by B. V. Larson
The two left almost arm-in-arm.
The moment the door swished shut behind them, Yamada put her face against my shoulder and giggled like a girl. “Did you see that? So cute!”
Zye looked baffled and suspicious. “What was cute?”
“The two of them—so old, but still flirting and having a good night. Gives us all hope, doesn’t it? Or at least it should?”
Zye stared at her flatly. “Are you suggesting they’ll have sex now?”
Both of us recoiled slightly. Zye was always one to be too direct at moments like this.
“Let’s hope so,” I said, “if their health permits.”
For some reason, this sent Yamada off into another fit of laughter. Zye eyed her in distaste. She stood up stiffly and nodded to me.
“I’ll be going now,” she said, pointedly. “As there is no one here to escort me anywhere.”
She left, and I looked after her with a frown. Yamada got up, walked to my bed, and flopped onto her back on the sheets.
“I’m yours tonight, Captain!” she sighed, eyes closed and smiling.
Eyebrows raised, I walked near and gazed at her. She was attractive, but not as much so as my Chloe, or the Connatic. She was an earthy girl. A woman of a practical nature. I’d always liked her.
Things might have advanced, but then I heard a very soft, rhythmic purring sound. Yamada was snoring.
I chuckled. Taking a final slug of brandy, I straightened up. It wasn’t in me to take advantage of a lady.
Walking to the door, I opened it.
Zye was standing there, no more than a foot from my face. She was glowering and her hands were balled up into fists.
“Zye,” I said mildly. “I’d like to walk you back to your cabin, if you don’t mind.”
She blinked and her bad mood evaporated. She nodded once, and I took her arm.
Walking together down the long passage, we passed various couples flirting in doorways and holding private parties of their own. Somehow, my celebratory mood seemed to have swept the ship. It was odd to think that even when off-duty, an entire ship’s complement could take their cue from their captain almost without thought.
When we reached the door, Zye stepped inside and glanced back.
“Would you like to come in?” she asked. “William?”
I looked down then at my hands. I had a bottle of brandy in the left. I hadn’t recalled bringing that along…
“Yes,” I said, and I followed her into her cabin.
She seemed stunned and almost nervous. She sat down on the bed and stared at me.
“Zye, if you want me to leave—”
“No,” she said quickly.
“You seem nervous.”
“You’ve never entered my cabin before. No one has ever visited my cabin.”
I looked around. There was little in the way of furnishing or decoration. There was an isometric weight set attached to one wall, with all the settings switched to maximum. Her bed was perfectly made. It looked as if her sheets were boards, rather than soft fabric.
“Very nice,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”
I offered her the brandy. She took the bottle, up-ended it, and consumed nearly half the contents with loud, gulping swallows.
She handed it back, eyes watering and gasping for a breath. I took a dainty swallow myself.
“Zye,” I asked, “are you a virgin?”
“Yes sir.”
“Please don’t call me that. Not now.”
“Yes… William.”
I shook my head. “You’ve been on Earth for nearly a year. Anyone could get lucky in that timespan if they truly wanted to.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know how to go about it. People I approached were intimidated or disinterested. I discovered that some people pay for intimacy—but that seemed too undignified.”
Sighing, I sat next to her. I suspected she had another problem: she was in love with me. What should I do? This woman wasn’t going to conveniently pass out and let me escape her cabin. I figured I’d probably lose any contest in drunkenness if we both continued drinking, unless I used my implant.
At some point, while I thought about what to do, I touched her. I’m not sure how it started. My hand was on the bed, then it was at her knee. I might have suspected that she’d placed it there herself if I hadn’t known better.
Before I knew what was happening, we were making out and eventually making love. It was the strangest sexual encounter of my lifetime.
But it was enjoyable. She was a strong girl. Her muscles were unlike those of other women. She could apply pressure wherever she wanted to, and the results were quite pleasing.
-23-
We punched through the ER bridge exit with minimal velocity this time. We had little idea what we were going to encounter on the far side.
When we finally got there, I was struck by the beauty of the place.
“Three Earth-like jewels,” Yamada said, enchanted. “Sir, we’ve got no record of this system in our logs. The colonists must have discovered it on their own.”
The worlds were indeed lovely. The planet closest to the star had reddish landmasses and blue oceans that flowed like cool lava over a quarter of her surface. The second was a green planet that was vibrant with thick jungles and a steamy canopy of clouds.
The last inhabitable world captured my heart at first sight. Farther from the sun than Earth was, it was cooler than my home planet, but not frozen entirely. My eyes roved over sharp peaks, frosty slate oceans and green valleys like emeralds that dotted the equator. It was easily the most beautiful of the three.
We proceeded with great caution. Using only gentle power from our engines, we didn’t charge in, nor did we announce our presence via communications broadcasts. This time, I wanted to know what I was in for before I gave any possible enemies my address.
“Sensors are listening in full-passive mode,” Yamada said. “It would help if we could release a few probes and steer them on gentle arcs toward the inner planets.”
