Liaden Universe 20: The Gathering Edge

by Sharon Lee

  “So there, Laughing Cat on the hull was her own idea, and her own business. Plays hard, does Captain Theo; she’s always practicing, always alert, and knows the difference between a toy threat and a real rat.”

  “But she never finished…this piloting academy?”

  “Got her first class Jump ticket flying, the old-fashioned way. Master pilot gave her the tests, and her training pilot gave her the jacket. Got hired as a courier pilot for a…pretty demanding employer, that was before she come to Bechimo. Don’t you doubt her piloting, now. Kara—same school, right, but kept her head down, graduated with a second class provisional, which she was better than, but that’s what happens when you let politics in the door. All that got straightened out with the Pilots Guild, on-station.”

  Win Ton had risen then.

  “My shift begins,” he said and, with a small bow, left them.

  Clarence glanced at the clock and raised a hand to stifle a yawn.

  “And it’s my rest shift,” he said wryly. “Any other stories you’d like me to tell, you wait ’til next time we’re together.”

  They’d left soon after Clarence, walking slow and thoughtful back to their suite and their studies. They had a possible course now. An entry point to the truth.

  Kara.

  The youngest, the lowest rated pilot, the last hire, the newest crew.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Bechimo

  Among the Sweet Growing Things

  It was her habit to lock open the door to hydroponics while she tended to the plants and the equipment. Hevelin most usually accompanied her, sitting on her shoulder and commenting on this and that. This shift, he was uncommonly chatty, sharing news of Grakow, whom he had visited recently in the pathfinders’ rooms, and putting forth the opinion that the cat ought to be allowed the run of the ship, as Hevelin was, himself.

  “You must convince Theo of that necessity, my friend,” Kara answered, speaking to him aloud, as was her habit. “And then, you must convince Bechimo. Best, perhaps, to allow Grakow the comforts of the pathfinders’ suite, where his opportunities to find trouble are limited.”

  She was allowed to know, in Hevelin’s peculiar dialect, that Grakow was a peace-loving and sensible creature and, besides, he would have Hevelin to guide him and Hevelin never got into trouble.

  “Now that is very true,” Kara said. “You are never in trouble. But that is because you are overindulged.”

  That gained her such a sense of self-important preening that she laughed as she opened the door to Forcing Room Three.

  Warmth greeted her entrance. The tree did not grant her visions, as it did to Theo, but she never failed of feeling welcomed when she came to check on it. Hevelin grew quiet, though she retained a muted sense of his communication. It was very much like hearing a conversation through a wall—voices carried somewhat, but individual words were lost.

  She checked the readouts first, finding that all was well. They appeared to have found a mixture of moisture, light, and temperature that was most beneficial to the tree’s continued good health. In the short time it had been on board, it had grown two pods, which Hevelin had stolen. Theo had told her this, speaking of norbear overindulgence, and asked her to be especially attentive, in case the tree should show some harm from either the effort or the theft.

  In fact, the tree had shown quite the opposite. It had started two new branches and had definitely leafed out. Those new leaves were a deeper, glossier shade of green than the dusty grey-green of the older leaves.

  Kara turned from the instruments to do a visual inspection and walk-around. Hevelin, his voice still muted, extended a paw and touched a leaf very gently, as if he was touching the cheek of a child.

  There were, she saw, several pods starting—eight by her count, but she might have missed any number hidden among the leaves.

  “Do be prudent,” she murmured. “We don’t wish you to overexert yourself. You might also give some thought to your height. If you become much taller, we will not be able to extract you when it becomes time to do so.”

  There was a rustle, as of leaves moving in a sudden breeze, though the airflow in the forcing room was constant. She felt a cool tickle on the back of her neck, which may have equally been imagination or communication.

  Kara shook her head in bemusement. If her life had gone as planned, she would even now be living in the clanhouse on Eylot, and a junior mechanic-pilot in the clan’s business. Instead, politics had seen her exiled in fact, if not in name, from her homeworld, crew aboard a sentient ship, where a second machine sentience sat as comm officer, and crewmate.

