by neetha Napew
“That’s true,” Quinada agreed, backing away from her. “That is the custom. And your disappearance would be marked.”
Lunzie nodded encouragingly and stepped toward the door. Before she had taken a second one, Quinada seized her bare arm and slapped her smartly across the cheek. Lunzie’s head snapped back on her neck, and she stared wide-eyed at the heavyworlder, who gripped her with steely fingertips, and then let go. Lunzie staggered back and leaned against the wall to steady herself.
“Where do we meet? You haven’t said that. If you are lying, I will kill you.” Quinada’s voice was caressing and chilled Lunzie to the bone.
“But we meet here,” she said as if that had been a foregone conclusion. “It’s the safest place. As soon as the toasting is done, I’ll come back here and wait for you. That conceited Admiral will think I wish to make myself pretty for him. See you then, Quinada, but I’ve been gone a long time. I must get back.” With a dazzling smile, Lunzie ducked under her arm and out the door.
Whether Quinada would have followed or not became academic, for a group of five chattering humans were coming down the corridor towards the ladies’ room, providing a safeguard.
When Lunzie found Coromell and his ambassador, the Seti was expressing his gratitude to Coromell. He bowed to Lunzie as he turned away. Lunzie managed an appropriate response even as she pulled the admiral to one side behind the smoking incense pots.
“I must talk to you,” she hissed, casting around to see if Quinada had followed her. To her relief, the heavyworld woman was nowhere in sight.
“Where have you been?” he asked, then clucked his tongue in concern. “What happened? You’ve bruised your arm. And there’s another mark on your cheek.”
“Darling Quinada, the Parchandri’s aide,” Lunzie whispered, letting the revulsion she felt colour her words with bitter sarcasm, “followed me to the ladies’ lounge and jumped me there.” She took some satisfaction in the shock on Coromell’s face which he quickly controlled. “She’s under his orders to kill me! She didn’t only because I tentatively accepted an exchange for my life I have no intention of granting. I’m Fleet now, Coromell. Protect me. Get me out of here! Now!”
BOOK FOUR
Chapter Eleven
She went into hiding in a Fleet-owned safe house while Coromell arranged for a shuttle to take her off-planet. Except for the Discipline Master and Admiral Coromell Senior, there was no one to regret her abrupt departure - except perhaps Quinada. But Lunzie did want the Adept to realise that she had been unavoidably called away. That was Discipline courtesy. Her studies in the special course had progressed to a point where she didn’t need direct instruction although she had hoped to obtain permission to teach what she had learned. As it was, the powerful new techniques would take her years to perfect.
The next day a shuttle made a rendezvous in space with the Exploration and Evaluation Corps ARCT-10, a multi-generation, multi-environmental vessel that carried numerous exploration scouts and shuttlecraft. Lunzie was transferred aboard. Her files were edited so that her enlistment in Fleet Intelligence had been excised and a false employment record with the Tau Ceti medical center inserted. She was an ordinary doctor, joining the complement of the ARCT-10 to explore and document new planets for colonisation.
“There are thousands of beings aboard,” Coromell had assured her. “You’ll just be one of several hundred human specialists who sign on for three-year stints with the EEC. No one will have any reason to look twice at you. Once you’re settled in, you can be another remote sensor on that vessel for me. Keep an ear open.”
“You mean, I’m not entirely safe on board?”
“Far safer than on Tau Ceti,” he replied encouragingly. “Blend in but don’t call attention to yourself. You should be fine. You’ve got me slightly paranoid for your sake now.” He ran restless fingers through his hair and gave her an exasperated look. “Think safe and you’ll be safe! Just be cautious.”
“I’m totally reassured!”
Once her shuttle matched velocity with the ARCT-10, it circled around the back of the long stem to the docking bay. The ship was built with a series of cylinders arranged in a ring with arcs joining each segment. Along the dorsal edge of the ship, Lunzie could see a partially shaded quartz dome which probably contained the hydroponics section. The drives, below and astern of the docking bay, could easily have swallowed the tiny shuttle up without a burp. The five exhaust cones arranged in a ring, rimed with a film of ice crystals, were almost a hundred feet across. The ARCT-10 was reputed to be 250 years old. It had an air of majestic dignity, instead of creaking old age. It was the oldest of the original EEC generation ships still in space.