“No,” I said immediately.
She looked annoyed. “Sir, we need multiple points of reference for triangulation.”
I considered. “Dump them out one at a time as we drift closer. Don’t power them up. No transmissions of any kind. No engine signatures.”
She rolled her eyes at me. That was my confirmation that getting drunk with her the night before had been a mistake. Always, in these situations, people became more familiar with their superior officers after intimacy. We hadn’t had sex, but we’d certainly shared a few private moments.
Zye… I hadn’t dared meet her eyes yet.
How had that happened? I’d managed to evade Yamada, a woman who was at least from Earth. If I’d gone to bed with her, all would have been relatively well. She was a grown-up, an adult about sexual issues, as far as I could tell. I truly believed that we could have shrugged off a moment in the night, had we shared one.
But Zye? She was none of these things. I had no idea how she was going to react to the natural emotions everyone felt the day after they lost their virginity. Worse, she might have fallen in love with me. She’d already been devoted—I thought I might have made the situation worse.
It was the brandy. What a mistake. Even then, I could have switched on my implant and drained the effects from my system rather quickly.
But using the implant was always difficult. It was like swearing off the next drink. Easily done early-on, but after a dozen drinks, the thirteenth seems to have a mind of its own.
That’s how it was with the implant. Hell, I should have turned it on the moment Zye and I had retired to her cabin.
Giving my head a shake, I concentrated on the here and now again.
Yamada was eyeing me strangely. I suspected she’d asked me something, and I hadn’t responded.
“All right,” I said. “You can drop off probes, and after we’ve drifted a hundred thousand kilometers or so, give them a fast booster to push them sunward. We’ll
manage.”
“Okay,” she said, “I can work with that.”
I felt I’d dodged a bullet. Things went smoothly for the next hour, until my aunt stepped onto the deck.
She was in a good mood today. That I could see immediately. I hastened to avoid thinking of possible reasons why—but I couldn’t stop myself from envisioning Rumbold and Lady Grantholm together.
Suppressing a visible reaction, I smiled at my aunt. “Hello, Lady. I trust you are well today?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“What brings you up here this morning?” I asked. “Perhaps you wish to see these three lovely worlds for yourself?”
She was looking at the forward screen, but at my words, she eyed me coldly. “They are lovely. Are they inhabited?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re drifting quietly, investigating and listening.”
She frowned. “How long will that take?”
“It’s difficult to say. We’ll map the system completely within the hour. But to detect technological presences takes a little longer. They don’t all announce themselves openly. These systems are dangerous and—”
“I want to play the recording,” she said decisively. “Yamada, begin the broadcast immediately.”
“Madam—” I began.
She turned on me. “Nephew, you’re a masterful warrior. A gifted tactical genius, I’m beginning to believe. But let’s face facts, it takes risk to explore and entreat with new colonies. Try to put yourself in their shoes. Here we are, sneaking into this system like thieves.”
“I only want a few hours, Ambassador. I need to know if there are any fortifications to avoid—that sort of thing.”
“Have you found anything like that yet?” she asked.
“No, but—”
“You won’t. Any thinking colony would have placed sensors out here. I suspect they’re already observing us, sizing us up.”
“Pardon me, but that’s pure conjecture.”
She continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “As the mission commander, I’ve decided to allow you six more hours. After that, we’re going to start broadcasting our recorded greeting. Let’s hope these people aren’t as anti-social as our previous hosts were.”
She swept off the deck leaving me standing in her wake. I gritted my teeth and vowed that the next time I went on such a mission I would be in command of my own ship without such constant interference.
“Well Captain?” Yamada asked. “Do I drop the probes or not?”
“Yes,” I said. “In fact, they give me an idea.”
The hours passed quickly. Before half of them had gone by, we’d learned that the system didn’t have any regular, normal traffic.
There were a few signals here and there. They knocked and twittered with unknown codes, and packets flying about. We couldn’t understand them, but they all seemed to be automated transmissions. The sort of things that satellites and communications systems relayed to one another when there was no other traffic to be had.
“I think this star system is dead,” Yamada said after a time. “I don’t understand it. These worlds were definitely colonized. There are a dozen signatures indicating that fact. We’ve spotted purified elements, indicating space mining. There are asteroids that are half-gone, in fact.”
“What about the planets?” I asked, going over the close-ups we’d managed to get from space. “Cities? Lights?”
“Nothing that grand. There are settlements, but they’re dark and quiet. It’s as if the colonists left these worlds and all their equipment behind. That’s what’s chirping in the background. Their computer systems, weather-predicative satellites and the like. But there’s no one here. No one I can detect, sir.”
Durris moved to my side. “There’s another possibility, besides the exodus of the colonists.”
“Yes?”
“They may have been exterminated, Captain. We can’t deny that possibility.”
I nodded. Secretly, I thought that was the more likely scenario. What colonist would abandon three planets, each more perfect than the last?
Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I shrugged. “Activate the most distant probe,” I told Yamada. “The one we dropped first. Have it broadcast our message of peace and love. I doubt there’s anyone here to hear it, but you never know.”
