by Jaine Fenn
They needed water. That’d help. He could wash off the blood, and a drink might stop him feeling like he’d sucked all the juices out of his own stomach. He managed to stand up on the third attempt, and, too dizzy to risk flying, crossed the rec-room to the galley in a drunken stagger, bouncing off the furniture. After he’d had a drink and cleaned his face he felt better, and was almost able to walk in a straight line when he returned to Nual with a wet cloth and a bulb of water. She was finally stirring.
As he floated up through the hatch he heard Jarek say, ‘We’ll call back when he’s finished. Heart of Glass out.’
‘Don’t know about you,’ croaked Taro by way of greeting, ‘but I feel pretty much finished already.’
Jarek turned, and gave a half-snort, half-laugh. ‘No shit? You certainly look like you’ve been to one party too many.’
‘Says the man covered in puke!’
Jarek laughed at that, and Taro joined in, though he wasn’t sure what was so funny. They spent a while giggling and pointing at each other like kids who’d been at the burnt mash, but as the hysteria passed, Taro looked around and noticed the view outside.
‘What the fuck’s that?’ he asked, pointing shakily at the red-gold patch of light filling about a quarter of the dome.
‘That’s a fucking lightsail,’ Jarek snorted, then got himself under control and said, ‘It’s a lightsail. I’ll explain later, all right?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Taro looked beyond the lightsail, where dozens of lights were zipping or gliding around against the starry backdrop. A few of them were big enough or close enough that he could make out colours, even hints of structure. ‘Busy here, ain’t it?’
‘Oh yes. The woman who just commed us is currently smoothing things out with local Traffic Control.’
‘A woman? Thought it was all males?’
‘I don’t think she’s Sidhe; it looks like there might be humans here. She’s given us coordinates for our “specially prepared accommodation”, whatever that might be, and she’ll be in contact again once our passenger has deleted Aleph’s coordinates from the ship’s comp.’
‘You mean Vy? Guess I should go wake him, then.’
‘If you don’t mind. How’s Nual doing?’
‘Rough, but getting better.’
Taro went down to the cargo-hold and started the revival cycle on the comabox. When he returned to the rec-room Nual had managed to get herself onto a couch. She sat up groggily when he came in. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked. She was using normal speech so Taro didn’t immediately pick up her emotions.
‘We’ve made contact and we’re motoring to the rendezvous point,’ Taro replied. He thought he knew what was bugging her. Normally Nual travelled under a false ID – since the Sidhe were meant to be long-dead, in human-space no one had any reason to suspect she wasn’t just a very hot human woman. But here they knew the truth, and despite the Minister’s assertion that there were other female Sidhe rebels out there, Taro still doubted she’d be welcome at Aleph. ‘We’ll get properly cleaned up, then you should get some rest,’ he added gently.
‘Good idea,’ she said, managing a faint smile.
Taro would’ve liked to crash out too, but he made do with a bulb of strong caf. By the time he’d got Nual tucked up in their cabin and taken a bulb up to Jarek, the comabox had cycled, and Taro expected Vy to be awake, if not already up. But when he got to the cargo-hold, he found the comabox lid was still down, though the lights were green.
‘Wakey-wakey,’ he said as he lifted the lid.
The boy lay on the cushioning, panting and wild-eyed. He blinked up at Taro, looking terrified. ‘I can’t hear myself,’ he whispered. ‘There’s nothing! Nothing!’
Taro was confused for a moment, then he realised what was bothering Vy. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, trying to sound comforting, ‘you’re meant to be here, so you’ve been given everything you need, right?’
‘Everything I need?’
‘To do your mission. He – you – Khesh wouldn’t have sent you out without what you need, would he?’ At least, that was what Taro was assuming. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t— I don’t feel fine.’ He looked harder at Taro. ‘You know what it’s like, don’t you? You and her, you know how it feels.’
‘How what—? Oh, you mean how it feels to be part of the City.’
