Linnea eased Iain to the floor and untwisted the wire from his wrists and ankles. It hadn’t cut in, thank God. Then she gathered him close again and fought to order her thoughts. The descent through atmosphere meant that this was a planet or moon, not a station. Thin atmosphere, light gee—it must be a moon. Not that green gas giant from her vision, of course—probably one of its satellites.
Maybe the one who had called to her was here, on this moon. She felt a twinge of hope.
She heard, distantly, the receding clank of suited foot-steps, then the heavy clanking slam of a hatch. The lights dimmed, and the faint hiss of circulating air stopped.
Then came silence, silence so deep she could hear only her rasping breath, and Iain’s. Nothing else. Without life support, without heat, how long could they last?
In her arms, Iain stirred again, still feverish. They both needed fluids, electrolytes, food, warmth. Surely their captors wouldn’t leave them to die in this cold compartment after they’d traveled so far. She’d told them she was from the Hidden Worlds. Surely that would get someone’s attention, and help and relief would come.
And someone with answers. Someone had sent that summoning call. Why else would she and Iain have dared such a voyage—sliding past all the long, cold dark, the hard vacuum and radiation, tunneling instead through the intricate beauty of otherspace, the endless depths. . . .
Second Pilot Timmon Abrakam, commander of Gold Wing Triton and chief of the Night Guard, stared at his commscreen in disbelief. Patrol Pilot Smid, his voice carefully respectful, said, “It’s more impressive up close, sir.”
“Look at those lines,” Timmon said reverently. “Look at the size of it. I’ve never seen a ship like that. Never even dreamed of one.”
“No, sir,” Smid said.
“And the pilot—alive, you say?”
“Held for testing, sir,” Smid said. “Two of them, a man and a woman.”
Timmon pulled thoughtfully at his chin. “If they’re clean, put them in isolation. And—message First Pilot Kimura. He’s got to see this.”
“He’s at the Residence, sir, with Madame, and he specifically ordered—”
“For this,” Timmon said, “he will want to be waked. You may tell him the responsibility is mine, Pilot Smid.”
Smid bowed and left, leaving Timmon alone to contemplate the mystery. A ship from nowhere.
So was this the first happy result of the grand new strategy the First Pilot had been hinting at?
Or was this the first sign that, like all the other grand new strategies, it had failed?
An endless time later, Linnea jerked awake, instantly afraid, as the hatch of their compartment clanged open. She flung her arm over her eyes to shield them from the harsh light playing over the compartment—someone’s hand-light. Beside her, Iain made a rusty sound of protest.
Two people entered—the same, different, she could not tell—sealed inside anti-infective barriers, their faces again invisible behind gleaming reflective visors. But this time one of them carried a medkit, the red cross shape clear and familiar. Relief washed over her, then vanished when the figure opened the case and pulled out a syringe—a syringe with a needle on it, like something from an old simspace historical tale.
One of them gripped her arm in a gloved hand while the other tied on a tourniquet, jabbed her with the needle, drew blood. “Are you testing me for infestation?” she asked. But neither of them troubled to answer or even to give any sign they had heard her. They drew an identical sample from Iain and vanished again. The hatch banged shut.
She slept some more, and endured the times of waking with Iain increasingly restless. His eyes opened, once, but he looked at her with frightened incomprehension and did not answer when she spoke to him. Her fear for him grew. She could feel herself getting weaker, dizzy with it, and he must be weakening, too.
She woke from a dream of the shadows in the corners growing, leaning over her, to find herself in motion. Hands gripping her arms and legs, carrying her headlong, somewhere. She heard muffled voices, but she could not understand.
They passed out of the ship into a high, wide, cold space. Thin, bitter air, lights sliding past overhead, smells of metal, paint, chemicals. Faces looking down at her, hard to see, dim light. “Iain,” she croaked, and a female voice said something indistinct, in a peremptory tone. The lights stopped moving past, stayed still. Now she was lying on a table, no, a bed, soft enough for a bed, and warm water trickled along the skin of her arm. Then pain stabbed the back of her hand. “Iain,” she muttered again, starting to cry. Her eyes were too dry for tears.
