by K. T. Hunter
He scanned the glass panels that lined the lower ring of the bridge. The men examined them intently, making notations here and there of the Fury's position and status. Departmental reports flowed in over the speaking tubes and the pipephone from time to time.
He had gone to the moon and back with most of these men already. They had survived the flare that had killed nearly half the crew on that maiden voyage. They had also seen him choke back the panic and horror of it all so that he could lead the rest of them back home. They seemed to trust him. He also knew that once they knocked off for the day, their watch complete, they would relax in the mess hall, quaff their daily ration of lager, trade CDVs, and dream of the treasures they would find at the end of their journey.
He would not quash their dreams of glory, but he did not share them. His treasure was the sun sparkling on the waves of the Caribbean and the warm smiles of the girls waiting for him in Tahiti. His riches were in the oakum and teak of the Kiwi Clipper, sitting in safe harbour, awaiting the return of her master.
"Growlers ahead, sir," Cervantes said, breaking Christophe from his reverie. "Most seem to be small, but I recommend strengthening the forward navigational shields as a precaution."
Growlers were the equivalent of icebergs in the sky, and he refused to lose to a chunk of rock. Even dust could damage a ship below the waterline at this speed; and in space, everything was below the waterline. He was thankful for the shields, even if their Martian origins gave Pugh conniptions. Without them, this voyage would not make it past the first meteor shower. They could maneuver around the larger growlers, but the dust was much harder to see, much less avoid.
"I agree," Christophe replied. "Strengthen the shields, Mr. Cervantes."
At least for the moment, he was not under the watchful eye of Mr. Wallace. The cultural officer was still at tea with the officers from the first dog watch, ensuring that they did not smash the china. Everyone had a purpose, but he was puzzled as to why the TIA had wasted a precious billet on such a role. He was sure they had their reasons, however unspoken. People rarely served a single function on any ship. Even on the Kiwi, the cook also trimmed the sailors' hair. On this ship, Herr Knopf would shear their locks in addition to tending to the massive Gardens. If Mr. Wallace served another function on the Fury, the TIA had not seen fit to inform him of it.
He would do as he was ordered, he told himself over and over again. He would do what it took to protect the Fury's crew and live up to the valour and sacrifice of her namesake. He would protect the Earth, and her bright turquoise seas, with all his heart. But he would not enjoy it.
I am a sailor, not a warrior, he thought.
He wasn't sure that the TIA had picked the right star to steer by. He had attended some of their councils, but he had not been given a voice in them. That was unfortunate, because he did have some thoughts of his own on the matter.
There were many schools of thought in the Terran Industrial Alliance, and not all of them were beating the drum for genocide. Some had advocated a diplomacy-first solution, using the mere threat of violence to secure some kind of armistice with the Martians. Others desired a reconnaissance mission, to discover more about the Martians, albeit secretly, before making any kind of move against them. Others -- captains of industry rather than ships -- insisted that total revenge was called for and that nothing less would be tolerated by the citizens of Earth. Naturally, such an attack would need to leave their infrastructure intact. Their voices had been the loudest, and their orders had been for a full-on attack.
The crew had been inundated with mountains of Sophie the Steamfitter CDVs and heady cries of Terra vigila. He wondered if any of them wrestled with the orders the way he did, if any of them stayed awake at night wondering if they were doing the right thing. He didn't know if, when they finally reached the Red Planet, he would be able to give The Order.
He inspected the stations as he strolled along the rings of the bridge. He felt a bit sluggish as he approached the point opposite his command chair.
"Mr. Cervantes, does the artificial gravity feel heavier here to you?" he asked with a playful grin. "Would you please have Mr. Nesbitt give the bridge plates a look-see at his convenience?"
Cervantes replied in the affirmative, with a knowing smile of his own at the corner of his mouth. He still had a straight face, though, and that simply would not do.
"Mr. Nesbitt is inspecting the engines on the dropship at the moment, Captain," he replied. "I'll add it to his list."
