“Ensign Zubaideh,” my memory supplied. She smiled. The other three EarthFleeters sipped and watched politely. “Can I get you something?” said Zubaideh.
I glanced at Stone; he was rigid with disapproval. “I’d love some soup, if you don’t mind.”
“Any particular flavor?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
She tapped a combination, her long fingers moving too quickly on the input pad for me to see what. “The news said you were back. But then we heard a rumor that you’d been taken to Vengeful. ”
“Which news is that?”
She passed me the cup of hot liquid. “ The Voice. You know, it used to be Dan Florida’s service.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you back permanently?” said one of the others, a young man with a quiet air. He placed his empty cup in the recycle slot.
“Commander Halley is here temporarily,” said Stone. He smiled insincerely at the ensigns. “She’s on her way back to Earth.”
“Oh,” said the young man.
Zubaideh glanced from Stone to me. “I guess we’re lucky you are here now. I mean, we beat the Q’Chn last time, so we can do it again. Come on, guys. Back to the consoles. Nice to see you again, Commander.”
“You too, Ensign.” I nodded to the others and they left, returning down the corridor we’d come along.
I swallowed a mouthful of soup too quickly and burned my tongue. But it tasted good. Not sure what it tasted of, kind of something-and-corn. With crunchy bits that probably weren’t anything as mundane as croutons. The deck began to feel solid under my feet again.
“You beat one Q’Chn last time,” said Stone accusingly. “Only one. And that was by luck, I read the report. You lured it into an airlock. But if it hadn’t followed you, it could still have killed more people in the rings and you couldn’t have done anything to stop it. Now we’ve got three here and dozens out there.”
“You called me ‘Commander,’ ” I said. “Not ‘ex-Commander.’ ”
“Slip of the tongue. They wouldn’t listen to me anyway. They think you’re the one who’s going to lead us out of this mess.”
Like I expected Marlena Alvarez to be as much of a leader for people in the past as she’d been for me here. But she wasn’t. And the EarthFleet ensigns didn’t realize the truth about me—that I was even less of a leader than Alvarez.
“The mess you got us into,” persisted Stone.
I remembered on the May Day march, saying to myself, “If Marlena was here, she’d pull them together.” Maybe she would have, maybe not. But one thing was for certain, if nobody had believed in her, there wouldn’t have been any EarthSouth movement and we wouldn’t know about her now.
“I don’t want your job, Rupert,” I said. “Leaders are greatly overrated. They’re just someone who goes first. It’s the people who follow after who are important.”
“You’re not getting my job,” he growled. But he seemed to relax a little.
I pushed my empty cup beside the others on the recycle shelf and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’ve got to go up to the center. If you’ve something important to say, tell me now.”
He raised his eyes from where he’d watched my hand wipe itself on my trousers. His air of distaste reminded me of Henoit, which made me smile, as two more unlike individuals couldn’t be imagined. “No, it’s not important.”
“Good, see you later.” I glanced back as I turned into another corridor. He’d gone. I didn’t have the energy to wonder what he meant. The implant was aching again and I found myself scratching, imagining what it would feel like to tear it out, like I’d often done during the blockade when the Seouras actively used the implant to communicate with me.
Maybe the Tor elements of Farseer regarded Serat and myself as kinds of alien technology—we are biological machines, after all. That could explain why using it had become progressively more uncomfortable for me.
So why hasn’t it succeeded in taking me over? I can imagine Serat protecting himself, but a human should be easy game for a Tor ship, especially if it was aided by its Invidi elements with their biological engineering expertise. Unless... the Seouras implant is actually protecting me.
I chuckled aloud at this, and an overalled technician carrying a tool case stared at me as he passed.
The Seouras in the gray ship resisted the Tor for a long time, even before the ship came to blockade Jocasta. They tried desperately to get off the ship and to contact us. In the end, after the battle near the station, the gray ship steered into Abelar’s sun. The official report suggested its navigational system had been damaged in the battle, but I’d always suspected that the few remaining Seouras took the only way to make sure the ship wouldn’t escape.
