by Webb, Nick
The fight went out of Parees in an instant and he hunched over, hands shielding his face. His shoulders shook.
“And the pictures you sent arrived a few days ago,” Nhean told him. “I’ve cross-referenced them.”
Parees quieted at that. “They were nice,” he said. He rubbed at his short hair.
“The missionaries? The Daughters?”
Parees flinched, but his face quickly returned to calm. “The pictures. I thought they were nice.”
Nhean felt a prickling on the back of his neck. “They were nice,” he said. He had the sense that he was walking forward in the dark with his hands outstretched, not sure what was there, half-expecting a monster. Parees was calm now, but how could Nhean know what might make him upset again? “Are they the same in every temple?”
“Not always.” Parees lifted one shoulder. He was looking around himself like a child, intrigued by the room. “But the same story. The vision. The reckoning. Exile.”
“I see.” What the hell was he supposed to say now? “Did they have anything else … nice … there?” He just had to keep Parees calm until he could get a tranquilizer into him.
“Yes. I liked the books.”
“Books?” Nhean began edging toward the bathroom. “I’m just getting you a drink of water.”
“Okay.” Parees shrugged. “The books like their bible. The holy books.”
“They let you see those?” That was good news. His mind started spinning. “Did you take pictures?”
“Yes.”
“That’s very, very good.” Nhean reminded himself to be careful. He could get the pictures later. For now, he just had to keep Parees talking, and calm. He turned on the tap and let water flow into a crystal glass. “What did you like about them?”
“Everything was so simple.” Parees was staring into the middle distance with a smile. “It’s a pretty story.”
The one about their sun blowing up? Or the one about them exiling humanity from Earth? “Sure.” Nhean shook a pill out of a bottle of tranquilizers and replaced the cap carefully.
“It really is.” Parees leaned forward. “We just see war and living in ships, but they lived in ships, too. They had to, to come here.”
Nhean paused, not sure where this was going. He came out of the bathroom silently to look at Parees.
“And now that they’re here, we’ll help one another ascend.” Parees was staring at him. “No more war. They’ll help us and we’ll help them. They needed to come here. Do you see? Our people need each other. They need us. We need them.”
“Yes.” Parees was so earnest that the word just came out in Nhean’s desire to reassure him. Nhean searched for a follow-up. “Like in the paintings.”
It was a gamble, but it paid off. Parees smiled. “So you see now.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not afraid anymore? We’ll help Walker and everything will be okay?”
What in the name of God was going on? Parees forced himself to smile, hoping that none of his confusion showed on his face.
“We will,” he agreed. “And Parees—you should rest now. There’s plenty of time to … help Walker. You should rest. Just for a bit.” He held out the pill and the water.
“I don’t want that.” Parees hunched his shoulders. His eyes were wild. “I don’t want that, don’t make me take it.”
“It’s just to help you sleep.” Nhean held his eyes. He made no sudden movements. “Just some sleep. It will help your bruises heal, and when you wake up, we can help Walker. Would you like that?”
Parees looked as if he were poised to run. “If I sleep on my own, can I not take it?”
He was going to run if Nhean pressed him on this, that much was clear, and who knew how he would respond to the exertion….
“You don’t need to take it.” Nhean shook his head and put the pill aside. “I just thought you might like to. Do you want to eat some food before you sleep?”
“I don’t need food.” Parees edged toward the door. “I’ll go sleep.”
He vanished around the corner a moment later, leaving Nhean staring after him in consternation.
Ethics warred with practicality, and practicality won. Nhean was at the desk a moment later, the video feeds blinking up on his screen. He watched as Parees made his way through the galley—he didn’t grab a knife, that was good—and down the corridors to the crew bedrooms at the other end of the ship. He seemed to remember where he was going, which was good. He seemed to be walking normally.
Nhean sat back in his chair with a frown. He hadn’t expected the man to come back for days, if not weeks, more. Winning the trust of the missionaries could be expected to take longer than … he counted. How long could Parees possibly have stayed? The travel time alone out to Saturn was significant. He couldn’t have been there more than a day.
Had Parees stolen the pictures? Had they thrown him off the station? It was possible. It would explain the bruises. Then again, he’d seemed to be taken in by their propaganda. Surely the missionaries wouldn’t have hurt him.
Nhean hesitated, and then brought up a video feed inside the bedroom itself. What was Parees doing now? Resting, as he’d said he would? Praying? The thought was unsettling.
His stomach flip-flopped when he saw the feed of the room. It was empty. The man had vanished.
Or … not vanished. No. There he was, the curve of his back just visible as he sat in the shower, hugging his knees. His clothes were still on, and he was rocking faintly from side to side as the water rained down on him.
Something was very, very wrong.
Nhean opened a comm channel with a tap of his fingers.
“What is it?” Walker’s voice, genuinely curious.
“Do you have any … psychiatrists … in the fleet?” In his head, he heard how ridiculous it sounded. The fleet had only just managed to start wearing uniforms. They hardly had enough scrap metal to patch their ships.
