Liaden Universe 20: The Gathering Edge

by Sharon Lee

  “Stost.”

  Chernak handed him a case. He slipped the strap over his right shoulder, made certain the case rode flat under his left arm.

  From the pod at his feet came the sound of muttering, escalating rapidly into complaint.

  “Grakow!”

  Stost acted without thinking. He knelt by the capsule, murmuring, “Mezta, mezata.”

  He tried the tape, broke a strand, and started on the next, aware that Chernak was kneeling on the other side of the capsule’s wire door, pulling on other strands, which clung stubbornly. Utiltape was tough, and he had spent his roll liberally, trying to buy their civilian some measure of safety.

  Grakow complained again, less loudly, though loudly enough to obscure Chernak’s curse as a strand of tape stretched, but refused to break.

  Stost reached to his side-kit, fingered out a utility blade—and froze.

  There was no sound in the duty room; even Grakow was silent. Stost raised his eyes to meet Chernak’s gaze, finding a wry humor there, but no anger. She was the elder of their team; it was within her scope, and her duty, to kill him for endangering the mission, now, when they had prevailed against mighty odds and survived the death of a universe, to achieve this place of near safety…

  A chuckle came from his left. Warily, he lifted his head to meet Clarence’s bright blue eyes.

  “Fine,” Clarence said. Then, when Stost remained immobile, added another phrase, which might have been, “Goot, do it. Off!” followed by a sharp movement of the hand, very like that used to cut tape with a utility knife.

  “Stost,” Chernak said. “Your blade is wanted.”

  He drew a breath and bent to the task of cutting through the binding tape, which Chernak peeled away from the water bottle port and from the door seal itself.

  There was a small sound, as of a bootheel striking decking. Stost looked up as Win Ton offered a bag. Chernak took it with a nod and stuffed tape shred into it.

  Odor came from the carrier. Stost glanced at faces to see if any were openly displeased, but what might happen if they were, he dared not guess.

  “Goot kitty,” may have been what Clarence said, adding, “Fine. Grakow come. Stost come. Chernak come.”

  Chernak rose, and Stost did, stowing the utility knife, which would need to be cleaned of sticky residue. He bent and picked up Grakow’s capsule, feeling the weight shift as the cat perhaps moved to the front, where he could observe and sample what smells Bechimo had to offer.

  Clarence opened the door and led them to the right, down a hallway, Chernak following him, as Stost followed her, and Win Ton followed all.

  Stost glanced over his shoulder, seeking the man who had observed them, but the screen was empty.

  * * *

  The ship lurched slightly, which likely was the hangar they had just quit being evacuated. Stost checked his stride and Chernak looked at him over her shoulder, as if she had heard his dismay.

  “Arak ek zenorth,” she said. “Honor and glory.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “It was stupid, and no sort of ship to bring into war, but it did a soldier’s duty.”

  Another right turn, another hall, then a pause as Clarence placed his hand against the plate. Stost straightened his shoulders and renewed his grip on Grakow’s pod. Now, were they about to enter a holding cell, or be brought into the captain’s presence?

  And which would be worse?

  * * * * *

  Their guests were behaving themselves. They were exhausted, they were hungry, they were—Theo felt surprise, and then wondered why she should be surprised. Surely, anyone who had come through shipwreck and near death, to be taken up by a ship and crew of which they knew nothing—surely, anyone would be afraid.

  Fear will make them prudent. The thought was…not quite hers. Bechimo, then, who was sharing his monitoring with her. Clarence and Win Ton—Clarence was calm and easy, much as if he sat at his board. Win Ton…was nervous; she felt the tingle of too much adrenaline. Despite that, he was in control. Of course he was. Win Ton was a Scout. Meeting and interacting peacefully with people from cultures strange to him was what he did.

  Kara, sitting at her station on the bridge was…intent, but calm.

  She, Theo, was…at one and the same time, relieved, exultant, and exhausted. Bechimo had done the heavy lifting, of course, but still, the intercept had been…a challenge.