‘Yes! Don’t you want it to be like that always?’
‘Can’t say I do, but then, I’m only human. Listen, you got nothing to worry about. It’s all going to plan. Here, I’ll help you up.’
Vy let Taro support him while he climbed out of the comabox, and kept hold of Taro’s hand afterwards. Taro didn’t mind: let the boy take whatever comfort he could get. At least Taro knew what he’d lost – well, as far as any human could.
Vy only let go of Taro’s hand to climb the ladder up to the bridge, then marched straight over to the comp without a word. Jarek leaned back and pointedly muttered, ‘You’re welcome.’
Taro was pleased to see Vy acting a bit more shit-together than when he’d first woken up. ‘I guess someone should keep an eye on him,’ he said to Jarek.
‘Don’t worry, I plan to. You can go and get a bit of rest if you like; if he takes as long as last time he’ll be at least a couple of hours.’
‘Thanks, I will – but listen, he’s having some problems.’
‘What sort of problems?’
‘While he was in the Tri-Confed system he was in contact with Khesh – the mind in the City. He’s lost that contact and it’s doing his head in.’
‘Oh great. And I thought he was difficult before.’
‘Yeah . . . Not sure we can do much about it, though.’
‘Well, once he’s finished the job he came to do . . .’ Jarek raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
‘You’re not—?’
‘—no, I’m not going to flush the little bastard out of an airlock, tempting though it is. But if you find he’s fallen asleep again when you get up, don’t panic. That would just be me testing a theory.’
Taro set the alarm on his com; it wasn’t fair on Jarek to sleep for too long. Nual didn’t stir when he got up.
Jarek was in the rec-room, cleaning up the last of the puke. From the way he moved and the glitter in his eyes, Taro guessed he was currently running on something a bit stronger than caf. Not that Taro blamed him; three hours’ sleep had only made him realise how tired he really was. Vy stood by the ents unit with a headset on, hands waving and head dipping, deep in some total immersion game.
‘You didn’t have to knock him out then?’ said Taro, nodding towards Vy.
‘No, but I did have to tell him to stop dicking with my comp. Then I suggested he might want to go back into stasis.’
‘I’m guessing he wasn’t up for that.’
‘You could say that. He burst into tears.’
‘He’s scared he won’t wake up.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I figured. That’s why I didn’t tranq him. Well, he’s distracted for now. We’re almost there, so I’m afraid you’ll need to wake Nual too.’
Taro went back to the cabin, where he bent over Nual and woke her with a kiss. She came too with a start, then flinched away from his touch.
‘Hey! It’s all right,’ he said gently.
‘No. . .’
Even in the dim cabin light he could see her eyes weren’t focused properly.
‘It isn’t all right. Not all right at all.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Taro felt suddenly cold. ‘Have you . . . seen something? What is it?’ he asked breathlessly, ‘Is it—? Should we just turn around again?’ Part of him wanted to see Aleph; ano
ther part was freaked to hell, though that could just be exhaustion combined with the mental backwash from whatever was doing Nual’s head in.
‘No. Not that I could make another transit right now anyway.’ She was calmer now, but she sounded grave. ‘What I sensed . . . we need to be careful. I mean, more careful than we would be anyway. This flash was about you – or rather, us.’
‘What about us?’ asked Taro, warily.
‘I think – I believe – that while we’re here, we have to pretend not to be lovers.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Prescience isn’t about knowing the next card to be drawn, or what the weather will be like where we’re going, Taro. All I get is a certainty that a particular course of action will lead to a bad outcome. In this case . . . in this case, I’m pretty certain that to avoid something awful happening we need to hide our feelings for each other.’
‘How long for?’
‘The immediate future. I know this isn’t what you want to hear; it’s not what I want either. But if we do not follow my intuition then I believe we’re heading for disaster.’
Taro threw his hands up. ‘And what’s that mean, “heading for disaster”?’
‘I don’t know! It isn’t like these flashes are something I can control.’
