*
The NanoBiotic Agony Train ran its course as Sullivan said it would, but I was feeling better and worked on my project from my bed. Analysis of the virtual test results suggested the design was viable and could be built almost entirely with off-the-shelf components. I ran several more simulations and took the time while they were completing to document and draw up formal specifications. My idea was patentable, and I wanted to get everything as tight as possible so I could lodge an application before anyone else thought of it. I hadn't told anyone what I was working on, not even Logan. Not that I didn't trust him, but I wanted this to be all mine.
By the third day, I was getting cabin fever and went for a "stroll" around the ship. We were still coasting so there was no gravity, which made it easier on my fragile body. I made my way to the wardroom and found Giotto, Sullivan, and Grant playing poker.
"Look who it is," Giotto said. "The man who would be punch bag."
Grant stared her down then looked back at me. "Good to see you up and about, Ballen. Feeling okay?"
"Yeah, well... better."
"You shouldn't be up." Sullivan floated out of his chair and pushed himself over from the table. "I said at least a week."
"I've rested enough." A newscast was running on the 3V. It was Seckinger, making another of his frequent press briefings. Like all politicians, he was in love with the sound of his own voice. I nodded at the display, suppressing a yelp at the pain. "What's the story?"
"Seckinger is pushing his vision of the All-Parties Conference," Grant said. "You know, working together to expand into new-space and all that crap. Wants it to be held on the High-Rig, which no one else is buying into."
New-space was the term people were using to talk about the systems we'd been able to reach so far. It would be great if we could use some brains for once and solve our problems without violence and bloodshed. "Sounds sensible."
"When has sensible ever picked a winner?" Giotto grunted.
"Hey, Ballen, I heard you're a Rocket Ranger fan?" Grant said.
"Yeah, well, when I was a kid."
"Me too. I always rooted for Doctor Wingnut though. The Ranger was too much of a do-gooder for my taste."
Giotto hammered her fist on the table with a dull thud, but she was smiling. "Do we have a game on, or are you chickens scared of losing more money?"
"Come on, Ballen." Sullivan pointed to the door. "We need to get you back in the MedLab."
"We need to back off." I stared at the hand he'd put on my shoulder. "I'm heading upstairs. I'll call if I need you."
I carried on my way, but as I approached I heard raised voices—Logan's deep baritone the loudest.
"Why should they be involved? What have they ever done for us?"
"I get it. All I'm saying is that we'd be better off if we—"
That was Aurore, but she stopped when I clambered through the doorway.
"Joe?" Logan's brow furrowed. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to complain. The flowers haven't been changed in my room in days, and the caviar has gone stale."
"Are you supposed to be up?" Aurore was turned slightly away from Logan, her face tight and expressionless.
"Leave him alone," Logan said. "He wouldn't be here if he didn't feel up to it."
"I'm concerned," Aurore said, breathing deeply. "Aren't you? He's your friend too isn't he?"
"Of course, I am. Why do you twist everything I say?"
I looked across at Hernandez. He was holding on to the bulkhead next to an auxiliary computer station wearing a calculated blank expression. When our eyes locked, he shrugged, as much as to say, "Don't ask me."
"I'm not twisting anything," Aurore said. "You asked what he was doing here. Or am I not supposed to have an opinion on that either?"
I recognized the signs well enough. The storm of couples where both have something to say and neither is listening to the other or themselves. I'd had enough of these with Dollie to spot one from half a galaxy away. They needed to backtrack and regain perspective. Unfortunately, me and Dollie never let go long enough for that to happen, and resentment built like a volcano coming to a slow boil.
"I needed a change of scenery." I floated over and checked out the 3V. Seckinger was again enthusiastically exercising his larynx. "Are they still trying to get everyone to the table to collaborate on new-space development?"
"That's the problem." Logan glared at Aurore. "They're including the Atolls."
"They're human, like the rest of us," she said. "Why shouldn't they be represented?"