If it is protecting me from the Tor elements of Farseer, my implant might be making up at last for all the discomfort it’s caused.
When I reached the uplift entry, I called the New Council ship’s dock directly. Standing in front of the control panel at the spoke, I remembered the last time I’d waited for the uplift—with Constable Caselli, who had died in front of the Trade Hall in Alpha. I could understand Murdoch’s despair and his insistence on making sure the Q’Chn couldn’t kill again.
“Halley to see Captain Venner. I’m using the Alpha uplift, then the Section One crawler. Make sure it’s clear.”
The captain is busy. She can’t see you. The voice whispered with an Achelian lisp—probably the one who’d stood beside Venner in her message of defiance to the Q’Chn.
“She must see me. I have information she needs.” I hoped my Con Standard was urgent enough.
The Achelian paused. A loud blur of voices in the background. You may come, it said eventually. Sourly.
The uplift rose, I drifted. Twisting to reorient my feet to what would become the floor when we reached the center, I squished my nose against the window to see if I could make out any extra activity around the lower center bays where Murdoch would now be preparing his trap. I couldn’t see the bay, as it was on the other side of the center, and the only movement around the docks came from a couple of cleaning droids crawling slowly across the surface of the upper levels. The New Council freighter sat clamped motionless to her airlocks, far “ahead” or “above,” depending on where you were in the uplift.
There was plenty of movement down near the rings, however. Every sweeper ship we had, every little salvage drone, took position in staggered ranks between Alpha ring and the center. The pale surface of the ring looked mottled, as though it had suddenly grown a vigorous mold culture. Several small, round robot ships patrolled up and down the spoke closest to Sigma 41. They would spread a “net” of laser beams between each other to catch small bombarding particles.
If Venner had time to look, which I doubted, she’d hopefully think this was routine maintenance. If not, surely Veatch and Stone between them could come up with a plausible excuse.
The uplift ceiling became wall, then floor. Gravity field was on. Wonder if they’ve kept a guard outside the lift.
The doors swished open and I was looking at a Q’Chn.
It peered in the doorway, filling it completely, as I scrambled backward until my back slammed into the window, nowhere to go in this clear-walled coffin... I saw in my mind the lazy slice of those slashing forearms as it disemboweled people like me. Decks slippery with red.
Someone shouted behind the Q’Chn. It disappeared, and the long-limbed, furry form of an Achelian took its place. “Hurry,” he said. “We do not have all night.”
I let my knees give way until I was sitting on the floor of the uplift. My heart’s getting too old for this sort of thing.
The Achelian rapped his nails irritably on the door. “Come on, ConFleet. You want to see the captain?’
Behind it, a scratchy, rustling sound and a faint clang, as though a blade hit metal. As though the Slasher was sharpening its blades on my station walls. But it stayed next to the uplift, hunched there like a rainbow-colored gar
goyle. Or angel.
I picked myself up and wobbled after the Achelian, mind blank with relief. Then as we rounded the corner I had to quash a desire to curl up in a corner and cry. Stop it, you’re alive. And a good thing you emptied your bladder after the meeting, eh?
Murdoch would have to make sure the three Q’Chn entered his trap together. I hoped he’d factored in the time they would take to move through the center levels.
At the airlock an armed guard watched me while the Achelian went to get Venner. I avoided his eyes and tried to regain some equilibrium. It was such an effort to think how I’d deal with the New Council. So many things to remember, and I was tired and shaky and the damn implant itched, worrying about what Farseer was doing to Jocasta’s opsys was giving me a headache, or was that because last time I’d had a proper rest was a century ago and I really felt a hundred years old right now.
Venner stepped out of the airlock and waved the guard back into the ship. I need no help with this human, said the gesture.
“Getting ready to leave?” I said.
Outwardly she was perfectly calm, but something was wrong. Instead of the usual flush of well-being from the pheromones, it felt as though I’d stood under a cold shower. The hairs stood up along my arms and the edges of my scalp.
