by Jason Fry
“Arrr, serves them Cybelean swine right,” Huff growled. “How much ransom did our guys get?”
“That’s not the important part, Dad,” Diocletia said.
Huff shrugged, his forearm cannon whining. “I’m interested is all.”
“What interests me is who compensated the ore boats’ owner. It was Captain Allamand—as a gesture of friendship and solidarity from the people of Earth.”
Leaving the Southwell, a troubled Tycho turned up the furred collar of his jacket against the inescapable chill of Cybele. He pushed his way through the Well’s usual evening crowds, then waited irritably as the constables at the entrance to the Northwell verified that he had a legitimate reason for being there.
His footsteps slowed as he caught sight of the gilded gates of Earth’s fondaco and the holographic blue and red flag of Imperial Earth flying above them.
“Tycho!” Kate called, and he smiled when he saw her waiting just inside the gates, face framed by a halo of synthetic fur.
The gates opened and she hurried past the Cybelean guards, turning her face up to kiss him.
“Oh, your hands are freezing,” she complained.
“Where do you want to go tonight?” he asked. “What deserted corner of this frozen rock shall we investigate?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Kate said, taking his hand and tugging him along. “Come on!”
She led him back to the center of the Well but then turned left, toward the long corridor that led to the landing field.
“Where are we going?” he asked, puzzled.
“You’ll see,” she said as they passed sign walkers pacing back and forth beneath their holographic ads and a morose gaggle of rickshaw drivers waiting for fares.
A gang of freight haulers walking down the seemingly endless tunnel looked at them curiously, surprised to see a beautiful girl in luxurious furs coming toward them with a young spacer in tow. Kate didn’t break stride, and the freight haulers stepped to either side of the corridor, peering after her and Tycho before re-forming their ranks.
“Kate, wait—there’s nothing down here. Just berths and customs offices and waiting areas for ferries.”
“Would you please trust me, Herschel Tycho Hashoone?” she asked, eyes merry.
They reached the customs station, and Kate showed the two Cybelean officials her mediapad. They scanned it, then looked questioningly at Tycho.
“My guest,” she said.
The officials looked at each other. Then one of them shrugged.
“Berth 12, ma’am.”
“Come on,” Kate said.
“Your father’s ship? Really?”
“Really.” She stuck out her lower lip theatrically. “Unless you don’t want to come.”
“I’m just worried you’ll get in trouble.”
“I can take care of myself, Tycho. I’m tired of ministers’ lectures. Like I told them, I’ll spend time with who I want and I’ll go where I want. Which right now means spending time with you, in my room aboard the Gracieux. Don’t get any crazy ideas, but this way we get to be alone—and without risking hypothermia.”
Through the curved glass wall of the docking terminal Tycho could see starships sitting on the landing field, connected to the terminal by umbilicals. The Comet’s gig was just a few hundred yards past Berth 12, blocked from his sight by a bulky galleon.
Tycho found himself holding his breath as they reached the end of the umbilical, and he followed Kate up the gangplank. Belowdecks, the Gracieux was spotless dark steel and carbon fiber, silent except for the faint throb of air circulators. The Comet’s corridors were stained and pocked by centuries’ worth of abuse, and smelled of sweat, oil, and cheroot smoke. The air in the Gracieux held only the faintest whiff of cleanser. Captain Allamand’s frigate was far less claustrophobic than the Shadow Comet, and she looked like she’d just emerged from the docking cradle where she’d been built.
“Come upstairs,” Kate said, then paused. “Oh. I should have known. You’ll want to look around, of course.”
“Maybe just for a moment,” Tycho said. He headed toward the bow, his heels ringing on the decking. Above, hammocks were stowed in perfect lines. Eight bells rang out, the tone bright and clear. The gunports were pristine, down to the neatly coiled cables and gleaming pistons of the cannon housings.
He eyed the cannons unhappily. Those weapons had been aimed at Jovian starships, and the projectiles they’d hurled had killed Jovian crewers. And it seemed likely they would do so again.
