“And that is?”
“They’ll overthrow you or kill you, and create a form of society they can live with.” Her words were stark in the silence of my cabin. For a while I could hear nothing but our breathing.
After a time she continued. “A leader can only lead where the people will follow. Surely you know that.”
“What were you?” I asked curiously. “A historian?”
“A psychologist, actually.” A mischievous grin. “So I’m supposed to know how to manipulate you. I’m not doing a very good job.”
I warmed to her smile. “But you make me think.” As some of our tension dissipated I leaned back. “You say my choices are limited by the crew’s unwillingness to lead a military life indefinitely. That may be, but I’m also bound by my oath. I am not free to create a social order amenable to all of us. I am subject to the Naval Code of Conduct, and by the oath I’ve sworn to my Government.”
“An oath is a fine thing, but the spirit of your regulations is to keep the ship in order. You can’t do that if you’re dead or deposed.”
“I can’t determine whether I live. I can only determine whether I’m true to my oath.”
“Young man, you take a narrow view that does not encompass our circumstances.”
“That’s as must be.”
“And what of the people?” She leaned forward on her cane. “Understand, you’re not speaking only of fidelity to your oath. You’re talking about the needs and miseries of all the others on board. Some of them, the children, might live through this to our eventual rescue.”
I closed my eyes in despair. “What would you have me do?”
“Relax your Naval discipline. Ease the distinctions between crew and passengers. Eliminate the ridiculous drills and inspections. Stop using coercion and punishments.”
“And what will that accomplish?”
“Don’t you know?” Her rheumy eyes searched mine. “This life aboard ship is all that many of us will have before we die. Let us live it in peace.”
I stared at the deck. Behind me, Amanda softly touched my shoulder, and faded. I said bitterly, “Peace. I don’t know what that is. I’ve seen it, but never held it in my hands.”
“It’s fragile,” Mrs. Reeves admitted. We fell silent.
I brooded, lost within myself. She was right, of course. My efforts to maintain military discipline were making our lives miserable. I could ease the drills, the inspections. I could be more friendly. I wondered if, eventually, I could permit an elected government and somehow square it with my oath.
I met her eye again and smiled shyly. “I’m glad you came,” I said. “I’ll try—”
The siren shrieked. Alarms reverberated in the corridors. Philip Tyre’s frightened voice cut over the cacophony. “Captain to the bridge, flank! All hands to General Quarters!”
Mrs. Reeves struggled to her feet with surprising agility. “I’ll go back—”
I snatched my jacket “No, the corridor hatches will seal in a moment. Stay here!” I dashed to the bridge, my steps resounding to the unforgiving clang of the alarms. Crewmen careened past on their way to duty stations.
The bridge hatch was sealed, the camera eye swiveling back and forth. The hatch slid open as I raised my hand to pound on it. I scrambled through and it slid shut immediately. I shouted, “Turn off those bloody alarms!”
Philip’s hand flicked over the keys. Silence echoed. He pointed at the simulscreen.
“Oh, Lord God.” I snatched the caller, bellowing over the incoming reports. “Battle Stations! Comm room, prepare for laser fire. All passengers and crew stand by your pressure suits. Stand by to repel boarders!” I took a deep breath.
“Engine room, shut down the drive! Full power to all lasers! Power up maneuvering jets!”
The fish were back.
Two of them, one off the bow on the port side, the other amidships to starboard.
They were some kilometers off. With Kerren’s screens on maximum magnification, the fish seemed unnervingly close. The digits flashing below the screen showed them on a closing course.
“We’ll intercept the forward one first,” said Philip unnecessarily.
“I know.” I called the comm room. “Get a lock on the forward target!”
“Aye aye, sir.” Mr. Tzee. “I think they’re out of effective range yet.”
“I can see that,” I growled.
The speaker crackled. “Power to maneuvering jets, sir!”
“Very well, engine room.”
“I was watching the N-wave line,” Philip blurted. “One minute everything was fine, then they were there!”
“Be silent, Middy!”
“Aye aye, sir,” he whispered.
The range closed. I checked the readouts on the thrusters, cursing the propellant I’d recklessly expended to increase our speed.
“Sorry, Philip,” I said presently. “Nerves.”
“Thank you, sir.” His voice was unsteady, his face white.
“Easy, Midshipman.” For his benefit, I made my tone calm.
“Approaching firing range!” The puter.
“Thank you, Kerren.” I flicked the caller. “Comm room, commence firing when I activate.” My hand hovered over the laser lock.
“Maximum range achieved!”
Still, I hesitated. “They’ll swerve when we hit them. If we wait ‘til they’re closer, we might burn through with the first shot.”
Kerren’s sensors followed the fish that approached our bow. A tentacle began to separate from the globular mass. Lazily the stringlike appendage began to rotate. I jabbed the switch. “Fire!”
Though there was nothing to watch, I searched the screen anxiously for the invisible beam of light from our laser.
Voices murmured in the speaker; our caller was set to comm room frequency.
“Full pulse. I’ve got a lock!” Walter Dakko, his voice rising.
The fish jerked, propellant misting from a vent.
“Follow him!”
