Chip to stop monitoring his frequency.

  Jeri takes a deep breath. “Captain Osako, please repeat that. Did you say that there’s Titan Plague aboard your ship? Please confirm.”

  Osako: “Affirmative, Comet.�
�� Even over the comlink, we can hear the nervous rattle of his breath. “First signs occurred twenty-eight hours ago, when one passenger attacked another without provocation. Both people were sedated by the first officer and taken to the infirmary for treatment. Shortly after that, the chief physician stabbed another crewmember with a scalpel, then escaped into the passenger decks where he raped and murdered a passenger. We confined him to quarters, but by then the plague was already moving through the ship. It was carried by the air circulation system and transmitted from one person to another…”

  Rohr clasps a hand over his headset mike. “They couldn’t quarantine the first victims. It was over before they knew what…”

  Jeri impatiently raises a hand. She’s still listening to Osako’s tired voice.

  “…then First Officer Jaffrey came to the bridge. He tried to turn the ship around, saying that we needed to return to Mars. I stopped him and he escaped belowdecks, but not before he put the ship in a spin. I’m unable to steady the vessel.”

  Jeri puts herself back on the comlink. “Captain, Mister Ernsting claims that the reactor has crashed. Can you confirm this?”

  “Comet, our reactor remained fully functional during the accident. However…”

  A pause, then: “I’ve locked myself within the bridge. So far as I can tell, the only uninfected crewmembers and passengers are those in the lifeboat, but…”

  Another pause. “However, we didn’t shut down the primary life-support system. The air circulation loop has remained functional.”

  Jeri’s face has gone pale: a butterfly floating in milk. “So the plague has spread through the entire ship. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes, Captain. So far as I can tell, everyone else aboard are either dead already or…or they’re killing each other. I’m infected, Ernsting’s infected, everyone with him has it.”