I took a cautious bite of my chunder. What the hell is this crap? I thought. Changing the subject, I nodded at the displays, “Any word from the probes yet?”
Sorcha shrugged. “Prelim report says this region fits the Weissner-Lusky curve pretty well, so its basically routine.” Which meant no obviously inhabited worlds, no evidence of EM activity other than normal output of celestial bodies, no strange deformations or anomalies in the fabric of space-time itself, beyond the usual things. But of course, there were some planetary systems, rich in the kinds of minerals required by the teeming billions back in human space.
“And how are you after a hard day in the sims?” she asked, poking at the food.
For a moment it was as though I could answer her question, and had a lot to say, but as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, there was nothing there. “I was…” I couldn’t remember a thing from the hours I put in.
Sorcha nodded. “You feel like you’ve done a twenty-k run, and played fifty simultaneous games of chess, but you can’t remember it to save your life, right?”
Smiling and feeling foolish I admitted, “Yes, that’s right. The sims at the Academy weren’t like this.”
“Everything’s different now, James.” She said while staring at an x-ray emission image of a nearby hot star cluster. It looked like there could be a supermassive black hole or two in there.
Sensing a mood shift, I tried a new tack: “How was your department head?”
Sorcha shrugged again in a very liquid movement. “He was okay. His name is Shackleton. SSO5. Says he thinks I’ll do. That was how he put it, ‘I think you’ll do, girlie.’”
“What did you think of that?” I asked.
She looked nonplussed, and I guessed she wasn’t used to such comments. “Bit of a shock to the system, to be honest.”
“How come?” I tried some more experimental nibbles on the casserole. It was adequate, and mostly warm. Sorcha pushed hers around her standard white china plate, where the glop sat congealing.
She allowed herself a lop-sided smile she obviously didn’t feel. “You know, all through the Academy I kinda coasted. I just fell through everything, and landed on my feet at the end, like this very brainy cat.” She arched one eyebrow, thinking about her former life.
“Really? I kind of dug my way through the whole thing like a dumb mole.”
She ignored my comment. “All the bloody good it did us, eh? We still wound up here.” She sat back, arms crossed. I felt the table vibrate as she kicked the leg with her boot.
“Have you,” I ventured after a long moment, feeling tense inside as I said it, “thought anymore about…?”
She coughed out a bitter laugh. “What do you think I’ve been thinking about all afternoon? Propulsion problems? Spare parts fabrication?”
Stung, I felt my face flush. “It’ll work, you know.”
“It might work, but what about down the road from now?”
“What do you mean?”
She looked at me like I was the stupidest person she had ever met. “James, is there anybody in there? I mean after! Say your plan works, they’re not going to be all that thrilled about it are they?”
“But you’d have evidence!”
“I just don’t know. I don’t know.” She looked unhappy. “I hoped my first day of space duty would be, you know. Not so … not so full of dread!”
“Maybe Ferguson really does just want to talk to you about your career.”
Another bitter laugh. “At 2330? It’s a little outside office hours, don’t you think? And he didn’t want to talk to you, did he? He only picked on the girl.”
“He picked on the extreme brain, too. You’ve got command potential is what he’s probably thinking.”
She laughed out loud. “Command potential!”
The evening ground on. At 2315 Sorcha finally said she was willing to have a go at the feeble plan we had cooked up. As we prepared our headware for the trick, I admitted to her that I thought she was going to say forget it. She said, “All that’s required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
“Well, obviously,” I said, surprised at her comment, but feeling strange about this whole business.
“And that’s why I decided to go along with it. This way, we have something on our side if things get out of hand.”
At that moment I thought, but kept to myself, and no good deed goes unpunished.
At 2330 Sorcha went to Ferguson’s cabin on Deck D. I was recording her sight and sound streams in the buffers of my headware; later I could download and encrypt the file into some kind of external storage or mail it somewhere for safekeeping — once we got back to human space.