“Yes.” She sounded cautious. “I mean, it’s not their whole job, but some of the doctors are trained that way.”
“One of my crew is not feeling well. I don’t suppose I could see about—”
“Of course. I’ll send them to the Koh Rong.”
“Not … just now. I’ll let you know. Thank you.” He hung up.
His eyes were drawn to another screen, and he let himself be drawn. He’d put the pictures of the hangings aside when Parees first sent them. Pretty, Parees had said. Nhean hadn’t even thought they qualified as that. They were propaganda, nothing more.
But Parees had liked them. Parees, who was frightened to the point of a breakdown, had calmed when he remembered them. We’ll help Walker, he told Nhean, and everything will be okay.
Nhean sat late into the night, staring at the hangings, scrolling through them time after time until his eyes crossed. He was missing something. There was some piece of the Daughters of Ascension that he didn’t understand.
She’s telling you everything. The echo of Parees’s voice came across days and hundreds of thousands of miles. That’s when this had all started. When Parees met Ka’sagra, and then insisted Nhean meet her too.
The answer was here somewhere, he knew it.
He just didn’t know what the question was.
Chapter Forty-Six
Mars
Carina Station
VFS Santa Maria
The Aggy II docked with the Santa Maria five days later. The return to the Rockies, the second trip out to the lab to obtain the materials necessary for the repair, and the escape from Earth itself were all undertaken under a blanket of numb mechanical necessity. Luckily, the lab had been well stocked, and the repair itself proved relatively simple. With minimal remaining hull damage and acceleration capabilities to match any ship in the new fleet, the ship had made almost unnaturally good time.
It had also been an unnaturally quiet journey, untroubled by Telestine patrols. Pike was certain the girl had something to do with that. She spent the flight huddled in her bunk
, clutching the piece of Telestine computer to her chest, but he didn’t talk to her about it. The one time he’d tried to assure her that Tokyo wasn’t her fault, she had ushered him out of the room and shut the door in his face.
Walker was the first thing Pike saw as the airlock doors opened. They locked eyes and Pike’s heart seemed to turn over in his chest. She stood back to let the medics onto the ship, where they loaded Gabriela’s unconscious body onto a stretcher and wheeled her away. When she caught sight of James limping after the stretcher, Walker turned away from Pike with obvious effort to speak to James.
“I was sorry to hear about Gabriela,” she said seriously. “She’ll have the best care, I promise. We haven’t forgotten the service you did us at Mercury.”
James gripped her hand in thanks, and Pike was reminded just how Walker had taken this fleet: not only with passion and tactical expertise, but with a politician’s memory for faces and facts, and the ability to make anyone feel as if they were the only target of her attention.
She called forward a young enlisted soldier with a wave. “Show Mr. Marquez to the infirmary and make sure to have him briefed on Gabriela’s care.” She watched as James limped away, and then waved them all into the hallway, her eyes lingering on the girl before she forced a smile at the crew. “All of you should feel free to take some refreshment in the mess hall, and I’m given to understand there’s a secret bar somewhere in the fighter bay. Pike, a word?”
“You allow secret bars?” The humor was strained. He’d rather banter with her than talk about Earth, and they both knew it.
“There’s a fine line between courting sloppiness … and bad morale.” She shook her head, but a smile was playing around her lips. “And it’s fun to watch them all hide their flasks when I show up unannounced.”
Pike snorted as they made their way into a side corridor.
“I’m sorry about Earth.” She switched topics without missing a beat. “I should have called you back as soon as Parees told us where you were.”
“Of course he told you,” Pike muttered.
She swung to face him, anger simmering in her gaze. “You took one of our strongest tactical assets with you. Of course he would tell us.”
The relief at seeing her crystallized into anger in a split-second. “She isn’t an asset.” Pike heard his voice rising.
“You need to get your head on straight,” she told him brutally. “McAllister and his team can fly, so that’s how we use them. I can plan battles, so that’s how we use me. She can manipulate Telestine equipment. Use all the pretty language you want, but don’t pretend that makes her any less of an asset than anyone in this fleet.”
“Fine.” His chest was heaving. “Can I go?” If he stayed, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Punching the admiral would probably be frowned upon. Taking her by the shoulders and kissing her wasn’t much better.
He shook his head to clear his mind of the thought. “I need to go,” he said, a bit more carefully.
“In a minute.” She jerked her head for him to keep walking. “I need your insight.”
He closed his eyes briefly. He really shouldn’t stay here. “On what? What do I know about?”
“The Telestines. Don’t pretend cargo haulers don’t know their patrol patterns and their sensor distances, and you saw them on Earth, too.” She broke off when she saw the look on his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
His eyes traced over the familiar shape of her brows, the shadowed eyes, the small nose. Full lips, sparking the memory of one drunken night.
She took an unsteady breath, and he had the sense she was remembering the same thing. “Pike. The patrols.”
“Yeah, I’ll have Rychenkov send you what he has.” Pike looked down rather than meet her eyes. He could practically see his hands reaching out to her.
“And on Earth?”