He imagined looking up from Port Town and seeing the sleek shape of the Gracieux overhead, part of an occupation force. Not so long ago, he would have dismissed the idea as a paranoid fantasy. But now it seemed horribly possible. Earth could turn out dozens of frigates like this each month, if it had to—not to mention warships that would dwarf the Gracieux in both size and destructive capabilities.
“Are you all right?” Kate asked when he returned from his quick inspection.
“She’s very . . . impressive,” Tycho said, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned. “A beautiful ship.”
“She should be—the crew does enough work on her. I just wish it wasn’t so cramped in here. Come on.”
He climbed up the ladderwell after her and emerged on the spacious quarterdeck, gaping at the bridge crew’s wide, comfortable chairs. He ran his hand over the tawny tops of the consoles. They were wood, set in gleaming black metal.
“It can’t be that different from your family’s ship,” Kate said, noticing his dumbfounded look.
“Well, the layout of the quarterdeck is more or less the same.”
“And my room is down here, toward whatever it is you call the back of the ship.”
Tycho grinned. “Your cabin, Miss Allamand, is located aft, near the stern.”
He followed her down the passageway, passing a compact, spotless galley and the door to the head. Kate’s cabin was small, but as comfortable and well constructed as the rest of the Gracieux, with a desk running from bulkhead to bulkhead, opposite a berth. Between the two, cabinets were built into the starboard beam.
Tycho took off his jacket and sat in the chair, while Kate tossed her furs onto the berth. He peered at the ceiling, then smiled.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to see what he was looking at.
“It’s silly. The ceiling of my cabin is covered with people’s initials.”
“It is? Why?”
“Family tradition. Everyone who occupies a berth leaves his or her initials on the ceiling. They go back centuries—there are dozens of them.”
Kate considered that. “On my father’s ship, I think someone would show up with a can of paint before you finished writing.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Anyway, this is where I spent most of the journey here from Earth, doing homework or practicing. It was crazy—our warrant officer had to disable the security on my console so I could play the viola. Something about the music simulator not working properly with the security settings.”
Kate settled herself on Tycho’s lap, then reached past him to the computer console set into her desk. Tycho jumped a little as a hologram shimmered to life around them. A man and a woman in formal clothes sat to their right, holding violins and bows. Tycho turned and saw a man with a larger stringed instrument sitting to his left. He heard the sound of tapping, and the three players around them nodded to each other. The violinists tucked their instruments under their chins, and all three musicians brought their bows up. They drew the bows across their instruments’ strings, then immediately stopped, faces turning to Kate and Tycho.
“When I was little I wouldn’t play because I thought it was more fun to make them stop and wait for me,” Kate said with a smile.
As he moved to kiss her, the first violinist looked at him disapprovingly over Kate’s shoulder.
“Um, could we turn them off?” he asked.
Kate cocked her head at him, puzzled, then laughed.
/> “You know they’re not real, right? Just checking.”
“I know it’s crazy, but they’re making me self-conscious.”
Kate laughed again, delighted, then gave him an apologetic kiss and got to her feet.
“I need a few minutes to freshen up,” she said. “And I was thinking of making some tea. Do you want some?”
“That would be great,” he said, eager to chase some of the Cybelean cold out of his bones.
“I’ll be back. You and my musicians can make friends while I’m gone.”
And with a parting smile she was gone, the door shutting behind her. The musicians had lowered their hands and were waiting. Whenever Tycho shifted in the chair, they turned to see if he was ready to play yet. He knew the responses were programmed, a simulation of life, but the illusion was eerily convincing.
He swiveled idly in Kate’s chair, the sumptuous leather beneath him creaking faintly as he turned his back on the musicians. The computer console was a state-of-the-art model. Tycho’s knee bumped the desk and the touch screen lit up, open to a data stack labeled “Homework.” Behind it, other stacks were grayed out.