Sorcha was shaking a little, mouth pursed shut, when she left the Mess. She told me not to wish her luck, and explained that whenever people wished her luck all kinds of horrible things happened to her. So I just smiled as best I could. She was a tough woman; she could take care of herself. And I couldn’t see Ferguson seriously trying to proposition a fellow crewman on her first day aboard ship. It seemed unlikely that a veteran of the Service would pull something that stupid. The man had to have professional standards of conduct to honor, and he had the captain to worry about too.
I sipped some more bad fabricated coffee in the Mess and followed the scene in my head.
Sorcha knocked on Ferguson’s door. She was right on time, but breathing fast. The lighting in the corridor was low, considering the hour.
Ferguson called through the door, “Come!”
She slid the door aside revealing Ferguson’s modest quarters. Where Captain Rudyard’s office was stark to the point of sterility, Ferguson surrounded himself with memorabilia from his long career. The area was filled with doodads and souvenirs from across the many other worlds and habitats of human space, particularly those in the loose arrangement of the Home System Community. Sorcha glanced around the room taking in the large and colorful novelty hats, long silk women’s gloves, miscellaneous and faintly pornographic statuettes, mysterious scarves, and tiny chrome rocketships on onyx pedestals. And there was no shortage of pictures, either. They were arranged in rows of cheap Active Paper displays along one wall. I assumed they were vids rather than static shots. He also had a huge collection of actual books, the printed and bound kind, packed behind a mounted and locked wall cabinet that would be worth a fortune to a dealer in such rarities.
Ferguson was still in uniform, and seated at a small plain metal desk, that was a dull service-gray color. He was working through documents and plans on a broad sheet of Active Paper; a tall ceramic mug of steaming black coffee or tea on one corner. He looked up to say, “Miss Riley, very good of you to come by at this hour,” and I could see he was exhausted. He stood, shook Sorcha’s hand, and showed her to a seat. I didn’t hear what she said in reply.
Once seated, Ferguson moved to sit, but then remembered his manners: “Can I prepare you a refreshment, Miss Riley? Some hot chocolate, perhaps?”
The old bastard was being quite decent, I thought, considering the lecture he gave us both in the Hole this morning. So far he didn’t seem like someone about to proposition a female member of the crew.
Sorcha shook her head no to his offer of refreshment. He smiled, looking like a fussy and eccentric uncle, and returned to his desk, where he fiddled with the window sizes on his paper for a moment. It occurred to me that maybe he was troubled by the peculiar circumstances, too.
Ferguson got down to the matter at hand. “Miss Riley, the captain and I have been looking over your Academy record.”
“Really, sir?” Sorcha said. I could hear the faint edge of sarcasm she was trying to keep out of her voice. Ferguson didn’t seem like a man who would be tolerant of her background in student activism.
He went on, “I must say, we are both extremely impressed, very impressed
indeed, by not only the quality of your performance but also by the sheer hard work you put in, especially considering your, ah, difficulties with certain parts of the curriculum.” He tried on a weak smile that didn’t last.
“Thank you, sir.”
“The captain asked me to ask you, however, if you are quite sure you want to stay with your choice of engineering as a career track. With your talents and single-minded drive, we both think you would make excellent command material. A person like you could make captain before you turn forty. Before fifty, certainly.”
I suppressed a laugh, thinking about my prediction.
Sorcha cleared her throat, probably thinking much the same thing. “I am quite happy working in engineering, sir. The theoretical and practical problem-solving challenges in this field are of extreme interest to me, sir.”
Ferguson looked troubled as he stared across at Sorcha, fingering his thin moustache. The steel fuzz of his hair caught the flat light from overhead. His eyes were lost in shadow. “Miss Riley, you are of course entirely free as an officer in the Service to choose your own career path and explore your options.”
“I appreciate that freedom very much, sir.”
“It’s just that we don’t often get a junior officer come along with such potential.”