"Oh, it can wait," Christophe said. "We certainly want the Iron Wind in Bristol fashion!"
He continued to tour the panels, nodding gravely as a captain should, as his thoughts swirled in eddies. Would the heat ray come online after the issues encountered on the lunar voyage? Would the Oberths continue to function smoothly? Would they be able to defend themselves if the Martians attacked first?
He brushed his fingers along the edge of a station. He could only feel the hum of the Oberths, but it was nothing like the thrum of the deck of the Kiwi when she was in the groove. Tall ships were living beings to Christophe, and the Kiwi was an extension of his own limbs. The Fury -- technological wonder that she may be -- was just an enormous mechanism. He had no bond with her; she was a stranger. She was made of metal, not teak that had once pulsed with life itself. Steel didn't even feel dead, for how can something that had never lived be dead? How could he master something that had no heart, no soul? How could he sail into battle on a ship that he didn't know, and that didn't know him?
Everything so far was routine. He would stay for the rest of the dog watch, complete his log entries, and then retire for the evening. He would have enjoyed a conversation with Miss Llewellyn, but after the events of the day it would be too awkward to cross into Ladies' Country, captain's privileges notwithstanding. Perhaps he could take a turn in the Gardens. If this ship had a heart, it lived there.
His gaze fell upon the open windows of Informatics and Communications. He did not have to be near Maggie to speak to her, but conversing in person was so much better. He made his way to the Ready Room, which served as his office and conference room, just down the corridor from the bridge. He secured the door behind him and strolled to the far wall.
A wooden mural depicting the history of Terran ships sprawled across its surface, from a picture of Odysseus' ship sneaking past Scylla and Charybdis to Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar. The Nautilus swam beneath the original Thunder Child as it faced down a Martian walking machine. Christophe never tired of viewing the minute details of the Santa Maria or even the small tribute to his own Kiwi Clipper.
He traced a particular wave in the top half of the wall three times, and then he pushed in the figureheads of the Kiwi and the Santa Maria simultaneously. They were far apart; only someone with his long reach (or a well-timed companion) could hope to unlock this combination. After a soft click and grinding sound, the wooden panel receded and slid to his left to reveal a dimly lit tunnel. He entered the corridor and used a lever beside a rack of various small arms (and one very sharp sword) to close the panel behind him.
Yes, a good long talk with Maggie always cheered him up.
~~~~
Gemma
"Llewellyn, do try to keep up."
Dr. Pugh fussed yet again. For the past three days, he had taught her the intricacies of the chemistry used in his research. Her brain, famous in the Brightman Girl circle for its nimbleness, felt taxed to its maximum capacity.
"Of course, Dr. Pugh."
She had cultivated a vast reservoir of patience over the years, but her lessons with the elderly professor were consuming it at a vastly accelerated rate. Gemma felt every inch the ignorant schoolgirl, called on the carpet in front of an exasperated headmaster. She stood a little straighter and squinted at the glass panel again.
A sketched series of broken honeycomb cells covered it, each labeled with various chemical symbols. Some of the "cell" walls had double lines, and some had additional lines sticking out from the corn
ers, just hanging out in the air. These extra fiddly bits and corners were the source of her mental fuzziness. Gemma had spent enough time in labs to recognize the symbols for nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. It was difficult to adjust to the unlabeled corners representing carbon, and sometimes carbon and hydrogen at the same time.
Bollocks, she thought, allowing her thoughts to run to the unladylike. Why don't they just write the C and the H where they belong? Why do they have to be so bloody sneaky about it?
"To continue," he said, "we were discussing the Code of Life. This architectural blueprint contained in every cell determines the entirety of a cell's life: its functions, its behavior, and its potential life span. Thanks to the Martians, we know much about the Code's components: nucleic acids, sugars, phosphates, et cetera.
"We had an extensive knowledge of these components before the Invasion, to be sure. We were well on our way to working out the Code of Life without their help. We knew about the chemical guanine back in 1844," he said, pointing to one of the honeycomb cells on the panel. "It was first extracted from bird guano, hence the name."
