by neetha Napew
Luckily they were about as she’d expected, justifying a long examination. Captain Cruss, it turned out, had no master’s license - just a temporary permit from Diplo. He had been a master mate (and what land of rank was that, Sassinak wondered . . . she’d not seen that before) on an ore-hauler for eight years, and second mate on an asteroid-mining shuttle before that. Newholme had granted a temporary waiver of its usual requirements on the basis of Diplo’s permit - that looked like a bribe.
First-mate, senior pilot Zansa, on the other hand, had had a master’s license and once worked for Cobai Chemicals - which implied that her master’s license had been legitimate. But it was stamped “rescinded” in the odd orange ink that nothing could eradicate completely - and with a notation that Zansa had become addicted to bellefleur, a particularly dangerous drug for a ship captain. Sassinak looked up and found Zansa, who bore the characteristic facial scars of a bellefleur addict, though they were all pale and dry.
“I’m clean,” the woman growled. “Been clean five years, and next year I can retake the exams - “
“Shut up,” said Cruss, savagely, and Zansa shrugged, clearly not intimidated. Sassinak went back to the papers. So ... Zansa was the expert, and Cruss the cover - though she wondered why they hadn’t found a legitimate master. Surely they could have done better than a recovering bellefleur addict.
Second pilot Hargit had had a checkered career, with rescinded visa stamps all over his records: charges and some convictions for petty theft, assault and battery, and “disturbance.” That was from Charade, which usually had a pretty tolerant attitude towards disturbances. For the past five years, he’d piloted a cargo hauler between two heavyworlder planets, apparently without incident.
Lifesystems engineer Po was the largest of the five, a gross mass of flesh that escaped his shipsuit where the fastenings had strained from the cloth. He had a toothy grin that made Sassinak want to reach for a stunner - the kind of grin she remembered too well from her days as a slave. He had also been cashiered from the Diplo insystem space militia. She wondered how many of the hopeful colonists in coldsleep on the transport would have a chance to wake up with this . . . person . . . watching over their safety. He’d given up the fight to maintain traditional heavyworlder fitness on shipboard, but Sassinak did not doubt his strength.
And last was the “helper,” Roella. Her papers listed a variety of occupations, in space and on planet, including “entertainer” - which, for someone of her appearance, meant only one thing. She’d also been jailed twice, for “disrespect” - but that was on Courance, where unlike Charade they were very picky indeed.
Plenty of questions to ask, but nothing she wanted to pursue too far, not now. A light came up on her console; she ignored it, and went on reading, rolling the control wand in her fingers. If they were clever, these heavyworlders, they would realize what it was - a stun-wand, as well as a link to her computers. With their backgrounds, they’d all had intimate experience with a stun-wand, somewhere. She finished turning through Roella’s ID packet, and sighed, as if deeply pained by all this. Then she looked up at the tense, angry faces across from her.
“Yes, yes. Captain Cruss,” she said, pouring all the smoothness she could into her voice. “Your papers do seem to be in order, and one cannot fault your chivalry in diverting to investigate a distress call ...” What distress call? For they’d have had to receive it many light years away, the way they’d come. Of course they didn’t know they’d been followed.
But Cruss was explaining, or trying to, that it had not been a normal distress call. Sassinak pushed her own thoughts aside to listen. A homing capsule, intended for the EEC compound ship which had dropped both the Ryxi colony and the exploration team. It had gone astray, somehow been damaged, and been found just beyond the orbit of the outermost planet of this system.
Not bloody likely, Sassinak thought grimly ... it would be like someone in an aircraft happening to notice a single small bead on the end of the runway as they landed. Nothing that size could be detected in FTL flight, and it was more than a little unlikely that they’d come out of FTL on top of it by accident. She was surprised when Cruss stood up, and deposited the battered hunk of metal on her desk with insolent precision. So - that was his surprise - and he had a homing capsule, or part of it. Stripped of its propulsion unit and power pack, it was hardly recognizable. She refrained from touching it, noting only that engraved ID numbers were just visible along one pitted side.