There was a Thek waiting in the docking bay as the shuttle doors cracked open. The meter-high specimen waited while Lunzie greeted the deck officer, then neatly blocked her path when she started to leave the deck without acknowledging it.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, stopping short, and waited for the translator slung around the Thek’s peak to slow her words down enough for it to understand.
“Ttttooooooooooooorrrrrr,” it drawled.
Tor. “Your name?” she asked. Talking with a Thek was like playing the child’s party game of Twenty Questions, but there was no guarantee she would get twenty answers. Theks did not like to use unnecessary verbiage when a syllable or two would do.
“Yyyyyeeeeessssss.” Good, that was short and easy. This must be a relatively young Thek. There was more. Lunzie braced herself to comprehend Tor’s voice.
“Llllllluuunnnnnnnn...... zzzzzzzzzziiiiiieeeeeee.... sssssaaaaaaafffffffeeeee ...... hhhhhhhheeeeeeerrrrrrreeeeee.”
Well, bless Coromell. She’d no idea he had Thek confederates aboard the ARCT-10. If he’d only thought to mention it, she’d have been more reassured.
“Thank you. Tor,” she said. Although come to think on it, she wondered how much help a Thek could provide, flattering though such an offer was from such a source. Even the Thek who had pointed out her escape capsule to Illin “Romsey hadn’t been able to tow her in on its own. A thought struck her. Theks had no real defining characteristics, but this one was the same size as that Thek. “By any chance, were you the one - no, that’s too long - Tor . . . rescued me . . . Descartes?”
A short rumble, sounding like an abbreviated version of his previous “yes,” issued from the depths of the silicoid cone. Now this is one for the books, Lunzie thought, much heartened. Then Tor moved aside as an officer entered the landing bay with a hand out for Lunzie and it settled down into anonymous immobility.
“Doctor, welcome aboard,” the tall man said. He had the attenuated fingers, limbs and long face that marked him as one of the ship-born, a human who had spent his whole life in space. The lighter gravity frequently allowed humans to grow taller on slenderer, wider-spaced bones than the planet-born. They also proved immune to the calcium attrition that planet born space travellers experienced on long journeys. As she shook his hand, Lunzie had an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. Except for eyes that were green, not brown, the young man fit perfectly the genotype of the banned colony-clones that she’d investigated as a member of the investigative panel on Astris seventy years ago as a medical student. “I’m Lieutenant Sanborn. We had your records just two hours ago. It’ll be good to have someone with your trauma specialty on board. Spacebound paranoia is one of the worst things we have to deal with. Walking wounded, you know. You have general training as well?”
“I can sew up wounds and deliver babies, if that’s what you mean,” Lunzie said drily.
Sanborn threw back his head and laughed. He seemed to be a likeable young man. She felt bad about teasing him. “I shouldn’t have asked for a two-byte resume. Sorry. Let me show you to the visitors’ quarters. You’re in luck. There’s an individual sleeping cubicle available in the visitor’s section.” He held out a hand for her bags and hoisted them over his shoulder. “This way, please, Lunzie.”
Her compartment was tiny and spare, but j
ust big enough to be comfortable. Lunzie put her things away in the drop-down ceiling locker before she followed Sanborn to the common room to get acquainted with her shipmates. The common room doubled as a light-use recreation centre.
“The last third of each shift is reserved for conversation only so we don’t have to worry about a game of grav-ball bouncing over our heads,” Sanborn explained as he introduced Lunzie around. The common rooms in the humanoid oxygen-breathers’ section were set with free-form furniture that managed to comfortably accommodate the smallest Weft or the largest heavyworlder.
“Welcome aboard,” said the man in blue coveralls who was lounging with his seat tipped backwards against the walk He had a smooth, dark brown skin and large, mild eyes.