So that was what was behind their spat. I had my own reasons to dislike the Atolls—their domination, posturing, and selfish indifference to what happened to people on Earth was well known. Not to mention my personal issues with Paek. I knew Logan didn't like them either, but then again, most Earth people didn't.
"How long until we're ready for testing the CASTOR system?" I said, hoping a change of topic would distract them. "We've got a galaxy to explore."
"Any time really. We're waiting for you to be cleared medically. We've..." Aurore looked at Logan briefly, then back at me. "We've programmed the test patterns into the navigation system. It's only a matter of hitting the go button."
"From a MilSec perspective, I'd like to get things moving again." Hernandez spoke quietly but firmly.
I glanced at the controls. "How about we schedule it in six hours? That gives us long enough to make sure everything's secured—plus I get a few more hours of nano-enhanced recovery. I'm sure we'll all be happier to stop drifting through space and get under way."
"I can't allow that."
I turned to see Sullivan floating by the doorway, holding on to a bulkhead grip. "I thought that might be what you had in mind, Ballen. You're not recovered enough. As your de-facto doctor, I won't let you risk your life for the sake of saving a few days."
"You're fired," I said.
His face reddened, and his eyes jumped around everyone in the room. "What?"
"I'm discharging myself. You have no authority over me."
He stared at me for about two minutes then turned and dived back down the corridor.
"That's not a good idea, Joe." Logan tapped the console in front of him. "We don't need to do this."
"There's a ship out there. Lost or in trouble? We don't know." I pointed at the 3V display showing the star map. "But the longer we delay, the lower the odds of finding them alive."
After a short silence, Aurore said, "We all know their chances of survival are close to zero."
"Maybe. But I'm stubborn." I stared at Logan. "Could you take me to the MedBay? I should rest up until we start the maneuvers."
I didn't need any help, but it seemed like a good way of putting some distance between them. Once I strapped myself to the bed, I gestured for Logan to have a seat. He didn't need one in ZeeGee, but I thought it might help to normalize things a little.
"What's with you and Aurore?"
Logan looked away. "Nothing that requires discussion."
"How long have we been friends? How many times have you saved me?" I said. "You might fool other people but not me."
Logan's mouth twitched. "I seem to remember you doing your fair share of saving."
I waited, not saying anything.
"They're including the Atolls in the talks about space development," he said.
"I can't say I'm thrilled with that prospect, but politically it makes sense."
"You know the history of the Atolls? How they came about?"
I'd heard what everyone had but didn't know what Logan was driving at. "Dafazio made the initial breakthrough, didn't he? Came up with the process of engineered crystallization to grow the Atolls. He was a bit of a crazy—felt the destruction of Earth's biosphere had gone too far and the best hope of survival was to establish colonies in space. He persuaded other scientists to join him, and together they created Fibonacci, the first Atoll. Do I pass?"
Logan grunted. "They called the movement the Ninth Adjustm
ent. He manipulated everyone and everything possible to get his own way. Including us."
If you believed history, Dafazio was a cross between Machiavelli and Satan, with a dash of Rasputin for good measure. When the Atolls were first established, it robbed Earth of some of its smartest people and shackled us for decades, but I didn't understand why it seemed so personal to Logan. "We're from Earth—we were blackballed like everyone else, but the genie is out of the bottle now."
Sadness flooded Logan's face. "Not you and me, Joe. I mean the Nations."
"What?" My head seemed to spin momentarily, and it took several seconds for it to register what Logan meant.
"When Dafazio was setting up the Adjustment, he contacted the Nations. He needed somewhere to operate from, away from the spotlight of publicity. In exchange, we were supposed to get access to his new World of Hope."
I'd never heard of this. Not in all the years I'd known Logan. "What happened?"
"What always happens—we got screwed, well and truly." He snorted. "The difference was that this time around, the rest of you got it as well."
