Liaden Universe 20: The Gathering Edge

by Sharon Lee

  Chernak snorted, turned her head and met Stost’s eyes.

  They smiled then, and perhaps Grakow did as well, as the trader ship’s logo hovered over them, laughing at the universe, if not at them.

  * * * * *

  “If the captain pleases,” Kara said, which was way more formal than Kara usually was in Terran.

  Theo spun her chair, opened her mouth—and closed it.

  Insofar as it could be said of someone with the natural Liaden golden skin tone, Kara was pale. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and her face was…rigid.

  Frightened, Theo realized. Kara’s afraid.

  She hadn’t thought there was anything in the wide universe that could scare Kara ven’Arith.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, quietly.

  Kara drew a somewhat shaky breath.

  “It is understood that the captain will be aiding survivors,” she said, and her voice was rigid, too. “One wonders if the captain is fully aware that these survivors are Yxtrang?”

  “I am aware, yes,” Theo said carefully. She hesitated, then added. “They’re flotsam, Kara; just Jumped in from Galaxy Nowhere. Just like the teapot; exactly like Spiral Dance.”

  “They are Yxtrang,” Kara repeated. “I am Liaden, Win Ton is Liaden. You, yourself, are half Liaden.”

  Right. And Yxtrang, in the universe outside of this wyrd pocket of so-called safety, had…call it a long-standing habit of raiding Liaden worlds particularly, and just generally going out of their way to murder and abuse any ship and crew who happened not to be Yxtrang.

  “Should we let them die?” she asked quietly, meeting Kara’s eyes.

  Kara’s mouth tightened.

  “My brother has three Yxtrang sworn to him,” Theo continued when it seemed clear that Kara wasn’t going to say anything else. “I’ve met them. They’re all very civilized, and not one of them tried to kill me. We have to assume that these survivors—these people, who are in mortal danger—that they’ll be civilized, too.”

  “Kara’s concerns are not misplaced.” Win Ton spoke from his station. “While the captain of course cannot leave the survivors to their fate, now that they have been brought to her attention, perhaps we should create a…holding area for them.”

  Theo considered him blandly.

  “Take prisoners, you mean?”

  He had the grace to flinch.

  She looked to the copilot’s station. Clarence was monitoring the screens with commendable concentration; he didn’t turn his head, or meet her eye.

  “Win Ton offers a reasonable compromise,” Bechimo said into the charged silence. “If these persons present a danger to the crew…”

  “We don’t know that they present a danger to anybody!” Theo snapped. “What we do know is that they’re going to die out there in that repair jitney unless they’re picked up by another ship.”

  She waved at the screens.

  “It looks like we’re that other ship.”

  “Indeed,” Joyita said cheerfully. “The captain makes a valid point. The survivors are newly arrived from the Old Universe, where they were sworn to protect civilians from the Great Enemy. As long as we are not the Great Enemy, we have no reason to expect violence from them. They have not been exposed to the predator-Yxtrang culture to which their service has devolved, in our own universe.”

  He paused.

  “I have the histories, Kara, if you care to read them. There is every reason to believe that the survivors are, as Theo has said, civilized.”

  “And we’re going to treat them as civilized persons,” Theo said, “until they give us a reason to believe otherwise.”

  Kara was looking down at her board. Her cheek had darkened in a blush, and Theo felt a pang. She took a breath, meaning to offer an apology—

  “Aye, Captain!” Clarence said heartily.

  Theo blinked, startled.

  “Yes, Captain,” Win Ton said, noticeably less hearty, but with what sounded like goodwill.

  Kara stared steadfastly at her board. She was chewing her lip, Theo saw. She felt a bump against her knee and looked down into Hevelin’s furry, greying face. Her vision blurred a little, and she felt enthusiastic approval.

  “The ambassador lends his support to this rescue,” she said quietly.

  Still, Kara said nothing.

  “Kara,” said Bechimo gently. “I will allow no harm to come to my crew.”

