Angel Stations

by Gary Gibson

  She thinks I’m responsible for this in some way, thought Elias, seeing the look in her eyes. ‘The return journey is free,’ she continued. ‘I’ll reimburse the remainder of your money outside of the fine once we’re back under Station jurisdiction. I think that’s fair under the circumstances.’

  She’s worried she’s in way over her head, Elias realized. An idea was forming in his mind. ‘Before we come to any conclusions, I want to trace the trajectory of that shuttle we just observed.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The shuttle. The one leaving the Jager. Every ship – even one as small as this – keeps a log of the trajectory and estimated departure and arrival points of every other ship its sensors pick up on.’ Kim blinked, looking upset. She hadn’t known that fact, he realized. How much training had she received before she’d been allowed to use the Goblin? How much training had any of the other miners wandering around this system?

  ‘Here.’ He leaned forward, tapped a code into the console. New images sprang up on the overhead screens, web-like lines of trajectory spinning out from the Jager’s former location. One line spun right back to the Station, the cargo ship’s own point of origin. Another line described the approach of their Goblin to the Jager. Yet another line described a gentle arc, moving away from the Jager – the shuttle Elias had noticed.

  But it did not lead back to the Station, or even to the singularity. Instead it arced out in an entirely different direction altogether, towards some point deep in the Kaspian system. Elias heard Vincent swear softly behind him.

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ said Kim, sounding flustered. ‘The system is full of freelancers working the two main rock belts.’

  ‘That’s not where they’re headed,’ Elias said carefully. ‘Shuttles are only intended for very short trips. If they were only intent on escaping, they’d have headed for a transport. Nobody willingly takes short-range shuttles on long-term trips.’

  ‘If that shuttle can only travel so far, then it must have headed for somewhere nearby.’

  Elias was thinking hard. ‘Maybe – unless it was unmanned. It could go a lot further without a crew or passengers on regular life-support. Just point it in the right direction, and off you go.’

  Elias could see the other two were staring at him like he was crazy. ‘Remember what I told you, my friend was iced, in a sleepbox. Listen, I’m going to make you an offer. I’ll pay you twice as much again to take me deeper into the system. Along the same trajectory as that shuttle took.’

  By way of reply, Kim slid back into her seat and tapped at the console. The Goblin had continued on the course intended to bring it to the Jager. Elias could see she was changing the course of the Goblin. But not to follow where the shuttle had gone. Back towards the Station.

  ‘You said you intended to go deep into the system once this job was concluded,’ reminded Elias.

  ‘On my own,’ she said. ‘Not with anybody else. On my own. I prefer it that way, Mr Murray. I’ll drop you off with one of the military escorts, and they’ll see you’re taken care of.’

  Elias pulled out his credit chip and placed it on the console in front of Kim. It skidded slightly across the console’s smooth surface, its motion seeming liquid and slow in the zero gravity. Numbers blinked up at Kim as she looked down at the chip.

  ‘That’s not an option, not under any circumstances.’ His voice was calm but he could feel himself tensing.

  Her voice trembled. ‘And what if we don’t want to follow your shuttle?’

  ‘That’s not an option either.’

  He sensed Vincent’s hand reaching for his left shoulder, almost before he felt it. He turned, grasped Vincent’s arm just above the elbow with his right hand, pulling the man to one side. At the same time Elias turned in a motion almost balletic in the zero gravity. Elias snapped his left elbow up, impacting hard with Vincent’s nose. Vincent made a muffled sound, and crashed into the back of the co-pilot’s seat. Small globules of his blood span through the air of the cockpit.

  Kim lunged at him, reaching for his face with her hands. Elias grabbed both her wrists before she could get to him, and pushed her down against her chair. She grunted, sliding back against the console as she tried to wrestle out of his grip.

  ‘I’m sorry about this.’ He meant it. ‘I have to find that shuttle. You don’t understand how much is at stake here.’

