by K. T. Hunter
"Depending on when they left, yes."
"Can we read some of his archived messages? If Humboldt's awake, he's the one you want. Perhaps they could give us a notion."
"They are certain to be in code, Elias. I'm not sure we have the time to crack it ourselves. Rathbone did say he had broken it, but I don't trust him to decode them for us."
"Well," Pugh said, "he has as much to lose as the rest of us, so perhaps we can trust his desire to live. If not, perhaps Miss Llewellyn can be of assistance."
Christophe frowned. "After our last encounter, I don't think she'll be very keen to help me."
"She may seem a wild creature, Christophe, but she's no fool. She'll certainly do it to help herself. And no matter what you may think of her, she does care about the people on this ship. Look at what she did for Chief Davies! And for Maggie. She kept Wallace from getting away. Even if she did try to kill him, she's the reason we know what is happening to us. Rathbone exposed him, and Rathbone was here because she was here. Oh, the irony!" He shook his head. "She knows how to use ciphers. Let's see if she can break them. We lose nothing by trying. I'll see to it, if you wish."
Christophe chewed the inside of his cheek, lost in thought. "I've got to face her sometime," he concluded. "Might as well be now. Stay here with Wallace and Maggie. See if he'll talk to you. Keep me apprised. I'm off to sick bay. Use the pipephone to call around and have the Booleans meet me there. Let's include Hui as well." He sighed. "I should deal with this in person. If she reacts badly, at least Dr. Hansard will be handy to patch me back together."
~~~~
Gemma
Gemma looked around Hansard's desk at the Booleans sitting across from her. She could have sliced through the stunned silence with a butter knife.
"This cannot leave the room, at least not yet," Christophe said. "I should be the one to deliver the news to the rest of the crew. And I will tell them. I just want to know what the truth is before I do."
He rubbed the back of his neck and watched their silent nods of assent. He continued, "If what Wallace says is true, and we manage to survive the next day or so, we'll be renegades. Even if we make it home, the faction in control of the Admiralty will not welcome us with open arms."
Confusion and anger mixed on Nigel's exhausted face. "Is there anything we can do to help Admiral Thorvaldson? Any way we can change this?"
"From here, from so far away, I just don't know. Let's take this one crisis at a time. Pritchard is making progress on the power restoration. I need this group to deal with the next predicament. We need to know everything Wallace knows. Is there another ship? If so, how far away is it? Will they be able to catch up with us?"
Humboldt blinked and spoke slowly. He looked in desperate need of another nap. "I know Wallace spent a lot of time on the wireless. He didn't bother to hide his messages, though, since they're all in code. Hiding them would have gotten our attention. I can pull them up from the archives." He tugged at the bandage that threatened to slip off his head. "As for the Admiral, I might be able to get some news out of Jules on the wireless."
"Forgive me, Mr. Humboldt, but what could he know about that?"
"Jules is a barkeep, sir. He keeps his ear to the ground. You'd be surprised at the people that pass through the Badger and Tentacle and the loose lips that his ale can engender. Not to mention, if we need anybody to get the truth about us out, he's the way to go. You don't mess with bartenders. Or their cousins."
Christophe nodded at him. "All right. See what rumours he's heard and in turn let him know we are fine. Hold off on the rest until I give you the go-ahead. It will be useful to have someone back home know that we're still out here." He turned to Gemma. "Any chance you can break his code?"
If her eyes had been heat rays, she would have melted him on the spot. So much for keeping her Peculiar Occupation a secret.
He seemed to notice the Booleans staring at him and added, "With your background as a computer, I'm sure you can work with Chief Davies and his crew on it."
She shifted in the harsh wooden chair, searching for a comfortable spot. "I cannot tell until I see it, Captain."
"But will you try?"
She looked around the table, into the eyes of Caroline, Nigel, and Humboldt. She thought of Pugh and Nigel's little Gemma back on Earth. She looked up at Christophe and caught her own rough reflection in the door's window. She was a mass of shawls and blankets, and her hair was an unholy halo floating about her head.