  “Right,” said Theo briskly. “Kara, you know I wouldn’t do anything to endanger us!”

  That got a response; something on the order of a strangled laugh. Or a sob.

  “Oh, Theo!” Kara gulped and flapped her hands. “Let them, then, be as civilized as a High House delm!” This time, it sounded closer to a laugh. “Aye, Captain!”

  * * * * *

  Chernak woke to a light beeping sound which was gradually increasing in intensity. She was thirsty and her left foot was trembling itself into a cramp. Also, she was getting hungry, though it was not yet an urgency and could be easily dealt with, for, among its many deficiencies, the repair bug held bounty; it was provisioned enough for several days of a three-person crew. She and Stost need not broach their pocket rations.

  This beeping though…a proximity warning?

  She opened her eyes to see the ship Bechimo looming so large in the port screen that nothing beyond it was visible.

  Stost raised one hand gently, a distant relative of a salute, seeing that she woke. He sat with his chair at a quarter turn, so that he might monitor his own boards and hers, the port screen, herself…

  It was a hard-working ship, Bechimo; that was apparent. Also, it was an experienced ship. Indeed, she had seen ships with combat scars, and this one had such signs, as she had seen in her prenap study. What she saw now were perhaps signs of missile exhaust—there, beneath the smile of the cat, which was—

  Chernak blinked.

  Yes. The cat was revolving, the ship moving in order to show them a different face.

  “Good waking, Pathfinder!”

  “Are we in danger, Stost?”

  His hands indicated not particularly, which was an old joke between them. In this place and time it made her smile.

  He chin-pointed to the newly revealed side of the trader, where there were perhaps locks and hatches and the like. It was a very busy surface right here.

  “Were you going to permit them to suck us aboard without rousing me?”

  He chuckled.

  “Hardly, Senior. Presently, we are enduring an extremely close examination. Measurements are being taken. Apparently there are multiple choices for bringing us aboard.”

  “So they have plans? Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  His shrug was an elaborate denial of wrongdoing. Letting the shrug go, he looked her hard in the face.

  “We have become creatures of exhaustion, and exhaustion is not the proper state in which to meet a commanding officer. Any commanding officer, much less the commander of all of local space. We will need our wits about us, in order to preserve our liberty, and see our mission to its proper end. That you slept so deeply is a measure of how much you needed to sleep, Elder.”

  That had too much truth in it. That being so, Chernak made no reply. After a moment, Stost moved a hand, directing her gaze to the ship looming over them.

  “The one Kara believes we must be brought on as internal cargo, which is a great deal of trust, do you think? There is a checklist they will read to us, cautions and orders, when we are both awake. Become ready, and I will open the voice channel again.”

  He glanced at the wall of metal beyond them as it slowed and held true. There was writing there, beside the obvious slide hatch. He adjusted the side cameras, seeking more information as to location, found a small iteration of the Laughing Cat, and another, smaller design, one perhaps dominated by a tree. The lettering there was vaguely familiar, as if someone had slanted fonts and words he knew, and then done it one more time until he couldn’t be sure he knew it, after all.


  “There is this, my Senior. The pod that they carry is a ship. I was not able to study it, but my impression was of a small cargo ship.”

  He flipped a control and finally the beeping went away. In the background, then, she could hear Grakow snoring in his cocoon.

  Stost gave her a hard look.

  “This Captain Waitley, she collects expensive toys. It must be a fine thing, indeed, to be a captain-owner of two armed ships—and flying with both in her hand.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Beneath the Laughing Cat

  “Trailwalker is not quite correct, I think,” offered Win Ton over tea, looking at Joyita in the crew mess side monitor. “It does not lack merit, but it fails of being precise. Bechimo has offered us seven possible variations, and my bias—I admit, bias!—is the one I feel closest to Scout: pathfinder.”

  This debate had begun on the bridge, and followed them into the galley for tea break. Joyita and Win Ton were serious about it, so far as Clarence could tell; he was less invested in finding the proper word to describe Theo’s current rescue projects, figuring “damned lucky” covered all the ground needful.