Taro felt the edge of her anger before she reined it back. He tried not to be afraid; she loved him, she’d never hurt him intentionally. But the thought of not being able to touch her, to hold her . . . that did hurt. ‘Are you sure? I mean, this prescience shit ain’t exactly reliable.’
‘You’re right,’ said Nual quietly, ‘it isn’t. We cannot know for certain. But are you really willing to take the risk?’
‘I dunno. Maybe if you had some idea what’ll happen if we don’t make like we’re just good friends . . .’
Nual shook her head ruefully. ‘I wish I did. I’m sorry.’
‘You ain’t gonna budge on this, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Shit.’ Rather than have a pointless argument he’d end up losing, Taro turned on his heel and walked out.
Vy was still in his game, on a fairly hectic level if all the flailing and lunging was anything to go by. Taro snorted and went up to the bridge.
Now the view through the dome showed a close-up of a pure white sphere, the brightest, cleanest structure Taro had yet seen in space. At first it was impossible to tell how big it was, then he spotted a tiny rectangular pit that he realised was an airlock. That made the sphere at least half a klick across.
‘Hope that ’lock’s the right size for our ship,’ he said by way of greeting.
Jarek turned his couch to face him. ‘I think it will be. I reckon the locals made the whole hab especially for us.’
‘Fuck really? Well, that was nice of them, weren’t it?’
‘What’s wrong, Taro?’
‘Nual, she’s— You know how she’s seen stuff that might happen a couple of times before? Well, apparently now the universe is telling her we should pretend we’re not lovers while we’re here.’
‘“Here” as in—?’
‘I dunno! In there, maybe.’ Taro gestured at the sphere.
‘I imagine they’ll be watching us as soon as we leave the ship; perhaps that’s what she’s worried about. You’ve tried asking her, have you?’
‘’course I have. She don’t know either – but she’s gonna do it, so I guess I ain’t got much choice.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The woman who originally greeted them – and who, Jarek noted, had still not introduced herself – commed the Heart of Glass again just before the ship docked with the sphere. She explained, a little apologetically, that Jarek and his companions would have to go through decontamination before they could enter the hab. Jarek had expected something like that: Aleph had been isolated from human-space for a very long time. He only hoped they wouldn’t pick up any local bugs here. He’d had quite enough of that on Serenein.
Beyond the airlock, a short, plain corridor led straight into the decon-unit. It employed ‘wash and flash’ tech, like any particularly isolated and paranoid system in human-space: strip naked, get sprayed, get air-dried, put on goggles for a UV sweep, then collect your treated clothes and possessions. Jarek was initially confused not to be put through the usual final step: there was no med-tat reader to scan the invisible tattoo on the inside of his wrist in order to check his internal health. Presumably med-tats were a relatively recent – that is, human – innovation.
They met up on the far side of the stark white world of the decon-unit, in a plushly carpeted, tastefully decorated and subtly lit area with several doorways off it. There were no doors, and when Jarek spotted a room with a bed in it, he muttered that he was going to lie down for a bit: exhaustion had overcome stim, and sleep was no longer optional. He didn’t bother to undress.
He slept long enough to banish the worst of the shiftspace hangover.
When he awoke, he suffered a moment of disorientation – where the hell am I? Oh yes, in another galaxy: holy shit! – but physically, he felt fine. When he sat up he realised he’d slept through someone coming into his room; there was stuff that didn’t belong to him strewn around, and from the look of the rumpled covers, someone had slept on the other side of the massive bed. What the fuck? Belatedly, Jarek worked it out: if anyone boarded the Heart of Glass and had a look around, they’d quickly spot the fact that the ship had only two cabins. And if he and Taro were going to follow Nual’s advice, then not only would they have to make sure no one suspected Taro and Nual were lovers; they’d actually have to give the impression that Taro was Jarek’s lover. It was good thinking by Taro, to move into the same room. He wondered how far the boy would take the ruse; the two of them had shared a bed once before, but Jarek had been under no illusions, then or now, about who Taro really wanted.