I didn't know what to say. The history of Logan's people was a long and shameful testament to brutality and painted an appalling picture of what one group of people can do when they justify it through convenient dehumanization. "So how come I don't know about this?"
The cords on his neck stood out as he spoke through clenched teeth. "We kept it quiet, buried it. Do you think we'd want it to get out that we'd been fooled again?"
"I'm truly sorry, Logan." It didn't seem enough. "For all of it."
Logan stood and breathed deeply, his powerful chest swelling. "You know the really stupid thing?"
I couldn't imagine anything that could beat what he'd already said, so I stayed quiet, feeling embarrassed and ashamed.
"When everybody else had to deal with Atoll prejudice, people realized how bad it felt to be treated the way my people had been for centuries, and things actually improved. We were finally all in the same damn boat."
"That explains a lot. But I don't see how they can exclude them from the talks. We'd end up in an interstellar war—and for the most part they'd still have the upper hand. Does Aurore know about this?"
"Perhaps war is inevitable." Logan sighed. "I've never told her. Like I said, it's not something openly discussed. You're probably the only one outside the Nations who knows."
It was an honor in some ways, and I felt humbled that Logan had shared it with me. "Maybe you should."
He looked away. "She shouldn't need me to tell her in order to support me."
I smiled at him. "Which would you rather do—fight with her or explain?"
"When did you become a relationship counselor?"
"Once it was too late."
He nodded and zipped through the door like a fish, leaving me feeling tired, confused, and yet strangely hopeful. For him and Aurore but also for humanity's future in space. With enough of us pulling the same way, could we all end up winning for once? I grunted, cinching the safety strap to stop me floating out of bed and put my head down. Those NanoBiotics must be poisoning my brain's natural store of cynicism.
Chapter Eight
I woke to Sullivan pulling my hand, and he wasn't being gentle. It felt like the flesh under the MediSkin was tearing apart. "You still upset because I wouldn't let you keep playing doctor on me?" I growled, struggling to clear my head.
For all the good the NanoBiotics had done, they hadn't helped my hand. They'd been targeted there, but I'd been kind of hoping some would get lost and find their way. Unfortunately, they were all too dutiful, confining their work to the main injury sites.
"There's no cure for stupidity." Sullivan couldn't stop himself from checking the diagnostic readouts above the bed. "You're in poor shape for high-g tests. I strongly suggest we postpone for another two days at least."
"How long until we begin?"
"Has anyone ever told you you're a stubborn bastard?" Sullivan let out a sigh. "First sequence in fifteen."
"Both. Many times." I unfastened the restraints and floated off the bed, orienting myself while gripping a handhold. The truth was I wasn't feeling so good. What sleep I'd gotten seemed to make me feel weaker. "I better get upstairs, and you need to get strapped in."
The bunks in the cabins were multi-purpose and could function as acceleration couches as well as beds. The planned maneuvers weren't high enough to turn people to jelly, but anyone who wasn't restrained would be a perfect guinea pig for impact trauma research.
Logan and Aurore were at their stations when I swam through the door, and a large counter was ticking down on the main display.
"How goes the war?" I said looking from one to the other.
They both laughed. "Better, thank you," Aurore said.
I strapped myself into the main piloting seat.
"Room for one more?" Hernandez pulled himself into a spare seat. "I made sure the kiddies were tucked away before I came up."
"You'll be disappointed," I said. "There won't be much to see."
"That's what I told my last girlfriend."
My mouth was as dry as Pinocchio's cremated ashes, and I swallowed a mouthful of coffee. It didn't help much, and my leg started quivering. The on-screen counter dropped to zero. I activated the command sequence for the first tests then opened a ship-wide comm channel. "All hands. Prepare for first maneuver in thirty seconds. Four-g deceleration for ten seconds."
"Starting out gently," Hernandez muttered.
"Ten." I counted off the remaining seconds. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
We tumbled, as if we'd clipped an asteroid, so fast that it left my brain lurching. It stabilized briefly and then I was kicked in the spine by an invisible elephant.