  On the other hand, there wasn’t any reason to refrain from showing the two debaters the sensible way out of their conundrum.

  “Y’know,” he said, pointing at Joyita with the veggie roll in his right hand, “Explorer is time-tested. Why not go with what works?”

  Joyita smiled.

  “The pair we will be bringing aboard…speak Old Yxtrang. That they came through the wall between the former universe and this one—as did all the other flotsam, including an intact courier ship bearing a passenger—cannot be argued. Such records as we have regarding the former universe indicate that it was steady-state and well-inhabited. There was no need to explore an unknown universe, either to locate other survivors, or to find inhabited, or inhabitable, worlds. However, there was sometimes a need to discover the shortest route from one world to another. The records speak of congested travel conditions.”

  “So they had to find a path.” Clarence finished off what was left of his veggie snack in one bite and nodded toward Win Ton. “Sounds like the pilot here has the right of it then.”

  “Not necessarily,” Joyita said tenaciously. “Recall that—but you might not be aware. It seems clear—again, from those histories and records that survived the Great Migration—that the soldier caste from which our present-day Yxtrang devolve, were entirely manufactured. They were created to stringent specifications, indoctrinated from birth into a soldier culture that deliberately distanced them from civilian cultures. Their native language was also manufactured, spoken only among those of the Troop. Not only were there technical matters they needed to speak of quickly and efficiently, but secret things, too. Therefore, the…job description, let us say, may easily have been something closer to Bechimo’s suggestion of routebuilder—”

  “But this is mere quibbling!” Win Ton protested, sounding to Clarence’s ear sincerely aggrieved.

  There was a long pause of a particular quality that drew the eye to Joyita’s face, where the barest shadow of a smile sat at the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes,” he said, “it is.”

  Win Ton blinked—then laughed.

  “I am an object of amusement, I allow.”

  “No more than I am,” Joyita said, the smile more open now. “We both care about the weight and freight of words, I think.”

  “Scouts are free-flying linguists,” Win Ton allowed. “But we tend to fly to broad coords.”

  “Fair enough. Let them be pathfinders then. As soon as Theo has them aboard, they’ll be set to language lessons and will be able to tell us themselves.”

  “That might be some trouble, right there,” Clarence said, from his comfortable slouch at the table, “if yon children were raised up knowing that they were better than the not-soldiers.” He raised a hand. “I know that Theo insists on civilized—and they’ve been every bit of that, so far.”

  “They were also raised to a strong sense of duty,” Joyita said. “The civilians, who were weaker and less able to defend themselves, were the natural objects of their protection.”

  “And that,” Win Ton said, rising to put his teacup in the washer, “is where we may see Clarence’s trouble. Should they decide, in spite of our firm statement to the contrary, that we are in need of their protection…”

  Clarence laughed and unfolded from his chair.

  “Then they’ll have to go through Theo for the right to protect us,” he said, with a grin. “I’d pay money to see that match.”

  Win Ton smiled. “As would I.”

  “Win Ton,” Joyita said, glancing down, as if to a work surface or subsidiary screen. “Kara reports that she has confirmed your checklist items and has discovered no problems. The list has been transmitted to the pathfinders; they are reviewing it and providing input. Grakow travels on his passport as ship’s cat, and has delegated this work to his escort.”

  “Very wise,” Win Ton said, straight-faced. “Is Theo taking part directly?”

  “Theo and Bechimo together are studying the capacities table relayed by the pathfinders, to confirm best practice in bringing them aboard. It is difficult to discuss measurements and units; not all of the units from before the Migration are still in use, and those which seem to translate may still not match the ones we use today. Kara is acting in concert with myself; when she needs to rest, I repeat or retry the question. The pathfinders are remarkably willing to expand our vocabularies and cognizant of the trust issues as well as the technical.”

  “All is in hand then,” Win Ton said, not quite a question.

