Forsaken Skies

by D. Nolan Clark

  The train tracks corkscrewed around inside the Vairside cylinder, making dozens of stops, but they didn’t have to go far. Valk watched Lanoe’s face as the old man stared through the windows, taking in the various attractions of station life. He didn’t exactly scowl at the pleasure-seekers who passed by below but he didn’t look much interested in the gambling hells or the sex drone yards, either. Valk thought maybe Lanoe was not a man who gave anything away for free.

  The two of them stepped off at a station on an elevated platform. It overlooked a wide lawn of real grass where Navy officers drank tea and played lawn games with their port wives. Recently it had become popular with the enlisted men, too, because they could stand on the platform and throw beer cans at the officers’ servants.

  “Tell me that’s not where we’re going,” Lanoe said.

  “Don’t worry,” Valk said, laughing. He took Lanoe up a staircase to a door made from an old salvaged pressure hatch. It hung open, one hinge rusted in place, and noise and light blasted out from inside. The place looked packed, mostly with people in space suits. A couple of them came tumbling out as they approached, tossed out by the bouncer. Valk got a glimpse of one of them, a woman with cropped hair and a shoulder plate painted with a blue and yellow constellation. He realized too late she was headed right for him, her arms outstretched. Before he could move she slammed into him and bounced away.

  The pain was bad. Bad enough that the white pearl in the corner of his vision started flashing. He staggered and, much to his chagrin, Lanoe had to grab him to keep him from falling over.

  “You all right?” Lanoe whispered.

  “Fine,” Valk said, getting back on his feet. He looked up to find the woman who had knocked into him. She and her companion were already hurrying away, but she glanced back for just a second. Maybe she felt sorry for running him over.

  Except she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at Lanoe, with a look of utter terror on her face.

  “Ehta?” Lanoe said. It sounded like a name.

  The woman didn’t respond. Her companion grabbed her by the arm and then they were lost in the crowd.

  “Somebody you know?” Valk asked. The damned white pearl kept popping up every time he blinked it away.

  Lanoe shrugged. “I’m three hundred years old. I know a lot of people.”

  The old woman refused to talk about anything but business. Before the salads had even been cleared from the table she pulled a minder from her satchel and started scrolling through old messages. “We were rather surprised,” she said, “that you were willing to talk to us. I have here the transcript of our distress call to the Terraforming Authority—”

  “No need to play it,” Maggs said, holding up one hand. “I’ve heard it.”

  “You have?”

  “I took an especial interest in your case the moment it came across my desk. Of course, the wheels of bureaucracy had to turn in their appointed rounds, and I was not able to intervene directly. The thing had to make its way through official channels.”

  “They said our evidence was inconclusive, and that further investigation was required,” the old woman said, her hand shaking as she paged through the legalese and red tape on her minder.

  Maggs had, in actual fact, seen it all. He’d been privy to several communications not shared with the Nirayans, as well. He knew that Centrocor had never heard of anything like what happened on the old woman’s planet. There had been no official protocol for it. Minor functionaries had wrung their hands and wondered who they could pass the matter off to, and a few highly placed people had actually been consulted, though their contributions had been minimal. In the end a formula had been worked out, an algorithm for determining the risks and benefits of intervention. It had been decided, after much crunching of proverbial numbers, that Niraya wasn’t worth it.

  It would cost more to save the planet than to let it perish. Even after the inevitable lawsuits were filed. Even after insurance claims had been adjusted.

  A tragedy, really.

  “Further investigation,” the old woman said, her lips pursed. “Dozens of people are dead, thousands at risk, and we’re supposed to wait for further investigation.”

  Across the table, the girl reached for another slice of bread. Maggs gave her a smile and nodded at the butter. She took it as if she expected it to be snatched from her grasp.

  “This is why you have a Sector Warden,” Maggs said, keeping his voice low. “To catch exactly these sort of oversights.” He sat up. Clasped his hands together in front of him. “I can help.”

  The old woman kept her face carefully composed. Clearly she didn’t entirely believe him. Not yet. She hadn’t been born on Niraya, she’d said. Maybe she understood a little of how these things actually worked.

  “There is the question of money,” he said.

  Valk opened a tiny hole in the front of his helmet—not so large anyone could see inside, even accidentally—and fed the straw through it. The ice in his glass rattled as he slurped away.

  As dive bars went, the place stank. There was nothing inside but some scratched-up furniture and a big display that showed nothing but ads for Centrocor products. Just then it showed a woman with gleaming teeth rubbing cream on her forearm. The view zoomed in to the microlevel to show tiny machines with serrated pincers tearing into dead skin cells. The music swelled and the view shifted back to the woman’s arm, which was now as smooth as plastic.

  Lanoe didn’t seem to mind the blaring commercial. Nor did he seem to take much notice that half the bar was staring at his back. This was a Navy place—just about all the customers were dressed in space suits. There weren’t many officers, though. Valk did a quick ping of all the cryptabs in the room and found nobody over Junior Lieutenant grade. If Lanoe shouted out the word push-up right now, the entire bar would have to fall to the floor.