“I understand, sir. Is there anything else? It’s quite late and I have a full day of sims tomorrow.”
Ferguson sat back, thinking about things for a bit. Then, not looking at Sorcha, he said, “Did you really think I asked you here tonight to make improper advances towards you, Miss Riley?”
I nearly choked. Sorcha, a cooler person than I in a pinch, took a long breath, and said, “Frankly, sir, yes I did. I would be interested in knowing how you knew I thought that.”
“Walls have ears, Miss Riley. There are no secrets on a ship like this.” He worked the sheet of paper and brought up a text file. “I have here a transcript of your conversation this morning with SSO1 Dunne.”
God! I thought back to the morning, which suddenly seemed like eons ago. The walls must have been covered with surveillance spray. I thumped my forehead.
“Thank you for informing me of this, Mr. Ferguson. I will consider myself corrected on this issue, sir.”
Ferguson smiled, looking like a happy uncle again. “Excellent, Miss Riley. Be sure to tell Mr. Dunne this as well. I’m sure he, too, will benefit from this revelation.”
Sorcha shot me a note as she left the interview with Ferguson and headed for her quarters:
Well, James, it seems I might have been a tad too suspicious. And perhaps the captain and Mr. Ferguson are both far more suspicious than either of us. What a way to find out what newbie’s are thinking! I don’t know whether to scream or laugh. What a relief! I can get on with doing my job now. Good night! S.
My quarters were a shared cabin for four junior male officers on Deck C; it was a small room with two double-bunks separated by a narrow gap, with an anteroom to one side for ablutions and storage. I had dumped my kit here earlier today, and now I found it still on my bunk, one of the lower beds. Someone had stuck a sheet of Active Paper up on the wall between the two sets of beds, and set it to display a feed of the outside starscape, which would have been a nice idea if they had used fresh paper, but this was a much-used sheet whose image was poor, there was a lot of static along the fold-lines, and there were areas with crap color reproduction, bad focus, and clumps of pixons not showing any color at all. Up close I also heard a steady, annoying background hum from it. I could imagine that keeping me up all night, so I turned it off.
The other bunks were unoccupied. My bunkmates were all stuck on the graveyard shift, I supposed. Poor bastards. I got changed for the few sweet hours of sleep I could enjoy before getting up at 0530.
I couldn’t stop thinking: Rudyard and Ferguson were prepared to spy on their own crew! I was still trying to get over this. They knew about our plan, which meant Ferguson knew I was listening in on his chat with Sorcha. I realized that I was screwed. I figured Sorcha would be okay, since she was at ground zero when the big revelations went off. But I was in for trouble, I just knew it in my bones. The whole miserable plan had been my idea — my little plan to try and ingratiate myself with a girl! God, what a worm I was.
I got ready for bed but was feeling like crap. I walked back to my bunk and climbed in. The covers were cold, so I got them to warm up a little. It took a while, with so much on my mind, but with help from my headware I drifted off around 0100.
I yelled in surprise more than pain as I suddenly hit the cold tile floor between the bunks. Then something hoisted me up to my feet and repeatedly slammed me against the wall, stunning me before I could think.
My eyes tried to adjusted to the darkness and I began to make out the sketchy details of my attacker: a broad, dull face; expressionless eyes; balding head; and a Service owner-logo emblazoned on the forehead.
I saw it all in slow motion but only had time to think, Disposable before someone else grunted and plunged a huge fist deep into my gut, winding me. I doubled over, shocked, wide-eyed, panicking — I couldn’t breathe— A black-clad knee shot up and hit me square in the face. Blinding shock. I heard my nose crunch — bones shift. Hot blood and snot squirting.
My whole world was sticky pain.
