The Spiral Path

by Lisa Paitz Spindler

  Cam set the cards aside and poured them each another shot. “You’ve done well for all of us. You do know that, right? We all chose this path on our own.”

  “Thank you.” Lara swirled the amber liquid in her glass. “Do you ever miss it? The life we could have had?”

  “Living sequestered on Star Union ships? Having to serve twice as long as any Terran and probably at half their pay? No. I don’t miss it a bit.”

  Lara cut the cards, anxious to do something with her hands. “We were on a good track, you and me. You’d have made captain by now if not better.”

  Cam hesitated and bit her lip. “Actually…”

  “Got something on your mind, Camryn?”

  Cam nodded. “I do. I’d like my own command. Ma’am.”

  Lara kicked her under the table. “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me at my own poker table, Camryn Rossa. I’ve been wondering how long it would take for you to bring this up.”

  “Well?’

  Lara leaned forward. “Well what? What ship are you going to captain? I can’t very well kick Gabe off the Centaur now, can I?”

  Cam rubbed her foot. “I’ve been working on plans for a third ship.”

  “Of course you have. I’d expect nothing less. A third ship would actually, finally, make us a fleet. What do you want to name her?”

  “The Sphinx.”

  Lara nodded. A mythological creature part woman, part lion. “Perfect. You are going to wait until after this mission is over, right?”

  “Absolutely. There’s no way I’m leaving you alone with Commodore Yoshida.”

  Lara narrowed her eyes. “I can handle the Commodore, Cam. Don’t you worry.”

  Cam laid a hand on Lara’s shoulder. “I know you can, but I’m not sure he can handle you. Plus, he’s not telling you everything, Lara. I don’t know what he’s holding back, but it’s definitely got him rattled.”

  “I don’t care what secrets the Commodore keeps. All I care about is getting my brother back. I always expected someday Rafael would join us at one of the havens.”

  “He will. Don’t worry.”

  Lara sat at the captain’s post and flipped open the terminal display. “XO, status report, please.”

  “All systems are go, Captain.”

  Lara nodded. Indeed, some of the Gryphon’s systems were operating above established parameters. Most notably the Thorne compensators, which on this trip would hopefully maintain the ship safely inside its protective exotic-matter shell.

  “Spin up the Trans-D engines and initiate horizon potentials.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  After almost two weeks of upgrades, the Gryphon was ready to try another trip to Creed. A few words to Cam eliminated the crew’s disregard for Mitch’s orders and the remaining adjustments were finished quickly. While part of her relished the crew’s loyalty, they had no time to spare. Now Lara could finally start tracking down Rafael. That mission superseded any misgivings she had about Mitch.

  Even though the friction between the crews had dissipated, Mitch might still kick her out of her own captain’s chair during this flight. She’d given ground in letting him take over her ship, but only temporarily. Despite her orders to take his lead in the repairs, Lara doubted the crew would follow his overall command.

  Mitch stepped onto the bridge and paused by Cam’s station. In only the few quick glances she allowed herself, Lara noticed his rigid stance and firm jaw. Her heart fluttered from both excitement and fear. The Chimerans respected her but had no allegiance to Rafael. How far could that respect be pushed? She might have an uprising on her hands if Mitch forced the issue of command.

  “XO, status, please.”

  “Trans-D engines at one hundred percent spin and horizon potentials ready, sir.”

  Mitch nodded and Lara held her breath. If only the world could stay in this moment, so full of potential, forever. She didn’t want Mitch to disappoint her again. That heartache she’d packed away years ago would flare. She didn’t think she could hide the pain away a second time.

  “Captain, ready when you are.” Mitch manned the science station behind her.

  Lara let out the breath and hoped no one noticed. “Ensign, de-sync the phase anchors.” A few more drags of air and maybe her pulse would slow down.

  “Aye, captain. Phase anchors away.”

  “XO, fire up the horizon potentials.”

  “Horizon engagement a go, Captain.”

  Out the viewport a horizon vortex twice the size of the ship swirled and coalesced into existence. A giant’s eye stared back at them, its iris the coal darkness of a wormhole. Each time Lara saw that gateway, she marveled that half of her DNA originated in another dimension.