Between the knowledge that strangers were going over his ship and the cold realisation that they were entirely at the mercy of their hosts, Jarek’s initial good mood quickly soured. He got up and went to find the others.
Now he was awake enough to appreciate it, Jarek found himself impressed at their accommodation. The antiseptic stench of the decon-unit had dissipated and he could actually smell how new this place was. Every need was catered for – there was even a swimming pool, complete with artificial waves. The larger rooms, like the pool and the gym – Jarek assumed those devices were meant for exercise rather than torture – had curved floors and ceilings, a reminder that they were built into the inner surface of a sphere. But though he was used to seeing different styles on different worlds, somehow the décor didn’t quite match ideas of human norms: furniture designs looked subtly wrong, colour combinations slightly off. The layout was also weird; though there were corridors, rooms often opened straight into other rooms, and none of the rooms had doors, not even the bathrooms.
He found the dining area by following his nose; from the smell of it someone else had eaten in here recently. He was just working out the instructions on the food dispensers – they were marked with a mixture of hard-to-read script and pictograms – when he heard a shriek from nearby.
As he ran towards the shriek, the cry came again, followed by Taro’s voice, sounding placatory. He tracked the source of the fuss to a room on the far side of a cushion-filled lounge; the otherwise bare room had been set up as a hologaming cube. It looked like Taro and Vy had been running a game set in a jungle: the room’s walls were hidden by the convincing illusion of green and blue foliage, and a soundtrack of hoots, hisses and tuneful whistles was playing under the ongoing argument. When Jarek walked through the holofilled gap, Taro was brandishing a gaming headset at Vy. ‘Just keep playing, please? They’ll come and find us when they’re ready.’
Vy shook his head violently. ‘I can’t . . . can’t just . . . It’s not enough! The game . . . it’s not enough.’
‘Enough what?’ asked Jarek.
Taro turned to him, looking exasperated. ‘Wish I fucking knew!’
Jarek was unsurprised to find that the caller didn’t have an ID-tag. He raised his hand and said, ‘Yes?’
‘Greetings and good day. Query: has sufficient rest been taken?’
Despite the lack of introduction, Jarek was fairly sure he was speaking to the woman who’d originally hailed him. ‘Yes, we’re feeling a lot better. Thanks for asking.’
‘Query: would a face-to-face meeting be convenient at this time?’
‘Sounds good to me. Where were you thinking of? We’re still finding our way around the place.’ Realising he should be a little more diplomatic he added, ‘This is a very impressive hab you’ve created for us.’
‘Statement: your compliment is appreciated. Request: kindly return to the lounge behind you. After that, turn left and carry straight on through the next three rooms. That will bring you to a garden area designed to be a pleasant place to meet and talk.’
‘Thanks. And does this invitation extend to all of us?’
‘Affirmative.’
The detailed instructions were confirmation, if he needed it, that they were under surveillance.
Vy trailed after them, looking close to tears, and they followed the nameless woman’s directions and emerged into a garden, which was filled with a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar plants, displayed in a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar ways. Jarek found himself taking a deep breath of the pleasantly scented air. The most obvious path led between a pair of bushes, clipped or force-grown to perfect cubes; they had identical green and white foliage. One bush was covered in pale pink flowers, the other in dark red fruits.
Jarek stopped and squinted up into the bright ‘sky’. He could make out a golden glow high overhead; the light was in a spectrum much loved by holodrama makers, said to be that of Sol, the star of Old Earth. Jarek had not yet visited Old Earth, though he planned to get round to it some day, even if the cradle of humanity was more of a destination for tourists than traders. Aleph’s own sun was a young, stable dwarf-star, and far redder than Sol. Since the machine-merged Sidhe males were effectively immortal, and had access to limitless energy, it made sense that they’d choose a system with a weak, long-lived star and plenty of loose raw materials.