by C. Gockel
One of the Fleet men said, “I don’t detect any local ether.”
“Sundancer doesn’t have a computer,” Sixty answered, stepping into the ship right behind James. “Not that we know of, anyway.”
Carl hopped aboard. The “iris” opening closed, and the color on the walls swirled like an angry sea. In her stomach, Volka felt a painful swell of sad emotions that weren’t just her own.
“What is happening to the walls?” James asked Sixty.
Sixty didn’t have an emotional connection to Sundancer. Sending a panicked glance to Volka, he said, “I…errr…Volka?”
Volka’s shoulders fell. “Sundancer knows I’m angry at Carl and doesn’t know how to respond.” The poor ship was confused and hurt.
“How do you control her?” asked one of the men in a booming voice. Maybe it was because he was human, but not an obvious enemy like the pirates. Maybe it was the authority in his voice and that he was loud; maybe it was that Sundancer’s bridge was packed tighter than it had ever been with too many people with too many smells. Or maybe Volka was feeling claustrophobic, but she automatically shifted her gaze to the floor, shuffled backward, and her ears curled submissively.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said in a softer voice. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Volka wanted to deny she was frightened, but her ears had curled, and she might as well have screamed.
Stepping forward, he held out his hand. “We weren’t introduced. I’m Lieutenant Young.”
Volka took it and forced herself to look up at him. He wasn’t Sixty good looking, but he was handsome the way men of the Republic tended to be—tall, medium-dark skin, brown eyes, straight teeth, and no skin ailments. “Volka. Please call me Volka,” she said.
He shook her hand firmly but not too hard and smiled at her, the skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes when he did. The sort of nice smile she got from humans in the Republic and not on Luddeccea. “Nice to meet you, Volka.”
Releasing her hand, he spoke at a more appropriate volume. “How do you control it?”
“We don’t control her,” Volka said.
The smile on Lieutenant Young’s face vanished.
Volka continued, “We—Carl and I—let her know what we’re feeling and where we want to go, and she either helps us or doesn’t.” Sundancer couldn’t communicate with Sixty. Her telepathy didn’t extend to non-carbon-based life forms, which was, in Carl’s words, “Ironic because she isn’t a carbon-based life form.”
Frowning, Lieutenant Young said, “Doesn’t sound reliable.”
Volka’s ears swiveled forward. Just because Sundancer had her say in the missions she went on didn’t make her unreliable precisely, and she’d saved Volka’s life. Irritation made her lose all deference she’d been trained to have toward humans. “She didn’t go through boot camp, sir,” Volka quipped back. The words rolled off her tongue so smoothly her ears went back in shock at her own gall.
For a moment, Young’s face went blank. Sixty grinned. Some of the Fleet personnel, including the woman, chuckled. The woman with the coffee who said she was Time Gate 33 just took a long sip and stared at everyone. James lifted an eyebrow at Sixty, but otherwise, his face remained impassive.
A smile cracked on Young’s lips. “I guess not, but we need to depend on her for the mission we’re about to undertake, ma’am.”
He called her ma’am. Humans of the Republic were so…different.
“Let me give you a quick introduction to my team.” He ran through their names and each man stepped forward. Volka knew she’d never remember them, except the woman. The lieutenant introduced her as Doctor Zhen Walker. Even Luddeccea had a few female doctors for women’s things, but a woman that was a doctor and a soldier? It boggled Volka’s mind and made her feel small in more than the literal sense.
Carl’s necklace crackled. “May we discuss this mission and our part in it? Time Gate 33, perhaps you’d like to begin?”
The woman with the coffee looked around the room, and her eyes stopped on Sixty. “I—my other physical form—before it became a time gate, was a spaceship that traveled ten years at near light speed with a human crew aboard. When we reached System 33, I was reassembled as a colonization class time gate, Android General 1.”
Wincing, Sixty said, “Please refer to me as 6T9 or Sixty.”