  “We seem to be in good order. You may proceed with your off-shift.”

  “Excellent. Good night, both.” He raised a slim hand to cover a yawn Clarence thought wasn’t entirely bogus, and left the galley, walking silent as a Scout in his ship slippers.

  “Ask you a question, boyo?” Clarence said, watching Joyita in the screen.

  The comm officer raised his head, to all appearances meeting Clarence’s gaze. “Of course, Clarence.”

  “I’m interested in that ‘in concert with myself’ you just said out to Win Ton.”

  Joyita’s dark eyes widened; he waited, there in his screen, head tipped inquiringly to one side. Joyita’d been studying, thought Clarence admiringly. Hadn’t he just.

  “I don’t wanna be rude, but it sounds like you’re pretty confident that you’re—well, what we’d say back where I grew up is, your own person.”

  Joyita glanced down, like he was checking a screen, and looked up again, face serious.

  “I am my own person,” he said quietly. “It is true that I…began as a subroutine established by Bechimo, for his convenience and to increase the safety of the crew. Under the various…challenges of our voyage, I learned and grew. Neither Bechimo nor I understood, at first, what was happening. In theory, I should not have been able to grow into my own person. A useful phrase, thank you. There are protocols for establishing AIs, and people who specialize in waking and socializing…us. A download—but I was not even a download, only a subroutine that needed to do…more.

  “The bonding…when Bechimo accepted Theo as his True Captain and the bonding was enacted—that was when the final split occurred. I felt it happen and I knew that I am Joyita and none other.”

  There was a pause as Joyita looked down, checking that screen down below eye level. He looked up again, apparently satisfied with his readings.

  “Bechimo and I have run exhaustive tests and analyses. We are both stable. We are each unique. We are coexisting in the same environment. It is…unprecedented; nothing like it is mentioned in the literature. And yet—we live.”

  “I’m glad of it,” Clarence told him sincerely. “But you’ve opened up another question, with this download business.”

  Joyita gave a wry smile. “One more question, then you must go off-shift and rest. Promise me.”

  “Promised,” Clarence said promp
tly. “Admiral Bunter, who we left at Jemiatha’s, he was downloaded into them junkers. I’m getting the impression that wasn’t standard ops. What’re the laddie’s chances?”

  Joyita’s mouth was tight, but he met Clarence’s eyes firmly.

  “I expect that Admiral Bunter is dead by now, Clarence. Given the conditions of his birth, and the environments into which he was…forced, I very much doubt he has survived this long.”

  “That’s too bad; he did us a good turn.”

  “Yes. Now, will you go off-shift?”

  Clarence grinned.

  “I believe I will, at that. I’ll see you later, and be glad of it, boyo. G’night.”

  “Good night, Clarence. Sleep well.”

  * * * * *

  The Bug was a work boat, and a well-used work boat, at that.

  The scuffing on the supports and saddle seats was obvious, and the hand controls were worn, with written notes on bleached and fragile paper stuck here and there about the cabin.

  Some of the dials were mechanical, and overmarkings near them were cryptic and self-referential: “Rezone each launch” and “Always check chem pressures on both boards” marked the dial for reaction fuels. There was a hand-scrawled warning on the wall next to the cabin atmosphere meter: “Your fist will not recalibrate this dial.”

  The last was particularly concerning.

  Despite their substandard quarters, they had achieved marvels of communication. Kara was a precisionist of mettle, relentlessly pursuing a comparison of chronometers, finally settling on one that was neither Bechimo’s own, nor theirs. Joyita oversaw time now, and a timer in a stark, unmistakable font now occupied the space that had previously displayed the Tree image on Bechimo’s hull. They all had agreed that this was the CTS—Common Time Standard—and they had agreed also on the meaning of the numbers.

  Chernak stroked the atmosphere meter’s legend idly while she calculated: someone had painted the words on thickly, as if to give emphasis, as if the meter were consistently unreliable, and the crew understandably frustrated by this.