A sallow-faced young man dressed in a pale green lab tunic sat nearby with his elbows braced on the back of his chair and glanced up at her expressionlessly. “I’m Coe. Join us. Do you play chess?” the dark man asked.
“Later perhaps, eh?” Sanborn intervened before she could answer. “I’ve got to get Lunzie to Orientation.”
“Any time,” Coe replied, waving.
His companion swept another look and met Lunzie’s eyes, and said something to Coe. Lunzie thought she heard her name and the word “ambrosia.”
Panic gripped her insides. Oh, no! she thought. Have I left one bad situation for a worse one? I’m trapped aboard this vessel with someone who knows about ambrosia!
“Who’s that young man with Coe?” she asked Sanborn, forcing her voice to stay-calm.
“Oh, that’s Chacal. He’s a communications tech. Not much of a conversationalist for a com-tech. Coe is the only one who can stand him. Keeps to himself when he’s not on duty.”
That would be appropriate if he was an agent for the Parchandri, or the planet pirates. Lunzie wondered to which, if either, Chacal might be attached. She wished she could speak to Coromell, but he was out of reach. Lunzie was on her own, for good or ill. What was the meaning of “ambrosia,” anyway? Or was she simply exhibiting symptoms of spacebound paranoia, as Sanborn put it?
The ARCT-10 was so huge that it was easy to forget that she was travelling through space instead of living on a planet. It was designed to be entirely self-sufficient, not needing to make contact with a planet for years. Sanborn took Lunzie to the Administration offices by way of the life support dome where fresh vegetables, fruit, and grain were grown for carbohydrates to feed the synthesisers and to supplement the otherwise boring synth diet as well as refreshing the oxygen in the atmosphere. Lunzie admired the section, which was twice as big as the hydroponics plant aboard the Destiny Calls, though by no means stocked with the same exotic varieties.
One section of the ship was the multi-generation hive, where the Ship-born and Ship-bred lived, apart from the “Visitors’ habitation.” She quickly discovered that there was an unspoken rivalry between the two groups. The Ship-born were snobbish about the Visitors’ difficulty adapting to almost all-synth food and the cramped living conditions on board. The Visitors, who were often part of the ship’s complement for years on end, couldn’t understand why the Ship-born were so proud of living under such limited conditions, like laboratory animals who were reduced to minimum needs. It was obvious to each group that its way was better. Mostly the rivalry was good-natured.
Since the Visitors on the ship were mission scientists or colonists awaiting transport to FSP sanctioned colonies, few crossed the boundary to socialise between groups. The matter was temporary, as far as the Visitors were concerned. On average. Visitors lasted about three years on the ARCT. When they could no longer stand the conditions, they quit.
The Ship-born felt they could ignore anyone for three years if they wanted to. In the million-light-year vision of the generation ships, that was just an eyeblink. Fortunately for more gregarious souls like Lunzie who joined the EEC, the boundaries were less than a formality.
Several of the major FSP races had groups aboard the ARCT-10 in both habitations. Heavyworlders occupied specially pressurised units designed to duplicate the gravity and harsh weather conditions of their native worlds. The Ryxi needed more square metres per being than the other groups did. Many Visitors were resentful of the seemingly spacious quarters the Ryxi occupied, though the Ship-born understood that it was the minimum the Ryxi could stand.
Theks skimmed smoothly through the corridors like mountains receding in the distance with no extraneous movement. They ranged in size from Tor’s one meter to a seven-meter specimen who lived in the hydroponics section and who spoke so slowly that it took a week to produce a comprehensible word. A small complement of Brachians worked aboard ship. Lunzie recognized their long-armed silhouettes immediately in their low-light habitation. A family of the marine race of Ssli occupied their only environment in the Ship-born hive. Those Ssli had resolved to devote their entire line to serving the EEC, and the ARCT-10 was grateful for their expertise in chemistry and energy research.
