he said as he bowed out.
I felt disturbed after he left. Maybe I had insulated him too much from the hard realities of my responsibilities. Someday, those responsibilities would be his, and how would he cope if I protected him from the harsh choices? I brooded on this as I watched Merlin.
On Olympia, we may have forgotten who Murphy was, but we were unlikely to forget his law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
With that in mind, I continued to watch the view window and study the ship’s roster. We listened to the ambient conversations that took place near comm units inside the ship, but they did not seem edifying. Either Merlin’s crew didn’t know anything incriminating, or they were accustomed to holding their tongues about it, even in private.
They spoke of inconsequential things, calling each other Wilson, Cocteau, Mirzakhani—they liked to use their last names instead of their first. They had that in common with our Security personnel. They told jokes I didn’t get and spoke in sentence fragments that left me scrambling for cultural references.
The g’s from our spin took a toll on Merlin’s crew. I saw Narm and Wilson stagger a few times, though their faces showed no distress. Cocteau seemed to shrug it off without a hint of effort. Perhaps because she was so small? Her center of gravity must be lower.
Two engineers, I thought as I watched that elfin lady. There’s more to you than meets the eye, Cocteau.
I harbored my suspicions. I have to admit, by then I had already decided what I should do about our visitors once they delivered their message. I thought there was nothing these people could tell me that would change that. As it turned out, they didn’t change my mind.
They changed Medusa’s.
3
The Long Game
Captain Thomas had apparently invested in quite a few security features on Merlin. She spent a lot of time activating them after Medusa and I lunged at her in Lock 212. “I think I know where Bomarigala can stick his bonus,” she said, her voice shaking.
Bomarigala. They had mentioned that odd name before.
“The Weapons Clan sent us on a suicide mission.” Lee’s tone was no longer bland. “Those SOBs thought we were expendable.”
“Are you saying they knew the Olympians wouldn’t like their message?”
“I’m saying what we delivered isn’t the real message. We just got sent in to stir the pot. Now I don’t trust our so-called employers to let us go home in one piece.” Lee paused. “Because now we’ve seen what they made. I’m betting they’d rather keep that a secret.”
“Great,” said Thomas. “So now we have to make our own deal with the Olympians, or the Graveyard Belters—or both.”
Join the club, I thought.
Some time passed while the air in their lock must have been cycling. Their inner door opened.
Thomas must have finished typing in Security protocols, because Lee said, “Will that keep her out?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” said Captain Thomas.
Previously, she and I had always been on the same page. I had expected we would continue to be. This was a rude awakening.
She had a point. Perhaps I was more upset that I hadn’t seen it on my own. Yet I couldn’t help feeling thwarted.
Terry Charmayne interrupted.
Medusa answered.
To prove it, his tone improved considerably.
When Terry had nothing further to add, I said,
I still felt that sending their messengers’ bodies back to the clan would have been a satisfying response. For me, at least.
In this case, a cooler mind had prevailed. It had been frustrating, but with each passing moment, I felt more persuaded to explore other possibilities.
Her tone had veered from annoyed to impatient. Perversely, I felt on the edge of tears. Was I a child, ready to pitch a fit if I didn’t get my way? That sort of display wouldn’t convince Medusa to see my side of the argument. I took a deep breath.
Captain Thomas and Representative Lee needn’t have worried that we could break through their pressure door. Medusa and I were already moving away from Lock 212. What Thomas and Lee had said to each other about the Weapons Clan made me realize I needed to confer with someone who knew more about them.
On Olympia, the one who knew the Weapons Clan best was Captain Nemo.
* * *
“You and I have a lot in common,” Captain Nemo told me the first time I met him, a year before Merlin came to visit. “We had to play the long game.”
“That’s why you work for the Weapons Clan?” I accused.
He was unmoved. “They followed us for one hundred years. Do you believe they never did anything but watch us?”
I’m sorry to say that I did.
He nodded. “They were willing to sacrifice our lives, but they also saved our lives on several occasions. Oichi—Olympia has never operated independently of the Weapons Clan. Do you recall learning about the wheat plague that wiped out eighty percent of the crop about fifty years back?”
Every kid on Olympia learned about the Great Wheat Plague. “They had to destroy most of the remaining plants,” I said. “Then our scientists engineered—”
“No,” said Nemo. “They had to destroy all the remaining crop. Yet here we are.” He signaled to one of his staff, and she enlarged a picture on her screen, of endl
ess rows of wheat, thriving in the Habitat Sector.
“Oh…” I said this a lot in that first meeting. Then I rallied. “They were protecting their investment. That doesn’t mean we have to be their assets.”
“I agree,” said Nemo, “but do you see my point? We aren’t one hundred percent self-sufficient on Olympia. The next wheat plague could wipe us out. We need allies. Who are they going to be?”
Not the Weapons Clan, if I could help it, but I’m not in charge of Olympia. Even I had to admit, there are times when you need to leave politics to the politicians and negotiations to the ambassadors.
So a year later, when Merlin showed up with her obnoxious message from the Weapons Clan, and I overheard Captain Thomas saying, Now we have to make our own deal, I considered a new possibility.
The crew of Merlin might make a deal with us. Others might do the same—who knew what the Belters had to offer?
I was about to find out.
Captain Nemo called me before I could call him.
