Then he let go and I forced my arms to relax. He gave me a half smile. “We’ll figure it out.”
Then he surprised me by pulling August into a hug. August stiffened, then hugged back for a second before pulling away. The Doctor patted him on the shoulder.
“I’ve got to get back to work. You kids skedaddle.”
I smiled a bit, and August and I left the room.
He was quiet on our walk out of sickbay and down the hall. B-Deck was already deserted, unusual for this time of the evening. Normally much of the crew would be spending their after-duty hours in the lounges, the recreation or exercise rooms, the library, or the snack bar, letting the stress of the day’s work slide away through time with friends and fun. But not tonight. Tonight, almost everyone seemed to have retired early.
The weight of the reversal zone wasn’t going to be easy to shake.
I sighed. Shore leave should help, though. It would let people relax, feel more like themselves again.
The library was dim when we reached it, and a single footstep inside the doorway prompted the warm, soft lights to turn on, illuminating rows of desks, computers, and comfortable chairs.
It was so quiet that I could hear August suck in a deep breath through his nose as he leaned back against the doorway.
“Ursula,” he said.
I forced a smile.
***
A couple hours of research later, I turned off the screen and leaned back in my chair, relaxing against the padded leather. My head ached. I rubbed it with the tips of my fingers.
August looked over at me from a few desks away. “Are you feeling okay?”
I dropped my hand, weariness exasperating my irritation. “I’m fine, August. You don’t have to ask every few minutes.”
He gave a short nod, but kept his brown eyes fixed on me.
I sighed and rubbed my head again. “I’m fine. Just a headache.”
He nodded again and turned back to his screen. “Should we compare notes?”
“Sure.” I swiveled my chair to face him. “What have you got?”
Still looking at the screen, he said, “It doesn’t look like Austria has changed all that much since I was there. That was only five years ago, so... I didn’t expect much change.”
“What’s it like?”
I expected him to turn to me, but he continued looking at the screen. “It’s beautiful. Probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.” He paused for a moment and I waited for him to continue. When he did he finally turned to me, eyes less expressive than usual. “But it’s a fairly unstable political system. A lot of deterioration even since I left and there’s still—a lot of legal corruption. They’re technically part of the European Council, but avoid dealings with them whenever they can. It’s—not a great place to be right now, honestly.”
Here he stopped and looked at me.
I cleared my throat. “I was looking for known associates of our father, Leeke, and Mars. It looks like they did work with a Professor Rupert Dred, a particle physicist and researcher. There’s not a lot of information out there, but—he seems to have been involved with the radialloy project.”
August glanced at my knee before looking me in the eyes again. “Do you think... could the kidnapping have anything to do with the radialloy?”
I stood and stretched. “How could it?”
August followed my example and we walked out of the room and down the hall. “I don’t know. He could have taken her to try and get Dad to... give him the radialloy, or some information about it?”
“But didn’t he take her after...” I struggled to come up with the right term. I couldn’t call him “dad,” but it wasn’t right to say “your dad” or “Commander Howitz” when he had in fact been my father, too. “...after you and our father already left Earth?”
August touched my elbow briefly with the tips of his fingers. “You can just call him my dad if you want. “It’s okay.”
I managed a smile.
Digging in his pocket, he pulled out his pad and scanned the letter again. “She doesn’t say when Ursula was taken, actually. Just says she was taken. ‘For tests.’ Scientific tests...? You said he was a particle physicist?”
“Yeah.”
“Another thing...” He put the pad back in his pocket again. “She calls herself ‘Sandison.’ Dad changed our name four years ago. Why wasn’t her name changed, too?”
“You think he abandoned them?” I had no love for our father, but the thought still made me uncomfortable. It must be even worse for August.
He only shrugged. “There’s a briefing in about an hour. We should probably both be there, to bring this up. I should finish up work in the meantime. I’m supposed to pick up another couple duty hours tonight.”
We reached the elevator, and he pressed the button to head up to the bridge.
“You know,” I said as we waited, “the Captain and Guilders are going to be busy when we reach Earth, right? Overseeing the repairs.”
“So will your dad.”
“I know.”
The elevator doors opened and he glanced at me before stepping in. “See you at the briefing.”
Once he was gone, I continued down the halls to the lab. It too was empty, with every white cabinet closed, every computer and microscope down the long metal table turned off, and a few botanical or chemical experiments abandoned on the other side of the room. Usually there would be others here—not friends, exactly, but companions, other pursuers of science while I worked on an invention or a medical test.
This evening, though, the solitude suited me just fine.
I slipped over to a white metal drawer halfway down the room and opened it. Hypos rattled around amidst strips of gauze and empty dropper bottles.
Glancing around the room, I unbuttoned and removed my green uniform jacket and rolled up the white shirt sleeve beneath it. Then I took a hypo from the drawer and drew blood from my arm, wincing at the slight prick.