  Mitch’s warm voice sounded from behind her. “Thorne-Sagan shell holding, Captain.”

  Lara held up one hand. “Launch on my mark. Three…two…one…”

  With a flick of her wrist, the Gryphon catapulted forward close to the speed of light and into the eye of the glittering storm.

  Chapter Four

  The pain began almost as soon as the Gryphon decelerated to full stop and the exotic-matter shell closed around them.

  A shrieking cacophony ripped through Lara’s brain and would probably have shattered her eardrums if she’d heard it with her ears. Instead the chorus of screaming voices came from inside her own head. And she wasn’t alone.

  Chandra slumped over his station. Cam white-knuckled her terminal with slackening limbs. Lara settled deeper in the command chair and dug her boots into the decking to keep from sliding onto the floor. All the while, the ship’s countdown clock ticked away the hours until they emerged into real space. Creed space.

  “Report!” Lara bent over, hands clasped over her head. The pain drilled down into her brain like a firecracker set off behind her eyes. The pressure jackknifed, her vision blurred and her stomach heaved. She slid off the chair, but Mitch caught her before she hit the deck.

  They settled on their knees and he held her upright by the arms. “Lara, what’s wrong?”

  Her eyes watered and she clutched his jacket. “Can’t you hear it?”

  Mitch gazed around the bridge. “Only your crew is affected.”

  The ship’s blue-tinted light indicated that their trip in the wormhole tunnel was continuing normally and no alarms blared. What the Hellas was going on? If the Interlace had suffered this same fate, Lara would not let it happen again. She was not giving up anyone to the wormhole.

  With Mitch’s help, Lara stood on trembling legs. Every Chimeran on the bridge was incapacitated. “Call up your crew.” Her voice sounded raw with the effort to tamp down her screaming ego’s protest.

  Mitch nodded and executed the order. Lara leaned, shaking, against the command seat while medics carted off her crew and Terrans replaced them. She could not help them any more than she could help herself. Every muscle ached and every nerve ending crackled, intimately attuned to the deafening echoes thrashing her brain. Her mind spun with the possibilities of what might have caused this state.

  “Lara.” The dissonance coalesced into the semblance of a voice, at once a multitude and singular, that twisted down her spine. When she felt a hand on her shoulder, Lara’s heart drummed a staccato beat, but her feet refused to move. She glanced back.

  Rafael stepped out of the bulkhead wall.

  The wailing continued, but as Rafael clasped her hand, the discord faded to only an annoying hum. Her twin brother stood on the Gryphon’s bridge, slim and fine-boned as always.

  “I need your help.” His voice buzzed around her like a faraway radio signal.

  This couldn’t be happening, was not possible. Lara blinked glistening eyes and squeezed Rafael’s hand tight. Her brother felt solid enough, but she could see right through his body. His dark hair and mismatched eyes barely blotted out the bulkhead behind him.

  Trick or not, Lara wasn’t letting her brother go. “Anything. Come with me—”

  She stepped away, but Rafael tugged her back.
“I have very little time. I am not alone here, Lara.”

  She gazed across the bridge, expecting to see the Interlace’s other Chimerans, but instead all around Lara her remaining crew had fallen, even Cam. The Terrans continued to run diagnostics, but no one noticed Rafael, even Mitch who glanced her way, his lips pressed in a pale, thin line.

  “What’s happened to you, Rafael?” She pulled him away from the bulkhead, but the man held his ground. “Why can I see right through you?” Thoughts buzzed around her, but she could grasp only one—must get him away from here. Must get him home safe.

  “There are others here, trapped like us. The Terrans aren’t faring well.” Rafael slouched and his form faded a few degrees. “I’m trying to send them out first, but they won’t let anyone go.”

  “Who?” Rafael’s grip slackened and Lara jumped closer. The discordant din grew louder. “I’m losing you!” She couldn’t catch her breath. Sweat beaded her neck. Somehow she knew Rafael was leaving and she was powerless to stop him.

  Rafael looked over his shoulder at someone or something that Lara couldn’t see. “She’s coming. I have to go. I can save them all. Tell Mitch I just need the research.”