"If you promise not to shoot me again," she replied, her voice dry and rough. Her statement startled the Booleans; apparently, they did not know the entire history of her injuries. She cleared her throat and continued. "I can guarantee nothing, Captain, as these things take time, and that is one thing we don't have. But I will try."
"That is all I can ask of you, Miss Llewellyn," he replied gently. "Very well. I will be on the bridge. Contact me there when you have something. Dismissed."
"Get some rest, Miss L," Humboldt said to her. "It'll take a while to retrieve those messages. Might have to burn some midnight oil on this one."
"It's all midnight oil out here, isn't it, Mr. Humboldt?" she replied softly.
The Boolean patted her shoulder as he passed her chair and followed the others out of the room. He secured the door behind him.
Gemma took a long moment to stand up, shrugging off Christophe's proffered hand. She did not look at him as she struggled, but she could sense him backing away a step when she made it to her feet.
"Miss Llewellyn, it is good to see you up and--"
A sharp slap from Gemma's hand cut him off.
"Ow," she yelped. She clutched at her screaming ribs, and her face twisted into a grimace. "That's for shooting me."
He touched his face, where her hand had left an angry mark across his cheek. "It was just the Leyden pistol. It's not lethal."
Her teeth chattered in the cold and broke up her reply. "It may not be lethal, but it is painful nonetheless."
"For your pain, I am indeed sorry," he said as he pulled a blanket down from a shelf beside the door. "But you brought it on yourself. Next time, listen to me. But Humboldt is right. You should get some rest while they work."
He unfolded the fabric and stepped closer to her again, lifting it to her shoulders. She jerked away from him, and it tumbled to the floor.
"Don't touch me," she hissed. "I don't want you to touch me. I don't want Humboldt to touch me. I don't want anyone touching me."
"Gemma," Christophe replied, "you heard what I said. You know what's happening. We may not have much time. Don't you need some kind of human warmth or comfort? I know there are ... barriers... between us. Don't you need to... to spend time with someone, even for just a little while, if this is the end?"
"Need? Who are you to know what I need?" she asked. "Who said I need to be with anybody? I'd rather spend my time figuring out how to survive this, thank you very much."
She stomped her foot at him, and the action jarred her from head to toe. She groaned yet again and scowled at his stunned silence.
"What I need is to be left alone! I am tired of men pawing at me," she said. "I am tired of Brightman. I am free of her, but I am not free of what I am: a thief that happens to be good with numbers. A thief and a trained killer, Captain. That's all I'll ever be. I even thought, for a fleeting moment in the orrery, that I could be something else. But no. No. Wallace brought it back. He brought it all back. I'm sick of shadows. I'm sick to death of death. But I track it with me everywhere I go, like tar stuck to my soles."
"Then Rathbone was telling the truth? You have--"
"Yes, Captain. Yes, I have done many, many things in Brightman's name. Make of that what you will." She touched the latch. "You once asked me who I was. This is it. This is who I am. A heartless beast." She opened the door and slipped through it. As she latched it behind her, she whispered, "Maggie isn't the monster on your ship, Captain. I am."
Gemma's agitated mind, the shuffling of the crewmen, and
the antiseptic smell of the chamber would not let her rest. The stunned expression on Christophe's face as he had left sick bay haunted her. In a pretense at distraction, she rifled through the Smith journal. Frustrated, she flipped to the last pages to see how it ended, since she might not get another chance.
Smith and his crew were exploring a watery cavern in a canoe provided by their mysterious benefactor. They had just encountered a vessel with a terribly familiar description when Smith guessed at their angel's identity: Nemo.
Gemma frowned. Smith's journal stated that the date of that encounter was October of 1868. She flipped back to the end of Aronnax's journal and read the date of the maelstrom: June 1868. Nemo had died the day after Smith's men found him, even though he had been on the island for their entire sojourn. He had perished of nothing worse than illness and old age. The Nautilus had served as his sarcophagus when Smith followed the old captain's wishes and scuttled the submarine, never to be seen again by the eyes of man.