  That would be strange enough for any two lives, but Kara ven’Arith was more fortunate than most. In addition to the independent self-aware logics, she had daily interaction with a norbear, who was proving himself to be something rather more than a simple barometer for emotion, and a handy sort of pet for Pilots Guild guildmasters.

  She had also lately added to her list of acquaintances a possibly talking but definitely sentient tree and two Yxtrang soldiers from a universe that had ceased to exist hundreds and hundreds of Standards in the past.

  To round out, the self-aware ship had been designed as a long-looper, and traveled on contract under the Tree-and-Dragon. Routine business, which in these times included being stalked and fired upon.

  “My life,” Kara said, possibly to Hevelin, possibly to the tree or to Bechimo, who she was certain listened, even when he did not speak. “If my life were to become less interesting, I would not regret it.”

  There came another loud rustle of leaves—did trees, even sentient trees, laugh?

  Hevelin murbled from his perch on her shoulder and patted her hair lightly.

  “Thank you,” Kara said. “I appreciate your sympathy.”

  She concluded her walkabout, made a note in the log, and turned to face the tree.

  “You will be pleased to know that, by every measure I am competent to make, you are healthy. You may also be pleased to learn that the captain has authorized the construction of a wheeled conveyance, so that you may be moved about the ship and, particularly, to the bridge. Hevelin has been your staunch advocate; you may thank him as appropriate.”

  From Hevelin, then, she received a vivid picture of Spiral Dance’s bridge, and the tree grey-taped to the copilot’s chair.

  “Indeed, the tree has been a pilot,” she murmured, glancing once more at the control board, to be certain of the settings.

  “Good shift, Tree,” she said. “We will be in the big room. Should you need us, only call out.”

  * * * * *

  Stost paused outside the open door, listening. Kara was often accompanied by the norbear ambassador Hevelin. It appeared that this shift was no different than others in that regard. The norbear ambassador…was a concern. He and Chernak had read the histories, and the survey reports suggested by Joyita, regarding these creatures. The documentation would have them as native to this new universe, discovered some number of years in the past. Their inclination to form connections and to project those connections via a natural and, so stated the documentation, minor empathic ability was found to be useful to such persons as guild- and portmasters. Hevelin’s personal history included long years as companion creature and reader of emotions to a master of the Pilots Guild.

  Norbears were said to be sentient, but not intelligent; they made no tools, though some had been observed to use tools. They were not considered a risk of any kind. By anyone.

  Hevelin had several times come to their suite in order to visit Grakow. There had been no repeat of the incident involving Chernak, though Hevelin made certain to greet them each with what, Chernak had speculated, might be the norbear equivalent of a comradely wrist grip.

  “Yes,” Kara said from inside the hydroponics room, “I’ll be forming the pot as soon as I get back to the shop…Yes, it will have wheels! Indeed, I have no doubt that it will be so much nicer for everyone…No, I don’t know any other traveling trees…Madoes, yes, we gro
w them so they travel with us…What is that? Madoes are boring and don’t know anything? And yet you enjoy your madoes, do you not? In fact, you might enjoy them just a little…Excuse me? Madoes know they’re thirsty and that’s all?”

  She laughed.

  “I’ll take your word for that, my friend. Now, if you please, I must have less society, so that I may perform my calibrations. Perhaps you might like to visit the long grasses? Thank you…”

  Stost took a quiet breath and slipped silently into the room.

  * * * * *

  Make no mistake, Brulilt System was boring.

  Win Ton had gone to get tea.

  “Strong tea,” he’d said, coming out of his chair into a long, interesting stretch. “We must, after all, set a good example for Joyita.”

  Joyita, head bent over some work on his desk, didn’t even look up. If he’d been flesh and bone, Theo would have suspected that he was having a catnap for himself.

  Theo sat up straighter and glared at her screens, which did not oblige her by showing anything more interesting than rocks and drab space.