“Gottim!” Deke, tense with excitement. My arm ached; I found my knuckles white from squeezing the armrest. I flexed my wrist.
Beams from three lasers centered on the fish off our bow. It was almost too easy. The goldfish bucked once; colors swirled in the undifferentiated mass of its outer skin, then it was still. Fluid or gas spurted from within.
“We gottim! We gottim!” Cheers erupted, shushed by Mr. Tzee. As we drifted alongside the inert fish I realized how much smaller it was than the one that had menaced Hibernia eons past.
“Target closing oh eight four, sir.” Kerren was brisk.
“Lock on!” I said with growing confidence. If it was to be this easy ...
Philip gasped as the alarms shrieked again. He waved weakly at the simulscreen.
Three more aliens.
Even as I watched, a fourth fish burst onto the screen. Then another, appearing from nowhere. Kerren erupted with angry vehemence. “Target aft, bearing oh two oh, range two hundred meters! Target amidships port! Target—”
“Fire at will!” I bellowed. “All lasers, individual fire!”
A fish loomed, amidships. A tentacle twirled, about to break off in a deadly spiral. An icicle stabbed my spine.
The Lord is my shepherd.
“Lock on target three!”
I shall not want.
“Burn the sumbitch!”
“BEHIND THE DRIVE SHAFT! TWO OF THEM!”
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
“I see ‘em!” Alongside us a fish leapt convulsively.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
“Bridge, engine room here. One of them’s closing fast on us; another’s close behind.”
He restoreth my soul.
“I see them, Dray.”
Admiral Tremaine had taken several of our laser mounts for Portia. Few of the remaining lasers pointed aft. I goaded my numbed brain into action. “Maneuvering jets! Oh nine oh, two jets!” Squirting propellant frantically, I swung the s
hip in a ponderous turn so our lasers could bear.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
“Get a lock on him!”
A fish blossomed and seemed to crumple. A wild cheer.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
“Watch them other two!” As Challenger rotated, the nearest fish detached a spiraling arm. It sailed lazily across the few meters that separated us. Thanks to our turn the mass would hit forward of the disks, in the hold. Had I not come about, it would have caught us astern, perhaps on the drive shaft.
For thou art with me.
New alarms rang loud. “HULL IS BREACHED! HOLD PENETRATED!”
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
“Look out for the two amidships!”
“I’m swinging round!” I braked our spin with a reckless burst of propellant.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
The mottled skin of the nearest fish seemed to swirl. As in a dream I watched the rotating mass expand. A lump grew on the fish’s skin. Then the figure was through, and launched itself at Challenger.
“Lasers, get that outrider!” I hit the sirens. “All hands repel boarders! Decontamination imminent! Suit up!”
Thou anointest my head with oil.
“I’ve got a lock on the son of a bitch!” A new voice; Elena Bartel. Her laser found the floating figure. It flared and wilted just before it passed within our circle of fire, where our lasers wouldn’t depress far enough to hit it.
My cup runneth over. “There’s another!”
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
“I gottim! I gottim!”
“Steady, Deke. Wait for range.” Walter Dakko.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
“Gottim!”
“Good boy!”
“LOOKATIM PLODE!”
Amen.
And there was silence.
19
MY UNSTEADY HAND SHUT off the last of the alarms. Slumped in my armchair, a stranger called for damage reports. He seemed to have something caught in his throat.
“Engine room reporting, no damage. Full power on-line, but we’re damn near out of propellant.”
“I know, but we had to maneuver.” I spoke as if from a great distance.
“Hydroponics, no damage, sir.”
“Comm room, no damage, sir.”
Beside me, Philip Tyre sat frozen at his console, fingers gripping the sides of his chair.
“Recyclers, no damage, sir,” said the speaker.
A tear ran unchecked down the boy’s face.
“Galley is undamaged, sir.”
The midshipman caught his breath.
“Kerren, status report!”
“All systems within normal parameters,” the puter intoned. “All compartments airtight except the hold. Hold is breached portside, thirty point three meters forward of the launch berth. Hold is decompressed.”
Philip straightened his shoulders, leaned back, took a deep shuddering breath. His hands remained fastened on the armrests.
“What happened to the projectile that beast threw?” Pointedly, I ignored the middy.
“It dissolved the portside hull plating in the hold,” said Kerren. “Sensor lines are destroyed and dislodged cargo is blocking my camera view. I cannot estimate the size of the breach.”
I frowned. Beside me Philip attempted a smile. He shouldn’t have. His face crumpled. He threw up his hands and his shoulders shook.
I cleared my throat. “Inspect the corridor, Mr. Tyre. Check the wardroom for damage. Then find the cadet and see he’s all right.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Gratefully Philip fled.
It wasn’t much, but it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. At least it allowed him the privacy of the wardroom.
I’d wanted to meet in the officer’s mess, where we could gather at the informal breakfast table, but I no longer dared leave the bridge untended, even for a moment. So Philip Tyre and I sat at our consoles, seats swung round to face the chairs from the lounge occupied by the Chief and Gregor Attani.
I asked simply, “What do we do?”