Tycho looked from the screen to the door, then back. Thoughts chased themselves in his head. The Comet pursuing the Gracieux, bearing away from the Jovian convoy and into disaster. The blazing engines of the Nestor Leviathan shrinking as her captors bore her off. Vass staring up at the bulk of Attis, warning about an Earth shipyard and military base on Jupiter’s doorstep.
He got up from the chair, walked through a perturbed-looking violinist, and opened the door, leaning out into the passageway.
“Kate?”
There was no answer. He shut the door, politely stepping around the holographic musicians, and sat down again.
He imagined the Leviathan being reduced to a metal skeleton by a swarm of spacesuited workers. In his vision another ship sat nearby—a military vessel, with workers shuttling parts from one to the other. He thought about the dry docks of Earth, suspended in space above an impossibly blue world, their questing metal arms cradling warship after warship, all nearing completion.
Tycho extended a finger toward the monitor. He closed the data stack holding Kate’s homework. The stack on the top left of the screen said Flight Operations.
He hesitated, then reached for it.
It’ll be locked. Please please please let it be locked.
It opened.
The screen now displayed rows of substacks within Flight Operations. He found Flight Logs in the third row.
Tycho tapped Flight Logs, and there were Captain Allamand’s files, organized by month. He opened this month’s file and saw a long list of navigational entries—an exact record of everywhere the Gracieux had traveled, when, and for how long.
“Tycho?” Kate called, making him jump. “Do you want milk?”
“Yes please,” he said, reaching forward to close the flight log, to navigate back to her homework stack.
“It’s coming up. I’ll need a minute—I can never find where our cook keeps things.”
Tycho reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mediapad. He tapped the connect icon, telling it to look for nearby computers it could exchange information with. He hoped it wouldn’t find any, while knowing that it would.
His mediapad beeped, confirming it was connected. Tycho leaned forward and tapped the last two months’ flight logs, selected the Copy command, set his mediapad as the destination, then confirmed the command.
Copying records: two minutes remaining, the screen read.
Tycho closed the flight logs, then backed out of Flight Logs and then Flight Operations. He tapped on Homework, shut off the touch screen, and slipped his mediapad back in his pocket.
The cellist seemed to stare reproachfully at him.
The door opened. Kate handed him a cup of tea. It was hot and he drew his hand hastily away, sloshing tea onto his pants and the leather cushion on the seat.
“Oh!” Tycho said. “Sorry!”
“Did you burn yourself?”
“No, I’m fine. But the chair . . . I’m really sorry.”
“Tycho, it’s a chair—don’t worry about it,” Kate said with a smile. “I’ll just get a towel.”
She returned and sipped her tea while he dabbed grimly at the spilled tea, unable to meet her eyes.
His mediapad beeped and he almost spilled the tea again. The file transfer was complete.
“What was that?” Kate asked.
“Incoming message or something. Probably just junk.”
“Good,” Kate said, settling back on his lap and leaning forward. Her lips tasted sweet from the sugar in the tea.
His mediapad beeped again—and kept beeping, filling the cabin with long trills of sound. The holographic musicians looked over questioningly.
“Oh, why don’t you smash that stupid machine?”
“I can’t—that’s an immediate recall order,” Tycho said dismally. “From my captain. I have to go.”
“No,” Kate said, burying her head in his shoulder. “Oh, Tycho. Please no.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said, gently moving her off his lap and getting to his feet, reaching for his jacket. “It’s . . . it’s my duty.”
22
THE BLACK SHIP
Tycho was the first member of his family to arrive at the gate reserved for the Comet’s gig. Through the thick glass he could see the gig sitting on the landing field, and workers in spacesuits dragging a flexible umbilical corridor over to its stern.
He pulled out his mediapad and called up the files he’d copied aboard the Gracieux. Part of him hoped they’d been secured by some code that hadn’t been apparent back in Kate’s cabin—perhaps they could only be read within a few meters of a specific location, for instance.
But the flight logs opened immediately. Tycho scanned the list of coordinates the Gracieux had visited in the last month, looking for an entry that showed up multiple times. But there wasn’t one. He frowned, then realized he’d neglected to account for orbital mechanics—like every other celestial body, 65 Cybele was in constant motion, slingshotted around the distant sun by gravity.