Someone said “Quiet”—her own voice, Iain’s? The leaning shadows joined, flowed, rose all around her bed, and she sank under the surface into silence.
DEEPSIDER OUTPOST STAR RIVER MEETING
Esayeh burst into Pilang’s sleep cubby, startling her awake—caught her hands in his as he floated against her sleeping sack, kissed her on the forehead. “He came,” he said, joy making his voice tremble. “Twelve hours ago. A beautiful ship, like nothing I’ve ever seen, I saw the images through Thaddeus’s telescreen—he came!”
She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Wait. Who?”
“The pilot! The one from the Hidden Worlds!”
“From the Hidden—” She stared Esayeh in the face. “Is he here? Now?”
“Well—” He looked away. Not deepsider courtesy, but Tritoner evasion—she knew it of old.
“Then it can wait until I wake up,” she said.
His face fell. “I thought you’d be pleased. This is important, Pilang.”
She sighed and ran her hands along his shoulders. “All right, then. Tell me about it. Did you even see him?”
“No. The ship jumped in too close to Triton—damn the timing, a day either way, and they’d have been out of range, I could have gotten there first. The orbital monitors spotted the ship. And the patrol picked it up—and whoever was aboard.”
Pilang wriggled out of her sleeping sack, floated to where she had left her work clothes, started pulling them on. “So your mysterious Hidden Worlds pilot is now on Triton,” she said. “Locked up safe in fifteen layers of guards. And probably lots more comfortable than he would be here—your Madame Tereu wouldn’t dishonor herself by showing poor hospitality.”
“I’ll get him out,” Esayeh said.
“You can’t even set foot on Triton,” she said. “Not outside your ship. They’ll arrest you.”
“Which is why,” he said, “I need someone who can go there freely, someone who won’t be suspected—”
Her head went back. “Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”
“I’ll send some messages ahead,” he said, pleading now. “The way will be set for you—all you have to do is receive the pilot when he comes to you and guide him to the ship.”
“No,” she said. Esayeh and his wild dreams, his crazy rickety structure of hope, his “bridge between worlds”—she would not be pulled further out on it. “You can’t expect this of me. If I do anything against the Tritoner regulations, they’ll revoke my visa. I’ll lose my right to go there, lose all the trade credits I depend on to keep my circuit clinics alive. No!”
“But if this works—we won’t need their trade credits anymore. Not ever.”
“Wild hopes,” she said stubbornly.
“What other kind do we have?” Esayeh floated away from her to the opposite wall, clung there stubbornly, facing her. “If this fails, if the pilot does not appear, I won’t ask you to try again. I promise you.”
“You promise,” she muttered. She pursed her lips, then gave him a fierce look. “One try. Send your messages.”
He bounded across the little space to her, caught her up in a hug, kissed her resoundingly. “You are the fountain of my hopes.”
“I,” Pilang said bleakly, “am a fool.”
He laughed, flipped neatly in the air, and launched himself out through the curtain of her cubby.
She looked after hi
m. I promised myself, no more of this. . . . Then she caught a glimpse of her face in the bit of mirror. She was smiling. She twisted her face into a fierce scowl and went on getting ready for her day.
SIX
TRITON
Morning, maybe. The chrono on the wall said so, anyway. Linnea knelt beside Iain’s bed in their lavish, windowless hospital room—watching him sleep, schooling herself to patience. Since waking, she’d asked everyone who came in here the questions burning in her mind: Where was the pilot who had called her here? Could someone please ask a pilot to come and talk to her? But no one seemed to understand. The middle-aged nurse who was tending them, a tall, austere-looking man, only pursed his lips and shook his head, as if her questions were somehow improper.
Linnea itched for answers, itched to go out looking for them. But she knew she could not risk leaving Iain alone here, helpless—not after the hostility their original captors had shown. They thought he was Line—and clearly that was not a good thing here.