She was not convinced of his story, even when he generously offered to let her extract the capsule’s message from his computer, but she had no intention of arguing with him at this point. She doubted he knew that the Fleet computers had their own way with such capsules - and could extract more than a faked message implanted therein. But all that would come out at the trial. Now she smiled, graciously, and explained her reasons for confining them all to their ship, but with permission to trade for fresh foodstuffs with the locals. Cruss surged to his feet with another stale curse, and his companions followed. Sassinak sat quietly, relaxed: behind them the two Wefts had shifted to their own form, and clung to the angle of bulkhead and overhead. The marine escort was poised, hands hovering over weapons.
“I hope your water supplies are adequate,” she said in the same conversational tone. “The local water is foul-tasting and smells.” Cruss actually growled, a rumble of furious denial that he needed anything, from her or anyone else. “Very well, then,” she went on. “I’m positive you’ll wish to continue on your way as soon as we have received clearance for you. The indigenes will have all the help we can give them. You may be sure of that.” She stood, tapping the wand against her left palm, to watch them leave. Cruss made a motion toward the capsule, but Sassinak lowered the wand to forestall him.
“I think that had better remain,” she said calmly. “Sector will wish to examine it - “ His eyes shifted angrily. Guilty, she thought. What had they done to that thing? And where had it been sent? Surely not all the way to Diplo - - at the sublight speed a capsule traveled, that would take years. His muscles bunched; Sassinak flicked a finger signal and the Wefts reassembled themselves beside him. He flinched, his expression shifting from barely controlled fury and contempt to alarm.
“Good day. Captain,” she said easily, despite a mouth suddenly dry as the crisis passed. Of the others, only Zansa looked longingly toward the pile of personal documents on her desk - Sassinak avoided her eyes until she’d turned to leave.
As soon as the door slid shut, Sassinak relaxed back into her chair and turned it to face the video pickup. Ford quickly hooked their video into her screen, so that she could see them. Varian looked much better today: a vividly alive young woman who reminded Sassinak of herself, with those thick dark curls. But Varian’s eyes were a clear gray, today untinged by the pain or stress that had clouded them the day before. Kai, on the other hand, looked nothing like an expedition leader. Slumped in his seat, pale, a padded suit protecting vulnerable skin . . . and his voice, when he spoke, revealed the strain even this much activity placed on him. He seemed harried, nervous - in a way more normal than Varian, for someone who’d been through a mutiny and forty-three years of coldsleep. Plus whatever had attacked him. She chatted with them, trying to assess Kai’s condition and Varian’s wits. Neither of them had any idea what the Thek presence meant, although Kai told her about the existing cores, found before the mutiny. She was still digesting that when Kai turned formal, and asked if she considered her presence to be the relief of the expeditionary team. “How could it?” she asked, meanwhile wondering why he’d give her such an opening. Did he want to be removed from command? Did he distrust his co-leader? Varian seemed as surprised by his question as Sassinak. Sassinak filled out her quick answer, explaining her understanding of their entirely legitimate position, and reminding them again of her willingness to give them any assistance. Varian accepted this happily, but Kai still seemed constrained. Either he was very sick still, from all that had happened, or something els
e was wrong. After she’d turned them over to Ford, who would take Kai down to sickbay for Mayerd’s diagnostic unit to work on, and Varian to supply, she sat for awhile, frowning thoughtfully at the screen that had held their image.
She put the ID papers of both transport and crew in a sealed pouch, and stored it safely away for later examination. Dupaynil came in, with two Com specialists, to take the homing capsule’ away. He asked if she wanted to watch them extract the message, but she shook her head. At the moment, she’d take a break from the day’s craziness, and discuss the evening’s menu with her favorite cook.
When the call came in from the survivors’ geologist, one Dimenon, relayed through Com, she collected the Iretan heavyworlders and the expedition co-leaders. Mayerd shepherded Kai, clearly unwilling to let such an interesting case out of her sight, and Ford brought Varian. Dimenon had had a good reason for contacting the cruiser - not only a video of twenty-three small Thek, but an interaction between them and the creature that had attacked Kai. Sassinak had already viewed the tape once, and now in the re-run watched Kai’s reaction to these odd creatures - fringes, they called them. The man was positively terror-struck as the fringes advanced on the Thek, his breathing labored and his skin color poor. He had not moved well, coming into her office, but she thought if a fringe appeared in real life he would somehow manage to run. Pity and disgust contended in her mind. Had he always been like this, or had events overcome him? What did Varian think? Sassinak glanced at her, and realized that she, too, was covertly watching him, her expression guarded.