  The old pilot just sank back into his own chair, making it creak with the weight of his heavy suit, and sipped at his own glass. Staring straight forward at nothing. “We heard your story,” he said, finally. “On our side of the lines. Talked about you for weeks, though I always figured it was mostly an urban legend. About how you had a full-blown flameout, your whole cockpit lit up by an antivehicle round. And yet you somehow managed to finish your mission before heading back to base.”

  “That’s about accurate,” Valk said. “Except there was a lot more screaming.” He took another sip. The whiskey was cold enough to numb his mouth, just as he liked it. “As for finishing the mission, well, I’d already worked out firing solutions for two more of your ships and the fighter pretty much took them out without any help. I was too busy, what with being on fire, to tell it to stop and get me the hell out of there.”

  “Got our wind up, on the other side,” the Commander said. “Got us thinking maybe you lot were serious about Self-Establishment. That maybe we were fighting for the wrong side.” He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that could indicate anything except happiness. “Especially after we heard they fixed you up and sent you right back to the lines.”

  “As bad off as I was, they offered to send me home,” Valk said. “Third-degree burns over ninety percent of my body. I shouldn’t have lived through that. But the only thing I knew how to do was fly. So I went back. Two weeks later the Crisis was over and we’d lost.”

  “That how you ended up here, doing traffic control?”

  “The terms of the surrender said there would be no punitive measures taken against our officers. We were going to be rolled up into your Navy, since we were friends again. But then they stripped all of our service records. I took what work I could get.”

  “Our loss,” the Commander said. “The Navy could use a pilot like you. Regardless of your politics.”

  Valk acknowledged the kindness with a brief nod. He’d learned over the years to exaggerate his gestures so people could read his meaning without having to see his eyes. “What about you, then? I heard you resigned your commission awhile back. Just walked away from w
hat could have been a lucrative career. I heard they had you pegged for the Admiralty.”

  The old pilot’s eyes narrowed, just a bit. Maybe because he’d had to learn how to replicate body language, Valk had made a study of it in other people. He could tell there was some pain there, buried deep. Old and familiar pain.

  Well, he understood that.

  “I get bored easily,” Lanoe said.

  “Didn’t mean to pry, Commander.”

  That earned him a polite smile. “My name’s Lanoe. And I’m going to call you Valk.”

  “Okay.”

  Lanoe raised his glass, then put it down again without drinking.

  So much for Valk’s plan to get the old pilot drunk. Maybe he needed to try a different tack. “That FA.2 of yours is a real beauty,” he suggested.

  Lanoe grinned without looking up. “For a museum piece, you mean.”

  Valk raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “No offense meant. But even when the Establishment went broke and couldn’t afford new hardware, they still put me in a rebuilt FA.6.”

  “Nice ships, with all those gadgets. Self-repair and ammo assemblers and all that.” Lanoe tilted his head to one side. “But the FA.2’s never been beat for stability. Practically flies herself, so I can focus on the shooting.”

  “They never made you upgrade?”

  “They tried, near the end of the Century War. I said no thank you. Amazing how flexible orders can be with an oak leaf on your cryptab. I guess I was just used to the smell of the FA.2’s cockpit. Then when I resigned I used up my decommissioning bonus to buy her outright.”

  “You own that crate?” Valk had never heard of such a thing.

  “They were going to scrap her. Strip her down for parts and build one of those new carrier scouts out of what was left.” Lanoe shook his head. “She didn’t deserve that. There’s a lot of parsecs left in her.”

  “They do have a reputation for being indestructible. A little slow, maybe,” Valk suggested, in a careful tone. “By modern standards.”

  Lanoe didn’t seem to take offense. “I’ve tried to keep up with the times. I stripped out the old power plant, put in a Gôblin rotary drive. Increased the thrust about fifteen percent. Had to add some extra heat shielding in the cabin.” Lanoe shrugged. “She gets me where I’m going. And I have no trouble keeping up with anything civilian.”

  “Civilian?”

  “I’ve been working as an escort pilot for one big shot or another since I resigned. Easy work. I fly formation with some corporate executive’s private ship—no fear of anyone attacking, I’m just there to show the Navy colors, show we’re working close with the money people. A sign of respect.” He shrugged. “It’s a living.”

  “You kept up with that yacht just fine,” Valk tried.

  Lanoe took a deep breath. Then he picked up his glass and put his entire drink down his throat. It looked like he was about to get up from the table. “We’re not just here to reminisce, are we?”

  Valk considered his words carefully. “Part of this,” he said, gesturing at the table between them, “is about me getting to meet a legend. I’ve been thinking up polite ways to ask for your autograph. But then there’s also my job.”

  “Orbital traffic control,” Lanoe said. He leaned forward. Tapped the little display in the middle of the table where you paid for your drinks.

  Valk pushed his hand away. “I’m responsible for every ship that comes through this system while I’m on duty. I make sure they get where they’re headed in one piece. That includes that yacht. Not to mention the freighter I dismantled so you two didn’t get smeared. You forget about that?”

  “No,” Lanoe replied. “No, I haven’t. You told me there were people on that thing.” His mouth turned down at one side. “Anybody get hurt?”

