Liaden Universe 20: The Gathering Edge

by Sharon Lee

  The Great Migration had seen a mass crossing of ships from one universe to another—their own, expanding universe. Given the lines of the ship, and that stupid coord set, she supposed it made the most sense, as a working theory, that Spiral Dance was just…late crossing in.

  Hundreds and hundreds of years late.

  Still, if there had been a temporal flux, created by so many ships working the same course at the exact same time, or—

  “Clan Korval,” Joyita said, looking up and meeting her eyes with a straight gaze, “has extensive records of this nature, as the pilots who led the Migration were of that clan.”

  Theo took a hard breath.

  “Right. But, according to what we were taught in school, Pilots yos’Phelium and yos’Galan were on Quick Passage. Where does this ship—Spiral Dance—even come into the picture?”

  “Decoy,” Clarence said, entering the bridge.

  “That is a shrewd guess,” Joyita said. “Yes. I think it more than likely that Spiral Dance was sent out to draw the attention of the enemy away from the exodus.”

  “And the extra pairs?” Theo asked. “Evasive action?”

  “Possibly.” That was Bechimo. “Or a protocol preset. Pilot down, perhaps.”

  “Check sums,” said Joyita, suddenly. “The extra pairs. We know that the old universe was…stable. There was a steady-state center and there was an edge. The center would provide positive orientation at all times. The follow-up course—perhaps there was a trigger, to entice the enemy to follow one more time.”

  “So you’re thinking there never was a pilot on that ship,” Clarence said, settling into the copilot’s chair and spinning so he could see his screens and the rest of the bridge, too. “I mean, no pilot for the Jump that brought it here.”

  “I believe there was not, Clarence,” Joyita said.

  “All right,” Theo said. “I can understand sending a decoy out. But what’s the point of the tree? Was the enemy allergic to plants?”

  “Could be they were,” Clarence said. He turned his chair slightly, so that he faced Theo directly.

  “Daav told me once that Korval’s big Tree wasn’t just a tree. He talked about it like it was a unique intelligence—a person.”

  She nodded. “He told me it was a biochemist,” she said. “But—”

  “I ain’t a botanist, but it seems to me that the tree I just brought over from Spiral Dance and the tree growing outta the middle of Jelaza Kazone—are the same tree.”

  “The same—”

  “A child,” Clarence said. “Or a grandparent. Not the same individual. Maybe Bechimo has a match program…”

  “Leaf,” Theo said, touching a fingertip to her temple. “They need a leaf for a cellular match. Where’d you put the tree?”

  “It’s in Forcing Room Three,” Clarence said. “Thought it best to keep it outta Hevelin’s orbit.”

  “Good idea. We don’t want him eating alien leaves.”

  Theo stood, and turned smoothly toward the door just as it slid open to admit Kara.

  “Ship scan find anything interesting?” Clarence asked.

  She shook her head. “Win Ton is locking up his section, but no—we found nothing. Nothing! It is as if the ship had been deliberately cleaned, all codes stripped, before it was sent out. I had hope that the logs would prove to be fruitful, but I see that Theo is not smiling.”

  “Empty files, empty logs, all locked up nice and tight,” Theo said. “There was a course laid in, but the coords don’t mean anything in our space. Log’s been wiped; history, too. The prevailing theory is that she’d been sent out as a decoy, to keep the enemy’s eyes off of the Migration.”

  Kara nodded.

  “But this does not explain the tree in the copilot’s chair,” she said.

  “I was just going down to ’ponics, to see if we can’t explain the tree in the copilot’s chair,” Theo said. “Want to come along?”

  “Certainly,” Kara said.

  Theo looked ’round the bridge.

  “Anybody else?”

  Clarence shook his head.

  “I’ll sit watch, if that suits,” he said. “I’m kinda curious to see what’s next to come through.”

  Theo glared at him balefully. “This isn’t exciting enough for you?”

  He grinned. “You know me, Captain; thrill a minute’s hardly exciting enough.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “I shall observe from area sensors,” Bechimo said; Joyita nodded agreement.