  ‘Bastard,’ she spat, ‘this is my ship. Get your own ship.’ She twisted, kicked at him.

  ‘I don’t have one,’ he said, evading her blows with ease. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m doing the right thing.’ I am, he thought. Nonetheless, he could taste sour bile at the back of his throat.

  Elias now sat at the controls of the Goblin, studying the data-streams coming in from a variety of sources: from the local Grid, updated constantly by packet bursts fired through the singularity; from the Station itself, where pressure-suited investigators were studying the wreck of the human-built sections of the Station; from the military escorts, but relatively uninformative and mainly brief statements updating what everybody already knew.

  He did not feel good about taking Kim’s ship from her, but neither could he see any alternative. He especially did not want to come to the attention of the military. Yet he had remained in the designated co-pilot’s seat, out of a sense of deference to the Goblin’s owner.

  Kim had taken the injured Vincent through to her cabin. They hadn’t appeared since, and Elias assumed they were discussing what to do next.

  Meanwhile he busied himself at the ship’s onboard computer. A chill rushed through him as the ship estimated the long-range end of the shuttle’s trajectory; straight towards Kasper. The craft had an hour’s head start. Reorienting the Goblin, he aimed it deep into the heart of the Kaspian system. Around him, screens filled with computational analysis translated into diagrams, and the estimated fuel consumption of the Goblin’s Angel drive. Finally, Elias settled back in his chair. From here on in, the Goblin could fly itself. It was only when he arrived there that he would have to worry about his options.

  Kim

  ‘Just keep the gauze in place till it stops bleeding,’ advised Kim.

  Vincent mumbled something about that bastard. ‘Do you think he’s seriously dangerous?’ she asked.

  Vincent stared at her until her face began to colour. ‘He wants something very badly, that’s what I think,’ replied Vincent. ‘I can’t judge his veracity, but the first thing I noticed was how edgy he was.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But I needed the money.’

  ‘Your friend Bill passed him to you, as I recall. Can you still trust Bill’s judgement?’

  Kim sat back and stared out into space. ‘I don’t know. I don’t really think Bill is such a great judge of character, and he certainly deals with some lowlifes, but I don’t think he’d have sent Murray to us if he thought there was any chance something like this might happen.’

  ‘The next question,’ said Vincent, ‘is what do we do about him?’

  Kim looked him in the eyes. ‘Unless you’ve got any great ideas, I don’t think there’s very much we can do.’ She saw him start to protest. ‘Listen, let’s just ride this out – and see what happens when he finds that shuttle.’

  ‘And if he kills everyone on board it? And decides he doesn’t need any witnesses?’

  ‘Think, Vince, what happens when he catches up with the shuttle? He’s going to have to leave the ship then. At least this way, we can wait safely for an opportunity. We’re two to one; and that might count for something.’ Or it might just leave us both dead, she added silently.

  But it would take days still before the Goblin caught up with the shuttle, wherever the damn thing was headed. Which meant they were headed far from the environs of the Angel Station, deep into the Kaspian system.

  ‘Kim,’ Vincent spoke from somewhere behind her, ‘can you take a look at this, please?’

  She turned around. He wasn’t looking at her, but st
aring at something else, out of sight. It had been two days now since Elias had taken control of the Goblin, and the weight of acceleration had grown rapidly during that time. Kim had enough experience to tell that Elias had set the Angel drive to maximum burn. That would carry them for a considerable distance across the Kaspian system in a relatively short time.

  At one point she had found him sleeping, still sitting absurdly in the co-pilot’s seat. A tiny gun was held loosely in the hand resting on his thigh. She had emerged from the crawlspace as quietly as she could, intending to warn him that, at the kind of velocity they were moving at, the Angel drive would burn out all its fuel within hours. That would make the return journey a long and hard one, moving at a bare crawl.

  She had studied him for a long moment, then one eye had slid open as he watched her, for just a few moments, then closed again. Unnerved, she had retreated back through the crawlspace, without saying anything to him.