The nurse had been kind enough—professional kindness, dealt out with impersonal efficiency. He’d helped her sponge off the dried sweat and dead skin of the journey, given her clean blue coveralls to put on. To be clean and warm was grace enough for the moment. That and the intravenous fluids that she knew were gradually restoring her strength, and must be helping Iain as well. Their reserves in the jumpship had been so low, she guessed, that the shipmind had dropped the infusion rate well below optimal—keeping them on the bare edge of dehydration but getting them through the jump alive.
And the nurse had given Linnea a comb, with which she’d tidied her damp hair and tucked it behind her ears. She had not tried to do anything with Iain’s long black braid; best leave it as it was until it could be washed.
The soft, napped fabric of the coveralls warmed her clean body. A small machine strapped to Iain’s arm hummed gently, feeding him fluids, sugar, electrolytes—or so the nurse had told her. She had one on her arm, too, its plastic reservoir bag attached to her waist.
It was not uncomfortable; nothing weighed much here. The gravity pulled far more weakly than even the half-gee pseudograv of an orbital station. And yet this was really a world. A moon called Triton, the nurse had told her when she woke. At first Linnea had struggled to understand him and to make herself understood; people talked differently here. But it was getting easier. The language was almost the same—it was still what she would call Standard. Some of the sounds were different; that was all.
Their room was spacious, easily containing the two thinly padded beds that were all the gee required. A hanging against one wall was embroidered with wildly plumed, iridescent birds, and against another wall was a long, padded bench covered in shimmering red cloth. There was even a private bath. But the place was still an infirmary: sterile and cold, with a faint tang of plastic and cleaning chemicals in the thin air. These people were caring for them decently, treating them well—a hopeful sign. But no one seemed willing, yet, to give her the answers she needed.
She’d seen only two medical people so far: their nurse, and their doctor, a bony, white-haired woman in a severely cut white tunic and trousers. She’d come in once or twice to briskly assess their condition and give the nurse orders. She had nothing to say to Linnea, did not seem even to hear her questions.
The one time Linnea had tried to open the door and look out into the corridor, she saw a tall man in green leaning against the opposite wall, who straightened, looked hard at her, and said, “No, Miss, please”—clearly ordering her back inside the room. There didn’t appear to be any other patients on this hall; she heard no voices. Isolated, under guard—clearly they were still under suspicion.
But Linnea could not ease their captors’ fears until she could talk to someone. Answer all their questions—then ask hers. She looked down at Iain. If he would only wake, they could plan. If she knew he was going to be all right, she could plan. Until then, the haze of dread clouded her thoughts. She felt only fear for Iain, and the future stretched out blankly before her. Until he woke.
And there was another urgent matter. She had to get to her ship, make sure it was being repaired and replenished as it needed. But so far all her questions about it had been met with stony and apparently indifferent silence.
At least she and Iain were together. She touched Iain’s cheek. In the hard light of the lamp above his bed, the bones showed too sharp under his fever-sallow skin. Because he was larger, the decreased infusion had affected him more. “Wake up, you,” she muttered, for the tenth time—and caught her breath as his eyelids fluttered. Fluttered again. Opened.
She held her breath and waited. But this time, his eyes stayed open. This time, his gaze settled on her face—and he smiled faintly.
He saw her. He knew her.
Blinking back tears, she kissed his cheek. “Welcome back,” she said gently.
“We—made—it,” he said with obvious effort.
“We did,” she said. “We’re safe, so far.”
Iain tried to sit up. “Your ship?”
She pushed him down. “They have it. Somewhere out of reach. They won’t tell me anything! Except that this is a city on Triton.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Triton! Moon of—moon of Neptune.”
“Whatever that is,” Linnea muttered.
He grinned. “We—really did it. Earth.”
“Pretty far from Earth, I’m told,” she said. “Which is a good thing, remember.”