  Theo took Kara’s arm, and the two of them exited the bridge.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bechimo

  Wyrd Space

  Hevelin caught up with them at the door to Forcing Room Three, which, Theo thought, she might have known he would. He burbled cheerfully, stood on his hind legs and steadied himself with a paw against her knee.

  Inside her head, she “saw” trees, leaves, bushes, grasses, all accompanied with a feeling of dreamy excitement, as if finding a new and different kind of tree and/or leaf-bearing plant were cause for celebration of itself.

  Which, Theo thought, for a herbivore, it might well be.

  “We don’t know what kind of tree it is,” she said, forming the thoughts firmly as she spoke the words. “If you eat one of the leaves, you might get sick.”

  There came a distinct impression of laughter.

  Theo sighed, and blew her bangs out of her face.

  “What does he say?” Kara asked.

  “I’m to understand that there isn’t a leaf that grows can harm Hevelin,” she said, meaning it for sarcasm.

  Hevelin sent her a thrill of approval, and she sighed again.

  “Apparently that’s not overstating the case.” She paused, to better consider the next picture forming inside her head.

  “He claims to be an expert on leaves and on the things that grow them.”

  Kara paused, her head tipped to one side.

  “He may not be boasting,” she said slowly.

  “Right; it could be true.”

  Theo dropped to one knee, and looked into the norbear’s furry face.

  “I want your promise that you will not sample leaves or twigs from this tree. Joyita and Bechimo need a leaf for a comparison. Kara and I are here to collect that leaf for them, and to observe the tree for…anomalies or interesting features. I’ll be very pleased to have your impressions of the tree, as an expert, but until that leaf is cleared as safe, no snacking. Agreed?”

  Amused agreement rattled through her head. Theo stood up and exchanged a glance with Kara.

  “I have his word as a crew member and a norbear,” she said, straight-faced.

  “That is very good,” Kara said, equally serious. “His word will bind him.”

  * * *

  The tree in its pot sat under a simple radiant lamp, its leaves moving slightly, as if, Theo thought, it was dancing. The air in the forcing room was somewhat cooler than the rest of the ship, and there was a minty tang to it that seemed somewhat familiar.

  Hevelin gave a high-pitched squeak and ran forward, squeaking again when Kara smoothly bent and swooped him up to her shoulder.

  “You will be able to see better from here,” she said, raising a hand to cover his back paws. “And you will be less tempted to break your word. My grandmother used to say that the most difficult promise to preserve was the one most easily given.”

  Hevelin might have had something to say to that, Theo thought. She might even have asked what it was, but for the sudden exuberance of dragons.

  A large black dragon soared wing to wing with a slightly smaller golden dragon. They flew straight at her, or maybe she flew toward them. She felt cool breezes flowing along the planes of her wings; a deep breath brought her a savory tang, like ozone. Her shoulder muscles worked as she brought her wings down, moving more swiftly toward the approaching pair, until, abruptly, they veered, and she did—or tried to.

  She cried out, twisting as her wings failed her, her balance gone
ragged. She clutched for the nearest support—

  Which was, of course, the little tree in its pot.

  Her hand struck warm bark; she felt the trunk give, heard a creak, and snatched her hand away, dancing in a circle, half blind, terrified that she might have broken it, and now she remembered—she remembered where she had been recently, where the air tasted sharp and clean, like ozone and mint—

  “Theo!”

  She blinked…up, at Kara, who was standing, wide-eyed, hand extended, while she…was a muddle of tangled legs seated ignominiously on the floor, a bouquet of leaves in one hand.

  “Theo!” Bechimo sounded frightened; his voice, too loud, coming from directly overhead. “Are you ill?”

  “I’m all right,” she said. “Just…surprised.”

  She looked to Kara.

  “There were…dragons,” she managed. “I thought I was a dragon, flying to meet them.” She sighed and rolled to her feet, looking at the leaves in her hand.

  “We have our sample anyway.”

  “So it seems. But, Theo—dragons?”

  She nodded.