  Well. They had them now, she thought. Everybody could stand down.

  * * * * *

  Clarence stood to one side of the room they entered—a large room, as such things were measured aboard ships, with doors that hinted at other rooms. Certainly, it was grand enough to be a captain’s suite. Yet, aside from Clarence, Win Ton, and themselves, there was no one else present—no, Stost corrected himself, as the screen on the wall went from dark to light and he found himself looking into the dark eyes of the observer from the duty room.

  “Joyita,” Win Ton said, intercepting Stost’s glance.

  “Win Ton,” said the man in the screen, the voice immediately recognizable as one of those which had spoken to them from the ship. He looked beyond Stost.

  “Chernak,” he said.

  He raised a hand in what might have been a greeting between those of equal rank. Unlike true soldiers, who wore their decorations on their skin, Joyita wore rings—four rings of silvered brown metal, with only the least finger free.

  “Joyita,” Chernak said in reply. “All fine.”

  He smiled at that, inclined his head, and looked aside again.

  “Stost.”

  “Joyita.”

  “Clarence.”

  “Joyita.”

  A glance downward, to the capsule on the decking.

  “Grakow,” Joyita said, smiling again. “All fine.”

  “All fine,” Clarence repeated.

  Joyita spoke again—words, and among them variants of words they knew; words that mean relax, stand down, rest. He said them in a pattern, Stost realized upon the second repetition; a teaching pattern, moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar. They had not even taken the measure of this space they had been brought to and already he had said a dozen or more words, some they had heard before, more which were strange.

  Clarence made an odd sound as Joyita said something that had to do, perhaps, with water. The man in the screen stopped speaking, lips pressed together.

  Stost turned, saw Clarence with a finger held vertically to the middle of his mouth, facing Joyita while Win Ton openly laughed. Clarence waved an impatient hand and the image on the screen faded to a light green.

  “Whew!”

  Clarence raised a hand and brought fingers to thumb several times, rapidly, which mimed, Stost thought, a mouth talking, then waved them back to the pressure door they’d entered by, hands speaking to Win Ton while he drew them both to the opening.

  “Chicancha,” Clarence said.

  Stost and Chernak leaned close.

  Clarence put his palm against a plate on the door, pushing lightly. The door opened. He pressed the still-visible edge of the plate, and the door closed. He tapped a fingertip against a green indicator light.

  Then he called out, “Joyita!”

  The screen lit. Joyita inclined his head, saying nothing.

  “The demonstrating is happening. Overlock and then disengage overlock in ten seconds, please.”

  Stost frowned after the words, even as he watched the light that Clarence pointed to change from green to amber, whereupon he pushed on the plate, to no avail. The light changed to green again—and Clarence stepped back, pointing to Stost, and then to the plate.

  Simple, direct, clear.

  Stost found the plate slightly warm against his palm. He pushed gently. After a moment the door withdrew. Of course.

  He stepped back to Chernak’s side.

  “Elder, Joyita is keeper of the door. You may now close it, I believe.”

  Chernak extended a hand, and pressed the plate.

  The door closed.

/>   “Jenst,” she said. “Success.”

  “Fine,” said Clarence and, with a wave, directed them toward the open inner door and Win Ton, who was apparently to show them even more rooms.

  “Rations come,” Clarence told them, and added something else that Stost’s ear, usually so facile, refused to parse.

  He looked back, but Clarence made a shooing motion with both hands, meaning that he should attend Win Ton, so he followed Chernak into the next room, leaving Clarence and Grakow holding the first behind them.

  * * *

  During the course of their short tour of the suite, a cart had arrived in the common room. On the first and second shelves were stacked food items, and possibly drinks, as well.

  On the bottom shelf was a shallow box as long as the distance between Stost’s wrist to his shoulder, filled with shreds of what seemed to be printout. Two more stacks of printout sat on the shelf beside.

  Win Ton had the floor, leading with bows and execrable accent—it was some vile dialect of the Troop tongue he spoke to them, rather than the pidgin. Stost understood his choice—the dialect gave access to more words and to concepts that were not limited to the concrete. Still, it was a long march through rough terrain, trying to make sense of what he told them.