He scrolled to the bottom of the list and saw that the last entry had been time-stamped just a few hours ago. Those coordinates had to be 65 Cybele. But he couldn’t make sense of the rest—there were too many numbers and he was too agitated to detect any patterns. He’d have to wait until he could take advantage of Vesuvia’s computing power.
“Hey, look who’s the first one here,” his father called out as he arrived with Diocletia and Carlo. “Guess Tycho gets to ride up front.”
Mavry was grinning, but Diocletia and Carlo looked anxious. Tycho wondered where his sister and grandfather were.
He nodded hello, then looked back down at his mediapad and the list of coordinates, trying to will some insight into being. Would the Gracieux have made multiple visits to wherever the Leviathan was stashed? Just one? Or none at all?
“So what’s the mission?” he asked his father.
Mavry shook his head, looking around the terminal suspiciously. “Not here. Let’s get into space.”
He glanced at Tycho’s mediapad. “Crunching numbers, kid?”
Now it was Tycho’s turn to shake his head—and look sidelong at Carlo.
“More intel from our friendly neighborhood sign walkers?” Tycho asked his brother.
Diocletia raised a finger in warning. “Belay that. Like your father said, let’s get into space.”
Carlo gave Tycho a murderous glance and headed down the now-inflated umbilical to warm up the gig’s engines.
By the time Yana and Huff appeared at the end of the corridor, Tycho was grimly certain that Carlo had been given another gift by the Securitat. What else could have inspired his mother to order a return to space just hours after they’d landed? He scanned the list of coordinates again, hoping something would match the various courses he’d set for the Comet recently and only half remembered.
&nb
sp; “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Yana said, seeing that her mother had her hands on her hips.
“Arrr, these legs are built for endurance, not speed,” Huff complained, wiping sweat from the living half of his face.
The Hashoones strode down the umbilical to the gig, then up the gangplank. Carlo was already buckled into the pilot’s seat, prepping for takeoff. The interior of the little ship seemed nearly as cold as space; breath wreathed the Hashoones’ faces, and Yana’s teeth chattered.
“Why do you always forget to turn on the heat?” she demanded as the whine of the gig’s engines rose in pitch.
“You’ll live,” Carlo said. “We’ll be on the quarterdeck in three minutes.”
“Unless Captain Allamand has an errand he wants to run,” Mavry said.
The gig’s gangway clanked shut behind them.
“I want the Comet flying as soon as we’re crewed,” Diocletia said. “No grace period for stragglers. Tycho, are you planning to strap yourself in?”
“Right. Sorry.”
He tucked his mediapad under his leg and buckled his harness, then looked around at his family. In a couple of minutes the Comet would be preparing for flight, with everyone’s attention focused on whatever Carlo had discovered. The time to speak up was now.
He took a deep breath.
“I have the Gracieux’s flight logs.”
Everyone—even Carlo—turned to look at him.
“What did you say?” Diocletia asked.
“I said I have Captain Allamand’s flight logs. I copied them to my mediapad. There’s a record of everywhere he’s been in the last two months. That should show us where the shipyard is. Probably the Leviathan too.”
Nobody said anything. Then Huff began to laugh.
“Arrrr, the biggest scoundrels are always the ones yeh had pegged as honest,” he purred, reaching back to give Tycho a bone-jarring clap on the shoulder.
“And how exactly did you come by this information?” Diocletia asked.
“Well,” Tycho said, then paused. His vocal cords seemed to have stopped working.
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Mavry said.
“Um, so . . . I’ve been, well, I guess the word would be dating Captain Allamand’s daughter. Only we had nowhere to go after they said I wasn’t allowed in Earth’s fondaco anymore, and everywhere else on Cybele was freezing, so Kate invited me aboard the Gracieux—we just wanted a little privacy—and there was no security on the console in her cabin. So while she was making tea, I looked through the files and there were the flight logs.”