Escape

by Blaze Ward

  The MedCrawler had appeared and was shining a sensor at him.

  “Are you well, Lazarus?” Lenox asked.

  “I think so,” he replied.

  “What was that?” Wolcott asked.

  “Stress, I think,” Lazarus replied. “All of the everything just boiled over on me and my body had a reaction. I should be better.”

  Kuei, of all people, helped him to his feet, but she was a muscular tripod, so she could do that.

  “So how did you manage to find this space?” Wolcott asked in a quieter tone.

  “Luck,” Lazarus said with complete honesty. “My ship was already coming apart, so I got into the boat as she did. As the captain, I was the last person aboard, the others having escaped at the end of the battle to be captured. I was intent on destroying Ajax, so I blasted clear on a random course designed to destroy the vessel. Once that was done, I took the koch.”

  He knew he was rambling, but Lazarus had given it much thought yesterday and this morning to his story, and what he was saying was generally close enough to the truth that he wouldn’t trip himself up with a lie later.

  “So you don’t know where the wreckage of your ship ended up?” Wolcott asked, obviously interested in the possibility of salvage.

  “The information was stored in the koch,” Lazarus said. “In the computers that were located aft before they were destroyed.”

  “Pity, but just as well,” Wolcott mused. “You will be interesting enough to explain to authorities as an unknown alien species. Your ship might have caused the Innruld to get involved.”

  “They don’t care about aliens like me?” Lazarus was amazed.

  “Oh, they care, but only so far as they need to classify you and make sure you aren’t bringing any diseases aboard a ship or station, and their flunkies will handle that task,” the Director smiled. “Lenox will provide them those records.”

  “And what cover story will you use for me?” Lazarus asked.

  “A variant of the truth.” Wolcott seemed to relax now. “Shipwrecked sailor of unknown type. Possibly an explorer, possibly a runaway from some other ship, since you know Innruld well enough already. If we blame some other ship for failing to report you, perhaps one crewed entirely by Kuei’s kind, that should cause suspicion to fall elsewhere.”

  “That’s mean,” the Helmswoman spoke up suddenly.

  “She has it coming, Kuei,” Wolcott looked over as he snapped. “For a variety of reasons.”

  “True, but setting the Innruld on her won’t make her happy.”

  “And she dare not do anything about it without confirming non-existent suppositions on the part of our overlords,” Wolcott sounded cruel now. “Thus causing them to spend even more time going over her records and history. I win either way.”

  Lazarus didn’t feel like asking, but could smell the bad blood. Must be old rivals or friends of Kuei Akeley. Perhaps former crewmates who had done her and Director Wolcott wrong at some point?

  And they traveled at an FTL speed through some sort of alternate universe they called trans-space. Thank God nobody had apparently understood the flash of blue light when the koch jumped.

  Now he really needed to keep Ajax hidden and secret until he could steal a ship and return here. The Innruld sounded almost as bad as Westphalia, or he might consider giving them a tech upgrade and aiming them at Earth.

  Better to overthrow both and let the galaxy right itself afterwards. He had never imagined how many intelligent species there must be out here.

  Lenox insisted on a checkup aft where he had extra equipment, so the conversation with Wolcott was cut short, but that just meant fewer lies right now while he processed what story he could tell them.

  If he told them anything more.

  He owed them for the rescue, but interstellar law supposedly required a ship to stop and assist other ships and marooned sailors. Ethics as well.

  He would see just how far that would carry them.

  Or him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Addison

  Addison sat in his office, just aft of the bridge next to the primary escape pod. They would be another day getting clear of the nebula and pivoting back to Innruld space for the run to Dormell. He had time to come up with a good story to cover his extra crewmember, since he wasn’t supposed to even be in the Phraettis Nebula in the first place.

  It was Lazarus that concerned him. Perhaps the human had an emotional overload moment, but the concept of FTL had been what set him off in the first place.