  You wanted boring, she reminded herself. At least, you didn’t want any more flotsam.

  “Theo.” Bechimo’s voice was soft inside her ear, and she was, abruptly and simultaneously, concerned, confused, and on high alert. Which were, she understood, Bechimo’s emotions, which in turn triggered a state of high alert in her.

  “I believe there is a situation developing in the hydroponics bay.”

  This was Kara’s shift in ’ponics. But—a situation? Had one of the units—

  “Kara and Hevelin went to hydroponics, as per schedule,” Bechimo continued. “Stost arrived later, having gone by the most direct route from the pathfinders’ suite. He then stood outside the door, making no attempt to announce himself, listening, I believe, to Kara talking with Hevelin.

  “When Kara suggested that Hevelin leave her to work for a time, Stost entered the room, moving with extreme care.”

  Theo’s heart was racing now. Stost was stalking Kara? That was—Kara had distrusted the pathfinders from the start. But surely he wasn’t going to hurt—

  “I am unsure of Stost’s motivations and cannot discern his intentions. I am monitoring. I detect no overt signs of anger or hostility in Stost. His readings are completely calm.”

  Stost was an Yxtrang soldier, Theo thought. She’d lately been reading way too much about Yxtrang soldiers: the design, care, and keeping thereof—including the information that conflict was their natural emotional environment. Stost with violence on his mind might well be perfectly calm.

  “I’m going up there,” she snapped. She leapt from her chair—and froze, meeting Win Ton’s eyes as he stepped into the bridge bearing two mugs.

  “There’s a situation in ’ponics,” she told him. “I’m on it. Joyita!”

  “Yes, Theo?”

  “Where is Chernak?”

  “At study, in the pathfinders’ suite.”

  “Lock the door. I don’t want her wandering the halls,” Theo said. She looked back to Win Ton. His face was completely emotionless, like it had been when he stood witness to her bonding with Bechimo.

  “Get Clarence to the bridge, quietly,” she said. “We’re on alert. Bechimo, brief them.”

  * * * * *

  Hydroponics was peaceful, especially now that her chatty companion was amusing himself elsewhere. Kara checked the instruments first, as she always did, and logged her readings. In theory, Bechimo could transmit the readings to her at any hour, or hourly, at her station, obviating the need for her to spend a half-shift every three in the ’ponics room.

  In the case, theory was misleading, for plants were more subtle than mere instruments. The readings might all and each of them be good: humidity within tolerances, light levels steady, cycles in sync—and still the peas planted in row eight might fail.

  Her aunt Feramayn had insisted that plants liked companionship just as much as anybody else and, without it, would wither and fail to thrive. There had been chairs set out in her garden, and the elders of the clan could often be found there of a sunny morning or afternoon, talking with each other or silently communing with the plants, while the gardener herself more often than not sang as she worked.

  Aunt Feramayn’s vegetables routinely won prizes at the agricultural shows, and her flower gardens were consistently rated among the best on Eylot. She was certainly an expert, and it was never wise to ignore an expert’s advice.

  Therefore, after logging her readings, Kara walked ’round the ’ponics room, stopping at each growing table to run her hands over the plants and murmur occasional pleased compliments. This system also allowed her to thin overgrown sections and cull any plants which seemed less than perfectly robust.

  She hummed a little as she worked, soothed by the simple connection with growing things. So must Hevelin feel, when he was among his leaves. Certainly, he trilled and murbled over them.

  In the back corner of the room, farthest from the open door, she was humming over a tray of madoes. She did not hear him, but she saw a shadow move where there ought to have been no shadows. Kara spun away from the table, as much as she could in this cramped space, dropping into the core menfri’at stance: centered, legs flexed, hands ready. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She ignored it.

  Stost, for it was Stost whose shadow she had seen, stopped where he was, at the intersection of four rows, which handily boxed her in. He raised his hands to belt height, palms out.

  “Kara,” he said. “No threat, Kara. I need to ask. I need to know.”

