by Diane Carey
With the speed of a snakebite, Ned latched his dirty hand onto Adam’s throat. Blackened brass polish smeared under the boy’s chin as he flinched back, banging both elbows on the wall.
Ned felt his own eyes burning, but now with the limits to which he’d been pushed. “Now, that’s enough. Keep your tongue civil. Or keep it in your head.”
The slight clench of his jaw sent its own message.
Adam’s aristocratic blue eyes were icy, but communicative. He tipped his head back, submitting to the pressure of Ned’s hand. His eyes, though, never wavered. Had he been put in his place? Or merely postponed?
No way to tell.
When someone stepped through the forward hatchway, Ned moved one finger away from Adam’s throat. A moment later, the rest. By the time his sister and Leigh came all the way in, he had withdrawn his grip entirely. His fingers felt as if they were about to fall off.
He looked up at his sister, filled with unpleasant thoughts of what might happen to her out here if things went wrong. Then he tried to squelch those thoughts, knowing that ideas had been put in his head by the calculations of Adam Bay.
“I told you he’d still be here,” Leigh said to Robin. The two girls looked down at the two boys.
“You tell him,” Robin said.
“But I’m not that sure.”
“You sounded sure when you told me. Heaven’s sake, have a bit of confidence.”
“Well…”
“Yes, what news is it that we can’t do without?” Adam challenged.
Leigh met his glare firmly. “You don’t impress me.”
Robin poked her. “Tell!”
“I think something’s going on.” Leigh lowered her voice. “I’ve been working with the astro-navigation system. I’ve been checking the astronomy around us. I think the captain’s lying to us.”
Ned stood up. “What do you mean, lying, Leigh?”
“He told us he wanted to make a couple of local pickups—local—then go straight to Zone Emerald as soon as possible. But we’re going in the wrong direction.”
“He didn’t say anything about local meetings,” Adam said. “He said we’d make some pickups and deliveries.”
“But I heard him tell Dana that those meetings would be at the apogee of Planet 4 in the Tycho star system. I think he just wanted to get her off his back. We’re heading on a completely wrong trajectory. If he wants to get to Zone Emerald, why are we heading the other way?”
She told him with her eyes the rest of the story—that she was afraid, that she had discovered things with her astronomical charting skills that perhaps the captain didn’t realize she had figured out. That there might be danger if he knew.
They heard more noise through the hatch. Ned quickly raised his finger to his lips, and Leigh backed off, glancing only at Robin in a way that would keep their secret.
Ned looked down at Adam, still seated comfortably on the deck, and hoped his glance was adequate warning. But he knew he couldn’t stop Adam from saying anything to anyone.
A moment later Dana came in, leading Chris and Dan, and trailing the little aberration—Pearl Floy.
“Where’s everybody?” Dana asked. “We called all hands for the cadet crew. We have a new station bill for the next three days.”
“I’m here,” Adam announced, and got to his feet.
He had to stand aside as more cadets poured through the forward hatch. Dylan, Mary, Stewart… and behind them, Captain Pangborn himself.
When he saw the captain, Ned grew cold in the gut and quickly began, “Oh—Dana…”
“Yes, Ned?” She turned to him, but before he could address her, she shook her head and pulled the blackened chamois out of his hands. “That’s enough of this. I’m taking you off this duty. Don’t even clean up. I’ll get somebody else to do that.”
He glanced at the captain. Pangborn watched the interaction with practiced reserve.
“I have to make a… a report…” he began. “I apologize that I’ve not seen you until now…”
“No need to apologize,” the first mate said. “Make your report.”
He squirmed and summoned every bit of will and recall. “The captain wanted a survey… on the weaving roves in sections nine, twelve… and twenty… and thirteen… and he wants the tilt-lockers and screws…”
He began to sweat around the neck. Behind the captain, he saw his sister mouthing numbers, but couldn’t make them out. Leigh, even farther away, was making little hand signals. “Two” with one hand, “one” with the other… what did that mean?