  How in the Six Hells did humans cross trans-space? Most of the area beyond the nebula was unknown and unexplored. Did the humans come from that direction? That he knew the Moah and the Gnashiiley lent credence to the theory. The Atomarsk worlds were supposedly so far away that they were just legends in these sectors of space, but the other two were species one might encounter if you went far enough.

  But Addison was sure that the human didn’t cross trans-space the same way as Shiva Zephyr Glaive. How the hell did he do it? What secrets had been lost?

  Now, more than ever, Wybert’s casual mistake in destroying that tiny ship weighed heavily. Had Addison lost the opportunity to break the Innruld’s hold over the other species?

  Worse, should he come clean with Lazarus about his true purpose and enlist the human’s help? Load up the ship with supplies and try to locate the human homeworlds so he could buy or steal their technology if it was better?

  The trade routes he might open would pay for such a voyage all by itself, but Addison had no interest in making the Innruld overlords even more wealthy than they were now. Or letting them take over such trade.

  No, those eight containers aft would do enough damage to Innruld society. Who could have imagined that a simple weed that grew by the side of the road on a Vaadwig world could be refined into an intoxicant so perfectly designed to trap the more weak-minded of the Innruld into a narcotic dependence severe enough to disrupt lives and families?

  Perhaps, dear overlords, if you had not subjugated the rest of us, we wouldn’t be so interested in destroying you? Wouldn’t go moving heaven and earth for the tools to overthrow you from the inside out?

  Wouldn’t consider asking a human what weapons his kind might have that could break the Innruld forever?

  Because he had seen it in Lazarus’s eyes, right before the madness hit. Culture shock, but more importantly, technology shock.

  Addison keyed the comm to the engine room.

  “Ereshkiki Nisab, could you join me in my office, please?” Addison asked when the Qooph answered.

  “Momentarily,” the being replied before cutting the circuit.

  Addison meditated on the issue, but no solution presented itself. Worse, was the human a spy sent to determine their own technology before invading? Was that species so far advanced that they could simply step in and replace the overlords with their own cruelties, whatever those might be?

  The ancient tale of the djinn would not leave his mind. A powerful, magical spirit trapped in a bottle. If you released him, he might grant you four wishes, and he might just decide to destroy you instead.

  The hatch slid aside and Addison’s Systems Mechanic entered, coming to rest by deflating one of his roller sacks to plant a hex-side on the deck.

  “What troubles you, Addison Wolcott?” the Qooph asked, quietly. Only three voices spoke.

  Addison closed the hatch and locked it before he spoke.

  “I had the human, Lazarus, on the bridge earlier,” Addison replied. “He seemed shocked and surprised that the ship was in trans-space. In. That seemed a foreign concept to him.”

  “Most interesting,” Ereshkiki Nisab answered. “Did he clarify how humans did it?”

  “He did not,” Addison said. “In fact, he had a medical incident in response. He put it down to overall shock, but I wonder.”

  “How else would they cross the depths of space?” the Systems Mechanic probed.

  “I leave that to your speculation and wr
iters of the fantastical,” Addison replied. “I am more interested in the other half of his story. He said his ship was nearly destroyed and he abandoned it into the smaller ship we did destroy before it went. But he was also confused when I asked which of the few pathways into the nebula he had flown. As if he had not needed one of the secret trails.”

  “Interesting, indeed,” the wheelman rocked side to side a little on his rims, a thing he did when he was deep in thought.

  “I would ask you to consult your old records when you have a chance, Ereshkiki Nisab,” Addison said. “Yours is the eldest of the star-faring races. Is there perhaps another way to travel other than through trans-space? And have your kind ever encountered humans in your wanderings before the Innruld rose in conquest?”

  “I have had the same thoughts, Addison Wolcott,” the Qooph stopped rocking and one eye focused hard in his face. “When we reach Dormell I will pass a message along to the Elders of the Wide Road to tap their wisdom. It is possible that some memory of Lazarus’s kind remains.”