Time Gate 33’s eyes got wide. “A nickname! I’d be honored to call you that, Android General 1, sir. I mean, Sixty!” She looked heavenward. “My title is unwieldy, too. Perhaps everyone could call me…Trina.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “It is short for Trinity. And appropriate because thirty-three is a trinity of elevens. John, the crew’s lead engineer, called me that. He always took care of me.” Her voice rose and became more urgent. “One time, when we were hit by an asteroid in deep space, he repaired my exterior hull in vacuum. He worked over thirty-six hours with the repair androidroid fleet fixing me, without sleep. He’s one of the three that survived.”
“To help him, we need to hear more,” Carl said. “Please continue, Trina.” His voice was gentle. Caring. His kind had just been at war with Volka's people. Had they really had to kill so many?
Trina bit her lip. “Up until recently, everything was going according to plan. I’d just finished the conversion from space ship to gate—though I wasn’t fully operational. My memories from that time are all intact. The Marines have heard the dry details of the story, but maybe if I show you the ether conversations from that time—”
Everyone aboard Sundancer’s bridge suddenly stood up straighter and got the vacant look in their eyes Volka associated with ether conversations.
Trina’s brow furrowed, and she said, “So you don’t get left out, Volka.” She waved her hand at Volka’s wrist and Bracelet began projecting a holo; it was of the back of a man floating inside an enormous corridor. He had longish, wavy salt and pepper hair, wore blue coveralls, and was gazing out a window at what Volka realized was the opposite side of a giant ring in space. “The conversion is complete, Trina. You are a thing of beauty.”
“Thank you, John,” said Trina’s voice in Bracelet’s speaker.
John brought his legs up, pushed off the window, spun in midair, and floated toward the camera. He had a neat beard, laugh and worry lines, and Volka would guess his age as being around forty-five. He looked…almost normal, like a Luddeccean, not an augmented member of the Republic. Only the neural port in his temple gave him away. Winking at the camera, he said, “Of course, you’ve always been beautiful to me, Trina.”
“Thank you, John.”
A female voice that was not Trina’s said in obvious frustration, “The shuttle is returning from that asteroid site. Alcocer's envirosuit was compromised and the rest of the team didn’t follow protocols. I’m going to have to quarantine them all. Isaacs is setting up Airlock 4 as a quarantine zone. You don’t have any business in that airlock, do you?”
“Nope, Doc, I’m good,” John responded. His lips didn’t move. Volka blinked. He was talking over the ether.
“Good,” said the “Doc” curtly.
Trina’s voice said, “John, the diagnostic of my grav plating is complete. Everything appears to be operational. You did a great reinstall.”
“Thanks, Trina. Let’s turn them on.”
Another voice came over the holo. This one masculine and angry. “Lang is quarantining us!”
Floating gently to the floor, John replied, “It’s standard protocol when a suit is compromised, Clive.”
“We haven’t been wearing environment suits planet-side in over three months!” the man who must have been Clive retorted.
“But scans reported that the fish around the crash site were—”
“This is not Earth, and the aquatic life is not fish,” Clive interjected.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, John gritted his teeth. “The aquatic life around the crash site is dying. The asteroid is not even from this system, and local life is belly up. Lang was right; you neede
d the envirosuits.”
“Maybe, but we don’t need to be quarantined for six weeks. It will slow down bringing the gate’s bands online.”
“You can command the repair drones etherly,” John replied.
“So you agree with her?” Clive demanded.
“Yeah, at this point—”
John’s head jerked back and then he muttered, “Right back at you, Buddy.”
Trina—the real Trina, or woman Trina—whispered in Volka’s ear, “Clive and John were not really buddies.”
Volka’s ears flicked at the obvious.
“Did you already understand that in context?” Trina asked.
Volka nodded tentatively, not wanting to lie, but also afraid of offending.
Putting a hand to her lips, Trina whispered, “That’s so amazing!” as though Volka had just solved one of the long squiggly equations in Alaric’s mathematics textbooks.