He paused and looked at Gemma, waiting possibly to see if her face would twist itself in disgust. When it did not, he continued.
His large-knuckled index finger tapped the others as he talked. "Adenine, 1885. Thymine and cytosine, just a year apart in the 1890s. We knew there was some kind of Code thanks to that old Swiss fellow, Miescher, back in '69. Kossel figured out in '78 that there were five primary nucleobases, including what you see here plus one other. We knew about guanine for ages, but it took a while to determine its purpose and relationship to the others. Now, Llewellyn, can you tell me from your vast laboratory experience" -- he cleared his throat here -- "how you think the Code works? How does it store instructions for its miniscule Analytical Engine?"
Gemma reached into the pocket of her skirt and fiddled with the grease pencil concealed there. She had used it to decode messages on her stateroom mirror for the past couple of days. She had wrestled with how to decode safely after her first attempt to feed her first message to the goats. Shreds and scraps of paper already lingered there, leavings from the goats' previous snacks, and what she had found on them confirmed her suspicions: there were others like her on the Fury. The message that she found there was rather pedestrian, what looked like a recipe, but there was no mistaking that someone wanted to hide it. She wasn't the only one who had considered the goats as a disposal method. She was glad that the mysterious other person had tried it first, so that she could avoid their mistake and potential Discovery. She doubted it had been her Watcher, if she even had one aboard. Gemma had never known Brightman to use recipes in her normal rotation of ciphers.
She had eaten the scrap of paper, after all, washing it down with plenty of Darjeeling and some leftover Bosworth jumbles nicked from the galley. Frau Knopf, at least, had been pleased about her little treat. It was the stout matron's firm opinion that Gemma was too skinny, and she was not shy in expressing said opinion to anyone within earshot.
On the panel was a column of letters to the right of the honeycombs, in sets of three: CGA, CGG, CGC, TAG. They suspiciously resembled her own decoding work.
Gemma had filched one of the grease pencils from her own glass panel the morning after the encounter with the goats. She thought she might have trouble doing it on the sly, but she was almost disappointed at how easy it had been. Bidarhalli always had his back to her station -- at least he had the few times she had visited it -- as he sweated over a set of equations on his own panel. The Russian and Shaw had their own isolated lab next door and were rarely in the communal lab. She was rather grateful for that, as they were working with some rather nasty bits of pestilence. It was the same with Alfieri, who divided his time between his telescope and the tiny chapel, each in different parts of the ship. The other biologist, Berndsen, spent a lot of time with the ship's surgeon. Hui was in a state of constant distraction with his own pet project and constant flow of messages from the New Zealand labs. The linguist spent most of his time in the Cohort conference room and in the Informatics chamber on the bridge. He made great use of the Analytical Engine and worked closely with Humboldt, of all people.
The pencil now had a permanent nest in her pocket. Frau Knopf might be curious if she found one in her stateroom, since it lacked any glass panel other than the mirror, but no one could argue with a scientist carrying one in their pocket. In fact, at the moment she found it to be quite inspirational.
"It's rather like a cipher, isn't it?" she asked. She pointed at the column. "The letters there, each one represents one of those chemicals. A combination of those chemical letters -- like CGA -- carries a meaning. Like an alphabet making up words that only the cell can understand. Are there always just three in a set?"
Pugh goggled at her and then rocked back and forth on his enormous feet, as if he weren't sure whether to be peeved or pleased. "Yes, as far as we know."
"Well then, with three-letter words, four possible letters, that makes, what, sixty-four possible combinations?"
"Mathematics is certainly not your weak point, Llewellyn," he replied, apparently choosing to be pleased, after all. "Indeed, though we don't think there are sixty-four separate meanings for those 'words', so to speak, not really. Some instructions can be represented by any of a set of such words. For example, if the cell needs to assemble the amino acid alanine, the Code could use either CGA, CGG, CGT, or CGC to represent that instruction."