  “Good, my friend,” Addison continued. “The other conundrum is whether or not we should seek the human worlds ourselves for the trade and technological potential. Can we keep such a thing secret? Or is the human a spy sent among us as a prelude to conquest? Lazarus has mentioned great battles in space between large groups of warships. The Innruld have nothing like that at present.”

  “There are none that could challenge them,” Ereshkiki Nisab said.

  “Exactly,” Addison agreed. “But what if there was such a threat? What if the humans could take the overlords down?”

  “Would they free us, or just replace our masters?” Ereshkiki Nisab asked.

  “Or even seek to eliminate us, as Lazarus claims would be the policy of Westphalia,” Addison replied. “Not just subjugating our worlds, but clearing them for human colonization.”

  “This is why you are a much better Director than I could ever be, Addison Wolcott,” the Qooph laughed with at least two mouths as he spoke with others. “Even with six eyes, I cannot see the various twists and turns as well as you can. Do we ask the human or does that risk alerting him to our suspicions?”

  “We watch,” Addison said. “We take him to Dormell and perhaps allow him to continue to fly with us. Or to seek alternate transport home, if that is his goal. We can always alert the Innruld and let them take him into custody if he does seem to be a spy, but that option burns all the others. At least until we know his heart.”

  “Did he not say that he had taken a new name with the rebirth of surviving that battle?” Ereshkiki Nisab asked. “Become a new person in some ethical and moral mechanism?”

  “He did,” Addison answered.

  “And you have not yet seen enough to judge?”

  “In the heat of anger, the truth emerges,” Addison quoted the old maxim. “Hopefully our human will be well enough to be additionally stressed before Dormell, Ereshkiki Nisab. I would have his truth.”

  “Or his soul?”

  “Better his than ours, Ereshkiki Nisab,” Addison replied. “Especially with the secrets that you and I carry.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lazarus

  He had been cleared for duty but Lazarus was only physically well. His mind still could not grasp some sort of hyperspatial transit capability that was slow enough to notice. How did you see to steer? Or did you?

  Too much to learn, but he dared not tell Director Wolcott the depths of his ignorance without revealing the tremendous technological leap forward that star drives represented. To arrive somewhere in between blinks of an atomic clock instead of sailing like the old-fashioned thruster-cruisers that humans had used within their system before the first Atomarsk ships suddenly appeared overhead?

  It had taken centuries before the star drives were born. Had that technology never made it beyond the Rio Alliance and Westphalia?

  So much to learn. From the stories over breakfast and dinner last night, the nebula that was supposed to have been his grave apparently separated zones of the galaxy similar to how the oceans had once done on Earth. Stars so densely packed that Ajax should have hit one.

  Shiva Zephyr Glaive was apparently cautiously feeling her way out through one of several secret trails. He almost felt like Leonidas at Thermopylae, wondering when the Persians might emerge from the hills to fall on his back.

  At least Director Wolcott was some level of criminal, with no love for the Innruld. Lazarus might have time to plan a way home. Or steal a ship and long-sail it across the intervening thousand light-years if he could.

  Today, Aileen had him restacking boxes in the main cargo hold to make things more efficient. It was hard work, but apparently he had twice the upper body strength of anyone else on the crew. That made sense, considering he shared this atmosphere with a Churquen, a Qooph, a Vaadwig, a Yithadreph, a Kr’mari, a Tarni, an Ilount, a Necherle, and two Crawlers.

  Didn’t most jokes start that way? Perhaps with a bar and a traveling salesman thrown in for good measure?

  He could do this. Pick up a box two feet cubed and lurch from one stack to another as she marked things on a checklist. The occasional awe he saw in her eyes told him how hard this would have been for everyone else to do. The crates tended to run fifty to one hundred pounds, with the ones heavier than that marked in purple.