  “Couple of stowaways in a cargo container,” Valk said. “They might have got banged up a bit, but nothing serious.”

  “Stowaways? Interesting.”

  Valk didn’t like the look on his face at all. Clearly Lanoe had something up his sleeve. Something he wasn’t about to share.

  “I’d like to talk to them,” Lanoe said.

  “Oh?”

  “To, you know.” Lanoe made an equivocating gesture with one hand. “Apologize for nearly killing them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Valk wasn’t done asking about the yacht, but he could see it was going to be a while before he got a straight answer. Well, introducing Lanoe to the stowaways might help resolve their mystery. It would give him another chance to pester them for information, at the very least. He set his glass down on the table. Then he reached over and tapped at the display, charging the drinks to his personal account.

  “Let’s pay them a visit,” he said.

  “You understand,” Maggs said, “this is not a bribe. Earth has the Navy fighting two different wars right now, one against DaoLink, another against ThiessGruppe on a planet called Tuonela. With the fleets stretched thin, sending ships to Niraya will require a considerable outlay. Centrocor normally pays for mercy fleets but they’re the ones requesting more evidence. I’ll use the money to personally outfit a carrier group and we’ll have this sewn up before the bureaucrats even finish filing their preliminary reports.”

  “I’d almost given up hope,” the old woman said.

  “Our lives are in your hands,” the girl said. The old woman shot her an icy look but the girl’s open-faced optimism lit up the table.

  Maggs smiled at them both. “It’s going to be all right. Did you, ah, bring letters of credit, or—”

  A withered old hand reached inside the satchel and took out four black plastic chits. The old woman let them fall to the table, each with a tiny click.

  Maggs couldn’t suppress a tiny intake of breath, not quite a gasp. “Those are Terraforming Authority chits,” he said. Each of them, he knew, would have a tiny diamond inside, inscribed with the encryption keys that would allow the bearer unfettered access to Interplanetary Development Bank accounts. No questions asked.

  “When Niraya was first settled Centrocor provided us with a handful of these in exchange for an unlimited monopsony on our exports,” the old woman said. “We use them to pay for yearly terraforming services.”

  “We were going to get some low-energy cometary impactors this year, and a new license on a strain of oxyculture lichens,” the girl pointed out.

  “Roan here is studying to be a planetary engineer,” the old woman said.

  “Quite. Let me see if I understand,” Maggs said. “By giving me these chits, you’ll have to cancel four years of development for your planet. Is that really what you want to do?”

  “Our planet is very poor, Warden. This was the only way we could afford the price you named. It’s a hardship for us, yes. If the entire population is wiped out, though, it won’t matter if the planet is habitable or not,” the old woman said.

  “Of course,” Maggs replied. He reached across the table and gathered up the chits. His hand didn’t shake nearly as much as he’d expected.

  Once they were safely tucked away in a pouch at his belt, he looked from one of them to the other.

  “So,” he said. “Will you be returning to your world immediately, or will you stay at the Hexus a few days and take in the sights?”

  There was a chance—maybe—that Valk could save his job. If he could file solid reports on the missing yacht and the stowaways from the freighter, he might be able to spin things so he came out looking blameless.

  He had to admit to himself, though, that he was plain old-fashioned curious, too.

  He pinged his computers back at traffic control and got a location for the two stowaways. The system didn’t normally keep track of visitors to the Hexus—there were far too many of them for that to be worthwhile, especially since most of them were just passing through. Centrocor had a financial interest in the Nirayans, though, so microdrones had been dispatched to watch them at all times.

  He’d been confused enough already
that day. So when it turned out they were having dinner at one of the station’s most expensive restaurants, the strangeness barely registered. For all he knew the two of them were slumming trillionaires who thought it would be funny to ship themselves from star to star in a cargo container.

  Though from what he’d seen of them, that felt unlikely.

  “Religious types,” he told Lanoe, as the two of them caught a passing miniblimp on a high platform. This close to the axis of the cylinder, gravity was just a suggestion. They kicked off the platform and grabbed for the blimp’s straps, then pulled themselves up onto the exposed seats. Valk sighed in relief as he let his legs dangle over the side. “Looked like they’d never had a bit of fun in their lives. They probably spent the whole trip here praying to their god or something.”

  “Hmm,” Lanoe said. He seemed deep in thought.

  “You’ll like them, though. They’re just like you—stubborn asses.”

  The old pilot didn’t even reply. He just looked down at the platforms drifting by below, as if he expected to see someone else he recognized.

  The view from the blimp could be a little disorienting. Down on the platforms, on the lower levels, Vairside felt almost like a city on an actual planet. You could forget you were inside a cylinder spinning fast enough to generate earthlike gravity. Up at the axis, though, you saw the whole thing. You could see how the walls curved up to meet you and close over your head. You could see all the platforms jutting out at crazy angles, a three-dimensional maze of buildings and parklets and the mirror surfaces of the ponds and the narrow rivers, all lit up by countless streetlights. Because Centrocor had built Vairside, the whole thing was made of interlocking hexagons, but it was only from up here that that became obvious, each little zone of vice or leisure or commerce constrained by the six other zones that surrounded it.