She pointed at the last one in the column. "Synonyms, then. What about this one? What does TAG mean?"
"Oh, that one. Amino acids don't appear singly. They are assembled in chains. A chain is encoded in one of these sets of three, and then the blueprint tells it when to stop the chain. TAG is one of several combinations that tells the part of the cell doing the assembly to stop."
"Like the word 'STOP' in a wireless message?"
"Precisely."
"Are there any other combinations for 'STOP'?"
He grinned at her for that one. It was a fleeting ripple across his large and wrinkled face, but it was a grin nonetheless. "TAA and TGA, child. I'll expect you to recite all of them back to me tomorrow."
If he had expected her to be nervous at that, he was mistaken. Mrs. Brightman had ground memorization into her Girls' heads, and Gemma had been her prize student in that category.
"Are all the combinations accounted for?"
He turned back to the glass panel and started to add lines to the honeycombs. "Most of them, but not all. Research is continuous," he said. "I can always ask Maggie where we are on that, though."
"Maggie?" she asked. "Who is that?"
Dr. Pugh stopped writing on the board for a second. His hand hung there in midair, grease pencil at the ready, but writing nothing.
"A... fellow researcher," Pugh said. He cleared his throat.
A sweetheart, perhaps? Gemma thought to herself. She was puzzled. Pugh was not married, as far as she knew. Widowed, possibly. There should be no issue with forming an attachment with someone else. Unless he just did not like to share information about his affections with his colleagues. He was British, after all.
Pugh coughed into his hand before he continued drawing on the panel, his back to her. "So, I'm given to understand that you break your fasts with the Booleans?"
She decided not to press him on the matter. There was plenty of time to allow him to let more tidbits slip out. Besides, that bit of information did not seem likely to lead her to Orion. However, demonstrating that she could keep mum with his personal secrets might build some trust.
"Yes, Dr. Pugh," she replied with a deep sigh. "With Chief Davies and Yeoman McLure. Mostly we discuss the proper way to curtsy and Nigel's impending fatherhood. The baby is due soon, I hear."
He waved an acknowledgement, back still to her, as she prattled on. Then she realized that she was prattling, but perhaps it was because the Booleans made her feel a part of the crew. Granted, it was easier to do her job when she was n
ot attached to the people around her -- Mrs. Brightman always said so. But she found herself appreciating their efforts, nonetheless.
She removed her hand from her pocket and smoothed her skirts. She asked, "That wouldn't constitute a breach of protocol, would it?"
"Oh, my, no!" he said, turning to look at her at last with widened eyes. "No, not a bit. I think it's splendid. In fact, I meant to encourage it. It would do you much good to have friends your own age. I am sure that, given your Peculiar Occupation, you have had little opportunity for that."
"Indeed," was her only reply, as a fleeting image of Philippa flickered across her mind.
What in the world was motivating this man to be kind to her -- in his own gruff fashion -- rather than chucking her out the airlock? There was no anger in his voice, just a wistfulness that recalled the mourning locket he had hidden.
She just hoped that in this flurry of activity -- she hadn't forgotten the looming Knitting Circle of Doom -- that she would have time to track down the elusive Orion. Few details on what exactly that was -- a plan, a formula, a tool -- were forthcoming. Opportunities to search were even fewer. Pugh did not leave her in the office alone, ever. It was so piled high with papers and journals that it would take months to paw through it all even if she were locked into the office in solitary confinement.
"So," she said with a slight swallow, asking the question that she had been dreading to ask yet still felt she must, "you haven't told the captain about me yet?"
"No. I don't plan to. If I did, it would put him in a spot to do something about it. If he had to do what the regulations say he has to do, he would be very put out. We can't allow anything to interfere with his ability to make war on the Martians, now can we? And I certainly don't wish to lose my newest protégé." He nodded at her sigh of relief. "Just watch yourself, though, young lady. I can't control what other people see or say to him. Just make sure he doesn't find out otherwise."