She did as I asked. Sometime later when the ambassador returned to enforce her will, she was pleased to find we were already broadcasting her canned diplomatic words.
“Any response yet?” she asked.
I quickly enlightened her as to the nature of the system, and its mysteriously abandoned state.
Her disappointment was palpable. “Such lovely worlds,” she said wistfully. “If they’re all dead, then I’ll take the opportunity to name them.”
She looked around at me. “Unless you’ve already taken that liberty?”
“No madam. Do the honors.”
She eyed them. “The first one, the red one that boils close to the star—that’s Ruby. The second, the jungle-choked eye of green—that’s Jade.”
Everyone’s eyes fell upon the third world. The cool, blue marble shrouded in fluffy white clouds.
“That one is Sapphire,” she said decisively.
“Excellent names, Lady,” I said.
“I’m glad you approve. Now, fire up our main engines and take me to Sapphire, I want to stand on the surface of it and breathe that fresh, clean air. It is breathable, isn’t it?”
She turned to Yamada, who nodded.
“Aunt,” I said carefully. “Your request is a romantic one, but I must point out someone or something destroyed these colonies. We can’t do what you suggest safely.”
“Destroyed?” she asked, staring at Sapphire. “Are there blackened buildings? Broken towers? Crashed ships? Bodies frozen in the ice?”
“Not that we’ve seen so far, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Take me there, William. At least let us survey the place from near orbit. Don’t you want to investigate the situation?”
She had me there. I wanted to go almost as badly as she seemed to.
We’d all been in space for some time. We’d visited Tranquility Station and been chased away from Beta. To stand on an unknown world… so far, that delight had been denied to all of us. The artificial station had been wondrous, but nothing like a truly wild planet of alien beauty.
“All right, Ambassador,” I said, quelling my better judgment. “We’ll fly closer, and see if we can find a safe place to land. I must insist you stay aboard Defiant, however, until we’re sure there’s no threat.”
“Fair enough, I suppose,” she said, relenting at last.
She smiled at me then, and I felt good about my decision. She was different today in that she hadn’t yet attempted to order me around like a puppet. She’d asked for my permission, even my approval. For some reason, that had made me want to give it.
I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a grave error.
-24-
As we got closer to the three inner planets, now dubbed Sapphire, Jade and sweltering Ruby, our disquiet grew.
Things were not as they should be. There had indeed been a civilization here, a small fledgling set of colonies. All three of these Earth-like worlds had been colonized.
There were settlements dotting the choicest regions of each planet. On Sapphire, the towns formed a thin belt around the equator where the climate was most temperate.
On Jade, they’d chosen offshore islands near the major continents. On those islands the jungles weren’t as thick, and the native animals were less fierce.
On Ruby, the hottest world, tiny towns had been placed in the cool zones around the poles. From space, they resembled dark pebbles embedded in the planetary surface.
All of this made sense—but what didn’t add up was the condition of the settlements. They were all empty, devoid of human life.
There were other things living on the worlds: animals, fish, insects... These
planets fairly teemed with creatures we’d never seen before but which were somehow hauntingly familiar. Bird-like beasts that flapped wings underwater occasionally breached the surface of the seas on Jade. Living air-bladders that resembled jellyfish drifted in the skies over Ruby—but there were no humans in evidence anywhere.
“Sir,” Yamada said, looking up from her scopes, “I’m not finding anything. No colonists, anyway. They must have pulled up stakes and left.”
“Are there signs of battle?” I asked.
“Nothing obvious. Here and there, buildings are burned or collapsed. But that could have happened naturally if the colonists left many years ago.”
Stepping around the railing to the forward screens, I looked up at them. They were of such high resolution, it seemed as if I could reach out and touch the scene depicted. Right now, we were looking at a town along the equatorial belt of Sapphire. Nestled in a jewel-like valley of intense green, it was sheltered from the driving snows and winds of the towering peaks around it.
I touched the town on the screen. It magnified, but optics could only take our vision so far. The atmosphere of Sapphire was turbulent and full of streaky clouds. Even with AI interpolation techniques, I knew I couldn’t see the true state of affairs from space.
“We’ll land here,” I said. “Prepare a pinnace, Rumbold.”
He gawked at me.
“Me sir?” he asked. “I thought I was too—”
“You’re coming along. I know you can handle a pinnace like no other. Even if it breaks down—you’ll fix it.”
“Very well, Captain,” he said, swallowing hard. “Who else is going along on this… adventure?”
I turned to look at each of them in turn. “First Officer Durris, you’ll stay here and command the ship.”
“As my first act,” he said, “I’ll log my disapproval of this idea. It’s entirely too dangerous.”
I gave him a flickering smile. “Yes, that’s true. But it must be done. I have to know what happened down there. Did you think that exploring the colonies was going to be safe and relaxing?”
“It’s proven to be anything but,” he said ruefully.
“Zye,” I said, turning to her last, “you can come along as well.”