"Jesus," Aurore whispered.
"Breathe," I called out. Logan gasped next to me, and I heard a groan from Hernandez.
The pressure continued until I thought the seat would drill through my tailbone. Then as fast as it arrived, it was gone. We tumbled again, in a sickening roll that left my head spinning, but the instruments confirmed the move had returned the ship to its original heading.
Hernandez coughed. "What in bog's name was that?"
"Whirling Dervish maneuver," Aurore said. "Rotates the ship to coincide with the thrust axis so the acceleration couches are always down."
"That was deliberate?" Hernandez looked incredulous.
Logan grinned. "Be grateful. Otherwise we'd be thrown against the restraints."
"Remember mama's scrambled eggs? Next maneuver in thirty seconds. Six-g deceleration, twenty seconds." I braced myself as I counted down.
Again, I was hit by a wave of nausea as we spun around, and this time the elephant brought along his vindictive brother for good measure. The pressure sent a stab of pain through my injured shoulders. I grunted at the spasm and fought to control my breathing. The lights in the room seemed to darken, and fireflies danced through my field of vision. When the ship lurched back around, I heard someone retch. I wasn't sure who, as I was busy trying not to do the same.
The next test executed, and I struggled to read the screen, announcing it by sheer force of will. This one was a straightforward acceleration sequence without the sickening lurch as a preliminary, but it still had all the crushing g-force.
After that it was a case of maneuver, recover, repeat. The series took almost an hour to complete, and by the time we'd finished, we were all planning on investing heavily in vomit bag shares. The g-force, it turned out, was just the icing. The real puke inducers were the wild tumbles as the ship switched rotations in all three axes to align the thrust.
I felt like a week-old corpse that had been resurrected for the sole purpose of being kicked to death once more. I rubbed my forehead gingerly, and my hand came away slick with blood. Sullivan had been right—it had been too early to try it. Not that I'd ever admit it to him or anyone else—Ballens are made of sterner, and dumber, stuff.
"Everyone okay?" I struggled to look aroun
d.
Logan mumbled something that could have been a yes, and Hernandez was coughing.
"Aurore?" I forced my head around.
"Please don't look at me." She unbuckled her seat straps and seconds later was out the door.
Hernandez triggered the ship-wide comm. "Grant? You guys alive down there?"
There was a delay of several minutes before we heard anything.
"Yeah, we're okay." Grant paused. "Sullivan missed the goddamn barf bag."
I finally managed to check the ship's diagnostic readouts. There were several orange and red lights blinking on the screen. "Time to get cleaned up. Looks like we have some patching to do."
The Shokasta hadn't been designed to handle such stresses, so we were pushing the structure beyond its design parameters. Thankfully most of the damage was simple to fix. The CASTOR plumbing had sprung leaks at various points, and the control splicing had shaken itself loose, but we had everything patched up and reinforced within a few hours. Hernandez had his team on clean-up duty after Sullivan's disaster in the crew quarters, so even the sour puke smell was mostly gone.
I met back up with Aurore and Logan, feeling hot and sticky after dragging myself awkwardly from one handhold to another. I needed nerve-tranq but wanted to analyze the test performance first.
"Remind me never to be an Aeromobile passenger with you at the wheel," I said to Aurore. "That was vicious."
She laughed. "Do women drivers scare you?"
I stopped, my lighthearted mood evaporating. "Not until recently."
Logan brought up the test logs on the screen. "Analyzing these might let us tune the maneuvers to put less strain on the ship."
"The ship's doing fine," I said. "It's the crew that needs help."
Aurore ignored my feeble attempt at a joke and got straight to the point. "Now we go to Mars?"
I couldn't see any reason not to and programmed the course into the navigation system, then triggered the ship-wide comm. "Prepare for acceleration and gravity in ten minutes."
"I'm heading back to my bunk to rest up some more. To be honest, I'm glad we can't make more than one-third g at the moment."
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