The captain knew what he wanted done, but he simply folded his arms and let Ned sweat it out.
“And the transmissions and the turning davits… after three hundred hours…”
“Three hundred?” Dana asked. “You mean this morning or tomorrow morning?”
Pangborn shifted on his locked legs and sniffed, saying nothing to help Ned.
Stewart’s eyes were wide under his brown bangs. His lips were tight, teeth together, sending mental waves.
“I, um…” Ned quaked for another five seconds, then knew he was finished. He used his wrist to brush a lock of dark hair out of his eyes.
No, nervousness wasn’t helping. He’d failed and he knew it. Time to be a man and own up.
He squared his shoulders and looked at the captain. “Pardon me, Captain, but I’m not able to fulfill this assignment. I don’t recall enough of the details. I don’t want anything on the ship to go wrong because of my failing.”
Dana pressed her lips tight at the sight of his aching hands and could tell by the way he held them that he was hurting and exhausted. She awarded him with a smile of admiration. She put her hand on his shoulder and patted it.
“Ned,” she said, “you’re a trooper.”
Everything suddenly stopped. The hills opened and the skies began to sing. Angels began a chorus of alleluias. Ned’s hands and shoulders and his back and knees were healed. Thankless work was no longer thankless. He knew he would have worked all night more for that compliment, and for the gazes of respect from his fellow cadets.
Then something new happened. A new voice began speaking.
“Check the woven roving in sections nine, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, twenty, twenty-two. Lube points he wants serviced, tilt-lock levers, clamp screws, throttle bearings, starboard side relief valbs, winch tran-missions, autogimbals. Check turning quadrant of davit Charlie-Alpha. Shimmying.”
They all turned sharply. It was Pearl. Her dried-prune voice continued its otherworldly monologue.
“And I want to replace all the Cobb-coils during their three hundred hour checks. And not happy with the flow along the inboard strongback in the starboard flank bay. Hull vibrations.”
The room changed as she spoke. Those standing near her had backed away—Stewart and Mary. Pearl now stood alone at one end of the salon, with the rest of the cadets, Pangborn and Dana bunched at the other end. Only Adam actually moved forward, driven by fascination, to the front of the bunch, but not all the way to Pearl.
Her round eyes fixed on him. Her brows went up in wonderment.
“And replace the air-cooled dasher blocks.”
Finished with the report, she closed her mouth and scratched her knee.
In unintended chorus, spellbound, both Ned and Dana uttered, “Thanks…”
Intrigued, Captain Pangborn took charge. He strode toward Pearl. Halfway there, he paused at a cabinet with a special magnetic lock, and punched in the code. When the cabinet sprung open, he pulled out a handheld compad and used it to pull up a data screen. He flipped the screen over and held it in front of Pearl’s face. Then he pushed the button that would scroll information at a rate too fast to read.
“Take a look at this, Pearl,” he said.
Pearl’s eyes fixed on the screen. Ned could only imagine the numbers and codes flying past her. The lights and colors flashed on her pasty face. Page after page, line after line.
“Captain,” Dana began. She stepped f
orward.
He cut her off. “Wait.”
She stopped.
The lights flashed on Pearl’s face. Her eyes didn’t move, and she didn’t blink. Only her mouth corners turned up in a Mona Lisa smile.
Captain Pangborn snapped the compad away from her, turned it to face himself, and ran several pages, then stopped randomly on one. “Where’s the Larkowski Nelson Bailey container number 94 A?”
Pearl picked at her own fingernails, digging and peeling. “On the left side… port side… row three hundred and six, twelve up, nineteen deep. Clearance code nine-nine-T-Z-Z-X. Lock combination and passwords seven-seven-three-dash-Medusa-orange-Lucy-amoeba-Tommy.”
The ship’s company reacted—some with a nervous laugh, some with, “Wow!” and “Oh!” and “Crap…” and others with astonished silence.