  Those he would do with a powered handtruck not all that different from the kind Ajax carried. Physics was physics, after all. Slide a pair of forks under a wooden pallet, or grip something by the sides if it was on the deck directly. Pump up the hydraulics to lift it. Drag it around by dead weight.

  Even on wheels, some of these weighed more than he did, and the deck had a rough pattern raised to induce friction, so he couldn’t just squat down and slide them across the floor easily.

  Lazarus knew he would pay for this level of manual labor later, but there were more than one hundred containers in here, mostly one-or two-foot boxes, plus a set of standard cylindrical tanks about a foot across and four feet tall. The colors of the metal apparently had nothing to do with the contents, so he had to look closely at the labels attached and occasionally sound things out phonetically before he touched them.

  Aileen seemed to appreciate his care and patience with those as well, which told him how explosive some of them must be.

  He took the current box and stacked it three high in a corner, in a place where the rest of the crew might need an overhead crane to get it down later. But doing things this way also opened up a lot of space if they could use the corners more effectively to move things around.

  “That’s that,” Aileen said, checking the last item off her list. “Inspectors at Dormell will be able to look directly at the containers we’re off-loading and depart that much faster. Thank you. It would have taken me at least another two days, and we have added up almost twenty percent volume capacity using the space under the catwalks like this.”

  “You’re most welcome,” Lazarus said with a little bit of a gasp. “Now what?”

  “This was supposed to take all day today and most of tomorrow, so I suppose a break for now,” Aileen said. “You can always mop up some more decking, unless you’re ready to learn vehicle maintenance from Wybert or work on electrical or hydraulic tasks under Ereshkiki Nisab.”

  “Yes, a break would be better,” Lazarus said. “Does the ship have a library? I would like to learn anything about where we’re going. I didn’t even know Innruld space existed two days ago.”

  She got nervous. Twitchy, even. Eyed him sidelong for several moments. Not quite enough to make him nervous, but Lazarus wondered what minefield he had just wandered into.

  “You read Innruld?” she finally asked in a low, quiet tone.

  “Interlac,” he corrected her. “They appear to be close enough in the written form that they are the same language, or were at one point. Mandarin and Cantonese, as it were.”

  Blank look. Non-human who has never heard of Beijing or Hong Kong.

  “Two langu
ages on the human homeworld,” he tried to explain. “Both evolved regionally from a common verbal ancestor in distant history and share the same written form.”

  She nodded, still confused, but perhaps in a different direction now.

  “You don’t have a reader,” she said simply.

  “I have nothing but the clothes on my back,” Lazarus nodded back at her, reminding her how he came to be here.

  “I have a few books you might borrow to read,” she said so quietly Lazarus wasn’t actually sure she had spoken.

  And she appeared to blush as she did. Weird.

  Apparently the day intended to keep getting more strange instead of less.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Follow me,” Aileen ordered.

  Lazarus wiped his dirty hands on his pants and made a note to ask about doing laundry soon, as well as finding more clothing, although he expected he would have to make something for himself given the proportions around here. And the lack of bipeds in much of the crew.

  Her cabin was the middle of the five small ones on the main deck, Director Wolcott apparently having a double closest to the bridge. As Lazarus had surmised earlier, the ship had been heavily modified to include a shallow pool about seven feet across and maybe eighteen inches deep, on a raised platform with a lip and a drain.

  Lazarus blushed to himself as he realized that Aileen probably slept nude while floating, much like the Terran otter she resembled. But he’d already seen her nude. Scrubbed her back in the shower.

  Let’s just pile up the weirdness with some frosting.

  Aileen left the hatch open as she entered, but he stayed back at the threshold, leaning against the frame. Her cabin was otherwise like his, with the addition of a metal bookcase in one corner where he had coathooks emerging from the wall. And clothes hung from the back of a chair and what looked like a vest tossed on the floor having missed what his brain interpreted as a laundry hamper. Thirty or forty volumes of books caught his eye, from slender to thick and apparently bound with cloth rather than leather, across a spectrum, but mostly in black.