Sassinak distracted Varian with a question about the fringes, and Mayerd, bless her perception, kept the conversation going thereafter . . . although Kai’s answers, when he spoke, tended to cause a sudden rift. Then the Iretans began to ask their own questions, about the Thek, and their place in the Federation. Sass’s opinion of Aygar’s intelligence climbed another notch. He could think - and, it seemed in the next exchange, he even had a sense of humor. For when Sassinak asked him what weapon his people used against the fringes, he said, “We run,” in a tone of rich irony.
A slight easing of tension, and the conversation continued: fringes and their habits, the aquatic fringes the expedition had observed before the mutiny. Aygar was surprised by that . . . and Sassinak was just wondering how she could shift the conversation to the reptiloids when Varian, answering a question, mentioned the word. Dinosaurs. Fordeliton leaped on it with such eagerness that Sassinak half-expected Varian to recoil suspiciously. But apparently she thought it was natural for a grown man, a Fleet cruiser Executive Officer, to leap into an argument about whether anything resembling a true Old Earth dinosaur could have evolved in such a different world. Varian reeled off a string of names. Ford gaped, and then brought Aygar into it.
Sassinak let the excited exchange continue a minute or so, then put a halt to it with such pointed lack of interest for anything but the political situation that she knew they’d erupt again when her back was turned. So much the better. By the time she ushered the Iretans out, Varian and Kai had practically adopted Ford. She had no trouble persuading them to take all six of the short-listed specialists . . . Varian, in fact, was openly gleeful. She wondered if Mayerd had found out anything from Kai, besides the nature of his injuries and illness, but the medic had spent all her time on physical symptoms.
“It’s no use asking why he’s depressed and nervous until he’s no longer in pain, feverish, and numb in places.”
“I should think numbness preferable to pain,” said Sassinak tartly. “How can he be both?”
Mayerd gave her a look which reminded her she hadn’t eaten on time, and suggested they take a short break. “Eat a bit of that chocolate you keep hidden around here,” she said, “and I’ll have a cup of tea, and we’ll all keep from biting our heads off, shall we?”
“Don’t mother me, Mayerd. I’m not old and decrepit.”
“No,” said Mayerd shrewdly, “but you’re about to meet a fourth-generation ancestor who’s years younger than you are, and for all you know a raving beauty who’ll steal Ford’s heart away and leave you withering in the blast of dead passion.”
Sassinak whooped, and her tension dissolved in an instant. “You - That’s ridiculous!”
“True, O Captain. So are some other people. Done grieving for Huron yet, or are you still feeling so guilty you can’t enjoy your many admirers?”
“You’re making me blush. None of your business, I’d say, except it is, since you’re my physician. Well, yes, I have enjoyed normal - or at least pleasurable - involvement in the last few weeks.”
“Good. About time. That boy Tim’s in awe of you, by the way, so I hope you’re going to let him back into your good graces sometime.”
“Already done, fairy godmother, so let me be.”
“Back to Kai, then. The toxin destroyed nerve tissue, so he’s got sensory deprivation on some areas of skin - nasty, because he doesn’t know when he’s hurt himself. Where the tissue’s not destroyed, it’s stimulated - just like pain, but the brain can’t register constant stimulus like that, so he just gets these odd stabs and twinges, and a general feeling of something very wrong, very deep. His blood count’s off, which probably causes the exhaustion you noticed, and he’s not sleeping well, which doesn’t help. I offered to slap him in one of the big tanks, and let him sleep it off until we got him to Sector, but he refused. Which, in this case, took considerable guts, despite that display while you ran the tape.”
“Umm. It bothered me, particularly in someone in his position.”