  She took a deep breath, keeping her eyes on his broad, stoic face.

  “Ask what?” she demanded; it wasn’t sensible, the fear constricting her stomach. Stost was civilized; he had not offered them any threat or harm. She knew that.

  But some part of her, that knew other, darker things, was focused on the fact that here was an Yxtrang; that Yxtrang preyed, especially, on Liadens; and that she was alone here, with the enemy of her race.

  She swallowed, holding her stance. She ought to calm herself, she thought, but she did not care to remove her attention from Stost for even the few seconds required to mentally review a relaxation…

  He took one step forward, and bent, perhaps in an attempt to put himself more on her plane. Or perhaps, whispered that darker part of herself, to more easily deal a blow. She held firm with an effort, while her heartbeat spiked.

  “Kara, we must know. We must understand this thing and know if our mission is in danger. Is it so that this Joyita—is Joyita the ship? Is the ship alive, with us in its belly?”

  Kara moved, a feint to the right, though there was no place for her to go to the right or to the left. But if she could put him off-center for a moment, it would give Bechimo time, perhaps to act. Bechimo was watching this, wasn’t he? Didn’t—

  Stost spread his arms, hands open, boxing her more tightly.

  “I have to know, Kara. We have to know. We have a mission. Are we foredoomed to fight the Enemy here? Is this ship one of the Great Works?”

  “I don’t know what—” she began, but even as she spoke, she saw Stost’s eyes widen. An orange and grey blur moved along the misting tube to her right, resolving into Hevelin as he came to rest on the tube between her and Stost. In that position, he was very nearly eye to eye with the Yxtrang.

  Warily, Stost straightened, hands still turned palm out.

  “No threat,” he said again and raised one hand, forefinger extended, toward Hevelin, as he would greet Grakow.

  Hevelin hissed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bechimo

  Pathfinders’ Temporary Base

  Chernak pushed back from her study screen and spoke so softly she scarcely heard her own voice.

  “Joyita, are you there?”

  The screen, which had been displaying the at-rest display—a calming swirl of blues and greens—flickered, and there he was, just as always.

  Joyita had very good ears, of
this they were certain.

  He was in his chair. There was a mug near his hand that bore the four rings of brown-pink metal. Visible behind him were the usual screens.

  She and Stost had excellent observational skills, and they knew ships. They had seen and concentrated on the shape of Bechimo during the initial encounter, and while they had each considered type and mass, they had also noted easy details such as the likely conning zone, apparent view ports and hatches, mount sites and mounted objects, the shape…

  Clearly the engines were somewhere and the crew somewhere else.

  And yet…where was Joyita’s comm tower, from which he never emerged?

  On those frequent occasions when they met others of the crew in the mess, they had sometimes shared food and often they drank together.

  But the comm officer, for all his ubiquity as librarian and vocal go-between, the comm officer—did not eat. His several cups and mugs appeared on his desk or, occasionally, in his hand, but never in the common areas where Kara, Theo, Clarence, and Win Ton each had their favorite drinking vessels, nor in the wash-up unit.

  But Joyita…He was never mentioned as at exercise, he was available instantaneously at any and all hours, and as Stost had pointed out to her, he had no history other than the histories he shared from the library.

  On a ship such as Bechimo, where comrades shared experience, and knew much of each other’s lives before the ship?

  Did not Clarence mention the names of mates who dealt with dockside thieves and the shipping of cat food? Did not Win Ton mention this clan and that, and from time to time, this world and that? Had not Captain Theo been mentored and taught by several named persons, landing on this world and orbiting that? Some of Kara’s instructors shared names with some of Captain Theo’s, and her family…

  Yet among such a talkative crew, where the comm officer knew the state of the ship at all moments, the whereabouts of all crew, the schedule and the time—there was no mention of a shared past with Joyita, nor did he himself mention comrades not present, or tales out of school; the names of favored mentors, nor worlds where temptations had been accepted, no regrets.