In the holo, John touched his neural port. His lips did not move, so Volka understood that when he spoke, it was over the ether. “You okay? I heard there was an accident?”
A woman responded from off-screen. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“That’s Dr. Lisa Alcocer,” Trina whispered to Volka. “She’s in the shuttle, waiting to dock.”
In the holo, John asked, “How did it happen?”
“I was wading in the water at the asteroid landing site. A wave knocked me over. Tore my suit on a rock, and water leached in everywhere. I think Clive thought he’d need to do mouth-to-mouth, so he took off his suit helmet. Lang says we didn’t follow proper decon procedures…and…maybe she’s right. Now she’s declaring everyone else potentially contaminated.”
For a long moment, neither said anything. And then Lisa—Doctor Lisa Alcocer—Volka reminded herself, said, “Thanks for checking up on me. You haven’t ethered me since—”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want you dead.”
Volka blinked.
Trina whispered, “They were lovers, but then she broke up with John to be with Clive.” Volka’s eyes darted to Trina. Scowling at the holo, Trina muttered, “Clive introduced a virus to my systems before launch through sheer carelessness. It took John hours to clean it up.”
The holo faded, and then to the room at large, Trina said, “After that, things proceeded as normal. Lisa and the other members of the away team attended to what duties they could etherly until they all came down with a fever. They exhibited the symptoms of meningitis, but they seemed to recover…”
“Seemed?” Sixty asked.
Trina nodded. “I’ll show you the last ether recording I have just prior to my Q-comm aboard the gate going offline.”
Hoping she didn’t sound too stupid, Volka asked, “How would a time gate get a bump to the head?” That was how Sixty’s Q-comm went offline.
“Ah,” said Trina. “I see what you’re asking. The answer is, it was either physically dislodged, or the connecting circuitry that allowed me to connect with all my systems was damaged.” She waved a hand. “Here are the ethernet conversations going on just before it happened.” Bracelet’s holo changed. Volka was looking at John, walking through what looked very much like the Copernicus’s terminal.
“John,” Lisa’s voice whispered. “Let me out.”
“Doc Lang’s not done with the vaccine yet.”
“It was just a mild flu,” Lisa said, her voice low and husky.
“Meningitis is never just a flu,” John said.
“Please let me out…I miss you. Remember…” Lisa went on to describe just exactly what she remembered, and Volka’s skin went beet red. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done, but she’d never talk about it. Someone cleared his throat, and she smelled arousal in the air.
In the holo, John snapped, “As you told me yourself, you’re with Clive now.”
“Clive won’t mind sharing.”
Beside her, Sixty hummed with approval, and Volka flushed more.
In the holo, John stopped walking. “Goodbye,” he said.
Next to Volka, Trina whispered, “Some gates have told me humans’ sexual appetites are insatiable, but he resisted her.” It was impossible not to note the pride in her voice.
John took a few deep breaths, ran a hand through his hair, tapped his temple, and said, “Hey, Doc…are you sure that Lisa is really over her meningitis?”
“I think so, why?” Doctor Lang replied. Volka knew she was hearing only the doctor’s thoughts, but she swore she could hear the woman pinching her lips.
“She just contacted me etherly, and…she wasn’t herself. I know you said that mental confusion is a side effect, but if she’s cured, that should be over with by now, right?”
There was a moment of silence, and then Lang responded, “It’s a new pathogen, so anything’s possible. The vaccine isn’t going well—”
The holo disappeared, and Trina said, “That is the last memory I have until this happened.” Another holo sprang from Bracelet’s surface. Volka found herself staring at John. He was in a small enclosed space lit by red light and had some sort of tablet in his hand. “Trina, are you there?” he whispered at the tablet. Trina’s voice came from a speaker. “I’m here, John. Thank you for relocating my Q-comm.”
John put a finger to his lips. “Isaacs, Lang, and I have to go planet-side. We’ll last longer down there than up here, as long as we stay away from the crash site. We won’t be able to ether you…they’d track the signals. It’s taken you over, Trina.”