  He had shown them their accommodations and brought them back to the common room, where he invited them to sit in chairs that were large enough for them, if they were careful.

  The suite was larger than a captain’s cabin on many ships; there were internal roomettes with bedding—and each with sanitary facilities and storage—while the larger common room grew a table, folded out from the wall, and had a tiny food preparation area as well.

  Stost was thinking, longingly, about the refresher units Win Ton had shown them, when a chime sounded, perhaps from overhead. He slid to his feet, as Clarence walked to the hall door and opened it, accepting a wheeled cart from an unseen aide. Stost sank back into his seat as Clarence pushed the cart into the center of the room. Apparently, they were to be educated regarding food. His stomach expressed loud enthusiasm for this project, but no one—not even Chernak, who surely had the ears of a soldier—seemed to hear.

  “Cheese,” Win Ton told them, touching a small yellow wheel, “from stores.”

  He unsealed a translucent container and the rich scent of something baked assaulted them. “Bread, baked by Clarence. Greens, from the ship garden. Vegetables and meats from stores…”

  The food was not as much a meal as a collection of foods to test their taste and needs. Water, several kinds of juices, something that looked like but was not cheese, and an array of implements, only some of them obvious. Enough food to feed a squad. They set to, hungry, yes—but careful of each initial taste.

  Win Ton told them the names of things several times while Clarence bustled about the cart.

  “Grakow? Grakow resides where for sanitary?” Clarence asked, his accent even worse than Win Ton’s. He was holding the box from the bottom of the cart, and it was an excellent question.

  They were perplexed momentarily—who had expected to be making housekeeping decisions for a cat when their mission had begun?

  Chernak and Stost settled it with a shrug and a finger game. The cat could use a corner in the left roomette. In fact, it was such a good idea that they grabbed several small bits of meat from the table and removed the cat there in the midst of their own meal, opening the capsule’s seal with smiles at each other while Grakow sat suspiciously on his haunches at the far end of the crate. The food and water went near the door, the necessary box visible a few feet away.

  Leaving Grakow to sit and reason out the path to his own best interest, they returned to the common room, their chairs, and the food, to find that Joyita occupied the screen once more.

  Stost gave him a nod, soldier to soldier, which the other returned before he spoke, in the pidgin they had devised.

  “Chicancha. Captain Theo Waitley speaks.”

  * * * * *

  Theo sat in the command chair, mentally dancing a quick relaxation exercise. She was nervous, as if she hadn’t just spent the last quarter shift practicing in her head the talk she and Joyita had worked out, which was echoed on the screen in front of her—just in case, said Joyita, who couldn’t possibly think that Bechimo was going to permit her to forget one word. She hadn’t asked him in case of what? though. Now, she thought maybe she should have.

  Kara sat nearby, visible in the screen as well as with a quick glance, a comfort. Beside Kara was Hevelin, serious and quiet, as he’d been since they sighted the little repair boat, and the larger vessel damaged past all repair.

  At first, Theo had thought to meet their…guests…directly they came aboard. Other heads, wiser in the ways of intercultural courtesy, had argued against that, but the point that won had been Clarence’s simple, “Let them get in, ’freshed up, and rested before they have to put on the pretty for the captain of this ship and commander of all nearspace beside,” he’d said, pulling a wry face that had made Theo laugh, even as she signed: Point taken. Agree.

  Though she had agreed to withhold her fell presence until their guests were better able to tolerate her, she felt strongly that they must be acknowledged and welcomed aboard. Also, greeting them would be a good test of the new linkages Bechimo was still working on. For the moment, those links involved a dictionary and active translation to her, as needed.

  “I’ll talk to them now,” she said, and it was done, the stateroom coming to her screen and she to theirs. Bechimo fed her info from other sensors, so that she knew she looked upon two exhausted and desperate people even as she saw their faces for the first time.