  Vincent and she had agreed to take turns at sleeping, since neither liked the idea of both being fast asleep while Elias was at the controls. The confined space they shared stirred old memories, but memories that carried pain with them, at least for Kim.

  Now Kim was barely awake. The stress of the past several days had been building up on her.

  She lifted herself from her bunk and looked round for Vincent. He was squatting with his back to her by the other crawlspace, to the rear of the cabin, that led back past the side of the engine core to a cargo bay little larger than the cockpit. She floated over until she was beside him as he peered along the crawlspace.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered quietly.

  ‘Thought I saw something move down there,’ he said.

  He pointed, but she saw nothing at first. The passage was lit by tiny panels embedded every few feet. Then something passed in front of one of the corner lights, casting a brief shadow.

  Please don’t let it be, she thought. Please don’t let it be.

  But she already knew it was.

  ‘I think we’ve got stowaways, if you know what I mean,’ said Vincent unnecessarily.

  Kim watched for several moments more, then bent down to crawl through. She hesitated. They’re not dangerous to people, she thought. To the Station, yes, but they don’t eat human flesh. They ignore us. Remember that. She crawled onwards.

  She emerged into the rear cargo bay. They were everywhere, clinging to every surface. She couldn’t even find a handhold.

  They hadn’t been there a few hours before, when she’d last looked in here. She looked around, searching. They totally ignored her. Then she spotted it: an access panel floated in freefall, a gaping hole where it had previously been fixed to a bulkhead. The silver bugs were swarming through it. She pushed away from the crawl-space to peer inside the hatch. There should have been a range of electronics and a readout, a backup monitor for the engine core in case of general systems failure. There was now only twisted wreckage, chewed and torn.

  There was a faint hissing noise, and the tiniest breeze tickled her nose, coming from somewhere behind her. She tried to trace its origin, but with the bugs swimming from bulkhead to bulkhead, she couldn’t see.

  ‘We’re going to have to turn back,’ she said, coming back to explain to Vincent. ‘I’ll go and speak to him now. He’ll turn back when he understands the alternative.’

  Vincent nodded. ‘You should also tell him about the radiation. If nothing else convinces him, maybe that will.’

  Elias was awake again as she crawled into the cockpit. ‘You’d better not be lying,’ he said, after she had told him the situation.

  Or what? You’re going to shoot us all? She almost said it, but held her tongue. ‘Go take a look for yourself.’

  For a moment he looked indecisive. ‘All right. Go back through.’

  She turned, pushing herself back through the crawl-space. Elias emerged warily into the cabin a few moments later. He carried the tiny weapon again.

  ‘I know you don’t have a very high opinion of me,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I wish you could understand.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll give me my ship back?’ asked Kim.

  He just looked away from her. I wonder what’s going on in his head, she thought. He was no mere thief; something bigger was at stake here. Although trust wasn’t on the agenda, she sought understanding.

  He knelt down by the crawlspace leading back to the cargo bay and peered through.

  Kim had boosted herself into a corner, as if giving Elias room to pass. Now, while his attention was momentarily elsewhere, she aimed a kick towards the back of his head. She pushed off from the corner, a few moments passing like an eternity. He still hadn’t looked up, still gripped the tiny weapon in one hand as he gazed down the narrow tunnel. She was just behind him now, falling towards his unprotected head.

  He jerked back instantly, and she thought: He knows what I’m trying. Her boot caught him hard on the back of the neck. He made a sound of surprise, but still held on to the pistol. His free hand reached up, gripping her ankle like a steel vice.

  Once Vincent realized what she was doing, he grabbed one of his discarded boots from the corner and smacked Elias hard across the head.

  Elias kept hold of Kim’s leg as Vincent hit him again. Kim’s heart leapt into her mouth as she saw Elias point the pistol straight at Vincent. He didn’t pull the trigger however. Instead, he turned pale and began to sweat, his hands shaking. There was something wrong with him, she realized.