  “A black dragon and a golden dragon. Flying straight at me. I was…flying, too. Right before I fell, anyway.” She looked beyond Kara to the tree, with its dancing leaves.

  “I think it recognizes me.”

  Kara frowned; then her eyes widened.

  “Tree and Dragon, in person,” she said, turning to regard the tree in her turn. “It really is a…child of Korval’s Tree, then?”

  “I’m convinced,” Theo said. “Best to get confirmation, though.”

  Impulsively, she stepped past Kara to the tree, and carefully put her hand against the fragile trunk.

  “Are you all right? Do you need anything else from us to make you comfortable? To keep you healthy?”

  A fleeting image of the black dragon and the gold; a hesitation followed by a glimpse of boneless movement, and the feel of fur along her skin.

  “I’m the only dragon on board,” she said aloud. “We don’t have a ship cat, but we do have Hevelin.” She turned her head.

  “Kara, bring Hevelin and let him touch a branch. You touch one, too.”

  There was a flutter at the edge of Theo’s vision when Hevelin gripped his branch, as if the tree had tried to fit the “cat” template over him, and discarded it.

  Kara’s touch woke a warm ripple down Theo’s spine, and a softly moving silhouette, as of sun filtering through leaves. No dragons darkened the horizon.

  “Thank you,” Theo said, as Kara withdrew her hand. “I hope to be able to make more…comfortable arrangements for you soon. In the meantime, be welcome on my ship.”

  Her answer was a distant image: the flare and glitter of a starfield, phasing in.

  “That’s it,” she agreed. “Until soon.”

  * * *

  The door closed. Kara bent to let Hevelin down to the deck, then straightened, her eyes still wide.

  “You talk to it like it understands.”

  “It does,” Theo said. “Korval’s big Tree is a biochemist, remember? And not just a tree?”

  Kara stood still, and took several very deep breaths.

  Theo waited patiently.

  “So, you will be taking this…personage…to…to Korval?”

  “Maybe,” Theo said, and turned toward the bridge. “But it’ll complicate things.”

  * * * * *

  “You’ll wanna take a look at this.”

  The mechanic was laconic. She was also very nearly disrespectful in her zeal to demonstrate her lack of fear. Vepal found her refreshing. Trooper Ochin, whose uneasy task it was to guard Vepal’s honor, was not inclined to be so tolerant.

  “You will respect the ambassador to the Unaffiliated Worlds!” he snarled.

  The mechanic was cleaning her hands on a grimy cloth that might once have been a proud red, now worn by abuse into a trembling pink. She was a well-grown Terran female, but she had to look up into Ochin’s, doubtless outraged, face. Her mouth tightened; in irritation, Vepal thought, rather than alarm.

  “I ain’t disrepected him, now have I?” she snapped. “Disrespect, I’d’ve just put everything back like I found it an’ not said nothing. I’m saying something.” She looked again to Vepal and ducked her chin slightly, which Vepal chose to interpret as a respectful salute.

  He rose—not quite as tall as Ochin, leaner, older. As odd as it might be, at Temp Headquarters, to find a soldier gone grey, Terrans put a value on the silver hair at his temples.

  “Show me,” he said, and the mechanic tucked the rag back into her belt and turned toward the repair bay.

  * * *

  “Ordinary way of things, wouldn’t be no reason for me to be opening up this section here, not with it being the distribution chamber gone dabino. Got that swapped out, an’ it come to me—ship being as old as it is—might be that new chamber working at full could might stress some other systems. Figured it best t’run a complete diagnostic, and take care of anything looked too risky right here and now.”

  “I appreciate your initiative,” Vepal said gravely—and sincerely. Not many would have taken the time to be so thorough to a non-local ship. When that ship belonged to an Yxtrang, ambassador though he be, haste might be valued over care, in order to see the ship well away.

  The mechanic snorted lightly.

  “Don’t want you mad at me, do I? Turn ’round to find you blew a catalyst array, an’ you’re coming back t’station with a shipload o’friends?”