I don’t remember much of the rest of the beating. Only later did I put together in my head that I had been attacked by three disposable enlisted men. Not that they were enlisted, as such. There were no human enlisted men or women in the Service, but that’s what these things were called. Disposables were biological, nanofactured androids whose insanely cheap production costs and the assurances of the companies supplying the fabrication technology that the creatures had no higher-level awareness, no souls, and no real inner life led customers to feel quite okay about recycling the androids when they had done their jobs. Making them, of course, perfect soldiers.
They were also ideal thugs and enforcers.
Once I was conscious again, in the Infirmary, and before everything started going wrong, I thought I understood the message well enough: don’t rock the boat.
“Mr. Dunne? Are you awake, Mr. Dunne?”
I looked up through eyes that felt sort of all right. They weren’t puffy and sore anyway. I could make out light bars overhead, and smell the biting stink of antiseptics and high-end medical machinery, and a sharp whiff of ozone. A doctor was leaning over me, and Captain Rudyard, his face full of compassion, stood on the other side, looking down at me. Rudyard smelled of freshly fabbed clothing and strong aftershave. His dark eyes looked particularly sad and shadowed.
I felt little pain. When I tried moving my toes they worked fine; my fingers, too. As memory kicked in, and I recalled the early, terrifying moments from the attack, I had sufficient poise to wonder if the enlisted men had already been recycled to remove all evidence. It would be the prudent thing to do.
“Mr. Dunne?” Rudyard said.
I tried to focus on his shadowed face. “Captain?”
“Don’t try to do anything strenuous yet, son. The bots are still going about their business in there. That was quite a fall you sustained last night.” He said this with a straight face that looked quite believable. I looked at him, squinting, trying to see traces of the truth trying to escape from his lie. There were none. He said, “You picked a damned inconvenient time to go on the sick list, too, son.”
The doctor, a dark-skinned man in his early thirties, said, “This may not be the best time to get the boy all agitated, sir.”
I looked around. The Infirmary had room for twelve beds, but only the one next to mine was occupied.
Sorcha, unconscious. I could only see her dark face over the covers, but I recognized healing cuts and bruises on her face.
“Oh God, oh God…” I whispered, my voice dry and hoarse, seeing her lying there.
/> The captain, unaware of my alarm, pressed ahead. “While you were unconscious, Mr. Dunne, the scientists made an interesting discovery. I thought you’d be interested.”
I grabbed the doctor, pulling him down to face me. “What happened to Sorcha? What happened to her?”
The doctor freed himself easily; I wasn’t all that strong yet. He said, “Somebody tried to sexually assault Miss Riley during the night.”
I was speechless. Looking at her and thinking. Thinking a lot. God… If she hadn’t gone along with my stupid idea. Christ on a bloody stick, I’ve really screwed things up now. And I was disgusted that even at this shocking moment, seeing the unconscious results of my genius handiwork lying beside me, I was also thinking about my chances with her.
“She managed to, ah, incapacitate her attackers and raise an alarm, however, before passing out,” the doctor added.
Sorcha. I know you for one day and I get you in trouble like this!
The captain was still talking. “Mr. Dunne, we have found what we think might be an artifact of non-human origin.”
I wasn’t interested. Or, rather, I was, in a remote corner of my mind where the fingers of guilt couldn’t reach. It was astounding news, if it was true. But right at that moment, looking at Sorcha, watching her bruises heal, all I felt was crippling guilt at what I’d done.
“Captain, I think Mr. Dunne is too tired—”
“Nonsense, Doctor. He’s just the man for this little job.”
That got my attention. I looked up at the captain’s droopy face. “Sir?” Wondering what fresh punishment I was to receive for trying to rock the boat.
Rudyard waited until he had my full attention. “This artifact, son. We think, from initial scans, we think it might be a ship of some kind.”
This was big news, but I was in the wrong mood to think about it. “Yes, sir,” I said, my voice barely there. I kept stealing glances at Sorcha.
“We’re sending a boarding party over there to have a bit of a look, and you’ve been volunteered.”
Eclipse Page 5