She was all business. That was all she was anymore. He surrendered to anger gratefully. “On Earth, my camp got destroyed. Are you sure I’m the one you want to ask about this?”
“I didn’t ask you back to fight.” She snapped the words at him. “If you want to fight about all of it, just leave. It will be easier for everyone. Go live on a cargo ship, see if you can outrun this.”
“I think you’ve pretty well assured that’s never going to happen.”
“Ah, yes. It was all me.” Her eyes were like chips of stone. “I always forget that part.”
One of his hands clenched into a fist.
She took a step back from him. It was almost a sign of weakness, of desire. But only almost. Her face settled into a grim smile. “So which do you want to do? Leave, or help?”
“Jesus.” He blew out his breath. “Help.”
A tiny settling in her shoulders was the only sign of relief. Her voice stayed crisp. “Good. I need your read on the situation. Since you left Earth, there have been various warlike noises made on the official Telestine channels.”
“Warlike noises? What the hell does that mean?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “And?” They’d started walking again, and Pike frowned down at her.
“And that’s all.” She looked over at him. Her nostrils were flared. She pressed her lips into a tight line and clenched her fingers behind her back. “If they have a fleet they’re sending somewhere, and it’s not the one they used at Ceres, then no one has seen it. And nothing should be able to get through the asteroid belt without us knowing.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“Is it?” she shot back.
“I … fail to see how it couldn’t be.” Pike shook his head in frustration. “Okay, we were worried they were going to come down on us with everything they had. They haven’t. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with it is that they should have.” She kept her voice to a fierce whisper. “This was his damned plan, wasn’t it? So why wasn’t he ready to capitalize on it? At Mercury he threatened hellfire and ruin on us, and now? Nothing. Something’s wrong.”
“He’s letting it play out,” Pike said soothingly. “He’s just letting the rest of the Telestines think they’re making their own decision. They’ll call for us all to be murdered in due time, I’m sure, and he’ll pretend to be reluctant before trying to blow us to smithereens—and can I just say how weird it is that I’m trying to reassure you by saying that?”
She hesitated. Not even a hint of humor showed in her eyes.
“What? What is it?”
“Nhean knows something,” she said finally. “I don’t know what. I think he knows why nothing’s happening, but he won’t tell anyone.” She frowned. “And he called me about having our doctors see to one of his crew, but as far as I know, he hasn’t followed up. He undocked and now he’s just holed up on the Koh Rong, not talking to anyone.”
“Can you blame the man? He lived in a mansion all to himself, with about eighty computer screens of data and no one talking to him. The fleet’s not for everyone. He’s probably just trying to figure out the same thing you are.”
“I’m telling you, he knows what’s going on.”
“Listen.” Pike leaned against the wall and craned to look into her eyes. “He doesn’t like you. Right?”
The stiffness in her shoulders disappeared. She shook her head with a genuine laugh. “I hope you’re going somewhere good with this.”
“My point is, you and he don’t always see eye-to-eye, but he helped you at Mercury. He gave you intel. He gave you his whole fleet, for God’s sake. He would never hold back information that would keep you from winning this.” For a moment, he thought she looked evasive. “Would he?”
“No.” She looked away, rubbing at her forehead. “You’re right. He wouldn’t do that. I must have … been wrong.”
“Not necessarily, but Nhean is always dealing with more information than most people know what to do with.” Pike shrugged. “He knows that if you jump at the wrong shadows right now, it could destroy the fleet. He’ll want to make sure he has proof of any theory
before he brings it to you.”
“I suppose you’re right.” She bit her lip and smiled up at him.
Pike felt himself lean forward.
They caught themselves at the same moment and she looked away, cleared her throat. “And how are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Earth, Pike. You’ve been shot at. You’ve probably lost a crewmate, and you saw a city blown to pieces.”
“Two. We saw Denver go before Tokyo.”
“Two cities.” She corrected herself softly. “So how are you?”
“Oh.” He rubbed at his eyes. What to tell her? That the girl had seen where she came from, and now knew she’d been essentially resurrected? That Pike had had nightmares of the knives and the computer chips under her skin? “I … don’t know. The Aggy’s going to need some work. That hull held on by a prayer when we broke atmo.”
“We’ll get it fixed.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as an officer hurried by with a salute for Walker.
“How’s Essa?” Pike asked finally.
“A bitch.” Walker leaned her head back against the wall with a thump. She smiled wearily at Pike’s chuckle. “He is. He thinks it’s nothing that we don’t have anyone attacking us right now. He thinks I’m being crazy and eventually the fleet will rebel and beg for him to reinstate Morgan. Hell, he probably thinks if he just wanders around in a dress uniform enough, people will start asking for him to come back.”
Pike snorted.
“He manages to show up at least once a day. The cost of those shuttle rides has to be getting prohibitive but they never seem to run out of fuel.”
“Maybe the UN’s been stockpiling. Like how the fuggers seem to be stockpiling iridium.”
Her face went cold.
“What … did you say?”
“What? Nothing. Just that the UN is probably hoarding fuel—you know those corrupt bureaucrats always—”