  They were standing at strict attention. A glance passed between them—too quick for her eye, though Bechimo saw it—before they composed their faces and regarded the screen, waiting for her to speak.

  “Troops Chernak and Stost, stand forward,” she said, the words feeling sharp and ungainly in her mouth. “Identify yourselves.”

  Not exactly the warmest welcome possible, but Joyita, Clarence, and Win Ton had argued that the formal greeting of command might ease abraded nerves.

  The soldier on the right took one brisk step toward the monitor, fist coming up smartly to strike her shoulder.

  “Chernak, Pathfinder,” she said, her voice firm.

  The other came forward then, saluted, and announced, “Stost, Pathfinder.”

  They waited then, which was proper, and Theo nodded and said the words Bechimo had given her.

  “I am Captain Waitley of the tradeship Bechimo. You are recognized as survivors of shipwreck and have the right to food, rest, and safe passage on my ship. Forgive me if my renderings of words I ought to know fail; I have met few of the Troop and those I have met spoke Trade language, Terran, and Liaden in my presence.”

  Their eyes—brown eyes, Chernak’s lighter than Stost’s—widened. They were, Theo saw, much alike, but not exactly alike. Like the color of their eyes, there were small differences making each face, so similar in size and in bone structure, unique. Their hair, short and pale and stiff with sweat, was not the exact same shade of sandblasted dock ’crete. Stost’s shaded toward brown, while Chernak’s showed a faint trace of yellow.

  Chernak was obviously female; Stost obviously male. Both were lean, without fat or softness about them. They had, Theo thought, been on the move for a long time.

  Right, then. Time to wrap up and let them get some sleep.

  “Pilots Win Ton and Clarence are among you,” she said. “Regard each to carry my orders in any emergency. Also, you will follow orders as need be if brought to you by Engineering Tech Kara or by Comm Officer Joyita. All of us are tested pilots on this ship.

  “The ship has provided food and rooms. The ship will soon provide appropriate ship clothes.

  “After you are rested, we will ask questions of you, which you will answer to the best of your ability. You may ask questions of us, which we will answer as best we may.”

  “I return y
ou to your meal,” Theo said…and paused, having heard a dissatisfied murble from Hevelin, at Kara’s station.

  “Grakow,” she said suddenly. “The first voice we heard from your vessel. Let me see Grakow.”

  “I will,” Stost breathed, and he moved out of view, leaving Chernak facing the screen.

  “Assure me,” Theo said suddenly, aware that she was about to ask a question she had not practiced, though the words rose easily to her lips.

  “Assure me that there are no other survivors.”

  Chernak looked grim; Theo heard her voice and understood the translation at the same time.

  “No sign of another, Captain, only Grakow and we of the Troop.”

  Stost returned then, holding a cat of dark head and possible darker stripes wrapped in a ship’s pillow, not entirely willingly. The cat spoke words, probably not nice ones, but Theo smiled to hear them and nodded.

  She was about to dismiss them to their meal when, from Kara’s station came a loud “murble-drumble-murble,” close enough to a purr to surprise Theo.

  Grakow’s posture in the pillow wrap changed from resigned to alert and Theo’s smile deepened.

  “All of you eat appropriately. Rest. Soon, we will speak together again.”

  “Captain,” said Chernak and Stost, with one voice. They saluted once more, Stost nearly dropping the pillow in the process. Theo saw Chernak spinning to help him and Win Ton moving toward them with hand outheld.

  “Are we still live?”

  “One-way,” Joyita said, and Theo nodded.

  By then Hevelin was at her knee and Kara was closing her screens.

  “Everything remains nominal on our readings. Shall you rest now, Theo, while Joyita and I take the watch?”

  “The clothes,” Theo said. “Joyita, let Clarence know they’ll be done shortly. Bechimo will give them overalls with a Laughing Cat patch and some ship slippers to start. Dark red wine, a good color. Joyita, also, in Terran, tell Clarence to offer them bags for their weapons which they’ll have no need of on board. We’ll make up another cartload—clothes, bags, slippers. And we should—”