As on the Descartes mining platform, there was an effort made to draw the inhabitants of the ship together as a community, rather than passengers on a vessel intended only for research and exploration. There was an emphasis on family involvement, in which praise was given not only to the child which got good grades, but for the family which supported and encouraged a child’s success. Individual accomplishment was not ignored, but acknowledged in the context of the community. But Lunzie never sensed a heavy administrative hand ensuring that all were equally treated. Departments were given autonomy in their fields. The EEC administration only stepped in when necessary to ease understanding between them. Denizens of the ship were encouraged to sort out matters for themselves. Lunzie admired the system. It fostered achievement in an atmosphere of cooperation.
When she wasn’t researching or working an infirmary shift, Lunzie spent time in the common room getting to know her shipmates, and her ship. The ARCT-10 had been in space a hundred and fifty Earth-Standard years. Some of the Ship-born were descended from families who had been aboard since its commissioning. One day, Lunzie became part of a lively discussion group that held court in the middle of the floor, suspending the normal polarisation of Visitors to one end of the room and Ship-born to the other.
“But how can you stand the food?” Varian asked Grabone, rolling over on her free-form cushion to face him. Varian was a tall Xenobiologist Visitor. “It’s been recycled through the pipes, too, for seven generations.”
“Not at all,” Grabone replied. “We use fresh carbohydrates for food. The recyclate is used for other purposes, such as fertiliser and plas-sheeting. We’re completely self-sufficient.” The Ship-born engineer’s shock of red hair helped to express his outrage. “How can you question a system with less than four percent breakdown over a hundred years?”
“But there’s something lacking in the aesthetics,” Lunzie said, entering the discussion. “I’ve never been able to stand synthesiser food myself. It’s the memory of real food, not the actual stuff.”
“If your cooks just didn’t make synth food so boring!” Varian said in disgust. “It’d be almost palatable if it had some recognisable taste. I’ll bet, Grabone, that you’ve never had real food. Not even the vegetables they grow on the upper deck.”
“Why take chances?” demanded Grabone, leaning back defiantly on the floor and crossing his ankles. “You could poison yourself with unhygienically grown foodstuffs. You know the synth food is safe, and nourishing.”
“Have you ever even tried naturally grown food?” Varian demanded.
“Can’t tell the difference if I have. I’ve never been off the ARCT-10,” Grabone admitted. “I’m a drives engineer. There’s no reason for me to have to make planetfall on, I might point out, potentially hazardous missions. Risk your own neck. Leave mine alone.”
“Life can be hazardous to your health,” Lunzie said cheerfully to Varian beside her. She liked the lively, curly-haired girl who was unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. They did Discipline exercises together in the earl
y shift. Lunzie could tell that Varian’s training was of the most basic, though it would seem advanced to anyone who was not an Adept. “How are you chosen to go on planetside missions?” she asked Varian. “Do I have to put my name in the duty roster?”
“Oh, no,” Varian replied. “Nothing that organised. Each mission requires such different skills that the first person off the queue might not be qualified. Details of a mission’s personnel needs are posted days before the actual drop. If you’re interested, you inform Comm Center and you’re listed as available. A mission leader then picks the complement. Some missions are planned at FSP Center. Some develop out of circumstances. Let me explain. The ARCT-10’s job is to keep tabs on all the Exploration and Evaluation vessels in our sector and support them with ground teams when necessary. So you really never know what’s or who’s going to be needed. The ARCT also keeps checking in on message beacons previously set in this sector by initial EEC scouts. They strip off messages whenever we’re in line of sight and send reports back to FSP Center. If a recon or an emergency team are needed, ARCT supplies it. So really,” and Varian shrugged, “you can gain a lot of xeno experience in a three year stint.”
“And that’s what you’re after?” Lunzie said.
“You bet! That’s what’ll get me a good dirtside job.” Then her vivacious face changed and she lowered her voice. “There may be a very good one coming up. I’ve a friend in Com and he said for me to keep my ears open.”
“Then you’re not at all nervous about the scuttle-butt I’ve been hearing?”
“Which one?” asked Varian scornfully.
“The one about planting colonists without their permission?”
“That old one.” Grabone was openly derisive. “Rumours sometimes start themselves, you know. I’ll excuse you this time, Lunzie, since I know you’re not long on board. You wouldn’t know how many times that one’s oozed through the deckplates.”