She flipped back and forth between the two journals. She was beginning to see what Pugh found so fascinating here: Nemo seemed to be in two places at once, with Aronnax between 1867 and 1868, yet also with Smith on the island from 1865 until 1868. To make matters worse, Smith claimed to Nemo that he had already read of Aronnax's adventures. Her inner scientist nagged at her. Smith would have to have read it before landing on the island in 1865, although another two years would pass before Aronnax and Nemo met. It had not been written yet.
She sat back, stunned, her exhausted mind unable to absorb the overdose of oddity. She closed both of the books and hoped to read them again when she had recovered her faculties. Perhaps her addled brain had read the dates incorrectly.
It was all in the past. It could wait.
At the bottom of the stack, she found the slim volume that the good Frau Knopf had read aloud during the Knitting Circle, The Lady of Shalott. Bored and mildly curious about its ending -- and thinking she may never get another chance to do so -- she opened the book and read the verses.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot;
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
"She dies," Gemma grumbled. She flung the book to the end of the bed without bothering with the last lines. "All that, and she dies. For what, a broken heart? What a disgusting notion."
"But people do die of broken hearts, little jewel. It happens all the time. What would you have done?"
Gemma felt Maggie tugging at her mind again, from wherever she was in the ship, with the voice of the Man from Shanghai. Gemma closed her eyes to listen, and she could see the Man as well.
"I would have tracked down the source of the curse and eradicated it. Permanently."
She could almost feel Maggie's smile in her head as she replied, "I thought as much."
"Why him? Why are you always that man when you talk to me?" Gemma thought, addressing the apparition in her head.
"I needed an image from your past. I didn't think you'd accept me in my true form," Maggie said.
"Point taken," Gemma replied. "I think I have graduated to seeing you as you are. I am becoming accustomed to it."
The Man from Shanghai smiled at her before the mental image of him shimmered and dissolved, and the wriggling form of Maggie took his place. His voice still rang in her head, though.
"I am not sure of my voice," Maggie said, "as I do not actually have one of my own. Your teacher's, perhaps?"
Gemma was certain that her cringe was visible to the others in sick bay. "Oh, please, let's not. Frau Knopf?"
"I love her dearly, but her accent is rather difficult. What about your friend?"
Gemma thought about that for a moment. "Caroline? Or do you mean Jennie?"
"Yes, Jennie," Maggie said, with a dreamlike timbre that resembled her memory of Jennie's voice. It was oddly comforting.
"Strange to say, but that is better," Gemma replied.
She looked up and noticed Caroline shuffling through the main door of sick bay with a bulky box in her hands. She glanced at Gemma before waddling over to Hansard's office. She gave the closed door a helpless look. Gemma groaned, creaked her way off the cot, and opened the door for the Boolean.
"Nigel is on his way," Caroline said as she struggled through the door with the box, which was packed to the gills with cards. "He's bringing a portable reader down from Informatics. It's a bit heavier than this. Won't fit in the pneumatics. Perhaps it's a good thing the gravity plates are losing power in the corridors."
Stumbling with fatigue, Caroline tripped and lost hold of the box. Punchcards flowed across the table, along with quite a few CDVs.
"Bugger!" Caroline yelped. She shook with frustration. "And that's Humboldt's collection, too. He asked me to bring 'em down for him."
Gemma picked up one of the punchcards and noted the preprinted number in its corner. "Do you use these in order, Caroline?"
"Yeah," she replied, "Should be able to put them back in sequence so we can read 'em, but I'm so tired that the numbers are blurry."
Gemma pointed to the chair next to her. "Sit, then. I can do this while you rest a moment. I can see well enough."
As Caroline pulled out the chair and plopped down into it, Gemma sorted through the cards. The CDVs were nearly their twins in size and shape, and she silently commented on them to Maggie.