I took an unconscious step back, away from the tension, and tried again. “Time’s running out, Captain. ConFleet could be through that point at any minute.”
“ConFleet are cowards,” said Venner without heat. “At this moment their admirals are drawing lots to see who will die so the others can come in safely.”
“Do you believe that?”
She twitched her shoulder irritably. “It is what I tell my crew. But certainly the first ConFleet crews through that point will die. And then Vengeful waits for those following. Unless the Confederacy decides to leave you to the wolves again,” she added slyly.
I thought of Barik and his desire to keep Farseer away from An Serat. “Not this time. Last time they were waiting for what they wanted. This time it’s here already.”
“The Invidi. It is him they want, yes?”
“Why do you say that?” I pretended dismay. If Venner thought An Serat was valuable to the Confederacy, she’d try to take him with her. Although I hated the idea of Farseer ’s technology available to the New Council.
“I went to see him,” she said. “I told him we must leave within the fifth-hour.”
One-fifth of a Central hour was nearly thirty of our minutes. We might still get her offstation with the Q’Chn and we wouldn’t have to blow that storage bay.
“Serat knows we have a duty to take Vengeful to our colleagues,” she said. “He knows now,” she amended.
“Why don’t you force the Invidi to go?” I said, not liking myself for saying it.
“He can refuse to jump,” she said.
“If he does, he may be killed when ConFleet attacks you.” How had the Q’Chn threat from Vengeful affected her? Her ship could neither out-run nor out-gun the cruiser. Perhaps she intended to continue her bluff to destroy the Q’Chn genetic material until she was close enough to the jump point for Serat to take her through.
Her nostrils flared in frustration. “I do not understand why he stays. Now his ship is connected to this station.”
Connected at our core, eating into our opsys. I rubbed the implant impatiently. “Venner, will Serat disconnect his ship and go with you?”
“He was startled, as though he had forgotten us. I told him we would send a tug down to tow his ship into the hold of mine.” She took a step closer to me. Too close. The deck rocked under my feet and I had to blink to retain focus on her narrow, intense face. My inhibitor was being overwhelmed by the pheromones.
“What is so important about his ship?” said Venner. “It seems to cloud his mind. He is not worried about being caught here by ConFleet.”
“All I can tell you is that if you let Serat connect that ship to your freighter, it will probably take over your systems as it’s trying to do to ours.”
Her face was still, her eyes slid up to almost meet mine, then flicked away again.
“Henoit didn’t trust any of the Four,” I said. This might be my last chance to get information from her. “Why are you so friendly with An Serat?”
“When he contacted us again, An Serat said that he pretended to effect a reconciliation with the other Invidi after Henoit’s death.” She pronounced the name as I did this time, but awkwardly. “He said the Confederacy Council is disordered, ConFleet grows soft. He suggested a strike on our borders and offered to transport us here.”
Serat had betrayed them again to get hold of Farseer.
“I see why Henoit did not trust the Four,” she said. Her voice held no bitterness but something in her scent changed.
“Did you know Henoit well?” I had to ask.
Her eyes focused on a point close to my forehead. “There are not many H’digh in our fleet, although many work for us on Rhuarl. I knew him well.”
“Did he ever speak of me?” As soon as the question was out I regretted asking it. What a sentimental...
“He behaved as a fully bonded adult,” she said. “He accepted no lesser relations when separated from his bond mate.” She paused. “I think you do not wish me to tell you how to break that bond.”
“I...” I did want to be rid of Henoit’s unpredictable presence. But what if H’digh beliefs were right and his soul would then wander in eternal loss?
“It doesn’t matter now.”
She waited, then when I said nothing more, raised her shoulder and turned away. “Wait here.” She swung around, strode to the airlock, and disappeared inside.
I waited, wiped sweaty palms, and wondered what was happening inside the core, what was happening over in Sigma 41. Venner would be trying to contact the three Q’Chn onstation. Which she should not be able to do, if our plans were working. I had asked Lee and the communications techs in the Bubble to block Venner’s signal to the Q’Chn, any way they could. I’d also asked them to use the same frequency and code that the Q’Chn on Vengeful used to signal Venner’s ship, and make up a message telling the three Q’Chn to wait in Sigma 41 to be picked up by a shuttle from Vengeful, to rejoin their comrades.