  “Wait. Rafael!”

  Her brother nodded toward Mitch as he approached. “He can’t see me, but you can trust him. Take another look at the Interlace’s comm logs.”

  Rafael let go and stepped away.

  “Rafael, no!” Lara lunged forward, but her legs gave way.

  Mitch stepped between them just as her brother faded back into the bulkhead. The shrieking ratcheted up again and she grabbed Mitch’s arms to stay on her feet. Had to stay on her feet. Rafael needed her.

  “He was here. Rafael was here, Mitch. He needs our help.”

  She searched the bridge for any traces of her brother. She probably seemed nuts to have been speaking to the bulkhead, but she didn’t care.

  Mitch clasped her elbows. “Come to sick bay, Lara. Maybe this is what happened to the Interlace crew. Maybe a sickness started with the Chimerans.”

  “No. Rafael’s trapped.” Her gaze darted around the room, searching every corner. “He said so.”

  Mitch carted her across the bridge, her feet scraping the floor as they went.

  She locked her knees at the exit and shoved Mitch away. “I’m not going anywhere until we find Rafael. Send out another buoy.”

  “Lara, listen to me!” He stepped close and loomed like a boulder in front of her. “Your pupils are dilated and you’re phase shifting. See for yourself.”

  He yanked her arm out in front of her, but she barely sensed it. Sure enough, her arm seemed almost as transparent as Rafael was moments ago.

  Lara cleared her throat and tried to ignore the worry etching Mitch’s brow. The worry swirling around in her own heart. “If you need me, I’ll be in sick bay.”

  After a few hours of fitful sleep, Lara rolled onto her back and twisted out of the sheets. She clicked through the settings on her wrist-sync, glad the device had bought her and her crew time enough to complete the trip to Creed.

  They still didn’t know what caused—or stopped—the shrieking, the Chimerans’ phase shift or Rafael’s appearance. Every single one of her crew had heard the voices, but only Lara had witnessed her brother. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Maybe seeing Rafe had been a hallucination. Maybe he was dead.

  No, no, no. Lara ground her palms over her eyes. Rafael asked for her help, something about research. Unless someone tried to take her away in a straitjacket, she was going to help him.

  Even though she tried to dissuade him, after the bridge incident Mitch had escorted her to sick bay and waited on the doctor’s evaluation. The ship’s surgeon couldn’t tell them much, except that her crew’s bodies were shifting in and out of phase. It was Cam who suggested the wrist-syncs might help.

  Lara’s wake alarm beeped, but she didn’t tab it off. What was the point? Mitch ran her ship, a ship she might have lost control over earlier. The experience could have been the beginnings of a phase contagion that also took the crew of the Interlace. No one knew enough to make any conclusions. Strike that, she could make one conclusion—lying around on her ass wasn’t helping anyone. With a sigh, she pulled herself from bed and showered.

  Her desktop terminal was blinking when Lara stepped out of the sani-unit. Towel wrapped around her, she opened the message. Mitch’s baritone voice filled her quarters and she clasped the towel tighter. She hadn’t been this naked and alone with the man in over a decade.

  “The buoy data is in and I’ve analyzed the sensor logs. Let me know when you’re up to a meeting.”

  Lara scheduled a meeting in fifteen minutes and was eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, her hair still damp, when Mitch arrived. He carried a holotablet and joined her at the table.

  She poured him a cup of tea and took in the dark circles under his eyes. “You haven’t slept?”

  “We only have a couple duty rotations left. I can sleep later. You seem to be feeling better.”

  “I am. The wrist-syncs are compensating nicely. You should take a rest duty.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “I’m not asking. You’d do the same if the tables were turned. Now, tell me about the buoy measurements and what you found in our logs.”

  Mitch sipped the tea and pushed the tablet toward her. “I don’t know how the shell is remaining stable. There’s enough out-of-phase negative matter in the tunnel to unbalance everything.”

  Sure enough, the data didn’t lie. According to Terran and Creed calculations, the tunnel should have collapsed by now.