I injected a couple ccs of regen, tossed its container into the recyclator chute, then turned to face the work table. Without bothering to readjust my sleeve, I settled onto one of the stools and began the old-fashioned process of staining and smearing the blood sample.
The silence permeated my mind. My thoughts seemed to echo, though they were more pieces than fully formed ideas. Ursula. Sister. Austria. Crash. Radialloy.
Sucking in a deep breath, I inserted my slide into the microscope and peered at it. Yes, we had computers to do this; an automated complete blood count with no staining or peering necessary. But I liked doing things the manual way sometimes. The Doctor said it was just because I liked the feeling of having more control, of actually seeing and determining the results myself rather than trusting a computer, but I was suspicious of that theory. I was just fascinated by the way the blood looked, by the different cell shapes—by the whole process.
I adjusted the lens until the cells came into clear focus and began to count the angiophages—the cells that were going to kill me if we didn’t find another cure.
“How many this time?”
I jumped, slamming the side of my hand against the edge of the desk, and jerked my head towards the voice. The Doctor stood in the doorway, hands in his white lab coat pockets.
I exhaled and relaxed. “Looks like about a five percent increase from what it was originally.” I felt my face flush under his gaze, and I pressed my eyes to the scope again.
His footsteps echoed through the room, getting closer to me, and then there was a clink and the slide vanished from my view. I looked up to find him setting it into the sterilization bin behind me.
“You know counting the cells won’t make them slow down, or make them die faster?”
“Of course.” I focused on rolling my sleeve back down and didn’t look at him.
He made a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a sigh. “I was on my way to find you. You’re not answering your wristcom.”
I glanced at the black band on
my wrist and tapped its screen. “I’m sorry. Must be out of battery. Did you need something?” I stole a glance at him and found his gray eyes still seeing through me the way that they always did.
“I may have a lead.”
A barely discernible shiver ran through me. “What kind of lead?”
“My research hasn’t turned up anything conclusive yet, but I did receive a reply to one of my queries. Apparently there’s a U.S. Senator who’s been dumping a lot of money towards a cure for Langham’s disease, and he may have some information. But he doesn’t want to discuss it long distance. So I’ll probably meet up with him while we’re on Earth.”
I hopped off the stool and picked up my jacket, trying to process this. “And... what about Ursula?”
“Did you find out anything?”
I told him what we’d learned about Dred and about Austria and he listened quietly, then ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t like the idea of you and August globe-trotting by yourselves.”
I didn’t either, but I said, “We’re adults, Dad.”
“Oh believe me, I know.” He gave a half-smile. “But you’re not used to Earth, and he’s...” He hesitated.
I knew what he was thinking. August was timid, yes. He was shy. But I’d seen him be brave. “He’d take good care of me.”
“I know he would. I’d just feel better if there was someone who could go with you.” He paused again, as if silently prompting me to come up with a certain answer.
I just looked at him. He’d be researching and meeting with this politician, the Captain and Guilders would be overseeing repairs on the Surveyor, Almira was definitely not someone who would enjoy or excel at “globe-trotting” as the Doctor put it, and—
I stiffened. “No. I don’t want to go with Crash.”
“I know you’re upset with him. I am, too. But he knows his way around Earth, and he would protect you...”
“Like he protected me when he sabotaged the ship and let us almost starve just so he could take a shortcut to being a better person? Like he protected me when I was down there using up the radialloy trying to save us?” I gritted my teeth and clapped my hand over my knee.
The Doctor sighed. “Andi... I agree, he was wrong, but you know it’s more complicated than that...”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to let him do it this time—the thing where he always made me see how illogical I was and how he was right. “I don’t want to go with Crash.”
“At least think about it.”
No. But how unreasonable would that be? He just wanted me safe. There was no reason to take my stress out on him. “Okay.”
He reached out and patted my hand. “Good girl.”
I slid my arms back into my jacket. “August said we should go to the briefing to talk about—Ursula, and make arrangements for when we get to Earth.”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
I buttoned my jacket as we walked out. He seemed extra quiet as he led the way to the briefing room, which worried me. He usually wasn’t shy about saying what was on his mind.
“What are you thinking?” I finally asked.
He stopped and faced me. “I’m not trying to upset you, but... did you do any research on this Else Sandison herself? Find a marriage record or something?”
Why should that upset me? Again, he seemed to understand me better than I did myself, because it did. But why? I had no attachment to this.
“What reason would someone have to lie about it?” My tone was more defensive than I liked.
“I don’t know. But it’s just a letter. It could be from anyone.”
“So everyone’s guilty until proven innocent?”
“I’m just saying you should check. People have come after you before. They could do it again.”
“But the radialloy isn’t even any good anymore.”
“Yes, but they don’t know that.”
Irrationally upset as it made me, he was right. I’d dealt with liars enough that I should know that.
“I’ll see what I can find.”
October 16th, 2321
8:34 p.m.