Ned pushed forward to Adam’s side, amazed.
Adam felt his presence and moved even more forward. “Pearl, what are the odds of a collision between two Earth-sized planetary bodies if the Swan Galaxy were ever to pass on an angle fifty degrees to the plane through the middle of the Milky Way?”
“Fourteen thousand quintillion point nine to the twelfth power.”
Robin gasped and pressed her hands to her mouth.
Adam took one more step toward Pearl. “What will be the day of the week on February 29 in the year 45,067?”
“There won’t be one. It’s a leap year.”
“Did you know that?” Ned quickly asked Adam.
“It was a trick question. I had a one in four chance. Pearl, what’s the weekday of same date the following year?”
“Tuesday.”
Ned pushed forward, stepping past his realization of how smart Adam also was. “Pearl, how many hairs are there on my head?”
“One hundred nine thousand fifteen.”
“Oh, my lord—” Dana gasped.
Pearl pointed her waxy index finger as if casting a spell at Robin. “One hundred twelve thousand two.” Then at Leigh. “One hundred forty thousand nine hundred seven.” And most passionately at Adam— “One hundred fifty thousand two hundred… three.”
They stared at her as if they’d opened up a lunch box and found a Caliban in there.
“Pearl,” Adam challenged, “what did your father say to your mother at 6:30 p.m. on the Saturday night before they disappeared?”
“Nothing. He wasn’t home.”
“At 8:30, then.”
“‘Get this mutt off the couch. He’s shedding.’”
Dan, standing behind Dana, uttered, “Crikey… it’s sorcery!”
Mary, standing with her usual quiet caution on the other side of the salon, gripped Chris by the arm and gulped, “Jesus…”
But Adam wasn’t finished. He bent slightly forward, glaring at Pearl. “What happened to your parents?”
In Ned’s periphery, Mary began to tremble. Chris clasped her tightly against him. Robin and Leigh closed the space between them and huddled together. They were terrified.
“Stop that!” Ned stepped between Adam and Pearl, but faced the other boy defensively. “She has a right to her privacy.”
But Adam was already on to the next point. He ignored Ned and blurted, “This explains it!” He clapped his hands once, sending a collective flinch through the salon.
“I have to go,” Pearl said, not exactly asking. “I have to play with my birds. They’re waiting.”
The captain lowered his brows. “Your birds?”
“My baby birds are waiting for me.”
“Oh, sure. You go play with your baby birds.”
Pearl made a funny laugh and square-pegged her way out through the aft hatch.
“Birds… ?” Dan echoed when she was gone.
“She’s pretending,” the captain assured. “Like a toddler.” He turned to Adam. “What explains her?”
“She’s an ultra-savant!” the boy told him. “There’s only one born every couple thousand years. Maybe a hundred of them in all of human history, including the ones who were killed as witches!”
Leigh gazed in wonder at the space where Pearl had stood a moment ago. “You mean she’s smarter than all of us?”
“No, she’s not smarter.” Adam raised his own finger to make a specific point. “It’s a skill, not a talent. And it has costs. She probably can’t make leaps of logic or understand abstract concepts any better than a small child. She probably can’t assemble plans or think too far into the past or future, even though she remembers everything she’s ever seen or heard. Even peripherally. It also explains why she’s so uncoordinated. Her brain is busy with other things than muscle control.”
Leigh’s quick mind was also working on this new idea. “Are you saying she’s a human databank?”
“No, there’s more to it than that. Even computers can’t do everything she does. Computers can only do what they’re programmed to do. This is probably why Emerald University wants her at this new establishment of intellectuals and science—”
“What else can she do?” the captain interrupted.
Adam paused and thought about that, sifting for an answer, and he seemed both bothered and fascinated that he didn’t have one. “It’s possible nobody even knows yet. And we won’t know… until she does it.”
* * *
“Why are we headed in the wrong direction?”
Dana followed Thomas Pangborn into the charthouse. Feeling overloaded, she had pursued him halfway across the ship, asking the same question.