“That Varian’s got enough bounce for two,” said Mayerd; Sassinak could detect the faintest trace of distaste, and knew that Mayerd would always prefer a patient to a patient’s healthy friend. With that in mind, she suggested that Mayerd visit the survivors that afternoon, when the diagnostic unit had finished meditating over Kai’s condition.
“I’d already thought of that. They’ll need clothes . . . you were planning a formal dinner, weren’t you?”
“To show off, yes.” Sassinak chuckled. “You mind-reader: people will think you’re a Weft if you keep that up. Raid my closet, if you need anything I’ve got - there’s a red dress that might suit Varian.”
“I’ve got a green that will be perfect for Lunzie,” said Mayerd smugly. “And all Kai’s measurements, so I’ve already located something for him.”
By the time Mayerd stopped by to show Sassinak what she’d chosen, on her way to the sled, the stewards were giving Sassinak sideways looks that meant they’d like her to clear out so they could set up for dinner. She had elected to serve in her office, a more intimate setting than the officers’ mess.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she said, grinning at the cook as he came to survey the room’s layout, with an eye to planning service. She stopped by the bridge, where everything seemed to be under control, and discovered that most of them knew about her ancestress . . . after all, she hadn’t told Ford or the others to keep it a secret. She worked through the day’s reports, noting replies to some queries back to Sector, and some pending - she’d hoped to have more information for Kai and Varian tonight, but apparently not. Something might come in any time, of course. Finally Arly caught her attention and pointed to the clock. Time to be getting ready - but she’d cleared most of her work, and would start the morrow only slightly behind.
As she went to her cabin to clean up, she found she could not quite analyze her emotions. Lunzie ... another Lunzie. No, not another Lunzie, but the Lunzie. That hardly seemed fair to her little sister - but then nothing had been. She wouldn’t think about that, she told herself, and poured another dollop of shampoo on her hair. Thank the gods that the cruiser didn’t have to use Iretan water!
But what would she be like? What could she be like? More like someone her elapsed age, or more like an old lady ... a very, very old lady? She had the file holo ... but that told her little. Her own file holo, the still one, didn’t tell a viewer that much. Movement was so much of a person - sh
e thought of this, wringing out her hair, and flipping it into a towel with easy practiced gestures. No two people even bathed alike, dried themselves alike . . . and what if her ancestress turned out to be prudish about sex? That thought brought a blush to her cheeks. She looked at herself in the mirror, thinking of Mayerd’s teasing remarks. What if she wasn’t . . . what if she had Sass’s own casual attitude . . . and after all Ford was very good looking. No. Ridiculous. Here she hadn’t even met her, and already she was thinking of that kind of rivalry with her great-great-great-grandmother?
Besides, Mayerd would be back before then, and could tell her - if she would, because doctors did stick together - and would it be worse, Sassinak asked herself suddenly, to lose a family because of long coldsleep, as Lunzie had certainly done, or gain one because someone down the line was alive when you awoke? She eased into the long black slip that fit under her formal evening dress uniform, and began assembling it: the black gown, skirt glittering with tiny stars, and the formal honors winking on the left breast of the bodice. Somehow the formals, jeweled as they were, seemed more remote from the events that earned them than the full-size medals that jingled softly on a white-dress suit. This was the first time she’d pinned the formal rank jewels of Commander on the shoulders; the last time she’d worn this outfit, she’d been a Lieutenant Commander at Sector Headquarters, on duty at a diplomatic ball. The long, close-fitting black sleeves were ringed with gold: the captain of the ship, even in evening dress.
A last look - the merest touch of color on her lips - and she was ready. The proper twenty minutes before the guests would arrive, and there was Mayerd, also ready, and Ford. They grinned at each other, and Sassinak resisted the temptation to check on her office. Ford would have done it. She congratulated Ford on the increased “coverage” of his chest... he had picked up more than a few impressive medals, in the years since she’d seen him last. Mayerd wore her Science Union badge, and the little gold pin that meant honor graduate of the best medical school in the human worlds. They chatted idly, waiting at the head of the ramp, and Sassinak was very aware that both were watching her closely, to catch her reaction to Lunzie. They’d said nothing except that her relative would “suit” her.