One minute passed. Two. Three. I paced, chewed my fingernails, wondered if I should go now in case Lee had failed and Venner was now calling a Q’Chn to teach me a lesson. We didn’t know if the conflict between Venner and the Q’Chn was a normal part of their partnership or not. If she thought the Q’Chn endangered her ship and the New Council, she might be willing to leave the Q’Chn here with us, and risk further ruining the New Council’s reputation. In that case, she might tell the Q’Chn on Vengeful that I had taken the research material, so that they wouldn’t follow or attack her. I hoped they wouldn’t believe her— surely they would have realized by now that Venner had lied to them about members of the Four not being onstation. I hoped they would hold a grudge, in the way the two Q’Chn in Alpha had punished Security for allowing their K’Cher prey to escape.
The airlock door opened and Venner emerged. She held herself straight.
“We will leave, and the Invidi may come if he wishes,” she said, each word slow and considered. “The jump point is too dangerous. We will hide in flatspace, as we have done before.”
“What about Vengeful ?”
“I think the Q’Chn will follow us. They need us, as we need them.” Her confidence was untouched. “Can we not persuade you to join us?” Her face was expressionless, but her eyes seemed to burn a deeper amber as they almost met mine, then flickered away. “Form an alliance with us. This system’s neutrality can be based in strength.”
“Your kind of strength only endangers my station,” I said. “Take your Q’Chn and your terrorism and go away. If you do ever want to discuss politics, come without them.”
“Until then.” She turned again and walked through the airlock doors.
I waited until the doors closed, then spri
nted down the corridor. I didn’t trust Venner. She’d told me exactly what I wanted to hear. If I were her, I’d be preparing my freighter for a run in flatspace, getting ready to take An Serat by force if necessary, and trying to contact the Q’Chn here on the station in order to do so. I would also make sure I left Farseer connected to our opsys, keeping us busy.
I shouldn’t have mentioned Farseer ’s meddling with our opsys.
I wanted to warn Murdoch that Venner would try to reestablish contact with the Q’Chn onstation, but it wasn’t worth the risk of Venner tracing our communication and working out what the trap was. He knew she would try, he’d have people ready to prevent the New Council crew reaching the Q’Chn in Sigma 41.
Without control of the Q’Chn either on Vengeful or here, Venner was in a far weaker position. She couldn’t terrorize us, nor force Serat to leave.
I started running for Level Three on the other side of the center. We had to persuade An Serat to disconnect Farseer from Jocasta. If he didn’t, the opsys would begin to metamorphose into Tor matrices. Part of me wanted to let Venner take the Q’Chn and haul Serat away. I could ask Murdoch to call off the plan to kill the Q’Chn. But I couldn’t trust Venner, and the Q’Chn posed too great a threat to the rest of the station.
At least, I wouldn’t consider it unless I failed to persuade Serat to disconnect Farseer . I had less than thirty minutes before Murdoch blew Sigma 41, both to talk to Serat and to get out of the center—theoretically, only the Levels Seven and Nine directly above and below the bay might be affected, but I didn’t want to test the theory personally.
On the other hand, the signal to block New Council communication to the Q’Chn might not have worked. The Q’Chn might be coming back to join Venner. And I’d be caught in the middle.
I slowed my pace a little at the thought that the Q’Chn could be just around the next bend. Panting and wheezing, cursing the way my heart bumped in my chest, I passed the crawler entry, and slid sideways into the narrow maintenance tunnel that ran parallel with the crawler. Quicker than waiting for the crawler itself. And the Q’Chn wouldn’t fit inside the tunnel. Then I half crawled, half ran along it until I reached the bright light and higher ceilings of the main corridor. I peered out. Nobody in view, either bipedal or four-legged, so I took a deep breath and walked out.
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