“Yes,” he said sleepily. “Out in the dark. Out on the edge. Hidden.” He licked his dry lips. “Water?”
“I suppose you can have some,” she said. “They left some by the bed.” She held the straw of the clear plastic bladder to Iain’s lips, and he took a few careful sips.
“No cup,” he said.
“Gee’s too light,” she said. “Only about eight percent, they tell me.” Water would have swirled and sloshed out of a cup at the slightest motion, or maybe even crawled up over the rim on its own. Living here must be strange.
She cranked the head of Iain’s bed up and knelt on the floor again, so he did not have to look up at her. In this gee, kneeling was as comfortable as standing. When he’d emptied the bulb of water, she took it and set it aside. Then, looking down at her hands resting on the side of the bed, she said, “Iain—I’m sorry for this.”
“Don’t, Linnea,” he said, so gently that she looked up into his face. His dark eyes shone clear—the quiet determination that had made her love him in the beginning, that bound her to him even more strongly now. “Just be patient, love. We’ll find him. The one who called you.” He brushed a thumb along her cheek, a tender gesture.
She managed a smile.
“But until then,” he said, “it’s enough that we’re alive here. That we’re both still alive.”
It would have to be enough. She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. She would take this moment of peace and relief; who could tell how many more they might ever have?
Then her head jerked up as their nurse hurried into the room. He said nothing, but his expression was grim. Moving quickly, he changed the reservoir bag on Iain’s IV for a full one. Then he went to work on Linnea’s reservoir; she sat down on the edge of her bed, her arms raised to keep out of his way, helpless.
As the nurse leaned closer to secure the full bag to her belt, he whispered in her ear. “Watch for the blue flower.” She took a breath to speak, and his hands dug into her arms in warning. “Watch and listen.” He straightened. “Being moved to better quarters,” he said out loud to Iain. “Both of you. You’re to be Madame’s guests.” He handed Linnea a flimsy printout. “Care for the pump units,” he said. “Bad signs to watch for, fevers. You keep that. And”—he caught her eye—“watch.”
The door opened, and a stranger entered: a man, tall and dark-skinned, his head shaved smooth, his eyes cold. He carried himself like a man armed with something concealed and deadly. The light-skinned man behind him was the one who had been watching the
corridor. The dark one spoke rapidly to the nurse—then scooped Iain up lightly in his arms.
“No!” Panic sharpened Linnea’s voice. “He’s still very sick. You can’t just—”
And the other man picked her up, as easily as picking up a child. She tried to twist free.
“No, Linnea,” Iain said. “We have to trust these people.” His urgent expression added: We have no choice.
She knew he was right: They knew nothing, had no way to escape. Bewildered, she stopped struggling. Tried to make sense of the nurse’s words. Blue flower. Had she heard that right? Did it mean anything at all? What had he meant, Listen—to a flower?
The corridors they passed through were empty—narrow ones first, the hospital, then gradually widening into what must be public spaces. Even there the walls and doors, neatly painted metal or plastic, looked spotless as a surgery under the bright, cold lights. Plants, precisely pruned, their leaves waxy, stood every few meters in orderly arrangements of tubs.
Every door they passed was tightly shut. Standard precautions, Linnea knew, in a station in what was essentially vacuum. And yet, to see no one visibly at work, to hear no voices—surely that was strange. She heard no machinery—no sound but the whisper of air, and the soft foot-steps of the men who carried them. The floors were smooth black, a soft polymer that seemed to grip the men’s shoes. They rounded a curve in the corridor; the flooring flowed partly up the walls and for a few moments they walked at a slant. Light weight, same mass. She was going to have to learn to walk all over again.
On a wall at one major intersection she saw an information board covered with official-looking notices, some of them flashing; next to it a pool of light marked out the flat portrait of a lean, dark-haired woman of middle age, her hands folded on a desk in front of her, her expression impassive. An intersection or two later was another board, another portrait—the same image. It was the only decoration she had seen here; even the walls and doors were painted a uniform light blue-gray.
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