Reichhalms, Austria
Several sectors away, a middle-aged man tucked a little girl into bed in a dimly-lit room.
“You know what to do if you get hurt, right?” he smiled, smoothing her black hair back from her forehead.
She nodded. “Ring the bell right away.”
“That’s right.” He kissed her hair softly. “I’ll hear it, even if I’m sleeping. Goodnight, Ursula.”
“Goodnight, Daddy,” the little girl murmured, and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER III
I always liked watching as we approached Earth. This time I stood in the B-Deck lounge, alone, staring out the fore window. The planet was the size of a tennis ball at first—an item I knew only from watching August play—a blue and green tennis ball, containing billions of human souls. It grew to a basketball—something I only knew from watching Crash a few times—before this thought was even fully formed, and then it began to fill the window. The thin, sunlit ribbon of the atmosphere sparkled and then vanished, and I marveled anew that God could see all this and more and still cared about the tiniest creatures below.
“Not a bad-looking rock, all things considered,” chirped Crash’s voice beside me.
I pinched my lips together and said nothing.
“I know you’re mad at me, And. I said I was sorry. What else can I do?”
I still didn’t look at him.
His voice lowered and the cockiness vanished. “Andi, I really am sorry. Can’t you forgive me?”
I let the silence hang in the air for a moment, watching as civilizations formed in tiny squares out the window, then said, “I know you are.”
“But you can’t forgive me?”
The right answer was “I forgive you.” That’s what I wanted to say. The words tugged at my heart but wouldn’t make it past my throat.
He plunged his hands into his pockets. “I don’t blame you.”
I snapped my head towards him. “Don’t do that.”
He threw his hands into the air, eyebrows raised. “Don’t do what? Andi, I’ve apologized. I’m accepting the consequences. I’m accepting blame even though I could easily say I just wasn’t myself.” He counted each item off on his fingers. “I just said I don’t blame you for not forgiving me. What else can I do? What do you want from me?”
“I want you to not manipulate me.”
His eyebrows lowered again. “I’m not manipulating you!”
Twisting one corner of my jacket I looked out the window again, squinting in the sunlight. “Yes you are.”
“Don’t you think I’d know if I were?”
“No. I don’t. It’s just... it’s just who you are, Crash. You always do that. You do something wrong, and then you make everybody like you, and they forget about it. Don’t do that to me.”
He threw his shoulders back. “I can’t help it if everybody likes me.”
A glare from me caused him to relax his stance.
“Look, Andi... I said I’m sorry. I know it was horrible. I know I’m a selfish scamp. I want to do better. Please just... give me a chance.”
How many chances had we already given him? I made the mistake of glancing up at his deep, blue eyes and as usual, my better judgment wavered.
He knew it, and immediately said, “I just want to be friends again, And.”
I sighed. “We are friends, Crash.”
The brightening of his expression carried me along with his mood against my will, even though a heaviness in my gut persisted. “Good.”
I smiled a little, trying to ignore the conflicting emotions, and turned to look out the window again. Already I could see the Baltimore skyline coming into view, gray and sprawling, staggered against the remnants of countryside.
“So... are you doing okay?” he asked, with the boyish awkwardness that always caught me off guard when it peeked past his cocky attitude.
“With regards to the radialloy or my sister?”
He looked down. “Both, I guess.”
I shrugged. “I’m okay. The Doctor said the senator seems very interested in working with him. So that’s hopeful. Everything in August’s letter checks out—we found record of the marriage and of Ursula’s birth. But no one seems to know where she is. We know where they last lived, but we can’t find any record of Dred for the past few years.”
Crash nodded.
I looked at him again. “You never knew Dred at all?”
“No. Leeke and Mars never mentioned the name, as far as I remember. But And, I was asking how you’re doing, not for an information download.”
“I’m okay, Crash. Really.”
He raised one eyebrow at me, but didn’t question further. I was being relatively honest, though. My life was on the line, yes, and in years of research nobody had yet found another cure, and my long-lost sister had been kidnapped by a known associate of criminals. I probably shouldn’t be okay.
I figured it hadn’t really sunk in yet. I felt physically fine. We were still home on the Surveyor. I knew nothing about my sister except her name. So far, nothing had changed except for the slight gnawing in my stomach that never quite went away. And I wasn’t about to say anything to Crash about that.
I barely felt any turbulence as we descended over the city and headed for the enormous ISA spaceport on the edge of town. Mr. Guilders was an expert helmsman. If only he, with all his steadiness and practicality and trustworthiness, could come with us to Austria.
Crash’s mood might have bent my forgiveness slightly in his direction, but I was determined that this time I would not succumb to the secret power he wielded to make people forget all the trouble he’d caused and remember only his good side.
“Andi?”
I didn’t need to face the speaker to recognize the soft Austrian accent, but I turned to look at him.
“Could I speak to you for a moment?” He glanced at Crash for a fraction of a second before fixing his eyes on me again.
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