Silence hung heavy, punctuated only by the muttering of Kerren’s monitors and sensors. I’d allowed the crew to stand down from Battle Stations only after we’d passed several tense hours without encountering more fish.
The Chief cleared his throat “Is there really a decision to make, sir? What options do we have other than to do what we’re doing?”
“You think our situation unchanged?” I sounded more acid than I’d intended.
Gregor, saying nothing, stared at the screen.
Dray held his ground. “Essentially, yes.” He waved toward the hold. “Kovaks and Clinger will have the breach sealed in a couple of hours. Then we’re in the same situation as before.”
“Except that we’re virtually out of propellant. And the hold may be contaminated. It’s where our remaining food supplies are stored.”
I’d given Philip and Dray permission to interrupt freely, so Philip’s interjection was not impertinent. “We rigged Class A decontamination gear in the launch berth,” he said. “And all the stores of food are sealed. We should be able to get to them safely.” He bit his lip. “Will we need to go back to the hold later for anything else?”
“We’ll go through full decontamination whenever we do,” I growled. Vacuum or no, I would take no chances.
They waited for my lead. “So we go on as before?” I was unsatisfied.
The Chief said again, “What else can we do?”
“Is there any chance whatsoever we can get the drive working?” Philip, to Dray.
Gregor stirred. “Sir, I—”
Philip swung on him in fury. “You’re here by sufferance, Cadet! Open your mouth again and you’ll wish you’d been born without one!” Gregor recoiled from his senior’s anger.
“No chance of doing anything with the drive,” Dray said gruffly. The Chief stared into the intermediate distance, about ten meters beyond the hull. “We’re testing right now, and I suppose we’d better keep on. It’s the only hope we can offer the crew.”
I asked, “How long can you string it out?”
“A long time, if necessary.”
I sighed. “We may not need long. Kerren, replay the tape.” I looked at the screen where Kerren displayed the ragged N-wave produced by our damaged drive.
“Aye aye, sir.” The first alien appeared abruptly in what had been empty space.
“Again, in slomo.”
Kerren cut to the beginning of the recording, at very low speed. I still couldn’t detect an interval between the time we saw nothing, and the moment a fish floated off our bow.
“How did it find us?” Philip muttered. Over his head, the scene continued to replay.
“Remember, they found Challenger before.” My eyes were on the screen. “When Admiral Tremaine had her. All we’ve done since is fire the thrusters.”
In replay, one by one the fish on the screens fell to our laser fire, except the last survivor, which pulsed and abruptly disappeared as the lasers found its range.
It blipped out of existence as fast as the first fish had appeared.
“They could come back any moment.” I was reluctant to say it aloud.
“But why?” Philip cried. “Why do they keep coming?”
Gregor Attani said, “Sir—”
“You don’t have permission to speak,” Philip snapped.
I felt sorry for Tyre, doing his best to hide his fear, unaware that it revealed itself as savagery toward his charge. I stepped carefully. “I would be willing to hear him, if you give permission,” I said with delicacy.
Philip turned scarlet. “Aye aye, sir.” He nodded to Gregor. “Go ahead.”
Gregor swallowed. “How do they get here, sir?” heasked.
I shrugged. “That�
�s one of the many things we don’t know.”
“I watched a holovid once, back home.” Attani shifted awkwardly. “About inventing the fusion drive. They showed a ship Fusing. It looked a lot like the way that fish disappeared.”
“The fish are alive,” I said. “They don’t have fusion drives.”
“Birds don’t have airplane engines,” he said.
I was speechless a long moment. “Organic fusion?” I sputtered. “How?”
The cadet shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. What else could it be?”
The Chief shook his head. “I don’t see how it’s possible. An N-wave couldn’t be generated organically.”
“Bats navigate by generating sound waves,” Philip remarked.
I waved him down. “That’s all beside the point. The issue is why they seek us out, not how.”
“Sir, if you’ll permit—”
I glared at Gregor. “You’ve had your say. We don’t have time to speculate where they’re from.” I turned to the Chief, my tone glum. “I suppose you’d best continue drive tests as long as—”
Gregor shot to his feet, gripped the back of his chair with both hands. His face was pale. “Listen to me.”
Philip and the Chief exchanged glances, astonished at the cadet’s impertinence. We all rounded on Gregor.
“Ten demerits!” snapped Philip. “You’re confined—”
“I’ll teach that youngster—”
“They hear our N-waves!” Gregor’s voice was sharp over the babble.
“—to behave—”
“After all I’ve taught—”
We fell silent, gaping. The cadet appealed, “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but can’t you see?” He gestured at the screen, where the jagged line wavered. “If they travel by N-wave, they must be able to sense them. Hear them.”
I said slowly, “How can we be sure—” My mind reeled. Did they hear us travel in Fusion, or only when we Fused or Defused? Were ships attacked while actually in Fusion? If so, would we ever learn of it?
“Lord God.” I don’t know which of us said it.
“We’ve used the fusion drive for over a century,” I demanded. “Why didn’t they hear us before?”
“Maybe they’ve come a long, long way,” Gregor Attani said. I felt a chill.
Challenger's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 2) Page 38