"There is a difference?" Maggie asked.
"Mostly the CDVs are just a way to pass the time," Gemma replied as she continued to sort through the pile. She discovered a rather naughty one of Sophie the Steamfitter and grimaced. "Some more disgusting than others."
She spoke aloud to Caroline. "Would you like some cold ration?"
She only received a soft snore in return. Gemma smiled softly at the mass of brown hair buried in a set of crossed arms. She let the Boolean be. The poor girl was exhausted, and there was really nothing for her to do until Nigel arrived with the card reader.
Gemma continued to work, grateful for something to occupy her thoughts. She set Humboldt's CDVs aside in their own pile as she found them, noting the variety of pubs and actresses. She tucked the saucier ones into the bottom of the pile; she wondered how Caroline had reacted to seeing her beloved heroine in that state of undress.
Still, Gemma felt the need to talk to someone. The slight pressure in her head she felt when Maggie spoke was still there. She focused on that pressure and sent a thought along it, hoping Maggie would hear her. Gemma was still unsure of the alien's location. Her Curiosity was hungry, though, and the punchcards had offered up a question.
"How do you do it?" Gemma asked. "Exchange information, I mean."
She was pleased to hear Maggie reply, "I believe other second-gens send data directly from their minds, much like I am talking to you, but in Code instead of words."
"You mean, like the wireless?"
"Yes. Alas, something happened with me. Perhaps it is my human Code. I can only talk to humans this way. It works well, though. I can talk to you from anywhere on the ship, like I am now."
"Like a wireless pipephone in our heads?"
"Precisely. I cannot communicate with any of the other second-gens except in person, by other means. That has only happened twice."
"Do you get on?"
"As well as could be expected. They have no sense of humour."
Gemma chuckled aloud, but the noise did not wake Caroline. "Do you have any memories of Mars? From your parent?"
"Sadly, no. I hope to acquire some memories, good memories, when we are there, if we do not have to battle. I rather agree with the priest. I hope we do not have to fight."
"I am not sure we will be in any shape to fight, at this rate. I suppose Christophe has no memories of Mars, either
?"
"You cannot copy what is not there, my little gem."
Humboldt's voice came to her; he had said much the same thing about the analytical engine. That led to another question.
"Do you store your memories in your Code of Life?" Gemma asked.
"In a manner of speaking. Elias believes my parent was already dying as I formed, and that affected the copy process. I received more human Code in my life Code than I should have. I think it overwrote my memory Code. But I've been writing new memory Code as I go. I was very young when Christophe budded, so he did not inherit many memories from me. However, if I choose to bud again, that bud will have many memories. It will know you."
"So that's the extra Code that Pugh was studying," Gemma replied. She chewed that thought over. "Wait. You would have told him that already, correct? He already knew, didn't he?"
"Perhaps he wanted you to work it out on your own. He does that sort of thing. I think he was preparing you to meet me, eventually. I don't think he anticipated our early encounter."
"No one did. Do you remember your parent at all?"
"No. For the most part, Elias and Frau Knopf cared for me until I could manage on my own. That did not take long, though. We mature quickly. Instead of treating me like a specimen, though, Elias made me part of his family. He is my family, as is Christophe. As now are you."
Gemma allowed herself a faint smile at that and said, "I do not remember my family at all. I was just an infant during the Invasion."
"With all your skills, you did not try to find them? At least their names? I am certain you could have found their names, and rather easily. It is just a matter of matching Codes."
"You make it sound so simple! Brightman discouraged us from even thinking about our parents, let alone searching for them. And I knew nothing about Codes until now. I had no Code samples to work from. And I certainly had no way of analyzing them!" Gemma paused, remembering her discussion with Alfieri, about seeing into the past from a distance. She continued, "But, now that I can think about them, now that I can think about anything at all, I can't help but wonder if my life would have been different if my parents had not died in the Invasion. Would I have been this?"