  Lara tabbed through the log data and her pulse quickened with hope. “Maybe this erroneous matter is out of phase enough not to influence the equations?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Maybe. According to the logs, some of it spiked on the bridge when you claim to have spoken to Rafe.”

  “You didn’t believe me?”

  He looked away. “I do now.”

  Wherever Rafael was, he wasn’t safe. “He needs our help, Mitch.” Her brother told her she could trust Mitch. “He’s looking for some kind of research.”

  Mitch’s lips thinned into a line. “I don’t know what he meant by that, but we’re vulnerable here. You’re vulnerable here, Lara. We should drop out of the tunnel now.”

  “No.” She stood up, wanted to scream, but held it in check. “If we drop out, who knows where we’ll end up? We could be light years away from Creed. The wrist-syncs are working. We can make it another two hours.”

  “What good will you be to Rafe if you’re stuck just like he is?”

  “Rafael was on a Terran ship. They didn’t have the wrist-syncs. We’re continuing on to Creed.”

  “We need to get home.”

  “We need Creed’s top scientist.”

  Mitch scrubbed his face with his hands. “Fine. I’d better rest up then before I meet her.”

  Lara nodded. “My mother doesn’t make exceptions for anyone, let alone sleep-deprived Terrans.”

  Chapter Five

  “I want to be the one to tell her.” Lara kept pace with him as they jogged the perimeter of the ship.

  “Of course. You should be the one to break the news of Rafe’s disappearance to your mother.” In the Gryphon’s corridors more than anywhere Mitch noticed the Creed aesthetic of soft corners and soothing tones. He tried, unsuccessfully, to concentrate on the ship’s architecture and ignore the sway of Lara’s dark ponytail and the long-legged swath of golden skin revealed by her black workout shorts.

  She tilted her head and smiled at an oncoming crew member, and for a second his brain flashed to lounging on the grass at the Union Academy Commons, nuzzling that spot just below her ear. A memory he relived way too often.

  Oh, his kingdom for a couple of light years’ distance from the woman.

  Mitch cleared the hoarse longing from his voice. “Though the Interlace’s mission is still classified.”

  They turned a corner, and s
he cast him a sidelong look but didn’t argue. A few minutes passed, and still no grilling.

  “You aren’t the least bit curious about the Interlace’s mission?”

  Lara swept a hand over her brow. “Of course I’m curious.”

  “Then why aren’t you interrogating me about it?”

  She ignored the question and lengthened her stride.

  Mitch smirked. “Who are you and what have you done with Lara Soto?”

  Lara’s lips thinned with a held-back smile of her own. “Do you need a brush-up on Creed mission protocol? Do you have any questions before we make landfall?”

  Mitch chuckled. “Hardly. This is my thirtieth mission to Creed.”

  She stopped midstride and gulped in a heavy breath. “What was that again?”

  “Thirty. I’ve now been on thirty Trans-D missions to date as the highest-ranking Creed Liaison Officer.” Mitch folded at the waist and touched his toes, tried to slow his jackrabbit heartbeat.

  Lara circled him to cool down or possibly just buy a few seconds to process his words. “Have you ever met my mother? When she was teaching physics—before she became Prime Minister maybe?”

  Mitch sighed and moved to the corridor viewport. “And be blamed for her daughter’s roguish life? No, thank you, I’ve never met your mother.”

  Of all the communities he’d visited, he’d never once met the Countess of Nessa Pod, Sabine Osai. On purpose. By all accounts Madame Osai possessed a calm and grounded temperament, but he wouldn’t blame the woman for holding him somewhat responsible for Lara’s defection and dangerous Chimeran lifestyle. After all, he’d let Lara go. Any such meeting would have been in the least awkward and, at most, explosive.

  And now that Rafe had gone missing, the woman could rebuke him for the fates of both her children.

  Outside the viewport floated Creed, its two visible continents covered in verdant green. The two landmasses, as well as a third located on the planet’s dark side, were off-limits to human colonization. Generations ago the Creed moved off-land when the waters rose. They planted huge, lush forests to make the most of the woodland’s natural CO2 processors. The population lived on colossal manmade pods floating on the nearly infinite ocean, each one home to fifty thousand Creed. A few of them were visible as tiny dots on the waters.