I recognized the icon. I had seen it on warning beacons, the same ones that had been blaring, “YOU MUST RECEIVE PERMISSION FROM THE WORLD AUTHORITY ON GRAVEYARD TO VISIT THIS SYSTEM. TRESPASSERS WILL BE DESTROYED. YOU WILL RECEIVE NO FURTHER WARNING,” since we had entered the Charon system.
Had our permission just been rescinded?
Medusa and I doubled our speed.
* * *
If you’re wondering what it’s like to have a brain implant like mine, just visualize something in your imagination, a thing or place. Add sounds to that. Add odors, taste, possibly even a sensation of touch. (Those last three are optional.)
Are you doing that? Now clarify it until the scene you’re picturing has as much definition and detail as the real space in which you exist. Overlay it with tactical grids and numbers, to let you know temperatures, velocities, distances, heart rates—any information you think you might need.
Yeah, that’s not fair. I couldn’t do that without my implant, either—but with it? You’d be amazed at the possibilities. Inside my head, Fire’s header looked like this:
Origin: Queen’s Fire, Special Agent, the Alliance of Ancient Races;
Recipient: Oichi Angelis, Generation Ship OLYMPIA
Medusa said,
Oichi, said the message, my name is Fire. I think it’s time we began a dialogue. I would like to establish a communications link with you. Will you add me to your directory? You can grant permission by using your private comm system to call the main directory on Graveyard, and then selecting my icon.
“I’m concerned about the icon she’s using,” I said to Captain Nemo.
“It represents the Alliance of Ancient Races,” he said a bit stiffly, and I wondered if it bothered him that I was wearing Medusa. I had never brought her to Ship Operations before. Did Nemo consider that a breach of protocol? “You may recall it from the first warning beacons we passed as we entered Charon’s solar system.”
“I remember.” I examined Fire’s message from top to bottom. “I don’t see a time stamp on this. How come its arrival wasn’t recorded?”
“We don’t know how she managed it,” said Nemo. “We suspect she found a way to send us a message that wouldn’t be detected by the Weapons Clan. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t have a time stamp.”
We assumed the clan were monitoring our communications to and from Graveyard. We didn’t know what we could do about it. Maybe Fire knew. If so, she might prove to be a useful ally.
I copied the message.
“You should be careful,” said Nemo.
“I will,” I promised, though I was planning to be the opposite. “Have you learned anything more about Itzpapalotl?”
“No,” said Nemo, “but we’ve studied Merlin, and we believe she is built for more than just space travel.”
I didn’t quite get his drift. “You mean—she has time-travel capabilities?”
He didn’t laugh. “I mean she can fly in atmosphere. Her tail has a swept-back delta wing design. If we had any doubts about that, the landing gear in her belly would dispel them.”
That I did get. “She could take our delegation to Graveyard—and land there.”
“Yes,” said Nemo.
“That’s good to know. By the way, have you ever heard of someone named Bomarigala?”
“No,” said Nemo.
“He seems to be a luminary in the Weapons Clan.”
Nemo didn’t blink. “If the Weapons Clan is anything like the Executives, they’ve got quite a few luminaries.”
“Are they?” I asked. “Anything like the Executives?”
He paused, and I wondered if he resented the implication that he knew more than he was telling. I had hoped to get a lot more information out of him this time around. Instead, he seemed to be erecting barriers. “My interactions with them were at a distance. They were always concise and efficient. They created our society, Oichi. They must have based it on something.”
“One would think,” I mused. “Well. Our guests on Merlin have had a scare, but we’ll try to negotiate with them. I’m going to send our best ambassadors to patch things up. I’ll keep you posted.”
He nodded.
As we pivoted to leave, I stole glances at Nemo’s officers, all working diligently at their stations. They seemed unconcerned to see Medusa in the Command Center.
I wondered if I were reading Nemo wrong. His heart rate and pupils had indicated no deception. Why did I get the feeling he didn’t want Medusa there?
When the pressure door had been sealed behind us, Medusa said,
I tried to look at it from Nemo’s point of view. If I were a captain, what would my first priority be?
I should have done that immediately. Instead, I got busy, and I forgot—which was a shame, because Nemo’s attitude about Medusa units may have been more important than we realized.
* * *
Medusa and I parted ways.
She left me without a glance back. That was abrupt for Medusa. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, I might have wondered about it. My thoughts were already shifting as I closed the door to my quarters.
Ashur said without preamble, further complicating my preoccupation.
Merliners. I liked that.
That was the best Ashur could promise. For the past year, he had been trying to adjust to new family circumstances. He spent most of his waking hours working on his immersive music programs, investing so much energy, he may as well be an adult with a full-time job. Nuruddin respected that, because his own projects consumed so much of his time, and for the same reason.
If I tell you that I’m the reason Ashur and Nuruddin have had their lives upended, it may sound grandiose, but it’s also true. I’ve never regretted the decisions that led to their pairing with Medusa units. Possibly I’m not capable of that sort of remorse, even though my actions led to a chain of events that provoked Nuruddin’s husband into divorcing him. Many families were disrupted by our revolution—some clans were decimated. Compared with those consequences, Nuruddin and Ashur got off relatively unscathed.
That’s what I like to tell myself. Now I wonder if I pulled them into my inner circle out of pure selfishness.
Then, I congratulated myself for listening to Ashur’s good idea and put the matter aside in favor of different (if related) matters.
Medusa in the Graveyard Page 3