  The mechanic also possessed fine reasoning abilities, and a honed instinct for survival. She could not know that a squad of avenging soldiers was the unlikeliest answer to news that the ambassador’s ship had malfunctioned catastrophically, all hands lost, nor did the ambassador enlighten her. He merely inclined his head.

  “Go on,” he said. “You ran the diagnostics and…?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m telling you! Come up with a couple bits ’n bobs might not’ve stood the strain. Replaced them—you’ll see ’em on your invoice, broke out by kind an’ time. Gotta charge the parts, or the boss’ll think I’m mizzlin’ him. No charge for my extra time. Din’t come but less’n hour, anyhoot.

  “But, see, I got them risky bits swapped handy enough, and there’s still these three blips on the diagnostic—look like ghosts—y’get ’em, sometime, though the machine this bay ain’t prone, and it was either ignore ’em, run another test, or take a bare-eye look-see and find are they really there.

  “Did that, and they were—an’ here they still are. Wheels’re locked on that roller; you wanna kneel, you’ll be able to see ’nough, I think. I’ll put the light on ’em.”

  Carefully, and to Ochin’s palpable dismay, Vepal knelt on the broad board indicated, and ducked down to look under the belly of his ship.

  A spotlight flared. He closed his eyes just too late to avoid having his dim sight ruined, and he kept them closed, patiently, until the afterflare faded.

  Cautiously, he opened his eyes—and considered the thing reposing in its pool of light.

  He recognized it, of course—a standard duty hull breaker. It could be triggered from a distance, or preset to explode at some preferred time.

  “How long do you think that device has been there?” he asked the mechanic.

  There was a hesitation.

  “Take the dings an’ the dust of the thing, I’m guessin’—an’ hear what I’m sayin’—guessin’ couple Standards ’least. All of ’em look ’bout the same, in those terms, and takin’ location into ’count—so wherever they roosted, they come as a flock.

  “I’m gonna move the light now. Show you the other two.”

  Vepal closed his eyes, opened them when the mechanic said, “Here’s number two.”

  The first had been secured at what might have been the length of a soldier’s arm, without any attempt to hide it. The second had been positioned with more care, inside the shadow of an intake dimple. The third had likewise been affixed with at least a thought
to stealth, directly over the Jump engine.

  Vepal sighed, and rose to his feet.

  “Thank you,” he said, and “I have a question.”

  The mechanic looked up at him.

  “If it’s can you remove those?—answer’s I got a better’n good chance of settin’ one off if I try.”

  The ambassador sighed. In addition to the loss of his vessel, and possibly the mechanic, whom he was coming to value, there were many rules which had been given to them upon docking, regarding the sanctity of the station and what penalties accrued to persons who were so careless as to harm its environment in any way.

  It was…reasonably probable…that the devices were defective. Had they been of Liaden or Terran manufacture—but these had the unmistakable form factor of Troop-made detonators. Such devices very often did operate, to some level or another. Given the mechanic’s estimate of their tenure, and his own certain knowledge of when he had last been in a port where his vessel was likely to be sabotaged, it would seem that these were among the majority of devices that did not operate.

  Still, they were a danger, especially the first, which had been so artlessly placed. A lucky rock strike, or even a bad docking…

  “What I can do, though,” the mechanic said, “is give ’em a bath.”

  He looked down into her broad and freckled face.

  “A bath?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, see, they ain’t the safest things on-station, but odds’re with you. They ain’t been triggered in any number of Standards, so could be they can’t be triggered. The danger’s where if they’re just biding their time while the clock ticks on, but I’ll tell you, once I saw what they was, I put on my big ears and whiskers, an’ I din’t find nothing that said workin’ preset to me.

  “So, what I propose to do is give each of ’em an acid bath, finished off with a mil-grade sealant. Then, what you wanna do, once you’re out from station, and all by your lonesome, is take a walkabout, an’ peel them units off the hull. Like I say, prolly they’re already dusted, but you don’t wanna be taking the chance that one’ll wake up.”

  She shook her head, ruefully.

  “Just can’t trust unstable tech.”