But now that they were here, in private, in officers’ country where no one else could possibly overhear, she had a new question for him.
“Are you trafficking in contraband?”
Pangborn drew a long breath through his nose and sighed it out. “Lot of nerve asking me that.”
She ignored his feigned indignation. “Do you have a golden goose aboard this ship?”
“No, of course not. That’s interesting, about that douche-bait henbane girl, isn’t it? She really does have a reason to be here after all. ‘Ultra-savant’—”
“Goddamn it!” Dana slammed her fist against the display casing. The visuals on the two closest monitors destabilized and were shot through with static. “Tell me the truth!”
Pangborn calmly went to the beverage dispenser and keyed in the code for his coffee. His shoulders tightened, then relaxed as he decided what to say. He paused, picked at his teeth with a fingernail, and leaned his buttocks on the console’s cushioned rim. “It’s not contraband.”
“Oh, shit!” she spat. “You left me out of information like this? Not contraband, my ass! It can’t be anything else!”
“It’s no more contraband than having your little Manker shepherd stowaways aboard among a band of specimens who at least earned their way here,” he insisted. “It’s top-secret copyrighted technology and part of the contract is a no-peeking clause. I had no choice or we wouldn’t have gotten the shipment—”
“Like hell you didn’t,” she seethed. “The first officer aboard a ship of this class is a qualified captain in the fleet and is supposed to be informed of every—every command-level interest. Everything on this ship is considered need-to-know for me and you know it, and so do the people who hired that shipment, and it includes every aspect of the freight! What are we carrying and who exactly is coming to pick it up?”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“Does Captain Alley know about this?”
“His ship is his own business.”
“Meaning no! He didn’t! I know Nick Alley! Who’s working against him on his own ship?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“Who’s coming, Captain? Who’s coming to this ship? We have innocent children aboard! You’re not allowed to open this vessel to boarders of any kind without complete clearance and an open regulation book in your hand!”
“They’re friends of mine.”
“Is that supposed to work?”
Pangborn turned away from her and pretended inte
rest in the navcoms. “You’re making too much out of this. The regulations don’t run this ship. I do. We’re out here, this is happening, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“What are their names and clearances?” she demanded. “I want to run background checks.”
“They don’t have ‘backgrounds.’”
Dana flopped her arms. “Oh, perfect! Smugglers!”
“Look,” he said evenly, “you’d better accept whatever I tell you to accept.” He turned to her. His calmness was shocking. “These people know me. They don’t know you. You don’t have enough crew here to mount a mutiny, and if you do anything to neutralize me, they’ll wipe out every living thing on this ship. If you’re smart, and you are, you’ll let me handle these people. Trust me—you don’t want to deal with them. I already gave them authorization to board the minute they arrive. They’ll just come here and walk right in. See how easy it is to do business? They’re only here to pick up one box, and they’ll be gone into the night. It’s no big deal unless you make it a big deal. Just go about your own business and keep those brats out of the way. By morning it’ll all be over. Quit having a hissy. Be flexible.”
Dana almost threw up. She sank back, astonished, and let her arms drop to her sides as if he’d slapped her. She shook her head slowly in dismay and disappointment.
“This stinks,” she snarled.
Pangborn didn’t look at her. He clicked on the proximity display, and there on the deep-distance scopes was a blip. A red blip of approaching body. Another ship on an approach vector.
“Then plug your nose,” he said.
* * *
Pretty dark. Tip-tip toes. Don’t fall. It’s always bad to fall.
Always break something, tear something, some muscles, some bones. Patella. Femur. Ilium, ishium, lunate, malleus, ossicles, coracobrachialis, condyloid…
Such pretty bones, with all the muscles running around and around. Cubital fossa. Zygomatic. Nasal. Maxillae, palatine, lacrimal, sacrum, coccyxlunatetrqiquetriumpisiformTrapeziumtrapezoidcapitatehamate—