  Vincent struck again, now with his fist, catching Elias on the mouth. Kim still had one foot free, and now battered the back of Elias’s head with it, bracing herself against a bulkhead to give her the leverage she needed.

  Suddenly, Elias went limp, and at first she thought he was unconscious. Her leg slipped from his grasp.

  ‘Vincent, get the gun,’ she said desperately, then realized he already had. He held it awkwardly, clearly unused to handling weapons.

  He could easily have killed Vincent, she realized, and wondered why he hadn’t. She felt she should feel pleased with their small victory. But strangely it didn’t feel like that.

  ‘We weren’t lying about the bugs,’ she insisted, as if justifying herself, having pushed a safe distance away from him. She hoped Vincent would be capable of using the weapon if necessary.

  Elias said nothing for a moment. Then he raised himself a little, and looked over at her. ‘I may have a damaged tooth. I need access to the medical program.’

  ‘Fine. Vincent, just make sure you keep that thing aimed properly.’

  ‘Where are we going to put him?’ asked Vincent.

  ‘The cargo bay, I guess.’

  ‘Is it safe? I mean, all the bugs—’

  ‘How many?’ Elias interrupted.

  Kim looked at him sharply. ‘I’d rather you kept quiet.’

  ‘You saw what happened to the Jager,’ he said. ‘How long before this ship goes the same way?’

  Kim opened her mouth, and closed it again. Unfortunately he was right.

  ‘We’ve only been away from the Station for a few days. We still have time to turn back.’

  ‘By the time we decelerate and reverse course, it will be almost fourteen days before we reach what’s left of the Station. Kasper is much nearer.’

  She stared at him in shock. ‘You can’t be seriously suggesting —’

  ‘There’s no alternative, not if we have those bugs on board. It’s also where the shuttle’s headed. There are people on Kasper – humans.’

  ‘You mean at the North Pole? The research station at the Citadel?’

  ‘I mean other people. Primalists, maybe, hiding out somewhere on the planet’s surface.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said Kim, flabbergasted. ‘They’ve done aerial and satellite surveys of the whole planet, watching their culture from a distance. If humans were down there, or interfering, we’d know.’ This was ridiculous, she thought. They needed to find some way of restraining him until they could get back to the Station.
>
  Then she remembered the tiny air leak in the cargo bay. She would not admit to Elias that he might be right about not turning back.

  ‘There has to be a reason why that shuttle is going there.’

  ‘You don’t even know where the shuttle’s going!’ she yelled. ‘You’re crazy! One thing I do know, those things have emergency protocols hardwired into them, and just maybe that’s the real reason the thing left the Jager when it did. Maybe its heading this way was just an accident, maybe this is its onboard computer’s response to the Jager coming apart. Elias, maybe there’s nobody on board. Did you think of that?’

  ‘Unmanned shuttles running on random algorithms don’t make course corrections,’ Elias argued smoothly, ‘unless they’ve been programmed with a destination in mind. Flying to Kasper isn’t the obvious destination for a short-range shuttle of that type. You may have noticed it hasn’t been giving out any distress signals either. It’s running silent.’

  Kim glared at him. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to stay here, while Vincent and I go through to the cockpit. If you try to enter the cockpit, I’ll make sure at least one of us uses that gun to good effect.’

  Elias said nothing more, his expression disturbingly smooth and untroubled.

  Back in the cockpit, Kim busied herself at the familiar console.

  Elias had set numerous datastreams running across half the screens, some from pockets of human life on the Angel Station that had, against all odds, survived the onslaught. The majority of the bugs, it seemed, had now disappeared from there. The emergency, for the Station at least, was almost certainly over.

  ‘Keep that gun aimed at the crawlspace, Vince,’ she warned, as he came and stood by her, leaning over the co-pilot’s seat and peering at the screens.

  ‘Look at this!’ he yelped. ‘That’s the cloud of bugs that came off the Jager.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Says here they kept on going until they reached the singularity. Know what they did when they got there?’