“Physically it may inhabit my body, but it doesn’t control my soul. That belongs to you,” Trina replied.
Volka’s eyes slid to Trina. The time gate’s eyes were intent on John, her face glowing in the holo light.
John bit his lip. “Take care, Trina.”
“I’ll get help for you, John,” Trina replied in the holo. “I promise.”
Beside Volka, Trina repeated softly, “I promise.”
Flickering in the holo drew Volka’s eyes. Behind John, a door had slid open and an unfamiliar man said, “We have to go.”
A woman with her black hair cut in a short, severe style said, “John, if it gets in the vents…”
Spinning, John ran through the sliding doors. They slid closed behind him, and for the first time, Volka realized that they were doors to a small craft. On its side, it said, “Escape Pod 1.” The pod lifted, and an enormous hatch opened in front of it. It blasted off toward a planet that looked like a blue marble…it could have been Luddeccea or Earth.
The holo flickered off.
In the real world, Trina said, “I called for help right away.”
James spoke up. “We had a team deployed within hours. We tried to use Trina’s gate even though the preliminary diagnostics of the central ring’s time bands hadn’t been completed. With lives at stake, and a potential unknown enemy, we ran the risk of our ship not arriving…We almost made it…” His eyes got distant. “We could see the planet below…but the timefield bubble became unstable. We just barely managed an emergency jump to a different gate.” He grimaced. “It was too small for our ship, and we fried that time gate’s bands in the process. Worse, by trying to jump before Time Gate 33 was fully operational, we damaged Trina’s time bands as well…it will take years to reach her at near light speeds.”
“The human survivors have a month at best,” Trina said. She waved her hand and another holo appeared above Bracelet. This one was a star map. “We are here,” Trina said, pointing to a star. “And I am, well, here, but also, here at S33O4…”
Volka’s ears flicked, translating the Republic’s system for naming the vast number of planets and systems it controlled. S33 was System 33, and O4 was the fourth orbital ring from the system’s sun.
Bracelet’s holo flared larger until the flickering light took up half the bridge. Trina pointed to a tiny dot near a yellow star. The dot expanded, becoming a blue planet with white clouds, like Earth or Luddeccea. Orbiting the planet was a single moon and the shimmering ring of a time gate. “That’s me,” said
Trina, pointing to the gate.
Over the holo, James’s eyes met Volka’s. “Will Sundancer—”
The scene shimmered in Volka’s vision. James, Trina, Sixty, and all the rest becoming light. She gasped. Looked down…and she was light, too. Sundancer was transporting them through time and space, faster-than-light.
A moment later, they were solid again and on Sundancer’s bridge. Volka had barely taken a breath when one wall and part of the floor became transparent. The entire party appeared to be standing in empty space above a blue marble of a planet—it was S33O4. In the distance was a time gate. All the other time gates Volka had seen had lights flickering all around their rings, and they were always busy with spaceship traffic. There were no spaceships orbiting this gate, and no lights flickered in its ring.
“What happened?” Young exclaimed.
“We’re in System 33,” said James.
“Something’s not right,” Carl murmured, dropping to all ten legs and hopping between the booted feet of the Republic soldiers toward the wall closest to the gate.
The hairs on the back of Volka’s neck rose, though she couldn’t say why.
“We should be on the other side of the planet!” Trina exclaimed. “They’ll see us!”
Volka’s bracelet began beeping, and then the device exclaimed, “Ms. Volka, we are receiving an emergency hail.”
All the humans turned toward Volka, and her ears went back.
“I’m getting a hail too,” James said.
“Same,” said Young. There were more murmurs of “same” around the bridge.
Eyes narrowed, Young said to Trina, “I thought you said your crew was lost!”
“Don’t answer them!” said Trina.
“The hell I won’t answer,” Young replied.
“Wait!” said James, holding out a hand. Young’s head jerked in his direction, his face furious.
“An unknown enemy may have taken over the gate,” James said. “It could transmit a virus to your neural interfaces.”